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Women as Prizes (Daniel Suarez’s Influx)

Look, here’s the thing. Let me tell you what the thing is. If you say “sci-fi retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo,” I am going to read that book even if I have to go to several different libraries to get it, which is how Influx, by Daniel Suarez, became one of the oldest books on my TBR spreadsheet, which is how I came to be reading it in the car on a recent road trip. (That’s not the thing.) Influx is about a man called Jon Grady who is such a Maverick that he invents a thing called…

31 Comments

ODY-C, Matt Fraction (vol. 1)

Note: I received an e-book copy from the publisher for review consideration. ODY-C: What. And look, I didn’t want to say What in that disparaging, not-really-a-question sort of tone. I wanted to say, Hooray! Matt Fraction! Trying things! So to be clear off the top: I support trying things in this bold manner. When you find yourself confronted with a comic that gender-swaps the whole Odyssey and transposes it to a science-fictional universe in which Zeus (a lady) prevented anyone from ever having sons ever again, you have to pause to admire the attempt. I will give you a second to do that. Here is my problem, apart from…

5 Comments

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

Note: I received an ebook copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration. Around page 150 of Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel, A Little Life, which follows four friends from their college years into their fifties, I wrote the following in my notes: I am more excited about Hanya Yanagihara and her work and her career than I have been about any author in a really long time. Around page 200 I wrote this: Is Jude’s suffering perhaps a tad overwrought? It is starting to seem like everything bad happens to him forever. Maybe we should spend some time…

28 Comments

A book I hurled across the room (plus some cheap shots at The Machinist)

Ugh, y’all, I was going to read Laura Kasischke’s A Mind of Winter for RIP IX, but it made me too angry. I did read it, and I can’t deny that, but I hereby did not read it for RIP IX. I just read it. RIP IX may or may not have been happening at the same time. Two caveats before I begin my complaining: My opinion about The Mind of Winter arises from a personal preference that I have about the outcome of ghost stories. I have complained about this on the blog before, so it may come as…

27 Comments

Fuck you, The Flame and the Flower

Pardon my French. But really, The Flame and the Flower, fuck you. I was reading snippets of Social Sister’s copy of Beyond Heaving Bosoms, which she got for Christmas, and it mentioned that the romance novel genre was kicked off by this one book, The Flame and the Flower. And I am interested in the ways genres develop, and I read and enjoyed Forever Amber a few years ago, so I decided to read The Flame and the Flower. I told this to Mumsy and she said I wouldn’t like it, but I didn’t believe her. I also had this…

39 Comments

Review: Psychic Blues, Mark Edward

There are two main threads of subtext (well, not always so sub-, as examples below will prove) that run throughout Mark Edward’s memoir of being a psychic, and they are these: All psychics, including Mark Edward, are frauds, and some of them do harm by being deceitful and wicked. Mark Edward does no harm but always tries to do good. That sounds okay, except that Mark Edward fails to distinguish between the deceitful and wicked psychics and himself. Whether this is because there is no difference between them, or because Mark Edward is incapable of articulating the difference that exists,…

20 Comments

Review: The Lambs of London, Peter Carkroyd

Five bitchy remarks in response to The Lambs of London: 1. I cannot keep Peter Carey and Peter Ackroyd straight in my head. Both of them write books that sound like I would love them, and then I never love them. So I am doing like Mother Jaguar. I graciously wave my tail, and I shall call it Peter Carkroyd. And I shall leave it alone. 2. Can’t not mention this when talking about Peter Carkroyd because it is horrifying. Peter Carkroyd is also notable for writing the book Oscar and Lucinda, which was made into a movie starring Cate…

37 Comments

Gypsy Gypsy, Rumer Godden

Okay, I’m going to ruin the whole plot of this book for your sake to save you from reading it yourself and possibly judging Rumer Godden based on this book which you should not, she is actually wonderful. She just is not wonderful here. Gypsy Gypsy is about this girl called Henrietta who lives with her mean aunt Barbe. Yes, the lady’s name is Barbe, and she’s very sarcastic to everybody. It is a trifle on the nose, and I’d like to make some excuse for Rumer Godden like she was only 33 when this book was published, but you…

29 Comments

Review: Survivor, Chuck Palahniuk

When my work book club met to discuss Empire Falls (which, oops, I never reviewed), one of our members expressed her dissatisfaction with the low level of sexiness in any of the books we have read so far, and her intention to choose for us something sexy like Anais Nin for the next book club book. Instead she ended up selecting three very unsexy options, of which we selected — I suspect — the least sexy option of all, Chuck Palahniuk’s Survivor. I have discovered that I have very, very little patience with ennui in literature and film. If a…

17 Comments