What I read in May

plus an embarrassing story from my youth

Hello friends. If you know me in real life you know that my love language is literature. Specifically, there’s nothing I love more than providing unsolicited book reviews and recommendations and gifting my favorite books.

I do have an Instagram (WhatCateRead) with which I find it very tedious to keep up. Historically, I have inconsistently shared my reading reviews and recs via this instagram account. I think for the foreseeable future I will share high-level recaps on that account, and full reviews and recs here on Substack.

My ratings are based on two elements – my level of enjoyment and critical interpretation. I will expand on these perspectives in each review.

Also, I know this is controversial to some, but I count audio books towards my reading total. Both audio and physical books take dedicated time and attention to complete – they are just presented in different formats.

In May I read five books.

1.     Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️/5

As a child, I was constantly getting in trouble for reading under the covers after lights out. The Harry Potter series (the first book in the series came out when I was in first grade) was the primary culprit behind my bedtime insolence.

As disgusted and disappointed as I feel by J.K. Rowling and her transphobic online rantings, these books still hold a special place in my heart for the role they played in my love of reading, and for keeping me company for many years as I struggled socially in school.

Prior to December, I’d read nearly all books in the series nine times. Not having read them since high school, I wondered if they would still hold up now in my 30’s. For this reason, my rating of this book is based solely on my enjoyment. I didn’t want to critically engage with the writing, I just wanted to know if I would enjoy the story to a similar degree that I had when I was young.

With a 4/5 star rating, it’s safe to say I still loved the book nearly as much as I did when I was a kid. I was laughing every few pages, and even though I knew how the book would end, I still found myself rediscovering pieces of the story I had long forgotten. And instantly I was able to recognize why I profoundly related in different ways to Harry, Ron, and Hermione as a child, and how their outsider status empowered me as a young person to remain steadfast in my identity and not try to shape myself for the desirability of others.

I will also add that if I do not like an author’s writing style, I cannot finish the book. The book still read smoothly and cleanly. I did not get distracted by the language used or the flow of the prose. It was still as seamless and enjoyable to read as I remembered.

One fun(?) discovery in re-reading this book, was the inscription I wrote on the inside cover declaring my love for Carter Hanley**, dated 2003.

proof of my cringey-ness

I remember the first time I saw him, in 1999, at a rehearsal for the nativity play at church. I thought he looked like Harry Potter. Fun fact, this person went on to be my first boyfriend in 2007, until I rudely broke up with him after gym class (which we had together – meaning I had to attend gym with him for months afterwards) in front of his friend … because I found having a boyfriend too overwhelming.

I ran into him years later and he very clearly wanted nothing to do with me, and at the time I could not understand why he was so mad at me. I simply did not see what the big deal was.

Now, this memory makes me want to crawl under my desk.

When drafting this newsletter, I shared my time capsule discovery with my husband, Harrison, who promptly pulled a pen out of my desk, handed it to me, and with great sincerity asked, “can you write ‘2024, I love Harrison McGeady,’” before dissolving into a fit of laughter.  

(I did not oblige.)

** name changed out of respect for this individual’s privacy.

2.     My Husband by Maud Ventura – ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️/5

I’ll start by saying – this book is so well written and well-constructed, and if you love absolutely feral and demented female protagonists, you may very well love this book.

My Husband follows an unnamed woman during a week-long period as she obsesses about her husband and his every thought, motivation, and action.

Maud Ventura cleverly captures what it would be like if women followed popularized inane and sexist advice about how to be the perfect wife, lover, and woman. The result is, in a word, insufferable. At the core of this novel is the exploration of relationship power dynamics and how societal and cultural expectations and ideas can be internalized with little understanding or recognition.

I listened to this book on audible, and I am grateful I did so, because the escalation of the narrator’s unhinged musings about her husband were a little exhausting at times. Though the intent was well taken.

