My Waters reread continues. This one is the one people seem to skip over most. It was my favorite for a long time, but I hadn't read it in at least a My Waters reread continues. This one is the one people seem to skip over most. It was my favorite for a long time, but I hadn't read it in at least a decade, likely more.
This book moves backwards in time. It effectively spoils everything that will happen for you. This sounds like it would take all the wind out of the book's sails, but instead it just makes everything incredibly sad. This is such a sad book. Sadness like a heavy coat. There is a kind of energy that all the characters have at the end, in 1941 even though it is the thick of the war and there is not much to be happy about. Characters often talk about when the war is over in the 1941 and 1944 sections, but you already know what happens when it's over. And the optimism that they rely on to get them through, we know is misplaced.
There's something Shakesperarean about it. Like when you already know that Romeo and Juliet have missed each other's communications and you just sit there watching it all, powerless. There is a scene near the end where Kay (oh, Kay, how I love her!) thinks someone has died though we already know they are alive. Not only that, we know where they are and the secret that took them away. Those powerless vibes are in full effect, watching Kay filled with sorrow, knowing everything she will find out between this moment and the ones ahead that we've already seen.
It is a real tightrope walk to pull this whole thing off. And for the first hundred pages I was starting to wonder what it was I'd loved about this book. But if you give it some patience it will reward you by ripping out your heart and stomping on it over and over again.
Now I can really see the path from Fingersmith to Night Watch to Little Stranger. Some big jumps between them but Waters really learns how to do a lot with a little, how to find tension in quiet and still moments. She's really exploring tragedy. Here we get out first straight protagonist and our first male protagonist in a Waters novel, but it still feels just as queer as the ones that came before. ...more
Took me a little while to get into this one, but it was worth the wait. My favorite horror novels are ones where I don't know what's going to happen nTook me a little while to get into this one, but it was worth the wait. My favorite horror novels are ones where I don't know what's going to happen next, where I don't know where things are going to end up, that feel like we are careening along and maybe we'll stay on the road or maybe we'll go off. This was one of those.
Shades of folk horror here, with the vague setting (it often feels like Italy and a lot of the names sound like Italy but then a lot of them don't) and the family legends from a town that's existed for hundreds of years of history. Angelina is in many ways a recognizable modern character--aimless, possibly self-destructive, no life plan, working as a bartender and in a call center--but she has much more to her. She loves her big, annoying family. She loves her old, shitty town. She has no desire to get away from any of it, but she would really like a girlfriend. And one girl in particular, her brother's ex.
So many horror heroines are badass or whip smart. Angelina, on the other hand, is reckless, doesn't think things through, and doesn't always know how to wield her strengths effectively. She will definitely fuck everything up. And that's a problem when there is a monster that is here to fuck you up. It sure gets interesting when the one girl you can't fall in love with is the one person who seems to keep the monster at bay.
The monster is great. I loved the execution of it. Didn't feel like something I'd seen before. (Rendered very nicely in print, I hope they come up with something equally nice on audio.) And I loved the unpredictability of it, not knowing when it would pop up, not knowing what the rules were.
By the end I was sad this was over. I really relished it. Very satisfying. ...more
All my horror evaluations now are about vibes/plot balance. More and more it feels like getting the balance right matters. There is no one correct balAll my horror evaluations now are about vibes/plot balance. More and more it feels like getting the balance right matters. There is no one correct balance, it varies by book, but it has to be balanced. I was totally on board with the vibes/plot balance of this book, which definitely leans more towards vibes. That was its strength, the looseness of it. And I was so ready to have this different approach to a haunted house novel, one that actually seemed to bring a smart social horror eye to boot. Aaaaand then the plot had to go and ruin it.
I know that horror stories totally collapsing in the final act is so common it's cliche, but rarely have I seen it collapse this much. Took everything I liked about the book and threw it out in favor of explanations. The best horror, imo, does not explain everything! The mystery of it, the lack of an explanation is part of what makes the really scary stuff scary. But if you're going to explain it, please don't do it like this.
