Some books you can summarize easily and neatly. Other books, like this one, are impossible to reduce to a few sentences that can give someone an idea Some books you can summarize easily and neatly. Other books, like this one, are impossible to reduce to a few sentences that can give someone an idea of what they will find within its pages. At its core, the story told by “The Book of Form and Emptiness” is about a mother and her son, grieving the loss of a husband and father, and struggling with the demands of a world that is not built to accommodate people going through a hard time. It’s about mental illness, art, Zen, books, consumerism, the inner life on inanimate objects, what it really means to have your shit together, falling in love for the first time, accepting help... It’s beautifully written, with a tremendous amount of sensitivity and compassion, and it made me feel an awful lots of feels.
Kenji and Annabelle were an oddly matched, but deeply in love couple; they had a son named Benny and were fairly happy and satisfied with their lives and their small but cozy duplex. Until Kenji died in a rather silly accident, right behind their home. Their world begins to fray, as Benny starts to hear voices coming from various objects and Annabelle spirals into depression. When therapy is unable to help Benji, he retreats onto himself and befriends a strange girl who will shift his outlook on many things.
One of the things that struck me the hardest with this book is how terribly real all the characters felt. I found myself squirming with recognition at many points as I read about the way they are mired in their emotions, at their reactions, mistakes in attempting to communicate. The world is such a weird place when one stops to think about it, and it has very little room to accommodate people who don’t fit neatly anywhere. People who are too earnest, too gentle and too candid easily get bruised – if not crushed – by the way the world works (mostly because those qualities are viewed as weakness by those who would take advantage of them), and Annabelle and Benny learn it the hard way.
Of course, Ozerki’s final conclusion, that books can not only help but also heal, is something very close to my heart, so my rating might be a tiny bit of confirmation bias, but sue me, books have kept me alive so many times that I celebrate those who understand that truth so profoundly. The Zen Buddhist aspect also resonated strongly from me: my practice and I have not been on great terms for a while, and this made me miss it enough to reconnect with it and I am very grateful for that.
The narrative structure is very unusual, the pacing is rather slow and there is not such much a plot as there is an exploration of a moment in the life of a handful of characters, but I found this book to be a lovely surprise that took its time in revealing itself. Very recommended....more
This book was on my radar, but Charles’ review made me fast-track it. Thank you very much, friend, I had a lot of fun with this one!
One of my favoriteThis book was on my radar, but Charles’ review made me fast-track it. Thank you very much, friend, I had a lot of fun with this one!
One of my favorite characters in adult animation is Henchman 21/Gary/The Viceroy from the brilliant series “The Venture Bros.”. He is a henchman to a super-villain called The Monarch, and while he is a simple underling early in the series, he eventually becomes his boss’ sidekick and close friend. And he has a tattoo on his chest that says “HENCH4LIFE”. When I first hear about this novel, I immediately thought of 21, and I knew I had to read it. Also, you should watch “The Venture Bros.” (available for streaming on the Adult Swim website – they are not paying me to promote it, it is just that good).
I don’t know if Walschots is a “Venture Bros.” fan, but if she isn’t, she is tapping into the same vein of the collective unconscious Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick draw from when they write their show, because she has wondered a lot about the real-life effect superheroes and supervillains would have on our existence if they were real (though their take on it is very much tongue in cheek, as where hers is more serious). To run any good project, you need a brain and a face, but you also need support staff: people who crunch the numbers, give you tech support, cover your various legal quibbles, make you coffee. It only makes sense that such people would go through a temp agency in order to find work, as being part of a supervillain’s rank and file must have a high turnover…
That’s what Anna and her friends June and Greg do: short contracts working with various bad guys in support roles; it’s not glamourous but it pays the bills! Anna had been working building spreadsheets for Electric Eel, when her boss asks her to come with him for a public appearance – what she thinks might be her big break turns out to be the event that will derail her life. E’s team is thwarted in their nefarious plan by one of the world’s most famous superhero: Supercollider. In the process of stopping Electric Eel, the hero throws Anna across the room and when she comes to, it’s to a spiral fracture of the femur and an early termination from her work contract. Traumatized, depressed and going through a painful physical recovery, Anna needs to make sense of what happened to her, and she begins to realize her experience is not unique. She puts together a database to compute how many lives were affected, and years ultimately taken from people by superheroes’ actions and begins to see that the harm they cause is not made up for by the good they do. Her work is eventually noticed by a very notorious villain, Leviathan, who offers her not only a job, but a purpose: the opportunity to channel her knowledge and her hate towards the superheroes to fight against them in a way no one has ever done before.
