Long-time no see, right? Let’s see if I still have the ability to come here and write about my favourite topics. Even if we’re already long into April, today’s post is a February reading recap.
Why? First, because February had really interesting readings; second, because I’m a freak waiting for an opportunity to speak about books I’ve read and hear others’ opinions on them.
February reading recap totals 4 books, which are:
- “Yellowface”, by Rebecca F. Kuang,
- “My Brilliant Friend”, by Elena Ferrante,
- “Winter”, by Ali Smith,
- And “As Coisas Que Faltam”, by Rita da Nova.
Totalizing 1 078 pages, around 270 pages per book. And now, the usual book stats for February reading recap:
As always, the next part of this February reading recap contains spoilers – if you want to read any of these books, don’t forget to skip to the next blog post and come back once you’ve read them (and saved yourself the spoiler).
“Yellowface”, by Rebecca F. Kuang
(Goodreads | Storygraph)
“Yellowface” is a book about two close friends who went to Yale and studied together.
Only that, a couple of years later, only one of them has their dream come through. Becoming a best-selling author loved by America. Her name is Athena, with Chinese ascendence, resembles physical perfection, exceeding a lot of beauty standards.
On the other side, we have June. The “girl next door” type of woman, from a boring city whose last release was a total editorial flop.
This duo keeps a superficial friendship – at least on June’s end, who is fed by envy of all Athena’s achievements.
The two “friends” meet for their usual monthly drinks, finishing at Athena’s spectacular apartment and eating pancakes. That is until Athena chokes. Even though June tries her best, she isn’t able to save her, and Athena ends up dying choked in front of her.
However… Athena’s just finished manuscript unknown to the daylight is right there… Ready to change the fate of June’s literary career.
Presented with this type of opportunity, June takes it and decides she will honour her friend and bring that manuscript to life.
Focusing her next months on studying the topic of the book – Chinese labourers during the Second World War, and tuning Athena’s writing to fit her style.
When it comes to the time of presenting the manuscript to a publisher, she sees and feels what it’s like to be treated as a promising author; with the investment and involvement she hadn’t known in this world, as everyone recognizes the success this book can become.
But not everything could go June’s way and the backlash starts to arise between the literary social media crowd. It is because June changed her author’s name for this release (misleading the reader into believing she might have Asian roots when it’s a second name her hippie mother loved); and also because, as a white woman, June decides to write about Chinese history.
Haters start turning up and growing, and there’s one decided to haunt June as Athena’s ghost emerges. It is also here that a conflict starts with the editor’s intern, leading to her firing.
At the peak of her fame, June starts facing reputational crisis after reputational crisis, as she is accused of stealing Athena’s work. Spiralling into the thousands of theories built by herself, June ends up turning herself in and confessing the crime.
The ending, with an open finale, takes the reader through the madness spiral the main character was driven to.
The fast-paced narrative, short chapters and easy writing turned this book into a great reading experience and a perfect way to disconnect and relax – just what I like to do with reading.
The main character is obnoxious and insufferable from the first moment and shows no remorse whatsoever for her actions. She even sees the opportunity provided by Athena’s death (let’s remind ourselves, her friend) as some sort of karmic giveback from all she has “endured” in this “friendship”.
As we dive into the narrative, June only ever seems concerned about herself, her fame (which she considers deserved) and having her secret coming to light.
I love how Rebecca F. Kuang takes this character through such suffering and paranoia. The constant madness, craziness and insecurity as new haters turn up on social media, perfectly represent the fear and anxiety someone in these shoes might feel.
I’ve read from other reviews how this book is such a good take on the publishing and editing world – I couldn’t agree more. It is super interesting to have an insider perspective as a book lover. Understanding the process an author goes through adds a lot of value to the story while, simultaneously, approaching a more recurring topic which is cancel culture and how it can impact someone. Coming in the right place in this narrative, helps to build the main character as June struggles, at first, for average reasons and, later, for the actual not-so-conspiracy theories.
Even though this book was a great reading experience for me, I didn’t love its last pages as we enter a constant loop of new craziness per chapter, and it felt a bit repetitive even though I understood what Rebecca was doing. The finale per se seemed to me as farfetched.
It was still a very positive reading experience with a super engaging narrative that I value as a 4.5 out of 5 stars, the best in this February reading recap.
“My Brilliant Friend”, by Elena Ferrante
(Goodreads | Storygraph)
Now… Where do I even start with this one… I believe I mentioned before I always enjoy having a physical book to read on public transportation, in my get-back-to-reading recommendations, this one was it. However, this is usually a book that takes me around a month to read. “My Brilliant Friend” took me almost two months to finish – in the end, you will see it wasn’t all that bad.
The first book of Elena Ferrante’s “Neapolitan Novels” collection starts in contemporary times when our narrator and main character, Elena Greco (Lenú) receives a call from an old friend’s son saying his mother has left.
Breaking her own promise, Lenú, in 2010, starts writing everything she can recall from the two girls’ childhood back in Naples in 1950.
