In Ageless Sleep follows two girls on the opposite sides of a war. Mal is an agent from the Reaches on a mission to hijack a Sovereign spaceship. Aurora, or Rory, is the daughter of one of the Sovereign Kings and Mal's kidnapping target for this mission.
The strength of this little book is undoubtedly the character work. Most of the chapters are narrated by Mal, who is just the right balance of badass and angsty. If her character had been written with less care, she could've come off as tropey. But no - her emotions feel completely real. Arden Ellis does an especially great job of conveying Mal's loneliness, which makes all her decisions feel understandable.
Rory, too, feels relatable; she's built mostly through her differences and similarities to Mal. And here lies this book's second strength: foils. For those of you who don't know, foils are characters who contrast each other in order to highlight their mutual characteristics. I am totally obsessed with foils and especially relationship-building between two characters who act as foils. The romance between Rory and Mal really got to me and was built very well, even in so few pages. Their relationship is just that enemies-to-relucant-allies trope that I'm so obsessed with.
I also really enjoyed the writing style!! There's just something I really appreciated about the atmosphere and way this was written. All the sentences feel very polished without being overdramatic.
This not to say that this is a perfect novella. I thought the POV shifts felt particularly unpolished and needed to be edited. In general, I also thought this novella could've been thicker and had more scope. Arden Ellis went for a very small scope in this book, and that's fine; it just would be nice to see more out of this world. I've recently begun to appreciate novella series like Every Heart A Doorway, for example. It would be nice to see even more out of this world. Just saying, Arden Ellis, in case you're ever planning on writing more :)
VERDICT: Check this out if you're a fan of character-driven scifi, novellas, and well-written f/f romance!! This was really fantastic and I can't wait to check out more by Ellis.
In Ageless Sleep follows two girls on the opposite sides of a war. Mal is an agent from the Reaches on a mission to hijack a Sovereign spaceship. Aurora, or Rory, is the daughter of one of the Sovereign Kings and Mal's kidnapping target for this mission.
The strength of this little book is undoubtedly the character work. Most of the chapters are narrated by Mal, who is just the right balance of badass and angsty. If her character had been written with less care, she could've come off as tropey. But no - her emotions feel completely real. Arden Ellis does an especially great job of conveying Mal's loneliness, which makes all her decisions feel understandable.
Rory, too, feels relatable; she's built mostly through her differences and similarities to Mal. And here lies this book's second strength: foils. For those of you who don't know, foils are characters who contrast each other in order to highlight their mutual characteristics. I am totally obsessed with foils and especially relationship-building between two characters who act as foils. The romance between Rory and Mal really got to me and was built very well, even in so few pages. Their relationship is just that enemies-to-relucant-allies trope that I'm so obsessed with.
I also really enjoyed the writing style!! There's just something I really appreciated about the atmosphere and way this was written. All the sentences feel very polished without being overdramatic.
This not to say that this is a perfect novella. I thought the POV shifts felt particularly unpolished and needed to be edited. In general, I also thought this novella could've been thicker and had more scope. Arden Ellis went for a very small scope in this book, and that's fine; it just would be nice to see more out of this world. I've recently begun to appreciate novella series like Every Heart A Doorway, for example. It would be nice to see even more out of this world. Just saying, Arden Ellis, in case you're ever planning on writing more :)
VERDICT: Check this out if you're a fan of character-driven scifi, novellas, and well-written f/f romance!! This was really fantastic and I can't wait to check out more by Ellis.
I wrote description copy for this as part of my freelance gig! I don’t review books I blurbed unless I absolutely love them, but I adored this. As a hI wrote description copy for this as part of my freelance gig! I don’t review books I blurbed unless I absolutely love them, but I adored this. As a huge Dracula fan – and also the author of a thesis on the body politic of cannibalism in post-colonial literature – this was perfect.
