2025 #37 Margo's Got Money Troubles (Thorpe)

 

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lots of folks misuse the word "ambivalent" but I think that's the right word to describe how I feel about this book. Think more 3.75 stars. There were parts of this book I LOVED and parts I really did not love.

Suzie? I kept forgetting she existed and then she'd pop up like a game of whack-a-mole. The mushroom "scene" was off the rails, although I suppose that was the point. But these types of things made the plot feel like a manipulation, as if Thorpe was just interested in having the reader be a yo-yo she could play with. I least enjoyed the descriptions of the OnlyFans content - not that I'm prudish, but if I'm not a consumer of that content, I don't really relish reading about it either, even in a pragmatic, funny way. I did find, however, Margo's "writeups" very amusing. The more surreal content? Not my thing.

Jinx was a GREAT character and his relationship with Margo is largely what pushes this toward 4 stars for me. I also loved the mix of first and third person narration. And for as little as he's actually described, I felt I had a strong picture of Bodhi in my mind.

So, I had to sit with this for a day before writing a review because I did like it and it did make me laugh (and also cry). I think it felt a bit too improvisatory for me in terms of storyline, but some of the characters were gold.


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2025 #35 Cocaine Blues -- Phryne Fisher #1 (Greenwood)

 

Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a big time fan of the TV series, I was excited to finally start the book series!
Phryne Fisher is delightful, although her character is even more "scandalous" in the book than portrayed on the series (well, at least it is, unsurprisingly, more graphic). I'm impatient to see how Detective Robinson develops, and that is what I get for breaking my own rule about not watching a TV/movie adaptation before reading the book.

This installment is good, if a bit uneven. Firsts are hard -- the author has to hook you on the characters AND tell a good story. Greenwood deftly uses the dancer Sasha and the impressionable Dot to help show us Phryne's character, but also as pivotal plot pushers. Phryne is hedonistic, yes, but not just that, and it is ultimately a pleasure to get some insights beyond her roaring 20s persona. It does bite off a lot, however: poisoning, illegal abortion, drug smuggling, thugs, Turkish Baths. The whirlwind sometimes overwhelmed, but overall I'm happy to continue with the series!

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2025 #34: Liars (Manguso)

 

Liars by Sarah Manguso
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I think this book is going to land differently depending on the personal experiences of readers. While that's true of any book, I had a really hard time relating to the relentless onslaught of the narrative. I felt like I was a therapist, and I was simply reading a transcript of sessions of a woman in an unhappy marriage. That said, I did appreciate that the post-divorce narrative didn't go the way of the cliché, I suppose. As a child of divorced parents, it did make me think a bit, but mostly the book just tired me out. I needed more shape and direction.

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2025 #31 Colored Television (Senna)

 

Colored Television by Danzy Senna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, Colored Television digs into the trials and tribulations of the writing life, especially those compounded by racism. Unlike the former book, however, it doesn't quite go to the same extremes, and the protagonist here, Jane Gibson, is generally more likeable than June in Yellowface.

The book gets off to a slow start, where we are treated to the inner workings of Jane's mind before we care too much about her. She's living in someone else's house with her husband Lenny and their two children, Ruby and Finn. Her marriage is slightly less than functional, its success measured by frequency and quality of sex, and Lenny has his own ambitions as an artist that don't always complement Jane's sabbatical wherein she is trying to finish her second book in order to get tenure. Senna does excellent work layering the texture with tension. First and foremost, there is Jane's own mixed-race identity and how it does/doesn't interact with both her personal and professional life. She has dreams of luxury, and she has everything riding on this second novel, Nusu Nusu, to make her financial dreams come true. While we don't have deep dives into the novel, we understand enough to know that it is an intergenerational narrative about mulatto [term as used in the book] people.

 
In some sense, Jane's wishful thinking is enabled by her friend Brett, in whose house they are staying (and whose wine collection they are drinking). While Jane does find success in completing the novel, things go downhill very quickly, when Jane is confronted with the commoditization of identity in the publishing industry.

