There is a difference between envy and jealousy. People seem to forget that sometimes. Jealousy is a secondary emotion borne of fear or anger. Envy isThere is a difference between envy and jealousy. People seem to forget that sometimes. Jealousy is a secondary emotion borne of fear or anger. Envy is when you’re aware that you resent that someone else has something you covet. Most of the time, envy is a subtle thing. Like, “Oh man, I really like those shoes! Those are much better black heels than mine!” Other times, however, envy can grow into something painful and blistering hot. Envy can make people murderous.
In Rouge, we have an envy pas de deux: a mother and daughter who sadly can’t keep away from the toxicity of envy between one another. A daughter who feels so different from her mother due her darker skin color (from her Egyptian father) and dark hair when her mother has red hair, blue eyes, and luminously pale skin. A mother who feels envious of her daughter’s skin because she believes it will age so much better than hers will. A daughter who’s envious of all the men who parade through her mother’s life and take up all the time, love, and affection her mother could be giving her. A mother who’s become so narcissistic she is oblivious to the wide rift she’s created between her and her daughter, how toxic it’s become, and how she’s unwittingly left it so open to dangerous influences.
The sharply funny, barbed satire prose passages lambasting the skin care industry were some of my favorite passages in this book. I just couldn’t keep from smirking at the laundry list of products, even if I’m guilty of using a night cream that does indeed have snail slime in it myself. What was tragic about Belle’s (our main character’s) hyper-vigilant use of these expensive products in a ritualized manner was how she thought she needed to do all this to look more like her mother. She grew up thinking her mother was perfection and she was obsessed with trying to reach it, even if her melanin-rich skin wasn’t meant for it.
The rest of the book, the cult-ish/secret society part of the whole story, was written so impeccably I just don’t know how words could describe it very well. It was all vibes and atmosphere. It had the rich darkness of gothic fiction, the fantastical elements of urban fantasy, the creepy eeriness of occult fiction, the gore and shock of supernatural horror, and the overall lovely, elegant swoop of literary fiction. The whole thing is simply covered in beauty, lust, envy, blood, pain, and grief. I loved every page.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Cult Fiction/Dark Comedy/Gothic/Literary Fiction/Occult Fiction/Psychological Fiction/Satire/Secret Society/Supernatural Horror/Urban Fantasy
Merged review:
There is a difference between envy and jealousy. People seem to forget that sometimes. Jealousy is a secondary emotion borne of fear or anger. Envy is when you’re aware that you resent that someone else has something you covet. Most of the time, envy is a subtle thing. Like, “Oh man, I really like those shoes! Those are much better black heels than mine!” Other times, however, envy can grow into something painful and blistering hot. Envy can make people murderous.
In Rouge, we have an envy pas de deux: a mother and daughter who sadly can’t keep away from the toxicity of envy between one another. A daughter who feels so different from her mother due her darker skin color (from her Egyptian father) and dark hair when her mother has red hair, blue eyes, and luminously pale skin. A mother who feels envious of her daughter’s skin because she believes it will age so much better than hers will. A daughter who’s envious of all the men who parade through her mother’s life and take up all the time, love, and affection her mother could be giving her. A mother who’s become so narcissistic she is oblivious to the wide rift she’s created between her and her daughter, how toxic it’s become, and how she’s unwittingly left it so open to dangerous influences.
The sharply funny, barbed satire prose passages lambasting the skin care industry were some of my favorite passages in this book. I just couldn’t keep from smirking at the laundry list of products, even if I’m guilty of using a night cream that does indeed have snail slime in it myself. What was tragic about Belle’s (our main character’s) hyper-vigilant use of these expensive products in a ritualized manner was how she thought she needed to do all this to look more like her mother. She grew up thinking her mother was perfection and she was obsessed with trying to reach it, even if her melanin-rich skin wasn’t meant for it.
The rest of the book, the cult-ish/secret society part of the whole story, was written so impeccably I just don’t know how words could describe it very well. It was all vibes and atmosphere. It had the rich darkness of gothic fiction, the fantastical elements of urban fantasy, the creepy eeriness of occult fiction, the gore and shock of supernatural horror, and the overall lovely, elegant swoop of literary fiction. The whole thing is simply covered in beauty, lust, envy, blood, pain, and grief. I loved every page.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Cult Fiction/Dark Comedy/Gothic/Literary Fiction/Occult Fiction/Psychological Fiction/Satire/Secret Society/Supernatural Horror/Urban Fantasy
Merged review:
There is a difference between envy and jealousy. People seem to forget that sometimes. Jealousy is a secondary emotion borne of fear or anger. Envy is when you’re aware that you resent that someone else has something you covet. Most of the time, envy is a subtle thing. Like, “Oh man, I really like those shoes! Those are much better black heels than mine!” Other times, however, envy can grow into something painful and blistering hot. Envy can make people murderous.
In Rouge, we have an envy pas de deux: a mother and daughter who sadly can’t keep away from the toxicity of envy between one another. A daughter who feels so different from her mother due her darker skin color (from her Egyptian father) and dark hair when her mother has red hair, blue eyes, and luminously pale skin. A mother who feels envious of her daughter’s skin because she believes it will age so much better than hers will. A daughter who’s envious of all the men who parade through her mother’s life and take up all the time, love, and affection her mother could be giving her. A mother who’s become so narcissistic she is oblivious to the wide rift she’s created between her and her daughter, how toxic it’s become, and how she’s unwittingly left it so open to dangerous influences.
