September Wrap Up

Well, September is at an end and it went by at snail's pace. School started up again and let me tell you, the kids' social skills have suffered mightily after a year and a half of quarantine. Trying to get back into the groove has felt interminable. By the time I get home each day, I'm too exhausted to think clearly, never mind pick up a book. As a result, I read a little bit less than I wanted this month, although I did finish most of what I set out to do. Here's what I finished:

The Cold is in her Bones by Peternelle van Arsdale

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

75 pages of Les Misérables

In October, I'm going to plan conservatively again. I'm hoping for things to settle down a bit in my work life so I can read a little more, but I don't want to pressure myself. I'm going to try and read another book off my Classics Club list and then get through a few random books from my shelves. My plan is:

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

At least two books chosen from my owned-not-read list based on my mood

At least 100 pages of Les Misérables

I'm a little bit worried about Orlando, and it's not my preferred genre of classic, but it isn't too long. Hopefully it'll go quickly. Maybe I'll read something spooky too if I am feeling the Halloween spirit. Honestly, I'd just be happy to enjoy reading something without constantly falling asleep.

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

 

One of the categories on the Back to the Classics Challenge this year was to read a classic with an animal in the title. I didn't have anything left on my Classics Club list that I could double dip with, so I had to search for something that would work in my stacks. I ended up finding The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, which I picked up at a used bookstore a few years ago. This is the second book in her Great Plains Trilogy. The first book is O Pioneers!, which I actually read last year for this challenge. The books aren't really connected to each other though, so it's not like I had to read them in order. I liked O Pioneers! for the most part back when I originally read it, so I was hoping to have a good experience with this book too.

The plot follows Thea Kronborg, a young girl growing up in the small town on Moonstone, Colorado in the 1890s. The story mainly follows her development as a pianist and singer, starting from her childhood. From the outset, Thea is shown to be a different sort of girl. She's intelligent, very musically gifted, and has a mature temperament that sets her apart from her peers. She studies piano faithfully as a youngster and travels to Chicago to continue her learning under a well-known teacher. Under the new teacher's instruction, she shifts all of her focus to singing and begins building a career as an opera singer. The rest of the story follows her rise as an artist, focusing on all of the internal changes she goes through as she reaches her full potential.

This is a very character-driven novel, with almost all of the attention focused on the changes Thea undergoes as she rises to fame. Even when we visit the minds of other characters, all of their thoughts are centered around Thea and her various good qualities. As such, there aren't many big plot events, but the beauty and depth of Cather's writing makes up for it. It's not a boring story, even though it isn't about very much. Any person who has ever put their heart and soul into trying to achieve something will relate to Thea's struggles. There was a very strong thread of truth running throughout her journey. While I don't think that the sheer amount of people utterly bewitched by her was particularly realistic, a lot of the thoughts and emotions she felt about her growth process were. It was interesting to watch her climb from her humble origins to the top of her craft. I especially liked that things weren't all perfect as Thea's career starts to take off. Becoming more successful certainly enriches her life, but she loses some of the old bits of herself along the way. It's left for the reader to ponder the true worth of her rise. Thinking about that was interesting. How much of one's old life are should they sacrifice to move up in the world?

One thing that was a little off-putting about this novel was all the attention that older men gave to Thea in the first section of the story. In particular, the character of Doctor Archie came off very creepy. He was overly interested in hanging out with Thea when she was a pre-teen and he was an adult, married man. He took her on outings with him regularly, held her hand, and commented repeatedly on how she was better than other children her age. They often hung our together alone as if they were buddies. There was an especially awkward scene at the start of the novel in which he nurses her back to health from an illness. He glories in being alone with her during treatments and comments on the beauty of her naked body while he is applying a plaster to her chest. I think this is a case of the writing just aging poorly, as I'm sure Cather didn't mean to include anything untoward here. Doctor Archie is never physically inappropriate with Thea, and I believe that his thoughts and actions were only meant to show the reader how Thea was uniquely wonderful. It felt very weird reading it though. Towards the end of the novel, even Doctor Archie recognizes that he was probably too absorbed by her when she was a child. It was...a lot.