I think I get what Solomon is going for. They are very interested in trauma and horror is a great genre to explore that. But I actually felt like we already had plenty of trauma thank you without having to throw in the additional traumas of the ending. Solomon is such an interesting writer but they also can feel like a maximalist. I was starting to feel like this was really the one where they were going to take it up a level so I was extra disappointed.
The meandering, searching for meaning and identity 20-something novel through a trans lens. Edith's return to Boston, to the place she was closest to The meandering, searching for meaning and identity 20-something novel through a trans lens. Edith's return to Boston, to the place she was closest to happy before her transition, is the emotional center of the novel and has much of its strengths. The "you can never go home again" story when the closest place to home knows you as a different person is fitting. Edith's version is different but also the same.
The two pillars of Edith's identity are her two ex-girlfriends, and we jump around in time to her previous relationships with them. She was with Tessa before she transitioned, and since Tessa never dated men she never felt stable in the relationship. Searching for some kind of closure, Edith finds only more instability, that once again Tessa's definition of herself has changed.
Then there is Val, whose death Edith is constantly mourning. Val was Edith's model and mentor of trans womanhood, though Edith mostly pines after Val as an ideal lover. Val was absolutely not an ideal lover, as we come to see, and Edith's romanticization is an attempt to rewrite the past. To me Val often fell flat on the page, more mystery than person, one of the novel's major drawbacks even though I'm sure it's intentional. It's always risky to have this kind of character who refuses to stay in one place, who refuses to be defined.
Edith's past has never been exactly what she wants but she feels like she must find some kind of home to go back to, rather than building the home she wants. This slow transition and understanding is the defining arc of the book.
More vibes than plot, dialogue without quotation marks and moving around in time so you don't always realize exactly where and when you are. Being in Edith's head is a lot of sadness and self-pity, as she works through everything. Although the cuts to Sondheim lyrics as touchpoints for understanding were very enjoyable for me.
Even if this novel isn't fully cohesive, it's affecting and honest, I cared very much about Edith even if I also wanted her to figure out what was right in front of her. I would like to see what she does next....more
3.5 stars. Way back in the day when I read this novel for the first time I found it disappointing. And I'll acknowledge that it's still probably Water3.5 stars. Way back in the day when I read this novel for the first time I found it disappointing. And I'll acknowledge that it's still probably Waters' weakest novel. But I was too hard on it, probably because I read it after Fingersmith and it's really not fair to compare the two.
But I have read more than a few novels about spiritualists of the 19th century and I haven't ever found any of the books truly satisfying. This suffers from many of the same problems, making it hard to know as a reader if we are supposed to believe in the supernatural elements or doubt them, while also not making it very easy to not pick a side as you read.
Still there's a lot to like here. It's such a Sarah Waters novel, jumping in halfway through Margaret's story and never fully giving us the account of her first love affair with her now-sister-in-law Helen. The only Margaret we see is lost, drugged nightly by her mother after a suicide attempt following her father's death, struggling to find a reason to exist in the world.
I actually think that while the plot here is quite good, the real error is having Waters hold back so much to then throw at the very end. Perhaps she figured this out herself because Fingersmith takes a truly impressive approach to the reversals and changing points of view that could have made this more fun. But it's also a book that doesn't exactly want to be fun, it wants to be down in the mournful woes of prison and depression, the difficult lives of the women in Milbank. The book has a slight identity crisis, but also Waters is just really good. Keeps things moving even when so little happens for much of the novel.
I was much too hard on it, though it does have its flaws. The thing is, it still only really looks flawed if you put it in Waters' larger body of work. And so often, her books are better when you reread them, when you already know what she is doing and you just get to enjoy yourself. I suspect the same is true here. ...more
It's very exciting to get a book that is a totally different flavor of weird from Samantha Allen in her second novel. Can she do anything? Maybe!
As aIt's very exciting to get a book that is a totally different flavor of weird from Samantha Allen in her second novel. Can she do anything? Maybe!
As a fellow queer ex-Mormon this book was extremely relatable except for the ghosts lol. But the weirdness is where this book excels, remaking the ghost who needs to make peace with himself trope into something very different with a lot more... electronics.
