Books I Read in 2022
Posted: January 30, 2023 Filed under: Books, Top Five | Tags: Books, Fantasy, Literary Fiction, Literature, noir, Reviews, Sci-Fi, Top Five 1 CommentSomehow, some way it is that time of year: welcome to my annual post of reviews for all the books I read in the previous year. I am once again thrilled to have posted this before the end of January (barely, again) and going forward I will be making a big change. Instead of waiting until the end of the year to write one long post, in 2023 I plan to write multiple posts over the course of the year by writing a new blog every time I finish a book. This won’t be immediately after I finish a book, as in that very night or the next day, but it will be no more than a few days after and well before I finish the book I start next. I am once again setting a reading goal of a book a week so 52 books total on the year. I can tell you that I’m already lagging a little behind due to reading some long fantasy books but if I get back on track then there will hopefully be near weekly posts from me in 2023. I say “near” because if I am reading a series or several connected books by the same author (as I am to start this year), I will wait until after I finish all associated books before writing a review of the whole thing. I do this to have complete thoughts about a running story but will still likely give book-by-book impressions in the overall review. It’s going to be a bit strange starting to write more often and I may experience some hiccups along the way that I hope you will ride out with me, but I’m looking forward to a new approach and a good reading year.
Now would normally be where I throw in some stock transition like “but enough about 2023, what about 2022?” but ugh, 2022 was not the best reading year for me. I had the same book per week goal but I feel entirely short, only getting through 37 overall. I had some good reasons to fall off: one new job and then another this year, moved to a different state in between, so on and so forth, but I’m trying to just keep that in the past and get back on track this year, especially with a new plan for how to write out everything. Even with a smaller number of books than I’d like, there was still some real quality and a lot of that is due to another project I’m involved in.
My friend Dani and I host a podcast called Lit Lit where we read books sober and talk about them drunk. Every other week we both read the same book on our own and then get together while drinking to have our first conversation about what we just experienced. On the in between weeks we record shorter episodes called Little Lit about whatever we like: sometimes book related, sometimes decidedly not. We read all types of books written by all types of people about all types of things and while we try to involve books/series that have been adapted for television or film when we can, we mostly just pick novels (or novellas or short story collections, but almost zero non-fiction) we think will be good, fun, or likely to provoke an amusing conversation. We’re on our fourth year of making it so there’s a ton of back catalog if you’re looking for something to binge and I think we’re quite good and what we do with the show, so I hope you enjoy it. If a book I read this past year was for Lit Lit then there will be a link for the associated episode directly below the title line in a pretty obvious fashion. If you like these reviews and decide to listen to the podcast we sincerely appreciate you for fucking with us that much. If you liked the episode you listened to, please check out others and let other people who might be interested know about Lit Lit. We enjoy reading and recording and would love to grow an even bigger audience to read together with. You can check us out on Twitter @pod_lit and our email is littlelitpod@gmail.com if you want to make any suggestions.
If you end up liking this post, not liking it, feeling generally chatty about books, whatever, drop a comment below and I’ll be happy to talk things over with you. I absolutely do not think I am anything close to a last word on any book and I’m always interested in hearing other takes or other options on things to read. I have a somewhat active presence on Twitter if you’d like to follow me @AWKlema but I will warn you that it’s mostly retweets with the occasional reaction to a sporting event. If you’ve gotten this far into an overly long intro, I thank you very much and let’s just go ahead and get the hell to the books. Cheers all.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
(The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay)
Enough people have seen or read The Hunger Games already that full summation is probably unnecessary, so why don’t we give a SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT annnnnnnnnnd………
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Man that ending is terrible, isn’t it? When I first read it I couldn’t believe that the author had gone with this aggressive of a downer wrap-up and assumed that the movies must have tweaked it to make it more palatable to a Hollywood audience. Nope! Just the same incredibly defeatist conclusion that left a very sour taste in my mouth.
It’s important to state and understand that I’m not at all against downer endings and in fact encourage them if they fit their respective stories. That’s the part I thought was so off about how Collins decided to finish her story: it runs in stark contrast to so much of the rest of the series that it felt like a bait-and-switch. The first two books use the Hunger Games as the main device/hook/gimmick to phenomenal effect because it’s such a great idea that even if you can argue that the underlying political dynamics don’t actually support it blah blah blah who cares, it’s a cool spark for a story. It also gives us Katniss’ triumphant manipulation of the system to keep her and Peeta alive as well as the true start of the rebellion when they are cruelly forced back into the Hunger Games when they should be safe for life. The first two books are great, four stars or better, minor complaints at best with no real notes worth giving.
The third book is where the wheels start to fall off because it’s a drastic tonal shift from the first two in a way that doesn’t work for the overall story. At first I wasn’t sure if that was simply due to the focus moving from The Hunger Games as the main event to all out war between District 13 and the Capitol (sure, fine, the secret hidden district was real all along and they’ve got power to rival that of the super oppressive government, I guess). Before the games were the tentpole event of each book and now we’re following a whole ass war so sure, maybe that’s why everything feels a little darker and Katniss is even more of a prick than she normally is, maybe it’s just a different feeling without the games holding everything together. But the ending is just soooo destructive to the rest of the story and takes things in an entirely different direction from where the audience was initially led. Most of the rest of the story is some plucky kids in an incredibly fucked up system just trying to survive and maybe make some change and all of the sudden we have an ending that is more about two broken people just trying to find SOME kind of solace in the face of unspeakable tragedy and betrayal and hey, that’s an interesting angle but it’s absolutely not the one we were shown for the first 800+ pages!
It frustrates me because there’s a way to tell the end of this story without making it all shiny and happy but also without killing (figuratively and probably literally depending on what you cared about) everything good about the rest of it. Collins clearly wanted to spice things up and bring more shades of grey in at the end so that her story about VIOLENT ADOLESCENT MURDER didn’t have too nice of a bow put on it, but I believe she goes way too far in the other direction and takes the heart out of her creation. It’s a damn shame because even if the overall story isn’t perfect, it is certainly compelling and deserves better than this overall rating.
Three Out of Five Stars
Everyone Has a Podcast (Except You) by The McElroy Brothers
For anyone unaware, the McElroy Brothers (Justin, Travis, and Griffin) are the hosts of roughly five thousand one hundred and thirty seven different podcasts, including the popular and long running My Brother My Brother and Me, so when they came out with a book for people who wanted to try their hand at podcasting we at Lit Lit decided that we would read the book to see if there was anything useful to be learned from it. The results were: yes there certainly is, but maybe not as much for us as others.
I don’t mean to say that we are Expert Podcasters who don’t need help from these so called “experts” (they really are experts, I’m just kidding, please don’t hate me), but a lot of the advice in the book is aimed at people who are just starting out and we’ve been doing this thing for going on three years now, so there wasn’t as much that we could take away from it as, say, someone who just had the brilliant idea to start a podcast about reading books sober and talking about them drunk, but doesn’t really know where to go from there. Each section tackles a different topic with the brothers (and their spouses, who each have podcasts in the ever growing McElroy Network) jumping in and out depending on who is the expert in which spot, and there’s great advice about the logistics of starting out, finding your voice, working on the technical side, tons of different things, just things that we’ve already bumbled our way through.
It is therefore kind of difficult to rate this book because it does have a good deal of information and it is well constructed and very clearly done in the voice that the McElroys have become known for, but I wasn’t able to get as much out of it as I was hoping. That is first and foremost a Me Thing and not something that should be taken out on the book for not meeting me exactly where I need it to, but these are also subjective reviews that come from a particular point of view (my dumb one) so…
Three and a Half Out of Five Stars
The Cadfael Chronicles by Ellis Peters
(Saint Peter’s Fair, The Leper of Saint Giles)
I discovered Cadfael, the murder solving 12th century Benedictine monk, last year thanks to @BrandyLJensen on Twitter and he’s been the best thing to come into my literary life since. I read the first three books of the series last year (you can read them individually and in any order without losing too much, but there are a few carryover characters and events, plus I’m an annoying completist, so I’m going in order) and was given books four and five for Christmas, so I’m off to an early start in 2022 as well. They remain absolutely delightful with enjoyable characters and well paced mysteries, but the strength of the series remains the superb sense of comfort with both the tone and the setting of these stories. Peters (the pen name of Edith Pargeter) puts the reader firmly in the 12th century in the town of Shrewsbury (and sometimes in the English countryside, sometimes in the Welsh countryside, etc.) with a strong sense of the attitudes and morality of the characters contained within. The mysteries themselves are worth reading of course but this is the true strength of the series.
