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jefferz's reviews
132 reviews
All This and More by Peng Shepherd
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
There’s honestly a lot of great ideas going on in Peng Shepherd's All This & More including science fiction time and reality bending, second chance life choices and romance, an underlying mystery revolving around the unreleased tv show season, and the unsettling appearance of Chrysalis. This is all done on top of a “Choose your own adventure” branching storyline book setup. Yet despite how ambitious and creative Peng’s concepts are on paper, it was amazing how uninteresting and tedious this was for me to read. I don’t know what it was exactly, but this book felt heavily catered towards suburban mother book club members in their late 30’s to 40’s based on Marsh’s characterization and the tone. I thought the Choose your own adventure concept and branching choices were decently executed but the pacing, unusual choices in focal points, and Marsh’s character were all not to my taste and squandered the excellent premise.
Also to properly review and critique the book in its full entirety, I went back and read through every potential choice including any parallel sections and each short ending. An unrelated nice touch though was the "System Error, you shouldn't be here" due to cheating and not following the correct choice page prompts. I also read this book on an ebook copy which made it very easy to jump and review past missed choices.
Starting with All This & More’s strongest element, the Choose Your Own adventure concept was done decently well, though there were areas that it could’ve been improved on. I liked that the book had a “recommended” route to help guide along less adventurous readers or those who over-analyze and struggle to make their choices. The overall story felt like it was written in order to fit into the Choose Your Own Adventure gimmick, and it largely worked at the cost of the overall reading experience which I’ll get into shortly. Despite liking the gimmick, the first half of the novel felt like it wasted its biggest selling point by not differentiating each route or choice enough. Despite sending Marsh to drastically different points of her life and focusing on different aspects such as her marriage, career, or life balance, each choice largely felt like the same content with only slight presentation differences and sharing mostly the same end result. I read another highly amusing review that raged that the most adventurous and extreme choice you could choose for Marsh was a prospective threesome, and I whole-heartedly agree that it was an hilariously poor idea both in narrative terms and in reader interest. Regardless of which choice you make, all three options give you an option to circle back to the others which I was split on. In addition, Marsh almost fights the changes at every opportunity. On one-hand it made it easy to see what the other routes are from a completionist and critical reading standpoint, but it also made the Choose Your Own Adventure gimmick to feel inconsequential with the stakes drastically lowered.
Related to the first half of the book feeling stagnant and the same, a lot of this has to do with the main character Marsh. While I generally don’t have problems with older female main characters themselves, I found Marsh to be particularly tiring to read due to her passively avoidant personality coupled with Peng’s tendency for overreactions at seemingly minor developments. Despite being picked to be the star of a tv-show that can change any past choice and life trajectory, Marsh spends the entire first half of the book freaking out about every little choice she makes despite nearly none of them being what most consider “adventurous”. The internal character voice and thought process, despite being well-written in character, was so socially unintelligent and unaware of what was going on around her that I was longing for something sci-fi themed to come out and whack her on the head. Her complete disinterest or ignorance in the unusual things happening around her or just having illogically ordered priorities were just too much for me to care what happened to her (honestly, at one point I started to consider Marsh to be the true villain of the story ruining everything and everyone around her). I’m not sure whether to point the criticism at Peng’s execution of Marsh’s decision-making or the poorly designed conflicts that contributed to Marsh and Dylan’s divorce, but one of, if not both of them, needed to be beefed up to make Marsh’s journey less baffling and slow to read.
Outside of Marsh, the character work also felt lackluster overall. Despite the obvious intent to be a foil to Marsh and written so that you side with her, her conflicts with Dylan felt entirely contrived and quite trivial. Worse, the more I kept reading, the more I sympathized with Dylan and felt like Marsh was at fault regardless of how much the book wants you to blame Dylan. Marsh’s blindness to what obviously went wrong in their relationship and inability to address it had me questioning how dumb the reader was expected to be in order to buy the scenario being served. Marsh’s other love interest Ren suffers from entirely different issues of being bland and “perfect” with no substance to his personality. This is partly by design for the story and to contrast Dylan and for spoiler-related reasons, but he still felt like poorly developed despite having a considerable amount of pages to work with. This makes it overly easy for the reader to gravitate towards Dylan despite the book clearly wanting you to go with the 2nd chance at love choice in Ren. Scientific twin experts Ezra and Lev are more distinctive but have such brief appearances that they have much impact on the overall reading experience.
As the book transitions to its second half, Marsh makes the much-needed decision to finally be more adventurous. Unfortunately the plotting in this part comes off as being entirely unhinged and random. Rather than sticking to Marsh’s career in law like the first half, the second half throws Marsh into various different careers and locations including an environmental photographer, a telenovela actress, lawyers in various countries, etc. I was initially excited for the change as it reminded me of The Midnight Library. Unfortunately unlike the Midnight Library, these crazy life shifts felt like random tangents instead of contributing to the core storyline and mystery. This all occurs while Marsh seemingly decides to throw caution to the wind and to do 180 reverse uno on her mantra of balancing what’s best for others with her own happiness. Yet again the book tries to use these poor choices as a set up for a moral character development moment, but it's so obvious, and quite out of character, that it instead made me care about Marsh even less. It’s a sign that something went wrong with the storytelling when you find Jo, Marsh’s best friend, to be more compelling when she’s not even a critical character to the plot.
Despite the much needed infusion of the science fiction elements and plot reveals that are part of the book’s genre and marketing, the last 25% of the book felt quite messy despite its creative ideas. Perhaps my standards are a bit high since I read a decent amount of hard science fiction novels, but I found the explanations and science behind how the Bubble works to be woefully crude and unbelievable. Despite having the season star and the shows’ production staff included within the bubble, I never could understand just how changes made in the bubble were reflected outside of it (or perhaps that’s a narrative choice that wasn’t developed enough). Is the bubble even a tangible thing or is it a metaphorical science concept, I’m not sure because so little is written about it. The concept of one person’s actions and life changing without affecting others outside of “the bubble” also doesn’t make any sense and conflicts with just about every branching/parallel world theory out there. To make matters worse, the book tries to throw out plot twists and reveals that should’ve been surprising in theory, yet landed flat due to not being set up properly (ie. revealing characters in unexpected places that have barely any screen time prior to their dramatic reappearance). While I liked the culprit behind Chrysalis and the season 2 cancellation, the actual Chrysalis itself and its imagery felt more like a “huh?” moment then an “ah-hah!” reaction. The unveiling of the mystery frankly brings up more questions than answers that the plot doesn’t even try to address, focusing only on closing out Marsh’s personal storyline and nothing else. The vision is definitely there and I can see what the book was trying to do with its flavor of science fiction, but I would keep expectations on the actual end result low.
It’s within this section that one of the book’s best split choices comes up. Though both routes ultimately branch back together at the season finale, this section was easily my favorite and the best executed “episode” of the book. In a similar fashion to The Matrix where the world and universe is broken, the two branches allies Marsh with either Lev or Ezra, the twin scientific technical advisors on the show’s staff. Marsh pairing off with Ezra revisits Marsh’s highschool years while Lev’s route runs Marsh through glitched out versions of her season’s later episodes. It’s a shame that in an initial readthrough, only one of these parts can be experienced. I ended up choosing Lev’s choice initially but jumped back to read the other, ultimately deciding that Ezra’s choice felt like it contributed more to Marsh's character than the other which had a more action thriller feel. Unfortunately regardless of which choice you take, both choices reconnect at the tv show season finale where you're offered three endings. Again, I felt like the endings were great in concept but lacking in substance. Each ending had only a single short chapter of content and while one was a decent, if open-ended, conclusion to the story, the other two left a lot to be desired.
At the end of the day, I appreciate All This & More’s ideas and concepts far more than what I actually read. While the Choose Your Own Adventure element was refreshing at times, I felt most of Peng’s effort went to working out the different choices splits while the actual storytelling fell by the wayside. To be honest, I could probably even overlook the questionable science fiction elements if the character work were stronger, but unfortunately just about everything felt sub-par one way or another which is a shame. 1.5 rounded up to 2 based on ambition alone, the consolation is that I am tempted to read one of Peng’s more standard novels (specifically The Cartographers) to see if her storytelling is stronger without the distracting choices gimmick. But as for All This & More, I don’t think I can recommend this one unless you are looking for the said suburban mom book club read.
Also to properly review and critique the book in its full entirety, I went back and read through every potential choice including any parallel sections and each short ending. An unrelated nice touch though was the "System Error, you shouldn't be here" due to cheating and not following the correct choice page prompts. I also read this book on an ebook copy which made it very easy to jump and review past missed choices.
Starting with All This & More’s strongest element, the Choose Your Own adventure concept was done decently well, though there were areas that it could’ve been improved on. I liked that the book had a “recommended” route to help guide along less adventurous readers or those who over-analyze and struggle to make their choices. The overall story felt like it was written in order to fit into the Choose Your Own Adventure gimmick, and it largely worked at the cost of the overall reading experience which I’ll get into shortly. Despite liking the gimmick, the first half of the novel felt like it wasted its biggest selling point by not differentiating each route or choice enough. Despite sending Marsh to drastically different points of her life and focusing on different aspects such as her marriage, career, or life balance, each choice largely felt like the same content with only slight presentation differences and sharing mostly the same end result. I read another highly amusing review that raged that the most adventurous and extreme choice you could choose for Marsh was a prospective threesome, and I whole-heartedly agree that it was an hilariously poor idea both in narrative terms and in reader interest. Regardless of which choice you make, all three options give you an option to circle back to the others which I was split on. In addition, Marsh almost fights the changes at every opportunity. On one-hand it made it easy to see what the other routes are from a completionist and critical reading standpoint, but it also made the Choose Your Own Adventure gimmick to feel inconsequential with the stakes drastically lowered.
Related to the first half of the book feeling stagnant and the same, a lot of this has to do with the main character Marsh. While I generally don’t have problems with older female main characters themselves, I found Marsh to be particularly tiring to read due to her passively avoidant personality coupled with Peng’s tendency for overreactions at seemingly minor developments. Despite being picked to be the star of a tv-show that can change any past choice and life trajectory, Marsh spends the entire first half of the book freaking out about every little choice she makes despite nearly none of them being what most consider “adventurous”. The internal character voice and thought process, despite being well-written in character, was so socially unintelligent and unaware of what was going on around her that I was longing for something sci-fi themed to come out and whack her on the head. Her complete disinterest or ignorance in the unusual things happening around her or just having illogically ordered priorities were just too much for me to care what happened to her (honestly, at one point I started to consider Marsh to be the true villain of the story ruining everything and everyone around her). I’m not sure whether to point the criticism at Peng’s execution of Marsh’s decision-making or the poorly designed conflicts that contributed to Marsh and Dylan’s divorce, but one of, if not both of them, needed to be beefed up to make Marsh’s journey less baffling and slow to read.
Outside of Marsh, the character work also felt lackluster overall. Despite the obvious intent to be a foil to Marsh and written so that you side with her, her conflicts with Dylan felt entirely contrived and quite trivial. Worse, the more I kept reading, the more I sympathized with Dylan and felt like Marsh was at fault regardless of how much the book wants you to blame Dylan. Marsh’s blindness to what obviously went wrong in their relationship and inability to address it had me questioning how dumb the reader was expected to be in order to buy the scenario being served. Marsh’s other love interest Ren suffers from entirely different issues of being bland and “perfect” with no substance to his personality. This is partly by design for the story and to contrast Dylan and for spoiler-related reasons, but he still felt like poorly developed despite having a considerable amount of pages to work with. This makes it overly easy for the reader to gravitate towards Dylan despite the book clearly wanting you to go with the 2nd chance at love choice in Ren. Scientific twin experts Ezra and Lev are more distinctive but have such brief appearances that they have much impact on the overall reading experience.
As the book transitions to its second half, Marsh makes the much-needed decision to finally be more adventurous. Unfortunately the plotting in this part comes off as being entirely unhinged and random. Rather than sticking to Marsh’s career in law like the first half, the second half throws Marsh into various different careers and locations including an environmental photographer, a telenovela actress, lawyers in various countries, etc. I was initially excited for the change as it reminded me of The Midnight Library. Unfortunately unlike the Midnight Library, these crazy life shifts felt like random tangents instead of contributing to the core storyline and mystery. This all occurs while Marsh seemingly decides to throw caution to the wind and to do 180 reverse uno on her mantra of balancing what’s best for others with her own happiness. Yet again the book tries to use these poor choices as a set up for a moral character development moment, but it's so obvious, and quite out of character, that it instead made me care about Marsh even less. It’s a sign that something went wrong with the storytelling when you find Jo, Marsh’s best friend, to be more compelling when she’s not even a critical character to the plot.
Despite the much needed infusion of the science fiction elements and plot reveals that are part of the book’s genre and marketing, the last 25% of the book felt quite messy despite its creative ideas. Perhaps my standards are a bit high since I read a decent amount of hard science fiction novels, but I found the explanations and science behind how the Bubble works to be woefully crude and unbelievable. Despite having the season star and the shows’ production staff included within the bubble, I never could understand just how changes made in the bubble were reflected outside of it (or perhaps that’s a narrative choice that wasn’t developed enough). Is the bubble even a tangible thing or is it a metaphorical science concept, I’m not sure because so little is written about it. The concept of one person’s actions and life changing without affecting others outside of “the bubble” also doesn’t make any sense and conflicts with just about every branching/parallel world theory out there. To make matters worse, the book tries to throw out plot twists and reveals that should’ve been surprising in theory, yet landed flat due to not being set up properly (ie. revealing characters in unexpected places that have barely any screen time prior to their dramatic reappearance). While I liked the culprit behind Chrysalis and the season 2 cancellation, the actual Chrysalis itself and its imagery felt more like a “huh?” moment then an “ah-hah!” reaction. The unveiling of the mystery frankly brings up more questions than answers that the plot doesn’t even try to address, focusing only on closing out Marsh’s personal storyline and nothing else. The vision is definitely there and I can see what the book was trying to do with its flavor of science fiction, but I would keep expectations on the actual end result low.
