This is my third read by the author. The first two were a strangely meandering introduction, where I’d find myself liking some of it, but almost reluctantly. Which is to say, this author and this reader are not an organic match. In fact, with her last novella I pretty much decided to maybe just stay away, but the thing is…I love novellas. And this one (unlike that last one) was actually a proper novella size at only 80 pages (as oppose to 170), so I figured one more try.
Ok, it stands to mention that the main thing with this author for me is how young her novels read. They are not YA and are not marketed as such, but that’s how they often read, which really, really, really isn’t for me. This novella, refreshingly, was somewhat more mature. Instead of the age disparity, it just had a strange poetic quality to it that didn’t quite work for me. Mind you, it’s a perfectly fine novella and the author isn’t without talent, it just doesn’t quite sing for me the way it might for some readers. In fact, given the poetic quality of the language, the way it was meant to sing. The basics are this…a dreamily overwritten account of a fancy futuristic high end pleasure palace and a revenge plot hatched by the fancy high end (and occasionally modified) courtesans of it against their masters and abusers, after one of their own ends up...well, not quite dead. So it has a positive empowering message, it has some elegantly froufrou descriptions, it has a certain luxurious lavishness of style. And a positively lush cover. It’ll certainly find its audience, even if I’m not exactly it. Plus it reads quickly enough, so you’re not overcommitting one way or another. Thanks Netgalley.
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Every so often a book comes along and just blows your mind. You look for these books, these awesome ventures into the darkest corners of one’s mind, these quietly terrifying tales of descent into madness and sometimes you find them. I found this book. And it blew my mind.
This is a story of grief made tangible, a devastation manifested physically, this book takes inside emotions and twists them into a force to fight against. Inspired by the author’s personal grief, it absolutely devastates in its emotional potency. Crafted by the author’s considerable talent, it grabs you by the lapels, throws you into a riding car and takes you on a journey unlike no other. A ride you’ll not soon forget. This is a story of Thiago and Vera, a nice Mexican American married couple living in Chicago. Thiago is something of a bum with a laissez faire approach to life, Vera is a more type A breadwinner sort of person, but together they work despite or perhaps because of their differences. There’s certainly no shortage of love between them. And then Vera dies, suddenly and tragically, and Thiago is left alone in a world that increasingly seems less rational and more dangerous. The entire novel is written in that You style, by Thiago, addressed to Vera, as it follows his Dantean descent into the darker and darker levels of the underworld. It begins with sinister (Amazon like though amusingly renamed) technology that acquires an unpleasant degree of sentience even prior to Vera’s death and proceeds to follow Thiago all the way to Colorado and back, taking stranger and scarier forms each time. Is he possessed by grief alone or if there something more evil at work here, something supernatural, something that wants to be released. I don’t want to say too much, because this novel really needs to be read with every stunning surprise in it maintained a surprise. These aren’t fun surprises, either. Thiago is this story’s punching bag protagonist, it punches emotionally and otherwise, above and below the proverbial belt. And it throws punches with such pugilistic potency that it gets right through to the readers. It’s a devastating novel to read, but it’s certainly emotionally engaging, alarmingly so. It spirals into the sort of darkness towards the end that might be difficult for some readers, it gets positively trippy towards the every end. And yet, it absolutely commands your attention in the best possible way. It does all the things the best literary novels of dark psychological fiction and nightmares do and with a striking aplomb, especially for a debut, featuring a notable creative confidence and a compelling narrative voice. In fact, this might be the novel Reid’s I’m thinking of endings things tried and failed to be, but that’s neither here nor there. It’s thoroughly original, though with heavy echoes of (without overthinking it) The Outsider and Pet Cematary and some possession novels. Doesn’t matter though, this is fresh in the best possible way. At any rate. This was an absolutely awesome read. Genre fans, this is the one you’ve been searching for. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley. In 2019 Alex Michaelides’ first novel took the publishing world by storm, becoming either the best selling thriller or something of that nature, either way it was by all accounts the most impressive of debuts. I didn’t read it. It was too hyped up and too…always out at the library. But when The Maidens, his follow up effort, appeared on Netgalley, I was, of course, interested in checking it out. And I must say…it’s pretty disappointing.
