The Sunday Post #228

The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. I’m linking up with The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

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The Sunday Post #228

On The Blog Last Week

• On Tuesday I shared some not-too-depressing books about characters in isolation.

On The Blog This Week

• On Tuesday I choose my summer reading list.

In My Reading Life

Last week, I finished It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. It’s a classic dystopian novel that was published in 1935 and (supposedly) predicted the current US political climate. I didn’t see a ton of accurate “predictions,” but the plot feels scarily plausible. It’s about a charismatic politician with a fragile ego who lies to the American people to get elected president. Then he immediately creates a private army, arrests anyone who criticizes him, and becomes a dictator.

The writing style is dense and hard to slog through. There are too many names! At first, I kept a list of who was who and who believed what. Then I got lazy and resigned myself to the fact that I won’t remember who most of these people are. If you really love classics or dystopias, then I’d recommend this novel. It’s thought-provoking and (mostly) held my attention. If you don’t love those genres, then you’re probably not missing much by skipping it.

Then I read Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix. It’s a horror story about a haunted Ikea. The book is formatted to look like an Ikea catalog.

My brain is divided about this novel. I spent most of my life in writing school, and writing school teaches students why their opinions about literature are wrong. My professors would have hated this book. The writing style is exceedingly average. The metaphors are heavy handed. It’s full of horror clichés. There’s very little character development.

I don’t care about writing professors right now. I adored this horror story. Five stars! The Ikea catalog format is innovative and made me laugh several times. The plot is so fast-paced that I could get lost in it for hours and not think about the real world. It’s disgusting. There are plasma creatures that crawl out of one person’s nose and into a different person’s nose. (Another reason why you should always wear a mask while shopping.) I want to read more of the author’s work. This book is creepy and silly. I enjoyed it immensely.

Right now, I’m reading Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck. I think it’s a historical survival story? Or a mystery? Historical thriller? I’ve only read 13 pages. I have no idea what’s going on.

In The Rest Of My Life

Five things that made me happy last week:

1. If you want to learn about racism or LGBT+ issues, Goodreads has you covered. Their lists have made my TBR explode. I need some money so I can buy these books right now. Some of them sound really interesting.
2. Pizza and cookies and brownies. Yes, I cheated on my diet again. No, I don’t regret it. Don’t judge my eternal love for pizza!
3. I watched a lot of BookTube. A lot. For most of last week, I had eyestrain and blurry vision. Since I couldn’t read, I watched YouTube. I didn’t realize how giant the BookTube community is. There are so many videos! I’m still not a huge fan of watching videos about books, but I’m happy that there’s a massive community of book lovers on that site. If you have suggestions for who to watch, I'm keeping a list for the next time I injure my eyeballs.
4. Wolf Winter is the last book from 2018 on my TBR shelf. All of my other unread books were bought last year or this year.
5. If everything goes according to plan, I’ll hit my Goodreads goal this week. I’ve read 49 books so far in 2020. When I set my Goodreads goal, I did not know that coronavirus would cancel all of my plans and give me more reading time.

I love you! (As a friend, of course)

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Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other! See you around the blogosphere!