Whoa it’s almost August. Where did July go? We had some rain yesterday — real rain! — which will help with the dry conditions. And here are two of the three hay bales we produced from our back field recently. It was fun to watch the baler. We are city folk previously so we are a bit newbies to the process. If it hadn’t had been so dry this season, we would have had a bit more. Even the big farmers around the area didn’t get nearly as many bales as usual this year.
Not much else to report. Though our older dog Stella, age 11, had surgery this past week to remove a lump under her chin and a troubled molar in her mouth, but she is on the mend now. She just has to wear an undignified cone on her head for two weeks and eat soft food until it heals. Gads, two weeks is a long time to be bumping into walls around the house. I can’t wait to take it off.
You might have noticed I don’t have my August Preview posted yet. That’s because I’m reviewing a fall novel for PW due on Tuesday. I hope to get the Preview out by next weekend. And my husband is away so we haven’t seen the Oppenheimer movie yet, or Barbie for that matter. Have you seen either? Meanwhile I’m watching the British crime drama series Happy Valley, which is set and filmed in West Yorkshire, England. Or as we call it Unhappy Valley because the small town in it is riddled with awful crimes. But actress Sarah Lancashire as the police sergeant and the rest of the cast are so good I can’t turn away. Season 3 will be the end, but I’m not close yet.
And now I’ll leave you with reviews of two novels from my summer reading list that I enjoyed as audiobooks.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang / Morrow / 336 pages / 2023
This novel is about two ambitious writers who meet at Yale and one — Athena Liu who’s Chinese American — goes on to become a young star author while the other a white girl named June Hayward has a debut that goes nowhere. So when a freak accident happens, June ends up stealing Athena’s next manuscript and publishing it as her own and it becomes a big hit. But what ensues after with her readers, social media followers, editors, and publishing house gets crazy.
My Thoughts: 4.5 stars. The first person narration of June is pretty diabolical and funny in parts too. Here and there the biting satire cracked me up. And June, who steals Athena’s manuscript, is over-the-top as one jealous, envious chick out for herself at nearly every turn, but she’s clever too. The story is not exactly subtle, but the dialogue and pace are pretty snappy and entertaining. It’s fun as summer pop lit … a revenge story about two writer “friends” who meet at Yale … that weaves topics of cultural appropriation, racism, and the pitfalls of the publishing industry.
It’s fun too that it mostly takes place in D.C. where I previously lived, and it all comes down to a showdown at the Exorcist steps in Georgetown. What more do you want? It’s an amusing ride. My only slight criticism is that having June’s sole uptight narration throughout is enough to suffocate and tire one out completely. Still I went on, trying to reckon with this duplicitous get-ahead person and her various shades and reasonings. Indeed no one comes off looking too great: June, Athena, editors, the publishing house, and social media trolls. There’s enough bad to go around, which makes it a fun romp through the swamps of writing and the publishing world. It might just be the novel of the summer. Hmm.
Go as a River by Shelley Read / Spiegel & Grau / 320 pages / 2023
4.3 stars. I pretty much loved this old-fashioned-style tale set in rural Colorado of a young girl’s coming of age that tells of her life from the 1940s thru to 1971, and I found it compelling.
It tells of Victoria’s family — her Dad, brother, and uncle — who are pretty rotten to her after her mother dies in a car accident when she is 12 and she is left doing their meals and chores for years. Then a native boy — Wilson Moon — comes along who she takes a shine to and they have a heartfelt fling that ends with tragic and problematic consequences. Victoria is left with a hard choice to make that haunts her for decades.
I liked how this novel involves the small town of Iola, which was flooded in the 1960s to make room for a reservoir; and the peach tree orchard that her family owns and Victoria tries to save. There’s feminist overtones in the novel about the sacrifices women make and the difficult reproductive and child-raising choices many face … as well as the racial bigotry towards Native Americans.
I found the story was affecting and well-told, even if a couple parts might have been a bit of a stretch to believe, such as when Victoria runs off to the mountains and survives for a season by herself … for reasons I will leave for the reader. And perhaps its sentiments put it firmly in the women’s lit camp. Still I followed the tale of Victoria’s life closely and felt the pull of it. Many have faced what she did and can relate to her struggles. It’s poignant and a thoughtful look in the end at one’s life.