I think it's really important to me that all of the leads of Dracula – Lucy Westenra, Mina Murray, Jonathan Harker, Jack Seward, Quincey Morris, Arthur Holmwood, and Professor Van Helsing – are in their own ways good people who care for each other. I feel this is essential to any Dracula retelling. Three men vie for the same woman's heart and she only picks one, and yet the care between the entire group feels so tangible.
So I should mention that I loved the writing of the dynamic between both Lucy and Mina, and Lucy and Arthur. This novel has cast Mina and Lucy as having their own psuedo-romantic dynamic never able to become something real, while her dynamic with Arthur is truly loving – but always seconds away from collapsing under the weight of all Lucy is obligated to be to him. The writing of these both fit perfectly into Lucy's main conflict, and her main fear: That no one will ever see her as she truly is.
When you feel as if no one truly knows you, and someone comes along who feels as if they do understand – even if they express that through cruelty, and coldness – it is difficult not to yearn for that connection, to grab onto it as a method of self-embodiment. Lucy wishes most of all to become, even as she frames it as a morbid obsession with death. The tragedy is that she will never be able to both become and keep those she loves.
I want to write a longer review now that I’ve read the sequel So Blooms the Dawn, but this was excellent. I am so glad to get to keep reading Julie C. Dao.
But as I always say, a single man in possession of a good fortune sometimes is actually not single. He's often a total liar.
A great parody underst
But as I always say, a single man in possession of a good fortune sometimes is actually not single. He's often a total liar.
A great parody understands the genre perfectly, and A Most Agreeable Murder understands both the regency romance and the whodunit so well. There's so much genuine care for the regency novel put into this parody! The characters feel like wonderful commentaries on Pride and Prejudice, giggling at its quirks not out of mockery but out of love.
Beatrice Steele is an unmarried lady of marriageable age. So it's too bad she seems so preoccupied with murder, rather than finding a husband. Her secret could probably stay secret, were it not for a fiasco at a ball: When Edmund Croaksworth, well, croaks.
Our intrepid cast consists of Beatrice Steele; sisters Mary and Louisa, and her Bennett-parent-parody parents; childhood best friend Daniel Ashbrook, his complicated sister Arabella, and their judgmental father; superstitious Miss Bolton; “orphaned” Caroline Wynn; and disreputable Francois Fan. And rounding them all out is Inspector Vivek Drake, ready to investigate the murder — but why ever was he here in the first place?
While I'm not sure I found it terribly surprising per se, the solution was very fun. Beatrice's character arc is compelling, and the relationship between her and Inspector Drake builds well. Overall, this will just be a very fun romp for anyone who loves the more humorous aspects of a good Jane Austen and a good Agatha Christie. Those with less familiarity with either probably won't get much from this, but that's what I like about it.
"If you think any of this is funny, you are sorely mistaken," Mr. Steele told Frank. "Of course I don't think it's funny!" Frank insisted. "Even worse! You have no sense of humor!"
"I have served you as well as God, cousin," he said. "And been proud to do it. For all I've done- Or not done, forgive me." "Do we talk of forgiveness,
"I have served you as well as God, cousin," he said. "And been proud to do it. For all I've done- Or not done, forgive me." "Do we talk of forgiveness, brother?" said Dmitrii. "The left hand does not beg forgiveness of the right."
I was not expecting how much I enjoyed this in comparison to The Girl in the Tower. As she builds this story of the leadup to the historical 1380 Battle of Kulikovo between the Golden Horde and Rus', Katherine Arden re-finds her stride. The relationship between Vasya and Morozko reaches its glittering peak in this book, but the true delight of the novel is Vasya's journey into a power player in her own right – after so long only in the shadows. Her newfound relationships with the Bear and the Cyerti are delightful.
When we fit page 250 and an odd percentage of conflicts had been tied up, I balked at what I expected to be a letdown of a last hundred pages. But the final 100 pages were stunning and my highlight of the series. I sobbed my way through the last twenty pages.
“He knew exactly what she meant: to get a place where you could love anything you chose–not to need permission for desire–well now, that was freedom.”
