Hello and welcome to my reading wrap-up for the month of March!
March was a huge reading month for me, but I’ve actually posted about most of the books I read already, so this will just be a brief recap of my thoughts on each. As usual, each book title contains a clickable link to that book’s Goodreads page where you can learn more about it, and I also invite you to use the affiliate link to my Bookshop.org shop at the bottom of the page if you’re interested in buying any of these books and would also like to help me keep the lights on here at WorldLiteraTour (as an affiliate, I get a little bit of cashback for any purchase made through my links).
Anyway, here are the 12 books I read in March, listed in the order I completed them:
⭐
Watch Out for Her by Samantha Bailey
I read this for Canada Reads, aaaaand this is not a good thriller. It’s also not particularly Canadian, despite taking place in Toronto and Vancouver. The plot is weak and predictable, the characters are inconsistent and react in really weird and unbelievable ways to the things that happen, and the dialogue is wooden and dry. I’m kind of annoyed that this was the one year I was determined to read all of the Canada Reads books before the debates started, and therefore I couldn’t DNF this.
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Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill by Catherine Tsalikis
I reviewed this one here. I thought this was an excellent biography of a very polarizing figure in Canadian politics. Chrystia Freeland started her career as a journalist, working for high-profile papers around the world, but she has ended up in federal politics, serving as deputy prime minister under PM Justin Trudeau, as well as several other positions in Trudeau’s and now in Carney’s cabinet. I have to say, I’ve always admired her spunk and tenacity, and Tsalikis managed to capture that spirit in this biography. Chrystia Freeland has a seemingly endless supply of energy and optimism, and it was cool to see where that came from by taking a look at her childhood and formative years as an Albertan farm girl and an overachieving student. While this biography isn’t authorized by Chrystia herself, it contains interviews with some of her family, friends, and coworkers, and it seems meticulously researched and impartially written. I highly recommend it.
⭐⭐⭐
Etta & Otto & Russell & James by Emma Hooper
Another Canada Reads finalist. Set partly during the Great Depression and WWII and partly in the early 2000s, this novel follows Etta, her husband Otto, their neighbour Russell, and [don’t want to spoil it] James as 83-year-old Etta sets out from Saskatchewan on a cross-Canada walk while looking back on key moments in her life. It’s a beautiful story about love and loss and memory, and while I fully understand the 5-star reviews this book gets, I also fully understand the 1- and 2-star reviews. It can be a difficult book to follow at times, since Etta is suffering from dementia, and her grasp on time and place becomes muddled both in her own mind and in the narrative. While it’s brilliantly done, it’s a lot for the reader to take in at times. Also, on a more personal level, I didn’t really agree with some of the lessons the novel tries to impart. I do recommend checking it out if any of this sounds up your alley, though.
⭐⭐
Jennie’s Boy: A Newfoundland Childhood by Wayne Johnston
Another Canada Reads finalist. There was a time when I considered Wayne Johnston among my top 3 authors (up until I realized how often incestual attraction is used in his novels in uncomfortably casual ways), so I expected to enjoy his childhood memoir. I kinda didn’t. Basically, the events of this memoir take place over a few months when Johnston was about 7 years old, during a time when he was gravely ill with a mysterious ailment that turned out to be asthma complicated by pleurisy. I have been chronically ill since childhood myself, so I could relate to a lot of his experiences with doctors misdiagnosing him and family members not knowing what to do with him, and generally missing out on childhood joys because of health problems. The problem is, Johnston focuses too much on the small stuff, like the same argument he hears his parents having over and over again, moments with his siblings that could have been expressed within a paragraph but inexplicably go on for several pages, and full conversations that don’t bring much if any new information. Then it ends with a quick summary of what happens next, which is the part I was hoping the book was about. All in all, I was disappointed.
This was the Canada Reads 2025 winner, the book that every Canadian should read. I didn’t give it a star rating, because I can’t honestly say that I “loved” or even “liked” this book. Ma-Nee Chacaby has had a turbulent life, and it’s hard to read about at times. I honestly don’t know how she got through the incessant violence she experienced in her younger years. The first half of this book describes one horrific trauma after another after another after another, to the point where I started to experience empathy fatigue and just felt angry. While the second half does eventually become hopeful and inspiring, that wasn’t really enough for me to generate positive feelings towards this book. Plus, I didn’t like the choppy, time-jumping narrative, though I do understand that that’s common in Indigenous storytelling. I respect the importance of Chacaby’s story, but this was a hard one for me to get through.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Dandelion by Jamie Chai Yun Liew
My favourite of the 5 Canada Reads finalists this year. This is the story of Lily, the daughter of Chinese and Brunei immigrants in Canada. In many ways, Lily and her family represent every immigrant in Canada, as each one of them deals with issues of identity and belonging in different ways, and many struggle to obtain citizenship. This story also represents the many ways in which Canadians act towards immigrants, some kindly and some not, some meaning well but unknowingly doing as much damage as the openly unkind.
