November Reviews

November doesn't usually leave much time for reading, but this one especially was a bit of a time crunch. I participated in NaNoWriMo (ten years baby!) and finished with exactly 50,000 on November 27th. I also spent four days in New Orleans, had my parents visit for the week of Thanksgiving, and worked over a week of bonus days on call. Can you tell I'm trying to make myself feel better about only finishing two books? I also started but ended up putting down two others, so who knows what's happening in my brain. (Also, peep the lego flower and little Star Wars robot my sister built, they perfect math the romcom and space adventure vibes I had going on with books this month).

Anyways, the two that I read this month couldn't be more different but were also somehow exactly what I needed. 10/10, had a great time.

Beach Read by Emily Henry

I picked this one up because I loved Book Lovers so much, and while I didn't like Beach Read as much as I did Book Lovers, it was still an entertaining and well-written story.

January Andrews' life is falling apart. In the last year she's lost her dad, found out he'd been cheating on her mother for most of their marriage, been dumped by her boyfriend, and is struggling massively with writer's block. To save money for the summer, she's clearing out the house her father lived in with the other woman while she tries to write a romantic comedy that doesn't feel forced. Her next door neighbor for the summer is none other than literary fiction extraordinaire Augustus Everett, and while their first (and second, and third) meetings don't go as planned, before long their bemoaning their respective issues and striking a deal; for the summer, Gus will write something happy and January will sink into literary doom and gloom. They agree to help each other, and absolutely will not fall in love.

Henry really has a finger on the pulse of witty dialogue. Gus and January's banter always made me laugh, and the very easily segued into more serious conversations before fishtailing back into moments of hilarity. She also managed to write enough awkward moments that were genuinely funny instead of horrifying that I didn't have to put the book down at all. January got to be a hot mess, and so did Gus, and they were able to fall apart together. Gus was the perfect brooding next door neighbor, and I loved their shared history and who they had become since they'd last seen each other.

I love an antagonist not quite friends to lovers story, and while the sex scenes felt a bit much this time around, I did appreciate the reverence with which January and Gus treated each other, whether they were having bookshelf sex or touching, meaningful moments about their families. There were some moments where the narrative relied too much on miscommunication (or lack thereof), but it had established early on what both main character's responses were to stressors, so while January's wallowing felt a little rushed near the end, I understand narratively why it all happened.

The plot itself was very creative and a little meta, a book about two writers with writer's block, spending the summer penning their own novels. As a fellow writer, that was fun, getting to see not one, but three writing processes (or at least two, I can pretend to understand Emily Henry if I want to). And the family drama for both of them wasn't too overpowering for either of them, or at least it wasn't impossible for them to get under control.

This book really flipped between flippant, hilarious moments and much more serious, contemplative moments, and it was a great balance between the two. My only advice is to read this one before Book Lovers, because I have a feeling I'd have appreciated it more if I had.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I adored The Martian but didn't love Artemis as much, so I decided to wait until Hail Mary was available in paperback. And I have to say, this one ranks damn near close to The Martian.

Dr. Ryland Grace wakes up on a spaceship. Except he doesn't know he's on a spaceship. Or what his name is. Using the two corpses and robotic machinery at his groggy disposal, Grace has to not only determine who he is, but where and why. As his memory returns, he learns that he's on a mission to save Earth from an apocalyptic invasive species, and it will take creativity, unexpected teamwork, and a whole lot of science to do it.

The formatting of this book is that it moves back and forth between Grace's space adventure and the things that led up to it as he remembers them. The flashbacks (let's call them that for lack of a better term) get more intricate as time goes on, and it's really interesting how things are being discovered, both by us and Grace throughout the entire length of the book. And while I couldn't follow the bulk of the science present, much like when I was reading The Martian, it's at least explained in a way that I can get the gist of it from how Grace is reacting. It also meant that I could entirely suspend any disbelief I had, because I don't know enough science to call out any obvious flaws that may or may not exist.

The plot is very compelling. It's broadly about saving Earth, but it's also a space adventure and includes a very unusual friendship that came to be my favorite part of the book. I won't say much more than that because massive spoilers, but it was absolutely something unexpected and fun and weird and intriguing. The whole book could sort of be explained that way. It was also funny. Weir has a very off the wall sense of humor, and it always translates into a certain brand of sarcasm that hits just right for me. It's corny in some places, but Grace is a middle school science teacher (or he was, before he was an astronaut), so he was allowed to make corny jokes and use off brand watered down swear words (he also says fuck, which like, good for him).

Overall, this was a really interesting and really fun read. I'm glad that if I only got to read two books this month because I was frantically writing my own, at least one of them was this one.

Similar to The Martian obviously, but also somewhat comparative to The Wanderers by Med Howrey and The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer (I unfortunately don't read a lot of space books)

Aaaand that's it! I'll aim for more books in December, since I'll maybe hopefully have a less hectic month. Maybe.

Keep writing!

Literary recommendation: Circe by Madeline Miller (not quite as beloved as The Song of Achilles, but still a powerhouse novel in it's own right)

Media recommendation: I ended up binging the entirety of Interview With The Vampire (2022) right before I went to New Orleans, and it was absolutely worth it. Very gory, very dramatic, 10/10