“He knew exactly what she meant: to get a place where you could love anything you chose–not to need permission for desire–well now, that was freedom.”
““The future was sunset; the past something to leave behind. And if it didn't stay behind, well, you might have to stomp it out.”
Beloved is, among other things, an examination of the obliteration of the self by slavery – the method in which chattel slavery served as a deep destruction of everything that made one know their own selfhood. And Beloved, the physical iteration of Sethe’s trauma, is also an obliterater of self, both Sethe and Paul D’s and Denver’s.
The novel blends back and forth between time almost to indicate the degree to which slavery blends time – the past trauma becoming both a present haunting and the literal present. Beloved is a past come literally back to haunt.
““For a used to be slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love.”
I really like this book’s acknowledgment of the killing of a child to protect them from slavery as an act of love — a dark act, a horrifying act, but an honest one.
This is an unbelievably dark book, but it ends with a community – and specifically a community of black women – serving as savior of Denver and even of Sethe, despite their distrust of her. Baby Suggs loses that community after Sethe kills Beloved – you almost forget the community exists beyond her until the end. But as soon as she asks for help, Denver regains it.
There’s an additional really interesting thread where Paul D, oddly enough, has sex with Beloved, which he describes as not even fun, but:
“A brainless urge to stay alive… a life hunger overwhelmed him and he had no more control over it than over his lungs… and afterward, beached and gobbling air, in the midst of repulsion and personal shame, he was thankful too for having been escorted to some ocean-deep place he once belonged to.”
I think this thread is so interesting because it quite horrifically parallels the full-on assault his enslavers commit against against Paul D. Beloved removes his selfhood, returning him to his memories of being enslaved — and, because they have sex where Beloved died, she relives the space where her selfhood was both destroyed and spectacularly preserved in perpetuity.
There are several other interest things I could note here. There’s the fact that the house is named 124 – child 1 2 and 4 survive, and 3 is dead. There’s the fact that Sethe kills Beloved with a saw in a woodshed – like cutting down a tree – and she reappears on a stump. There’s Beloved’s odd pregnancy at the end. I think this book is utterly brilliant.
“That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own The best thing she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing – the part of her that was clean.”
I think that Rothfeld is at her best here when she writes about sex – her work on sex as transformation in her Cronenberg essays and on the ethics of I think that Rothfeld is at her best here when she writes about sex – her work on sex as transformation in her Cronenberg essays and on the ethics of sex beyond simply consent in “Only Mercy” are each brilliant. The Flesh, It Makes You Crazy, a celebration of the ravenous pleasure of desire, even as it transforms of us, is an expansion of an essay I'd already read and adored - All Good Sex Is Body Horror.
Some of her further essays, however, are less compelling to me – and a few feel as if they didn’t get their proper due in Rothfeld’s writing.
There are some interesting things in here. In More and More, decluttering and minimalism as an exercise in excising hungers. In Two Lives Simultaneous and Perfect, an emplacement of the erotic as a violation of social norms. In Our True Entertainment Was Arguing, a celebration of marriage and love not as finding another self, but as finding a lover who is a person in and of themselves – someone to speak with, the “conversations of love” that continue out of interest, with an “orientation toward eternity”.
A few more seem just slightly lacking. In Ladies in Waiting, the waiting love, and the value of seeing the beloved as an outside no matter how much we may want to collapse into one another. In Murder on the Installment Plane, the intertwining of the detective and the criminal until the lines between them blur (though I wished she’d gone further with this rather than ending with “I don’t know the ultimate end” – I frankly felt I could’ve found plenty to say). In Other People’s Loves, an examination of desire as “reliev[ing] us of the burden of our own visibility” – one that left me feeling just a tad unsatisfied. In Having a Cake and Eating It Too, an in-depth close reading of the writings of mystic Simone Weil on hunger for god – one that I thought could’ve had a wider scope. In Normal Novels, a critique of Sally Rooney, with little to do with the scope of the novel.
