November 2021 Reads

What have you read and loved lately? Here are my thoughts on the books I finished this month.

"The Sanitorium" by Sarah Pearse was one of those reads where I was intrigued, stuck with it, and wanted to finish it but I didn't exactly enjoy it as I was reading it, if that makes sense. I felt unsatisfied with the way it closed; I'm no fiction writing expert but the reveal just felt a little out of left field to me (just me??). So I dunno, maybe a solid B+/B read?

In contrast, the next book I read was "Finlay Donovan Is Killing It" by Elle Cosimano and this one was easy to sink into and the mom dumpster fire life aspect of it was obviously totally relatable. LOL. I also love a read where you can actually imagine yourself or a friend narrating the prose, which was the case here. My colleague Carey recommended this one and clearly I need to get more book recs from her!

"A Slow Fire Burning" by Paula Hawkins was compelling and painful...the central characters of the story have difficult, complicated histories that lead them to do bad things. While it wasn't exactly a pleasant read (given the suffering element), the way the histories of the characters are revealed is beautifully done and the story lives provided ample opportunities to reflect on difficult people in my life with empathy -- for the stories I don't know that likely contributed to their behavior.

Though I wasn't super compelled by the initial character set up/scenes in "In An Instant" by Suzanne Redfearn, as soon as the tragic event happened, I was completely sucked in to the narrative and how different people behave in the face of crisis. I found myself looking for little snatches of time to read so I could find out what happened next, which is a real gift as a reader!