Here are the four books I read back in February:

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor works in an office where she does her job diligently, if unimaginatively, says the wrong things (which are exactly what she’s thinking), doesn’t go out at night or on the weekend, and doesn’t have friends. Until one night when she wins tickets to a concert at the office and, fearing someone will ask her how it was, she goes and sees the man of her dreams. She understands, then, that it was destiny that brought her there and that she must apply herself to meeting the man (the singer of the local warm-up band) and to explaining they are meant for one another. (Her mother has long declared that Eleanor must wait until she finds a man of refinement worthy of their attention, and she’s eager to connive her way into this relationship through their weekly torturous phone calls.) This unlikely event kicks off a journey of self-improvement and self-discovery for Eleanor, opening her up to the possibilities that come from awkward interactions with the kindly new IT guy, Raymond, whom she’s walking next to on the way to the bus when they see a man pass out in the street.

The story, told partially through email, texts, and other ephemera, is set at a deliberate pace, but is ultimately full of heart. The first part of the book irritated me with its slowness, but I came to appreciate it as time went on and as I gained more insight into Eleanor’s character. After all, plot and character growth in our own lives is also uneven, with setbacks countering progress and days of wheel-spinning interspersed among steps toward full self-realization. Highly recommended.

Pages: 327. Library copy.

Wonder Woman: Warbringer, by Leigh Bardugo

In this young adult take on the story of how Diana, princess of the Amazons, becomes Wonder Woman, hero of the Western world, Diana sees a boat explode off the coast of Themyscira and sees a young woman struggling to survive. She rescues her to find she is a teenager, like herself, but she is far from home (New York) and there is a penalty among Diana’s people for bringing humans into her world. Before Diana can decide how to proceed, her fellow Amazons start falling ill and Diana learns from the island’s Muse that the girl, Alia Keralis, is responsible, being a descendent of Helen of Troy and, thus, destined to bring war, turmoil, and death in her wake. The Muse suggests that Diana should let the girl die to right the situation among the Amazons, but Diana decides there must be another way. There is, but it won’t be easy and it will involve a surprise trip to New York City and some new friends along the way.

I thought this was a well-told, multi-layered story with developed characters and a fast plot, particularly in the latter half. When I got to the end, I was glad I owned it because I felt I’d missed a lot of the background, particularly with regards to Greek mythology and that a re-read would earn me additional information. This is the first of the D.C. Icons series, each of which is written by a different author and which reveal the teen versions of D.C. Comics’ most beloved superheroes.

Pages: 364. Personal copy.

Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz

Editor Susan Ryeland has her weekend planned: she’s got her favorite reading snacks and drinks, a weekend away from her boyfriend, and the latest manuscript of her most famous author, mystery novelist Alan Conway. But this is no relating of a delightful weekend, because Susan warns us at the outset that reading this manuscript brought her nothing but woe and changed her life forever. And with that, we are deposited into the story, what is meant to be the final book in the series about a detective, Atticus Pünd, who bears a close resemblance to Hercules Poirot. In that story, the aging detective is brought to a small English village to solve the death of a young woman’s soon-to-be mother-in-law. Characters are introduced, the plot is twisted, other deaths occur. And, because we all understand how English mysteries work, we wait for the famous detective to explain to the otherwise competent police inspector the who’s and why’s. Except … that doesn’t happen.

It turns out that the final few chapters of the manuscript are missing. Susan goes into the office on Monday expecting to find there’s been a copying mix-up, but soon learns that’s not the case. Oh, and to make it worse, Alan Conway has killed himself over the weekend.

Susan is nothing if not meticulous, though, and will act as her own sort of detective to track down the end of her writer’s final work. The pages must be somewhere, after all… But where?

I liked this book, which I listened to (and which had different readers for Conway’s novel and Susan’s story), well enough, but it was clear that Horowitz thought himself cleverer than I did. The book kept referencing the tv show Midsomer Murder, which Horowitz wrote scripts for, which seemed particularly gauche. I’d guessed the ending of Susan’s story, but not the reasoning and found the book’s motives were less compelling than the ones I’d expected. (Lest you think I’m tooting my own horn, my mother and I compared notes and we’d both expected the same plot. Plot twists are certainly in keeping with mysteries, but you’re supposed to feel that the author has given superlative hints all along that after the twist is revealed make you think how clever they are to have done so, not to think, “Really?! That’s what you’re going with?!”

That said, the story was certainly compelling and lots of people really liked it. I just would have liked my version better.

Pages: 502. Library (audiobook via Overdrive).