I know that sometimes we are over coming out narratives, but there are still a lot of reasons people don't come out! Especially public figures and people who feel like it's too late or they're too old. Allen is ready to grapple with this through fictional movie star Roland Rogers, who before his unexpected death hadn't just given up on coming out but fully being himself. It's a perfect team up with Adam, the frustrated ghostwriter who's entirely defined by his coming out memoir that he wrote so long ago that he's not sure what else he has to say.
I think the weirdness and the sex (yes there is sex!) are the real highlights here, keeping the story from getting too bogged down by the big emotional beats. But my biggest note is honestly that I think we could be weirder!
Always excited to see what Allen will do next.
(Note: Allen and I are online mutuals, sorry there are only so many of us queer ex-Mormons out there!) ...more
A book featuring drag, gender fluidity, sex work, dildos, fisting, and socialism set during the 1890s, written in the 1990s, that still feels incredibA book featuring drag, gender fluidity, sex work, dildos, fisting, and socialism set during the 1890s, written in the 1990s, that still feels incredibly relevant in the 2020s. Just goes to show how much stays the same in the queer community.
This was a treating myself reread. I can't remember how I first encountered Sarah Waters (I suspect it was when Fingersmith made the Booker list, such things mattered to me in the early 00's) but it feels like she's been there my entire adult life. Her first three novels were some of the first queer art I encountered period, but definitely the first ones that helped my baby queer self understand our community's history, our context, and that we were much bigger than the white cis gay men that were all I'd seen represented until then.
I have reread other Waters novels but for some reason never this one, I think perhaps my initial thought reading it after Fingersmith was that it was a little disappointing to me because I thought it would be more like Fingersmith. But this time I came in not expecting it to be a twisty complexly plotted thriller but just exactly what it was: a queer coming of age novel. And it truly is stellar at that. I enjoyed myself so much while reading it. It feels so relevant, so relatable despite the vastly different experiences Nan has from someone today. (Rereading Sarah Waters with appropriate expectations also gave me much better experiences with The Little Stranger and The Paying Guests. Interesting.)
I read an interview with Waters where she said she has a hard time going back to this book because to her it feels so obvious that she wrote it in her 20's, and to that I would like to say this is one of the book's biggest strengths! It really gets you in that 20's mindset, and Nan makes very 20's decisions that are often bad. She found Nan so selfish and thought maybe she'd make that different, but again I disagree. Nan's selfishness is part of what makes her feel so real, part of what gave me that time travel back to being 22 feeling of it all. I kept responding to Nan out loud, I said "Oh sweetie" like 50 times. Because oh sweetie we've all been there.
I love the looseness of it, how it rejects the hero's journey and instead has the structure of Nan does this then Nan does that which is how life works. I love a tight plot but I also love a plot that is just Character Figures It Out As They Go. Characters appear and they may randomly show up or disappear never to be seen again except when you're gay all your ex's will show up at the same big party. Again, relatable!
The audio is great, Juanita McMahon gives us all kinds of accents and has a very fun time. You can tell all the characters apart, she's a pro. ...more
This novel doesn't feel like any other novel, a very high compliment. It is strange to read a book that documents something so clearly and perfectly aThis novel doesn't feel like any other novel, a very high compliment. It is strange to read a book that documents something so clearly and perfectly and realize that you cannot remember finding it in any other book or film. The something it documents is, broadly, how it feels to be in a hospital in America in the 21st century. But, of course, within that are so many other things. The fragility and strangeness of the body, the loss of autonomy and all the fear and anxiety that go with it, the ways your mind and your body can seem two entirely unconnected things, and the strangely specific world of a hospital in the summer of 2021.
A hospital is a place without privacy, without intimacy, and often there can be a near complete loss of the sense of self between physical suffering, medication, etc. Greenwell's novel, like his previous ones, follows an unnamed writer who is quite similar to Greenwell himself, though this time we are firmly in America, the writer lives in Iowa City with his longtime partner L, teaching and writing. His medical crisis is sudden and inexplicable, leaving him suddenly alone in the ICU waiting for a resolution, thrown into a limbo state of not being able to eat or walk or sleep or even think all that clearly some of the time. In the novel, we sometimes follow every little detail of his interactions with a doctor or nurse, we sometimes follow his thoughts as they move through time. It is not a novel with chapter breaks or any breaks, really (an artistic choice I respect given the way everything bleeds together but which makes this a very hard book to read before bed!) without a real plot.
