About an hour of the time reading this book I spent in a very hot bath and I highly recommend you do the same, at least for a little while. I've read About an hour of the time reading this book I spent in a very hot bath and I highly recommend you do the same, at least for a little while. I've read a lot of books in the bath but I'm not sure one has ever felt so perfect for the setting, the kind of book to read when I want to relax and take a little time to be luxurious with myself. Reading this book was the same kind of experience, it's a hot bath of a book.
I have started my share of books about fictional Hollywood stars and I often find myself abandoning them quickly because they seem to expect me to automatically feel enthralled by someone simply because they are famous in a fictional world. It's hard to get someone to buy into a fictional character's indescribable charisma just on trust. You have to actually create that charisma in the character, and this is what Reid does best with Evelyn Hugo. From the beginning, she is larger than life, she is powerful, she is unapologetic, she is enigmatic. We can trust that she is beautiful, but we get to experience her magnetism first hand.
In this book, the aging movie star Hugo tells her life story to an unlikely magazine writer that she has specifically requested be the one person to tell her story. The framing device is great structurally to break things up and add some suspense to the narrative, though there are times when it's clunky. Evelyn's story also reaches a point where it loses energy, which is a bit of a downer since there is so much momentum to this book otherwise. I read it in less than 24 hours picking it up at every spare moment. But it makes up for it with a mostly satisfactory (if excessively tidy) conclusion, which is often hard to come by in this kind of book.
This book excels at being exactly what it is. It is not a gritty look at real Hollywood life (Evelyn's exploits are almost entirely romantic, it doesn't appear she's ever seen a drug) and there isn't a deep feminist core to it about objectification or how women are treated in the film industry. This is a book for the person in you who stares longingly at Elizabeth Taylor and wonders how she could exist in the world when she was so beautiful. As a reader, you need to bring your cinematic romanticism to this book to make sure you meet it on its own terms. It lays out rather clearly what it needs those terms to be, thankfully.
I don't like to say much about plot points but this was certainly not one of the books I expected to read this year that has a diverse set of characters with regards to race and sexual orientation, but happily it is. That said, because this is a romanticized version of reality, there is also a lot of romanticization brought to these characters. Don't expect to learn anything about what it means to be a person of color or a queer person from this book, but I want more diverse characters in ALL my books, not just the deep and important ones, so I'm still happy about it....more
I don't have a good excuse for waiting so long to read MARLENA. I mean, I have an excuse but it's not good. I tend to run hot and cold on books with iI don't have a good excuse for waiting so long to read MARLENA. I mean, I have an excuse but it's not good. I tend to run hot and cold on books with intense female friendships, largely because I've never actually *had* that kind of relationship. And while women's stories are still not as common as they should be in literary fiction, there are certainly a lot of them about the female friendship, particularly the teenage version. But with all that said, even a plot or concept I'm tired of can be magical and new in the right hands and this book is one of those times.
Marlena isn't just about a complex friendship, there's also a real sense of place in Silver Lake, Michigan. There's issues of class, poverty, and addiction that feel organic and vital instead of tacked on. There's a real sense of reflection in the narration, of a woman looking not just at this formative period of her life, but at her life as it is. And there's that nostalgia around teenage life that felt deeply to me even though Cat and I don't have much in common, writing teenagers well as an adult is hard, and understanding how adults reexamine their teenage selves simultaneously is am impressive line to walk.
It took me a little while to get into this book, at first the rhythm didn't quite grab me and I was feeling like maybe this was a story I already knew that wouldn't feel fresh. I'm glad I stuck around....more
It's really a delight to be able to say for the second time about a much-buzzed Young Adult novel by an author of color in 2017 that the hype is real.It's really a delight to be able to say for the second time about a much-buzzed Young Adult novel by an author of color in 2017 that the hype is real. LONG WAY DOWN is a novel that hits hard, and I wish I knew more about boxing so I could see that metaphor through because it deserves to be described with the best of metaphors.