I love the metaphor of the dandelion here, as Lily’s father explains it – “To some, this is a weed. But it’s really a flower. Like a dandelion, the Hakka can land anywhere, take root in the poorest soil, flourish, and flower. Look at this one. It’s growing in the crack of the asphalt” (p. 33). What a beautiful way to illustrate the perceived nuisance and the underlying strength and resilience of immigrants. Dandelions may pop up where you don’t want them to be, but if you nurtured them a little instead of immediately writing them off, you’d find they’re actually very beneficial in the garden and full of goodness and healing properties. Deep meaning, accessible writing, and a story that keeps you turning the pages. I really enjoyed this one.
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Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su
A woman finds a shapeshifting blob and starts molding her perfect man. This is Pygmalion for the 21st-century lonely girls, and it is as-yet unchallenged for my favourite read of 2025. Oh. My. Gosh. I laughed, I cried, I squirmed… this is as flawless as a debut novel gets, in my opinion. For my complete thoughts, please check out my review, but in a nutshell: if you loved Bunny and/or Convenience Store Woman for their unconventional heroines and their satirical look at modern life, pick this one up. I absolutely loved it.
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A Good House for Children by Kate Collins
This is a dual-timeline horror/thriller that takes place in a creepy, gothic house that seems to have been the location of a lot of deaths or disappearances over the years, particularly of children. The creepy vibes in this book are immaculate, the characters are well-drawn, the story is page-turning, the thrills are chilling. There’s even an underlying message in here regarding the all-consuming nature of motherhood, and how easily women are silenced and buried under the needs of their husbands and children. The ending leaves a little bit to be desired, at least for me, but this is a riveting novel that kept me guessing all the way through.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel
I reviewed this debut horror novel here. This is the story of three siblings – a teenage boy who is always getting into trouble, his 20-something older brother who has a habit of shirking his family responsibilities, and their older sister who is tired of sacrificing everything to take care of her brothers. Weird things start to happen when the youngest brother gets into some trouble with the law – a mysterious woman appears to save his life, and the sister starts to realize that her recurring nightmare might actually be coming true.
I really enjoyed the ride with this one. Some aspects of the plot got confusing partway through, and I found myself annoyed by the message the story seemed to convey, which is why I couldn’t give it 5 stars. But I loved the sibling relationships and the horror vibes. I think it’s well worth your time if you’re a horror fan.
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The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
If you’ve visited my blog before, you must either be sick and tired of me raving about SGJ or be a huge fan of him yourself, am I right? I LOVE THIS MAN AND EVERY WORD HE WRITES. Ahem. Yeah, so I was extremely excited to pick this one up. While it hasn’t become my new favourite of his books (I Was a Teenage Slasher still holds that crown), it definitely didn’t disappoint.
You can go here for my full review, but in a nutshell: this is the story of Good Stab, a Blackfeet vampire who is telling, or confessing, his life story to a Lutheran pastor, who writes it in a diary that is read generations later by a grad student. As usual with SGJ’s work, it is equal parts gory violence and heartwrenching emotion, fun horror vibes and important social commentary. Jones is the master. Sit back and let him show you how it’s done.
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Tae Te Ching, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell
I don’t often include my World LiteraTour project reads in my wrap-up, but this one is special to me. I love The Book of the Way and fully believe that everyone should read and reflect on it at least once in their lives. Aside from it figuring prominently in several Eastern religions, I would argue that it’s also the best self-help book ever written. You can read my analysis of it here.
⭐⭐⭐
I reviewed this book here. Karen Russell is far from being a debut writer, but this was my first time reading her work, and I was very impressed by the beauty and easy flow of her writing style, as well as by the obvious hard work she puts into her research and building her characters. This is a masterful work that I fully expect to see on the syllabus of many an English course in years to come. However, there’s a LOT to this book, and at times it was more than my brain wanted to chew. So, please don’t take my 3 stars as a criticism of the book itself, but rather a reflection of my level of enjoyment while reading it. I highly recommend it to just about anyone.
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