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| 1423153286
| 9781423153283
| 1423153286
| 3.94
| 6,146
| Apr 23, 2013
| Apr 23, 2013
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it was ok
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Look, I knew The Rules would be a long shot from the moment I laid eyes on it, but I was bored and plucked it from the obscurity of the YA stacks at m
Look, I knew The Rules would be a long shot from the moment I laid eyes on it, but I was bored and plucked it from the obscurity of the YA stacks at my library because why not. I feel like I have fallen off the YA wagon lately; I have only read three in the past year, so I was rather starving. Stacey Kade is not a name I recognized, but the plot seemed decent enough, and even though I suspected it would be a dud, I hoped it might at least have its moments. Which … sort of? Ariane Tucker is a human–alien hybrid living under the assumed identity of the deceased daughter of the man who broke her out of captivity at GTX, the evil corporate villain of this book. Aside from life on the lam, Ariane is your typical junior—or she would be, if she didn’t slavishly follow the eponymous Rules. Invented by her “father” to help her fly under the radar lest GTX locate her and take her back into custody, the Rules help Ariane survive but are also a serious buzzkill. Until now, Ariane has never minded them. But when Rachel “Generic Mean Girl Du Jour” Jacobs bullies Ariane’s friend and Ariane retaliates, bringing her into the orbit of Zane “You’re Not Like Other Girls” Bradshaw, sparks fly and the Rules go out the window. Look, I don’t want to be too harsh on this book, so let’s start with some good news: this book isn’t bad; it’s just OK. It’s the kind of YA novel that, if you read enough of this vibe, is eminently predictable—yet Kade deserves credit at least for managing to hit each beat. If each of the remaining two books in this trilogy (I won’t be reading the rest) sticks the landing in the same way, this is a solid serialized story that I could see myself loving more at fifteen. Storywise, The Rules is an exemplar of a novel that has all the working parts … just none of the heart that really gets to your core. There are two major flaws with this book, and they are connected: the characterization and the writing overall. None of these characters, Ariane included, are remotely interesting human beings. Though there are attempts at making them round and dynamic characters, these mostly result in each person falling back into an archetype, as I mocked above. Zane Bradshaw wants to be played by High School Musical–age Zac Efron but would probably be a Disney Channel Shia LaBeouf if he’s lucky. Jenna is a spaghetti noodle of a best friend type. Ariane’s father has, like, six lines until the climax of the novel. Split between Ariane and Zane’s first-person narration, The Rules should be full of dramatic irony and a lot of tension as Zane sleuths out Ariane’s secret. At the very least, there should be some sparkage, some romantic will-they-won’t-they drama. No. It’s Snoozeville over here, and Ariane and Zane are co-mayors. Even that by itself might still make this a worthwhile slog. But then at the start of a later chapter Kade hits us with a “I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.” Literally. Word for word. In 2014. It’s not Kade’s fault, really; one of her editors should have caught this cliché, collected it carefully, and then marched it out back for its summary execution. This darling was not killed, however, and it’s emblematic of the writing in The Rules: this might be the most YA-iest YA novel I have read in a while, as if Kade sat down and, David Eddings style, plotted out beat-for-beat what a conspiracy SF YA novel should look like. As I said above, in and of itself that is not a bad thing (David Eddings was my hook into fantasy, and maybe Kade’s books will be some young person’s hook into SF). There’s something to be said for hitting every beat. Alas, this kind of rote storytelling doesn’t do much for me these days, nor does it make me excited to recommend this to younger readers. The Rules is too good at following its own rules, and like Ariane up until the events of this book, it is too good at flying under the radar. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 30, 2024
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Aug 02, 2024
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Aug 09, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1668020882
| 9781668020883
| 1668020882
| 4.15
| 2,151
| Jan 16, 2024
| Jan 16, 2024
|
liked it
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World War II books that don’t focus on soldiers or battles are my jam. Give me the pieces about the civilians, the spies, the scientists, the kids. I
World War II books that don’t focus on soldiers or battles are my jam. Give me the pieces about the civilians, the spies, the scientists, the kids. I picked up The Curse of Pietro Houdini on a whim from the new books shelf at my library. I thought the title betokened some kind of fantasy novel, and though that hope was dashed, I still enjoyed Derek B. Miller’s historical yarn of an irreverent-yet-sentimental old man and his happenstance, gendershifting protégé. A fourteen-year-old narrowly escapes Rome as Italy finds itself occupied by German forces. The eponymous Pietro scoops up this child on his way to Montecassino, the first Benedictine abbey, where he plans to restore and perhaps rescue some priceless works of art before the Nazis or the Allies destroy them. The child claims the name Massimo and takes on the appearance of a boy and falls in with Pietro as his assistant. From here the kind of peculiar bond really only found in quirky stories like this develops as Pietro tries to keep Massimo safe while also preserving the artworks. Along the way, they kill some Nazis, get injured, go on the run, and more. Miller shows himself an expert at interweaving fact and fiction in this historical novel. I didn’t know much about Monte Cassino (don’t know much about wartime Italy at all, to be honest), so it was fascinating learning about real-life people like Schlengel and Becker alongside Miller’s fictional creations like Pietro. I liked seeing things through the eyes of sympathetic yet non-Ally characters: their disdain for Americans and imperialists is enjoyable. Pietro criticizes the Americans, for example, for dispatching their “monuments men” in some cases yet blithely bombing irreplaceable landmarks like Montecassino in other cases. Similarly, the perspectives of civilians like Lucia and Dino, or Bella, or even Massimo/Eva, shed light on how fraught the war must have felt when it was both in the vicinity yet at a remove. Miller’s exploration of gender expression through our narrator is also worth examining. The book starts in the first person until the narrator reaches a breaking point and “becomes” Massimo, fully inhabiting this persona so much that it feels like he “believes” himself to be a fourteen-year-old boy from a rough life in Rome. At this point, the book shifts into third person, remaining this way even as Massimo transforms into Eva to escape press-ganging. Though I don’t believe we are meant to interpret these shifts as the narrator truly having a mental break, they are useful in illustrating how intensely some people had to conceal their identities to survive Nazi or fascist rule. I also enjoyed how accepting Pietro was of the genderfluidity of our narrator. Without going into spoilers, I want to conclude by briefly looking at this book as a tragedy—for it has some of those elements. Dark shit happens near the end of this book. You want everyone to get out of it alive. You want a happy ending. And maybe Miller gives you one or maybe he doesn’t—that isn’t for me to say. But like any book about World War II, The Curse of Pietro Houdini is about resilience in the face of trauma, and Miller is quick to point out in his afterword that some of the worst events in this book did, in fact, happen. War is hell, and it is no wonder novelists continue to revisit some of our most famous wars so they can tinker with the environments that most test our humanity. If, like me, you want “cozy” wartime books, The Curse of Pietro Houdini has something to offer. It’s humorous yet sometimes heavy, far-reaching yet incredibly intimate, lighthearted yet shading often into sombre. In other words, it is as much a rash of contradictions as its title character—as it should be. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 21, 2024
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Jul 22, 2024
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Aug 06, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 4.37
| 137,765
| Aug 06, 2019
| Aug 08, 2019
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liked it
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The Poppy War left me more, and fortunately my library was able to deliver (well, I went and picked it up, but you know what I mean). The Dragon Repub
The Poppy War left me more, and fortunately my library was able to deliver (well, I went and picked it up, but you know what I mean). The Dragon Republic is the continuation of R.F. Kuang’s fantasy reimagining of twentieth-century Chinese history, mixed in with meditations on magic, gods, and monsters. Spoilers for the first book but not for this one. Rin is now the effective commander of the Cike following her genocidal actions at the end of the first book. Sworn to depose the Empress of Nikara, Rin and her ragtag band of god-empowered misfits at first align themselves with a pirate queen. When that backfires, she finds herself meeting up with an unlikely frenemy from her past, whose father has plans to take down the empress for his own reasons. You know what they say: the enemy of my enemy…. The same character flaws that made Rin such a nuanced protagonist in The Poppy War come roaring back in this book. They are complicated by Rin’s newfound impotence: pretty early in the story, a confrontation with the empress leaves her without access to her god, the Phoenix, and the fiery power it grants her. This doesn’t alter Rin’s overall goals, however, just stokes the fires of her desire for revenge even more. However, as with her time as a student at Sinegard, Rin once again finds herself in a position of relative powerlessness. Despite her ostensible value as an avatar of the Phoenix, Rin is shut down and shut out—relegated to being experimental fodder for the fundamentalist, monotheistic Hesperians and cannon fodder in the Dragon Warlord’s army. Several things save this from being a recapitulation of the first book, however. First, Kuang continues to flesh out the series’ mythology. We get to meet the Hesperians. We learn more about the Hinterlanders/Ketreyids and their connection to the god-powers Rin and the other Cike have, along with their role in the empress's rise to power. Most importantly, Rin reconnects with old friends and rivals (not saying who, but I loved it), and for once we see her recognizing that she might actually need (shock, gasp) help to achieve her goals. Rin changes, albeit frustratingly slowly. It’s been a few weeks since I read the book, however, and other particulars have evaporated. I enjoyed it, especially the way it builds on the mythology, but it didn’t feel as revelatory as The Poppy War. Maybe that’s to be expected with the second book in a trilogy. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I get to the third book. As it is, I still recommend The Dragon Republic. As long as you’re OK with continuing to watch Rin laid low by pretty much everyone she meets with an iota of ill will towards her, you’ll be fine. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 27, 2024
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Jun 29, 2024
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Jul 25, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1646143795
| 9781646143795
| 4.29
| 633
| Apr 16, 2024
| Apr 16, 2024
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really liked it
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Darcie Little Badger is one to watch. That’s what I say to myself anyway, as I pound back endless cups of tea and anyone else reads these words on the
Darcie Little Badger is one to watch. That’s what I say to myself anyway, as I pound back endless cups of tea and anyone else reads these words on the internet. But if you are reading these words, then you ought to know Sheine Lende is a fantastic experience all around, just like my experiences with
Elatsoe
and
A Snake Falls to Earth