Books about teens in tough circumstances are risky, many examples end up in Afterschool Special territory, trying to teach a lesson in a way that makes the lesson itself unlearnable. Reynolds is able to show us a teen that feels real, a life that feels real, a place that feels real. Whenever it feels like he might be trying to sit us down and have a conversation about the cycle of violence, it turns out he is leading us in another direction entirely.
The novel in verse is not a style I'm partial to, but when it's done well it can be spellbinding. Here, the sparsity of the poetry fits our narrator, a teenage boy suffering unfathomable pain and loss who can't communicate or even acknowledge the depths of his feelings because of what he knows he is supposed to do. The style is both fast and slow, letting us get lost in specific moments, but keeping us moving forward to the ending we want to see but don't know if we can watch.
I do not want to say much about the book itself. I knew only the basic conceit (that most of the book takes place in one elevator ride) and I believe it wouldn't be as affecting an experience if you know more. The ending is the best kind, so good that I have to imagine Reynolds knew he was moving there all along. (If he has said so, I would love to know.)
You can read this in one sitting and I think that's best. There's a rhythm to this book, though not a steady one, the verse allows him to coast and pivot and repeat and change, but when you put it all together it is musical the way an album is. This territory could have gone maudlin, it could have gone cold, but it feels both agile and affecting in a way that I don't know that I've encountered before. ...more
Lately I've been a little weary of YA, though I don't know exactly why. Sometimes it seems like books try too hard to check boxes off a list or force Lately I've been a little weary of YA, though I don't know exactly why. Sometimes it seems like books try too hard to check boxes off a list or force a romance. Sometimes it seems like a plot point is there because it's a hot topic not because it fits with the characters or the story. And plenty of characters feel like flat stereotypes. There is not enough out there that really seems to get how much of life as a teenager is not really knowing who you are and the struggle of building an identity.
Happily, LITTLE & LION was a real joy of a book. It does not feel like a constructed backdrop but a real world. I was a little wary to read something where mental health is a major plotline but it's managed really well in a way that's natural to the entire world and the people in it.
One of the best things about good YA is that it gives you the opportunity to write about something through the eyes of someone who's just encountering it and trying to make sense of it. You can pick it apart and address it head on. Here we get that first and foremost with bisexual/pansexual/queer identity. The fact that I didn't write just one of those but felt the need to include them all is exactly what I mean. Suzette, our protagonist, struggles with her own sexual identity and doesn't end the book as a person who is now confident and ready to face the world. She's just at the beginning of her journey, but she's able to tackle some of the issues of bisexual stereotypes and erasure that many people encounter. Colbert brings the same delicacy and directness to issues of mental health, chronic illness, race, religion, and more.
If you don't read much YA, I'd still highly recommend that this year you seek out THE HATE U GIVE and LITTLE & LION because you're really missing out otherwise. ...more
My entire reading life is spent chasing a specific kind of thrill, the thrill of being so emotionally involved in a story that it has power over me. IMy entire reading life is spent chasing a specific kind of thrill, the thrill of being so emotionally involved in a story that it has power over me. I look for other thrills too but this is the one that I want most, and sometimes I go for long stretches without feeling it. I was in that kind of stretch recently. I read most of the best books of 2017 very early in the year but then there were many perfectly good books but books that didn't have absolute control over my brain. Until now.
There are two things that make this book work so perfectly. There's the characters themselves, they are drawn warmly and intimately, the three generations presented to us at a time of their greatest joy and greatest vulnerability. Seeing characters in that moment, where there is so much to gain and so much to lose all at once, ties you to them. Secondly, there's this book's structure, which at first glance seems like the kind of simple multigenerational span that is common in fiction these days. The reason it works so well is because of the first thing, that specific emotional moment we have seen in each character. We see them at a moment of promise and then we jump a generation later to immediately get to see how it all panned out.
