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gilroi's reviews
533 reviews
The Stars Undying by Emery Robin
adventurous
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
What is conquest, and what is empire, and what is religion? These are questions The Stars Undying flirts with, but is uninterested in fully answering. Instead, it spends most of its words detailing the lives of Cleopatra, Caesar, and Mark Antony in some reincarnated mode that is both slavish to detail-- multiple facts about these historical figures are awkwardly replicated in this SciFi adventure even when it's unnecessary to the plot-- and totally uncomprehending of the historical figures real weight. The things that are changed barely make sense at first, until I realized the intention was to make these figures less complicated, more consumable, more sympathetic, less problematic.
Was Caesar a tyrant who ended the last vestiges of republicanism in ancient Rome? Was there anything worth saving in Rome's horrible bloodbath of an empire? Was Egypt culpable in these wars? Was its sovereignty truly worth preserving when it was ruled over by a foreign queen? These are questions the book is aware of, but doggedly ignores.
It also makes the odd choice to obscure and deemphasize the historically significant Roman women of the period. Servilia and Aurelia are dead, Calpurnia is gender-bent, Fulvia is declawed, but this is okay because... Antony is a girl, and Brutus is nonbinary, and Cato and Pompey are also women? Hurray.
I rarely ask for books to be longer. In general I think they should be shorter. This book's pacing was incredibly fast and deftly balanced! But in the service of that rapidity, it left out a great amount of detail, meaning, and nuance. The book's focus is clearly on the romance, the great imperial saga, the tragedy and the agony, the ambition and the grace! But for what? These things don't exist without context, and the writing relies on the preexisting template (Antony and Cleopatra and the end of the late Republican period in Rome) for those details. In trying to balance both, it serves neither.
Here is a statement the book does not make, though it delves constantly into the idea of death and immortality: The dead, especially the ancient dead, are symbols to us. What we say about them says more about us than them. What this book says about the ancient dead is that they are glorious, fascinating, and romantic.
But it doesn't know why.
Was Caesar a tyrant who ended the last vestiges of republicanism in ancient Rome? Was there anything worth saving in Rome's horrible bloodbath of an empire? Was Egypt culpable in these wars? Was its sovereignty truly worth preserving when it was ruled over by a foreign queen? These are questions the book is aware of, but doggedly ignores.
It also makes the odd choice to obscure and deemphasize the historically significant Roman women of the period. Servilia and Aurelia are dead, Calpurnia is gender-bent, Fulvia is declawed, but this is okay because... Antony is a girl, and Brutus is nonbinary, and Cato and Pompey are also women? Hurray.
I rarely ask for books to be longer. In general I think they should be shorter. This book's pacing was incredibly fast and deftly balanced! But in the service of that rapidity, it left out a great amount of detail, meaning, and nuance. The book's focus is clearly on the romance, the great imperial saga, the tragedy and the agony, the ambition and the grace! But for what? These things don't exist without context, and the writing relies on the preexisting template (Antony and Cleopatra and the end of the late Republican period in Rome) for those details. In trying to balance both, it serves neither.
Here is a statement the book does not make, though it delves constantly into the idea of death and immortality: The dead, especially the ancient dead, are symbols to us. What we say about them says more about us than them. What this book says about the ancient dead is that they are glorious, fascinating, and romantic.
But it doesn't know why.
The Whitewash by Siang Lu
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
People will sell you this book as a comedy, and it is. It's hilarious! But it's also got some genuinely thoughtful, deep shit to say about self-loathing, the nature of entertainment, and the moral axis of representation and whitewashing in Hollywood.
Insane Emperors, Sunken Cities, and Earthquake Machines: More Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans by Garrett Ryan
funny
informative
medium-paced
3.0
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
challenging
dark
funny
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
What is prayer? What is faith? What is the division between holiness and the nature of the world? Is the world inherently innocent and pure, when untouched by man's hand? Is all love selfish? Is it possible to selfishly love god?
This is an amazing novel, but not for the faint of heart. There's no one to root for. There's very little action. It's gross and enjoys its grossness. Nothing happens like how you'd expect. Even the expectations of genre-- this is nominally a historical fiction novel, or perhaps a fantasy?-- are casually cast aside. When we talk about subverting tropes, we rarely describe them in the way this novel casts them aside. No one is purely good or evil, but they're not 'grey' heroes written with sympathy and nobility. Everyone has their own way of looking at the world, and it's all valid, and that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of Lapvona.
No one knows anything. They just know how they feel.
Is god an unkind father, a silly lord or a somber man, a fool who doesn't know the world around them? Is god anything at all? Is god just what you make for yourself? This very Marxist novel never sneers at faith, but it does take a keen interest how, exactly, one can live if your entire life is hinged upon an opiate. While I wouldn't call the book anti-religious so much as highly skeptical of organized religion (specifically in the way it was constructed-- or believed to be constructed, it's not like this book is concerned with historical accuracy-- in a feudalist medieval period), I can say this book will disappoint more dogmatically religious readers. But I also think that's kind of what it's trying to do in the first place. Just as it's trying to wiggle out of the expectation of genre, of needing sympathetic characters, of having coincidence converge happily, of reunions and rebirth and positive character growth.