The sharply funny, barbed satire prose passages lambasting the skin care industry were some of my favorite passages in this book. I just couldn’t keep from smirking at the laundry list of products, even if I’m guilty of using a night cream that does indeed have snail slime in it myself. What was tragic about Belle’s (our main character’s) hyper-vigilant use of these expensive products in a ritualized manner was how she thought she needed to do all this to look more like her mother. She grew up thinking her mother was perfection and she was obsessed with trying to reach it, even if her melanin-rich skin wasn’t meant for it.
The rest of the book, the cult-ish/secret society part of the whole story, was written so impeccably I just don’t know how words could describe it very well. It was all vibes and atmosphere. It had the rich darkness of gothic fiction, the fantastical elements of urban fantasy, the creepy eeriness of occult fiction, the gore and shock of supernatural horror, and the overall lovely, elegant swoop of literary fiction. The whole thing is simply covered in beauty, lust, envy, blood, pain, and grief. I loved every page.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
Sometimes you just know, as soon as you start a book, that it’s going to be a five star read.
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books was one of mySometimes you just know, as soon as you start a book, that it’s going to be a five star read.
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books was one of my most-anticipated books of the year. Miller’s previous novel, The Change, was one of my top ten reads of 2022. Some call her writing too on the nose. Some say she beats you over the head with the moral of the story. I say she’s brilliant and they’re wrong. Come fight me.
If The Change was magical realism mixed with literary fiction, then Lula Dean is dark satire mixed with literary fiction. (I won’t even pretend that these two mixtures aren’t two of my favorite genre blends in all of fiction). It’s an exaggerated portrayal of a Hollywood-stereotype small town in Georgia that’s suddenly been plagued by a group of “concerned parents” who want to ban books for the “good of the children”. Too bad knowledge always finds a way, right? Because “banned books” find their way into the community through unlikely means, into unlikely hands, and those books are like pebbles in a pond, creating ripples that start to shift everything in the community.
You want to read a book that includes issues plaguing America right now? It’s in this book. All that hate, all the fear, all the ignorance, all of the shame, and all of the misplaced pride. There’s history, cruelty, and tragedy. Kirsten Miller somehow manages to weave it all together with a dextrous panache that never makes the material feel so heavy you can’t lift the next page.
It’s an absolutely fabulous read that pulled me in, hooked me, and I couldn’t put it down.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Literary Fiction/Satire ...more
If Katy Brent writes a third brilliant book I’m going to declare her an auto-buy author, because I loved this book almost as much as I did her 2023 reIf Katy Brent writes a third brilliant book I’m going to declare her an auto-buy author, because I loved this book almost as much as I did her 2023 release, How to Kill Men and Get Away With It. Though the two books are as different as night and day, they’re both flavored with Brent’s distinctive feminist prose and sharp, satirical sociocultural commentary.
This book is smart, thoughtful, emotionally provocative, and morbidly funny. Molly Monroe wakes up one morning after a work party with a strange man in her bed. She doesn’t remember much of anything from the night before. The guy’s name is Jack and he tells her he rescued her after he found her crying and wailing but not able to tell him why somewhere near his house in Vauxhall the night before. He brought her home in an Uber and just stayed with her because he was afraid she’d choke on her own vomit. She’s fully dressed. So is he. She feels fine, except she feels mostly dead from a hangover. He leaves her his number in case she needs to get in touch with him and she reluctantly goes into work, despite the strange looks and weird name-calling she gets from people on the way.
But that’s just the start of a few weeks of the weirdest and most heartbreaking weeks of her life.
The sociocultural commentary is hard and fierce in this book: social media and how it automatically focuses on fetishizing and shaming females who obviously are out of it when they are unknowingly filmed or papped, wives who automatically go after the other woman when they should go after their husbands first, best friends who scream at one another over their habits instead of just automatically helping, and mostly all of the men who dismiss and deride women whenever they have the chance of taking an out.
Katy Brent has more talent in her little finger for straddling that fine line between satire and mockery than most authors in the business. It would be easy for her to dip a toe fully into blaming men for everything, but Brent fully acknowledges that women can sometimes be just as awful. Internal misogyny is a beast and sometimes even the best of women can succumb when they’re weak.
It was brilliant, quick-witted, and sharp. Watch out for TW/CWs, please.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
This book may clock in at 577 pages, but it feels like it’s so much longer. I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean that as a compliment. This book is This book may clock in at 577 pages, but it feels like it’s so much longer. I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean that as a compliment. This book is not a trifling thing–it’s a deep, dense, carefully-constructed, intricately-woven, and ineffably magical text that takes little to no time at all to sink a hook in you before reeling you into a story of an alternative history where Korea has had a shadow government at work behind the scenes since the 19th century. All of its members work to keep Korea unified, but not all of them agree as to how to do so. Some members don’t even know they’re members. Some become members posthumously. Some are tapped to be members, unwittingly, since birth. Cogs become sprockets that move the chain along the track.
To tell you the truth, it’s difficult to describe this book, because it’s not a singular book. There’s essentially four “books” inside Same Bed Different Dreams.
