I read Laird Hunt’s In the House in the Dark of the Woods in 2020 and I bought it because it was described as a horrifying psychological thriller and…I guess that’s true? I wasn’t horrified. It was a psychological thriller. I’m going to go ahead and say spoilers because the book only came out in 2018, but…eh.
I had a lot of problems with this book. First of all, it was extremely confusing. Not to toot my own horn too much, but I’m pretty bright. I was never a kid who had any trouble with “book learning” and if I’m really focused on something I’m interested in, I pick it up pretty quickly. I had to reread passages in this book over and over and over again to make sure I understood them correctly. I’ve read confusing books before, but this one was just loaded with stuff that left me scratching my head upon first reading.
It was even difficult to determine the setting at first, although that was one of the easier parts to figure out. The story is set in colonial New England, and basically, a woman goes berry picking in the woods and gets lost. She finds herself in the company of three other women – Captain Jane, Granny Someone, and Eliza, to whose cottage she keeps returning.
It also becomes clear throughout the book that the narrator, who is called Goody by the women she meets, is being beaten by her husband and her son is emotionally distant from her. It also becomes clear that she is trapped in a cycle of abuse that never ends. All the characters are. Fairy-folk are stand ins for Native Americans. Hope – personified by a golden blonde girl – comes and goes. The characters are trapped in some kind of surrealist game where they willingly abuse other people by someone who controls them.
The whole thing is imagery of fairy tales and folklore and even the Bible, but to me the book fell flat. Strangeness can be fun, but after awhile it gets tiring. If I have to work that hard just to figure out what’s going on, I can’t enjoy the story. And I don’t love the whole ‘abuse’ thing as an allegory or a metaphor or whatever it was. People seem really split on this book, with lots of people singing its praises and lots of others more in line with my way of thinking.
I’m sure In the House in the Dark of the Woods is a book for someone, but it’s not a book for me.
In the House in the Dark of the Woods
Curly Girl: The Handbook
I don’t remember how old I was when I decided to stop straightening my hair. I think I was in college. I was tired of all the extra work, and the damage all the straightening caused. Plus, dudes liked my curly hair more than my straight hair, and if that wasn’t the kind of external validation I needed, I don’t know what was.
I didn’t pick up Lorraine Massey’s Curly Girl: The Handbook until a couple of years later though. I skimmed through it when I got it, focusing on a couple of parts, but didn’t read the whole thing cover to cover until … COVID, you guessed it.
I’d recommend this book to anyone looking to understand their curly hair. Learning what my curl pattern was, plus how to take care of it (curly hair is not a monolith) was invaluable. Things I learned on closer examination of this book:
+ ingredients that are good for curly hair (as well as ingredients that are not)
+ tools to use when dealing with curly hair
+ how to style my hair
+ how to wash my hair so as to be gentle with and support the curl pattern
+ foods that support healthy curly hair
…among other things.
I would very much recommend this book to anyone trying to embrace their natural hair. There’s tons of good information and I went from hating my curly hair to loving it. That’s a great feeling.
American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good
American Character is the second book I’ve read by Colin Woodard, with American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America being the first. You don’t need to read American Nations to understand American Character, but it does help – Woodard advances the argument in American Nations that the United States is one large country actually made up of eleven smaller regional ‘nations’ – that is, geographic areas that are culturally entirely different from each other. (FWIW, American Nations was one of the best books on this I ever read/listened to. It was everything you already subconsciously knew put forward in such a way that you kick yourself for not fully realizing it sooner).
American Character takes this idea a step further – the American republic has always been built on argument. That’s the point and – hundreds of years later – is still the most brilliant thing about our Constitution. There’s not usually a ‘right’ answer. The argument is meant to be reframed and changed over and over again as the people living under the Constitution change with it. Freedom is change – always changing for the better idea. The trouble is, each ‘nation’ has a different idea of what the better idea is.
Individual rights vs. the common good has been a central argument for as long as we’ve been around. Woodard follows both these philosophies through from when we but thirteen humble colonies (lol) to today, guiding us through four hundred years of social experiments. Who doesn’t love a good social experiment?