That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these books and if so what did you think? Have a great weekend everybody.
Yay for rain! They’re predicting we might get some next week and I’m hoping and praying we really do. And poor sweet Stella! What a cutie…even in that awful cone. And Yellowface does sound like a very compelling read. It’s going on my TBR list. 😀
Thanks Lark. Stella is a sweetie but she doesn’t like this cone business, lol.
Yellowface goes at a pretty swift pace even if I got a bit tired of the same narrator after awhile. It’s a bit of a diabolical spoof.
I hope you get some rain there. Have a good week.
I’ve been listening to books on audible a lot recently since I’ve been driving back and forth from our cabin at Lake Tahoe. I just finished Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese which I HIGHLY recommend. The author was the narrator and was fantastic. The novel follows a family in Southern India through most of the 20th century. Since there are so many Indian names hearing the author pronounce them correctly with an Indian accent was really great. The story is also so so good! Verghese is also a physician so there is a ton of medical scenes which can get a little detailed, so beware if you have a sensitive tummy! One of the main characters is Scottish and he even pulls off that accent well! I can’t wait to listen to his other book Cutting for Stone which also follows a family in India.
I’m not sure if I recommended a historical novel I read in May by Tara Ivers called The Hour Between Dog and Wolf. Fabulous! It follows a story of a young Jewish girl during WWII Paris whose professor father is murdered by the Natzis. Her mother puts the girl in hiding in rural France with her old nanny. Their family is Catholic and she has to be completely made over as a Catholic cousin whose parents died. It’s a beautifully written coming of age story and the real riveting part is when the girl slowly loses her Jewish identity to become a fascist. Her intentions are always good, but the outcomes always tragic. The author is one of my son’s professors at Arizona State and I talked to her before reading the book. She said it took her 25 years to write the book and she had a rough time finding a publisher due to the controversial topic. Ivers is a beautiful writer and the story was like nothing I’ve read before!
Thanks Sarah for the word on these books. I will likely eventually get to both of them but it might not be for awhile. The Verghese novel is long! But it sounds good (I didn’t realize the author reads it for the audio). I really liked Verghese’s memoir The Tennis Partner which was years ago. You might like it too. I still need to read his novel Cutting for Stone, which I hope to get to this fall.
And the other novel you have mentioned before. I have put it on my list for a future read, though I have recently read 2 other WWII books with Nazis (see the last post) so I need a break from the genre for the moment. The girl becomes a fascist while in hiding? Yikes. That’s a complex spin on things.
I hope to enjoy your trip back East. I am going to be visiting my parents in Redlands in mid-August, but I think I will be busy when there. talk later.
Hi Susan, Good luck on your PW review and that is so great that you review for them. I am so impressed and every time I want to know more about a book I consult PW. All of their reviews are so well done and they really give you the essence of the book in about 3 or 4 paragraphs.
And you have me very interested in Yellowface. It’s a great plot idea. And I have heard of plagiarism but here is a character brazen enough to steal the whole manuscript and publish it as her own. I am putting this book on my list.
Thanks Kathy. Somehow I’ve written 38 reviews for PW over past few years but I’m always a worried mess about how to compact a book’s plot in the small amount of space. Luckily once I get it down on paper I have a good editor there I work with to get it into shape.
The narrator in Yellowface is certainly brazen. I found the plot pretty clever and some parts funny and diabolical. It’s a quick read or listen. See what you think.
Cheers!
So glad you had rain. We have gotten a lot since June; part of the state’s harvest was lost to flooding. What are you planning to do with the hay, selling it? Stella is a cutie . I guess two weeks with that cone is a bit too much… 🙂 I hope she gets well soon. I’m glad you enjoyed Yellowface so; I agree with your review on all counts. I would like to read Go As A River, but my reading schedule is tightly packed until the end of the year; I don’t know if I’m going to read all I want to in the end. It has been such a great year for books, so many goodies!
Hi Carmen, sorry to hear that Conn has had flooding. Ugh that’s awful, I saw the NY state news of flooding, yikes. The jet stream / weather pattern must be screwed this summer. We had nothing but heat for 2 or 3 months. And thanks Stella is our shining light (along with Willow) and 2 weeks is definitely too long for the cone! We will get her stitches out Aug 9. Grrr.
