A lauded memoir, a sticky family drama, and one puzzling novel

Plus even more best of lists and a literary look at "brain rot"

I had a lot to say about the books I read this week so I’m going to keep this short and get right to it. But, I will have news about a forthcoming project coming very very soon so keep an eye out for an exciting announcement!

Additionally, now feels like a good time to remind you that you can gift a subscription to this newsletter to a book loving friend, which (in my biased opinion!) would make an excellent holiday treat. When you gift a subscription, you can choose when your giftee’s membership begins and when they get the welcome email, which means you can purchase your gift right now, cross it off your list, and still surprise them when the holiday hits! Paid subscribers to the FictionMatters Newsletter get a weekly paid email chock full of themed book recommendations along with two monthly podcasts episodes that feel like chatting with your bookish best friends. I have some fun things planned for paid subscribers in 2025 so now is the perfect time to give a gift (or join yourself!).

This week in books.

This week I read…

• Audition by Katie Kitamura (out 4/8). This book help me in its grip from beginning to end and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since. The story begins with a woman going to meet a younger man for lunch. Something has happened between these two that makes the interaction tense and awkward, but the narrator obscures the facts of the situation in a way that forces the reader to fill in gaps, constantly second guessing our interpretations and assumptions. The precision with which Kitamura describes subtle shifts in emotion and power dynamics is nothing short of magical. I was enthralled. This is a book that requires vigorous active reading and is commenting on the process of reading through its structure. While it is wildly different in scope, plot, tone, and style, the experience this most closely reminded me of was Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. Like Catton, Kitamura is using a rigorous structure to force the reader into a sort of metacognitive process about the nature of plot and storytelling. Audition, however, is also interested in implicating the reader by suggesting a connection between the craft of a novel and the craft of constructing a lived reality. I can confidently say that there are readers who will throw this book across the room when they finish. I can also say that you must, MUST, read this slowly and carefully. There are several details mentioned once that, if missed, completely alter an understanding of the novel. And perhaps that is what I appreciated most about Audition. It is fighting tooth and nail against a sort of passive readerly experience and inviting readers into the realm of close reading. Without verging into a dictatorial author role, Kitamura instructs her readers on how to read the work and—if we follow along—we are guaranteed a highly provocative and unique experience. Bookshop | Libro.fm

• The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen. This FictionMatters Book Club pick is a dark, but stunningly written memoir or an author who was completely unknown to me. Divided into three parts, he book follows Ditlevsen from childhood through young adulthood and into a troubled marriage plagued by substance abuse. It’s hard to say I enjoyed this memoir, especially the frank depiction of drug addiction, but I was captivated by the juxtaposition of the detached way she wrote about her life and the intimate experience of being in her mind. The writing is poetic, which is sometimes a deterrent for me, but in this case really struck me. This is a difficult one to recommend, but it you enjoy particularly striking memoirs or can be won over by incredible writing, this might be one to try. Bookshop | Libro.fm

• The Float Test by Lynn Steger Strong (out 4/8). Strong’s book Flight is one of my favorite books to recommend this time of year. Set over a single holiday weekend, it is an expertly crafted family story that is able to use a condensed narrative to deliver complex characterization and sincere emotion. The Float Test is a similar project in many ways, though the setting and scope give it a markedly different flavor. Like Flight, this is a family story in which the characters come together after the death of the matriarch and in which revealing who that matriarch really was is a primary element of the novel. I found the storytelling choices in this novel to be quite compelling, particularly the choice to have a novelist character who is the focus of the story but not the narrator. Instead, the narrator is her sister Jude and the book occasionally uses conventions that might be expected of an amateur writer and offers meta-commentary on what Jude knows versus what she imagines. Those elements worked well for me, along with a wonderfully vivid Florida setting and frank discussion of the impact of climate change. But I struggled profusely with the driving forces of the novel: secrets and withholding. “Family uncovers secrets after a death” has become something of a trope in literary fiction, such that I find its often used as shorthand in a way that allows the author to rely on the reader’s inherent interest in uncovering the secret rather than developing any authentic tension in the plot. Conversations turn just before a revelation and terrible things to come are hinted at heavy handedly so that I begin to feel manipulated. In The Float Test, this can most easily be summed up with the inclusion of a gun that one sister finds in her deceased mother’s bedroom. Not only does no one know why their mother had the gun, but Strong uses the looming threat of the object to propel the reader through the novel. I always resist when I can sense the author’s hand pulling me through a text so while I enjoyed the writing and characters, I never felt fully engaged or invested in this one. If you appreciate a family novel, I do think you might find much to love in this book, however, I fear that this is a type of novel that’s losing its once-strong grip on me. Bookshop | Libro.fm

Now I’m reading…

• This incredible piece of nonfiction that came highly recommended by

  Traci Thomas
  and this cult classic that is not making the impact I expected.

New on my TBR…

• I had kind of given up on Pat Barker but her newest is getting rave reviews.

Links I love.

Lit Hub’s 38 Favorite Books of 2024. (Lit Hub)

The Best Books of 2024. (New Yorker)

Electric Literature’s Best Novels and Best Nonfiction of 2024. (Electric Lit)

I’m curious to hear what my avid genre reader friends think of the NYT’s lists for best science fiction/fantasy, romance, crime, and horror. (NYT)

Maris Kreizman

and the team at Vulture rounded up their best books of the year. (Vulture)

Constance Grady shared her best books and put a nonfiction tome about Queen Elizabeth on my TBR. (Vox)

I’m very into this analysis of the term “brain rot” from Thoreau to now. (NPR)

The Best Audiobooks of 2024. (Lit Hub)

I bookmarked this kid lit roundup for future reference. (Lit Hub)

Do you have strong feelings about book covers? Cast your votes here. (Electric Lit)

End Notes.

• I really enjoyed listening to the editorial team at the NYT Book Review discuss their best books of the year.

• We started watching Get Millie Black which is based on a short story by Marlon James, who also adapted it. It is very heavy, but extremely good so far.

• I finally watched the finale of Great British Bake Off and it made me so happy!

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Happy reading!

Sara