It isn’t all that disappointing for a thriller genre, because there are just too many books there, too many well meaning but lackluster attempts at wowing the readers with their attempts at twisting the plot just right. And I read tons of those, they are just too popular, too ubiquitous to avoid and when they are good, they are really good. I love being surprised by the ending. But mostly they are average. And this book is very much average. It’s nowhere near the quality one would expect from a writer who singlehandedly blew thriller fans’ minds just two years ago. If I’d never heard of the author prior to reading the book, I’d place it somewhere well within the random kindle freebie books I sometimes score, it’s just about in the middle there, maybe slightly above. The writing is the greatest detractor here, it’s flat, bland, cardboardy, there’s just no spark, no magic, nothing. The characters aren’t very interesting. The plot itself is decent enough and the novel’s main saving grace is the ending twist, which is a genuine surprise, especially considering the general triteness of the overall proceedings. Plus it’s relatively slim, so you’re not stuck with it for too long. But those are not exactly best selling attributes one might have expected from such a lauded author. It’s nothing more than a very average beach read. Though surely it’ll be hyped up into something more. The plot has to do with a recent widow who comes back to her university to morally support her niece after a brutal murder of one of her schoolmates. The murders continue and the widow decides to stick around and play Sherlock, which may or may not involve a dashingly handsome very popular with the young ladies professor and his fan club of groupies who refer to themselves as The Maidens. The Maidens are obnoxious, wealthy brats, the professor is a slimeball, there are also some red fishes of the family Clupeidae that get heavy thrown around to confuse the readers. And some really basic first year psychology to give profundity to it all. The author went to the same school and it shows in his writing, the setting is created expertly and with great attention to detail. The author is Greek, which is also something that’s prominently featured in the novel, not just geographically, but in its themes and motifs. But of the fact that the author is a bestselling thriller genius, there is no evidence to be found. The entire production has a strikingly amateurish quality to it and, unless bestselling means dumbed down for general population, it really isn’t justified with this book. It might be a sophomore slump sort of thing. No way to know without reading his debut. And so, this was a quick mindless thoroughly average read just barely saved by a fun ending twist. Read if you want to. Pass and miss out on nothing. Thanks Netgalley. There have been so many books about race and racism lately. And because it’s such a loaded, difficult subject to discuss, these books don’t always succeed. This one does, though, stunningly.
It’s such a slender volume, such a quick read that it’s surprising how much of an emotional punch the author managed to throw with it. The narrative is done through a stream of consciousness of a black British woman, a descendant of East Indies people who came to England when England needed them to recover from WWII and were met with great unfairness and racism, despite every attempt at assimilation. But this book’s narrator got it made, did all the right things, followed all the right roads to success, has done so in face of every cutting comment, every ignorant prejudice. Now she has a career, money, a white boyfriend from a well to do family…a precisely assembled life that no longer seems worth living. After years and years of struggling against the current, she appears ready to give in. Which is the saddest, most poignant thing of it all. So yeah, not an easy read by any means, but a powerhouse of a one. And a fine example of thought and emotion stirring entry into the conversation about racism. Thanks Netgalley. I absolutely loved Candlish’s Those People and so I requested this book on Netgalley without so much as perusing the plot summary. And sure enough, another winner. In fact, Candlish might be well on her way to becoming one of my favorite authors of psychological thrillers.
I’d say it’s mainly the psychology of it all that she so excels it, because her novels do mostly read like fine literary dramas with a crime element, as opposed to the more traditional vice versa approach. We’re talking a character driven study so meticulously crafted that it doesn’t even require the easy gimmes of likeable cast or relatable situations. But then again this book is all about money, the exigencies of Mammon, the thing that makes the world go round and all that. So thematically it’s perfectly relatable, after all. To be fair, everyone’s relationship with money is different, but there are some fundamental, unalterable similarities. Everyone wants it. It may not make one happy, but it’ll buy all the bricks to pave the road there. For Jamie and his girlfriend of a decade it’s a complicated subject. She has inherited a grand manor, she has the well paying job and he pours coffee for a living (not ideal at all of especially while pushing 50) after a traumatic phobic experience with public transport. In fact, he has becoming so phobic about commuting that the only thing he finds that works for him is a river ferry. Where he makes some friends. And then his new buddy Kit disappears and Jamie finds himself a prime suspect. And sure Jamie’s been having an affair with Kit’s much, much younger wife, thus risking all financial and emotional security he has, but is Jamie just a self sabotaging scoundrel or a murderer? Well, read and find out. So that’s the crime element and, while initially subtle, it’ll stun with you how well it twists toward the end. I’m a seasoned genre reader, who all too frequently figures thrillers out easily and early, but this one surprised me time and time again. Which is, of course, awesome. But then there’s all that terrific social commentary on the ever stratified by income lives and the constant craving of more. Of living in a city like London (any major city, really), where millionaires and homeless people walk the same streets. Of the relentless desperate pursuit of the elusive financial stability. At times, at any cost. Of what it makes people do. Well…some people. Those people. It’s clever, it’s poignant, it hits like a ton of bricks or well slung arrows. Well done, author, bravo. I seldom use worlds like enthralling…but this book calls for it. You’re going to want to come along as a pssanger on this ride. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley. I’m the first person rating and reviewing this book, surprisingly so, for a recognizable author and a proper publisher. And I do really wish I was more complimentary to it, but since I can’t, the next goal is objectivity, Let’s see how I do with that.
