February Books, 2026
Mar. 4th, 2026 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amado1Total: 12 books
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens;
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe;
- The Maids by Jean Genet;
- Deathwatch by Jean Genet;
- In Memoriam by Alice Winn;
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov;
- Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy;
- The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore;
- The Catholic by David Plante;
- The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage;
- Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx;
- Translations by Brian Friel.
Deeply, deeply liked most of these. Unusually hard to pick a favorite for this month because almost all of them were excellent. I'll just highlight the exceptions, and the ones I feel are worth raving about.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood - always avoided reading this particular Dickens book as a kid. I knew it was unfinished and for a long time assumed it was also unpublished. I went to the bathroom in the middle of typing this and when I came back my dog had pissed on my laptop keyboard. Anyway. I liked this one for how easy it is to read as gay; Jasper seems to be either in love or sexually obsessed with his nephew, and with his role as choir director and his respected position in the church town where they live ... delicious. Then there's the Romantic Friendship between Rosa Bud and Helena, who likes to dress as a boy...
In Memoriam - pleasant surprise. Fairly recent publication, m/m set in WWI. Two wealthy public school boys go off to war, at slightly different times. Ellwood is a lithe, privileged romantic who adores poetry and sees war as a heroic playground; he's a bit of a bully to other students, but charming enough to get away with it. Gaunt is a hulking boxer, quiet, pacifistic, and cynical, with a German mother at home and cousins in Munich. The early parts of the novel establish that Gaunt is in love with Ellwood, who is as openly gay and flamboyant as possible in WWI-era England, but he assumes Ellwood doesn't love him back. When his uncle is detained for spying, Gaunt signs up for war a year early, to defend his family name. As soon as he can, Ellwood joins him, but the months they've spent apart have turned Gaunt into a cold, unfriendly person, and a neurotic traumatized mess. As the novel goes on, their roles reverse; Ellwood's patriotism and sunny demeanor are ground to dust, and Gaunt emerges stable, calm, and with a new love for England.
Half His Age - not my cup of tea whatsoever. I really liked McCurdy's memoir and assumed I'd love this, her first novel. But to me, it was a wreck. I have no objections to the storyline - it's your typical "transgressive" teacher/student story, and McCurdy tries to give it an extra twist here and there (having the student make the first move and sexually assault the teacher; including some very explicit and gross-out sex scenes). But her writing is, at base, just not very good. Short, staccato sentences with no variation to rhythm. Long lists of product names repeated over and over again to little or no effect. The transgressive scenes hit my ear as a bit try-hard and insincere; the effort is there, but I think that there's nothing really transgressive, in and of itself, in describing the teacher as unattractive. If she was capable of injecting some eroticism into his ugliness I'd feel different.
The Pumpkin Spice Cafe - I gave this a 1-star rating. Cozy romance can definitely work for me, if the writing is good. This one needed a few more rounds with the editor. Several chapters were padded out with endless, circular interior monologue that failed to advance either character development or plot; dialogue often veered too closely to pointless conversation. Conversation can be fun, when we're learning something - but that wasn't the case here, most of the time. Also, this is a minor complaint, but I felt like the attempts to set up future books in the series were unusually clumsy, and unusually constrictive; nearly every Kindle Unlimited romance I've read has done this smoothly, making you ship the characters while also leaving enough of their dynamic ambiguous so the author has freedom to explore it later. In the book, every time a new character is introduced, you're immediately introduced to their future lover too, and explicitly told that they're in love, and what their dynamic is (nerd/jock, enemies to lovers, etc).
The Catholic - supposedly a gay classic. I was kind to myself and DNF'd it. It had a very strong start - we meet the main character as a Catholic schoolboy, fantasizing about erotic encounters between missionaries and Native Americans. Later he acts those fantasies out in the bathtub with his brother. This opening has nothing to do with the rest of the novel, which follows the main character as an introspective but very dull young man as he plunges into the world of gay sex. The title is deceptive; we don't get much religious guilt or theological musings from this guy, and what we do get fades away fast and never crops up again. Mostly, the plot is about him realizing he's not actually in love with his partner but with the ideal of him. He comes to this conclusion immediately upon meeting him and spends the rest of the book rediscovering it over and over again without changing anything. It's tedious, frankly.