In not quite a twist--but perhaps a questionable choice--rather than address that core issue, Jane decides to come at it from a different angle, again centering her ideas of "success" rather than her ideologies. She manipulates and deceives, but in rather earthy ways, rather than hyperbolic hysteria. The deceit does drag on a bit too long, but the plot mobility increases so that we aren't drowned in an investigation into inner psyches, and Jane's naivete softens her character a bit. The book is more a tragicomedy than anything else, and the humor is sardonic. There's survival here, and that's an important element of the book. Jane's will to keep going, setting her lack of scruples aside, is a striving to which most readers can relate at some level.




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2025 #28 The Book Censor's Library (Al-Essa)

 

The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While not totally subtle in its satire, Al-Essa's novel succeeds with a dark whimsy befitting Alice and Wonderland, which serves as larger reference for the story in more ways than one. But Al-Essa's looking glass is perhaps more than it seems, and we are easily manipulated into caring for characters even though they bear titles, like stock figures, rather than names. The "Everyman" approach keeps a strange distance, until we come to understand the power of our own imaginations with an ending that has been described as a "narrative rupture" or a "twist worthy of Kafka." The ending made me a bit cranky, initially, but the more I thought about it, it seemed perfect to serve Al-Essa's true narrative, with its hanging threads and all.

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2025 #27 Let Only Red Flowers Bloom (Feng)

 

Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China by Emily Feng
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In her acknowledgements, Emily Feng thanks NPR for being a place "where creative storytelling and sharp news reporting are valued in equal measure" (274). To be sure, that describes Let Only Red Flowers Bloom. Feng lived in China for seven years and the book gathers together stories, using a tale of one or two to reflect the many. Each chapter has a focus, e.g. "The Lawyer" or "The Businessman" or "The Detained", but certain "characters" become threads that tie the chapters together. Kenny, for example, we meet first in "The Protestor" (Chapter 9) as a youthful idealist who is one of approximately 40K demonstrators in Hong Kong who believe they are peacefully protesting an extradition law. Kenny protests at night, unbeknownst to his parents, committing to a highly organized, underground network, that includes volunteer doctors and medics, as injured protestors were getting arrested when taken to the hospital. Kenny then has a new identity in Chapter 10 -- The Fugitive.

These stories serve as a mere primer on just *some* of the basic conflicts in China: the attacks on the Uyghurs and Mongolians, ethnic minorities of all stripes on the mainland, the battle for identity and sovereignty in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and much more. I chose this book because I realized I had a knowledge deficit when it comes to China, and I wanted to know more. Feng's narrative is compelling, well-researched, and wide-reaching--the final chapter, "The Diaspora," pulls back the curtain on the "long-arm" of the Chinese government but also the complexity of more than 5 million Chinese living in the U.S.

There are a few places where more careful editing might have curtailed some unnecessary repetition, especially in Chapter 11, but most of the book skillfully weaves in and out of the present and past, weaving with the cast of characters and their stories to ultimately express large questions. Feng herself had plenty of exposure to danger as well, but she instead choses to center the stories of those she interviewed, and does not inject her own challenges at the border or otherwise with any kind of dramatic hyperbole. If anything, her unadorned self-narrative is all the more chilling, as with her description of a high-speed chase wherein Feng and her driver are tailed after leaving the airport. After being detained, she notes:

"He [the driver] drove me back to the airport in silence. He gestured at his torso, then held a single finger up to his lips, motioning me not to speak. He had been bugged." (152)

The book is a powerful testament to storytelling as truth-telling, and it puts many human faces on complex issues that are reduced to inadequate headlines and social media blurbs in mainstream culture here in the U.S. A worthwhile read to remind us of the human spirit and how it has to endure in all sorts of contexts, all over the world.

