AJ Dunn Reads

  We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates This story follows the Mulvaney family, well-known and almost mythic in their small rural town of Mt. Ephraim. They are wealthy and full of promise, a young father (Michael, Sr.) and mother (Corinne) and their four children (Mike, Patrick, Marianne, and Judd). The Mulvaneys live on a prosperous farm and have a reputation for being among the social elite, a position long fought for by Michael who is a high school graduate who left home after a falling out with his father. He met Corinne as she was an undergraduate student and the two fell madly in love. A succession of children followed, as well as their idyllic life. But all of that changes when Marianne is raped by her prom date and the family falls apart, their world falls apart, in the aftermath as each responds to this tragic event in their own ways. The rape is hushed up by those in the town and Michael goes on a rampage, becomes ashamed at his actions so much so that he can no long...

  Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin Gilda has problems. She wants everyone to be happy, doesn't want to do anything to upset anyone, and so goes through life allowing mistakes to happen, which leads her into some weird and bad situations. Depressed and obsessed with death, Gilda has been fired from her job, sits in her apartment surrounded by dirty dishes while ignoring texts from a woman who likes her and going unshowered. She is misunderstood by her family. Her parents spend a lot of time ignoring any sort of trouble she or her brother might be having. Her brother, Eli, is either a cross-dresser or wants to be more feminine, but is hiding it behind a bunch of alcohol. Gilda worries about him and her parents refuse to acknowledge he has a problem. Gilda, looking for a therapist to help her get out of her own head, stumbles into a job at a Catholic church, lured there by a want ad. Instead of excusing the mistake, she accepts the secretary job offered to he...

  The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson I'm not exactly sure what this book is trying to say, but I enjoyed reading it.  The story follows Eleanor Vance as she spends a few days in the summer at Hill House, a large and oddly constructed house in the middle of nowhere. Invited by a philosophy doctor and student of the occult, Dr. Montague, Eleanor and two others meet at Hill House unaware of why they are there. Eleanor had a strange occurence happen to her family when she was young, Theodore appears to have some sort of psychic ability, and Luke is the presumptive heir to Hill House. They all meet and become fast friends. Their dialogue is youthful, silly, and fun, sometimes confusing, but obviously friendly. They become close quickly, particularly Eleanor and Theo. Soon the house begins to elicit strange occurrences: knocking on doors, a ghost dog, and blood smeared on Theo's clothes; Eleanor's name along with a message calling her home written on the walls and a co...

  The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is told in epistolary form, as a letter from Mr. Gilbert Markham to his friend Mr. Halford, but also contains a long diary entry within this letter. In the letter Markham is recounting how he came to meet Mrs. Helen Huntingdon, the new tenant at Wildfell Hall, his growing love for her after much abasement, and how he learns of her life before she came to be living there, which she recounts to him through her diary entries. Helen grew up with her aunt and uncle, meets a dashing young gentleman named Arthur Huntingdon at a party. Everyone warns her of his lascivious ways, but she believes that if she marries him she could change him and make him live a Christian life. Ahh, girls. I kept wanting to scream, "You can't change people, Helen! Don't do it!." But she does it. He takes a fancy to her, proposes, and she accepts against her aunt's wishes. Afterward, they move to his home, Grassdale Manor...

  Wonderland by Zoje Stage The Moreau-Bennett family is moving from New York City to the wilderness of upstate NewYork's Adirondack Mountains. Orla feels completely unprepared for life in the middle of nowhere, but she has agreed that after her retirement from a successful ballet career that it is now her husband, Shaw's, turn to follow his muse and to become the great painter they both believe he can be. With their two children, Eleanor Queen and Tycho, they move into their new home during the oncoming winter season. Shaw and Eleanor Queen both start to have a deep connection to the place, sensing something in the surrounding area that they believe is trying to communicate with them. Orla doesn't experience the same thing, but she does find the place to be oppressive and sinister. When the family starts having hallucinations their idyllic dreams are replaced by nightmares. They find themselves confined to the house and property. Whenever they try to leave in order to get a...

  Christine by Stephen King Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury and she takes no prisoners. Fury is an appropriate name. On his way home from school one day with his friend Dennis Guilder, Arnie Cunningham sees the dilapidated wreck of a car in Roland LeBay's yard and decides right then and there that he has to have it. A smart kid in a lot of ways (chess club, high achiever, avid car mechanic), Arnie knows he can fix the car up and he becomes obsessed with doing so. Dennis thinks it's ridiculous and does his best to talk Arnie out of it, but he won't budge. But this is no ordinary wreck, and LeBay knows it. Arnie sets to work putting the car, named Christine by LeBay, back together, but she doesn't really need his help. When LeBay dies Christine becomes more than just a car. She, herself, becomes infatuated...with Arnie. Arnie starts losing time when he's with her, blacks out, becomes someone else from a different time. Dennis and everyone else who has come into con...

  Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata This novel was odd, but hypnotic in a way. It is my first foray into translated Japanese books. I wasn't sure what to expect, and I'm still not sure how I felt about the writing style. It wasn't bad, but it was very straightforward, simple, and almost clinical. Convenience Store Woman follows Keiko, a 36-year-old convenience store worker who, I suspect, is autistic. She is certainly unsure of how to navigate the world as a "normal" member of society. Having failed at any other employment, Keiko finds that her job at the Smile Mart suits her well. She has a manual, a uniform, and can navigate her work day via a script of stock phrases and actions that she knows are expected of her. She thrives in this environment.  All of her life Keiko has struggled with understanding what people expect of her. Her solutions to problems posed in her environment are often violent, simply because they are the quickest and most effective way...

  Things Are Against Us (Advance Reader Copy) by Lucy Ellman I hated this book. Which is very sad, because I loved Ducks, Newburyport and hoped this would be not exactly the same, but similar in tone. Things Are Against Us , set to be published at the end of September, 2021, is a collection of essays Ellman wrote during the Trump presidency up through the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her theme throughout this book is mostly railing against the patriarchy. And I appreciate that sentiment. However, she just took it way off the rails, for me. For one thing, I completely disagree with anyone from any sex engaging in a hate-fest against any other sex, and Ellman just goes all in on her hatred for men in this book. She overgeneralizes men like crazy. Pitting women against men is no way to achieve equality or equity. It is the exact way to get more men to hate women. Who wants to help anyone else who openly hates on them? Not me, and I'm nonbinary. Attacking any sex just leads to ...