Unquiet
Things

Okay, this is a very pretentious blog title, I just couldn’t really think of anything better. And to be fair, there are some very eerie titles on these shelves. And some fairly artful ones! So it kinda works?

So. We are (mostly) moved into our new home! Over the next few weeks I will share some peeks as we get settled, but for now: book porn! And if you have questions about titles included here, I am happy to fill you in.

 

As for what I am reading now. HOLY CATS. I got an advanced copy of MOTHERTHING by Ainsley Hogarth from NetGalley.* And wow. WOW. I am putting this book at the top of the list of the best things I have ever read. It’s sad and funny and disturbing and weird as hell. I love authors who can capture and articulate the disjointed strangeness and disconcerting intimacies of our inner monologues, those thoughts we’d never say aloud, and yet we recognize so much of ourselves in them when we get to listen in on someone else’s interior conversations. Hogarth also does a tremendous job of navigating and revealing the aching weirdness of relationships–both in the heartburstingly good and fun ways and the heartrendingly tragic and traumatizing ways. Dead moms and complicated mothers are a huge theme in this book, so if that’s a triggering topic, be wary. What is a mother’s love? Who deserves it and who does not? What happens when we’re deprived of it and in striving to be everything our mother was not, are we not also becoming that shadow, as well? In this story, Abby has found her true-love soulmate in Ralph and hopes to create a family with him, giving their child everything positive and good as a parent that neither she nor Ralph experienced as children. In the wake of Ralph’s cruel and emotionally controlling mother’s suicide, Ralph is succumbing to a deep depression and is also insisting that he is seeing his mother’s ghost. More troubling still, Abby is beginning to sense a presence as well. Feeling her dreams threatened and her fragile sense of self crumbling, Abby becomes …quite desperate.

Abby is quite possibly my favorite character ever and oh my lord people, I am begging you to read this book when it becomes available. With regard to NetGalley, I found out about it when I saw that some reviewers had acquired copies of The Art of the Occult through it. It’s a site that’s free to use where once you have set up an account you can request, read, and recommend books before they are published, and this provides essential reviews and feedback to publishers and other readers. You’re not always going to get every book you request, especially the really popular ones, but I received copies of Alma Katsu’s The Fervor and Catriona Ward’s Sundial (this is another really good one, don’t sleep on it!) so I guess I’ve gotten lucky so far. The only downside that I can see is that there is an expectation level for reviews; your eligibility to receive more titles is somewhat dependent upon it. So if that’s too much of a commitment or if that makes you a little anxious, you may want to keep that in mind. I’m not judging…it actually makes me a little anxious, too!

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