Christine
This was reasonably entertaining, but it did feel rather like the characters were just pieces being moved around a chess board, not real personalities acting out of their own motivations and constrained by their own knowledge.
It starts out very slow, with a largely irrelevant personal history of a church official, and then segueing into . . . a committee meeting. However, it does gain momentum pretty steadily, and by the end I wanted to know what was going to happen next, and found some of the revelations really intriguing/cool/satisfying.
Unfortunately the resolution involves a plot device verging on deus ex machina, which drained a little energy from what was otherwise a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Still, it was a fun ride.
This was . . . fine, I guess? Making it clear that self-care doesn't necessarily mean BUYING THINGS is valuable. Some of the items on the list are quite useful actions to support one's happiness or mental health.
But there are several drawbacks.
Most importantly, the organization is so poorly thought out. It's literally an alphabetical list of wildly unrelated activities, which are themselves labeled in a haphazard way. The first item is a quotation. OK, finding quotations that speak to you can be supportive in times of trouble. But shouldn't this item be called “Quotations” and filed under Q? Nope. It's filed under the label “A.A. Milne.” But it's . . . not written by A.A. Milne. What? Borges specifically calls this out, and it's weird. How did this get past an editor?
Another example is several concepts from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy are listed, but not under “DBT.” Rather, they're called by their mnemonic acronyms.
Overall, it's hard to believe no one in the publication process suggested the ideas be grouped conceptually, so someone in search of a suitable activity could figure out where to look. Off the top of my head, sections called “Inspiration,” “Psychological Therapy,” and “Physical Pampering” would make far more sense than an abecedarian list!
This leads me to another drawback - in my humble opinion, too many of these suggestions could be grouped conceptually under “Psuedoscience.” Astrology? Tarot? No thanks, and mention of them robs credibility from the evidence-based suggestions. At least if there were a category like “Paranormal Pursuits” or “Religious Practice” I could have just skipped it. As it was, it was jarring and irritating to have thoroughly debunked silliness side by side with practical interventions.
Finally, the little blurbs by individuals meant to underline some concepts didn't really contribute anything. And in audio book format, they were downright confusing, since it wasn't super clear we weren't reading the author's first-person accounts.
All in all, I'd suggest a therapist or at least a solid book on CBT/DBT if anyone is interested in the suggestions that have the most heft here. Combing through a lot of poorly organized randomness in search of occasional wisdom isn't worth the investment when that wisdom is available in other places.
This book introduced a few key mindset shifts that are actually changing my life.
If you heard about Marie Kondo and felt an avalanche of overwhelm at the prospect of ripping everything out of a drawer and then having to contemplate each individual item's joy-inflammation level, this might be for you.
KEY CONCEPTS:
1.) You can declutter WITHOUT pulling everything out of a drawer/closet/etc. Previously I thought decluttering was a choice between a death-march approach (Pull everything out, get it all organized, and put it all away in one go), or being interrupted/worn out mid-stream and winding up with a bigger mess than ever.
This book has practical (physics-based!) instructions on decluttering without ever pulling out the whole contents of a container. That way you always made forward progress, rather than making things worse. And you can make progress in five minutes if that's all you have.
2.) Things should be stored where you think to look for them. Shockingly simple, right? But how many times have you tried to organize by putting things in a “logical” or “proper” place instead? (Bonus: if it would never occur to you to look for an item in your house, don't keep it in your house at all!)
3.) Don't decide whether to keep things on the basis of “it's perfectly useful” or “I might use it someday.” Decide based on the capacity of your container and the relative value of the thing.
E.g., I want my whisks to live in the drawer by the stove (because that's where I look when I need a whisk). If I go to put a whisk in there and there's no room, I don't contemplate the inherent worth of each item in the drawer - I just need to decide if the whisk is worth more than, say, the two extra measuring cup sets I have in there that would make room for the whisk, and get rid of the lower-value item by donating it.
3.b.) Have a donate box/bag that is itself donatable, so you don't have to empty it and go through things an additional time when it's time to hit Goodwill.