Saint Peter’s Fair once again uses the background of The Anarchy to great effect by setting our story in a town fair that may just happen to be attended by various intelligence agents of the concerned parties of the English civil war, and thus murder is afoot. Despite the use of the setting I wouldn’t say that these books go heavy on the “historical” side of historical fiction in any way other than simply describing what’s going on in the world around the characters. There are no cameos by incredibly famous people who just happen to stop by our story, nor are there attempts to provide background to historical events in a way that would give them new meaning. Just everyday stories (OF MURDER!!!) about the people that live in these times. But what that does for us here is give further depth and intrigue to a story that otherwise might just be about something crazy happening at a Shrewsbury block party, weaving tension throughout the story due to the reader knowing something that the characters might not be fully grasping quite yet.
The Leper of Saint Giles seems to largely eschew the grander history of the time to tell a simpler story about murder-for-profit and the danger of arranged marriages made by meddling guardians, but the larger context creeps in here too as we can’t ignore the past when dealing with its ramifications in present. Cadfael gets to the bottom of another murder but the way there is winding and full of local secrets and the involvement of a brother at a nearby leper colony. Peters uses a deft hand in this last part as well, humanizing people who have been horribly afflicted and also using the reactions of various characters in the story as a measuring stick for their moral fiber, making the colony not just a setting tweak but an integral part of the story as well.
Look I’m gonna keep giving these books five stars until they get worse or you stop me, and I don’t see either of those things happening anytime soon.
Five Out of Five Stars
How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
I’m in this weird place with Jemisin where I really enjoy everything she writes and seek it out whenever I can, yet don’t like her as much as a fair amount of people who think she is at the absolute top of the genre. I feel my main departure is that I need more big moments and plot reveals from my fantasy/sci-fi and while I fully acknowledge that this is a taste thing (and thus not a direct criticism of her writing), it still is something that keeps me from calling her the best of the best. Even though she’s very very good!
I say all that to say that I came into How Long ’til Black Future Month?, a collection of Jemisin’s short stories published over the years, knowing that I was probably going to like it but wasn’t sure how much, rather than someone who was predisposed to like (or I suppose hate) it. With that established, I came away placing these stories in three rough categories: I Get It and It’s Fine, This is a VERY Good Story, and Holy Shit She Should Write Like This All the Time. I honestly didn’t dislike any or even be really meh about any, so everything is contained within.
I Get It and It’s Fine are stories where I like the concept and/or the way it’s told and/or the underlying message and it all worked for me, but not in a way where it stands out as particularly memorable. In other words, the title is an actual response and not some kind of snarky takedown. I know, the odds are low but sometimes they pan out. Examples of this include “Cloud Dragon Skies”, “The Trojan Girl”, “On the Banks of the River Lex”, and others.
This is a VERY Good Story is also fairly self explanatory! These are stories that really impressed me and I would happily recommend to others, read again…maybe mention on a podcast? It might have been the a brilliant concept or style or a character that managed to grab my attention in a short amount of time, anything that kept me thinking through what I had just read. Examples of this include “The Effluent Engine”, “The City Born Great”, “Cuisine des Memoires”, and others.
Holy Shit She Should Write Like This All the Time is the surprise category, the impression I didn’t know that I was going to have until I was actively having it. In short, it is that Jemisin is an AMAZING horror writer and I would love to see if she has the chops to keep it up over a full novel. I’m annoyingly blanking on the third story that would really sell this as a Thing but both “The Brides of Heaven” and “The Evaluators” were super super creepy in just the right way. You start to feel that rising dread as you realize what’s happening and where the story’s heading but don’t want to do the only thing that will stop it: put down the book. I’m not exactly surprised that Jemisin has this in her bag but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to seem so effortless, which is what made it such an essential addition to the collection.
So yeah, read this book. I’ll knock it slightly for unevenness because it was a letdown to read an incredibly moving or well executed story and then read something that has potential but never really grows into something great, but nothing in it is a waste of your time. Which is my hallmark of a great short story collection, even if that may sound like a weird standard.
Four and a Half Out of Five Stars
Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
There are times I discuss the books I have read and openly admit when I might be the problem rather than the author or what they’ve created. Sometimes that means that I talk about how I don’t enjoy a certain genre, or have an issue with an approach that the author used, or wanted the story to be tackled in a different way than the author did, or something else that falls outside an objective assessment when deciding on these incredibly meaningful ratings. This doesn’t mean that I think an author is blameless or that I am a lumbering oaf that wouldn’t know symbolism if it was reinforced five times per chapter (though that might be closer to the truth), but it is meant to showcase how a person’s interaction with a work is a huge part of how that work is received and there should not be any issue in acknowledging that this is the case. In doing so I hope I’ve created a safe space for this discussion because if not I’m going to get completely lit up as I just don’t get the ending of Remote Control.
I’ve been a fan of Okorafor’s work for several years now; I think that Who Fears Death is one of the best books I’ve read period and I also really enjoyed Binti even if it didn’t reach the heights (in my eyes) that her previous masterpiece did. So I was all in on Remote Control and liked it a lot as I was reading through. It is a very interesting and balanced mix of history and modernity, of the power (real and imagined) of folklore and the allure of technology, with some interesting commentary on who controls said technology and what it means for the people affected by it. But I still don’t feel like I have a good or even acceptable grasp on what Okorafor meant with her ending or where that thread was supposed to naturally go. It’s a relatively short book so I may reread it in the future and report back, but for now here’s an ending that is much more my fault than the author’s.
Three and a Half Out of Five Stars
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Your feelings about this book will likely turn on how you are able to deal with things being so very incredibly twee, because almost everything in One Last Stop is 100% on the nose and set up to be so just-so that it will either send you running for the hills or make you want to fight anyone online who said a single bad thing about it. I don’t know if I’m ready to engage in fisticuffs over this novel but I do happen to fall in the group of people who was able to deal with the twee and appreciate the book not in spite of it but perhaps because of it. The reason for that is fairly simple: why can’t LGBTQ+ people have a story where everything in the story has its own inner logic where everything fits perfectly into place?
This book is a lesbian love story and within the first fifty pages one of the aforementioned lesbians has moved to New York City, found an amazing apartment with other queer people, landed a job (if “only” a serving job at a local diner), and generally fallen into her own ready made world despite being a self-described shy weirdo who never makes friends and doesn’t fit in anywhere. Initially that shit rubbed me the wrong way because none of it felt earned, none of it was accomplished through character evolution, none of it required any actual effort because it all just magically happened. Have you ever moved to a completely different place as an adult? I did that shit this year, it’s tough! I’m lucky to have a couple bars I like to hang out at let alone a perfectly crafted selection of ready made friends to get up to wacky hijinks with. But this is something that McQuiston sets up early and while I’m not saying there was no other way to tell this story, I found myself asking why I needed this to be so goddamn difficult for everyone in the story at every step of the way. Sometimes these things just happen and, more importantly, this initial set-up forms the stable base for all the insane shit that happens later on, so if you can’t go with it then I get it but I think it’s worth meeting the author on their own terms because the result is an entertaining and emotionally satisfying love story (that also happens to involve a person stuck out of time on a subway car but that’s neither here nor there).
We read Red, White, and Royal Blue for Lit Lit in a previous year and we returned to McQuiston because we enjoyed how the pop culture speak and romcom style love story fit together in a way that didn’t seem unrealistic (beyond the basic setup) or overly sitcom-y in the way that drives me absolutely crazy. One Last Stop is perhaps more challenging on these fronts because of how much you need to just go with the flow over to make the whole thing sing, but if you can do that (and I don’t blame you if you can’t) then you get a very good story out of it that I would definitely recommend.
Four Out of Five Stars
Magic For Liars by Sarah Gailey
I’m about to become the most annoying person on the internet but fuck it, here goes: I wasn’t terribly impressed by this book and I think it was because I have actually read some noir stories before. That sounds snobby and condescending as hell toward people who liked it, I agree, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true, dammit! Like, if you had only a passing familiarity with noir then I get why you’d think this is good because it’s transgressive! It has an alcoholic, down-on-her-luck private eye! The narration is cynical and uses a bleak, grey-tinged lens to show the reader that the world isn’t always sunny and happy for everyone! But that’s 101 shit. That’s the basis for noir’s very existence and it’s been around for nigh a hundred years, so I can’t just see that and think “hooooooo shit we’ve got a hyper original work!”
“But it IS original because it combines noir AND fantasy in a school setting!” Ok, fine, but mashing two things together doesn’t guarantee an interesting outcome and therefore I rate this higher as an elevator pitch than an actual novel. Now to be clear and fair, I didn’t HATE this book, nor even dislike it outside of some other people’s reactions to it. I think it is maybe slightly above average all around and that’s a totally fair thing for a book to be without assuming insult where none is intended. But based on some reviews I’ve read, it seems people love the idea so much that they’re willing to go to bat for a book that is very typical once you get past said idea. The noir pastiche is a fair replication, but that’s mostly all it is and it is so incredibly heavy handed at times that it feels like Gailey is trying to remind you that yes, she IS in fact daring enough to write in this style. The magic school element is, again, a cool thought but it doesn’t truly add much to the story besides making the crime a magical crime and therefore different from the crimes we usually see. The concept behind this book is certainly interesting but nothing else in this novel is, well, novel.
