Reading Wednesday
Aug. 25th, 2021 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI'm seriously distracted by certain other events in my life, and doubly resentful because I was so excited to post about two of these books that I almost did a Reading Monday. Anyway. Here it is.
Just finished: Blood Marble by Shirley Meier. Pretty much what I said last week—great story and characters, editing that was sloppy enough that it was distracting.
Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand. Jaw. Dropped. This was one of those books that was chock-full of things I've been dying for—an unreliable and unlikable narrator, specificity of character, unconventional structure, poetic prose. I absolutely loved it. It's the story of Cass, a photographer who had her 15 minutes during the punk era and then crashed and burned. Now a depressed, middle-aged addict, she gets roped into a shooting assignment on a remote island to interview the reclusive artist who inspired her career. Cass winds up in the middle of a mystery involving a failed commune, the problem of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, and—depending on your interpretation—a touch of cosmic horror.
Everything about it is stunning. I loved Cass' character—she's damaged and brittle, she makes terrible choices, and the author makes no attempt to soften her edges. The prose is so beautiful I had shivers reading it. Hand knows her stuff with photography, and again, makes no effort to dumb it down—you're thrown into the world of highly technical artists and meant to keep up. The first body doesn't even drop until halfway through the book, in a complete disregard for conventional thriller writing. I loved it and I'd be binging the entire series if I hadn't also just downloaded a bunch of free books that I want to get through.
(Trigger warning for violent sexual assault early on in the book.)
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo. This was one of those free books, and I expected it to be the usual high-concept mess that Tor free books often are. Nope! It was amazing and I loved absolutely everything about it. Apparently it's a sequel, but it's a standalone so while I will now read the first book, there was no problem with reading them out of order.
Anyway this is set in a universe with weretigers and mammoths and the recurring character is a nonbinary cleric named Chih who travels around collecting people's stories, so already I'm primed to enjoy it. Chih is crossing a northern mountain pass with a mammoth-riding guide when they are waylaid by three hungry tigers, who trap them in a lookout post but are brought to a standstill by the presence of the mammoth. To stay alive, Chih tells a story, Scheherazade-style, in the hopes of distracting the tigers long enough for a rescue party to arrive.
The story is of a human scholar who marries a tiger. The tigers also know the story, but from a very different point of view. So the story is told back and forth, with Chih beginning from the humans' point of view, and the tigers interrupting to correct them with the version that they learned. There's a dreamy, fairy tale quality to both the story itself and the telling. I also loved every single character. It was a gorgeous meditation on cultural differences and exchange, all while managing to be unexpectedly funny as hell.
Currently reading: The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen. I almost noped out of this because the beginning was horribly written and it's quite lengthy for YA, but I'm glad I stuck with my commitment not to nope out of books. I still don't think it's great, but it's an unexpectedly fun read with the odd insightful moment.
I take it that this is part of a podcast series that I've never heard of? The concept is "what if instead of forming a team, superheroes went to therapy," which honestly, is pretty fun. This one is about Caleb, a teenaged football player, who develops an inconvenient superpower—the ability to sense other people's emotions as if they were his own. This draws him to Adam, a severely depressed nerd, and they form a friendship, and later romance, while managing their own secrets and mental health issues.
So...it suffers from a laundry list of everything I can't stand about YA. The characters sound less like actual teenagers and more like they were ripped from 90s after school specials where the jocks pick on nerds and the nerds have no friends. Protip for anyone writing YA: No living teenager says "jeez." Ever. (And this is a book with swearing, so there's no excuse.) Very few go to schools where Latin is offered as an option, and very few have a favourite Shakespeare play, no matter how nerdy they are. It also suffers from flat prose, without metaphor or any sort of literary flair. Earnestness. Everyone talks about their feelings. Transcribed texting. Cultural references that already feel cringe.
And yet I'm enjoying it? I think it's because the sections about Adam's depression ring extremely true. Also it's cute and fast-paced. There was a time not so long ago when there were few queer YA books at all, let alone ones that weren't primarily about how hard it was to be gay, so this is progress, I guess.
