I picked up V. V. Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night by default- it was the only WP longlister that I could get my hands on quickly. But now I can say confidently that I wouldn’t have wanted to start my WP reading any other way: this book is fantastic. Sharply written, brutal, unflinching, and unforgettable.
This is the story of a young Sri Lankan Tamil woman with a crush and a dream of becoming a doctor at a time when riots and civil war break out across her city and country. The book opens with a mention of terrorism, and between its first page and its last it contains immense horror and sadness as our MC’s family are swallowed up like so many others into the belly of this war. Scenes of cruelty and violence are juxtaposed with the narrator’s sweet memories and longings from simpler times, when her family was whole and loving and her world imperfect but full of possibility and happiness. Her life should have gone very differently. In another world, this would have been a love story, playing out to a backdrop of career success. But in this world, it’s a tale of loss, heartbreak, and massive civilian casualties. A very dark coming-of-age tale.
Three things particularly stood out to me about this book:
1- the history, of course. This is historical fiction done right, making full use of its setting and political background to deliver a plot that feels educational, but always personal and never textbook; I finished the read feeling more informed, but by no means exhausted on the topic. Luckily my copy included a lengthy list of further recommendations! I highly recommend checking out the extra content that may be included with your text if you pick this book up, I found the author’s note, interview, reading list, and discussion questions just as worthwhile as the story itself.
2- the 2nd person address: notoriously hard to pull off but endlessly impressive when it does land well. I don’t normally like being reminded that I’m reading while I am in fact reading, but it’s an effective move here. Our MC/narrator is using this story to explain what she’s witnessed in Sri Lanka and how her perspective of events differs from what is commonly portrayed by media and propoganda. She is very aware of whom she is explaining herself to, of whether that audience already understands certain facets of her experience and whether (or not) she actually owes the reader any sort of explanation at all. It keeps the uninformed reader humble without alienating those more knowledgeable, raising questions about why we read or believe the stories that we do, and reminding us that ours is never the only perspective.
3- the relevance of current events. Much in the same way that Prophet Song (Paul Lynch’s Booker winner for 2023) hit me hard last year, I think it is impossible to read a book today like Brotherless Night, very tied to it’s own place and time, and without seeing present-day echoes. Which is not to say that every conflict involving local terrorism and civilian casualties between government and militant groups is at all the same, but rather that in the intervening years (1980’s-now) we, as a world, should have learned to respond to such situations differently. Better. If there is a singular message to take away from Brotherless Night, I think it is that many of us CAN choose a different path, even if it is harder; we can do something else, we can do something more.
“You must understand: there is no single day on which a war begins. The conflict will collect around you gradually, the way carrion birds assemble around the vulnerable, until there are so many predators that the object of their hunger is not even visible. You will not even be able to see yourself in the gathering crowd of those who would kill you.”
My reaction: 5 out of 5 stars. Definitely check trigger warnings for this one, as it’s fraught with all sorts of peril, but I would highly recommend picking it up if you’re able. It’s an incredibly moving story of civilian strife and the strength of women in times of war, specifically the Sri Lankan civil war through the 1980s. I’m definitely adding further reading to my TBR thanks to Brotherless Night, and will be keeping an eye out for more work from Ganeshanathan as well; she does have one previous publication, Love Marriage, which I may also check out on the strength of her writing.
Taking a little break from catch-up reviews to react to the first ever Women’s Prize non-fiction list! Tbh I was hoping doing chunks of reviews from my color sets would make catching up go faster, but I think I’m still reviewing at the same pace I would with single reviews and just posting them less frequently, oops. Still aiming to continue, but my goal for 2024 was to get back to regular, timely posts reflecting my current reading/writing life so I want to start working on that between old review sets. So!
Last week, the inaugural WP Non-Fiction longlist was announced, and while I don’t read nearly as much non-fiction as I do fiction, it is something I dabble in (I’m hoping to read at least 15 non-fic books in 2024); I’ve had a lot of enjoyment and found some truly impressive reads through the Women’s Prize in the past so this is a list I *had* to check out, even though it’s not a longlist I’m looking to complete this year. It is always the right time to add some fantastic non-fiction work by women to the tbr pile imo!
Here are the 2024 judges (Anne Sebba, Professor Nicola Rollock, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, Kamila Shamsie, and Ventia La Manna) with the longlisted books, from the official website:
The Britannias: An Island QuestĀ by Alice Albinia, published by Allen Lane
Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of FreedomĀ by Grace Blakely, published by Bloomsbury
Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human EvolutionĀ by Cat Bohannon, published by Hutchinson Heinemann
IntervalsĀ published by Marianne Brooker published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth CenturyĀ by Joya Chatterji published by Bodley Head
Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden DeathĀ by Laura Cumming, published by Chatto & Windus
Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in the PhilippinesĀ by Patricia Evangelista, published by Grove Press
Wifedom: Mrs Orwellās Invisible LifeĀ by Anna Funder, published by Viking
Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and MotherhoodĀ by Lucy Jones, published by Allen Lane
Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror WorldĀ by Naomi Klein, published by Allen Lane Hamish Hamilton
A Flat PlaceĀ by Noreen Masud, published by Hamish Hamilton
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashleyās Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles, published by Profile
Code-Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AIĀ by Madhumita Murgia, published by Picador
The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes who Created the Oxford English DictionaryĀ by Sarah Ogilvie, published by Chatto & Windus
Young Queens: The Intertwined Lives of Catherine deā Medici, Elisabeth de Valois and Mary, Queen of ScotsĀ by Leah Redmond Chang, published by Bloomsbury Circus
How to Say Babylon: A Jamaican MemoirĀ by Safiya Sinclair, published by 4th Estate
Of this list, there were only 2 titles I already had vague intentions to read: How to Say Babylon and Doppelganger, both of which seem to be popular titles with glowing reviews. I’m going to aim to track down copies and try to read these during this prize season, with the caveat that I’m hoping (subject to seeing the lists) to prioritize the WP Fiction longlist and Booker International longlist during the same time period, so non-fiction is most likely to be back-burnered by default despite good intent.
In addition, I’ve added 4 more titles that I’d not yet heard of onto my tbr, to read at some point in the future: Wifedom, Eve, Some People Need Killing, and Code-Dependent.
I will be keeping an eye out for the shortlist on March 27 and the winner on June 13; any developments that catch my interest could bump anything from the longlist onto or up my tbr, and anything that ends up feeling aptly suited with any fiction reads I might be picking up for other longlists could also affect prioritization for me (I’m thinking specifically that there’s a 1984-inspired novel that sould be eligible for the WP Fiction list; reading that alongside a non-fiction about Orwell’s wife might make for a nice pairing. It’s possible there may be other such connections instead/as well!).
Overall I think it looks like a pretty varied and interesting list, and this prize might be something I could see myself reading a full longlist from at some point in the future. I wasn’t ready to do that this year, and in looking at the list I do spy a few titles that just don’t have my interest at all so I think being choosy is the right choice for me this year.
Titles I can’t see myself picking up this year:All That She Carried initially did catch my attention with its synopsis, but when I looked further at reviews it sounded a bit heavy-handed and inventive for my taste. The Dictionary People sounds too bookish for me (a crime to utter, I know), Thunderclap too artsy, and The Britannias (while its history and cultural elements sound great) too travelogue for me. I’m not into motherhood books at present so Matrescence is also out. All of these are me problems, not longlist problems, and honestly in another year and under other circumstances I could definitely see myself pushing beyond my non-fiction comfort zones to take chances on any of these sorts of categories that I instinctively shy away from.
Are you planning to read the WP non-fiction list this year, or even just follow along with reviews/announcements? Is there anything here that wasn’t on your radar yet that’s caught your eye?
I managed to complete 7 color/prize list tbr sets in 2023, but reviewed only one of them promptly (snowy blues, part 1 and part 2). I did, however, take notes for reviews through alllll of those reads and do mean to catch up. This batch covers my second set of color reads, the “pinky purples.” Since they’re belated I’m packing more into this post than usual; feel free to skip around to any sections you’re more interested in than others, I know it’s a bit long as a whole.
These pastel-y covers gave such candy-coated vibes to look at, but my reads from this color group turned out to be surprisingly turbulent, with darker centers than the happy coloring suggested- thus, sweet on the outside, stormy on the inside. I absolutely loved that about this set, even if these reads weren’t all wins.
