July Wrap-Up and August TBR

I didn’t get a ton of reading done toward the end of the month but was more prolific than I realized.

July Wrap-Up

Escape from Virtual Island by John Lutz

More of an audio drama but weird, fun, and funny. 4/5

Cold Cuts by Robert Payne Cabeen

I went into detail elsewhere how much I hated it. I generously gave it half a star for an interesting idea. 0.5/5

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

Published in 2014, it occasionally felt like a piece of the era but is still very relevant. 4/5

AWOL on the Appalachian Trail by David Miller

A fun and interesting thru-hiking memoir. Compared to the vlogs I’m watching now, a lot has changed about gear and tech but a lot has stayed the same. Still disappointed he didn’t chose Corvette as a trail name. 4/5

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

A story that plays with the road trip from hell and unreliable narrator tropes. I liked the plot but felt it would have been better in more capable hands. 3/5

I made it 40% through The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID by Lawrence Wright before getting too mad to continue. The gross mismanagement, the lives it cost, and the damage still being done enrages me. I need some distance.

I quit another audio memoir toward the end of the month. Podcasts were taking up a ton of space on my phone so I listened to those for the rest of the month.

2 weeks in August will be spent on vacation so I’m hoping to get more reading done then.

The spawn still loves being read to. We got him Spooky Pookie by Sandra Boynton. He loves any book where I get to shout “Boo!” at him. If I randomly yell “Boo!” and startle him, he grins right after he jumps.

August TBR

Upwards by Laurie Apgar Chandler

It’s another ‘person has adventure in nature’ memoir but this one is for the area we’re having our vacation in. I thought that would be a fun touch.

Worst Laid Plans edited by Samantha Kolesnik

An anthology of vacation horror. I discovered this on Bookstagram. It gives me summer vibes.

The Pants of Perspective by Anna McNuff

I’m about a quarter of the way through this memoir of a Brit running the length of New Zealand. I’d like to finish it but I worry about getting burnt out on adventure memoirs.

I think the reason I like adventure memoirs so much right now is a mix of COVID and the weather. We can’t travel or go most places due to COVID. While I may be on the edge of what’s considered The South, our summer is very southern. Above a certain few point, I don’t go outside unless it’s absolutely necessary.

It’s such a favorite genre that I don’t want to get burned out on it. I may need a break come September. Maybe a magical school book…

One Lie at a Time

I decided to listen to Delilah’s audiobook of One Heart at a Time. I’d listened to her radio show a handful of times and liked it well enough.

It quickly becomes abundantly clear she’s very into Jesus. I’m not a fan of organized religion but I decide to keep going.

I got to the part about her late son Zack. It’s sad and beautiful and heartbreaking until she said something that made me mad as hell. She said the anti-depressants were “poison” and the reason her son took his life.

I am spitting mad.

I’m on anti-depressants and they make my life so much better. They let me be myself. They let me be a better person, mother, and wife. Delilah blaming the meds will put people off them who could have benefitted from them. Other mothers may experience her pain because she wanted something to blame.

She said her son was over 18 so she wasn’t allowed to get involved in his treatment. Bull. If her son had spoken to his doctors and asked she be included, it would have happened. When you are unwell, you can’t always be your own best advocate. He knew he was unwell and did not ask his loving mother to help.

This was a failure of his doctors and her son to be his own advocate. Part of finding an anti-depressant is messing with different pills and dosages. Did anyone, especially Zack himself, tell his doctors her son’s personality fundamentally changed? That this drug wasn’t doing its job?

Was he in therapy? The triggers she mentions are major life events than can be worked out in therapy. How closely was he being monitored for averse reactions?

His illness killed him. It was not nor ever will be the damn pills. It’s tragic, it’s unfair, and stigmatizing treatment will only help it happen to other families. How dare you Delilah?

Casual Challenge Update

It’s the end of another quarter so it’s time to take stock of the various challenges I’m vaguely doing.

Personal Challenge

Author LGBTQ+ – Rolling in the Deep
Children’s Book – Goodnight Moon
Fiction – Wench
Nonfiction – Nomandland
Part of a series – In the Hall with a Knife

RITD is by Mira Grant. Grant is Seanan McGuire’s pseudonym and she’s a member of the alphabet mafia. Wench is definitely an interesting piece of fiction. I’ve gushed about Nomanland on here elsewhere. The hope for series was something in the middle of a series but I’m not sure that’s going to happen so here we are.

PopSugar Challenge

Author shares zodiac sign – There’s a Wocket in My Pocket
Locked room mystery – The Sanatorium
Genre hybrid – Ten
Set mostly outdoors – The Unlikely Thru-Hiker
Something broken on cover – Siri, Who Am I?
A book about fresh starts – Soulful Simplicity
Set in multiple countries – One Child
Somewhere I’d like to visit in 2021 – The 2020 Commission Report
Favorite prompt from past challenge (Passes Bechdel test) – Wench
Starts with Q, X, or Z – Zero Fail

Zodiac sign was arbitrary, annoying, and much harder to find out than I realized. I’ve realized I like the locked room mystery as a trope but not that particular work. Genre hybrid of YA and slasher horror. What’s more outdoors than a thru-hiking memoir? A broken phone screen is quite apt for this one. Fun fact, the one child policy in China caused an increase in interest in American surrogacy by Chinese nationals.

After not going anywhere in 2020, I’ll be happy to just go places in my area. An important aspect of Carver’s book is about starting over simply. Wench had a good bit of politics.

BookRiot Read Harder

Investigative nonfiction by a POC – One Child
Beloved pet where pet doesn’t die – Cold Cuts

Mei Fong being Malaysian-Chinese gave her a much more personal insight into the story of the one child policy. The main character in the godawful excuse of a book gets a pet wolf.

