The Great, the Better, and the Best: My Year in Books

This was quite the literary year for me. This year was the year I felt confident enough in my capabilities to start writing actual book reviews that would appear on actual websites that actual people read. I beat my previous record for books-read-in-a-year by a lot, and unlike the previous years, most of what I read was published this year. That’s right — I became a timely literary journalist! I had so much fun last year writing about the books that really stuck with me that I couldn’t wait to do it again. Unlike last year, this is actually a list of the greatest books I read this year. I had a plan to divide this list into two — the greats and the polished turds. In the spirit of staying positive, however, I won’t talk about the absolute stinkers of the year. But do not despair! If you’d like to hear me embark on an hours-long diatribe on what I think is unequivocally the worst book I’ve ever read, just ask me — I’m more than willing to oblige.

This is an extremely personal list. I am choosing not to write cut-and-dry reviews for each title, instead I explain why this book was so meaningful to me, and why it should be meaningful to you. Because it is 2016 and you cannot get anywhere without a little self-promotion, I have also attached links to my published reviews with their respective titles. Please read them and support those outlets as they have been so kind and helpful in publishing me this year.

Over For Rockwell by Uzodinma Okehi (2016)*
This novella is all over the place in all the right ways. The narrator, an aspiring comics artist, alternates between Hong Kong and New York City, working tirelessly at his art and grappling with his own self-doubt. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever once questioned themselves and their abilities. I owe a lot to Mr. Okehi and his brilliant debut novella. This was the first review I ever wrote, and without his encouragement, I would not have seen a future for myself in reviews.

The Bed Moved by Rebecca Schiff (2016)
Rebecca Schiff is part of the emerging genre of “slut lit,” which, according to the LA Review of Books, “remind[s] us how women’s bodies — no matter from what generation — have always been a sort of Rorschach test for society’s deeper anxieties about women’s roles.” Rebecca Schiff doesn’t approach issues of intimacy, sex, and death, she attacks and embraces them. This is easily the most powerful collection I have read this year, if not in my life. I think I have been spoiled by The Bed Moved, as nothing I read will ever feel as satisfying.

I Hate The Internet by Jarett Kobek (2016)
This is the weirdest fiction I have read this year because I spent all two hundred and eighty eight pages thinking it was true. Written more like a conspiracy theorist’s manifesto, Kobek’s novel uses made-up examples to explain to the audience why the popularity of the Internet will ruin us all. He weaves well-researched facts and statistics ranging from the development of technology to things it caused, such as gentrification, and cultural elitism, (to name a few) and is equally critical of notches on the political spectrum. Despite the criticism of Facebook, Twitter, and the like, there is absolutely no air of superiority about the author. He holds himself to the same standard as those he is critiquing. It takes a few chapters to get used to his tone, but overall this was a really fun, if not intensely thought-provoking, read.

Innocents and Others by Dana Spiotta (2016)
Equal parts a love letter to filmmaking and an ode to the power of female friendships, Innocents and Others follows the trajectory of two childhood friends as their paths diverge and converge while each follows their passion for film. Interspersed throughout their story is the one I find the most fascinating — a lonely blind woman in desolate upstate New York who learns the emotional consequences of trying to reach out to humanity. The other week a friend asked me to name someone I would consider a current version of David Foster Wallace. I had to consider what that meant — I chose to interpret his question as finding an author who wrote with the same empathy, sincerity, and devotion to truth as Wallace. I decided to go with Dana Spiotta, a former professor of mine (who, incidentally, asked me to contribute a question or two to a panel she sat on about DFW’s legacy in 2012). When I mentioned her, I had this novel in mind.

The Babysitter At Rest by Jen George (2016)
This debut collection is a haunting look at the anxieties that come with becoming a grown person. Published by my favorite small press project, The Dorothy Project, The Babysitter at Rest is a dream-like look at love, sex, and mortality. Jen George asks her readers to step into her narrators’ shoes as they take care of babies who never grow up, spend time in hospitals for unknown ailments, and form sexual relationships with much older instructors. I tried to write my review for this the day after the election, and it took hours of me staring at the blank screen and blinking cursor to put my thoughts into words. This collection was the escapism I needed during that tumultuous time, but also reassurance that in whatever I fear about my life I am not alone.

Women by Chloe Caldwell (2016)
If you’ve ever loved a woman — romantically, platonically, familially (full disclosure: I made up this word), or all of the above — stop what you’re doing and read this novella now. In 144 pages, I stepped into the nameless narrator’s shoes as she made sense of falling in love with a woman for the first time, and considered her relationship with her mother. She is, there is no better word for it, a mess — but love is messy. Reading this is not a huge time commitment, but it is a huge emotional commitment. Caldwell is an accomplished nonfiction writer, this being her only novel. I am very interested in seeing where her fiction career goes from here.

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler (2016)
What haven’t I already said about Sweetbitter? In her debut novel, Stephanie Danler mixes a passion for food and wine with a passion for passion into a story I could not stop talking about since I read it. A 22-year-old college graduate moves to New York City with nothing more than the ambition to carve out her existence. She takes a job at a restaurant (an unnamed, Union Square Cafe-adjacent fancy spot), and there her life begins. Sweetbitter has sex, drugs, and not rock ’n’ roll, but a lot of wine and oysters. I’m jealous of everyone I recommend it to — I wish I could experience reading it for the first time over and over again.

Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor (2014)
This collection is not for the faint of heart. Even calling up memories of these stories makes me squirm, but that’s why I couldn’t put the collection down. Kyle Minor tackles issues of family, class, love, and religion in middle America with a rawness I haven’t seen in other collections. The stories are brutal depictions of lives ruined and sometimes saved by faith. I’m a secular person, but the feelings of loss and yearning and terror still ring true with me.

The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr (2005)
Mary Karr is a mythic creature in my eyes. Though she is a graduate faculty member in creative writing at my alma mater, I couldn’t take a class with her nor did I ever see her walking down the hall of the department. I have frequently, however, ridden my bike past the house she David Foster Wallace rented in the early nineties to be closer to her. Given my obsession with her mythology, it’s hard to believe I didn’t pick up any of her memoirs until this year. In both The Liar’s Club and Cherry (which I am in the middle of as I write this), she writes of her gritty upbringing in rural east Texas with affection and nostalgia. Her parents were temperamental alcoholics, and her mother had a penchant for disappearing but their love for their children flowed freely (and in both directions). Mary Karr turns the most mundane childhood activities into emotional roller coasters. I would go back to school for a Masters just to sit in her memoir class.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014)
This novel is what happens if you mix the dismal future of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road with the wit and whimsy of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From The Goon Squad. Set 15 years after a flu pandemic wipes out most of the globe, Station Eleven follows a traveling troupe of actors making their way across the barren wasteland that was once the United States. The novel flits between that and certain events in these characters’ lives leading up to the moment the pandemic began. My favorite novels tie characters together from all over the globe with a few seemingly inconsequential actions (see: A Visit from the Goon Squad) and this is my new standard for stories that do this. I stayed up late on a Saturday night to finish this, as Halloween raged outside my window. It was 100% worth it.

Future Sex by Emily Witt (2016)
I described this book recently to a customer as “the best nonfiction I have read all year.” They had no reason to believe the words of a sleep-deprived 25-year-old in a yellow name tag, but I said it with such confidence that I saw them pluck the book off the display and march straight to the check-out line. I finished this collection of investigative pieces about the constantly changing sexual expression of the 35-and-under demographic, and thought about pivoting my own writing career away from short fiction and book reviews to writing about sex and relationships. Though Emily Witt frames each exploration in relation to her own sexual questions and quandaries, she is hardly a navel-gazer. She studies and participates in polyamory, orgasmic meditation, and attends Burning Man (among other things) without judgment, and with a passion for research. This book is pretty slight, and though she does her work justice, a voice like hers could write a thousand volumes on sex and relationships, and each idea would be more compelling than the last.

I’m Supposed to Protect You From All This by Nadja Spiegelman (2016)*
Just as Nadja Speigelman was just a footnote in her father’s Maus graphic novels (though, in fairness, he did dedicate the work to her), Art Speigelman gets maybe a sentence or two in this arresting memoir about her relationship with her mother, New Yorker art director Françoise Mouly and her maternal grandmother. There is so much love that flows between these three women, but there are also lies and fights, and the possibilities that not all memories are true. A third of the way through, I forgot the reason I picked it up was because of how much I loved her father’s work. This story is very much Nadja’s, and her mother’s and grandmother’s, own.

Other People We Married by Emma Straub (2011)*
I was a little critical of Emma Straub before I started this collection. Her full-length novels deal with affluent city-dwellers whose problems usually stem from living too comfortably. But Emma Straub studied under my favorite living writer (Lorrie Moore), so I wanted to give her a chance. Her debut collection echoes what I love so much about Lorrie Moore, but Emma Straub finds her own voice in stories about young women loving people they shouldn’t, finding their footing in a new home, and starting over in widowhood. I love quiet stories — the ones that let me ruminate on my own relationships without browbeating me with their themes. This collection is quiet and delicate, warm but not saccharine. I read recently that Emma Straub is looking to open a new bookstore in a shuttered Brooklyn storefront. Maybe she’ll give me a job.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (2013)*
It is impossible not to be completely heartbroken by anything Jhumpa Lahiri writes. Though published in 2013, I didn’t get to her most recent novel until this year, mostly due to laziness. As soon as I started it, I could not put it down but I also never wanted it to end. A multi-generational story (her winning formula) about fatherhood, loyalty, and heartbreak, I would argue that this is Lahiri’s best work (which is saying something, as she won a Pulitzer for her truly phenomenal debut story collection back in 1999). Lately she has only been publishing nonfiction, but I’m anxious to see what her next novel is.

Night Film by Marisha Pessl (2014)*
I’m not a mystery reader at all, but I decided to give this one a try because I loved Marisha Pessl’s debut novel from many years back. A disgraced ex-journalist wants to clear is name by solving the mystery of how a famously reclusive and controversial director’s daughter died. Much like Innocents and Others, this novel is a love letter to filmmaking as well as a terrifying thriller. There are secret societies, visits to the dark web, lost appendages, and a few small romantic gestures now and again. Marisha Pessl accomplishes some J.K. Rowling-level world building in her depiction of the director, his body of work, and his intense following. I scare easily, so I told my friends not to read this before bed.

I had to limit myself to only writing about fifteen titles, so I’d like to honorably mention some other brilliant books I read that I highly recommend
13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad (2016)
When Watched: Stories by Leopoldine Core (2016)
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010)
Prodigals: Stories by Greg Jackson (2016)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (1978)*

*Though I borrow most of my books from my job or the library, I actually own this one! Ask me to borrow it any time!