The writing is snappy and witty, and it’s very easy to just sit there and devour huge chunks of the book, as the pacing is perfectly executed. But there is something about Anna’s evolution that is terribly upsetting: Walschots deconstructs how villains become villains, and while of course it is not pretty, I think the disturbing thing is how easily it happens. Sure, she was working for bad guys, but Anna was not really a bad person when her story begins, she was just trying to make ends meet. Her injury and the way it is handled by the so-called good guys plant a seed in her, a need for revenge that she sustains through her work. Of course her new boss encourages it. Of course, the truly awful way the heroes behave make her feel justified. And that’s the bitter center of this story: justifying your bad actions is a slippery slope, because eventually, down that road, all bad actions can be justified.
This is nothing revolutionary: read any comic book! Loki and Magneto are perfect example of “bad guys” people can root for, and the question of how good are the good guys is deeply looked at in “Watchmen”. But the way Walschots blends those tropes with millennial office politics, and from a first person point of view, makes this story very interesting, because it highlights the hypocrisies and small-mindedness that anyone can relate to. It turns a premise that could be seen as quite over-the-top into something that might be a little close to home for comfort. I was curious to see how Anna’s story would warp up, and I found the ending to fit quite well with the spirit of the story. There is not real end to the cycle of vengeance and violence, in fact or fiction.
A very interesting, often fun and sometimes gross book about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Recommended for comic book fans who like their stories gritty and who don’t mind grey areas and flexible moral barometers in their “protagonists”....more
This is the sort of book that is really made to make me cackle maniacally as I read it: nerding out about music, musicians, bands and all that stuff iThis is the sort of book that is really made to make me cackle maniacally as I read it: nerding out about music, musicians, bands and all that stuff is one of my favorite things to do, and obviously, it’s also one of Steven Hyden’s favorite things to do – but then, he is a music journalist! The idea of taking a closer looks at pop music rivalries is somewhere between culturally interesting and terribly trashy gossip, and I am so here for it, even if I was relatively unaware of some of the rivalries he puts under the microscope.
But mostly, what I find interesting about a book like this, its this struggle to find out why we care so damn much about these things. The way we ascribe symbolic and moral value on artists we love, the way we feel we identify and relate to them: that stuff is both magical and a little weird and Hyden understands that well because he is kind of a fanboy himself.
I will not attempt to summarize any of it; but if you enjoy reading about music and pop culture, you will have fun reading this. If you enjoy Chuck Klosterman’s books, you will probably enjoy this. If you are a cynical asshole who finds comfort in music, you will probably enjoy this.
I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I would have loved a chapter about the Clash vs. the Sex Pistols and there wasn’t a word about them in there, and I took it quite personally. I am also able to admit that since this is already a much-written about rivalry, it might have been redundant, and that since the Pistols imploded when Sid Vicious stabbed his girlfriend to death, the rivalry was rather short-lived, and has a clear (yes, I am biased) winner. Still totally awesome and worth your time....more
I picked up “Vladimir” not really knowing what to expect, even if I read a bunch of reviews before getting a copy (thank you for putting it Well damn.
I picked up “Vladimir” not really knowing what to expect, even if I read a bunch of reviews before getting a copy (thank you for putting it on my radar, Candi!). The topic of sex and power in academia in a post #metoo world is rich with potential, but is also an absolute minefield. Julia May Jonas walked through that minefield with incredible skill and guts and I am quite stunned by the result. While this book is certainly self-aware, it doesn’t have the self-consciousness I have often found in debuts. If anything, the writing is so strong and self-assured that I would not have believed it was a first novel. Jonas is unafraid of being provocative and nuanced, in ways that I am certain ruffled a few feathers, but I personally enjoy it when I look up from a book slightly disheveled.
I’m not even sure how to summarize this book. It is about a writing professor in her mid-fifties; her husband, who is chair of the department she works for, has been accused of having inappropriate relations with some former students in the past. She knew of his affairs and as per their understanding, did not mind, especially as the girls were all over the age of consent at the time of the trysts - but it takes less than that to get fired in academia now a days. While this is happening, a brilliant young novelist and his wife start teaching in the department, and our narrator becomes obsessively infatuated with the younger (in his early forties) man.