It’s within this section that one of the book’s best split choices comes up. Though both routes ultimately branch back together at the season finale, this section was easily my favorite and the best executed “episode” of the book. In a similar fashion to The Matrix where the world and universe is broken, the two branches allies Marsh with either Lev or Ezra, the twin scientific technical advisors on the show’s staff. Marsh pairing off with Ezra revisits Marsh’s highschool years while Lev’s route runs Marsh through glitched out versions of her season’s later episodes. It’s a shame that in an initial readthrough, only one of these parts can be experienced. I ended up choosing Lev’s choice initially but jumped back to read the other, ultimately deciding that Ezra’s choice felt like it contributed more to Marsh's character than the other which had a more action thriller feel. Unfortunately regardless of which choice you take, both choices reconnect at the tv show season finale where you're offered three endings. Again, I felt like the endings were great in concept but lacking in substance. Each ending had only a single short chapter of content and while one was a decent, if open-ended, conclusion to the story, the other two left a lot to be desired.
At the end of the day, I appreciate All This & More’s ideas and concepts far more than what I actually read. While the Choose Your Own Adventure element was refreshing at times, I felt most of Peng’s effort went to working out the different choices splits while the actual storytelling fell by the wayside. To be honest, I could probably even overlook the questionable science fiction elements if the character work were stronger, but unfortunately just about everything felt sub-par one way or another which is a shame. 1.5 rounded up to 2 based on ambition alone, the consolation is that I am tempted to read one of Peng’s more standard novels (specifically The Cartographers) to see if her storytelling is stronger without the distracting choices gimmick. But as for All This & More, I don’t think I can recommend this one unless you are looking for the said suburban mom book club read.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Bury Your Gays’ title alone is one way to get someone’s attention followed by an earnest bit of social commentary on media culture wrapped up in a comedically ridiculous premise. Sub 300 pages complimented by a casual and functional prose, Chuck Tingle’s Bury Your Gays is a light campy horror novel that is easy to like and has a lot of things going on. With bits of body violence/gore, homophobia, and child neglect, it’s not always a rosy read, but it’s still quick and generally light-hearted. Despite appreciating its aspirations and blend of different elements, I personally found it to be a bit dry to read and disjointed in content. It’s certainly ambitious with its themes and plot, but it feels like it was trying to do too much without excelling at any one area.
An established screenwriter known for campy horror movies/tv-shows with underlying queer elements, the narrative switches back and forth between the present day in LA vs Misha’s memories of his upbringing. Without giving away too many spoilers, these flashbacks are told out of chronological order and are meant to give the reader insight into how Misha’s interest in storytelling was shaped by a tumultuous childhood where he grappled with his sexuality. These memories break up the main storyline in the present where characters from his past movies and tv-shows are seemingly coming to life and intent on killing him in-character to how they were written. At the same time that this is all happening, Misha is nominated for an Academy Award for a short live action movie he wrote and is tasked with writing the finale to a tv-show he created, one in which he is forced to “bury the gays” by killing his queer main characters for ratings and the algorithm.
Creative on paper, in practice the two parts didn’t quite mesh well for me. The loose horror/thriller story in the present was quite campy and purposely over the top, which was quite tonally different from Misha’s childhood memories which were far more serious and dramatic. I frequently found Misha’s memories to be far more interesting due the personal reflection and unfortunately common experiences many queer kids go through, and while their effects on his work and characters were creative on paper, something about the excitement and interest got lost in the process. The main horror/thriller element was also in an odd spot where I wanted it to either be pulpier and even more campy, or I wanted it to lean heavier into the psychological horror of being hunted. The horror was usually fairly mild and of PG-rated eerie situations, but then out of nowhere it would get pretty graphic in terms of violence and body horror. There are a few parts where the horror/thriller element was excellent (I particularly enjoyed when Misha is trapped on an in-flight airplane with one of his creations) but the horror largely felt inconsistent. The last third of the book also involved a science-fiction edge related to AI, technology, and algorithms which is loosely hinted at, but the sharp scifi pivot felt underdevelopment. The reveal, plot twist and direction itself was ambitious and quite creative, but it felt rushed and felt implemented purely as a plot device with many details omitted or skimmed over. The story goes in a pretty unexpected direction with surprisingly relevant commentary at its conclusion, but I found it to be too brief. The entire closing chapters could have easily been expanded to at least 50 pages or more to really nail the commentary on queer culture and the media it was trying to reflect on. That being said, it’s length and simplistic take on the material certainly makes it very accessible to read and as mainstream as you can make it with this premise.
Speaking of commentary, Bury Your Gays has a lot of great commentary on queer culture and experiences. The commentary and relevancy to the entertainment industry in particular, feels very appropriately LA-based. Before even getting into the LGBTQ+ elements, Bury Your Gays takes a meta swing (pun intended) at the use of AI for celebrity likeness, dictating artistic choices based on the perceived AI algorithms and ratings, perceived capitalism over art, and of course sentient technology. Chuck Tingle pulled basically every contentious element in the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes and made an entire horror thriller based off of them. That alone would make a compelling story, but he also layers that with themes involving queer erasure from the entertainment industry and media, being quietly or conveniently out, and perhaps the most interesting one, sanitized pure queer representation purely for the sake of mass 21st century appeal. I found the commentary to be relevant and well done with the current media trends, especially the extreme “yaaasss” culture often pushed by executives who have no clue what they’re doing.
Despite the commentary and ambition, I unfortunately didn’t really get into the book itself. I found the horror to be one of the weaker elements of the story that really needed to be darker or more comedic, which is a problem when it’s the main focus. I also found Misha's relationships with his best friend Tara and his boyfriend Zeke to be underdeveloped as well, which weakens the suspense and urgency when they’re caught as collateral during Misha’s stalking. As a character and boyfriend, Zeke is completely cookie cutter and politely supportive despite his relationship with Misha being a crucial part of Misha’s adult and out life. Outside of Misha, the character work in general felt a bit weak and I could see lots of opportunities where a little more time and pages spent in places would have pushed the book to new levels. Childhood classmate Ritchie during Misha’s high school reunion felt like it missed a major character growth moment for Misha and actress Blossom who starred in Misha’s past film also could’ve been used for even better commentary after her indie film project involving queer teenage trauma is introduced and never revisited (apart from a two paragraph mention during the book’s climax, I actually forgot she existed until this happened). I get that Bury Your Gays primarily focused on the horror and Misha’s growing confidence with his identity which these other characters have limited contributions to, but it’s still a bit of a letdown that it didn’t do more with these opportunities.
As a whole, I liked Bury Your Gays. However I felt like I ultimately appreciated what it was trying to do on paper more than reading the actual story itself. While not weak by any means and actually being quite good, it felt like the book needed at least another 100 or more pages to really push into the great category. I can see this being very well-received by readers looking for more queer representation (or books commentating on representation) which is one of the stronger elements of the book, but if you’re picking this up for the horror or science fiction angles, I might recommend tempering down those expectations.
As a side note in case you’re wondering, considering Chuck Tingle’s infamous for his mostly gay (and general queer) absurdist monster erotica, Bury Your Gays has no romance or spice involved. Bury Your Gays plays its genres straight, no butt-warshipping or pounding erotica today (sorry not sorry, that dad joke was far too tempting).
An established screenwriter known for campy horror movies/tv-shows with underlying queer elements, the narrative switches back and forth between the present day in LA vs Misha’s memories of his upbringing. Without giving away too many spoilers, these flashbacks are told out of chronological order and are meant to give the reader insight into how Misha’s interest in storytelling was shaped by a tumultuous childhood where he grappled with his sexuality. These memories break up the main storyline in the present where characters from his past movies and tv-shows are seemingly coming to life and intent on killing him in-character to how they were written. At the same time that this is all happening, Misha is nominated for an Academy Award for a short live action movie he wrote and is tasked with writing the finale to a tv-show he created, one in which he is forced to “bury the gays” by killing his queer main characters for ratings and the algorithm.
Creative on paper, in practice the two parts didn’t quite mesh well for me. The loose horror/thriller story in the present was quite campy and purposely over the top, which was quite tonally different from Misha’s childhood memories which were far more serious and dramatic. I frequently found Misha’s memories to be far more interesting due the personal reflection and unfortunately common experiences many queer kids go through, and while their effects on his work and characters were creative on paper, something about the excitement and interest got lost in the process. The main horror/thriller element was also in an odd spot where I wanted it to either be pulpier and even more campy, or I wanted it to lean heavier into the psychological horror of being hunted. The horror was usually fairly mild and of PG-rated eerie situations, but then out of nowhere it would get pretty graphic in terms of violence and body horror. There are a few parts where the horror/thriller element was excellent (I particularly enjoyed when Misha is trapped on an in-flight airplane with one of his creations) but the horror largely felt inconsistent. The last third of the book also involved a science-fiction edge related to AI, technology, and algorithms which is loosely hinted at, but the sharp scifi pivot felt underdevelopment. The reveal, plot twist and direction itself was ambitious and quite creative, but it felt rushed and felt implemented purely as a plot device with many details omitted or skimmed over. The story goes in a pretty unexpected direction with surprisingly relevant commentary at its conclusion, but I found it to be too brief. The entire closing chapters could have easily been expanded to at least 50 pages or more to really nail the commentary on queer culture and the media it was trying to reflect on. That being said, it’s length and simplistic take on the material certainly makes it very accessible to read and as mainstream as you can make it with this premise.
Speaking of commentary, Bury Your Gays has a lot of great commentary on queer culture and experiences. The commentary and relevancy to the entertainment industry in particular, feels very appropriately LA-based. Before even getting into the LGBTQ+ elements, Bury Your Gays takes a meta swing (pun intended) at the use of AI for celebrity likeness, dictating artistic choices based on the perceived AI algorithms and ratings, perceived capitalism over art, and of course sentient technology. Chuck Tingle pulled basically every contentious element in the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes and made an entire horror thriller based off of them. That alone would make a compelling story, but he also layers that with themes involving queer erasure from the entertainment industry and media, being quietly or conveniently out, and perhaps the most interesting one, sanitized pure queer representation purely for the sake of mass 21st century appeal. I found the commentary to be relevant and well done with the current media trends, especially the extreme “yaaasss” culture often pushed by executives who have no clue what they’re doing.
Despite the commentary and ambition, I unfortunately didn’t really get into the book itself. I found the horror to be one of the weaker elements of the story that really needed to be darker or more comedic, which is a problem when it’s the main focus. I also found Misha's relationships with his best friend Tara and his boyfriend Zeke to be underdeveloped as well, which weakens the suspense and urgency when they’re caught as collateral during Misha’s stalking. As a character and boyfriend, Zeke is completely cookie cutter and politely supportive despite his relationship with Misha being a crucial part of Misha’s adult and out life. Outside of Misha, the character work in general felt a bit weak and I could see lots of opportunities where a little more time and pages spent in places would have pushed the book to new levels. Childhood classmate Ritchie during Misha’s high school reunion felt like it missed a major character growth moment for Misha and actress Blossom who starred in Misha’s past film also could’ve been used for even better commentary after her indie film project involving queer teenage trauma is introduced and never revisited (apart from a two paragraph mention during the book’s climax, I actually forgot she existed until this happened). I get that Bury Your Gays primarily focused on the horror and Misha’s growing confidence with his identity which these other characters have limited contributions to, but it’s still a bit of a letdown that it didn’t do more with these opportunities.
As a whole, I liked Bury Your Gays. However I felt like I ultimately appreciated what it was trying to do on paper more than reading the actual story itself. While not weak by any means and actually being quite good, it felt like the book needed at least another 100 or more pages to really push into the great category. I can see this being very well-received by readers looking for more queer representation (or books commentating on representation) which is one of the stronger elements of the book, but if you’re picking this up for the horror or science fiction angles, I might recommend tempering down those expectations.
As a side note in case you’re wondering, considering Chuck Tingle’s infamous for his mostly gay (and general queer) absurdist monster erotica, Bury Your Gays has no romance or spice involved. Bury Your Gays plays its genres straight, no butt-warshipping or pounding erotica today (sorry not sorry, that dad joke was far too tempting).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Homophobia, Torture, Gaslighting
Minor: Hate crime
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I had read quite a few critically-written books lately and was in the mood for a more casual comfort read and had added Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material to my reading list last year during my post-Red White and Royal Blue movie watch (yes, I still have not read the book itself, working on fixing that soon). While Boyfriend Material is indeed comfortably casual at the surface, I was pleasantly surprised at how relatable and earnest it was. Beyond the expected laughs and genZ pop culture references, I found the story itself to be consistently-paced, well-executed, and quite solid all-around. I was skeptical (as I usually am for all top-rated books here) that it ranked so high on Goodreads’ best romance category in 2020, especially since queer romance novels are usually ranked much lower than heterosexual romance books, but I now understand and agree with the hype. Side note, although it has nothing to do with the book's content, I love the graphic design for the book's cover design that's simultaneously English-looking and also very classy and appealing. Beyond being British, I would be lying if I said the book's cover didn't have any influence over me choosing this to read (good job publisher branding).
