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mworrell's review against another edition
The Lovecraft genre is not my boat, but this is a semi-interesting take on some of the tropes. I find this book similar to Gideon the Ninth in my reaction to it. I like the characters, I like their relationships, it doesn’t grab me.
What spoils this as an audiobook is one: the narrator and two: the japanese american characters.
One: the narrator uses a bad japanese accent for the japanese american characters, even for a younger nisei character.
Two: The younger nisei character is named Neko. (???) I’m calling her Kitty from here on out.
I only listened to this book; I haven’t read it without the filter of the narrator, so I genuinely can’t tell what Kitty’s characterization is supposed to be. I suspect the narrator is reading her as far more timid then she actually is. Her lines are read in the same, stilted manner. There’s the bad accent, as well as the slow, plodding pace. The narrator pauses between every sentence. It gets in the way of Kitty as a character. It’s also annoying. No other character gets this treatment except for the JA’s.
But um. Anyway I do not recommend this, though I do like the author’s most recent book.
What spoils this as an audiobook is one: the narrator and two: the japanese american characters.
One: the narrator uses a bad japanese accent for the japanese american characters, even for a younger nisei character.
Two: The younger nisei character is named Neko. (???) I’m calling her Kitty from here on out.
I only listened to this book; I haven’t read it without the filter of the narrator, so I genuinely can’t tell what Kitty’s characterization is supposed to be. I suspect the narrator is reading her as far more timid then she actually is. Her lines are read in the same, stilted manner. There’s the bad accent, as well as the slow, plodding pace. The narrator pauses between every sentence. It gets in the way of Kitty as a character. It’s also annoying. No other character gets this treatment except for the JA’s.
But um. Anyway I do not recommend this, though I do like the author’s most recent book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Xenophobia, Forced institutionalization, Colonisation, and Sexism
Moderate: War, Misogyny, Acephobia/Arophobia, Blood, Body horror, and Antisemitism
Minor: Sexual assault
This is set after japanese internment, and while the main character is not japanese, they spent an extended time in the camps. Their adoptive family is japanese american, so the camps and the xenophobia is prominent in the book. The main character’s original family were
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