March brings breezes loud and shrill, stirs the dancing daffodil.
— Sara Coleridge
I read the first book on this list, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, over the course of a trip back to my hometown to see my little brother play the lead in his high school play. The last book on this list, Anatomy, I was reading when some of my college friends came to visit. I think the context in which we read books is important, not just for how we are consuming the media, but for how we feel while doing so. I hope that I always associate the memory of reading the last line of A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor one bus stop away from my apartment, returning home after a weekend of camaraderie and love. I even hope I remember ranting and raving about the stories in Sam the Cat to my roommate, always patient and wonderful.
Five years ago today, when I’m writing this, I finished reading my favorite book for the first time. Usually, when I tell people that my favorite book is Jurassic Park, I am met with a laugh and some version of, “I didn’t even know that it was a book.” (It is, and it’s phenomenal. I’m sure I’ll reread it soon—I have two copies, one that I’m constantly annotating and one that is nice and clean that I lend to trustworthy friends—and when I do, I’ll have a lot to say.)
Jurassic Park is, in my mind, a masterpiece of a novel. I think, though, one of the reasons I hold it so dearly in my heart is that I read it during some really important and wonderful moments in my life. The first time I read it was right after my high school’s production of “The Addams Family” had ended, in which I was Wednesday, as well as one of the student directors, co-president, and a part of the set design (so, basically, I was BUSY). I was running on the adrenaline of having put on a show that made me incredibly proud, alongside some of my closest friends and my twin brother, who played Gomez and was also a student director and co-president.
I knew that, after the play ended, the time I got to spend with my twin brother would decline dramatically. We still lived together, but we both were getting ready to go off to colleges far away from each other. I knew that everything was going to change.
I think we both had a sense of time passing, of that line in the sand, and we silently decided to take advantage of it. Once we got home from our busy days at school and extra-curriculars I remember just sitting together, doing our own things but enjoying each others’ company. And I’m sure I’m romanticizing the memories; I’m sure there were moments when we fought a bit, and I’m sure that I could have been nicer. But I remember reading Jurassic Park and sitting with my family, and it felt like such a snow globe moment, something captured in time.
The context in which I read these books is not as exciting or life-changing. Now that I have a full-time job, my days do not feel so urgent; there’s no deadline of graduation or move-in day hanging over my head. But that means that the little things will lend to the context in a weightier manner. I know I’ll look back fondly on these days too, maybe more five years down the line.
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
Hank Green
454 pages - 2020 - fiction, sci-fi-sequel
March 1st, 2024 — March 3rd, 2024
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
I would argue that characters are more important than plot, at least in books. A good book can grip you and not let you go, but I think that in order to be good, there have to be characters that you really root for, characters with hands (most of the time, anyway) that are doing the gripping.
I am a big fan of books that can switch perspectives. I read The Fifth Wave when I was in seventh grade, in which the perspectives of characters change without telling you, so you figure out first that they’re separate people, and then later how their lives are intertwined. It was so well-done to my twelve-year-old brain that it made me want to be a writer, and that year, I wrote my first book, a zombie novel (I was also into “The Walking Dead” at the time) that had a few perspective changes. My book was definitely not very good, and I have not been able to reread more than the first chapter since it was written. But The Fifth Wave is very good, if only for its ability to balance the different voices of characters and craft them with such subtlety that, without labels, you learn to know exactly whose eyes we are seeing through.
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor has a good plot, and one that I was excited to continue following. But all of the characters felt… the same. They all have the same way of speaking. They all have the same sort of jokes they like to tell. Even though they are each supposed to be unique and have their own skills to bring to the team, any of the chapters in this book could have been narrated by any of the characters and it would not have made a difference.
I felt similarly about the first book in this duology, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, but I also believe that the characters were somehow even more fleshed out in the first one. I could, to some extent, tell which character had which unique skill.
This was still a fun read, but it could have been much more nuanced.
Sam the Cat
Matthew Klam
248 pages - 2000 - fiction, short stories
March 4th, 2024 — March 7th, 2024
Rating: ½
I’m not going to give this book a lot of room. It was awful. Every short story in the collection was about the same thing—a man who hated his girlfriend or wife. That’s it. I could not tell you a single thing that happened in any of the stories; there were no unique perspectives or interesting plots. I don’t know where I heard this recommended, but because of this book, I’m keeping track of where I find my books, because… I never want to read anything like this again.
Pirate Latitudes
Michael Crichton
313 pages - 2009 - fiction, adventure
March 8th, 2024 — March 13th, 2024
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Contrasted with the previous book, this one was a masterpiece (although I think that could be said about anything). But even if I had read it at a different time, I think I would have still enjoyed it immensely.
