This month I only read one non-fiction book, which goes against my plan for the year. I’m lining up some more for March.

in the order I read them:

Who Will Run The Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore It took me a while to get into this book but eventually I got it, a really tender and funny novel about two young women’s friendship, and their time working at a theme park.

The Sundown Motel by Simone St James A spooky thriller about a young woman who goes to the small town her aunt disappeared from twenty years ago. She takes up her aunt’s old job at a run-down motel where are there are strange happenings. It was pretty daft but I ate it up quickly. There were some fun supporting characters.

Sisters In Hate by Seyward Darby This is a non-fiction book telling the different stories of three women involved the far right movement in America. It was pretty bleak, and also a great history of how women’s capacity for reproduction and constructions of female virtue have been used to create and bolster raciest narratives and movements.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
I realised recently that I haven’t read this, so I did. It’s hard to take a book at face value like this when so many other things refer to it and reference it, when you already know the plot because you’ve seen it parodied a hundred times on The Simpsons. I love Steinbeck’s style and always find his books completely absorbing and this was no exception.

Luster by Raven Leilani I’d seen so many rave reviews of this book and they stood up - a really real and funny book about a young woman who starts dating a married man and the relationship that develops between her and his family. I don’t want to say more and spoil it.

The Patient by Jasper Dewitt Terrible. What started out as a fun and readable Gothic story about a young doctor who starts working in a creepy New England asylum turned into total nonsense, and when I finished the book I learned from the Acknowledgements it was actually a story someone posted on r/noSleep. I’m really annoyed I read it. Don’t read it.

Girl A by Abigail Dean This is a novel about a young woman who escaped with her siblings from a tabloid-fodder “House of Horrors”, and the different ways they have dealt with the trauma of their childhood. I thought this was really well wriiten, never salacious and very touching.