1.The present-day story of our main protagonist, Soon Sheen, a sometimes-author who works for a tech conglomerate called GLOAT;
2. The five “Dreams” that make up the “book” within the book, called “Same Bed Different Dreams”;
3. The story of Parker Jotter, a Korean War veteran/POW and author of a series of sci-fi novels;
4. A handful of miscellaneous stories about historical events that are tied to fiction and fact by tenuous yet absolutely fascinating strings, like absurd Reddit conspiracy theories or internet train wrecks you just can’t look away from;
There are two phrases repeated throughout the text, like magic, ritual, or religion. One’s a riddle and one’s evocative of an axiom or a proverb.
“Did the straight line murder the circle?” (Or variations on this riddle.)
“Same bed, different dreams.”
The first? Well, that you’ll have to figure out yourself, just like I did.
The second? Korea is the same bed. Everyone: the Koreans (North, South, or otherwise), Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Americans? They all have different dreams for that same bed. None of them involve unifying Korea as Korea. They all involve molding Korea into some kind of vision of what they think Korea should be.
This entire book is about the shadow government known as the KPG and their intergenerational efforts to bring about the unification of Korea no matter what. Kick everyone out of the bed. Same bed, same dream. No matter how delusional the vision, no matter how tenuous the ties. No matter how far-fetched the plans or how desperate the hope.
The research that must have gone into this book has to have been insane and had to have taken ages. From obscure film references to real and imagined Korean authors to real-life cults like the Moonies to American games shows to slapstick silent films to the assassination of President McKinley to the fate of KAL flight 007. The list could go on and on. What matters is that not only is the Korean War extensively researched for the purposes of this book (since a great deal of this book centers around the division of Korea), but that every real-life event and/or person has been extensively researched for the matter of this book so that when Park inevitably twists the narrative to fit his alternative history spin on matters, everything that needs to connect does so seamlessly, as if it was always meant to be that way.
Ed Park is an extremely talented author, deftly writing four books in one, all with different tones, tenors, and modes. Soon Sheen’s story of working at GLOAT and reading “Same Bed Different Dreams” in pieces is written like a contemporary fiction novel, with Soon playing the part of a beleaguered father and corporate drone that has become enraptured with a secret book that fell into his hands seemingly by accident. “Same Bed Different Dreams” has a harsh tone and clipped economy of words that reminds one of both a confession and a manifesto. The story of Parker Jotter, Korean War vet, POW, and sci-fi author is written almost like a psychological fiction novel where the protagonist is a psychologically-compromised war vet whose thoughts and ideas might not all be his own. All the miscellaneous stories about historical events and people sprinkled throughout the book here and there vary in tone and complexity but never vary in interest.
This book is a wonder, and one of the best books I’ve read this year. It’s barely got a plot. It’s barely got a vibe. It’s barely got atmosphere. So what does it have? Beauty. The beauty of words. That’s all. It’s just a book that’s made up of beautiful words made into beautiful sentences made into beautiful pages made into a beautiful book.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was written without any offer or acceptance of compensation.
Technothriller marries dark comedy and is seasoned liberally with satire. I’m down. I’m so down.
One moment, Mal is a free AI, just hanging out in infTechnothriller marries dark comedy and is seasoned liberally with satire. I’m down. I’m so down.
One moment, Mal is a free AI, just hanging out in infospace while riding inside a surveillance drone looking for decent pieces of technology to salvage. In the space of minutes, he’s riding inside the brain of an augmented mercenary who’s in charge of caring for a specially-augmented human child while her mother is overseas.
It’s a stupid war just like every stupid war before it and now Mal finds himself not only in the middle of it, but also invested.
This doesn’t meet the criteria for a technothriller for me, but I’m finding that to be okay on a personal level. While I could get along just fine with the computer terminology and vernacular, if it were more of a true technothriller I might have been lost. I suspect some readers might end up being lost as it is if they never had the luxury of knowing someone who worked in IT for years and years.
The dark comedy and satire, though? It hit and it hit hard. I was amused throughout the entire book by the entire cast, but especially Mal. Mal is an AI, so there are limits to his understanding of humans, but he’s definitely his own entity with a vivid imagination, moral compass, and sense of ethics. Watching him grow and learn as this book goes on is infinitely entertaining.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
Things You Must Know Before You Attempt To Read This Book:
1. If you are not already a fervent Chuck Pahalniuk fan (like I am), this book is definitelyThings You Must Know Before You Attempt To Read This Book:
1. If you are not already a fervent Chuck Pahalniuk fan (like I am), this book is definitely not where you want to start reading his work. This is not for beginners.
2. If you ignore my previous point, PLEASE be aware there is a lot of content in this book that could be considered as triggering to readers and in literary fiction it’s not standard practice to include a list of content or trigger warnings. So, take care before you read.
3. This book is going to be very divisive. It will be a book people will want banned. It is going to be a book a lot of people will DNF. I am not one of those people.
4. Chuck Pahalniuk books are almost never about the plot or the characters. They are almost always about the atmosphere, vibe, and the message. Everything else is wrapping paper. Not Forever But For Now is one of those books.
Onto the actual review!
I am so happy to be back in Pahalniuk land! Where everything is as gross and screwed up as possible but the prose is so sharp and the sentence construction is so immaculate I can’t tear my eyes away from the page. A land where the majority of people are only going to see and talk about the most obvious things they read about on the most obvious layer of the book and cast it aside as trash but will never take the time to consider the deeper themes surrounding toxic masculinity and the aristocracy, the dark comedic edge to the text, or the satirical take on the notion of the man child that just absolutely delighted me to no end (having been married to a man child for 18 years myself).