This is a book I was supposed to like. I was sure I would. It had all the right elements. It was exciting, mysterious adventure through a conspiracy laden plot, a paranoia infused narrative doing a thoroughly original and disturbing take on the most American of scenarios…the gun violence and public shootings. It’s a sort of thing the news has all but made us inured to, through repetition. There’s simply too much of it too often, and frequency tends to normalize the tragedy. But here the author has cleverly twisted it into something even more sinister…what if there was a mysterious second shooter? Some people swear by it. And so the book’s protagonist, an investigative journalist working for a small press that specializes in conspiracy theories and such, sets off to find out the truth and ends up on an increasingly dangerous journey to something grander and more evil that he might have ever imagined. And he’s an imaginative guy. This novel has a kitchen sink of goodies, including interesting characters from an African immigrant family to a radio jockey who screams for attention along the same lines as Alex Jones and a variety of conspiracies and conspiracy buffs. It has action, suspense, mystery. It even ambitiously ramps up into the metaphysical towards the end. It’s pretty well written and very clever in its references and yet… And yet it didn’t quite work for me. Some basic reader/book incompatibility. It’s always difficult to narrow it down to the whys with the objectively quality book. I can try, I suppose. There was something about the general tone of it that didn’t quite engage me. At first it reminded me of the testosterone slathered slabs of Clancy or Flynn or something, but that wasn’t quite it, either. It just…it was busy in an overwhelming way. It convoluted itself in unnatural ways, but in the end its greatest drag was that it went too far. I wouldn’t say it got too clever for itself, mainly because I loathe the idea of something being too clever and the way it negates cleverness, but toward the end the direction the novel took was too over the top. It was like a result of pouring gallons of gasoline on a paranoid conspiracy theory fire and watching it go and do an obliterating power whoosh. Too much too fast too far. Or maybe this is more like it..imagine talking to a conspiracy fanatic. At first they are likely to follow some thread of logic, however convoluted, but as you continue listening, they’ll go farther and farther and sound crazier and crazier, until whatever logic they followed is abandoned for all but the devotees. So those are my notes and thoughts on the book. The bottom line is it’s interesting, it spirals down some fascinating avenues, it’s original. It has a lot to recommend itself. It didn’t quite work for me, but it wasn’t a waste of time by any means. I’d be interested to read other reviews of this book as they materialize. Thanks Netgalley. I’ve come to rely on Doubinsky’s books as guaranteed good reads. And every reader needs those, something reliable in a generally unreliable world. I love knowing what to expect and still being pleasantly surprised each time with something new.
Doubinsky’s books take place in a ingeniously imagined world of city states, each seemingly modeled on a well known city with New added on, but each is actually so much more than that, with complex social structures and politics specific to each one. These worlds are so awesomely imagined, so intricately crafted, so well built that they leaves realism completing with surrealism as you read them. They are almost but not quite recognizable, like a digitally aged face of your future self. This novel takes place in a Nordic Alliance’s Viborg City. It’s a funhouse mirror of a Scandinavian country…and also not, at the same time. Mainly it is known to be safe, if unexciting. Very strictly striated social system of Viborg City has three levels with eponymous White City being at the top of it. The safest, the whitest, the most prosperously sedated place to be. Until a murder of a cosmetics company’s scion throws the proverbial wrench in the works. The narrative is a three way split (with cleverly inserted asides) between a genre author researching his latest book on Nazis and the occult, an ambitious reporter desperate to make her name with this case and a career detective investigating it. They start off as individual separate threads, but eventually are seamlessly woven into one cohesive narrative. So if the first rate world building and terrific writing aren’t enough for you, you do also get a murder mystery. I loved this book and loved how cleverly the Nazi and occult themes (always fascinating, mainly because so much of it is preposterously real and historically factual) are utilized in it. Bet the book within the book here would have been fun too. At any rate, this city state universe visit was briefer than most, but just as excellent. Love the writing, the precision and succinctness of it, the slightly surreal realism, the character development. It’s a strikingly complete adventure for such a slim volume. And well worth a read. Recommended. The Incredible Nellie Bly Journalist, Investigator, Feminist, and Philanthropist by Luciana Cimino7/2/2021 Not a lot of people live up to their superlatives in real life. Nellie Bly exceeded them. Every single synonym of awesome you can think of, fits her. The woman was a pioneer of free thought and speech, a brazen reporter, a bold traveler, a clever business person, a fashion maven even…audacious force majeure who marched to the beat of her own drum and make others listen up. No glass ceiling, no walls, nothing got in her way. Except maybe her own self, in the end, after an unconventional marriage and a lamentable financial decision.
