Yeah, if you read the author’s notes at the back, she herself calls it “native Nancy Drew”.
And I did very much enjoy it, though that’s doubtless influenced by the fact that it’s a near-perfect match for what my school is looking for in a summer reading book (I’m on the committee for choosing next summer’s books, which is the reason why I read it in the first place).
Ha! I usually do read authors’ notes, but I didn’t for this one–I think I finished it just before I needed to go someplace, and said I’d return, but unlike MacArthur I forgot. The book still hasn’t gone back to the library, so it’s not too late.
I don’t know what your summer reading criteria are, but I’d think this would be an excellent choice. (says the guy who’s spent his career in education and educational publishing) Thanks for posting about it earlier. I’ll probably try her first novel as well.
I got halfway through the first book and I haven’t picked it up again. I can’t really articulate why. I get distracted by other books very quickly, I’ve DNFed as many books as I’ve Fed. My main complaint is that it just didn’t feel very suspenseful.
Finished Good Girls Don’t Die, it was a thriller in which different women played out scenarios with their lives at stake. Really held my interest throughout.
And now for something completely different: Ghosts, a collection of stories by Edith Wharton.
I finished the audiobook of A Rip Through Time by Kelley Armstrong. 14 hours read in 3 days, damn thing just grabbed me by the shirt front and dragged me along.
@DZedNConfused This fascinates me, because I take forever to finish audio books. What did you do with your body while you were listening? Were you on a road trip or something? Unless I’m sick or too tired to keep my eyes open, I feel like I need to do something else while I’m listening to an audio book, like put laundry away or something. I feel awkward just sitting down somewhere and listening.
Interesting. It’s my favorite McCarthy book, just ahead of Blood Meridian, and I don’t at all consider it in the same genre as Station Eleven or other post-apocalyptic novels.
The Road isn’t post-apocalyptic. It’s just plain old apocalyptic.
The genre, in general, wrestles with the question: how do you build something new after unimaginable tragedy? And that’s a wonderful theme, and a wonderful question. But The Road asks a different question: how do you survive in the absence of hope? And that’s a much rarer question, and just as worth asking.
There’s no real hope in the book. Even the ending doesn’t really provide anything resembling hope. It seems pretty clear that the world is over, at least for a few aeons until complex life can re-evolve from simpler organisms. It’s horribly bleak. And the repetitive nature was, I thought, part of that theme: it’s peripatetic, but instead of the normal Huck Finn-like adventures that you have on such journeys, it’s just, “Nope, there really isn’t any hope, what now?”
I picked it up on a whim at my inlaws’ house a couple decades ago, and stayed up reading it until about 3am. It really stuck with me.
Okay, my own reading so far this year (I’m gonna try to get back into these threads, because I really enjoy reading other folks’ thoughts):
Because Internet: Understanding New Rules of Language. My brother gave me this for Christmas, and I loved it. It’s 2019, so already a little dated (written before Elon Musk/Twitter), but recognizes itself as a snapshot. The author is a linguist whose life study is how Internet communication is changing language, and she delights in the study of the changes rather than scolding people about using correct capitals and periods. My favorite part was the chapter on emojis, proposing that we understand them less as words and more as gestures, and tying them into some really interesting work on the “grammar” of gestures in oral language.
The Destroyer of Worlds: It’s the sequel to Lovecraft Country. Didja like the original? Didja like the HBO show? You’ll like this one. It doesn’t really break any new ground, but Matt Ruff is a fun author.
Critical Mass. It’s a sequel to a book I didn’t read, so it’s already got that strike against it. It’s about ten pages of story pasted on top of four hundred pages of technical specs. Woof. That said, the technical specs are really interesting: it explores in great detail how to use the mass of a single asteroid to bootstrap a space station in orbit near the moon, and then use that (plus other technology) to build a railgun on the moon that shoots a buttload of regolith into orbit, and then use that (plus other technology) to build a network of solar panels around the Earth that can supply limitless clean energy to Earthlings. Plus cryptocurrency? Very libertarian, very technocratic, and I got me some problems with all that; but I still finished the book, because as lousy as it was as fiction, the science was intriguing.
Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little: @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness Does Not Love Moxy Mawell. I read it so I could teach it with a third grade book, based on the recommendation of a school librarian. The main character is an obnoxious self-centered kid who gets on my last nerve, and the author is too cute by half with her sense of humor, and I really wish I’d read something else. Fortunately it’s like a twenty-minute read; unfortunately I’m stuck with the book until my third graders finish it.