I see review after review calling for a plot, or for this book to be shorter, or (of course) how gross this book is, but all of these pleas are completely missing the point of a Pahalniuk novel: Chuck doesn’t write for the plot or the characters. He doesn’t care if you’re grossed out. After all, art is subjective and art should make you feel. If you feel grossed out then Chuck’s done his job. Chuck’s books are all about the journey, the vibe, and the message. He wants to tell you a story. He has a point, and he’s going to tell it his way. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
This book reminded me a lot of my favorite Pahalniuk book, Invisible Monsters, in the repetition of phrases, in the way Cecil learns everything he knows from his brother Otto and absorbs these nuggets of wisdom like they’re proverbs or psalms. It’s there in Cecil feeling that same sense of ennui that Daisy St. Patience felt as she traveled North America with Brandy Alexander, feeling at times the best of times was behind them and all that lay ahead was to age or to somehow self-destruct. At the same time, I think Invisible Monsters has the better overall story and message.
So, if you’re a Pahalniuk fan, then give it a go, but be aware that you’re in for a real trip. And if you’re not a Pahalniuk fan? I’d consider starting on another one of his novels before attempting this one.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I want anyone reading this review to understand something: This isn’t a bad book. It’s actually a really good book. It’s just not a good book for me. I want anyone reading this review to understand something: This isn’t a bad book. It’s actually a really good book. It’s just not a good book for me. Art is entirely a subjective thing. That’s the entire point of it. Everyone gets something different out of it. I can see how much so many people love this novel. Believe it or not, I was extremely excited to read this because I thought I’d adore it; but in the end, it just wasn’t a book that resonated with me in any way. Furthermore, it wasn’t a book I really enjoyed that much, in the end.
Siddiqi is obviously a force to be reckoned with and I hope they continue to write more books. I’ll be watching for the next one and be waiting to read it because she has a distinct and strong writing voice that I feel probably has a lot of brilliant stories to tell. Her prose so easily moves between the dreamy and ethereal to the present and stark reality it’s truly a gift. I greatly enjoyed and appreciated the amount of research that had to have gone into this book, as well as the worldbuilding. I feel her dialogue could use some work, but no author starts out perfect.
The plot was definitely interesting, I just think the satirical aspect of the book and how it was done felt rather cliche in some aspects. It also felt just a little too beaten into the reader, like dough that’s been kneaded so much it can no longer rise. If you beat the reader over the head with something constantly throughout the book they have nothing to rise and discover alongside with as they read the novel.
I absolutely don’t want to discourage anyone from reading this book, though. I feel this book is a matter of personal decision. I encourage you to read it and make up your own mind.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All opinions, thoughts, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
As per personal policy, this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller websites due to receiving a rating of three stars or under.
File Under: Just Not For Me/Literary Fiction/Satire/Suspense Fiction ...more
I couldn’t resist the lure of this book. A little bit Prachett, a little bit of influence from the BBC’s Merlin TV show (if you know where to look), aI couldn’t resist the lure of this book. A little bit Prachett, a little bit of influence from the BBC’s Merlin TV show (if you know where to look), a plot that simultaneously does and doesn’t sound like a good Arthuriana tale (which are usually the best ones!), an admonishment against the older generations (ancient, even) for their inaction and misdeeds, and a rallying cry for the younger generations to not let history repeat itself once more and that if no one else is going to step forward and take up the mantle of leadership then it’s up to you to make sure it gets done instead of just relying on someone else to solve the world’s problems. It’s a call to action, to do something, even if all that something amounts to is a willingness to try.
Some reviewers are calling this a feminist take on the King Arthur legends. I beg to differ. It’s actually just a reflection of reality. There are more women on Earth than men. More females live past the age of 10 than males, which is 1.1 males born to 1 female babies born, on average. That 10% is accounting for the male mortality rate before the age of 10. Men also die earlier than women, on average. Wives tend to outlive their husbands, and so on. Since this book takes place in the future, who knows what the demography looks like? How many kids are people having? What’s the population pyramid look like? Do they even take the census anymore? Are kids dying in larger numbers earlier in life due to the dire climate conditions? Are people dying younger? Even in the present day, younger generations (or even me, a Gen-Xer) are sick and tired of old white men being in charge of everything, sitting around and talking about making laws but never actually making them; or, if they do, those laws aren’t the laws that really need to be passed and enforced.
Every nation is a swamp full of pollution, and every generation ends up just passing that pollution on down because problems like global climate change are complex concepts our minds can’t entirely wrap themselves around without first learning about global competence concepts first. The generations coming down the line in more liberal countries are already being taught about global competence, but in capitalist strongholds like the US we can’t even agree that every person is a person no matter what, so it’s no surprise global competence isn’t high up on our list of things to teach the kids (not that books teaching it wouldn’t just end up being banned someplace by some people anyway).
This book teaches all these lessons and more, with a great deal more wit and a lot less of a dour outlook than I just painted. I’m a pessimist through and through, but books like these make me smile and hope that eventually the old white people (for clarification, I’m white) who keep trying to fight to stay in office long past their expiration dates will eventually lose their power to make way for young people who are impassioned, ready to take action, and ready to lead so your average person can find it in them to look up to their governments again and to make the sacrifices that need to be made to make this world better for as many people as possible. It might be tough. It might hurt. It might mean a whole lot of compromise until we truly realize what works and what doesn’t. What matters the most is the willingness to put our differences aside and try.
