Weekly Wrap-up | April 4, 2020

Three weeks into the quarantine and I feel like I’m starting to kind of get used to it. I mean, I still wish it never happened, but I’m a lot less anxious compared to the first week and I’m better at not checking the news as much, so I guess those are small wins.

In other news, a paper I’ve co-authored got accepted for publication!!! 🥳 I’m still in shock over it since that paper was a shot in the dark—we only had two months to put it together—and we weren’t expecting to hear from the editors until May or June. I’m really happy, but then we still have to make major revisions and my body just isn’t ready for that kind of productivity right now 😂 I’m a little miffed that the editors have the capacity to be productive at this time. Sometimes I forget that just because I’ve been transformed into a slug that subsists on chips and Netflix doesn’t mean that everyone else is the same. It makes me feel annoyed and guilty. Maybe that’s why they’re editors of a journal and I’m still a poor grad student…

Anyway, I digress. Welcome to my weekly wrap-up! I’ll start with some bookish updates first before the non-bookish updates, as usual.

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Posts This Week

I’ve been trying to catch up on my reviews, so I’ll be posting themed mini-reviews periodically. As usual, reviews on the Women’s Prize longlist will be posted weekly until the shortlist is announced on April 22.

• Mini-Reviews | Murder Mysteries: The Dry & After I’m Gone (Monday)
• Can’t-Wait Wednesday #1 | Japanese Literature: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami (Wednesday)
• Book Review: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Thursday)
• Book Review: Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson (Saturday)

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Books I Finished This Week

• I’m on a weird paranormal kick this week so I picked up Lora Leigh’s Breeds series. It’s about humans whose DNAs were altered with that of animals’, so they look human but have better eyesight, hearing, smell, etc. etc. But I feel like the author just used that premise as an excuse to write the mating heat, which, for the uninitiated, is basically a hormone-filled haze where the hero and heroine are biologically unable to keep their hands off each other. In other words, this is a shameless smutfest with a plot that’s like 70% sex and 30% angst leading up to the sex, and I have absolutely no defense for liking this. 😂 I accept that I am trash and will move on to the next books in the series.
• I decided to take a short break from my Women’s Prize reading to catch up on a new release, so I chose something easy to slip into. Lily King’s Writers & Lovers looked like it fit the bill. Sadly, it was a huge disappointment and a real chore to read. Review will be up tomorrow.

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Books I’m Currently Reading

• My Women’s Prize journey continues with Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble. I’m really loving the extra-chatty tone of the narrator, but am very uncomfortable with all the hate piled on Rachel. I’m still in Part I though, so I hope we eventually get to see her side.
• This week I felt like the universe was conspiring to make me read Hunger. It all started with Stargazer’s fantastic review of the book, which put it on the forefront of my mind and bumped it up my TBR. A day or two after reading that, Hunger was mentioned again in Writers & Lovers as the narrator’s “litmus test for a bookstore” and I thought, “Hmm, maybe it’s a sign?” And then, while clearing out my cache of saved links last night, I stumbled on an article that mentioned Knut Hamsun. It’s definitely a sign now, not to mention a little creepy, so I heeded a universe and got an e-copy.

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 Posts I Loved This Week

• Here’s a round-up of all the Women’s Prize reviews this week: How We Disappeared and Weather by Callum; Actress by Hannah and Naty; The Most Fun We Ever Had by Emily; Nightingale Point by Hannah; and A Thousand Ships by Marija.
• I am very picky about getting into a perfect position before I can comfortably sink into a book, so I found Melanie’s post on physical limitations and books very interesting.
• If you’re a fan of historical fiction like I am, you’ll like Emily’s spotlight on historical fiction, which talks about what the genre is and rounds up its most notable classic and contemporary works.

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Some Non-Bookish Things

Things I’m Watching:

I’m in Season 2 now of Rick and Morty, but I’ve also fallen into the rabbit hole of Netflix comedy specials. Ali Wong’s Baby Cobra (2016) and Hard-Knock Wife (2018) had me howling with laughter. I just love her confidence to do stand-up while pregnant. But Gadsby’s Nanette (2018) is astonishingly ground-breaking. It’s a comedy that not only pokes fun at the establishment but also deconstructs comedy as a genre. I was laughing at the first half but by the second I was in tears, and not the happy kind—the sad-angry kind. I get now why it received a lot of critical acclaim and I highly recommend it.

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Well, that’s it for my week. How was yours? What are you reading or watching this week? Let me know in the comments!

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