Sexton is able to do this same thing over and over again, and yet even after the initial realizations of where these characters start and where they end, she continues to tell us these stories of hope and promise, even when we know how they end. We don't get many of the dots inbetween connected, we don't get to see how these characters went from A to B, instead we see just how much people are capable of change. And we see the inevitable rise of hope in each generation as they look at the generation to follow.
As mentioned in the summary, this is absolutely a book about race and the limitations the characters face because of their place in society. But it skips the Civil Rights Era entirely, and doesn't use specific incidents of racism to call our attention to it. Instead, like so often in real life, it is insidious and engages with larger systems, class, and gender in complicated ways.
I was immediately engaged in this book, it took me a few days to read it because even though it's not long, I needed some space with all the emotions it drew out of me. I'm so glad the National Book Award brought this gem to my attention. It's one of the great reading pleasures I had this year and I hope we see many more from Sexton....more
There are still so few books about Muslim characters, that treat them as central and important figures, that Home Fire feels like more of a revelationThere are still so few books about Muslim characters, that treat them as central and important figures, that Home Fire feels like more of a revelation than I wish it did. I could read five books about Isma, the woman whose story opens the novel. I wanted to know everything about her, I wanted to read her entire past and her entire future.
The book begins with Isma's fear about not being able to travel when she needs to, and over time we see all the things in one family's life that are difficult and complex because of their religion and because of their too-close-for-comfort ties to terrorists. Letting them all exist as full characters, this is a book that refuses to accept any motivation as simple.
This is the first novel by Shamsie I read but I was immediately taken with it, her writing is just what I like, prose that illuminates and opens up characters and stories. I wanted more of everything, more time with these characters.
This is a retelling of sorts of Antigone, but it's the best kind. More of an homage, using a couple central plot points but putting the framing in an incredibly relevant modern context. My memories of Antigone are hazy but I wasn't sure how a play about burial rites would work, but Shamsie brings the threads together perfectly. The homage is clear, but this is a story all its own.
I was only a couple chapters in to Home Fire when I pulled up the goodreads page and saw that it was a multiple-perspective novel. I was a little surprised because I already felt so completely at home in Isma's chapters. This is a book without many flaws, and the multiple character approach combined with its short length is a weakness. Some characters we really get to stretch out with and others feel more distant, which happens in 99% of books with this structure. Inevitably there are some moments from one perspective where you long to see things from a different character's view. But it's still a device that has more strengths than weaknesses, getting into the heads of the male characters in particular provides a context and contrast that is crucial to the story the novel is trying to tell.
The book ends with a big climax but from the most limited and frustrating perspective, and yet even that feels like a very appropriate way to take this particular gut punch. Even the weaknesses of this book become its strengths....more
The Broken Earth trilogy finishes in fine form. At first, the series seemed more like a feat of worldbuilding and narrative structure. But it turns ouThe Broken Earth trilogy finishes in fine form. At first, the series seemed more like a feat of worldbuilding and narrative structure. But it turns out The Fifth Season was really just setting the stage for a real investment in the characters of Essun and Nassun, the mother and daughter on opposite sides of a planetary battle.
The book suffers a bit for the lack of emphasis on secondary characters (I missed Alabaster in particular) but it's great to finally get some of the originial backstory of Hoa.
I kept wondering if the climax would be worth it and found myself wholly satisfied. It felt earned and inevitable without being expected or pat.
It does not happen very often that you read a memoir that makes you rethink what memoir is for and what it can do, but when it does it is a very speciIt does not happen very often that you read a memoir that makes you rethink what memoir is for and what it can do, but when it does it is a very special experience. HUNGER is that kind of memoir.
Gay wants her readers to understand not just who she is and what her experience in the world has been. She wants them to know what it is like to exist in her body. I am a woman, so of course my experience thinking about my body and what others see and how I am treated because of it is going to be significantly different than a man's. But I am also a woman with a body that society would deem relatively normal. I have considered but never truly understood what it would be like to be in a body that was deemed unacceptable.
