Recent Reads
Dec. 18th, 2023 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firstroadI'm close to finishing a few more so I was going to wait... then I realised that dreamwidth posts are not, in fact, a limited resource.
I haven't been having the best reading year after, like, May passed :( I started writing more review-y reviews but then I also realised this is my journal and not Storygraph <3
I haven't been having the best reading year after, like, May passed :( I started writing more review-y reviews but then I also realised this is my journal and not Storygraph <3
Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott
- Blue Lock, yes the manga: I try to keep these books-only but it falls in the same category as CGAS because the premise is pretty much something I should've loved and then the execution falls in the same category as All Systems Red because it's too uwu. HOW on earth are a bunch of football players in a battle royale to make The Best Striker this nice. Why is nobody a little mean. Like even the tiniest bit mean. Please.
I have not been having a good reading time!!!!!!
Objectively, this book would've worked better as a novella. It's not a thriller, and I don't think it was meant to be nor was it trying to be, but even as a vivisection of friendship and "womanly" fucked-up-ness it swirled around for too long.
That being said, MEGAN ABBOTT SWEEEEEP IS REAL. I just loved fucked up not-not-romantic/sexual relationships between women... I did get a little tired of her metaphors and adjectives though. ME. TIRED OF METAPHORS. But they did get added in every random place Abbott could fit one.
But TBH, I was never not going to love this because I love when women suck just because they themselves suck, and not entirely as a response to creating an entire identity around victimhood. (Which is what so many of the ~female rageeee~ books seem to be about. I'm tired of women who got hurt and then lashed out and then we're supposed to find that lashing out as something that makes her ~morally grey~)
But TBH, I was never not going to love this because I love when women suck just because they themselves suck, and not entirely as a response to creating an entire identity around victimhood. (Which is what so many of the ~female rageeee~ books seem to be about. I'm tired of women who got hurt and then lashed out and then we're supposed to find that lashing out as something that makes her ~morally grey~)
Anyway, had tons of fun reading!
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
You would think that after whining about this book so much already, I'd be over it. But I'm not! This book gave me the same feeling of what I'll call culture shock, in the sense that it felt like something was very normal and I was the odd one out for being like, HUH? And that thing was Piranesi himself. I was just standing there like... Wait, you guys actually find Piranesi's worldview endearing? Charming? I like to think I can often see why people are into things I'm not into but this time I'm stumped 😠and I'm guessing the issue lies with me here, since the author was 60ish at the time of publishing and therefore has much more life knowledge than I do, but... For real?!
He calls himself a scientist yet is too blinded by his own words and following stuff on instinct rather than thought. I don't think the Other not being a friend was a twist, but I also don't get why we spend SO LONG waiting for Piranesi to figure it out. For someone this isolated and this manipulated he shows no signs of anything... Ugly, I don't know. Odd. Weird, and by that I mean TRULY weird, not a little bit unusual. I wanted his interactions with others who are not the Other to be strange because he did not remember how to talk to people, I wanted him to take time to remember words (seriously, how did he not forget a big part of his vocabulary given that he rarely used it? Not fully forget but you know, when you need a moment to remember how to talk about X.) and I wanted him to be uglyyyyyy in actions not just oh he dresses weird! Like who the fuck cares we can't see him. Also there just weren't enough after effects of his experience. Where are the consequences that current not-fully-there Piranesi has! Boring!
He calls himself a scientist yet is too blinded by his own words and following stuff on instinct rather than thought. I don't think the Other not being a friend was a twist, but I also don't get why we spend SO LONG waiting for Piranesi to figure it out. For someone this isolated and this manipulated he shows no signs of anything... Ugly, I don't know. Odd. Weird, and by that I mean TRULY weird, not a little bit unusual. I wanted his interactions with others who are not the Other to be strange because he did not remember how to talk to people, I wanted him to take time to remember words (seriously, how did he not forget a big part of his vocabulary given that he rarely used it? Not fully forget but you know, when you need a moment to remember how to talk about X.) and I wanted him to be uglyyyyyy in actions not just oh he dresses weird! Like who the fuck cares we can't see him. Also there just weren't enough after effects of his experience. Where are the consequences that current not-fully-there Piranesi has! Boring!
The portal fantasy elements were underutilised. Tell me more about the house! About entering and exiting! Stop the random descriptions and EXPLORE in a way that doesn't read like a map. I also dislike explanations and this was very heavy handed with its metaphors (it's about ACCEPTANCE you guys wowwww who would've thought).
Oh and of course we have the unfortunate link between transgression and homosexuality and the general police view but eh again author in her 60s. Anyway I appreciated the message about the search for knowledge, this should've been a novella at most.
#Murdertrending by Gretchen McNeil
What was this. How did this get published. I'm fairly sure a 14-year-old can write better prose than this. What.
