Happy Canada Day, friends! I am celebrating by blocking off the afternoon to do nothing but read a book by a Canadian author, and will wear one of the three pieces of red clothing that I own. I am currently wearing an ancient red Tri-Y top, but it will be very sweaty before long.
Speaking of reading, I wanted to share my reading – and NOT reading – list from my recent trip to London and South Africa. Before my trip, I was chatting with my friend Nicole (HI NICOLE). She and I have had a monthly check-in since January 2018, and we’ve never missed a month, despite Covid, vacations, and a cross-province move. She is the person who best knows my reading taste, and she asked what I had loaded up my Kobo with. I cheerfully told her that it was mostly filled with random romances and other light-sounding books from the library and from the Kobo website; I had several very long flights and stopovers in my future, and I wanted the reading to be fluffy and fun.
And let me tell you, this was a mistake.
I’m the problem, hi, it’s me. Something I know about myself is that too many “light and fun” books in a row, and I start to become very unengaged with the tropey stories. I am also not a Spicy Romance girl; I find graphic sex scenes to be weirdly boring and, in the case of a few very descriptive anal ones, alarming. I have been known to inadvertently Kegel whilst reading them. I prefer a sexy, fade-to-black Closed Door Romance. I just don’t want to read about throbbing cocks penetrating wet pussies, I AM SORRY, BUT I DON’T.
Unrelated to spiciness, I plodded my way through The Friend Zone and Kitchen, and then I ran out of patience. I was in the midst of Ready or Not, which deals with a woman who gets accidentally pregnant from a one-night stand with a bartender, even though they used condoms, which, as we all know from sex ed and also from that stupid storyline of Ross and Rachel, are only 97% effective. Okay! But the pregnant woman is seemingly completely unaffected and unaware that her life is going to change, and starts a romance with her best friend’s brother, at which point I said ENOUGH. I started, and DNF’d, four more books IN A ROW: Book People, Strangers Tend To Tell Me Things, Exit Lane, And Then There Was You. I began to despair for myself as both a reader and as a writer.
Then something changed, and my reading life brightened up again. Thankfully! So here’s the low down on what I DID finish, the lows, the highs, and the in-betweens.
Vacation Reading: London and South Africa 2026
The Friend Zone. In my 20s, a friend told me she and her husband divorced because he wanted kids and she didn’t. “There’s no compromise,” she said. “It’s you have kids or you don’t.” That’s kind of the premise of this romance – a guy wants kids, a woman has extreme fibroids and maybe can’t, they never discuss it…you know what, this book is kind of dumb. But it was an easy read for travel and all’s well that ends well. Also, the author based it on her friend’s lived experience so…great for her, I guess? A meh read, kind of disappointing as I like this author generally.
Kitchen. This was a original little read about found family and the power of food to bring people together. I didn’t find it overly compelling or engaging, but it was short.
Why We Hate Cheap Things. Also titled, Why I Hate My Kobo Which Keeps Glitching So That I Read A Random Book In My London Hotel Room. But honestly, this WAS an interesting read about society’s devaluation of low-cost consumer goods, from pineapples, which once were extremely expensive and rare and are now frequently found on pizzas and in jello salads, to clothing. There was an entire series, with titles like Why We Will Marry The Wrong Person, but my Kobo started working again and we left London.
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife. Oh lordy did I need this refreshing little book after my string of DNF’s. This was very sweet, the definition of heart warming. After an elderly man dies, another is mistakenly taken for him – and as the dead man was a dementia patient, no one listens to his protests. Soon he assumes the nursing home life that the deceased had…and ends up with friends and family he never dreamed of. Just a fun, lovely little read.
Always Pack a Candle. This was fantastic. I very much enjoyed this memoir of a public health nurse who worked in the Williams Lake/ Cariboo region in BC in the 1960s. Thanks to Birchie (HI BIRCHIE) for the recommendation!
Hamnet. Late to the party but I loved, loved, loved this book! Maggie O’Farrell can WRITE, wow. This is such an incredibly loving and beautiful story about every mother’s worst imagining – the loss of her child. This is the kind of historical fiction that I love – often I dislike that genre, but this has beautiful writing, fascinating characters, and a rich story. I finished this on the plane and then thought I would watch the movie – and I lasted all of ten minutes before turning it off. Too soon? I don’t know.
