Urban Ethics in the Anthropocene - Jeffery K.H. Chan
I was expecting this slim volume to be a bit more...substantive? But once I realised what Chan is actually doing - an opening of urban planning and design principles to expose the ethical complexities that absolutely need to be explored before any urban plan can be considered ethical, and that, crucially, have not been addressed in either ethicsbor planning literature - I was completely on board. I found myself asking of my own urban work the kinds of questions that Chan is highlighting in a way that I don't think I would have if he had written the book I thought that he had written when I picked it up. I particularly loved the last chapter, on the commons, but all chapters will stay with me, because they're all relevant to the work that I do, both practical and intellectual, in the city. I will definitely be coming back to this book, to remember questions, and to take advantage of the extensive, carefully-curated bibliography.
I was expecting this slim volume to be a bit more...substantive? But once I realised what Chan is actually doing - an opening of urban planning and design principles to expose the ethical complexities that absolutely need to be explored before any urban plan can be considered ethical, and that, crucially, have not been addressed in either ethicsbor planning literature - I was completely on board. I found myself asking of my own urban work the kinds of questions that Chan is highlighting in a way that I don't think I would have if he had written the book I thought that he had written when I picked it up. I particularly loved the last chapter, on the commons, but all chapters will stay with me, because they're all relevant to the work that I do, both practical and intellectual, in the city. I will definitely be coming back to this book, to remember questions, and to take advantage of the extensive, carefully-curated bibliography.
Illuminae - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
I have to thank this book for making me feel like finishing Battlestar Galactica, which was the best thing about it. I guess I feel like so much YA has wonderful conceptual work that is dreadfully underserved by its execution. A contained star as a ship's engine! An AI that falls in love but is unable to recognise that fact! Evil corporations! Ethical questions about deadly, incurable, highly contagious viruses! Hacking with gestures to the "punk" part of cyberpunk! Plucky teenagers with bad attitudes! A story told in collected ephemera in the guise of a report! All of this SHOULD have worked, and I think as an audiobook came closer to working than it might have in print, but it was just let down by bad pacing, uninspired prose, and inconsistent characterisations. And I do wish YA specfic could decide whether it wants to be a romance genre or not. So much of the thematic messiness of this book came from being incapable of deciding whether the romance served the plot or the plot served the romance - both are great choices! Not choosing shoots you in the foot!
I have to thank this book for making me feel like finishing Battlestar Galactica, which was the best thing about it. I guess I feel like so much YA has wonderful conceptual work that is dreadfully underserved by its execution. A contained star as a ship's engine! An AI that falls in love but is unable to recognise that fact! Evil corporations! Ethical questions about deadly, incurable, highly contagious viruses! Hacking with gestures to the "punk" part of cyberpunk! Plucky teenagers with bad attitudes! A story told in collected ephemera in the guise of a report! All of this SHOULD have worked, and I think as an audiobook came closer to working than it might have in print, but it was just let down by bad pacing, uninspired prose, and inconsistent characterisations. And I do wish YA specfic could decide whether it wants to be a romance genre or not. So much of the thematic messiness of this book came from being incapable of deciding whether the romance served the plot or the plot served the romance - both are great choices! Not choosing shoots you in the foot!
Red Rosa - Kate Evans
Evans is a master of her craft - the interplay of word and image here is phenomenal, where image highlights, adds to, and subverts text. Its authorial insertions about the nature of narrative and the necessity of moving between the various facets of a complex human life rather than focusing just on, say, Luxemburg's activism or her love life, were brilliant in placing and in execution. I felt so deeply moved by so many aspects of the story, including the embedded critiques of this perhaps most abrasive of my personal heroes, and I also felt educated! I have a hard time with remembering narrative sequence, the order in which things happen and their placement in time relative to other events, but I felt so fully in grasp of the timeline
Evans is a master of her craft - the interplay of word and image here is phenomenal, where image highlights, adds to, and subverts text. Its authorial insertions about the nature of narrative and the necessity of moving between the various facets of a complex human life rather than focusing just on, say, Luxemburg's activism or her love life, were brilliant in placing and in execution. I felt so deeply moved by so many aspects of the story, including the embedded critiques of this perhaps most abrasive of my personal heroes, and I also felt educated! I have a hard time with remembering narrative sequence, the order in which things happen and their placement in time relative to other events, but I felt so fully in grasp of the timeline
The Alchemyst - Michael Scott
This book was recommended to me in CEGEP, and I might have enjoyed it more then? I feel like the particular sub-genre of "so the Greek/Norse/Egyptian gods were real and now it is the Modern World and they are figuring it out" was not so overplayed in the first decade of the century? As it is, I have read enough bad iterations of the idea that they kind of all blur together. I think the particularly irritating thing about this iteration is the barely-veiled antisemitism? Or maybe the non-explanation explanation of a magic system that seems to just...do whatever Scott needs it to at any given moment? Somehow someone let him publish a whole series of these poorly-written, barely-plotted books?
This book was recommended to me in CEGEP, and I might have enjoyed it more then? I feel like the particular sub-genre of "so the Greek/Norse/Egyptian gods were real and now it is the Modern World and they are figuring it out" was not so overplayed in the first decade of the century? As it is, I have read enough bad iterations of the idea that they kind of all blur together. I think the particularly irritating thing about this iteration is the barely-veiled antisemitism? Or maybe the non-explanation explanation of a magic system that seems to just...do whatever Scott needs it to at any given moment? Somehow someone let him publish a whole series of these poorly-written, barely-plotted books?
The Oldest Boy - Sarah Ruhl
I think the main problem with this play is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a story about exile? Maybe, yes, and if that theme were carried through more consistently, it could be a good one. It could also have been a good story about agency, or about hybridity, or about the relationship between Self and Other. As it stands, it is not really a play about any of those things, and is in fact a static snapshot of characters who do not grow or change, of ideas presented but never developed, and ultimately reads just...really exoticising. I like a lot of the technical aspects, but they're just so poorly used or under-used (imagine what could have happened if the dancers had been integral rather than simply accessorising!) that the whole play is just an exercise in disappointment. I so wanted to like it!
I think the main problem with this play is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it a story about exile? Maybe, yes, and if that theme were carried through more consistently, it could be a good one. It could also have been a good story about agency, or about hybridity, or about the relationship between Self and Other. As it stands, it is not really a play about any of those things, and is in fact a static snapshot of characters who do not grow or change, of ideas presented but never developed, and ultimately reads just...really exoticising. I like a lot of the technical aspects, but they're just so poorly used or under-used (imagine what could have happened if the dancers had been integral rather than simply accessorising!) that the whole play is just an exercise in disappointment. I so wanted to like it!
The Black God's Drums - P. Djèlí Clark
I wanted this novella to be a novel. There's so Much of it! I want more of everything - more of this fascinating alternate history, more of this beautiful work of overlapping dialect, more time, most importantly, with all of the characters. This felt like an episode of backstory or a aide adventure to a main narrative, just intriguing enough to stand on its own, and I desperately want the main narrative! Clark's use of language is great, and the layered significances of how he uses religion is just so...perfect. My only complaint is that it's so short that it feels rushed at times, needs a bit of breathing space. I would have preferred it as a novel, I think, or as a novella set in a larger world that already included at least one novel.
I wanted this novella to be a novel. There's so Much of it! I want more of everything - more of this fascinating alternate history, more of this beautiful work of overlapping dialect, more time, most importantly, with all of the characters. This felt like an episode of backstory or a aide adventure to a main narrative, just intriguing enough to stand on its own, and I desperately want the main narrative! Clark's use of language is great, and the layered significances of how he uses religion is just so...perfect. My only complaint is that it's so short that it feels rushed at times, needs a bit of breathing space. I would have preferred it as a novel, I think, or as a novella set in a larger world that already included at least one novel.
Miranda in Milan - Katharine Duckett
Another novella that really should have been a novel! This reads like the kind of thing I would expect to be self-published rather than having gone through the fires of professional publication. There's rather too much plot for the page count, and things happen too conveniently, but without the tonal quality of fairy tale that might have made it feel natural. I loved the ideas - Prospero's sins, the real reasons for his banishment, the problems of language, the problems of magic, the question of home. But they're just there, on the page, and nothing really is done with them. I was so excited for this book, and I feel just...meh. I think what's really missing is the dramatic tension - I get that Duckett was really informed by how things just happen in The Tempest, but theatre is a different art form, and the transfer really just doesn't work. I want to read a better version of this book!
Another novella that really should have been a novel! This reads like the kind of thing I would expect to be self-published rather than having gone through the fires of professional publication. There's rather too much plot for the page count, and things happen too conveniently, but without the tonal quality of fairy tale that might have made it feel natural. I loved the ideas - Prospero's sins, the real reasons for his banishment, the problems of language, the problems of magic, the question of home. But they're just there, on the page, and nothing really is done with them. I was so excited for this book, and I feel just...meh. I think what's really missing is the dramatic tension - I get that Duckett was really informed by how things just happen in The Tempest, but theatre is a different art form, and the transfer really just doesn't work. I want to read a better version of this book!
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
I think the most powerful thing about this book is what it says about love, although what it says about empire runs a very close second. It narrowly escapes being a very American book by deftly twisting the value our protagonist is maybe or maybe not working toward from "freedom" to…something else that I can't quite put my finger on (perhaps because the protagonist can't, either). The dramatic tension throughout the book, especially its preservation by a slow inexorability of foreshadowing that you think, please, this is inevitable, but write us out of it, but find a way to escape it…the hyper-real characters (all those dukes!!! The protagonist's parents!!! Baru herself!!! Every secondary and tertiary character!!!)…the masterful use of fixed perspective…the liquidity of the prose…the love story told slantwise…the way that Dickinson understands, and translates to the page, the sociology of empire, the economics of empire…the WORLDbuilDING with all of the genetic drift that one might expect out of a real world, rather than the fantasy standard of Highly Separate Cultures…I held my breath through this book, and sobbed, and ached, and hoped, and loved it almost entirely. I don't think the story works without all the layers of queerphobic violence in it, and that was hard to read. I wasn't entirely prepared for that brutality, and while I think I trust Dickinson, in part because of his academic work on intersectionality, I still am unsettled by it. I suspect that's what Dickinson set out to achieve, but I wonder if this is a book for queer people, just like I wonder if this is a book for racialised people, and I wonder if that, in and of itself, makes the work still complicit in the hegemony of speculative fiction, despite Dickinson's best efforts. I marvel, though, at the meta-level commentary implicit in every page. This book is a denunciation of its own genre just as much as of the world of empire. If I wasn't already sold on it, that would be enough.
I think the most powerful thing about this book is what it says about love, although what it says about empire runs a very close second. It narrowly escapes being a very American book by deftly twisting the value our protagonist is maybe or maybe not working toward from "freedom" to…something else that I can't quite put my finger on (perhaps because the protagonist can't, either). The dramatic tension throughout the book, especially its preservation by a slow inexorability of foreshadowing that you think, please, this is inevitable, but write us out of it, but find a way to escape it…the hyper-real characters (all those dukes!!! The protagonist's parents!!! Baru herself!!! Every secondary and tertiary character!!!)…the masterful use of fixed perspective…the liquidity of the prose…the love story told slantwise…the way that Dickinson understands, and translates to the page, the sociology of empire, the economics of empire…the WORLDbuilDING with all of the genetic drift that one might expect out of a real world, rather than the fantasy standard of Highly Separate Cultures…I held my breath through this book, and sobbed, and ached, and hoped, and loved it almost entirely. I don't think the story works without all the layers of queerphobic violence in it, and that was hard to read. I wasn't entirely prepared for that brutality, and while I think I trust Dickinson, in part because of his academic work on intersectionality, I still am unsettled by it. I suspect that's what Dickinson set out to achieve, but I wonder if this is a book for queer people, just like I wonder if this is a book for racialised people, and I wonder if that, in and of itself, makes the work still complicit in the hegemony of speculative fiction, despite Dickinson's best efforts. I marvel, though, at the meta-level commentary implicit in every page. This book is a denunciation of its own genre just as much as of the world of empire. If I wasn't already sold on it, that would be enough.
Medusa Uploaded - Emily Davenport
I wanted to like this book so much more than I did! I feel like my main complaint is that things…kept…happening…without sufficient setup beyond the narrator (whose voice I really did enjoy) telling us "oops, something bigger is at play here." I think the use of the first-person here was great, but confining herself to it really prevented Davenport from telling a story where everything connects and feels intentional, rather than "ooh, I came up with a new concept, let's just use it here!" I also felt like the pacing was off; the last third of the narrative happened in the last 50-odd pages of the book, so that the reveals just kept coming without time to really process their inclusion. I loved the style, though, and I enjoyed the characters, and the conceptual work was really cool! It just…fell flat for me on so many levels, unfortunately.
I wanted to like this book so much more than I did! I feel like my main complaint is that things…kept…happening…without sufficient setup beyond the narrator (whose voice I really did enjoy) telling us "oops, something bigger is at play here." I think the use of the first-person here was great, but confining herself to it really prevented Davenport from telling a story where everything connects and feels intentional, rather than "ooh, I came up with a new concept, let's just use it here!" I also felt like the pacing was off; the last third of the narrative happened in the last 50-odd pages of the book, so that the reveals just kept coming without time to really process their inclusion. I loved the style, though, and I enjoyed the characters, and the conceptual work was really cool! It just…fell flat for me on so many levels, unfortunately.
The Enchanted - Rene Denfield
I have to say, I love the unflinching way Denfield approaches criminality and the underlying causes for it, humanising without excusing criminals, making a real subtle argument (that she might now even know she is making, but I suspect does) about restorative justice and prison abolitionism. I like the almost plot-less-ness of this book, that it is an overlapping set of stories that are not really beginning-middle-end stories but nevertheless come together in a satisfying way. I like the shift in narrative voice that allows us to have the possibility of an unreliable narrator left open. I felt that thin line she was dancing on, felt it razor-sharp, and I think that's the best thing about this book, that it manages to be balanced and also deeply, profoundly emotional and empathetic. I can't say that I liked it, per se? I feel like it is not the kind of book that one likes or enjoys, but it is definitely a good book, one that I can appreciate and probably will appreciate again.
