A December book review is my version of an end of year recap. Each time I look back at a book, I remember the headspace I was in at the time of reading it.
Tan France’s memoir kept me occupied in line for my first covid vaccine.
The Coincidence of Coconut Cake was eaten up on the crisp new Kindle I received on my birthday camping trip.
The Silent Patient grieved with me on a solo plane ride to my late aunt’s service.
The boundaries I learned from How to Break Up With Your Phone still cross my mind many months later, especially into the New Year.
My memories cling to the pages lightly coloring each story with a unique shade leaving a shadowy bookmark inside. Before I knew what shape The Wobbly Table would take, I was certain I wanted to share book reviews. If not for my love of reading, my love of writing would feel underdeveloped; incomplete. Together they satiate my hunger for words.
Cheers to the first post of the year!
For the Black Mirror audience: Sometime in the future a DNA-based dating program matches couples based on genetics. The pairings are supposed to indicate people’s perfect partners by a swab of saliva and the click of a button. Fast forward ten years since its launch and the company rivals all other dating sites and is a household name like Apple or Windows.
The cautionary tale is told from the perspective of five couples who used Match Your DNA’s services. For one of my first forays into sci-fi, I was impressed with how quickly and deeply I fell into the storyline. For the longest time, I associated the genre with space, robots or some dystopian universe that was lightyears from what reality looked like. I would timidly convince myself that I didn’t have wide enough an imagination to resonate with them and that only when they’re projected onto a screen could I fully lose myself in that kind of world.
The One was a perfect example of not judging a book by its genre, or in this case, by its title. It resembled more of an episode of Black Mirror than the drama I was originally expecting and was not at all far-fetched from the direction that social media and dating apps are headed. It cleverly explores the ethics behind technology, science and social responsibility and the implications of having such life-altering information at your disposal.
The author did a superb job examining the ways dating is completely thrown out of whack and how a service that may initially sound well-intentioned can go awry. Love is a high-stakes game, even when the outcome appears to be clear.
I guess I like Sci-fi now?
4.5/5 mugs
For the introspective: The short story takes place within a 24 hour period where a young women visits her grandfather for the holidays in a current-pandemic world.
The reader is dropped into the anxiety and isolation that came in the beginning of quarantine. For me, the feelings were a little too fresh. And now that a lot of places reopened and vaccines have allowed social interactions to be more commonplace, it simultaneously felt pre-dated. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a feel-sad story from time to time but this one was a hard one to relive. After reading this, I realized that I need more time before I consume other pandemic-focused media, especially when it serves as the mechanism for moving the plot along.
Like many relationships, the dynamic with her Grandfather is noticeably stifled without the cushion of having other family around. Her atrophied dating/social skills bleeds into other relationships as she reconnects with a boy who lives in the neighborhood.
It was an important time capsule of the heightened uncertainty of Covid and the toll it takes on relationships. But it lacked something that I can’t put my finger on. I’m not sure if the short story format helped or hurt the story-telling. With that said, I likely wouldn’t have been compelled to finish had it been a full-length novel.
1.5/5 mugs
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