This is a fantastic character study that dives so deep beneath the narrator’s skin. Unlikable as she may be, she is drawn superbly: incredibly intelligent, but insecure and often cold, not because she doesn’t feel, but because her feelings have had a way of punishing her in the past and now they stay wrapped up. There is a carefully layered commentary of current sexual politics, the theme of agency and accountability, female competitiveness and paranoia, and mental health woven through the inner monologue, and I loved it. The prose is elegant and strong, the pacing had me gobbling up the book in big chunks like a glutton, and I couldn’t wait to see how this would all unravel. The book lost a star because while the last quarter of the book was well executed, it took me strangely off-guard: this was not at all where I thought or expected this to go, and I had hoped for something a little darker.
This is a very, very impressive novel, and I look forward to whatever Ms. Jonas comes up with next!...more
I keep telling myself I should read more books by Elif Shafak, because when I do, I am truly transported by her beautiful prose, by her very human chaI keep telling myself I should read more books by Elif Shafak, because when I do, I am truly transported by her beautiful prose, by her very human characters and by the ideas she explores. This particular book is about immigration, cultural identity, generational trauma, war and, unexpectedly, fig trees. While I admit I knew nothing about fig trees when I picked this up, the other themes have always been of great interest to me, and I was curious to see what story Shafak would weave through them.
Told in several narrative strands, “The Island of Missing Trees” is about Ada, a young girl who recently lost her mother, and how she comes to understand her family’s history – and how and why things ended up the way they are now. One of the most rattling things that happens to us when we are young is the realization that our parents are human, that they were people before they were parents. This shift in perspective can be a real shock to the system – sometimes it’s for the best, but sometimes, we do not end up liking what we see. And sometimes, we just don’t understand it. Ada still doesn’t know what to think: her parents came from Cyprus, where their love was not accepted by their families, as Kostas was Greek and Defne was Turkish. War had torn the island apart for years before the couple made their way to England, with few mementos besides a sapling fig tree.
How did they get there? What happened to them before they left their native island? Why have they never gone back?
I do love that we get the tree’s perspective of this story: this is such a wonderful touch, and a reminder that the landscape we often overlook has witnessed more stories than we could ever imagine.
I was taken a little bit off-guard by the fact that this book is, at it’s core, a love story; I’m not sure why I wasn’t expecting it, I usually steer clear of love stories, but this one had a grounded, human quality to it that kept me not only invested but rooting for Kostas and Defne. It may sound pithy, but love is a bridge that can overcome differences, especially the arbitrary ones, and it transcends the concepts of culture and language. I do love that Shafak did not make this an easy nor an overly melodramatic love story: there is a fair share of tragedy, to be expected given the setting and context, but enough tenderness and humanity to balance it without throwing the whole thing into a saccharine territory.
Thank you Jason, who bought me a copy of this book for Christmas. You are the best Book Santa....more
Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes super fun books, that mash together so many things that I love that even when I feel like she could have pushed the enveloSilvia Moreno-Garcia writes super fun books, that mash together so many things that I love that even when I feel like she could have pushed the envelope further, I still enjoy her novels greatly – but I have to say that this one was especially great!
“The Island of Dr. Moreau” is a book that I have a love-hate relationship with, partially because it leaves the readers with so many questions. Moreno-Garcia took some of Wells’ building blocks and created a retelling set on a small island ff the coast of Mexico. The story is told through the alternating points of view of Montgomery Laughton, a man hired as the overseer by the eccentric Doctor Moreau, who needs a strong man and a skilled hunter to keep things running smoothly in his compound, and Carlota, the doctor’s natural daughter. They live an isolated and mostly peaceful life on their remote estate, along with the doctor’s creations: human-animal hybrids who require constant care. But when the estate’s owner’s son comes by for a visit and is struck by the lovely Carlotta, things began to crumble for the quiet household.
I was afraid for a bit that this would turn into a silly love triangle, but Moreno-Garcia skirted that nonsense very skillfully: Montgomery and Carlota may have chemistry but their bond is not as simple as one might expect. I enjoyed their relationship, the way they look after each other in an unconventional but deeply caring way: it is a great strength of this novel.
I filed it on my Spooktober shelf, but it’s not really a horror novel: it is a historical science-fiction that hints at horrible things. It is not a perfect book, but it’s a really interesting riff on a sci-fi classic. Not to be missed if you like this author’s work!...more
“Winners have a tendency to be forgiven in this town.”
