![]() Whether I was wandering Greece in Kitamura’s stylish, haunting thriller of romantic abandonment, or feeling the punch of Savage’s restrained, near-spiritual telling of care work in the Midwest, or alternating between aching for and cheering on Leilani’s dirtbag queen, I was falling in love, and fast. This year Weike Wang’s Chemistry, C Pam Zhang’s How Much of These Hills is Gold, Lila Savage’s Say Say Say, Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, Katie Kitamura’s A Separation, and Raven Leilani’s Luster, all brought me into new and beloved worlds encased in the consciousness of their glorious, expansive female narrators. ![]() But the ones I did–they opened me up, allowed me to step out of annus horribilis, sparked something in my decaying brain. I did not read fifty-two books this year (lmao). By May I was clenching my teeth so hard when I slept that it eventually cracked a filling. ![]() The spreadsheet was abandoned by mid-February, and by March I was reading lockdown news out of Italy and Hubei province and building a small stockpile of non-perishables in the cabinet above my fridge. Books have been a lifelong source of pleasure and travel to sully that with quantifiers in order to feel closer to well-read–whatever that is–was less than advisable any year. This was a dumbass move and I do not recommend it. Made a spreadsheet, an honest-to-god Spreadsheet, to track my progress. In the waning hours of 2019, I, forever a Type B person attempting Type A person drag, resolved to read a book a week in 2020. ![]()
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