Ask Reading Habits: Pop thrillers, sci-fi romps, and more
Welcome to Ask Reading Habits, the monthly book advice column where I share recommendations based on the interests you send me. Respond to this email or leave a comment below with any info you want to share — genres you like or want to get into, a vibe or mood you’re going for, a theme you want to explore, other media you like/dislike — and I’ll get back to you personally and share some highlights in next month’s letter!
“I like pop-y pulpy [thrillers] like Gillian Flynn and Tana French but some of it is so bad it’s hard to believe anyone every proofread it. (Looking at The Woman in the Window and Sometimes I Lie—how are these so popular?)”
Okay first, lol, yes. Some of them are so hard to read because the story itself is good but the writing is just rough. One I really enjoyed, though, was The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. It was a little heavy-handed as far as, like, cultural commentary—it's about a series of murders that occur at Cambridge University, and it just so happens that the girls being killed are part of a secret girls-only club led by (of course!) a hot young professor—but I was too quick to feel smug about how obvious it was and then I was blindsided by the twist. I also just really liked the protagonist, a therapist who comes to Cambridge to help her niece through her grief—she was good friends with the first girl to be killed—and ends up sticking around to investigate. A lot of interesting stuff on the sidelines about the classics and depictions of tragedy.
“Baby is due in about five weeks so I feel like I’m going to have a LOT of audiobook time during the early days of feeding time loops and newborn tedium so would love to load up the queue with some engaging but easy listens. Interested in stories about motherhood, too, and I’m curious what has spoken to you since becoming a mom.”
I mentioned it in the last letter, but I LOVED the Sally Rooney audiobook, and now will probably listen to her earlier books as well.
If you enjoyed the LuLaRoe doc, you should definitely listen to Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell, which is all about the language of cults and gets into everything from Scientology to MLMs and beyond. It's the perfect balance between analytical and entertaining.
For motherhood stories, I'd say try Wayward by Dana Spiotta, which was a very standard but beautifully written domestic novel about a woman in middle age trying to rediscover her purpose and independence and role in society while her daughter goes through teenage drama and her own mother is dealing with cancer. Made me cry, especially in her descriptions of early motherhood and the pain of such intense love.
A great memoir made even better by the author's narration is Surviving the White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll, which I loved so much I picked it for the BuzzFeed Book Club last year. Rebecca is a Black woman who was adopted by white liberal/hippie parents and, because of this, grew up as the only Black person in their rural New Hampshire neighborhood. It's all about her upbringing and her figuring out who she is, managing her ambivalence toward her adopted parents and her young, white birth mother (who she meets as a tween and has a very complicated relationship with), navigating her racial identity. Really illuminating and moving.
“I like a good sci-fi or fantasy romp too! I’m talking like N.K. Jemisin, not ones that make you like have to do math or understand orbital mechanics or whatever.”
The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel!!! I'm not a big reader of straight sci-fi ("straight" as in adherent to the genre tropes, not as in about straight people) but Lincoln's is really accessible, and I never felt too in-the-weeds in his world-building. It's about Kobo, a self-made cyborg in a dystopian near-ish future—it's become commonplace to swap out body parts for better mechanical ones—but he's deep in debt for all of his “upgrades.” He works as a scout for the Big Pharma–run MLB, but looking for promising researchers instead of players since all of the players are now constantly pumped up with scary meds. His brother is a super-famous player for the Monsanto Mets (lol) but when he's murdered on the field, Kobo is determined to find out who did it. It's so, so fun and smart (some of his names for dystopian-future NYC made me actually laugh out loud) with a good amount of noir intrigue—reads very Blade Runner both in mood and in its critiques of capitalism.
“I'm always interested in mysteries and thrillers, especially starring female PIs a la Kristen Lepionka's Roxane Weary series.”
If you haven't read Long Bright River by Liz Moore yet, *do it*. It's about Mickey, a woman cop in Philadelphia who's trying to find her missing, recently estranged sister who's addicted to opioids. But it's also about motherhood—Mickey is a single mother trying to protect her son while she falls deeper into an obsessive search for her sister, which becomes even more dangerous when she starts to suspect (of course) there's some police corruption afoot. Mickey is so complex, and Liz Moore goes into her rough childhood, the history of her relationship with her sister, how they became estranged. One of my favorite books of last year, and it's out in paperback now.
Gone Missing in Harlem by Karla FC Holloway is more under-the-radar but hits a lot of the notes you mentioned—female-led mystery/thriller, historical fiction, very much about motherhood. It’s about the Mosby family in early 20th-century Harlem; widowed matriarch DeLilah has to send her young son to extended family in the South after he witnesses a mob murder. Years later, her daughter Selma’s baby is taken from her stroller when Selma steps away for just a minute, and the family can’t get the NYPD to care, until the department’s first Black officer gets involved.
“I always greatly appreciate recs for great historical fiction that's a little more under the radar, and I'd love to get more into short stories.”
One of those books I couldn't stop talking about for a long time: Sansei and Sensibility by Karen Tei Yamashita. It's a short story collection from indie press fave Coffee House Press, a sort of retelling of Jane Austen stories/characters through the lens of Japanese American women. A lot of family drama and legacy, exploration of varied immigrant experiences, Japanese history, and just really great writing. I ran one of my favorite stories from the collection on BuzzFeed last year.
Want your own personalized recommendations? Reply to this email or comment below with anything you want to share:
- Genres you like or are interested in getting into
- Authors you like; authors you don’t like
- Books you’ve recently liked; books you’ve recently disliked
- A vibe or mood you’re going for
- A life event you want to complement/get through
- A theme you want to explore
- Other media (especially TV and movies) you love
- If you prefer new releases
- Anything else!