before it. At every turn, Little Badger crafts a narrative so compelling and compassionate that I’m left satisfied and awestruck. A prequel to Elatsoe, Sheine Lende is the eponymous story of Elatsoe’s grandmother. Set roughly during the 1970s, I think, the book follows Shane’s quest to rescue her mother. Shane and her mother work as trackers of missing persons, and one day while tracking two missing siblings, Shane’s mom disappears. Shane locates one of the siblings, but the other remains missing, presumably with her mother. Shane has no choice but to work with a ragtag team: her younger brother, the retrieved sibling, her best friend, and her drifter grandfather. Her quest will take her far afield from home, even perhaps into the land of the dead. As with Elatsoe, this story is set in a world much like ours, except that humanity acknowledges magic—and the fairy realm—exists. Magic isn’t common, however, and aside from some people being able to use fairy rings for long-distance transport, most people who practise it keep it on the down-low. That’s the case for Shane and her mother, who have the ability to summon the spirits of dead animals and even use their ghost dog, Nellie, in their tracking business. Shane and her mother are Lipan Apache, displaced by a rich white man from their ancestral lands, and just getting by. Little Badger expertly conveys Shane’s existence: life with her mother and her little brother is tough sometimes yet also full of love, and Shane, at seventeen, is a mature young woman burgeoning with creativity and ambition. This is key to the book’s success: Shane is an excellent protagonist. As soon as her mom goes missing, she shifts gear into leader mode. Lots of people older than her—mostly men—doubt her (though shout out to her grandpa and others who eventually cast aside their doubts and get on board). Really, Shane’s best allies are her best friend and her new friend, Donnie—these three young women showcase the power of female friendship (and you can bet I enjoyed the queer vibes as well). Shane is so focused on getting her mom back, and while she has her own moments of self-doubt, it is her grit and her determination that makes her such a formidable figure. Combine this with Little Badger’s attention to pacing and how to unspool the mystery, and you have yourself an exciting read. Although I felt like the middle third of the book lagged a bit, the intensity of the third act more than makes up for it. My favourite part was probably the ending, however. I won’t go into spoilers, but basically we get a flashforward to Shane as an older woman (and Elatsoe is there). Shane has been waiting for something for decades. It’s really neat, seeing the older Shane, seeing her reflect back on the adventure we just witnessed. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, as I approach thirty-five, how I’m aging and how I might feel in the decades to come, as I look back at my earlier life. So something about this scene, about seeing an older Shane, really just … hit me. In a good way. Little Badger reminds us that we all grow old—if we are lucky—and there is a beauty inherent in just having lived one’s life. That’s really what Sheine Lende comes down to. This is a book about the beauty of being human, of building connections to family and friends, of getting angry or sad or distraught and fighting and hugging it out. Of pushing on past what you think are your limits. Of trusting others. This is a fun novel with serious themes (including resisting colonialism), and it’s definitely worth your time. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 17, 2024
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Jun 25, 2024
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Jul 19, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 031628971X
| 9780316289719
| 031628971X
| 4.09
| 12,245
| Jun 06, 2023
| Jun 06, 2023
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really liked it
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Some good reviews by people I trust brought this new standalone novel from Ann Leckie to my attention. Translation State, similar to Provenance, is se
Some good reviews by people I trust brought this new standalone novel from Ann Leckie to my attention. Translation State, similar to Provenance, is set in the universe of her Imperial Radch trilogy but tells a different story. This one enlightens us ever so slightly as to the nature of the Presger, but really, of course, it’s about what it means to be human. The story alternates among three viewpoint characters: Enae, Qven, and Reet. Enae (sie/hir) is young, recently bereaved of hir grandmother, a kind of family matriarch. At a loss for what to do yet utterly free, Enae cautiously undertakes a job that will take her away from everything sie has ever known. Qven is a Presger Translator: human in appearance yet alien in physiology, eir journey is one of defection and refuge. Reet has been living an unassuming life on a space station until one day someone tells him that he might be the long-lost, last living descendant of an important autocrat. When he meets Qven, though, everything changes. It has been years since I read the other Radch books. This one benefits from the multiple perspectives—whereas the trilogy is largely Breq’s story, Translation State is a tripartite story featuring three very different protagonists. They don’t always want the same thing, which leads to some very interesting moments as the novel approaches climax. Each has a story worthwhile in its own right. When Leckie welds them together, she creates something that is just as complex, if more understated, as her original trilogy of self-discovery and self-actualization. I probably identified with Enae’s character the most, despite superficially having very little resemblance to hir life. I liked how game Enae is. How sie doesn’t back down from a challenge. While far from a Mary Sue in terms of capabilities, Enae is no doormat, and hir combination of compassion and perspicacity proves enchanting. It’s easy to dismiss Enae, I think, because hir story seems the least connected to the overall theme of what it means to be human. Yet I would argue that Enae’s role as investigator is crucial. We needed a third perspective, beyond Qven and Reet, for us to glimpse why their struggle is so important without getting lost in the middle of it. Qven and Reet were a bit harder for me to love—but I loved Reet’s family dynamics, and I really like how Qven and Reet bond after they meet. The chapters where Qven is growing up as a juvenile Presger Translator are fascinating and probably some of the most original, thought-provoking science fiction I’ve read in a while. Indeed, Leckie showcases her incredible gift for writing about aliens and alienness here. The Presger have always been a cipher and, as is our nature, readers have always wanted to know more about them. Leckie doesn’t show all her cards here—which is a good thing. Nothing ruins an ineffable race more than discovering they are, in fact, effable! It’s clear the Presger’s nature transcends space-time in a way that we mere mortals cannot grasp. However, this book does provide more insight into the Translators, and through them, the Presger. One thing that strikes me as fascinating is that the book never fully establishes why Qven becomes so attached to the idea of being human. The Translators are part human, part Presger. Alien in their being and nature, they nevertheless must have some human qualities so that they can move among us. Yet Qven is the first (second?) Translator to rebel against eir purpose, if you will, or at least on the first or second to live and tell the tale. Though some of this is a response to trauma, it’s still interesting that Qven can’t put aside eir individuality and assimilate into the role eir clade needs. Leckie’s commenting on the inexorable nature of humanity here: it appears our genes are always bound to gunk up the works. If you have enjoyed Leckie’s other books, you will like Translation State as well. You might miss the grand space opera and associated battles—though there is some action here and there. But it’s clear that Leckie is enjoying exploring different corners of her universe while she asks big questions, and that is truly the best use of science fiction. If you are new to Leckie, this is a fine place to start. You might feel a little out of the loop, for the book refers to events that took place in the trilogy—but understanding this book doesn’t depend on a knowledge of those events, so they might as well be backstory inserted into the background as flavour text. I’m here for the creativity and fun that Leckie is having as she expands the universe she started with her Radch novels. From cultures outside the Radch to actual aliens to everything in between, there’s so much to see here. You won’t get all the answers, and that might be frustrating at first, but it’s so much better that way. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 30, 2024
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Jun 02, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 0593359267
| 9780593359266
| 0593359267
| 3.58
| 20,873
| Aug 01, 2023
| Aug 08, 2023
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it was ok
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Another “New Books” shelf find at the library. I’d heard of Kiersten White as an author of Buffy tie-in novels (though I had never read any). The desc
Another “New Books” shelf find at the library. I’d heard of Kiersten White as an author of Buffy tie-in novels (though I had never read any). The description of this book was interesting enough for me to try it. Just under three hundred pages, its pacing is quick enough I finished it in a single day. Mister Magic is a great example of a serviceable urban fantasy thriller that doesn’t wow yet still entertains. That being said, if you pay enough attention, there’s deeper magic at work here. It has been thirty years since the abrupt end of a children’s TV show called Mister Magic. Though whispers about the show abound online as former viewers share their recollections, no official record of the show exists: no production notes, no official profile online, no recordings. Val is one of the five former cast members who survived—the sixth’s tragic death was why the show ended—though she has no memory of her involvement. When two of her fellow cast members track her down on a farm, she decides to go with them to a reunion podcast recording in the very house where the show was filmed. That’s when things get … weird. There was magic involved in the production of Mister Magic, but it’s nothing like what you would expect. The first part of this book is standard, perhaps pedestrian, horror-movie-style setup. Val’s memory of childhood has faded away; all she knows is life on Gloria’s farm, an able assistant at the riding camp for rich horse girls. Her life is thrown into upset, first by her father’s death and then by the arrival of Javier and Marcus. Once the three of them make it to the house and meet up with Isaac and Jenny, things kick into a higher gear. It’s still fairly predictable until the climax, but White is very good at hitting the right notes. Probably the best scenes were the one-on-one interviews between each cast member and the … entity … posing as a podcast host. These were pitch-perfect creepiness. Similarly, I enjoyed how much time White spends unpacking Val’s trauma: her attempt to visit her mother and get answers, her anxiety around reminiscing about a TV show she doesn’t remember being on. That being said, I kind of wish we had spent more time with the other characters, seen things more from their point of view. There are additional layers to Mister Magic that are metaphors for White’s own experiences leaving Mormonism. These are probably the most successful at reaching me: I found the book’s theme about letting your kids grow up and make their own mistakes, instead of holding them by the hand and guiding them through everything, very compelling. In this way, the climax of the book, Val’s fateful actions, and the revelations around the nature of the eponymous Mister Magic character are all extremely satisfying. Alas, there isn’t enough meat on the bones of these broad points to turn this into a truly gripping horror story. I keep thinking about Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey (also a Buffy-adjacent writer), which is probably the most recent horror novel I’ve read that has stuck with me—I don’t actually have a separate shelf for tracking horror, which shows how often I read it. Mister Magic satisfies the creepy vibe I want and hints at the twisted supernatural elements lurking below the surface of our daily life … yet until we got to the climax, I never truly felt like Val or anyone else was in danger. There wasn’t the tension I need from my horror. In the end, this is not one I would recommend. It has its moments, and like I said, I found it to be a fairly quick read. But I’m not sure there’s enough unique qualities here to make it memorable. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 29, 2024
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May 29, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 3.76
| 626,352
| May 16, 2023
| May 25, 2023
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really liked it
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Yes, every once in a while I manage to snag a book that isn’t an ARC soon after its release (and actually read it)—all of this helped by my lovely pub
Yes, every once in a while I manage to snag a book that isn’t an ARC soon after its release (and actually read it)—all of this helped by my lovely public library, for they had a copy but of course there are holds on it, so I have to read it right away! Yellowface is quite the departure from
Babel