Fantastic writer, though, and I did think the sex essays justified the collection for me.
Some notes from Only Mercy that I wanted to highlight: ➽Angela Carter: “Our flesh arrives to us out of history… we still drag there with us the cultural impedimenta of our social class… our whole biographies” ➽“Every apparent pairing is in fact an orgy, consisting of the two participants and the entire social world” ➽I’m interested now in reading Srinivasan’s work because I generally agree with the point that the sexual revolution did not go far enough – it expanded the range of socially acceptable erotic practices but failed to meaningfully confront the societal and cultural biases behind some kink. Critique of Emba and Perry’s Rethinking Sex and The Cade Against the Sexual Revolution – “for them, the best sex imaginable is just sex that is as harmless as possible” ➽“Why not effect the sort of political change that would in turn improve our tastes… why not fight for the possibility of ethical pleasure? ➽The conservative state is desperate to preserve the nuclear family because women step in to perform the childcare that the state fails to subsidize ➽“The real import of the dictum that ‘sex is serious’ is that sex is significant enough to matter even when it is unaccompanied by romance and ritual, even when it symbolizes nothing else at all” ➽Eroticism is a seeking of “an encounter between people stripped of their usual roles” – this is why I find patriarchy play to be boring potentially? ➽“Sex is a moral matter as it challenges us to make real – and therefore unexpected and sometimes disorienting – contact with other people, rather than glancing contact with the affirming balm of our own fantasies. If we come to bed set on securing any particular good, be it the time-honored staples of love and pregnancy or the modern debasements of pornographic reenactment, then we are not really prepared to respond to the unique claim that each lover lays on us.” ➽We have more ethical sex when we recognize “the violent individuality of our sexual partners”. “An oppressive order is also a boring order” because it offers none of the surprise of eroticism
Ann Leckie’s science fiction is pitch-perfect – an incredible world, a strong set of lead characters, and a complicated, interesting plot are rounded Ann Leckie’s science fiction is pitch-perfect – an incredible world, a strong set of lead characters, and a complicated, interesting plot are rounded out by a fascinating study of the complexity of relation between entirely different groups, with entirely different systems of power, and a study of the complexity of desire in a race where to desire means to make oneself a duplicate of their lover. And it’s also just quite fun. This made me remember what I love about scifi, even without having lost my love for it in the first place.
Qven is a Presger Translator – the only set of members of the cannibalistic race of aliens that can communicate with the human Radch empire. Enae is a reluctant diplomat hunting a two hundred year old fugitive on the request of the powerful Radchaai empire – either Raadchai diplomatic staff with dangerous information, or a Presger Translator. Reet is an adopted mechanic living in Zoeson who operates wrong – and according to a consultant, he may be descended from the Schan, the Hikipi rulers of Lovehate station before their rebellion against the Phen failed.
In the background of all this, the Radchai empire’s treaty with the Presger is in true danger after a thousand years, as the imperial system – using space ships controlled by AIs, who control human bodies ("ancillaries") to use as soldiers – is breaking down into war. Other species are interested in their own ends. (view spoiler)[And the AI ship Sphene is trying to find new ways to use bio mechs instead of making humans into ancillaries. (There’s also a second very obvious cameo character, Dlique the Presger translator.) (hide spoiler)]
There’s a quote from All Things Too Small, which I read recently, that I think applies well to the Phen route of merging — “That was cannot be one another, that we cannot be what we consume, that we cannot be what we cannot be the whole world and can never ascend high enough to see all of it at once— all this is a source of disappointment, even torment, to anyone ravenous for living.” Or, in more poetic voice: “They are trying to become one creature / and something will not have it”. I think this blending of creature to creature is fascinating – and I really liked the exploration of both its perils and benefits.
“Yeah, I’m not trying to hit up the club with Mr. Rogers. Ditch the sweater.”
