I have had a hard time picking out books to read lately. I have just had a really hard time getting into reading anything I have picked out.
Milkweed Books announced that during Northern Spark if you tweeted a photo of yourself out working after midnight, they would send you a book for free. I often pour over the shelves of books that Milkweed has published (they sell them in the gift shop at MCBA where I often find myself killing time before a meeting or waiting for a print to dry before I can go home). Since I was working at MCBA all night during Northern Spark, the photo opp would be easy. So I tried it! A few days later, I got an email from Milkweed asking if I prefered Fiction, Non Fiction, or Poetry. I picked Fiction and hoped for the best.
They sent me a book called Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles. The cover art alone was enough to intrigue me! I decided it was time to set aside the copy of Gravity’s Rainbow I was slogging through and give this a shot.
I finished it in 3 days. I have not been that pulled into a book in a long time! All I wanted to do was read!
Orion is a mystery about puppets and shrimp and a group of investigators who are also actors or want to be actors. The story is told through a lot of dialogue as well as the inner ramblings of Finley who wants to be as thorough as possible with her reports about the puppet case she has been assigned to. She can’t remember her past, but is slowly starting to. To tell you anything else would just seem silly. You should just read it!
I have never read a book written in this style before. Kira Henehan has a very choppy, fragmented way of writing this story, and normally I wouldn’t expect to like that style. But here, I love it! I am curious about her other work, and plan to hunt down more of her poetry and short stories. This is her first novel, and I hope to tears that she writes more soon! She is definitely an author I would like to follow.
*I did actually buy an extra copy of this book to give as a birthday present to a friend. I hope she likes it as much as I did!*
Being that I haven’t had the best of luck picking out books on my own lately, and Milkweed did such an awesome job picking out one for me, I asked them on Twitter what they would recommend I read next. They answered! They sent two suggestions: Things That Are by Amy Leach and In Red by Magdalena Tulli. I plan on buying both, and hopefully I can keep getting book recommendations from Milkweed and possibly a few other local publishers around the city! Maybe these little book reviews will become a semi regular part of this blog!
If you read any of the books mentioned here and want to chat about them a bit more, please feel free to leave questions, comments, feedback, and short reviews in the comments! No spoilers please!!!