Despite not liking most romance novel tropes, the fake dating trope is one I don’t mind as long as it's either done comically or critically well. Unexpectedly, Boyfriend Material takes a middle-road approach and excels at both. While I found the premise for the fake dating arrangement to be somewhat ridiculous initially (surely there's better ways to avoid getting fired than having a clean-cut boyfriend in the tabloids, but hey that's on-brand for Luc's character logic), the story overall just kept getting better and better once it got going. The first few chapters focusing exclusively on Luc come in hot, and by hot I mean “this guy is a hot mess.” Sensitive, defensive, emotionally volatile, one of the first thoughts that came to mind was “wow this book has great character work, so this is what all my crazy friends and ex partners go through internally on a daily basis, what a riot”. It took me a while to warm up to both Luc and the writing style which is quite on-brand for many recent contemporary romcom novels. Full of pop culture references, endless run-on sentences, purposefully made up words and questionable grammar, there’s a lot going on. These GenZ-appealing choices gradually become more balanced and strategically used (correlating with Luc’s character growth and maturity), but it wasn’t quite my taste.
Fortunately what helped carry me through the first half of the book was the chemistry and pairing between Luc and Oliver. This type of book lives and dies by its core couple, and fortunately I liked them a lot! Running with an “opposites somewhat attract” rather than a head over heels infatuation, their well-planned interactions was a relief to read. I had come off of a few other romance novels that have such instantly thirsty characters and implausible character growth that it had me facepalming. Initially a spiky and volatile mess common for his character trope, Luc’s growth and stumbles are handled in such an earnest manner that you really do end up rooting for him to succeed, despite his insecurities telling him to fail. Oliver on the other hand fits the responsible and logical trope, but Hall is able to surpass the typical role by delving into the psyche for why he acts the way he does. Both characters are more developed than the premise really needed them to be, which made me all the more impressed by the ambition (how obvious is it that I've bee repeatedly burned by romance novels?). There’s a great few chapters devoted to one of his friend’s birthday party Oliver invites Luc to as his plus one, only for Luc to notice that they’re all straight compared to his queer-dominated friend group.
“I think for me”—Oliver shifted slightly uncomfortably—“and I should stress I’m speaking entirely personally, I’ve never wholly identified with that particular way of signalling your identity. Which always makes me feel like I’m letting the side down a little bit.”
I found Hall’s approach to this topic in Boyfriend Material to be both interesting and different from many other similar queer romance novels. Maybe it's just what I’ve read so far, but it’s rare for me to see an openly gay male character grapple with not fitting in or feeling awkward in the greater LGBTQ+ community. Usually it’s a bi, closeted, or confused character (ie. Heartstopper, Sex Education, Red White and Royal Blue) that has these sentiments or those that came out later in life. Oliver’s character departs from both scenarios and it was quite refreshing to see that explored in a genre that tends to cater heavily towards the more out and proud parts of the community. This is all the more comedic when Luc’s mother asks Oliver if he’s ever “sissied that walk?” before while they’re marathoning RuPaul’s Drag Race. It's quite brief and not explored very deeply, but it was lovely to see these thoughts and feelings represented. Unrelated yet slightly related, the following quote made me laugh out loud, Oliver and my logical humor is one and the same:
“I’m fixating on the straight thing because…these people are important to you. And I don’t want to fuck this up.” -Luc
“The way I see it”—it was Oliver’s gravest voice so I braced myself for an onslaught of sincerity—“either you won’t, which will be nice. Or you will, which will be funny.”
Opposite attract pairings are pretty common and are often honestly contrived, but I found Luc and Oliver to really be great complements to each other. One of my personal nitpicks is when a romance novel has an emotionally volatile and disaster of a protagonist that somehow catches the interest of a responsibly straight-laced, mature partner. For most books aiming to be comfort reads, the bumbling MC charms the other character with their random antics who then falls head over heels for them. While great for an escapist read and comforting for readers that empathize with the character, I sometimes find it to not only be implausible based on the character’s logical personality, but also a bit lazy. Sure everyone would love for their perfect partner to see their disaster of a life and accept them for who they are, but that doesn’t really work in practice unless there's other charming aspects to the person (this is coming from someone who has a personality quite close to Oliver and is repelled by crazy people). Boyfriend Material avoids that issue partly through its well-utilized length (430 pages is on the longer side considering its simple premise), and also through Luc and Oliver’s many trials and tribulations. A lot of mistakes, errors, and miscommunication (a trope I normally hate I might add, gj Alexis Hall for making it work) made their growing relationship feel more complex and meaningful. Both characters also had quite a bit of character growth separately which also contributed to a more satisfying and rewarding ending.
Speaking of character growth and length, compared to similar romance books I’ve read (in particular, M/M queer romance novels), Boyfriend Material is definitely on the slower side. Hints of mutual feelings take a while to come up and the first real bedroom spice doesn’t happen until almost 75% into the book with a very slow build-up. While there's a lot of longingly awkward glances and references to sex, there's really only one spicy chapter included with other moments happening off-page, taking a classier approach. If you're picking this up primarily for man on man action, you're going to be disappointed. But its restrained approach helped elevate the material for me and took it from an easy typical romcom level read to a solid all-a rounder. I initially questioned why the book was so long considering it felt like there wasn’t a lot of “material” to work with (you know I had to lol), but I was repeatedly surprised by the quality of its seemingly mundane outings or Luc’s workplace follies that ultimately contributed to his personal growth. The book also tackles some non-Oliver/job related topics/themes like Luc’s feelings of abandonment by his famous rock star father, his low standards and self-value, and past romantic relationships (this one is quite underdevelopment however, perhaps it will be addressed in one of the two sequel novels). Meanwhile Oliver has themes of fitting into the expectation and image of others, an inadvertently toxic and homophobic family, and the excessive pressures he puts onto himself.
As a nice plus, Hall also has a nice mix of creatively inspiring quotes of self-reflection balanced out by equally creatively comedic one-liners (some of which are quite sharp which I always love):
“You really do own your illiteracy, don’t you?” -Oliver
“Yeah, I’m thinking about moving to America and running for public office.” -Luc
"My working theory was that getting a dessert from a vegan restaurant was like having sex with someone less attractive than you—they knew it was a tough sell, so they tried harder." -Luc</blockquote>
"For a second or two, I tried to do that British thing where you pretend nothing untoward is happening in the hope it’ll sort itself out quickly and amicably, and then you’ll never have to talk about it again…
And I desperately wanted to say something supportive but “don’t cry” was toxic bullshit, “it’s okay to cry” was patronizing, and “there, there” had never made anybody feel better ever in the history of emotions."
As a whole, I enjoyed and was pleasantly surprised by Boyfriend Material (and I do not mean this to be a backhanded compliment, despite how it looks). A true 4.5 rounded down, unfortunately the prose was just not to my personal taste and something I couldn’t overlook. But to Hall’s credit, it’s not just their specific writing but rather this style that has been popularized by many recent and trending contemporary fiction novels (this book knows who its readers are). However, the prose is really the only element that didn’t quite work for me (I'm decidedly not fruity enough I guess) and I’ve certainly rated many other books considerably lower based on their prose alone. And as previously mentioned, the prose does improve substantially in the back half of the book, further convincing me that it was a purposefully stylistic choice, not a default choice. While despite having a clean ending that allows Boyfriend material to be a standalone read if desired, there’s enough lingering plot threads and material to easily fill its one (soon to be two) sequel novels which I will more than likely also read. Good job Alexis Hall, this is approved Jeff Reading Material. (okay I will admit, that one was pretty bad)
Edit: Slept on it for a few days and decided to bump it up as it's closer to 5 stars vs 4 stars, feels a bit harsh to knock it down a star due to just the prose at times (Goodreads really needs to add half star ratings).
Despite not liking most romance novel tropes, the fake dating trope is one I don’t mind as long as it's either done comically or critically well. Unexpectedly, Boyfriend Material takes a middle-road approach and excels at both. While I found the premise for the fake dating arrangement to be somewhat ridiculous initially (surely there's better ways to avoid getting fired than having a clean-cut boyfriend in the tabloids, but hey that's on-brand for Luc's character logic), the story overall just kept getting better and better once it got going. The first few chapters focusing exclusively on Luc come in hot, and by hot I mean “this guy is a hot mess.” Sensitive, defensive, emotionally volatile, one of the first thoughts that came to mind was “wow this book has great character work, so this is what all my crazy friends and ex partners go through internally on a daily basis, what a riot”. It took me a while to warm up to both Luc and the writing style which is quite on-brand for many recent contemporary romcom novels. Full of pop culture references, endless run-on sentences, purposefully made up words and questionable grammar, there’s a lot going on. These GenZ-appealing choices gradually become more balanced and strategically used (correlating with Luc’s character growth and maturity), but it wasn’t quite my taste.
Fortunately what helped carry me through the first half of the book was the chemistry and pairing between Luc and Oliver. This type of book lives and dies by its core couple, and fortunately I liked them a lot! Running with an “opposites somewhat attract” rather than a head over heels infatuation, their well-planned interactions was a relief to read. I had come off of a few other romance novels that have such instantly thirsty characters and implausible character growth that it had me facepalming. Initially a spiky and volatile mess common for his character trope, Luc’s growth and stumbles are handled in such an earnest manner that you really do end up rooting for him to succeed, despite his insecurities telling him to fail. Oliver on the other hand fits the responsible and logical trope, but Hall is able to surpass the typical role by delving into the psyche for why he acts the way he does. Both characters are more developed than the premise really needed them to be, which made me all the more impressed by the ambition (how obvious is it that I've bee repeatedly burned by romance novels?). There’s a great few chapters devoted to one of his friend’s birthday party Oliver invites Luc to as his plus one, only for Luc to notice that they’re all straight compared to his queer-dominated friend group.
“I think for me”—Oliver shifted slightly uncomfortably—“and I should stress I’m speaking entirely personally, I’ve never wholly identified with that particular way of signalling your identity. Which always makes me feel like I’m letting the side down a little bit.”
I found Hall’s approach to this topic in Boyfriend Material to be both interesting and different from many other similar queer romance novels. Maybe it's just what I’ve read so far, but it’s rare for me to see an openly gay male character grapple with not fitting in or feeling awkward in the greater LGBTQ+ community. Usually it’s a bi, closeted, or confused character (ie. Heartstopper, Sex Education, Red White and Royal Blue) that has these sentiments or those that came out later in life. Oliver’s character departs from both scenarios and it was quite refreshing to see that explored in a genre that tends to cater heavily towards the more out and proud parts of the community. This is all the more comedic when Luc’s mother asks Oliver if he’s ever “sissied that walk?” before while they’re marathoning RuPaul’s Drag Race. It's quite brief and not explored very deeply, but it was lovely to see these thoughts and feelings represented. Unrelated yet slightly related, the following quote made me laugh out loud, Oliver and my logical humor is one and the same:
“I’m fixating on the straight thing because…these people are important to you. And I don’t want to fuck this up.” -Luc
“The way I see it”—it was Oliver’s gravest voice so I braced myself for an onslaught of sincerity—“either you won’t, which will be nice. Or you will, which will be funny.”
Opposite attract pairings are pretty common and are often honestly contrived, but I found Luc and Oliver to really be great complements to each other. One of my personal nitpicks is when a romance novel has an emotionally volatile and disaster of a protagonist that somehow catches the interest of a responsibly straight-laced, mature partner. For most books aiming to be comfort reads, the bumbling MC charms the other character with their random antics who then falls head over heels for them. While great for an escapist read and comforting for readers that empathize with the character, I sometimes find it to not only be implausible based on the character’s logical personality, but also a bit lazy. Sure everyone would love for their perfect partner to see their disaster of a life and accept them for who they are, but that doesn’t really work in practice unless there's other charming aspects to the person (this is coming from someone who has a personality quite close to Oliver and is repelled by crazy people). Boyfriend Material avoids that issue partly through its well-utilized length (430 pages is on the longer side considering its simple premise), and also through Luc and Oliver’s many trials and tribulations. A lot of mistakes, errors, and miscommunication (a trope I normally hate I might add, gj Alexis Hall for making it work) made their growing relationship feel more complex and meaningful. Both characters also had quite a bit of character growth separately which also contributed to a more satisfying and rewarding ending.
Speaking of character growth and length, compared to similar romance books I’ve read (in particular, M/M queer romance novels), Boyfriend Material is definitely on the slower side. Hints of mutual feelings take a while to come up and the first real bedroom spice doesn’t happen until almost 75% into the book with a very slow build-up. While there's a lot of longingly awkward glances and references to sex, there's really only one spicy chapter included with other moments happening off-page, taking a classier approach. If you're picking this up primarily for man on man action, you're going to be disappointed. But its restrained approach helped elevate the material for me and took it from an easy typical romcom level read to a solid all-a rounder. I initially questioned why the book was so long considering it felt like there wasn’t a lot of “material” to work with (you know I had to lol), but I was repeatedly surprised by the quality of its seemingly mundane outings or Luc’s workplace follies that ultimately contributed to his personal growth. The book also tackles some non-Oliver/job related topics/themes like Luc’s feelings of abandonment by his famous rock star father, his low standards and self-value, and past romantic relationships (this one is quite underdevelopment however, perhaps it will be addressed in one of the two sequel novels). Meanwhile Oliver has themes of fitting into the expectation and image of others, an inadvertently toxic and homophobic family, and the excessive pressures he puts onto himself.
As a nice plus, Hall also has a nice mix of creatively inspiring quotes of self-reflection balanced out by equally creatively comedic one-liners (some of which are quite sharp which I always love):
“You really do own your illiteracy, don’t you?” -Oliver
“Yeah, I’m thinking about moving to America and running for public office.” -Luc
"My working theory was that getting a dessert from a vegan restaurant was like having sex with someone less attractive than you—they knew it was a tough sell, so they tried harder." -Luc</blockquote>
"For a second or two, I tried to do that British thing where you pretend nothing untoward is happening in the hope it’ll sort itself out quickly and amicably, and then you’ll never have to talk about it again…
And I desperately wanted to say something supportive but “don’t cry” was toxic bullshit, “it’s okay to cry” was patronizing, and “there, there” had never made anybody feel better ever in the history of emotions."