That's really it! The rest of the book is some fine details, a bit of helpful empathy for people who don't come to this “clutter free” thing naturally, and some useful repetitions of the specific steps to take in each area of your home or in specific circumstances.
I loved this book, and it's already been so helpful! The audio version is delightful - you can even use it to step you through actually working on a room/closet/drawer/box.
For all that it is imperfect, I'm really glad I read this. It introduces some truly novel and fun ideas to the haunted house genre. (And answers the question “why don't they just leave” in a daring and remarkable way!) Plus the introduction of the specter (most specifically, its exit - I'll say no more) was wonderfully unique, Weird, and unsettling!
This could qualify as horror, comedy horror, or bizarro fiction. It takes the age-old concept of the haunted house and tries some cool new things with it. While most of the supporting characters range from pure trope (but with an entertaining, winking embrace of their tropiness) to a completely over-the-top creepy child, daughter Michaela comes across more as a real person, and main character Sabrina is fully fleshed out and sympathetic, even among the absolutely looney events of the plot.
The writing quality was good - I found myself highlighting key passages and frequently chuckling at clever phrasing. However, it was hampered by some missing content (at one point there's reference to an incident with a dead mouse in a cabinet that never occurred, we're not told what state the story is set in, which seemed like a deliberate decision, until it was mentioned in the last chapter, and suchlike) and some typos/mistakes. I think with better editing, this would have been a solid 4-star read. So 4 stars for the ideas and general writing quality, 3 stars for the finished e-book product, which may involve some editing mistakes and/or problems with conversion to a Kindle e-book, and so I don't think it's fair to lower my official rating.
All in all, this had me asking “what the fuck did I just read?” in the best way
You can't really world-build a high concept time travel war narrative using lyrical Sapphic free verse - who would have guessed?
To the extent this fails, it's due to great ambition. I highly recommend checking it out. It is unique - in the true sense of the word.
I think I'll let it all fade from my mind, and then revisit it, reading only the letters. I'm intrigued what effect that would have. My instinct is that it might be more alluring with LESS explanation. I feel like this tried to straddle lush poetry and intricate time travel plotting, and they didn't work so well together. My dissatisfaction with the plot I was given distracted me from just enjoying the language and emotion.
I also feel like the voices of the characters converged over time - weird, given the dual authorship, and disappointing because the characters are from such drastically different civilizations! Again, maybe a more patient re-read of their letters will give me a different impression.
All in all, highly weird and beautiful, and takes a big swing at being different.
I suppose this is really a 4.5-star read for me - some of the individual stories are less than great. However, even the lesser stories benefit hugely from Stephen Fry's reading. It's just pure fun to listen to him recount the adventures of Holmes & Watson. (Even his slightly strained American accent is charming, and his depictions of Holmes and Watson are perfect.) Fry's knowledgeable and fond reflections preface each book, providing a nice peek behind the scenes without distracting from the stories.
The stories themselves are remarkably engrossing given their publication dates from 1892-1927. There are of course some cultural references (and sadly, cultural biases) that don't translate well to modern day, but on the whole, the narration provides an easy and natural immersion in Holmes's London, and triggers a keen desire to find out the solution to each mystery. It was delightful to find myself eager to get back to a 100-year-old story to find out what happens next.
This had a cool concept that was seriously undermined by execution.
Most immediately obnoxious were the “Wow, No Thank You” factors that begin on page one (depiction of a rape in progress) and continue throughout (undertones of sexism and racism, author-insert main character who's a complete chode but is meant to come off as cool and amazing).
But this also suffered from lack of development - the plot is so rushed and the introduction so choppy that it never gets a chance to settle into your brain. This of course is fatal for something meant to be horrifying.
Two stars for concept, some interesting plot (proto-)developments, and some good eerie imagery.
I feel sad - this is the only 1-star book I've read this year. I suppose it did have two key virtues: the premise (reinforced by that cover!) is irresistible, and it was so short I could still finish it despite not liking it.
