Summer Reading Reviews 2012

Ever since I finished the bar exam, I have been splurging on book-reading the way a crack head splurges on a big rock after he comes into a little cash. I’ve ranked the books I’ve read this summer from least awesome to most awesome. Now put down those ridiculous Fifty Shades of Grey books and read something decent.


Explosive Eighteen – Janet Evanovich – I got hooked on the Stephanie Plum series when they were actually adorable and mostly inoffensive. They are terrible now, and Janet Evanovich is probably going to go straight to hell for making so much money off of this shit. Horrible. Just horrible.

The Marriage Plot – Jeffrey Eugenides – This author won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Middlesex, which I haven’t read. And likely will not, based on reading this one first. The book jacket promised that this novel would give us a modern exploration of the Jane Austen marriage ideal, and also give us characters that we cared about and followed in their post-undergrad lives. It gave us three characters. Cared about? Almost impossible. They were shallow to the point of transparency. They did things that made no sense, and made silly, profound speeches like characters on Dawson’s Creek. The book jacket promised us a novel about books. Yes, it mentioned a lot of books. It failed, almost completely, to marry (pardon the pun) the books into the lives of the characters. If you want to read a novel that is about being a modern work of literature, but still has coherent characters that are authentic, read Jonathan Franzen. You’ll be much more satisfied.

The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jamie Ford - People really loved this novel. It is a story that will tug at your heart. I didn’t love the writing. The dialogue seemed forced, and only one character (the main character, Henry) had any real depth. The remaining characters were archetypes that were either 100% good or 100% bad. The description of WWII Seattle, however, was nice. It was an interesting concept.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Seth Grahame Smith - These are two separate works of fiction by Seth Grahame Smith. Abraham Lincoln is an accounting of Lincoln’s true biography, but inserts Lincoln’s (obviously this is where the fiction comes in) exploits as a vampire hunter. Pride and Prejudice is similarly re-written to incorporate the Bennet girls’ exploits as zombie slayers. I can think of a million ways that these novels critique the literary field, our sacred cows, and revisionist history. I think Abraham Lincoln could have stood one more go round with a good editor, but Pride and Prejudice was almost as perfect as the original. I can’t wait to see what this guy does next.

In the Lake of the Woods – Tim O’Brien – One of the creepiest novels ever written. This is the story of a failed senate candidate whose wife disappears on a secluded Wisconsin lake, and the plot intertwines the hard reality of late twentieth century politics with the skewed reality of the Vietnam era. Half mystery, half exploration of the human mind, this novel will leave you wondering about how we see truth, and will also make you spend more time than you ever wanted pondering what a boiled houseplant would really look like.

Hocus Pocus – Kurt Vonnegut – One of Vonnegut’s last novels, and, to my mind, one of his absolute best. Vonnegut was as affected by his experiences in as a POW in World War II as O’Brien (author of In the Lake of the Woods) was affected by his experiences in Vietnam. Like O’Brien, Vonnegut’s works are all permeated with an invisible body count. In the case of Hocus Pocus, there is a very real body count, as well as a unicycle, an ice-skating escaped convict, a giant fish, and, potentially the most irredeemable Vonnegut Character ever created in Eugene Debs Hartke. Kurt Vonnegut didn’t believe in heaven, but I hope to God to meet him there one day. Brilliant.

Train – Pete Dexter – Do you remember how last summer I told you to read Spooner by Pete Dexter? Did you? You should. Just go to the library and get it. While you’re there, see if you can grab this one, too. But be prepared that, unlike Spooner, which had beauty and love and humor, this is typical Dexter fare – dark, dark, dark. But beautiful in its own way. This follows the story of two men in the racially segregated south, and deeply questions the ideas of destiny and self-determination. Like most Pete Dexter novels, this doesn’t have a happy ending, and it has several graphic and disturbing passages. But, like everything by Dexter, it is incredibly well-written, with a unique and authentic point of view.