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2025 #25 The Extinction of Irena Rey (Croft)

 

The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The premise--a translation of a story about translators and translation authored by a translator--is clever, yes. What I didn't expect was the humor that springs up like an unexpected mushroom in a field of moss. That gives it a 3. 75 for me.
There are moments of meta-translation like:
"Her face was the white of a freshly laundered sheet that someone other than me had laundered. (My laundry always turns out beige or gray.)" In this humble offering from Emi, we see how imagery in translation always connects to experience in one way or the other (remembering that the text we are reading was in fact written in Spanish, and we are reading it translated into English). Croft skillfully uses the slightly askew simile to call out some of the challenges of translation. But this is all operating on a deeper level, and occasionally detracts from surface-level enjoyment of the book.

The book is complex, sometimes overly so, and the narrator becomes increasingly unlikeable in her high-school level emotional intelligence (this is, however, somewhat soothed by the occasional footquips (as opposed to footnotes) from the translator (Alexis), who is somewhat of an arch-nemesis figure for the author (Emi) throughout most of the book (although the reason why is never totally clear, save for Emi's need to assign blame somewhere)). Apologies for the excessive parentheses in the previous sentence. The descriptions of nature and fungi are beautiful, but we are quickly yanked out of any idyll of the primeval Polish forest toward a speculative fiction that resembles Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. There's a lot of ideological whiplash and flights of fancy that did not enrich my experience of the book, clever thought it is. There's a mystery too -- the titular Irena Rey goes missing-- but I stopped caring too soon in the book.

I am glad I read it, and there were definitely parts of the book I thought were glorious in prose and imagination. But at the end I felt I had finished putting together a piece of furniture, and found myself looking at several screws and bolt or two that were "left over."

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2025 #20: Great Expectations (Cunningham)

 

Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Really more 3.5 stars.

Having decided to try to read all the 2025 Tournament of Books shortlist, I started with Great Expectations and I'll resist troping the title in this review.

A debut novel by New Yorker theater critic Vinson Cunningham, it traces the rather passive existence of David Hammond, a twenty-something Black man who almost unwittingly winds up as a staffer on Obama's 2008 presidential campaign (although in the book, the former president is never identified by name). Cunningham was actually a staffer, so one wonders how much of this "novel" might actually be memoir, and that actually becomes important as the "plot" isn't really much of a draw. It isn't about the campaign, to be sure, but we are treated to some smarmier moments of life on the campaign trail, but interspersed with David's musings on his past: his time in the Pentecostal church as a child, his rather incidental fatherhood, his hookups, his childhood in Chicago... It is difficult to get a foothold in the narrative sometimes. There are sentences that sing (and there's a good deal of sonic and musical emphasis in the novel), but then there are more stream-of-consciousness babblings that seem to be aspirational Saramago.

I had a tough time sustaining my attention (two renewals on Libby!), but the last quarter of the book finally seemed to pick up a bit, although I'm hard-pressed to tell you why. There is a little bit of intrigue and controversy that hits the campaign, but David also seems to take that in as a passive observer. It is hard to call him a protagonist as he doesn't seem to be actively or emotionally invested in his own life or observations. They are just there.

It is a good book--and with some of the detritus cleared and perhaps a bit more interest in the trajectory of narrative, it could have been great. Certainly it was enough that I'll be curious to read what comes next from Cunningham, and I hope there is a "next"!


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2025 #15 Kindred (Butler)

 

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

NB: I read the Kindle Anniversary edition with the foreword by Janelle Monae

Kindred is a powerful novel in many ways, particularly in the understated pragmatism of its protagonist, Dana. It seems surprising initially that Dana should be so accepting of her temporal quandary, but Butler seems to know that the surprise is best left to the reader. This leaves Dana to her "travels" and foregrounds instead, the shifts of identity and multi-faceted and nuanced problems of race, in a narrative that exists both then and now (relatively speaking). The reader may find themselves probing clear-cut binaries and assumptions, and struggling to understand some of Dana's choices--this is what makes her very compelling.

In Butler's antebellum south the metric is constantly shifting for what is "kinder", and enslaved persons are given dimension beyond their enslavement. In the Reader's guide, Robert Crossley notes, "One of the protagonist's--and Butler's--achievements in traveling to the past is to see individual slaves as people rather than as encrusted literary or sociological types." And later, "In a Butler novel the black protagonist is there, like the mountain, because she is there." Crossley's point is well-taken --particularly in the more speculative aspects of the fiction.