In the past, I have been surprised at how much I enjoy Greenwell's writing. Books with little plot and more of an emphasis on prose are often not my style. In his previous two novels what really won me over was the queer life and sex. In this book there is very little sex (maybe a normal amount for a normal novel, but his novels have never been normal when it comes to sex in the best way) but I still found myself captivated. Perhaps because sex is just the body and so much of this book is about the body.
Greenwell writes very realistic fiction, and here he depicts so specifically a time and place, the fears and joys of it, that it often feels less like a novel and more like you are actually present as it all unfolds. It's a truly impressive and important work, feels like something I would put in a time capsule as a way to communicate what it feels like to be alive right now....more
This book took me totally by surprise. It has all my favorite things: Food! Wine! Slutty Bisexuals!
Perhaps the most chaotic bisexual novel that has eThis book took me totally by surprise. It has all my favorite things: Food! Wine! Slutty Bisexuals!
Perhaps the most chaotic bisexual novel that has ever existed, this book is decadent. It is never going to do something a little when it can do it a lot. This book is not a healthy little salad, it is a multi-course meal where the courses just keep coming and the waiter won't stop pouring wine into your glass. Okay fine so it strains credulity that it takes 400+ pages to get Theo and Kit to a happy ending, it feels like they're basically all good when you're barely 20% of the way through. But while I wished we had some more legitimate obstacles and growth, I was happy to have a few hundred more pages if it meant we got to have this much fun along the way.
There is a lot of very queer sex on the page and I love that for us. Especially since this is a straight-presenting bisexual couple and all us bisexuals are very aware of how this can often erase our queerness to others. But McQuiston doesn't leave any room for doubt. These are two very queer people with complex approaches to gender, sexuality, and sex. The sex is frequent and varied and some of it gets quite steamy and specific, for me all big pluses.
This is a romance novel so you know going in it's going to be a HEA. You know there will be obstacles. But I suspect a lot of traditional romance readers will be troubled by how much Kit and Theo have sex with other people and how the book seems pretty fine with that. Because, well, it is actually really hot to know someone is sleeping with other people when you want to sleep with that person. If you can only accept Theo and Kit and will accept no other pairings, this book won't be fun for you! But if you have the kind of attraction Theo and Kit do, then it's just one more enjoyable indulgence.
I have been hit and miss with McQuiston, but this is definitely my favorite. It isn't quite as sugary sweet as RWARB or as capital-q Quirky New York as One Last Stop. They can still feel kinda insufferable, and I will say the first half is more of an uphill climb. Kit and Theo are definitely messy twenty-somethings who don't feel like they've really embraced adulthood, but they really come into their own when they finally start getting comfortable with each other.
Look, I have notes. We spend so long not actually understanding why they broke up, when it's also not clear why they can't just get back together, and where it seems like they are both on board. I would like more actual conflict and some more time with real growth. Both Kit and Theo are super privileged who can have a big fail and still be just fine, and yes it is a little annoying that they can spend their money on things like this tour that I personally could not afford even though I am nearly two decades their senior. And yeah Theo, maybe it's ok to just be the person who makes great drinks without having to be the person who runs your whole business! (Sometimes I really just wanted anyone who has any life experience to give Theo a good bit of work advice for real.) If this book hadn't been so sexy I might have bailed but instead I just drunk up all the sexy fun. ...more
This is... fine. There's a real disconnect, though, with the reissue. The book comes with a real self-celebratory vibe that is going harder than you'dThis is... fine. There's a real disconnect, though, with the reissue. The book comes with a real self-celebratory vibe that is going harder than you'd see even a much celebrated, much lauded, much awarded book. It is a book that defined a queer generation, apparently, that it assures us was passed through the hands of queer girls to their lovers but none of my girlfriends have ever mentioned it to me. To be fair, I was old for it when it came out and I'm even older for it now, but I was expecting something big when what it is is just a pretty basic little novella about a woman's first queer relationship that hasn't entirely aged well.