Just finished: Blood Marble by Shirley Meier. Pretty much what I said last week—great story and characters, editing that was sloppy enough that it was distracting.
Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand. Jaw. Dropped. This was one of those books that was chock-full of things I've been dying for—an unreliable and unlikable narrator, specificity of character, unconventional structure, poetic prose. I absolutely loved it. It's the story of Cass, a photographer who had her 15 minutes during the punk era and then crashed and burned. Now a depressed, middle-aged addict, she gets roped into a shooting assignment on a remote island to interview the reclusive artist who inspired her career. Cass winds up in the middle of a mystery involving a failed commune, the problem of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, and—depending on your interpretation—a touch of cosmic horror.
Everything about it is stunning. I loved Cass' character—she's damaged and brittle, she makes terrible choices, and the author makes no attempt to soften her edges. The prose is so beautiful I had shivers reading it. Hand knows her stuff with photography, and again, makes no effort to dumb it down—you're thrown into the world of highly technical artists and meant to keep up. The first body doesn't even drop until halfway through the book, in a complete disregard for conventional thriller writing. I loved it and I'd be binging the entire series if I hadn't also just downloaded a bunch of free books that I want to get through.
(Trigger warning for violent sexual assault early on in the book.)
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo. This was one of those free books, and I expected it to be the usual high-concept mess that Tor free books often are. Nope! It was amazing and I loved absolutely everything about it. Apparently it's a sequel, but it's a standalone so while I will now read the first book, there was no problem with reading them out of order.
Anyway this is set in a universe with weretigers and mammoths and the recurring character is a nonbinary cleric named Chih who travels around collecting people's stories, so already I'm primed to enjoy it. Chih is crossing a northern mountain pass with a mammoth-riding guide when they are waylaid by three hungry tigers, who trap them in a lookout post but are brought to a standstill by the presence of the mammoth. To stay alive, Chih tells a story, Scheherazade-style, in the hopes of distracting the tigers long enough for a rescue party to arrive.
The story is of a human scholar who marries a tiger. The tigers also know the story, but from a very different point of view. So the story is told back and forth, with Chih beginning from the humans' point of view, and the tigers interrupting to correct them with the version that they learned. There's a dreamy, fairy tale quality to both the story itself and the telling. I also loved every single character. It was a gorgeous meditation on cultural differences and exchange, all while managing to be unexpectedly funny as hell.
Currently reading: The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen. I almost noped out of this because the beginning was horribly written and it's quite lengthy for YA, but I'm glad I stuck with my commitment not to nope out of books. I still don't think it's great, but it's an unexpectedly fun read with the odd insightful moment.
I take it that this is part of a podcast series that I've never heard of? The concept is "what if instead of forming a team, superheroes went to therapy," which honestly, is pretty fun. This one is about Caleb, a teenaged football player, who develops an inconvenient superpower—the ability to sense other people's emotions as if they were his own. This draws him to Adam, a severely depressed nerd, and they form a friendship, and later romance, while managing their own secrets and mental health issues.
So...it suffers from a laundry list of everything I can't stand about YA. The characters sound less like actual teenagers and more like they were ripped from 90s after school specials where the jocks pick on nerds and the nerds have no friends. Protip for anyone writing YA: No living teenager says "jeez." Ever. (And this is a book with swearing, so there's no excuse.) Very few go to schools where Latin is offered as an option, and very few have a favourite Shakespeare play, no matter how nerdy they are. It also suffers from flat prose, without metaphor or any sort of literary flair. Earnestness. Everyone talks about their feelings. Transcribed texting. Cultural references that already feel cringe.
And yet I'm enjoying it? I think it's because the sections about Adam's depression ring extremely true. Also it's cute and fast-paced. There was a time not so long ago when there were few queer YA books at all, let alone ones that weren't primarily about how hard it was to be gay, so this is progress, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-25 04:57 pm (UTC)This is incredibly true. Sometimes, I find myself being hard on gay YA lit, but wow we have come so so far in the last 5 years. I'm excited what the next decade will bring!
no subject
Date: 2021-08-25 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-08-25 05:04 pm (UTC)