The duo was born in a neighbourhood where violence and poverty were a constant. Very few kids had access to education, but these two were part of the privileged ones.
Lenú’s friend, Lila, surprises everyone with her smartness, being top in class. The inseparable duo goes through school together but also through so many other adventures children live, like invading the contrabandist of the neighbourhood’s house.
Their lives start going different ways as Lila’s father refuses to continue to pay for her education; while Lenú has the opportunity to remain on this path.
However, as an ambitious young woman, Lila doesn’t stop there. In her free time, she starts going to her father’s shoe shop and dreaming of making shoes.
The reader follows these two friends as they grow, from children, into teenagers to young women.
Lila’s blossom starts bringing boys’ attention, especially Marcelo Solara’s – the son of one of the richest families in the neighbourhood. Marcelo starts courting Lila and bringing valuable gifts for her family to conquer her. But she doesn’t seem very convinced.
It is when Stefano, the son of the local market owner, appears in the picture that Lila sees a way of escaping the Solara family.
Lila and Stefano end up getting engaged and Lenú becomes a key person in the wedding organization, making Lila’s opinions heard and helping her friend have a wedding day of her choice. With constant referrals to social class and its magnitude especially in a context of poverty, “My Brilliant Friend” ends precisely with a fight between the attendees of the wedding and the way one side feels inferior when compared to the other.
I’d like to start my review by saying this book wasn’t my piece of cake and I’m glad it is in this February reading recap. I don’t think I could’ve handled it one more month.
Reading it on public transportation, mostly when going or coming from work, made me read some very graphic scenes of violence at eight in the morning. And I didn’t love it.
The friendship between the two is something that marked me. The always being there for each other, being each other’s partner in crime and safety when times get tough.
However close the two girls were, it is also the jealousy and competition between the duo: from school results to appearance, to knowledge and intelligence, to finally and at a more mature age, men’s attention. I love how this was portrayed and, sometimes, it took one or the other to hold themselves back. It contains an important reflection of how intrinsic the constant competition between women is in our society and how it is subconsciously pushed.
We support each other, we need each other, and we are there for each other. But I don’t want to look or seem weaker, behind or, worse, less. Especially in a time like the fifties and sixties, where it was a much more accurate reality of female connections. It is something our current society is working on but there is still a big path ahead.
Despite my strong thoughts on sagas and my initial thoughts on this book, I might give the “Neapolitan Novels” saga a chance.
“My Brilliant Friend” wasn’t an easy read: with one-page paragraphs with few stops and commas (José Saramago, is that you?), a lot of violent graphic descriptions that moved me; however, I’m willing to give this friendship a chance and continue to follow Lenú and Lila in the second volume.
A 3.75 out of 5 starts rating.
“Winter”, by Ali Smith
(Goodreads | Storygraph)
It isn’t news that I’m trying to read Ali Smith’s “Seasonal” quartet volumes each in the according season. You can read my “Autumn” review, the first volume, in the November 2023 Reading Recap.
In “Winter”, Ali presents a family living in Cornwall, in a timeline that intertwines two other stories: a woman who takes a disembodied child’s head with her (magical realism and Ali Smith truly are something) and a group of women protesting against nuclear weapons after the Second World War.
The family we first have contact with is very disconnected and lacks bonding.
The son, Art, after being left by his girlfriend named Charlotte (who, by the way, is also hijacking his nature-related blog), sees himself obliged to pay a thousand pounds for a woman to accompany him to his mother’s house on Christmas and pretend to be Charlotte (in reality, her name is Lux).
Art isn’t excited to come and, upon arrival, finds his mother in an advanced state of sickness. Lux suggests calling for his mother’s sister, Iris, to whom his mother hadn’t spoken in years.
When the two sisters are reunited, Sofia, the mother, freaks out. With Christmas energy in the background, the four seem to start bonding over the holidays and the union Lux brought to the family. The Croatian hired by Art bonds with his mother, Sophia, in an unexpected way and ends up revealing her identity.
Upon the family bonding, the sisters start recalling their time together growing up, during the war and we come to realize Iris is one of the women leading the protests and fighting against nuclear weapons. It is and happy ending kind of book as Christmas brings the type of joy and reunion one would expect.
Aligned with the female empowerment topic from “My Brilliant Friend”, this book had one of my favourite quotes about it: “A girl clearly headed for head girl (and head office, then head of her own business ahead of the pack at a time when girls aren’t meant to be ahead or a head of anything, which will be the first time in her life she finds herself quite so in the wrong, and about which she’ll inherit a fair level, no, an unfair level of guilt”. And I just couldn’t help myself from feeling the punch in my stomach from how much I relate myself to it. I don’t intend to start dissecting feminism right now, but it does make you think about it, doesn’t it?
As this was the second volume of Ali Smith’s “Seasonal” quartet, I had an easier reading experience as I already knew what to expect from the author’s writing. Also, I was no longer trying to decipher the magical realism elements and the network of timelines.
I found myself way more connected and involved with this story rather than with “Autumn”, leading to a faster reading.