I see it as my job to tell you what the experience of reading this book is like, just as Gay's job is to give you the experience of living in her body. And I have struggled for days to figure out how to express it.
If you regularly read Gay's writing and follow her on Twitter, you will find her voice here familiar. But her writing here feels very different than her fiction and her essays. There is still that sharpness, that ability to define something with precision in a way it has never been defined before that I always appreciate. But there is also a bluntness and straightforwardness. It feels like a direct line from the reader to her brain. These chapters are often short, often lacking a narrative. I suspect some readers may find it repetitive, and yet when you are stuck in denial or self-destruction or depression or other difficult emotions your life is repetitive and Gay captures that.
When reading DIFFICULT WOMEN I wrote that I felt seen in ways I'd never felt from a book before. With HUNGER I feel like I have seen someone else in a way I never have from a book before.
I hesitate to say much more than that because I feel like there is no point. I am not a good enough writer to fully describe how it is to read this book. I read it obsessively. I went to a bar and ordered a beer and sat down with this book and read it and sometimes looked up and took a break and listened to people. Then I ordered another beer and read and took little breaks. I could not stop until I was finished. I could not go to sleep until it was done. It did not matter if I cried in a bar, it was simply how the world was and I was simply living in it....more
It was not hard to sell me on a dark Korean horror novel/psychological thriller. The comparison to Shirley Jackson was intriguing, of course. But I thIt was not hard to sell me on a dark Korean horror novel/psychological thriller. The comparison to Shirley Jackson was intriguing, of course. But I think it's best not to compare it to Jackson or King but to come into this book without the expectations an American would have of a horror novel written by an American. 2016's THE VEGETARIAN will feel much closer, not only because the author is also Korean but because it also has a sly, subversiveness that can go unnoticed if you aren't willing to look below the surface.
The title does refer to an actual hole, but I found this quite illuminating from the agent's website: "a transliteration of the English word “hole,” 홀 (hol) is a Korean prefix meaning “alone” and most readily refers to one who is widowed." Oghi, the protagonist, has become suddenly alone and widowed after an accident that killed his wife and left him almost completely incapacitated.
In the early chapters, this alone is enough to make the horrors of Oghi's life palpable and uncomfortable. Oghi is unable to communicate with anyone and is completely reliant on his wife's mother for care. Part of what makes this book so effective is how Oghi's mother-in-law is not presented as a villain, just a sad and lonely woman who has only one person left, a person she does not really know all that well. Likewise, we know little about Oghi at first, but gradually learn more and more about his former life and his wife.
If I can give you any advice, it would be to read this novel slowly. I am tempted to read it again. Because the story you think you are reading is not the real story at all. Beneath the surface, as Oghi suffers first from his change of circumstances and later from all kinds of tortures, there is something else happening. Another version of Oghi's life is unfolding before you and it is up to you to find the little clues here and there. Think of it almost more like a detective novel. Read it wondering who Oghi is, who his mother-in-law is, who his wife is. And as the clues pile up, you will find this may be less of a horror novel and more of a revenge story.
While I would classify this as horror and some of the horror comes through physical acts, this is not a violent or gory book, so if you are worried about such things, do not. The horror of not having control of your own body is horror enough, it turns out....more
Three astronauts train for the first mission to Mars. If you've ever heard of such a mission you're probably familiar with what it would entail: monthThree astronauts train for the first mission to Mars. If you've ever heard of such a mission you're probably familiar with what it would entail: months upon months of isolation in a small craft during space travel. What kind of person would happily spend months without a stove or a shower or a phone? That is much of what The Wanderers is about, what makes an astronaut an astronaut and what it does to their relationships with their loved ones.
This is a finely tuned character study, where you get to know the characters quite well, particularly Helen, the lone female astronaut in her 50's. It also feels intensely researched with science that seems real. (I made the mistake of going to a mediocre space movie while reading this book and the movie's slapdash approach to science suffered greatly in comparison.)