Idol by Louise O'Neill
I liked this! It blended themes I am extremely interested in (self-mythologising, personas) with themes I really do not care for (trial by social media) pretty well. As far as the pursuit of the truth goes, I can't help but compare this to The Taiga Syndrome, which I think approached it in a far more unique and interesting way. I do still think this was a great book! The choice of POV alone gives it a lot of points, I really enjoyed how Samantha earnestly believed herself to be progressive, to be helping women, while being... well, a selfish asshole. I did also love how it showed that aggressors are also human and have also had bad things happen to them. Wish she was less caricatureish towards the end, which felt like it diluted everything coming before it LMAO.
On the downsides, it felt at times like the author was deliberately making her writing more shallow. A line here and there that stated the obvious, that handed us Sam's feelings and the contrasting truth on a silver platter, and again especially the ending... I do not understand why, because it's not a question of skill.
I did not get the insistence on being a good person. Specifically stated as such, too! Who cares. Who sits there in the mirror and says 'I'm a good person' and who doesn't get that, like, if you have to sit there and SAY it out loud, it's probably not true.
I liked the prose! It managed to be breezy enough and fitting for a supremely-online and self-important character while still maintaining an elegance.
The Meaning of Meat and the Structure of the Odyssey by Egbert Bakker
As a lover of THEMES OF CONSUMPTION and also of THE ODYSSEY, I had to pick this up. The good news: it was written in a VERY readable style! Extremely so, in fact. The bad news: not enough meat?????? Why are we talking about nostos as quest. Why are we comparing the Odyssey and the Iliad. I'm here for the meat!!!!Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh
Technically a DNF, but it happened a little over halfway through because I only read this while I had to wait a few hours and was sitting at some bookstore, so I'll count it. I really love the concept -- a 72-year-old widow coming across a note and then embarking on a metafictional detective novel journey, complete with other notes I love (such as STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS and UNRELIABLE NARRATORS which are almost insta-successes for me) -- but the execution kind of fell flat to me, mainly due to the prose. Despite its moments of clarity and a few almost surgical incisions, it largely read like an unedited first draft, where the meanderings were less a part of Vesta's thoughts and more the writer not holding back where they should. Like it was SOOOOOOOOOO SKIMMABLE. SO SKIMMABLE. I have a lot more Moshfegh books I want to try, though! So not giving up on her yet.Vicious by V.E. Schwab
Re-read!! I needed some genre fiction that I could like and I wanted to know if I was going to like it as much the second time round andddd the answer is YESSSSSSSSS the OBSESSION it's so good to me. Very tight pacing! Hilariously the only book by this author that I like X___X But I like it a whole lot, so! Win!All Systems Red by Martha Wells
This SUUUUUUUUUUCKED. I think I need to take the L and try to no longer read popular scifi and fantasy, because it's one miss after the other for me. It has such a high rating! Everyone I know who has read it (which is some good 8-10 people) has loved it! Or liked it in a 4-star-y way. <~ this construction is also how THE ENTIRE BOOK IS WRITTEN. Why do so many sentences start with conjunctions! I'm guessing it's meant as a stylistic thing because the main character is half-robot, but it doesn't work!!!!!
It was all just so... uwu. What if a poor wittle robotsie was awkward but the humans around it UNDERSTOOD that even when it ACTED AWKWARD and they, gasp, asked if it was okay... Humans luv attachments don't you know... The murderbot only ACTS awkward, you see, and despite its name it tries very hard! And of course people see it! Isn't that sweet and reassuring!!!! (NO!!!!!!!!! It's boring!) ...Anyway while all this was going on I desperately wanted someone to murder the murderbot to put me out of my misery. (I could've DNFed at any time, yeah, but it was so short and the writing so mediocre that it was very easy to read it in one sitting.)
Jesus Christ, be serious. It keeps throwing these cheap lines to try to make murderbot endearing and it's not working! It's telling me all the time oh, don't you want to protect murderbot? Don't you wanna be its friend? NO!!!!! I want to set it on fire.
Mensah sat up, startled. She said hurriedly, “Or not, you know, whatever you like.
I said, I need to check the perimeter,” and managed to turn and leave the crew area in a totally normal way and not like I was fleeing from a bunch of giant hostiles.
Back in the safety of the ready room, I leaned my head against the plastic-coated wall. Now they knew their murderbot didn’t want to be around them any more than they wanted to be around it. I’d given a tiny piece of myself away.
Jesus Christ, be serious. It keeps throwing these cheap lines to try to make murderbot endearing and it's not working! It's telling me all the time oh, don't you want to protect murderbot? Don't you wanna be its friend? NO!!!!! I want to set it on fire.
The author seems lovely, though! Maybe I'll even enjoy one of her other series
Captive Prince
Prince's Gambit by C.S. Pacat
Kings Rising
Re-read! The trilogy still slays... so much better than I ever anticipated when I first picked it up. I'm going to be nitpicky here because I have let out my love elsewhere repeatedly so I need some space to air out my complaints.
1) The premise should by all means be a winner for me: we have BRUTES and POWER STRUGGLES and NOT STRAIGHTFORWARD POWER DYNAMICS THAT ARE ALSO DYNAMIC & NOT STATIC and DID I MENTION BRUTES and INITIALLY-UNWILLING CULTURAL EXCHANGE and CHANGING YOUR VIEWS. Like this should've been idposting in book form for me. So why wasn't it! There were, like, max three scenes in the entire trilogy that tickled me, and that's me being generous.
