Gen Xers read FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC when they were in middle school. I read WHITE OLEANDER when I was thirteen. Should I have? Probably not, but it was one of the first literary fiction books I read outside of school, which taught me that a book can be written for literary merit and still be fun and entertaining to read. Whenever I see one of those "list a book that defines you" lists, I really want to put this one, but I feel like people will see that and be like, "Dear god, what happened to YOU" when really, it's not so much the story or the plot that I relate to (thank god) so much as the writing, the use of art as solace, and the feeling of helplessness and loneliness.
This is one of my desert island books. Every time I read it, I get something new out of it, notice something different.
WHITE OLEANDER's writing is gorgeous and the callbacks, motifs, and metaphors are incredible, even outside of the context of the story, which is also amazing. Like, this is the sort of story that I would like to write one day: big, intense, epic, beautiful, heartbreaking, powerful, EVERYTHING. I'm always shocked when I meet someone who hasn't read it. If you can get past the trigger warnings, it feels like one of those stories that everyone could talk about, even if they didn't enjoy it. It's got a flavor. You either like it or you don't.
At its core, this is the story of a girl who is the daughter of a sociopath who commits a crime, who then wanders through the foster care system, ending up in a series of terrible homes, all awful in their own way. It's also an intimate character study and coming of age tale. Astrid is a very passive character at first, and the way that she is shaped and molded by her environment and the people she comes into contact with is subtle and well done. She is such a dynamic character, even when she lacks agency.
The child abuse is so hard to read, and I don't think there's a character outside of Jude from A LITTLE LIFE who was in such desperate need of a hug. But the story is just as amazing as I remember and these characters will haunt me for life. I love this book so much.
I got this off of a list of transgressive women's fiction that pushes boundaries and explores uncomfortable topics. When I bought this book, I was wondering why the author's name sounded familiar, and when I looked her up, I realized she was the same author who wrote a memoir about having an affair with her dad. Or at least, that's how the Goodreads reviews for that book frame it. But considering this book, and how it is allegedly THE KISS's semi-autobiographical predecessor, it's looking more like that the author was probably the victim of abuse-- from both her parents-- and these works of fiction and nonfiction are her way of reclaiming what happened to her.
THICKER THAN WATER reminded me a lot of WHITE OLEANDER. It has the same dreamy, disconnected prose that reads like someone trying to put distance between themselves and what is happening on the page. Isabel is the daughter of a mother who probably has either borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder; she is self-absorbed, jealous, possessive, and utterly uninterested in her daughter, though these interludes hint that she might have sexually abused her daughter as a baby.
This is a coming of age story set in an abusive household. The mother character's abuse is different from the father's, but both are heartbreaking, and both take their toll on Isabel, who doesn't feel at all comfortable with her body, or who she is as a person, or how she interacts with other people. By the end of the book, I felt really sad for her. This book is mostly set in the 70s and I think the author really captures that changing zeitgeist perfectly, where progress and social justice clash against infrastructural sexism and so-called traditional beliefs. It's a fascinating, but depressing read. However, if you enjoyed WHITE OLEANDER a lot, the subject matter is similar, though it lacks the poetry.
PROPERTY OF is a story about an unnamed young woman who is in love with a gang member in 1960s New York. In this book, there are two rival factions who fight in territory wars for drugs, and they are the Orphans and the Wolves. The "hero" of this book is McKay, a beautiful young man who's held in thrall to the Orphans and is determined to hold on to his spot as president of his gang.
This is kind of like a cross between Lost Boys, West Side Story, and Grease. I liked the fast-talking morally grey heroine, and how this sort of starts out as a dark romance but ends up being way more gritty and realistic. It's kind of a downer, but the visceral setting and interesting characters kept me reading even when things started to drag.
Nobody does fucked up taboo subjects like Emily Maguire. She's a lit-fic author and not a particularly happy one, so don't go into her books automatically expecting a happy ending (you might not get one). That said, this might be my favorite one from her yet. FISHING FOR TIGERS is a reverse age-gap love story about a woman in her mid-thirties having an affair in Hanoi with an eighteen-year-old Vietnamese boy who is the biracial son of one of her fellow expatriates.
