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emergencily's reviews
116 reviews
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
I thought the first half of the novel, about Eva's mother's life and Eva's childhood and adolescence, was stronger than the second half when Eva is an adult. The sense of magic and fantasy in her world eventually disappears and the book starts to revolve around her stumbling into conveniently placed political subplots that wrap up neatly, and romances that play her as a waiting damsel. Her character in adulthood loses the rebellious spirit and chaos she had as a child. I wish the book had done more with the idea of magic in her powers of storytelling and how it impacts her world. I also wish more had been done with the politics beyond it just existing in the background setting. Eva's character is largely apolitical until it suits whichever man she's in love with, which seems a shame.
I wanted to fall in love with this as much as I did with "The House of the Spirits" (one of my all-time favourites), but I didn't. Nevertheless, Allende's writing style is beautiful and her descriptions of the world really make it seem magical and otherworldly.
3.5
Narrated in omniscient first person by the titular protagonist, Eva Luna, as she recounts the story of her life in an unnamed semi-fictional South American country in the early 20th century. The story starts with her mother Consuelo's tumultuous childhood, following Eva Luna's birth and coming of age. She flits from employer to employer as a young serving girl, finds and loses members of a found family, gets caught up in the political turmoil of her country's military coups and attempts at communist revolution, finds love in father figures (ew) and lost childhood friends, and eventually makes her way in the world as a famed writer.
I thought the first half of the novel, about Eva's mother's life and Eva's childhood and adolescence, was stronger than the second half when Eva is an adult. The sense of magic and fantasy in her world eventually disappears and the book starts to revolve around her stumbling into conveniently placed political subplots that wrap up neatly, and romances that play her as a waiting damsel. Her character in adulthood loses the rebellious spirit and chaos she had as a child. I wish the book had done more with the idea of magic in her powers of storytelling and how it impacts her world. I also wish more had been done with the politics beyond it just existing in the background setting. Eva's character is largely apolitical until it suits whichever man she's in love with, which seems a shame.
I wanted to fall in love with this as much as I did with "The House of the Spirits" (one of my all-time favourites), but I didn't. Nevertheless, Allende's writing style is beautiful and her descriptions of the world really make it seem magical and otherworldly.
Howls from the Dark Ages: An Anthology of Medieval Horror by Solomon Forse, P.L. McMillan
4.0
An anthology of medieval horror stories. Overall a strong anthology with a clear thematic direction. I also loved the queer themes in multiple stories. A few stories are set outside of the European Dark Ages in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Normally, I'd love that inclusion, but I actually wasn't sure if the settings outside medieval Europe worked for the anthology. Great stories alone, but I felt they didn't hold up the anthology's strong, recurring themes of the unique horrors wrought specifically by European colonialism & Christianity -- e.g. the religious Crusades, the hierarchical Great Chain of Being, the mass fervors of witch hunting, the tortures and punishment of Catholicism.
My favourite stories:
My favourite stories:
- "The Mouth of Hell" -- a knight expedition sets off into a lawless valley town abandoned by the Church. Seeking to rescue his knight master after he is dragged off into the night, a naive young knight descends into a hellish pit that is said to be the gateway to hell. The vividly described body horror and twisting of Christian doctrine onto its head in this story is nasty disgusting and terrifying. Exactly what I wanted out of this anthology.
- "Brother Cornelius" -- a pair of young monks in training stumble upon a hidden room in their monastery, and then have to use the power of teamwork, Gregorian chants, and ass trumpets (literal) to seal a demon. Manages to somehow be both hilarious and terrifying.
- "The Final Book of Sainte Foy's Miracles" -- a young boy makes a pilgrimage with his father to visit the Church of Saint Foy, child saint and patron of the wretched, famed for her double-edged miracles. After she grants his wish for his abusive father to drop dead, he is haunted by her until he makes another pilgrimage to offer his service to her. I loved the depiction of Saint Foy as both childishly mischievous and cruel, and her miracles as being both a blessing and curse (and potentially a lil demonic)
- "A Dark Quadrivium" -- a scholar translates the forbidden, supernatural knowledge of a mysterious tome guarded by a heretic cult, and, finding the truth of his world overturned, goes mad and commits atrocities to open a gateway to another hellish world. Crazy time and space-bending cosmic and Lovecraftian horrors. Nasty body horror & gore galore
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Gore
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
4.0
okay so murakami is capable of writing female characters with some amount of depth beyond stilted descriptions of their breasts and ears sometimes. thank christ!!! i thought he actually had some interesting depth to the women in this story for once, reflecting on objectification, voyeurism, and intrusion on women’s private spaces and inner worlds.