The ending might seem abrupt, because it is, but it also seemed fitting. The narrative isn't really about the "when" and the plot, as much as it is about how connected things can be across time and space. We see enough to understand, in two temporal contexts, and are left with an unsettling notion that the past, present, and future may be far more intertwined than we admit. The epilogue does actually need to be there (for once), not to tie up loose ends, but instead to loosen up the ends as such, to weave them into our understanding of where our imaginations might lead and how they might serve us in living a present that is much more conscious of the past.

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FTL2025 4B challenge KindreD ------->DEI Deconstructed (Zheng)

2025 #14 Birnam Wood (Catton)

 

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.75 stars
It wasn't until after I read the book that I noted the "A savagely satirical thriller" description provided by a reviewer. This book made me rethink my general strategy of not reading about a book before engaging, although I may have taken that to the extreme here, since the description says "A gripping psychological thriller" so I shouldn't have been in the dark.

And speaking of dark...this book is just that. And it is not *just* a "psychological" thriller, so I feel that isn't exactly a fair description. I enjoyed the book, but felt it lacked subtlety. The (truly) bad guy is so evil that he spells out his nefarious plans for us, while we have to watch as he dupes the other characters in the book. His hand is shown too early on -- I started to feel just a general sense of dread waiting for it all to come to a head. We also are treated to a lot of narration about his scheming (as a personality trait):

"His goal had been to become so ambidextrous when it came to action and reaction, move and countermove, that he would reach the point where half the games he played were won by white, and half by black; only then, he'd told himself, could he really call himself a master."

Overwrought chess analogies aside, the description says "it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival" -- that's fair, although there's quite a bit of flinching going on in some respects. There are some real chances for character and relationship development that are stymied by the ending. Mira, the main protagonist, is a fascinating character:

"Like all self-mythologizing rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and often turned her rivals into enemies, the better to disdain them as secret agents of the status quo."

Catton reveals Mira's layers through passages like this and the complexity of her character pushed the book toward four stars for me. The pacing is frustrating -- slow and leisurely at the beginning and then accelerando at the end. The catalyst for the accelerando makes for a fun (?) plot point, however, and we do get quite some classic suspense moves, and a game of cat and mouse with several mice and several loops.

The premise engages with politics in New Zealand and environmental issues and I felt myself wanting to know a bit more (as a reader not wholly familiar with New Zealand), and not especially via bickering characters. The writing is beautiful and descriptive, and overall gives a great sense of the delicate balance (imbalance, perhaps) in which we operate as a society.

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2025 #10 Council of the Cursed (Tremayne) - Sister Fidelma #19

 

The Council of the Cursed by Peter Tremayne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The historical backdrop for this installment is the Council of Autun (in present-day France)-- c. 670-- that was convened under Bishop Leodegarius (Leodegar) to regulate the implementation of Benedictine Rule. The Bishop is a character in the story. Most significantly, a central area of focus was banning the compatres (special companions/spouses) for monks, a practice we know from Fidelma was still accepted in Ireland (Hibernia), although not without challenge. In the historical note, Tremayne defends his interpolation of wives of clerics being sold into slavery, albeit citing much later actions by Popes Leo IX and Urban II.

Some of the characters felt a bit overwritten -- the imperious Abbess Audofleda and Lady Beretrude, especially. Valretrade, on the other hand, often faded into the scenery, which was unfortunate given her role in the story.

However, this particular volume excelled in parsing regional differences not just in beliefs, but also customs, not just between Celtic regions and France, but even Franks vs. Burgunds. King Clotaire (aka King Clothar III) is another historical figure, who Tremayne only gives voice to toward the end, but it is effective.

Returning characters include Abbot Segdae, and from the previous book, Verbas of Peqini, who some may recall did not part company with Fidelma on good terms.

The mystery itself follows a fairly common formula (used several times in the series) wherein Fidelma is called to investigate a murder that seems obvious, but is not in the least (hence, a story). The reveal at the end was blissfully short relative to Fidelma's usual dramatic and drawn out conclusions, and Tremayne seems to be getting more comfortable in allowing the main protagonists (we can include Eadulf, sometimes) to be in harm's way as the series progresses.