I have to say, I love the unflinching way Denfield approaches criminality and the underlying causes for it, humanising without excusing criminals, making a real subtle argument (that she might now even know she is making, but I suspect does) about restorative justice and prison abolitionism. I like the almost plot-less-ness of this book, that it is an overlapping set of stories that are not really beginning-middle-end stories but nevertheless come together in a satisfying way. I like the shift in narrative voice that allows us to have the possibility of an unreliable narrator left open. I felt that thin line she was dancing on, felt it razor-sharp, and I think that's the best thing about this book, that it manages to be balanced and also deeply, profoundly emotional and empathetic. I can't say that I liked it, per se? I feel like it is not the kind of book that one likes or enjoys, but it is definitely a good book, one that I can appreciate and probably will appreciate again.
All the Birds in the Sky - Charlie Jane Anders
I liked this book, and then I didn't like it, and then I guess I liked it, and then I didn't like it again. I was initially so charmed by the tonal similarity to magical realism, that matter-of-fact-ness that characterises truly good urban and suburban fantasy, that takes for granted that some little girls can talk with birds and some little boys build two-second time machines. That tonal matter-of-fact-ness remains throughout the book, and it's really the one thing I can say I enjoyed about the second half - except for all the times when I didn't. There's an inherent frustration in stories that are both about the end of the world and about a relationship between humans, and the matter-of-fact tone just doesn't have space for frustration of this kind. I would have loved to see a tonal degradation that matched the degradation of the world in the plot! I would have loved to see matter-of-fact-ness traded for banality! I also would have loved a more carefully-written resolution. Yes, yes, we're set up for it in some way, but in other ways we are really, really not, and I don't like that it comes out of nowhere, when more careful and explicit worldbuilding would have prevented that. I guess this was an okay book, ultimately? It wasn't bad, but I won't be reading it again.
I liked this book, and then I didn't like it, and then I guess I liked it, and then I didn't like it again. I was initially so charmed by the tonal similarity to magical realism, that matter-of-fact-ness that characterises truly good urban and suburban fantasy, that takes for granted that some little girls can talk with birds and some little boys build two-second time machines. That tonal matter-of-fact-ness remains throughout the book, and it's really the one thing I can say I enjoyed about the second half - except for all the times when I didn't. There's an inherent frustration in stories that are both about the end of the world and about a relationship between humans, and the matter-of-fact tone just doesn't have space for frustration of this kind. I would have loved to see a tonal degradation that matched the degradation of the world in the plot! I would have loved to see matter-of-fact-ness traded for banality! I also would have loved a more carefully-written resolution. Yes, yes, we're set up for it in some way, but in other ways we are really, really not, and I don't like that it comes out of nowhere, when more careful and explicit worldbuilding would have prevented that. I guess this was an okay book, ultimately? It wasn't bad, but I won't be reading it again.
The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker
I spent the 50-ish percent of this book that was from Achilles' perspective being upset because…this book is purportedly about the narratives we don't get to hear in the Iliad…why is Achilles breaking in on Briseis' narration? Briseis doesn't tell us until the very end that she sees this as Achilles' story that she's just a part of, and I feel like having that information at the beginning would have made for a much less irritating reading experience for me, although I still don't really see the need to have Achilles's version there at all. I loved the Briseis parts though - the use of the first person was really well-executed, particularly with the switch in tense at the end; a use of this narrative voice that makes sense in the context of what the story is trying to do, finally! Briseis' meditations on what it is to be a woman in war (and in peacetime) were really beautiful, as was the really stark image painted over and over again of her capitulation to her own oppression. I guess I have read better recapitulations of Greek epics, though, and this one really felt like it didn't live up to what it promised - it had sparks of beauty, and the potential for real greatness, but ultimately it fell a little flat for me.
I spent the 50-ish percent of this book that was from Achilles' perspective being upset because…this book is purportedly about the narratives we don't get to hear in the Iliad…why is Achilles breaking in on Briseis' narration? Briseis doesn't tell us until the very end that she sees this as Achilles' story that she's just a part of, and I feel like having that information at the beginning would have made for a much less irritating reading experience for me, although I still don't really see the need to have Achilles's version there at all. I loved the Briseis parts though - the use of the first person was really well-executed, particularly with the switch in tense at the end; a use of this narrative voice that makes sense in the context of what the story is trying to do, finally! Briseis' meditations on what it is to be a woman in war (and in peacetime) were really beautiful, as was the really stark image painted over and over again of her capitulation to her own oppression. I guess I have read better recapitulations of Greek epics, though, and this one really felt like it didn't live up to what it promised - it had sparks of beauty, and the potential for real greatness, but ultimately it fell a little flat for me.
The Bards of Bone Plain - Patricia McKillip
I sometimes wonder if I love McKillip's work so much because it's clear she has some of the same interests I do? Language and folklore and academia? All the different kinds of power there can be? What happens when the past and the present collide, particularly in the liminal spaces of overlap? I will say that this book has perhaps the most disappointing ending, for all it has a phenomenal buildup, of all her works. It just kind of…stops, and the narrative holds up to scrutiny even less than most of her other novels. Nevertheless! I really loved the framing here, that we have an academic paper about the past but written in the narrative's present plus a past narration plus a present narration! I loved the mystery, that unresolved question of what or where Bone Plain is, that sense that there is always something deeper than we can know or imagine. I loved the essentiality of the language of the Circle of Days, the idea that there is power in the first names of everyday things, and power in the relentlessness of their continuity. Write me better endings, Patricia, and you'll be my favourite author!
I sometimes wonder if I love McKillip's work so much because it's clear she has some of the same interests I do? Language and folklore and academia? All the different kinds of power there can be? What happens when the past and the present collide, particularly in the liminal spaces of overlap? I will say that this book has perhaps the most disappointing ending, for all it has a phenomenal buildup, of all her works. It just kind of…stops, and the narrative holds up to scrutiny even less than most of her other novels. Nevertheless! I really loved the framing here, that we have an academic paper about the past but written in the narrative's present plus a past narration plus a present narration! I loved the mystery, that unresolved question of what or where Bone Plain is, that sense that there is always something deeper than we can know or imagine. I loved the essentiality of the language of the Circle of Days, the idea that there is power in the first names of everyday things, and power in the relentlessness of their continuity. Write me better endings, Patricia, and you'll be my favourite author!
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
What a haunting novel. Somehow, it manages to be even more topical now than it was when it was written, and that's kind of horrifying, but also kind of, I think, part of Collins' social critique: we are, and continue to be, a society built on violence and control, on the commodification of suffering, on entrenched hierarchies that place the producing classes well below the consuming classes. And we are, and continue to be, a society wherein it is virtually impossible to be post-trauma. Katniss, like so many children in this world, is always already traumatised. She becomes moreso throughout the book, but trauma is all she knows. And, yet, and yet, she has in her this incredible capacity for gentleness, and she allows herself to love and to be hurt, and she doesn't know what to do but she does not let the fear stop her. I cried a lot, in this book, because of the radical hope embedded in Collins' narrative, that despite the horrors and trauma of our society, we are storytelling animals, and we are sharing animals, and we are animals who continue trying to love in the midst of conditions that make love feel almost impossible.
What a haunting novel. Somehow, it manages to be even more topical now than it was when it was written, and that's kind of horrifying, but also kind of, I think, part of Collins' social critique: we are, and continue to be, a society built on violence and control, on the commodification of suffering, on entrenched hierarchies that place the producing classes well below the consuming classes. And we are, and continue to be, a society wherein it is virtually impossible to be post-trauma. Katniss, like so many children in this world, is always already traumatised. She becomes moreso throughout the book, but trauma is all she knows. And, yet, and yet, she has in her this incredible capacity for gentleness, and she allows herself to love and to be hurt, and she doesn't know what to do but she does not let the fear stop her. I cried a lot, in this book, because of the radical hope embedded in Collins' narrative, that despite the horrors and trauma of our society, we are storytelling animals, and we are sharing animals, and we are animals who continue trying to love in the midst of conditions that make love feel almost impossible.
Milkman - Anna Burns
I liked this book, and I didn't finish it. It's so beautifully crafted, with the concentric circles of backstory, the intimacy of namelessness, the matter-of-fact blended with deep frustration and even anger. I think the problem for me was just that the crafting was too evident, if that makes sense? It read like a novel intended not to be read for the story, but to be read for the lessons gleanable from the really magnificently layered meanings and similes and implicit comparisons. The stylistic exercise was awe-inspiring, that Burns could hold the tension of all of these things, but at the end I couldn't finish it because I stopped caring. I think part of the issue for me personally was my general allergy to the bildungsroman and my aversion to first-person narration. But another part of the issue was just that I was so busy appreciating the artistry that I didn't have an opportunity to care about any of the characters, including the narrator, and, after renewing the audiobook (read fabulously, by the way) twice, I just stopped trying.
I liked this book, and I didn't finish it. It's so beautifully crafted, with the concentric circles of backstory, the intimacy of namelessness, the matter-of-fact blended with deep frustration and even anger. I think the problem for me was just that the crafting was too evident, if that makes sense? It read like a novel intended not to be read for the story, but to be read for the lessons gleanable from the really magnificently layered meanings and similes and implicit comparisons. The stylistic exercise was awe-inspiring, that Burns could hold the tension of all of these things, but at the end I couldn't finish it because I stopped caring. I think part of the issue for me personally was my general allergy to the bildungsroman and my aversion to first-person narration. But another part of the issue was just that I was so busy appreciating the artistry that I didn't have an opportunity to care about any of the characters, including the narrator, and, after renewing the audiobook (read fabulously, by the way) twice, I just stopped trying.
Every Heart a Doorway - Seanan McGuire
Maybe I just don't like novella pacing? The reveals and the denouments always seem to come way too abruptly at the end, compared to the amount of time spent on setup. And this book had a few infelicities of phrasing that made me squirm. But I enjoyed it nonetheless! I have been meaning to get into this series for a while, since magical travel to other worlds that feel like home to misfit kids is a very specific genre that fits right into my very specific tastes. And this first installment did not disappoint: lots of good worldbuilding that didn't feel overly expository, some excellent characters, and really satisfying emotional arcs. And also the right amount of unsettling, as I think any book about accidentally and then purposely running away from home should be. I read it in a sitting and am already hankering for the next!
Maybe I just don't like novella pacing? The reveals and the denouments always seem to come way too abruptly at the end, compared to the amount of time spent on setup. And this book had a few infelicities of phrasing that made me squirm. But I enjoyed it nonetheless! I have been meaning to get into this series for a while, since magical travel to other worlds that feel like home to misfit kids is a very specific genre that fits right into my very specific tastes. And this first installment did not disappoint: lots of good worldbuilding that didn't feel overly expository, some excellent characters, and really satisfying emotional arcs. And also the right amount of unsettling, as I think any book about accidentally and then purposely running away from home should be. I read it in a sitting and am already hankering for the next!
Beneath the Sugar Sky - Seanan McGuire
Oh I liked this book. Maybe because girls who just want to bake the world into existence speak to me on a molecular level? Maybe because idiosyncratic rules that make logic look like nonsense are things I find impossibly soothing? Maybe because friendship and sacrifice and courage (and brilliant worldbuilding) are some of my favourite things to read about? The buildup here was super well-paced, too; I think it's one of the first novellas I've read that reads like a novel, both structurally and thematically. I suppose it helps when you have a world already built, so you can spend more time on plot and less on exposition! I also love that in this fairy story, like all the best ones, the stakes are real, and there's real payoff. Perhaps my favourite book of this series?
Oh I liked this book. Maybe because girls who just want to bake the world into existence speak to me on a molecular level? Maybe because idiosyncratic rules that make logic look like nonsense are things I find impossibly soothing? Maybe because friendship and sacrifice and courage (and brilliant worldbuilding) are some of my favourite things to read about? The buildup here was super well-paced, too; I think it's one of the first novellas I've read that reads like a novel, both structurally and thematically. I suppose it helps when you have a world already built, so you can spend more time on plot and less on exposition! I also love that in this fairy story, like all the best ones, the stakes are real, and there's real payoff. Perhaps my favourite book of this series?
Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
For all that this is a second book in a trilogy, it has a wonderfully self-contained plot while simultaneously feeling like part of an overarching narrative, which, as I read more and more trilogies, I am finding is rare. Here what strikes me is the seeds of doubt Collins is placing about the ultimate efficacy of the rebellion - something about the master's tools springs to mind. I also continue to be impressed, as I wasn't whilst a teenager myself, at how Katniss is a convincing teenager - it is so much easier to be compassionate toward her, to forgive her, when one is an adult and remembers how seventeen is rough enough without, you know, the threat of death constantly hanging over one's head. I think the uncompromising brutality here is particularly effective as well, for what Collins is trying to do, but also, in this year of our war 2020, it is particularly chilling because of how recogniseable it is.
For all that this is a second book in a trilogy, it has a wonderfully self-contained plot while simultaneously feeling like part of an overarching narrative, which, as I read more and more trilogies, I am finding is rare. Here what strikes me is the seeds of doubt Collins is placing about the ultimate efficacy of the rebellion - something about the master's tools springs to mind. I also continue to be impressed, as I wasn't whilst a teenager myself, at how Katniss is a convincing teenager - it is so much easier to be compassionate toward her, to forgive her, when one is an adult and remembers how seventeen is rough enough without, you know, the threat of death constantly hanging over one's head. I think the uncompromising brutality here is particularly effective as well, for what Collins is trying to do, but also, in this year of our war 2020, it is particularly chilling because of how recogniseable it is.
Dear Wife - Kimberly Belle
Trashy thrillers are maybe replacing Hallmark movies as my guilty-pleasure, narratively-fulfilling media consumption. I liked the eventual reveal, here, and how Belle didn't even bother trying to hide it - the reader was left to figure it out when they figured it out, with the clues coming faster and thicker as the book progressed. How well-structured! I love! The story itself was not particularly inspiring, nor the characters anything to write home about, but it was un-put-down-able, and sometimes a bowl of intellectual popcorn is really what you need.
Trashy thrillers are maybe replacing Hallmark movies as my guilty-pleasure, narratively-fulfilling media consumption. I liked the eventual reveal, here, and how Belle didn't even bother trying to hide it - the reader was left to figure it out when they figured it out, with the clues coming faster and thicker as the book progressed. How well-structured! I love! The story itself was not particularly inspiring, nor the characters anything to write home about, but it was un-put-down-able, and sometimes a bowl of intellectual popcorn is really what you need.
