Alison
“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.
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.
Neverton? Bridgermoor? I can't decide. As a Nevermoor story it was... fine; if taken as a bizzare black-mirror fanfic sendup of Bridgerton it's good fun, if slightly incoherent at times. The amount of time devoted to the book's story vs the overarching narrative of the series felt unbalanced, and I was left feeling as if this was a the type of side-story that authors usually publish as bonus content stretched out to a full-length novel. That said, I still enjoyed it, even if it didn't reach the (admittedly extremely high) standard of some of the earlier books, and I'm looking forward to more in this series.
This aimed for tongue-in-cheek fun but didn't quite hit the mark. In the absence of genuine satire, the thinness of both plot and character gave me the impression of a thrown-together fanfiction of the authors' own lives. Unfortunately, the lazy writing, tired tropes and a lack of any tension or real surprises left this one more of a surely-it'll-pick-up-soon slog than anything else for me.
The wry satire on display at certain points nearly made this a four-star for me, but ultimately, even with multiple laugh-out-loud moments, I was left with an impression of glossy style over substance. None of the characters ever felt fully fleshed out as real people, and there was more than one scene that came across as little more than an essay reworked into a monologue for a character to seamlessly rattle off all of the author's personal beliefs. The fact that I strongly agree with so many of those beliefs somehow makes it more frustrating, not less; I felt it was transparent and borderline condescending, with undertones of self-congratulatory superiority that left a bad taste in my mouth. The good guys were good (and smart, and kind), the bad guys were bad (and stupid, and mean). There are no real shades of grey here.
The other thing I struggled with was each person happening to find the exact title that perfectly informed their current struggle. I wonder if this would have worked better with an element of magical realism, because as written, it was just that bit too unbelievable.
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.
I went into this with sky-high expectations based on the description. I came away at the end having enjoyed it, but in a slightly confusing way. Heavy on the academia, extremely light on the magic; I nonetheless found myself fascinated by the deep dives into etymology and academic life, especially against the backdrop of aggressively colonial Britain.
The story felt like it lost momentum somewhere toward the end, and I'm left with the impression that the slightly soapbox-y critical analysis of British history - and the heavy emphasis on exploring the anti-colonialism theme - was the true driver of this novel, over and above character or plot.
The more I think about it in the days since I finished reading this, the more I struggle to pinpoint what it was that held me so captivated despite the length and lack of story drivers. Maybe it's that it's one of those books that dazzles, shining with the wit and intelligence and passion of its author; you can't help but be entranced, unable to look away from the brilliant spectacle, but ultimately all that sticks with you is the memory of that feeling, while any substance underpinning it simply falls away.
I listened to this in audio, and I have a sneaking suspicion it made me enjoy it far less than I would have otherwise. One of the things I love about Seanan McGuire's work is that it's often so lyrical, with such a lovely turn of phrase - almost dreamlike at times. Unfortunately the way the audiobook was read was at breakneck speed, with characters tripping over each other to get their words out, and very little variation in intonation or tone.
The story is, at its heart, a fairytale; it should have had that lilting cadence, those pauses, that ‘once upon a time' feel at the appropriate moments. Instead it feels like I watched a movie in black and white; I get the story, but the vibrancy of the details and the beauty of the art was much diminished.
I think I need to go back and re-read it for myself, or find a version with a different narrator.
I came for the alternate universes, and stayed for the... alternate universes?
Boilerplate prose, a mustache-twirling villain and a disappointingly shallow exploration of the why, what and how of multiverse travel left me a little cold on this one. The premise itself was enough to keep me reading, though; not exactly a page-turner, but not enough to completely turn me off.
The literary equivalent of not wanting to have to get up and find the TV remote.
It was almost a five-star for me. So, so close.
The writing is top-notch and the idea, the world, is fantastic; I just couldn't get past how shallowly we seemed to skim over the characters, their learning, their growth.
I'd still highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys magical societies / magical schools, urban fantasy, hidden worlds, and general bad-assery. Eagerly awaiting #2.