Again, that doesn’t make it bad or mean that I hated it more than any other book this year. It was a perfectly acceptable read that maybe does a cool thing or two but mostly coasts on the general premise to a relatively satisfactory (and telegraphed) conclusion. But if you’re looking for noir crossed with fantasy (Lowtown by Daniel Polansky) or cynical modern fantasy (The Magicians by Lev Grossman) or noir with a unique concept (In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes) then there are other places to go instead.
Three Out of Five Stars
Killing Floor by Lee Child
For the shockingly uneducated, this is the first book in Child’s Jack Reacher series, a character made famous in a super faithful way that everyone was happy about by Tom Cruise in the movie subtly titled “Jack Reacher.” The Cruise vehicle was based on a different Reacher book however whereas this one was made into the tv series (are we still calling them tv series if they’re available primarily through streaming? Thoughts for a different day) starring Alan Ritchson that came out in 2022, hence the reason we read this particular book for the podcast.
This book was the dumb kind of fun that I can get behind as a beach read rather than a serious project that will tax your brain or review writing or podcasting ability, so if that’s all you expect then you’ll do just fine here. Child tries to make this into more of a noir than the story needs, but he doesn’t really have the chops for that (though I should be fair and note that it is his first book as well as the first in the series, so maybe he improves along the way) so it reads mostly as a vigilante action thriller that only strains the limits of credulity on certain occasions. Child also has this weird idea that military police (like Reacher) are the toughest of the tough because their duty is to catch trained killers, a job description my ex-military friend…disputes let’s say, to be charitable. In fact, his full comment was “Well, I think the most succinct way to say it is: if you explained what is essentially the spine of the Jack Reacher story, that ‘MPs are the toughest because they have to wrangle all the military toughies,’ to any military person not an MP, you would have to wait 40-45 seconds for a response as they laughed heartily in your face.” But I/we digress. The story is ostensibly about Reacher on the hunt for his brother’s murderer and that does fine as a basic explanation, but really this is about our (anti-)hero kicking ass, occasionally taking names, rarely chewing bubble gum, and doing the kinds of things that an action star would do.
Your mileage may vary on this kind of book and that’s perfectly fine, I wouldn’t expect it to be for everyone, what with the wonton violence, average prose, and interesting opinions of letting boobs rest on tables. But that’s ok, you’re allowed to dig it or not on whatever level you feel. Me, I enjoyed it as an easy page turner that didn’t truly draw me in but also did keep me flying through pages just to find out how it all got wrapped up. I’ve spent worse hours of my life, many of which involve people bitching about Tom Cruise being cast as a hulking warrior of a man like Jack Reacher. To each their own.
Three Out of Five Stars
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
Speaking of vigilantism, hoo boy does this one really skips dipping its toes in the water and jumps directly into the pools of blood that the story generates. We read this for the podcast immediately after Killing Floor because we wanted to leave the realm of white men doing whatever the fuck they feel and move into a different world with perhaps a little more to say. Cosby’s story fundamentals are solid and unique as the main thrust of this book is two aggressively homophobic fathers out to get revenge for the murder of their sons with maybe some soul searching along the way. Not a bad start to a book! Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into this one due to what I believe are some execution issues during this physical and mental journey, some of which are relatively simple (the mystery, such as it is, isn’t anything special to anyone who has read mystery or crime novels before) and some of which are a little tougher to put a finger on.
What is not Cosby’s fault is the fact that I keep wanting to refer to this book as Razorblade Suitcase as I am clearly a child of the nineties and the crystal in my palm should have gone off years ago. What Cosby does bear some responsibility for is the almost after school special journey that our main characters take on their way to not being homophobic pieces of trash. The setup is well done and the endpoint is perfectly logical, but the conversation and brief glimpses into the character’s heads don’t really do enough to earn that conclusion. You can tell me all you want how a character is processing this change to their previously held beliefs, but as a reader I really have to feel it in their actions and that just wasn’t the case here. I wanted it to be because I understood the direction and believe it makes sense as the central theme of the story, but Cosby just didn’t sell me enough, or I was carrying a higher standard for change than was necessary.
It may seem weird that this book is going to end up with the same rating as the thoroughly decent but unremarkable Killing Floor, but while the prose in Razorblade Tears is certainly better and the promise of more depth makes it a more enticing read, it also takes swings that it just doesn’t pull off and that often can be worse than a story that shoots safely for the middle. It wasn’t a bad book by any stretch but it never truly delivered on its promise of…not redemption but at least change, and it wasn’t helped by a fairly A to B plot or violence that made even me, an experienced reader of crime, noir, militaristic fantasy, etc., think “well that’s a bit much isn’t it?” Other people really enjoy this so it might just not have hit me right, but I’m still comfortable with where I ended up on it.
Three Out of Five Stars
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
I will give Andy Weir credit: he does write an incredibly believable hyper nerd and I don’t doubt that comes from a fair bit of experience. His failed scientist turned school teacher turned astronaut turned possible savior of mankind is a complete fucking dork and while that makes Project Hail Mary a bit eyeroll inducing at times, it also does permeate this book with the kind of childlike curiosity that helps along a puzzle solving sci-fi story such as this. Is a somewhat likeable nerd enough to save the day and make this enjoyable? Is one ever?
The Good: The stakes are high! Earth’s sun is rapidly dimming and this will end humankind unless Ryland Grace and a team of specialists can travel light years out of our solar system and find the source of this catastrophic event. That makes for high drama and a real sense of tension that continues throughout the story. In order to do all of this, Grace makes first contact with an unknown alien species and together they have to work to figure out a solution to their common problem, which gives the whole thing a science buddies kind of feel and honestly, it can be downright adorable at times. And while I’m not much of a science genius or someone who routinely seeks out “hard” sci-fi novels (though I’m reasonably versed in them), Weir relates these complex issues in a way that laypeople can grasp, at least for the sake of understanding what is moving the plot along. All of these factors come together and make this a quick and fairly satisfying read, something that I’m sure people who read or watched The Martian already knew but hey, I’m a philistine.
The Bad: Well, the other thing that makes this a quick read is that Weir’s prose is a whole bunch of mid and occasionally dips into Come the Fuck On territory. So many bad jokes. So many characters written simply to move the plot along. So many nauseatingly inane thoughts and asides from our protagonist. Plus, for a book that prides itself on all of its scientific problem solving, it takes communication after first contact, an INCREDIBLY complex process with no guaranteed solution at all, and figures it out in like five pages. I wouldn’t exactly call it lazy writing, more that the author has a very particular story that he wants to tell and he’s willing to eliminate all outside interference to ensure that we’ll only be dealing with what he needs to be there.
In the end, the good wins out, at least for right now. On a different day, in a different mood, I think you could find me ripping this thing apart and letting the stupidity and clumsiness overwhelm me. But today I think the earnest part of this book carries the day because after all, aren’t the real friends the aliens we met along the way (to saving humanity)?
Three and a Half Out of Five Stars
The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka
Soooooo remember what I was saying earlier about these reviews being a safe space? Here’s a test for y’all right now because I had a lot of trouble giving this book a fair shake. Not because it was bad or even close to that, to be clear, but because I simply didn’t know enough about post-colonial Nigeria to properly assess this as a complete work. Sometimes not knowing the historic context is a minor issue that maybe keeps a reader from having a full picture of what they just read, but I feel that because this is part commentary and part satire that the reader really needs to be grounded in the setting and that was not me. The writing is excellent, the scenes are well laid out with this layered repetition to them, and I enjoyed the process of reading it, but I just don’t have the background to be able to get as into it as I would like. And once again, to be crystal, this is totally on me and not a criticism of Soyinka. Please don’t yell at me online, my fragile ego cannot take it.
(I really should have sought out a version with a foreword and possibly footnotes but too late for that now)
Four Out of Five Stars
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
The sad thing is that I know more about the historical context for this fantasy book than I did for The Interpreters. Sigh. For the unfamiliar, Kay writes fantasy that exists in worlds based on actual human history on the planet Earth. This is a really clunky way to say that, but I want to be clear that he does not write historical fictional, but rather takes a time and place in real history and bases his settings, the larger geopolitical forces, and the general tenor of the moment on that reality. I had previously read Tigana (based on Renaissance Italy) and A Song for Arbonne (based on a crusade against a minority religion in southern France) and absolutely loved them both, so it is no surprise that I felt the same way about this book based on when the Iberian peninsula was under Muslim control and called Al-Andalus.