Sisters of the Winter Wood - Rena Rossner
I wanted to like this book - sisters! Animal folklore! Goblin markets! Religious history! Eastern Europe! Interreligious marriages! Community care! Poetry and prose interspersed! Girls abrogating their own bad self-images! Dynamics of heredity vs. choice! - but I think, ultimately, it was both untidy and of poor prose quality, and one I could probably have managed with, but both was too much. I think the first boils down to the fact that Rossner tried to fit too much into her story, too many disparate elements, none of which really make sense together, so she had to kind of stick them together and hope that the reader wouldn't notice, I guess? The book is a mess, plot-wise, to the point where by about 2/3 through things just start happening, unconnected to anything else and only given the faintest attempt at justification. There are several chapters of problems just being solved one by one - not by the characters, but by the author. And the prose! I feel like it, too, degrades it quality over the course of the book, but it was not necessarily very good to begin with - just awkward and stilted, and lacking the kind of language usage that would maybe have helped the nonsensical plot feel more reasonable. It didn't read like folklore or fairy tale. And the poetry! I love the conceit of a sister who narrates in prose and a sister who narrates in poetry, but this is not only never addressed within their characterisations (nor do their narrations preserve the style of their sister's speech when quoting it, which seems like a waste of an opportunity to me), and, on top of that, the poetry is not poetry! It's just…sentences split at various points. There's no cadence to it, no poetic sensibility. It would take a lot more technical proficiency than I think Rossner has to make a half-prose book work just on a technical level. All in all, a disappointment, particularly since this book is otherwise super on brand for me.
I wanted to like this book - sisters! Animal folklore! Goblin markets! Religious history! Eastern Europe! Interreligious marriages! Community care! Poetry and prose interspersed! Girls abrogating their own bad self-images! Dynamics of heredity vs. choice! - but I think, ultimately, it was both untidy and of poor prose quality, and one I could probably have managed with, but both was too much. I think the first boils down to the fact that Rossner tried to fit too much into her story, too many disparate elements, none of which really make sense together, so she had to kind of stick them together and hope that the reader wouldn't notice, I guess? The book is a mess, plot-wise, to the point where by about 2/3 through things just start happening, unconnected to anything else and only given the faintest attempt at justification. There are several chapters of problems just being solved one by one - not by the characters, but by the author. And the prose! I feel like it, too, degrades it quality over the course of the book, but it was not necessarily very good to begin with - just awkward and stilted, and lacking the kind of language usage that would maybe have helped the nonsensical plot feel more reasonable. It didn't read like folklore or fairy tale. And the poetry! I love the conceit of a sister who narrates in prose and a sister who narrates in poetry, but this is not only never addressed within their characterisations (nor do their narrations preserve the style of their sister's speech when quoting it, which seems like a waste of an opportunity to me), and, on top of that, the poetry is not poetry! It's just…sentences split at various points. There's no cadence to it, no poetic sensibility. It would take a lot more technical proficiency than I think Rossner has to make a half-prose book work just on a technical level. All in all, a disappointment, particularly since this book is otherwise super on brand for me.
Down among the Sticks and Bones - Seanan McGuire
WELL. Let's first talk about how McGuire has this uncanny ability to poke and prod around in unhappy childhoods. Even though my own childhood was very different from Jack's and Jill's (primarily because its various unhappinesses brought me closer to my sisters rather than pulling us apart from each other), the realness of this narrative felt palpable to me. I also love the intrusion of the authorial voice, which McGuire uses deftly here, really treading the line between the tone of a children's book and this kind of darkly horrific story. The scariest and saddest part of it all is that every single decision and outcome makes a kind of blistering sense, a hyper-realistic kind of thing. I also like how tonally distinct this novella is from the others in the series - there's definitely the sense that we have a similar narrator, if not the same one, but the voice is entirely other. This is an author at the height of her powers.
WELL. Let's first talk about how McGuire has this uncanny ability to poke and prod around in unhappy childhoods. Even though my own childhood was very different from Jack's and Jill's (primarily because its various unhappinesses brought me closer to my sisters rather than pulling us apart from each other), the realness of this narrative felt palpable to me. I also love the intrusion of the authorial voice, which McGuire uses deftly here, really treading the line between the tone of a children's book and this kind of darkly horrific story. The scariest and saddest part of it all is that every single decision and outcome makes a kind of blistering sense, a hyper-realistic kind of thing. I also like how tonally distinct this novella is from the others in the series - there's definitely the sense that we have a similar narrator, if not the same one, but the voice is entirely other. This is an author at the height of her powers.
The Girl in Red - Christina Henry
It was a curious experience, listening to this book over the space of the week that began with the first case of COVID-19 in Quebec and ended with the closure of…everything. It really helped put things in perspective, for me; Henry's pandemic is a death sentence, and within a short time her world has ground to a halt, civilisation degrading. A post-apocalyptic science fiction with one foot in biology (rare in SF!) and one in fairy tale: the perfect read for the moment. I loved the back and forth of the timeline, the separation into Before and After. I loved Red as a protagonist, whose disability is an integral part of her character but not even close to its defining quality. I loved less a few of the weirder elements, but that, I think, is largely based on how they were handled in the ending, which felt a little rushed for me. I like a good climactic point as much as the next reader, but I also like a denouement, and that was brushed by very quickly here. There's a lot to like about the book, though: gender and racial dynamics simmering beneath the surface, found family tropes galore, Shakespeare everywhere. And, of course, the need to get to Grandma's House: surely, if there was ever a universal desire, it would be this one.
It was a curious experience, listening to this book over the space of the week that began with the first case of COVID-19 in Quebec and ended with the closure of…everything. It really helped put things in perspective, for me; Henry's pandemic is a death sentence, and within a short time her world has ground to a halt, civilisation degrading. A post-apocalyptic science fiction with one foot in biology (rare in SF!) and one in fairy tale: the perfect read for the moment. I loved the back and forth of the timeline, the separation into Before and After. I loved Red as a protagonist, whose disability is an integral part of her character but not even close to its defining quality. I loved less a few of the weirder elements, but that, I think, is largely based on how they were handled in the ending, which felt a little rushed for me. I like a good climactic point as much as the next reader, but I also like a denouement, and that was brushed by very quickly here. There's a lot to like about the book, though: gender and racial dynamics simmering beneath the surface, found family tropes galore, Shakespeare everywhere. And, of course, the need to get to Grandma's House: surely, if there was ever a universal desire, it would be this one.
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
It was a bad idea to be reading this series right now, especially this last book, with its chilling insights into "the more things change, the more they stay the same," and the ultimate cold, unflinching truth that the best we can hope for is a little, insufficient amount of personal healing if we cannot imagine a future with structures entirely other. When I first read it, I complained about how abrupt the ending is, but it isn't abrupt at all: it's just that, locked in a trauma response, our first-person, present-tense narrator loses her sense of time, loses her sense of self, is able to speak to us only in the flashes of things that cause the most pain, that register the most urgently. Collins sacrifices narrative clarity for a real, brutal laying open of the transition from "survivor" to "victim" - and, even though the epilogue has a little hope in it, we have to ask: has Katniss simply embraced victimhood? Has she just accepted that someone else will always be making decisions for her, body and soul, and stopped fighting to survive? I wouldn't blame her, if she had. And I think this is intentional on Collins' part, the ambiguity of this ending. It isn't a good ending. But it's the only one possible, I think, in the world she's created, for the character she's created. And Mockingjay asks us, is it also the only one possible for us?
It was a bad idea to be reading this series right now, especially this last book, with its chilling insights into "the more things change, the more they stay the same," and the ultimate cold, unflinching truth that the best we can hope for is a little, insufficient amount of personal healing if we cannot imagine a future with structures entirely other. When I first read it, I complained about how abrupt the ending is, but it isn't abrupt at all: it's just that, locked in a trauma response, our first-person, present-tense narrator loses her sense of time, loses her sense of self, is able to speak to us only in the flashes of things that cause the most pain, that register the most urgently. Collins sacrifices narrative clarity for a real, brutal laying open of the transition from "survivor" to "victim" - and, even though the epilogue has a little hope in it, we have to ask: has Katniss simply embraced victimhood? Has she just accepted that someone else will always be making decisions for her, body and soul, and stopped fighting to survive? I wouldn't blame her, if she had. And I think this is intentional on Collins' part, the ambiguity of this ending. It isn't a good ending. But it's the only one possible, I think, in the world she's created, for the character she's created. And Mockingjay asks us, is it also the only one possible for us?
The Sleeper and the Spindle - Neil Gaiman
Something a little lighter was necessary! This audiobook is firstly incredibly well-performed, and secondly utterly delightful. I always enjoy the melding of different strands of folklore, and I do like twists. I always feel like Gaiman's authorial voice is a little too modern, doesn't quite catch the sincerity and insincerity of folklore but relies on irony and a certain tongue-in-cheek-ness - but here, in the way he's chosen to retell this set of stories, I think it works. A good short story! A needed break from the unfortunate choices I've been making lately in good but much-too-topical literature!
Something a little lighter was necessary! This audiobook is firstly incredibly well-performed, and secondly utterly delightful. I always enjoy the melding of different strands of folklore, and I do like twists. I always feel like Gaiman's authorial voice is a little too modern, doesn't quite catch the sincerity and insincerity of folklore but relies on irony and a certain tongue-in-cheek-ness - but here, in the way he's chosen to retell this set of stories, I think it works. A good short story! A needed break from the unfortunate choices I've been making lately in good but much-too-topical literature!
Lanny - Max Porter
Firstly - what an utterly DELIGHTFUL story. What an utterly harrowing, horrifying story. What a finger on the pulse of the uncanny, the unhomelike, the liminal space of folklore and the willingness of children to elide realities, to be places where the barrier between possibilities is thin. I cannot say enough how much I enjoyed this book, but I also can't say enough how difficult it was, at points, how well Porter misleads and misdirects. The voice is perfect (the audiobook makes it even better, I think; like all folklore, this story turns out to be better when read aloud), the structure is gentle until it's not, the characters shimmer between real and unreal, just as they should, just as all fairy stories do. And the prose! The quality of writing is just beyond mentioning.
Firstly - what an utterly DELIGHTFUL story. What an utterly harrowing, horrifying story. What a finger on the pulse of the uncanny, the unhomelike, the liminal space of folklore and the willingness of children to elide realities, to be places where the barrier between possibilities is thin. I cannot say enough how much I enjoyed this book, but I also can't say enough how difficult it was, at points, how well Porter misleads and misdirects. The voice is perfect (the audiobook makes it even better, I think; like all folklore, this story turns out to be better when read aloud), the structure is gentle until it's not, the characters shimmer between real and unreal, just as they should, just as all fairy stories do. And the prose! The quality of writing is just beyond mentioning.
The Murder Stone - Louise Penny
I really do love the language use in these books, the way they speak so familiarly (and so unfamiliarly!), through sentence construction as well as content, to the Anglo Quebecker experience of the world. I love how carefully Penny researches things, so that we can have a genuinely puzzling murder technique. I loved a little less the preachiness of this book (if the late father of the murder victim had, in fact, only cared about loving his children, clearly he was bad at showing it, and yet Penny wants me to believe that all the fault is with the children not perceiving that love?), and, as always, I feel like Penny is being a bit harsh on poor Inspector Beauvoir. I like the flaws, though, that all these characters have, and I like that we don't have anyone who is too good. I like that we are beginning to see Gamache's blind spots and weaknesses, and while I miss the criticism of police corruption in this installment, I feel very set up for it in the next.
I really do love the language use in these books, the way they speak so familiarly (and so unfamiliarly!), through sentence construction as well as content, to the Anglo Quebecker experience of the world. I love how carefully Penny researches things, so that we can have a genuinely puzzling murder technique. I loved a little less the preachiness of this book (if the late father of the murder victim had, in fact, only cared about loving his children, clearly he was bad at showing it, and yet Penny wants me to believe that all the fault is with the children not perceiving that love?), and, as always, I feel like Penny is being a bit harsh on poor Inspector Beauvoir. I like the flaws, though, that all these characters have, and I like that we don't have anyone who is too good. I like that we are beginning to see Gamache's blind spots and weaknesses, and while I miss the criticism of police corruption in this installment, I feel very set up for it in the next.
The Brutal Telling - Louise Penny
My goodness, brutal indeed! While some of the connections were a bit tenuous (not Penny's most tightly-knitted work), we got a real good look at her own willingness to upset the world she's created. There's a lot that's unsettling in this book, and, unlike those previous in the series, it doesn't end in a satisfactory place - are we being opened up for some kind of critique of Three Pines? There were more mysteries here than the central one, and even that only barely got solved (and, depending on your perspective, didn't get solved at all). I quite like the ambiguity and uncertainty here - it's a nice undermining of the genre conventions, and of Penny's tendencies thus far. Very good choices for the novel! Very sad choices for the story. I like both.
My goodness, brutal indeed! While some of the connections were a bit tenuous (not Penny's most tightly-knitted work), we got a real good look at her own willingness to upset the world she's created. There's a lot that's unsettling in this book, and, unlike those previous in the series, it doesn't end in a satisfactory place - are we being opened up for some kind of critique of Three Pines? There were more mysteries here than the central one, and even that only barely got solved (and, depending on your perspective, didn't get solved at all). I quite like the ambiguity and uncertainty here - it's a nice undermining of the genre conventions, and of Penny's tendencies thus far. Very good choices for the novel! Very sad choices for the story. I like both.
Attachments - Rainbow Rowell
A sister book club pick, and a good one at that! I will admit that I did not realise for most of the book that it takes place in 1999, but that's my own fault for not reading timestamps on email transcripts. I love the way that "attachment" permeates this book, for all the characters - attachment to the idea of having (or not having) children, attachment to a spouse or partner, attachment to a (grown-up) child, attachment to friendships, attachment to things that are not good for us, attachment to memory. It's a lovely, nested, well-constructed tale, and some of the inherent creepiness of the (inevitable) romance was siphoned off for how mutual the creepiness was! I guess some people deserve each other? I like that this book was about discerning which attachments are valuable, and when it is time to detach and step into a brave, new world.
A sister book club pick, and a good one at that! I will admit that I did not realise for most of the book that it takes place in 1999, but that's my own fault for not reading timestamps on email transcripts. I love the way that "attachment" permeates this book, for all the characters - attachment to the idea of having (or not having) children, attachment to a spouse or partner, attachment to a (grown-up) child, attachment to friendships, attachment to things that are not good for us, attachment to memory. It's a lovely, nested, well-constructed tale, and some of the inherent creepiness of the (inevitable) romance was siphoned off for how mutual the creepiness was! I guess some people deserve each other? I like that this book was about discerning which attachments are valuable, and when it is time to detach and step into a brave, new world.
