Syllabus #257 - In Which I Admit Defeat

 I guess I just don't have that dawg in me this summer.  What dawg?  I dunno, I guess the one that is somehow both chronically online enough and motivated enough to rustle up a collection of links and opine about whatever books I've read?  I'm ready to turn the calendar page to July tomorrow.  I don't like to wish my summer away, ordinarily, but the end of June really sucked a fat one and I rather hope July is better.

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I don't want to let the people down entirely, so here's a link:  I'm thinking about making this summer shrimp spaghetti jawn for dinner this week.  Ok, that's a lie, I wrote it on the meal plan, I shopped for it, it's happening.  It's written in stone, you'll eat it and you'll like it. 

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Analog Reading:

As of today, I have finished 39 books so far this year.  After finishing Cujo, I read:

Lucy Foley's The Hunting Party which was pretty mid.  In her previous books (The Paris Apartment, The Guest List) I felt like she was good at building suspense and seeding the reader's imagination with possible motives and machinations for who might be the culprit or who might be about to be killed.  This one really felt like a stretch.  The ending felt predictable but also unearned.

Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions For You.  This one was highly entertaining.  I was on my toes about where the plot was heading and who bore the ultimate guilt in this story almost until the very end.  Also another example of a story that takes, partially, in a time before cell phones, in which constant connectivity and surveillance culture would have prevented the heart of the story from even happening in the first place.

Colm Toibin's Long Island.  A real downer!  And that's not a criticism.  I read it quickly, and didn't want it to endThis was the sequel to Brooklyn, which I read and enjoyed but also found to be frustrating and depressing in the end.  But ain't that just how it goes.  Also, another book that would have been, if not totally ruined, greatly abbreviated, by the introduction of cell phones.  Somebody would have sent a 'U Up?' text, somebody else would have put an AirTag on their lover's car, and all the secrets would have come out a lot sooner.