Zach
Not quite The Walking Dead fuck-murder-zombie plague through the eyes of an incredibly sheltered and probably autistic (/gen) Catholic girl with a gay brother. Probably fun for someone who didn't find the protagonist tediously childish or didn't mind not getting any of the big picture of wtf is going on.
I was so close to dropping this book multiple times. The mystery itself kept me going, which is why it was such a disappointment that the protagonist never actually solves it, spending most of his time hyper fixated on food, wine, and the “heaving breasts” of women in his vicinity. (It's solved by Scotland Yard mostly offscreen, with the police detective composing a final denouement in the vein of Poirot). The constant sexism/sexualization of women, off-handed racist comments about “oriental” music and food, and a solitary vitriolic comment about another character being a “boozy dyke” left me very happy to get the book off my e-reader .
This is, surprisingly, not a novelization of the WEBTOON, but an entirely different version of the story. I presume HYBE gave the ghostwriters a basic spec and then let them do their own thing.
What remains the same:
- &TEAM is split into three (or four) main groups
- Khan/K is an orphan and the last remaining lycanthrope. He lives at the Grey Inn with his adopted parent(s).
- The other I-Land guys (Tahel/Taki, Najak/Nicholas, Enzy/EJ) are orphans adopted by Giri, an older werewolf whose brother sold out the werewolf clans. They rent rooms at the Grey Inn and become entangled with Khan's school life.
- Luka/Maki and Louis/Yuma are twins trained as paladins, who are hunting Giri out of suspicion that he helped his brother sell out the werewolves.
- Mahan/Fuma, Camill/Jo, and Ruslan/Harua are abducted werewolves used by vampires as both test subjects for experiments with their blood and mind-controlled soldiers.
- The three Red Hood sisters, Serah (the leader), Gillian and Lara. They do get some more characterization, but not by much.
- Khan's bully, Khrock, and the basic “bully whose dad is the town's main landlord” plot line
Docked a star for the heterosexually every after ending. If you're given me a genderfucked Bluebeard story with essence of Blodeuwedd, this ending didn't do it for me. Not gonna lie, as a story with a Blodeuwedd under current, it felt like the resolution was more like Owl Service than anything with real talons.
Otherwise, a generally entertaining mystical twist on what might have otherwise been an obvious thriller plot.
I really wanted to like this book, I really did. It had some spectacular moments. But the plots were shallow and most of the characters were basically cardboard cut outs. Steff and Freydis were the only characters who got actual character development, and even then their interior lives weren't given the kind of depth I would have liked.
Sex scenes were great, but honestly the best part for me was the ovipositor scene at the beginning.
The character voices all tended to blur together, to the point where Freydis and one of her friends separately describe dissatisfaction with the Nameless Queen as “royal consort not doing enough consorting” two scenes apart. The pet names are all basically the same (there are only so many times I can handle “little pet” and “pretty girl” before I start wanting to mix it up a bit.)
The weird choice to include IRL gods as the point of worship for all of the non-protagonist communities REALLY threw me. Why is Christianity in this universe? How are Pan and Dionysus gods that supposedly exist in this universe that is not using contemporary stuff anywhere else. (Also Yasmine mentions “the prophet, peace be upon him”, so Islam exists I guess too). Maybe there's world building that didn't make it into this book that explains why Christianity and Greek gods and maybe Islam exist in Celtic/Viking Spider Magic Land.
This is a solid book. Given the size of my to-read pile, I almost never immediately read advanced review copies the moment I download them but Liar hooked me from the first paragraph. Sadie is a compelling protagonist, the villains are interesting, if not particularly complex, and the side characters all deserve their own spin-off novels. While the climax fell a little flat compared to the tightly-controlled tension of the rest of the book, upon finishing I still found myself hungering for a sequel.
Liar of the Red Valley reminded me of the way I felt upon reading Jim Butcher's first Harry Dresden novel, or Seanan McGuire's October Daye series (or Diane Duane's So You Want To Be A Wizard– the easter egg of naming the ambiguously gay couple Thomas and Charles was cute). Goodwater has built a strong world with a fun and effective protagonist.
As much as I love this series, I have to dock it points for rampant colorism— I'm sorry, one of the few brown-skinned women in this book is compared to a CAMEL, and Lee's preference for blond and pale skinned heroes and heroines becomes very uncomfortable when you remember how heavily inspired the series is by Persian and Middle Eastern aesthetics. Also, the book barely passes the Bechdel test and,,, would it kill her to have a FEW magical women who aren't either evil or dead?
Aside from that, it is tightly plotted with Tanith Lee's usual deft hand with gorgeously gothic description, so it still evened out for a generally enjoyable reading experience.
I pretty much love everything about this book. It has some turns of phrase that I'm not sold on (“anal resilience” is... not what I would have called that bit of theory), but even the theories I didn't think were convincing were written in a compelling way.