, the only other R.F. Kuang book I’ve read to date. But my understanding, from what I have read about her work and the book, is that this is on purpose; she likes to change up genre and try something new all the time. Neat. As far as how this works as a novel: it’s a bit inside baseball, but otherwise it is a very fun and frustrating read. June Hayward watches her not-particularly-close friend die and then takes her friend’s just completed first-draft manuscript. She polishes it up, submits it under her own name, and ends up publishing her second novel under the more ethnically ambiguous name of Juniper Song. This sprawling epic about the unsung history of Chinese labourers in World War I nets June the praise and recognition she has always craved. But as suspicions and accusations over the true authorship of the novel mount, June finds her own mental health deteriorating. The publishing industry is not a healthy or friendly one in this novel, as it is likely not in real life. While this novel lacks the epic scope or fantastical elements of Babel, there are still so many layers to unpack here. I’m going to do my best, with the caveats that I am white, Canadian, and in no way a part of the publishing industry. Most of what I know about publishing I glean from the tweets of authors, agents, and industry professionals. First let’s talk about the obvious (and perhaps most controversial) layer: the central question of who is allowed to tell a story? This conversation continually arises like a phoenix from its own, smoldering embers. The #OwnVoices label is a part of it but also problematic in the way it can reduce authors to their identities and also even pressure authors to come out. Kuang cuts straight to the heart of the matter by asking us what informs an author’s identity. Is it just heritage? Athena Liu was ethnically Chinese, but she didn’t speak Mandarin and wasn’t particularly connected to the story she was telling about Chinese labourers a century ago. Neither is June—but by the time she is done massaging Athena’s manuscript, she has done just as much, if not more, research than Athena herself. Does that make June the more qualified voice for this story? Do either of them have the right to tell this story, or is it nearly as ghoulish as Athena’s reported behaviour with Korean veterans? If you’re expecting Yellowface to give you an answer, don’t hold your breath. The whole point is that there isn’t an easy answer. Indeed, the “right” answer tends to vacillate depending on the calculus of optimizing publisher profit and reputation. June, for a time at least, manages to ride that curve quite well—until she doesn’t. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I predict that June Hayward will go down in the history of famous unsympathetic and unreliable narrators, right alongside stinkers like Humbert Humbert. This is the second layer to Yellowface. Indeed, given how much of the book is June talking directly at the reader (often justifying her current flavour of feelings), you need to want to read a book with this kind of protagonist. This is not an action thriller, nor is it a story about personal growth. This is not a novel about redemption or even about receiving comeuppance. This is a novel about justifying one’s selfishness in the name of restoring a shattered American Dream. Kuang brings a darkly incisive flavour of humour to her commentary on racism within publishing. June is constantly spouting racist observations to the reader in a way that confirms she is utterly ignorant of her racism. Her comment, “Candice exists entirely to complain about microaggressions,” and later the way she describes an event attendee who challenges her as “dressed like a right-wing meme of a social justice warrior…. Look, we’re all liberals here. But come on,” made me laugh out loud. June is peak white woman throughout most of this book, and it is wonderful as it is terrifying. See, June knows that what she did with Athena’s manuscript is unethical. She knows enough to lie about it, to hide it, and to feel a modicum of shame. But she also thinks she deserves success, that her personal allocation of success was unfairly reallocated to minority voices, and therefore, her actions are just a levelling of the scale. Kuang perfectly encapsulates the way that internalized white supremacy teaches white people who have experienced hardship to project their dissatisfaction with the system onto racialized people and groups who are themselves also targets of oppression. Look, as a white woman reading this, I definitely felt uncomfortable, and I hope that is the point. June is constantly able to brush away and evade consequences for her bad behaviour—the chapter where she’s teaching at a writer’s retreat is a great example. I keep thinking, “this is it, this is where someone will finally hold her accountable” only for it not to happen in that moment, because of course why would it. It feels unrealistic only because that’s the closure we’re conditioned by stories to expect whereas in the real world that Kuang emulates here such closure seldom occurs. White women get away with a lot. I do wish Yellowface had explored the unreliability angle of June’s narration a bit more. There are tantalizing hints here and there that maybe June isn’t telling us everything the way it actually happened. Nevertheless, Kuang largely leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks on that score. I personally think the ending is meant to suggest that June is more adept at controlling the narrative than we might have credited her throughout the novel—it is almost enough to kind of beg a second reading, just to see if knowing the ending makes a difference in how we interpret what came before. Clever, that. Some parts of this book are intensely of-the-moment, and I’m curious to see how well they age as the years pass. I’m thinking, in particular, of the role of social media. Almost all of the negative publicity June receives comes from social media, or from social media posts that amplify a few critical articles. As someone who (still) spends way too much time on Twitter, so much of this was familiar, and everything that happens here felt realistic and awful. But I will be curious to see how we look back on this period. A part of me hopes that we will find a better successor to social media and that this will be one of the least relatable aspects of the book. The final layer I want to discuss is simply the way Kuang addresses the intersection of creative arts and business. Publishing is a mechanism for writers to share their ideas with the world. It’s also a commercial industry. June, like many authors, faces the pressure to keep writing and publishing new material. She also struggles with coming up with ideas—a very common issue that, in and of itself, does not make one a bad writer. June herself is obviously not a victim of racism, but she is a victim of capitalism. The pressures of making a living, not having affordable healthcare, etc.—these are all relatable issues that many Americans (and Canadians) face these days. They don’t excuse June’s behaviour, but they do help us make sense of it. In addition to chronicling racism in the industry and the toxic nature of social media, Kuang reminds us that people seldom become villains on purpose but rather because it feels like the best way out of their bad situation. Yellowface is a solid, entertaining, and thoughtful story. I’m not sure how much interest it will hold for readers who aren’t as into books about books and publishing as I happen to be. Then again, I think a lot of avid readers are interested in those things, so maybe it’s a nonissue. All I can really say is that I’ll keep my eye on whatever Kuang comes out with next. She demonstrates versatility and creativity but, above all, she is always willing to shine a light on the parts of our society we’d rather not critique. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 10, 2023
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Aug 11, 2023
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Aug 16, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0399184511
| 9780399184512
| 0399184511
| 3.89
| 122,804
| Oct 11, 2016
| Oct 11, 2016
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liked it
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As someone who is childfree by choice but who has many friends who are parents, I think a lot about how this event in someone’s life affects our evolu
As someone who is childfree by choice but who has many friends who are parents, I think a lot about how this event in someone’s life affects our evolution as individuals. The Mothers approaches this with additional layers of considering race and class. I say “layers” because that’s how it feels like Brit Bennett tells this story: like a croissant, hundreds of thin layers folded over on each other, waiting for you to read them. Nadia, almost done with high school, starts seeing Luke, who is older. When she discovers she is pregnant, Luke comes up with the cash she needs to get an abortion. Later, Nadia goes off to university and Luke marries her best friend. As she returns to her hometown to take care of her father, Nadia has to confront how her choices and those of others around her have shaped her life—and in particular, how our response to the pressures of religion, culture, racism, and society in general shape us. I really liked the way that Bennett uses space as well as time to delineate her narrative here. Nadia leaves her small town in California to go to the University of Michigan and doesn’t return for years, not even to visit her father or Aubrey, not until Aubrey gets married. She escapes and lives so much, goes so many places, experiences quite a bit, before getting pulled back to her hometown in a semipermanent way. Although there isn’t much that I have in common with Nadia, as someone from a small town that many people leave only to come back to, I can identify with that experience. Similarly, I enjoyed the way Bennett charts Nadia’s experiences and comments on them through the omniscient narrators that are the eponymous Mothers of the church. The way they say that they saw this coming (or would have), that they could have warned Nadia off the pastor’s son, etc. There’s also a lot that can be said here about race, though I am sure others have said it better. We can’t talk about pregnancy and who is burdened with the risks of it without talking about the way that healthcare in the United States fails Black women and girls in particular. The story that Bennett is telling her is a story that feels very timeless—aside from a couple of references to texting, and of course Nadia going off to university, this story could have taken place in now or in the nineties. I yelled at the book when Nadia did the thing that she, of course, was inevitably going to do when she returned to her town. The aromantic in me finds it really hard to wrap my head around the choices that people in romantic relationships make sometimes! Bennett’s style didn’t work as much for me as the characterization did. The book is very light on dialogue, heavy on narration and description and telling us what a character feels or thinks. This isn’t to criticize Bennett’s writing skills—I loved some of her turns of phrase, some of the metaphors and descriptive language she uses. But the storytelling happens at a distance from the characters, and it is hard to get emotionally invested in the events despite their intense emotional experiences. I enjoyed The Mothers and think I get what Bennett is putting down here. That, in a way, is a good measure of the success of a book: did I connect to the author enough to hear their message? The answer here is yes. Whether I will read more of Bennett’s work—I know The Vanishing Half is very well regarded—is up in the air. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 11, 2023
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May 13, 2023
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May 26, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0063097257
| 9780063097254
| 0063097257
| 4.03
| 1,683
| Dec 06, 2022
| Dec 06, 2022
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really liked it
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Four years ago, after a particularly brutal winter and some damage from ice dams, pigeons took up residence in a section of my house’s eavestroughs. I
Four years ago, after a particularly brutal winter and some damage from ice dams, pigeons took up residence in a section of my house’s eavestroughs. It was unpleasant, to say the least. My bed abutted the exterior wall where they were roosting, and my house is small enough that I generally heard their cooing throughout a quiet Sunday indoors. Eventually, at great expense, I had my eavestroughs redone and the pigeons were summarily evicted. Pests, I thought to myself. That opinion hasn’t changed—however, as Bethany Brookshire makes clear in Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, it is important for us to understand how our relationship with animals has evolved over the centuries, and how we come to designate certain animals as pests and others as pets, exotic attractions, or whatnot. That includes my avian nemesis. Brookshire takes us through, one chapter at a time, different animals that are considered pests at some point and in some place in human history. From rats to elephants to our very own house cats, these animals don’t have much in common except for one thing: they live alongside humans, and they frustrate us just by being themselves. Our reactions are varied but usually along the lines of vilifying and then seeking to extirpate the problem. Alas, as Brookshire points out multiple times, it usually isn’t so simple. Most pests are not easily eradicated—we would need to change how we live to achieve that—and even when they are, maybe eradication isn’t the best option. In her interviews with various experts, many of whom often assume contradictory positions, Brookshire explores the nuanced ethics around pest control. It’s difficult for me to pick a favourite chapter. All of them are, in their own way, fascinating and edifying. The pigeon one stood out to me for my own personal experience with them as a pest. That chapter, in particular, really shows us how quickly society’s perception of an animal can shift: Brookshire explains how, up until the early twentieth century, pigeons were viewed in a very positive light. This historical lesson is valuable because it belies our perception, created by our short lifetimes, that our relationship with animals and nature as it is today is how it has always been. For similar reasons, I really liked the chapter about elephants. Brookshire takes aim at white conservationists who are essentially reinforcing a colonial attitude when they seek to preserve elephant populations at all costs. If you talk to the villagers who live alongside elephants every day, the situation quickly becomes more complicated. It’s hard for us white Westerners to view elephants as pests because our perception of them is so influenced by