I did like this book. Woodard’s historical examples are pertinent and I enjoy his skill in building a narrative. The book is well researched and it follows the arguments laid out in American Nations to their next logical steps. I found his suggestions for maintaining balance between individual liberties while benefitting the collective pragmatic and attainable as long as we want to attain them.
Woodard has put out a third book in 2020 that ties into his ‘American Nations’ trilogy, called Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood. It’s already on my TBR pile.
Say Nothing
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland is a 2018 non-fiction book by Patrick Radden Keefe. It focuses on The Troubles in Northern Ireland following the kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten children, whose family was ultimately destroyed by her murder.
I would like to start off by saying how I just cannot get over, since I was old enough to know what it was, that the Irish/UK named this bloody, armed conflict ‘The Troubles’ like they’re discussing a pair of disobedient shih tzus and not several decades worth of paramilitary organizations terrorism and guerrilla warfare. It absolutely floors me to this day.
Anyway, Say Nothing was probably my favorite non-fiction book in 2020. I didn’t do as many non-fiction books in 2020 as in years past, but I did do a fair few (some dense) and this was probably my favorite one. In a conflict with no shortage of characters and role players, Keefe did a very good job of digging into the personalities and politics of key players in the IRA since 1972, including Dolours and Marian Price.
I didn’t – still don’t – have a particularly good grip on the history and politics surrounding The Troubles. Keefe did a good job explaining a lot of the key elements of the conflict, but there’s obviously a lot more than can fit into any single volume. He combines the history, politics, and biographies into this book and ultimately uses Jean McConville’s murder as a lens to reflect on what these extremely brutal conflicts meant to the people affected by them.
Keefe also claims to have solved McConville’s murder. McConville’s murder was considered particularly outrageous as she was the only caregiver of ten children. Keefe used the testimony of two of three of McConville’s kidnappers – Pat McClure and Dolours Price – as well as other independent corroborators to deduce the third ‘Unknown’ (a highly secretive group within the IRA) that pulled the trigger. The former IRA members had said that they wouldn’t be naming the person because the person was still alive, but considering Keefe’s deductions I’m inclined to say he was right.
Say Nothing was an excellent book that I went back to physically buy after completing the audiobook. It’s a keeper. Last item of note: Keefe takes the title from Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing.’
Nantucket Cottages & Gardens
Nantucket Cottage & Gardens: Charming Spaces on the Faraway Isle is a coffee table book by Leslie Linsley with photography by Terry Pommett, which I’ve had for awhile but finally read cover to cover during – you guessed it – covid lockdown.
Let me preface this by saying I have always loved New England. For as long as I can remember. I don’t really know why. I didn’t grow up there, my family didn’t take a lot of trips there, fishing for a living is probably my worst nightmare, but the New England coastal life (and now even interior New England life) is an aesthetic and lifestyle I’ve been obsessed with since I was…twelve? Yes, while other girls were into boy bands, I was into nautical decor. Why yes, I have always been hip and cool, why do you ask?
In Nantucket Cottages & Gardens, Linsley visits some of those classic design elements that make Nantucket’s famous cottages timelessly chic and warmly homey. The cottages Linsley showcases are from a time before Nantucket was for the obscenely wealthy, when square footage of these cottages was smaller for many reasons, the least of which not being it was all the residents of the time could afford. With Tiny HomesTM all the rage these days, public interest in clever design for a smaller living spaces is booming.
I thought this book, in addition to being visually beautiful, was actually quite inspirational and informative. With more modern homeowners rethinking what they need in terms of space due to financial and environmental concerns, looking at the remodels and designs of homeowners who are confined to a smaller living space – not necessarily because they can’t afford a bigger one but because they literally can’t expand as Nantucket’s space is very much accounted for in most areas – it’s a practical guide to using these older, pragmatic design elements to create an efficient, functional space.
The Outsider
I was always going to read/listen to The Outsider. It was released in 2018, and I listened to it in 2020 during Covid, of course, but I had been on the waiting list at the library for much longer – I think three or four months. Anyway, I was always going to read The Outsider because Stephen King wrote the novel around Holly Gibney, probably my favorite of his female characters to date, and maybe favorite overall.