I picked this up with high hopes. A group of friends who once styled themselves ghost hunters rent a venerable Japanese mansion steeped in ghostly legend? Sounds both right up my alley and refreshingly different from standard Western haunting tales.
However, beyond that general idea, this fails on every element of storytelling.
Atmosphere is weirdly lacking. Perhaps because the setting isn't well established (is this supposed to be a crumbling pile, a preserved historical landmark, something in between? If it's explained at the outset, I quickly lost the thread as petty arguments and weird vocabulary choices distracted me!). This isn't scary, creepy, or even unsettling. And the elements of Japanese folklore needed a lot more explanation and description to sustain the focus placed on them.
Plot barely exists. It could be summarized in 2-3 sentences.
The insistence on obscure words and the constant, strained metaphors make me think Khaw forgot the primary purpose of language is communication! The ostentatious prose was distracting and pulled me out of the story. For example:
I wanted badly to tell her again that the past was so sepulchered in poor choices, you couldn't get Faiz and me back together for bourbon enough to brine New Orleans.
boring
This is the most irritating kind of book: something that seems exactly suited to your tastes, has a strong start, and then becomes a hot mess. And you resent every successive flaw all the more because of all the squandered potential.
This, my friends, became a full-on Bitch Eating Crackers of a novel for me.
This starts out as a fun spin on the Gothic novel: our plucky-but-poorly-connected heroine is a socially awkward math nerd who arranges her own marriage by logically analyzing the local bachelor pool and selecting someone who might like a business arrangement of a marriage, rather than a love match. He jumps at the chance because he could use someone with a head for numbers and organization, and . . . any wife of his must never spend the night at Lindridge Hall!!!
Oh, I was so on board! And the (inevitable) first night that circumstances strand her there is suitably creepy and disturbing. Plus there were intimations that we were dealing with a Cosmic Horror angle that really intrigued me.
Alas, the contrivances begin to pile up quickly. The “reasons” why Jane “has to” spend more and more nights at the Hall are so silly they would make a good SNL skit sending up Gothic horror.
Even worse, the arc of the romance is all screwed up. IMHO, a Gothic tale involves a keen attraction, slowly undermined by steadily escalating reasons for doubt. In this book, there's early and ample evidence that he's a lying liar who lies, to the point that Jane's devotion makes no sense (other than It's in the Plot that she has to be driven to do certain things).
Without spoilers, here's an idea of what it's like:
Jane: Augustine, where did that priceless Ming vase in the parlor go?
Augustine: What? We never had a Ming vase. You must have dreamed it.
Jane: Oh, here is the receipt for the Ming vase from the auction house, and a photo of it in the parlor.
Augustine: Oh, right, I guess maybe we had one, but I never paid much attention to it.
Jane: The housekeeper said she helped you move the vase to a different corner three weeks ago.
Augustine: Now that you mention it, yes, I guess I did. I just . . . wanted to keep this as a surprise - I had it refurbished for your upcoming birthday!
Jane: Augustine, I just found the shattered remains of the Ming vase stuffed behind the couch cushions.
Augustine: Well, yes, I must make a clean breast of things and confess that I accidentally knocked it over last week. There, now you know my dark secret - I feel so relieved!
Old school friend of Augustine's, dropping by for no reason: He always hated that Ming vase.
Oh my goodness, why did it take me so long to read this? Literary cosmic horror is my happy place, and I already knew I liked Langan from his great novelette “Technicolor.”
The narrative structure is complex, echoing Lovecraft, Machen, etc., where the original narrator digs down a few layers into others' accounts as well as recounting a personal experience. Abe starts his tale, then a lengthy section involves Howard (haha), the cook at Herman's (haha), telling a story told to him by a minister, who heard it from an elderly lady finally disclosing a family secret as she neared death. That sounds ridiculously byzantine, but it flows naturally and is pretty easy to follow - a mark of a skilled writer.
The characters really ring true, and the depictions of grief and loss are poignant. Lottie's tale is the real meat of the story, with Abe's connection to it providing a frame, and an opportunity for the creeping dread to get very immediate and horrifying, once we've been primed by the old timey tale told third-hand.