their portrayal in media. For me, as a Canadian, the closest I could liken them to would be moose—majestic creatures worth protecting, yet also incredibly dangerous in the wrong circumstances. I appreciate how much Brookshire, herself a white woman, deferred to Indigenous experts when learning about these creatures and our historical connections to them. Along the same lines, she seems to have gone out of her way to seek out and then faithfully present differing points of view. This was especially notable to me in the chapter on feral cats, where she interviews both proponents and opponents of the trap-neuter-return (TNR) approach to feral cat population control. At times, the back and forth way that she alternates between these people can get a bit confusing (so many names!). However, I respect the work that went into showing us so many sides of these issues instead of being simplistic or reductive. As a result, rather than emerging from that chapter feeling biased in favour of or against TNR, now I understand that it’s a complex issue—one that I would have to do more reading and thinking about before I fully made up my mind. But I certainly see now how different people in different parts of the world come to view the issue of indoor versus outdoor house cats so distinctly and often passionately! Pests is a story of animals, yet it is also a story about ourselves, humanity. How we have made ourselves a kind of pest in so many biomes, moving in and setting up shop and pushing out indigenous species, then bringing in our own invasive species, only to often turn around and yell at them for being too successful. Humanity is a host of contradictions. Brookshire’s compassionate, thoughtful, and informative look at how we relate to the species with which we coexist is a potent reminder that there are seldom simple answers when it comes to conservation, preservation, and urban development. If we are to be successful in managing the pests in our lives, we must come to terms with the fact that pest-management solutions will be different in different contexts. Sometimes that means population control, or changing how we store our garbage. Sometimes that means accepting that we don’t have complete control over our environment, no matter what we might desire. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 2023
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Mar 04, 2023
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Mar 22, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1982166185
| 9781982166182
| 1982166185
| 3.48
| 5,409
| Nov 15, 2022
| Nov 15, 2022
|
liked it
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Well ain’t this just the purdiest little novella you ever did see? I came across Tread of Angels at my library and was excited to see a new title from
Well ain’t this just the purdiest little novella you ever did see? I came across Tread of Angels at my library and was excited to see a new title from Rebecca Roanhorse. I love the premise and love that it is a mystery and, in some ways, a tragedy. In other words, this was a perfect distraction for a day. Celeste is half Fallen, meaning she is descended from those who rebelled against Heaven back in the day. Thanks to her Elect father’s blood, however, she can pass as Elect. Her sister, Mariel, is not so lucky. Both of them live in Goetia, a town booming because of its proximity to the corpse of the fallen Abaddon, who decays into a resource called Divinity. When Mariel is accused of murder, Celeste takes it upon herself to defend her sister from the discriminatory prosecution of the Virtues. However, as she begins a hasty investigation into what went down, she finds her entire worldview upended. At the same time, she is forced to accept help from an old flame who tempts her beyond redemption. I get some serious Lucifer vibes from this book. I do love me a reimagining of Christian mythology, and this one is more imaginative than most. This doesn’t surprise me, given what Roanhorse has done with Diné as well as Mexica mythologies. She is supremely skilled at adapting entire cosmogonies into new creation myths, and that’s what we are seeing here. Since this is a novella, of course, the actual worldbuilding is slimmer than you would get in a full novel (yet still deliciously richer than a mere short story would provide). Roanhorse wisely sticks closely to the narrative at hand, though I suspect many readers, like myself, will lament that this raises more questions about this world than it answers. The actual mystery, and in particular its resolution, reminds me a little bit of The Peacekeeper , written by another Indigenous author. In both cases, the protagonist must be confronted with the prospect that their axioms are flawed, that people are far more complicated—and treacherous—than they initially wanted to believe. Roanhorse, much like B.L. Blanchard, is unflinching in her ability to put her protagonist through the wringer in this way. I adored the simplicity of this narrative. I would love to see it as a miniseries, for example, because it is so self-contained yet supremely saturated. As Celeste plays detective, we meet any number of colourful characters who reflect her back at herself, forcing her to examine her passing privilege, to question what she really knows, and pushing herself past her own limits. The way that even Abraxas—a literal soul-taking demon—eventually throws up his hands at her and says, “I think you are going too far” is a clever and moving way to emphasize when Celeste hits her nadir. Tread of Angels is a fast-paced, noir, tragic meditation on how far we will go for our blood, the price that might exact on us and the people who love us, and what it means to win at all costs. It was lovely to see Roanhorse flex her muscles in yet another fantastical world, and I am excited to see what she comes up with next. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 13, 2023
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Feb 13, 2023
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Mar 02, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0063021420
| 9780063021426
| 0063021420
| 4.18
| 277,961
| Aug 23, 2022
| Aug 23, 2022
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it was amazing
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If my reading lately has a theme, it seems to be stories about storytelling. Or in the case of Babel: An Arcane History, stories about language. The p
If my reading lately has a theme, it seems to be stories about storytelling. Or in the case of Babel: An Arcane History, stories about language. The power of words. Writers are so meta sometimes, eh. In this alternative history, R.F. Kuang confronts the very real-life history of British colonialism and imperialism and asks us to consider how our relationship with language affects our willingness to participate in—and perhaps even incite—systemic change. Newly orphaned Robin is plucked from Canton, China, by Professor Lovell of the Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel. For years, Robin studies under Lovell, first privately as his ward and then as a student at Babel. He is one of four translators in his year cohort—two others, Ramy and Victoire, are similarly racialized, imported for their facility with language or languages, while the other, Lettie, is a white woman determined to buck the trend that says women neither need nor desire an education. But all is not right at Babel. Robin quickly finds himself in the middle of, shall we say, shenanigans most dark. His loyalties divided, Robin must decide what role he wants to play in this system. Does he want to be a collaborator? A dissident? A rebel leader? A fugitive? A martyr? Or something else entirely? So I’m reading this book, and quite honestly by about page twelve I realized that Kuang is both smarter and better read than me, and I’m here for it. Like we’re talking some Umberto Eco–level shit. Kuang’s writing here will run circles around most readers, which some will find intimidating, but if instead you’re willing to set aside your ego and soak up the majesty of the moment, you will not only learn but be entertained. For Babel is a book perched on a pinhead: sprawling and epic in some ways; powerfully precise in others. Let’s ease into the discussion by talking about the magic, for it’s probably the least interesting or important part of the story, and that’s saying something. In Babel, you can engrave words from different languages that are connected in some way into silver bars. When you speak these “language pairs” out loud, the bar activates some kind of magical effect—for example, some pairs can create invisibility; others might help make a garden more serene. One can only activate a bar if one understands the languages used on it, for the actual magic needs human understanding to close the circuit. Hence Robin’s utility as a Mandarin speaker. The British are preeminent in the field of translation and silver-working, but they are running out of pairs to mine from European languages, so they have cast themselves further afield but need minds that understand these increasingly foreign (to them) tongues. The magic system is neat, a nice twist on the eternal quest to seek a balance between rigidly systematic spellwork schemes versus visualize-it-and-it’s-done willpower schemes. This system requires both the rigorous academic knowledge acquired only through years of study, as we see Robin and his peers embark on, along with the kind of understanding and mental awareness that goes deeper than mere scholarship. Its exclusivity, lack so many magical systems, creates a power dynamic that Kuang slots neatly into the existing class system of nineteenth-century Britain. Which brings us to the politics of Babel. Holy shit. I was expecting the trenchant analysis of colonialism but I wasn’t quite prepared for the intense focus on labour (more fool me)—that hit me harder than I anticipated given the current political situation in Ontario and my own involvement in unionism. (It is, of course, all connected, as Kuang seeks to demonstrate.) There’s more to be analyzed here than I can manage in a simple review (I hereby summon the literature undergrads to pick apart this book in a thousand essays). Suffice it to say, Babel is a hot mess—intentionally so. The main theme is simple: revolution is messy, and dismantling the intersecting structures of colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, etc., are not without compromise. We see this most acutely in how each character wrestles with the consequences, both real and potential, of decolonization. How, even for oppressed people in the system, there are conveniences and perks that maybe we aren’t willing to give up. This felt so real to me, because it’s something I see in a lot of my white colleagues when I start talking about antiracism work—and if I am being honest, it is of course something I feel within myself, as a white woman. Changing this system—truly dismantling it and building something better—will be uncomfortable because it does mean giving up some of the things we currently enjoy, either because they are part of the package of privilege bound up in our whiteness or the end result of unsustainable, extractive processes that are both dehumanizing and degrading. So Babel is a masterclass in depicting how colonial structures persist only because of compliance of the masses. Sometimes this compliance is forced or coerced, as in the case of enslavement; other times it is cajoled. For people whose marginalization exists outside of racial and ethnic axes, our compliance is usually purchased through irresistible convenience. There is a climactic moment in the story—resolved, actually, in a footnote, because that is how Kuang rolls—where Robin’s actions indirectly lead to a dramatic incident that kills people and destroys an important London landmark. And … no one cares. Or rather, people implicitly decide that maintaining the structure of society as it exists requires the sacrifice of some people’s humanity and dignity. Kuang pointedly comments on this through several characters, and it resonates given what’s happening right now in Ontario, as municipalities like Toronto simply refuse to open warming centers for unhoused people, or in the US, as various state legislatures compete to see who can most creatively precipitate trans genocide. We keep underestimating the depths of cognitive dissonance we are willing to practise, as a society, to uphold the existing structure rather than risk discomfort and chaos. Robin and his peers have different views on this fact and what their role should be in revolution. While the three racialized characters agree the system is bad and should be dismantled, none of them agree exactly on what that process should look like. Lettie, meanwhile, very much acts as a stand-in for white feminism, and I am here for it. Kuang’s desire to present revolutionary activities as nuanced not only mirrors myriad examples from history but helps the reader conceptualize the difficult truth: that movements are not monoliths, that some people who say they are allies balk when that means following up with acting as allies (and accomplices), that there is always an unyielding pressure to surrender to the inertia that is “that’s just the way it is.” Kuang’s willingness to explore the messiness of revolutionary politics is what makes Babel such a standout work. The revolution, when it comes for us, will not be neat or orderly—indeed, it probably won’t even be a single, discrete revolution. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that, by the end of the book, Robin and his allies haven’t toppled the British Empire. At the same time, the empire is irrevocably changed as a result of their actions. And their revolution, Kuang very explicitly points out, was more successful as a result of the gains won from previous revolutions, strike actions, revolts, etc.