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Reading Wednesday
Aug. 4th, 2021 09:00 amJust finished:
After the Revolution by Robert Evans. This is a first for my book list: an audiobook. Evans read out the whole thing in weekly instalments on Behind the Bastards, and it finally ended this week. While audiobooks are something that I struggle with (I read faster than people speak, and I often flip back and forth to re-read, plus I suspect that I have an auditory processing disorder of some sort), I'm a huge fan of Evans so I just went with it.
The story is set after a second American Civil War, and very much based on Evans' own experiences reporting on wars and uprisings. It follows three characters: Manny, who guides foreign journalists around the Republic of Texas, trying to save up enough money to flee to Europe, Sasha, a teenage girl who plans to flee to the Christian Dominionist Heavenly Kingdom, and Roland, an amnesiac, drug-addled former soldier with cybernetic augments. When the Heavenly Kingdom attacks Texas, all of their lives are thrown into chaos.
Like many things that I read on paper, I desperately wanted another editing pass of it—the prose is fairly workmanlike and, other than in the Hunter S. Thompson-esque drug sequences, lacking in the author's trademark humour —but it works for the fast-paced political thriller genre. But it also bothered me less because it was being read aloud, and I have a harder time untangling prose in an audio format.
That said, the story itself is quite good, and Sasha's plot in particular was incredibly compelling. The reason I'm so addicted to Behind the Bastards is that Evans really gets why normal people commit atrocities. Her complicity with the Heavenly Kingdom's reign of terror and gradual disillusionment is very well done.
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Look, Silvia Moreno-Garcia wrote a Regency Romance. There was approximately zero chance of me not loving it. I couldn't put it down and I am absolutely weak for such things.
Ten years ago, Hector, a telekinetic stage performer from an impoverished background, and Valerie, a beautiful socialite whose family has fallen on hard times, fell in love and had a whirlwind romance. But she married when he went off to seek his fortune. Now he's back in town, determined to win her back. Instead, he meets Nina, Valerie's country niece, who's also a telekinetic and more interested in beetles and butterflies than in conforming to social norms. Nina falls for Hector, but he is too caught up in the past to reciprocate, and Valerie is determined that no one should get to be less unhappy than she is.
The book is lush, melodramatic, and plays with themes of class, gender, race, and ability (I read telekinesis as an allegory for autism, but your mileage may vary on that) with an intentionality that distinguish it in the genre. I found the characters a little less engaging than in some of her other works—all of her female characters tread an interesting line between sympathetic antiheroine and complete monsters, and Valerie dips too far into the latter to be as well-realized as I'd like—but overall it's wonderful.
After the Revolution by Robert Evans. This is a first for my book list: an audiobook. Evans read out the whole thing in weekly instalments on Behind the Bastards, and it finally ended this week. While audiobooks are something that I struggle with (I read faster than people speak, and I often flip back and forth to re-read, plus I suspect that I have an auditory processing disorder of some sort), I'm a huge fan of Evans so I just went with it.
The story is set after a second American Civil War, and very much based on Evans' own experiences reporting on wars and uprisings. It follows three characters: Manny, who guides foreign journalists around the Republic of Texas, trying to save up enough money to flee to Europe, Sasha, a teenage girl who plans to flee to the Christian Dominionist Heavenly Kingdom, and Roland, an amnesiac, drug-addled former soldier with cybernetic augments. When the Heavenly Kingdom attacks Texas, all of their lives are thrown into chaos.
Like many things that I read on paper, I desperately wanted another editing pass of it—the prose is fairly workmanlike and, other than in the Hunter S. Thompson-esque drug sequences, lacking in the author's trademark humour —but it works for the fast-paced political thriller genre. But it also bothered me less because it was being read aloud, and I have a harder time untangling prose in an audio format.
That said, the story itself is quite good, and Sasha's plot in particular was incredibly compelling. The reason I'm so addicted to Behind the Bastards is that Evans really gets why normal people commit atrocities. Her complicity with the Heavenly Kingdom's reign of terror and gradual disillusionment is very well done.
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Look, Silvia Moreno-Garcia wrote a Regency Romance. There was approximately zero chance of me not loving it. I couldn't put it down and I am absolutely weak for such things.
Ten years ago, Hector, a telekinetic stage performer from an impoverished background, and Valerie, a beautiful socialite whose family has fallen on hard times, fell in love and had a whirlwind romance. But she married when he went off to seek his fortune. Now he's back in town, determined to win her back. Instead, he meets Nina, Valerie's country niece, who's also a telekinetic and more interested in beetles and butterflies than in conforming to social norms. Nina falls for Hector, but he is too caught up in the past to reciprocate, and Valerie is determined that no one should get to be less unhappy than she is.
The book is lush, melodramatic, and plays with themes of class, gender, race, and ability (I read telekinesis as an allegory for autism, but your mileage may vary on that) with an intentionality that distinguish it in the genre. I found the characters a little less engaging than in some of her other works—all of her female characters tread an interesting line between sympathetic antiheroine and complete monsters, and Valerie dips too far into the latter to be as well-realized as I'd like—but overall it's wonderful.