This is not my typical book pick, but I admit my curiosity got the best of me after reading a lo“Winners have a tendency to be forgiven in this town.”
This is not my typical book pick, but I admit my curiosity got the best of me after reading a lot of glowing reviews. And I am glad I gave in, because this book is very good, very bleak, very layered and very hard to step away from.
Being a born and bred Montrealer, I thought I knew what hockey-crazy people are like (we replaced religion with the Habs in the 60s). Well, let me tell you something: Montreal hockey madness is mild compared to how intensely people in Beartown care about it. Jesus. For this small Swedish town, their junior hockey team is what everything orbits around: the kids’ passion and dedication, the parents’ sacrifices and hard work, the local economy depending on the sponsors bringing in income… It’s a lot of pressure to put on teenage boys, who are already under a ton of pressure just because they are teenage boys – with the confusion, the hormones and all those things. So when a very important game is tarnished by something terrible (though not that hard to predict), the town basically explodes.
The story is told as an intricately weaved character study: every citizen of Beartown is put under a microscope and looked at much too closely for comfort. It’s tempting to judge some of them, but Backman does an amazing job of unwrapping their very personal struggles and suffering. Everyone is messy, complicated, trying their best and constantly feeling like they are failing – which makes them feel real to the point of uncanny.
The novel also explores some very sensitive issues with great finesse. We live in a world where some unacceptable behavior will be forgiven if it’s committed by someone who enjoys some kind of prestige, whether its celebrity or wealth; it shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Whether it’s because it is inconvenient to believe people we admire do bad things, or because we are invested in their success to a degree or another, it is disturbingly easy to stand with people who do bad things. It is also interesting to think of how universal a lot of what Backman looks at in “Beartown” is. Stories like this must happen in football towns in the US, hockey towns in Canada, soccer towns all over the world. The book also looks at the idea of masculinity, and what that means in a context as specific as a small hockey town. The locker room talk, the way the boys take it well outside of the locker room and how that toxicity affects the whole town
I did find the constant switching of POV to be a little hard to keep up with at times, especially in the beginning. But it serves a very specific purpose, of showing the different angles of every moment the story wants to explore, and while some lines feel a bit pithy at times, the clichés are not always wrong. I also found the ending just a hair too neat for me; but these are minor quibbles. This is rough but impactful book that is well-worth looking into and talking about. ...more
This book is a very clear case of “it’s not you, it’s me”, because by all accounts, I should have loved it. It’s a feminist, historical mystery, very This book is a very clear case of “it’s not you, it’s me”, because by all accounts, I should have loved it. It’s a feminist, historical mystery, very well constructed around two narrative lines and beautifully written. And yet reading it felt like a slog, and it took me for ever to get through it. I am reviewing it more from a sense of duty than from any kind of enthusiasm. To be clear, this is a good book, but it was not for me and/or the timing of my picking it up was completely wrong.
Helen Watt is an academic at the twilight of her career. Her health has been declining, and while she stoically carries on, she knows it won’t be possible to keep up the pretense forever. How ironic that an amazing discovery should be made at that moment of her life: a historical home in Richmond is being renovated, and a quantity of Restoration-era documents are found in a recess under a staircase. Documents which soon reveal something momentous: they were written by someone who should not have been anywhere near the work of a scribe...
The other narrative line follows Ester, a young Jewish woman living under the protection of a rabbi in the late 1600s in London, after she and her brother were exiled from Amsterdam. Her family name carries a stigma, but Ester’s temper and intelligence mark her as even more of a outsider than her patrimony. She is interested in philosophy, and she knows the subject is forbidden to women. But when he brother leaves the shelter of their new home, she is called upon to act as scribe to the rabbi, opening a door she never thought she’d be able to walk through.
Now doesn’t that all sound super freaking awesome? I really feel like it should have been, but somehow, it left me completely cold and only mildly curious as to what would happen next. It’s not even that I hated the characters: I can deal with unlikable characters quite well, but the entire cast around which this story revolved simply bored me. I absolutely can’t explain it.
My point is, this is an objectively good book, and I must have been wearing my grumpy pants the whole time I read it, so disregard my opinion and check it out!...more
When I visit my in-laws in Western New York, they know where to take me: whatever cute independent bookstore within driving distance. We went for dinnWhen I visit my in-laws in Western New York, they know where to take me: whatever cute independent bookstore within driving distance. We went for dinner at a really nice bistro in Medina, which is very near a cute place called Author’s Note, where I picked up a copy of “The Bone Orchard”. If you are in that area, the little store is quite worth the detour!