Definitely a mixed bag of books, and my ongoing resolution to DNF more was definitely upheld. What are you reading these days, what have you DNF’d, tell me everything. xo
Might I suggest that you check out “The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano”? It’s about the same topic as The Friend Zone, but it’s so well done. It’s about a couple that has differing views on having children and the 9 ways the woman’s life might have played out based on different decisions (they don’t have kids and stay married, they do have kids and stay married, etc, etc). I really really liked it and read her sophomore novel in June.
Right now I am reading “Culpability” and it’s so good, especially with all the chatter around AI. It’s my book club book for August when I am the leader and it’s going to make for such a great discussion!
I should have DNF’d Into the Blue but I had to see what all the buzz was about. I would skip it. Books I DNF’d recently were “Love By the Book” (I was so bored!), “The Reservation” (quite a buzzy book but the change in POV in each chapter was not working for me and I did not care who took the gd steaks from the restaurant), and “With Her Own Hands” (sadly our July book club book but it read very academic – I need more of a narrative non-fiction structure to a book).
Happy Canada Day! I dream of visiting you in your lovely province some day!!! I’ll come crash your house and eat all your delicious veggie-laden meals (I’ll do the dishes! And weed! And walk Rexie!) and we can talk about books and gossip!
I used to teach Kitchen in a World Lit by Women class when I was a grad student. We could pick our own books but there was a list of recommendations and it was on it. I liked it pretty well (I think, it was a long time ago– LAST CENTURY).
Hamnet is a gem.
I have four books in progress right now: The 1619 Project (which I’ve been meaning to read for years, not as dense as I feared), The Rose Field (last book in the Book of Dust trilogy, more complicated than it needs to be, but I have to know how it ends), Tokyo Express (a Japanese mystery from the 1950s, just started so no judgement), and Brigands and Breadknives (cozy fantasy, a fun palate cleanser). If I had to pick one for you, it would actually be the history book.
I LOVED Always Pack a Candle (I think that’s how Birchie heard about it; can’t remember how I heard about it??). AND… Birchie let me know she has a follow-up book. I cannot wait to read it.
I’m currently reading My Life in France by Julia Child and it is long and wonderful and I will be so sad when it’s over. Perfect bedtime reading to calm the nervous system.
I feel like I’ve DNF’d a lot recently, but I don’t really keep track of those books. Maybe I should??
I started The Let Them book since it is SO BIG right now but could not get through it. Earlier this week I finished Theo of Golden which is having a moment. It was good, but I didn’t love it.
AND, my first stack of paper books is in for me at my library. I paused all my holds when we went away. It is going to be so weird to not read off a Kobo. I generally prefer paper books, but have to admit that it is so nice to not have a big stack cluttering up my bedside table, so I think I’ll lean more heavily on my Kobo during non-travel times, too.
I TOO FIND GRAPHIC SEX SCENES UNAPPEALING. I like the descriptor “boring.” I am going to mull that over to see if it fits my feelings too. If I’d had to pick a word before reading, I think I would have gone with “cringe” or “unappealing,” but I like the vibe of “boring.”
I am always interested in your books section, because I take so many of the recommendations, like a lil vampire. I recently read the Frederick Fife one and enjoyed it so much.
The irony of a random book in a London hotel being more interesting than the fluffy books on your Kobo! That one about marriage actually sounds interesting too.
Why are so many books so DUMB? I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m slowly slogging through “The Life List” in French. I find the story infuriatingly stupid and unrealistic, but it’s actually perfect for language learning because I understand more of it than an Agatha Christie book. Which probably should have warned me.
PS: KEGEL!! That was hilarious!! 😂😂
I don’t care for super graphic sex scenes either. Don’t might a sexy situation that lets your mind fill in the rest. Always Pack a Candle sounds good, just checked my Libby app and they don’t have an audio version which is always my first choice, but putting it on my to read later list……..which is growing by leaps and bounds. Watched the movie Hamnet and found it very dark and depressing so removed the book from my to read list. Have been surprised by how highly it’s been rated. Glad you’re out of your rut of DNF, we all go through that. Too many good books to keep reading one you’re not enjoying.