Not only is this a book about the kind of person who prizes space and exploration above all, it's also about the way we present ourselves to others. During their training, the astronauts are being heavily monitored and much of the book is about how they present themselves to the people studying them. Their family members also have this kind of facade, a way they present themselves to the people around them, a kind of role they feel they must fulfill when all eyes are on them.
While it isn't heavy on plot, I never felt bored by this book. I also listened to the audio and enjoyed the reader quite a lot....more
This was my first exposure to Tidbeck. I knew nothing about her or the book before I started it. I had just gone on vacation and when I realized I wasThis was my first exposure to Tidbeck. I knew nothing about her or the book before I started it. I had just gone on vacation and when I realized I was reading something rather bleak and Scandinavian I almost put it down. It didn't seem like the right fit. But there was just enough weirdness in those early chapters to get me to stick around.
Dystopia is popular these days, and this is certainly a speculative dystopia. But I enjoyed it immensely. While reading it I kept commenting about it to my traveling companion, I spent the first third saying how I really didn't know what was happening and I wasn't sure how I felt. And then I spent the last third saying whoa it got really good and whoa what is even happening right now. It is rare to read a speculative novel that feels like it's doing something different. Of course, it also reminded me of a lot of great early sci-fi, especially those set on a bleak and sparse Mars, which feels an awful lot like the setting here in Amatka.
I don't want to tell you much at all about the society it's set in because finding all that out is part of the joy of reading it. And even when you feel like you've got a pretty good handle on how things are run and you're wondering why you're reading a memo about the ingredients in soap products, you realize that there are a few little things that are just not quite right but you don't really know why yet. I kept reading for the answer to that why, and often when I've read a book that nags at me like that the eventual reveal isn't worth the buildup. But not this time. That feeling that maybe you've got this figured out except still maybe not ends up leading to a few pivotal and crucial reveals about the world the book is set in that feel new and deep with meaning.
This is also not one of those let's-wrap-all-this-up-in-a-big-bow novels. It will not all be explained. It will not all make total sense. But the last few chapters leave a searing vision in your mind. If you're at all like me you will talk about it for days. I really must find more Tidbeck....more
When I was thinking about words to describe the forces and feelings of SING, UNBURIED, SING, the ones that immediately came to mind were "ache" and "wWhen I was thinking about words to describe the forces and feelings of SING, UNBURIED, SING, the ones that immediately came to mind were "ache" and "weight." Each character here experiences a deep ache from the things they've lost and the things they worry they still have to lose, and that ache has been there so long that it exerts a palpable burden on how they live and look at the world. The family at the center of the story comes together and pushes apart in a cycle that has gone on for years.
Our two narrators are Jojo, only 13 or so, and his mother Leonie. They live in rural Mississippi with Mam and Pop, Leonie's parents, who raise Jojo and his younger sister Kayla. Jojo and Leonie do not talk much, they are not the kind of people who would tell their story, they'd rather speak as little as possible. They are guarded and wary. But the internal voices of their narration sing of a deeper world that they are connected to inside but are not willing to speak aloud.
I will warn sensitive readers that there is significant and very difficult violence. But I suspect many readers will have more problems with the character of Leonie. She is not an uncommon one in this kind of story. A mother whose addictions have come between her and her children, who floats in and out of their lives while they're raised by grandparents. Giving Leonie much of the voice of the story forces you to reexamine this type of character, who she is, why she does what she does. Her portions of the story were incredibly affecting to me, though I expect many readers will just get frustrated with her and not let her show them who she is.
The marketing copy for this book compares it to Morrison and that is absolutely accurate. If you enjoy the magical realism of Morrison's books, the traditions, the themes, the heavy pain, and the untidy endings she prefers, you will most likely find much to love in SING, UNBURIED, SING. But I never felt like Ward was trying to be Morrison or trying to do what Morrison does. Instead it felt more like Ward finding her own space in the literary tradition Morrison has helped to build. You can tell this is the author of SALVAGE THE BONES.