What I love about Kay’s writing is that he populates his stories with big, important characters (Great Men, if you will) but doesn’t give in to complete hero worship. The people he chooses to focus on are forces of nature in their own right, but simply being a king or a general or a whomever doesn’t GIVE them that right: it is something that they earn over the course of their own story. What’s more, there is a deep sense of melancholy that suffuses his work that helps to keep things grounded in the hard reality of these very difficult and tumultuous settings, giving the reader the sneaking suspicion that things aren’t going to be wrapped up in a neat little bow while also letting them know that somehow that will be ok.
I’m admittedly a huge nerd for these books and it’s tough to write a review saying “I thought this book was going to be awesome and it absolutely was” but…well, yeah. Put some more Guy Gavriel Kay in your reading life, you truly will not regret it.
Five Out of Five Stars
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
Years ago this book came across my figurative desk as something I had to read if I wanted to really get into espionage novels and understand their evolution. John le Carre was where I first started this journey but I also read books by G.K. Chesterton and Len Deighton, eventually moving more modern and getting into Robert Ludlum, Alan Furst, and several others without ever getting to Epitaph for a Spy. The reason for that is that I am an annoying completist and like to start from the beginning of someone’s bibliography if I have the ability, so I read Ambler’s first book The Dark Frontier. This was a mistake as I did not enjoy it; it was billed as an espionage novel but it read more like an earlier, pulpier version of a James Bond novel and while the satire and wry commentary was there to let you know the author didn’t mean it as a straight up adventure story, it left a bad taste in my mouth due to being so different from what I was expecting.
Fast forward a couple years to when I got that taste out of my mouth and finally decided to give the actual book that was recommended to me a real shot and you know what? Pretty damn good! Go figure! I stand by my original assessment of The Dark Frontier though because THIS was the kind of spy story I had been looking for all along. Rather than a debonair adventurer running around trying to solve the world’s problems, Epitaph is about a Hungarian man on vacation in the south of France who gets rounded up by authorities after a photoshop worker sees pictures of naval defenses amongst a reel of vacation photos. Of course no actual spy would be this incredibly stupid so the police know he’s not the spy, however he is an easy arrest for the crime so he is strong-armed into going back to his resort and helping discover who the true spy is. It’s a classic Woe to the Everyman type story and Ambler uses that feeling and associated angles to full effect to create a tense, partly whodunnit atmosphere as our lowercase hero tries to solve the case and save his life.
You can see how the two Ambler books are nearly polar opposites of each other and thus why I was so put off reading one style when I was much much more interested in the other. It’s my own fault for not doing my research and certainly my own fault for not reading the ACTUAL BOOK that was recommended to me, but I’m just gonna go ahead and skip over that to say wow, Eric Ambler finally wrote a book that I can enjoy (the book came out in 1938 and Ambler has been dead for almost thirty years shhhhhhhhh)!
Four and a Half Out of Five Stars
The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
This book would seem to be a straight up dystopian novel if you were to read the Wiki page or have the main plot points outlined for you. Society has begun to breakdown in a densely populated city (I forget if the setting is ever given as London or England in general, but that’s the impression one gets nonetheless) and the government has pulled back more and more in order to exert control over the limited space where it still has power. As a result, there are roving gangs of youths (*shaking fist at heavens* youuuuuuuuuths!!!!!) who roam through towns, accumulate followers, and eventually move on to new territory with no real police force or other control mechanism to stop them. The government does come in from time to time and crack down on large groups of people, but it’s fairly clear that so long as one doesn’t draw the direct attention of those nominally in charge, the outer edges of society can more or less do as they please. Early in the story our narrator, a nameless middle-aged woman, is quite literally given a youth of her own by strange people (beings?) who appear to her through a hole space-time and is given the task of raising her in this failing world. Sounds like the start of an intense page-turner, doesn’t it?!?
Well…nope. This book could legitimately be about fifteen different things but a plot driven action packed genre story is definitely not one of them. Lessing is using all of this window dressing as a metaphor for…man, I honestly don’t know because there are so many ways to take it. If you are an English major or a major literature nerd then this book will have all of your Spidey senses tingling as there is tons to unpack while the story evolves and the message does or does not reveal itself. Multiple interpretations of the story are up for grabs and for me, that’s where this becomes less of a story and more of a literary lesson. That’s of course not to say that this Nobel Prize winning author doesn’t know what she’s doing, but it seemed to me that she was operating at a level or two above what I was going to pick up and therefore it never all fully came together for me. I loved thinking about it and talking it over on our podcast (my pet theory is that it’s all a metaphor for the life cycle but my analysis is poorly researched, a sentiment that made it into quite a few of my final papers in college) but I will admit that this isn’t the type of book that I’m particularly good at working through. Interesting as all hell, but a bit of a tough read because of it.
Three and a Half Stars Out of Five
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
This book is also a tough read but for a wildly different reason. Homegoing is the story of two lines of a common ancestor and the divergent paths they take as we follow a series of separate but connected short stories that detail the lineage from 16th century Ghana all the way through to the modern era of the United States, and you can probably guess that there is some absolute hell to be experienced along the way. The brutality of the descendants’ lives is what will immediately draw the eye (and the heart unless you are some kind of soulless monster), but this isn’t a “simple” story about the horrors of slavery and white supremacy. Even among all of this suffering there is a thread winding through that not only connects the characters but provides a hope that somewhere along the line this will evolve into something new even if it never going to be a storybook happy ending.
Gyasi is an incredibly skilled writer and the first place I point to for evidence of this is how she is able to make the reader connect with and care about such a vast number of characters that are only appearing for a chapter at a time even if they live on longer through their children and their children’s children. We are talking roughly fifteen different segments that need to introduce a character, build the setting, reveal a theme, and then make an overall connection to the rest of the stories and the family tree as a whole. It’s an absurd amount of heavy lifting and Gyasi nails it each and every time. What’s perhaps more impressive though is that this all flows together as one narrative rather than feeling disjointed or peppered by hits and misses, as so many short story collections do, connected or otherwise. Again, the content makes this a very difficult book to read but the skill and artistry on display is so impressive that it carries the reader through regardless (though your mileage may vary) and is a book that I will likely come back to again in the future. In my initial rough draft this was right on the edge of Top Five of the Year territory but even if it doesn’t make it to my final list, know that that’s no commentary on the quality and this is absolutely a book you should read.
Four and a Half Out of Five Stars
The N’Gustro Affair by Jean-Patrick Manchette
My promise to you as an incredibly amateur review writer is this: you have a solid 50% chance (maybe higher!) of absolutely fucking hating this book. That’s not to deny any quality or artistic effort, but the story is told by a character who is a complete piece of shit and that can be very very hard to read. Hell, it’s often hard for me to read (see: The Ginger Man) so I would totally understand if anyone got like thirty pages in and decided to fuck right off. But me…I’m a bit of an idiot and I ended up mostly liking this. Again, Henri Butron is an absolute garbage human being so it can be tough to read through all of his thoughts and deeds, but that’s also kind of the point. I don’t have much experience with Manchette, only the hyper violent neo-noir The Mad and the Bad, but I do understand that his work is intended to provoke and push the boundaries of comfort so that the class and social commentary worms its way into your thoughts while you’re distracted by the things that are making you uncomfortable. This book has that in spades and either through knowledge or preparation I was able to stand slightly apart and appreciate what was being done.
That’s not to say that this is easy nor something I’d run through again, to be quite clear. Butron is not only trash left sitting out in the open during a heat wave but he’s also too cowardly to fully embrace his retrograde beliefs, which makes it EVEN HARDER to read his waxing poetic about the joys of destroying women’s lives and breaking communist skulls. Even if you have a heavy heavy dose of Unreliable Narrator Syndrome here, it can be a chore to force yourself to be an active participant in the story of his exploits and conquests, and it only partially helps that in reality he’s a huge fucking dupe and likely a shell of the man he’s trying to tell himself he is. The process of reading through something like this can remain unenjoyable even if one commends the author’s artistry, and often that process can burn a reader out to the point where it doesn’t matter how great the overall message is if the book sucks to read.
As I said, I did better with this than I would expect many to, but that’s not to hold myself up as a hyper tolerant reader of True Art. Much more likely I just knew somewhat what to expect and therefore made it through the story before my disgust completely caught up with me. And in doing so, I truly did get something valuable out of it; I would just never tell you that your experience is sure to be the same.
Three and a Half Out of Five Stars
The Chemist by Stephanie Meyer
Listen, I hear you saying “why the fuck would you read that?” and while you’re not wrong, you’re also not exactly right. This is a beach read suspense novel from the author of the Twilight books and, honestly, it is Fine. It is a totally reasonable book that also never makes a compelling argument for why you should ever read it. It might be the Platonic ideal of a totally average, nothing to see here Two and Half Star book and I have to admit, that’s better than I thought it would be.