The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, by Sun-mi Hwang (Translated by Chi-Young Kim)

After seeing a chicken in the yard with chicks, Sprout the laying hen loses interest in her primary function — and in life in general. If she cannot raise a chick from one of her eggs, what point is there to going on? She tries to escape (assuming freedom from her coop is all that’s missing from her path to motherhood), is rescued from a weasel by a lame mallard duck and her own will to live, and ultimately takes on the role of foster mother to a duck whose own mother was killed by the weasel. The book raises questions of individuality vs. group expectations, personal freedom, motherhood, sacrifice, and, ultimately, following your dream.

I’ve seen this South Korean fable (which I picked up to read during the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang) compared to Charlotte’s Web in a variety of places, and the D.C. Library has catalogued it as a children’s book. However, I’d argue the better comparison is to Animal Farm, since both are short novellas with adult themes. A child could read The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, but then I read Animal Farm when I was in elementary school. I understood the basic themes, but probably missed some of the nuance and I assume the same would be true here.

Apparently there’s an anime version of the book. I found the book rather grim, but some people like that, preferring their reading to follow the contours of real life. I’m just not one of them.

Pages: 134. Library.

Total Pages: 1327

Because I was having a mopey weekend, I did not finish knitting my sock. However, as you can see, I’m past the heel turn, so it’s all fast knitting from here. I’m going to an author talk tomorrow, so hope to be able to bang out several inches then. Then it’ll just be a question of whether I start something new before the Tour de France knit along or work on something unfinished. We have a trip during that time, so there will definitely need to be some portable projects.

On the reading front, I’m nearly done with The Hazel Wood (so close I can practically taste the ending — as it will include some perilous acts, I probably won’t want to taste it, though). It is excellent, and I recommend it to all who love YA fantasy novels. Murder at Brightwell was the mystery I took with me to New York; light paperbacks travel well. Plus, rain was predicted and I thought my book might get wet, so better it be something I owned, rather than a library book. In the ears, I’ve had the second Lady Sherlock novel by Sherry Thomas, A Conspiracy in Belgravia, going and I am enjoying it immensely so far.

Finally, I need to return to Little Fires Everywhere, which is overdue and which has a very long wait list resenting my cavalier approach to deadlines. I plan to give it back to the library this weekend.

If you’d like to see what other people are reading and knitting, head over to As Kat Knits for Unraveled Wednesday.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday asks us to consider ten books that we may have given up on too soon. I have a whole category of book in Goodreads called On Hiatus (currently hovering around 90 books) and while sometimes that category includes books that have needed to go back to the library before I could finish them, more often than not those books are never going to be cycled back to without prompting. Here are some I’ve reconsidered:

1. Walden & Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: Karen and I were going to slog through this book together, but I kept abandoning it on her.
2. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History: Jenn sent me a copy of this, but like many literary darlings, it’s darker than I like and seemed to take itself awfully seriously.
3. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman: Because I do science for a living (and because it’s not a passion of mine), reading about it in my spare time feels like work. It’s a funny book, though, and I will return to it someday when I’m no longer doing science.
4. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: I will often abandon books when they reach a turning point where the choice characters seem likely to make seems ominous. (It does not always follow that the decision is ominous, it turns out, according to some other books I’ve returned to after a time out.)
5. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury: This was just a wrong book at the wrong time. I suspect I will actually like this one, based on what I’d read, and do plan to get back to it.
6. Mindy Kalig’s Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me?: I tried to listen to this after finishing Tina Fey’s and Amy Pohler’s books and should have given myself more time before starting another comedian’s memoir. She’s a funny woman and I’d like to give it another listen at some point.
7. Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart: I think this must have dropped into this category because I had to return the book to the library and the holds list was long. I enjoyed the part I read, and I should probably pick it back up and give it another shot, since they’re going to make a tv series (or movie maybe?) based on it.
8. Jason Reynolds’ When I Was the Greatest: This was another turning point put-down. However, since I’ve liked every other Jason Reynolds book I’ve read, I should at least give it another try (not the least because it features a character learning to knit to deal with stress).
9. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders: Ultimately, I’m hoping this is a format problem and that switching to the paper book, rather than trying to listen to it, may fix it.
10. Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South: I was listening to a podcast reading of this and then I just pretty much ceased listening to podcasts. I do still listen to audiobooks, though, so I should just request this one from the library.

How about you? Do you give up on books, even when they become a slog? Do you second guess that decision at all? And if yes, what books have you reconsidered giving another shot to?