All these blurbs about how sexy it is, but it isn't a very sexy book, though it refers to sex and sometimes will describe the position or length of time.
The only thing that really stuck out to me was that it's a book about an obsessive relationship with a butch woman, and somehow butch women have almost disappeared from the queer landscape. Not in real life, but in depictions of queer life, the real and the fictional. It's really weird! So I am always thankful when books about queer people remember butches exist and that they are hot. Thank you for that.
It is about an obsessive relationship, about a person struggling with addiction and self-definition, very loose twentysomething meandering which I have seen more than enough of. It's very readable and you can finish it quickly, but I wish there was more there there....more
Edit: June 2024. Wow I just reread this review and I apparently completely forgot that I was reading an Akwaeke Emezi novel. I treated this like a regEdit: June 2024. Wow I just reread this review and I apparently completely forgot that I was reading an Akwaeke Emezi novel. I treated this like a regular book which is absolutely a mistake. So my apologies. This was a bad review. I can't believe I said "hey write something more focused" as if I had never read any of their other novels.
So let's regroup. What we have here is Emezi diving into the underbelly of society. Imagine you could do something like Eyes Wide Shut except homosexual subtext becomes text (thank god) and the nefarious secrecy is actually real and bad in a way that has consequences and the world is a place where sex can show you who you are or unravel you or be the tool you need to survive or be your biggest secret.
Yes, it's violent and full to the brim of content warnings, but that is also the point. Because all of this is real and it's not just a fun little escape for rich people to indulge. Emezi forces us to see all of this through, to follow a handful of decisions through to their inevitable, terrible consequences. No one is safe, no one is pure, and almost everyone finds themselves in a position where they can inflict harm or pain on another person to save themselves or for no reason at all.
In the middle of all this chaos and suffering, we find moments of joy and connection and love. And maybe there isn't a utopian vision, because how can there be one in this world? But it is a place where we can fight for each other and ourselves and survive.
Original Review: It's best to experience this novel in the moment, not to look for the many pieces of it to come together into a cohesive whole. The book doesn't really let you know that this is how to read it, so I will tell you. The book starts you off from one point of view for so long that it seems that is what matters, when ultimately it is really secondary to the story its trying to tell. If anything, Aima exists only to try and root us in some kind of morality and normality so that we can then be pulled out of it for the rest of the book into the underbelly it really cares about.
Emezi brings a lot of their strengths to these characters. Once we set Aima to the side, then there is trauma and violence and longing and most of all, sex. Most of them have a casualness they bring with them, an ability to look past the worst of the world they are in. For Kalu this world is an escape from an otherwise respectable life, for Ahmed it is a world he is trying to control for his own power, and for Ola it is her best shot at a life of security despite the risks.
There is, for just a moment, a vision of another world here. In this other world, sex is empowering and joyful and communal. Ahmed's version may look like something exciting and joyful, a place for people to feel safe in their desires, but this is only the outermost circle and there is much more the farther you go down. There are a few moments of pure longing and desire, but they can never last.
What does Emezi want to bring us here? What are they trying to explore? It's never entirely clear. Moments with these characters feel emotionally rich and complex, and the story is almost always very queer. As they continue to play with genre, there is something of the erotic thriller in this story, but I would love to see something a little more focused from them....more
Once again Maren has given us a story of queer life in West Virginia. This is a short and simple story, the kind that makes no attempt to hide how thiOnce again Maren has given us a story of queer life in West Virginia. This is a short and simple story, the kind that makes no attempt to hide how things are going to end up. The plain prose fits our first person narrator, Shae, who is 16 as the novel begins.
A lot of things in this story are quiet, everything told with a kind of frankness that makes it feel like it's nowhere near what it is. Tone is everything here, Shae's story is the kind that could be a melodrama, could be a morality tale, could be all kind of things but in her own words it is simply what happened to her.