I found that I knew pretty much where this was going early on, but it didn't detract from the experience at all. This isn't about any big new plot ideas (it clearly riffs on W.W. Jacobs and Stephen King), but about the specifics, the atmosphere, and the people involved. And lord, some of those specifics! Langan skillfully takes the ideas and mood of cosmic horror and reifies them with inventive and harrowing details.
This had a lot of potential. The prologue is of course an imitation of Shirley Jackson, but it's a decent imitation! I'm down with it - show me the creepy house that stands, not sane, on the Kansas prairie!
The first chapter is pretty good too. I was on board with the author/professor-character giving me a rundown of his take on Gothic literature, clearly setting out the boxes he was about to check in the narrative. He name-dropped some good classic horror. It was a little on the nose, but what the hell? I felt comfortable that this guy could take me on a scary journey.
Unfortunately, from there, the story undermined itself in multiple ways.
Plot: aimless
Voice: muddled
Characterization: shallow and shaded with thoughtless prejudice (see below regarding Moore, plus fatphobia, and basically one person of color who isn't made into a real character so much as a motivation point for a white guy.)
Length: indulgent to the point of tedium
Amid the intriguing plot developing, there were annoying fanfic-style writing tics. There are way too many strained similes and excess description. A tree branch can't merely claw at the sky, it must claw at the sky like a hand tortured by arthritis. Sam can't have a bad moment where he thinks he smells smoke - no, we have to try to parse whatever this is:
That thin wisp of smoke slithered down his throat and between his lungs, constricting, pushing breath through his teeth. The smoke serpent twisted beneath Sam's ribs and squeezed tighter, its gray head slipping around the ribbed stalk of his trachea. It pressed its upturned snout against the upper lobe of his lungs, probing for a way in.
Barefoot, she was barely five-six, but the power she radiated added half a foot. She was thirty-eight years old and cut like marble. Defined, but not obscenely muscular. Sexy, but not grotesque. Every line, every curve, was deliberate and necessary.
she toweled herself dry. She did not bother getting dressed. Padding naked up the spiral staircase to the first floor, . . . She opened the laptop that rested on a shelf of corrugated steel. For the next two hours, she wrote, her naked body kissed by the early-morning sunlight. . . .
I really loved the idea of this book, but have to admit that I didn't much enjoy the actual book. It took me two months to read it - if some books are “unputdownable,” this ranks as “easily putdownable.”
I think it's a combination of things: I'm not a fan of mysteries where the sleuth's personal concerns occupy much of the narrative, the characters all represent likeable tropes but not actual people, it's impossible to care about the murder victims, and probably worst of all, it winds up just being a mishmash of coincidental events more than it is a complex web of mystery.
The cover blurb says “Unbearably beautiful,” which kind of scared me! But rest assured, it's emotionally engaging and (as advertised) beautiful, but not so poignant, sad, or tragic that it's “unbearable.”
I mean.
If you're like me, you might want to check Does the Dog Die before proceeding. Or check this spoiler: Bad is reported to be dead, but turns out to be beaten and possibly disabled, but recovers and is a faithful friend for the rest of the story!
Anyway, this is dynamite. It's SF/F with a literary spin. The prose is gorgeous enough to merit a mention without distracting from the story. The characters are my best friends. I got So Inspired, and So Angry, and So Anxious, and So Relieved, and So Joyful!
Read this.
This was really fun, and for once I figured out a tiny bit of a Christie mystery before the very end. But just a tiny bit - I was still on the edge of my seat until Poirot explained everything!
The nice thing is you can just enjoy reading the story, meeting the characters, and laughing at the friendly barbs between Hastings and Poirot, and not worry about trying to puzzle out the mystery, and it's still a great read.
I feel like this would be fun to read right after reading the novels. I mean, I read Gideon less than a year ago, and I could barely follow this - there's a lot of opaque terms of art and references that are unintelligible without the books giving you some of the world-building code. That aside, this is fine. Nice to see inside a different House. The mystery is OK.
