Alison

In this humorous, surreal, and at times absurd collection, Cho gleefully romps through a series of bizarre stories whose morphing characters challenge the notion of the white male ideal while never taking themselves too seriously. Cho stars as Baby in a reimagined Dirty Dancing, guards Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard (complete with Wolverine-style metal claws), rampages through Tokyo as a 55-metre-tall cock rock god, and more.

I had not read any of Cho's work before devouring this collection, and it quickly became apparent that I had been missing out. In the opening paragraph of the book, Cho-as-narrator opines that “there is something in the way that discussions about popular culture can bring people together”. As a child of the early ‘90s (where the ability to carry an entire conversation in the language of Simpsons quotes was mandatory), this resonated, and the explicit intertextuality of these stories absolutely worked to draw me in. Godzilla, Star Wars, National Lampoon, The Karate Kid- Cho's book reads like a who's who of ‘80s popular culture, and I loved every moment of it. ‘The Exorcist' contained my favourite scene in the book; the final straw for Cho, the realisation that he is faced with true evil that must be stopped, comes when his demon-possessed auntie starts quoting from what one assumes is Cho's real-world grant funding application. For anyone who has had experience with the type of excruciating self-aggrandizement this process requires, its self-conscious appearance in a horror story feels entirely fitting (and left me laughing out loud).

Some critics seem to have approached Cho's work with nose firmly in the air, responding with a gatekept view of what constitutes ‘worthy' art that Cho's deliberately postmodern approach would cast as irrelevant. In his review for the Sydney Morning Herald, David Messer opines that “Cho could have written a much better book, although obviously a completely different one, if he had restricted himself to the question of Chinese/Australian identity and presented it in a more conventional tone and structure.” I can't help but feel Messer has missed the point entirely; it is Cho's unapologetic lack of convention and rejection of expectations tied to his identity that makes this collection such a joy to read.

A title forever shelved under ‘Literature-Induced Childhood Trauma' in my brain (alongside Bridge To Terabithia, Charlotte's Web, and others). I read it countless times as a child, yet even with that bone-deep familiarity, and decades of hard life experience since, the emotional gut-punch of the ending hits as hard as it ever did (if not harder).

A beautifully written story, with fascinating insights into early colonial Australian life, that I sincerely hope I never have to read again.

Not quite the lightning-in-a-bottle experience that was Full Speed To A Crash Landing, but still a highly enjoyable return to these characters and their world.

Surreal and dreamlike, the world of the West Passage is unlike any I've come across in fantasy, but in a way that never feels self-conscious or forced. The imagery and ideas are striking, and I have incredibly vivid mental pictures of some of the scenes purely because they are so extraordinary, which is unusual for me. I'm not normally a visual reader. I can imagine this being an incredible movie if given the scope to fully realise the world on screen.

This was a three-star read for me simply because I feel like I need to go back and re-read to fully grasp it; as a point-in-time review, it reflects my headspace as much (if not more) than the book itself.

“Sometimes I wonder if these dark secrets were a seed in me, waiting to bloom.”

While ostensibly a zombie story, Grief Eater is, at its heart, profoundly human. While we share the narrator's visceral experience of the now-broken Melbourne, the broader collapse of society is almost entirely backgrounded. The narrator doesn't know “how the world broke,” and ultimately, it's beside the point. The world has been changed, but more importantly, so has she. It's not a loss. It's a freeing. Endings as transformational experiences are woven throughout the fabric of the story; when the weight of imposed identities, expectations and structures is stripped away, what remains is the ability for the characters to define for themselves who they are at their core.

Osborne doesn't shy away from the subject matter at the heart of the story. Brutality and violence are unflinchingly depicted, represented not only by gore, but the arguably far more confronting devastating homophobic abuse experienced by the narrator. Yet the emotional weight of the story doesn't bog it down; the pace of the action keeps us stalking relentlessly forwards, and I devoured it in one sitting.

I found my thoughts returning to this story often in the days after I read it. It's not only a great read, it's a perfect example of how sometimes the rawest truths can only be experienced and understood through fiction.

Highly recommended – a grippy, gut-wrenching story with themes of found family and queer identity, examined through a beautifully blood-streaked lens.