I often don't like teenage narrators but I found myself entranced by Shae. She is a real teenager, not always understanding how she feels, not saying the things she should say, choices she made feel more like things that just happened. And the queerness of the novel feels like modern teenage queerness, Shae never refers to herself with any particular label. Her girlfriend's transition is the only time we have a more typical queerness narrative on the page, and in the story the real purpose it serves is to show us how Shae and Cam are not able to communicate their feelings to each other. (Very little in the way of queer suffering here, ftr.)
This stripped down style suits Maren, I would love to see more of it from her....more
I wanted to like this but it wasn't a match. I think with this kind of novel, with this kind of prose, with this kind of "literary" feel, that it is aI wanted to like this but it wasn't a match. I think with this kind of novel, with this kind of prose, with this kind of "literary" feel, that it is always going to be pretty subjective and it either hits or it doesn't for each reader. But for me the prose, which often gave you just bits of things, edges of conversations, didn't dive into the themes the way I would have liked. Because these themes are really interesting to me! I've read other novels with similar ones and been captivated. But with this book it felt like coming into a room when everyone is leaving, like I'd missed all the substance. All I felt like I had was the prose and the style, whereas the characters only seemed to get farther and farther away from me. ...more
One of the best horror novels of the year. An eerie slow burn set in a small Canadian town in 1901 about a schoolteacher escaping her past. I enjoyed One of the best horror novels of the year. An eerie slow burn set in a small Canadian town in 1901 about a schoolteacher escaping her past. I enjoyed this very much but it's almost hard to review because I just want to push it into people's hands and tell them to read it.
While it takes a little time for the horror-y bits to pick up, I didn't find the book itself a dull read. Instead from the beginning we know Ada has a complicated history and that she is struggling to figure out who she is and what she wants. It's no help that she has basically no options as an unmarried woman nearing 30, and cannot tolerate her restrictive father's home. I liked spending time with Ada, and as the book is in diary form it was always nice to have her sit down to tell me about her day.
We slowly build the horror, it's never a straight up scare, but there is a fair amount of gore on the page. (Near the end there is some actual violence, though before that it is mostly the corpses of woodland creatures.) But this is one of my favorite kinds of horror novels that is actually About Something. While modern feminist horror is often quite muddled, once you go back in time over 100 years it's a clearer story. Ada is a feminist character, a woman who wants freedom, a woman who feels the pain of the limitations put on her life. She is also someone who is so used to those limits that she doesn't fully realize what she wants and how she feels. Following her own journey of self-discovery as she comes closer and closer to a supernatural force, becoming more animal is the very kind of thing that starts to appeal to Ada and her love of the natural world. It works quite seamlessly, considering feminism, sexuality, freedom, patriarchy without making you feel like you are being hit over the head with the themes.
A confident debut and I hope we see much more from Gish. ...more
Sometimes when I'm reading a particularly interesting book, I start trying to figure out what is so interesting about it. I try to figure out how I waSometimes when I'm reading a particularly interesting book, I start trying to figure out what is so interesting about it. I try to figure out how I want to describe the characters or the prose. I take some pleasure out of this, obviously I enjoy writing reviews or I wouldn't be doing this right now. It is nice to find the right description, to be able to say "Ah yes, this is the thing I am enjoying so much." I tried to do this with A Good Happy Girl and absolutely failed. I cannot effectively describe its unique prose or characters. This is not a bad thing, if anything it just fascinated me more as I read. But even if you are not trying to write a review of this book I suspect you may find yourself in the same place. It is strange, it is often offputting, it is the kind of work that gets your attention.
It reminded me in small ways of other books I've really enjoyed that had a similar kind of frankness around sex and self-destruction, books like Little Rabbit and Luster and Pizza Girl and Acts of Service. If you enjoyed those books, you will probably enjoy this one. It is not the same as them, but since part of the reason I write reviews is to help people decide if they want to read a book, this is the best I can do.