The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King is the second book in King’s Dark Tower fantasy series, which I am buddy reading with a friend; between her new job and my year-long color reading scheme it’s been a slow project. Luckily, the 2016 Scribner paperback editions each begin with a helpful, thorough recap, which makes this an easy series to read piecemeal.
The Gunslinger (book 1 in this series) scraped through for me with just 2 stars, but it’s widely regarded as the worst book in the set so I had higher hopes here. In this volume, we meet our MC (Roland) just a few hours after we left him at the end of the previous book; he’s in bad shape, facing new monsters, and working off only a vague sense of which way he should be going. An odd tarot reading at the end of The Gunslinger has prophesied something nebulous for Roland’s future, which we discover in this novel to mean a series of magical doors along the beach he’s walking, each of which leads him between worlds to meet another character he supposedly needs for his journey to the Tower.
Unfortunately very little happens in this book that feels- even in the moment, but also in context of having read a bit further by the time I’m completing this review- like it will matter to the overall series; Roland makes little progress toward the tower, and we spend this entire novel (aside from a few superfluous but expected shoot-outs and bouts of violence) just becoming acquainted with new characters and their very thorough backstories. At this point we are still being held in the dark on most of the particulars of Roland’s quest, and even Roland seems to be making many decisions on instinct alone. One of the driving points of the series at this point is still the simple mystery of what this series even is– what is the Dark Tower? Why is Roland seeking it? Why does Roland’s fantasy world echo but differ from our own? How are the worlds connected? And why should any of this matter at all to these new characters being plucked from their established lives? Much of the characterization here feels stereotypical, the world building feels lazy (I cannot overemphasize how hard my eyes rolled every time I read “lobstrosities:” lobster monstrosities, to say nothing of the literal doors that magically appear to take Roland exactly where he needs to go). It continues to feel very Male Fantasy, with Roland presenting as a vulnerable but godlike ultimate authority, a hero who cannot be felled even on the brink of death because he is crucial to some Grand Destiny in which everyone else is a replaceable cog just there to keep him going at all costs.
This is a book that’s a bit too full of itself without the strength of the series having been proven yet. Will it prove itself in the end? We shall see.
“What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common.“
My reaction: 2 out of 5 stars. Slightly more enjoyable than The Gunslinger, but not enough to reach that 3-star level. I’m still hoping the series will improve, but I know it’ll be a good time dissecting it with my buddy reader (who, to be fair, is enjoying the series more than I am) either way.
Imposter Syndrome by Kathy Wang was a BOTM title I picked up a couple years ago and finally got around to reading for this color set, featuring a Russian spy in a huge Silicon Valley tech company, whose misdeeds with company technology are stumbled upon by a Chinese American woman on the lower end of the corporate pay roll.
On its surface, I’d call this a spy/crime novel, and we do see a bit of Russian secret intelligence and the (sometimes deadly) underground dealings that maneuver key players into and out of national and international spheres. Though not the only perspective offered here, our main characters is a planted agent, complete with handler, who takes advantage of the technology her job gives her access to in order to help Russia keep tabs on persons of interest.
But beneath the espionage, the heart of this novel really lies with the two women caught up in sticky situations at their huge Twitter/Facebook-like tech company. Ultimately it’s the feminist story of these two lonely women, pitted against each other despite all they have in common. Both are grappling with decisions about whether to do what’s expected of them, and whether that path leads toward their own dreams or someone else’s. They navigate racism and misogyny in their workplace, and struggle with familial and societal opinions. In entirely different circumstances, they might have been friends, or at least been sympathetic to each other. But as it stands, only one of them can succeed in Silicon Valley, seemingly at the other’s expense. And yet, despite the cutthroat environment and high stakes for each character, the reader never quite gets that thrilling brush with danger one might expect from a spy novel. The focus on morals and individuality means the threat never feels immediate or insurmountable. Even as our characters become anxious and desperate, even as the consequences begin to unfold, the book never had me at the edge of my seat. It’s all bark, with so many sharp statements, but entirely lacking any fast-paced plotty action to fit the drama- no bite.
“And in fact she appeared sincere, as if she truly meant what she said- the opposite of most interactions he had with Americans, who liked to pretend a conversation was a relationship when really it was only a mirror, one in which to admire their own labored self-reflections.”
My reaction: 3 out of 5 stars. I enjoyed both of the main characters’ perspectives and the scenario that brought them together, but I kept waiting for more excitement on page (Russian spy!) that never really came. It’s just a quieter novel than I was expecting. I’d still readily recommend this one to anyone looking for a contemporary feminist read that’s a little out of the box.
Trespassesby Louise Kennedy was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for 2023. This is an Irish novel set near Belfast during the Troubles; on its face it’s the story of a young Catholic school teacher having an affair with a man who frequents her family’s bar, but the theme of trespassing goes much deeper as small violences follow her through the tale, highlighting just how pervasive the Troubles were in everyday Irish life- dividing friends, family, and neighbors. Kennedy masterfully weaves everything together, from horrors in the daily news, to drama with the students, to a local family in need, to Cushla’s dalliance, and beyond.
“There’s nothing you can do about any of it. But you can’t take to the bed for the rest of your life.”
There’s something a bit darkly thrilling about extramarital affairs (in fiction!), with their all-consuming sense of indulgence and impending disaster. It’s always fascinating characterization when someone does something they know is wrong, just because they want to. Or in a case like this, two someones. And yet despite the looming dread of knowing things would end badly for Cushla (our MC) and her man after all the attempts at secrecy and subterfuge, Kennedy still pulls it together in a way that feels explosive, surprising, and utterly heart wrenching.
The man Cushla is involved with walks a fine line between the two sides of the conflict in Ireland, as a Protestant lawyer who takes on cases of a political nature that others wouldn’t touch. The depth of the gulf between parties becomes clear when Cushla is regarded as an outsider in Michael’s circle (a byproduct of politics more so than relationship morals), and all the meanwhile she hides any connection with him from her own family, who allow Michael to spend his money at their bar but draw the line there. At the same time as Cushla is enmeshing herself in this forbidden romance, she is also trying to aid a local family whose child is bullied at school and whose father is out of work due to injuries from a political-based attack. Each spoke in this wheel of intercommunity division is fascinating in its own right, but the beauty is in the way Kennedy links them together, bringing the reader to question- though most of the characters fail to- the weight of personal vs community loyalties, the crimes that become acceptable vs the slights that become ruinous, and the barely logical chaos that reigns when a city must adapt to tension and even violence that has become all too commonplace. It’s a true casualty of war that how one is perceived can become so much more important than one’s morality and humanity. And this quandry is precisely where Trespasses shines.
My reaction: 4 out of 5 stars. This was nearly a perfect read for me, but I can see it being somewhat niche and have seen a wide variety of responses to it. I think it’s one of those books that has low plot but a lot to say in what isn’t said, which of course isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and that’s fair. Personally I had a great time with it and am looking forward to reading more from Kennedy.
True Love by Sarah Gerard is a slim literary fiction title about aspiring artists in the modern dating scene that I picked up (almost) solely based on its striking cover.
If you’re put off by unlikable characters or toxic relationships, run far away from this one immediately. Everyone here is a disaster, together and individually, floundering through the motions of living the suffering artist life and falling in love. Our MC is a writer desperate for the affection she never received from her own mother, seeking it from anyone who will give her any time of day, including friends who make even worse choices and men who are just as intent on using her for their own purposes as she is for them. If love comes too easy, she doesn’t trust it at all, looking always for the possibility of something greater. Her life is populated with those whose dreams of success in the art world (and beyond) are often far larger than their talent or even willingness to carry out a plan.
“A partner is a conduit for conducting a certain dimension of one’s experience, a way to collage and create oneself, like a walking, breathing search engine: it’s expedient to have one, affords one’s life content and depth and authority and direction. Plus I have no idea how to do it alone.”
I don’t always enjoy reading about art or the process of art, which is part of the reason this book didn’t entirely work for me. The other downfall for me was the insufferableness of these characters and their total lack of growth or introspection. While I appreciated the sense of contemporary malaise, the realistic difficulty of forging a financially secure life in modern society, and the desperate longing for authentic human connection, I just could not find anyone to really root for or invest in here, and the fact that they all seemed more or less content to bounce off of each other with little regard, behaving however they chose at any given moment, made it harder for me to care about their heartbreaks. It felt like these characters perpetually needed to have some conflict and emotional strife to give them direction in life, which is fair and a fine concept, but rather frustrating as a plot. Sure, things going too right is a source of boredom, the death of art. And maybe it is human nature to be drawn to what hurts us, at least a little. But at what cost?