The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden
Inspired by one of my sisters going through this trilogy for the first time, I'm revisiting it, and it's interesting to see how much my evaluation of the book has changed! I remember feeling like the story was so slow in my first read-through, but it really isn't, not at all. Arden introduces the seeds of every important plot point for the rest of the trilogy within the first few chapters, and the bulk of the book is actually spent in a slow escalation to horror, never stagnating, always moving. Even knowing some things were coming, I felt the emotion of them fresh and new. I also love the ambiguity that Arden introduces, already, about characters who spend most of the series as our villains. I am excited for the rest of this re-read!
Inspired by one of my sisters going through this trilogy for the first time, I'm revisiting it, and it's interesting to see how much my evaluation of the book has changed! I remember feeling like the story was so slow in my first read-through, but it really isn't, not at all. Arden introduces the seeds of every important plot point for the rest of the trilogy within the first few chapters, and the bulk of the book is actually spent in a slow escalation to horror, never stagnating, always moving. Even knowing some things were coming, I felt the emotion of them fresh and new. I also love the ambiguity that Arden introduces, already, about characters who spend most of the series as our villains. I am excited for the rest of this re-read!
Tempests and Slaughter - Tamora Pierce
This book suffered for me from the sheer fact of being a bildungsroman, which is possibly my least favourite genre of novel. I, for one, do not like to read the story of Hero Grows Up, particularly when various things that could have been plots are not followed up on, so we just get things…happening…I appreciate that this book functions as part one of the backstory of a secondary character from Peirce's other books, so perhaps there were lots of allusions that a reader of those books would have gotten, but as it was, while I enjoyed the world-building (although not the heteronormativity), I found little else in the book to be appealing. Things just…happened…and characters changed for reasons impenetrable to me, and honestly? I think it might be the case that Pierce just doesn't write interesting men. Technically very proficient, I suppose, but not the book for me.
This book suffered for me from the sheer fact of being a bildungsroman, which is possibly my least favourite genre of novel. I, for one, do not like to read the story of Hero Grows Up, particularly when various things that could have been plots are not followed up on, so we just get things…happening…I appreciate that this book functions as part one of the backstory of a secondary character from Peirce's other books, so perhaps there were lots of allusions that a reader of those books would have gotten, but as it was, while I enjoyed the world-building (although not the heteronormativity), I found little else in the book to be appealing. Things just…happened…and characters changed for reasons impenetrable to me, and honestly? I think it might be the case that Pierce just doesn't write interesting men. Technically very proficient, I suppose, but not the book for me.
The Killing Moon - N. K. Jemisin
I don't remember loving this book as much the first time I read it - I have both books of the duology in omnibus, so I sped through them both the first time I read them and was much more impacted by the second. But it is a marvel: love and loss, grief and the question of self, the unsettling - and unresolved - question of whether what we do for peace is worth the price. The interludes from a first-person, fourth-wall-breaking voice! The quotations from in-universe texts! The real and beautiful story of finding out that love is important, and then of finding out that there are things more important than love. Naturally, there was sobbing. I really like how unsatisfying this book is, how much is left unsaid and undone, whole scenes from the perspective of a character losing his mind meaning that we don't get detail that we desperately want. Jemisin is always unstinting about the horrors of greed and selfishness and warmongering, but she is also always good at troubling for her reader our tendencies to read these horrors straightforwardly.
I don't remember loving this book as much the first time I read it - I have both books of the duology in omnibus, so I sped through them both the first time I read them and was much more impacted by the second. But it is a marvel: love and loss, grief and the question of self, the unsettling - and unresolved - question of whether what we do for peace is worth the price. The interludes from a first-person, fourth-wall-breaking voice! The quotations from in-universe texts! The real and beautiful story of finding out that love is important, and then of finding out that there are things more important than love. Naturally, there was sobbing. I really like how unsatisfying this book is, how much is left unsaid and undone, whole scenes from the perspective of a character losing his mind meaning that we don't get detail that we desperately want. Jemisin is always unstinting about the horrors of greed and selfishness and warmongering, but she is also always good at troubling for her reader our tendencies to read these horrors straightforwardly.
The Shadowed Sun - N. K. Jemisin
I'm pretty sure when I first read this book I re-read it immediately, and I wanted to do the same here. Truly, was there any book more made for me? All of my favourite tropes appear: found family, mercy and grace, the weight of inevitability, underdogs succeeding, throwing off oppression, women taking control of their own stories, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, subverting of stereotypes…the list goes on (and need I comment on Jemisin's worldbuilding and character construction?). I think this time through, though, I was reading slowly enough (not so hungry for the plot, this time!) that I really got to appreciate that this is a book about pain, and what we do with it, and what it does to us, and how we can be bigger than it, and how sometimes we need to let it engulf us. There are so many kinds of pain in this book, so many betrayals, so many tragedies, and they all have meaning, and they all matter, and they are all treated so gently, but so directly. And it is also a book about choosing to be more than our pain, without denying that the pain exists. It's on my forever-re-read list.
I'm pretty sure when I first read this book I re-read it immediately, and I wanted to do the same here. Truly, was there any book more made for me? All of my favourite tropes appear: found family, mercy and grace, the weight of inevitability, underdogs succeeding, throwing off oppression, women taking control of their own stories, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, subverting of stereotypes…the list goes on (and need I comment on Jemisin's worldbuilding and character construction?). I think this time through, though, I was reading slowly enough (not so hungry for the plot, this time!) that I really got to appreciate that this is a book about pain, and what we do with it, and what it does to us, and how we can be bigger than it, and how sometimes we need to let it engulf us. There are so many kinds of pain in this book, so many betrayals, so many tragedies, and they all have meaning, and they all matter, and they are all treated so gently, but so directly. And it is also a book about choosing to be more than our pain, without denying that the pain exists. It's on my forever-re-read list.
The Girl in the Tower - Katherine Arden
I was so entranced by the plot last read-through that I think I missed the unfortunate use of one of my least-favourite tropes: heroine's resistance to cultural norms presented as unique. I have no problem with the idea that cultural and social restrictions on women's lives chafed, and that women and girls rebelled or subverted or found ways around those restrictions. I think my issue with this trope is that it assumes no women and girls, except the heroine, did that work of resisting, and while Arden doesn't explicitly do that (and even does the work of explaining why women might have consented to or felt safer with these restrictions), because Vasya needs to be exceptional in order for the series plot to work, implicitly this trope is super active. Aside from that, though, I do love the plot of this second book, how it stands on its own and how it informs the trilogy as a whole. It's rare that a middle book can be both, and I think Arden manages it quite well.
I was so entranced by the plot last read-through that I think I missed the unfortunate use of one of my least-favourite tropes: heroine's resistance to cultural norms presented as unique. I have no problem with the idea that cultural and social restrictions on women's lives chafed, and that women and girls rebelled or subverted or found ways around those restrictions. I think my issue with this trope is that it assumes no women and girls, except the heroine, did that work of resisting, and while Arden doesn't explicitly do that (and even does the work of explaining why women might have consented to or felt safer with these restrictions), because Vasya needs to be exceptional in order for the series plot to work, implicitly this trope is super active. Aside from that, though, I do love the plot of this second book, how it stands on its own and how it informs the trilogy as a whole. It's rare that a middle book can be both, and I think Arden manages it quite well.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton
Well! As with many books, this one's editor did not cut enough - the story would be a lot more engaging with maybe 30% less of it. I think my feeling about mystery novels tends to be that they need to be lean in order to be likeable, and well-balanced in terms of revelations. Conceptually, this was a fun novel, but the reveals came hard and fast at the end, in a way that felt simultaneously rushed and relieving, because the tension of not knowing had been stretched so long. I stopped caring about halfway through, to be honest, and even the gimmick of changing narrators wasn't particularly helpful in remedying that. The beginning dragged, and yes, one could argue that it was necessary setup, but there could have been…less…of it, or perhaps it could have been mixed with more almost-revelatory details. Don't worry so much about giving the game away that you have to thrust all of the game into the last few chapters! The worst part is, this book had something interesting to say about the carceral state and the possibilities of rehabilitation, and that got drowned almost entirely by the poor structuring.
Well! As with many books, this one's editor did not cut enough - the story would be a lot more engaging with maybe 30% less of it. I think my feeling about mystery novels tends to be that they need to be lean in order to be likeable, and well-balanced in terms of revelations. Conceptually, this was a fun novel, but the reveals came hard and fast at the end, in a way that felt simultaneously rushed and relieving, because the tension of not knowing had been stretched so long. I stopped caring about halfway through, to be honest, and even the gimmick of changing narrators wasn't particularly helpful in remedying that. The beginning dragged, and yes, one could argue that it was necessary setup, but there could have been…less…of it, or perhaps it could have been mixed with more almost-revelatory details. Don't worry so much about giving the game away that you have to thrust all of the game into the last few chapters! The worst part is, this book had something interesting to say about the carceral state and the possibilities of rehabilitation, and that got drowned almost entirely by the poor structuring.
The Winter of the Witch - Katherine Arden
I re-read this book so slowly, because I wanted to savour it. I will say that I'm still deeply impressed by the structure of this trilogy, the really careful way it is planned out and the tidy tying up of threads that still leaves them open to possibilities for future growth. I'm still in love with the characters, the way they change and grow and the way our perceptions of them change and grow as well. I think, again, I'm struck by the poor timing of some parts of this final book, which would be less striking in a less well-plotted series but as it is kind of stick out. And I think some of the worldbuilding in the middle is a little sloppy, a few ends left wafting about where they shouldn't be. But I still really, really like this book, and really, really like this trilogy, and will certainly be re-reading it many more times. A triumph, Katherine.
I re-read this book so slowly, because I wanted to savour it. I will say that I'm still deeply impressed by the structure of this trilogy, the really careful way it is planned out and the tidy tying up of threads that still leaves them open to possibilities for future growth. I'm still in love with the characters, the way they change and grow and the way our perceptions of them change and grow as well. I think, again, I'm struck by the poor timing of some parts of this final book, which would be less striking in a less well-plotted series but as it is kind of stick out. And I think some of the worldbuilding in the middle is a little sloppy, a few ends left wafting about where they shouldn't be. But I still really, really like this book, and really, really like this trilogy, and will certainly be re-reading it many more times. A triumph, Katherine.
The Swan Thieves - Elizabeth Kostova
I feel like this novel fell apart in the final lap, which is a crying shame because the lead up is so very good. I love the various narrative voices, the sweep of time that nevertheless feels profoundly intimate, the subtle suggestions about the nature of art, and love, and loving artists. In a novel in large part about obsession and mystery, I think Kostova does a great job helping the reader, too, become obsessed with the mysterious figure at its centre, but to the detriment of the other characters, none of whom are as compelling or as emotionally inviting, making reading about them less interesting than reading about them uncovering parts of the mystery. But I do love the Impressionists, and I do love the un-silencing of women's experiences (which happens over and over again throughout), and Kostova's prose is borderline edible, as always.
I feel like this novel fell apart in the final lap, which is a crying shame because the lead up is so very good. I love the various narrative voices, the sweep of time that nevertheless feels profoundly intimate, the subtle suggestions about the nature of art, and love, and loving artists. In a novel in large part about obsession and mystery, I think Kostova does a great job helping the reader, too, become obsessed with the mysterious figure at its centre, but to the detriment of the other characters, none of whom are as compelling or as emotionally inviting, making reading about them less interesting than reading about them uncovering parts of the mystery. But I do love the Impressionists, and I do love the un-silencing of women's experiences (which happens over and over again throughout), and Kostova's prose is borderline edible, as always.
Seedtime - Scott Chaskey
When I met Scott Chaskey, I didn't know his reputation as a seedman or as a poet; he was just a lovely person whose compassion and quick wit made an otherwise pretty terrible weekend worthwhile. It's that compassion and wit that are most evident in this book, although the seedman and the poet are both front and centre as well. I love the science sprinkled throughout, the telescoping out to look at planetary movements and major events, the focusing in on small, regional, or even single-field issues. Both lenses are crucial, Chaskey says, for considering seeds, and for trying to grasp seedtime itself, an agricultural season and an epoch in which we humans are relative latecomers. I maybe wanted this book to have more meditation on what we might learn from that narrow and broad kind of time in which seeds live, or to go further into the carefully composed arguments in each chapter? But perhaps the spare beauty of the prose, with all that it evokes, would have been less if the detail had been more.
When I met Scott Chaskey, I didn't know his reputation as a seedman or as a poet; he was just a lovely person whose compassion and quick wit made an otherwise pretty terrible weekend worthwhile. It's that compassion and wit that are most evident in this book, although the seedman and the poet are both front and centre as well. I love the science sprinkled throughout, the telescoping out to look at planetary movements and major events, the focusing in on small, regional, or even single-field issues. Both lenses are crucial, Chaskey says, for considering seeds, and for trying to grasp seedtime itself, an agricultural season and an epoch in which we humans are relative latecomers. I maybe wanted this book to have more meditation on what we might learn from that narrow and broad kind of time in which seeds live, or to go further into the carefully composed arguments in each chapter? But perhaps the spare beauty of the prose, with all that it evokes, would have been less if the detail had been more.
Spirits in the Wires - Charles de Lint
Who was that girl in CEGEP who fell in love with Charles de Lint?! She had already met writers doing similar things, but significantly better, so it can't be that she was just starved for historically-informed, folklorically-inflected fantasy. Was it that de Lint writes the urban in a way that feels natural? Was it that his books contain overlapping stories and map the growth and evolution of a disparate group of characters over the course of his whole oeuvre? How could any of that have been enough to make up for the frankly shabby prose and the one-dimensional female characters and the egregious habit of telling so much and showing almost nothing? Spirits in the Wires is good fun, conceptually, but the plot just doesn't hold up, and the prose isn't strong enough to make it work. Charles! You clearly do a lot of thinking about great stuff - class stratification in urban environments, settler-colonialist destruction, the nature of narrative, the border between desire and greed - and it just is not supported by your technical skills. It makes me sad!