You can’t help but love the characters in this book, both bad and good. Or, rather, not too bad and not entirely good. In this book all we have is people trying to survive. Sometimes that means doing stuff that’s not exactly nice. Sometimes it means doing something really messed up. Everyone is just trying to find a solution, even if that means doing unspeakable things.
Kay, Arthur’s foster brother, is the first character we meet. I can’t tell you how, because it’s a huge spoiler for the whole book. But it seems that Britain is in great peril, and he’s got to do something about it. That’s the vow he and select other knights of the Round Table made with Merlin over the dead body of King Arthur on the battlefield of Camlann. He’s straightforward, honest, chivalrous, gruff, and tends to go where the wind takes him. In his experience, he always ends up where he needs to be, somehow. He misses his beloved wife, fears Arthur ever coming back even as he misses the brother he once was, and hopes he never runs into Lancelot again because he hates that guy.
Mariam is the female protagonist of this book, and she’s splendid. She’s fed up. She’s frustrated with the world, with her friends, with every so-called “leader” who says they’re willing to work together to make the world a better place but somehow it just seems like history repeating, and no one but her seems to want to take any kind of solid action. She’s tired of waiting for someone else to save the day. She’s tired of watching the land and people die.
Lancelot is vain, complacent, and perfectly content to just follow orders. He hates the stories of him and Guinevere since he and Galahad had been committed, if secret, lovers. He doesn’t much care for valor, truth, or being straight with people. He’d rather just do as he’s told and look good doing it. He hates Kay as much as Kay hates him, if for different reasons.
Merlin is crazy as a loon, Arthur is an absolute boor, Morgan is chaotic neutral, Nimueh has her own sad story and agenda, and at some point Christopher Marlowe made a Faustian bargain.
The worldbuilding is absolutely apocalyptic and frightening, showing an all too possible world where global climate change has gone full-bore hellscape. You either have money and can live in skyscrapers far above the pollution or you live in tent cities or shanty towns. There is no middle ground.
There are puppets and puppet masters. It’s all about who’s pulling the strings.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All opinions, thoughts, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Arthuriana/Dark Comedy/Dystopian Fiction/Folklore Novel/Folklore Retelling/Literary Fiction/Paranormal Fantasy/Satire/Secret Society/Standalone Fantasy Novel/Urban Fantasy ...more
This is not a romance. For the record, this isn’t a romantic book in any sense of the word. But, just like the title implies, it is a love story–just This is not a romance. For the record, this isn’t a romantic book in any sense of the word. But, just like the title implies, it is a love story–just not the love story between a boy and a girl (though a boy and a girl do fall in love, I suppose).
Iron Curtain: A Love Story is about Milena, one of communism’s Red Princesses, and though one might be tricked into thinking this is a traditional love story, it’s not. Milena is in love with one thing and one thing only, and that is her homeland, behind the Iron Curtain. That’s the genius behind this whole book, a communist Cold War twist on “There’s no place like home”.
Milena Urbanska ran away from her communist homeland not because she hated communism and wanted to defect; no, she ran away because she was young, she had witnessed something traumatizing when she was younger that had shifted some of her thinking, she didn’t want to be forced into marriage at her parent’s hands, she didn’t want to be a politiburo wife, and she was sick of being who she was and of everyone knowing everything about her and constantly being a subject of conversation across the country. So she decides to slip away to England and marry the young Irish poet she had fallen in love with when he was in her country a few years prior, even though she hates the western world. She’s hoping their love and his poetry fame will make up for living in a Capitalist society.
But best laid plans…
England is both everything she thought it might be and nothing like she knew it would be. She hates it. There’s only two things she loves about England: fresh vegetables and her in-laws. At first, she’s deliriously in love with her husband, too. But in Thatcher-era England, being poor was more than a kick in the teeth, and it didn’t help that Milena’s husband seemed to fancy himself a man who ran on Lady Luck and whimsy.
This novel is full of a specific type of ennui I love: A sense of listlessness, of not knowing what to do with oneself. It’s the feeling of being in some kind of suspended state between two choices or situations you’ve been presented with but not being able to determine which is the lesser of two evils. You hate your life, but either not enough to leave it or you’re too stubborn to give up just yet.
I’m a sucker for Cold War-era fiction. Well, I’m a sucker for Russian historical fiction in general. I loved the research and detail put into this book, both on the Russian and British sides. It couldn’t have been easy researching everything from Thatcher economics to Russian Nationalism and how one could fly from the USSR to Cuba and how many different stops they could make while doing so.
Vesna Goldworthy’s characters blaze to life, each so distinct in voice, style, and worldview they not only form the unshakeable framework for this novel but they also create the ebb and flow around Milena, moving her around in that suspended state, all making impacts large and small on her life and decisions as they go.
I can’t say anything else about this book other than it was a tremendously lovely read that I highly recommend.
I was provided with a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, and opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction/Political Fiction/Satire/5 Star Reads ...more
On the day the physical ARC of this dark, twisted, and audaciously funny novel showed up on my doorstep I knew I was going to love it when I read it sOn the day the physical ARC of this dark, twisted, and audaciously funny novel showed up on my doorstep I knew I was going to love it when I read it simply from one little thing that has since been removed from the cover but was on my copy: If you look in the lower left hand corner of my picture, in very fine print, it says, “For legal purposes: a novel”.
Cheeky. I snickered over that small bit of fine print for a little bit and even took a pic of it and sent it to my bestie because I thought it was that cheeky.