Holly is hired when what seems to be an open and shut case begins to get out of control. The raped and mutilated body of Frankie Peterson is found, and all signs point to Terry Maitland, a teacher and local Little League coach. Maitland claims innocence, as he was at a conference with other teachers at the time of the murder, but they find his fingerprints and DNA at the crime scene – however, they also find video of him and his fingerprints at the site of the conference, with the other teachers confirming his nearly constant presence.
Maitland is eventually murdered by Ollie Peterson, Frankie’s brother, who blames Maitland for his brother’s death and his mother’s resulting fatal heart attack. Ollie is shot and killed by police. Ralph Anderson, who ordered the public arrest of Maitland and blamed for the ensuing publicity circus, is put on leave. With his dying breaths, Maitland continues to insist he’s innocent.
Holly, who has become a private investigator since we last saw her in End of Watch, takes the case when she’s approached by the investigator hired by Maitland’s attorney. Things proceed from there, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes quote driving the story: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. The premise of the story is that a guy was in two places at once, and Holly knows that cannot be the case.
I enjoyed this book a lot although I saw some mixed reviews of it when I googled it briefly to refresh myself of some of the character names (I couldn’t remember Terry’s last name to save my life three years later). Once again, Stephen King sucked me into a story *so* fast. It took one chapter or less. His gift for this, at least in my case, is something I can only dream of.
I love that Holly has opened a detective agency. I love Holly. She is just as adorably quirky in this book and I found her just as endearing.
Of note: HBO made this novel into a show and I hated it because they ruined Holly. I remember seeing a lot of criticism at the time that people who disliked the TV version of Holly was because she was black and eyeroll. It wasn’t that she was black. It was that they took away all her charming quirks and just left her as someone who was socially awkward. I love that she’s a movie buff and that she bites her nails obsessively and that she’s very sweet and loyal once you get to know her. None of what made her wonderful came through in the adaptation. I was super glad when HBO decided not to pick up season 02.
Better Holly news! Stephen King is publishing another novel focused around Holly later this year, and I’m so excited that I’m tempted to preorder it.
Blood of Elves
This is less of a recap/review and more of a story of how I made a huge mistake. Okay, this mistake was actually compounded by several smaller mistakes.
The first mistake was watching The Witcher on Netflix. I got through the first season in 2019 when it came out, because a bunch of fantasy nerds were excited about it, since the series is beloved by a lot of people. I didn’t like the TV show that much, and I love all sorts of fantasy. I also don’t find Henry Cavill a particularly compelling actor but that’s just my personal preference. I have considered several times returning to the series on Netflix, but just can’t really talk myself into it.
I was let down by the show. Andrzej Sapkowski’s series was very popular though, so I thought maybe the book would be better. Which leads me to mistake #2. For whatever reason, I was told Blood of Elves was Book 1. I was lied to. It is Book 3. Soooo. I listened to Book 3 on audiobook and was entirely lost the whole time.
The story might have been compelling, but it was hard to tell because I had no idea what was happening. This was not one of my cozy mysteries where I could read them out of order and still have a pretty decent idea of what was going on. I was going to go back and maybe try with Book 1, but never got around to it. So that’s mistake #3 – I let myself lose interest before going back to read/listen to the first part of the story.
Like I said, the series is beloved by a lot of people, particularly in Poland where Sapkowki’s from and still resides. I googled him and he looks like Santa Claus without a beard, so I’d love to support him in anyway because he’s clearly tirelessly making toys for small children in December. I should go back to them. I just…haven’t yet.
Hollow Kingdom
When I got onto the Hollow Kingdom waitlist at the library, it was a really long wait. Like several months. It was a fairly new zombie apocalypse book at the time AND it was early during covid, so again, a long wait.
In this 2019 release from Kira Jane Buxton, we follow pet crow ST and pet dog Dennis on their journey as more and more humans become zombies. ST, who always identified more as a human than a crow, and Dennis, a bloodhound, who lost their owner to the zombie virus set out to save other former pets from the Hollows – what the animals call humans because they are no longer connected to the environment. With humanity on the brink of extinction, pets are their legacy.