Who was that girl in CEGEP who fell in love with Charles de Lint?! She had already met writers doing similar things, but significantly better, so it can't be that she was just starved for historically-informed, folklorically-inflected fantasy. Was it that de Lint writes the urban in a way that feels natural? Was it that his books contain overlapping stories and map the growth and evolution of a disparate group of characters over the course of his whole oeuvre? How could any of that have been enough to make up for the frankly shabby prose and the one-dimensional female characters and the egregious habit of telling so much and showing almost nothing? Spirits in the Wires is good fun, conceptually, but the plot just doesn't hold up, and the prose isn't strong enough to make it work. Charles! You clearly do a lot of thinking about great stuff - class stratification in urban environments, settler-colonialist destruction, the nature of narrative, the border between desire and greed - and it just is not supported by your technical skills. It makes me sad!
The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo
I think the biggest disappointment about this book is that it never delivers on the promise of its title. We never know if there is, indeed, a supernatural tiger, and when the tiger's destruction ceases to haunt the pages we are given no reason or follow-up. I wanted a tiger! I also wanted something more to be made of the five Confucian virtues that make up a set, but that might be my love of quest tropes dragging me down a path the novel never intended to go. Otherwise, though, several overlapping and intersecting really interesting stories. We have sibling dynamics and found family dynamics and love and fear and greed and shame, and we have characters who grow into and discover themselves and each other. We have beautifully evocative description and a fleshed-out sense of place and an understated current of class- and race-awareness that informs both the world and the story. We just don't have a tiger!
I think the biggest disappointment about this book is that it never delivers on the promise of its title. We never know if there is, indeed, a supernatural tiger, and when the tiger's destruction ceases to haunt the pages we are given no reason or follow-up. I wanted a tiger! I also wanted something more to be made of the five Confucian virtues that make up a set, but that might be my love of quest tropes dragging me down a path the novel never intended to go. Otherwise, though, several overlapping and intersecting really interesting stories. We have sibling dynamics and found family dynamics and love and fear and greed and shame, and we have characters who grow into and discover themselves and each other. We have beautifully evocative description and a fleshed-out sense of place and an understated current of class- and race-awareness that informs both the world and the story. We just don't have a tiger!
The Glass Hotel - Emily St John Mandel
I don't even care what this story was about, Mandel's prose is just too good. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and still be craving it. And, ultimately, I'm not certain what the story was about, anyway. It read like discrete narratives that crossed each other just enough for the novel as a whole to feel structured and intentional, but really Vincent's story, and Paul's story, and Olivia's story, and Alkaitis' story, and the story shared by the brokers in the Ponzi scheme, and Walter's story, and Leon's story are so far from each other, for all that they connect at nodal points, that they might as well be about different worlds. And perhaps that's the story hiding in Mandel's gorgeous, liquid writing: existence is idiosyncratic, and the choices we make are made by us alone, with no one else to blame or to hold onto, and yet they spill out and spiral into the lives of others in ways we cannot possibly control or even anticipate. It is a remarkably bleak novel. It is magnificently executed, polished to perfection yet somehow still raw, still breathing. For all that it is bleak and deeply realistic, almost painfully so, it also swells with relentless optimism. I loved it. I read it in an afternoon. I will re-read it.
I don't even care what this story was about, Mandel's prose is just too good. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and still be craving it. And, ultimately, I'm not certain what the story was about, anyway. It read like discrete narratives that crossed each other just enough for the novel as a whole to feel structured and intentional, but really Vincent's story, and Paul's story, and Olivia's story, and Alkaitis' story, and the story shared by the brokers in the Ponzi scheme, and Walter's story, and Leon's story are so far from each other, for all that they connect at nodal points, that they might as well be about different worlds. And perhaps that's the story hiding in Mandel's gorgeous, liquid writing: existence is idiosyncratic, and the choices we make are made by us alone, with no one else to blame or to hold onto, and yet they spill out and spiral into the lives of others in ways we cannot possibly control or even anticipate. It is a remarkably bleak novel. It is magnificently executed, polished to perfection yet somehow still raw, still breathing. For all that it is bleak and deeply realistic, almost painfully so, it also swells with relentless optimism. I loved it. I read it in an afternoon. I will re-read it.
Truthwitch - Susan Dennard
Honestly, I did not have any real expectations for this book, and up until about halfway through I was continuing to read it primarily on the strength of its recommendation by my book club partner. But when it got good, it got REAL DARN GOOD. The worldbuilding, particularly the sociological details, is really solid, and the characters - and their RELATIONSHIPS - well-conceived and well-fleshed-out. The technical writing could use some help, but since I listened to the book it didn't bug me as much as it might have were I reading it visually. I love a lot of little things, small details that made a lot of the story feel realer than a lot of specfic, although I was a bit uncomfortable by the pretty obvious Romani stand-ins, and would love to find out what Romani readers thought about those elements of plot and character! I'll definitely be reading the rest of the series.
Honestly, I did not have any real expectations for this book, and up until about halfway through I was continuing to read it primarily on the strength of its recommendation by my book club partner. But when it got good, it got REAL DARN GOOD. The worldbuilding, particularly the sociological details, is really solid, and the characters - and their RELATIONSHIPS - well-conceived and well-fleshed-out. The technical writing could use some help, but since I listened to the book it didn't bug me as much as it might have were I reading it visually. I love a lot of little things, small details that made a lot of the story feel realer than a lot of specfic, although I was a bit uncomfortable by the pretty obvious Romani stand-ins, and would love to find out what Romani readers thought about those elements of plot and character! I'll definitely be reading the rest of the series.
Police: A Field Guide - David Correia and Tyler Wall
A matter-of fact (sometimes overly so; the section on sexual violence was a little triggering), encyclopaedic cataloguing of tools and terms used by police, their defenders, and reformists. It's definitely got a slant (turns out anti-capitalism and abolitionism are compatible ideological stances!), and it is unapologetic, clearly, and with a minimalist approach that I wish more leftists would adopt, articulating the racist, anti-poverty roots of policing as an institution, and revealing the ways in which the language of reform cannot address either those roots or the many and varied ways they show up on the ground. I wish it were a little more hand-hold-y so I could give it to people who are not already suspicious of profit-driven systems! This is really a book for the anti-capitalist to learn to understand and agitate against the institution of policing. And its formatting, with colourful cross-referencing and highlighted reference boxes, makes it a useful reference work for everyday conversations and anti-racist work.
A matter-of fact (sometimes overly so; the section on sexual violence was a little triggering), encyclopaedic cataloguing of tools and terms used by police, their defenders, and reformists. It's definitely got a slant (turns out anti-capitalism and abolitionism are compatible ideological stances!), and it is unapologetic, clearly, and with a minimalist approach that I wish more leftists would adopt, articulating the racist, anti-poverty roots of policing as an institution, and revealing the ways in which the language of reform cannot address either those roots or the many and varied ways they show up on the ground. I wish it were a little more hand-hold-y so I could give it to people who are not already suspicious of profit-driven systems! This is really a book for the anti-capitalist to learn to understand and agitate against the institution of policing. And its formatting, with colourful cross-referencing and highlighted reference boxes, makes it a useful reference work for everyday conversations and anti-racist work.
We Ride Upon Sticks - Quan Barry
I don't even know how to explain how GOOD this book is. On its surface, it's a book about perennial underdogs (both individually and as a team!) stumbling into their own potential for greatness. Underneath, it's a book about sisterhood, and love, and what growing up does to girls of all kinds. It's about sacrifice and selfishness and unashamed, unabashed love for the things that matter. It's about the inherent powerfulness of teenage girls - even teenage girls who don't yet know they're girls. It's so specific to a historical moment, a geography, but simultaneously gloriously universal. It's warm and wry and it's in the third-person singular because Quan Barry understands that operating as a unit is the thing that pulls us through, us girls and not-quite girls and not-yet girls.
I don't even know how to explain how GOOD this book is. On its surface, it's a book about perennial underdogs (both individually and as a team!) stumbling into their own potential for greatness. Underneath, it's a book about sisterhood, and love, and what growing up does to girls of all kinds. It's about sacrifice and selfishness and unashamed, unabashed love for the things that matter. It's about the inherent powerfulness of teenage girls - even teenage girls who don't yet know they're girls. It's so specific to a historical moment, a geography, but simultaneously gloriously universal. It's warm and wry and it's in the third-person singular because Quan Barry understands that operating as a unit is the thing that pulls us through, us girls and not-quite girls and not-yet girls.
Windwitch - Susan Dennard
I really, really like Dennard's worldbuilding, and I like the pace of revelation as well - this world feels real, every thing we learn about it feels like it fits, like we haven't just discovered something that was convenient for the plot. It's amazing how often that doesn't happen, in specfic. I also really, really like Dennard's characters, in all their flaws and humanness, in all the ways they're sympathetic. Already in this second installment no fewer than three (four, perhaps, if you squint?) of the antagonists from book one have been complicated for the reader, and have been given, by the power of narrative voice, a stake in the story that is inevitably deeply compelling. I still wish the dialogue was a little less clunky, and I feel like this book definitely suffered from "middle book"-ness (was there a coherent, book-long plot? If so, I certainly couldn't see it), but I'm really excited to read whatever Dennard has in store for book three.
I really, really like Dennard's worldbuilding, and I like the pace of revelation as well - this world feels real, every thing we learn about it feels like it fits, like we haven't just discovered something that was convenient for the plot. It's amazing how often that doesn't happen, in specfic. I also really, really like Dennard's characters, in all their flaws and humanness, in all the ways they're sympathetic. Already in this second installment no fewer than three (four, perhaps, if you squint?) of the antagonists from book one have been complicated for the reader, and have been given, by the power of narrative voice, a stake in the story that is inevitably deeply compelling. I still wish the dialogue was a little less clunky, and I feel like this book definitely suffered from "middle book"-ness (was there a coherent, book-long plot? If so, I certainly couldn't see it), but I'm really excited to read whatever Dennard has in store for book three.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune - Nghi Vo
I desperately want this book to have been a novel. I want to know all the gory details of the Empress' rise to power. In a way, though, I think it's perfect as it is: we, along with the historian-monk, hear the parts of the story that matter, the small kernels of truth that don't belong in sweeping dynastic histories but that are at the heart of how things work. I loved the conceit of the storytelling going along with an almost archaeological excavation of objects from the past. I loved the hints of worldbuilding (mammoths! Shrines! Imperial hierarchies!) and I loved how the world itself stayed just out of sight. This is a perfect little novella, and also I want more of it.
I desperately want this book to have been a novel. I want to know all the gory details of the Empress' rise to power. In a way, though, I think it's perfect as it is: we, along with the historian-monk, hear the parts of the story that matter, the small kernels of truth that don't belong in sweeping dynastic histories but that are at the heart of how things work. I loved the conceit of the storytelling going along with an almost archaeological excavation of objects from the past. I loved the hints of worldbuilding (mammoths! Shrines! Imperial hierarchies!) and I loved how the world itself stayed just out of sight. This is a perfect little novella, and also I want more of it.
Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones
I already knew that I loved this story, and I already knew how thematically different it is from the Miyazaki adaptation, before I picked up the book. In a way, it made it the ideal read for a lazy afternoon: a story whose beats I already knew, and a story whose emphases and commitments I was yet to discover. I really enjoy DWJ's light prose style, the way things dance around the page and in the narrative. I really liked the moral of this original (we make our own fate, thank you very much! And we make it not on our own, but surrounded by families we choose), and I absolutely love the relationships between all the characters, the love and camaraderie and even exasperated affection that shows up everywhere. Just a delight!
I already knew that I loved this story, and I already knew how thematically different it is from the Miyazaki adaptation, before I picked up the book. In a way, it made it the ideal read for a lazy afternoon: a story whose beats I already knew, and a story whose emphases and commitments I was yet to discover. I really enjoy DWJ's light prose style, the way things dance around the page and in the narrative. I really liked the moral of this original (we make our own fate, thank you very much! And we make it not on our own, but surrounded by families we choose), and I absolutely love the relationships between all the characters, the love and camaraderie and even exasperated affection that shows up everywhere. Just a delight!
Son of a Trickster - Eden Robinson
This was a hard book, beyond the really matter-of-fact way that Robinson describes some really deeply broken lives. I…could not figure out the plot, I must admit, and the narrative didn't really feel like it had an arc? And not in a way that felt like an intentional subversion of the novel structure? The bright spots (not all that bright objectively, but bright as I was trying to figure out whether I liked this book or not) include some really vibrant, believable relationship dynamics, but most of those get thrown over in the last fifth of the book, which really is just a series of deus ex machina moments that arrive unexplained and leave one utterly perplexed. I suppose the main character feels the same way? Maybe we're supposed to be in tune with him? I feel like this book was more an elaborate snapshot than a novel, and if that was intentional, then it's a magnificent achievement: the tableau effect is phenomenal, the scene clear and crisp and uncompromisingly harsh.
This was a hard book, beyond the really matter-of-fact way that Robinson describes some really deeply broken lives. I…could not figure out the plot, I must admit, and the narrative didn't really feel like it had an arc? And not in a way that felt like an intentional subversion of the novel structure? The bright spots (not all that bright objectively, but bright as I was trying to figure out whether I liked this book or not) include some really vibrant, believable relationship dynamics, but most of those get thrown over in the last fifth of the book, which really is just a series of deus ex machina moments that arrive unexplained and leave one utterly perplexed. I suppose the main character feels the same way? Maybe we're supposed to be in tune with him? I feel like this book was more an elaborate snapshot than a novel, and if that was intentional, then it's a magnificent achievement: the tableau effect is phenomenal, the scene clear and crisp and uncompromisingly harsh.
A Thread of Grace - Mary Doria Russell
I can't handle how Russell manages to take fragments of stories and turn them into whole theological reflections! This book is so much more than its characters (it's about human nature, and the simultaneous absence and presence of God, and the inescapable greyness of acting in the world), and yet it manages to centre them so wholly that it seems like nothing matters more than even the smallest, most passing person. There is, indeed, only a thread of grace in this soul-crushing, devastating book (can a WWII-in-Italy novel really be anything else?), but what a thread it is. I can't even be coherent about it.
I can't handle how Russell manages to take fragments of stories and turn them into whole theological reflections! This book is so much more than its characters (it's about human nature, and the simultaneous absence and presence of God, and the inescapable greyness of acting in the world), and yet it manages to centre them so wholly that it seems like nothing matters more than even the smallest, most passing person. There is, indeed, only a thread of grace in this soul-crushing, devastating book (can a WWII-in-Italy novel really be anything else?), but what a thread it is. I can't even be coherent about it.
The Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of the Maharal of Prague - Yudl Rosenberg
This interconnected set of short stories about a rabbi fighting blood libel and managing the internal workings of his community by means of a judiciously employed combination of wisdom and, uh, an unspeaking man made of clay? It's the superhero narrative we need. I was drawn in by the stories, the vibrant characters, the witty repartee, the Psalms showing up everywhere, so much so that it didn't even occur to me until after I had finished it that this life-narration of a Jewish master is full of the kind of moral exemplarity I spent so long studying (and still spend too much time thinking about). A subtle, and yet entirely unsubtle, set of stories that display how we should live, and how we should not live, and how we should take care of each other. Was I disappointed that the golem didn't get more play? Possibly. Is that the only thing I didn't 100% enjoy about this book? Absolutely.
This interconnected set of short stories about a rabbi fighting blood libel and managing the internal workings of his community by means of a judiciously employed combination of wisdom and, uh, an unspeaking man made of clay? It's the superhero narrative we need. I was drawn in by the stories, the vibrant characters, the witty repartee, the Psalms showing up everywhere, so much so that it didn't even occur to me until after I had finished it that this life-narration of a Jewish master is full of the kind of moral exemplarity I spent so long studying (and still spend too much time thinking about). A subtle, and yet entirely unsubtle, set of stories that display how we should live, and how we should not live, and how we should take care of each other. Was I disappointed that the golem didn't get more play? Possibly. Is that the only thing I didn't 100% enjoy about this book? Absolutely.
Dragon's Blood – Jane Yolen
I liked that Yolen made some fun linguistic efforts here to indicate how the economy and social structure of this world impacts speech patterns! I liked that dragons appear to be sufficiently sentient to want to cuddle and to be friends with each other/other beings. And that was pretty much it; I think there's something to be said for how much I didn't like this book being the result of it being written for children, but that's as far as I'll go in suggesting my dislike may have been a me problem. Just, wow, I think even children's books can engage critically with some of the themes here? And I think even children's books need some characters who are appealing to the reader? And some good dialogue? And some real worldbuilding?
I liked that Yolen made some fun linguistic efforts here to indicate how the economy and social structure of this world impacts speech patterns! I liked that dragons appear to be sufficiently sentient to want to cuddle and to be friends with each other/other beings. And that was pretty much it; I think there's something to be said for how much I didn't like this book being the result of it being written for children, but that's as far as I'll go in suggesting my dislike may have been a me problem. Just, wow, I think even children's books can engage critically with some of the themes here? And I think even children's books need some characters who are appealing to the reader? And some good dialogue? And some real worldbuilding?
Bury Your Dead – Louise Penny
If the Gamache novels are all "not all policemen!" tracts, this one deviates a little to proclaim "not all Francophones," and it was not a good look. It was interesting to talk about this book with some fellow Quebecoises, as we parsed out how Penny writes Quebecois.e identity and how the markers she chooses are really restricted to her particular generation – but that was the most interesting thing about the novel. I think the fact of writing four mysteries in one made it difficult for Penny to fully devote herself, in the way she usually does, to the minutiae of each mystery, and as a result I didn't feel convinced by the process of deduction in any of them. The whole thing felt very deus ex machina-y, and while I wanted to love the delve into Gamache's conscience, I just don't think it was executed with the same grace Penny normally has. I look forward to the next installment being back to business as usual, and hopefully without the undercurrent of "all Francophone characters in this novel are assholes, except Gamache."
If the Gamache novels are all "not all policemen!" tracts, this one deviates a little to proclaim "not all Francophones," and it was not a good look. It was interesting to talk about this book with some fellow Quebecoises, as we parsed out how Penny writes Quebecois.e identity and how the markers she chooses are really restricted to her particular generation – but that was the most interesting thing about the novel. I think the fact of writing four mysteries in one made it difficult for Penny to fully devote herself, in the way she usually does, to the minutiae of each mystery, and as a result I didn't feel convinced by the process of deduction in any of them. The whole thing felt very deus ex machina-y, and while I wanted to love the delve into Gamache's conscience, I just don't think it was executed with the same grace Penny normally has. I look forward to the next installment being back to business as usual, and hopefully without the undercurrent of "all Francophone characters in this novel are assholes, except Gamache."
Sightwitch – Susan Dennard
Susan Dennard definitely has one of those walls in her house with notes and string everywhere, because her worldbuilding is deeply complex, but somehow never contradictory. I said to my book club partner that one of the difficulties with the books in this series is that they are definitely books in a series – they don't stand on their own very well. This book, which is a mid-series prequel, suffers the same fate: everything is just extra confusing because there is SO MUCH detail and SO MANY things going on, and to understand the whole you really need to hold every book in your mind. That caveat aside, I loved this installment – the community of sisters, the back-and-forth of prophecy, the quiet romance angle, the bleed-through of politics, the remarkably affirming stance on the importance of structure and the importance of forging one's own structure, and, of course, the questions answered and raised about the nature of magic in this world. I LOVED the narrative conceit that allowed us to have first-person voice ("oh, everyone in this community dedicated to memory keeps meticulous journals of their daily lives as part of their practice"), and I loved the way Dennard took advantage of it to convey some really beautiful emotionality.
Susan Dennard definitely has one of those walls in her house with notes and string everywhere, because her worldbuilding is deeply complex, but somehow never contradictory. I said to my book club partner that one of the difficulties with the books in this series is that they are definitely books in a series – they don't stand on their own very well. This book, which is a mid-series prequel, suffers the same fate: everything is just extra confusing because there is SO MUCH detail and SO MANY things going on, and to understand the whole you really need to hold every book in your mind. That caveat aside, I loved this installment – the community of sisters, the back-and-forth of prophecy, the quiet romance angle, the bleed-through of politics, the remarkably affirming stance on the importance of structure and the importance of forging one's own structure, and, of course, the questions answered and raised about the nature of magic in this world. I LOVED the narrative conceit that allowed us to have first-person voice ("oh, everyone in this community dedicated to memory keeps meticulous journals of their daily lives as part of their practice"), and I loved the way Dennard took advantage of it to convey some really beautiful emotionality.
Trickster Drift – Eden Robinson
Robinson has a real pacing problem, and while it's much less evident here than in the first book of the series, there's still a rush-to-the-finish-line last 30 pages that come out of absolutely nowhere and kind of ruin the slow build that was going on for the rest of the book? I think maybe my problem with this series thus far is that it falls somewhere in the bildungsroman genre (possibly my least favourite kind of narrative) rather than a problem with the books themselves, because I feel like there's hype that I'm just not understanding. I do just want good things to happen to Jared, though, who thus far has spent two books trying very, very hard and having nothing permanent or lasting to show for it aside from a boatload of trauma, so I absolutely will be reading the third book. Robinson's style is perhaps just not for me, but her characters absolutely are.
Robinson has a real pacing problem, and while it's much less evident here than in the first book of the series, there's still a rush-to-the-finish-line last 30 pages that come out of absolutely nowhere and kind of ruin the slow build that was going on for the rest of the book? I think maybe my problem with this series thus far is that it falls somewhere in the bildungsroman genre (possibly my least favourite kind of narrative) rather than a problem with the books themselves, because I feel like there's hype that I'm just not understanding. I do just want good things to happen to Jared, though, who thus far has spent two books trying very, very hard and having nothing permanent or lasting to show for it aside from a boatload of trauma, so I absolutely will be reading the third book. Robinson's style is perhaps just not for me, but her characters absolutely are.
Being Numerous - Natasha Lennard
I always have trouble with wanting essay collections to be a little bit more cohesive, so I found this collection to be actually quite nice. There's a real consistent thoroughline to Lennard's work, perhaps because of her own internal consistency, or perhaps because she and her editor picked essays to include with great care. Whatever the reason, this collection reads like a single argumentative piece about and against the ways in which we allow what Lennard calls "fascistic desire" to imbue everything about our lives, from our sex to our suicide to our conversations to the ways in which we protest systems of injustice, and the way we allow and accept the workings of those very systems. I also really appreciated that Lennard, while focusing primarily on the USA, did broaden herself internationally at some of her moments of deepest argumentation, making this collection feel pertinent outside the geographic boundaries in which it was written.
I always have trouble with wanting essay collections to be a little bit more cohesive, so I found this collection to be actually quite nice. There's a real consistent thoroughline to Lennard's work, perhaps because of her own internal consistency, or perhaps because she and her editor picked essays to include with great care. Whatever the reason, this collection reads like a single argumentative piece about and against the ways in which we allow what Lennard calls "fascistic desire" to imbue everything about our lives, from our sex to our suicide to our conversations to the ways in which we protest systems of injustice, and the way we allow and accept the workings of those very systems. I also really appreciated that Lennard, while focusing primarily on the USA, did broaden herself internationally at some of her moments of deepest argumentation, making this collection feel pertinent outside the geographic boundaries in which it was written.
The Starless Sea – Erin Morgenstern
It was a mistake to listen to this book. It is a book, like Morgenstern's first novel, with overlapping and interweaving narratives, and that demands a certain ability to page flip, to read in a non-linear fashion. I love that this is a story about stories (everyone in my life is tired of hearing me talk about "narrative logic" and "narrative satisfaction" but this book is ABOUT BOTH OF THOSE THINGS SO HELP ME), that it is a love letter to stories, that it contains so very many stories in all kinds of media, that there are things in it that are both fact and metaphor, that everything connects and disconnects, fractures and comes together, in ways that are surprising and yet unsurprising, because, Morgenstern says over and over and over again, we know stories. We understand stories. And stories are built in ways that make such intrinsic sense to us, on such a deep level, that we really already know where the stories that make up this novel are going, and we are content to be taken there even as we expect to be taken elsewhere. Much too much is going on for a linear reading, though, so I'm going to have to acquire a print copy and go through it all again.
It was a mistake to listen to this book. It is a book, like Morgenstern's first novel, with overlapping and interweaving narratives, and that demands a certain ability to page flip, to read in a non-linear fashion. I love that this is a story about stories (everyone in my life is tired of hearing me talk about "narrative logic" and "narrative satisfaction" but this book is ABOUT BOTH OF THOSE THINGS SO HELP ME), that it is a love letter to stories, that it contains so very many stories in all kinds of media, that there are things in it that are both fact and metaphor, that everything connects and disconnects, fractures and comes together, in ways that are surprising and yet unsurprising, because, Morgenstern says over and over and over again, we know stories. We understand stories. And stories are built in ways that make such intrinsic sense to us, on such a deep level, that we really already know where the stories that make up this novel are going, and we are content to be taken there even as we expect to be taken elsewhere. Much too much is going on for a linear reading, though, so I'm going to have to acquire a print copy and go through it all again.
The Water-Dancer – Ta-Nehisi Coates
I feel like the books that disappoint me the most are the books that are just thoroughly mediocre. I expected better from Coates, and I think we all did – his essays are brilliant, well-structured, incisive, and evocatively written, but this novel is none of those things. The structure alone is almost unforgivable (WHO is your editor, HOW did they let this happen), and while I will admit a pre-existing bias against the bildungsroman genre, the slips in narrative voice (are we trying to frame this as a recollection? If so, why haven't we actually framed it?), the half-hearted attempt at a prologue that reveals the climax (and instead reveals something that happens like...a third of the way in, if that), the slipshod pacing...honestly, even if the characters had been remarkable or the promise of the title borne out, the structure is just so messy, so unlike the care and precision I love in Coates' nonfiction writing, that I don't think I would have enjoyed the book anyway.
I feel like the books that disappoint me the most are the books that are just thoroughly mediocre. I expected better from Coates, and I think we all did – his essays are brilliant, well-structured, incisive, and evocatively written, but this novel is none of those things. The structure alone is almost unforgivable (WHO is your editor, HOW did they let this happen), and while I will admit a pre-existing bias against the bildungsroman genre, the slips in narrative voice (are we trying to frame this as a recollection? If so, why haven't we actually framed it?), the half-hearted attempt at a prologue that reveals the climax (and instead reveals something that happens like...a third of the way in, if that), the slipshod pacing...honestly, even if the characters had been remarkable or the promise of the title borne out, the structure is just so messy, so unlike the care and precision I love in Coates' nonfiction writing, that I don't think I would have enjoyed the book anyway.
Unnatural Magic – C.M. Waggoner
I will admit to being weak for so many things that this book exploits to great advantage: the relationship of social role to gender and to sex, mathematical magic, preturnaturally gifted girl-children getting the chance to shine, medical ethics, incredibly butch women, beautifully thought-out cultures (food! Language! Modes of dress and address! Gender roles! Religion! Immigration patterns! Music! EVERYTHING IS HERE that you could possibly hold in a family resemblance to culture!), unlikely romantic heroines, well-fleshed characters with brilliant dialectical quirks that ooooooooooh!! I loved everything about this book, with two exceptions: the pacing at the end was a little iffy (not enough well-paced detail in the lead-up to the climax, a denouement with detail rather ungracefully included), and for a book that is refreshingly clear in having a society without heterosexism or homophobia of any kind, it's awfully dull that both of our main characters are straight. It's also awfully dull, in a book that really seeks to think differently about gender and sex and social roles (so good! What fantasy literature should be!), that we haven't a single trans character, so I guess that's three qualms. But otherwise, yes, very yes, very, very yes. I would read so many stories set in this world alone, or with any (or all) of these vibrant, emotive characters.
I will admit to being weak for so many things that this book exploits to great advantage: the relationship of social role to gender and to sex, mathematical magic, preturnaturally gifted girl-children getting the chance to shine, medical ethics, incredibly butch women, beautifully thought-out cultures (food! Language! Modes of dress and address! Gender roles! Religion! Immigration patterns! Music! EVERYTHING IS HERE that you could possibly hold in a family resemblance to culture!), unlikely romantic heroines, well-fleshed characters with brilliant dialectical quirks that ooooooooooh!! I loved everything about this book, with two exceptions: the pacing at the end was a little iffy (not enough well-paced detail in the lead-up to the climax, a denouement with detail rather ungracefully included), and for a book that is refreshingly clear in having a society without heterosexism or homophobia of any kind, it's awfully dull that both of our main characters are straight. It's also awfully dull, in a book that really seeks to think differently about gender and sex and social roles (so good! What fantasy literature should be!), that we haven't a single trans character, so I guess that's three qualms. But otherwise, yes, very yes, very, very yes. I would read so many stories set in this world alone, or with any (or all) of these vibrant, emotive characters.