The basic premise is that a woman bearing an army of pseudonyms has been on the run from a shady government agency for years. She was a chemist employed by a CIA style group that has gone rogue and is trying to kill off anyone on its staff that might be able to leak information about what really goes on behind closed doors, so once she barely gets out alive she goes deep deep into hiding, trying to stay off everyone’s radar and generally avoiding ending up dead. But her old boss finds a way to contact her and bring her in for One Last Job, namely abduct a would be terrorist and get the information she needs to stop a massive chemical weapon attack on the United States. This works, you see, because she’s a Good Guy at heart who was always just doing her best to protect innocent people rather than being a sadistic monster who loves torture. It’s shaky footing but it does the job competently…and then proceeds to dump a case of mistaken identity, a brother/twin mix-up, and the inevitable governmental double cross into the mix while also using an elaborate surprise attack to wrap the whole thing up.
Admittedly this sounds like a mess, so why am I going to bat for it? First of all, fuck you, I am absolutely not trying to protect the good name of Stephanie Meyer, how dare you? But second, and more importantly, she does a perfectly capable job of setting up the character motivations, pacing all the inane reveals, and bringing us a semblance of closure at the end. Is it good? Heavens no, don’t be silly. But if you want one of those mindless, “this author probably writes one of these every year” thriller books that you buy from a Hudson News while on vacation, this will do just fine. Just. Fine.
Two and a Half Out of Five Stars
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang
(The Poppy War, The Dragon Republic, The Burning God)
Sigh. Just…sigh. I was fairly excited to read this series because I had heard really good things about the author and the setting and now I don’t know who to believe about anything anymore. The Poppy War is a YA/fantasy trilogy that follows the rough life of a poor peasant who studies intensely (nope, more intensely than you’re thinking) to make it into the most prestigious military academy in a country that is a pretty clear China analogue. There she struggles to fit in among all the rich kids that have been trained from birth to be leaders, yet she finds an eccentric but secretly powerful instructor and unlocks her hidden potential to become one of the best in her class. Pretty standard, right? But THEN the nearby island nation (a clear analogue for Japan) invades and these students are thrust into a war they aren’t prepared for no matter their schooling. Still sounds fairly normal, right? Just a minor twist to a straightforward fantasy school type story? However, through all of this our main character Rin has been struggling with power that comes from communing with the gods of her land and towards the end of the first book she uses these powers to essentially drop an atomic bomb on the homeland of the invading army.
I want to be very careful to say that I don’t for a minute purport to fully understand, or even partially understand, the history of animosity between China and Japan. There is a battle/scene/massacre in this book that is designed to mirror The Rape of Nanjing and obviously that kind of wonton brutality and lack of humanity casts our protagonist’s action in a different light. But I don’t know man, even if you’re somehow going to argue that the mass deaths of innocent civilians is proper recompense for the mass deaths of other innocent civilians, it is nigh impossible to want to root for a main character that is willing to do such things. And we have to follow her for TWO MORE FULL BOOKS after this happens! It would be one thing if it happened toward the emotional climax of the third book, or maybe if the character moved on and learned something profound about power and recklessness, but none of that is the case. She doubles and triples and quadruples down on her past actions, all while becoming more and more terrible, not just as a person but as a fighter, a leader, a friend, everything. I stopped multiple times while reading to wonder who thought it was a good idea to make the lead so thoroughly unlikeable. Not just unlikeable but reprehensible. I still haven’t found a good answer so I’m afraid my own answer becomes that it shouldn’t be done and therefore you shouldn’t read this series.
If that seems like a lot to pin on one plot moment or even one character, fair. The morality lessons in the story seem to be constantly switching so that you can’t really tell the point that the author is supposed to be making; the pacing is wildly inconsistent to the point where you can be wallowing in Rin’s head for chapters on end and then all of the sudden a plot piece breaks through and you’re moving at breakneck speed again; the relationships between characters are, frankly, unbelievable in several different ways over the course of the series; the mythology is kind of interesting but mostly lost amongst all the bloodshed and more mundane war between people; and the ending does nothing to give you the sense that it was all worth it, or even that the ends justify the means. It all simply…is. Even the world-building that numerous people cite in their reviews as being an incredibly strong part of the book is only average at best. Yes, it is an Asian-based setting for YA/fantasy and that cannot be overlooked as that is a very new thing in a genre that has been dominated by white men rehashing medieval Europe for years and years. I mean that sincerely even though I know I sound like I’m quickly brushing past it. But the actual building of the world? The part where you get a real feel for the land and its people, where you learn the rich history of these civilizations, where the author does something truly unique or interesting or even well executed? It’s better than the coat of Russian primer slapped onto Shadow and Bone but not much more so. It’s pretty standard “the world looks like this and this is what happened before and here’s where things stand now” boilerplate that is interesting enough to keep the reader around through the first book to see how it shakes out but that’s about it. And similar to Shadow and Bone I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when I see this series garnering lavish praise as well as award nominations.
I don’t know what else to say. I was let down by this series, even more so because of raised expectations going in. And while that part is certainly my fault, it doesn’t explain everything by itself. Feel free to try them out if you like as they’re not super dense and move fast, but I can’t see myself ever going back to these nor ever trying something by Kuang again, even though her new book Babel is receiving rave reviews as well. I’m never so arrogant as to refuse to believe I could have missed something in a story, and if someone wants to convince me I’m wrong then I’m truly all ears, but I don’t see how else I could judge this one.
Two Out of Five Stars
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
I try not to compare books too much, even by the same author, as that can often lead to unintended assumptions that influence a reader to think they know how a book will read before they ever get the chance to start it. This is true for other mediums as well because I remember some friends going into The American starring George Clooney thinking it was going to be a James Bond style movie with Clooney playing a suave assassin and were SUPREMELY disappointed to find out it’s more like an arts house meditation on what a life is worth without love. It’s a good movie though, don’t let those idiots sway you. The point is, I try not to compare books so that I don’t unintentionally lead someone to think something about a book that isn’t true. But here I only do it for the sake of context because if your introduction to Mandel was Station Eleven (book or show I suppose) then you may be under the assumption that she is primarily writes dystopian novels or that she is *shudder* a genre novelist (this isn’t the time or the place for a full discussion but let me just say that I absolutely hate the genre/literary divide and I cannot wait until it is swept into the dustbin of history). I will simply say that you should avoid going into The Glass Hotel with those thoughts or hopes because if anything this book is too realistic.
This is essentially a fictionalized version of the Bernie Madoff scandal with more background and character work along the way. If that leads you to think it’ll be all finance talk and procedural issues, well, no, so don’t worry about that and just dig in. It follows a smattering of characters, both those inside the scheme and those affected by it, though the through line is Vincent, mistress of the Madoff stand-in and someone who has lived an incredibly varied life in general. Through her we get the description of the rich always living in the same place no matter where they go in the world which will stick with me for years and would be the price of admission alone. However there is much more including the titular glass hotel, Vincent’s brother Paul and their dense past, and some of the sharpest observational writing out there. Mandel is one of the best doing it these days so any chance you get to read a book of hers, take it.
Five Out of Five Stars
Sorcerer Royal by Zen Cho
(Sorcerer to the Crown, The True Queen)
These two books take place in Victorian era England (or slightly before, I’m not a damn English major in any sense of the phrase) where magic is the realm of gentleman practitioners who set laws on its use and act as another branch of the government to protect Britain from the evil spells of the French and other suspicious characters. However when we are dropped into this world the Sorcerer Royal is an outcast, a black man named Zacharias Wythe adopted into a magical English family who followed his adopted father to the post, yet is politely snickered at at best and targeted for assassination at worst. On top of this, English reserves of magic have been drying up and government control of the magical element of society is looming, problems that are unwarrantedly laid at the feet of our protagonist. While all this is going on, Zacharias meets a young woman with powerful magical abilities and must figure out how to bring her into society while maintaining control of his position and doing what is best for his country.
They’re so good. I’ll say that out front so there’s no confusion, these books are excellent. This is technically a series but you don’t need to read the second book in order to wrap up the events of the first, it’s simply a wonderful follow up that adds much to the world and to the mythos therein. I’ve been describing these as a streamlined Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell because where Susanna Clarke meanders while reconstructing an alternate history of English magic in that story (I mean no criticism here, I love that book as well), Cho uses that sort of world as a setting but is more concerned with a plot that builds slowly at first but ramps up into twists, reveals, and a satisfying ending (in both books) that ties off all loose threads. I wouldn’t call this my preferred type of fantasy as I enjoy a grimdark militaristic story as much as the next dude, but I have a certain affinity for these kinds of stories that finds their roots in the English fae and the magics they organically exude. The author includes that air of natural enchantment throughout her story but the plotting, characterization, and dry wit shine through all the more and make for two very enjoyable reads. I would highly recommend these if you don’t like “typical” modern fantasy or if you’re just looking for a small stakes but very involved magical story.
