I got carried away with this one—Substack informs me that it is too long for email, so if you want to keep reading past the cutoff point, I recommend the app or (as is my preference) desktop. xx
Hi all. What a time we’ve been having, huh? A time. For months now, the world seems to have been burning hotter than usual. Everyone I know is more insane than they used to be. Heartening, in a way. The collective psychosis of it all. The cafe I’m writing from (I’m always writing from one cafe or another, I like the idea of fake colleagues) has been playing Fleetwood Mac all morning, which makes me think the barista is going through it, which makes me think of when I was going through it and listening to The Dance live album often enough, apparently, to receive this email1 from Spotify the other day:
Because God forbid a girl follow the time-honored tradition of processing her feelings through music.
Anyway. Historically, instability in the personal and in the general has prompted a turn to fiction. Fiction feels sturdy to me. And then I always realize, whenever I’ve convinced myself that I have writer’s block, that the true culprit is not a lack of inspiration but too little reading. Surrounding myself with other people’s words is the most surefire way to release my own from wherever they were keeping themselves. What a relief.
With that: below, in the order I read them, the books consumed from July to September, frankly one of the best collections I’ve amassed in months/years. A few disappointing-to-me reads, sure, but those are important, too. Taste can’t be developed solely by the things you love.
(In what may be Hmm’s strongest recession indicator, it falls upon me to inform you that I’ve joined bookshop.org’s affiliate program, so the below are affiliate links. From the bottom of my heart I don’t know what that means, financially speaking—probably that I potentially receive a single American cent from any purchase you make off of these links? Don’t quote me on that.)
On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle (translated by Barbara J. Haveland)
I finally caved and began reading this very trendy (in lit circles, at least) Danish series. And I’m so glad I did. A story about a woman caught reliving the same day (November 18, which is when the translation of the third book in the series comes out this year!) over and over again, it’s easy to make the comparison to Groundhog Day, and I did catch myself doing it myself when people asked what I was reading, but … it’s different, is what I would add, almost defensively. To be fair, it is different. Calculation is about the solitary nature of human existence, about our need to make sense of it all, the way we sometimes have to accept that a life may be inexplicable but still hold meaning. I loved it. My copy was left behind in Miami, but happily I lent it to my dad, who I believe was more stressed by the novel than I was. What can you do?
First-Time Caller by B.K. Borison
This was one of my Book of the Month picks, I think, and I was very pleased with it. Every summer, there comes a point when I need something light and romantic to read, and Caller fit the bill quite perfectly. Essentially: following a Sleepless in Seattle-inspired call to a romance advice radio show from her daughter, a Baltimore mechanic joins said show as a guest-host and—you’ll be shocked by this, I know—sparks fly between her and the cynical host. It was maybe a few dozen pages too long, which is a trend I’m noticing in romance novels recently, but … it worked for me! It was sweet and hot and fun and made me wanna go to Baltimore and rewatch Sleepless in Seattle. I can ask for little more in this life.
Totally and Completely Fine by Elissa Sussman
Another romance! Like I said, there comes a point … anyway. I enjoyed this one, too. I’d previously read Funny You Should Ask by the same author, and this is somewhat within Funny’s extended universe, similar to what Tessa Bailey does with her vaguely interconnected series. A love story between a Montana single mother (just now realizing that made two single-mother romance novels in a row for me … how interesting!) and a famous actor friend of her brother’s, this was a quick and enjoyable read for me. Did it change my life? Not quite. But it’s a relief, sometimes, to read a novel to pleasantly while away the afternoon instead of to change your life.
Among Friends by Hal Ebbott
I … didn’t like this book. At all. I found it overly fussy. The kind of novel that Emerald Fennell might declare a masterpiece. The kind of novel that, twenty pages in, I had to dog-ear and set aside before grabbing my laptop and opening a new tab to google “Hal Ebbott MFA,” because even though I’m not an MFA-hater by any means, there is a very particular[ly annoying] style that tends to stubbornly embed itself in its graduates and not let go until their second or third books. Needless to say, Abbott is indeed a grad of one such program. Often, he seems more interested in crafting Interesting Sentences than in telling a compelling story.
What this is: a story about two middle-aged, well-to-do married couples, the four of them decades-long friends, and their two teenage daughters. Set, obviously, because where else, in New York. And I’m not someone who’s like ohhh my goddd, whyyy is every novel set in Manhaaaattaaan, don’t they *know* there are other cities, because like, I get it, best city in the world, genuinely the center of the universe, etc., but there is something to be said for overusing the trope of “New York as Character.” And that something to be said is what I’m saying right now: stop it. Right now. Find another way to subtly describe your characters rather than just “they live on the Upper East Side and have never been to Brooklyn.” Enough. And that’s advice for my writing, too, fwiw. It’s a crutch.
Anyway, Something™ happens to (potentially) detonate the close friendship between these two families, and we spend the second half of the book in the will-they-or-won’t-they of it all. I found this half better than the first, but we were parting from a low point and I was reading in an agonized, rushed huff. It is a novel, if I may, that insists on itself. I found it exhausting, and not in a satisfying way.
However!
also read Among Friends and had a much more positive reaction to the novel—you should read her thoughts, too, and not just because I, like her, love book reviews that are in conversation with each other.
On the Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle (translated by Barbara J. Haveland)
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Hmm That's Interesting to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.