Article by Sydney Loder
Despite my past beliefs, the summer, thus far, has not been filled with an overt amount of reading. While this doesn’t exactly make sense for my usual schedule of activities, I am still grateful for what novels I have been able to consume. Throughout the summer I have been attempting to discover and divuldge in genres that I don’t normally even look at, and I believe these two months show a great representation of my efforts. Within the four books read, the genres include fantasy, romance, greek mythology, and a modern classic (go ahead and take your guesses). Respectively, I read Kingdom of the Feared by Kerri Maniscalco, Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, Circe by Madeline Miller, and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. I would like to point out that within these novels I found myself in a reading rut, as I didn’t really enjoy any of them. Even so, two of these novels have profound messages that I believe need to be read.
To start strong with this review/overview, I would like to start with The Virgin Suicides. Within this literary piece, Eugenides tells the story of the Lisbon girls suicides (five sisters) from the perspective of five unnamed boys. These boys, now men, have compiled evidence of the sisters lives as they attempt to find out why each daughter chose to commit suicide. Throughout the story, the reader and boys are able to conceive that the suicides are complex in that the girls were hidden from the world, yet were still objectified by those who dared to peek behind the curtain. They tried to call out for help, but the boys, blinded by their desires, couldn’t see it. The message of this novel is extremely important, but I find it could’ve been portrayed in a better way. The novel was short but hard to read in that not enough ever happened to keep the reader interested, it was a battle to finish.
Moving onto Circe by Madeline Miller, which at times I greatly enjoyed, and at others times, I hated. This story encompasses the idea of being outcast for not being great enough, the process of self-realization and self-actualization, the struggles of motherhood, and the conflict of morality vs. position. To help explain the conflict just mentioned, Circe struggles throughout the novel to show morality to those around her through her love of humans, but also struggles with the idea of forever provoking fear as the strong goddess that she is. While Miller is able to capture all these different ideas beautifully within the novel, I believe she struggled to keep a pace with the plot. What I mean by this is that for 50-100 pages a lot would be happening, and then in the next 50-100 pages absolutely nothing would occur. The story wasn’t able to fully capture my attention or fully pull me in which was disappointing as I had very high hopes.
Kingdom of the Feared is a beautifully constructed novel as there is amazing world building within the setting (which, to me, is one of the most important aspects of fantasy), individual and relational development, and just an overall good storyline. However, the storyline was written in quite a confusing way, making it hard to follow at times, and there was far too many scenes (you know which ones I’m talking about) which ended up taking away from the plot as a whole. Icebreaker by Hannah Grace was absolutely my least favorite novel out of all four books. I found myself interested in the first 100 pages, but after that, the story just felt repetitive and long. It felt as though there was no deeper level development within any of the characters and that Grace just focused on surface level themes. I know in this case, I am contrasting a popular belief of the greatness of this novel, and for those that don’t agree with me, just remember that I don’t like romance novels, so this is slightly bias.
While I am proud of myself for reading a multitude of different genres, I think it is time to just go back to what I know. Reading four books in two months is not at all something that I am proud of or want to continue, which is why I plan to fall back into the things that I love. Hopefully within the next couple of months, I will find myself in better graces and out of a readers block. Until then, plan to hear a lot more from me as the 2023-2024 school year starts to begin.
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