I thought this book was fascinating. Mischa, the heroine, is the survivor of an abusive relationship, so it makes sense kind of why she would fall for a man (a boy, really) she sees as non-threatening. When he challenges her, or triggers her, however, she has trouble dealing with him without shutting down due to her trauma, and his constant fits of pique are an uncomfortable reminder of his age.
This could have been really icky but it wasn't. Instead, I felt like it was a really insightful look into interracial relationships, age-gaps, colonialism, culture appropriation, and what it means to try to salvage pieces of yourself when a traumatic life event has left you broken.
REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES is such a cute story. Honestly if you had told me that I was going to fall in like with a literary fiction book where one of the POVs was narrated by an octopus, I would have rolled my eyes. But this was actually quite cute.
There are three primary narrators: Tova, an elderly woman who works at an aquarium who lost her husband to cancer and whose son mysteriously disappeared; Marcellus, the octopus, who is nearing the end of his life in captivity; and Cameron, a fuck up, who has just lost his job and doesn't know anything about where he came from or what he's going to do next.
I don't want to say too much about this book because that might ruin it, but REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES is a very sweet, humanistic read. The ending is kind of bittersweet and made me tear up a little but I wouldn't say this is sad. It reminded me a little of A Man Called Otto, but way less tear-jerky.
This is my first Sally Rooney book and I wasn't really sure what to expect since she seems to be the kind of author that people either love or hate. NORMAL PEOPLE is a coming of age story set in the 2010s that follows Connell and Marianne, first as high school students from opposite ends of the social strata, and then as adults who are trying to navigate their increasingly unsatisfying and fucked-up lives.
I thought this book was really good. It reminded me of the depressed counter-cultural lady-lit that was popular in the early 2000s, which is maybe why reading it felt so nostalgic. But it's entirely character driven and pretty depressing, so unless reading about two moody and horny people avoid happiness like that little ship dodging the aliens in Space Invaders has any sort of appeal to you, I might not recommend this book. Luckily, I happened to be in the mood for literary-lite.
Choo! Choo! All aboard the Unlikable Heroine Express(TM). Color me shocked-but-not-really that this has an average rating of 3.39, because it's basically CRAZY RICH ASIANS but with posh Nigerian expatriates living in Singapore and being messy AF. THE SUN SETS IN SINGAPORE revolves around three women specifically: Lillian, an ex-pianist with marital problems; Dora, a cutthroat lawyer determined to make partner, who is now forced to compete against another Nigerian: a man; and Amaka, a bastard who lives under the shadow of her dubious parentage, who compensates for every anxiety in her life with her shopping addiction... although now, she's ready to jilt her fiance and go running into the arms of the wrong man.
THE SUN SETS IN SINGAPORE was like a literary soap opera and I ate it up like it was on a silver spoon. I found this in a little free library, which felt like serendipity because I almost bought this when it was a Kindle Daily Deal but still wasn't 100% sold on the concept. Now, I totally am. I loved this book so much and even though all of the women were fully capable of being awful, they were also SO real, and the Singapore/expatriate setting and details were fascinating.
I was OBSESSED with the first half of this book: Bluebeard vibes, plucky heroine, Icelandic setting, literal witch hunts. The second half of this book, I liked less. Shit got weird. And DEPRESSING.
But god, the writing and the descriptions of this book were amazing. If you're looking for a wintry read and don't care if the book you're reading is going to bum you out or not, you'll love this.
P.S. There's some pretty nasty gory scenes in here.
MEDUSA'S SISTERS was so good. It's actually the first Greek mythology retelling I've read in a while that stands up to the Madeline Miller comparisons. In this beautiful story about friendship, womanhood, sisterhood, and revenge, Bear tells the story of Medusa and her two Gorgon sisters, Stheno and Euryale. Before the curse that doomed them, the three girls were the beautiful children of sea monsters, wandering from city to city as they tried to explore their burgeoning desires-- in art, in sex, and in love.