So ultimately, I don't have much to say beyond that. This was a very good novel, but it was a very quiet one as well, so it won't be everyone's cup of tea. Back when I read O, Pioneers!, I was loving it right up until the ending, which I thought was quite disappointing. In The Song of the Lark, I maintained a more consistent level of enjoyment, although I probably didn't like it quite as much. In any case, I think Cather is an excellent writer and this book was worth reading. The third entry in the Great Plains Trilogy is My Ántonia. I've heard really great things about that one and I imagine I will get to it one day.

Challenge Tally

Back to the Classics 2021 (A Classic with an Animal in the Title): 11/12

Total Books Read in 2021: 42

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

 

After finishing The Cold is in Her Bones, I was still in the mood for a shorter, easy read. I decided to try The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James next. I've had this young adult sci-fi novel sitting on my shelf for a while now and I was in the mood to finally see what it was all about. It had been a while since I was really sucked into an exciting, suspenseful book, so I was hoping that this one would scratch that itch for me. 

The plot follows Romy Silvers, a teenage girl on board the Infinity-- a spaceship currently heading for an Earth-like planet in deep space. The goal is to try and establish a colony there, but the journey is a long one and Romy won't arrive for decades. She was born and raised on the ship, and life in space is all she knows. Years ago, an accident killed all of the original crew members on the mission, including Romy's parents, so she is completely on her own. Her only contact with other people is through daily electronic messages she receives from NASA, but as they take years to reach her current position, the information in them is already old once she reads them. It's a very lonely existence, but she does the best she can to keep the mission going.

One day she receives a welcome bit of news in one of her messages. A new ship, the Eternity, has been dispatched to help her continue her mission. It is a newer ship than the Infinity, and a lot faster. It will catch up to her in about a year and help her to reach her destination in much less time. Excited, she begins exchanging messages with the Eternity's captain, a young man named J. They are able to communicate much more quickly since their ships are relatively close to each other, and they develop a friendship that starts inching towards romance. 

Romy is counting down the days until the Infinity and J arrive, but suddenly, some troubling developments arise. Her messages from NASA abruptly cut off due to some sort of political uprising on Earth, she begins receiving messages from a new government with stressful demands, and she starts noticing some inconsistencies in J's messages to her. Even worse, she starts suffering unnerving flashbacks and nightmares about the accident that killed all the astronauts on her ship years ago. She must sort out if she is merely struggling with paranoia after all the years she's spent alone or if something nefarious is really going on. Then, if something bad truly is happening, she must figure out how to stop it all on her own.

I ended up enjoying this novel quite a bit. I thought it had an interesting premise, and James does a nice job of slowly building up suspense throughout the story. There is a rather abrupt tone shift partway through as the plot moves from being romance focused to more action/adventure focused, but I thought this worked pretty well. As Romy is pulled out of her familiar routine by the events of the story, so is the reader by the shift in tone. I thought the speed at which James released information was great as well. There are lots of secrets surrounding what happened with the original crew of the Infinity and with Romy's parents and it is doled out steadily in bits and pieces that kept me turning the pages. I really wanted to know the whole story, and once all of it was revealed, it didn't disappoint. There were good twists throughout and the overall theme about how everyone has the potential for heroism inside them was nice to see develop.

This novel was consistently in four-star territory for most of the time I spent reading it, but the ending let me down a little. Several things happen in rapid succession in the closing chapters of the novel that are so impossible that they totally broke my suspension of disbelief. Obviously, there are a lot of impossible things in sci-fi novels, and that generally doesn't bother me at all. However, some of the events in the final conflict were just so ridiculous that I had to laugh. It spoiled some of the carefully crafted tension that James had been building for me and lowered my rating.