As a whole, I enjoyed and was pleasantly surprised by Boyfriend Material (and I do not mean this to be a backhanded compliment, despite how it looks). A true 4.5 rounded down, unfortunately the prose was just not to my personal taste and something I couldn’t overlook. But to Hall’s credit, it’s not just their specific writing but rather this style that has been popularized by many recent and trending contemporary fiction novels (this book knows who its readers are). However, the prose is really the only element that didn’t quite work for me (I'm decidedly not fruity enough I guess) and I’ve certainly rated many other books considerably lower based on their prose alone. And as previously mentioned, the prose does improve substantially in the back half of the book, further convincing me that it was a purposefully stylistic choice, not a default choice. While despite having a clean ending that allows Boyfriend material to be a standalone read if desired, there’s enough lingering plot threads and material to easily fill its one (soon to be two) sequel novels which I will more than likely also read. Good job Alexis Hall, this is approved Jeff Reading Material. (okay I will admit, that one was pretty bad)
Edit: Slept on it for a few days and decided to bump it up as it's closer to 5 stars vs 4 stars, feels a bit harsh to knock it down a star due to just the prose at times (Goodreads really needs to add half star ratings).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
adventurous
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Don’t let the page count and novella length fool you, Martha Wells is a literary wizard for packing so much action and content into All Systems Red’s 150 pages. I kept seeing The Murderbot Diaries popping up in book lists and booktuber recommendations, and winning a Hugo Award certainly helps give it some critical street cred. Despite its short length, I thoroughly enjoyed this and breezed right through in one day. This is a pretty short read so I’ll try and keep this review appropriate short.
While many sci-fi works get bogged down with heavy exposition and detailed world-building, All Systems Red doesn’t have the luxury of length and immediately takes off running from the get-go. This novella is pure plot, though surprisingly a bit light in terms of fighting/gunfire action. Despite being called Murderbot, Murderbot isn't a killing machine (at least on paper) and acts as a defensive security unit for hire. And they’re a weaponized tool that could care less about what happens to their human clients, at least initially. The premise of an indifferent narrator is clever in concept, allowing the book to get away with skirting heavy world-building with an effective mechanism of “I never bothered to learn how this works because it doesn't matter to me”. I realize this sounds lazy or cheap on paper, but the manner in which this tactic is implemented is quite effective. The book is selective with its details that will add interest to the core storyline only and nothing else. And to Well’s credit, there is a good amount of world-building later in the book that’s spaced out out well, matching with Murderbot’s growing attachment and care for their human clients. The pacing of the story, the growing mystery of things afoot on their research expedition, potential espionage and betrayal, I have nothing bad to say about the book’s content.
In addition to the solid plot, it’s very much Murderbot’s deadpan, yet hilarious narration that ties it all together. It’s somewhere along the lines of tired dad humor and lowkey snark. It’s a sense of humor that isn’t laugh out loud funny or one that will work for everyone, but was perfect for me. There are so many great tired one-liners such as “The sense of urgency just wasn’t there. Also, you may have noticed, I don’t care.” Even better:
<blockquote>“This is why I didn’t want to come. I’ve got four perfectly good humans here and I didn’t want them to get killed by whatever took out <i>*Redacted Spoiler*</i>. It’s not like I cared about them personally, but it would look bad on my record, and my record was already pretty terrible.
-Murderbot</blockquote>
On a sidenote, Murderbot's gender is never officially stated. Murderboth themselves never touch on it and a lot of their human clients refer to them as "it" as it's not human. Murderbot even highlights their disinterest for human anatomy and parts, taking a non-descriptor stance on it.
That being said, a lot of readers (myself included) envisioned Murderbot to be male partly due to the audiobook having a male narrator and projecting or seeing themselves in Murderbot. If I accidentally slip and use male pronouns or references in these reviews, you can easily substitute them for she/they/it (Murderbot's words, not mine).
Refreshingly, All Systems Red isn’t just straight plot and action. Again, with only 150 pages to work with, Wells is somehow able to also incorporate a good amount of character growth for Murderbot that strikes the perfect balance between robotic and human dialogue/feelings. Coincidentally I’ve read quite a few books recently that involve sentient robots or AI’s developing human-like feelings, but Well’s writing style and approach to Murderbot is definitely one of my favorites takes on it.
A sub two hour read, this is an easy recommendation for any sci-fi or space expedition readers. The plot and mystery thriller element is great and while the length limits the amount of visual or contextual details it can include (I’ve seen this being one of the biggest criticisms leveled against this book), I don’t think it necessarily hinders the reading experience at all; it actually helps it avoid being overwritten or slow. Despite being part of a now long-running series of novellas and a few full-length novels, All Systems Red can also be read as a single standalone story with a satisfying ending that also leaves the door open for more adventures. But if you have similar taste in books like me, you’ll certainly be interested to see where the Murderbot Diaries goes (cause that ending, this series can really go anywhere).
While many sci-fi works get bogged down with heavy exposition and detailed world-building, All Systems Red doesn’t have the luxury of length and immediately takes off running from the get-go. This novella is pure plot, though surprisingly a bit light in terms of fighting/gunfire action. Despite being called Murderbot, Murderbot isn't a killing machine (at least on paper) and acts as a defensive security unit for hire. And they’re a weaponized tool that could care less about what happens to their human clients, at least initially. The premise of an indifferent narrator is clever in concept, allowing the book to get away with skirting heavy world-building with an effective mechanism of “I never bothered to learn how this works because it doesn't matter to me”. I realize this sounds lazy or cheap on paper, but the manner in which this tactic is implemented is quite effective. The book is selective with its details that will add interest to the core storyline only and nothing else. And to Well’s credit, there is a good amount of world-building later in the book that’s spaced out out well, matching with Murderbot’s growing attachment and care for their human clients. The pacing of the story, the growing mystery of things afoot on their research expedition, potential espionage and betrayal, I have nothing bad to say about the book’s content.
In addition to the solid plot, it’s very much Murderbot’s deadpan, yet hilarious narration that ties it all together. It’s somewhere along the lines of tired dad humor and lowkey snark. It’s a sense of humor that isn’t laugh out loud funny or one that will work for everyone, but was perfect for me. There are so many great tired one-liners such as “The sense of urgency just wasn’t there. Also, you may have noticed, I don’t care.” Even better:
<blockquote>“This is why I didn’t want to come. I’ve got four perfectly good humans here and I didn’t want them to get killed by whatever took out <i>*Redacted Spoiler*</i>. It’s not like I cared about them personally, but it would look bad on my record, and my record was already pretty terrible.
-Murderbot</blockquote>
On a sidenote, Murderbot's gender is never officially stated. Murderboth themselves never touch on it and a lot of their human clients refer to them as "it" as it's not human. Murderbot even highlights their disinterest for human anatomy and parts, taking a non-descriptor stance on it.
That being said, a lot of readers (myself included) envisioned Murderbot to be male partly due to the audiobook having a male narrator and projecting or seeing themselves in Murderbot. If I accidentally slip and use male pronouns or references in these reviews, you can easily substitute them for she/they/it (Murderbot's words, not mine).
Refreshingly, All Systems Red isn’t just straight plot and action. Again, with only 150 pages to work with, Wells is somehow able to also incorporate a good amount of character growth for Murderbot that strikes the perfect balance between robotic and human dialogue/feelings. Coincidentally I’ve read quite a few books recently that involve sentient robots or AI’s developing human-like feelings, but Well’s writing style and approach to Murderbot is definitely one of my favorites takes on it.
A sub two hour read, this is an easy recommendation for any sci-fi or space expedition readers. The plot and mystery thriller element is great and while the length limits the amount of visual or contextual details it can include (I’ve seen this being one of the biggest criticisms leveled against this book), I don’t think it necessarily hinders the reading experience at all; it actually helps it avoid being overwritten or slow. Despite being part of a now long-running series of novellas and a few full-length novels, All Systems Red can also be read as a single standalone story with a satisfying ending that also leaves the door open for more adventures. But if you have similar taste in books like me, you’ll certainly be interested to see where the Murderbot Diaries goes (cause that ending, this series can really go anywhere).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Gun violence, Murder
Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Full disclosure, I shockingly had neither read nor watched (apart from a few short clips) Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians, so went in completely blind to Lies and Weddings.TLDR, I found Lies and Weddings to be solidly written, well-researched, tightly plotted, and at times, genius in its satire and social commentary. Following (from what I’ve been told) similar themes and commentary as his previous works, Lies and Weddings was a great book that wasn’t quite for me. I was stuck between a 3 or 4, objectively it’s good but my enjoyment was much lower. However, my reservations and disinterest with the novel’s content are all subjective reading preferences and despite not personally enjoying the read, I have to commend it on its story’s strengths and accomplishments.
It took me a long time to grow interested in the main plot and I think most of that could potentially be attributed to the book’s synopsis and description. While the printed description does an excellent job at highlighting the zany and drama-filled moments, I found it to be a surprisingly inaccurate summary of Lies and Weddings. Yes, there are lots of lies and several weddings and yes, Rufus Gresham is put into a terrible familial predicament that impacts his future. However, debatably Rufus isn’t even the main character in this book marketed as a romantic comedy. While the book does have many chapters written from Rufus’s point of view, there are equally many other chapters focused on the rest of the cast including his Countess mother Arabella, her husband Francis, their family doctor Thomas, a host of supporting side characters, and Rufus’s childhood friend and neighbor Eden Tong. Contrary to the description, Eden is more of the main character than Rufus in-terms of meaty content and number of pages, and I can’t help but feel this was a purposeful ploy to hook Crazy Rich Asian Fans. And that’s a real disservice to Eden who is a far more developed and interesting character than Rufus.
Questionable marketing aside, I found Lies & Weddings to be at its strongest when it repeatedly and ruthlessly dragged all of the unspoken stereotypes, culture war, and maniacal old-school Asian culture (specifically those of Chinese and Hong Kong origin) and lets it stew under the spotlight as the reader looks on in fascination, laughter, or horror. The social commentary is sharp and pulls no punches, and I absolutely loved how far Kwan runs with it at the complete detriment to Eden and Rufus. I can’t go into them too specifically without major spoilers, but themes of White, Western perceived superiority over Asian looks/culture, societal class status, the excess of wealth and the numerous problems that come with, the viscous monster of fame, harsh judgment by one’s own family; these are themes that have been done before but the way they’re weaved together coherently is impressive. The latter half of the book also delves into self-hatred and discrimination against one’s own culture and background which is a theme I don’t see nearly enough in novels that tackle these types of culture-heavy stories. The way Kwan foreshadows this in the early chapters, only for it to come crashing in at the climax was great.
While the plot took a while to get going, once it reaches around the 60% mark, all hell breaks loose and it’s a wild ride. You would think that the Gresham’s financial ruin is the major turning point in the story, but it’s the hacked up solution to their debt that causes everything to break down epically, and this fall from grace was my favorite part of the whole book. Kwan’s portrayal of Arabella as the villainous Asian mother from hell is spectacular and the lengths and plots she and Aunt Rosina go to was very well-written. Needless to say, Arabella eventually has it coming and it’s absolutely gleeful to read. While all this is going on in the present day, there’s also a secondary story going on that starts in Hong Kong, 1995. Seemingly unrelated (and honestly somewhat difficult to follow, more on that soon), when all the pieces and plot threads come together at the novel's conclusion on top of Eden getting the justice she deserves, it’s all very satisfying.
Another reason why I believe it took me a while to become invested is again, thanks to the misdirection of the book’s pitch. Categorized as a romance novel, I was surprised at how little romance there actually was beyond Rufus’s shenanigans at his sister’s Hawaii wedding. Rufus’s romantic interest was easily one of the weakest elements of the Lies and Weddings for me. While the book does a passable job at explaining why he’s hopelessly in love with Eden, their actual relationship feels quite lacking in terms of chemistry, content and growth. While the social commentary and family drama is so good, the romance feels more like a mere plot device in order to set-up the various conflicts in the Gresham estate, making it an odd element to focus on. Their relationship looks even worse from Eden’s point of view after Rufus’s feelings are flung at her unexpectedly, only for her to suddenly start dreaming about him without much development or internal self-discovery. While we’re given a good idea of why Rufus loves Eden, the reverse direction is a bit murky, which is disappointing since Eden has more screen-time/pages compared to Rufus. The various other relationships between young adults roped in as part of Arabella and Rosina’s plans are varied and solid (Rufus and Martha Dung being particularly interesting), but the actual romantic relationships across the board feel lacking.
The other element that knocked me off at the beginning is the huge cast of characters introduced back to back. Chapter 1 introduces a huge group of friends in the 90’s, followed by an even larger group at the Hawaii wedding in the present. The wedding venue also throws even more characters as part of the planning group, workers, celebrities and photographers that seem important when they’re introduced, only to have almost no influence on the actual story. There’s a lot going on and a good portion of it feels like added fluff; well-written and conceptualized fluff but still extra fluff. Having only one chapter to familiarize with the 1995 Hong Kong group only for some to not appear until half the book later when you can barely remember who was who, the beginning is a bit rough. In many ways I feel like this story could’ve worked a lot better as a movie or miniseries as it would be easier to visually tell who is who at the beginning. Once Part 2 kicks in where Rufus and Eden end up in LA, the cast balloons to be even bigger.
Speaking of parts, Lies and Weddings is roughly divided into six parts based on different cities where the story takes place. These rough parts make thematic and tonal sense with their separations, but the book had an unfortunate habit of derailing the momentum at each transition. Part 2’s focus in Hawaii was fun to read, but the abrupt shift to Part 3 in London cut the action just when I felt like the book was getting its stride. The London section, while generally slower paced, felt like a good slow burn that transitioned quite well into Part 4 in Morocco due to the clear direction of the narrative. However, the jump to Part 5 in LA was the most jarring, switching back to Eden’s perspective who was largely absent from part 2 and 3. Once the LA section got going, I spent a good portion of that section wondering what was happening and how any of it was relevant to anything that came before. The whole reading experience felt start-stop, herky-jerky at times until Eden and Rufus reunite towards the end of Part 4 and onward. Obviously LA’s section held necessary pieces for the big reveal and conclusion, but I certainly think some reordering or adjustments in the book’s outline could’ve helped immensely with smoothing out the story’s progression. I actually think that doing away with the separate city sections would’ve worked more effectively, with Eden’s LA misadventures nicely contrasting and connecting to Rufus’s discoveries in Europe and Africa.