This is the kind of book that belongs on a college syllabus, there's so much to pick apart. (I feel like you could write a paper on the role of vomit/regurgitation in the story, for example.) The only thing I didn't fully embrace was the role of Kayla, who is often less of a child and more of a vehicle for the forces of the plot. By the end of the story I'd settled into this and was able to be more comfortable with it, though. This is the kind of book where many characters function as symbols as much as they exist as humans, but it can take you a while as a reader to realize the change that is happening as you read farther and farther along. The book of the last chapters is vastly different than the book you started with, but now that I have the whole picture I think that makes it even better....more
I admit, the hype made me pretty skeptical. And I know that in the YA world, sometimes a book with big hype is big and meaningful andBelieve the hype.
I admit, the hype made me pretty skeptical. And I know that in the YA world, sometimes a book with big hype is big and meaningful and important but isn't always something I truly enjoy reading. But The Hate U Give delivered. Among the best YA books I've read.
This is a Black Lives Matter book. But if it was only a Black Lives Matter book it would be worthy but it would not be alive the way this book is. This is not an after school special, there are many plots and many characters Thomas balances with impressive grace. Nearly everyone Starr interacts with gets a chance to show us who they are, what they mean to Starr, and what place they have in her world. I am trying to remember the last time I read a YA novel with this many fully developed characters and I'm at a loss.
Thomas avoids easy answers. She embraces complexity and nuance. And, honestly, it's a ripping good read. I tore through it, even as it stuck a knife in my heart over and over again.
This is not hype. This is a very real new talent and I can't wait to see what she does next....more
Writing true crime nonfiction is a delicate task. I don't think most authors in the genre treat it delicately enough. I used to be a public defender, Writing true crime nonfiction is a delicate task. I don't think most authors in the genre treat it delicately enough. I used to be a public defender, so I don't tend to romanticize crimes or criminals, to me they are regular people, not all that different from anyone else. Victims are just people, too. But in true crime sometimes it feels like it is not about real people and instead it's about characters and stories. I have trouble reading that kind of book because I cannot forget that these are real people and I tend to cringe and feel uncomfortable as their whole lives are spilled out for public consumption.
So I was a little skeptical when Flatiron Books sent me The Fact of a Body. But in Marzano-Lesnevich's combination memoir/true crime, every single person is handled with such delicacy and respect that reading about them feels more like an act of connection and communion than bystander gawking.
I read another combination memoir/true crime a few months ago whose title is not worth mentioning. It was such a failure that I wasn't sure what a successful version would look like. But Marzano-Lesnevich has done it. As an intern at a capital murder defense firm, M-L encounters the case of Ricky Langley on her first day. She becomes obsessed with the case, and it seems an unlikely obsession: Langley has killed (and likely molested) a 6-year-old boy. In the book, M-L slowly begins to share stories of her own life, transporting us to what appears to be a happy family with her parents and 3 siblings. It is not spoiling much to reveal that M-L was molested as a child, it is the only real explanation for her particular obsession with Ricky and the boy he killed, Jeremy. But M-L doesn't tell us this for ages, trusting that we'll get lost in the details of Ricky's crime and his own difficult life before we see the uniting thread.
Once we encounter the details of the crime committed against M-L, the book takes on a new level of importance and much of what has been shared with us begins to fall into place. Why it's so important for M-L to recreate the stories of everyone involved in the crime, reimagining them and building them for us to discover. And it explains the care with which she does so. She is looking for herself, of course, looking for the stories from her own life and the lives around her echoed.
For the most part, the author's recreations feel real and emotionally true. And if they fail occasionally, we never lose sight of the author herself and the understanding of what this story is and why she is telling it to us.
This is a devastatingly honest memoir, it's rare a writer opens themselves and their history up to a reader this way.