Look, second-chance fake-marriage just seemed like something I’d eat
“Yeah, I’m not trying to hit up the club with Mr. Rogers. Ditch the sweater.”
Look, second-chance fake-marriage just seemed like something I’d eat up. And I did. Sue me.
Violet and Xavier were the ambitious couple, one an aspiring basketball star and one an aspiring fashion designer. She made it, with a career supporting famous stars across the globe. He didn’t. His insecurity predicated their breakup. In this current world, Xavier is insecure about not being impressive enough for his superstar girlfriend; meanwhile, Violet is insecure about being too busy for someone she’s missed for years. It’s an incredibly well-built conflict.
But what I really appreciated is that… the angst is so un-manufactured. Violet and Xavier work so hard to communicate with each other… but they have some serious reasons to be worried about the future. When they mess up, it feels real, true to their characters rather than contrived. Love is not always going to be enough to stop every bit of insecurity–but they value each other enough to fix it.
(Also, I am such a Violet.)
I have one or two quibbles. One super strange section in the back half where Violet’s POV contains a flashback of the prior day should not have made it through edits. (I’ve noticed this in a couple of fantastic romances I’ve read in the last couple years and will only say—romance editors, this is your job!) And I think the Dahlia and Violet conflict gets wrapped up waaaay too quickly.
But overall? Just delicious. I loved this romance and these characters so much, and will be buying a copy for my own rereading purposes ASAP.
T Kingfisher is a master of an uncanny horror mix that makes the spine tingle. I’ve always been a fan of shrooms horror, so I am so happy to have gottT Kingfisher is a master of an uncanny horror mix that makes the spine tingle. I’ve always been a fan of shrooms horror, so I am so happy to have gotten to read this retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's The House of Usher (interestingly, the only story by him I ever read for school).
Our leads are the following: Lieutenant Alex Easton, sworn soldier from the fictional Gallacia; Roderick and Madeline, the siblings of the house of Usher; Denton, an American doctor; Angus, protector to Easton; and Miss Potter, a local myconid collector. They're an enjoyable batch to follow (particularly Miss Potter.)
As the situation spirals, the descent into horror feels chillingly inevitable. The ultimate result is a great blend of body horror and horror through implication. My only critique of this was that the beginning – as T. Kingfisher builds both the house of Usher itself and the fictional European nation of Gallacia, where soldiers use a different pronoun system – is a fairly slow start for a novella. The result is fantastic, but it takes a while to build, and I wondered if that transition could've been ironed just a tad.
An extremely fast-paced and tense suspense novel which kept me spellbound. The Night She Disappeared follows the disappearance of teen parents TallulaAn extremely fast-paced and tense suspense novel which kept me spellbound. The Night She Disappeared follows the disappearance of teen parents Tallulah and Zach, raising their child together while living with Tallulah's mother Kim.
Generally, I think this novel’s strength comes in crafting interesting character dynamics. Tallulah herself is very well-drawn, and her flashback point of view chapters never failed to hold my attention. Kim’s chapters are also great, with a palpable connection to her daughter that hooks in the reader. Scarlett, a girl with Tallulah on the night she disappeared, and Zach, the boyfriend, are each interesting characters.
Arguably The Night We Disappeared's biggest fault comes in Sophie’s character. In comparison to essentially every other character, she is extremely boring—I feel like she’s meant to be a Tallulah narrative foil but fails to be so just because she’s not interesting enough. While I liked the lack of manufactured drama in her storyline in that she gets along with a coparent, I wished for more genuine tension in her side of the narrative. Much as an outsider made for a fun interlude, I almost didn't need her character.
On the bright side? Great ending with a solid reveal, both well-foreshadowed but with enough details shifting that I didn't quite see things coming. The resolution to one of the conflicts resultant from the solution felt slightly too convenient but not ridiculous. The additional final-final twist is very well foreshadowed and I was extremely proud of myself for guessing several details of it; I do not think everyone will.
Overall, I think this one is worth your time if you like suspense! I'll be trying Lisa Jewell further.