“I’m not a sociopath. I’m in pain. We all are.”
My reaction: 3 out of 5 stars. Still love the cover, enjoyed how believable and modern this felt, and the sense of despair over the direction in which capitalism is driving our society, but ultimately I just did not enjoy the experience of reading about these characters. I would’ve rather read an essay or short story with the same themes than a full novel that never felt like it was working toward any sort of resolution or statement.
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore was another previous BOTM selection for me, and recommended by a friend as well.
This is the story of a small 1970’s Texan town impacted by an oil boom; with workers coming in to manage the oil fields, local tensions rise and trouble spikes. A Mexican American teen is brutally raped and narrowly escapes death at the hands of an opportunistic man looking to make some quick cash from the oil gig; but despite a kindly rural woman offering immediate assistance and reporting the crime, it’s the 1970’s and public opinion turns against the teen, who looks foreign and did climb into the man’s truck of her own accord, dressed to show off her assets. The woman championing the teen’s case is also criticized, the target of much hate even from former friends, and no longer feels safe in her home. Meanwhile, a motherless child runs wild and makes a questionable (adult male) friend of her own; her neighbor, a grieving widow, tries and ultimately fails, to avoid becoming a much-needed parental figure for the young girl before she stumbles into similar trouble.
There’s a lot happening here, and knowing the gist of the story some of the commentary is to be expected: racism, xenophobia, and misogyny of the setting and era, victim-blaming and the intense pursuit of faultless “normalcy” so common in conservative areas of America. But Wetmore pulls out all the stops, and pushes this story a level deeper by turning it into a dark story of community. It’s not all dark, of course, community is something that these main characters desperately need and sometimes find in each other: physical help, emotional support, guidance, and connection to the world beyond themselves. Without these things all of our cast of shifting narrators would be lost, unable to stand against the greater force of community cultivated by the townsfolk. The township community is also maintained out of necessity, to stand against the influx of unknown, transitory oil workers whose pursuit of profit trumps any respect for the established lives of permanent citizens, though their presence should ultimately give the economy of the little town a much-needed boost that’ll help them all prosper for years to come. In this way the story becomes a complex tapestry of good for one vs good for many, an investigation of crime too easily dismissed when those who don’t pay the cost decide the price is acceptable.
I appreciated the read more than I expected to; I had been a little nervous that the synopsis and early chapters gave so many of the book’s main events away that there wouldn’t be enough in the action and commentary that followed to truly surprise and impress- an incorrect assumption. While it’s true that the most significant “action” in the tale occurs early, this novel is nevertheless packed with simmering tensions and genuine danger, a depth of varied emotions and themes, and a culmination of events that did find me holding my breath in suspense. It’s not an easy read, but I would recommend it to anyone interested in the premise.
“The cops and lawyers and teachers and churches, the judge and jury, the people who raised that boy and then sent him out into the world, to this town- every one of them is guilty.”
My reaction: 4 out of 5 stars. While it lacked that “wow” factor I would’ve needed for a 5 star rating, there’s nothing particular here I feel any need to criticize; this is a book that does a great job of capturing a moment and has a lot to say, and I wish I saw more people picking it up.
I had high hopes for Leone Ross’s Popisho, with its artful cover, its 2022 Women’s Prize longlisting, and some great reviews for this magical realism tale set on a Jamaican-inspired island where the characters each have a particular enhancement or gift. The main storyline follows a chef who can season food with his bare hands and knows the exact meal each person needs in their life at the time that he feeds them. This chef has been requested to serve the wedding dinner for the governor’s daughter, but over the course of one day, partially due to the pressure of preparing this meal he doesn’t want to serve, some particular events on the island turn everyone’s lives and the entire social order upside down.
While I would say the chef is the main character here, there are several other perspectives in the rotation as well, and some other local problems including corruption, prejudice, entitlement, addiction, and more that are explored and which feed into one another.
Unfortunately, it just didn’t live up to expectations for me. Despite the fact that the entire story takes place in one single, full day, a framework that appeals to me, the tale is somewhat light on plot and very episodic, a structure that rarely holds my attention well. I did enjoy the wackiness of some of the details and events, loved the concept of each character possessing a magical ability or calling, and appreciated that these elements converged in satirical reflections on real societal issues both Jamaican (I presume, based upon the setting) and surely beyond; but I wasn’t always able to suspend my disbelief and the silliness sometimes held me at arm’s length from the story, taking away from the greater themes. For example, at one point every woman’s “pum-pum” (vulva) falls off of her body for a bit of commentary on sexual freedom, bodily autonomy, and rape, but I found it too difficult to even wrap my head around how that was supposed to be happening physically/logistically to fully appreciate the messaging sparked by this event and its aftermath.
“All words meant the same thing. Nothing was more important than anything else. Her appendix was the same as orchids and her memories belonged to everyone. She would have remarked out loud at the smallness and the enormity of it all, except she’d stopped breathing and speech was the same as sadness. / Awe, wonder, fear, despair, all here, all gone. No more than a moment. Forever.”
My reaction: 3 out of 5 stars. I really tried with this one and was disappointed not to like it more, because I did enjoy the concept and the writing style- it’s a beautiful book. The magical elements just did not quite match my reading taste, though I think it would be great for literary readers who also like the whimsical.
Final Reflections:
Part of the reason I adopted this color-focused tbr system for 2023 was to use the aesthetic of coordinating covers to help prompt me to keep up with logging my reads and reviews, something I had been struggling with previously. While I clearly fell off the blog bandwagon again pretty early on, I did enjoy the color-coded 3×3 bookstagram grids and the neat Goodreads rows for each color set throughout the year, so it wasn’t a total wash:
Another reason I adopted this system was to push myself to think critically and creatively and farther outside the box about what I was reading; holding six stories in my mind at a time to compare/contrast did help me to engage more deeply with what I was reading, and I had fun considering whether these books with similar cover colors had anything at all in common (without trying to intentionally match up content) and what that might be. A somewhat arbitrary exercise, but I did end up feeling like my reading sets formed (at least somewhat) coherent groups. As mentioned at the start of this post, I noticed with this set that the sweet pastel-y covers were hiding darker centers. These are books that look on the surface like potentially light, pleasant, exciting spring reads. But each of them ended up revealing toxicity or turbulence below that surface. Nothing is as meets the eye with these books, as morals, societies, even whole worlds begin to crumble under the weight of closer observation. There are a lot of things we candy-coat or turn a willingly blind eye toward to keep up appearances, and books like these press against that tendency.
Have you read any of these? Let me know what you thought! š
I finished reading the Booker shortlist last week, and will have my final shortlist review coming up in a day or two along with some overall thoughts and a winner prediction coming up before the announcement on the 19th. But before we get there, another recent Booker read I completed was Anne Tyler’s longlisted Redhead by the Side of the Road, which I want to cover today.
In the novel, Micah Mortimer begins his week like any other: a jog first thing in the morning, a shower, breakfast, the cleanup chore he’s designated for that day, and then taking calls and driving around Baltimore as Tech Hermit, a one-man show for fixing computers. But on this particular week, two things out of the ordinary happen: his woman friend (he feels to old to call her a girlfriend) informs him that she might lose her apartment, and a teenaged boy arrives on Micah’s doorstep to announce that Micah is his biological father. Micah responds to these crises as he responds to everything: benignly, in the interest of preserving his comfortable routine. But these problems won’t go away, and he realizes his orderly life will never be the same again.
These details, all mentioned in the jacket copy, are essentially the entire plot. The book is comprised of only 178 pages, and contains no real surprises. It is perhaps a sweet story of a kindly if unsocial man who’s not yet old, no longer young, and still not quite sure how to shape his life into what he wants it to be. If you’re a reader who enjoys very character-driven, feel-good stories, this one might be for you. I was expecting somewhat more of an expansion on that premise, and thus was disappointed to discover that the book does exactly what it claims to, and nothing further.
“He stared bleakly at the crumpled afghan and the clutter on the coffee table- the beer cans and the junk mail. Under the surface, he thought, maybe he was more like his family than he cared to admit. Maybe he was one skipped vacuuming day away from total chaos.”