It’s strange how we are alike in many ways, but often diverge on our tastes in reading. I love Kitchen. I read it twice, once when I was in my early 20s and now again because the kids have rediscovered her & my daughter loves her. I find her writing to be sparse yet so beautiful. Oh my Kobo! The glitching is so bad! It just freezes and you have to try to jiggle the power button just right to get it to turn back on. Having cut ties with Amazon, I wish another company would come up with a reliable ereader option! We’ve put humans in space, you’d think we could accomplish that. In my opinion it would be a better use of techies’ minds than creating AI (which seems to be ensuring we reach new levels of illiteracy).
Does Barnes and Noble still have the Nook? My husband has an old one that he loves.
Happy Canada Day! My Canadian husband is the result of a failed condom! LOL.
I am relieved that you loved Hamnet, because I loved it so much. I wish you had loved the film, I had to go out and buy the DVD I loved it so much. Perhaps a second try will win you over, perhaps not.
OMG on the throbbing cocks and wet pussies in books. I abhor them. Yes, give me a good closed door scene and I’m all in. I was listening to a book with VERY spicy sex scenes They All Fall in Love at the End while wandering the grocery store aisles and it was a little unnerving. Thankfully they weren’t too long.
I just read and then immediately re-read (listened to) The Things We Never Say and I also finished reading (physical book) Whistler and immediately started it over again. Sometimes good writing does that to me and I want to jump back in with the full knowledge of the book and look at how masterfully they handle everything. LOVE IT.
The Jimenez book sounds interesting in theory, but I will admit that I get tired of books where the trope is that people do not communicate. I am that trope however. My mom realized that my dad was my dad (she thought she was already pregnant with her ex-husband’s baby when I was conceived…it was the 60s) when I was maybe 4, and didn’t tell him until I was 21. He and his wife (whom he had not yet met when I was conceived) ran into me and my mom when I was maybe 3, and after saying hi and catching up a bit and then parting, his wife said, “Are you sure that’s not your kid? She looks just like you”, and he said something like, “I think she would have told me…” UGH. I mean, I could have had many more years with my dad and sisters, even though we still would never have lived in the same state or anything…
I do not like reading on a device, but during travel is the perfect exception to that rule. So wonderful to be able to find more books so quickly and just start reading them. Do I need a nook or something before my next big trip? Hmmm. Maybe I’ll stick with my app on my iPad (which I loathe – the app, not the iPad.)
Happy Canada Day! I’ll be spending it watching Wimbledon. It’s SOOO HOT here, so I’m inside, blinds drawn, AC on. You know about my last awful rom-com read (by a Canadian author no less). But then I read Annabel Monaghan’s DOLLY ALL THE TIME, and loved it, thus redeeming the genre for me. I have yet to read on a Kobo or Kindle! So behind the times, but yes, they would be great for travel. Pineapples do NOT belong on a pizza – I stand by that.
I know exactly what you mean about when light and fluffy goes wrong. Dryer lint is also light and fluffy, but it’s the vibe that I’m after in my reading. I also don’t want an open door, especially not an open back door. Offhand Promise Me Sunshine is the only romance that I’ve read and enjoyed recently.
There’s a sequel to Always Pack a Candle called Always on Call that for some reason is not available on Kindle or the library so I bought the physical book. I’m looking forward to it, but since I own it I don’t have the time pressure of a library checkout time to force me to start it.
I keep hearing good things about Hamnet, so I’m tempted. I read a Maggie O’Farrell book a long time ago that I didn’t like on a “I don’t want to read this author ever again” level, but I feel like I might want to revisit her and see if just maybe I’m missing out.
You crack me up! What a bummer to have a streak of bad books along with a glitching KOBO. Frederick Fife sounds like a good one to me. I find I’m liking plots with older characters more and more lately. I hope you have a lovely afternoon of reading! Happy Canada Day!