Read this novel if you want a dark-- and darkly funny-- view of a very troubled town, with very fractured, selfish and cruel people populating it. And read it if you want to find out how these awful little humans are still, somehow, deserving of love.
This is an amazing novel, but not for the faint of heart. There's no one to root for. There's very little action. It's gross and enjoys its grossness. Nothing happens like how you'd expect. Even the expectations of genre-- this is nominally a historical fiction novel, or perhaps a fantasy?-- are casually cast aside. When we talk about subverting tropes, we rarely describe them in the way this novel casts them aside. No one is purely good or evil, but they're not 'grey' heroes written with sympathy and nobility. Everyone has their own way of looking at the world, and it's all valid, and that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of Lapvona.
No one knows anything. They just know how they feel.
Is god an unkind father, a silly lord or a somber man, a fool who doesn't know the world around them? Is god anything at all? Is god just what you make for yourself? This very Marxist novel never sneers at faith, but it does take a keen interest how, exactly, one can live if your entire life is hinged upon an opiate. While I wouldn't call the book anti-religious so much as highly skeptical of organized religion (specifically in the way it was constructed-- or believed to be constructed, it's not like this book is concerned with historical accuracy-- in a feudalist medieval period), I can say this book will disappoint more dogmatically religious readers. But I also think that's kind of what it's trying to do in the first place. Just as it's trying to wiggle out of the expectation of genre, of needing sympathetic characters, of having coincidence converge happily, of reunions and rebirth and positive character growth.
Read this novel if you want a dark-- and darkly funny-- view of a very troubled town, with very fractured, selfish and cruel people populating it. And read it if you want to find out how these awful little humans are still, somehow, deserving of love.
Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book is a continuation from My Heart Is A Chainsaw in more ways than one (obviously). It not only completes and continues to further flesh out the themes of the previous works, but exacerbates the flaws. Jones has this way of writing where it often feels like it takes 3 pages for one thing to happen, be it a conversation or a slasher show down, because revelations and stray thoughts are piled on top of each other. It makes the pacing treacle slow, even with a novel that starts out bloody and has no bloated second act like the first in this trilogy.
Likewise... some of the character development felt, well, under-developed, even though logically I know this isn't true. The choice to make this book multipov, to take us out of Jade's head, means that Jade doesn't have enough time to shine. Though I may be biased; I read for more Jade.
All that complaining aside, this is a solid novel, and its flaws are largely technical bugbears. The story and characters are joyfully coherent, and the themes continue to grow and change in a way I find refreshingly authentic.
Likewise... some of the character development felt, well, under-developed, even though logically I know this isn't true. The choice to make this book multipov, to take us out of Jade's head, means that Jade doesn't have enough time to shine. Though I may be biased; I read for more Jade.
All that complaining aside, this is a solid novel, and its flaws are largely technical bugbears. The story and characters are joyfully coherent, and the themes continue to grow and change in a way I find refreshingly authentic.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Jones is kind of a messy writer, and I've come to expect that. I like his writing, I like his ideas and the way he gets them across, but pacing is his weakest skill, and occasionally the plot feels tied together in chunks rather than one coherent narrative. On these scores, My Heart Is A Chainsaw is head and shoulders above The Only Good Indians, but it still has its twitchy vestigial failings that feel like a few more run-throughs with an editor could have fixed.
Whatever, though? Conceptually, this book is excellent. I really liked The Final Girl Support Group, but this one blows it out of the water. I try not to compare books that don't have much to do with each other, but TFGSG and MHIAC are made from the same stuff. They're both about women and trauma, how we conceptualize media, what a 'final girl' means, but MHIAC feels more honest and authentic in ways I find difficult to pinpoint. Maybe it's because there's no layer of leery judgement, or no power of female friendship Hail Mary. Who knows. Maybe Jones is just a cleaner writer thematically. The book is awesome, though, that's what I'm saying. I loved Jade, and I can't wait to read more about her.
Whatever, though? Conceptually, this book is excellent. I really liked The Final Girl Support Group, but this one blows it out of the water. I try not to compare books that don't have much to do with each other, but TFGSG and MHIAC are made from the same stuff. They're both about women and trauma, how we conceptualize media, what a 'final girl' means, but MHIAC feels more honest and authentic in ways I find difficult to pinpoint. Maybe it's because there's no layer of leery judgement, or no power of female friendship Hail Mary. Who knows. Maybe Jones is just a cleaner writer thematically. The book is awesome, though, that's what I'm saying. I loved Jade, and I can't wait to read more about her.