To acknowledge it, to try to name it, might be a way of letting it in.
One of the most horrifically viscerally upsetting books I have read in my e
To acknowledge it, to try to name it, might be a way of letting it in.
One of the most horrifically viscerally upsetting books I have read in my entire life. Every sentence of this crawled down my spine and into my body, changing me—invading me, just as text invades The Biologist. Haunting me, as the ghosts of the Lighthouse haunt the entirety of Area X.
The horror of Annihilation is the horror of the erosion of bodily boundaries, that once you are within you may not be fully yourself but a part of the vast environment. That is the horror, but maybe also the hope and kindness of this novel.
This really freaked me out. I will be thinking about it for a long, long time.
I couldn’t quite understand how an ordinary man’s good qualities could become crushing accusations against a guilty man.
An enrapturing, exhausting
I couldn’t quite understand how an ordinary man’s good qualities could become crushing accusations against a guilty man.
An enrapturing, exhausting novel about Meursault, a man devoid of guilt or remorse.
I felt deeply exhausted by this novel. When Meursault meets his fate, there is no joy or relief to be found. Even as he has consistently and constantly lacked true compassion for any characters, he has shown occasional moments of something approaching kindness. He simply isn’t a cruel enough force to root for death. But you also see so easily how he could be condemned to death. He is remorseless, after all. It exposes the mundanity of evil – the mundanity of death, and the simple mundanity of death as punishment for death.
But I think it was a mistake even to consider the possibility. Because at the thought that one fine morning I would find myself a free man standing behind a cordon of police on the outside, as it were at the thought of being the spectator who comes to watch and then can go and throw up afterwards, a wave of poisoned joy rose in my throat.
When you love a person, you are expected to give them their freedom, but when you love a monster, you keep it caged.
Fonda Lee is constantly cement
When you love a person, you are expected to give them their freedom, but when you love a monster, you keep it caged.
Fonda Lee is constantly cementing herself as one of my favorite authors.
Untethered Sky follows Ester, a girl half-orphaned by a deadly manticore who becomes a rukher, a hunter of her own killers. In the course of her relationship with Zahra, her massive, deadly roc, as well as her fellow rukhers Yasmine and Darius, she finds a pathway towards her own recovery.
A thousand things could be said about Fonda Lee's fantastic writing, and brilliant, smart character writing. Untethered Sky engages itself with two beasts from Persian and Arabian folklore: manticores, man-eating beasts with human heads and lion bodies, and rocs, giant birds able to hunt them. Ester's narration is compelling strong.
But what truly struck me about this novella is the building of relationships between the rocs and the rukhers. The rukhers grow to truly love their rocs, wishing for their presence. The rocs survive. When one bird dies, there is always another roc to train. Yet the rukhers mourn their birds. By the time we reach the wonderful, emotional ending, I was near tears and thinking about my cat.
“The only way Addie knows how to keep going is to keep going forward. They are Orpheus, she is Eurydice, and every time they turn back, she is ruin
“The only way Addie knows how to keep going is to keep going forward. They are Orpheus, she is Eurydice, and every time they turn back, she is ruined.”
This is a gorgeous, gorgeous book, and it’s marketed as a romance between a girl and the devil, but it’s something a lot more: An exploration of trauma that made me fall in love.
Addie LaRue is born in a small French town in 1691 and at just seventeen, sells her soul to escape, promising it only after she gets tired of living. The holder of her soul gives her an escape and something worse: He makes her immortal and unchanging, but cursed to be forgotten by all who see her.
Addie’s tragedy is that she can care but cannot be remembered enough to be cared for. Sections of this novel are cut between by excerpts from artwork created about Addie. For a while, it's wonderful, an expression of love. But it is also her tragedy: She is an eternal muse, doomed to wander without permanence.