It's an impressive tightrope Higgins walks. It would be very easy for one of the two plotlines--Helen's complex and kinky relationship with a pair of married women, and Helen's depression and crisis tied in with her imprisoned parents--to take over the story, to have one be not as strong as the other, to have one distract. But somehow they all feed back into the central black hole that is Helen, a strange animal who wants to ingest both pain and devotion. Any kindness Helen receives must be wrapped in a fist.
Higgins' prose is also hard to explain, I could never put my finger on it. It is often very frank and simple, and yet it turns in the most unexpected directions. Her sentences can be so surprising, the words and the meanings. Reading this book is like watching a very strange circus act or walking through a carnival tent of exotic feats. It is also one of the most queer books I have ever read in every sense of the word. ...more
I have not actually read Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, so learning about Winterson's early life was probably more interesting to me than it would beI have not actually read Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, so learning about Winterson's early life was probably more interesting to me than it would be to someone who's read her autobiographical novel. But this really isn't much like a novel, often it's not very much like a memoir. Winterson is not very interested in telling us the linear story of her life than examining her adoptive mother, how she was raised, and how she escaped.
It's horrible stuff, much of it is abuse, though mostly it's not physical abuse. Winterson has enough distance from it to present it plainly and simply, she is interested more in the how and why of her mother's actions than anything else. I did not find listening to it as difficult as it sometimes can be to hear these stories and I don't think Winterson wants it to be a harrowing read. She simply wants to say the truth and answer these lingering questions.
She thinks a lot about love, what it is, how her childhood has affected her idea of love, and why love was so hard to come by when she was a child. The book is often quite meditative, more about ideas than stories, but this did not bother me at all even though I am very much a plot person.
In the later parts of the book we follow Winterson in the near-present as she finally tracks down her biological mother to answer many of the questions she still has about the circumstances of her adoption.
I did the audio, which Winterson reads. I enjoyed her narration a lot, she reads well, with feeling and interest....more
I read this audiobook in a single day, sped through it, and was glad to have it as a distraction during a long travel day. I enjoyed it a lot while I I read this audiobook in a single day, sped through it, and was glad to have it as a distraction during a long travel day. I enjoyed it a lot while I was listening. But when it was over I was a little discontented. Dolan is a charming writer, and there is so much that she gets just right about being in your 20's. But the center of the whole story felt, to me, not worthy of a story.
I want it to be worthy of a story! Right off the bat I recognized this couple. Oh no, I thought, I know them. This is that couple who is not really a great couple and don't seem all that happy and yet proceed to get serious and move in together and get married even though you're pretty sure these are all bad decisions. The power of inertia combined with the relationship escalator. I was more than happy to get a breakdown and take down of this too-common dynamic. But then that wasn't really how it ended up.
From the beginning, you want this couple to break up. Whether they will is a pretty strong question that keeps you going through the whole story, either outcome feels possible. I just kept getting annoyed as we switched to different perspectives and points of view. Our couple, Celine and Luke, have a little circle of friends (plus Celine's sister) who get added to the narrative near the end for reasons that are not entirely clear and I was about ready to strangle everyone involved by the end. I have my complaints about Celine and Luke (we'll get to that) but the way all these people can stand by and watch their friend/sister get ready to marry someone that they don't really think they're all that into and just stand there and say not a damn thing about it, it's weird. I expect that from the older folks but not from Gen Z and young Millennials. Especially when basically every character is queer and should be wondering why everyone is so hung up on marriage anyway. But instead they all just seem to shrug and say "Why get involved? Why not just let my friend take this big step that will change their entire life and be incredibly difficult to undo? Why not just act like it is no big deal?"
The other thing that drove me a little up the wall is how Celine and Luke are often presented as being approximately equally at fault for the problems in their relationship. (There is one point where it is finally acknowledged that they are not, but it is the minority.) They are definitely not! I found Celine interesting, and could really understand how she'd ended up in this situation, one that seems to happen to so many women who end up with deeply mediocre men. Luke... well.