set in an unnamed entertainment district (probably shinjuku) in late night tokyo, in the weird and magical witching hours between the last train home at midnight and the first trains out at dawn. follows a small cast of separate characters, telling a snippet of a different person’s night in each chapter. all these characters are tangentially connected in some way, as ships passing in the night: a college girl who spends her overnight smoking in denny’s rather than going home; her beautiful, Snow White-like sister, unconscious in a long lasting and inexplicable sleep; the faceless man who watches her sleep in another realm behind her TV screen; a former showman-style women’s wrestler turned love hotel owner; and more.
if i can best describe the vibe of this book, it would be edward hopper’s painting “nighthawks.” to me, this is a love letter to the magic of night time in the city: the blissful autonomy of solitude in the cover of darkness; the kind of vulnerability you can only share in fleeting, nighttime encounters with people you may never see again; sitting in those ordinary places that transform into liminal spaces after dark (shoutout denny’s after midnight); and the certain knowledge that in a few hours, the sun is going to rise, and you are going to take the first train back home.
set in an unnamed entertainment district (probably shinjuku) in late night tokyo, in the weird and magical witching hours between the last train home at midnight and the first trains out at dawn. follows a small cast of separate characters, telling a snippet of a different person’s night in each chapter. all these characters are tangentially connected in some way, as ships passing in the night: a college girl who spends her overnight smoking in denny’s rather than going home; her beautiful, Snow White-like sister, unconscious in a long lasting and inexplicable sleep; the faceless man who watches her sleep in another realm behind her TV screen; a former showman-style women’s wrestler turned love hotel owner; and more.
if i can best describe the vibe of this book, it would be edward hopper’s painting “nighthawks.” to me, this is a love letter to the magic of night time in the city: the blissful autonomy of solitude in the cover of darkness; the kind of vulnerability you can only share in fleeting, nighttime encounters with people you may never see again; sitting in those ordinary places that transform into liminal spaces after dark (shoutout denny’s after midnight); and the certain knowledge that in a few hours, the sun is going to rise, and you are going to take the first train back home.
A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain
5.0
rest in peace to a chainsmoking, shit talking legend. i almost considered dropping the book after the first 1-2 chapters - we all love the guy, but frankly he could be a bit of a dick, and sometimes bought into american chauvinism beyond the ironic sense. his tv show host charisma didn't at first translate as well on page as on the tv screen for me, but i forced myself to keep reading. once i made it to the france chapter where he visits his childhood town with his brother, it made me remember his charms and continue reading with a more forgiving, open mind.
he had a lot of respect and admiration for the people and places he visited. the way he talked about other cultures' food with so much genuine admiration of their knowledge, and open-mindedness to their practices as a white american tv show host in 2001 was probably pretty singular at a time when racist dog eating jokes were commonly accepted as hilarious. he gives other cultures, whose food and practices are often disdained, their flowers. what other white guy in the 2000s was proudly telling the world that vietnamese baguettes could be better than french ones? his philosophy of nothing being put to waste, and of using all the ingredients and cuts of meat that the west turn their nose up at, rings truer than ever today.
i dug up the old 2001 show that he was filming while writing this book to watch in accompaniment, which made it much richer. watching certain sequences was much funnier, knowing that he was so drunk he could barely hide his slur when forced to reshoot establishing shots in russia, or when he got sick out of his mind after eating cow’s head. i've only seen him in CNN's parts unknown when he was much older and jaded, so it was both refreshing and wistful to watch his first show and see him young with a pep in his step and a sparkle in his eye.
i think everyone knows him primarily as a tv show host (apart from being a chef, ofc), but i think he would much rather be identified as a writer than "the guy on TV." his love of writing really shows in this book, and i was surprised by how simply beautiful his prose could be at times. also, he's really fucking funny - he might be even funnier in writing than he is on tv.