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2025 #5 Yellowface (Kuang)

 

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ok, so I'm torn. If three stars is "it's ok" and four is "I liked it," I think I fall squarely in the middle (e.g. 3.5 stars) and that isn't necessarily the fault of the author. I'm writing this review on Goodreads with the knowledge that it is probably one of the most meta reviews I will ever write, given the pages of the book devoted to the role of social media (including Goodreads reviews) in the life of an author.

I recently read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and this was an interesting (although unintended) followup that confirmed most of Lamott's more cynical statements about the writing life (or perhaps, more accurately, the publishing life). Where it fell flat for me is that Juniper and her neuroses probably would have maintained my interest in a short story or novella, but by the denouement (which might have been "a" denouement), I was just done with her. I am fine with narrators who are unlikeable, but it was just too much of her voice--her whiny, excuse-ridden, entitled voice. Typical unreliable narrator, there's no reason at any time to trust her, so I just felt this constant sense of being manipulated---maybe that was the point. There was one moment, however, when Juniper says, "I feel like a meme of a clueless white person" (287) and all of a sudden I felt grounded in the message rather than having to ride on the Juniper train watching the dumpster fire unfold, helpless to do anything.

I am definitely a white person. Occasionally, I'm probably clueless too. But I don't think I missed the point(s) of this book. And I'm not naive--Juniper Songs do exist all over the place, some a lot more insidious and some even more clueless. The part of Yellowface that is "a horror story story about loneliness in a fiercely competitive industry" is fantastic. It would have made a great Twilight Zone episode. But the length of having to endure Juniper's horrific behavior overpowered the narrative of loneliness--of Juniper, of Athena. I suspect there's just too much to say about the motivations behind plagiarism and appropriation, so I'm sympathetic. Ultimately, it is an artful book that makes us sit with, lean into, and smush our faces in discomfort, and it unapologetically doesn't let up. After we turn the last page, perhaps we can step back and find the Juniperisms that hide in our own hearts.

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Follow the Leader Challenge 2025 2b ---> YellowfacE --> Every Day I Write the Book by Amitava Kumar

2024 #23 The Servant's Tale - Dame Frevisse #2 (Frazer)

 

The Servant's Tale by Margaret Frazer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A good second installment in the Sister Frevisse series, probably more of a 3.5 or 3.75 for me. The servant, Meg, works for the nuns at St. Frideswide as a scullery maid. Her husband, the drunken Barnaby, is allegedly killed in an accident when his cart collides with a troupe of actors. Soon to follow are two more deaths, and the acting troupe is in the frame. Frazer highlights the social and class biases at play against the troupe and we get more character development of Sister Frevisse and the head of the convent, Domina Edith, as well as Dame Claire, the apothecary/medical person for the convent. I found the development slow, as many pages are given over to sitting around dead bodies, although this does prove important to the story. It is probably best read in just a few sittings to keep track of some of the smaller details, not all of which necessarily lean toward the "whodunnit" aspect, but provide a lovely and clever sense of connectivity. Motives seem weak for all possible suspects, and that is a bit frustrating as we don't learn the actual motive until the very end, which always seems a bit of a cop-out to me. There are not a lot of clues in this one--but plenty of deception.

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2024 #18 Ysabel (Kay)

 

Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is honestly a 3.5, maybe 3.75 for me. There's a lot to like here, including the 15 year old protagonist, Ned. Ned's dad is a famous photographer, and while "on location" in Provence, he meets Kate, an unusually forthright teenage girl with an encyclopedic knowledge/interest in history. After they both meet a creepy and curious presence in a cathedral, things start to develop rather quickly. Both Kate and Ned are NOT overwritten and therefore a lot more likeable than most teenage protagonists.

The plot? Well that gets a bit tough to follow in places. There's concerted effort to anchor the story in Celtic and Roman lore, and while the information is helpful and authentic, it sometimes presents itself as boring pontification. The author does well with characters who are neither good nor evil, but instead straddle some sort of invisible moral line that operates outside the sphere of normal life.

