curlymango's reviews
46 reviews

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

dark mysterious reflective

4.0

Oryx and Crake is a miserable, disturbing, but also witty and darkly funny vision of the future where technological utilitarianism  triumphs. A slow burner at first, the flashback storyline became more fleshed out and rewarding as I read on. I felt at the beginning that Snowman as a narrator might lack depth, but you get to see his struggles with existentialism, love, shame, etc. and his ruminations on what corrupts human society.

Atwood’s writing can be exaggerated and absurd:
“‘…you’d be surprised how many people would like a very beautiful, smart baby that eats nothing but grass. The vegans are highly interested in that little item.’”

But also tragically poetic:
“Everything in his life was temporary, ungrounded. Language itself had lost its solidity; it had become thin, slippery, a viscid film on which he was sliding around like an eyeball on a plate.”

A really morbid ode to the arts.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Sexual violence, and Pedophilia

The Houseguest: And Other Stories by Amparo Dávila

medium-paced

3.0

Some of the shorts I really enjoyed, particularly “Tina Reyes” and “The Funeral.” For me the more real the fear the more monstrous it feels, which is probably why I liked those ones. However, it almost seemed like there were pairs of very similar stories when the collection maybe could have benefited from fewer more fleshed-out stories.

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis

medium-paced

3.75

Good fun and I learned quite a bit from the translator’s endnotes and entire process of translating the book. I’ve never read a book quite like this. It’s kooky and feels surprisingly modern considering its age. I imagined Brás Cubas as Jim Carrey’s Count Olaf if he were in a love triangle and tried to write down his own original (a)moral philosophy.

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

I went in thinking the 10 minutes 38 seconds of Leila’s reflections on life with intermittent side stories would be the whole book, without the post mortem second part. I think that may have made for a stronger story

Part Two was tonally very different from Part One, reminding me of both the mood and plot of Little Miss Sunshine

, but the prose is so lyrical and easy to read that it felt less cliché or heavy handed than it likely would have felt otherwise. A nice story about chosen family with some solid historical context.

To the person who stole this library book from me, I hope you gave it a glance before doing whatever…

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Moderate: Rape and Transphobia

Crota by Owl Goingback

fast-paced

2.25

Pretty straightforward not scary horror. In terms of writing, the highlight is undoubtedly the deaths because the characters were otherwise one dimensional, escpecially the few women who were there solely as props. Sometimes the writing was just dumb, like “They exchanged a few words in Indian,” which is strange coming from this author who’s trying bring a bit of authenticity and representation to his work. Take a shot every time the word “bowels” comes up.

Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

This book really went and exposed all the mechanics of my sad little brain. It almost hurt how much I saw myself reflected in Raif, and even the initial narrator. He won’t let go of the pictures he’s painted of others (get it?) which hinders his ability to really know or to love someone. Can you love someone without knowing them? Idk. His thoughts are swirling and cramped but also crystal clear and poignant, he’s painfully self-aware but hopelessly lost in his own imagination. Reading a story about a young lover Klara, Raif writes:

“When I saw how she was incapable of voicing her feelings, and how fear and envy contrived to suppress everything about her that was deep and strong and beautiful — I saw myself.”

Or after getting to know Maria:

“I had no desire to see reality stripped bare…Would it not be more humane to show each other some mercy, turning a blind eye to the details, sacrificing the smaller truths for the greater?”

So many more memorable lines than that. I wasn’t expecting a story so brief to speak to me quite like this and call out my flaws so…pointedly. Damn.

Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches by Jill Fredston

adventurous dark medium-paced

4.0

I quite enjoyed this. It’s very accessible and covers so much of Fredston’s career without dragging on. Except for the section on avalanches in film, which seemed a little out of place though still fun to read. I would have appreciated maybe a diagram or two to understand things like depth hoar or to spatially orient myself during some of her recaps of rescues and whatnot (I should just go read her other book, I know). Overall, it’s an nice look into a niche field and Fredston’s experiences with nature, community, and loss.

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat

challenging reflective sad medium-paced

I’m not sure whether I can give this a rating, because I don’t think it would really reflect how I felt during and after this read. At times I was deeply uncomfortable; I felt like I was intruding into the darkest sides of the characters’ intimate, complex relationships. But of course that’s the core of the book: untangling matters of womanhood, motherhood, generational trauma, sexual violence, heritage, and death. What struck me most was the gentle simplicity of Danticat’s prose and how she weaves such brutal topics into Sophie’s story, without it necessarily feeling gratuitous. Quite haunting, though. I’m still thinking about the final passage and don’t know whether to feel hopeful or hopeless about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide and Sexual violence

Moderate: Death and Rape

White Noise by Don DeLillo

3.0

I’m a little more meh about this than I thought I’d be. At first I was having a great time with DeLillo’s humor and Jack’s struggles with understanding death and the people around him. But after a while, as expected thematically, the overload of information became a lot to digest and hard to finish. The whiplash from worldly insight to random tabloid content to another worldly insight in the matter of 3 sentences was a lot.

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell

funny lighthearted fast-paced

4.0

Extremely cute and funnier than expected. I’ll just have to pretend it’s already autumn…