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

The Sunday Post #351

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On The Blog Recently

• Best Books Set In Mansions
• When Books "Talk" To Each Other
• Books To Read In Winter
• All I Want For Christmas Is Books
• Christmas Book Haul

In My Reading Life

I read two extremely philosophical books last week. My brain accidentally got a workout.

First was Pew by Catherine Lacey. This is a weird little book. It starts with a family in the American south going to church and finding a stranger asleep on their family's pew. No one at the church knows this person, and the family can't agree on the person's age, race, or gender. They decide that the stranger needs help and should come home with them. It quickly becomes apparent that the stranger has amnesia and an unwillingness to communicate, so the family nicknames them "Pew" and teams up with other townspeople to help.

Everything goes okay at first, but Pew doesn't "get better" in the way that the town wants. Pew won't cooperate with doctors or spill their secrets to the townspeople. Pew just exists. Eventually, the townspeople's compassion turns to anger and suspicion. They don't want Pew around anymore.

This novel gives the reader a lot to think about. How do we decide who needs help? Pew never asks for help. They enter the church because they need a place to sleep, and they plan to leave town in the morning. The townspeople assume that Pew needs help because Pew doesn't fit in with society. The people try to force Pew to talk about the past, and they take Pew to doctors to "get answers" about Pew's race, age, and gender. The townspeople never pause and think that Pew might not need this type of help. Maybe Pew just needs friendship and understanding.

The book gave me a lot to ponder, but I struggled to stay interested in the plot. It's extremely repetitive. Pew gets passed from family to family. At each household, someone tells Pew their life story. Pew says nothing. Repeat for 200+ pages. I wanted something else to happen.

The author tried to add suspense with the Forgiveness Festival. The townspeople are planning a festival where they confess their sins in public. There are hints that the festival could go horribly wrong if people get pissed at each other. It gives vibes of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," but it wasn't enough suspense for me.

Pew is an interesting thought experiment, but it doesn't really come together as a novel.

Then I read Sabrina by Nick Drnaso. It's the first (and maybe only?) graphic novel that has been a finalist for the Booker Prize. I had to see what the hype is about.

The title character, Sabrina, goes to a party and never comes home. Her unexplained disappearance leaves her boyfriend severely depressed. He can't stand to stay home and wait for answers that might never come, so he goes to visit a friend who works at an Air Force base. Then Sabrina's disappearance blows up on social media and on conspiracy theory radio shows. Conspiracy theorists see the boyfriend's trip to the Air Force base as proof that the government is behind whatever happened to Sabrina. The conspiracy theorists want answers and will stop at nothing to get them.

You might think this book is a mystery, but it's not! It's so much bigger than one missing woman. It's about an aspect of US society that's hard to explain. I guess I'd call it nonstop mass grieving? Every day there's a new missing woman, a new shooting, a new unexplained violent act. We can't get away from it because we're constantly being force-fed news. How are we supposed to cope? Some people are going to turn to conspiracy theories because they want a big bad wolf that they can blame for every problem.

The book is also about how the Internet can isolate us. The conspiracy theorists don't believe that Sabrina's friends are real people. The conspiracy theorists think the friends are actors and have no problem relentlessly harassing them. It can be easy to dehumanize others when you mostly see the world through a computer screen.

I like the plot. I love the themes. I understand the art style, but I also really hate it. The art is undetailed and ugly. All the characters and settings look the same. There are lot of drawings of people standing in empty rooms. It captures the numb, lonely, monotony of grief, but I hate it.

I know why the Booker Prize judges chose this book. It's about how giant tragedies keep invading our lives and how we become numb to them in order to keep living. It's a timely novel that will resonate with a lot of readers.

In The Rest Of My Life

Five things that made me happy last week:

1. I hope you're having an excellent Christmas / New Year / holiday time. Brooklyn is living her best life.

2. In my previous Sunday Post, I talked about how I was searching for a sweet Christmas show, but Netflix kept serving me true crime. Well, I finally succeeded in finding something cute. I watched Dash & Lily. It was adorable.

3. One of my Pinterest pins suddenly started getting a lot of clicks on Christmas Eve and Christmas. I tried to investigate why. This is the explanation that Pinterest gave me:

Um . . . I have two observations. Observation #1: My pin has nothing to do with any of these trends. Observation #2: It sounds like Pinterest users had a very merry Christmas.

4. I got Lush bath bombs for Christmas. I love bath bombs, but I've never had ones from Lush before. I now understand why Lush is the superior bath bomb maker. The bombs smell amazing, and the smell doesn't fade immediately. Now I'm spoiled and don't want any other bath bombs. Only Lush.

5. It's "Best Books" time! I love seeing all the "Best Books Of 2023" lists. My list will (hopefully) be up on Tuesday.

FOR MORE UN-SMÜTTY BOOKS

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