Now, the book! I have thought about it a lot, because it was a bit of a mixed reading experience, and I ended up giving it a rather non-committal 3 stars because I went from liking it to being annoyed with it and back a few times. Some elements of this story and world-building are really unique and interesting, some are a little stale. I am glad I didn’t give up on it, because I found it got better near the end, but it also feels a bit more like a YA fantasy, which is not my cup of tea.
Charm is the madam of an unusual brothel called Orchard House, on the outskirts of the imperial capital. She is also the emperor’s de facto prisoner, as he has implanted her with a device that controls her mind and her powers. The women who work in Orchard House were artificially grown by Charm, from the bones that grow in the house’s strange yard: Shame, Justice, Desire, Pride and Pain. One day, the emperor summons Charm to his deathbed and charges her with a final task: figuring out which of his rogue sons is responsible for his death.
I really enjoyed the macabre aesthetic, the political conspiracy element, and the ultimate explanation behind Charm and her flock of unusual charges. But something about the execution felt just a little lazy, and I was never as drawn into the atmosphere of the setting as I would have wanted to be. I think the writing could have been a bit more lush but also more structured (it was easy to get confused as to what was going on), the dialogue could have been a bit more mature (a lot of it felt like teenage angst). There was a hint of a commentary on bigotry, on fanatism, on mental illness and on sex work, but it was always a bit too hazy to be really clear.
It's a shame, really, when something with interesting elements an potential falls flat, but it happens....more
Zen Cho is quickly becoming an important author on my speculative-fiction radar, with her lovely whimsical style and her stories that are much deeper Zen Cho is quickly becoming an important author on my speculative-fiction radar, with her lovely whimsical style and her stories that are much deeper than they appear at first sight. I had seen her name on my Goodreads feed for a while, and I took the plunge earlier this year with “Black Water Sister” and now I am hooked!
This collection of short stories and novellas touch on similar themes as the ones explored with “Black Water Sister”: immigration, cultural clash, transformation, self-discovery, family (what it actually means and how generations can’t understand each other), and sexual awakening. Those are all very contemporary topics, but I love that Cho chose to explore them through the lens of folklores and legends from South East Asia – with a few Celtic faeries sprinkled on top for good measure! She also effortlessly draws up characters who are beautifully diverse – it never feels like box-checking, it just is.
Vampires, gods, dragons, ghosts, automata, aliens, sentient plants : I learned a lot about mythology reading this book, but I also got a wonderful glimpse of the inner lives of such creatures, their loves, motivations, desires and fears. I think that Cho’s gift truly lies in opening her readers’ heart with her little fables, and while there are a few weaker stories in this book, none of them are bad, and they are all thought-provoking.
A very charming collection, recommended to fans of Asian mythology and soft sci-fi....more
When it was announced in 2020 that Carlos Ruiz Zafon had passed away, I was devastated. “The Shadow of the Wind” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/shoWhen it was announced in 2020 that Carlos Ruiz Zafon had passed away, I was devastated. “The Shadow of the Wind” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) is one of my all time favorite books, and the entire “Cemetery of Forgotten Books” series is a treasure to me. I was both surprised and incredibly excited when I found out that Mr. Zafon had prepared a little collection of short stories and given instructions that it should be published posthumously. This made me smile, albeit sadly. This is just his style, a little final present for his readers, a little comfort in their grief.
It was a little bittersweet to pick up, honestly, but the sweet took over quickly. The pleasure of reconnecting with beloved characters, even in small doses, to walk the misty and dirty street of his Barcelona one more time was such a lovely thrill.
