1962, two virgins on their wedding night in a hotel on the coast of England. Flashes back and forth between their disastrous first night, and their respective childhoods and history together. Be prepared for a depressing ending. Compelling; I, er, finished quickly.

by Maggie O’Farrell

I hated this book. Such one-dimensional characters (and way too many characters, too). Shakespeare’s abusive father John is all bad. Agnes’ stepmother Joan is all bad; no drop of affection whatsoever for two children she raised from babies. Shakespeare’s mother Mary is a dolt; I never thought less of the two main characters, with whom we’re supposed to feel sympathy, than when they literally laughed at Mary behind her back for being upset that her son was moving to London.

A couple of the characters see Agnes not as a mysterious woodsprite but as an imbecile. I thought it was an interesting perspective and chose to see her this way through the remainder of the book, which helped me get through it.

And hate it I did! I wanted them all to get the plague.

by Thomas Hardy

He should have remained obscure. No, seriously, as a story, it was pretty horrid. a young man’s hopes and dreams are stymied one by one. As a statement on matrimony and contemporary mores, I get it.

“And so… the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the preceding few weeks. What was remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore.”

In various ways, the story aimed to show the ludicrousness of this entire situation.

by Cass R. Sunstein

Not what I thought it would be…. It seemed mostly about nudges. He’s covered nudges elsewhere.

by Willa Cather

A little tragedy about a gay-hearted young woman in the early 20th century Great Plains. It really brought a feel for the times and the location. I liked it as a story; it kept me reading; though sometimes it risked getting a little too talky-feely. And I wish things could have gone better for Lucy.

Part of it reminded me of THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin, particularly this: “Since then she had changed so much in her thoughts, in her ways, even in her looks, that she might wonder she knew herself – except that the changes were all in the direction of becoming more and more herself.”

Why she had to lie to her old beau, implying something had happened that hadn’t – and really why she couldn’t marry him in the first place: “She had tried to tell him the truth about a feeling; but a feeling meant nothing to him, he had to be clubbed by a situation.” I love that, “clubbed by a situation.”

by Madeleine L’Engle

Actually had never read this. It was a little wacky. But it all kind of made sense and had a good ending.

by Anne Bronte

I wish the middle had been much, much shorter. Very repetitive, and the protagonists were each over-the-top good or over-the-top bad. I was drawn in by the beginning section; it felt like it was going to be a slightly humorous family light comic novel. Bait & switch! It’s PAMELA/CLARISSA all over again. But I’d try another Bronte.

by Katherine May

Winter as a metaphor for hard times in your life.

“We like to imagine that it’s possible for life to be one eternal summer & that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves.” That’s why I recommend the anti-gratitude journal.

“Have we really got so far into the realm of electric light and central heating that the rhythm of the year is irrelevant to us…” That was me when I lived in the city. All I cared about was how heavy a jacket to wear. Or maybe it was because I was young. I have such a yearly rhythm now, though.

“Misery is not an option [sarcasm]. We must carry on looking jolly for the sake of the crowd.” Ha. I always hated the mandate to be happy.

Regarding someone with bouts of mania and depression, a GP changed her life by saying, “This isn’t about you getting better. This is about you living the best life you can with the parameters that you have.” Isn’t that what it’s about for all of us?

by Michael Cunningham

This was a good story and a realistic depiction of middle age – a realistic middle-aged marriage, realistic middle-aged sex, realistic middle-aged insomnia. I loved that he woke up at 3 am every night and I love that he took pills for it. AND vodka.

by Delia Owens

Spoiler at the bottom.

Pros:
I like to read about strong independent women. I liked that she had a calling that involved both art and science.

Cons:
I had a bad reaction to an early scene. The young child Kya is hungry, and she gets a chance to go to school and have hot chicken pie for lunch. At lunchtime some kids make fun of her. So she doesn’t eat her pie. She stuffs it into her milk carton and brings it home – and feeds it to gulls. This reminds me of a scene in A LITTLE PRINCESS where the hungry girl Sara Crewe is given a penny by a pitying little boy – and she doesn’t use it to buy a loaf of bread, she “bore a hole in it” to wear around her neck. These authors know nothing about hunger.

And second, I saw the ending immediately. SPOILER IS HERE. This is chick lit. Of course she killed the guy and of course it was because he sexually assaulted her. It’s always like that in chick lit. If it’s not secret parentage and secret pregnancies, it’s secret sexual assault.