—a single act cannot unmake a system, but consistent pressure over an era can erode it to the point of collapse. So although in terms of our characters’ journeys, without spoiling much, this book might be deemed a tragedy, Babel seems to be a relentlessly optimistic story. The characters—and more specifically, their relationships with each other—might be the weak point of the book for me. Robin is decent as a viewpoint protagonist; I often had to take a step back and remind myself that I’m seeing the story from a wider angle than him and have the benefit of a twenty-first–century perspective on colonialism that he fundamentally lacks by dint of being in the thick of it. But Robin was also a little … I don’t know, boring? I found myself a lot more interested in the internal lives of Ramy, Victoire, and even Lettie. Aside from occasional interludes told from the perspective of each of them, Kuang keeps the book firmly focused on Robin, for better or worse. And Robin just … kind of exists, his relationships attenuating and then springing back to tautness like an elastic. He and Ramy have this initial spark of attraction that I thought was going to become so much more. His relationship with Lovell is marred by the latter’s one dimensionality as an antagonist. Similarly, I never saw him truly connecting with Griffin or his other revolutionary comrades. So while I could feel Robin’s angst, especially as he wrestled with his sense of guilt over his class privilege, I never quite felt that connect to the struggles of the characters around him. Nevertheless, even if some of the characters strike me as one dimensional or otherwise unsatisfying, I think Kuang overall has put a lot of thought into what she is trying to say with each character, and that’s valuable. As I mentioned at the top of this review, her intelligence and the breadth of her knowledge is apparent on every page—but it is most apparent, I think, in how each of the main characters connects to their personal backgrounds, cultures, and histories. The way that Kuang weaves in allusions to English literature, Haitian politics, or the repression of Punjabi people under British rule in India … seriously. This is no shallowly researched yarn spun for entertainment. I can only imagine the binders, real or virtual, of notes that gird this manuscript, which itself is a hefty thing. I pitched Babel to someone on Twitter (a linguist) as “Neal Stephenson but without all the squick of ponderous white male privilege,” and I stand by this comparison. This is a novel that overstays its welcome deliberately and without apology. It demands your attention and your thoughtfulness. Yet unlike many other researched and dense books that do this, Babel carefully balances its heavy themes with plot and characters that remain entertaining and fun and, yeah, heartbreaking. Kuang’s writing flits from being bold and brash to quiet and understated. While I don’t think everything she attempts in this book works, longtime readers of my reviews know that I much prefer big swings, even when they don’t completely land. And in the case of Babel, it hits far more than it misses, which is impressive. If science fiction shows us what our society could be (for better or worse), fantasy shows us what our society is, albeit reflected through the funhouse mirror of alternative histories and worlds. Babel achieves this. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 30, 2023
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Feb 02, 2023
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Feb 11, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 038554121X
| 9780385541213
| 038554121X
| 3.85
| 213,397
| Nov 05, 2019
| Nov 05, 2019
|
really liked it
|
A long time ago, a decade and in many ways another life ago, I read
The Night Circus
, Erin Morgenstern’s first novel. Also highly acclaimed, it di
A long time ago, a decade and in many ways another life ago, I read
The Night Circus
, Erin Morgenstern’s first novel. Also highly acclaimed, it didn’t live up to its hype for me—but I wasn’t surprised. I reviewed it, filed it away, and didn’t really think about Morgenstern again until I saw The Starless Sea in my bookstore. I read the description, and I thought, “Hmm. Another story about stories. Not original. But maybe….” Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a college student who discovers a book that seems to be telling the story of his life. It recounts a time in his childhood when, walking home alone, he came across a door painted in the wall. He didn’t open the door. If he had, he would have discovered an entire world hidden underground—a world of starless seas and magnificent libraries and temporal anomalies and more. Now he’s playing catch-up, working alongside a shifty guy named Dorian, an passionate painter named Mirabel, and fighting against someone who seems determined to cut off access to the world below by the world above. You ever read a book that is just one hundred percent vibes? That’s what this is—and I mean that as a compliment. Stories about stories are not, as I observed, anything new. Cloud Cuckoo Land , as well as N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became and its sequel, are both examples I can pull from my recent reading. Writers love to write about stories, and I don’t blame them. Storytelling is one of the ultimate activities that define our humanity, and so by its very nature it should examine itself. With The Starless Sea, Morgenstern is asking whether the reality of the fairy tale can ever truly be as romantic as the telling of it. I got strong notes of The Princess Bride reading this. Maybe it’s the mysterious, condemned pirate we meet at the start of the book, or the equally enigmatic Dorian. Maybe it’s the relationship between Zachary and Dorian, the edge of “true love” never quite articulated. The same kind of romance between Mirabel and her paramour. This is a book whose pages resemble dimly lit rooms that cast soft shadows over everything. There are no sharp edges, but there are also no easy answers. As Zachary attempts to learn more about the mysterious world into which he has intruded, Morgenstern presents the reader with more fairy tales and folk stories. Each one feels related, in some way, to the others. They’re all connected, not in obvious ways but not subtly either—themes and recurring motifs, like pairs of lovers, winding their way through these stories before ultimately being distilled into “reality”—such as that is in this book. This is what I mean when I say The Starless Sea is vibes. The characters don’t really matter; hell, the plot itself doesn’t matter. What matters is the experience of reading it, curled up on my couch under a blanket in the depths of January winter. The way Morgenstern’s stories-within-stories trickled into me, warding me against the chill, and stoked the fires of my memories of a decade—or even two—ago, when I had more time to read and more latitude to be amazed. I don’t really know what to say about The Starless Sea as a story. The story exists. It’s fun at times, frustrating at others—the book seems to insist that exposition must be an all-or-nothing affair, and as much as I appreciate Morgenstern’s confidence in the reader’s ability to put the pieces together, sometimes I do just want things spelled out, you know? Moreover, I am often critical of books with ambiguous endings, but this is one of those cases where the book definitely earns it. As a book, as an experience of turning pages and reading, this was very satisfying for me. It hit the right spots of nostalgia for me and my love of stories. Indeed, it is a great example of what we mean when we say we read to escape: for the hours I spent on this adventure with Zachary, I was able to forget about what was happening in this world around us, so enthralled was I in the worlds he was trying to explore. And why else do we read if not for that? Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 22, 2023
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Jan 25, 2023
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Feb 08, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0385548109
| 9780385548106
| 4.50
| 4,094
| unknown
| Nov 01, 2022
|
really liked it
|
Cryptocurrency has long fascinated me because it’s mathematics made manifest. Although our economy has long been digital, the rise of Bitcoin and othe
Cryptocurrency has long fascinated me because it’s mathematics made manifest. Although our economy has long been digital, the rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies codified a cashless digital economy through arcane mathematical precepts that nevertheless gave rise to trillions of dollars of worth—even if that value is volatile at the best of times. It’s not surprising that enterprising criminal minds would try to use cryptocurrency for their dealings, and it’s not surprising that others would use math to uncover those dealings. Tracers in the Dark lays out just what this entails, how it led to successfully busting some big criminals, and what this might mean the future of digital crime, cryptocurrencies, and law enforcement. Andy Greenberg knows how to tell a story. I have read parts of this book in his articles for Wired, along with similar coverage of cryptocurrency busts. I forgot I had read one of Greenberg’s previous books, about WikiLeaks, and enjoyed it; in retrospect, I see why. Greenberg has a knack for taking complex technological topics, like cryptocurrency, and distilling them into a form digestible even by people with a tech or math background. He cuts through the complexity, rendering it down until you can—as the tracers do—follow the money. The book comprises five parts. In Part I, Greenberg lays out some of the biggest players: researchers, law enforcement agents, and cryptocurrency business owners who all have a role to play in the events to come. He unpacks the investigation that eventually led to the arrest of Ross Ulbricht and the shuttering of the Silk Road. Part II introduces us to the golden age of Bitcoin tracing. We learn more about how blockchain analysis software, such as that pioneered by firm Chainalysis, became an integral part of investigation by law enforcement like the FBI and IRS. Part III covers the investigations into and subsequent take down of AlphaBay, followed by the Welcome to Video saga in Part IV. The book wraps up with Part V, a look at the future of cryptocurrency tracing and blockchain analysis, especially as new cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash claim to be “fixing” Bitcoin’s privacy and anonymity problems. For anyone who enjoys true crime, this book is awash with detail and compelling description. Though Greenberg has obviously chosen to emphasize the actions of certain people, I like that he doesn’t lionize any one person or try to make out anyone to be a hero. These are law enforcement agents, lawyers, etc. who are doing a job. At the same time, he also helps us see how these white-collar crimes are far from victimless. It might seem silly to some of us, spending resources on computer programs and expertise required to chase down sequences of numbers and letters through a vast database (the blockchain) in the hopes of finding out who paid whom. Why not spend that money on something more tangible, like protecting people from violent crime? As Greenberg demonstrates, it’s all connected. The dark web and cryptocurrency have together enabled criminals to more efficiently acquire and distribute everything from drugs to firearms to child sexual abuse material. The last one was particularly hard to read about, for all the reasons you might expect. I had already read at least the beginning of the Welcome to Video story, and rereading it here, being reminded of the toll it took on the investigators and prosecutors—not to mention, of course, thinking about all the victims of the abuse—well, let’s just say that this book is not for cozy bedtime reading. Greenberg doesn’t shy away from discussing the dark stuff, hopefully with the consequence of helping readers understand that this type of internet crime is not something to be taken lightly. Just because it’s 1s and 0s on hard drives rather than something more tangible, the effects on real people are still devastating. Tracers in the Dark also changed my mind a bit about cryptocurrency, something I didn’t expect! I have always been very skeptical about crypto ever since I learned about it. Bitcoin and its successors have always sounded like scams and schemes—great if you invested early on but far from the libertarian utopian technology some evangelists seemed to think it could be. As we’ve passed the decade mark and more and more people try to bend blockchain technology to their particular business models, my skepticism and cynicism have increased proportionally. Yet Greenberg carefully showcases the diversity of viewpoints within the crypto community. Gronager and Meiklejohn have quite different ideas about how and why blockchain analysis should be done, for example—and Greenberg allows them both the space to explain their beliefs. As a result, I started to understand why there are still some “true believers” within the crypto community—people who don’t see cryptocurrency necessarily as an anarchic panacea for state surveillance and control but rather view it as a logical extension of existing monetary tools. While I still wouldn’t go so far as to agree with that idea, I’m more sympathetic to it than the more extreme viewpoints I’ve seen in the past. Greenberg’s diligence in seeking out contradictory opinions helped me confront my own biases and arrive at a more nuanced view of this topic. You don’t need to understand the math behind Bitcoin to understand the effect it has had on our economy and crime. For better or worse, Bitcoin might not be poised to render fiat currency obsolete, but it’s here to stay in one form or another—and if you’re like me, you might want to see whether your pension fund invested in a cryptocurrency exchange…. Tracers in the Dark is top-notch writing in service of telling a story that anyone interested in crime, computers, mathematics, etc., would do well to hear. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 12, 2023