It’s hard to argue that anything is actually wrong with this book. It tells the story it sets out to. The only element that gave me pause was the woman friend’s behavior; she expects Micah to react a certain way to the news of her potential eviction, but I found this expectation somewhat unfair and unlikely, as she’s been with Micah long enough to note that he’s very literal and terrible at picking up on social cues. It baffled me that she seemed suddenly unaware or unable to remember what sort of personality she was dealing with. But aside from this small hiccup, Tyler does deliver a very competent, very readable tale. She excels at drawing out ordinary details and making her fiction feel like a snapshot of regular life. I thought at times the dialogue felt a little canned, but there is enough of it for the book to build up a quick pace, and the prose flows without friction from start to finish. It’s competent. It’s optimistic. It’s heartwarming, I suppose. Charming. Those just aren’t adjectives I would apply to any of my favorite books, which should help explain my lukewarm reaction.
“Sometimes when he was dealing with people, he felt like he was operating one of those claw machines on a boardwalk, those shovel things where you tried to scoop up a prize but the controls were too unwieldy and you worked at too great a remove.”
The theme, helped along by the title and Micah’s slightly myopic vision, seems to point toward the importance of perspective. At the book’s beginning, Micah can see only his own point of view. As he speaks with friends and family about things that are troubling him and hears other sides to stories he thought he knew through and through, he learns to reconsider how his behavior is perceived by those around him. That perspectives differ and we should consider how our actions look to others is, of course, an important lesson to learn in life, but is it one that’s going to be new to anyone at this point? I have my doubts.
To sum, while I’d agree that this is an easy-breezy one-sitting read with its heart in the right place, I found it far too simplistic and unremarkable to impress in any way. Frankly, I can’t even guess as to how this one ended up on the Booker list at all, other than perhaps people just need comfort reads in this year or our lord 2020. No shade to Anne Tyler fans, and maybe something else from her backlist would work better for me, but I’m at a loss here. Redhead reminded me strongly of Frederik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, minus the humor and emotional depth, which just doesn’t leave much beyond soft fluff.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars. This was one of those occasions where I really had no idea how to rate the book after I finished. I flew through it and didn’t hate the experience at all, but was also totally unsatisfied in the end. I just couldn’t get any real purchase on it, good or bad. I prefer my stories somewhat darker and less straightforward, is all. I’m sure a more appropriate audience will get their hands on this one and have better luck, it does have a very commercial feel that I think will help bring it to the attention of readers who will enjoy it more.
I am nearing the end of my Busy Work Season (finally) and expect to be back here more regularly within a week or so. It’s been harder than usual to find time to stop in here, so I have quite a bit to catch up on! In the meantime I’m still slowly but steadily making my way through the Booker longlist, along with a few other reads; earlier this month I finished Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness, which has also now been shortlisted.
In the novel, Bea and her daughter Agnes have fled the City as part of an experimental group meant to answer the question of whether humans can coexist peacefully with the raw nature of the earth’s last Wilderness State. They start as a group of twenty people with an assortment of “wilderness skills” and modern equipment, but soon dwindle to about half the number and learn to replace broken items with handmade pieces they can make from natural resources. Very little ever goes as expected, but it’s a life most of them come to love.
“Bea assumed there must be geese elsewhere, just not in the City. But now she didn’t know. And what of those other lands in heavy use? The cities of greenhouses, the rolling landfills, the sea of windmills, the Woodlots, the Server Farms. What of the lands that had long ago been abandoned? The Heat Belt, the Fallow Lands, the New Coast.”
It’s easy to call this book dystopian, but I think that description does it a disservice. There are little remarks here and there about this eerily plausible future that come with their own disturbing implications and increase the stakes of this tale, but the focus of the book is less of a map through social decline and more of a contained character study, an exploration of mother/daughter relationships, and an exploration of humanity’s animalistic side. I think those picking up The New Wilderness expecting the sort of inventive world building, political commentary, and rebellious plotting that typically comes with dystopian novels may be disappointed, though the perpetual struggle of man vs nature on offer here might appeal to another sort of audience.
Cook’s Wilderness is practically a character in itself. It is a fairly large place, perhaps moreso than the synopsis suggests (I, for one, was surprised by its size); the characters require several seasons to cross through different sections of it, and long journeys between “posts” can take years. Many of the details of mountains and hot springs, forests and salt flats are reminiscent of real natural places, though the variety and geography suggest that this Wilderness is in fact a mishmash rather than any identifiable landmass from our known world. I am not the sort of reader who particularly enjoys long passages of nature descriptions, though I can certainly admit that Cook knows how to paint a scene and plant the reader directly in her characters’ environment. The landscapes are always very clear, and no two places are the same. I mentioned above that I didn’t find the world building very inventive in this book, but I don’t mean that Cook is lazy about creating a believable space- rather that her Wilderness adheres mainly to the known rules of our natural universe while she gives little insight into the vast, overbearing City and its corresponding hubs, the futuristic setting that dystopian readers will likely be more curious about. Of course much of it is self-explanatory- we don’t need much elaboration on how capitalism cannibalizes our world in the name of progress and success, and so it seems Cook is content to drop clues and leave the reader to draw their own assumptions.
In addition to the Wilderness, we have Bea and Agnes. CW for miscarriage; the book opens on a gritty scene of Bea birthing a stillborn daughter alone, outdoors (and this is only the first of several miscarriages in the narrative- food is limited, the work of survival can be grueling, and full-term pregnancies are difficult to come by), which sets the tone for both the feral state of Wilderness life and Bea’s complicated relationship with motherhood. Agnes, Bea’s only living child, was sickly in the City but has grown strong in the Wilderness; Agnes has spent most of her childhood out in the open, and feels that the Wilderness is her natural home. Bea finds Agnes odd and somewhat predatory, though it seemed to me Agnes is simply very literal. She doesn’t understand the nuances of why people lie or hide things from each other, or what can be said without directly being said. Instead, she has an affinity for the physical world around her, which fits with her upbringing. It didn’t quite make sense to me that Bea would find Agnes’s mannerisms so unusual and mysterious, or even off-putting. Agnes is by no means unlikeable, which made some of the commentary around the difficult love between this mother and daughter feel somewhat forced to me. Then again, I’m not a mother myself, and have perhaps read too many books on this theme in 2020.
“And she loved Agnes fiercely, though motherhood felt like a heavy coat she was compelled to put on each day no matter the weather.”
A few times while reading I encountered a major perspective or plot shift that threw me off. We read from both Bea’s and Agnes’s perspectives, and certain big events happen to the group in the Wilderness that majorly alter their course and understanding of their position. Which is great in theory, but it seemed like every time this happened it forced me away from an aspect that I was interested in reading about in favor of focusing on something else entirely, and I would have to invest in the story all over again from a new angle. The whole narrative shifts about somewhat aimlessly until the obvious conflict that arises at the end of the book finally drives the story in the direction it has clearly always been aiming. Until the climax, the characters are more or less just existing, describing the natural wonders of their world and the petty conflicts that take place between members of the group. By the time the story begins, Bea and Agnes have already been in the Wilderness several years, and a way of life is well established; I wouldn’t even call this a survival book, as so much of the tension is internal or between characters- the 400+ page count leans instead toward biding time. Because of this, the story feels a bit too controlled and fragmented for the wild and natural thing that I think it wants to be.
” ‘I was never so scared in my life,’ he said, a catch in his breath. ‘But then, it was so incredible. The landscape was utterly changed.’ “
Largely, The New Wilderness reminds me of Richard Powers’s The Overstory. Both are a bit too long and, I would argue, more impactful in concept and implications than in execution as fictional stories. Even though I didn’t entirely enjoy either read, The Overstory still manages to sneak up and haunt my everyday life with regularity and has found its way into conversation with most of the regulars in my life. I’m hoping The New Wilderness will prove similarly long-lived in my thoughts, though I’m not entirely sure I found it surprising enough for it to linger that way. In any case, I thinkthe ideal audience for both of these books will overlap significantly.
The New Wilderness is not my top choice for the Booker win this year, but I did find Cook’s writing intriguing and very easy to fall into, and I’ll be curious to see what she does next.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars. I can see this book making a big impression on the right reader, but in the end that simply wasn’t me. Rather, I found it to be a book I could admire in some ways and truly enjoy in few. I hope other readers will have better luck.
Another Booker Prize review! I happened to be working my way through Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain at the time the Booker shortlist was announced this month, and finished a week or so after. Even while taking it slow, I found Shuggie Bain immersive and emotional.
