The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

Sunday, Apr. 30, 2023--San Antonio

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty won the National Book Award in 2022.  Most of the reviews specifically use the words "work of art" to describe it.  It may be a work of art, but as  novel, I was not impressed.  There were too many characters with the book jumping from one to another to another and back and forth among them.  And was there something the writer wanted us to take through our lives with us based on the book?  If so, all I could find was that most of the characters were miserable and uncaring and that there is little hope for any good in life and our future.  A book of this length usually takes me about 3 days to read, but I had trouble reading more than a few pages a day and wasted a week on it.  I gave the book 2 stars out of 5.

Let's Get Back to the Party by Zak Salih

Sunday, Apr. 22, 2023--San Antonio

Let's Get Back to the Party by Zak Salih follows the lives of two estranged childhood friends--two loner-type pre-puberty boys.  One moves into the area and is befriended by the other on his first day at his new school.  It comes clear to the local boy that the household where the new boy lives is not a safe and healthy environment, so he also welcomes the boy into his family and home as much as possible which allows then both to develop a first true friendship.  After a few years, when the boys are just reaching puberty, the new family moves again.  Sebastian, who is left behind doesn't understand why, but he is deeply affected by losing his friend Oscar.  Oscar moves on with his life without ever responding to Sebastian's attempts to try to maintain contact.  When they, ten years later as college students at different universities, finally run into each other at party, Sebastian desires a warm response, wants an explanation for my Oscar didn't stay in contact, and hopes for a chance to renew their friendship.  Oscar, however, continues to be aloof.  They don't reconnect again, also incidentally, for another 10 years when they both live in the Washington, DC, area--with Sebastian being a suburban high school teacher and Oscar being a graphic designer living in the inner city.  At that time, each learns that the other is gay.  Sebastian has led a more subdued gay existence with a lover for 3 years who has recently left him.  Oscar is obsessed with living a life partying and of frequent anonymous sexual encounters arranged via a phone app.  Sebastian would like to redevelop their close relationship, but Oscar cannot conceive of such a thing; it would be too much of an interruption of his whole way of life, and Sebastian is just too boring.  In the meantime, Oscar meets an older man who is a known author of books about his own life of gay debauchery.  Oscar is worried that his fellow city friends are changing--developing relationships, marrying, moving to the suburbs--and leaving him behind, so he doubles down on continuing his life of random sexual encounters inspired the books that his author friend has published--books which are about the author having lived his whole life that way.  For various reasons, Sebastian and Oscar keep running into each other with each encounter being frustrating for both--Sebastian still wanting to experience the closeness they had as boys and Oscar fearing that any relationship with Sebastian would be an end to the way he thinks he should be living his life.  There are many details about events in the separate lives of each of them.  Both encounter problems that challenge them and the way they are living.  The book emphasizes that there is no one way to live life as a gay person, but also that such lives evolve over time.  I enjoyed the book and gave it 4 stars out of 5.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Wednesday, Apr. 19, 2023--San Antonio

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner is the second memoir I have read in a row, and both have been by Korean-American authors.  I don't usually read memoirs, but the previous one won a National Book Award, and this one was named as a top book of 2022 by Time, NPR, and other national media.  It's a good book, but like with the previous memoir, it took me longer to read it than a novel would; I put it down often (after only a few pages) and was not so quick to pick it up again.  The author emphasizes the tension between her and her mother based on the wishes and expectations each had for the other--tension that drove them apart until the mother developed cancer at a relatively young age and the daughter, putting her attempt at a career in music on hold, moved back home to help nurse her mother though her treatments.  Torn between two cultures her whole life with the American one the dominant one, the author grows in appreciation for the Korean one and the experiences she remembered with her mother after the latter has died.  Her efforts of remembering and writing about her mother during the mourning process eventually leads to the success she had always desired as a musician.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Stay True by Hua Hsu

Sunday, Apr. 9, 2023--San Antonio

Stay True by Hua Hsu is a memoir.  I usually read novels.  But this memoir won the National Book Award, so I decided to give it a try.  I almost quit it at the beginning due to lack of a plot and to being filled with details that did not excite me.  I put it down often after only a few pages at a time.  But I kept at it.  Eventually, I became more interested. And just after the mid-point, I never wanted to put it down again.  The story had pulled me in emotionally.  It is the story of a son of a Taiwanese immigrant family in California and the many friends he made in college after a high school period of leading a rather quiet and distant existence.  It took him a long time to determine what he wanted out of life, to make a "closest" friend, to begin dating girls, etc.  Then tragedy struck.  It is a stirring memoir devoted to learning how to leave living in the past, to re-evaluate one's life goals and develop a new outlook, etc.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.