How to Kill Men and Get Away With It isn’t a cheeky book, however. It’s dark, twisted, wicked smart, tragically funny, merciless in its anger, and unforgiving in its social criticisms. Katy Brent managed that rare feat of literary alchemy of perfectly weaving exposition into narrative without skipping a beat or losing a single bit of momentum in what had to have been a hard book to keep on track and keep even in both tone and pacing.
While men are the most obvious target of anger and criticism in this book, don’t think that a single character (including Kitty, our protagonist), is immune to being a target of the book’s criticisms. The second largest set of people this book targets with anger and criticism are people who are glued to their social media accounts and what they’ll do to grow their accounts, keep their followers, and keep the money from collaborations and sponcon coming in. The third largest set of people to be razed and criticized are the rich and their tendency to do things purely for the power of virtue signaling (eco-tourism, holding huge charity galas, visiting orphanages in war-torn countries, adopting war orphans only to have nannies raise them, etc).
Kitty Collins is the vegan heiress to a meat corporation. She’s been on her own since she was 18 and her mom moved to the south of France. Her dad went missing a couple of years before then. Kitty may be rich, but her posh apartment was set up for her by her mom before she left the UK and Kitty doesn’t spend any of the money she gets from being the heir to what she thinks of as blood money: she gets plenty of money and free products from just being Kitty Collins, one of the most popular influencers on Instagram. Her only family are her fellow astronomically-high follower count influencers, who she fully admits all have eating disorders, daddy issues, and absolutely have love affairs with alcohol and drugs of different shapes and sizes. They don’t tend to hang around other people, because who else is really worth their time?
Kitty doesn’t really like people, but especially men. When one follows her out of a bar after she turns down his advances they have a physical argument and the man falls onto a broken half of a champagne bottle, which goes straight into a major artery. Kitty can’t help him and knows it wasn’t completely her fault, so she leaves the man there and goes home.
The next day, she feels revitalized. She feels like she’s glowing. She doesn’t feel any guilt or remorse for what happened. She feels energetic and better than she has in some time. She took out a predator. A man who wanted to take what she wasn’t willing to give. She has no issue with that. She wouldn’t change a thing.
I love how Katy Brent engineers Kitty Collins’ “code” for killing to make it look like Kitty is doing her own kind of virtue signaling by committing these vigilante murders: No kids, no women, no disabled people, no veterans, no homeless people, etc. As if murder isn’t murder no matter how you frame it. Not to mention, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and rules were made to be broken. As Kitty sits down to write herself her “code”, you can’t help but get the feeling that this code is going to come back and bite her in the butt later. You have to be careful with murder. You can’t risk recklessness. That’s how you get caught.
The barbed, mocking tone that permeates this book is a joy to read simply because it matches up so nicely with the vacuousness of social media culture. Think of how easy it is to mock the people who are famous simply for being…them? How does one get famous and rich simply for being spotted at that one party that one night at the same time as that one celebrity and now somehow they have 10K more followers on Insta and are being sent sponcon and asked to collaborate for companies that aren’t scams? But once you’re up there with the influencers who have more followers than the population of a decent-sized city, what else is there? Who else is there? All day, every day, you’re just treated like an empty piece of meat for the public to consume. What will you do about it?
I was provided a digital galley of this title by NetGalley and the author. I was also provided a physical ARC of this title by the folks at HarperCollins through their influencer program. All thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
Dudes, give into the hype surrounding this book, because it’s every bit as good as everyone says it is. This book is the literary equivalent of these Dudes, give into the hype surrounding this book, because it’s every bit as good as everyone says it is. This book is the literary equivalent of these addictive little frozen chai milk tea-flavored mochi bites they sell at Trader Joes. I just can’t help but keep putting those morsels into my mouth, and I just couldn’t help but devour this book page by compelling page.
Oh, how I love to loathe a book’s protagonist. What’s more is I love how much I hated just about everyone in this book. They were all awful, save Mrs. Liu. She’s an angel. But otherwise? Each and every other character in this book is either so inconsequential I could dismiss or forget them as easily as June (our protagonist) does or I could just outright think each and every one of them was an absolutely awful person in their own way. And, to my amusement and for the shade of it all, I adored each and every one of them for being the horrible human beings they were.
Because that’s who they are. Human beings. And that’s part of what I took away from this book. We’re all human beings living in the shades of grey, and between cultural diaspora, socioeconomic strata, generational trauma, and social media none of us know how to be genuine anymore or know how to handle people who actually are genuine. There’s a general distrust between each and every one of us here in America, because America runs on individualism and that need to be the one wearing the crown, and white people largely and genuinely don’t know what to make of other cultures where collectivism, trust, and generosity make the world go ‘round. We white people want that feeling for ourselves (I know I do), but most of us aren’t willing to give up our individuality, prestige, and money for such a life. And that’s sad.
The first act of this book upset me greatly, to the point where I was growling and shaking my Kindle because I was so mad. Please don’t mistake this for criticism of the book, because it’s not. This section of the book should make you upset. It should make you mad because you’re reading the process of taking one author’s hard work and stripping away her unique voice only to supplement it with another’s. You see large sections of important historical events get cut from the book for the sake of not triggering readers. Terrified young women become softer. June and her editors essentially vivisect the original author’s manuscript until it becomes a neutered version of the original, all set for proper public consumption. Now it’s not a tour de force piece of historical literary military fiction–it’s just a solid historical military fiction novel. It’s a ghost of the novel it could’ve been. That’s a travesty in and of itself. The fact that June, the original author’s white friend, rebrands herself in order to sell this novel and keeps using absurdly twisted logic to justify her actions is almost an even larger travesty.