In the novel, Agnes Bain sinks deeper into alcoholism following her second marriage; Shuggie, the young product of this union, spends his childhood adoring a mother at odds with the world, and trying to save her from herself. Shuggie finds occasional help from the adults in his mother’s life, though very quickly it is apparent that his older half-siblings are going to look out for themselves first, and most of his mother’s “friends” are only looking to take advantage of her. It’s a rough childhood for Shuggie in many ways, though his love for his mother never wavers; through his affection Agnes’s addiction is revealed as a patient disease wearing her down over decades rather than the character flaw that everyone else around her seems to consider it.
“She was in the dangerous in-between place. Enough drink to feel combative but not enough to be unreasonable yet. A few mouthfuls more and she would become destructive, mean-mouthed, spiteful. He stared at her as if he were reading the weather coming down from the glen. He took hold of her and tried to shift her again, before the great rainclouds inside her burst.”
This book is Scottish through and through. Set is 80s-90s Glasgow and told in dialect, Shuggie Bain is a novel that feels inseparable from its time and location, though there’s certainly a universality and timelessness to alcoholism that becomes more pronounced throughout the book, especially as Shuggie meets others who understand his situation all too well. The dialect comes through mainly in the dialogue, where accented speech is spelled out phonetically; I found this easy enough to decipher, and otherwise there are only a few occasional words in the exposition that differ from what I would use in American English, but seem obvious enough in meaning from context. It’s possible other readers may find the writing more challenging, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to anyone interested in the premise on the basis of its style.
The title and general focus on Shuggie are interesting- in many ways this is Agnes’s story, though Stuart head hops just enough to give the reader a clear impression of all of the main characters and their particular perspectives. Everyone feels very real, their motives fully comprehensible and perhaps even frustratingly familiar. The obvious meaning in pointing the focus toward Shuggie in this tale is, I think, twofold: because we’re focused on a character who loves Agnes despite how difficult she makes things for him, sympathy is easy to come by even as the reader becomes acquainted with Agnes’s antagonism. Additionally, centering Shuggie helps convey how very large a challenge alcoholism can be, not only for the person who’s fallen victim to it but for everyone around them, even those they love and would most like to protect. Shuggie may be Agnes’s golden boy, but even he can’t compete with the draw of alcohol for her, whereas in Shuggie’s life, Agnes is a blazing sun that shapes him and his life experience almost entirely.
“He wondered how long it would be till she passed out, till he could have a rest.”
Less obvious but equally important, I think, is that Shuggie really is the lifeblood of this story. While Agnes may be a constant presence throughout these pages, it is nevertheless Shuggie who drives the novel forward. He is the young innocent with a future of great possibility stretching before him, if he can just survive all that is stacked against him. In addition to his mother’s addiction, he’s also got an absent, mean, and selfish father, siblings who leave him behind, a horde of bullies to contend with at school, and no true friends. He doesn’t seem to fit in with his peers at all, who taunt and torment him for being “poofy” even before he has any sense of his own sexuality. And yet, he is kind and caring and steadfast, willing to tolerate more than he should, and it’s impossible not to root for him. Despite the desperate, fraught situation, this is not a loveless tale. The love may be toxic and/or misguided, but it is very present nonetheless, lending the book an aura of tragedy rather than outright cruelty. Even characters who behave despicably don’t do so out of cold-hearted spite or evilness, but rather out of their own need to survive however they can, amid a lack of understanding for the magnitude of Agnes’s battle.
“It was hard at first to start moving again, to feel the music, to go to that other place in your head where you keep your confidence. It didn’t go together, the shuffling feet and the jangly limbs, but like a slow train it caught speed and soon he was flying again. He tried to tone down the big showy moves, the shaking hips and the big sweeping arms. But it was in him, and as it poured out, he found he was helpless to stop it.”
I’m not convinced we really need the full 430 pages that Shuggie Bain gives us, but there were no sections that I found myself wishing had been thrown out entirely, and no moment when I picked the story back up again that I wasn’t instantly hooked back into the flow of Shuggie’s and Agnes’s lives. Parts of it do feel repetitive, which would have been resolved easily by shrinking the page count, but I think ultimately the repetition speaks to the undifferentiated nature of Agnes’s (and thus Shuggie’s) days. It can feel a bit aimless, but I suspect that’s the point.
I can’t deny enjoying myself- if enjoying is the right word for a story this heartbreakingly sad. Very little good happens to Shuggie or his family in the pages of this book, so if you’re someone who needs a happy ending, I’ll warn you now to look elsewhere.
CW: alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide ideation/threats/attempts, child neglect, homophobia, rape, molestation, physical and verbal bullying, death of a loved one.
My reaction: 4 out of 5 stars. I knew what to expect, and it went on rather longer than I really needed it to, and yet I was fully drawn in and moved by the particularities regardless. Aside from the dialect, it’s a straightforward story told in a very straightforward way, and yet despite this I can understand its spot on the shortlist and I think anyone who appreciates a good sad book will likely find what they’re looking for here. I don’t think it’s my top choice for Booker winner this year, but it’s a worthwhile read for those who are interested in the premise and have a bit of time to dedicate to it.
Summer is winding down in my corner of the world by the end of July, but it isn’t quite over yet! I’ve spent a lot of time outdoors this past month tending my garden and soaking up the sun, which meant less reading than I was hoping, but July still ended up being a pretty average reading month for me. I didn’t plan well enough to fit all of the specific titles in that I wanted to from my TBR, but I did participate in a record FOUR buddy reads, all of which I enjoyed! (Actually two of these haven’t completely concluded yet, but more on that below.)
To start off, my TBR for July looked like this:
From the list, I ended up finishing two and a half titles before the end of the month. This is the aspect of my July reading goals I’m saddest about not completing, because I set my TBR full of Black-authored books that I was excited about- it was (and is) important to me to to read these, and yet I couldn’t work all of them around a surplus of additional commitments (which I do not regret either- my only regret here is double booking my schedule, to be clear!). I will still be reading the books that I didn’t get to in July, hopefully in August but definitely before the end of the year.
My completed reading for the month, by title:
Mother Daughter Widow Wife by Robin Wasserman – 3 stars. A new release in July, and one I read because I received a physical ARC earlier this year. I was so excited about the premise of this one (a woman steps off a bus with no ID and no memory of her life up to that point), but the threads of this story never quite came together satisfactorily for me. Furthermore, some of the characterization seemed a bit off and detrimental to the book’s feminist themes.
The Wild Unknown Tarot Guidebook by Kim Krans – 4 stars. I won’t do a full review for this one; it’s a guidebook that came with a specific tarot deck, which is something I’m just starting playing around with. I like how artistic and simple this set is, and the lack of human figures on the cards and in the book. As a total newbie I found this a fair place to start; it answered a lot of questions and helped get me going with basic understanding and simple readings. However, this set clearly reveals the artist’s take on tarot rather than impartially conveying full info; even though I think I like with this approach, I’ll need to see other perspectives to know for sure what’s going to work best for me. I’ve got a couple more guidebooks in line to check out but feel free to recommend anything you’ve found useful!
Four Past Midnight by Stephen King – 3 stars. a 900+ page buddy read of four novellas. There were some ups and downs for me with these stories, but on the whole I found this a solid offering of King’s shorter works with each piece very readable and interesting. We have disappearances on a plane mid-flight, a writer with an extreme fear of plagiarism accusations, a library policeman who exacts extreme payment for late returns, and a Polaroid camera that seems to take the same picture over and over no matter where you aim it. Despite the middling rating, I think it will be hard for other collections of King’s short work to top this one for me.
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates – 3 stars. Unfortunately, another case of loving the premise but finding the execution a poor fit for my personal taste. This is a magical realism story about the Underground Railroad; I loved the use of the magic and the characterization throughout the book, but found it a bit too episodic and theatrically written, also slightly repetitive after having read Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad previously.
Africa’s Tarnished Name by Chinua Achebe – 4 stars. A small essay collection that mainly focuses on how Africa and Africans are (now and historically) perceived and represented by outsiders. Africa may have its own internal struggles, but it is hobbled by the enmity placed upon it primarily by European countries that benefited from slave trade. Achebe also talks about problematic elements of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness here.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado- 4 stars. I buddy read this collection of short stories with Donna (be sure to check out her post here)! There were more hits than misses for me in this book and I had a great time chatting about the stories with Donna, even though we didn’t always agree on favorites! This volume makes a perfect fiction/nonfiction pair with Machado’s memoir, In the Dream House.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – 4 stars.A buddy read with Melanie, and the first time reading Moreno-Garcia for both of us! We had a good chat about this book yesterday and should both have reviews coming up later this week. I enjoyed the read but had some small issues with writing and characterization, and talking with Melanie teased out some more, so expect a mixed review from me, and be sure to check out her post as well on Thursday!