The Marrow Thieves – Cherie Dimaline
I love a post-apocalyptic dystopian YA novel as much as the next millennial, but rarely have I read one with so much hope at its centre. Maybe it's that Dimaline is writing from a perspective that Rebecca Roanhorse points out is already post-apocalyptic, in that Indigenous peoples in North America have already lived through the apocalypse that was/is settler-colonialism – Dimaline's characters know that they have a legacy of survival, and the ultimate optimism of the novel springs from that knowledge. Maybe it's that Dimaline is writing a story centred on taking joy where you can get it and seeking to both know and tell your own story, both ultimately hopeful acts. Maybe it's that Dimaline hasn't framed "success" or "winning" in grand terms, but in the small victories over despair, over alienation, over loneliness, and, yes, over the brutality of a system that neither recognises nor respects Indigenous personhood. Unlike other dystopian novels, there is no big toppling of the system, but because the characters' sights are set on smaller goals, achieving them feels glorious. My only qualm about the book is that I did not understand how marrow harvesting, a central plot point, worked on a technical level, nor did I understand how it was disruptable, but maybe that detail is less important. Maybe, by not talking about it, Dimaline denied it any power in the narrative but the general power it held to cause fear and distress for the protagonists.
I love a post-apocalyptic dystopian YA novel as much as the next millennial, but rarely have I read one with so much hope at its centre. Maybe it's that Dimaline is writing from a perspective that Rebecca Roanhorse points out is already post-apocalyptic, in that Indigenous peoples in North America have already lived through the apocalypse that was/is settler-colonialism – Dimaline's characters know that they have a legacy of survival, and the ultimate optimism of the novel springs from that knowledge. Maybe it's that Dimaline is writing a story centred on taking joy where you can get it and seeking to both know and tell your own story, both ultimately hopeful acts. Maybe it's that Dimaline hasn't framed "success" or "winning" in grand terms, but in the small victories over despair, over alienation, over loneliness, and, yes, over the brutality of a system that neither recognises nor respects Indigenous personhood. Unlike other dystopian novels, there is no big toppling of the system, but because the characters' sights are set on smaller goals, achieving them feels glorious. My only qualm about the book is that I did not understand how marrow harvesting, a central plot point, worked on a technical level, nor did I understand how it was disruptable, but maybe that detail is less important. Maybe, by not talking about it, Dimaline denied it any power in the narrative but the general power it held to cause fear and distress for the protagonists.
If I Was Your Girl – Meredith Russo
The author's note saved this novel for me, because without it the novel is one of those books that cis people say is "so important" while being so incredibly stereotypical as to be meaningless? Russo is trans, and goes out of her way in her author's note to undermine almost the whole premise of the novel, but I wonder: if you have to basically say "I wrote this book so cis people would be comfortable, but this isn't actually reflective of much of trans experience" should you have written the book in the first place? Because I don't know that trans folks need to know that no matter how supportive your parents or loving your friends, violence will find you. I don't know that trans folks need to know that cis people will project romantic expectations on you and then act out violently when you don't fulfill them. I don't know that it's particularly revolutionary to write a novel in which a trans woman suffers so that cis readers can say "this book is So Important." My own experience of trans-ness is not like the main character's or like Russo's, so I want to defer in criticising the book to trans women, but this is a work of fiction. Could Russo not imagine even a fictional world where a trans girl got to be openly trans AND keep her boyfriend? AND not suffer violence? Or is the problem that she couldn't imagine a real world where her target readers would accept such a story? I have to admit, I wonder about that, too.
The author's note saved this novel for me, because without it the novel is one of those books that cis people say is "so important" while being so incredibly stereotypical as to be meaningless? Russo is trans, and goes out of her way in her author's note to undermine almost the whole premise of the novel, but I wonder: if you have to basically say "I wrote this book so cis people would be comfortable, but this isn't actually reflective of much of trans experience" should you have written the book in the first place? Because I don't know that trans folks need to know that no matter how supportive your parents or loving your friends, violence will find you. I don't know that trans folks need to know that cis people will project romantic expectations on you and then act out violently when you don't fulfill them. I don't know that it's particularly revolutionary to write a novel in which a trans woman suffers so that cis readers can say "this book is So Important." My own experience of trans-ness is not like the main character's or like Russo's, so I want to defer in criticising the book to trans women, but this is a work of fiction. Could Russo not imagine even a fictional world where a trans girl got to be openly trans AND keep her boyfriend? AND not suffer violence? Or is the problem that she couldn't imagine a real world where her target readers would accept such a story? I have to admit, I wonder about that, too.
Death Comes to Pemberley – P.D. James
A delight in tone and less so in plot. I was actually looking forward to having some of our favourites turn out to be bad guys, and was excited by the potential for the kind of discussion of class politics that goes missing in Austen's work, but instead we get a narrative that solidifies that everyone was right to be a jerk to Lydia, uncritically engages with "New World" rhetoric, and has both our villain and one of the story's real victims be servants without any discussion of class whatsoever. Yes, we skewered a few upper-class buffoons in a lovely stylistic send-up to Austen, and we got a nice (if oddly-timed, ten years into their marriage) "here's what I was thinking when Lady Catherine told me about your confrontation" scene, but otherwise I think in attempting to imitate Austen James lost some of the subversion of Austen's writing.
A delight in tone and less so in plot. I was actually looking forward to having some of our favourites turn out to be bad guys, and was excited by the potential for the kind of discussion of class politics that goes missing in Austen's work, but instead we get a narrative that solidifies that everyone was right to be a jerk to Lydia, uncritically engages with "New World" rhetoric, and has both our villain and one of the story's real victims be servants without any discussion of class whatsoever. Yes, we skewered a few upper-class buffoons in a lovely stylistic send-up to Austen, and we got a nice (if oddly-timed, ten years into their marriage) "here's what I was thinking when Lady Catherine told me about your confrontation" scene, but otherwise I think in attempting to imitate Austen James lost some of the subversion of Austen's writing.
My Sister the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
Who among us would not clean up after her sister if she turned out to be a serial killer? Who among us would not protect her sister in flashback and future alike? Baithwaite's matter-of-fact-ness and the curtness of her narrative voice makes this story less a story about a woman who kills men and more a story about the blindness of all kinds of love, a subtle argument that the truest love is a love that sees all the bad things and loves anyway. It is not a comfortable argument. It is not a comfortable novel, and yet it doesn't have any of the unsettling or the uncanny about it. Straightforward, uncompromising, and unsubtle, a truly frightening open-ended question of a book.
Who among us would not clean up after her sister if she turned out to be a serial killer? Who among us would not protect her sister in flashback and future alike? Baithwaite's matter-of-fact-ness and the curtness of her narrative voice makes this story less a story about a woman who kills men and more a story about the blindness of all kinds of love, a subtle argument that the truest love is a love that sees all the bad things and loves anyway. It is not a comfortable argument. It is not a comfortable novel, and yet it doesn't have any of the unsettling or the uncanny about it. Straightforward, uncompromising, and unsubtle, a truly frightening open-ended question of a book.
Gods of Jade and Shadow – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Is "death and the maiden" one of my favourite folkloric tropes? Maybe. Is the fairy-tale narrative voice one of my favourite voices? Absolutely. On top of these things, Moreno-Garcia manages to give us a strong female protagonist without invoking "not like other girls" (and in fact implying that Casiopea's personality is not un-typical!), a save the world story without the chosen one trope, and a thoroughly mythic scope without sacrificing the intimacy of a love story. And the pacing was so tight, the dialogue hitting that perfect folkloric blend of realistic and dreamy, the plot clear and complicated in the way that all the best fairy tales are? Truly, this gift of a book could not be better-written or better-edited, I am just in love.
Is "death and the maiden" one of my favourite folkloric tropes? Maybe. Is the fairy-tale narrative voice one of my favourite voices? Absolutely. On top of these things, Moreno-Garcia manages to give us a strong female protagonist without invoking "not like other girls" (and in fact implying that Casiopea's personality is not un-typical!), a save the world story without the chosen one trope, and a thoroughly mythic scope without sacrificing the intimacy of a love story. And the pacing was so tight, the dialogue hitting that perfect folkloric blend of realistic and dreamy, the plot clear and complicated in the way that all the best fairy tales are? Truly, this gift of a book could not be better-written or better-edited, I am just in love.
A Conjuring of Light – V.E. Schwab
As far as final installments in trilogies go, Schwab had a lot of setup to bring to fruition, and while she accomplished it, I'm not certain the whole was as smooth as it might have been if the trilogy as a whole had been better-structured. The pacing felt really choppy, which isn't something I felt with the previous two books despite all of them having these really short chapters (which I love as an organisational choice!). There was so much that had to happen in this book, and it left no room for the atmosphere and character growth that I loved in the rest of the series! That meant that the two central romances, both of which I was deeply invested in, didn't really...develop so much as just, have new things happen in them? Which is a shame, because they had been so beautifully built in the second book! Notwithstanding all that, I can't get enough of Lila Bard as a character, and I loved Holland's redemption arc, both of which are strong enough thoroughlines that the book gripped me despite its problems.
As far as final installments in trilogies go, Schwab had a lot of setup to bring to fruition, and while she accomplished it, I'm not certain the whole was as smooth as it might have been if the trilogy as a whole had been better-structured. The pacing felt really choppy, which isn't something I felt with the previous two books despite all of them having these really short chapters (which I love as an organisational choice!). There was so much that had to happen in this book, and it left no room for the atmosphere and character growth that I loved in the rest of the series! That meant that the two central romances, both of which I was deeply invested in, didn't really...develop so much as just, have new things happen in them? Which is a shame, because they had been so beautifully built in the second book! Notwithstanding all that, I can't get enough of Lila Bard as a character, and I loved Holland's redemption arc, both of which are strong enough thoroughlines that the book gripped me despite its problems.
In an Absent Dream – Seanan McGuire
Maybe Seanan McGuire is making me love the novella? This little bite-size story, boiled down to the essential components (the ultimate unfairness of choice!), really pulls no punches. I loved the secondary world here, perhaps most of all the worlds the Wayward Children series has visited (shocking no one?), and I loved that we get our first inter-generational travel. I also read the companion short story on the Tor website before reading this novella, and I think it really helped; there's a big hole in the middle of the novella that I think prevents some of the main character's choices from being fully comprehensible.
Maybe Seanan McGuire is making me love the novella? This little bite-size story, boiled down to the essential components (the ultimate unfairness of choice!), really pulls no punches. I loved the secondary world here, perhaps most of all the worlds the Wayward Children series has visited (shocking no one?), and I loved that we get our first inter-generational travel. I also read the companion short story on the Tor website before reading this novella, and I think it really helped; there's a big hole in the middle of the novella that I think prevents some of the main character's choices from being fully comprehensible.
Bloodwitch – Susan Dennard
Okay, I admit: I am a sucker for enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, and there is SO MUCH of that in this series, and in this book, so even if nothing else worked I would be happy! But everything else worked – the worldbuilding continues to be mind-boggling, and some of the promise from the first three books is finally being fulfilled, things coming together in a way that feels really solid. As my book club partner remarked, though, there are maybe too many details to keep in mind; I feel like I need one of those stalker walls to keep track of everything, or at least a wiki! But I am waiting with very bated breath for the next installment nonetheless.
Okay, I admit: I am a sucker for enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, and there is SO MUCH of that in this series, and in this book, so even if nothing else worked I would be happy! But everything else worked – the worldbuilding continues to be mind-boggling, and some of the promise from the first three books is finally being fulfilled, things coming together in a way that feels really solid. As my book club partner remarked, though, there are maybe too many details to keep in mind; I feel like I need one of those stalker walls to keep track of everything, or at least a wiki! But I am waiting with very bated breath for the next installment nonetheless.
Come Tumbling Down - Seanan McGuire
I do appreciate that we get an end to Jack's and Jill's stories, and the brief exploration of the Moors was also nice, but this installment really felt…unnecessary? It was well-plotted as always, and an enjoyable read, but the whole time I kept wanting to get literally anyone else's story. I think the problem with this series is that it premised itself on "here are all these different worlds!" but more than half of the books thus far are really focused on just a single world, and it feels like the Jack and Jill stories should have just been a Wayward Children novel, with the novella form saved for all the other worlds. I respect that McGuire writes the stories that matter to her, but I'd really, really like books about any of our other continued characters at the school. Hopefully we won't return to the Moors again!
I do appreciate that we get an end to Jack's and Jill's stories, and the brief exploration of the Moors was also nice, but this installment really felt…unnecessary? It was well-plotted as always, and an enjoyable read, but the whole time I kept wanting to get literally anyone else's story. I think the problem with this series is that it premised itself on "here are all these different worlds!" but more than half of the books thus far are really focused on just a single world, and it feels like the Jack and Jill stories should have just been a Wayward Children novel, with the novella form saved for all the other worlds. I respect that McGuire writes the stories that matter to her, but I'd really, really like books about any of our other continued characters at the school. Hopefully we won't return to the Moors again!
The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix E. Harrow
This is a book written expressly for me, and somehow my needs from a book are universal enough that it won a Hugo. It should surprise approximately no one that any one of: little girls who do not follow the rules, girls of all sizes who live inside books to the point where they become doors into stories, girls whose experience of reality is doubted but who turn out to be right, girls willing to suffer to write a better story for themselves, father-daughter relationships, star-crossed lovers, portal fantasies, the foiling of nefarious plots, properly used first-person narration, books within books, academic publications within novels, clear and articulate engagement with race and racism and gender and misogyny, or disreputable animal companions, could have convinced me to fall in love with this perfect novel. That it has all of them is just…a perfect gift, and apparently not just for me. Harrow's writing has all the cadences of literate girls who have grown up too quickly, and all the pacing of girls in full command of their own story and its retelling. I cannot even describe how much every single choice was perfect, incandescently wonderful.