The eleven stories in this collection are best enjoyed if one has read Zafon’s other work, as they often reference plot points and characters from their pages, but they might be an intriguing place to start for newbies. Like most short story collections, a couple were less successful, but generally, I was enthralled and simply hungry for more pages. The darkness, the hints of supernatural, the beautiful and dangerous women that populate Zafon’s novels are here, and give us glimpses into the origin of the famous Cemetery, a never published work by Cervantes and his connection to the Sempere family, but also to a mysterious foreign publisher…
The final story his clearly Zafon’s final bow, his goodbye over two short pages. I will miss the excitement of looking forward to his latest books, but I will cherish his work for ever....more
Reaching the end of this series was a bittersweet moment: the “Johannes Cabal” novels have been a holiday tradition for me over the past five years, aReaching the end of this series was a bittersweet moment: the “Johannes Cabal” novels have been a holiday tradition for me over the past five years, and I guess now I need a new tradition, because Howard makes it clear in his foreword that this is the end for my favorite necromancer… Though he did leave us on a rather open ending, so a girl can dream of more stories involving the determined Mr. Cabal, his wonderful brother Horst and their always entertaining friends and adventures…
When we last saw the Cabal brothers, they had managed to get themselves out of a tricky situation, but the looming threat of Orfilia Ninunka is not gone for good, and they know it. However, Johannes is not about to give up his quest to find a cure for death, and when he comes across some clues that could lead him to the Fountain of Youth, he enrolls Horst, the plucky Miss Barrow and the wonderfully unhinged demon Zarenyia to help him in his travels. But nothing is ever quite that simple, especially for Johannes, who will walk into a complicated trap that will lead him far from where he thought he was going!
I am really going to miss these books: their irreverent tone, take-the-piss humor and unique characters were always a pleasure to spend time with. Howard’s love of Lovecraftiana, Victoriana and steampunk, blended with his dry wit, gives a wonderful prose that never fails to make me smile, snort and giggle in my book – which is a delightful treat.
If you enjoyed the other books of this series, this is a fantastic conclusion. I hadn’t realized their were little novellas set between the books and I will now have to go dig these up to give myself the illusion that there is still more Cabal to come.
As per my tradition, I devoured a Johannes Cabal book over the holidays. The misanthropic necromancer is a favorite comfort character of mine, and thiAs per my tradition, I devoured a Johannes Cabal book over the holidays. The misanthropic necromancer is a favorite comfort character of mine, and this fourth volume of his adventures didn’t disappoint!
Johannes is actually not the focus of the first half of “The Brothers Cabal”: that honor goes to Horst, who we met in the first book of the series, and who might be the most affable vampire in fantasy and horror literature, an absolute anti-Lestat. The story begins with Horst being rather surprised at being brought back to life (long story, read the first book) and courted by an occult organization with plans to create an army of supernatural creatures such as vampires, werebeasts and zombies. That whole idea doesn’t it too well with Horst, who is really just a nice guy with the bad luck of being a vampire, so when things start going south, he runs for it and seeks out his brother, who may or may not be able to help with the rather peculiar situation Horst has found himself in.
Jonathan Howard is the type of satirist who clearly adores the material he pokes fun at, and you can tell that this man has lived on Gothic and horror novels and movies, as he peppers lovely references and Easter eggs for his fellow nerds to unearth within the pages of his hilarious novels. I was also really pleased to see Horst return, as he was quite a standout character in the previous novel, and his interaction with his irascible sibling is a delight.
If you enjoy this series, this is probably the best installment since the first book, and I loved every page.
So many of my friends have read and loved this book (and some authors who’s work I love have praised it), I suppose it was just a matter of time beforSo many of my friends have read and loved this book (and some authors who’s work I love have praised it), I suppose it was just a matter of time before I got around to it – but I was hesitant. The synopsis made me feel like this would either be brilliant or intolerable. And then, Vintage printed this evocatively artsy collection called “Vintage Heroines” (which also includes an edition of “Madame Bovary”, a book this one if frequently compared to) and I couldn’t resist. Come on, look at this elegant train wreck on the cover! The art department at Vintage deserves a raise because I hate this book’s more common cover art and yet I didn’t hesitate for a second before buying a copy of this new edition.
So. Is this book self-indulgent garbage or clever symbolic satire? That’s the question I asked myself watching the first two seasons of “Girls”, which is more similar to this book than “The Bell Jar”, despite sharing the theme of feminine depression in New York City. And sort of like with “Girls”, I think enjoyment of it really depends on the reader’s perspective and lived experience.
A very privileged (rich, white, blonde, thin, pretty) young woman decides to spend a year in her apartment, watching television and medicating herself into a state of hibernation as a way to deal with a lingering depression, hoping that by the time she has accumulated a year’s worth of rest, she can get back to her life with more motivation and enthusiasm than she can muster before the beginning of her little experiment. Her parents are dead, and the only people she sees somewhat regularly are an insecure “best friend”, a horribly douchy on-and-off “boyfriend” and an absolutely unhinged “therapist” who gives her prescriptions for the most mind-boggling cocktail of mood-elevators and sleeping aids.