At the end of the day, Lies and Weddings is a rough 4.5 star book, knocked down to a 3.5 enjoyment for me. The immense details and footnotes specific to each part (which I initially found excessive and unnecessary), added a lot to the story as it progressed, and each city felt fully realized and lived-in. I actually grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii where Part 2 takes place and the numerous references and details Kwan included, apart from a few romanticized liberties, were shockingly accurate and precise. I can’t vouch for the other regions but I’d imagine they are also quite detailed. For all its strong qualities though, I still struggled to enjoy this book. While I found the content intriguing and different from my reading norm, it just wasn’t for me; particularly its style of absurdist satire. Absurdist satire, or really absurdist fiction in general, generally has too much going on for my taste. Fictional novels depicting Asian culture are also not one of my preferred interests, so Lies and Weddings was fighting against the odds from the get-go. However although was not my cup of tea (still feeling like a banana sometimes when I read these, if you get the joke you know), this is an easy recommendation for anyone who interested in Western/Asian Culture commentary, particularly for Chinese culture and Cantonese speakers (there’s a lot of Cantonese lines and idioms included).
It took me a long time to grow interested in the main plot and I think most of that could potentially be attributed to the book’s synopsis and description. While the printed description does an excellent job at highlighting the zany and drama-filled moments, I found it to be a surprisingly inaccurate summary of Lies and Weddings. Yes, there are lots of lies and several weddings and yes, Rufus Gresham is put into a terrible familial predicament that impacts his future. However, debatably Rufus isn’t even the main character in this book marketed as a romantic comedy. While the book does have many chapters written from Rufus’s point of view, there are equally many other chapters focused on the rest of the cast including his Countess mother Arabella, her husband Francis, their family doctor Thomas, a host of supporting side characters, and Rufus’s childhood friend and neighbor Eden Tong. Contrary to the description, Eden is more of the main character than Rufus in-terms of meaty content and number of pages, and I can’t help but feel this was a purposeful ploy to hook Crazy Rich Asian Fans. And that’s a real disservice to Eden who is a far more developed and interesting character than Rufus.
Questionable marketing aside, I found Lies & Weddings to be at its strongest when it repeatedly and ruthlessly dragged all of the unspoken stereotypes, culture war, and maniacal old-school Asian culture (specifically those of Chinese and Hong Kong origin) and lets it stew under the spotlight as the reader looks on in fascination, laughter, or horror. The social commentary is sharp and pulls no punches, and I absolutely loved how far Kwan runs with it at the complete detriment to Eden and Rufus. I can’t go into them too specifically without major spoilers, but themes of White, Western perceived superiority over Asian looks/culture, societal class status, the excess of wealth and the numerous problems that come with, the viscous monster of fame, harsh judgment by one’s own family; these are themes that have been done before but the way they’re weaved together coherently is impressive. The latter half of the book also delves into self-hatred and discrimination against one’s own culture and background which is a theme I don’t see nearly enough in novels that tackle these types of culture-heavy stories. The way Kwan foreshadows this in the early chapters, only for it to come crashing in at the climax was great.
While the plot took a while to get going, once it reaches around the 60% mark, all hell breaks loose and it’s a wild ride. You would think that the Gresham’s financial ruin is the major turning point in the story, but it’s the hacked up solution to their debt that causes everything to break down epically, and this fall from grace was my favorite part of the whole book. Kwan’s portrayal of Arabella as the villainous Asian mother from hell is spectacular and the lengths and plots she and Aunt Rosina go to was very well-written. Needless to say, Arabella eventually has it coming and it’s absolutely gleeful to read. While all this is going on in the present day, there’s also a secondary story going on that starts in Hong Kong, 1995. Seemingly unrelated (and honestly somewhat difficult to follow, more on that soon), when all the pieces and plot threads come together at the novel's conclusion on top of Eden getting the justice she deserves, it’s all very satisfying.
Another reason why I believe it took me a while to become invested is again, thanks to the misdirection of the book’s pitch. Categorized as a romance novel, I was surprised at how little romance there actually was beyond Rufus’s shenanigans at his sister’s Hawaii wedding. Rufus’s romantic interest was easily one of the weakest elements of the Lies and Weddings for me. While the book does a passable job at explaining why he’s hopelessly in love with Eden, their actual relationship feels quite lacking in terms of chemistry, content and growth. While the social commentary and family drama is so good, the romance feels more like a mere plot device in order to set-up the various conflicts in the Gresham estate, making it an odd element to focus on. Their relationship looks even worse from Eden’s point of view after Rufus’s feelings are flung at her unexpectedly, only for her to suddenly start dreaming about him without much development or internal self-discovery. While we’re given a good idea of why Rufus loves Eden, the reverse direction is a bit murky, which is disappointing since Eden has more screen-time/pages compared to Rufus. The various other relationships between young adults roped in as part of Arabella and Rosina’s plans are varied and solid (Rufus and Martha Dung being particularly interesting), but the actual romantic relationships across the board feel lacking.
The other element that knocked me off at the beginning is the huge cast of characters introduced back to back. Chapter 1 introduces a huge group of friends in the 90’s, followed by an even larger group at the Hawaii wedding in the present. The wedding venue also throws even more characters as part of the planning group, workers, celebrities and photographers that seem important when they’re introduced, only to have almost no influence on the actual story. There’s a lot going on and a good portion of it feels like added fluff; well-written and conceptualized fluff but still extra fluff. Having only one chapter to familiarize with the 1995 Hong Kong group only for some to not appear until half the book later when you can barely remember who was who, the beginning is a bit rough. In many ways I feel like this story could’ve worked a lot better as a movie or miniseries as it would be easier to visually tell who is who at the beginning. Once Part 2 kicks in where Rufus and Eden end up in LA, the cast balloons to be even bigger.
Speaking of parts, Lies and Weddings is roughly divided into six parts based on different cities where the story takes place. These rough parts make thematic and tonal sense with their separations, but the book had an unfortunate habit of derailing the momentum at each transition. Part 2’s focus in Hawaii was fun to read, but the abrupt shift to Part 3 in London cut the action just when I felt like the book was getting its stride. The London section, while generally slower paced, felt like a good slow burn that transitioned quite well into Part 4 in Morocco due to the clear direction of the narrative. However, the jump to Part 5 in LA was the most jarring, switching back to Eden’s perspective who was largely absent from part 2 and 3. Once the LA section got going, I spent a good portion of that section wondering what was happening and how any of it was relevant to anything that came before. The whole reading experience felt start-stop, herky-jerky at times until Eden and Rufus reunite towards the end of Part 4 and onward. Obviously LA’s section held necessary pieces for the big reveal and conclusion, but I certainly think some reordering or adjustments in the book’s outline could’ve helped immensely with smoothing out the story’s progression. I actually think that doing away with the separate city sections would’ve worked more effectively, with Eden’s LA misadventures nicely contrasting and connecting to Rufus’s discoveries in Europe and Africa.
At the end of the day, Lies and Weddings is a rough 4.5 star book, knocked down to a 3.5 enjoyment for me. The immense details and footnotes specific to each part (which I initially found excessive and unnecessary), added a lot to the story as it progressed, and each city felt fully realized and lived-in. I actually grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii where Part 2 takes place and the numerous references and details Kwan included, apart from a few romanticized liberties, were shockingly accurate and precise. I can’t vouch for the other regions but I’d imagine they are also quite detailed. For all its strong qualities though, I still struggled to enjoy this book. While I found the content intriguing and different from my reading norm, it just wasn’t for me; particularly its style of absurdist satire. Absurdist satire, or really absurdist fiction in general, generally has too much going on for my taste. Fictional novels depicting Asian culture are also not one of my preferred interests, so Lies and Weddings was fighting against the odds from the get-go. However although was not my cup of tea (still feeling like a banana sometimes when I read these, if you get the joke you know), this is an easy recommendation for anyone who interested in Western/Asian Culture commentary, particularly for Chinese culture and Cantonese speakers (there’s a lot of Cantonese lines and idioms included).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting
Moderate: Cursing, Racism, Xenophobia, Classism
Happy Medium by Sarah Adler
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Cute, cozy, hints of the supernatural, and a habitual schemer, Happy Medium had a genius premise and all the elements of an amazing romantic dramedy. I had previously read Mrs. Nash’s Ashes so I had an idea of what I was getting into, and I had hoped that Sarah Adler’s sophomore novel would be able to improve on Nash’s disappointing and contrived climax/conclusion. Despite being paced more evenly and feeling more refined page to page, overall I found Happy Medium to suffer from similar issues of dumb character logic (2nd half only), melodrama that doesn’t have sufficient build-up (again 2nd half only), and a concluding plot twist that ruins most of its intriguing plot potential.
On the plus side, I quite enjoyed FMC Gretchen’s spiky personality and devious wit. Constantly trying to plan out her moves, both to convince Charlie that his farm is haunted and to safeguard her investment with her spirit medium client, I thought the first half of the book worked quite well; albeit feeling a bit slow for my taste. Although her sparring and enemies to friends to lovers arc with Charlie was good, her enemies to friends banter with the ghost Everett was the real highlight for me. Everett really steals the show and his plot threads involving his situation on the farm and his relationship to its owners was interesting to read. I would go as far to say my star rating would've been lower had Everett not been so silly and fun to read about.
Despite this book being classified as a contemporary romance novel, Everett’s light supernatural elements were more involved than I was expecting and were quite compelling! The curse involving the Waybill family, while comical at first, actually had a lot of promise. Assuming Gretchen was able to convince Charlie not to sell the farm, Everett’s future and potential end (or lack of end) could’ve gone in so many interesting directions. And then in the last one fourth of the book, everything falls apart with a poorly chosen plot twist and previously omitted detail to his curse.
Mrs. Nash’s Ashes caught me off-guard with how fast things spiraled towards its end but at least I could tell what Alder was trying to do. My Happy Medium’s plot twist however, mildly offended me by how insulting it was to the reader. The drama and implications of the curse, Everett’s eternal haunting, the potential sacrifice Gretchen potentially made (questionable character logic aside that can be attributed to her internal doubts and demons), I didn’t know how the book was going to resolve such a great setup. I don’t know what I was expecting but it was certainly anything but what the book gave me. It’s a happily ever after, everything works out kind of resolution that feels so cheap, lazy, and a complete copout. The book said something about it being a got'cha moment, and I fully felt that got'cha reaction in all the wrong ways.
Besides the unfortunate ending note, Happy Medium was otherwise quite pleasant and steady. Gretchen and Charlie’s relationship progresses very slowly, as well as her plotting ways to prevent the farm from being sold. As the story changes from how to stop the sale to how to save the farm, Gretchen’s brainstorming of business ideas was great. I also really liked the parts where Gretchen was able to use her effective (albeit often misused) skills of social engineering and intuitiveness to improve the farm's business. Having worked directly with the food and agriculture industry at my day job, these business strategies were clever and real ideas that could work in practice. The humor was neither unhinged enough to make me laugh nor was it clever enough to entertain me, but it was decently written and executed. There were some great themes included such as seeing others as friends vs acquaintances, avoidance tactics encouraged by past abandonment, and the morality of lying for others’ benefit. A lot of these themes were introduced and initially handled well at first, only for Happy Medium then lack the finesse to pull them off. And that sentiment is almost verbatim what I also wrote in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6331766090" target="blank">Nash’s review.</a> Speaking of Mrs. Nash's Ashes, Hollis Hollenbeck has a very small cameo in Happy Medium if you read it before this one (it's a very small Easter egg reference however that's almost not worth mentioning).
Despite the unfortunate narrative choices made in the back half of the book, Happy Medium is indeed quite a happy and cozy read. Even at their worst, Gretchen and Charlie are charming enough to read about and Everett’s presence more than makes up for whenever the main plot’s interest starts to dip. It’s just a shame that Sarah Adler again cooked up a stellar premise that she couldn’t pull off yet again. While not quite as disappointing as Mrs. Nash’s Ashes questionable ending, there’s definitely a lot of other novels with a similar tone that I’d likely recommend over this one. Unless you have a thing for Goat Farms that is, and this is coming from a reader that actually does regulatory work with Goat Dairy Farms.
On the plus side, I quite enjoyed FMC Gretchen’s spiky personality and devious wit. Constantly trying to plan out her moves, both to convince Charlie that his farm is haunted and to safeguard her investment with her spirit medium client, I thought the first half of the book worked quite well; albeit feeling a bit slow for my taste. Although her sparring and enemies to friends to lovers arc with Charlie was good, her enemies to friends banter with the ghost Everett was the real highlight for me. Everett really steals the show and his plot threads involving his situation on the farm and his relationship to its owners was interesting to read. I would go as far to say my star rating would've been lower had Everett not been so silly and fun to read about.
Despite this book being classified as a contemporary romance novel, Everett’s light supernatural elements were more involved than I was expecting and were quite compelling! The curse involving the Waybill family, while comical at first, actually had a lot of promise. Assuming Gretchen was able to convince Charlie not to sell the farm, Everett’s future and potential end (or lack of end) could’ve gone in so many interesting directions. And then in the last one fourth of the book, everything falls apart with a poorly chosen plot twist and previously omitted detail to his curse.
Mrs. Nash’s Ashes caught me off-guard with how fast things spiraled towards its end but at least I could tell what Alder was trying to do. My Happy Medium’s plot twist however, mildly offended me by how insulting it was to the reader. The drama and implications of the curse, Everett’s eternal haunting, the potential sacrifice Gretchen potentially made (questionable character logic aside that can be attributed to her internal doubts and demons), I didn’t know how the book was going to resolve such a great setup. I don’t know what I was expecting but it was certainly anything but what the book gave me. It’s a happily ever after, everything works out kind of resolution that feels so cheap, lazy, and a complete copout. The book said something about it being a got'cha moment, and I fully felt that got'cha reaction in all the wrong ways.
Besides the unfortunate ending note, Happy Medium was otherwise quite pleasant and steady. Gretchen and Charlie’s relationship progresses very slowly, as well as her plotting ways to prevent the farm from being sold. As the story changes from how to stop the sale to how to save the farm, Gretchen’s brainstorming of business ideas was great. I also really liked the parts where Gretchen was able to use her effective (albeit often misused) skills of social engineering and intuitiveness to improve the farm's business. Having worked directly with the food and agriculture industry at my day job, these business strategies were clever and real ideas that could work in practice. The humor was neither unhinged enough to make me laugh nor was it clever enough to entertain me, but it was decently written and executed. There were some great themes included such as seeing others as friends vs acquaintances, avoidance tactics encouraged by past abandonment, and the morality of lying for others’ benefit. A lot of these themes were introduced and initially handled well at first, only for Happy Medium then lack the finesse to pull them off. And that sentiment is almost verbatim what I also wrote in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6331766090" target="blank">Nash’s review.</a> Speaking of Mrs. Nash's Ashes, Hollis Hollenbeck has a very small cameo in Happy Medium if you read it before this one (it's a very small Easter egg reference however that's almost not worth mentioning).
Despite the unfortunate narrative choices made in the back half of the book, Happy Medium is indeed quite a happy and cozy read. Even at their worst, Gretchen and Charlie are charming enough to read about and Everett’s presence more than makes up for whenever the main plot’s interest starts to dip. It’s just a shame that Sarah Adler again cooked up a stellar premise that she couldn’t pull off yet again. While not quite as disappointing as Mrs. Nash’s Ashes questionable ending, there’s definitely a lot of other novels with a similar tone that I’d likely recommend over this one. Unless you have a thing for Goat Farms that is, and this is coming from a reader that actually does regulatory work with Goat Dairy Farms.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Cursing
Minor: Grief, Death of parent
Middle of the Night by Riley Sager
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
I’m starting to detest the genre and book descriptor “thriller” or “horror” as it sets an unfair expectation for a twisty, fast-paced, intense reading experience which doesn’t fit many books classified under it. And to be frank, Riley Sager’s Middle of the Night is NOT fast-paced nor intense (by my standards anyway), and even calling it slow burn might be a stretch at times. However, despite the slow pacing for almost 60% of the book (slow even by Riley Sager standards), I still found it to be a rewarding and surprisingly sophisticated read!
This is my 3rd Riley Sager novel that I’ve had the pleasure of reading and it’s definitely not one that I would recommend if someone has never read any of his other books before. The pacing is deliberately slow and there’s a decently large ensemble cast of characters to keep track of. Constantly jumping between two time perspectives, the bulk of the story is told from the present day perspective of Ethan Marsh as a grown 40yr old, thirty years after the disappearance of his friend and neighbor Billy. Despite much of the past perspective taking place over the course of a few days and the present tense also covering a short time period, there’s quite a lot of information to keep track of.
Many of Sager’s signature trademarks are included in Middle of the Night, but quite a few are flipped around or incorporated in unique ways that are only noticeable if you’ve read some of his other works. It’s rare for Sager to have a male main character in his novels and Ethan skews slightly older than his typical main protagonist (it intrigued me and was one of the biggest draws for me). Ethan and the other “kids” that grew up on Hemlock Circle are all in their late 30’s and 40’s who carry baggage that are more mature than the norm for Sager’s characters. The other half of the characters are the parents of the kids on Hemlock Circle who were in their 30’s during the flashback timeline, now retired seniors in the present tense. Some of Sager’s past works featured a few older characters and parents in the past, but never this many and such a variety (I don’t know how you can make five wealthy suburban families all distinctively different but he does). The older characters do have less of a focus compared to their kids, but they were still decently developed. Despite not having many pages focused on characters besides Ethan, I was surprised at how well-written and complex many of them were (the biggest surprises for me were Russ and Ragesh, Ethan’s other kid neighbor and the resident tough guy bully of the block). Particularly with the kids > adult characters, the growth in maturity and perspectives that happen off-the page between the thirty years Ethan was away from the circle was perhaps my favorite part of the whole book. The core mystery was good, but I actually think it almost pales in comparison to Sager’s understated, yet excellent character work.
Speaking of Sager’s typical quirks and approaches, one of his usual tropes done very effectively was his twist on his usual split perspective narratives that he uses in so many of his novels. Instead of presenting only flashbacks from Ethan’s perspective as a ten year old as expected (which would’ve gotten repetitive and old fast), the past perspective constantly shifts between nearly every character on Hemlock Circle. Not only did the constant shifts keep my attention during the novel’s slowest sections, but I also found it to be quite successful at unraveling the mystery of Billy’s disappearance with each different character holding a crucial piece of the puzzle. In a sense, the approach reminded me of the movie Vantage Point (or really hyperlink cinema piece in general) which I thought was genius. Sager does this with Middle of the Night, but unlike many other novels, does the shift purposefully. Whenever Ethan discovers a clue or potential lead on Billy’s disappearance, the perspective immediately shifts to the past and the character’s perspective that best relates to that clue. Instead of unnecessarily drawing out clues, the story immediately jumps to it and builds its momentum. The shifts are also used for the miscommunication trope, but this is purely done to highlight each character's regret of what they previously said or done, rather than the usual purpose to escalate the tension or drama. And again as previously mentioned, not much physical time actually passes over the duration of this 350+ book. That’s a lot of character content that never feels like it’s spread too thinly.
On the note of drama, another aspect that I thought was done well was the baggage and regret nearly every character on Hemlock Circle has. The contents vary substantially by each character and although some ultimately may not have much direct involvement with Billy’s disappearance, they are compelling misdirections that lead into a new plot reveal or provide valuable context to what other certain characters feel or suspect in each other. The introspection a lot of the characters experience are most relatable to readers of similar age to the characters, I occasionally felt like I would appreciate the reflections even more if I was another 5-10 yrs older (refreshing compared to how many times I’ve felt old or found recent books juvenile). Admittedly Ethan’s own regret that he feels for Billy’s disappearance can tread into the typical melodramatic, overdone territory, but patient readers will be rewarded as the story unfolds and Ethan’s own life had some hidden plot twists that I didn't see coming (a second read through and you’ll be able to catch all the hidden clues hinting at them from early-on).
Despite all the great qualities I’ve highlighted so far, this book still took a while to get going for me. The story didn’t really hook me until I got to about the 60% mark, which is considerably later and slower than both of the other Riley Sager books I’ve previously read. Like his other novels however, once it starts rolling, it’s an engrossing read; still slower-paced and methodical, but nonetheless interesting. I think I ended up reading over half the book in one day split in two sittings. I mentioned it previously in my review for Sager’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6142250099" target="blank">The Only One Left</a>, but the Sager’s plotting is tight and there is not one extraneous character or clue in the story. I was impressed then and I’m impressed again now at how Sager is able to incorporate so many characters into the story and suggest plausible reasons each could be a culprit. This may be a minor spoiler (though it’s actually a Riley Sager signature trope I’m noticing), but Middle of the Night continues Sager’s strategy of telling an unsettling story with seemingly light supernatural elements that are later revealed to be attributed to actions done entirely by the living. Parts of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6032776004" target="blank">Home Before Dark</a> could sometimes feel a bit of a stretch (granted that one had far heavier horror/supernatural elements involved), but Middle of the Night’s reveal and conclusion felt decidedly more solid and definitely more foolproof than his other two novels that I’ve read.
In short, I thought Middle of Night was an excellent slow-burn character drama story masquerading as a “mystery thriller”. The plot is well-crafted, methodical, and exudes a sense of sophistication and confidence that resists the temptation of unnecessary action, superfluous melodrama, or cheap red herrings; bucking the trend of so many other recently published and trending thrillers. This one is really a 4.5 rounded down due to the very slow start and seemingly standard setup, but I definitely enjoyed it more than Home Before Dark which I also rated 4-stars (but not quite as exciting to read as The Last One Left). I agree with many other reviewers that have commented that Sager’s flavor of thriller/horror (if you could even call it that) requires patience and is not for everyone, but so far I’m three for three and it’s really working well for me!
This is my 3rd Riley Sager novel that I’ve had the pleasure of reading and it’s definitely not one that I would recommend if someone has never read any of his other books before. The pacing is deliberately slow and there’s a decently large ensemble cast of characters to keep track of. Constantly jumping between two time perspectives, the bulk of the story is told from the present day perspective of Ethan Marsh as a grown 40yr old, thirty years after the disappearance of his friend and neighbor Billy. Despite much of the past perspective taking place over the course of a few days and the present tense also covering a short time period, there’s quite a lot of information to keep track of.
Many of Sager’s signature trademarks are included in Middle of the Night, but quite a few are flipped around or incorporated in unique ways that are only noticeable if you’ve read some of his other works. It’s rare for Sager to have a male main character in his novels and Ethan skews slightly older than his typical main protagonist (it intrigued me and was one of the biggest draws for me). Ethan and the other “kids” that grew up on Hemlock Circle are all in their late 30’s and 40’s who carry baggage that are more mature than the norm for Sager’s characters. The other half of the characters are the parents of the kids on Hemlock Circle who were in their 30’s during the flashback timeline, now retired seniors in the present tense. Some of Sager’s past works featured a few older characters and parents in the past, but never this many and such a variety (I don’t know how you can make five wealthy suburban families all distinctively different but he does). The older characters do have less of a focus compared to their kids, but they were still decently developed. Despite not having many pages focused on characters besides Ethan, I was surprised at how well-written and complex many of them were (the biggest surprises for me were Russ and Ragesh, Ethan’s other kid neighbor and the resident tough guy bully of the block). Particularly with the kids > adult characters, the growth in maturity and perspectives that happen off-the page between the thirty years Ethan was away from the circle was perhaps my favorite part of the whole book. The core mystery was good, but I actually think it almost pales in comparison to Sager’s understated, yet excellent character work.
Speaking of Sager’s typical quirks and approaches, one of his usual tropes done very effectively was his twist on his usual split perspective narratives that he uses in so many of his novels. Instead of presenting only flashbacks from Ethan’s perspective as a ten year old as expected (which would’ve gotten repetitive and old fast), the past perspective constantly shifts between nearly every character on Hemlock Circle. Not only did the constant shifts keep my attention during the novel’s slowest sections, but I also found it to be quite successful at unraveling the mystery of Billy’s disappearance with each different character holding a crucial piece of the puzzle. In a sense, the approach reminded me of the movie Vantage Point (or really hyperlink cinema piece in general) which I thought was genius. Sager does this with Middle of the Night, but unlike many other novels, does the shift purposefully. Whenever Ethan discovers a clue or potential lead on Billy’s disappearance, the perspective immediately shifts to the past and the character’s perspective that best relates to that clue. Instead of unnecessarily drawing out clues, the story immediately jumps to it and builds its momentum. The shifts are also used for the miscommunication trope, but this is purely done to highlight each character's regret of what they previously said or done, rather than the usual purpose to escalate the tension or drama. And again as previously mentioned, not much physical time actually passes over the duration of this 350+ book. That’s a lot of character content that never feels like it’s spread too thinly.
On the note of drama, another aspect that I thought was done well was the baggage and regret nearly every character on Hemlock Circle has. The contents vary substantially by each character and although some ultimately may not have much direct involvement with Billy’s disappearance, they are compelling misdirections that lead into a new plot reveal or provide valuable context to what other certain characters feel or suspect in each other. The introspection a lot of the characters experience are most relatable to readers of similar age to the characters, I occasionally felt like I would appreciate the reflections even more if I was another 5-10 yrs older (refreshing compared to how many times I’ve felt old or found recent books juvenile). Admittedly Ethan’s own regret that he feels for Billy’s disappearance can tread into the typical melodramatic, overdone territory, but patient readers will be rewarded as the story unfolds and Ethan’s own life had some hidden plot twists that I didn't see coming (a second read through and you’ll be able to catch all the hidden clues hinting at them from early-on).
Despite all the great qualities I’ve highlighted so far, this book still took a while to get going for me. The story didn’t really hook me until I got to about the 60% mark, which is considerably later and slower than both of the other Riley Sager books I’ve previously read. Like his other novels however, once it starts rolling, it’s an engrossing read; still slower-paced and methodical, but nonetheless interesting. I think I ended up reading over half the book in one day split in two sittings. I mentioned it previously in my review for Sager’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6142250099" target="blank">The Only One Left</a>, but the Sager’s plotting is tight and there is not one extraneous character or clue in the story. I was impressed then and I’m impressed again now at how Sager is able to incorporate so many characters into the story and suggest plausible reasons each could be a culprit. This may be a minor spoiler (though it’s actually a Riley Sager signature trope I’m noticing), but Middle of the Night continues Sager’s strategy of telling an unsettling story with seemingly light supernatural elements that are later revealed to be attributed to actions done entirely by the living. Parts of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6032776004" target="blank">Home Before Dark</a> could sometimes feel a bit of a stretch (granted that one had far heavier horror/supernatural elements involved), but Middle of the Night’s reveal and conclusion felt decidedly more solid and definitely more foolproof than his other two novels that I’ve read.