This is a book written expressly for me, and somehow my needs from a book are universal enough that it won a Hugo. It should surprise approximately no one that any one of: little girls who do not follow the rules, girls of all sizes who live inside books to the point where they become doors into stories, girls whose experience of reality is doubted but who turn out to be right, girls willing to suffer to write a better story for themselves, father-daughter relationships, star-crossed lovers, portal fantasies, the foiling of nefarious plots, properly used first-person narration, books within books, academic publications within novels, clear and articulate engagement with race and racism and gender and misogyny, or disreputable animal companions, could have convinced me to fall in love with this perfect novel. That it has all of them is just…a perfect gift, and apparently not just for me. Harrow's writing has all the cadences of literate girls who have grown up too quickly, and all the pacing of girls in full command of their own story and its retelling. I cannot even describe how much every single choice was perfect, incandescently wonderful.
Wicked As You Wish - Rin Chupeco
I was…disappointed in this book. I wanted to like it! I wanted to like our protagonist, and her conflicted love story; I wanted to like the fresh and exciting teen characters; I wanted to like the global conflict angle. I just couldn't get beyond how gimmicky it felt, how every plot twist and worldbuilding detail felt like Chupeco had thrown a dart at a Fairy Tales and Popular Children's Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries dartboard, blindfolded, and incorporated whatever they hit. There were some moments of genuinely well-written pathos and drama - but only like three, in the whole book. This novel was a hot mess.
I was…disappointed in this book. I wanted to like it! I wanted to like our protagonist, and her conflicted love story; I wanted to like the fresh and exciting teen characters; I wanted to like the global conflict angle. I just couldn't get beyond how gimmicky it felt, how every plot twist and worldbuilding detail felt like Chupeco had thrown a dart at a Fairy Tales and Popular Children's Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries dartboard, blindfolded, and incorporated whatever they hit. There were some moments of genuinely well-written pathos and drama - but only like three, in the whole book. This novel was a hot mess.
Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
I am weak for writing that knows how clever it is. I am weak for tall stupid lesbenin, big sword, big muskles, says some really profound things and also basically just bumbles her way through the biggest scandal of her entire society. I am very, very weak for meaningful character deaths and RELIGIOSITY and compelling ensemble casts and writers who understand vocabulary/speaking style quirks and basically everything about this beautifully-constructed, absolutely fucked-up book. Mostly I just want to know how Muir kept this massive cast so distinct, and what kind of genius drugs she was on to make this deep, deep worldbuilding and incredibly complex plot happen.
I am weak for writing that knows how clever it is. I am weak for tall stupid lesbenin, big sword, big muskles, says some really profound things and also basically just bumbles her way through the biggest scandal of her entire society. I am very, very weak for meaningful character deaths and RELIGIOSITY and compelling ensemble casts and writers who understand vocabulary/speaking style quirks and basically everything about this beautifully-constructed, absolutely fucked-up book. Mostly I just want to know how Muir kept this massive cast so distinct, and what kind of genius drugs she was on to make this deep, deep worldbuilding and incredibly complex plot happen.
Harrow the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
I was really glad, going into this book, that I a) had read warnings about how gaslight-y it is, and b) decided to read it over the course of a day, with someone who had already read it in the next room to whom I could ramble about what I thought was happening every chapter or so. Otherwise, the oppressive "what the fuck?"-ness would have been very, very overwhelming. Muir is phenomenally talented at story-construction (and world-construction, my GOODNESS), which makes this book really very harrowing (ha) until the pieces start to click into place, at which point it just becomes horrifying. Throughout, though, the character work is exquisite, the use of second-person narration perfect, and the way Muir kind of flays open her protagonist for us to understand - on a visceral level - some of the most crucial elements of the overarching story she is trying to tell? I could not ask for anything more, aside from for book three to spring fully-formed from her forehead.
I was really glad, going into this book, that I a) had read warnings about how gaslight-y it is, and b) decided to read it over the course of a day, with someone who had already read it in the next room to whom I could ramble about what I thought was happening every chapter or so. Otherwise, the oppressive "what the fuck?"-ness would have been very, very overwhelming. Muir is phenomenally talented at story-construction (and world-construction, my GOODNESS), which makes this book really very harrowing (ha) until the pieces start to click into place, at which point it just becomes horrifying. Throughout, though, the character work is exquisite, the use of second-person narration perfect, and the way Muir kind of flays open her protagonist for us to understand - on a visceral level - some of the most crucial elements of the overarching story she is trying to tell? I could not ask for anything more, aside from for book three to spring fully-formed from her forehead.
A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Susanne Collins
The tone here was very different from the Hunger Games, which I liked - I liked that with a different protagonist and a different time and a very, very different story, Collins gave us a different narrative style as well. I also liked very much the way that our protagonist very clearly makes choices, seeing his alternatives, and that those choices are what lead him to becoming the villain of the Hunger Games - Collins at once makes Snow sympathetic, because he does have a hard time of it, and demonstrates that his circumstances did not make him into the person he was. It is a really nuanced backstory for a morally difficult character. In terms of the book itself, though, it felt like two different stories, or like it was oddly paced? The climax of the book happens just past the middle, and the denouement might as well be a standalone story. I wish this had been a duology! I think it would have been better.
The tone here was very different from the Hunger Games, which I liked - I liked that with a different protagonist and a different time and a very, very different story, Collins gave us a different narrative style as well. I also liked very much the way that our protagonist very clearly makes choices, seeing his alternatives, and that those choices are what lead him to becoming the villain of the Hunger Games - Collins at once makes Snow sympathetic, because he does have a hard time of it, and demonstrates that his circumstances did not make him into the person he was. It is a really nuanced backstory for a morally difficult character. In terms of the book itself, though, it felt like two different stories, or like it was oddly paced? The climax of the book happens just past the middle, and the denouement might as well be a standalone story. I wish this had been a duology! I think it would have been better.
A Dead Djinn in Cairo - P. Djèlí Clark
Clark is going to convert me to alternate history, which I don't usually like to read. Cairo! Angels! Djinn! Gender-non-conforming detectives in natty suits carrying their father's pocket watch! Prophecies! Clockwork! There's nothing not to like in this story (aside from the audiobook narrator's not-super-consistent accent, oh well). I really appreciate that Clark seems to know exactly how much of the world he can get away with keeping in the background, so that rather than knowing the world of his novellas, we get more of a sense-impression, a feel for the world, that grounds the story without detracting from it. That's some impressive calculus.
Clark is going to convert me to alternate history, which I don't usually like to read. Cairo! Angels! Djinn! Gender-non-conforming detectives in natty suits carrying their father's pocket watch! Prophecies! Clockwork! There's nothing not to like in this story (aside from the audiobook narrator's not-super-consistent accent, oh well). I really appreciate that Clark seems to know exactly how much of the world he can get away with keeping in the background, so that rather than knowing the world of his novellas, we get more of a sense-impression, a feel for the world, that grounds the story without detracting from it. That's some impressive calculus.
The Gone Dead - Chanelle Benz
The moodiness of this book! The story kind of wafted me along, like it was more of an atmosphere than a narrative, almost more of a sensory experience. I liked the obvious love that went into the crafting of the various characters - I loved the switches in viewpoint character, I loved the different ways they saw and understood each other and themselves. Benz is technically very, very proficient! This is a book about relationships between individuals and their contexts, and it's a book with no easy answers for the violence that contexts wreak on individuals and individuals on contexts. But it's a frustratingly toothless book, too, that has so much going on and yet manages to say nothing, to ask about nothing, to shy away from so much in individual and in context that could have made the story really, really good.
The moodiness of this book! The story kind of wafted me along, like it was more of an atmosphere than a narrative, almost more of a sensory experience. I liked the obvious love that went into the crafting of the various characters - I loved the switches in viewpoint character, I loved the different ways they saw and understood each other and themselves. Benz is technically very, very proficient! This is a book about relationships between individuals and their contexts, and it's a book with no easy answers for the violence that contexts wreak on individuals and individuals on contexts. But it's a frustratingly toothless book, too, that has so much going on and yet manages to say nothing, to ask about nothing, to shy away from so much in individual and in context that could have made the story really, really good.
Uprooted - Naomi Novik
I re-read this book because I agreed to write fanfiction about it for someone, and needed to refresh my memory, and what a nice refresh it was. I had a hard time reading this fall, because my brain wanted to fall out of my head, so it was really lovely to come back to a story whose twists I already knew, whose characters I already loved, whose world already made sense to me. I think Novik writes really solid fantasy - nothing too flashy, nothing extraordinary, just good storytelling and fine worldbuilding - that hits on some experiences of girlhood and womanhood that resonate with me. I do wish we'd had a bit more of a lead-up to our main relationship? But I do really appreciate how Novik handles the relationship by subordinating it to our protagonist's self-discovery; there's a very fine balance there that I think she strikes handily. I also wish that the Strong Female Friendships Novik is great at writing would maybe become Strong Female Romances just once!!
I re-read this book because I agreed to write fanfiction about it for someone, and needed to refresh my memory, and what a nice refresh it was. I had a hard time reading this fall, because my brain wanted to fall out of my head, so it was really lovely to come back to a story whose twists I already knew, whose characters I already loved, whose world already made sense to me. I think Novik writes really solid fantasy - nothing too flashy, nothing extraordinary, just good storytelling and fine worldbuilding - that hits on some experiences of girlhood and womanhood that resonate with me. I do wish we'd had a bit more of a lead-up to our main relationship? But I do really appreciate how Novik handles the relationship by subordinating it to our protagonist's self-discovery; there's a very fine balance there that I think she strikes handily. I also wish that the Strong Female Friendships Novik is great at writing would maybe become Strong Female Romances just once!!
What the Night Sings - Vesper Stamper
I was sure that this was a fictionalisation of some real person's Shoah story; Stamper has done such a great job of picking up strands of stories I've read and heard before, to weave an experience that feels deeply real. It's a beautiful meditation on what it means to survive a genocide, and how you go on living knowing yourself to be a survivor. The way it skips around the timeline, the way characters come in and out, the way Stamper finds hope in some places and despair in others and says that both matter, both are important - it's a beautifully-told story that neither romanticises nor glosses over all the unbeautiful parts. Stamper's afterword, about her inspiration for the story, makes it even more compelling. I wish I had read it as the graphic novel she describes instead of listening to it as an audiobook!
I was sure that this was a fictionalisation of some real person's Shoah story; Stamper has done such a great job of picking up strands of stories I've read and heard before, to weave an experience that feels deeply real. It's a beautiful meditation on what it means to survive a genocide, and how you go on living knowing yourself to be a survivor. The way it skips around the timeline, the way characters come in and out, the way Stamper finds hope in some places and despair in others and says that both matter, both are important - it's a beautifully-told story that neither romanticises nor glosses over all the unbeautiful parts. Stamper's afterword, about her inspiration for the story, makes it even more compelling. I wish I had read it as the graphic novel she describes instead of listening to it as an audiobook!
Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater
At 46% of the way through this audiobook, I got tired of waiting for the plot to arrive, or the main characters who are super into each other and are mutually aware of it to do something about it, or the Angst to become multi-dimensional, and I returned it to the library, and it was the best decision I've made all year.
At 46% of the way through this audiobook, I got tired of waiting for the plot to arrive, or the main characters who are super into each other and are mutually aware of it to do something about it, or the Angst to become multi-dimensional, and I returned it to the library, and it was the best decision I've made all year.
The Wren Hunt - Mary Walton
I was…disappointed by this book? In a way I didn't expect to be? I picked it up as a kind of run-of-the-mill YA fantasy romance, which is a genre I enjoy primarily for its predictability and its familiar tropes. What I got, instead, was kind of a mess: Walton has these big, ambitious ideas that just don't come out very well on the page. Is it the technical writing? Is it that there are too many threads for the length of the book? Is it that first-person narration is really way too limiting for the story she was clearly trying to tell? Is it that no one sat down with her and made her explain the narrative logic so that they could sort out the giant leaps and glaring inconsistencies and the many, many plot holes? Maybe all of the above? But, man, this book was all over the place. There were so many small good elements, but they didn't belong together, and they didn't belong in this book, and possibly they didn't belong in the hands of Walton's editor, who frankly should have caught all of this.
I was…disappointed by this book? In a way I didn't expect to be? I picked it up as a kind of run-of-the-mill YA fantasy romance, which is a genre I enjoy primarily for its predictability and its familiar tropes. What I got, instead, was kind of a mess: Walton has these big, ambitious ideas that just don't come out very well on the page. Is it the technical writing? Is it that there are too many threads for the length of the book? Is it that first-person narration is really way too limiting for the story she was clearly trying to tell? Is it that no one sat down with her and made her explain the narrative logic so that they could sort out the giant leaps and glaring inconsistencies and the many, many plot holes? Maybe all of the above? But, man, this book was all over the place. There were so many small good elements, but they didn't belong together, and they didn't belong in this book, and possibly they didn't belong in the hands of Walton's editor, who frankly should have caught all of this.
Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc - David Elliott
I will admit, I was skeptical about this book on the grounds that I don't know that anyone who hasn't been a teenage girl grappling with questions of gender and justice and faith can really write Joan, much less in the first person. And I was right, to an extent; the parts of this narrative poetry collection that are Joan's are the weakest by far. But the rest of it! The rest of it is sublime: the use of villanelle and triolet and rondeau and so many of the beautiful old French forms that Elliott chose, the giving voice to the fire and the needle and the altar and the sword and the banner! The interspersing of poetry with excerpts from the trial records, and then the poetry picking up threads, even whole phrases, from those records! The way the fire's voice recurred, the heartbreaking matter-of-fact-ness of the saints! If only Elliott had found someone else to write his Joan bits, this would have been perfect; I think he misreads (mis-ventriloquises) her in a way that someone with an experience of girlhood and/or womanhood would not. As it was, I cried about it. It was a good way to end the year.
I will admit, I was skeptical about this book on the grounds that I don't know that anyone who hasn't been a teenage girl grappling with questions of gender and justice and faith can really write Joan, much less in the first person. And I was right, to an extent; the parts of this narrative poetry collection that are Joan's are the weakest by far. But the rest of it! The rest of it is sublime: the use of villanelle and triolet and rondeau and so many of the beautiful old French forms that Elliott chose, the giving voice to the fire and the needle and the altar and the sword and the banner! The interspersing of poetry with excerpts from the trial records, and then the poetry picking up threads, even whole phrases, from those records! The way the fire's voice recurred, the heartbreaking matter-of-fact-ness of the saints! If only Elliott had found someone else to write his Joan bits, this would have been perfect; I think he misreads (mis-ventriloquises) her in a way that someone with an experience of girlhood and/or womanhood would not. As it was, I cried about it. It was a good way to end the year.