Readers who think they may not be able to read the story of a child murder or molestation should definitely skip it. The author does not overlook details or try to take a rosy picture and these crimes are central to the narrative. As the parent of a boy around the same age as Ricky Langley's victim there were several moments where it hit me in the gut, even though I have read my fair share of police reports and don't get easily rattled....more
In THE SYMPATHIZER, Nguyen explored one story of the Vietnam immigrant experience, but in THE REFUGEES he presents a set of stories that show just howIn THE SYMPATHIZER, Nguyen explored one story of the Vietnam immigrant experience, but in THE REFUGEES he presents a set of stories that show just how vast the range of experiences can be. It's an incredibly strong collection without a weak link in the bunch. Nguyen shows the same emotional rawness and skill that made THE SYMPATHIZER such an incredible reading experience....more
I have read a few Dan Chaon novels and I always like them fine but I never quite understood all the Dan Chaon obsession among fellow readers. Until noI have read a few Dan Chaon novels and I always like them fine but I never quite understood all the Dan Chaon obsession among fellow readers. Until now.
This might be a perfect book? It's very close if it isn't. If you want the big hook to draw you in, may I offer you Ritual Satanic Abuse hysteria of the 80's. Also a potential serial killer targeting frat boys in Ohio. These aren't just icing on the cake, they're fundamental parts of the story and yet the book never feels like melodrama, it is never in any way over the top. It is a very real, very everyday story with characters that feel familiar.
At the heart of the book is one simple theme: how men address (or ignore) trauma in their lives. There are a lot of traumas in this book. (Including sexual abuse involving two children for those of you who prefer to avoid such things.) The characters go through horrible and real pain, but their inability to come to grips with the sources of those pain become, in short, their undoing.
Dennis Tillman is the center of the story. A middle-aged psychologist who specializes in hypnotherapy, he has a horrible past and yet he looks to anyone who knows him like a normal, mellow, rather spacey guy. The death of his wife triggers something in him, brings old pain to the surface, and to cope with that pain he starts indulging the conspiracy theories of one of his patients, becoming more a confidant and co-investigator than counselor. Also wrapped up in the story are Dennis's teenage son--who copes with his mother's death through drugs--, his cousins who were present for much of his worst childhood trauma, and his adopted brother who was both predator and prey in the twisted story of their violent lives.
I was constantly surprised by this book. I was amazed at how deep it was willing to go, at how much it had in store for me that I did not anticipate. I read the audio version and regularly yelled at the narrator, which is not something I normally do. It is so carefully unraveled, so strategically laid out, you are still running into surprises and shocks until the very last pages. And yet it is an ambitious and quite literary novel, too. Like I said, it might just be perfect. (My major quibbles: too many men, and too many white people.)
I listened to the audiobook over two long stretches as I drove down Southern interstates. The few times I tried to listen to it walking around or riding public transit, it wasn't quite the same. I couldn't immerse myself in it the way I did on the road. It was one of those ideal audiobook experiences and if you can listen to it in a long uninterrupted stretch, especially if you are driving through the Midwest, I think that is the absolute best way to do it.
If you do decide to go audio, there are several readers and one of them is a woman whose voice would be described as having "vocal fry" and I know that will stop some of you from reading it but I hope you at least feel bad about it. I thought she was perfect for the character.
REREAD 2022: I stand by my review, everyone slept on this. It remains one of the best thrillers of the last decade and it still feels like no one knows! It is so menacing, so uneasy, so bleak. I love that there are no cops, I love that there are no beautiful dead teenage girls, I love diving in without those boring tropes to hang on to, having no idea what will happen. (Okay I read it before so I had a little idea but I'd forgotten most except for the broadest strokes.)