Reading Glasses

Attend a virtual book event – Red Widow
Get rid of books you’ll never read – April clean out

I attended a virtual book event for the spy thriller by Alam Katsu. She used to work in intelligence and I just got the book in from the library so I’m excited. I did a big April cleanout which was pretty liberating.

Professional Book Nerds

LGBTQ+ author – Rolling in the Deep
Nonfiction by a woman historian – One Child
Picture book – King Baby
Author from your city of state – Zero Fail

Whether Fong is a historian is debatable but she did a well researched book about an important piece of history so I’m counting it. King Baby is a fun children’s book by Kate Beaton. Since it has paper pages, I only read it to my son when he’s trapped in his crib. The law of grabity still applies at his age (he sees it, he grabs it). Being from the DC area has its perks sometimes. It’s not completely impossible to read a book from a fellow local without realizing.

52 Book Club

Set in a school – In the Hall with a Knife
Character with same name as male family member – Backcountry Lawman
Discussion questions – Clergyman’s Wife
Author has a 9 letter surname – Hench
Featuring the environment – The Unlikely Thru-Hiker
Featuring adoption – One Child
Rate 5 Stars – Nomadland
Published in 2021 – Zero Fail

Lawman is written by Bob Lee. My grandfather went by Bob. The 9 letter surname was arbitrary and annoying. A surprising number of Chinese adoptions were babies taken from unauthorized second pregnancies.

Books in the Freezer

Translation – Mexican Gothic
2021 Release – The Sanatorium
New to me author – Empire of Wild
BIPOC author – When No One Is Watching
YA – Ten
Less than 200 reviews on GoodReads – Cold Cuts

I didn’t realized Books in the Freezer was doing a challenge this year so I’m jumping on the bandwagon a little late. I know Garcia is fluent in English but Spanish is her native language. Should this count? IDK. I’ll swap it out if I manage to read a better fit for horror in translation. I’m going to try to do all spooky books for this. We’ll see what happens

Out in the Cold

It’s been a few years since I read a book I disliked so much my review was just a list of things wrong with the book. Cold Cuts by Robert Payne Cabeen now holds that dishonor.

It was given the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. It beat out Kill Creek by Scott Thomas. I now think less of the Bram Stoker Awards.

I’m not an expert on Antarctica but I know enough to see how many mistakes abound in Cabeen’s work. I was ready to jump onboard with mutant penguins but this is so much worse than a SyFy Channel movie.

Spoilers for a book I highly recommend you never read.

The Rant

You haven’t heard from your scientists in months and no one thought they might be in trouble? No one bothered to reach out to any other research stations to check on them?

Space is at a premium. No scientist who takes his work seriously would waste space on impractical blankets or an excess of action figures.

La-Z-Boy is moderately expensive. Why didn’t they buy a recliner from Costco and save $500? Yes, some of them are comfortable.

Antarctica is under multiple international protections so that you can’t even pee outside. Ozzy is not abandoning a chocolate cupcake wrapper in his vehicle that could escape into the wild.

No self-respecting scientist would disturb the wildlife there. It doesn’t matter if the animal will die. Multiple wildlife documentaries make this clear. You will lose your funding and status in the field unless you have all sorts of permission to tough the animal.

Any idiot who gets close enough to disturb the wildlife will see it’s a dangerous mutant that could kill them.

They are at the ass end of the world. How do they have better cable than half of rural America?

Either solar flares interrupt communication or they have cable. Pick one.

Speaking of cable, why is it all American? The nearest countries are part of South America or Australia.

All Ozzy has to eat is tofu and gummy vitamins. There is no way he put on ANY muscle mass. IDNGAF how much kickboxing he does.

How does a scientist not know increasing his metabolism in a starvation situation is dangerous?

The entire continent is too closely monitored for a white supremacist commando group to have any serious presence there.

The white supremacist commando group makes no fucking sense and adds nothing.

How does Ozzy go from being a fat slob to a badass action hero on a near starvation diet?

You can do all sorts of tae bo but hand to hand combat with trained military can’t be learned on TV. He would have gotten his ass whooped a dozen different ways.

Ozzy is not bringing a corpse inside to decompose with him. Antarctica is a desert. Let Ben mummify outside.

If a scientist with cancer couldn’t be taken home in the winter, Ozzy is not getting rescued until spring.

Giving Sayer a lisp after the plastic fork is tedious, annoying, and mildly confusing. If people with a tongue ring don’t lisp, neither does this guy.

The Brad and Chad penis debacle is barely funny and serves no purpose. I’d been skimming to make it through. I regret tuning back in for this.

The guy has been isolated for months. Nope. Let’s not get him a medic. He’s talking so he’s probably fine.

More impractical clothing. Glad to have more evidence Cabeen did no research whatsoever.

Sure. Let’s throw in a random sex scene. That making sense. It’s not like there’s a whole crew of people waiting for them or anything. 🙄

Wow. Cabeen has no idea how to write women.

Ozzy has been alone for months. I call BS on him lasting longer than 5 minutes

Did Cabeen forget Antarctica is a land mass? All research facilities would be on land.

Now Ozzy is Rambo? This is a fat loser fantasy story.

Apparently Cabeen can’t write dialogue for people from California either.

A woman with her intestines hanging out is making out with the medic trying to save her life. WTAF?

That’s not how icebergs work. At all.

In capable hands, all of this could have been fun. Instead, it’s profoundly terrible. I have absolutely no idea how it won an award. I will never read something because it has the Bram Stoker award label on it again.