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hernamewaslily's reviews
237 reviews
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
5.0
Prior to reading The Mars Room, I had mixed feelings about the topic of this book. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing I’d be into, but I was already a fan of Kushner having read The Flamethrowers earlier this year, so I felt compelled to pick it up and give it a go. And I’m so glad I did. It is an incredible, harrowing tale that takes the reader inside a women’s prison where the texts protagonist, Romy Hall, is serving two life sentences murdering her stalker. It is, I suppose, a modern abolitionist text; I can’t imagine someone reading this and not walking away from it with the opinion that prisons are - and the prison industrial complex at large is - cruel and inhumane, and, quite frankly, doesn’t actually deter people from committing crimes. Although the content is incredibly sad and hard to read at times, Kushner has great control of her prose, which is so precise, and is an adept storyteller which makes you want to keep reading. I think she is one of the greatest living writers today and I am very much a fan.
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Set in 1851 and told from the point of view of Eli Sisters, a loveable rogue type, The Sisters Brothers is a picaresque novel which follows the notorious Sisters brothers, Eli and Charlie, as they make their way from Oregon City to California in order to find and kill a man called Hermann Kermit Warm, a prospector who has supposedly stolen something from the Sisters' boss, the Commodore. As they make their way to California they meet a number of colourful characters along the way - some who they take pity on, like the abandoned 15 year old who just wants to get back to his unrequited back home, and others that they don’t, such as a trio of menacing hunters. When the men finally reach California, they realise that things are not quite as they seem and Warm has something that could change everything and makes them question their boss’s intentions.
The novel’s strength really is its main characters, Eli and Charlie, and their relationship which feels incredibly realistic; at times they want to kill each other yet all they have is each other (although you only get a glimpse into their past, it goes a long way into understanding their situation). I also liked the various characters the two meet throughout their journey, who not only help with the novel's pacing and world building, but add a much needed humour.
On a deeper level, the book explores man’s relationship to nature and the ecological effects of modernity (there’s a particularly poignant bit to do with a horse but I won’t spoil it). Which I think ties into the broader historical context of the foundation of the U.S. and the formulation of the American dream. It is also about masculinity and ageing, and, obviously, brotherhood.
This novel isn’t ground-breaking, it features a rather simple narrative and is quite contained, but it’s really well executed and has made it as one of my favourite books. It also gave me big Red Dead Redemption 2 vibes (which I am currently playing) not only in terms of setting/genre/theme, but by the ways in which the different characters interact, particularly the random encounters that are very reminiscent to the gameplay (if you’ve played it, you’ll understand what I mean if you read the book).
The novel’s strength really is its main characters, Eli and Charlie, and their relationship which feels incredibly realistic; at times they want to kill each other yet all they have is each other (although you only get a glimpse into their past, it goes a long way into understanding their situation). I also liked the various characters the two meet throughout their journey, who not only help with the novel's pacing and world building, but add a much needed humour.
On a deeper level, the book explores man’s relationship to nature and the ecological effects of modernity (there’s a particularly poignant bit to do with a horse but I won’t spoil it). Which I think ties into the broader historical context of the foundation of the U.S. and the formulation of the American dream. It is also about masculinity and ageing, and, obviously, brotherhood.
This novel isn’t ground-breaking, it features a rather simple narrative and is quite contained, but it’s really well executed and has made it as one of my favourite books. It also gave me big Red Dead Redemption 2 vibes (which I am currently playing) not only in terms of setting/genre/theme, but by the ways in which the different characters interact, particularly the random encounters that are very reminiscent to the gameplay (if you’ve played it, you’ll understand what I mean if you read the book).
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
3.0
Harlem Shuffle is a crime fiction novel that takes place in Harlem between 1959-1964 and follows Ray Carney, a black furniture salesman, and his attempts to resist criminality on account of the fact that his father was a notorious criminal. Despite this, Carney occasionally dips his toe into the murky waters of crime for some extra cash to support his family, operating as a fence for stolen goods. But when his cousin, Freddie, tells him about a high-stakes heist of a luxury hotel, The Hotel Theresa, Carney becomes embroiled in Harlem’s criminal underbelly and spends the rest of the novel suffering the consequences.
The book deals with some heavy themes (crime, colourism, drug addiction, class, racism, police corruption), yet Whitehead manages to keep the tone of book lighthearted with his comical prose.
Yet it’s is also because of this lightheartedness that the novel failed to capture my attention as nothing feels at stake throughout the narrative. This is not helped by the fact that the text is written in the past tense, so we already know that Carney will be okay in the end.
Whitehead does, however, do a great job at evoking Harlem through descriptions of it’s people and it’s landmarks, as well as it’s atmosphere, which reaches its apex at the end of the novel which takes place during the 1964 riots.
I love a bit of mid-century crime fiction and/or crime fiction set in this period, but this novel just didn’t do it for me. It’s not that I didn’t like this book, I did, but it didn’t capture my attention; I didn’t feel excited to read it. Put more simply, Harlem Shuffle is a fine enough book, but it had a lot more potential to be great. (I think it would make for a great television adaption, however).
The book deals with some heavy themes (crime, colourism, drug addiction, class, racism, police corruption), yet Whitehead manages to keep the tone of book lighthearted with his comical prose.
Yet it’s is also because of this lightheartedness that the novel failed to capture my attention as nothing feels at stake throughout the narrative. This is not helped by the fact that the text is written in the past tense, so we already know that Carney will be okay in the end.
Whitehead does, however, do a great job at evoking Harlem through descriptions of it’s people and it’s landmarks, as well as it’s atmosphere, which reaches its apex at the end of the novel which takes place during the 1964 riots.
I love a bit of mid-century crime fiction and/or crime fiction set in this period, but this novel just didn’t do it for me. It’s not that I didn’t like this book, I did, but it didn’t capture my attention; I didn’t feel excited to read it. Put more simply, Harlem Shuffle is a fine enough book, but it had a lot more potential to be great. (I think it would make for a great television adaption, however).