As I read this, I was both confused and amused. I sighed, I cringed, I scoffed. The prose is good, unflinching and acerbic, the narrator both very insightful and totally oblivious. It’s basically a bit of a roller-coaster which goes from witty observation about the art scene and it’s appalling similarity to the stock market and musings about the narrator’s parents that make it very clear that she is suffering from a weird mixing of PTSD from parental emotional abuse and the grief of losing them both quite suddenly. But those actual issues are never tackled: all she wants is to sleep and take those very weird meds that make her blackout for days at a time and wake up to strange objects she does not remember buying, or photos of herself out and about to events that she can’t recall attending.
I have met real people like the unnamed narrator, people who are in such deep denial of their trauma that they self-medicate with all kind of truly bizarre and grotesque behaviors - substances of various kinds only being one of the “medications” used to isolate themselves from the root-cause of their malaise (for example, I have seen people embrace veganism and yoga with a passion as a form of self-medication – granting themselves permission to be self-righteous about their lifestyle is merely a bonus, the ultimate goal being to distract themselves from trauma they refuse to address). If anything, this book is a scalding statement about the fact that most people would rather do anything (and I mean anything) rather than confront the things that are actually hurting them.
There is no real plot to this book, and the rather odd ending leads me to believe that the narrator’s experiment may not have had quite the intended effect. And not unlike my experience with “Girls”, I finished this wondering if Moshfegh had a deeper point than simply making her readers wince. I think that it’s interesting that we have come to this place culturally, where we can admit that life is full of very cringey moments, and that we can integrate them to art, because after all, they are real moments. But is it suppose to soothes us, reassure us that we are not the cringiest person on Earth?
I hesitated between 3 and 4 stars, but I am sticking to 4 because this book, while incredibly weird, left me with quite a few questions – as any good piece of art ought to. And it certainly is an entertaining read, though it really is nothing like what I expected, and certainly nothing like that cover art of a young Regency woman sitting there looking thoughtful hints at!...more
I guess it has become really trendy to publish well-written but unpleasant to read books over the past few years. Or maybe this is already passé and II guess it has become really trendy to publish well-written but unpleasant to read books over the past few years. Or maybe this is already passé and I am just my usual late-on-the-bandwagon self about this, because I have read a few of those lately. Frankly, while they are interesting reading experiences, I am sort of looking forward to the next time I read a book I can just enjoy. Anyway.
Mona Awad had baffled me with “Bunny” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) a couple of years ago. It was a super weird reading experience, but I had mostly enjoyed it, though I could see why some people found it insufferable. When I read a book like that, I am happy to check out the author’s other work, because I always wonder if the book was a fluke or if the author is just that good at screwing with their audience; so I got a copy of “13 Ways to Look at a Fat Girl” when I spotted one at a book store.
The book is a sort of novel in vignettes about a girl named Elizabeth (or Lizzie, or Liz, or Beth, depending on what’s going on in her life), and her self-image as she comes of age and becomes an adult. The topic is interesting, as is the approach, but this book is soaked in self-loathing, the likes of which I have rarely encountered in a book. One could argue that Elizabeth’s view of herself and other women has been tainted by the white capitalist patriarchy, which knows very well that if we hate ourselves and other women and spend all our time, energy and money on trying to feel better, we won’t question the system – and it’s certainly the case. But Awad isn’t interested in politics, at least not in this book. She is just interested in showing you how Elizabeth’s self-loathing poisons every aspect of her life, from her friendships to her health (physical and mental), not to mention her marriage. That makes the book oh so unpleasant, because while it is raw and honest about how women think about themselves and each other, that shit is just vile. The occasional male perspectives are not much better, as Elizabeth’s body is both fetichized and reviled by the men in her life.
I will say that Awad’s writing is both beautiful and extremely sharp: that is really what saves this book from a lower rating, because I really appreciate the way that skill with words is used, even when discussing repugnant topics. But I recently read “My Year of Rest and Relaxation”, and I am a little sick of literary fiction that goes out of it’s way to make me cringe and feel gross. I have strong feelings about diet culture and the horrible impact is has on so many levels, and I am horrified to read about how much of a nasty effect buying into it can have on someone’s psyche and how that bleeds out into every aspect of their lives, and I think a book like this can certainly be interesting and thought-provoking, but also, ew. Just, ew.
So 3 stars, because of the great skill and merciless insight that went into this, but be warned that this book is depressing as fuck and anyone triggered by disordered eating should steer clear....more
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