The Power of the Dog - amazing. Delicious prose and pacing, mysterious dialogue that you can really sink your teeth into. Mature character dynamics and development. The movie adaptation follows the book remarkably well, but if you haven't seen it: the book follows Phil Burbank, oldest son of two rich New Englanders who settled in Montana to start a ranch. The old folks are gone, and Phil runs the ranch with his brother George. Their relationship is tightly enmeshed, very codependent; Phil is celibate and determined that George should be, too. But George betrays him by falling in love with a woman named Rose, marrying her in secret, and moving her into the ranch house. Phil engages in psychological warfare with Rose and has thoroughly broken her by the time her teenage son Peter comes to stay for the summer.
Peter and Phil are identical, and opposites. Both are gay, both are brilliant, and both are fundamentally unkind. But Phil protects himself by projecting the perfect Western Masculine ideal; he uses bad grammar on purpose, refuses to wash, and takes pride in his down-country skills. Peter appears immune to the judgment of homophobes; he openly engages in "sissy" hobbies like making paper flowers and doesn't react when the ranch-hands cat-call him. Phil becomes fascinated by Peter; his efforts at friendship start off as sheer manipulation and then turn into genuine attraction. But Peter, although also attracted to Phil, is loyal to his mother above all else, and coldly determined to remove any obstacles that prevent her from being happy.
I think the book does a better job of foreshadowing the ending than the movie does. But I also think that's intentional. The advantage of a novel is that you can peek into characters' minds, see what they're thinking. We know very early on that this book will end with Phil's death at Peter's hands. But one of the central elements of this novel is Peter's appearance -- waifish, weak, innocent-looking. He can't help his appearance or the judgments people make about him. I think the movie was correct to embrace that and turn the ending into more of a twist; the viewer, just like Phil, makes judgments about Peter, and so you spend most of the movie thinking of him as an innocent victim. The murder of Phil seems to come out of left field. Subsequent rewatches reward you; you deconstruct your judgments and see the evidence planted rather slyly throughout the film that Peter isn't as weak or innocent as he seems.
Close Range - also loved this one. Proulx's prose is a little over-tooled for my taste, but that's all it is - a matter of taste. Not an objective flaw. What really charmed me here is the mix of harrowing grit and tall-tale magic. And I was very fond of the frankness and casualness with which sexual assault is treated. Rape is a constant threat in Proulx's Wyoming, but it's not life-ending. It's just a fact of life, and the women in her stories handle it the same way they'd handle a breached calf. I found it very refreshing and relatable; my editing prof shared that one of her female friends found it repugnant and offensive, so your mileage may vary.
Translations - excellent, complex play about imperialism, set in Ireland in the 1830s. Hugh, an aging alcoholic and former (failed) revolutionary runs a hedge-school with his disabled son Manus. They speak only Irish in the school, and in the town. Hugh refuses to teach English. But one day his older son Owen (handsome, successful, bright) returns home with a pair of English soldiers in tow. They're mapping the country, and they've hired Owen to help them translate the traditional Irish names and "standardize" them for the map. There's a lot of juicy stuff going on here, and every viewpoint is given enough humanity and nuance to make you chew on it for day. Worth noting are Maire and Yolland. Maire is the eldest daughter of 10, doomed to a life of poverty and hard work. She's the only person in town who has a realistic expectation of potato blight in the near-future. English is a necessity for her; she MUST learn it, so she can support her sisters. Yolland is an English soldier whose heart isn't in it. He loves Ireland; he's charmed by the countryside and the people, and wants to learn the language, but senses he'll never be accepted here. As the play unfurls, Maire and Yolland come together and then are torn apart, with disastrous consequences for the town.
The message isn't a simple one; it's not as easy as, "Oh, if only we'd been nice to that poor English boy." And it's also not as simple as, "That English boy is working for the bad guys, he deserves to die." The play leaves you with a lot of questions and no answers, which I think is its intent. You come away firmly impressed that Imperialism Is Bad, but just as uncertain/divided as the protagonists are when it comes to practical ways to fix it.
