All the books I read in October and what I thought of them

In October I read 8 books, and two of them had anything interesting to say about love, and neither of those books had a central romantic relationship. Romance books never have anything interesting to say about love. I am making that inflammatory statement in hopes that someone will recommend me a book with a central romantic relationship that says something interesting about love because my dad says that if you put false information on the internet, someone will get mad at you and correct you, and, therefore, lying on the internet about something you don't understand is a more effective way to get your questions answered than asking the question in the form of a question. 

Anyone who has been worried about my sleep deprivation because of my comment last month about how sleep deprived I am should take comfort in knowing that last night I didn't stay up late, and then it started snowing, and I missed it. One way to look at this is that I was profoundly unlucky; another way to look at it is that I can control the weather by going to bed at a reasonable hour!! I have perhaps sounded very disgruntled for an entire paragraph but I assure you I have been reasonably gruntled in recent memory.

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Love Among the Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

My poli sci professor kindly recommended this book to me because I read the other book he told me to read, which is about psalms. I understand the reasoning is that if I take one book recommendation, this suggests that I will take all book recommendations (true, I always take book recommendations), but the implication amuses me that if I liked the book about psalms, I would like the book about stupid men trying to raise chickens. There are about 20 jokes on every page of this book and only five of them in the entire book are actually funny. It's possible that I was overthinking whether everything was funny because my professor said to tell him if I didn't think it was funny so I was constantly asking myself isthisfunnyisthisfunny instead of appreciating that the characters are honestly pretty amusing. But the narrator's voice gets tiring when he makes joke after joke that doesn't land. The plot is sort of stupid and never resolves. The narrator goes through so much trouble for a woman he doesn't even know. You see a pretty girl on a train and decide to upend your life and commit a felony because a girl is pretty. Okay.

🐔🐔🐔

Greek Lessons by Han Kang

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I read this book because I'm learning ancient Greek and the protagonist is learning ancient Greek so she's just like me. I enjoyed most of the book even if it was maybe a little too abstract for me. I liked trying to read the ancient Greek exercises but I think they use a different textbook so they teach them different words. I don't know very much ancient Greek yet. I really didn't like the way the book ended because the protagonist (a woman who doesn't talk) and the other protagonist (a man who is going blind) finally connect but it doesn't feel meaningful or convincing that they're actually helping each other. 

🙊🙊🙊

Sophie Go's Lonely Hearts Club by Roselle Lim

rating: ⭐✨

This book, which is about a matchmaker and a found family, had literally nothing interesting to say about love. All it said is that romantic love is so much better than any other kind of love, and it's the best thing to ever experience, and it completes your life, and we should feel bad for people who don't get to experience it. And you would only ever have close and meaningful friendships if you couldn't hack romantic love. There are so many (at least three) characters in this book that I thought really had no need to get into a relationship, and it would vindicate their character arcs more if they decided it wasn't something necessary to have in their lives, and they ALL GOT INTO RELATIONSHIPS ANYWAY. In fairness, if I wanted to read a book that wasn't such a simp for the concept of romantic love, I should have maybe not read a book about a matchmaker making matches.

Also the writing style was pretentious and the plot twist at the end really sucked and didn't contribute anything to the narrative. Otherwise, a pretty cute book.

🧵🧵🧵

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My dad read me this book when I was little and I think he stole a solid 30% of his sense of humor from James Herriot. James Herriot is very funny. I understand how there was a market that wanted to read about his experiences as an English country vet for four 400-page books.

🐏🐏🐏

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

rating: ⭐⭐⭐✨

The first 300 pages of this book are about deeply flawed people treating each other terribly and it was very funny and compulsively readable but also made me feel empty inside, like, is this really the extent of what love exists in the world? And then for the last 50 pages the book abruptly starts being about flawed people being nice to each other. The main couple loves each other a lot but really should not be together, which is an interesting dynamic, but instead of saying anything interesting about that, the upshot of this book seems to be, you should make sure you get with the right person. After all the characters and I went through, this was an underwhelming conclusion.

🚬🚬🚬

Confessions by Saint Augustine

rating: ⭐⭐

Saint Augustine is a deeply self-hating man who needs a hug. I like the parts about how he wants to find peace and serenity and rest in God. I am a strong believer—and so, it seems, is Augustine—that a lot of your problems could have been avoided if you stayed home. This man is so tired but has never considered just taking a nap. Actually, naps make me feel sick, so maybe he has a point and I should find God. This book had interesting things to say about love, but I don't agree with very many of the things it said (about anything, actually).

🙏🙏🙏

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel 

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book also had interesting things to say about love. I think it's criticizing the way society expects women to be mothers and have a specific family structure where no one supports them. I liked the relationship between Alina and Laura, I just wish it was more developed later in the book. 

🚼🚼🚼

The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse

rating: ⭐⭐✨

With all respect to my professor, P. G. Wodehouse is not nearly as funny as he's trying to be, but I appreciated that in this book (unlike in Love Among the Chickens, although I understand that the narrative doesn't respect or take seriously any of the characters), women do things and are not just props. Stiffy is a great character and she slays so hard.

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