The book ended too quickly for me. I could have used a little less of the repartée between everyone at the pool and a bit more time with certain characters: in particular Ned's mother and aunt, as well as his phenomenal uncle. While she is the title character, Ysabel does not get a whole lot of air time, and it is frustrating at the end when all is revealed with a nice neat bow. I needed a bit more of "why" and "how", and I certainly did not see any reason for Melanie's behavior. I get that she was "under-the-influence" (as was Kate), but it felt like a rushed attempt at suggesting a coming of age story for Ned--not needed. We never do get the whole story about Aunt Kim, and that ends up being a tad frustrating.

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2024 #12 Badger's Moon (Sister Fidelma #13)- Tremayne

 

Badger's Moon by Peter Tremayne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

NOTE: Small spoiler ahead.



"...you would do well to remember that this land is not separated from the rest of the world, but shares the sins of humanity in equal proportion. "(137)

These words, uttered by the character of Brother Dangila, are but a sample of the increased depth in this installment of the Sister Fidelma series. Brother Dangila and two of his colleagues are three "strangers" from the Kingdom of Aksum, which reached its greatest power in the sixth century, and had begun to decline in the time of Fidelma. The Kingdom occupied what is now Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and parts of modern Sudan, if internet maps are correct. The book (rather gently) brings in themes of racism and xenophobia, and it the quote above is one moment where even Fidelma must confront her implicit biases.

The plot develops rather slowly, but there's a lot more nuance built into Fidelma's character, not only in the way she uses her role as a dálaigh as a coping mechanism as she is experiencing postpartum depression but also how she really is interrogating her multiple identities as an emblem of jurisprudence, sister to the king, and now, a mother (apologies if you read the series out of order). There are perhaps a few too many characters and families to keep track of, but most intriguing are Liag the apothecary and Conrí, war chief of the Uí Fidgente. And there are, of course, the customary hothead soldiers/warriors that seem to feature in all the books. The plot has many twists and turns, but generally was not enough to hold my interest. Luckily, I was so surprised by the next-level themes in this particular book, that I kept going. The book ends (the epilogue, anyway) on a cliffhanger...the mark of a true and secure serial!

It has been rewarding to read the series in order because one gets the sense that Tremayne is trying things on for size. I hope the greater character development and depth continues to be part of this series.

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2024 #8: Four Treasures of the Sky (Zhang)

Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Four Treasures of the Sky is a heartbreaking story of Daiyu, a young Chinese girl who longs to be a calligraphist, but who encounters the worst of humanity, very far from home. There are moments of extreme beauty, particularly when Daiyu calls upon the lessons of calligraphy to face obstacles: "The inkstone asks for destruction before creation--you must first destroy yourself, grind yourself into a paste, before becoming a work of art." (307) Zhang illuminates Daiyu's "coming of age" within a tragedy, but the saving grace is Daiyu's own growth as a person. It is an important narrative that reflects the experience of far too many Chinese immigrants in the United States, and unearths a history that has been too often squelched.

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2024 #4: The Starless Sea (Morgenstern)

 

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't exactly remember what led me to read The Starless Sea, but that seems fitting. Perhaps I encountered a painted door of my own. That metaphor, which may not mean much to the uninitiated, is as poetic and amorphous as the beginning of the book. Morgenstern's fantasy has its sharp edges, evident from the violence and captivity described in the initial pages. But the wardrobe,
at least initially, does not quite lead to Narnia here, and we are better for it.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins, who is half-heartedly chipping away at a Master's degree in "Emerging Media,"would rather just read. He hides out in a Vermont college library during the term break, only to encounter a strange book that changes his life forever.

