What to Read When You Don’t Feel Like Reading
If Twitter is to be believed, by this point in quarantine, I should have baked sourdough bread (no), learned to embroider (sort of), and written the modern-day equivalent of King Lear (hahaha). Though I believe productivity during a pandemic is a personal choice, I can’t deny that I finally have what I’ve always wanted: unlimited time to read.
Unfortunately, on top of everything else, the pandemic has put a dent in my desire to curl up with a good book. Maybe the sense that everything else is on hold is keeping me from addressing the holds on my library card. Maybe books about dystopias hit a little too close to home, and books about anything else give me a bitter cocktail of FOMO and ennui. Simply put, my motivation to flip pages is lacking right now. So, what do you do when you have the time and the inclination, but you just can’t bring yourself to finally open Ulysses...or much of anything else?
Here are the books I read to get me out of my reading rut:
This sophomore effort by Elizabeth Avecedo introduces us to Emoni, a Philadelphia teenager, contemplating her future as a young mother, devoted granddaughter, and talented chef. Though not written in the verse of Acevedo’s first novel, the prose is poetic, and the chapters are so short, you’ll read half of them before you know it. Emoni is a delightful, realistic narrator, and her unflinching pursuit of her dreams makes for the sweetest possible distraction from all things mask-related.
Bernadine Evaristo’s Booker Prize winner takes a magnifying glass to black womanhood, the cast of characters fanning out around a queer feminist playwright to cover a range of neighborhoods, time periods, and social experiences. Each of its twelve characters raises questions about politics, art, gender, motherhood, social media, and so much more. Broken into short sections that delightfully crisscross and overlap, this book is easy to swallow. But, trust me, you’ll want to chew over every line.
Are you feeling trapped? Time and reality rapidly losing their meaning? Are you secretly a mermaid, pining for your hot neighbor and longing for the return of your long-lost father? If you answered yes to any of the above, this is the pandemic read for you! Samantha Hunt’s 2004 novel appeals to the darker side of quarantine, complete with a coastal town with only one (currently blocked) road out and a healthy dose of probable insanity. The unreliable narrator and her story’s magical ending will have you questioning everything in the best, creepiest way possible.
Vacationland: True Stories From Painful Beaches
Chances are, if you’ve gotten really into podcasting recently, you’ve come across the prolific, hilarious John Hodgman. This memoir about the promise and pitfalls of middle age and New England beaches will make you long for places you’re probably not going this summer while being simultaneously glad you’re nowhere near Maine (unless, of course, you’re currently in Maine, in which case, have some lobster for me!). I’ll note that I first read this book in an anxiety spiral, and it managed to pull me out with some much-needed laughter and surprising tears. I’m sure John would be happy to do the same for you.
If you’re really struggling to remember how paragraphs work, might I suggest a graphic novel? Scott Pilgrim just had its ten-year movie-versary, but Bryan Lee O’Malley’s 2014 follow-up is just as good for when it feels like you versus the world. The main character, Katie, another aspiring chef (I must be hungry), is given a chance to turn back time via magic mushrooms (no, not that kind), and that goes, well, about how you’d expect.
No quarantine reading list would be complete without one pandemic plot. This 2018 novel by Ling Ma floats between the prologue and epilogue to the nostalgia-based Shen Fever. In the Before Times, Candace faces loss, love, and pregnancy as a New York City publisher. In the rapidly-more-realistic-seeming aftermath, she struggles toward Chicago with a band of survivors. When you have to sit down and face our current reality, Severance will be there for you, with a lot of realism and a little bit of hope.
There will always be times when our books serve better as makeshift nightstands, and our library apps go unused. If you can’t or don’t want to read, cut yourself some slack—you might not be going anywhere, but neither are your future favorite books.
Plus, Avatar’s on Netflix.
Check out @bookinmybasket for more reviews.