This is very different, and I loved it! It's Weird, but mostly in a very beautiful, poetic way. Everything about it is compelling, and there's definitely dramatic tension, but it also feels dreamy. The narrator is intelligent, resourceful, courageous, loving, and kind, but almost immediately the reader sees that there's a naivete that may be problematic. So much of his joy in life comes from unhesitating, total acceptance - is that a good thing, or a danger? So, no surprise that there are strong echoes of the Garden of Eden here. I've long thought about that story as expressing human frustration that we are driven to find out, learn, and understand, but there can be no learning without pain. A lot of the enjoyment involves watching the mystery open up and accompanying the narrator in his experiences. So I don't want to give much away. I'll just say that the writing and characterization are beautiful, while the plot steadily gains momentum as you go, and the ending is handled in a way I found satisfying. Along the way, I was reminded of a strange array of other great stories, including:[b:American Elsewhere 14781178 American Elsewhere Robert Jackson Bennett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1340758848l/14781178.SX50.jpg 20434248][b:The Library at Mount Char 26892110 The Library at Mount Char Scott Hawkins https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453225113l/26892110.SY75.jpg 42797715]Lovecraft's Dream Cycle: https://www.goodreads.com/series/212217-dream-cycle[b:Circe 35959740 Circe Madeline Miller https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565909496l/35959740.SY75.jpg 53043399]and even [b:Guards! Guards! 64216 Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1) Terry Pratchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431127356l/64216.SY75.jpg 1128601], in that Corporal Carrot is also smart, capable, and above all Good, while being utterly clueless about a lot of things his more cynical compatriots understand.
Fun as usual - just too short after the full novel [b:Network Effect 52381770 Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5) Martha Wells https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568667704l/52381770.SX50_SY75.jpg 63614271] spoiled me! I still think novellas 1 & 2 are the pinnacle, but this is a good entry in the series. I especially like the section that introduces the verb “to blorp.” :)
This was very sweet and weirdly cozy in its own way. I'll probably pick up the next one when I'm in the mood for something soothing. The characters are pretty good, and it's pleasant. It's a nice story but there's no real plot. There is absolutely no throughline involving a conflict, rising action, climax, and resolution.
Instead, there's an overarching mission that gives them a reason to sort of wagon train through the galaxy, and each chapter is a little vignette involving a stop along the way. And while the vignettes technically have conflict and stakes, they're barely established before they're resolved pretty neatly.
This is not a bad thing, but I was expecting much more “what happens next” energy when I picked this up. Instead, this is a series of fairly low-key character interactions, with occasional-but-brief moments of tension or serious emotional impacts. Instead of “what happens next” it's “hmm, let's check in with Rosemary and crew.”
That said, I liked a lot of the characters enough that I DO want to check in with them again!
This is some great weird fiction. And not just the category Weird Fiction - this is really WEIRD. I loved it. So many unexpected events, characters, and elements. And while I was consistently asking myself, “Who could think this up?!” I also found it easy to follow, with a reader-friendly plot arc. Guy sets out to follow in the footsteps of an obscure occult researcher, intending only to be a tourist - take photos, sleep in the same hotel rooms, etc. And of course gets more than he bargained for!
My only complaint is that the ending could have been a little more fleshed out. However, I would rather have the somewhat open-ended resolution we got, than have the whole maguffin over-explained. Remember, this is supposed to be Weird - if some know-it-all summed up every detail of the explanation, it would ruin the vibe!
This is a hard one to review! I'm rounding up and giving this 4 stars, because I think it's going to stay in my head for a long time, despite some flaws.
There's a lot about this story that can be cringe-inducing - racism and sexism are elements throughout.
And on one level, this can come off pretty gross: middle-aged man objectifies young Vietnamese woman racially and sexually. It can also come across as silly: computer somehow hypnotizes (???) people into suicide.