This is a pretty heavy read but I thought Bear handled her subject well. The mythology and fantasy element was stunning, and I thought it had great messages about what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society, and how fucking unfair it can be.
Update: Have acquired the book. Am suspicious of TikToke recs and several of my friends hated this, but I stan an artist in a ho phase hooking up withUpdate: Have acquired the book. Am suspicious of TikToke recs and several of my friends hated this, but I stan an artist in a ho phase hooking up with her F. Scott Fitzgerald-wannabe Zaddy ok
I was so excited to buddy-read this book with s.penkevich. I've admired their literary-fiction reviews for a while and thought the idea of checking out this surreal work of Japanese literature with such a book friend was really fun. Especially since the listlessness and ennui of the heroine can be overwhelming at times.
Our heroine is a thirty-six-year-old woman with burnout who repeatedly goes to the same employment agency over the course of the novel to request more jobs. She wants something close to home with no reading or writing involved and, ideally, very little thinking.
Her jobs get progressively weirder and weirder. Her first job is in video surveillance, watching a man who may be in unknowing league with a contrabander. Her second job is working for an advertising agency for a bus company. Her third job is writing trivia that go on the packets of fried rice snacks. Her fourth job is putting up environmental awareness posters in a small community. And her fifth job is manning the cabin in the middle of a man-made park filled with fruit trees.
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS AN EASY JOB is such a strange book. It's so strange that several times, I would set the book down and think, "Do I really like this book?" I considered DNF-ing even, but was unable to stop reading. There's an almost supernatural bent to some of her jobs, which can sometimes make them feel creepy (especially in the case of the bus advertisements and poster jobs), but it's never outright scary or anything, just in a way that makes the reader feel uneasy.
For once, I think the comparisons in the blurb of this book are on the mark. This really is like a cross between MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION and CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN. The comparisons are rarely that apt, so I'm actually impressed, because that's how I probably would have described this book, too. It's a book about how our jobs shape us and vice-versa, a criticism (I think?) about hustle/gig culture, and just a really interesting story about a disaffected woman trying to live her life as best she can. For people who enjoy character-driven stories, this will be quite the treat.
I'm a sucker for books with low ratings. To me, nothing is sadder than a book that just didn't happen to find its niche and I desperately would love to be that niche for the right book, especially if it's getting slammed for being unusual or "unlikable." Claire Vaye Watkins is apparently the daughter of Paul Watkins, one of Manson's collaborators, who helped provide him with girls. So in that sense, I kind of wondered if I LOVE YOU BUT I'VE CHOSEN DARKNESS is cathartic autofiction because it's about the (fictional) daughter of Paul Watkins, who's also dealing with her Gen-Y existential dread and postpartum depression, as well as the grim legacy left behind by her dad.
I think the best parts, for me, were actually the descriptions of the Nevada desert and the way she slips into omniscient narrator perspective talking about the Manson family cult. It gets kind of weird-- like FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS weird-- where the heroine (author?) starts talking about these teeth tumors she has in her vagina that are vestiges of her baby's DNA (what), and waxing on about her dead high school boyfriend.
I'm sad to be giving this a low ratings because I appreciated what it was trying to do-- gonzo autofiction, maybe in the vein of Hunter S. Thompson?-- and one of the things I've criticized the publishing industry for is how social media marketing has led to the "same-ification" of the book market, with fewer people taking risks as they all race to do what's popular. I personally like it when an author takes risks with the narrative and story, but this just didn't work here.
This was one of the favorite books of my high school English teacher, a man who condemned Jane Austen as an "insipid romance writer" and regaled us with tales about pissing in people's mailboxes as a youth. He also told me that I was a terrible writer, and that I should be in remedial English because my grasp of the written word was "subpar."
I think that tells you basically everything you need to know about the man and this book. If you go around seeking out phonies, you might want to start with a mirror.
P.S. As if that weren't enough torture, I had to read this book AGAIN and the second teacher who made me suffer through this was Catholic and made us say "gee-dee" instead of goddamn every time it appeared on the page, and we had to skip any chapters that she deemed "inappropriate."
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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