It has been a good year for books … and right now I’m liking Small Mercies. Wow quite potent – feels like a tinder box ready to explode. I think Go As a River is okay to wait – not a huge loss to miss. It’s just an old-fashioned told tale. It was so different from Yellowface that it went well after. Have a great reading week!
Hi Camen: Ps. I forgot to say … that this first year the hay bales might go to our neighbor down the street who baled the hay … for us. He has some livestock to feed. But we might be able to make a little $ too. We’ll see. thanks.
Poor Stella. We know what it’s like to have a dog need a cone and it’s so sad. Glad she is on the mend 🙂
I entered a giveaway on Goodreads for Go as a River after seeing you and JoAnn (Gulfside Musing) talk about it. I just finished Meredith, Alone and am up in the air about my next book.
Hi Tina, yeah Stella is handling the cone like a trooper. Hopefully it’ll be over soon. Almost one more week.
Yeah I think you’d like Go As a River. I got caught up in it. I just followed your reviews on Goodreads so I don’t miss anything good. Have a great week.
Yellowface sounds better with every review I have read. SO many books!
best, mae at maefood.blogspot.com
Hi Mae, yeah I thought Yellowface was pretty entertaining as a satirical romp. It’s sort of snarky. If you like that type of novel. Cheers.
July flew right by. I hope Stella feels better. I’ve wanted to read Yellowface, I keep seeing it all over the place. Nice hay bale photo. Happy reading this week!
Thanks Bookworm. Yeah July is ending argh. I’m trying to hold on to summer as long as possible. Stella is healing well I think, but she keeps hitting all the walls with the cone, sigh. It’ll be one more week of this.
Yellowface is crazy but quite a romp. I’m not sure the story has really stayed with me though. I’m onto something else. Have a great week.
Yellow Face is a book that has really stuck with me, more than I thought it would.
I saw Barbie and enjoyed it; it’s campy and fun.
Cool Helen. Glad you liked Barbie. It looks quite fun. And very pink!
Yellowface is a bit of a tour de force, crazy thing, but it’s done well.
Have a great week.
I have been eyeing Yellowface for several weeks now but the hold list at my library is so long that the book may be out in paperback before I ever get hold of it. If that happens, I’ll break down and buy a copy of it. When I saw that the list was over 200 people long, I opted out…now I wish I hadn’t because this one sounds really good.
Go as a River is a new one for me, but I’m a sucker for coming-of-age novels even today, so I’m going to take a closer look at that one. Thanks for the heads-up.
Tell Stella hello for me…love her face and the look she’s giving you in that photo.
Hi Sam, yeah Stella never likes her photo taken and the only reason I got her to pose for it is because it’s before her breakfast, LoL. Otherwise she’d never look!
Both of these novels above were on my summer reading list so I’m glad I got to them, both quite good. Now I’m onto Dennis Lehane’s novel Small Mercies … I bet you’ve read him. I’m finding this one very good, intense. We will see.
Enjoy your week.
Ohhhhh Stella!!! Look at that sad, pathetically sweet face! A thousand kisses and treats for you.
Oh, excellent! I’ve been waiting for a reviewer I *know* to tell me if Yellowface is worth my time or not. Sounds like it might be so I will *finally* add it to my TBR.
Ha Jinjer. Stella would like 1,000 treats too. She’s a Lab with an endless stomach and appetite. She has one more week with the cone. At this point, I think she’s bashing into the walls on purpose.
Yellowface is diabolical, snarkiness. It’s over-the-top in sort of a lovely crazy way.
Hope you are having fun in L.A. Have a great week.
Oh, poor Stella… I hope her time with the cone is just about over! Glad you finally got rain. There’s been more than enough in CT this summer, but my immediate area has been fairly lucky. Hopefully, we’ll have dry weather for the next week.
I’m on the library hold list for Yellowface, but it may take a while. Go As A River stormed onto my tbr last week. I heard an interview with the author, then saw your review on goodreads… now we’ll see how long it takes me to get to it!
Hi JoAnn: I heard Conn has been inundated with rain, hope it dries out. Gosh we still need more of it out West. Send it this way.