Four Out of Five Stars
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
This book is absolute hell to read, let’s get that out there right away. Not because it’s bad or the writer is a terrible person or anything, but because of the subject matter. This is about a little boy in Scotland growing up poor with an alcoholic mother and it will absolutely tear at you throughout the entire book. There is no let up, there are no (or at least very very very few) silver linings, there is no magical resolution that fixes everything. It recounts, in great and excruciating detail, the day in and day out miserable life of Shuggie as he tries to help his mother through her miserable hangovers and into a more gentle drinking day that never comes, while also showing Shuggie failing to make friends and making the fatal childish mistake of being somewhat different from everyone else. The repetition is what drives this book home and what really makes you feel the full effect of what Agnes does to both her son and herself, the reasons why she does it all, and why she can’t simply stop. It is gut-wrenching and incredibly difficult to sit down to read on purpose session after session.
It’s also an absolutely brilliant book. The reason why this book is so successful at being so fucking difficult is because of the immense skill Stuart has and the attention to detail he shows in the writing. Everything I listed above is something that you feel viscerally because the scenes are written so well, the inner monologues are revealing without being obvious, and the plot moves just enough to keep your attention but not so fast that you can get away from wallowing in the misery along the journey. It is beautiful and devastating and rewarding and difficult and it’ll probably make my top five for the year and I never ever ever want to read it again.
Four and a Half Out of Five Stars
The Arc by Tory Henwood Hoen
Between episodes of our podcast we went from a soul shattering story of alcoholism to a futuristic dating romcom. We contain multitudes. The Arc is one of those ideas that sounds great in the elevator (“ok it’s a matchmaking system that’s done all by computers and is 100% foolproof…but then it makes a mistake”) and that concept itself can carry the day so long as the execution is there. Here…not quite as much as is needed. The bones are good and Hoen’s couple are offbeat enough to make for a realistic relationship, but then the problem is that then they get TOO offbeat (the name “Viggo Mortensen” is used as a pet name to describe genitalia, shit gets weird ok?) and outside of the quasi-sci-fi element there isn’t enough to keep it from being like any other generic romcom plotline.
You know the drill by now: couple meets, there’s instant attraction, and three months into the relationship they’re acting like they know they’re going to get married. But then *INSERT EVENT HERE* happens and all of a sudden they start magnifying each other’s flaws and it builds and builds until one or both of them decides to break it off. But then, *INSERT INCITING INCIDENT HERE* happens and they reconnect falling even more deeply in love than they were before. In this book the event is their dating service tells them there’s a fatal flaw in their relationship and the incident is that same dating service manipulating them into a “chance” meeting, but to a degree that’s just window dressing on the same story you’ve heard before. And to be clear, window dressing matters! There’s that old chestnut about how there’s only actually seven stories ever told and whether you believe that or not, doing a fairly archetypal story from a slightly different angle can still be very entertaining and possibly even, to use a grandiose term, art. But again, it’s about execution and though the angle of The Arc provides for a decent setting, the writing doesn’t allow it to be a slightly better than average love story.
Three Out of Five Stars
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
What I enjoy most about Novik’s novels (I have also read Spinning Silver) is that the first impression the reader gets of the story is never going to be where the story is actually going to end up, even if said reader is optimistic about the author’s skill. Take Uprooted for example: Novik does a great job of not bombarding her audience with exposition but still manages to establish two important things early on: the woods in this fantasy land are evil and the peasant girls who live nearby are terrified of being chosen to serve the wizard battling this dark force. Ok, there’s a lot of directions one could go with that, but did you expect collaborative magic and the power of friendship battling nature zombies? And the brilliant part is we don’t get there right away! The relationship between our peasant girl protagonist and the wizard is established and then changed within the first hundred pages, secrets about the nature of the woods (I hate myself for this but not enough to edit it out) are teased out, and a crown prince and his own cunning wizard arrive to force everyone along on an ill-considered quest. And mayyyyyybe we are halfway through the book. Yet nothing feels rushed and we don’t feel the author pushing us along on something that we both know has to happen. It still feels natural and evolving rather than jammed together or overly constructed.
It’s tough to talk too much more about this book without giving away key details to the plot, so I’ll keep this short and say that Novik has a bit of Le Guin in her. Not a ton as this has the kind of downhill plotting and cinematic imagery that the Earthsea (and much much more; seriously, go read Ursula Le Guin) author shies away from, but both her and Novik refuse to make things morally simplistic in their stories. Nothing is as simple as the do-gooders having to bash the bad guys, even if there still are some do-gooders and some bad guys along on the ride. Life is not that black and white and Uprooted is not a story that allows for typical acts or answers, but with its effort it doesn’t become too preachy or different for the sake of different. It’s a really damn good books, y’all, it’s absolutely worth your time.
Five Out of Five Stars
The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu
(The Grade of Kings, The Wall of Storms, …)
That listing convention syntax is not an error left over from poor editing; no, what that means is that I have read the first two books of this series SO FAR and will finish the last two in 2023. I really don’t like split up a series between years like this: the aesthetic of it bothers me terribly and I also don’t usually read slow enough that a series drags on like this. However it did this year. But also however, it is not the fault of this series. As mentioned previously, reading in 2022 was a bit of a slog for me. It started with me adjusting to a new job, then it was the dreaded packing/moving/unpacking combo, and finally it was the knowledge that I already fucked up this year so it doesn’t matter if I rush to read to hit any kind of goal. I was unmotivated and unfocused and that is why it’s taking me forever to read this excellent series.
I’ll save the vast majority of description and analysis for next year when I finish but what I can tell you so far is that Liu has created one of the most detailed fantasy worlds I’ve read in a long time. It’s relatively small scale as most of the story takes place on one island cluster, but the different tiro states (city-states) actually seem distinct and unique rather than using the same tired “These people love to fight! But they do MAGIC over there!” cliches we too often see. These are not broad strokes that Liu uses. He takes the time to carve out his world, but then he also burrows into the intricacies that make a place truly feel as if it is history rather than fantasy. I don’t have cause to think I will see this series take a sudden heel turn into terribleness so hopefully my full wrap up in 2023 will continue heaping on the praise.
??? Out of Five Stars
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
One of the characteristics of writing that I’m focusing on more and more these days is telling vs showing. I do love me some subtle writing but I’ll still happily read straightforward prose, so long as it’s not straightforward in how it gets character motivations across. When authors tell you what their characters are feeling in very obvious ways, usually through incredibly lucid inner monologues, it really rubs me the wrong way and takes me out of the story. There’s of course nothing wrong with getting inside a character’s head to help show their emotional state or thought process, but that’s just it: SHOW. It’s tough to read a writer with a deft hand showing the reader what’s happening to their character and how that character is processing it…and then go to a writer who basically writes “‘I’m feeling angry’, thought the protagonist” to subtly show you where they stand. It’s jarring and then frustrating because you’ve seen it done well in a different manner before. You know it’s possible. I say all that to say that in The Nightingale two sisters reunite after years of separation and within half a page someone says, and I swear I’m only paraphrasing rather than boiling something down to its essence, “I know I didn’t give you the attention you needed back then, but I’d just had my miscarriage.”
This book is whatever. It’s not offensive, it’s just loud and obvious. It’s not poorly done, it’s just passable. It tells a dramatic story in an overwrought way and nothing in it is particularly surprising or inspired. As a story goes, it’s competently constructed and moves at an appropriate pace, so it’s doing its job, it’s just not doing much more. In the interest of fairness, the story does pick up when our protagonist sisters get deeper into their lives in Occupied France (yes, this is set in World War II, I honestly hadn’t thought to mention it yet) and the very end more or less succeeds in its emotional manipulations, I just think that’s mostly due to the weight of the story rather than any discernible skill or technique. If you’re looking for a story of two sisters living through hell during World War II and each dealing with that in their own way, this book will tell that story. That’s it.
Two and a Half Out of Five Stars
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
This is another book that is difficult to discuss without giving the big reveal and ending away, but I’ll try to tread lightly. You may ask why I don’t put a warning up and spoil to my heart’s content given that I used that all CAPS alert in the very first review of this post, but I think there’s a key difference between reviewing a book and engaging in full criticism of a book. The former sets things up so that a potential reader knows what they’re getting into and gives opinion on whether or not the author was successful, while the latter has latitude to break down every grand aspect and smallest detail so that someone who has read the material before may be exposed to analysis that might cause them to look at the whole picture differently. My goal here is always to give the reader some background and offer an opinion (correct or not, foolishly misguided or not) on whether or not a book is worth their time, because what I’m concerned with is helping people to read rather than make myself look smart while dissecting a story. We do THAT on the podcast thank you very much so why don’t you jerks go listen to that instead?!?
