Coruscant's Book Recs

BOOKS; image from Pexels

It's been some time since I made a lighter post, so I'm postponing my hot takes (literally; my planned post was a list of my cherished hot takes) in favor of book reviews! 

I've been fortunate over the last few months to get to read a ton of books thanks to summer break, and in some sense, my attitude toward books has drastically changed as a result. I'm pretty pedantic and generally picky with any kind of media I consume, and there are several books that I've put down in the last couple of years simply because they were too boring. That was rare ~3 years ago, but as I found myself increasingly strapped for time, I felt like I had to make sure my free time was spent reading books that were actually entertaining and provided value. If I started a book and the writing was terrible (looking at you, Ready Player One), or the plot was simply boring (looking at you, The Catcher in the Rye), I had less incentive to keep reading. I already spent so little time that I often took weeks to finish a book; why waste multiple weeks reading something unsatisfying?

Then I landed on an incredible lineup of books this summer, including several that appear on this list, and I feel like my mindset changed. Books are still an intense time commitment for me, but I feel more willing to stomach that. 

Anyway, long story short, I'm more emotionally committed to a book blog post thanks to reading some really good books this summer. I understand the irony of me complaining about boring book intros and then proceeding to write a boring intro about that, so let's get into it.

The Moon is rather important; image from Pexels

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

I read this book six years ago, so take this with a shaker of salt, but Seveneves is one of the best books I have ever read.

The basic premise is that the Moon explodes one day for no apparent reason. And if you know anything about the Moon's effect on Earth, you can probably tell that this is not good news. Sure enough, doomsday is coming, and humans have to race to send colonies into space and continue to survive as a species. Eventually, we end up with the titular scenario of the seven Eves, but that's a long way out. 

The last few hundred pages of the book (which deals with the future aftermath of human efforts) are somewhat of a slog, but I still loved Seveneves overall I read the book at a period in my life when I was a major astronomy nerd, so the existence of a scientifically detailed AND entertaining book made a big impression on me. And some of the scenarios in the book were just cool to imagine, although I'm not going to spoil anything.

If you like sci-fi, consider reading Seveneves!

Libbitty bibbitty; image from Pexels

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah is a romance novel in the sense that it charts Ifemelu and Obinze's early relationship, then their estrangement, then their reunion years later, but it's also not really a romance novel, with much of the book's focus given to their experiences with immigration and Ifemelu's life in America—which I'm totally fine with since I despise romance novels. Americanah is interspersed with excerpts from Ifemelu's blog (shout-out to a fellow blogger! REPRESENT), which are always packed with interesting observations even if they aren't, um, that well-written since they're from the perspective of the character. (Note: Adichie herself is a fantastic writer. Her descriptions, especially in the first 150 or so pages, are amazing, as is her word choice.)

Aside from being an entertaining and emotionally tugging narrative, Americanah had a lot of insightful things to say about race in America, immigration, and more. Adichie does a great job of creating a thoughtful novel without making it too didactic.

I do have a few gripes with Americanah, though. The last chapters were so beautifully sad that it was hard to adjust to the abrupt happy ending, although at least it wasn't a sad ending—that would have felt very unrewarding. Besides that, I think Adichie may have tried to pack too much into the novel; I question whether the flash-forwards and the whole thing about African hair being a metaphor really added anything to the novel because of how tangential they seemed to the actual plot. I also am not a huge fan of the allegorical troping of some of the White American characters, since it effectively turns the story into a fable rather than something enjoyable for itself, but this thankfully wasn't a huge deal in the grand scheme of the book. 

With all of that said, I think Americanah is a great book and I'd highly recommend it.

Cool storm; image from Pexels

The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

The first series to appear on this list! I won't deny it: these books are massive. But they're also wildly good and I think the length actually works. Instead of feeling overly dense, the books are rich narratives that keep your interest (or at least mine) even with the length and all the characters involved. 

It's tough for me to summarize the entirety of the series (or at least the series so far; there have been four books released and Sanderson plans to have ten total) in a couple sentences, given the deep history and the whole thing about the connection to the Cosmere (AKA the Branderson Literary Universe), but I'll try anyway. 

Dalinar is a general who is experiencing some mysterious visions during highstorms and grows in opposition to Alethkar's seemingly endless war against the Parshendi. Kaladin is an enslaved bridgeman determined to save his comrades from their fate as decoys in the war. Shallan has a traumatic past and now has to pull off an impossible con involving Alethkar's greatest scholar if she wants to save her siblings from debtors. 