I read it in print this time and it did feel more "literary" this time around, the devices were a lot more obvious than when I just inhaled it all in a few long gulps on audio. But in many ways that made me enjoy it more. You can tell from all the negative reviews here how many people don't like a little ambiguity, but I love it. The contrasting perspectives here give you plenty of room to draw out one mostly-whole story, but the contrasts still rub up against each other. Oh boy does it all come together in that Rusty section. PHEW. ...more
This is the kind of book that I honestly lack the words to praise. The writing is so good, but it's good in such a specific way. I feel unworthy of reThis is the kind of book that I honestly lack the words to praise. The writing is so good, but it's good in such a specific way. I feel unworthy of reviewing it. Usually I see my place as a reviewer, especially when discussing a book pre-publication, as one where I describe as best I can what the experience of reading the book is like without diving too deep into the plot. I am going to do my best, but I know at the end of the day that my description won't match reality.
What I am looking for above all when I read is a voice that connects with me deeply or a feeling of movement that compels me to keep reading. Exit West starts out rather slowly and quietly, with an omniscient narration that feels almost at a distance. And yet, there is immediately a sense of intimacy. When you meet Saeed and Nadia, you feel like you know them and understand them.
At first, this book appears to be one thing. Then it turns out to be another much more complex thing. Without giving too much away, it reminded me in some ways of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad. They share some similar themes, though Exit West is about not slaves but refugees.
You cannot read this book without thinking about the state of the world. You cannot read it without pondering war and religion and discrimination and fear. All of these things are wrapped together in the story of Saeed and Nadia and their travels. It is rare that you find a book that can tackle such large issues while connecting you so closely with its characters. Exit West is a masterful tightwalk, a slow burn of a book that is hard to put down, an epic saga full of the smallest details. ...more
When I finished this book, I had to check thesaurus to help me find the kind of words I needed to describe it. I settled on astonishing, arresting, anWhen I finished this book, I had to check thesaurus to help me find the kind of words I needed to describe it. I settled on astonishing, arresting, and staggering. Because you can't just use words like "great" or "amazing" to describe this book. It requires language that pinpoints at least a little bit the ways that DIFFICULT WOMEN will wreck you.
You will be wrecked, but you will also feel affirmed and seen and known. That may sound like a contradiction, but that is what DIFFICULT WOMEN is all about. The contradictions of existing as a woman in the world. The contradictions of sex, love, and connection. It is possible to want to be held and to be hurt at the same time and that is the essence of these stories.
A story collection is the best way to capture these ideas because it does not just happen one way. These stories are different but sometimes the same, the ideas and plots sometimes overlap and sometimes diverge. All together they create a mosaic of experiences that define being a woman. These women are from different races and classes and sexual orientations but there are always threads that unite them.
I have read many of Gay's essays, as well as her novel AN UNTAMED STATE, but I hadn't read her short fiction before and it is a drastically different experience. Her nonfiction is sharp and wise, but can also be friendly and open. Her short fiction can run very cold or very hot but it is all in extremes, there is no comfortable middle here.
It took me over a month to finish this collection because the stories do hurt even as they heal. It is okay to set it aside and take a breath.
Technically this is 4.5 stars, like most story collections there's one or two that didn't quite shine as brightly, but the collection as a whole is still utterly spectacular....more
I don't like to read the summary of a book before I read it. I started WHITE TEARS knowing Kunzru from some of his previous works and expecting a smarI don't like to read the summary of a book before I read it. I started WHITE TEARS knowing Kunzru from some of his previous works and expecting a smart book on race in America. That is what I got, but it came in a package I wasn't expecting, a literary horror novel, a ghost story with a Blues soundtrack, a tale of class and the evil so much of the country was built upon.
They may call this book a "ghost story" or "magical realism" because those tend to be more literary-friendly words, but I think it definitely falls into the category of Horror. I don't really separate my genre fiction from literary fiction, and this was yet another excellent book that does both.
It starts with biting commentary on snobbery, the habits of collectors, and privilege. A familiar story of a nobody who becomes friends with a somebody who gets to see a new way to live first-hand. But things start to go wrong. Things fall apart. The book slowly turns into something very different and the end of the book bears little resemblance to the beginning.
Kunzru sucked me in and I could've read it in a day if I'd been awake enough to keep going. ...more
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