One thing about Big Book Summer, is the “what are you reading” part of the post doesn’t always change from week to week!
But I did finish a holdover from before I started the Big Book Summer Challenge, so I’ll jump right into my thoughts on Enormous Wings.
Recently Read
Enormous WIngs by Laurie Frankel
Enormous Wings is an urgent novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, morality and mortality. It’s about what happens when you don’t get to choose anymore.
As I mentioned in my last It’s Monday post, Laurie Frankel has been one of my favorite authors for a long time (and not just because we share a first name.) She writes with humor and empathy, often about families dealing realistically with situations such as having a transgender child that have been politicized and demonized in this country.
Enormous Wings has a premise that may strike some as too implausible or farfetched to craft a realistic family novel around. Some may think this unlikely premise makes the book too message-y, didactic, or allegorical. (I looked up what a “message-y” book is actually called, because I couldn’t remember my literary terms!)
I would say if you feel this way when you start reading this novel and still feel this way after the first 100 pages, than go ahead and set it aside! At least you’ll have given the first-person narrator, Pepper – a healthy woman in her mid-seventies moving into an independent living apartment – along with the rest of the quirky, multi-generational cast of characters, the chance to win you over.
And the premise of Enormous Wings may not even be as implausible or message-y as it seems at first. The near-future scenario portrayed in A Handmaid’s Tale would have seemed a lot more unlikely at the height of the women’s rights movement than it does at this point!
Currently Reading
The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett
This huge historical novel is definitely a Big Book Summer read! At 928 pages, The Evening and the Morning (a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth) should really count as two books! 😉
Whistler by Ann Patchett
A moving, luminous novel that reminds us of the sweetness and impermanence of life and the power of connection to defy time.
Ann Patchett is another favorite author, so I’m reading this one now before I get spoilers about it from everyone else reading it before me! At only 295 pages, it’s not long enough for the Big Book Summer Challenge.
Currently Listening To
King Sorrow by Joe Hill
This is not going to be relaxing or soothing, but it will definitely count for Big Book Summer at 896 pages and 1,564 minutes on audio! (Couldn’t the publisher do the math for us? Over 26 hours, yikes!)
This post is linked up to It’s Monday, What Are You Reading, hosted by The Book Date. It’s Monday! What Are You Reading is a place to meet up and share what you have been and are currently reading each week. Visit today’s link-up for more books to add to your groaning TBR pile.
