Jess Reads August

I haven't blogged in almost a month.  Chris got very sick, fevers, night sweats, not moving around much, basically being like an 85 year old man.  It took him 4 weeks to get over it.  Needless to say, my life was a little occupied.

On account of all of that, August reading was s.l.o.w.  Here's what got read:

1.  Jane Steele


This is a 2016 remake of Jane Eyre.  It follows the life of Jane Steele, serial killer.  At least that's how it's been advertised but I feel like it is highly misleading. This Jane references the book Jane Eyre all the time.  I found this to be quite annoying especially because the first half of Jane Steele seemed so similar to Jane Eyre it was ridiculous.  I almost didn't even finish reading it.  I stuck in there and the second half of the book became a lot more interesting.  However, I was also reading the real Jane Eyre at the same time because Ava was reading it for school.  And there is no comparison.  When will I learn my lessons when it comes to these much raved about remakes?  I sort of feel like that the people who rave about all these remakes of classics never actually read the original.

2.  The Sugar Queen


Terrible title for sure.  This is about a young woman in the South who grew up with money and a severely controlling mother.  I sort of read Sarah Addison Ellen when I just want something that is pretty much a no-thinking book.  It's kind of like why people read trashy romance novels- to escape. (But I hate trashy romance novels, this is as close as I get to those.)  Josey Cirrini finds a woman in her secret junk food filled closet in her bedroom.  To get rid of Della Lee, she does all sorts of things for Della which leads here down a path to her destiny on breaking free from her mother and finding true love, all with a small touch of paranormal like in all of her other books.  I appreciate how Josey changes during the book and finally becomes her own woman (so cliche) but that's pretty much it. Definitely a beach type of book which isn't necessarily a bad thing if that's what you are looking for. I've read a few books by SAE and I'd say it's not my favorite.  Get from the library for sure.

3.  The Small House at Allington


This is my first foray into anything by Anthony Trollope.  He's often compared to Jane Austen and you'll see him on lists of "What to Read After Austen" a fair amount.  It's definitely not as quick and light-hearted as anything by Austen, but not as hard to read or as boring as Middlemarch.  It follows a family of 2 young girls, their mother and their Uncle.  There is some stress between the mother and her brother in law and the book focuses on this a lot.  The girls fall in love, one is thwarted and that's where I started to struggle with it.  The younger sister is a lot like Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, which meant that I wanted to slap her repeatedly.... Her heart got broken by a scoundrel and she decides to never love again.  This book is a lot more complex than that though, because it also follows the scoundrel and the choices he makes.  I appreciated getting to see more than one major plot line and thought it was handled masterfully.  This isn't a quick book, and was one of the reasons I didn't read as much this month.  I could only read it in small doses, there was a lot more thinking going on for me and much more plot where I had to go slow or miss something.  Technically considered part of Trollope's Barchester series, but I don't think they are books you have to read in order.

4.  Lab Girl


I was 25th on my library's list for this book.  I'll start by saying I don't think it's worth such a list as that.  This is basically Hope Jahren's memoir on her life in science.  As a female and a scientist myself I felt like it was only okay.  She definitely has had some interesting things happen to her, and it was frustrating to see how much she had to fight to be taken seriously simply because she was a woman, but I felt like her way of going back and forth between stories of her life and tidbits about plants weren't all that smooth, even if I understood what the science story was supposed to be portraying and paralleling in her life.  The most interesting aspect to her story in my opinion, is her relationship with her long-term lab partner Bill.  He is a fascinating character and I feel like I really want to read a life-story put out by him.  He's bizarre, entertaining and highly intelligent.  Hope and Bill's relationship was always platonic, but what a relationship it is!  I would say that the stories about Bill saved this book, and they are better in the second half of the book, so if you can make it through the first half, it does get better.

5. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew


This is the type of book that I thought would be fascinating but seems like you'd have it for reference. To sit down and read about a Duke vs. Baronet and how 19th century English money worked is frankly, kind of boring.  It doesn't read like a novel, but like research.  Which is what it is.  The second whole half of the book is a glossary of terms.  Also good when you are reading a novel but pretty useless if you are "reading" this book.  If you can find this book at a goodwill or a garage sale I'd say get it so you can use it to look up things in classic literature you don't understand but I wouldn't read it any other way.

6.  The Secret Garden


I love this book and probably read it every year.  It just completely charms me every time I read it.  I don't have much to say about it because it's one probably everybody has at least heard of (or watched the classic movie).  It totally makes me want to have a secret garden, and Dickon the animal charmer boy makes me want to run wild on the English moors and "grow fat off the healthy air".  If you've never heard of it- gasp!  It follows an orphan named Mary that lived in India who moved to live with her obscure, recluse of an uncle in England.  She moves to a 100 room manor where she basically is given free reign because the uncle and none of his staff really want to interact with her.  She spends her life outside because the head house mistress didn't think to give her books or toys of any type, and follows all of her excursions with two boys that appear later in the story.  It really is such a lovely story.