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Jan 14, 2023
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Jan 23, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1682450503
| 9781682450505
| 1682450503
| 3.90
| 736
| unknown
| Nov 08, 2016
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liked it
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Mean Girls was a formative movie of my youth for so many reasons, to the point where it was the first movie I purchased on DVD (at the same time that
Mean Girls was a formative movie of my youth for so many reasons, to the point where it was the first movie I purchased on DVD (at the same time that I bought my first DVD player). It was released in 2004, the same year I started high school, so I was of the generation it depicted. I also loved math. Indeed, my strongest Mean Girls memory is of my AP Calculus course in Grade 12. There were six of us in the class. One of the other students convinced our teacher to let us watch Mean Girls one day in class simply because it mentioned limits. I don’t remember what flimsy justification she proffered beyond this or why my teacher said yes, but it was a good time. All of this is to say that this is why I was drawn to The Elephants in My Backyard. I saw a clip of Rajiv Surendra being interviewed with the two other prominent young male actors from the movie—all three of whom, it turns out, are gay—and the interviewer mentioned he had written a memoir. Hmm, I thought. He’s Canadian too, which is cool. I also like that this memoir isn’t really about Mean Girls, and while it is about acting, it is only tangentially about the movie industry. Rather, this is a story of what to do when you don’t achieve your dream. Most of the book revolves around Surendra’s quest to be cast as the lead character in the adaptation of Life of Pi, a novel by another Canadian, Yann Martel. He even corresponds with Martel, excerpts of which are included throughout this book. Surendra, upon being introduced to the novel, marvels at how similar he and Pi Patel seem to be. He becomes obsessed with landing the role and devotes all his energy to preparing for it, to moulding himself into such a perfect Pi that no matter which director ends up being attached—for the movie goes through its own spate of growing pains and development hell—they will have no choice but to admit that yes, Rajiv, he is the one! He visits Pondicherry in India, learns how to swim, researches and interviews survivors who were adrift at sea—he pursues his goal somewhat singlemindedly. As anyone who has seen the film knows, he was not successful. In a society that fetishes success and demonizes failure—or uplifts failure only when it is a speedbump along the way to an eventual success—Surendra’s story stands out. Indeed, his story is the story of most people who enter film and television. He doesn’t go on to huge celebrity and an acting career after Mean Girls. He has comparatively few roles and has instead pursued other interests and means of making money, such as calligraphy. We focus so much in our society on career actors who rocket to fame as they land these huge roles or steady work when the reality for most actors is probably much closer to Surendra’s. His writing style in the book is spare and penetrating. I felt like he was looking at me as I was reading his words. He doesn’t hold back in his opinions of people, places, etc., lauding those who helped him and were genuine, and being brutally honest about those who have harmed him. In particular, there is a chapter in which he reflects on his experiences growing up in a household with an abusive, alcoholic father … he doesn’t mince his words and doesn’t try to stay civil, let’s put it that way. This was an easy book to read in a day, both because it’s on the shorter side but also because of how well Surendra has structured his narrative. It’s roughly chronological, with detours and flashbacks as needed, showing us how he goes from Mean Girls to research, living in India before returning to Toronto to resume school and working at a pioneer village. Interestingly, his romantic life and sexuality (Surendra is gay) doesn’t come up until the very end of the book. Again, although much of the book doesn’t discuss the film industry directly, most of the book involves Surendra’s obsession with landing this particular role. I also love how much Surendra is into wool and knitting, going so far as to include a page at the end of the book with a photo of him in his favourite sweater and a technical explanation as to the gansey’s construction and history. As a knitter, this warms my heart. This memoir fills a great niche. It belies many of the dominant narratives presented to us about actors and celebrities. It’s by a young, gay man of colour—a Canadian too—and asks us to think about how the intersections of race, class, immigrant status, etc. figure into our lives. And perhaps most obviously—but no less powerfully—The Elephants in My Backyard dares us to define success on our own terms, reminding us that failure is an option. It isn’t a case of “life works out for the best”—I hate it when people tell me that—but it is a reminder that we don’t control outcomes and that nothing we do can ever be enough to guarantee an outcome we desire. All we can do as we go through life is define our goals, work towards them, and adjust those goals as times change. Surendra may never have been adrift at sea, but in this book he shows himself to be adept at navigating the open ocean that is our lives and our desires. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 03, 2023
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Jan 03, 2023
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Jan 14, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1534441603
| 9781534441606
| 1534441603
| 4.33
| 148,250
| Sep 15, 2020
| Sep 15, 2020
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really liked it
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There was definitely a span of adolescent years during which I was obsessed with Arthuriana. I remember borrowing Malory’s Morte d'Arthur from my libr
There was definitely a span of adolescent years during which I was obsessed with Arthuriana. I remember borrowing Malory’s Morte d'Arthur from my library multiple times despite being way too young to pick my way through the Middle English prose. I devoured all sorts of retellings and reimaginings, like Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord series. So when this series crossed my Twitter feed one day, I couldn’t not windmill-slam the “place hold” button on both Legendborn and its sequel. Tracy Deonn effectively borrows from Arthurian legend, reshaping it, adding elements of West African and Caribbean folklore and tradition, to create a compelling world and tell a story that packs all kinds of punches. Bree Matthews is 16 years old but has been admitted to the “Early College” program at UNC–Chapel Hill. She is grieving the loss of her mother in a car crash, and she isn’t feeling very grounded. Soon after the start of the school year, Bree gets caught up in an on-campus club of sorts that seems to be playing at being a secret society—except that Bree quickly discovers there’s definitely something supernatural at play, and it might be connected to her mother’s death. Determined to play detective, Bree infiltrates this society and gets closer to one of its highest-ranking members, who also has his reasons to support her entrance. But enemies lurk in every corner: can Bree get to the bottom of her mother’s death without falling victim to the Shadowborn or those who defend against them? Legendborn is very much a YA novel, and I mean that as a compliment. It is exactly the kind of YA novel I would have loved to read as a teenager—and to be clear, I also loved reading it now as a thirty-something woman, but there is a special joy that I experienced digging into these thick, often fantasy, YA novels when I was in my adolescence. Deonn deploys many of the best (in my opinion) tropes of YA. Bree must undergo trials to initiate herself into the Order. There’s a clear ranking system (and there’s even a little org chart at the back of the book!) and some other rules that get explained along the way, though ultimately they don’t seem that important to the overall story. There is, yes, the will-they-or-won’t-they romance subplot. There’s a best friend who sticks up for Bree even when maybe they shouldn’t. Basically, this book is YA catnip in the best possible way. Beneath all these familiar trappings however beats the heart of a story that is much deeper and more emotional than you might first expect. Bree is a Black girl growing up in the American South, and Deonn—also Black and from North Carolina—weaves this setting and Bree’s heritage into the fabric of the story. The Order’s origins in Europe, its presence here in North Carolina, its involvement in the powerful institutions of past and present—all of it is grounded in an awareness of colonialism and the history of enslavement of African peoples. Bree’s own abilities are connected to the earth, to her ancestors, and the metaphysical journey of self-discovery upon which she embarks pits Indigenous epistemologies against colonial ones. Echoes of Butler and Delany reverberate as Deonn anchors her magic systems and the central conflict of this book in the rich yet bloody history of the American South. Meanwhile, Bree personally is dealing with a lot of grief. I love how her understanding of the events that unfolded the night of her mother’s death evolves as the story itself goes on. The new information that comes to light, the way it changes how Bree sees the Order and even herself, is fantastic. It just goes to demonstrate how easy it is to latch on to a convenient theory that seems to fit all the available facts only for new facts to entirely upend that theory in favour of something less comfortable. Similarly, I enjoyed how Bree’s enmity with Selwyn evolves as they spend more time in each other’s company. He begins the story as a one-dimensional antagonist within the Order and Bree’s life, yet they reach a kind of detente fuelled by their unlikely common interests. In the same way, the events that drive the climax of the story completely rewrite the hierarchy of the Order and Bree’s place in it, leaving some of Bree’s initial allies—or at least, people disposed to be friendly towards her—uncertain of how they feel towards her now. Deonn has a talent for keeping the story moving, for upsetting existing character dynamics and relationships, and for dropping you into an action scene without much warning. I have very few notes regarding the worldbuilding or the plot itself. My main disappointment hinges around how Bree eventually ends up communing with an ancestor and the way that this fact feels overshadowed by the intensity of the final act’s action sequences. Similarly, the revelations of the ending leave a lot of questions—and while this is obviously meant to be the first book in a series, people who dislike the feeling of a first book as a setup volume might feel disappointed by this. Finally, I take issue with some of the timeline and the rather cavalier way Deonn accelerates things—including healing of injuries—apparently only for reasons of plot. I didn’t need this book to take place over the span of the entire school year, but if I’m remembering correctly (I finished the book over a week ago), it mainly takes place over the first two months of school—but a lot happens! Anyway, I am very glad I borrowed Bloodmarked at the same time and can’t wait to read it soon. This is an excellent start to a new fantasy series with just enough familiarity to be comfortable even as it challenges and perhaps makes you feel a little discomfort over the colonial underpinnings of many of our favourite legends and ideas. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 29, 2022
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Jan 03, 2023
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Jan 10, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1250765358
| 9781250765352
| 1250765358
| 3.61
| 34,321
| Oct 05, 2021
| Oct 05, 2021
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liked it
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You got to love it when a story knows how not to overstay its welcome. As much as I find fiction shorter than a novel less enjoyable in general, some