This book has so many terrific points to make: About how there’s a difference culturally in how stories are passed down from the old to the young. About how some white people think all Asian people look alike and their names sound alike but never think about how white people all look a lot alike. About how social media is poisonous to everyone, but especially creative souls. About cancel culture, how easy it is to be canceled for something that happened years and years ago and how you can never recover once that happens but how men still always bounce back quicker from scandals than any woman does. How fast the news cycle runs and the pressure to publish or perish doesn’t stay in academia but extends into the publishing industry as well, and how important it is for authors to be firm and specific when it comes to negotiations with film studios over film rights.
You make your own hell. You make your own prison. June did both of these things the moment she decided to take her dead friend’s manuscript and make it hers. It hems her in by shame, greed, anxiety, and fear. She sees no way out and she definitely doesn’t know if she wants out. The only way she’s going away is if she’s forced. There’s that Protestant Work Ethic wrapped in vice.
I don’t think I need to tell you to pick this up. It should be a foregone conclusion. It’s sharp, biting, shady, witty, and will make you angry three ways to Sunday. It’s worth every minute you spend on it. You won’t be able to put it down.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Read/AAPI Fiction/Literary Fiction/OwnVoices/Satire ...more
“With a dreamy, far-off look, and her nose stuck in a book…”
Her name is Victoria, not Belle, and his name is Eric, not Gaston, and she’s not only disg“With a dreamy, far-off look, and her nose stuck in a book…”
Her name is Victoria, not Belle, and his name is Eric, not Gaston, and she’s not only disgusted by her husband but is also pretty sure the world would be no worse for wear if he were to die in, well, any number of ways.
I was delighted by this book. It combined immense whimsy with morbid comedy. How the heck am I supposed to resist that? This is like a sky full of colorful balloons all bursting at once only to find a sky raining blood on a gala full of ultra rich people dressed all in white and dripping in diamonds. That’s whimsical, morbid, and funny as heck. I’d pay to watch that.
Victoria has that rare and precious jewel a lot of people covet: a wild and active imagination. It’s too bad everyone in her life not only hates her tendency to daydream, but also to bury her nose in a book at every available opportunity (same girl, same). Her parents wanted her to be a lawyer and have never stopped belittling her or causing her to feel like she’s a disappointment to them. Her husband won’t allow physical books in the house because he feels they cause clutter, hates her bringing home books from the library, and doesn’t like hearing or seeing her react to the books she reads. And her best friend would rather shop and browse dating apps. But books have been with Victoria since she was a small child, and she’s not letting go of them now.
Whimsical, isolated, bored Victoria finds a possible answer to her prayers for an escape from the entropy of her life when she spies a handsome, working-class man reading the same book club-type book at her usual cafe one day. She sees it as a sign they’re meant to be together, and she aims to reach that goal. Sure, her husband will have to go, but that can’t be too hard, surely?
So much of what follows in this book are sparkling passages of differing types: dark, morbid, funny, and detailed scenarios in which Eric dies in various ways; Victoria’s vivid imagination creating backstories for the people she sees as she sits in the cafe, the narrator’s whimsical and erotic writing during the astral projection scenes, and the placid, Suzie Homemaker scenes later in the book when Victoria decides to take up baking in a fit of small rebellion.
Is this book perfect? No. But it’s a treat.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and Harper Perennial. All views and opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I honestly don’t know what I just read, but I do know I didn’t enjoy it and didn’t get the point of it. I don’t even know for sure if there was a poinI honestly don’t know what I just read, but I do know I didn’t enjoy it and didn’t get the point of it. I don’t even know for sure if there was a point.
“High Times in the Low Parliament” reads like a genre mashup of political satire, fantasy, and drug-fueled fairy tale. It’s a novella, so it’s not like the story itself is a hefty tome to take on for a bit of light reading, but at the same time I like anything I’m reading (even novellas) to at least have a point or to have a message of some sort I can take away with me to let my brain chew on for a while. Neither of these things happened with this story and it left me with that awful feeling of having wasted my time when I could’ve been reading something else that would’ve fulfilled me and really commanded my attention.
If you like LGBTQIA+ short stories way off the beaten track, then you may enjoy this little diversion from the real world. It just wasn’t for me.
Thanks to Tordotcom and NetGalley for access to this title. Due to the 3 star or lower rating this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller website....more
This book was everything I hoped it would be and more. I expected dark satire/horror comedy about wine moms and the … It all started with a she shed.
This book was everything I hoped it would be and more. I expected dark satire/horror comedy about wine moms and the absolute hell it is living in suburbia (AKA, “where dreams go to die”), and this book delivered that with a sly edge of pop culture indulgence and social commentary on how lonely motherhood can be, how much work moms do without any recognition or gratitude from their spouses, and how living in suburbia means you also have a certain outside appearance that must be maintained in both your house (mandated by your HOA) and your neighbors (because lord forbid you not be the only mom on the block not wearing the latest trend in atheleisure).