As I mentioned last week, I wanted to share the last three books I read way back in January in the hopes of moving forward with sharing other things I read:

A Properly Unhaunted Place by William Alexander with illustrations by Kelly Murphy

In the wake of a family tragedy, Rosa Díaz and her mother have moved to a new town, Ingot, and settled into the basement apartment of the library where her mother is employed. This would be hard enough by itself, but it turns out that Ingot is a ghost-free town (perhaps the only one in America) and her mother is a ghost-appeasement specialist. Rosa heads out to explore the town and immediately runs into Jasper Chevalier and his father, the Black (as in African American, not as in evil) knight who helps run the town’s most famous attraction, its Renaissance Festival. She tags along and is surprised when an malevolent apparition invades the festival — and then no one but she and Jasper recognize it for what it was. It will take all the ghostly negotiating skills Rosa’s developed — and her new-found friendship — to prevent massive catastrophes from affecting her new town and her family.

I loved this short fantasy novel as a bookish adult and can only imagine how much more I would have loved it if I’d read it as a bookish kid. Highly recommended to those who love libraries, ghosts, or Renn faire culture. It does get dark for a while (these are decidedly not friendly ghosts), so my only caveat would be that it could cause sensitive kids nightmares.

Pages: 192

A Good Byline by Jill Orr

In this mystery set in a small Virginia town, Riley Ellison is a bit of a mess. Her longtime boyfriend has moved to Colorado to find himself while skiing and she’s stalled career-wise, resuming the job she had as a high school student at the library, and everyone in her town thinks of her as “poor Riley” because she had what they thought of as a very public meltdown when her grandfather, the former obituary writer for the local newspaper, died several years back. She’s thinking positive thoughts now, though, and has signed up for a dating service. But then her childhood best friend turns up dead, with a suicide note by her side, and her boss ends up in a bit of a pickle and her boyfriend breaks up with her and her date goes sideways and she meets a weird reporter from the paper. Did I mention the dead friend was also a reporter? Yeah.

This was a very earnest mystery that I wanted to like more than I did because it was set locally. I felt better about feeling like the author was throwing everything into the pot when I learned she wasn’t local. It’s not a bad book and I’d consider reading the second in the series because I’d like to see if she wraps up the loose end from this book in it, but probably only if I see it on the shelf. I won’t be actively pursuing this lead.

Pages: 280

Real Friends by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham

In this middle-grade graphic memoir, Shannon tells the story of her childhood growing up in Salt Lake City, recollects her best (and mostly only) friend Adrienne, and recounts what happens when Adrienne starts wanting to hang out with another girl, the uber-popular Jen and her clique of popular girls.

The book deals with bullying and mental health issues and was the sort of story I really wished had existed when I was in third grade and struggling with mean-girl issues and friendship. I would give this sweet story to every elementary school kid you know, but particularly the ones who you know are still looking for their family of friends and their space in the world. It’s something to back up your assurances that “it gets better.”

Pages: 224

Part 1 and Part 2 of January.

Next up: February! (Because next week is June!)

This is The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, which is a really most excellent modern fairy tale that I am trying my very best to pace out over several days and not read through in a single sitting, but it’s really hard because it’s SOOOO good. Plus, look at that cover! (The end papers match, with a black background, silver flowers, and golden branches.) It’s designed by Jim Tierney, who has designed a lot of other cool covers, including Frogkisser!

I’m also still reading Killers of the Flower Moon, which is very good, despite my slow read of it; Little Fires Everywhere, which is a stressful slow burn (pun intended); Norse Mythology, which is a fun dishwashing listen and for which it is virtually impossible not to imagine the Marvel movie actors as Neil Gaiman reads about the gods’ adventures (although Lady Sif is way off from her actress); and Solo, which is interesting because I don’t fully know where it’s going to end up.

I suspect all five of these will be done by the end of the long weekend. And then on to new literary adventures!

On the needles I’m working on sock #2 of my In the Wildwood socks, which might also wrap up this weekend, depending on how much sitting time I get. I’m enjoying them, which means another stripey pair is likely to follow.

Check out As Kat Knits for more knitting and reading!

I’ve decided I’m going to take part in Mere et Filles’ Summer Book Bingo again. Take part might be a generous turn of phrase, since I use my card’s categories to pick some things to read between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but not everything and I don’t really worry about finishing the whole card or even a row.

That’s just how I roll around here.

Anyway, here is my card for the summer, and I look forward to filling in some of those categories starting this weekend.

Do you have summer reading plans yet?