I was surprised by how much I liked Go As a River. I listened to the audio while gardening and I was drawn into it like a Mary Lawson tale. It was the exact opposite after Yellowface, so that was a big nice change.
Enjoy your week. And I’ll be keen to hear what you think of these. Cheers.
“Yellowface” is on my TBR list and I expect to get to it soon. I may even move it up the list after reading your comments! Best wishes to Stella on a speedy recovery.
Thanks Dorothy. Stella is bouncing back from her surgery and should be without the cone next week.
Yellowface gets pretty crazy so I wonder a bit what others will think of it. It seems pretty cleverly done to me. And I’m thinking the young author RF Kuang will have an exciting career ahead of her. See what you think.
I’m still thinking about Yellowface. I may save it until I return from my trip to Italy in late September.
Poor, poor Stella.
And look at you—a farmer!
Thanks Deb. I’m a wannabe farmer. ha. If in a couple years, I convince my husband for us to add two donkeys to our back field, then I will feel I’m more of a real farmer. It’s sort of my dream to have some real livestock …. but still much work to be done before that happens.
Enjoy your travels & week.
Poor pup–hope she bounces back from surgery and is on the mend. She looks like a total sweetie.
My kids did the Oppenheimer in the morning and Barbie in the afternoon, and thought both were excellent. I haven’t seen either, but am intrigued by both.
I picked up Go As a River from the library a week or so ago and was totally jazzed to read it (novels set in CO are not all that common). Sadly I barely made it to page 50–I had heard so much about the fabulous writing but I just couldn’t read it. For me, there were just to many similes. Nothing was just as it was–his hair was black as a wet crow, or something like that–his smile was like a ray of sunshine peaking through the clouds. In a way it felt like it had been wrung out of so many writing workshops and critique groups. I am probably being totally unfair, but I was disappointed in not finding a great read. Just my two cents for what it’s worth.
Happy August reading!
Thanks Jane. Stella is doing well post-surgery and we’ve taken the cone off after a week. She’s okay.
Glad your kids saw the double feature! How fun. We are going to try to get into Oppenheimer tonight but it might sell out. We will see.
Too bad about Go As a River. I understand if you didn’t like it. I listened to it as an audio so maybe I had a different experience. I liked it mostly for the story and wasn’t caught up in the writing as much … I guess since I was just listening while I was gardening. I would like to visit that area of Colorado — Gunnison area. Maybe hike from Aspen over to Crested Butte then head on to Gunnison. That would be awesome. Happy August to you.
I probably say this every year, but isn’t it crazy how quickly the summer months fly? Hooray for rain! We sure need it, but there isn’t any in the 2-week forecast, so I’ve been out watering this morning. Look at those bales of hay! You’re truly farmers now, aren’t you? 😉
Poor Stella. I’ll bet she’ll be happy to get rid of the cone-of-shame.
I haven’t seen either movie, but I hope to once they hit the streaming platforms. With Covid on the rise again, and our community is pretty much filled with tourists right now, I have no desire to venture into a movie theater.
I’m looking forward to trying Yellowface, which has been gathering a lot of praise. I wonder if Rod would enjoy it, too, since it deals with writing and publishing.
I read Go as a River earlier this year and liked it, but from the sounds of it, not quite as much as you.
Hi Lesley, hope you’re having a good month with all your company. Thanks for stopping by as I’m sure you’re busy at the Cove. We are wannabe farmers, LoL. We are starting to get a lot from our vegetable garden, particularly zucchinis, potatoes, and tomatoes. But we are having to water quite a bit.
Yellowface gets pretty crazy, so see what you think. I don’t think it has stayed with me, but it was sort of fun in a snarky way at the time. I did enjoy Go as a River on audio, though it was sort of women’s lit for me.
Stella will get her stitches out this week, and she seems to be back to herself. We have mostly taken the cone off ! Happy reading for August.
I hope Stella is recovered after her medical procedure–and hopefully is cone free now! We have seen the Barbie movie, but not Oppenheimer. I think I’m the only one in our house who wants to see that one so will likely wait until it’s streaming to see it. I am looking forward to reading Yellowface and am glad you enjoyed it! I hope you have a great month of August, Susan!