To each his own, obviously, but that kind of thing is like kryptonite to me in books, I get how other people may like a book like that, but for me? if there is no hope I don’t see a reason to read on.
My wife would probably like The Road, she likes dystopic books, we once had a conversation about it and she pointed out that I too like dystopic books.
I agreed but added that no matter how dystopic a book, if there’s not at least a glimmer of hope that things will change for the better then I’m out (I’ve never read 1984 for example, and don’t intend to, I know a lot about it anyway due to cultural osmosis). She doesn’t have that problem.
I tried to read it and had to give up when the libertarianism got too heavy, and I had read the first book and liked it.
I listen to audio books either on my daily walk, or when I’m driving anywhere longer than 30 minutes. That’s why it takes me a long time to finish books these days. If I listen to an audio book at home in my recliner, I will invariably fall asleep.
In a perfect world, I would be able to check out a book from an online library (like Libby), and be able to read it one day, and listen to it the next.
Just finished:
Arkwright, by Allen Steele
Now reading:
Silver on the Road, first book of the Devil’s West trilogy by Laura Anne Gilman
Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England’s Kings and Queens, by David Mitchell
Up next:
Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson
I’m not posting much because it’s taking forever to get through Grave Expectations: I’m enjoying it so far, but I’ve been tired and every night I keep falling asleep after just a few pages. 
Maybe I’ll be able to put a dent in it this weekend.
Ooooo, that sounds interesting…I love linguistics, and just downloaded the sample to my Kindle. Thanks!
Finished The English Civil War: A People’s History, which I didn’t much like, probably because it wasn’t what I was looking for (I wanted a straightforward history, I got a meandering mix of anthropology, personal narratives and cursory description of important events, probably intended for someone who already knows the straightforward history of the times and wants something more).
Now reading Render unto Caesar by Gilliam Bradshaw, about a Greek businessman trying to keep his head about the troubled waters of early imperial Rome.
Totally get it, and I have to be in the right mood for it. I can read a John Le Carre novel about once every five years. That’s how long it takes for me to forget how much he makes me want to hide under the bed. It helps that McCarthy’s writing is absolutely gorgeous, and perfectly suited to the bleak subject.
Again, totally get it. I just realized an excellent fanwank, though: these stories work wonderfully as a prequel to the Expanse series, with the latter series showing just how well “libertarianism in space” works out in the long run.
Ha!, that’s good.
The first book was more moderate in it’s libertarianism, the billionaire “genius” even proved himself to be a somewhat of a swindler and all around bad person, when the 2nd started trying to rehabilitate him it got to a point where I said “nope” and bailed out.
Resurrection Walk, Michael Connelly, the latest (I think) Bosch/Haller book in the series. In this one, Bosch is working for Haller as his investigator. Like most of Connelly’s books, it flows well and the story is engaging. The only issue I have with it is that he keeps switching back and forth between 1st person and 3rd person narrative.
Seems like a valid take to me. I can see why someone would have that takeaway from the book. I found the repetition boring, and not in an arty way. I also don’t see the point in surviving if there’s no hope. So I guess that didn’t strike me as a particularly relevant question.
But 1984 doesn’t have the same problem as The Road. I’m reminded of the popular belief that you can’t have a horror story without hope. 1984 is full of hope, the fact that hope is squashed out at the end is not particularly a problem for me as a reader because I was engaged with the current of hope running throughout the story. The Road does not offer any possibility that things are going to get better, there’s not even a clear end-goal other than getting to the coast for reasons that aren’t explained, and it’s just a slog with no apparent purpose. That’s going to kill narrative drive. As I said before, I’ve read and enjoyed plenty of dark stuff, but those dark things were dynamic and engaging. This one didn’t land for me.
But I know how 1984 ends, as I said because of cultural osmosis, “he loved big brother” is an unescapable quote.
For the same reason I couldn’t get into The Terror by Dan Simmons, the book is about the Erebus and Terror expedition to the artic and I happen to know how that ended.
That said, yes The Road is even worse than 1984 in that regard.
Well, if you don’t like stories that end badly, I understand that. Or maybe you just don’t like knowing the ending ahead of time.
It’s just not an issue I have personally, and The Road (in my opinion) ends on a weirdly upbeat deus ex machina note which undermines its apparently intended meaning. If the point is that there’s no hope, and then persevering with no hope is rewarded with hope at the end, well that’s a different message. The message then becomes, if you persevere without hope, something good might happen, which is altogether different than the message that you can still find meaning in the complete absence of hope.
I just really had a hard time with this one. But look, one of my favorite books on Earth is vocally loathed by many, so YMMV.