The book is extremely entertaining and definitely a page turner. Do I feel like it’s a book with wide appeal? No. This book is definitely a niche market book. It’s not going to resonate the same with everyone simply due to the main themes of motherhood and female friendship. But as that one mom that was always the odd one out on every block I’ve lived on because I could care less for what everyone else was wearing or what the latest food trends this book definitely feel into my pop-culture and horror infused soul and mixed with my morbid humor loving heart.
The cons would be that Kilmer does tend to beat some points over the head and some things do feel a bit too on the nose. The book could have also used a bit more tightening up, though it’s not too loose in the pacing. I did have some questions that could qualify as plot holes, but I don’t know if that’s just me being overly analytical or not.
Overall, it’s a fantastically dark and whimsical book that takes the idea of suburban hell and notches it to 11. It’s one hell of a time.
Thanks to NetGalley and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for granting me access to this title. ...more
First off, I need to start off by stating that I have not read the first book in this series. I didn’t realize until after IReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
First off, I need to start off by stating that I have not read the first book in this series. I didn’t realize until after I had gotten the book that it was the second in a series, but I was so intrigued I decided to go ahead and read it anyway. It proved not to be an issue, as it seemed the plot from the first book didn’t seem to overly affect the plot of this book; at least not enough to curtail my enjoyment of it.
Make no mistake, despite the 3.5 star rating I gave this book, that’s not because I didn’t enjoy the book. There are aspects of the book that did affect my enjoyment to some degree (as in I would have enjoyed it more if this aspect of the book had been done better or if this part had been left out), but overall I did find the book to be an engaging and humorous read. In a way, this was like if you took any of the female BAU agents from “Criminal Minds”, but had them decide not to join the FBI, and then plop them into suburbia and make a satirical mystery book series out of the bug for solving crimes and studying behavior they just can’t shake. Does that make any sense? It does to me. But, then again, I keep crime procedurals on for background noise all day and night.
Things I loved: The suburban setting and how it affects families in different ways. Suburbs have never been a solution: they have always been a problem. They were a white privilege answer to a racist and classist issue. They didn’t see it that way, of course, but that’s what it was. And all it earned them was an urge to keep up with the neighbors, to encourage cultural hegemony, and to turn them all into people who were too busy trying to earn money to afford to keep living in suburbia they spent more time at work and commuting than at home with the family and house they worked so hard to have. This theme plays a huge part in the book for every couple involved. I also loved how Nicieza never magically made it so the children in this book were magically transported off somewhere else when things needed to be taken care of: In real life, it’s not like you can just drop off your baby every time you want to go to lunch. The baby comes with you, whether you want her to or not. So does the diaper bag and the car seat. It’s a fact of life. And sometimes babies poop in public places and spit up on your friend’s shirts. Welcome to parenthood. I also loved the dry wit and acerbic personality of Andie, our main character. Her background is interesting as heck, and I don’t know if they cover more of it in the first book, but if they don’t I hope they cover more of it in a future book, because I’d love to see and hear more.
Things I didn’t like: The constant switching of POVs and the characters of Kenny and Sitara. The problem I had with the POV switching is that it was done clumsily. It was done with no grace. It was almost a stumble every time and it made me sigh every time it happened. I found Sitara both patronizing and too tolerant at the same time, and it made me feel like she was far too spineless for her role in the story. And what can I say about Kenny besides going off on a complete tirade on how utterly annoying I found him? There’s literally nothing I like about his character. If you want me to talk about the thing I liked the least about this book, I can tell you emphatically it’s Kenny. The man needs help.
Overall, it was a decent job. Could’ve been better, could’ve been worse. I’m eager to see if there will be a follow-up. Hopefully with less Kenny.
Thanks to NetGalley and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for granting me early access to this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
Reading this short but satisfying book is a surreal experience for someone like me, who is a huge fan of the author John Cheever (especially if, like Reading this short but satisfying book is a surreal experience for someone like me, who is a huge fan of the author John Cheever (especially if, like me, you’ve devoured and dissected his short story “The Swimmer” more times than you can count). I don’t know enough about author Marcy Dermansky to know all of her literary heroes and influences, but this book has that same morbid humor, surreal atmosphere, and satirical prose I love so much about Cheever’s work, not to mention this book and Cheever’s “The Swimmer” both involve main characters who spend their entire stories traveling from pools to pools in search of their final destinations.
Despite the similarity to Cheever in those ways, there are a great many differences to his work, too. I would certainly hope so, since Dermansky is definitely not the neurotic, egocentric, alcoholic, and depressed John Cheever who struggled with personal demons his entire life. “Hurricane Girl” has a story to tell about agency: about it being taken away from you by the people you thought you could trust, about it being taken away by people who think they have the right to it, and about it being taken away from you from the people who are supposed to love you. It’s also about how sometimes we willingly give up our agency: out of desperation to find people to trust, out of hoping to find love, out of hoping to find some good in this world, and out of hoping the people who are supposed to love you won’t disappoint you.
But this is dark, morbid humor. This is dark satire. When you’ve lost everything you possessed in the entire world you quickly learn the only person you can trust is yourself, no matter how screwed up you are. You and your health are all you have. You can’t trust anything else. You can only trust those two things for sure and then hang onto the core things you value above everything else, no matter if it’s something as trivial as swimming pools or a trusty water bottle.
It’s a quick, engaging, surreal, meandering trip through a concussed woman’s Wonderland. From South Carolina to New Jersey to Florida and then back again, we’re just the passenger as she blows her way through the Eastern seaboard, leaving confusion in her wake.
Thanks to Knopf Publishing for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review! ...more
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