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens;
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe;
- The Maids by Jean Genet;
- Deathwatch by Jean Genet;
- In Memoriam by Alice Winn;
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov;
- Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy;
- The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore;
- The Catholic by David Plante;
- The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage;
- Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx;
- Translations by Brian Friel.
Deeply, deeply liked most of these. Unusually hard to pick a favorite for this month because almost all of them were excellent. I'll just highlight the exceptions, and the ones I feel are worth raving about.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood - always avoided reading this particular Dickens book as a kid. I knew it was unfinished and for a long time assumed it was also unpublished. I went to the bathroom in the middle of typing this and when I came back my dog had pissed on my laptop keyboard. Anyway. I liked this one for how easy it is to read as gay; Jasper seems to be either in love or sexually obsessed with his nephew, and with his role as choir director and his respected position in the church town where they live ... delicious. Then there's the Romantic Friendship between Rosa Bud and Helena, who likes to dress as a boy...
In Memoriam - pleasant surprise. Fairly recent publication, m/m set in WWI. Two wealthy public school boys go off to war, at slightly different times. Ellwood is a lithe, privileged romantic who adores poetry and sees war as a heroic playground; he's a bit of a bully to other students, but charming enough to get away with it. Gaunt is a hulking boxer, quiet, pacifistic, and cynical, with a German mother at home and cousins in Munich. The early parts of the novel establish that Gaunt is in love with Ellwood, who is as openly gay and flamboyant as possible in WWI-era England, but he assumes Ellwood doesn't love him back. When his uncle is detained for spying, Gaunt signs up for war a year early, to defend his family name. As soon as he can, Ellwood joins him, but the months they've spent apart have turned Gaunt into a cold, unfriendly person, and a neurotic traumatized mess. As the novel goes on, their roles reverse; Ellwood's patriotism and sunny demeanor are ground to dust, and Gaunt emerges stable, calm, and with a new love for England.
Half His Age - not my cup of tea whatsoever. I really liked McCurdy's memoir and assumed I'd love this, her first novel. But to me, it was a wreck. I have no objections to the storyline - it's your typical "transgressive" teacher/student story, and McCurdy tries to give it an extra twist here and there (having the student make the first move and sexually assault the teacher; including some very explicit and gross-out sex scenes). But her writing is, at base, just not very good. Short, staccato sentences with no variation to rhythm. Long lists of product names repeated over and over again to little or no effect. The transgressive scenes hit my ear as a bit try-hard and insincere; the effort is there, but I think that there's nothing really transgressive, in and of itself, in describing the teacher as unattractive. If she was capable of injecting some eroticism into his ugliness I'd feel different.
The Pumpkin Spice Cafe - I gave this a 1-star rating. Cozy romance can definitely work for me, if the writing is good. This one needed a few more rounds with the editor. Several chapters were padded out with endless, circular interior monologue that failed to advance either character development or plot; dialogue often veered too closely to pointless conversation. Conversation can be fun, when we're learning something - but that wasn't the case here, most of the time. Also, this is a minor complaint, but I felt like the attempts to set up future books in the series were unusually clumsy, and unusually constrictive; nearly every Kindle Unlimited romance I've read has done this smoothly, making you ship the characters while also leaving enough of their dynamic ambiguous so the author has freedom to explore it later. In the book, every time a new character is introduced, you're immediately introduced to their future lover too, and explicitly told that they're in love, and what their dynamic is (nerd/jock, enemies to lovers, etc).
The Catholic - supposedly a gay classic. I was kind to myself and DNF'd it. It had a very strong start - we meet the main character as a Catholic schoolboy, fantasizing about erotic encounters between missionaries and Native Americans. Later he acts those fantasies out in the bathtub with his brother. This opening has nothing to do with the rest of the novel, which follows the main character as an introspective but very dull young man as he plunges into the world of gay sex. The title is deceptive; we don't get much religious guilt or theological musings from this guy, and what we do get fades away fast and never crops up again. Mostly, the plot is about him realizing he's not actually in love with his partner but with the ideal of him. He comes to this conclusion immediately upon meeting him and spends the rest of the book rediscovering it over and over again without changing anything. It's tedious, frankly.
