May Reading Recap

I had a fantastic reading month of three wonderful novels:

→ THE FIVE WOUNDS by Kirstin Valdez Quade: Amadeo has a lot of plans for getting his life back on track, starting with faithfully portraying Jesus in the Good Friday procession of the religious brotherhood he's recently joined. He doesn't have time to deal with the unannounced arrival of the pregnant teenage daughter he barely knows. Angel has her own newfound sense of purpose as she prepares for the birth of her baby. Though she's only 16 and hasn't made the best choices to end up in this situation, she can see that her plans are more sensible than her father's. Amadeo's mother, Yolanda, would like to do all she can to guide her son and granddaughter to better futures. She'd rather they not know her help will have to be limited, so she decides not to tell them about the brain tumor that's going to kill her in a few months.

THE FIVE WOUNDS has everything I want to read in a family novel: sympathetically flawed characters with believably complicated relationships, multiple viewpoints with distinct outlooks, and a story that balances deep emotion with humor. The humor Quade finds in the absurd details of life is key here in keeping an often sad and painful story from turning maudlin. I became quickly invested in the lives of these characters, and I continued to care even when they made frustrating choices. I am so impressed with the novel that grew from Quade's short story, and I look forward to more of her work.

→ GOOD COMPANY by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney: Flora and Margot's friendship began in New York City, when they were both young actors breaking into the theater scene. The friends were together when they met the men who would become their husbands, they saw each other through early successes and failures, and to their collective surprise, both couples ended up in Los Angeles. Flora has found steady work as a voice actor and raised a wonderful daughter, while Margot has become a huge TV star. As different as their lives have been from each other, and from what their young selves imagined, they've remained the best of friends. But Flora discovers troubling new information that makes her question everything that seemed settled and clear.

The discovery that launches the plot is a bit of a red herring, because this is not a book of twisty reveals but rather a compelling portrait of friendships and marriages evolving over time. I found the novel and its characters beautifully developed, with relationship dynamics and personal flaws that are complex and real. I also enjoyed the knowledgeable peek inside the two different acting worlds of NYC and LA. But until I understood that the initial hook was not the story, I was frustrated that flashbacks kept appearing every time the present day plot seemed about to move forward. That structure is best viewed not as a pacing problem but as a deliberate exploration of the way memories and experiences intertwine and small moments produce large consequences. This is a nuanced, emotional character story, and the secret that sets it in motion is only one step of a much longer journey.

→ FUGITIVE TELEMETRY by Martha Wells: In the newest installment of The Murderbot Diaries, our favorite Security Unit has to help solve a murder on a station where dead humans are an anomaly rather than an expected side effect of corporate operations. SecUnit is really only interested in this murder if there are indications that its own humans might be in danger, and it definitely isn't going to enjoy collaborating with the annoying humans who work in security on this annoying station. But with some clever deductions and a little more network access, maybe it can figure everything out and get back to watching media before it has to care about any of it.

I'd been looking forward to spending more time with Murderbot and was delighted to find this novella as excellent and satisfying as the rest. The mystery unfolds well and fuels an exciting plot. The portrayals of both the returning and new characters continue to be great, and it's especially fun in this series to watch dislike become grudging respect and even friendship. Note that this story takes place before NETWORK EFFECT, so if you're just starting out with Murderbot, you could read this novella after the others and save the novel for the end.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Naomi Kanakia explains the process of revising a book by exploding it in her mind: "It's very easy to write something in the text like, 'They were best friends!' But sometimes the problem is that they're not actually best friends. They just don't seem like, feel like, or act like best friends. The temptation here is to wade in and start forcing stuff into place, writing scenes where they swear eternal friendship, but the thing to do is first to just notice what is going on: What are the conflicts? What are the relationships? Not what do you want them to be–instead, what have you actually written?"