It sounds very compelling, right? I didn’t hate the book. In fact, I found it very funny (and very upsetting) in some parts. The main characters were pretty great and the secondary characters were interesting. The problem with the book – which follows our non-human heroes on their quest to save animals from zombie-afied humans – was that it mostly lacked a plot. It was a lot of wondering around in the woods and things happening but with nothing really tying the events together.
There’s apparently a sequel that came out last year or the year before called Feral Creatures. I knew when the book ended there’d be another because of where they left off at the end of the first book. I might check it out. The characters are engaging and maybe the next one will be better now that the world is built and they’ve set up for more of a plot.
Maisie Dobbs
So, if you take a look through my lists of books during my more recent reading challenge years, you may notice I like a lot of series – particularly mysteries, particularly cozy mysteries. I listen to a lot of audiobooks at work while I’m fighting for my life in Excel and I love when I can go from one to the next.
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear was an exception. We meet Maisie, who is pressed into service at thirteen when her mother dies and she needs to work to help support her family. She becomes a maid for the wealthy Compton family and the lady of the house catches Maisie indulging her love of reading in the family’s private library. *clutches pearls* But instead of kicking her to the curb, the lady sends Maisie to be tutored by a friend of the family named Maurice Blanche. Blanche, a gifted but discreet investigator, takes Maisie into his tutelage and he teachers her about science, psychology, and pretty much anything else Maisie will try learning. She tries everything.
Maisie is accepted into Cambridge University but her plans are put on hold when World War I breaks out. Maise becomes a nurse and falls in love with a young man, another service member. What happens to him is part of what Maise must deal with throughout the rest of the novel.
After the war, Maisie resumes her studies with Blanche, now more in an investigative capacity and she eventually opens her own investigation service when he retires. When the Comptons’ son signs his family’s fortune over to The Retreat – a home for war veterans – Maisie must get to the bottom of what’s happening at the veterans home while confronting her own traumas from the war.
The story didn’t hook me, but I don’t mean to disparage it. Winspear’s historical mystery was extremely well researched – some of the most delightful details came from Winspear’s knowledge of the time period, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. It was good, but for whatever reason it didn’t suck me in enough to want to continue with the series. It doesn’t make sense to me really, because it had so many elements I enjoy. An interesting female protagonist, a setting I’m not entirely familiar with (England circa World War I), and intriguing mystery. I still might try another one to see if it the series gets more interesting after we got past setting up Maisie as a character.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11 PM. Over the course of eight days, the protagonist wakes up in the body of a new inhabitant of Blackheath House with a new chance to prevent the murder. If he fails to discover the murderer by 11 PM, the cycle repeats again. He puts information together over the course of the eight days, and if he doesn’t solve the crime in eight days, he will wake up where he was at the start (of the novel) with his memory wiped. Our protagonist cannot leave the Blackheath House until he solves the murder.
Stuart Turton’s The 71/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was probably my favorite novel of 2020. It was a compelling mystery and I really liked the format of repeating the same day over and over from different points of view. I’m a big Agatha Christie fan, and this felt very much like an Agatha Christie mystery, with clues scattered through many of the chapters. I did originally consume this book as an audiobook so I only remember some of the clues but after I gifted the book to my uncle as a birthday gift, he assured me that there were a lot of clues about.
Other things I liked were the setting – I love a good Locked Room mystery and that’s essentially what this was – and I loved loved LOVED that there was a Plague Doctor running around. I always liked the whole Plague Doctor mask/concept/backstory of what a plague doctor was in general, and then I picked up this book during the Covid lockdown.
I won’t spoil the ending, but it was pretty unsettling in the sense that it pointed to something extremely dystopian or sort of like a supernatural explanation (a no-no in mysteries). Aside from the sort of bizarre explanation for what was going on though, I loved this story. I found the ending so-so and I still loved it so much it was still probably my favorite book of 2020. 10/10 would recommend.
words in scarlet ink 