There’s a profound love for people entwined through this book—in the loves Addie has made and lost, in her modern-day painter Sam, her past composer Remy, and in her modern-day love, Henry Strauss. While the romance between Henry and Addie is compelling, I think it's really a lot more about these two characters finding connection than the particular dynamic between the two; in a world where no one can really see Henry, and no one can really see Addie, each is seen for themselves. While they each started their arcs believing they wanted to be unseen, they need to be seen for who they are.
I also really loved the ending. I think it will probably controversial but I found it very satisfying even in technical ambiguity; it resolves Addie’s character arc in a way I found extremely interesting.
I like... genuinely loved this book. I thought it was so utterly gorgeous. I almost want to reread it now.
You won’t eat me. No matter how much you enjoy the way I taste.
3 1/2 stars. This is a three-story collection, and yet the one I keep coming back t
You won’t eat me. No matter how much you enjoy the way I taste.
3 1/2 stars. This is a three-story collection, and yet the one I keep coming back to is the first and titular story, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, following Agnes and Zoe, two women meeting online and participating in over-the-internet BDSM. This one gets incredibly fucked up, and I found it genuinely fascinating.
Thematically, there is so much to unpack here with regards to consumption. SPOILER: The entire premise of 'my lover can't impregnate me so I will impregnate myself with something that will literally eat me alive, because that is the best representation of my lover' is so, so interesting. What is a bad relationship but a consumption of what you are, until you can manage to reproduce whatever has been eaten out of you?
I have one or two notes about this story. There are some sections where the voices of the writing just doesn't totally match - specifically, the IMs vs the incredibly poetic emails. Additionally, as Alexis Hall pointed out, Zoe's voice is really not very striking, which makes her much harder to believe. Also, as an extremely negative reviewer on this page pointed out, what she wants out of Agnes is, to start with, quite literally just 24/7 BDSM. A lot? Yeah. Horror movie, "you would be disgusted by me if you knew what I wanted" a lot? This is just what Christian Grey was into. (Tragically, Christian Grey wasn't into tapeworm reproduction.)
Second story The Enchantment follows James and Olive in the aftermath of the death of their son, and is essentially a slow descent into madness. It's solid horror and I really liked the ending, but found the pacing slightly off. Final story You'll Find Its Like That All Over is much shorter than the other two, and feels slightly out of place; I think this collection should have been shorter or longer to justify its inclusion. I was honestly somewhat underwhelmed by parts two and three, and think the first story - which is definitely a four on its own - could be edited more tightly.
Still absolutely love the first story, still glad I read this.
Sarah Gailey I love your crazy ass. Among the top authors on Goodreads who every time I read a book by them I am absolutely obsessed and then I go to Sarah Gailey I love your crazy ass. Among the top authors on Goodreads who every time I read a book by them I am absolutely obsessed and then I go to check the Goodreads average rating and apparently taste is dead in this world
Okay, maybe that’s not fair. I completely understand why perhaps the book about the daughter of a serial killer returning home to a haunted house and an even-more-haunted mother did not resonate with some. You have to love odd imagery, eerie dreams, a repulsive mother-daughter relationship and an equally terrifying father-daughter one – terrifying for its intimacy, even in the face of incredible violence. You have to accept that a Sarah Gailey protagonist will absolutely never ever be a good person. You have to accept that to love a monster, and to love your own monstrosity, will never be the path a reader perhaps wants.
But if you can accept those things? You should read this book.
(But first, you should be reading Echo Wife and Magic for Liars, and you should tell me about it.)
An utterly delightful book about an orc named Viv who retires from adventuring to start a coffee shop — with the help of a succubus named Tandri, a raAn utterly delightful book about an orc named Viv who retires from adventuring to start a coffee shop — with the help of a succubus named Tandri, a ratkin baker named Thimble, and a building assistant named Cal.