Yes, there are definitely Neverending Story tropes here, as well as Narnia tropes (the latter made transparent by the author), but Morgenstern weaves stories within stories that seem so distinctly unique yet familiar at the same time. This is, as Joseph Campbell recognized, the power of mythmaking--to hold on to the common themes, but dress them up in an unending variety of costumes. Most of the characters stay behind a gauzy curtain of mystery by necessity, but not without character development. Most endearing is Zachary's friend Kat, whose sense of humor and self-awareness provides moments of utter charm: "I accepted because mysterious ladies offering bourbon under the stars is very much my aesthetic" (464), she tells us, explaining her choices. Kat, notably, also gives a shout out to Campbell via a quip regarding the Hero's journey.

There were moments when the journey felt a bit too drawn out -- a choose-your-own-adventure without being able to choose, and being taken down every possible path. There are things--crucial things--that are never really explained, and that's part of the point. One doesn't mind so much, and comes to accept the truths of the novel as fantasy and reality begin to blur. Time and Fate are leading players in all worlds, it would seem. What we protect is not always what we love, and we don't always protect that which we do love. These are some of the wisdoms that Morgenstern reveals through paper stars, bees, owls, keys, and swords.

This is a book that will benefit from more than one reading, no doubt unearthing layers upon layers. It deserves to be savored, not rushed. And if you happen to like cats, you'll be an even more willing participant.

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2023 #47: Zoli (McCann)

 

Zoli by Colum McCann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had no idea what this book was about, but I needed a book that started with Z for my 2023 A-Z reading challenge, and I knew Colum McCann's work from Let the Great World Spin.
Zoli is a beautifully written book that traces the life and loves of a Romani woman, based loosely on Polish poet Papusza (1910 - 1987). Drawing from archival and authoritative sources (e.g. the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at UT Austin), McCann offers a narrative that bears witness to the history of the Romani people in how they were outcasts and exploited in the name of "advocacy". Zoli herself is a wonderful multi-dimensional character who must navigate and choose identities for her own survival. We see her as a child, raised by her grandfather, a young poet/songwriter--exploited and caught in political contexts out of her control, an exile and refugee both, and as an aging mother still determined to express her own agency.

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2023 #46: Year of Wonders (Brooks)

 

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It may be erroneous to say a work of historical fiction is prescient, but this 2001 novel took on new life in 2020. Based on the true story of the remote English village of Eyam that communally sacrificed itself during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1666, Year of Wonders is a miraculously beautiful novel. The characterization is rich and dimensional, with housemaid Anna Frith as a wonderfully developed (and developing) narrator. When the village rector convinces (most of) the village to self-quarantine from outlying towns, the loss is immense, but there is hope and growth and surprises. What is good and what is bad become murky and no one is immune from the challenges, even if they manage to stay healthy. The writing is extraordinary, wrapping in references to seventeenth-century village life and social structure without artifice. For all its graphic depiction of disease and childbirth, there is an underlying elegance which carries the reader along with just enough distance that we can understand 1666 to be 1918, or 2020, or whatever catastrophes we may face in the future.

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2023 #45 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Vuong)

 

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Novel" does not seem the most apt descriptor for this collection of prosepoetry. And no, that is not a typo. The language is reason alone to pick up this book. It is like watching a painter. If this is at the sacrifice of plot and conventional narrative, so be it. The language of this book is extraordinary.

And while there is not a single trajectory (really more a rhizomatic network of recollections and memories), we meet characters who embody truth in their realness, whether it is the protagonist's mother in her ability to be both mother and demon, the grandmother in her frailty and strength, or Trevor, in his sexual awakening and moments of tenderness juxtaposed with every red-blooded American masculine trope. Most of the characters seem to be reconciling (or not) the opposites within.

Where I grew slightly weary was in the sexual awakening passages. While written beautifully, I relegate that many words devoted to sex to a different genre, and don't prefer it taking up that much space in a "novel" where I anticipate some sort of narrative arc. The arc is there, but it is subtle, and the retracing of steps/revisiting of sexual experiences found me scrolling through the pages of the e-book a bit faster in places. Mileage will definitely vary on this front, so I offer this criticism in humility and with full acknowledgment that it is my personal preference.

As I said, however, I don't think I've ever read such a poetic novel and it is well worth the time to see how words can be briefly gorgeous.

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