The twist at the end, while not totally unexpected, was incredibly satisfying and made this read well worth the insufferable narrator. Additionally, I really enjoyed how Ventura explored common tropes of heterosexual relationships by subverting the advice women so often receive.

3.     Tom Lake by Ann Patchett – ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️/5

“The rage dissipates along with the love, and all we’re left with is a story.” – Tom Lake

As if any of you are surprised – Ann Patchett earns another five-star rating from me. Is it possible Ann can do no wrong? (If you are me, then you believe – perhaps almost blindly – that she absolutely cannot.)

I will admit my bias here by revealing I wrote a 30-page craft paper on her work for grad school. I am obsessed.

Tom Lake, like much of Patchett’s work, is an interpersonal case study, a meditation on family – of both the chosen and unchosen variety. The novel is set in the spring of 2020, at the height of the pandemic.

Our protagonist, Lara, her three adult daughters, and her husband are all home on the family’s cherry farm in Northern Michigan. Lara’s daughters beg her to tell them the story of how she not only performed opposite of movie star, Peter Duke, in the play Our Town, but with whom she shared a short-lived romance. With her daughters now grown, Lara shares a more complete version of this story, obligating her children to re-examine their perception of who their mother is, and therefore themselves.

Patchett captures the wistful and nostalgic magic of young love, the perspective shift that comes with time and space; and the humanity children can only ascribe their parents after becoming adults themselves.

There’s so much more I could say. Patchett is an exquisite writer. Her meditations on family dynamics, being a woman, on the ways the world can break your heart, ring so true. And yet, she always brings us back to a place of understanding and peace at the end of her books, determined to find contentment in unassuming places.

4.     Little Monsters by Adrienne Brodeur – ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️/5

I picked up this book after seeing it was set on Cape Cod and follows a dysfunctional, WASP family. (I am writing a novel about a dysfunctional, WASP family set in Sconset.)

Little Monsters follows the Gardner family during 2016 and is told from alternating perspectives. Siblings Abby and Ken were raised by their single father, Adam, after their mother dies giving birth to Abby. This event shapes the way Abby and Ken relate to one another as siblings, the paths the forge for their lives, and the roles they have within the family and how they respond to and handle their eccentric and mentally ill father, Adam.

I really enjoyed the writing style and the alternating perspectives of the characters. This made for a seamless and quick read. I love a character study as well, so the alternating perspectives provided a more rounded view of the same events.

I would say that the execution of the tension between characters and the reveal of the family secret didn’t totally work for me, which is why this isn’t rated higher. That said, I enjoyed it and if you’re looking for a novel with family drama, this should definitely do the trick.

5.     The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue – ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️/5

After reading The Rachel Incident, I feel confident in making the blanket and generalized statement that I love Irish authors and their meditations on wealth, class, and power dynamics.

The Rachel Incident follows our young protagonist, Rachel, as she navigates falling into fast friendship with a closeted gay man, James, their obsession with Rachel’s professor Fred Byrne, and Ireland’s crumbling economy.

This novel brilliantly reflects on the co-dependent friendships commonly associated with college and early 20’s, the self-involvement and lack of self-awareness of being young, the power dynamics in friendship and in love created by financial security or lack thereof, and a million other things.

If you were once young and in your 20’s, or if you are currently young and in your 20’s – read this book.

The writing is crisp and witty and heartfelt. And I loved it.

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… And that is all for May. Have you read any of these books? What did you think? Let me know in the comments.

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Take a sneak peek at the books I read in June below my sister Char's artwork which she created to tell the story of our friend Haneen and her family who are trapped in Gaza right now. They are raising money to pay for food, water, supplies, and to eventually evacuate to safety. If you have questions about their fundraiser or want to find other ways to help, please reach out to me via my IG DMs.

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What I read in June; reviews upcoming in my next newsletter:

1. Wellness by Nathan Hill

2. Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

3. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

4. Stoner by John Williams

5. Funny Story by Emily Henry

6. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

7. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn