I grew to hate this book and seriously considered abandoning it several times, but I somehow made it to the end anyway. The book begins with narrator Theo feverish and afraid, mysteriously unable to leave his Amsterdam hotel. We flash back to when the Theo was a child, caught in a museum bombing whose effects would skew the course of his life; we then follow Theo through an unstable childhood and adolescence defined by substance abuse and bad choices, then into a young adulthood in which he continues to suffer from the same issues, and finally (hundreds of pages and very little character development later) into the frankly ridiculous and chaotic sequence of events that take him to the hotel where we began. Theo is extremely frustrating to read, a character whose musings are occasionally incisive and delightful, but inevitably become self-indulgent and whiny. The only characters I consistently enjoyed reading about were his mentor in furniture restoration (a flawed character but a stable one at least) and his friend, the unbelievable but hugely entertaining Boris, whose life choices are just as bad as Theo’s but who manages not to be a complete drip about everything. Tartt can put words together well but this book is a mess; I am so glad to be done with it.
Tag: genre-thriller
The Blade Between, by Sam J. Miller
This is a dark ghost story about the gentrification of a small town, the lives of those negatively affected by it, and how the spirits of the town start fighting back. Ronan Szepessy finds himself returning to Hudson despite the terrible experience of growing up gay and artistic in the small, closed-minded town; when he sees his old neighbors evicted from their homes and developers closing in like sharks, the depth of his hate allows the ghosts of the town to sink their hooks into the citizens, spreading horror and violence. It’s a tough book to read; Ronan is bitter and angry, as are all his fellow citizens both corporeal and not, and there’s not really any light moment to ease the tension. I think this book had urgent things to say about gentrification and how it can kill the spirit of a small town, but it gets drowned in all the violence and weirdness.
Critical Point, by S.L. Huang
Next in Huang’s series about Cas Russell, amoral heroine who uses math to kick ass. Although the action is frenetic, with Cas lurching from kidnapping to bombing to fighting off bioengineered guard dogs, the overall pace of the plot is actually almost too leisurely; hints about the shadowy organizations which may or may not be controlling her life remain just hints, and her moral and emotional development is also frustratingly slow. The other characters are refreshing, accepting her strangenesses and allowing her to develop at her own (very slow!) pace, without allowing her to get away with bad behavior.
Eyes of the Void, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Sequel to Shards of Earth, though a little less focused and more fragmented in the plot. Here Tchaikovsky, having created a huge host of alien cultures and many worlds, seems to want to dig into them and explore them even as his interdimensional space monsters are tearing everything down around them. His characters are pulled in different directions, running from enemies, chasing various leads, and following shadowy cabals, while the interstellar factions stumble (or are perhaps directed) towards war. The whole thing ends on a cliffhanger promising even more action; there is so much going on that I may have to re-read both books before the third is published next year.
Babel, by R.F. Kuang
This book is subtitled “or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution,” which clues the reader into the fact that there will be linguistics nerdity, class struggle, and obviously magic. When words are translated between languages, nuance is sometimes lost; in Kuang’s alternate history, this elided nuance becomes actual magic. What follows explores the British Empire’s domination and exploitation of other nations through the lens of language: how those in power try to make it just another tool of oppression, and how native speakers of those languages are forced into choosing between buying into the system and benefiting from the oppression, or rebelling against it, and losing everything. Robin, the narrator, is taken from China to England at a young age, so that the British magicians can train him to use his language to serve the empire. His gradual awakening to how he is being used, and how he can use what was given him to fight back, makes for a gripping and urgent read. This book made me want to flip madly through to follow the action, and at the same time want to linger over each page, savoring the insights and turns of phrase. A fantastic and beautiful read.
Blackfish City, by Sam J. Miller
This is a post-apocalyptic (or more accurately, during-apocalyptic) cyberpunk novel, which focuses so much on humanity that as a reader, I almost stopped seeing the cyberpunk altogether. It’s almost the opposite of William Gibson type novels, in which the humans are cyphers and the tech is cool; Miller’s humans’ emotions are deep and raw, and the fact that they live in a futuristic city run by mysterious AIs is just another part of their daily lives (though it’s also a huge part of the story). The geothermal city of Qaanaaq, an arctic refuge for those escaping the wars and chaos of a warming world, is visited by a mysterious woman who may or may not be bonded to an orca through exotic and secret technology; meanwhile, ordinary citizens are afflicted by a disease called “the breaks,” which bombard them with glimpses of strangers’ lives. Miller weaves these disparate threads together in a fast-moving and urgent story that also becomes a commentary on how those in political or economic power can dehumanize others, and the importance of family and community in a world being torn apart by climate change.
The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
This was listed as the founding novel of the “dark academia” genre so it’s been on my list for a while. The writing is gorgeous, the kind of lush gothic creepiness that I associate with du Maurier; the content is also delightfully nerdy, full of references to literature and the classics. The narrator comes from a lower-class background, which allows him to view his high society classmates through a critical lens, even as he idolizes them and aspires to join their ranks. Meanwhile said classmates, who have no obvious grasp of how things work in the real world, drag the narrator into their obsession with the ancient Greeks, as well as their complicated interpersonal dynamics. The characters are a little too odd and unlikeable to be truly sympathetic, but the beautiful writing and the tense plot will carry you through.
The Old Woman With the Knife, by Gu Byeong-mo, trans. Chi-Young Kim
One would think that a book whose main character is a contract assassin would be fast-moving and violent, but instead this book takes its time. Hornclaw, an unassuming woman in her sixties, uses her age as a visual shield: no one suspects the grandma. Yet her shield of uncaring and unattachment, built over decades, begins to crack just as a very personal threat looms. I thought the pacing of the plot was a little uneven – seemed like over half the book was taken up in a detailed portrait of Hornclaw’s circumstances before all the plot points started to rain hurriedly in – but I liked the flow of the prose and the social commentary on the role of the elderly.
The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier
This book, about a planeload of passengers caught up in an anomalous event, took forever to get started. I swear the entire first half of the book was taken up in introducing a large variety of characters, each so different that it felt almost as if they were starring in a different style of book: the noir contract killer, the entertainment mag pop star, the family of a hair-trigger veteran, the depressed author, the couple growing apart, etc, etc; none of these had anything to do with the others except that they had all been on the same plane, and eventually FBI or Interpol or someone shows up to collect them. The second half segues into what happens with that plane, and how the event changes each of the lives of the passengers. It felt less like a novel than a philosophical thought experiment; even though Le Tellier did a good job bringing life to each of the characters, there were so very many of them that you really didn’t grow to care about any of them in particular.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Hendrix
I think Hendrix started out with the concept of “wouldn’t it be cool if a book club of stereotypical housewives dedicated to reading horror novels actually encountered a for-reals vampire, and had to fight it using nothing but their wifely/womanly skills?” The resulting execution is at times hilarious and incisive, which lets you overlook the fact that none of the characters are likable. The women, for all their strength around one another, are terrified of crossing their men; those men are uniformly patronizing, dismissive, or controlling; the children that the women repeatedly say they would die to protect … give the audience zero reasons to care about them either. I did like the nod to the disparity of race outcomes, both in neighborhood development and as vampire pickings, but again it was brought up just for the white women to wring their hands over briefly, and for the men to ignore entirely. It’s kind of like this cider I tried yesterday that hit the palate right off the bat with lovely sweet notes, but then faded to bitter dryness on the tongue: after enjoying this book (and it was extremely enjoyable!), you’re left wondering whether these people should have been saved from vampires at all.