TBR List Update: March

      

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2024. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In March 2024

Books read: 5

Books I decided NOT to finish: 1

The Outrun: I didn't realize that it's an addiction recovery memoir, not fiction. I'd honestly rather read about imaginary people's struggles sometimes, especially when real life is being difficult.

I quailed at the size of Stephen King's Desperation, which I've started a few times in the past, but decided I really do want to finish it, so I won't include it here. Just... set it to the side.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 75 (It went up -- I found new titles to add)

Best book of the month: The Murder of Mary Russell

A selection in the Mary Russell series that actually had very little to do with Mary! Most of the book was taken up with the backstory of Mrs. Hudson, the landlady/housekeeper for Sherlock Holmes. As previously intimated, she led quite a different sort of life when she was younger. I adored this (and in my mind I kept seeing the fashions from the TV series The Gilded Age).

Worst book of the month: Dancing Girls

Having loved The Handmaid's Tale and its sequel, The Testaments, I thought I'd explore Margaret Atwood's short fiction. I found the collection uneven, though; the first few stories were confusing to me and I didn't find much that resonated with my experience. A standout: "When It Happens", which played to my looming sense of dread and social apocalypse. "Rape Fantasies" was a clever conceit. But overall, it was a slog, and I'm reconsidering the other two anthologies of her work on my list.