he had a lot of respect and admiration for the people and places he visited. the way he talked about other cultures' food with so much genuine admiration of their knowledge, and open-mindedness to their practices as a white american tv show host in 2001 was probably pretty singular at a time when racist dog eating jokes were commonly accepted as hilarious. he gives other cultures, whose food and practices are often disdained, their flowers. what other white guy in the 2000s was proudly telling the world that vietnamese baguettes could be better than french ones? his philosophy of nothing being put to waste, and of using all the ingredients and cuts of meat that the west turn their nose up at, rings truer than ever today.
i dug up the old 2001 show that he was filming while writing this book to watch in accompaniment, which made it much richer. watching certain sequences was much funnier, knowing that he was so drunk he could barely hide his slur when forced to reshoot establishing shots in russia, or when he got sick out of his mind after eating cow’s head. i've only seen him in CNN's parts unknown when he was much older and jaded, so it was both refreshing and wistful to watch his first show and see him young with a pep in his step and a sparkle in his eye.
i think everyone knows him primarily as a tv show host (apart from being a chef, ofc), but i think he would much rather be identified as a writer than "the guy on TV." his love of writing really shows in this book, and i was surprised by how simply beautiful his prose could be at times. also, he's really fucking funny - he might be even funnier in writing than he is on tv.
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi
5.0
an extremely raw, honest and vulnerable autobiographical manga about the author's lifelong struggles with mental illness, self-harm, and eating disorders. throughout the manga she reflects on her troubled relationship with her family’s expectations, the pressure of sociocultural norms to conform, and her own troubles understanding her gender and sexuality. the story is focused on her inner emotional world as she self reflects and psychoanalyses herself, with the pivotal story beat centered on her having her first sexual experience at age 28 with a hired lesbian escort, while she traces the events that got her into this situation. seeing the mental and physical pits she falls into is painful but watching her slowly learn to care for herself and try to take back the reins in her life is beautiful. in short, it’s a 28 yr old lesbian's coming of age story. more than anything, i am rooting for the author ❤️
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder and Self harm
Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu by Junji Ito
4.0
a short manga by famous horror mangaka, juno ito, about his domestic life with his two cats. this made me laugh out loud soooo many times. he’s so reknowned for his horror, but he actually has such a knack for impeccable comedic timing and set up. the juxtaposition of his dark, atmospheric horror art style with unexpectedly silly and humourous anecdotes about his cats was so damn good. a really charming and heartwarming read, with a surprisingly emotional final chapter and an extra about the 2011 earthquake. itll be a fun cute read for anyone, i think to fully enjoy this, you prob have to be a cat lover!
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
3.25
- i'll grant that this was a page-turner because i wanted to know what would happen next, but i was disappointed at how predictably everything played out
- this horror/thriller book follows the chinese-american female protagonist, who, having left her promising pianist career, is now working dead-end jobs to support the medical care of her parents after a car accident. she lands a job at a retail store that is part of an expansive beauty & healthcare empire, whose controversial and experimental treatments are reminiscent of gwyneth paltrow's goop. as part of the job, she is expected to participate in increasingly invasive and disturbingly transformative beauty procedures
- the book satirizes the superficial and capitalistic self-care & beauty industry, while critiquing eurocentric & misogynistic beauty standards, and highlights the horrors of reproductive control -- but it does all of this in such a predictably obvious way that it really ends up being rather uninteresting
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, and Trafficking
Queer in Asia by Seven
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
5.0
- an autobiographical graphic novel translated from its original chinese
- narrated by tian fushi, a young queer chinese man, as he navigates his brief encounters & fragmented relationships with fellow queers, outcasts, and misfits on the margins of society
- a non-linear plot that jumps across time & place, grounded by a cast of characters that the narrative continually revisits as they float in and out of tian fushi's life, and their transformative effect on him
- a queer coming of age story that doesn't shy away from being messy, vulgar, and ugly
- stunning art that blends textures, neon colours, distortions, and real photography; pays a lot of homage to the classics of hong kong cinema
- side note: outdated language referring to trans ppl - unsure if it’s the translation, cultural differences in queer language, reflection of author’s ignorance, or an intended part of tian fushi’s immature and typically callous youth as a character
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault, Suicide, and Transphobia