Pirate Latitudes follows Captain Hunter, who says that he is not a pirate, but his ragtag crew of shady individuals travels to the island of Matanceros with the sole intention of plundering another ship and wreaking havoc on the way. Sounds a bit pirate-y to me. Most of the events in the novel are based on true maritime records from pirates in the 17th century, and it definitely has that feel.
The romanticism of piracy often skips over the more difficult parts. Pirates in media today are seen as swashbuckling, rakish people, typically men, who find the treasure and defeat the monster and save the girl. They don’t often portray the murder, slavery, and torture that pirates both doled out and endured. Before the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was created (and yes, the ride was first), we were not supposed to root for pirates. Even Treasure Island had some of the negativity surrounding piracy.
This book is, of course, a romanticized version of these sailors of the high seas. I was rooting for Hunter to the very end, even when he was in some very sticky situations. But Pirate Latitudes also did not shy away from showing some of the more overlooked aspects, and I really appreciated that. “Our Flag Means Death” is a phenomenal show, but it does not really portray pirates; it is completely idealized. This book portrays a much less idealized version of buccaneers.
Still, I do love pirate media. There is something very endearing about collecting a group of folks who are otherwise societal outcasts and all participating to complete a goal. I do not condone any of the crimes they commit, but found family is my favorite trope, and while they do not tell each other that they love each other in this book, the respect is palpable. Plus, it was just fun as hell to read.
Anatomy: A Love Story
Dana Schwartz
339 pages - 2022 - fiction, YA, history
March 14th, 2024 — March 15th, 2024
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
And here we have it, my first five-star review of the year. I think this was a scenario where I read this book at the right time in my life, but it was also a good book! The story was phenomenal, the characters were exciting, and the world was rich and deep.
The story follows Hazel, a wealthy young woman, whose family is expecting her to marry soon. She is all-but-engaged to her childhood sweetheart Bernard. However, Hazel wants to be a surgeon desperately. Women are not allowed in the surgery lectures, but while her mother is away (and her father is stationed elsewhere), Hazel dresses as her deceased older brother to sneak into the surgery lectures.
Upon being caught, Dr. Beecham III, grandson of the famed Dr. Beecham, offers Hazel a deal. He says that if Hazel can pass the Physicians Exam at the end of the term, without attending the classes, she will be allowed to continue her studies, and he will allow women to attend his classes for the future. Since Hazel cannot study in class, she has to find another way to learn.
Jack is a resurrection man, someone who digs up recently-buried bodies and sells them to local schools for the anatomy students to learn. Hazel teams up with Jack and begins working to learn from these recently deceased bodies. The Roman Fever is once again plaguing Scotland, and people are dying rapidly, but the bodies they find do not have the signature signs of that plague, and the two worry that there are more forces at play than just nature.
I think what makes this book work so well is that the perspective is strong and unyielding. From the beginning, I wanted to see Hazel succeed and break out of the mold she was forced into. The author is the host of the podcast “Noble Blood”, which often delves deep into royal women and how they were tamped down by society. The stories in that podcast come from letters and historical records, so we are, by necessity, removed from the reality. This book throws us right into the deep end, seeing first-hand through Hazel’s eyes how minimizing high society was for people like her.
Maybe I liked this book so much because I am also a scientist, but I think overall it was just a really compelling story. It has everything I could want—a character I desperately want to succeed in her main goal, which is not related to marrying a man (and is, in fact, firmly against it), a mysterious force at play, a touch of supernatural elements, an ultimatum. I think what makes this book work so well is the time limit. Hazel has until the end of the term to change her life, as well as the lives of many others.
It is subtitled “A Love Story”, but I would argue that it is not a love story. Sure, there is a romance that develops, and one that is, truthfully, very fun to read about. But that is not the main story. “Love” could refer to the romance, but I argue that, to call it a love story, readers have to recognize that the “love” in question is Hazel and science, surgery, her patients. The love story does not unfold until quite late in the book, and it does not overtake Hazel, at least not enough to overshadow her ultimate goal. The book starts with Hazel trying to reanimate a dead frog; she truly loves surgery, and the human body, and to say that any other love ousts that for the top spot is to disrespect Hazel’s character.
There is a sequel to this book, which makes me nervous, because sometimes sequels can take a beloved story or character and corrupt it just a little. But if it’s anywhere near as fun to read as this one was, I’ll be thrilled to read it. This was the first book in a long while that I truly did not want to put down (and I definitely ignored my friends a little bit to finish it, sorry). Again, it could have been a case of right place, right time, but I thought it was wonderful.