Here’s what I’ve had on my headphones lately. Since grad school ended, I’ve been sewing and sewing and listening and listening to books. I could get pretty used to this kind of life.
In case you didn’t catch the matching dresses I made for Mother’s Day, you can hop back and see those here.
On to the books!
Hum by Helen Phillips is kind of like living through your worst nightmare as a parent of young children. The story develops in a world taken over by technology — and if you’re wondering if technology can take over our children even more than it already is, Helen Phillips says yes!
Hum could have easily become a sci-fi trope, but instead it deals with the complexity of this imagined future head-on in a really humanistic way. While some sci-fi/fantasy spends hundreds of pages building a world, Phillips drops you in and lets the world just wash over you, while she focuses on the people and the relationships in a little slice of time. I was on the edge of my seat and kept doing projects so I could hear the end.
My Rating: Super good read
Genre: Sci-fi, sort of, that focuses on the humans inside the alternate reality, digging into themes of mothering and parenthood
Format: Spotify Audiobook
Read it If: You’re interested in different ways this AI universe can play out and you like stories with complex, engaging characters.
Steer Clear If: Technology takeover gives you actual hives. Or if you need a book to end tidily.
Would I Recommend this to My Parents: Maybe? They’re not super into futuristic, end-of-the-world type books.
I listened to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman right after finishing Lessons in Chemistry. Kind of a masochistic reading combination.
And I’m about to break my own rules and spoil the book, so if you haven’t read it and want to, you’ve had your warning.
Despite the heavy subject matter, I was more or less enjoying the book — right up until Eleanor Oliphant turns from a delightfully quirky unreliable narrator to a socially aware human being. I believe this happens as soon as she begins therapy. Here’s the thing: I did not buy the transition from the unreliable narrator to the reliable one. It felt like two completely different characters. And while I could believe that unreliable Eleanor suppressed memories of her mother setting her on fire and her sister dying and intense and horrific physical and sexual abuse, I could not believe that reliable Eleanor just sort of brushed herself off after all that stuff and carried on.
At least Lessons in Chemistry acknowledged the abuse and sexism. Eleanor Oliphant leaves these gaping holes in the story and in Eleanor’s personal awakening that are still distressing me. The ending was such a cheap shot. I just don’t think you can dig up that level of awful-ness, spend a few chapters in therapy, and then move on like everything’s hunky-dory. This book is one I probably should have DNF’ed, as they say.
My Rating: Enough with the books that treat sexual/physical abuse so lightly
Genre: A bookclub pick that needed better editing
Format: Audible Audiobook
Read it If: I’m not sure why you would read this. Because your friends tell you to? Because your book club picks it? Because stories of abuse don’t bother you?
Steer Clear If: You have any other book you would like to read.
Would I Recommend this to My Parents: Nope. And I wouldn’t recommend it to you either.
I listened to Eleanor Oliphant for about 10 minutes before I turned it off for good. You just convinced me I was right.