Hello there!
Does the end of the year make you feel pensive too? I find myself reviewing the past year in my head, thinking about all the good and bad. What habits do I want to keep and what can go? How do I want my 2025 to look? How do I make those things a reality?
These days between Christmas and New Years are perfect for that for me. I get to rest, recharge, and plan for the new year. It involves a lot of great conversations with my loved ones too, on their goals, wishes, and hopes. One thing I’ve realized over this past year, is my struggle with finding rest in stressful times.
Between the first half of the year working on my thesis project and my second half of the year adjusting to work life and searching for jobs, it’s been quite a rollercoaster. It’s been ever so important to find rest, but it’s been tough to get. I pick up a hobby to relax, put too much pressure on myself, it stops being relaxing, and I have to find something new. It’s a cycle that keeps repeating, but I am now aware of and eager to break. I’m starting with putting less pressure on myself, which is already proving to be quite the challenge!
As I’m going into the new year, I hope I shift my focus from perfect to done. Crocheting something, reading something, creating something, that is the exercise and that is the joy. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it can just be finished. Maybe 2025 will be the year of flawed and messy. But done.
My December reads:
1. Tom Lake
I am still so new to reading literary fiction, so it feels lucky that I manage to pick the best titles. Tom Lake is one of them. It is a beautiful, heartfelt story about family, love, and growing up.
Lara tells her three daughters the story of how she met, fell in love with, and dated a famous actor when she was younger. She starts out as a starry-eyed young woman, getting swept away into Hollywood fame as a young actress. She ends up at the beautiful Tom Lake to perform plays over the summer, and falls into a whirlwind romance with fellow actor Peter Duke. It is a different world from the life she lives now: with her three daughters, working on the cherry tree farm that has been in her husband’s family for centuries.
Tom Lake manages to answer the big questions in such a small setting. How do we define success? Do we measure it by fame and fortune, or by good memories made? Peter Duke’s and Lara’s paths diverge at some point. While she lives a quaint life in Michigan, marrying the cherry farmer and raising three daughters there, Peter Duke launches into stardom. How did both of them end up where they are now? How do they look back on the choices they made? How do they view success and happiness in their lives?
Tom Lake is one I’ll be mesmerized by for years to come.
2. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing hits the mark instantly. Within two pages, I was whipped away, into a world of internet fame, aliens, and the fate of humankind. I’ve always enjoyed Hank Green’s other ventures, but it’s good to know I like his books too.
It’s almost hard to believe that An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is Hank Green’s debut novel, but it is. In this fast paced, plot-focused novel, April finds a strange statue on the New York streets in the middle of the night. Assuming it’s a cool new art display, she calls her friend Andy to film a video of it with her. The video is made and uploaded late at night, but the next morning April wakes to newfound fame.
The statue is one of many across the world, which appeared out of nowhere. No-one knows what they are or where they came from. From one day to the next, April’s life changes as she goes viral as the first person who found the New York statue – affectionately named Carl – and is launched into stardom. From the brewing political debates, to staying relevant in (toxic) online spaces and the giant mystery of the possibly alien Carls, Hank Green shows a masterclass of plotting.
Every element of the book perfectly sets you up for the ending. I was on the edge of my seat for every single page. I envy people who haven’t read it, who can experience the last 60 pages of this book for the first time. Because boy, is it a ride.
3. The Third Gilmore Girl
I adore the TV show Gilmore Girls, so I was very, very excited to read this. Emily Gilmore, played by Kelly Bishop, is one of my favourite characters, so of course I had to read her memoir, The Third Gilmore Girl.
Though I admire Kelly Bishop’s career accomplishments, I’d wished this book would go a bit more in depth in her personal life as well. We follow Bishop from ballet to her role in A Chorus Line, and from Dirty Dancing to Gilmore Girls. The book mainly focuses on her career, mentioning every single play, soap, show, and ad that she’s been in, which made it feel like a Wikipedia page at times. There are some mentions of her personal life, but they feel more like random anecdotes than anything else.
In the end, I feel like I didn’t learn that much more about her as a person, that I would’ve if I read her IMDB or Wikipedia. It fell flat as a memoir, and fails to deliver on personal insights or views, instead feeling like a random collection of points to make. If you’re a Gilmore Girls fan, wanting to learn more about the actors and behind the scenes moments, you’re much better off reading Lauren Graham’s memoir: Talking as Fast as I Can.
4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
This book proves to me that it’s not a good idea to share a ‘favourites of 2024’ list until the clock strikes 12 on the 31st of December. I finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow in the early hours of the 29th and it’s my favourite read of the year, by far. This book is on par with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and anyone who knows me, understands what a big deal that is, because it’s my favourite book of all time!
We follow the friendship of Sadie and Sam, two stubborn and complicated people who, despite everything, have a deep understanding and love for each other. Their bond changes as they grow older, but they always find each other again. They start off as kids with a passion for gaming, and meet again as college kids on the other side of the US. They decide to design a game together, which leaves them forever intertwined. Through their friends, through their game company, through their designs and work. Where there is Sam, there is Sadie, and vice versa, even when there’s not.
For the last half of the book, I was reading every free second I had. Brushing my teeth, transferring between metros (thanks to my boyfriend guiding me by my arm), waiting for the coffee to brew. It feels like a love letter to human connection and the people we meet who alter our lives forever. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow made me cry, captured my heart and left me reeling. Five stars does not feel like enough.
Thank you again for visiting this cozy corner of the internet. I hope you are getting all the rest and relaxation you need before the new year starts. Let me know how you are finding rest this month, and how you are holding onto that rest in the new year. I’m still finding the balance between work and rest, which is a tedious art.
Lots of love,
Marjo
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