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| 0008339147
| 9780008339142
| 0008339147
| 4.30
| 107,703
| Nov 17, 2020
| Nov 26, 2020
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it was amazing
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Finishing a whole trilogy in less than five months? Must be a new record for me. The Burning God is a hell of an epic conclusion to R.F. Kuang’s Poppy
Finishing a whole trilogy in less than five months? Must be a new record for me. The Burning God is a hell of an epic conclusion to R.F. Kuang’s Poppy War saga. All I have to say is: George R.R. Martin, eat your fucking heart out. The Red Wedding? Bah. None of the gruesome acts in A Song of Ice and Fire come close to the mayhem and misery inflicted here. This book is dark, we’re talking Frank Miller Batman dark and then some…. It’s only after I finished reading this book that I realized it has been a long time since I had truly read tragic fantasy. Spoilers for the first two books but not for this one. Disillusioned by the shattered promises of the Dragon Republic, Rin finds herself fighting once again for a different master: the Southern Coalition. Anchored spiritually by Kitay, Rin now has all the powers of the Phoenix at her command. Yet she still chafes at serving beneath men (and they are always men) who seek to use her while also despising her. Rin soon finds the tables turning, again and again, as power changes hands: she’s up, she’s down, she’s allying herself with former enemies and fighting back against gods and monsters alike. Meanwhile, Nikan burns, and where it isn’t burning, it’s starving. You know, fantasy fiction is often bloodless. Seriously. Look at Lord of the Rings. Yes, it features epic battle sequences—against armies of orcs. And while many heroes fall, in the end those who remain get to go back to their quiet families, back to the Shire, or west over the ocean … and they live happily ever after. Or at least for a time. Good triumphs over evil. Right wins the day. Kuang woke up and chose violence. Literally. This trilogy is the literal rejection of bloodless, clean, fairytale epic fantasy. As I quipped at the top of this review, however, it is also subverts the so-called grimdark tropes of fantasy as written by authors like GRRM. Whereas GRRM would say he writes suffering because it’s “realistic,” the suffering of most of his characters is more sensational and pornographic than it is a consequence of their situations and the world. In contrast, the characters in The Burning God suffer because … well … their lives suck. They’re living under an invasion and a rebellion at the same time, as well as a resurgence of shamanic powers. Every semblance of order and an ordinary life, such as it was even for the peasants, is gone. I’m reading this book as, in the background of my privileged Canadian life, I bear witness to the genocide in Gaza. So much senseless violence and killing and dispossession of Indigenous land. So many excuses thrown about in our so-called civil discourse to obfuscate these simple facts. The parallels are stark and obvious. The Burning God is the climax of a story about genocide (multiple genocides, in fact) and colonialism. The Hesperians are inspired by Europe and the US, an imperalist and moralistic, missionary-obsessed nation convinced it knows it all. What makes Rin’s war so fantastically hard to prosecute is that she isn’t just fighting a physical army: she’s fighting on multiple fronts, some of them spiritual and geopolitical. And despite her minimal Sinegard training and having Kitay’s super-strategy brain on her side, she just … can’t. She can’t win. The sheer pressure of the enormity of events, the cruelty at scale and the individual ignominy, is tolerable only because Rin is such a pathetic protagonist. She is so unlikeable, so bitter and prone to lashing out at everything and everyone. (Though, to be fair, almost everyone around her treats her terribly.) It’s not that she’s a bad person; she isn’t evil or villainous. She’s just heinously, almost cartoonishly inept and certainly shouldn’t be the heroine. You know that saying, “Not the hero we deserved, but the hero we needed”? Yeah. Rin is neither of those. Maybe everyone else realizes this from the first line of the first book, but it took me until now to realize Kuang is writing tragedy. Sorry for being so slow on the uptake. Like I said, I think I’ve been conditioned to see all my fantasy series as epic battles between good and evil where it will look bad for the good guys for a long while but good eventually prevails. I had forgotten—or maybe deliberately avoided—the whole tragic form. But in a way, despite her propensity for genre hopping, Kuang can’t seem to avoid writing tragedy, whether it’s postcolonial AUs or contemporary takedowns of literary fiction and publishing or fantastical reimaginings of twentieth-century China. Kuang seems quite fixated on losing conditions. And I’m here for it. I’m here for it in a way I didn’t expect to be, because honestly I don’t really enjoy tragedies. I am a comedies gal. Here I am, though, finding pathos in the tragic figure of Fang Runin at the very end of this book because of course it ends exactly the way it should, Kuang giving us the perfect, most heartbreaking, only logical ending we could possibly get. It’s annoying, is what it is, her being this good at writing and choosing to tell us sad stories instead of happy ones. Goddamn her. I’m getting emotional because an emotional response is the only correct response to The Burning God. This is an emotional, irrational book. It’s about the worst that humans can bring to bear on each other, the absolute failure mode of humanity. That the final moments of the book represent hope—a forlorn, distant, unimaginably bleak form of hope—is less ironic than it is a desperate plea to make all of this chaos and suffering mean something. But that is, in essence, the human condition, is it not? While I won’t go full Hobbes, I can’t help but look around me at the present state of affairs and conclude that a great amount of human experience is suffering at the hands of other humans, yet we keep building, keep talking, keep … going. This is not a nice book. It has no happy ending. There is no triumph to be had here, only the bitter taste of ashes and defeat. This is a book about annihilation, about how conquest will happen either at the point of a sword (or butt of a gun) or through the arrival of famine-ending grain. But it will happen. The good guys don’t always win. Sometimes there aren’t any good guys; sometimes everyone sucks, but the people who suck slightly more still win. Sometimes your rebel with a cause and her pyromaniac Phoenix aren’t enough. If you have read the first two books, you deserve to read this one. You owe it to yourself, and you have also brought it upon yourself. I’m not sorry. If you haven’t read the first two books, read them first. Just be prepared for it to get worse, in the best possible sense. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 11, 2024
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Oct 15, 2024
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Nov 02, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 3.82
| 11,342
| Mar 23, 2021
| Mar 23, 2021
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really liked it
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This book has fucked me up in subtle ways I might spend months if not years untangling. C.L. Clark has written a kind of book I have always wanted to
This book has fucked me up in subtle ways I might spend months if not years untangling. C.L. Clark has written a kind of book I have always wanted to write, a fantasy novel speaking to the present day even as its secondary world setting remains a colonial, nineteenth-century one. With unlikeable protagonists and unenviable no-win scenarios, The Unbroken is a deliberate hot mess. I didn’t love it. I didn’t even want to like it. I can’t stop thinking about it. Touraine is a lieutenant in the Balladairan colonial army. Kidnapped from her home country of Qazāl as a small child, she is part of the Sands, a unit comprised of her fellow foreign conscripts. Now the Sands have returned “home,” their unit accompanying Balladaire’s bloodiest general and Crown Princess Luca, eager to make her mark as a leader so that she can finally unseat her regent uncle and accede to Balladaire’s throne. Circumstances lead to Touraine and Luca starting as allies before becoming enemies and then allies (frenemies?) again. And then enemies. And then … look, you get the idea. Let’s start with just how many notes The Unbroken hits perfectly. It’s a queernorm fantasy that’s nevertheless full of discrimination, conflict, and hatred. It’s a postcolonial fantasy that has a sympathetic monarch main character even as it critiques that entire institution without an ounce of clemency. It’s a story of never coming home, finally coming home, wishing you hadn’t come home, and fucking everything up trying to come home. Purely by chance, I read this immediately following Empire of Sand . I’ll repeat what I said in my review of that book: we are in renaissance of fantasy. And I’ll add: that renaissance is largely driven by authors of colour, who have been hard at work reshaping mainstream fantasy from a fluffy, sanitized version of Europe into something with teeth. From N.K. Jemisin to Tracey Deonn, and now Tasha Suri and C.L. Clark—fantasy proliferates now with incredibly diverse voices that aren’t afraid to break down the status quo of the genre. When I was younger, I had this whole idea for a fantasy novel—I won’t explain it here, mostly because one day I still might write it, but suffice it to say it included the protagonist plotting revolution against a queen who happened to be her best friend because, you know, democracy. At seventeen, I understood it was weird my favourite genre could tell beautiful stories about Good triumphing over Evil, yet they still always ended with a feudal society full of class divisions and ruled by a monarch. So it shouldn’t be a surprise I am loving postcolonial fantasy and how it gives zero fucks about pretending a functioning monarchy is a good place to live. In this way, Luca is a difficult character to like in The Unbroken. As Touraine quite rightly says to her face at one point, she is the epitome of privilege in this world. Her complaint is that her power-hungry uncle isn’t giving power to her, basically. Clark expertly portrays her as a kind of well-meaning white saviour: she thinks she can “help” the people of Qazāl, but only within the framework of empire; her worldview doesn’t let her imagine anything different. Touraine, then, becomes the perfect foil. A survivor of colonial abduction, deprogramming herself in her homeland even as her own people treat her with suspicion, Touraine seems like a natural candidate for heroine as well as protagonist. Except she sucks just as bad as Luca! To be fair, her flaws are probably more personal than political, but her role in the story means her personal flaws have massive political consequences, so it all comes out the same, basically. It has been a long time since I have yelled at a book as much as I yelled at Touraine every single time she was at a fork in the road and took the worst possible path down each. Every. Time. She is the Jon Snow of this world, and like Jon Snow, she knows nothing. Also like Jon, she fails upward. So with two unlikeable protagonists who mess everything up, why is The Unbroken so good? Because Clark clearly means it to be a mess. I’m sure there’s some readers who will ship Touraine and Luca as a disaster couple, but honestly, I don’t think we are supposed to read them that way. They are just disasters, full stop, individually and together. This is a fantasy novel that truly embraces just how chaotic the disintegration of empire is while at the same time telling a coherent story, and it works really well. I don’t want to read the next book. But I also can’t look away. That’s what I am trying to say here: The Unbroken seared itself on my soul because it does so much right that even as I want to plug my ears and say, “Nope, not interested, give me the cozy fantasy again please,” I can’t help myself. I’m part of the revolution now. Let’s go. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 16, 2024
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Sep 25, 2024
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Oct 06, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0316449695
| 9780316449694
| B07B8KR13F
| 3.83
| 12,479
| Nov 13, 2018
| Nov 13, 2018
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liked it
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A while back I had the opportunity to read
The Jasmine Throne
by Tasha Suri and was thrilled to discover she had more titles to her name. We are t
A while back I had the opportunity to read
The Jasmine Throne
by Tasha Suri and was thrilled to discover she had more titles to her name. We are truly living in a renaissance of high fantasy, and in particular, there is something special happening with the main character energy. Empire of Sand is no exception. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an Ambhan governor. She has done her best to remember what her mother could pass down of Amrithi teachings, yet she knows she doesn’t belong in either world. Maneuvered into a political marriage so that the supreme religious leader of the Ambhan Empire can use her Amrithi magic to stay in power, Mehr seemingly has no choice, no agency. She has to fight and claw and scrabble, metaphorically and literally, her way to freedom—from men, from religion, from cultural oppression, from everything and everyone who would define her and shape her for their own ends. Mehr reminds me a lot of Malini from The Jasmine Throne, albeit with far less power despite similar levels of privilege. She is such a fascinating character. I found her sympathetic yet not particularly likeable; indeed, she’s a bit boring. Yet this leads to such a careful, complex characterization. Mehr’s heritage and social status means she wields almost no power herself, yet she is sheltered from the hardships other Amrithi, and lower-class Ambhan women, experience on a daily basis. This much is made clear early in the book, especially through her encounter with a servant she ill-uses—the theme of “using” people for one’s own ends becomes particularly poignant as the story goes on. In this way, Suri belies the usual, simplistic narratives about discrimination and power. Surface-level depictions of discrimination often flatten someone’s identities and the axes along which they experience oppression. But real life is so much more complicated. I’m trans and experience oppression as a result, yet I am also white, which makes me less marginalized; like Mehr, I have one type of privilege (several, actually, but let’s not brag) that insulates me from some of the oppression experienced by people with whom I share marginalized identities. It’s tough to write stories like this, and I love how Suri moves through the layers of Mehr’s identity. Mehr’s relationship with Amun was less interesting to me. If you are more into romantasy, of course, this might be exactly your vibe: reluctant marriage to someone you don’t particularly like, etc. I get what Suri is trying to do here (I think), and I don’t want to pan it just because it isn’t for me. Amun is just such a moody mopey guy. If you like that, pick up the book already. I was more interested in the power dynamic between Mehr and the Maha. There’s so much more to this world than Suri allows us to see from the narrator’s very limited perspective perched on Mehr’s shoulder—and honestly, that’s fine. But I love what Suri has set up here: an ancient leader who has perverted the magic of a people not his own in order to literally reshape the world to suit him and his imperial progeny. It’s just the right balance of epic and twisted, ambitious and odious. Mehr is just the right person to come along and screw it all up. Empire of Sand is very much a debut novel, with Suri’s more recent works a clear improvement in terms of skill. Yet the echoes of this book reverberate in those newer novels. I wasn’t initially going to read the sequel (like I said, I don’t actually like Mehr all that much), but I’m kind of intrigued to see what her sister, Arwa, gets up to as the main character. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 10, 2024
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Sep 15, 2024
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Oct 06, 2024
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ebook
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| 1250311446
| 9781250311443
| 1250311446
| 4.25
| 91,627
| Nov 06, 2018
| Nov 06, 2018
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liked it
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Hot on the heels of my ecstatic review of Renegades, I bring you the sequel! Which I didn’t realize was the second in a trilogy (I thought it was a du
Hot on the heels of my ecstatic review of Renegades, I bring you the sequel! Which I didn’t realize was the second in a trilogy (I thought it was a duology for some reason), but it shows. Archenemies is peak middle book syndrome. Aside from that, however, it’s basically what it says on the tin, and I’m not mad about it. Marissa Meyer continues to unspool this story of superpowered prodigies, divided loyalties, and dangerous obsessions. Spoilers for the first book but not for this one! Nova continues her life as a double agent within the Renegades: Insomnia to them, Nightmare to her Anarchist found family. Her goal? Retrieve Ace Anarchy’s helmet, once believed destroyed but now under lock and key in the Renegade Tower. As pieces fall into place that bring Nova closer to this goal, an unfortunate wrinkle develops: she is actually having feelings for Adrian. Gross! Seriously though—this is actually a cute, slow-burn romance that this aromantic gal has few issues with. Everything I liked about Renegades is still present in Archenemies. We learn a little more about Max’s power and how the senior Renegades have chosen to deploy it. The Renegade leadership continues to walk the line between well-meaning and overbearing in the decisions it makes for “the greater good.” While their slow march towards more overtly fascist leadership feels obvious to me, I reminded myself this is a young-adult novel. From that perspective, I think Meyer is doing a good job exploring the way grey morality and conflicting loyalties can cause people to rationalize doing terrible things, whether it’s for the greater good or simply to right what they perceive as a wrong against a loved one. In this respect, Nova’s role as a conflicted protagonist is crucial. She remains incredibly sympathetic because we understand her motives—moreover, she retains a sense of right and wrong the other Anarchists don’t seem to have preserved. Her interactions with Max, Oscar, Ruby, and Adrian always underscore this, setting her at odds with the Anarchists more than once, even as she strives to fulfill her mission on behalf of her uncle. I enjoyed seeing the relationships among side characters, such as Oscar and Ruby’s romance, develop slightly here. I would have liked to see Nova develop more friendships beyond Adrian or the group dynamic within her team. Give me some female friendship between Nova and Ruby. Give me some competitive bonding moments between Nova and Oscar. Something. However, the book is tightly edited and still quite long (and felt like it dragged in places), so I suppose such scenes, even if they were written, might have been cut. Archenemies quite artfully raises the stakes of the previous book and continues to plunge Nova—and by extension, the reader—deeper into moral conflict. Yet something about it didn’t satisfy me as much as the first book. I labelled it “second book syndrome” in my intro, and I think I’m right. Or to be more precise, this book raises the stakes but doesn’t really elevate the world Meyer built for us in Renegades. We still haven’t seen or heard much of anything beyond Gatlon City. Though there are new threats now to prodigies, we haven’t explored Nova’s powers much more than we did in the first book. So as a sequel and a novel, Archenemies is serviceable. As a work of superhero drama, it’s missing out on some of the super stuff. Meyer doesn’t push that dimension forward as much as I’d like (but maybe that’s just me). Entirely recommended if you liked the first book, but I am glad I started with the first book! Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 29, 2024
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Aug 31, 2024
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Oct 06, 2024
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ebook
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| 0525521143
| 9780525521143
| 0525521143
| 3.69
| 181,049
| Mar 24, 2020
| Mar 24, 2020
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liked it
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When I try to explain why I read Emily St. John Mandel’s books, I don’t ever have a cogent explanation. “She’s Canadian,” I mumble, as if I am somehow
When I try to explain why I read Emily St. John Mandel’s books, I don’t ever have a cogent explanation. “She’s Canadian,” I mumble, as if I am somehow bound by CRTC Cancon requirements. “She never writes two novels the same,” I grasp at straws of justification. Why do I feel the need to justify? Probably because her novels straddle genre with an uncomfortable liminality: science fiction but not science fiction, fantasy but not fantasy. The Glass Hotel was science fiction, I thought, but turned out to be fantasy, except not. Summarizing this book is a challenge. The jacket copy doesn’t do the plot justice. The plot doesn’t do the plot justice. Mandel spins this tale in a spiralling, telescopic way: each chapter follows a different character, many of them new or one-offs. We start with Paul, see a traumatic incident from his university days, and then leave him behind, only meeting him briefly again as a minor character before he comes back for another POV chapter near the end. Vincent, Paul’s half-sister, is nominally the novel’s main character, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call her a protagonist. While the book returns to her more often than most, it is also content to spin her off while chasing other subplots. Arguably the central story here is that of a banal antagonist, Jonathan Alkaitis, whose Ponzi scheme’s collapse forms the core event around which everything else revolves. Mandel seems interested in our relationship with money: the need for it to survive, the want for it to flourish, the unease we feel when we have too little or too much, the ways others prey upon us. Alkaitis is portrayed as a perfectly ordinary, nice guy, who just happens to be defrauding his investors—including a family friend who expects to live off her investment as retirement income. He knows when the scheme collapses she will be destitute; yet he keeps going. Sociopathic? No, not really. Alkaitis is more like a personification of the indeterminate apathy of a generation of money-making men disconnected from what makes money. Really, The Glass Hotel might be best viewed as a series of vignettes following several people: Vincent, Paul, Alkaitis, Olivia, Walter, et al. Mandel keeps the “camera” tight on the individual, the third-person perspective so limited it almost squeezes everyone and everything out of frame, an intense character study. I think what kept me reading is simply that her writing is so … focused. Precise. It’s not even that it’s lush or particularly skillful in a rhetorical or linguistic sense; nevertheless, the craft is visible. And, despite myself and my basic dislike of novels that turn out not really to be novels, I liked this book. I enjoyed spending time with Alkaitis and his Ponzi scheme (what can I say, I love scammers). I enjoyed the harried assistant, ignorant of what she was assisting. The stuff with Vincent on the ship and her disappearance was a bit meh. Paul was just odd. But there were a lot of points in this book where I found myself chuckling, turning the page because I was really invested—not so much in what happened next, I guess, but rather in how Mandel was going to switch things up on me. So I don’t want to give The Glass Hotel a bad review or rating, for it is a good book. It’s just weird (in a good way). It defies description, and by that I mean, Mandel set out to tell a story her way, without much caring about the conventions of a linear narrative or how we tend to cast a novel. I hesitate to call it experimental—it didn’t frustrate me the way a lot of experimental stuff does. Call it a small departure. Someone shooting in black-and-white in the era of colour. Read it for the characters, for the vignettes, for the scrutiny of human emotion—just don’t expect a single plot or character who ties it all together. Don’t expect a bow on top. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 06, 2024
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Sep 09, 2024
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Oct 06, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1250303559
| 9781250303554
| B07HF26D1H
| 3.87
| 5,902
| Mar 19, 2019
| Mar 19, 2019
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really liked it
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Every single review panning this story for not making sense is entirely deserved. Time travel stories are difficult to write and, even when written we
Every single review panning this story for not making sense is entirely deserved. Time travel stories are difficult to write and, even when written well, difficult to parse and read. If it’s not your thing, that’s fine. But Permafrost is so very much my thing. In structure, it reminds me of Palimpsest , by Charles Stross. Both are novellas with a single protagonist recently initiated in time travel. Both are fairly convoluted in terms of how the author implements the logical principles of time travel, particularly when it comes to causality. Palimpsest remains my fave, I think, although I should re-read it again. But I love me more time travel stories. In other ways I’m reminded of Travelers, a TV show I got into during its final season (boo) on Netflix and which had a great use of time travel. Both stories involve last-ditch attempts to save the human species through time travel, with coordination by AIs and the displacement of people’s consciousnesses in the past rather than physical time travel. And, of course, in both cases, things go horribly awry! As usual, Alastair Reynolds’ ideas are big but he manages to apply them satisfactorily to a smaller scale when it comes to the individual characters. Valentina and her vehicle, Tatiana, have an interesting rapport that drives the climax of the novella. This is a story about accomplishing a desperate objective despite the tremendous personal cost, not necessarily out of any sense of self-sacrifice or heroism but perhaps only because … what else is one to do? I understand why some people don’t like the constant jumping back and forth between past and present, or how the novella opens with events that we don't return to until much later in the story. At first it threw me off—but of course, that’s the point. Time travel is confusing by its very nature, and there is no way to tell it in a straightforward, linear way, because once you introduce causality violations, your plot by its nature is no longer a straight line of cause and effect. The jarring transitions from past to present mirror Valentina’s own transitions and how it must affect her perceptions. If this were a full novel, I might be less charitable in my praise of such a structure, but novellas are a sweet spot. Longer than short stories, they provide a freedom in terms of page length to develop characters and ideas. Yet shorter than novels, they don’t have the same burden of sustaining a plot for as long. I don’t read a lot of novellas, but I’m starting to think they’re a great length for more experimental time travel fiction like this. [image] Merged review: Every single review panning this story for not making sense is entirely deserved. Time travel stories are difficult to write and, even when written well, difficult to parse and read. If it’s not your thing, that’s fine. But Permafrost is so very much my thing. In structure, it reminds me of Palimpsest , by Charles Stross. Both are novellas with a single protagonist recently initiated in time travel. Both are fairly convoluted in terms of how the author implements the logical principles of time travel, particularly when it comes to causality. Palimpsest remains my fave, I think, although I should re-read it again. But I love me more time travel stories. In other ways I’m reminded of Travelers, a TV show I got into during its final season (boo) on Netflix and which had a great use of time travel. Both stories involve last-ditch attempts to save the human species through time travel, with coordination by AIs and the displacement of people’s consciousnesses in the past rather than physical time travel. And, of course, in both cases, things go horribly awry! As usual, Alastair Reynolds’ ideas are big but he manages to apply them satisfactorily to a smaller scale when it comes to the individual characters. Valentina and her vehicle, Tatiana, have an interesting rapport that drives the climax of the novella. This is a story about accomplishing a desperate objective despite the tremendous personal cost, not necessarily out of any sense of self-sacrifice or heroism but perhaps only because … what else is one to do? I understand why some people don’t like the constant jumping back and forth between past and present, or how the novella opens with events that we don't return to until much later in the story. At first it threw me off—but of course, that’s the point. Time travel is confusing by its very nature, and there is no way to tell it in a straightforward, linear way, because once you introduce causality violations, your plot by its nature is no longer a straight line of cause and effect. The jarring transitions from past to present mirror Valentina’s own transitions and how it must affect her perceptions. If this were a full novel, I might be less charitable in my praise of such a structure, but novellas are a sweet spot. Longer than short stories, they provide a freedom in terms of page length to develop characters and ideas. Yet shorter than novels, they don’t have the same burden of sustaining a plot for as long. I don’t read a lot of novellas, but I’m starting to think they’re a great length for more experimental time travel fiction like this. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Nov 07, 2019
not set
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Nov 08, 2019
not set
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Sep 28, 2024
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||
| 1423153286
| 9781423153283
| 1423153286
| 3.93
| 6,155
| Apr 23, 2013
| Apr 23, 2013
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it was ok
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Look, I knew The Rules would be a long shot from the moment I laid eyes on it, but I was bored and plucked it from the obscurity of the YA stacks at m
Look, I knew The Rules would be a long shot from the moment I laid eyes on it, but I was bored and plucked it from the obscurity of the YA stacks at my library because why not. I feel like I have fallen off the YA wagon lately; I have only read three in the past year, so I was rather starving. Stacey Kade is not a name I recognized, but the plot seemed decent enough, and even though I suspected it would be a dud, I hoped it might at least have its moments. Which … sort of? Ariane Tucker is a human–alien hybrid living under the assumed identity of the deceased daughter of the man who broke her out of captivity at GTX, the evil corporate villain of this book. Aside from life on the lam, Ariane is your typical junior—or she would be, if she didn’t slavishly follow the eponymous Rules. Invented by her “father” to help her fly under the radar lest GTX locate her and take her back into custody, the Rules help Ariane survive but are also a serious buzzkill. Until now, Ariane has never minded them. But when Rachel “Generic Mean Girl Du Jour” Jacobs bullies Ariane’s friend and Ariane retaliates, bringing her into the orbit of Zane “You’re Not Like Other Girls” Bradshaw, sparks fly and the Rules go out the window. Look, I don’t want to be too harsh on this book, so let’s start with some good news: this book isn’t bad; it’s just OK. It’s the kind of YA novel that, if you read enough of this vibe, is eminently predictable—yet Kade deserves credit at least for managing to hit each beat. If each of the remaining two books in this trilogy (I won’t be reading the rest) sticks the landing in the same way, this is a solid serialized story that I could see myself loving more at fifteen. Storywise, The Rules is an exemplar of a novel that has all the working parts … just none of the heart that really gets to your core. There are two major flaws with this book, and they are connected: the characterization and the writing overall. None of these characters, Ariane included, are remotely interesting human beings. Though there are attempts at making them round and dynamic characters, these mostly result in each person falling back into an archetype, as I mocked above. Zane Bradshaw wants to be played by High School Musical–age Zac Efron but would probably be a Disney Channel Shia LaBeouf if he’s lucky. Jenna is a spaghetti noodle of a best friend type. Ariane’s father has, like, six lines until the climax of the novel. Split between Ariane and Zane’s first-person narration, The Rules should be full of dramatic irony and a lot of tension as Zane sleuths out Ariane’s secret. At the very least, there should be some sparkage, some romantic will-they-won’t-they drama. No. It’s Snoozeville over here, and Ariane and Zane are co-mayors. Even that by itself might still make this a worthwhile slog. But then at the start of a later chapter Kade hits us with a “I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.” Literally. Word for word. In 2014. It’s not Kade’s fault, really; one of her editors should have caught this cliché, collected it carefully, and then marched it out back for its summary execution. This darling was not killed, however, and it’s emblematic of the writing in The Rules: this might be the most YA-iest YA novel I have read in a while, as if Kade sat down and, David Eddings style, plotted out beat-for-beat what a conspiracy SF YA novel should look like. As I said above, in and of itself that is not a bad thing (David Eddings was my hook into fantasy, and maybe Kade’s books will be some young person’s hook into SF). There’s something to be said for hitting every beat. Alas, this kind of rote storytelling doesn’t do much for me these days, nor does it make me excited to recommend this to younger readers. The Rules is too good at following its own rules, and like Ariane up until the events of this book, it is too good at flying under the radar. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 30, 2024
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Aug 02, 2024
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Aug 09, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1668020882
| 9781668020883
| 1668020882
| 4.14
| 2,328
| Jan 16, 2024
| Jan 16, 2024
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liked it
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World War II books that don’t focus on soldiers or battles are my jam. Give me the pieces about the civilians, the spies, the scientists, the kids. I
World War II books that don’t focus on soldiers or battles are my jam. Give me the pieces about the civilians, the spies, the scientists, the kids. I picked up The Curse of Pietro Houdini on a whim from the new books shelf at my library. I thought the title betokened some kind of fantasy novel, and though that hope was dashed, I still enjoyed Derek B. Miller’s historical yarn of an irreverent-yet-sentimental old man and his happenstance, gendershifting protégé. A fourteen-year-old narrowly escapes Rome as Italy finds itself occupied by German forces. The eponymous Pietro scoops up this child on his way to Montecassino, the first Benedictine abbey, where he plans to restore and perhaps rescue some priceless works of art before the Nazis or the Allies destroy them. The child claims the name Massimo and takes on the appearance of a boy and falls in with Pietro as his assistant. From here the kind of peculiar bond really only found in quirky stories like this develops as Pietro tries to keep Massimo safe while also preserving the artworks. Along the way, they kill some Nazis, get injured, go on the run, and more. Miller shows himself an expert at interweaving fact and fiction in this historical novel. I didn’t know much about Monte Cassino (don’t know much about wartime Italy at all, to be honest), so it was fascinating learning about real-life people like Schlengel and Becker alongside Miller’s fictional creations like Pietro. I liked seeing things through the eyes of sympathetic yet non-Ally characters: their disdain for Americans and imperialists is enjoyable. Pietro criticizes the Americans, for example, for dispatching their “monuments men” in some cases yet blithely bombing irreplaceable landmarks like Montecassino in other cases. Similarly, the perspectives of civilians like Lucia and Dino, or Bella, or even Massimo/Eva, shed light on how fraught the war must have felt when it was both in the vicinity yet at a remove. Miller’s exploration of gender expression through our narrator is also worth examining. The book starts in the first person until the narrator reaches a breaking point and “becomes” Massimo, fully inhabiting this persona so much that it feels like he “believes” himself to be a fourteen-year-old boy from a rough life in Rome. At this point, the book shifts into third person, remaining this way even as Massimo transforms into Eva to escape press-ganging. Though I don’t believe we are meant to interpret these shifts as the narrator truly having a mental break, they are useful in illustrating how intensely some people had to conceal their identities to survive Nazi or fascist rule. I also enjoyed how accepting Pietro was of the genderfluidity of our narrator. Without going into spoilers, I want to conclude by briefly looking at this book as a tragedy—for it has some of those elements. Dark shit happens near the end of this book. You want everyone to get out of it alive. You want a happy ending. And maybe Miller gives you one or maybe he doesn’t—that isn’t for me to say. But like any book about World War II, The Curse of Pietro Houdini is about resilience in the face of trauma, and Miller is quick to point out in his afterword that some of the worst events in this book did, in fact, happen. War is hell, and it is no wonder novelists continue to revisit some of our most famous wars so they can tinker with the environments that most test our humanity. If, like me, you want “cozy” wartime books, The Curse of Pietro Houdini has something to offer. It’s humorous yet sometimes heavy, far-reaching yet incredibly intimate, lighthearted yet shading often into sombre. In other words, it is as much a rash of contradictions as its title character—as it should be. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 21, 2024
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Jul 22, 2024
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Aug 06, 2024
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Hardcover
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| B0DLSNLF3N
| 4.37
| 142,250
| Aug 06, 2019
| Aug 08, 2019
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liked it
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The Poppy War left me more, and fortunately my library was able to deliver (well, I went and picked it up, but you know what I mean). The Dragon Repub
The Poppy War left me more, and fortunately my library was able to deliver (well, I went and picked it up, but you know what I mean). The Dragon Republic is the continuation of R.F. Kuang’s fantasy reimagining of twentieth-century Chinese history, mixed in with meditations on magic, gods, and monsters. Spoilers for the first book but not for this one. Rin is now the effective commander of the Cike following her genocidal actions at the end of the first book. Sworn to depose the Empress of Nikara, Rin and her ragtag band of god-empowered misfits at first align themselves with a pirate queen. When that backfires, she finds herself meeting up with an unlikely frenemy from her past, whose father has plans to take down the empress for his own reasons. You know what they say: the enemy of my enemy…. The same character flaws that made Rin such a nuanced protagonist in The Poppy War come roaring back in this book. They are complicated by Rin’s newfound impotence: pretty early in the story, a confrontation with the empress leaves her without access to her god, the Phoenix, and the fiery power it grants her. This doesn’t alter Rin’s overall goals, however, just stokes the fires of her desire for revenge even more. However, as with her time as a student at Sinegard, Rin once again finds herself in a position of relative powerlessness. Despite her ostensible value as an avatar of the Phoenix, Rin is shut down and shut out—relegated to being experimental fodder for the fundamentalist, monotheistic Hesperians and cannon fodder in the Dragon Warlord’s army. Several things save this from being a recapitulation of the first book, however. First, Kuang continues to flesh out the series’ mythology. We get to meet the Hesperians. We learn more about the Hinterlanders/Ketreyids and their connection to the god-powers Rin and the other Cike have, along with their role in the empress's rise to power. Most importantly, Rin reconnects with old friends and rivals (not saying who, but I loved it), and for once we see her recognizing that she might actually need (shock, gasp) help to achieve her goals. Rin changes, albeit frustratingly slowly. It’s been a few weeks since I read the book, however, and other particulars have evaporated. I enjoyed it, especially the way it builds on the mythology, but it didn’t feel as revelatory as The Poppy War. Maybe that’s to be expected with the second book in a trilogy. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I get to the third book. As it is, I still recommend The Dragon Republic. As long as you’re OK with continuing to watch Rin laid low by pretty much everyone she meets with an iota of ill will towards her, you’ll be fine. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
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1
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Jun 27, 2024
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Jun 29, 2024
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Jul 25, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1646143795
| 9781646143795
| 1646143795
| 4.27
| 718
| Apr 16, 2024
| Apr 16, 2024
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really liked it
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Darcie Little Badger is one to watch. That’s what I say to myself anyway, as I pound back endless cups of tea and anyone else reads these words on the
Darcie Little Badger is one to watch. That’s what I say to myself anyway, as I pound back endless cups of tea and anyone else reads these words on the internet. But if you are reading these words, then you ought to know Sheine Lende is a fantastic experience all around, just like my experiences with
Elatsoe
and
A Snake Falls to Earth
before it. At every turn, Little Badger crafts a narrative so compelling and compassionate that I’m left satisfied and awestruck. A prequel to Elatsoe, Sheine Lende is the eponymous story of Elatsoe’s grandmother. Set roughly during the 1970s, I think, the book follows Shane’s quest to rescue her mother. Shane and her mother work as trackers of missing persons, and one day while tracking two missing siblings, Shane’s mom disappears. Shane locates one of the siblings, but the other remains missing, presumably with her mother. Shane has no choice but to work with a ragtag team: her younger brother, the retrieved sibling, her best friend, and her drifter grandfather. Her quest will take her far afield from home, even perhaps into the land of the dead. As with Elatsoe, this story is set in a world much like ours, except that humanity acknowledges magic—and the fairy realm—exists. Magic isn’t common, however, and aside from some people being able to use fairy rings for long-distance transport, most people who practise it keep it on the down-low. That’s the case for Shane and her mother, who have the ability to summon the spirits of dead animals and even use their ghost dog, Nellie, in their tracking business. Shane and her mother are Lipan Apache, displaced by a rich white man from their ancestral lands, and just getting by. Little Badger expertly conveys Shane’s existence: life with her mother and her little brother is tough sometimes yet also full of love, and Shane, at seventeen, is a mature young woman burgeoning with creativity and ambition. This is key to the book’s success: Shane is an excellent protagonist. As soon as her mom goes missing, she shifts gear into leader mode. Lots of people older than her—mostly men—doubt her (though shout out to her grandpa and others who eventually cast aside their doubts and get on board). Really, Shane’s best allies are her best friend and her new friend, Donnie—these three young women showcase the power of female friendship (and you can bet I enjoyed the queer vibes as well). Shane is so focused on getting her mom back, and while she has her own moments of self-doubt, it is her grit and her determination that makes her such a formidable figure. Combine this with Little Badger’s attention to pacing and how to unspool the mystery, and you have yourself an exciting read. Although I felt like the middle third of the book lagged a bit, the intensity of the third act more than makes up for it. My favourite part was probably the ending, however. I won’t go into spoilers, but basically we get a flashforward to Shane as an older woman (and Elatsoe is there). Shane has been waiting for something for decades. It’s really neat, seeing the older Shane, seeing her reflect back on the adventure we just witnessed. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, as I approach thirty-five, how I’m aging and how I might feel in the decades to come, as I look back at my earlier life. So something about this scene, about seeing an older Shane, really just … hit me. In a good way. Little Badger reminds us that we all grow old—if we are lucky—and there is a beauty inherent in just having lived one’s life. That’s really what Sheine Lende comes down to. This is a book about the beauty of being human, of building connections to family and friends, of getting angry or sad or distraught and fighting and hugging it out. Of pushing on past what you think are your limits. Of trusting others. This is a fun novel with serious themes (including resisting colonialism), and it’s definitely worth your time. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 17, 2024
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Jun 25, 2024
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Jul 19, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 031628971X
| 9780316289719
| 031628971X
| 4.08
| 12,818
| Jun 06, 2023
| Jun 06, 2023
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really liked it
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Some good reviews by people I trust brought this new standalone novel from Ann Leckie to my attention. Translation State, similar to Provenance, is se
Some good reviews by people I trust brought this new standalone novel from Ann Leckie to my attention. Translation State, similar to Provenance, is set in the universe of her Imperial Radch trilogy but tells a different story. This one enlightens us ever so slightly as to the nature of the Presger, but really, of course, it’s about what it means to be human. The story alternates among three viewpoint characters: Enae, Qven, and Reet. Enae (sie/hir) is young, recently bereaved of hir grandmother, a kind of family matriarch. At a loss for what to do yet utterly free, Enae cautiously undertakes a job that will take her away from everything sie has ever known. Qven is a Presger Translator: human in appearance yet alien in physiology, eir journey is one of defection and refuge. Reet has been living an unassuming life on a space station until one day someone tells him that he might be the long-lost, last living descendant of an important autocrat. When he meets Qven, though, everything changes. It has been years since I read the other Radch books. This one benefits from the multiple perspectives—whereas the trilogy is largely Breq’s story, Translation State is a tripartite story featuring three very different protagonists. They don’t always want the same thing, which leads to some very interesting moments as the novel approaches climax. Each has a story worthwhile in its own right. When Leckie welds them together, she creates something that is just as complex, if more understated, as her original trilogy of self-discovery and self-actualization. I probably identified with Enae’s character the most, despite superficially having very little resemblance to hir life. I liked how game Enae is. How sie doesn’t back down from a challenge. While far from a Mary Sue in terms of capabilities, Enae is no doormat, and hir combination of compassion and perspicacity proves enchanting. It’s easy to dismiss Enae, I think, because hir story seems the least connected to the overall theme of what it means to be human. Yet I would argue that Enae’s role as investigator is crucial. We needed a third perspective, beyond Qven and Reet, for us to glimpse why their struggle is so important without getting lost in the middle of it. Qven and Reet were a bit harder for me to love—but I loved Reet’s family dynamics, and I really like how Qven and Reet bond after they meet. The chapters where Qven is growing up as a juvenile Presger Translator are fascinating and probably some of the most original, thought-provoking science fiction I’ve read in a while. Indeed, Leckie showcases her incredible gift for writing about aliens and alienness here. The Presger have always been a cipher and, as is our nature, readers have always wanted to know more about them. Leckie doesn’t show all her cards here—which is a good thing. Nothing ruins an ineffable race more than discovering they are, in fact, effable! It’s clear the Presger’s nature transcends space-time in a way that we mere mortals cannot grasp. However, this book does provide more insight into the Translators, and through them, the Presger. One thing that strikes me as fascinating is that the book never fully establishes why Qven becomes so attached to the idea of being human. The Translators are part human, part Presger. Alien in their being and nature, they nevertheless must have some human qualities so that they can move among us. Yet Qven is the first (second?) Translator to rebel against eir purpose, if you will, or at least on the first or second to live and tell the tale. Though some of this is a response to trauma, it’s still interesting that Qven can’t put aside eir individuality and assimilate into the role eir clade needs. Leckie’s commenting on the inexorable nature of humanity here: it appears our genes are always bound to gunk up the works. If you have enjoyed Leckie’s other books, you will like Translation State as well. You might miss the grand space opera and associated battles—though there is some action here and there. But it’s clear that Leckie is enjoying exploring different corners of her universe while she asks big questions, and that is truly the best use of science fiction. If you are new to Leckie, this is a fine place to start. You might feel a little out of the loop, for the book refers to events that took place in the trilogy—but understanding this book doesn’t depend on a knowledge of those events, so they might as well be backstory inserted into the background as flavour text. I’m here for the creativity and fun that Leckie is having as she expands the universe she started with her Radch novels. From cultures outside the Radch to actual aliens to everything in between, there’s so much to see here. You won’t get all the answers, and that might be frustrating at first, but it’s so much better that way. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 30, 2024
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Jun 02, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 0593359267
| 9780593359266
| 0593359267
| 3.58
| 21,980
| Aug 01, 2023
| Aug 08, 2023
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it was ok
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Another “New Books” shelf find at the library. I’d heard of Kiersten White as an author of Buffy tie-in novels (though I had never read any). The desc
Another “New Books” shelf find at the library. I’d heard of Kiersten White as an author of Buffy tie-in novels (though I had never read any). The description of this book was interesting enough for me to try it. Just under three hundred pages, its pacing is quick enough I finished it in a single day. Mister Magic is a great example of a serviceable urban fantasy thriller that doesn’t wow yet still entertains. That being said, if you pay enough attention, there’s deeper magic at work here. It has been thirty years since the abrupt end of a children’s TV show called Mister Magic. Though whispers about the show abound online as former viewers share their recollections, no official record of the show exists: no production notes, no official profile online, no recordings. Val is one of the five former cast members who survived—the sixth’s tragic death was why the show ended—though she has no memory of her involvement. When two of her fellow cast members track her down on a farm, she decides to go with them to a reunion podcast recording in the very house where the show was filmed. That’s when things get … weird. There was magic involved in the production of Mister Magic, but it’s nothing like what you would expect. The first part of this book is standard, perhaps pedestrian, horror-movie-style setup. Val’s memory of childhood has faded away; all she knows is life on Gloria’s farm, an able assistant at the riding camp for rich horse girls. Her life is thrown into upset, first by her father’s death and then by the arrival of Javier and Marcus. Once the three of them make it to the house and meet up with Isaac and Jenny, things kick into a higher gear. It’s still fairly predictable until the climax, but White is very good at hitting the right notes. Probably the best scenes were the one-on-one interviews between each cast member and the … entity … posing as a podcast host. These were pitch-perfect creepiness. Similarly, I enjoyed how much time White spends unpacking Val’s trauma: her attempt to visit her mother and get answers, her anxiety around reminiscing about a TV show she doesn’t remember being on. That being said, I kind of wish we had spent more time with the other characters, seen things more from their point of view. There are additional layers to Mister Magic that are metaphors for White’s own experiences leaving Mormonism. These are probably the most successful at reaching me: I found the book’s theme about letting your kids grow up and make their own mistakes, instead of holding them by the hand and guiding them through everything, very compelling. In this way, the climax of the book, Val’s fateful actions, and the revelations around the nature of the eponymous Mister Magic character are all extremely satisfying. Alas, there isn’t enough meat on the bones of these broad points to turn this into a truly gripping horror story. I keep thinking about Just Like Home, by Sarah Gailey (also a Buffy-adjacent writer), which is probably the most recent horror novel I’ve read that has stuck with me—I don’t actually have a separate shelf for tracking horror, which shows how often I read it. Mister Magic satisfies the creepy vibe I want and hints at the twisted supernatural elements lurking below the surface of our daily life … yet until we got to the climax, I never truly felt like Val or anyone else was in danger. There wasn’t the tension I need from my horror. In the end, this is not one I would recommend. It has its moments, and like I said, I found it to be a fairly quick read. But I’m not sure there’s enough unique qualities here to make it memorable. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 29, 2024
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May 29, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 3.76
| 661,993
| May 16, 2023
| May 25, 2023
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really liked it
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Yes, every once in a while I manage to snag a book that isn’t an ARC soon after its release (and actually read it)—all of this helped by my lovely pub
Yes, every once in a while I manage to snag a book that isn’t an ARC soon after its release (and actually read it)—all of this helped by my lovely public library, for they had a copy but of course there are holds on it, so I have to read it right away! Yellowface is quite the departure from
Babel
, the only other R.F. Kuang book I’ve read to date. But my understanding, from what I have read about her work and the book, is that this is on purpose; she likes to change up genre and try something new all the time. Neat. As far as how this works as a novel: it’s a bit inside baseball, but otherwise it is a very fun and frustrating read. June Hayward watches her not-particularly-close friend die and then takes her friend’s just completed first-draft manuscript. She polishes it up, submits it under her own name, and ends up publishing her second novel under the more ethnically ambiguous name of Juniper Song. This sprawling epic about the unsung history of Chinese labourers in World War I nets June the praise and recognition she has always craved. But as suspicions and accusations over the true authorship of the novel mount, June finds her own mental health deteriorating. The publishing industry is not a healthy or friendly one in this novel, as it is likely not in real life. While this novel lacks the epic scope or fantastical elements of Babel, there are still so many layers to unpack here. I’m going to do my best, with the caveats that I am white, Canadian, and in no way a part of the publishing industry. Most of what I know about publishing I glean from the tweets of authors, agents, and industry professionals. First let’s talk about the obvious (and perhaps most controversial) layer: the central question of who is allowed to tell a story? This conversation continually arises like a phoenix from its own, smoldering embers. The #OwnVoices label is a part of it but also problematic in the way it can reduce authors to their identities and also even pressure authors to come out. Kuang cuts straight to the heart of the matter by asking us what informs an author’s identity. Is it just heritage? Athena Liu was ethnically Chinese, but she didn’t speak Mandarin and wasn’t particularly connected to the story she was telling about Chinese labourers a century ago. Neither is June—but by the time she is done massaging Athena’s manuscript, she has done just as much, if not more, research than Athena herself. Does that make June the more qualified voice for this story? Do either of them have the right to tell this story, or is it nearly as ghoulish as Athena’s reported behaviour with Korean veterans? If you’re expecting Yellowface to give you an answer, don’t hold your breath. The whole point is that there isn’t an easy answer. Indeed, the “right” answer tends to vacillate depending on the calculus of optimizing publisher profit and reputation. June, for a time at least, manages to ride that curve quite well—until she doesn’t. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I predict that June Hayward will go down in the history of famous unsympathetic and unreliable narrators, right alongside stinkers like Humbert Humbert. This is the second layer to Yellowface. Indeed, given how much of the book is June talking directly at the reader (often justifying her current flavour of feelings), you need to want to read a book with this kind of protagonist. This is not an action thriller, nor is it a story about personal growth. This is not a novel about redemption or even about receiving comeuppance. This is a novel about justifying one’s selfishness in the name of restoring a shattered American Dream. Kuang brings a darkly incisive flavour of humour to her commentary on racism within publishing. June is constantly spouting racist observations to the reader in a way that confirms she is utterly ignorant of her racism. Her comment, “Candice exists entirely to complain about microaggressions,” and later the way she describes an event attendee who challenges her as “dressed like a right-wing meme of a social justice warrior…. Look, we’re all liberals here. But come on,” made me laugh out loud. June is peak white woman throughout most of this book, and it is wonderful as it is terrifying. See, June knows that what she did with Athena’s manuscript is unethical. She knows enough to lie about it, to hide it, and to feel a modicum of shame. But she also thinks she deserves success, that her personal allocation of success was unfairly reallocated to minority voices, and therefore, her actions are just a levelling of the scale. Kuang perfectly encapsulates the way that internalized white supremacy teaches white people who have experienced hardship to project their dissatisfaction with the system onto racialized people and groups who are themselves also targets of oppression. Look, as a white woman reading this, I definitely felt uncomfortable, and I hope that is the point. June is constantly able to brush away and evade consequences for her bad behaviour—the chapter where she’s teaching at a writer’s retreat is a great example. I keep thinking, “this is it, this is where someone will finally hold her accountable” only for it not to happen in that moment, because of course why would it. It feels unrealistic only because that’s the closure we’re conditioned by stories to expect whereas in the real world that Kuang emulates here such closure seldom occurs. White women get away with a lot. I do wish Yellowface had explored the unreliability angle of June’s narration a bit more. There are tantalizing hints here and there that maybe June isn’t telling us everything the way it actually happened. Nevertheless, Kuang largely leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks on that score. I personally think the ending is meant to suggest that June is more adept at controlling the narrative than we might have credited her throughout the novel—it is almost enough to kind of beg a second reading, just to see if knowing the ending makes a difference in how we interpret what came before. Clever, that. Some parts of this book are intensely of-the-moment, and I’m curious to see how well they age as the years pass. I’m thinking, in particular, of the role of social media. Almost all of the negative publicity June receives comes from social media, or from social media posts that amplify a few critical articles. As someone who (still) spends way too much time on Twitter, so much of this was familiar, and everything that happens here felt realistic and awful. But I will be curious to see how we look back on this period. A part of me hopes that we will find a better successor to social media and that this will be one of the least relatable aspects of the book. The final layer I want to discuss is simply the way Kuang addresses the intersection of creative arts and business. Publishing is a mechanism for writers to share their ideas with the world. It’s also a commercial industry. June, like many authors, faces the pressure to keep writing and publishing new material. She also struggles with coming up with ideas—a very common issue that, in and of itself, does not make one a bad writer. June herself is obviously not a victim of racism, but she is a victim of capitalism. The pressures of making a living, not having affordable healthcare, etc.—these are all relatable issues that many Americans (and Canadians) face these days. They don’t excuse June’s behaviour, but they do help us make sense of it. In addition to chronicling racism in the industry and the toxic nature of social media, Kuang reminds us that people seldom become villains on purpose but rather because it feels like the best way out of their bad situation. Yellowface is a solid, entertaining, and thoughtful story. I’m not sure how much interest it will hold for readers who aren’t as into books about books and publishing as I happen to be. Then again, I think a lot of avid readers are interested in those things, so maybe it’s a nonissue. All I can really say is that I’ll keep my eye on whatever Kuang comes out with next. She demonstrates versatility and creativity but, above all, she is always willing to shine a light on the parts of our society we’d rather not critique. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 10, 2023
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Aug 11, 2023
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Aug 16, 2023
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0399184511
| 9780399184512
| 0399184511
| 3.89
| 123,387
| Oct 11, 2016
| Oct 11, 2016
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liked it
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As someone who is childfree by choice but who has many friends who are parents, I think a lot about how this event in someone’s life affects our evolu
As someone who is childfree by choice but who has many friends who are parents, I think a lot about how this event in someone’s life affects our evolution as individuals. The Mothers approaches this with additional layers of considering race and class. I say “layers” because that’s how it feels like Brit Bennett tells this story: like a croissant, hundreds of thin layers folded over on each other, waiting for you to read them. Nadia, almost done with high school, starts seeing Luke, who is older. When she discovers she is pregnant, Luke comes up with the cash she needs to get an abortion. Later, Nadia goes off to university and Luke marries her best friend. As she returns to her hometown to take care of her father, Nadia has to confront how her choices and those of others around her have shaped her life—and in particular, how our response to the pressures of religion, culture, racism, and society in general shape us. I really liked the way that Bennett uses space as well as time to delineate her narrative here. Nadia leaves her small town in California to go to the University of Michigan and doesn’t return for years, not even to visit her father or Aubrey, not until Aubrey gets married. She escapes and lives so much, goes so many places, experiences quite a bit, before getting pulled back to her hometown in a semipermanent way. Although there isn’t much that I have in common with Nadia, as someone from a small town that many people leave only to come back to, I can identify with that experience. Similarly, I enjoyed the way Bennett charts Nadia’s experiences and comments on them through the omniscient narrators that are the eponymous Mothers of the church. The way they say that they saw this coming (or would have), that they could have warned Nadia off the pastor’s son, etc. There’s also a lot that can be said here about race, though I am sure others have said it better. We can’t talk about pregnancy and who is burdened with the risks of it without talking about the way that healthcare in the United States fails Black women and girls in particular. The story that Bennett is telling her is a story that feels very timeless—aside from a couple of references to texting, and of course Nadia going off to university, this story could have taken place in now or in the nineties. I yelled at the book when Nadia did the thing that she, of course, was inevitably going to do when she returned to her town. The aromantic in me finds it really hard to wrap my head around the choices that people in romantic relationships make sometimes! Bennett’s style didn’t work as much for me as the characterization did. The book is very light on dialogue, heavy on narration and description and telling us what a character feels or thinks. This isn’t to criticize Bennett’s writing skills—I loved some of her turns of phrase, some of the metaphors and descriptive language she uses. But the storytelling happens at a distance from the characters, and it is hard to get emotionally invested in the events despite their intense emotional experiences. I enjoyed The Mothers and think I get what Bennett is putting down here. That, in a way, is a good measure of the success of a book: did I connect to the author enough to hear their message? The answer here is yes. Whether I will read more of Bennett’s work—I know The Vanishing Half is very well regarded—is up in the air. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 11, 2023
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May 13, 2023
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May 26, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0063097257
| 9780063097254
| 0063097257
| 4.03
| 1,751
| Dec 06, 2022
| Dec 06, 2022
|
really liked it
|
Four years ago, after a particularly brutal winter and some damage from ice dams, pigeons took up residence in a section of my house’s eavestroughs. I
Four years ago, after a particularly brutal winter and some damage from ice dams, pigeons took up residence in a section of my house’s eavestroughs. It was unpleasant, to say the least. My bed abutted the exterior wall where they were roosting, and my house is small enough that I generally heard their cooing throughout a quiet Sunday indoors. Eventually, at great expense, I had my eavestroughs redone and the pigeons were summarily evicted. Pests, I thought to myself. That opinion hasn’t changed—however, as Bethany Brookshire makes clear in Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, it is important for us to understand how our relationship with animals has evolved over the centuries, and how we come to designate certain animals as pests and others as pets, exotic attractions, or whatnot. That includes my avian nemesis. Brookshire takes us through, one chapter at a time, different animals that are considered pests at some point and in some place in human history. From rats to elephants to our very own house cats, these animals don’t have much in common except for one thing: they live alongside humans, and they frustrate us just by being themselves. Our reactions are varied but usually along the lines of vilifying and then seeking to extirpate the problem. Alas, as Brookshire points out multiple times, it usually isn’t so simple. Most pests are not easily eradicated—we would need to change how we live to achieve that—and even when they are, maybe eradication isn’t the best option. In her interviews with various experts, many of whom often assume contradictory positions, Brookshire explores the nuanced ethics around pest control. It’s difficult for me to pick a favourite chapter. All of them are, in their own way, fascinating and edifying. The pigeon one stood out to me for my own personal experience with them as a pest. That chapter, in particular, really shows us how quickly society’s perception of an animal can shift: Brookshire explains how, up until the early twentieth century, pigeons were viewed in a very positive light. This historical lesson is valuable because it belies our perception, created by our short lifetimes, that our relationship with animals and nature as it is today is how it has always been. For similar reasons, I really liked the chapter about elephants. Brookshire takes aim at white conservationists who are essentially reinforcing a colonial attitude when they seek to preserve elephant populations at all costs. If you talk to the villagers who live alongside elephants every day, the situation quickly becomes more complicated. It’s hard for us white Westerners to view elephants as pests because our perception of them is so influenced by their portrayal in media. For me, as a Canadian, the closest I could liken them to would be moose—majestic creatures worth protecting, yet also incredibly dangerous in the wrong circumstances. I appreciate how much Brookshire, herself a white woman, deferred to Indigenous experts when learning about these creatures and our historical connections to them. Along the same lines, she seems to have gone out of her way to seek out and then faithfully present differing points of view. This was especially notable to me in the chapter on feral cats, where she interviews both proponents and opponents of the trap-neuter-return (TNR) approach to feral cat population control. At times, the back and forth way that she alternates between these people can get a bit confusing (so many names!). However, I respect the work that went into showing us so many sides of these issues instead of being simplistic or reductive. As a result, rather than emerging from that chapter feeling biased in favour of or against TNR, now I understand that it’s a complex issue—one that I would have to do more reading and thinking about before I fully made up my mind. But I certainly see now how different people in different parts of the world come to view the issue of indoor versus outdoor house cats so distinctly and often passionately! Pests is a story of animals, yet it is also a story about ourselves, humanity. How we have made ourselves a kind of pest in so many biomes, moving in and setting up shop and pushing out indigenous species, then bringing in our own invasive species, only to often turn around and yell at them for being too successful. Humanity is a host of contradictions. Brookshire’s compassionate, thoughtful, and informative look at how we relate to the species with which we coexist is a potent reminder that there are seldom simple answers when it comes to conservation, preservation, and urban development. If we are to be successful in managing the pests in our lives, we must come to terms with the fact that pest-management solutions will be different in different contexts. Sometimes that means population control, or changing how we store our garbage. Sometimes that means accepting that we don’t have complete control over our environment, no matter what we might desire. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 2023
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Mar 04, 2023
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Mar 22, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1982166185
| 9781982166182
| 1982166185
| 3.48
| 5,485
| Nov 15, 2022
| Nov 15, 2022
|
liked it
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Well ain’t this just the purdiest little novella you ever did see? I came across Tread of Angels at my library and was excited to see a new title from
Well ain’t this just the purdiest little novella you ever did see? I came across Tread of Angels at my library and was excited to see a new title from Rebecca Roanhorse. I love the premise and love that it is a mystery and, in some ways, a tragedy. In other words, this was a perfect distraction for a day. Celeste is half Fallen, meaning she is descended from those who rebelled against Heaven back in the day. Thanks to her Elect father’s blood, however, she can pass as Elect. Her sister, Mariel, is not so lucky. Both of them live in Goetia, a town booming because of its proximity to the corpse of the fallen Abaddon, who decays into a resource called Divinity. When Mariel is accused of murder, Celeste takes it upon herself to defend her sister from the discriminatory prosecution of the Virtues. However, as she begins a hasty investigation into what went down, she finds her entire worldview upended. At the same time, she is forced to accept help from an old flame who tempts her beyond redemption. I get some serious Lucifer vibes from this book. I do love me a reimagining of Christian mythology, and this one is more imaginative than most. This doesn’t surprise me, given what Roanhorse has done with Diné as well as Mexica mythologies. She is supremely skilled at adapting entire cosmogonies into new creation myths, and that’s what we are seeing here. Since this is a novella, of course, the actual worldbuilding is slimmer than you would get in a full novel (yet still deliciously richer than a mere short story would provide). Roanhorse wisely sticks closely to the narrative at hand, though I suspect many readers, like myself, will lament that this raises more questions about this world than it answers. The actual mystery, and in particular its resolution, reminds me a little bit of The Peacekeeper , written by another Indigenous author. In both cases, the protagonist must be confronted with the prospect that their axioms are flawed, that people are far more complicated—and treacherous—than they initially wanted to believe. Roanhorse, much like B.L. Blanchard, is unflinching in her ability to put her protagonist through the wringer in this way. I adored the simplicity of this narrative. I would love to see it as a miniseries, for example, because it is so self-contained yet supremely saturated. As Celeste plays detective, we meet any number of colourful characters who reflect her back at herself, forcing her to examine her passing privilege, to question what she really knows, and pushing herself past her own limits. The way that even Abraxas—a literal soul-taking demon—eventually throws up his hands at her and says, “I think you are going too far” is a clever and moving way to emphasize when Celeste hits her nadir. Tread of Angels is a fast-paced, noir, tragic meditation on how far we will go for our blood, the price that might exact on us and the people who love us, and what it means to win at all costs. It was lovely to see Roanhorse flex her muscles in yet another fantastical world, and I am excited to see what she comes up with next. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 13, 2023
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Feb 13, 2023
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Mar 02, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0063021420
| 9780063021426
| 0063021420
| 4.17
| 291,117
| Aug 23, 2022
| Aug 23, 2022
|
it was amazing
|
If my reading lately has a theme, it seems to be stories about storytelling. Or in the case of Babel: An Arcane History, stories about language. The p
If my reading lately has a theme, it seems to be stories about storytelling. Or in the case of Babel: An Arcane History, stories about language. The power of words. Writers are so meta sometimes, eh. In this alternative history, R.F. Kuang confronts the very real-life history of British colonialism and imperialism and asks us to consider how our relationship with language affects our willingness to participate in—and perhaps even incite—systemic change. Newly orphaned Robin is plucked from Canton, China, by Professor Lovell of the Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel. For years, Robin studies under Lovell, first privately as his ward and then as a student at Babel. He is one of four translators in his year cohort—two others, Ramy and Victoire, are similarly racialized, imported for their facility with language or languages, while the other, Lettie, is a white woman determined to buck the trend that says women neither need nor desire an education. But all is not right at Babel. Robin quickly finds himself in the middle of, shall we say, shenanigans most dark. His loyalties divided, Robin must decide what role he wants to play in this system. Does he want to be a collaborator? A dissident? A rebel leader? A fugitive? A martyr? Or something else entirely? So I’m reading this book, and quite honestly by about page twelve I realized that Kuang is both smarter and better read than me, and I’m here for it. Like we’re talking some Umberto Eco–level shit. Kuang’s writing here will run circles around most readers, which some will find intimidating, but if instead you’re willing to set aside your ego and soak up the majesty of the moment, you will not only learn but be entertained. For Babel is a book perched on a pinhead: sprawling and epic in some ways; powerfully precise in others. Let’s ease into the discussion by talking about the magic, for it’s probably the least interesting or important part of the story, and that’s saying something. In Babel, you can engrave words from different languages that are connected in some way into silver bars. When you speak these “language pairs” out loud, the bar activates some kind of magical effect—for example, some pairs can create invisibility; others might help make a garden more serene. One can only activate a bar if one understands the languages used on it, for the actual magic needs human understanding to close the circuit. Hence Robin’s utility as a Mandarin speaker. The British are preeminent in the field of translation and silver-working, but they are running out of pairs to mine from European languages, so they have cast themselves further afield but need minds that understand these increasingly foreign (to them) tongues. The magic system is neat, a nice twist on the eternal quest to seek a balance between rigidly systematic spellwork schemes versus visualize-it-and-it’s-done willpower schemes. This system requires both the rigorous academic knowledge acquired only through years of study, as we see Robin and his peers embark on, along with the kind of understanding and mental awareness that goes deeper than mere scholarship. Its exclusivity, lack so many magical systems, creates a power dynamic that Kuang slots neatly into the existing class system of nineteenth-century Britain. Which brings us to the politics of Babel. Holy shit. I was expecting the trenchant analysis of colonialism but I wasn’t quite prepared for the intense focus on labour (more fool me)—that hit me harder than I anticipated given the current political situation in Ontario and my own involvement in unionism. (It is, of course, all connected, as Kuang seeks to demonstrate.) There’s more to be analyzed here than I can manage in a simple review (I hereby summon the literature undergrads to pick apart this book in a thousand essays). Suffice it to say, Babel is a hot mess—intentionally so. The main theme is simple: revolution is messy, and dismantling the intersecting structures of colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, etc., are not without compromise. We see this most acutely in how each character wrestles with the consequences, both real and potential, of decolonization. How, even for oppressed people in the system, there are conveniences and perks that maybe we aren’t willing to give up. This felt so real to me, because it’s something I see in a lot of my white colleagues when I start talking about antiracism work—and if I am being honest, it is of course something I feel within myself, as a white woman. Changing this system—truly dismantling it and building something better—will be uncomfortable because it does mean giving up some of the things we currently enjoy, either because they are part of the package of privilege bound up in our whiteness or the end result of unsustainable, extractive processes that are both dehumanizing and degrading. So Babel is a masterclass in depicting how colonial structures persist only because of compliance of the masses. Sometimes this compliance is forced or coerced, as in the case of enslavement; other times it is cajoled. For people whose marginalization exists outside of racial and ethnic axes, our compliance is usually purchased through irresistible convenience. There is a climactic moment in the story—resolved, actually, in a footnote, because that is how Kuang rolls—where Robin’s actions indirectly lead to a dramatic incident that kills people and destroys an important London landmark. And … no one cares. Or rather, people implicitly decide that maintaining the structure of society as it exists requires the sacrifice of some people’s humanity and dignity. Kuang pointedly comments on this through several characters, and it resonates given what’s happening right now in Ontario, as municipalities like Toronto simply refuse to open warming centers for unhoused people, or in the US, as various state legislatures compete to see who can most creatively precipitate trans genocide. We keep underestimating the depths of cognitive dissonance we are willing to practise, as a society, to uphold the existing structure rather than risk discomfort and chaos. Robin and his peers have different views on this fact and what their role should be in revolution. While the three racialized characters agree the system is bad and should be dismantled, none of them agree exactly on what that process should look like. Lettie, meanwhile, very much acts as a stand-in for white feminism, and I am here for it. Kuang’s desire to present revolutionary activities as nuanced not only mirrors myriad examples from history but helps the reader conceptualize the difficult truth: that movements are not monoliths, that some people who say they are allies balk when that means following up with acting as allies (and accomplices), that there is always an unyielding pressure to surrender to the inertia that is “that’s just the way it is.” Kuang’s willingness to explore the messiness of revolutionary politics is what makes Babel such a standout work. The revolution, when it comes for us, will not be neat or orderly—indeed, it probably won’t even be a single, discrete revolution. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that, by the end of the book, Robin and his allies haven’t toppled the British Empire. At the same time, the empire is irrevocably changed as a result of their actions. And their revolution, Kuang very explicitly points out, was more successful as a result of the gains won from previous revolutions, strike actions, revolts, etc.—a single act cannot unmake a system, but consistent pressure over an era can erode it to the point of collapse. So although in terms of our characters’ journeys, without spoiling much, this book might be deemed a tragedy, Babel seems to be a relentlessly optimistic story. The characters—and more specifically, their relationships with each other—might be the weak point of the book for me. Robin is decent as a viewpoint protagonist; I often had to take a step back and remind myself that I’m seeing the story from a wider angle than him and have the benefit of a twenty-first–century perspective on colonialism that he fundamentally lacks by dint of being in the thick of it. But Robin was also a little … I don’t know, boring? I found myself a lot more interested in the internal lives of Ramy, Victoire, and even Lettie. Aside from occasional interludes told from the perspective of each of them, Kuang keeps the book firmly focused on Robin, for better or worse. And Robin just … kind of exists, his relationships attenuating and then springing back to tautness like an elastic. He and Ramy have this initial spark of attraction that I thought was going to become so much more. His relationship with Lovell is marred by the latter’s one dimensionality as an antagonist. Similarly, I never saw him truly connecting with Griffin or his other revolutionary comrades. So while I could feel Robin’s angst, especially as he wrestled with his sense of guilt over his class privilege, I never quite felt that connect to the struggles of the characters around him. Nevertheless, even if some of the characters strike me as one dimensional or otherwise unsatisfying, I think Kuang overall has put a lot of thought into what she is trying to say with each character, and that’s valuable. As I mentioned at the top of this review, her intelligence and the breadth of her knowledge is apparent on every page—but it is most apparent, I think, in how each of the main characters connects to their personal backgrounds, cultures, and histories. The way that Kuang weaves in allusions to English literature, Haitian politics, or the repression of Punjabi people under British rule in India … seriously. This is no shallowly researched yarn spun for entertainment. I can only imagine the binders, real or virtual, of notes that gird this manuscript, which itself is a hefty thing. I pitched Babel to someone on Twitter (a linguist) as “Neal Stephenson but without all the squick of ponderous white male privilege,” and I stand by this comparison. This is a novel that overstays its welcome deliberately and without apology. It demands your attention and your thoughtfulness. Yet unlike many other researched and dense books that do this, Babel carefully balances its heavy themes with plot and characters that remain entertaining and fun and, yeah, heartbreaking. Kuang’s writing flits from being bold and brash to quiet and understated. While I don’t think everything she attempts in this book works, longtime readers of my reviews know that I much prefer big swings, even when they don’t completely land. And in the case of Babel, it hits far more than it misses, which is impressive. If science fiction shows us what our society could be (for better or worse), fantasy shows us what our society is, albeit reflected through the funhouse mirror of alternative histories and worlds. Babel achieves this. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 30, 2023
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Feb 02, 2023
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Feb 11, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 038554121X
| 9780385541213
| 038554121X
| 3.85
| 215,373
| Nov 05, 2019
| Nov 05, 2019
|
really liked it
|
A long time ago, a decade and in many ways another life ago, I read
The Night Circus
, Erin Morgenstern’s first novel. Also highly acclaimed, it di
A long time ago, a decade and in many ways another life ago, I read
The Night Circus
, Erin Morgenstern’s first novel. Also highly acclaimed, it didn’t live up to its hype for me—but I wasn’t surprised. I reviewed it, filed it away, and didn’t really think about Morgenstern again until I saw The Starless Sea in my bookstore. I read the description, and I thought, “Hmm. Another story about stories. Not original. But maybe….” Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a college student who discovers a book that seems to be telling the story of his life. It recounts a time in his childhood when, walking home alone, he came across a door painted in the wall. He didn’t open the door. If he had, he would have discovered an entire world hidden underground—a world of starless seas and magnificent libraries and temporal anomalies and more. Now he’s playing catch-up, working alongside a shifty guy named Dorian, an passionate painter named Mirabel, and fighting against someone who seems determined to cut off access to the world below by the world above. You ever read a book that is just one hundred percent vibes? That’s what this is—and I mean that as a compliment. Stories about stories are not, as I observed, anything new. Cloud Cuckoo Land , as well as N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became and its sequel, are both examples I can pull from my recent reading. Writers love to write about stories, and I don’t blame them. Storytelling is one of the ultimate activities that define our humanity, and so by its very nature it should examine itself. With The Starless Sea, Morgenstern is asking whether the reality of the fairy tale can ever truly be as romantic as the telling of it. I got strong notes of The Princess Bride reading this. Maybe it’s the mysterious, condemned pirate we meet at the start of the book, or the equally enigmatic Dorian. Maybe it’s the relationship between Zachary and Dorian, the edge of “true love” never quite articulated. The same kind of romance between Mirabel and her paramour. This is a book whose pages resemble dimly lit rooms that cast soft shadows over everything. There are no sharp edges, but there are also no easy answers. As Zachary attempts to learn more about the mysterious world into which he has intruded, Morgenstern presents the reader with more fairy tales and folk stories. Each one feels related, in some way, to the others. They’re all connected, not in obvious ways but not subtly either—themes and recurring motifs, like pairs of lovers, winding their way through these stories before ultimately being distilled into “reality”—such as that is in this book. This is what I mean when I say The Starless Sea is vibes. The characters don’t really matter; hell, the plot itself doesn’t matter. What matters is the experience of reading it, curled up on my couch under a blanket in the depths of January winter. The way Morgenstern’s stories-within-stories trickled into me, warding me against the chill, and stoked the fires of my memories of a decade—or even two—ago, when I had more time to read and more latitude to be amazed. I don’t really know what to say about The Starless Sea as a story. The story exists. It’s fun at times, frustrating at others—the book seems to insist that exposition must be an all-or-nothing affair, and as much as I appreciate Morgenstern’s confidence in the reader’s ability to put the pieces together, sometimes I do just want things spelled out, you know? Moreover, I am often critical of books with ambiguous endings, but this is one of those cases where the book definitely earns it. As a book, as an experience of turning pages and reading, this was very satisfying for me. It hit the right spots of nostalgia for me and my love of stories. Indeed, it is a great example of what we mean when we say we read to escape: for the hours I spent on this adventure with Zachary, I was able to forget about what was happening in this world around us, so enthralled was I in the worlds he was trying to explore. And why else do we read if not for that? Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 22, 2023