The Power of the Dog - amazing. Delicious prose and pacing, mysterious dialogue that you can really sink your teeth into. Mature character dynamics and development. The movie adaptation follows the book remarkably well, but if you haven't seen it: the book follows Phil Burbank, oldest son of two rich New Englanders who settled in Montana to start a ranch. The old folks are gone, and Phil runs the ranch with his brother George. Their relationship is tightly enmeshed, very codependent; Phil is celibate and determined that George should be, too. But George betrays him by falling in love with a woman named Rose, marrying her in secret, and moving her into the ranch house. Phil engages in psychological warfare with Rose and has thoroughly broken her by the time her teenage son Peter comes to stay for the summer.
Peter and Phil are identical, and opposites. Both are gay, both are brilliant, and both are fundamentally unkind. But Phil protects himself by projecting the perfect Western Masculine ideal; he uses bad grammar on purpose, refuses to wash, and takes pride in his down-country skills. Peter appears immune to the judgment of homophobes; he openly engages in "sissy" hobbies like making paper flowers and doesn't react when the ranch-hands cat-call him. Phil becomes fascinated by Peter; his efforts at friendship start off as sheer manipulation and then turn into genuine attraction. But Peter, although also attracted to Phil, is loyal to his mother above all else, and coldly determined to remove any obstacles that prevent her from being happy.
I think the book does a better job of foreshadowing the ending than the movie does. But I also think that's intentional. The advantage of a novel is that you can peek into characters' minds, see what they're thinking. We know very early on that this book will end with Phil's death at Peter's hands. But one of the central elements of this novel is Peter's appearance -- waifish, weak, innocent-looking. He can't help his appearance or the judgments people make about him. I think the movie was correct to embrace that and turn the ending into more of a twist; the viewer, just like Phil, makes judgments about Peter, and so you spend most of the movie thinking of him as an innocent victim. The murder of Phil seems to come out of left field. Subsequent rewatches reward you; you deconstruct your judgments and see the evidence planted rather slyly throughout the film that Peter isn't as weak or innocent as he seems.
Close Range - also loved this one. Proulx's prose is a little over-tooled for my taste, but that's all it is - a matter of taste. Not an objective flaw. What really charmed me here is the mix of harrowing grit and tall-tale magic. And I was very fond of the frankness and casualness with which sexual assault is treated. Rape is a constant threat in Proulx's Wyoming, but it's not life-ending. It's just a fact of life, and the women in her stories handle it the same way they'd handle a breached calf. I found it very refreshing and relatable; my editing prof shared that one of her female friends found it repugnant and offensive, so your mileage may vary.
Translations - excellent, complex play about imperialism, set in Ireland in the 1830s. Hugh, an aging alcoholic and former (failed) revolutionary runs a hedge-school with his disabled son Manus. They speak only Irish in the school, and in the town. Hugh refuses to teach English. But one day his older son Owen (handsome, successful, bright) returns home with a pair of English soldiers in tow. They're mapping the country, and they've hired Owen to help them translate the traditional Irish names and "standardize" them for the map. There's a lot of juicy stuff going on here, and every viewpoint is given enough humanity and nuance to make you chew on it for day. Worth noting are Maire and Yolland. Maire is the eldest daughter of 10, doomed to a life of poverty and hard work. She's the only person in town who has a realistic expectation of potato blight in the near-future. English is a necessity for her; she MUST learn it, so she can support her sisters. Yolland is an English soldier whose heart isn't in it. He loves Ireland; he's charmed by the countryside and the people, and wants to learn the language, but senses he'll never be accepted here. As the play unfurls, Maire and Yolland come together and then are torn apart, with disastrous consequences for the town.
The message isn't a simple one; it's not as easy as, "Oh, if only we'd been nice to that poor English boy." And it's also not as simple as, "That English boy is working for the bad guys, he deserves to die." The play leaves you with a lot of questions and no answers, which I think is its intent. You come away firmly impressed that Imperialism Is Bad, but just as uncertain/divided as the protagonists are when it comes to practical ways to fix it.