2) Why did the writing take a nosedive after the first half of the first book? By which I mean the prose. It went from using words to being the most straightforward thing possible. Why!!! I enjoyed that first half!!!!!!! The plot & the events that transpire AFTER that first half are much better + show the plotting skills + are more to my taste but the fact that I no longer enjoyed the act of reading it for itself made me :((((((((((
3) I was wondering for years why the fandom is so one-sided, as someone who loved both characters. Well! The rereading answered that question! Despite Damianos being the POV character literally everything in the books is about showing off Laurent. Not in the sense that Damianos doesn't get scenes where his skills are important but those are much, hm, smaller, usually in the preparation + avoidance of something rather than Big Wow Scenes like the fight with Govart or Laurent joining in in the okton.
On top of that, there's not much about Damen's thoughts and feelings in his own head, and when they DO appear they're ALWAYSSSSSSSS coming after verbs like 'he learnt' 'he understood' 'he knew' 'he felt' 'he saw' 'he tasted'. Five degrees of separation for no reason!!!! My perhaps uncharitable guess is that Pacat was trying hard to not make him seem like a self insert Mary Sue, since he's the character closest to them.
4) I think this would've worked better as a regular secondary world series with romance as the b-plot. That's my most unpopular opinion I think.
DNFs:
- TOO MANY FANTASY BOOKS. Too many.
- Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah:
Captive Prince
Prince's Gambit by C.S. Pacat
Kings Rising
Re-read! The trilogy still slays... so much better than I ever anticipated when I first picked it up. I'm going to be nitpicky here because I have let out my love elsewhere repeatedly so I need some space to air out my complaints.
1) The premise should by all means be a winner for me: we have BRUTES and POWER STRUGGLES and NOT STRAIGHTFORWARD POWER DYNAMICS THAT ARE ALSO DYNAMIC & NOT STATIC and DID I MENTION BRUTES and INITIALLY-UNWILLING CULTURAL EXCHANGE and CHANGING YOUR VIEWS. Like this should've been idposting in book form for me. So why wasn't it! There were, like, max three scenes in the entire trilogy that tickled me, and that's me being generous.
2) Why did the writing take a nosedive after the first half of the first book? By which I mean the prose. It went from using words to being the most straightforward thing possible. Why!!! I enjoyed that first half!!!!!!! The plot & the events that transpire AFTER that first half are much better + show the plotting skills + are more to my taste but the fact that I no longer enjoyed the act of reading it for itself made me :((((((((((
3) I was wondering for years why the fandom is so one-sided, as someone who loved both characters. Well! The rereading answered that question! Despite Damianos being the POV character literally everything in the books is about showing off Laurent. Not in the sense that Damianos doesn't get scenes where his skills are important but those are much, hm, smaller, usually in the preparation + avoidance of something rather than Big Wow Scenes like the fight with Govart or Laurent joining in in the okton.
On top of that, there's not much about Damen's thoughts and feelings in his own head, and when they DO appear they're ALWAYSSSSSSSS coming after verbs like 'he learnt' 'he understood' 'he knew' 'he felt' 'he saw' 'he tasted'. Five degrees of separation for no reason!!!! My perhaps uncharitable guess is that Pacat was trying hard to not make him seem like a self insert Mary Sue, since he's the character closest to them.
4) I think this would've worked better as a regular secondary world series with romance as the b-plot. That's my most unpopular opinion I think.
DNFs:
- TOO MANY FANTASY BOOKS. Too many.
- Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah:
Someone said this should've been on the Booker shortlist in place of Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, and dear person, respectfully, what the fuck. I'm two chapters out from finishing WL so, who knows, maybe something egregiously bad happens, but so far... No? Like. No. My guess is they said that because this is more about Important Topics, but... they're not done well at all, LMAO.
By all means this should've been an ALL-TIME FAVE for me, yes, in all caps. Matches to the death as a commentary on carceral systems? I'm in love already.
So... why was the commentary pretty much... footnotes? It lost itself in its dystopia and failed to deliver it in the situations, except for when it remembered the themes I adore and picked it up for -- by hitting you over the head with them to the point a 3-year-old would've been able to pick up what it's going for. I do think in cases like these (and when you're aiming for readers who are perhaps not that familiar with why prison sucks) a little going harder on the thematic line underscoring the novel is needed. But this was... bad. Like there's no other word for it. The author wasn't ready to tackle his own subject matter. Just write a nonfiction book instead!
- Blue Lock, yes the manga: I try to keep these books-only but it falls in the same category as CGAS because the premise is pretty much something I should've loved and then the execution falls in the same category as All Systems Red because it's too uwu. HOW on earth are a bunch of football players in a battle royale to make The Best Striker this nice. Why is nobody a little mean. Like even the tiniest bit mean. Please.
I have not been having a good reading time!!!!!!