Dictator by Robert Harris
hopeful
informative
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
How do you rate a book that is, in matters of prose and pacing and theme, excellent, but utterly fails what you, personally, want it to do? This is a problem I've wrestled with in the entirety of Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy, and at its closing, I am left unable to answer.
The book itself is entirely concerned with Cicero. Cicero's life, and Cicero's dreams, and Cicero's death. Cicero as a man, and Cicero's ambitions. It is barely interested in Rome as a polity, largely letting any commentary on the state of Rome serve as a metaphor for the state of either Germany before and during Hitler's rise to power, or a sort of warning for England-- pick your least favorite PM, and Caesar is him, just as Caesar is occasionally Hitler.
I am not interested in this metaphor. I am barely interested in Cicero as a man. Cicero has received an amount of attention, since his death and during his life, that was controlled expertly from beyond the grave. The book plays with this theme a little, but it's afraid to castigate Cicero, who it places in a role of most atheistic martyrdom. Cicero's reputation is sacrosanct within the book and outside it-- people love Cicero today, piling him with praise and adulation, writing fiction about him, studying his words two millennium after his death. That's the world we live in, and it's the world of the book.
And that's the <i>scope</i> of the book. The book doesn't <i>want</i> to talk about Cicero's flaws-- the big flaws, the human failings, not the political missteps and gaffes-- and that's usually fine for me. I try to pay attention to what a book actually <i>wants</i> to do, so I'm not disappointed by it failing to live up to an impossible standard that I've created in my head.
So why am I so disappointed with this book and the series in general, even though it expertly does everything it sets out to do?
The books are narrated by Tiro, an enslaved man. Tiro is possibly one of, if not the most, famous enslaved people to have lived in ancient Rome. Tiro tells this story, but it's not Tiro's story. Tiro talks about Cicero, a man who owned him, with rapturous praise. Cicero never mistreats Tiro, because Cicero is a good master. Indeed, there is almost no mistreatment of slaves throughout the entire trilogy, because then the writing would have to focus on the lives of slaves and question whether a state that allowed, endorsed, and arguably <i>ran on</i> slavery was moral or immoral. Harris doesn't care about that, so he skips it, but I care about it, and its total absence from this trilogy, written from the perspective of an enslaved man, feels like a yawning chasm at the heart of the story.
The book itself is entirely concerned with Cicero. Cicero's life, and Cicero's dreams, and Cicero's death. Cicero as a man, and Cicero's ambitions. It is barely interested in Rome as a polity, largely letting any commentary on the state of Rome serve as a metaphor for the state of either Germany before and during Hitler's rise to power, or a sort of warning for England-- pick your least favorite PM, and Caesar is him, just as Caesar is occasionally Hitler.
I am not interested in this metaphor. I am barely interested in Cicero as a man. Cicero has received an amount of attention, since his death and during his life, that was controlled expertly from beyond the grave. The book plays with this theme a little, but it's afraid to castigate Cicero, who it places in a role of most atheistic martyrdom. Cicero's reputation is sacrosanct within the book and outside it-- people love Cicero today, piling him with praise and adulation, writing fiction about him, studying his words two millennium after his death. That's the world we live in, and it's the world of the book.
And that's the <i>scope</i> of the book. The book doesn't <i>want</i> to talk about Cicero's flaws-- the big flaws, the human failings, not the political missteps and gaffes-- and that's usually fine for me. I try to pay attention to what a book actually <i>wants</i> to do, so I'm not disappointed by it failing to live up to an impossible standard that I've created in my head.
So why am I so disappointed with this book and the series in general, even though it expertly does everything it sets out to do?
The books are narrated by Tiro, an enslaved man. Tiro is possibly one of, if not the most, famous enslaved people to have lived in ancient Rome. Tiro tells this story, but it's not Tiro's story. Tiro talks about Cicero, a man who owned him, with rapturous praise. Cicero never mistreats Tiro, because Cicero is a good master. Indeed, there is almost no mistreatment of slaves throughout the entire trilogy, because then the writing would have to focus on the lives of slaves and question whether a state that allowed, endorsed, and arguably <i>ran on</i> slavery was moral or immoral. Harris doesn't care about that, so he skips it, but I care about it, and its total absence from this trilogy, written from the perspective of an enslaved man, feels like a yawning chasm at the heart of the story.
Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves: The Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book One by Sidney Thompson
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
2.5
A promising and engaging start, the novel sadly devolves as the author clearly wants to write about, but isn't interested in, the Civil War. I've read plenty of war novels, and this book feels that disclosing the details of the war is necessary, but not very interesting. Those middle chapters drag and drag and drag.
Search and Rescue Woods by Kerry Hammond
dark
relaxing
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
The Freedman in the Roman World by Mouritsen
An excellent and comprehensive look at an underappreciated and rarely acknowledged people. While the book has a habit of repeating its conclusions, they bear repeating. Mercifully easy to read even if you aren't an academic-- the work is dry but never obtuse. A must-read if you have any interest in the Roman non-elite.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.5