In short, I thought Middle of Night was an excellent slow-burn character drama story masquerading as a “mystery thriller”. The plot is well-crafted, methodical, and exudes a sense of sophistication and confidence that resists the temptation of unnecessary action, superfluous melodrama, or cheap red herrings; bucking the trend of so many other recently published and trending thrillers. This one is really a 4.5 rounded down due to the very slow start and seemingly standard setup, but I definitely enjoyed it more than Home Before Dark which I also rated 4-stars (but not quite as exciting to read as The Last One Left). I agree with many other reviewers that have commented that Sager’s flavor of thriller/horror (if you could even call it that) requires patience and is not for everyone, but so far I’m three for three and it’s really working well for me!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Bullying
Minor: Homophobia
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
I knew full well going into it that Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was not going to play to my preferred tastes and interests at all, but I still wanted to give it a try anyway to expand my reading experiences. Unfortunately my initial impression was right. Despite how much I wanted to like the novel for its earnest, ambitious aspirations and to connect with the powerful content and memories, this was a complete stylistic miss for me. On Earth there were briefly moments that were impactful where I thought I would experience what so many others have loved in Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, but the presentation constantly disappointed me and ruined each moving moment rather than enhancing it.
Ordinarily I would and should’ve DNF’d this, but I stuck it out with hopes that it would get better since I was recommended this from a friend; it did slightly to an extent. Divided into three parts loosely based around Little Dog’s childhood, adolescence, and young adult/reflective years, I found the 3rd part to be the most impactful and moving. Focusing on themes of death, mortality, addiction, and familial caregiving, these themes were ones that I could understand and connect with the most compared to themes or feelings that were presented in the first two parts. The loss of a particular person that is redacted for spoilers was easily the most interesting part for me, one because of the context and impact this person had on Little Dog, but also because there were less excessive metaphors and poetic messing around.
At first I thought the metaphors layered with social and societal commentary were interesting and affected. However the initial interest faded along with my patience for how little narrative content there was, filled and covered by so much abstract poetry. What started off as insightful connections quickly began to feel like constant reaching, with random phrases or off-hand tangents at every turn. The attempts at poetic connections and lyrical phrasing felt oddly impersonal and fragmented, which is at odds with the otherwise personal content. Sometimes less is more, I would’ve loved a more contained presentation that would allow the inspiring content and powerful narration to speak for itself. And to be clear, it’s not that I didn’t understand what the book was trying to do, far from that. I can tell a lot of love and effort was put in but ultimately the finished product felt like a mess and didn’t really give me a reason to care.
Despite being Asian American myself, I sometimes have a hard time reading or appreciating written portrayals or reflections on said Asian American experiences. This one however, appealed to me even less than others due to how convoluted the recollected “memories” were written. There were occasional moments that I thought were brilliant written, for example the following:
<blockquote>I am thinking of freedom again, how the calf is most free when the cage opens and it’s led to the truck for slaughter (calves raised for veal). All freedom is relative–you know too well-and sometimes it’s not freedom at all, nut simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they “free” wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders. But I took it anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough.”</blockquote>
Unfortunately for every quote or metaphor I thought was well done, there were another dozen metaphors or references that I felt had little relevancy or connection. I’ve read a few reviews that condemn Vuong’s writing for being pretentious, but that wasn’t the impression I got. Rather, I found the writing to be too free-flowing and ridiculously abstract. The memoir elements feel like a constant stream of thoughts, with no filter or editing. There were many times where I would start to get invested, only for the writing to go off on a metaphorical tangent (sometimes appropriately but more often randomly) and eventually loop back at the end after disrupting the flow. Other times Vuong would try to connect two different memories or concepts and ping pong back and forth with little finesse. Perhaps I’m too analytical and logical to follow or appreciate the artistic liberties at play, but I spent so much time re-reading stanzas, sitting there baffled at whatever the book was attempting, eventually getting it, then progressively losing my patience at how excessively unnecessary the prose was. The book also has a tendency to present events out of chronological order and ordinarily this is not a problem. However these events are connected to each other loosely by feeling(?) or theme, but the concept is so unfocused that the narration and moment feel lost and all over the place. I hoped that by the end of the book, the separate pieces and themes would be drawn together or somehow connect to the title, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Sadly the book didn’t do that, and the title concept is only really referenced in the closing two chapters with callbacks to part 1’s contents, yet few to part 2 or 3’s. And that’s disappointing since a lot of the individual content across all three parts seemed like excellent material to work with and something I would’ve appreciated if handled differently.
At the end of the day, I don’t regret picking this up to read as it’s a unique novel. However, I can’t say that I enjoyed reading it, both subjectively and objectively. I think that for those who are more empathetic or free-flowing thinkers, this writing style and collection of memoir moments are powerful and moving. But it just didn’t work at all for me. In many ways, the book is written like a memoir despite having loosely-inspired (yet also fictional? I don’t understand where the line is drawn) novel-esque elements. But combined as a memoir and a fictional story, it somehow fails to really pull off either concept with problems associated with his signature prose. I originally rated this one star while writing this review, but ultimately barely bumped it up to a two (honestly it's like a 1.5) due to being briefly gorgeous at times and its high aspirations (also it’s an insult to compare this to some of the other 1-star books I’ve previously reviewed). But make no mistake, this was a terrible choice for my reading preference and I’m happy to now move on to something else.
Ordinarily I would and should’ve DNF’d this, but I stuck it out with hopes that it would get better since I was recommended this from a friend; it did slightly to an extent. Divided into three parts loosely based around Little Dog’s childhood, adolescence, and young adult/reflective years, I found the 3rd part to be the most impactful and moving. Focusing on themes of death, mortality, addiction, and familial caregiving, these themes were ones that I could understand and connect with the most compared to themes or feelings that were presented in the first two parts. The loss of a particular person that is redacted for spoilers was easily the most interesting part for me, one because of the context and impact this person had on Little Dog, but also because there were less excessive metaphors and poetic messing around.
At first I thought the metaphors layered with social and societal commentary were interesting and affected. However the initial interest faded along with my patience for how little narrative content there was, filled and covered by so much abstract poetry. What started off as insightful connections quickly began to feel like constant reaching, with random phrases or off-hand tangents at every turn. The attempts at poetic connections and lyrical phrasing felt oddly impersonal and fragmented, which is at odds with the otherwise personal content. Sometimes less is more, I would’ve loved a more contained presentation that would allow the inspiring content and powerful narration to speak for itself. And to be clear, it’s not that I didn’t understand what the book was trying to do, far from that. I can tell a lot of love and effort was put in but ultimately the finished product felt like a mess and didn’t really give me a reason to care.
Despite being Asian American myself, I sometimes have a hard time reading or appreciating written portrayals or reflections on said Asian American experiences. This one however, appealed to me even less than others due to how convoluted the recollected “memories” were written. There were occasional moments that I thought were brilliant written, for example the following:
<blockquote>I am thinking of freedom again, how the calf is most free when the cage opens and it’s led to the truck for slaughter (calves raised for veal). All freedom is relative–you know too well-and sometimes it’s not freedom at all, nut simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they “free” wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders. But I took it anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough.”</blockquote>
Unfortunately for every quote or metaphor I thought was well done, there were another dozen metaphors or references that I felt had little relevancy or connection. I’ve read a few reviews that condemn Vuong’s writing for being pretentious, but that wasn’t the impression I got. Rather, I found the writing to be too free-flowing and ridiculously abstract. The memoir elements feel like a constant stream of thoughts, with no filter or editing. There were many times where I would start to get invested, only for the writing to go off on a metaphorical tangent (sometimes appropriately but more often randomly) and eventually loop back at the end after disrupting the flow. Other times Vuong would try to connect two different memories or concepts and ping pong back and forth with little finesse. Perhaps I’m too analytical and logical to follow or appreciate the artistic liberties at play, but I spent so much time re-reading stanzas, sitting there baffled at whatever the book was attempting, eventually getting it, then progressively losing my patience at how excessively unnecessary the prose was. The book also has a tendency to present events out of chronological order and ordinarily this is not a problem. However these events are connected to each other loosely by feeling(?) or theme, but the concept is so unfocused that the narration and moment feel lost and all over the place. I hoped that by the end of the book, the separate pieces and themes would be drawn together or somehow connect to the title, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Sadly the book didn’t do that, and the title concept is only really referenced in the closing two chapters with callbacks to part 1’s contents, yet few to part 2 or 3’s. And that’s disappointing since a lot of the individual content across all three parts seemed like excellent material to work with and something I would’ve appreciated if handled differently.
At the end of the day, I don’t regret picking this up to read as it’s a unique novel. However, I can’t say that I enjoyed reading it, both subjectively and objectively. I think that for those who are more empathetic or free-flowing thinkers, this writing style and collection of memoir moments are powerful and moving. But it just didn’t work at all for me. In many ways, the book is written like a memoir despite having loosely-inspired (yet also fictional? I don’t understand where the line is drawn) novel-esque elements. But combined as a memoir and a fictional story, it somehow fails to really pull off either concept with problems associated with his signature prose. I originally rated this one star while writing this review, but ultimately barely bumped it up to a two (honestly it's like a 1.5) due to being briefly gorgeous at times and its high aspirations (also it’s an insult to compare this to some of the other 1-star books I’ve previously reviewed). But make no mistake, this was a terrible choice for my reading preference and I’m happy to now move on to something else.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Homophobia, Sexual content
Minor: Death, Racial slurs
Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Check & Mate is a great YA novel that has a lot to like. Despite her works usually being classified as contemporary romance or chick lit, Check & Mate felt like it skewed more towards a coming of age (coming of adult age that is) contemporary fiction story rather than romance. It’s certainly there and shapes a lot of the plot’s overall narrative, but the majority of the book is focused on Mallory’s internal dilemmas and confrontations with her past guilt and perceived responsibilities. Despite finding it well done and solid across the board, as a grown man probably twice the age of the intended readers, unfortunately this was not a very enjoyable read for me (romance was nice, all of Mallory’s drama, not so nice). However this is very much a “it’s not the book, it’s me” scenario.
What I found to appreciate in Check & Mate is how well-written and developed the FMC Mallory is, and how relatable she likely can be. I was actually recommended this book to read from a friend who Mallory reminded me quite a lot of, minus some of her questionable emotional thought-processes. The way she thinks and acts, including character flaws that the world revolves around her and all of that teenage angst, I thought was well-done and appropriate. Besides obvious pop culture references, some of her inner demons and concerns are things I and many others certainly have experienced (many yrs ago, oops). Some of these social media references or attempts at gen z likes felt a bit forced like Timothée Chalamet, Riverdale that has since ended, Dragon age, candy crush (these all feel past their prime relevancy), but the actual content of what the characters did felt right.
The themes in the novel are also those that I love to see highlighted including the social stigma against women in certain sports or fields (a recurring theme across Ali Hazelwood’s works), negative publicity and the press, the difficulty of single parent families, etc. The family dynamic and pressure of being the oldest sibling was great, even though I had almost no idea what they were saying to each other at first, which was heightened by Hazelwood’s frequent run-on sentences or unusual sentence structure (this gradually improved and seemed to tone down after the first 100 pages or so). Despite having surprisingly few appearances and chapters, I liked how the love interest Nolan was written. Their chemistry felt believable and despite the attraction and interest, these are chess players first and foremost. I loved how quick they fell into a professional working relationship before any sort of romantic one was established, despite the obvious interest. The overall plot was paced well and as someone who used to play chess casually when I was younger, the plot elements and chess research was good!
The biggest drawback and unfortunate comparison Check & Mate is obviously going to pull is with the Queen’s Gambit. Despite it being more of a historical novel and lacking the overt romantic happy ending, it unfortunately created a subconscious standard for female chess-related stories for me. Although I thought Check & Mate was overall solid, it somehow fell into an unfortunate middle ground where I either wanted more chess content or more romance. The exploration of professional chess was well done and reflected on the nuances of FIDE ratings and the competitive circuit, but the chess games themselves left something to be desired. Once the chess games actually started, they were consistently glossed over or paraphrased in general recaps where I would’ve liked to see more details or competitive intensity; areas that the Queens Gambit was stellar in. I’m not saying every author has to be professionally experienced to write about something, but the constant skirting of chess’s more complex elements began to feel like a copout. I would’ve liked to see the chess community commentary go deeper or delve into the monetary aspects that were only lightly brushed on. On the flipside, if viewed as a YA romance novel, the romance was good but didn’t feel like enough. Nolan was a love interest but his actual appearance felt so few and far between (friend Emil feels like he has almost as many chapters as Nolan does) and the book never really delved into what exactly Nolan found captivating about Mallory and her chess playing. Obviously you can draw an inference and conclusion from their dynamics leading up to the novel’s conclusion, but it feels like a missed opportunity to flesh his character out more since we’re not really given much information about what he thinks or feels (and even less on his backstory). There’s cool, logical and detached, then there’s undeveloped and MIA.
This leads me into one of my personal subjective gripes with reading this book which is Mallory being insufferable to read about. When the story isn’t focused on an actual chess tournament or her relationship with Nolan (even at the same time with Nolan sometimes), the bulk of the book is all on Mallory’s personal coming of age drama. This is almost entirely due to me being a grown man reading about the insecurities and emotional thought-processes of an 18yr old, but it just made me feel really tired and old. While I appreciated how well she was written and developed from an objective writing standpoint, she was quite frustrating and tiring to read about, which is a common trend and personal preference thing for many contemporary fiction books for me (or more specifically, a lot of books that are trending on booktok and social media). All of the conflicts of the book can be summarized as Mallory projecting all of her own issues and insecurities on others and making it all about her when she thinks she’s actually doing the opposite. The emotional immaturity is something that can obviously resonate with younger readers, however to me it just made her look like the true villain of the story. The reading experience of Check & Mate heavily hinges on the enjoyment of Mallory’s character and for me, it was a definite drawback.
