Welcome back!
Did you have a good Thanksgiving? I did and now I’m in full Christmas mode.
But I want to show you this amazing glass turkey I received from my mom as a birthday present. I also turned 43 this month.
**HEART EYES**
And here is a book post in which I use the word “trope” far too many times to see if I can annoy you into never reading my blog again, apparently. Sorry about that.
Let’s get into it!
What Shannon Read in November
I read seven books in November, including one re-read of The Little Stranger.
Some Notes:
The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent
This is a gritty mystery about three sisters who grew up isolated in the woods under the care of their loving(?) mother. When the youngest sister gets sick, the two oldest sisters are left alone for a very long time. Supplies dwindle and winter is coming.
This is one of those tropes I graviate towards—I’m into anything that gives off Room vibes.
It was decently-written, had interesting characters, and didn’t get too deep. Just what I was looking for in a weird isolated-girl-becomes-fish-out-of-water-in-society mystery. Which is a thing.
Hell House by Richard Matheson
Did you love The Haunting of Hill House? Can’t get enough of the paranormal-investigators-stay-overnight-in-a-haunted-house theme? Same, same.
That’s what this one is all about. A paranormal team thrown together by a rich old man investigates a house so haunted with 1920s torture vibes that no one dares to live there. Those that have tried have died.
There was more alluding to torture and depraved sexual themes than I care for, but the haunting was excellent. If you can get past some of that dark stuff, this was a good spooky fall read.
This House is Haunted by John Boyne
Speaking of spookiness, I re-read this one because it’s apparently one of my favorite haunted house books.
It features one of my very favorite tropes—historical fiction featuring a governess that takes a job caring for weird kids in a haunted house. (Definitely a thing in literature, I assure you.)
Love the main character. Love the haunting. Love the setting. Love the weird kids.
The haunting culminates in a battle between dark and light forces and things get, um, heated, in the end. It’s very Jane Eyre meets Rebecca. 🔥🔥🔥
Someone Else’s Bucket List by Amy T. Matthews
And now for something completely different: me crying amidst a pile of wadded up tissues.
Maybe it was the jolly cover and the quirky title that made me think this book was going to be more of a lighthearted romp than it was. There is definitely fun and humor, but this is the first book that has made me ugly cry since Lessons in Chemistry.
And, duh, of course it was a tearjerker. It’s about a young woman, Jodie, whose sister Bree, a social media influencer, dies of leukemia. In her last days, Bree contracts with an airline to sponsor Jodie as she completes Bree’s bucket list on her behalf.
Fun bucket list items include recreating the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally and flying over Antarctica on New Year’s Eve. Oh—and falling in love.
There is grief, romance, friendship, familial love, and much fun to be had in this one. So, categorically not a lighthearted romp. Be warned.
What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill
I know the title is cheesy and sensationalist, but hear me out. It’s about a nanny. So two nanny books in one month for me. I can’t get enough.
This nanny is living in 2008 London, where she’s taken a job with an extremely rich family with four children—two teenagers and eight-year-old twin boys.
The parents both work in high profile jobs in the finance industry and you can guess what happens right around 2008. Shit gets turned upsidedown, but that’s not the only drama in the book.
The story includes some of my favorite nanny tropes: oblivious parents, an overbearing type-A mother, weird semi-spooky kids (the twins), sexually-tinged encounters with the dad, the nanny becoming embroiled in the family drama, and an…*inappropriate* relationship with the teenage boy of the household.
I ate it up and was sad when it was over.
The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
Oh baby, baby…..You bet I read this memoir by Queen Britney. In fact, my whole book club read it as a sort of palate cleanser after The Parable of the Sower. Reading whiplash for us.
First, the writing is obviously helped along by a ghostwriter or team of ghostwriters. It is like that of a remarkably capable teenager, which is to say, straightforward, unaffected, and peppered with profanity. This is not a criticism.
It would read like a college application essay if it weren’t about how a woman was sexualized from a young age, stalked by the media, and turned by her parents into a sexy, dancing, singing monkey-robot.
It’s lonely at the top—especially when your dad imprisons you in body, mind, and soul for years while you slowly lose your personhood and will to live.
This was dark, yo.
But I loved that the book clearly captured Britney’s voice and how that voice, still so pleading and young-sounding, continually asserts her womanhood. Brings that whole “not yet a girl, not yet a woman” thing to the fore and ties the whole book together in an overarching theme.
Bet you didn’t think I had that many deep thoughts about Britney. 😉
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
It’s giving Nick Carraway falls in love with Daisy and also Daisy is not very pretty and also her house is haunted. You know, those vibes.
This is about a doctor in a post-WWII English villiage who forms an attachment to the noble family of the area. The family’s estate has fallen into disrepair and soon odd things begin happening around the house. Objects go missing, weird noises are heard, the older sibling succumbs to madness. The usual.
I love the setting of this book. Give me a falling-down mansion full of ghosts and I’m happy. Sarah Waters’ incredible writing is just icing on the cake.
I shouldn’t say that. I adore Sarah Waters and am now re-reading The Paying Guests. I also decided to dive into one I haven’t read before, Affinity. Will keep you posted.
That’s it for November! Thanks for stopping by.
Pillow Fort 
Great turkey! Great suggestions!
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Thank you and thank you!! ❤
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