Ultimately, I did still think that The Loneliest Girl in the Universe was a fun read. I enjoyed the sci-fi setting, I thought the plot was interesting, and I liked a lot of the twists. Romy was a pretty relatable character, especially for quiet, anxious people like myself, and I was invested in her story. I wish the ending had been a little more realistic, but I was still pretty entertained. I'll be happy to donate this one to my classroom library so that some of my students can enjoy it. 

Challenge Tally

Clear the Shelves 2021: 20/50 (donate)

Total Books Read in 2021: 41

The Cold is in Her Bones by Peternelle van Arsdale

 

The school year has started up again and I've never been so tired in my entire life. Accordingly, I needed some easy reading to indulge in this month. I'm in a bit of a slump currently, but I have finished a few shorter books. I'm definitely behind in the blogging half of things though, so I'm trying to catch up now. 

The first book I picked up was The Cold is in Her Bones by Peternelle van Arsdale. I found this book in Barnes and Noble a while back and it was definitely a cover buy for me. I thought artwork on the front was stunning, especially the bright snakes woven into the girl's hair. It was a young adult fantasy, which is right up my alley, so I figured I'd take it home. At only 288 pages, it's pretty short, so I decided to give it a shot this month.

The plot of the novel follows a teen girl named Milla. She lives with her parents and her older brother Niklas on their isolated family farm, miles away from the nearest village. She is forbidden to leave the farm or do anything besides help her mother run the household and take care of her father and brother. She is miserable and very lonely, but she tries her best to be a good daughter and live up to her parents' expectations. She has been told since she was a baby that these strict measures are necessary to protect everyone from demons, which are a constant threat to their community. Milla is frightened of the demons, but is steadily growing more and more frustrated with all the restrictions on her life. She longs for something different to break up the monotony.

She seemingly gets her wish when another girl her age named Iris comes to stay at the only other farm in her area. Iris and Milla become fast friends, but things quickly turn sour when Iris begins showing symptoms of being possessed by the very demons that everyone is so afraid of. What's more, Milla begins to display some worrying changes too, which include two snakes that suddenly begin growing out of her head. When Iris is sent away to a prison for the demon-afflicted, Milla decides to disobey her family's wishes for the first time ever and go after her, hoping to save her first and only friend.

I thought this novel was okay. It was a quick read and enjoyable enough. The writing flowed nicely and van Arsdale did a good job of conveying the isolation and dark mood of the plot. It's overall message of believing in yourself is great for a young adult audience and watching Milla grow from a quiet and unhappy teenager to a strong and confident woman over the course of the story is a rewarding experience. It had all the pieces it needed to have. What was missing was any kind of twist. 

This story was almost shockingly straightforward. I kept reading thinking that I would eventually get to something surprising that would add more layers of complexity to the plot, but it just never happened. Everything remained exactly as it was presented to the reader from page one. This story is about a girl trying to save her friend from a demon and that's all. Everything is as it seems. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the simplicity made the story feel a bit too thin for me. I was expecting more....cleverness or secrets or something. 

I saw from browsing Goodreads once I finished reading that this is supposed to be some kind of take on the Medusa myth, but honestly, it bears so little resemblance to that story that I didn't even make the connection until I saw those reviews. Milla has two snakes growing out of her head, sure, but nothing else really connects back to mythology, at least not in a way I recognized. It's a shame, because a true Medusa retelling would probably have been more interesting.

So ultimately, The Cold is in Her Bones was good, but not great. I can't see myself remembering I read this once a few months have passed by. It's a shame too, because the cover art is so lovely. At least it's one that I can donate to my classroom library. Younger readers will probably enjoy it and I doubt they would feel like anything is missing from it. They are the intended audience after all. 

Challenge Tally

Clear the Shelves 2021: 19/50 (donate)

Total Books Read in 2021: 40