This is her biography and it presents her as such. In lovely striking art. Actually a very interestingly done art, it appears almost as watercolors but is in fact done all digitally. The story frames Nellie Bly as an interviewee recollecting her life’s many, many achievements for an aspiring young female reporter. Because there’s no more perfect role model than a woman who did it first and best. Excellent book. Not just a great read, not just a gorgeous one, but an important one in preserving the legacy of genuinely inspiring woman, a striking and inspirational success story in the age of repression. You know that thing they say about well behaved women? Well, Nellie Bly was the original disobedient woman, not only making, but writing the past, shining the light in the ugliest corners to expose and improve conditions for many disadvantaged people. Someone give this woman more than a google doodle of her own. I mean, there’s an Oscar winning biopic in the making in there, at the very least. Which’ll certainly make Bly more well known than any book can. Someone get on that now. Until then…there’s this book. And some excellent bios on Youtube. Spectacular presupposes its own expectations. It would be hugely ironic and quite sad for the novel with a. title like that to turn out to be a middling mediocrity. And sure enough, it begins spectacularly…boldly, excitingly, it promises all the spectacular things, poised on a brink of awesomeness like Missy, the protagonist (well, one of them) herself.
It begins like this…a 21 year old musician about to set off on tour with her punk band tries desperately to do the responsible thing and have her tubes tied. Because she wants to party her way through the tour like a proper punk, because she doesn’t trust the partners she (quite indiscriminately) chooses or herself or condoms, because she hasn’t had the kind of nurturing experience with her own mother and it’s left her convinced she shall never want kinds of her own. Missy has many very reasonable reasons. And because it’s 1997 and because our society is then as it is now very patriarchal and sexist and because America in many ways has always been true to its puritanical ways of yore no one is willing to help her and she is constantly and consistently told she will later change her mind and give in to her biology. And so Missy goes on the tour with her tubes free and untied and promptly gets knocked up. Meanwhile her storyline alternates with that of her estranged mother, Carola, whose hippieesque ways (as a form of her rebellion against her own strict and repressed mother) have led her from city life to a commune to a yoga cult. Carola is an interesting character, ebcuase although she did become a mother at a young age and in spite of her many reservations, she has never quite taken to it naturally and eventually left it altogether, her marriage, her commune, her daughter…in what seems like a profoundly selfish act which in fact for her was pure self preservation. And then there’s a sidebar of Ruth, Missy’s father’s mother, whose life is briefly (page percentage wise) recollected as she is getting ready to wrap it all up and let it all go. Ruth has had been married to a blatant cheater and her only joy in life has been her son and then his daughter, Missy. So the first section of the novel presets the stage for a fascinating multigenerational drama of unhappy marriages and challenging motherhoods. It’s so well written and engaging that you don’t even need to like or relate to characters to completely immerse yourself in their journeys. Plus it has such a strikingly original and (it shouldn’t be but it is) bold message of…maybe not everyone is cut out to be a mother and that’s ok. And then the novel skips time, 16 years of it, and becomes every clichés out of the women’s fiction playbook Sure, it’s more hip, more queer, more challenging than most of those, but the bottom line is babies, babies, babies. Everyone wants then, everyone needs them, they give life meaning in the way no other thing or person can, etc. It’s almost as if the author just plopped her ovaries on her keyboard for the second section of the book, set her metronome to biological clock and went to town on it. All the originality of the initial premise, all the bold subversive dynamics of it…thrown right out of the proverbial window. It’s so hugely, spectacularly disappointing. And it pretty much eclipses all other aspects of the novel. Which is a crying shame, because it’s so good otherwise. There are such clever parallels between all the female characters in the book, the ways their choices sort of echo each other through the years, from abandoning pursuit of former education to finding love late in life, etc. But in the end, it’s an estrogen party through and through, with diapers all over it. What began as such a fun and awesome book, because yet another baby book. And this novel will work for you in direct proportion to where you are on the babies subject. Which means for me it didn’t do all that much and certainly not as much as it might have. Loved the writing, loved the character development, didn’t care for the message. But if you’re looking for a perfect Mother’s day read about imperfect mothers, this is for you Thanks Netgalley. |
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December 2023
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