(you’re not jerks, I’m sorry I said that)
Anyway if you have read The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe, surprise, you’ve already read most of this book! There’s no need for spoilers because that’s in the description, on the book cover, and obvious from the first chapter, but even if you have read the original source material there is still much to enjoy here. Kingfisher (a nom de plume for Ursula Vernon to keep readers of her children’s stories from accidentally venturing into adult territory (which would be an awful name for a strip club)) adds some excellent touches like more background for the narrator without making them the entire focus of the story, a couple side characters that add some humor and dimension, and an actual explanation for the events at the House of Usher. Some readers might take issue with that last part and I understand that because if you boil down the supernatural elements of a horror story to something mundane and regular, you can lose much of the effect. With this acknowledged, I don’t believe it happens here because the nature of the impetus is actually quite terrifying when one considers the potential consequences and if Kingfisher takes a step wrong, I believe it is in overly assuring the reader that those ramifications are well in check and needn’t be worried about. That is a bit of an issue because while the book certainly doesn’t end in an overly happy manner, it does cap things off in a way that seems too airtight for my tastes. Still, this is an enjoyable read (and short, if you’re worried about giving it a shot) with the dry wit making it legitimately funny in sections, which balances nicely against the creeping dread. I really enjoyed this and think it’s definitely worth a go if you’re in the mood for horror without blood and gore and violence.
Four Out of Five Stars
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran
This is a very difficult book to review because aside from the fact that it’s weird as fuck, it also has a potential fatal flaw that will bother some people, be taken with a grain of salt by some people, and not even register to others. So, where to begin: this is a mystery novel that uses that mystery to talk about something else, as so many of this genre are. For Gran, this book is about New Orleans, specifically the tragedy and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, tragedy that was only made fully possible by the poverty, racism, and corruption of the city pre-Katrina. To navigate this world we are given our titular character Claire DeWitt, presented to us as the world’s greatest detective which is a title that is only fully explored and explained as we move through the story. Claire is into some decidedly weird shit: her style follows that of a famous (fictitious) existential French detective, she believes in and tries to decipher the paranormal, she heavily uses drugs of all varieties, she basically does a lot of things that make her stand out as Not a Normal Detective But a Cool One Instead. Why this actually works is that Gran grounds her in actual lived experience and her own tragedy. She’s not a tourist in this world, using some strange methods to arrive at her conclusions, but someone who has the bonafides to back up her own quirkiness. The result is an interesting and compelling main character who we follow along on her attempt to solve a case she didn’t really want in the first place.
Said case leads the reader all over New Orleans where we meet the people, good, bad, and muddled, of the city and learn how citizens of all varieties were affected by the storm. One of those people is a tough, world weary black teenager who is not only the hole in the donut at the middle of this mystery, but someone who Claire sees possesses some of the raw ability and experience that made her into what she is today. Herein lies the rub and the potential flaw: this book is desperately close to being a White Savior novel with a bunch of other cool trappings on top of it. In fact I would be willing to wager that there are people who that it just straight up IS a White Savior story, no confusion about it, and I don’t think that they’d be wrong. The key mitigating factors here are the lived experiences of our protagonist that I mentioned earlier. She’s not Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds (or whichever White Person Goes to an Inner City School and Saves Everyone book/movie you prefer), parachuting into something that she’s never had to deal with before and has no real business starting now. She has distinct experience with tragedy, poverty, death, living on the margins, New Orleans itself, all types of people, and so on. She’s lived a wildly eclectic and varied life and her actions don’t come strictly from a position of authority as someone who Knows Better; she is able to draw directly upon what she’s gone through to help (or at least possibly help) the people she encounters. However…she’s still a white woman whose job in this story, at least partly, is to try to save the lives of a largely black cast of characters. It’s hard to get more White Savior than that since it’s basically the definition.
In the end, your ability to enjoy this book will likely come down to this key point. I mean, of course you could end up hating it because you don’t like the main character in the first place, or the prose style bothers you, or whatever normal reasons one might have to dislike a book. But if you’re generally on board with that stuff (and I think you will be, it’s all very well done), then it all comes down to how much your mileage may vary on the White Savior issue. If it’s a non-starter and you hate the very idea of it, totally get it, no issues here, you could easily be 100% right. If you wouldn’t have even noticed it except for my ramblings here, go with god and just enjoy the book. If you’re somewhere in the middle like me…I honestly am not sure what to tell you. I personally have allowed these mitigating factors to let me to enjoy the book as it is presented, but I won’t lie and say that this concept isn’t there in the back of my brain anyway. Regardless, you have been duly warned so go make your own decisions and by all means let me know what you think as well.
Four Out of Five Stars
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
LIT LIT
I wanted to like this book more than I did and I feel the main barrier to that was of my own creation. First and foremost however, this is a book that is at least in part about suicide and self harm so beware both the book and the rest of this review if that is a (very very understandable) issue for you. What happens to our main character Nora after she attempts suicide is she arrives at the Midnight Library, a waystation on the way to the afterlife, and while there she is given the opportunity to inhabit any of her infinite parallel lives. For example, our protagonist had a childhood dream she would become a glaciologist and while in her confusing new purgatory she is able to experience that life to see what she missed out on. The idea here is that she will find a life that she truly loves and continue to live there rather than die after suicide (of course the REAL idea here is that through the course of inhabiting all these lives she will find the will to live again and return to her “root life” with a different viewpoint and a newfound respect for what she has). Her guide to this strange limbo tells her that once she finds a life that she loves she will continue on in her new bliss, but once she feels the disappointment of not wanting a life, her ripcord will be pulled and she’ll immediately return to the Midnight Library.
The problem, for me and possibly only me, is that she Quantum Leaps into each new life, fully aware that she has committed suicide in her root life, she is currently halfway between life and death, and she’s on a quest to find the best life for her. What I assumed would happen, and prefer as a concept, would be if she wakes up in each life just as that parallel self would normally live it and only become aware she might be out of place when she begins to feel the creeping sensation of holistic disappointment. Perhaps I am biased (I 100% am) but I like my version so much better! First, with Haig’s version there’s always this initial awkwardness while Nora adjusts to her new life, has to fake like she’s good at science or whatever, and get her bearings for what’s going on in this one. It’s kind of a drag each time and though he mines it for some level of humor, there are so many different ways to do that. Which brings me to second, which is that Haig doesn’t really do anything interesting with his version so there’s no reason that it HAS to happen like this. At one point he has Nora meet another person going through the same process as her and I assumed that was the key to a new plotline or dimension to the story, but nope, it was just a one-off scene to I guess just make that scene interesting? Third, doing it my way would not only avoid the clumsy entry into each life, which seriously does get old after the first two or three jumps, but you’d get a more melancholy, maybe even ominous tone with that gradual realization that this isn’t the right life. I don’t think Haig would ever intend to go dark, but his story seems almost romcom-y at times which is a really weird tone for a book about suicide to take, so something to balance that out seems like it would play well. At the end of the day it is of course his decision, but I couldn’t get that other way to do things out of my head and it spoiled my appreciate for Haig’s version a little along the way. At the same time, I do stand by the analysis that derived from that reaction. Shrug emoji.
Between this half-subjective half-objective complaint and the fairly obvious direction of the plot, I didn’t end up getting into it nearly as much as I was hoping. It’s still slightly above competent throughout and it does a good job of tugging the heartstrings in the last fifty pages or so, but it never gets profound enough or creative enough or SOMETHING to grab you enough to really click. For me, at least.
Three and a Half Out of Five Stars
The Vanishings: Left Behind: The Kids by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye
Lol this book is fucking trash, never read it. Instead, listen to our Lit Lit episode with special returning guest Jason Kirk (@thejasonkirk on Twitter) about how terrible it is. For those unfamiliar, the Left Behind series is a fundamentalist Christian version of The Rapture and because Jason is very much not a fan of it but has history with it from growing up, he wanted to take the chance to have an incredibly serious and scholarly discussion.
Nah we make fun of it a lot but end up in some interesting places along the way. Check the podcast out.
One Out of Five Stars
Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
No reason to slow play: this is the best book I read this year. It is incredibly well written, has a killer initial concept, uses solid pacing and plotting throughout, and comes together smartly at the end. It also is EXTREMELY my shit for a variety of reasons, so it is possible that your enjoyment level won’t reach mine because of the excellent fit on this side.
A quick warning: in my opinion this book would be best experienced if you don’t know anything more than what you’d see on the cover. I’m not saying that your experience will be ruined by knowing a little more about the basics of the story (no full spoilers down below, I don’t see the need for that here), but it really is a journey, both emotionally and in form, so know that you might want to walk that path oblivious. If not, I guess I’ll keep talking.