But, yeah, you gotta be good with constructivist and value-neutral approaches to sexuality, because Ward doesn't hold back when it comes to dissecting the not-gay homosexual sex straight white dudes are having.
Whoever wrote this is reeeaaallll uncomfy with the fact that Louisa May Alcott liked women.
It had some stand-out moments, but they were fleeting, and the obsession with dude's dicks (and concomitant insulting of all the women around Alcott) meant that multiple opportunities for more interesting raunch were passed up.
MAKE IT GAYER NEXT TIME
She's right, but you won't appreciate her for saying so.
This book lays out concise historiographic and ethnographic evidence for a new understanding of the dysfunction at the heart of heterosexuality. Ward brings insight and wit to the discussion, and her overview of the history of what she terms the “heterosexual repair industry” will be appealing to most readers. There are few people who won't be fascinated by the roots of “straightness” (as opposed to men and women coupling), and the racial and gender implications of modern straight culture. Also her commentary on what used to be pick up artistry and is now men's self-improvement retreats is amazing.
And then Ward diagnoses the problem. She does this by doing what she calls “reversing the ally gaze” or, what I call “treating straight people the way they treat us”.
Instead of looking at straightness as the default, she solicited a sampling of queer understanding of straightness, and overlays interviews with queer participant-observers on top of straight culture, revealing patterns that a heterosexual understanding of love relationships cannot parse. In doing so, she centers queer concern about the unhealthy nature of straightness over straight culture's belief that it inherently healthy. If a sexual “orientation” as understood in queer culture means being oriented towards, uplifting and respecting /as well as lusting after/, why in straight culture do heterosexual men and women seem oriented away from each other? Why is straight culture so dead set on seeing the gender binary as a battle of opposites rather than orienting itself towards simultaneous respect and lust for the fullness of each other? What do straight people get out of being straight and what can straight people learn from their answers to that question?
Of course, many straight folx will probably be uncomfortable with the lack of straight subjects— Ward has little interest in heterosexual understanding of itself. She chooses to focus solely on the queer subject looking at the straight object, and thereby explaining straightness to itself.
I have my own issues with the book— most frustratingly that it skirts around its use of transphobic writers (Adrienne Rich and Cherie Moraga for ex) without acknowledging that using their writing has questionable valances for trans readers.
But it is well worth a read. Queer readers will hopefully love it asmuch as I do. Straight readers... try not to get too defensive.
2.5
More of a polemic than a chronicling of the post-hip hop moment.
I'm definitely reading it outside its intended milieu— a non-black adult reading it a decade after publication. So I am aware that some of the issues that twigged me may not bother other readers.
Some chapters were solid ethnographic and historic discussions, and sections of exhortation were really strong. But the pacing was thrown off by the faux-interviews and the author's personal meanderings.
It was striking to me that even while arguing for a post-colonial Afrocentric eduction, Asante rarely, if at all, mentioned pre-colonial black figures in his history lessons. Marcus Garvey was mentioned more than once, but not Mansa Musa or even Shaka Zulu.
An entire star off for casual antisemitism— why did there need to be a digression about wanting Mos Def's possibly-antisemitic song to be published? it was very visible that he named an antagonistic music producer as Jewish, but Elie Wiesel and Emma Goldman were “Romanian” and “Lithuanian”.
CW: date rape, manipulation, gaslighting
The absolute glee with which Kengkla goes about messing with Techno really makes this book. Either you're along for the whole disastrous ride, or you're probably going to throw the book against the wall. Kla isn't a good person and Techno is, and that's what's fun about it. The novel doesn't shy away from its kinks, although drunken sex and mild gaslighting aren't to everyone's tastes.
The pacing can be a little hinky at times— you spend the first two thirds of the book waiting for the other shoe to drop on Kengkla's head. Drawing it out that long got frustrating, when I would have preferred to get a more expanded version of Kla's confessions.
I wish they'd gotten an editor to do a pass for English grammar tho
I love this book and I knew I would going in. Gay's writing is both enthusiastic and nuanced. Delights are contextual, and Ross Gay enumerates and contextualizes each pleasure. Some are heartwarming, some funny, and some delights are bittersweet— Still Processing gives me shivers every time.
The best part, though, is finding your own delights reflected in the essayettes. (Rothko Backboard made my partner cackle because he HAS burst into tears over a Rothko— and learning that was a delight itself.)
Have you ever read Transmetropolitan and thought to yourself “this is cool and all, but it needs to be WAY more trans”?
DO I HAVE A BOOK FOR YOU.
After the alien colonization of earth, 50-something artist and doctor Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka is faced with the reality that the world isn't what she remembered. Her partner is leaving her to become a baby with a new family in the south of France, and the grief is crushing.
A moving story about being human in the era of transhumanism.
The first traditionally fantasy novel I've been hooked on in a while. For some reason I got a lot of Monica Furlong feelings out of this book, but it was on the whole a unique take. My heart really couldn't handle the will-she-or-won't-she heterosexual nonsense about Kance, but aside from that, I have little to quibble with.