Supper Club by Lara Williams- 4 stars. A Women’s Prize Squad title that’s gotten a lot of buzz from the group lately! I had a lot of fun reading this tale of women reclaiming their space by feasting without restraint. The only downside for me was the book’s failure to explore the theme a little more deeply once it was established. I liked what was on display, but was left wishing for a bit more.
Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown – 4 stars. This YA memoir/magical realism tale is a great place for teens to turn to read about Black childhood and adolescence in America- whether looking for something inspiring to relate to, or a bit of education on others’ experiences. There’s an empowering magical element at use here and a cool formatting trick that allows the narration to shift between scenes midsentence. This might have been a stand-out favorite for me 10 years ago but unfortunately it did feel a little too young and repetitive for me at present. Full review coming soon.
Honorable mentions:
My fourth buddy read of the month is ongoing; we’re making our way through another set of Stephen King novellas, this collection called Different Seasons. Two stories down, two to go. It’s too soon to say for sure but I suspect this one won’t be as successful for me as Four Past Midnight was.
Additionally, I’m also more than halfway through Ibram X. Kendi’s nonfiction memoir/guidebook How to Be AnAntiracist; it has a great format and so many important messages (of course), but I’m not finding it quite as life-altering as I’d hoped. I knew nonfiction reading about racism was a long game, and this is cementing that truth for me. (Which is ultimately a good thing, considering how many I bought last month!)
I startedHome Before Dark recently because I was in the mood for a thriller (and wanted to read one to prep for my Spotlight on Thrillers post which… I also forgot to finish before the end of July, so that’s still forthcoming!) but I’m prioritizing the two titles above and am only about 1/4 of the way through this one. Surprisingly for a Riley Sager read, it’s not really grabbing me yet! However, I remain hopeful, and I’m sure it’ll go fast once I get into it.
Some stats:
Average rating – 3.6
Best of month –Her Body and Other Parties
Owned books read for the first time – 9 out of 9. But I bought more books than I could keep up with this month, so my personal TBR stash grew. I will be cutting back on book purchases for a little while, but I will also be returning to the library this month for the first time since early March (which is exciting, but will not help my own-unread shelf). I’ll be following safety guidelines and starting off with Booker longlistees as a trial run- if any issues arise I’ll suspend library use again until it’s safer.
Year total – 61 books read. I’m just a little ahead of schedule for my 100 books in 2020 goal.
I’ve linked my review posts for the month to the titles above; non-review posts included:
a Top of the TBR list featuring some excellent books I want to read and the fantastic bloggers who’ve put them on my radar
a round-up of the Booker longlisted titles for 2020 and my initial thoughts/plans on reading the list
My August TBR (including new releases I’ve got my eye on and plans for Women in Translation month reading) will be coming up soon, along with that belated Spotlight post and my two pending reviews. Looks like it’ll be a busy month for blogging! Stay tuned.
I’m on a slow trek through Stephen King’s oeuvre, and have a friend who likes to buddy read the long volumes with me; our latest adventure featured the novella collection Four Past Midnight, which rings in at over 930 pages (in the edition I read from, at least). As always, King’s writing has some issues, but we both really liked these plots! I’ll break it down here story by story, in the order they’re printed. Several (maybe all?) are available individually bound outside of this original collection.
The Langoliers – 3 stars.
In this novella, a pilot lands after a white-knuckle flight only to be given the news that something has happened to his ex-wife; he boards another plane, this time as a passenger, to make the journey from west coast US to east. While in the air, a few passengers fall quickly asleep, only to wake over the Rocky Mountains and realize that the majority of the people on the plane have vanished, including the pilot and copilot. Luckily there’s a spare. But things get weirder as our hero tries to communicate with the ground and navigate a safe landing- to fare better than their missing counterparts, they’ll have to do a bit more than touch back down.
This story gets off to a great start as soon as the eventful flight is under way- there’s plenty of suspense and intriguing surprises as the waking passengers try to ascertain their situation. For a few chapters I was on the edge of my seat, even saying “WHAT?” aloud a few times, completely hooked and wondering what would happen next. But the pace slows down in the second half as the characters piece things together and take their sweet time explaining revelations to each other despite time being of the essence. Classic King, indulging in the details to draw the story out longer than necessary at every point. There are also too many main characters and the women, as usual, are characterized poorly (the two adult women seem to existĀ to provide assistance and romance for the men; the younger girl seems present only to further the plot with a sixth sense). The execution could have used a little work, but the concept is solid, the action scenes aren’t bad, and it’s fun to guess who will live or die. I expect this story would make for great visuals, and it looks like there is a mini-series from 1995, though I haven’t seen it and I’m not sure a film that old (sorry) would do it the justice I imagine a more current adaptation would be capable of.
“But grownups did not believe children, especially not blind children, even more especially not blind girl children. She wanted to tell them they couldnāt stay here, that it wasn’t safe to stay here, that they had to start the plane up and get going again. But what would they say? Okay, sure, Dinah’s right, everybody back on the plane? No way.”
Secret Window, Secret Garden – 4 stars.
In this novella, a recently divorced writer is making a permanent home out of the summer house by the lake he once shared with his ex-wife. He’s been struggling to write and spending most of his time blissfully asleep. But things get complicated when a man shows up on his doorstep with accusations of plagiarism. The two decide to handle the matter between themselves- the writer claims to have proof that he came to it first, and the accuser hangs around quietly menacing him and voicing disbelief. Chaos ensues when the proof proves hard to come by and no one can back up the writer’s tale of a loony false-accuser showing up where he doesn’t belong. (CW: pet violence)
Despite the fact that modern applications of the internet essentially make every detail of this story’s main conflict completely obsolete, it’s a great piece. Perhaps even one of my all-time Stephen King favorites. The psychological horrors always seem to work a little better for me than flashy supernatural twists. This is at heart the story of a writer having a breakdown, worrying about a threat to his career that’s out of his control and dealing with the emotional upheaval of his wife leaving him for another man. The first sentence hooks the reader in, and the tension builds at a perfect pace from start to finish (discounting the epilogue). There is some of the usual sexism/misogyny from King, but because of the story’s focus on the writer’s mental state it’s fairly easy to attribute those remarks to a questionable character rather than pinning them on King.
My only complaints are that the story feels incredibly dated (a magazine has to be mailed to prove publication, the MC has a landline with no answering machine, the accuser must drive out of state to confront the MC rather than simply finding him on the internet, etc.), and that the epilogue is comprised of one character giving a monologue to another to explain what has happened, with a small and unnecessary supernatural twist thrown in right at the end that (in my opinion) detracts slightly from the brilliant psychological conflict laid out through the rest of the story. I’d highly recommend this one, and remember enjoying the 2004 film feat. Johnny Depp, though it’s been almost that long since I’ve seen it!
The Library Policeman – 4 stars.
In this novella, an insurance businessman is wrangled into giving a speech on short notice. He knows his way around the topic, but wants to spice up the speech with some jokes, and makes a trip to the library for some tips and examples to improve his piece. He has an oddly sinister experience there, with the building itself (and its decor) seeming designed to frighten, and the librarian giving him a snappy argument when he asks about it. She warns him to return the books on time or face the “library police,” who punish late returns. Of course he misses the due date, and turns to friends who’ve been in town (and used the library) longer than he has for information on the woman who threatened him and the nature of the eerie library policeman, which leads to a little supernatural battle over the unreturned books. (CW: molestation; graphic and on-page)
I had more issues with the writing choices in this one, not the least of which was the totally unnecessary detailed account of a child molestation. Additionally, the way alcoholics are presented and addressed is unpleasant and surprisingly problematic considering King himself was battling alcoholism around this time. I was also incredibly frustrated that in a town of 35,000 people one woman with a business degree is considered “the town’s entire secretarial pool,” as though women go to business school to become secretaries for men who need someone to TYPE UP THEIR CORRESPONDENCE, and as though only one woman out of 35,000 would 1) be capable of this strenuous task or 2) go through business school. The MC also *repeatedly* calls her by a nickname she *repeatedly* asks him not to, and eventually turns her into the (again unnecessary) love interest. Then there’s the fact that this MC will not take responsibility for losing his library books- sure, that can happen accidentally, and no one should be killed for it, but instead of once acknowledging that the books were in his possession and were lost while he was responsible for keeping track of them, which indicates that the fault does lie with him, he blames the man who collected his recycling and the library (specifically the librarian) for holding him to such a “unreasonable” rule as a due date. (Rant over.)