Art was a character that annoyed me from the beginning: the type of relationship he has with his mother, the way he talks about it and his lack of will to go to Cornwall are poorly justified, making him come off as arrogant.
On the other hand, his mother, Sophia, was a lovable character who just needed someone to care for her.
The bond between Sophia and Lux became my favourite only to be surpassed by the bond between the two sisters. Making of Lux a connector element that leads these three characters into the right place of the narrative and provides with a Christmas miracle.
I also rated this a 3.75 out of 5 stars reading.
“As Coisas Que Faltam”, by Rita da Nova
(Goodreads | Storygraph)
Last but not least, comes the debut novel of Portuguese author Rita da Nova, “As Coisas Que Faltam”. It is a Portuguese novel currently only available in Portuguese – but we never know, am I right?
We are presented with Ana Luís, a little girl who has been raised by her mother and grandparents in a land in the North of Portugal. Her mother decides to move to Lisbon to provide her daughter with more opportunities. The little girl was so accustomed to a single-parent life that it wasn’t until her eighth birthday that she finally questioned her father’s presence.
From that moment on, Ana Luís starts imagining all possible scenarios, visualizing her father in other men she crosses paths with. It is, also, with another man’s presence in their lives, that Ana Luís starts her rebelling period. With the growth of her mother’s relationship with said man, Fernando, the two move into Fernando’s aunt’s house and Ana Luís finds herself in a new environment and a new familiar context.
As Ana Luís’ anger starts growing with her own father’s absence, it is on her eighteenth birthday that her mother provides her with his address and phone number, after being accused of pushing Ana Luís’ father away.
To hear her own father’s voice becomes her new mission and, after uncountable attempts, Ana Luís finally succeeds. Even if the outcome was her father asking her to stop contacting her.
Used to loneliness, our main character starts opening her social circles and meets Raúl – who would turn into her boyfriend.
In the initial honeymoon phase, the couple decides to move in together, representing Ana Luís’ emancipation from her mother. With whom, after so many years of co-living, there still isn’t any sort of bonding or true knowledge about each other.
The young couple’s honeymoon spirit quickly fades and Ana Luís sees herself, once again, in a co-living situation. Only in this case, Ana Luís imagines herself getting married while the simple thought of it angers Raúl.
The relationship, each time, more deteriorated and distant, is marked by the constant absence of Raúl. And it is, after one of his “work” trips and a love-making session, that Ana Luís hears a “I love you, Catarina”.
This moment represents a turning point in the story as Ana Luís spirals into depression being, once more, trampled and left by the men who should have an active positive role in her life.
By divine intervention, her mother appears and suggests Ana Luís to take a pregnancy test, seeing her daughter acting so out of character. It is a surprise when it comes positive.
Coming to Raúl with what she thought would be an exciting next stage of their life as a couple; reveals to be, once again, a disappointment as Raúl leaves her.
Once again, the mother’s instinct works like a charm and her mother welcomes her daughter back into their apartment.
For the first time in the book, we see mother and daughter finally talking openly about Ana Luís’ father and her mother decides to share with Ana Luís all the letters she wrote to him as the years went by, being returned with a note of “dead addressee”.
Ana Luís finally understands what her mother has been through and what she has put her through while growing up, with a partner that was also living a double life with another family. She also realises the effort her mother made to always make her feel like nothing was missing, the struggles, the attempts to compensate for a missing father figure.
The narrative ends with the reconciliation between mother and daughter and the birth of a new generation that brings hope of restarting the family.
Being such a huge fan of Rita da Nova, I can’t keep myself from feeling super excited after reading her first novel. “As Coisas Que Faltam” comes in an easy-to-read format with quick and small chapters.
To those growing up in Portugal in the eighties and nineties, a lot of what Ana Luís endured is relatable to a coming of age in this context.
However, I couldn’t help from feeling myself saturated from the constant use of metaphors that end up not adding to the story or characters. I felt a big necessity from the author to create more profound moments and passages where they didn’t exist nor needed to exist.
In addition to this point and through the narrative, there are several characters that, once purpose was fulfilled, disappeared: the high school friends, the friend from the factory, and the colleagues from the discography. Even if what they were adding both to the narrative and Ana Luís was clear, it felt a bit abrupt.
The ending of her relationship with Raúl and the similarities of the closure of her mother’s relationship with her father impacted me as it was portrayed as a cycle that needed breaking.
Ana Luís had spent her entire childhood and adolescence looking for something that, further on, she experienced first hand. I don’t believe there is an ending that brings more closure both to the reader and the character than this. To understand that what she missed her whole life, is something that, not even her wishes for her unborn child.
Whom, Ana Luís will probably experience what her mother experienced with her.
The outcome of the mother-daughter relationship pleased me as we kept seeing a dysfunctional relationship with compromise from both sides to flourish and continue to build something even after so many years.
In the end, this book for me deserves a 3.5 out of 5 stars rating.
I hope you have enjoyed this February reading recap even if the timing was a bit off.
What is the book on your bedside at the moment?