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much that I just can't talk about because it would probably be a big spoiler and I don't want to overwhelm people with details. But this is a rare series that makes more sense as you get deeper into it. (On a related note, don't get turned away just because the prelude in The Way of Kings is super confusing. It'll make a ton of sense eventually, I promise, and the rest of The Way of Kings is actually comprehensible.)

My biggest complaint with The Stormlight Archive is some of the stereotyping that appears to have been carried over from the real world, e.g. of the Horneaters and the Herdazians. I don't really have anything to say about this other than that it's frustrating, especially since it differs from one of the series' themes, equality. 

Anyway, aside from that, The Stormlight Archive is an excellent high-fantasy series. The characters are meticulously sketched out and there's just so much to love for a nerd like me, from the highprinces' political chess to the detailed process of Navani's scientific discoveries. It's impossible for me to capture the insane complexity of the plot, but suffice it to say that it is terrific.

A microphone, perhaps used by comedian Trevor Noah (it was not); image from Pexels

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

I read Born a Crime this summer and absolutely loved it. In case you haven't heard about it, Born a Crime is a memoir from comedian Trevor Noah about his childhood in South Africa, where he, being half-Black and half-White, was not supposed to exist under apartheid. The writing is good though not amazing, but the voice is so strong and drives the book. Trevor Noah was probably my favorite comedian even before I read the book, so I predictably loved his brand of humor. Born a Crime is just so funny cover-to-cover and that alone makes it a great book.

There are some fun stories, too: the tuck shop business and the dancer named Hitler are some of my favorites. This is a book that is brimming with social commentary and that adds another dimension to all of the stories. I also think the discrete format of Born a Crime, with many entertaining stories that don't necessarily have to be read in order, works really well for re-readability purposes.

I don't have a lot of interesting stuff to say about Born a Crime, but it nearly made me cry at the end because the book was over. It's that good.

I'm not sure what to put here so here's a neat abstract painting from Pexels

The Unwind Dystology by Neal Shusterman

I read the first book three years ago before deciding that it was too intense (although good) and I didn't want to read the rest of the series. It probably didn't help that I had Nyan Cat stuck in my head at the time, which made for a weirdly creepy reading experience. 

But I picked up the second book (UnWholly) this summer while I was in the midst of a mini-binge of Neal Shusterman books and immediately fell in love with the plot and the philosophical questions that define the book. The Unwind series is the repudiation of Utilitarianism: that just because unwinding one person could save ten other lives, it doesn't mean that involuntary unwinding is an ethical action. (If this sounds like gibberish to you, I don't blame you.)

Shusterman has a knack for creating apparent dead-end situations that are excellent for the emotional arc of the series. One particular scene in UnDivided (the fourth and final book) was so heartbreaking and poetic that it nearly left me in tears (I have only ever cried once because of a book, so this is actually something of an accomplishment). Consider me awed.

The Unwind series also has a great cast of complex characters; for the first time in a long, long time, I found myself wishing that the characters of a book existed beyond the last page. 

Aside from all of that, the Unwind series had a big personal impact on my approach to books. Even though the way the plot ultimately unfolded was improbable, it was still plausible, and that made me realize that maybe books don't need to be a progression of the most plausible outcomes, because maybe interesting narratives are the only stories that are really worth your time (like a kind of survivor bias). And the lackadaisical start to UnSouled (the third book) has made me more forgiving toward the beginning of a book, because it's tough to get a story going when you aren't sure if your reader gets the situation. 

Since I've been mentioning my gripes with the other books, I suppose I should mention that some of the events would be unrealistic in the real world. I'm also not the biggest fan of the concluding scene of the series, partly because my favorite character kind of got sidelined for the sake of it, partly because it was just a tad cloying, and partly because it felt a little weird in context. 

That still doesn't take away from a spectacular climax and a deeply enjoyable series for me. It's not as grand as The Stormlight Archive, but the Unwind series turned out to be probably the most entertaining and evocative book series I've ever read.

So those are my top 5 book/series recommendations for now. This was a little different from most of my blog posts, so let me know if this is something I should bring back in the future! If you've already read some of these books, I'd love to discuss them in the comments section.

Thanks for reading, and see you next month!

~Coruscant