Legends and Lattes is a love letter to Dungeons and Dragons players who really like writing post-canon aus where their characters settle down and run little coffee shops. [I am 100% the target audience for this book.] It's extremely cozy fantasy; fast-paced, easy to read, and hard to put down. The dialogue is some of the most realistic and fun I've read in recent fantasy. The stakes are typically about whether or not the coffee shop will make a profit, and yet I was never bored. There is another, trickier-to-solve conflict, the resolution of which is pitch-perfect. I sped through 99% of this book in one sitting because I simply found it so delightful.
[Also, every time elf named Ferris is brought up, I did begin to think about Fenris from Dragon Age 2. I need to know whether Travis Baldree is aware of this association given that I think the overlap of 'this book's target audience' and 'people who were way to into da2, infamously the least well-designed of the da games' is probably quite large.]
Really delightful and I'm already tearing through book two.
The Comedian, Edward Blake, is dead. Adrian Veidt/Ozymandius is pretentious. Daniel Dreiberg/Nite Owl II is retired. Jon Osterman/Doctor Manhattan is The Comedian, Edward Blake, is dead. Adrian Veidt/Ozymandius is pretentious. Daniel Dreiberg/Nite Owl II is retired. Jon Osterman/Doctor Manhattan is above all. Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre II is sleeping with him. And masked detective (view spoiler)[Walter Joseph Kovacs (hide spoiler)]/Rorschach plans to burn them all. Hey guys... Watchmen is really good. It's kind of underground I don't know if you would've heard of it : /
The present-day superheroes, in many ways, step over the graves of those before. Edward Blake is one of the last surviving members of the original Minutemen, founded in 1939 and disbanded in 1949. With his loss, they are survived only by Laurie’s mother Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre I, who left the group in 1947; Mothman/Byron Lewis; and Hollis Mason/Nite Owl, whose autobiography dots the pages. The original Minutemen also included Hooded Justice; Captain Metropolis/Nelson Gardner; Dollar Bill, murdered in 1947; and The Sillhouette/Ursula Zandt, a lesbian murdered after exposure in 1946. They are each gone, disappeared after their usefulness ran out.
There's a strong focus on the ways superheroes have changed the world: Dr Manhattan's appearance in 1960 won the U.S. the Vietnam war.
Superhero gangs have fallen apart not just because of political pressures, but because of personal issues, and specifically abuse. (view spoiler)[Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis/Nelson Gardner’s toxic relationship led Captain Metropolis to form the new crime group, the Crimebusters; meanwhile, Hooded Justice and Silk Spectre were each other's beards. (hide spoiler)] Perhaps more notably, (view spoiler)[The Comedian assaulted Silk Spectre. (hide spoiler)]
By the end, (view spoiler)[Comedian is revealed to have been killed after discovering the plot against Doctor Manhattan. Hollis is gone too. (hide spoiler)] The complex of the superheroes have cannibalized themselves. And it is brilliant to watch.
Maybe one of the most fucked up books I’ve ever read in my life (honorific, loving, appreciative).
House
Do you want this, Marion? Are you hungry?
Maybe one of the most fucked up books I’ve ever read in my life (honorific, loving, appreciative).
House of Hunger is a horror novel following Marion, who rips herself from her own life to become a bloodmaid for Countess Lisaveta, the alluring count of the powerful House of Hunger. Yet even as she and the other four bloodmaids—Irene, Elize, Evie, and favorite Cecilia—drain their blood for Lisaveta, she finds that being a bloodmaid is a more dangerous game than she’d been promised.
Part of the horror of the vampire novel is not just that the vampiric subject fears being consumed: It’s that we fear we’ll like it. Since Dracula, fiction of blood consumption has grappled with the consumed subject’s desire to be eaten themselves. What do you do when you are being drained of your life, and all you want is more?
Within the House, blood contains memories. The bloodmaids give themselves in giving their blood. Marion is crippled with guilt from killing her brother Raul, and there’s something really fascinating to read in Lisaveta’s viewpoint on her. Marion wishes to be understood. Whether she can be is a harder question.
I loved this book and I deeply, deeply adored the ending. This book let me tear through in a day and I absolutely loved it.