There is a point where we get some first person narration from Luke (the rest of the book is 3rd) and this was where it all started to run off course for me. It had been one thing when it was just oh yes girl is unable to admit she is not happy and boy is taking the path of least resistance. But once we get the full story on Luke, well, my whole feelings on the story changed. Now time for a spoiler tag. (view spoiler)[I'm sorry but this man cheated MULTIPLE TIMES with MULTIPLE PEOPLE including HER CLOSEST FRIENDS and HIS BEST FRIEND and this is treated as just a shrug-worthy offense. I do not buy that it is just oh yes well queer people we see these things differently. I am a queer nonmonogamous person! What he's doing is totally not okay on any level! When he is undecided on whether he should actually get married in just a few hours and his good friend is like "whatever you want to do" without either of them acknowledging that Celine is choosing to marry him not knowing that he has committed multiple infidelities and maybe this is actually something she deserves to know before SHE decides to commit to him! Also do not get me started on how no one will tell Celine about any of this, including her own sister, including two of her bridesmaids????, they are all not actually good friends. (hide spoiler)]
At the end everyone seems to learn many things far too quickly and I understand narrative convenience but I would have liked it better if we'd had some more realistic repercussions and consequences instead of something that felt almost like a moral to the story.
All those complaints said, Dolan is just such a fun writer to read. She is so snappy, she is fun, I will keep reading her books and getting mad at her young characters for making stupid mistakes because I am old and it is my right....more
The thing about Bryan Washington's novels is that in some ways they are everything I love and in other ways they are not my thing. There's always someThe thing about Bryan Washington's novels is that in some ways they are everything I love and in other ways they are not my thing. There's always some tension there, but so far I've finished them both and I suspect I will continue to come back.
I love the Houston setting, the way his characters feel like people I know, how unapologetically queer everything is, his thoughtfulness and care with his characters. He really lets us sit in struggle but also lets us soak in love.
They are also novels that can feel plotless, that have a fluidity to them, and this is harder for me. I tend to be a plot and momentum person. Novels people call poetic are not really for me and I think Washington falls in that category. But I think it's saying something that most of those novels I do not read but Washington I will finish and finish happily.
I found this a lot heavier than Memorial, Cam in particular is one of those people who seems to have encountered so much pain and struggle that it can feel overwhelming. (There is police violence against a Black person that hits pretty hard.) Every character here has a lot they're grappling with and they all come to it in different ways. The three different perspectives here really flesh things out, getting to see TJ from Cam's perspective and then Cam from TJ's perspective really opens things up.
This book just feels so lived in. I loved that....more
2.5 stars. Didn't do nearly as much for me as the first. This kind of odyssey-esque story of wanderings is not a type I enjoy much of the time, so it'2.5 stars. Didn't do nearly as much for me as the first. This kind of odyssey-esque story of wanderings is not a type I enjoy much of the time, so it's all about execution and whether it really connects. The humor here didn't hit for me and the poignancy never quite got there either. There were some really lovely moments in it that I enjoyed a lot, but the broad strokes weren't effective. (I could already predict the outcome of almost every unanswered question long before we got to it, usually around the time the question was posed.) And at least it wasn't too much "oh no the uncultured South" as many of these books can do.
I will give Greer credit for doing enough homework that I recognized the names of several cities along the way that I had been to, a lot of road trip novels will not even do that much....more
This is super weird and I loved it. It isn't a book that sticks to any recognizable arc or structure, it doesn't really make a lot of sense what happeThis is super weird and I loved it. It isn't a book that sticks to any recognizable arc or structure, it doesn't really make a lot of sense what happens or how the story is put together. But I was just happy to go wherever it took me.
The body swap trope usually has a set of rules around it, but they don't exist here. Not even a little. When a man realizes he is in his wife's body and his wife (and his own body) have disappeared, he does not react in any kind of predictable way. This is, ultimately, an exploration of gender but it is in no hurry to get there and it has no big message to throw at you. It sees gender as this space to play in, to try things, to see what happens.
There is a truly fantastic sex scene here that deserves to go in your sex writing studies.
The last quarter or so is a very different book than the rest was. It changes form a few times (heh) and at the end it becomes more of a metaphor for transness, for the way you can only escape the trap you have made of your relationships by becoming another person, for how you can only see people clearly through different eyes. It's unexpectedly poignant....more
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