This is a story that takes place in France during The Black Death, the bubonic plague. It also takes that already incredibly depressing setting and ramps it up several hundred notches by casting it as the time when the devils will rise up out of the pits of darkness and try to create a literal Hell on Earth. If you’re wondering why something this awful would be extremely my shit, well, fair. The reason is that while I am not religious and did not grow up so either, I really really dig Catholic iconography and the story of the battle between Heaven and Hell. It’s a weak spot for me and is a surefire way to at least get me to pay attention to something. But with my attention grabbed, Buehlman makes excellent choices and crafts a horrific but vivid story. As the story begins you’re meeting the book on its own terms and so it seems we are in a plague novel that functions as a zombie novel due to the danger, desolation, hopelessness, and base emotions that permeate everything. Through that we have a knight-turned-brigand and a young teenage girl on a “quest” to find some family to dump the girl on so the knight can go on staying alive through sheer brutality. A real Hound and Arya situation, honestly. They also meet up with a drunk priest and you have yourself a nice and diverse party to traipse through the countrysides of death. But along the way it starts to seem a little fantastical. Not super obvious at first but slowly and then definitely it becomes apparent that there are actual Biblically horrific creatures populating this wasteland of humanity. Our party doubles down on their resolve and develops an actual quest to endure as they do what they can against the forces of darkness.
I used “vivid” as a descriptor above and that may actually be the best word. Buelhman paints the ruined landscape so severely and so fully that the setting is its own kind of creeping dread hanging over everything. He also crafts these monstrous creatures and particularly vile encounters which creates almost a X-Files Monster of the Week vibe for a minute. But as you begin to get used to that pattern, there is the introduction of larger plot elements and further mining of the Catholic theme for both story and purpose. There are certain scenes I will never be able to get out of my head and while your tolerance for gore and violence and Catholic horror as a genre has to be fairly high, the payoff from the creations as well as the climax are worth what you pay. Truly an excellent book and one I would love for more people to read just to be able to discuss it further.
Five Out of Five Stars
So that’s it for the 2022 reviews, hope y’all enjoyed yourselves. Without any further ado, the:
Top Five Books of the Year.
5. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
4. Uprooted by Naomi Novik
3. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
2. The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
1. Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
Top Five Simpsons Episodes
Posted: October 1, 2013 Filed under: Top Five | Tags: Albert Brooks, Phil Hartman, Sideshow Bob, The Simpsons, Top Five, Troy McClure 1 CommentI have the habit of making top five lists for pretty much anything that I think about enough to need some sort of ordering process. It’s often things like top five movies, songs, actors, etc. but it can also be about something more specific like Top Five Samuel L. Jackson On Screen Moments (spoiler alert: the shark in Deep Blue Sea makes an appearance). The key here is my obsessive mind and what it latches on to, nothing more highbrow than that.
The Simpsons have long been a favorite of mine and I know seasons 1-13 or so like the back of my hand. I won’t claim some kind of extraordinary knowledge because I’m certain there are many people who could beat me at Simpsons trivia, but I could be generally classified as someone who knows their shit. As a result, the subject of Top Five Simpsons Episodes has been broached multiple times with multiple people and, go figure, there has never been a clear consensus. That’s the great thing about a show like The Simpsons; people can have different opinions on best moments, best lines, best characters, and even if your list doesn’t match their list you can still have an appreciation for where they’re coming from. This is the power of such a broadly excellent show.
Anyway, I narrowed down my top five and they’re listed in ascending order below. I usually just do a general “top five” grouping but I think my the order I’ve assigned is more or less correct. I hope you enjoy.
5. “Sideshow Bob Roberts”
My fifth slot always seems to rotate between my favorite episodes that for some reason aren’t just quite favorite enough to be automatic top five inclusions. That could be the monorail episode, the one where Bart and Lisa write Itchy and Scratchy, “Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in ‘The Curse of the Flying Hellfish,'” or whatever, but it’s the only slot on this list that’s not locked in. I’m always tempted to put a Sideshow Bob episode at number five and I think this one is my favorite. Everything about it properly ridicules the political views of the residents of Springfield while also throwing all kinds of shade on the political parties in general. Sideshow Bob is a fantastic character anyway but he somehow becomes even better when he’s taken a level beyond the role of Bart’s nemesis. Here the rest of the town sees him as a charismatic politician looking out for the good of the people when in fact he’s a devious criminal looking for ways to use his power to inflict pain on those he blames for his misfortune. So, basically a politicians.
Favorite Line
“No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and lived to tell about it.” -Sideshow Bob
4. “Homie the Clown”
I often surprise people when I include this episode on the list and I understand why. It’s not one of their brilliant satirical episodes or surprisingly heartwarming or anything bigger pictures. The premise (Homer attending clown college to be a stand-in Krusty for all the boring jobs Krusty doesn’t want to do) is good but not amazing. There’s nothing about this episode that, by itself, makes you think it’s an all-timer. But oh my god, the bits. The bits in this episode are absolutely hilarious to me and that’s the reason I’m discussing this at number four. Everything is so good! The silent war within Homer’s mind about going to clown college; Homer mercilessly beating the Krusty Burger version of The Hamburgler; the absurd ways that Krusty blows his money like betting against the Harlem Globetrotters; the series of names that Homer tries to come up with to get away from the mob; the full mini-bicycle stunt course at the end. EVERYTHING! Maybe it’s just me, and I completely accept that it could be, but every bit in this episode lands and that’s why it has to make the list.
Favorite Line
“I’m seein’ double here – four Krustys!” -Legs
3. “A Fish Called Selma”
The Simpsons have had a fair amount of episodes that are full musicals and plenty of episodes have featured songs here or there. Enough so that there were Simpsons songs CDs made that I will not confirm or deny if I own. Even with all of that material to choose from, I really don’t see how you pick anything but the Planet of the Apes musical as the best of the bunch. I have plenty of reasons to make this episode my number three but Troy McClure (voiced by the late, great, sorely missed Phil Hartman) rapping to Dr. Zaius is the foremost consideration. The whole musical would probably be enough, but the great part is that we get more Troy than we ever had before and he comes out of it as a great character instead of an overused gimmick. The commentary on the crossover between tabloid “fame” and movie star fame works both in the plot as well as satire and Selma is given a surprisingly human side by the end of the episode. Thinking about it is making me wonder if I should make it number two but I’m sure I’ll go through the same process when I write that blurb. Still, amazing episode. Also, The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Professor Horatio Hufnagel.
Favorite Line
“I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z…” -Troy McClure
2. “Lemon of Troy”
For the life of me I can’t put my finger on why I love this episode so much. The plot is straightforward while still being appropriately absurd: Bart is bored by both Marge and Grandpa Simpson’s admonishments about the proud history of Springfield, yet he turns into the champion of his city when some kids from Shelbyville (along with their startlingly familiar looking parents) steal Springfield’s famous lemon tree. Considering that the famed split between Springfield and Shelbyville occurred over cousin marrying rights, we’re right in normal Simpsons territory. But I’m having trouble figuring out what in particular makes me not just enjoy this episode, but rank it high as number two on an all time list. I think it’s the fact that we actually see Shelbyville for the first time and how it’s slowly revealed to be a slightly skewed mirror image of Springfield, a town rivalry for the sake of a town rivalry where the people actually have more in common than they’d care to admit. Perhaps it’s a kind of understanding for that situation that I have, coming from a fairly small town myself, that makes me appreciate not just the absurdity of the plot and characters but Springfield as a whole, as the setting for the millions of episodes of The Simpsons (I’m assuming that number is accurate). By looking outside the town you notice the town more than you would have otherwise and so it always strikes me as an essential episode.
Favorite Line
“So this is what it feels like when doves cry.” -Milhouse
1. “You Only Move Twice”
I mean, this has to be here. You had to know this was coming. In my minimal (and assuredly flawed) research, this episode made the most top however many lists, was included in the most top five lists by people I asked, and was generally the most mentioned among the all time greats. That doesn’t mean that it has to be in everyone’s top five. I introduced this topic by stating that I have appreciated multiple top five lists with different lineups and I really did mean that. But for me, this episode was always going to be on the list and it was always going to be number one. First of all, Albert Brooks is amazing. If it wasn’t for Phil Hartman voicing Troy McClure (and to a slightly lesser extent Lionel Hutz), Brooks would be the best guest The Simpsons ever had. Second, the basic premise is fantastic. Homer is offered a job for a rival company, does good work, has a boss who he gets along great with, and he can’t keep it because his family is so miserable in their new home. Third, the underlying plot where his boss is actually a Bond villain is phenomenal and so well introduced and followed up on. With all of that holding the episode together, the bits are still amazing. Lisa’s trip to the forest turning into an allergy ridden nightmare (bonus points for the amazing addition of the owl swooping in on the chipmunk); Bart in the slow case with the Canadian exchange student; the Hammock District; Homer preventing “Mr. Bont” from escaping; the Denver Broncos. I put “Homie the Clown” on this list because of how good the bits are. This episode has moments that are at least on par and it has a great plot structure and it features Albert Brooks. There are plenty of excellent episodes of The Simpsons out there and I’m sure in a month or two I’ll have a different number five. But “You Only Move Twice” is definitely my number one.
Favorite Line
“Sir, I need to know where I can get some business hammocks.” -Homer
Not the Sun 