In spite of the flaws, I did actually have a great time with this plot. This is another one that King manages to pace well, with the tension gradually building and small incidents along the way keeping the reader’s attention rapt. The villain is a delightful mashup of Pennywise from It (which was published a few years prior) and the creature from The Outsider(which was published just a few years ago); she is a unique monster, but exists/operates under very similar rules to the two mentioned. One of the things I find most fascinating about King’s work is seeing ideas recycled and repurposed throughout the years, so this was an interesting blend. There was even a great quote linking the villain here to both other books, which I’ll include below. And speaking of quotes, we also get an amusing moment in the dialogue when the librarian states that she has never and will never read a Stephen King novel. Perhaps best of all, the library policeman is actually an intersection of two horrors the MC is experiencing, one the present sci-fi element, one a past trauma. This ties the supernatural element into a psychological horror, and the dual nature of it strengthens both aspects. As an added bonus, this story takes place in my home state (Iowa), a deviation from King’s typical Maine settings. Other than the fact that most Iowans would probably laugh at King calling a 35,000 person town “small” and “unable to support two libraries,” it wasn’t a bad representation.
“There’s somethin not human, some it hidden inside her skin, and I think I always knew that. It’s insideā¦ but it’s forever an outsider.”
The Sun Dog – 3 stars.
In this novella, a boy receives a much-anticipated Polaroid camera for his fifteenth birthday. He’s thrilled, until he realizes that no matter where he aims the lens, it only produces pictures of one thing: a mangy dog standing in front of a white fence. He recognizes neither the dog nor the fence nor the surrounding yard, and after using all of his film hoping for a different result, takes the camera to a local fix-it man with a bad reputation, as a last resort. Together they discover that the pictures of the dog are in fact slightly different, and when put together show a slow progression. The inevitable conclusion looks disastrous, but the boy and the fix-it man disagree on what should be done with the portent-of-doom camera, which will have frightening consequences. (CW: spoilers for Cujo within the text)
This one has such an eerie atmosphere that I really wanted to love it. But there are a number of bad “jokes” in the narration (involving a plane crash in Pakistan, the devastation of Hiroshima, a black woman doing yard work [she is called a “marvelous creature” for never speaking], and a set of rich old [women] twins who are shamed for expecting guests to pronounce their names properly [the narration gives them degrading nicknames used behind their backs]). As for plot, there is that annoying trope where the protagonist learns something through magical dreams, as well as several details with the supernatural element that seemed rushed or altogether unaddressed that I would’ve loved to see explored further (like who is holding the camera taking pictures of the dog, and how are the images being sent to the boy’s camera? Why him?). Furthermore, the MC makes a decision toward the end that seems illogical, and useful only in drawing the plot into a more dramatic (read: deadly) conclusion. I loved the concept of this story but was frequently frustrated.
‘The Sun Dog” is set in Castle Rock, one of the fictional Maine towns King frequently returns to in his writing. Some readers prefer to read the Castle Rock books in order, and even if you’re not planning on reading all 17 novels, novellas, and short stories set there, you may want to consider that “The Sun Dog” is the second volume in a loose Castle Rock trilogy, which starts with The Dark Half and ends with Needful Things. I’ve read neither yet, so I can say that “The Sun Dog” can be read alone just fine, but I can’t tell you based on my own experience whether it’s worth reading the trilogy together in chronological order. I’ll leave that up to you.
Final thoughts:
I expect at this point that I will always find King’s writing problematic. Tasteless and ignorant bits of characterization and narration has unfortunately become par for his course. I think it’s worth noting where King’s writing fails, if we are to go on celebrating what he does well. And he does do some things well. Even though I had complaints here, I still found each of these plots enjoyable, the concepts duly horrifying and thought-provoking, and the lengths very suitable to King’s storytelling style. The pacing is great in 3 of the 4, all are suspenseful reads, and as a collection they strike a great balance between King’s strengths with sci-fi and psychological horrors, without going overboard on either. I think all of these novellas will be memorable for me, and with the caveat of wanting readers to know what negatives to expect from these stories I would recommend them all to readers looking for shorter works of King’s to pick up.
My reaction: 3 out of 5 stars. My actual average rating was 3.5, but I’m rounding down based on how it holds up against other books I’ve rated 3 or 4 stars in the past. I’m looking forward to checking out more of King’s shorter pieces in the future. My SK buddy reading friend and I are leaning toward Different Seasons (another collection of novellas) next.
Thanks for sticking with me, if you made it this far!
My last catch-up post from June is for Kate Elizabeth Russell’s debut novel, My Dark Vanessa, which was one of my top reads for the month and for the entire first half of the year.
In the novel, adult Vanessa near present day is dealing with the fallout from a relationship that started when she was fifteen. In dual timelines, Vanessa recounts how she became involved with a much-older teacher at her private school in her teens, while in the present she watches another girl accuse the same teacher of rape and gain traction against his reputation on the internet. More girls come forward. Vanessa must now reconcile what she’d always considered a difficult romance with the stories that are costing her teacher so very much.
” ‘He was a grown man and you were fifteen,’ she says. ‘What could you possibly have done to torture him?’ For a moment I’m speechless, unable to come up with an answer besides, I walked into his classroom. I existed. I was born.”
This is a difficult review to write, both for the painful content it covers and for the simple fact that I thought the book was pretty much perfect. Is there anything more to say, beyond ‘I wouldn’t change a single line?’ My Dark Vanessa is both beautiful and heartbreakingly ugly. It bravely tackles both physical and psychological trauma, and while vilifying predatory behavior it also challenges the reader to accept a response to this treatment that doesn’t seem to fit the narrative of victimhood: Vanessa does not see herself as a victim. She doesn’t want to condemn her teacher. She continues to reach out to him as an adult, even while he is under attack, even while she knows that he has touched other underage girls. She turns down chance after chance to speak out to anyone in a way that could prevent other girls being abused by this teacher, by this school, by other teachers in other schools. And this, too, is a valid reaction to trauma.
“Ordinary girls have shoeboxes of love letters and dried-out corsages; I get a stack of child porn. If I were smart, I’d burn everything, especially the photos, because I know how they’d look to a normal person, like something confiscated from a sex trafficking ring, evidence of an obvious crime- but I could never. It would be like setting myself on fire.”
As for the writing, the eighteen+ years Russell spent working on this story show. The language isn’t ornate or flashy, the sentences straightforward, but every word has clearly been chosen carefully, and absolutely nothing is out of place. It’s extremely quotable. Every detail is aptly delivered, and the tightrope line between the subtlety of literary fiction and the clarity of commercial fiction is walked effortlessly. There’s a natural, flowing pace to the words, and even the switches from past to present are transitioned gently with linked themes and emotions from one chapter to the next. This is a story to get lost in, if you can bear to be broken by it all at once.
There are also, for the bookish reader, several references to well-known poems and literary works within these pages. The obvious connection, of course, being Lolita, which is mentioned frequently. I think anyone familiar with Nabokov’s most infamous work will see an extra layer of richness to the story as similarities can then be drawn and allusions understood. It’s one thing to know vaguely what sort of book Lolita is when Vanessa’s teacher gives her a copy and it becomes her favorite novel, another to be familiar enough with that work to see how disturbing but disturbingly fitting that is for Vanessa’s experience. But, that said, the ties are explained well enough on page that it really isn’t necessary to read Lolita for the sake of this novel, and it’s not a book to go into any more lightly than My Dark Vanessa. Be aware of plot spoilers for Lolita here though, if you do plan to read it later on. (Minor spoiler in the quote below.)
” ‘Like Lolita and Humbert,’ I say without thinking, and then wince as I wait for his annoyance at the comparison, but he only smiles. ‘I suppose that’s fair.’ He looks over at me, slides his hand up my thigh. ‘You like the idea of that, don’t you? Maybe one day I’ll just keep driving rather than bring you home. I’ll steal you away.’ “
One thing I’ve seen some divided opinion on with My DarkVanessa is the ending. Despite some resolution, there is no happy ending here. It is, perhaps, hopeful, at best. Vanessa sees some character growth, but much like real life, deep hurt is not easily cured and people will always have differences of opinion and experience. Personally, I thought the ending for Vanessa here was inevitable, and the way we leave off with the other characters felt realistic. That is arguably the best way to end a book so rooted in ongoing social issues. Sexual assault resulting from abuse of authority is not something that we should have any reason to consider resolved or concluded at this point.