But Varley's investment in giving the characters harrowing backstories with a strange harmony lends substance to what otherwise seems exploitative. Lisa is certainly the most interesting character, and she's not easily categorized. She talks about a deeply traumatic past that could have broken her but instead made her into the fierce, capable person she is. She doesn't dwell on the evils inflicted on her, or even paint participants in terms of good & evil. Instead, she's cheerfully and cynically using the American system to create a new future for herself, in a way that I found completely endearing.
Victor isn't as fascinating, mostly getting swept up by Lisa's energy and direction. But as we learn more about him, their relationship becomes understandable beyond the surface appearance of a man dating a woman half his age.
Even the potential silliness of the payoff does have some good groundwork in the discussions of Victor's malady and the couple's ponderings about the power of computers versus human cognition.
The very end, I found quite overwrought, even upon reflection. Still, as I said, I'll probably remember this story and mull it over again for a long time.
Just not my cup of tea - when I pick up a spooky house book, I'm looking for [b:The Haunting of Hill House 89717 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327871336l/89717.SY75.jpg 3627] or [b:The Silent Companions 35458733 The Silent Companions Laura Purcell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500725504l/35458733.SY75.jpg 55746774], and this turns out much more like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Even before the strict horror starts, the plot turns on casual sexual degradation in a way I didn't care for. Then the gore starts. This book sets out to be creepy, nasty, sexually violent, and full of detailed butchery, and it succeeds. I only came for the “creepy” part, so this just didn't work well for me.
I'll just copy over my comments from the Literally Dead thread:
I finished this today! OK, I “finished” it, having skimmed a lot of the material aside from the narrative of the Navidson Record. This is my second time around and I didn't have patience for a lot of Johnny's story.
I was hovering between a 3 and 4 rating, because I recognize the intricate layering work Danielewski did here, but I also found Johnny's parts insufferable, other than the very early bits in the tattoo shop where he feels something stalking him.
However, I realized a lot of my criticisms just bring up ways that Danielewski anticipated/elicited those criticisms. For example:
* The book can come off as pretentious. But that makes the opening line of the Navidson section a really keen joke: it's a torturously acadamic-ese sentence reflecting on “authenticity.” Cute, MZD.
* The ending of the Navidson narrative struck me as clunky this time around. Karen saves the day with ThE pOwEr Of LoVe. But this does fit with the established theme that the labyrinth reflects what you bring to it. Which - wait a minute - is what the book itself does as well.
*Johnny's voice and the academic Zampano voice aren't distinct. Zampano exhibits Johnny's erroneous “could of” formation within the Navidson Record, while Johnny busts out with $5 words and poetic, fancy wording that doesn't at all match with his history and status. OH, but is that just MZD pointing out to the reader that this is all falsehood and confusion, and reminding us Johnny isn't trustworthy and maybe none of this is legit at all?
And basically, if you start reflecting about the book in any way, you can go down a rabbit hole of deep literary analysis or just fun puzzle-thinking. Surely that deserves a tip toward the higher star rating.
(But I still hated Johnny's preposterous sexcapades and the general Male Gazeyness of the whole thing.)
I would like Amber Ruffin to write a series of books illuminating various human problems. Hopefully they won't all have to happen to Lacey though, who seems like a delightful person!
Seriously, this book was incredibly effective at helping me understand my own privilege and bringing home the huge proportion of racism that's invisible if you're white. I've been reading some books and articles to raise my awareness as a white person, and honestly, this is the one that hit home the most. I guess because it's so personal. I identified with these smart, funny, nerdy, kind ladies, so the the litany of awful stories hit me viscerally and framed the theoretical information I've absorbed in a whole new way. And this section is going to live with me for a good long time:
Question 1: Do I wanna talk about this stuff with you? Do most Black people?
Answer: No. Because it's a very big thing for us and a very little thing for you.
Question 2: When you talk to us about this stuff, do we get to see exactly where you fall on the racism spectrum?
Answer: Yes, and that shit cannot be unseen.
Question 3: Am I saying, “White people, don't talk to Black people about race”?
Answer: No. I'm saying, “No one wants to relive their traumatic events with someone who may say it was all their fault.” You know?