WWW Wednesday 01/09/2019

Welcome to another WWW Wednesday! This meme is hosted by Taking on a World of Words. To participate, just answer the following three questions:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I’m currently reading…

American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of American Teenagers
by Nancy Jo Sales

I picked this one up because of the feminist themes, but I feel like I’m too young for this book. So much of it is telling me things I don’t need to be told. Thanks, Nancy Jo, but I already know what “on fleek” means. It also comes across as hyper-critical of the sex positive movement, and while I think there are very valid criticisms to make of it, I’m not sure that all of the ones in this book fall into that category. Maybe I’ll find something valuable as I get further into this, but thus far I’m not a fan.

Queenie
by Candice Carty-Williams

Obviously I’m not really far enough into this one to have formed an opinion yet, but the publisher describes it like this: “Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Americanah in this disarmingly honest, boldly political, and truly inclusive novel that will speak to anyone who has gone looking for love and found something very different in its place.”

I recently finished reading…

The Stranger Inside, by Laura Benedict
This was an ARC of a February 5th release. It’s a mystery/thriller novel in which a woman comes home from a trip to find that a stranger has moved into her house. Things get… even more ridiculous from there. I wasn’t a fan of this one. Full review to come.

Home Fire, by Kamila Shamsie
I had no idea when I started this that it was a modern retelling of Antigone. It has kind of mixed reviews, but I really liked it. The myth is retold with modern Muslim characters dealing with extremism and loss within their family. Full review to come.

The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin
In case you missed it, you can find my review here. This was a four star review for me, but the magical themes were much a bit more understated than I’d expected from the blurb.

The Au Pair, by Emma Rous
I had a weird experience with this one, because I feel like it did a lot of things that I tend to dislike in thrillers, mainly stretching the suspense of disbelief way too far and having a copious amount of affairs…. but I kind of liked it? It’s definitely a guilty pleasure kind of read, and it feels like it should be adapted into a Lifetime movie. Full review to come!

Elevation, by Stephen King
Garbage. Sorry, but Stephen King can do so much better than this. You can read my review here.

Up next…

Severance
by Ling Ma

An offbeat office novel turns apocalyptic satire as a young woman transforms from orphan to worker bee to survivor

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend.

So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies halt operations. The subways squeak to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.

Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.

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What are you reading this week? Any thoughts on the books listed in this post?  Please feel free to discuss or share WWW links in the comments!