In the end, this has perhaps been the most haunting and emotional book I’ve read all year, and I have some truly great titles to choose from on that score. I am lucky enough not to have been raped at fifteen or any age (own voices reviews for trauma content should be sought with care, it is no one’s obligation to announce their traumas for others’ benefit), and yet something about sexual abuse stories always manages to cut right into my heart as though it’s personal. This line, I think, really helped to explain my reaction:
“I had no reason to care about rape then- I was a lucky kid, safe and securely loved- but that story hit me hard. Somehow I sensed what was coming for me even then. Really though, what girl doesn’t? It looms over you, that threat of violence. They drill the danger into your head until it starts to feel inevitable. You grown up wondering when it’s finally going to happen.”
CW for molestation, rape, grooming, gaslighting, and destructive behavior, all on page.
My reaction: 5 out of 5 stars. I am 100% on board for whatever Kate Elizabeth Russell publishes next, no matter what topic, no matter how much time she spends on it, etc. She’s a brilliant writer and My Dark Vanessa will have pride of place on my shelf for a long, long time.
And as a final note, I haven’t read this book yet but have recently heard about a nonfiction memoir that sounds like it would be a great companion to My Dark Vanessa: Lucy Crawford’s Notes on a Silencing, in which she describes speaking out about sexual assault as a teen and learning later how her school, local police, and others worked to bury her case. I’ll definitely be checking this one out, and if you loved My Dark Vanessa I thought you might also appreciate having this one added to your radar.
Today’s review is a catch-up post featuring a book I started reading back in May: Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House.
In the novel, Alex is found as the sole survivor on the scene of a homicide, and from there is plucked from her seedy life and given a full ride scholarship to Yale based on her ability to see ghosts. In exchange for her Ivy league education, she must work as an important member in the network of Yale’s secret societies: she’ll be the leader of the house that monitors the uses of magic performed by the eight magical societies. She is supposed to have a mentor for the first year while she learns the ins and outs of the magic and her responsibilities, but something goes awry and Darlington goes missing. Soon after, a girl is killed. When Alex digs for the truth, she finds herself up against some powerful enemies and a whole lot of corruption.
“You should never look into the face of the uncanny, but had he ever been able to turn away? No, he’d courted it, begged for it. He had to know. He wanted to know everything.”
I was immediately drawn in by this book’s main characters: Alex is a kickass take-no-shit heroine whose time among addicts and abusers and whose ability to see the world of the dead alongside the world of the living colors her experience with elite academics. Then there’s Darlington, her Lethe House mentor, whose longing to learn anything and everything (especially when it comes to magic) is both his salvation and his downfall. But the trio wouldn’t be complete without wise Dawes, runner of Lethe headquarters, keeper of knowledge, assistant in all sorts of scenarios Alex would never have dreamed she’d find herself in. The three make an incredible team; they all work together well enough, but each have their own one-on-one relationships which ultimately make them stronger as a set. The only downside is that Darlington is physically absent for the duration of the novel; we see him only in memories and glimpses into the past.
Also notable isĀ Ninth House‘s thorough world-building. We see Yale, down to the architectural styles of its buildings and the names of the streets dissecting campus. We see the town beyond, both its legacy and its layout. We’re given eight secret societies in addition to Lethe House which oversees them all; each society has a name, a location for meetings and magic, its own rituals and rules of operation, and important members. There’s also insider slang, to further complicate the terminology.
Though I loved the attention to detail, the book loses a lot of momentum in laying this all out. The plot becomes tangled up in explanations of the magic system governing it. There’s a sense of waiting for the pieces to come together, for Alex to be able to move freely and confidently through this magical world, and ultimately that doesn’t quite happen in a satisfactory way before the end of the novel. But the groundwork is now laid, and I think it’s entirely possible- even likely- that in the sequel we’ll see this magic realized in a more appreciable way. Perhaps whatever Bardugo is planning to do with all of this detail will play into an exciting plot that’s free of heavy worldbuilding minutiae in the second book. If that doesn’t turn out to be the case, I’ll have to reevaluate my stance, and I know that not every reader will be interested in sticking with a series that’s more concerned with a longer narrative than individual installments, which is totally fair as well. But as I’m optimistic that the ground is being laid for a complex sequel that piggybacks directly off of Ninth House, I think Bardugo does the best one can with such an excess of info; between the back-and-forth format of the fall and spring semesters and the way that Alex’s investigations provide a reason for her (and the reader) to seek intel on each of the societies, Bardugo largely manages to avoid clunky exposition. With the exception of the villain’s dramatic monologue on their evil deeds.
While the pace is slow and the doling of info ponderous at times, there are other reasons to enjoy the read even if you’re not sold on continuing the series. The plot may require some work from the reader, but it does play into interesting deeper themes. Alex is an observant and critical protagonist who uses the scenes she witnesses to comment on the self-serving actions of the rich, the nepotism and favoritism involved, the ease with which abuse of power can be concealed by… further abuse of power. Yale is presented as a dark, exclusionary place, and the societies present as a sort of (fantastical) microcosm of the wider Ivy institution. Alex notes that the only thing that sets the secret society students apart is that someone let them into the club, often based on family or other close connections. The magic here is available only to a few, though essentially anyone could do it- the magic is ritual-based and learned rather than innate. Of course the adults who return to benefit from the magical rituals are the previous members of the societies as well- the rich helping the rich get richer. It’s a closed circle, for no reason other than that those who found power closed the door to it, and granted access only to those who would keep the secrets among themselves and use them primarily to members’ advantage. Because long-standing traditions are involved, there are other prejudices at play in the system as well, including misogyny.
“Did she seem depressed? She was distant. She didn’t make many friends. She was struggling in her classes. All true. But would it have mattered if she’d been someone else? If she’d been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she’d been a straight-A student, they would have said she’d been eaten alive by her perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died.”
Last but not least, I can’t end without mentioning the graphic content in these pages. There are a couple of rape scenes, including rape of a child, and uses of magic as a means to manipulate people (mostly women) into doing things they wouldn’t consent to, including sex. There are also murders, drug and alcohol use, and poor parenting, including abandoning a child. It seemed to me that the intent of these scenes and details was primarily for characterization and furthering the commentary, and in several cases the perpetrator is repaid for their actions. There is no explicit or implied message that abuse is acceptable in any circumstance, though Bardugo perhaps misjudges in places how much of a scene the reader needs to see to get the gist. Is it all necessary? Maybe not, but it’s not handled lightly either. It’s worth remembering that while Bardugo has written primarily for YA audiences in the past, this is an adult fantasy, and there is some disturbing content. If you have any further questions about triggering content that I’ve mentioned here or want to be sure a trigger I’ve failed to mention isn’t actually here, please talk to me in the comments!
“She was relieved when she realized he was dead. A dead man in the girls’ bathroom was a lot less scary than a living one.”
My reaction: 3 out of 5 stars. I think the next book in the series will see a higher rating from me, because most of my complaints with this one are things that will likely be resolved naturally with the simple progression of the overall plot as the series continues. I also think my rating might have been a little higher for this one if not for Six of Crows… it seems unfair to judge one of the author’s works against another, but that book was such a favorite for me that I can’t forget what heights Bardugo is capable of taking me to, and Ninth House just wasn’t on that level. I did enjoy this read though, and am eagerly awaiting the next installment!
The Literary Elephant
Conquering the world of literature, one book at a time
In the novel, adult Vanessa near present day is dealing with the fallout from a relationship that started when she was fifteen. In dual timelines, Vanessa recounts how she became involved with a much-older teacher at her private school in her teens, while in the present she watches another girl accuse the same teacher of rape and gain traction against his reputation on the internet. More girls come forward. Vanessa must now reconcile what she’d always considered a difficult romance with the stories that are costing her teacher so very much.
In the novel, Alex is found as the sole survivor on the scene of a homicide, and from there is plucked from her seedy life and given a full ride scholarship to Yale based on her ability to see ghosts. In exchange for her Ivy league education, she must work as an important member in the network of Yale’s secret societies: she’ll be the leader of the house that monitors the uses of magic performed by the eight magical societies. She is supposed to have a mentor for the first year while she learns the ins and outs of the magic and her responsibilities, but something goes awry and Darlington goes missing. Soon after, a girl is killed. When Alex digs for the truth, she finds herself up against some powerful enemies and a whole lot of corruption.
literaryelephant 