You got to love it when a story knows how not to overstay its welcome. As much as I find fiction shorter than a novel less enjoyable in general, some stories are just better as short stories, novelettes, or—as in the case of A Spindle Splintered—novellas. This multiversal reimagining of Sleeping Beauty is a lot of fun, but I think Alix E. Harrow would have had a hard time sustaining the suspense and interest for an entire novel. This is one of a series of wise decisions that result in an eminently enjoyable tale. Zinnia is a dying girl (her words, not mine). No one with her particular teratogenic condition has lived to be twenty-two, and Zinnia just turned twenty-one. On her birthday, she literally pricks her finger on a spindle and finds herself in a fairy tale, complete with a princess—also cursed—a castle, a prince, an evil fairy, etc. Fortunately, Zinnia is Genre Savvy, having become obsessed with the parallels between her life and the Sleeping Beauty story to the point where she has a degree in folklore. To this end, Zinnia seeks to hijack the narrative and give herself and her new princess friend a happily ever after. I won’t spoil the story by discussing whether they get it! As with The Once and Future Witches , this book is about stories and how our telling of stories can actually reify them. I am a sucker for such metafictional and epistemological ideas about literature, of course. The obvious comparison here is Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, which Harrow makes herself in her acknowledgements, and it is apt. She brings together different threads of the same tapestry, if you will, and much like the comic book movie, demonstrates how we as a species hunger to tell and retell the same stories over and over again. Layered atop that is some commentary on gender and sexuality, on misogyny and ableism and how we treat those who are women, who are chronically ill, etc. It’s actually rather ambitious for a novella, and I don’t know if Harrow completely succeeds in this task, but it’s an admirable effort that results in some excellent lines, especially when Zinnia meditates on how painful she finds the unconditional love she receives from her parents and Charm. This is a book of pretty surface yet sharp edges. I liked the ending, without giving too much away. Harrow has a fine line to walk between hope and despair, trying to come up with something not too trite yet also not unbearably tragic. It is fitting, I think, for a remix. At the end of the day, this is not a revolutionary book. But it was an enjoyable diversion for an afternoon. I think for a younger reader, just coming into feminist literary theory and fairy tales, this book could spark a curiosity that would lead them deeper into Angela Carter et al—and that thirst, that desire to know more, is one of the greatest gifts a book can give anyone. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 21, 2022
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Dec 22, 2022
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Jan 08, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1982168439
| 9781982168438
| 1982168439
| 4.26
| 230,794
| Sep 28, 2021
| Sep 28, 2021
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it was ok
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Ordinarily I love meta stories and stories that play with unreliable narration. Stories about stories. Cloud Cuckoo Land sounds like it should be my c
Ordinarily I love meta stories and stories that play with unreliable narration. Stories about stories. Cloud Cuckoo Land sounds like it should be my cup of tea. It’s reminiscent in some ways of
Sea of Tranquility
. As gripping as some parts of this book were, other parts were a snooze fest. Anthony Doerr has clearly put a lot of work into this story, from research to setting and characters—and I want to be clear that I think there’s something here. I’m just not sure it becomes a unified story in a way that I consider satisfying. This book is framed around a lost Diogenes story that tells of a foolish man named Aethon who, among other misadventures, visits a fantastical land—Cloud Cuckoo Land. The chapters take place across different time periods. There’s Constantinople in the years leading up to its invasion and sacking of 1453. There’s the decades leading up to Lakeport, Idaho in 2020, where an eighty-year-old man is putting on a play based on this Diogenes text, which he has been translating from recovered scraps of Greek. At the same time, a young man carries out a domestic terrorist plot that threatens the lives of the man, the children in his charge, and others. Finally, in the near future, a generation ship makes its way to a new home for humanity. One of its occupants becomes obsessed with the Diogenes story, for it is her only link to her father, from whom she has become irrevocably isolated. As you can see, a lot of moving pieces and very difficult to summarize! The chapters are largely short and grouped into short parts, each of which is preceded by a quotation from this lost manuscript. The problem, as is often the case with stories dispersed across such varied time periods, is that not every storyline is as interesting as the next. Oemir and Anna’s stories didn’t grab me as much as Seymour or Zeno’s; similarly, Konstance’s story could be interesting but is such a slow burn. Actually, no, I take that back—all of these stories, with the exception maybe of Oemir’s, feel like a slow burn, and I’m not here for it. Seymour’s characterization and storyline are also problematic, perpetuating a stereotype that links autistic people with terrorism. Doerr portrays Seymour as autistic in a sympathetic way: the descriptions of sensory overload and how Seymour sees the world are consistent with what autistic friends have described to me. Unfortunately, Seymour is also a terrorist. His entire plot involves taking revenge on a company he thinks has wronged him, being radicalized and building a bomb in the process. This idea that autistic people or people with mental illness are more likely to commit terrorist acts—as opposed to, you know, actual fascists, militant white supremacists, etc.—is dangerous. For this alone, I would not recommend Cloud Cuckoo Land. Beyond that, however, this is just a messy and boring book. I can see the value that some have derived from it, for Doerr’s writing has some spellbinding qualities to it. I wanted to immerse myself in each of the worlds here, yet I was constantly yanked away, pulled into the next one, before any real development had occurred. Each of these storylines by themselves might have made for a compelling novel. Merged and entwined as they are, the result is a muddy brown where there should be a riot of rainbow. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 16, 2022
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Dec 19, 2022
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Dec 27, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 035651269X
| 9780356512693
| 035651269X
| 4.10
| 16,457
| Nov 01, 2022
| Nov 01, 2022
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really liked it
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It isn’t often that I read books in a series consecutively. However, I was able to borrow The World We Make and the first book, The City We Became, at
It isn’t often that I read books in a series consecutively. However, I was able to borrow The World We Make and the first book, The City We Became, at the same time from my library. After I finished the first book, I decided that it made sense for me to dive into its sequel right away, before I forget anything about the series. I’m not mad about that decision! Spoilers for the first book in the series but not for what happens in this one! N.K. Jemisin picks up three months after the end of the first book. The five avatars of New York, along with the primary, who has taken the name Neek, are settling into their roles as embodiments of a living city. They are still missing among their number Aislyn/Staten Island, who has holed up in her borough and invited the Enemy—now known as R’lyeh—to establish a foothold in this reality. But the attacks on New York City are less extradimensional, more mundane—like a xenophobic senator running for mayor. Meanwhile, Manny tries to convince the other cities to convene a meeting. He’s convinced that they need to work together to defeat the Enemy, but very few of the elder cities are interested in listening to an upstart like New York. In many ways this book is more explicitly political than the first book (which predated the pandemic). The City We Became is socially aware and pushes back against set-pieces of injustice in our society, like white supremacy. However, The World We Make takes that much further. In particular, Brooklyn’s decision to oppose Senator Panfilo’s run for mayor allows Jemisin to examine the tensions present in any battle for systemic change. Once again I find myself admiring how she allows the avatars to be so different. Bronca and Brooklyn both very much want the same thing, but their differences in age, sexuality, etc., mean that they don’t always agree (or even get along). Veneza is far more open to reconciling with Aislyn than the others (perhaps because, as Jersey City, she knows what it is like to be of New York but an outsider to New York at the same time). Indeed, as I explored in my review of Sea of Tranquility recently, science fiction often does its best work in liminal spaces. This book is yet another great example. Jemisin’s palette is at once explosively colourful, expressive, celebratory of diversity of personhood and thought and at the same time easily described as shades of grey—that is, very little about what happens in this book is black-and-white. The ambiguous character of R’lyeh probably demonstrates that best, though I won’t go into more specifics! The World We Make also delves more into the metaphysical aspects of the multiverse. This is my sweet spot (as I noted in my review of the first book, I have a particular affinity for Padmini), but other readers might find it less entertaining. I love the discussion of kugelblitzes and Schrödinger equations and observational collapse. Jemisin manages to strike a balance, in my opinion, between trying to make it sound too sensible versus turning it into so much quantum babble. The concept of cities as they relate to the multiverse, Rl’yeh’s role, the mysterious Ur, etc., is pretty cool, and it is one of the two elements of the story I’d love to have seen explored further. (Also, while we’re shouting out my affinity for Padmini: I squeed when Jemisin reveals that Padmini is, it seems, asexual or at least ace-spec—the specific label isn’t used on page, but she says she isn’t attracted to men or women. Any time I run across a casually ace character in my fiction, I am excite!) The other element is what’s up with Manny, his family, and what he apparently already knew before he came to New York City. There is so much more that Jemisin could do with this series. Alas, as she writes in the acknowledgements, her plan for this to be a trilogy was curtailed because of the pandemic’s effect on how she views the series—and I can’t blame her for that. I appreciate we got at least this much to close out this particular story, even if she has no plans for more at this point. I liked this book both more and less than the first book. More because it’s more multiversal, as I just discussed. More because the plot gives us more time to breathe and enjoy each of these intensely different, nuanced characters. Less because the wrap-up is a bit rushed. Less because, in some ways, parts of the storytelling feel less nuanced or more obvious than they did in the first book. I don’t know—I’m going to give it four stars to tie it with The City We Became because it is very good, and I do think that if you like the first book, you should close out the duology. Plus, I think this is consistent with my personal experience of reading Jemisin to this point: fantastic writer and storyteller whose style kind of works for me but also kind of doesn’t, which is totally fine. I’m just glad she keeps bringing this level of creativity to the fields of fantasy and science fiction. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 02, 2022
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Dec 03, 2022
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Dec 10, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 3.86
| 72,827
| Mar 24, 2020
| Mar 24, 2020
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really liked it
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I love it when authors take concepts from a short story, novelette, or novella and turn them into entire novels! In this case, N.K. Jemisin’s story “T
I love it when authors take concepts from a short story, novelette, or novella and turn them into entire novels! In this case, N.K. Jemisin’s story “The City Born Great”, which I read in
How Long ’Til Black Future Month
