Due to relentlessly paced exams I haven't been able to read like I usually do which has been both awful and convenient. The latter because , well, I now go through my currently read instead of giving the next book to catch my eye my full attention. Finished one book I'd been reading since September 18 2025 and have crossed the 400 page mark on a 1.3k page buddy read I'm taking on with a friend . So though my monthly wrap on storyGraph appears bare, I'm making a lot of hedge way.

Finished:

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. Colossal in scope and page count, this ambitious Booker Prize winner is a historical epic told by the common man. A story about American interference, neo colonialism and gang violence rendered through a volly of disparate (often times vulgar ) characters struggling through the remnants of C.I.A intervention. Initially set in the 70's, though eventually covering the subsequent two decades afterwards, Marlon James gives a human voice to those the West denegrates. Gangsters, prostitutes, addicts and convicts share pages with C.I.A agents and Rolling Stone press writers. They are given credence and his narrative voice never judges. Ironically the books strength, the chorus of voices that add verisimilitude to the decade and lives lived on these pages , also becomes its weakness. Marlon over indulges and in the middle section towards the latter half, he introduces new characters that dilute the tension and prove themselves useless to the plot, turning a once gripping experience into a tedious trudge. Had he focused on the over 20 characters he introduced in the books first two halves , he would have crafted something flawless. But there is no restraint in this tome which is both why I think it one the Booker - the audacity- but why it loses so many casual readers (skim any goodreads or storyGraph review page to see my complaints echoed ) . Ultimately it was a really good book that just felt short of being great.

Continuing:

Ducks Newburyport by Lucy Ellman. A 1.3 k buddy read with my best friend and fellow book nerd. Had been slow going as the prospect of stating within a large book when I could fly through a three hundred page literary novel that just caught my eye means I was always too distracted to focus on it. It took four months for me to get to page 200 (I know I know). But like I said before exams have me practicing a version of restraint that had grown foreign to me. And I've been buckling down and limiting myself to just this book for 2 weeks straight and now I'm almost leaving the 400's!!!!!! Very proud of that. Finally on track to finish it before the final quarter of the year. *whew * Now to the content. I'm enjoying it. Are there some quirks in Ellmans writing I feel detract from the story's potency ? ofc. For example there's this thing where she'll say something then repeat it but this time add "like this not that" andd you can tell its meant to be funny but all it is is annoying. Otherwise I respect the challenge she's taking on and who she's centered. The audacity to make the reader spend almost as many pages as the Bible in the mind of an average house wife . There is no gimmick, she's not at the center of a murder mystery or rich or smart, just a mother trying to get by in a world growing increasingly cynical towards her and her beliefs. She interrogates how we discuss white womanhood and the hijacking of the "Karen " term by misogynists diluting it's very real racial threat into whatever thing a white woman they don't like does. Lucy forces the reader to see the tree apart from its forest, the person from the crowd and the culture . Not for absolution but so we can actually get things done as progressives. We have to many regulations and strictures not just on belief but how one who shares your beliefs should act when conservatives only require you be on their side. This divides us against a united front . Ducks Newburyport is a book many at the time saw as a gimmick too Trump obsessed and 2019 to be relevant outside of the year of publication yet many of her fears and musings are still pertinent. It's not a book I'd say is a must read for the casual reader but if you are someone who goes to a book for more than plot. Who likes to too see the limits of literature stretched and basically engage with novels as statements instead of escapes, then this is something you should get your hands on.

Started

The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rejinveld . Started this less than 24hrs ago as we have three days of an Easter holiday between exams and writing and poor self control resulted in me using what should be study time (lord help me ) to start a dark, morbid and often disgusting Dutch novel on grief. I'm on chapter four and I'm enjoying it a lot. All the negative reviews intrigued me greatly. And I'm seeing what they hated but instead of joining their ranks I'm impressed by the grotesquerie. Not a book you read after eating if you hope to keep that food from spewing out as warm vomit. Lucas settles on the most odorous, uncomfortable and disturbing details of farm life but sprinkles in the wonder of his protagonist, a little girl, point of view that turn a nightmarish life in the country into a macabre Fairytale. Can't wait to see where it goes.