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Jan 25, 2023
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Feb 08, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0385548109
| 9780385548106
| 0385548109
| 4.50
| 4,220
| unknown
| Nov 01, 2022
|
really liked it
|
Cryptocurrency has long fascinated me because it’s mathematics made manifest. Although our economy has long been digital, the rise of Bitcoin and othe
Cryptocurrency has long fascinated me because it’s mathematics made manifest. Although our economy has long been digital, the rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies codified a cashless digital economy through arcane mathematical precepts that nevertheless gave rise to trillions of dollars of worth—even if that value is volatile at the best of times. It’s not surprising that enterprising criminal minds would try to use cryptocurrency for their dealings, and it’s not surprising that others would use math to uncover those dealings. Tracers in the Dark lays out just what this entails, how it led to successfully busting some big criminals, and what this might mean the future of digital crime, cryptocurrencies, and law enforcement. Andy Greenberg knows how to tell a story. I have read parts of this book in his articles for Wired, along with similar coverage of cryptocurrency busts. I forgot I had read one of Greenberg’s previous books, about WikiLeaks, and enjoyed it; in retrospect, I see why. Greenberg has a knack for taking complex technological topics, like cryptocurrency, and distilling them into a form digestible even by people with a tech or math background. He cuts through the complexity, rendering it down until you can—as the tracers do—follow the money. The book comprises five parts. In Part I, Greenberg lays out some of the biggest players: researchers, law enforcement agents, and cryptocurrency business owners who all have a role to play in the events to come. He unpacks the investigation that eventually led to the arrest of Ross Ulbricht and the shuttering of the Silk Road. Part II introduces us to the golden age of Bitcoin tracing. We learn more about how blockchain analysis software, such as that pioneered by firm Chainalysis, became an integral part of investigation by law enforcement like the FBI and IRS. Part III covers the investigations into and subsequent take down of AlphaBay, followed by the Welcome to Video saga in Part IV. The book wraps up with Part V, a look at the future of cryptocurrency tracing and blockchain analysis, especially as new cryptocurrencies like Monero and Zcash claim to be “fixing” Bitcoin’s privacy and anonymity problems. For anyone who enjoys true crime, this book is awash with detail and compelling description. Though Greenberg has obviously chosen to emphasize the actions of certain people, I like that he doesn’t lionize any one person or try to make out anyone to be a hero. These are law enforcement agents, lawyers, etc. who are doing a job. At the same time, he also helps us see how these white-collar crimes are far from victimless. It might seem silly to some of us, spending resources on computer programs and expertise required to chase down sequences of numbers and letters through a vast database (the blockchain) in the hopes of finding out who paid whom. Why not spend that money on something more tangible, like protecting people from violent crime? As Greenberg demonstrates, it’s all connected. The dark web and cryptocurrency have together enabled criminals to more efficiently acquire and distribute everything from drugs to firearms to child sexual abuse material. The last one was particularly hard to read about, for all the reasons you might expect. I had already read at least the beginning of the Welcome to Video story, and rereading it here, being reminded of the toll it took on the investigators and prosecutors—not to mention, of course, thinking about all the victims of the abuse—well, let’s just say that this book is not for cozy bedtime reading. Greenberg doesn’t shy away from discussing the dark stuff, hopefully with the consequence of helping readers understand that this type of internet crime is not something to be taken lightly. Just because it’s 1s and 0s on hard drives rather than something more tangible, the effects on real people are still devastating. Tracers in the Dark also changed my mind a bit about cryptocurrency, something I didn’t expect! I have always been very skeptical about crypto ever since I learned about it. Bitcoin and its successors have always sounded like scams and schemes—great if you invested early on but far from the libertarian utopian technology some evangelists seemed to think it could be. As we’ve passed the decade mark and more and more people try to bend blockchain technology to their particular business models, my skepticism and cynicism have increased proportionally. Yet Greenberg carefully showcases the diversity of viewpoints within the crypto community. Gronager and Meiklejohn have quite different ideas about how and why blockchain analysis should be done, for example—and Greenberg allows them both the space to explain their beliefs. As a result, I started to understand why there are still some “true believers” within the crypto community—people who don’t see cryptocurrency necessarily as an anarchic panacea for state surveillance and control but rather view it as a logical extension of existing monetary tools. While I still wouldn’t go so far as to agree with that idea, I’m more sympathetic to it than the more extreme viewpoints I’ve seen in the past. Greenberg’s diligence in seeking out contradictory opinions helped me confront my own biases and arrive at a more nuanced view of this topic. You don’t need to understand the math behind Bitcoin to understand the effect it has had on our economy and crime. For better or worse, Bitcoin might not be poised to render fiat currency obsolete, but it’s here to stay in one form or another—and if you’re like me, you might want to see whether your pension fund invested in a cryptocurrency exchange…. Tracers in the Dark is top-notch writing in service of telling a story that anyone interested in crime, computers, mathematics, etc., would do well to hear. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 12, 2023
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Jan 14, 2023
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Jan 23, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1682450503
| 9781682450505
| 1682450503
| 3.90
| 743
| unknown
| Nov 08, 2016
|
liked it
|
Mean Girls was a formative movie of my youth for so many reasons, to the point where it was the first movie I purchased on DVD (at the same time that
Mean Girls was a formative movie of my youth for so many reasons, to the point where it was the first movie I purchased on DVD (at the same time that I bought my first DVD player). It was released in 2004, the same year I started high school, so I was of the generation it depicted. I also loved math. Indeed, my strongest Mean Girls memory is of my AP Calculus course in Grade 12. There were six of us in the class. One of the other students convinced our teacher to let us watch Mean Girls one day in class simply because it mentioned limits. I don’t remember what flimsy justification she proffered beyond this or why my teacher said yes, but it was a good time. All of this is to say that this is why I was drawn to The Elephants in My Backyard. I saw a clip of Rajiv Surendra being interviewed with the two other prominent young male actors from the movie—all three of whom, it turns out, are gay—and the interviewer mentioned he had written a memoir. Hmm, I thought. He’s Canadian too, which is cool. I also like that this memoir isn’t really about Mean Girls, and while it is about acting, it is only tangentially about the movie industry. Rather, this is a story of what to do when you don’t achieve your dream. Most of the book revolves around Surendra’s quest to be cast as the lead character in the adaptation of Life of Pi, a novel by another Canadian, Yann Martel. He even corresponds with Martel, excerpts of which are included throughout this book. Surendra, upon being introduced to the novel, marvels at how similar he and Pi Patel seem to be. He becomes obsessed with landing the role and devotes all his energy to preparing for it, to moulding himself into such a perfect Pi that no matter which director ends up being attached—for the movie goes through its own spate of growing pains and development hell—they will have no choice but to admit that yes, Rajiv, he is the one! He visits Pondicherry in India, learns how to swim, researches and interviews survivors who were adrift at sea—he pursues his goal somewhat singlemindedly. As anyone who has seen the film knows, he was not successful. In a society that fetishes success and demonizes failure—or uplifts failure only when it is a speedbump along the way to an eventual success—Surendra’s story stands out. Indeed, his story is the story of most people who enter film and television. He doesn’t go on to huge celebrity and an acting career after Mean Girls. He has comparatively few roles and has instead pursued other interests and means of making money, such as calligraphy. We focus so much in our society on career actors who rocket to fame as they land these huge roles or steady work when the reality for most actors is probably much closer to Surendra’s. His writing style in the book is spare and penetrating. I felt like he was looking at me as I was reading his words. He doesn’t hold back in his opinions of people, places, etc., lauding those who helped him and were genuine, and being brutally honest about those who have harmed him. In particular, there is a chapter in which he reflects on his experiences growing up in a household with an abusive, alcoholic father … he doesn’t mince his words and doesn’t try to stay civil, let’s put it that way. This was an easy book to read in a day, both because it’s on the shorter side but also because of how well Surendra has structured his narrative. It’s roughly chronological, with detours and flashbacks as needed, showing us how he goes from Mean Girls to research, living in India before returning to Toronto to resume school and working at a pioneer village. Interestingly, his romantic life and sexuality (Surendra is gay) doesn’t come up until the very end of the book. Again, although much of the book doesn’t discuss the film industry directly, most of the book involves Surendra’s obsession with landing this particular role. I also love how much Surendra is into wool and knitting, going so far as to include a page at the end of the book with a photo of him in his favourite sweater and a technical explanation as to the gansey’s construction and history. As a knitter, this warms my heart. This memoir fills a great niche. It belies many of the dominant narratives presented to us about actors and celebrities. It’s by a young, gay man of colour—a Canadian too—and asks us to think about how the intersections of race, class, immigrant status, etc. figure into our lives. And perhaps most obviously—but no less powerfully—The Elephants in My Backyard dares us to define success on our own terms, reminding us that failure is an option. It isn’t a case of “life works out for the best”—I hate it when people tell me that—but it is a reminder that we don’t control outcomes and that nothing we do can ever be enough to guarantee an outcome we desire. All we can do as we go through life is define our goals, work towards them, and adjust those goals as times change. Surendra may never have been adrift at sea, but in this book he shows himself to be adept at navigating the open ocean that is our lives and our desires. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
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Nov 08, 2019
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it was ok
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it was ok
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May 29, 2024
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Aug 11, 2023
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it was amazing
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Jan 14, 2023
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| 3.90
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liked it
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Jan 03, 2023
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Jan 14, 2023
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