, has become The City We Became and a sequel. In a rare event, I read the sequel immediately after finishing this book, so I actually know how this series ends before sitting down to write this review. I’m going to do my best only to remark on this book in this review. New York is … alive. Or at least, it is in the process of being born. Cities can erupt into a kind of multidimensional sapience and are, as a part of this processed, embodied through human avatars. While most cities only have a single avatar, some, like New York City, are so diverse and varied that there is a single, primary avatar and then others who represent each part of the city—the five boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The City We Became follows these five avatars as they struggle against an extradimensional Enemy trying to kill New York City and race to locate the primary, who lies somewhere in the city, comatose after his battle for the city’s birth. Immediately evident here is Jemisin’s understanding of the differences between the boroughs. I’ve never been to New York City, so everything I know about it comes from our media. Jemisin, in the acknowledgements, describes herself as about 50 percent New Yorker at this point, an interesting way of situating herself in relation to the city. In any event, it’s clear she put a lot of thought into who would represent each borough and the way their personalities reflect and amplify the demographics of their borough. Similarly, the other cities we meet in the book have their own personalities that match Jemisin’s impression of those cities. Much of the story involves fending off feints and direct attacks from the Enemy, personified as the Woman in White. Depending on which borough we’re following, the Woman in White’s attacks come in different forms. I love how Padmini/Queens is the Math Queen, visualizing her defences as equations. In contrast, Bronca/the Bronx’s arts background and deep connections to community liberation mean that her defences manifest more metaphorically. Brooklyn has music, Manny has money, and Aislyn’s is grounded in the spirit of decency she believes to be at the core of Staten Island. The plot’s structure can make it feel a bit on rails at times, with the protagonists lurching from one crisis to the next, barely getting a chance to breathe. But I think Jemisin does a good job of making sure there is enough substance to these events to make the story matter. Take, for instance, Bronca’s struggle against the Better New York Foundation’s attempts to back an alt-right artist group’s attempts to get into the gallery where she is director. The attitudes of the white supremacists will be familiar to anyone following the rising tide of fascism in the US, and this book—having been written in 2019—reminds us just how long this movement has been building. The depiction of Bronca and her allies fighting back against the alt-right attempt to manipulate the narrative and paint themselves as victims feels just as relevant today as it does now. The Enemy is similarly sinister in its attempts to befriend Aislyn and separate her from the other avatars. As the sole white person in the group, Aislyn, like the borough she embodies, already feels out of place in New York City. Jemisin doesn’t hold back in her portrayal of white fragility; at the same time, however, I like that Aislyn is just as nuanced and deep a character as any of the others—she is an exploration of why white women can be so fragile rather than a caricature of that fragility. These are the reasons The City We Became has so much merit, in my view. Despite the conflict itself being quite simple, albeit cloaked in the language of science fiction, the characters and their struggles—both personally and on the city level—are easy for us to relate to. Jemisin has truly embraced the complex, messy, contradictory nature of New York City. It’s a truism to talk about a setting, often a city, is a character in a story—in this case, it is literally true. Jemisin is also making an argument in favour of cities themselves as testaments to human achievements. (She explicitly acknowledges that Indigenous civilizations in the Americas had cities here pre-contact.) It’s trendy among some circles these days to look down at cities as a symptom of capitalism and colonization: cities are the antithesis of the “simpler times” that people want to call back to. They are polluted, crowded, menacing, lonely places—right? But Jemisin challenges this one-sided narrative. She doesn’t romanticize cities, mind you, which is why she has her characters wrestle with issues like New York’s historical connections to colonialism and genocide. But this book is, in many ways, a love letter to the human ability to come together and create. Not being a New Yorker, the ending of the book doesn’t have me cheering, “rah rah, New York!” but it did make me smile. The City We Became is a very satisfying type of modern science fiction. Borrowing from the back catalogue of Lovecraft and the theories of many worlds and multiverses, this book delivers a healthy dose of what if alongside a hell of a lot of personality and pizazz, and I like that. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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Nov 28, 2022
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Nov 30, 2022
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Dec 10, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 0593321448
| 9780593321447
| 0593321448
| 4.07
| 253,928
| Apr 05, 2022
| May 05, 2022
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liked it
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Time travel always opens up such interesting storytelling possibilities, loops and predestination paradoxes among them. We humans are so immured in th
Time travel always opens up such interesting storytelling possibilities, loops and predestination paradoxes among them. We humans are so immured in the linearity of time that these possibilities can be tantalizing, frightening, and even bewildering. Add on top of that metafiction, the idea of a story escaping itself into the real world, and you get some truly fascinating plot ideas. Sea of Tranquility tries to create such an atmosphere of possibility. Though I wouldn’t say that Emily St. John Mandel entirely succeeds in this endeavour, I still respect the big swing and enjoyed the experience. We start in 1912 with Edwin St. John St. Andrew, eighteen years old and newly exiled by his English family to Canada. He ends up on Vancouver Island, where he witnesses something strange in the forest—he hears violin music, and for a moment appears to be in a strange place, before the forest returns. This event unites him with a woman in an airship terminal in the 2090s, and an investigator on a colony on the Moon centuries later still. Is reality slipping? What’s going on? Like so much about time travel, this book feels at times very sad. Knowing the future can be a burden—but so too can knowing the past. Gaspery knows how Edwin and Olive each died, for example. And eventually he puts together his own fate thanks to working out the paradox at which he is the centre. He seems resigned rather than resentful of this turn of events. If our future is fixed, are we better off not knowing it? If we learn it, like Gaspery does, what can we do about it? I think it’s so fascinating that Gaspery desperately wants to change the fates of others yet ultimately embraces his own. Yet, as Vonnegut reflected in Slaughterhouse-Five , experiencing time out of order means that your loved ones are never really dead either. That’s the case of Gaspery and Zoey, for example. Having the privilege of stepping out of time only to step back in a moment later from one person’s perspective but days, months, years from yours—with no more effort, apparently, than leaving and reentering the room—that’s intriguing. Although the title is partially a reference to one of the book’s settings, I also see it as a thematic nod. Each of these characters have something in common (beyond witnessing the anomaly)—they’re just living their lives. They aren’t engaged in any venture more significant than simply going about their everyday life, and there is value in that. I think this is Mandel’s jam, if I recall correctly from Station Eleven , a book I enjoyed but don’t really care to revisit (or watch as a TV series) having gone through a pandemic of my own. Perhaps this is why Mandel, like many other Canadian science-fiction authors like Margaret Atwood, has successfully broken into the mainstream and received the coveted “speculative fiction” label. This is a book about straight-up time travel, but if you read the description or see where it gets shelved (though my library, rightly, put it under science fiction) you’ll see the attempt to litwash it. I’m not complaining, mind you—I am all for sneaking more science fiction into the mainstream, and the success of properties from Westworld to Marvel movies suggests that people have never been more receptive to it. But I think it’s important to point out, whenever I see it, the double standard, the way that some novels are treated as literature and others as pulp even to do this day based mostly on vibes and marketing. As for the plot? Eh. Mandel warns us fairly early in the book, foreshadows it even, by having a character talk about reading a novel which was really a series of stories where the characters don’t quite meet up. I thought a lot of Cloud Atlas when I was reading this. To be fair to Sea of Tranquility, there is a larger plot chugging along in the background, a tantalizing philosophical question hanging over our characters like a Sword of Damocles. But the resolution to that question belies its importance, in fact, to any of the characters. It’s not really about the question or even about the journey. There are whispers of a cabal, implications of shadowy figures manipulating events from afar. None of this is ever reified, however, in any truly fulfilling way. That might be for the best—this would be a very different book if such things had been more prominent—but it also leaves the novel feeling more shallow than I expected. It feels almost like it could have been a novella for the amount of ideas happening on the page. Fortunately, I still enjoyed the experience of reading the book. Mandel’s writing is as meditative as it was six years ago. I’m glad I went on this little science-fictional adventure! Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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Nov 21, 2022
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Nov 29, 2022
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| 3.94
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it was ok
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Aug 02, 2024
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Aug 09, 2024
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| 4.15
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liked it
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Jul 22, 2024
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Aug 06, 2024
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| 4.37
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liked it
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Jun 29, 2024
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Jul 25, 2024
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| 4.29
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really liked it
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Jun 25, 2024
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Jul 19, 2024
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| 4.09
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really liked it
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Jun 02, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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| 3.58
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it was ok
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May 29, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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| 3.76
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really liked it
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Aug 11, 2023
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Aug 16, 2023
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| 3.89
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liked it
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May 13, 2023
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May 26, 2023
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| 4.03
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really liked it
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Mar 04, 2023
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Mar 22, 2023
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| 3.48
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liked it
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Feb 13, 2023
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Mar 02, 2023
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| 4.18
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it was amazing
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Feb 02, 2023
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Feb 11, 2023
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| 3.85
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really liked it
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Jan 25, 2023
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Feb 08, 2023
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| 4.50
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really liked it
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Jan 14, 2023
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Jan 23, 2023
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| 3.90
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liked it
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Jan 03, 2023
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Jan 14, 2023
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| 4.33
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really liked it
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Jan 03, 2023
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Jan 10, 2023
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| 3.61
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liked it
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Dec 22, 2022
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Jan 08, 2023
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| 4.26
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it was ok
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Dec 19, 2022
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Dec 27, 2022
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| 4.10
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really liked it
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Dec 03, 2022
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Dec 10, 2022
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| 3.86
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really liked it
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Nov 30, 2022
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Dec 10, 2022
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| 4.07
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liked it
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Nov 23, 2022
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Nov 29, 2022
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