To recap, Check & Mate is a great book, but not for me (and likely a lot of adult readers). I can tell Ali Hazelwood is a good author and the plot was well-crafted and evenly paced, it’s just Mallory’s drama that came off as silly teenage angst coupled with my usual distaste for the miscommunication trope. Despite being working on this book in 2021 and its publication being only a year ago, a lot of the pop culture references, slang, and comedic elements also feel dated already. The references are cute now, but often feel try-hard and I can’t imagine them aging very well, even only a few years from now. However, the silver lining is that Check & Mate was Ali Hazelwood’s first foray into the YA genre which most of my issues with this book can be traced back to. I’m cautiously optimistic that trying one of her standard adult fiction novels will go better (if not, it’s time to flame to death- I mean lightly roast my friend on her book suggestions to me).
What I found to appreciate in Check & Mate is how well-written and developed the FMC Mallory is, and how relatable she likely can be. I was actually recommended this book to read from a friend who Mallory reminded me quite a lot of, minus some of her questionable emotional thought-processes. The way she thinks and acts, including character flaws that the world revolves around her and all of that teenage angst, I thought was well-done and appropriate. Besides obvious pop culture references, some of her inner demons and concerns are things I and many others certainly have experienced (many yrs ago, oops). Some of these social media references or attempts at gen z likes felt a bit forced like Timothée Chalamet, Riverdale that has since ended, Dragon age, candy crush (these all feel past their prime relevancy), but the actual content of what the characters did felt right.
The themes in the novel are also those that I love to see highlighted including the social stigma against women in certain sports or fields (a recurring theme across Ali Hazelwood’s works), negative publicity and the press, the difficulty of single parent families, etc. The family dynamic and pressure of being the oldest sibling was great, even though I had almost no idea what they were saying to each other at first, which was heightened by Hazelwood’s frequent run-on sentences or unusual sentence structure (this gradually improved and seemed to tone down after the first 100 pages or so). Despite having surprisingly few appearances and chapters, I liked how the love interest Nolan was written. Their chemistry felt believable and despite the attraction and interest, these are chess players first and foremost. I loved how quick they fell into a professional working relationship before any sort of romantic one was established, despite the obvious interest. The overall plot was paced well and as someone who used to play chess casually when I was younger, the plot elements and chess research was good!
The biggest drawback and unfortunate comparison Check & Mate is obviously going to pull is with the Queen’s Gambit. Despite it being more of a historical novel and lacking the overt romantic happy ending, it unfortunately created a subconscious standard for female chess-related stories for me. Although I thought Check & Mate was overall solid, it somehow fell into an unfortunate middle ground where I either wanted more chess content or more romance. The exploration of professional chess was well done and reflected on the nuances of FIDE ratings and the competitive circuit, but the chess games themselves left something to be desired. Once the chess games actually started, they were consistently glossed over or paraphrased in general recaps where I would’ve liked to see more details or competitive intensity; areas that the Queens Gambit was stellar in. I’m not saying every author has to be professionally experienced to write about something, but the constant skirting of chess’s more complex elements began to feel like a copout. I would’ve liked to see the chess community commentary go deeper or delve into the monetary aspects that were only lightly brushed on. On the flipside, if viewed as a YA romance novel, the romance was good but didn’t feel like enough. Nolan was a love interest but his actual appearance felt so few and far between (friend Emil feels like he has almost as many chapters as Nolan does) and the book never really delved into what exactly Nolan found captivating about Mallory and her chess playing. Obviously you can draw an inference and conclusion from their dynamics leading up to the novel’s conclusion, but it feels like a missed opportunity to flesh his character out more since we’re not really given much information about what he thinks or feels (and even less on his backstory). There’s cool, logical and detached, then there’s undeveloped and MIA.
This leads me into one of my personal subjective gripes with reading this book which is Mallory being insufferable to read about. When the story isn’t focused on an actual chess tournament or her relationship with Nolan (even at the same time with Nolan sometimes), the bulk of the book is all on Mallory’s personal coming of age drama. This is almost entirely due to me being a grown man reading about the insecurities and emotional thought-processes of an 18yr old, but it just made me feel really tired and old. While I appreciated how well she was written and developed from an objective writing standpoint, she was quite frustrating and tiring to read about, which is a common trend and personal preference thing for many contemporary fiction books for me (or more specifically, a lot of books that are trending on booktok and social media). All of the conflicts of the book can be summarized as Mallory projecting all of her own issues and insecurities on others and making it all about her when she thinks she’s actually doing the opposite. The emotional immaturity is something that can obviously resonate with younger readers, however to me it just made her look like the true villain of the story. The reading experience of Check & Mate heavily hinges on the enjoyment of Mallory’s character and for me, it was a definite drawback.
To recap, Check & Mate is a great book, but not for me (and likely a lot of adult readers). I can tell Ali Hazelwood is a good author and the plot was well-crafted and evenly paced, it’s just Mallory’s drama that came off as silly teenage angst coupled with my usual distaste for the miscommunication trope. Despite being working on this book in 2021 and its publication being only a year ago, a lot of the pop culture references, slang, and comedic elements also feel dated already. The references are cute now, but often feel try-hard and I can’t imagine them aging very well, even only a few years from now. However, the silver lining is that Check & Mate was Ali Hazelwood’s first foray into the YA genre which most of my issues with this book can be traced back to. I’m cautiously optimistic that trying one of her standard adult fiction novels will go better (if not, it’s time to flame to death- I mean lightly roast my friend on her book suggestions to me).
Set My Heart to Five by Simon Stephenson
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Easily one of the most creative and whimsical novels I’ve read in many years. Simon Stephenson’s Set My Heart to Five is a thoughtful (and occasionally edgy) commentary on human behavior and societal culture wrapped up in a seemingly light-hearted, meandering AI bot adventure. Despite being compared to Vonnegut’s ideologies and writing, the book’s content reminded me a lot of Daniel Keye’s Flowers for Algernon (which is one of my all-time favorite novels) in which both stories feature an innocuous narrator who does not understand the complexities of human behavior and terrible people around them. Set My Heart to Five’s premise of an AI bot developing feelings admittedly isn’t new territory, but the style of delivery and humorously dry character voice puts it in an entirely new area.
First and foremost, Set My Heart to Five is not going to be for everyone, nor does Stephenson make an attempt to be mass-appealing. Jared’s character voice is somehow both frank and dry, yet also entirely comical in a witty, dark humor kind of way; you know that one friend who always talks about the unspoken elephant in the room that’s not socially acceptable, yeah that’s Jared. Full of fun wordplays and paradoxical situations inspired by the idiosyncrasies of human behavior, this is smart and classy humor. It’s impossible to not find Jared’s bamboozled descriptions of events funny, and the book easily captures the amusement of childhood innocence that’s compared to bots’ lack of feelings. The premise is clever. By utilizing a grown, autonomous adult, the book is able to explore places and plot threads that a typical young character could never do (ie. the bafflement of getting drunk in Vegas, staying at a sketchy motel used by prostitutes and drug-dealers, etc).
The writing is also incredibly distinctive to Jared and unlike anything I’ve read, to the point where I have no idea what Stephenson’s actual writing style is like. As the book progresses, some of Jared’s recurring phrases become dad-joke style humor (or should I say, bot-joke humor) become jokes in and of themselves, one of which is “Humans, I cannot!”. I’ve seen a bunch of reviews critique these recurring phrases as lazy or lame, but the repeated use is by design. Bots follow predetermined logic and thought processes, and Stephenson uses that awareness to purposely use Jared’s signature phrases in increasingly outlandish situations. There’s a recurring theme of movies, scriptwriting, and formulaic composition that's very detailed and effective (no surprise given Simon Stephenson’s experience with screenplays for Pixar and other Hollywood studios), I’m convinced every repetitive phrase is by design. On that note, having worked on Luca, Set My Heart to Five also captures the unique humor, insightful meaning, and Pixar-esque tone while having adult themes and edgy jabs that would never be greenlit for production. This novel actually feels like it could be a love child between Pixar and A24.
What I liked most about the Set My Heart to Five is the surprisingly deep cutting commentary made about human behavior. Despite the lackadaisy pacing and sunny tone, there’s some pretty harsh commentary hidden in there that I thought was amazing. I can see a good number of them being offensive to those with conservative views (this is a generally left leaning if you want to look at it politically, which you shouldn’t, though it also pokes fun at socialist culture), but that’s only because Jared can hit so close to home with the tact of an AI chatbot. In this world, Elon Musk vaporized the moon and North Korea was erased by nuclear explosions… along with New Zealand by accident; four years after publication, this book is surprisingly prophetic. Despite the book having a loose plot and progression, the bulk of the novel consists of behavior analysis. Below is a quote that represents both the unique tone of commentary as well as the unhinged dark humor involved (yes Jared went there):
"...sometimes after our evenings clinics he invited me into his consulting room across the corridor ‘to shoot the shit’. ‘To shoot the shit’ means ‘to patiently listen while a human drinks alcohol and complains about their concerns and grievances.
Nonetheless, I always cheerfully accepted the invitation. When a human invites you somewhere, the polite thing to do is to accept. Unless they are inviting you for the sake of politeness itself. On those occasions, the polite thing to do is to decline! Human interaction can be best understood as a never-ending arms race of politeness. Holding a door open too long can all too often lead to the next Hiroshima. Or Auckland! Or Pyongyang! Ha!"
Objectively, the writing, creativity, and delivery knocks it out of the park. If I had to critique anything, it would be that the pacing sometimes felt like it dragged in places and sometimes Jared’s bot babbling can bat a bit wide and run on off-topic tangents for too long. I’m a patient reader as long as the writing is doing something ambitious or creative, but I can easily see many readers tiring of the tone and unfocused chatter. Set My Heart to Five was more enjoyable for me when read in several short sessions, which gave me time to think about the commentary it was making and to avoid getting fatigued from Jared’s often excitable circuits. Although I’m not sure what I would’ve changed or cut, something about Jared’s journey to the west coast felt like it was longer than it needed to be and there was a bit of a slump once he got there.
While a lot of five star ratings are due to enjoying the reading experience or connecting with the characters, this one was more so for the wildly ambitious premise and objective quality of Stephenson’s writing. I was torn between a 4 and a 5 star rating (mostly due to the novel dragging at times while being solid on paper), but ultimately the last 60 pages or so sealed the deal for me. The less you know about the book’s storyline the better, but I found the ending to be near perfect and done in such an on-brand, Jared-written kind of way. Consistent with its warm tone (despite the situation and underlying Vonnegut-styled views), I was pleasantly surprised at how well it balanced being nuanced and emotional with being funny and sharp compared to similar stories that end on a wistful, exclusive sad note. This is an odd one that I would only recommend for intuitive readers or those interested in off-beat, sociology psyche, but it’s worth giving a try if nothing else to see how unique and creative it is.
First and foremost, Set My Heart to Five is not going to be for everyone, nor does Stephenson make an attempt to be mass-appealing. Jared’s character voice is somehow both frank and dry, yet also entirely comical in a witty, dark humor kind of way; you know that one friend who always talks about the unspoken elephant in the room that’s not socially acceptable, yeah that’s Jared. Full of fun wordplays and paradoxical situations inspired by the idiosyncrasies of human behavior, this is smart and classy humor. It’s impossible to not find Jared’s bamboozled descriptions of events funny, and the book easily captures the amusement of childhood innocence that’s compared to bots’ lack of feelings. The premise is clever. By utilizing a grown, autonomous adult, the book is able to explore places and plot threads that a typical young character could never do (ie. the bafflement of getting drunk in Vegas, staying at a sketchy motel used by prostitutes and drug-dealers, etc).
The writing is also incredibly distinctive to Jared and unlike anything I’ve read, to the point where I have no idea what Stephenson’s actual writing style is like. As the book progresses, some of Jared’s recurring phrases become dad-joke style humor (or should I say, bot-joke humor) become jokes in and of themselves, one of which is “Humans, I cannot!”. I’ve seen a bunch of reviews critique these recurring phrases as lazy or lame, but the repeated use is by design. Bots follow predetermined logic and thought processes, and Stephenson uses that awareness to purposely use Jared’s signature phrases in increasingly outlandish situations. There’s a recurring theme of movies, scriptwriting, and formulaic composition that's very detailed and effective (no surprise given Simon Stephenson’s experience with screenplays for Pixar and other Hollywood studios), I’m convinced every repetitive phrase is by design. On that note, having worked on Luca, Set My Heart to Five also captures the unique humor, insightful meaning, and Pixar-esque tone while having adult themes and edgy jabs that would never be greenlit for production. This novel actually feels like it could be a love child between Pixar and A24.
What I liked most about the Set My Heart to Five is the surprisingly deep cutting commentary made about human behavior. Despite the lackadaisy pacing and sunny tone, there’s some pretty harsh commentary hidden in there that I thought was amazing. I can see a good number of them being offensive to those with conservative views (this is a generally left leaning if you want to look at it politically, which you shouldn’t, though it also pokes fun at socialist culture), but that’s only because Jared can hit so close to home with the tact of an AI chatbot. In this world, Elon Musk vaporized the moon and North Korea was erased by nuclear explosions… along with New Zealand by accident; four years after publication, this book is surprisingly prophetic. Despite the book having a loose plot and progression, the bulk of the novel consists of behavior analysis. Below is a quote that represents both the unique tone of commentary as well as the unhinged dark humor involved (yes Jared went there):
"...sometimes after our evenings clinics he invited me into his consulting room across the corridor ‘to shoot the shit’. ‘To shoot the shit’ means ‘to patiently listen while a human drinks alcohol and complains about their concerns and grievances.
Nonetheless, I always cheerfully accepted the invitation. When a human invites you somewhere, the polite thing to do is to accept. Unless they are inviting you for the sake of politeness itself. On those occasions, the polite thing to do is to decline! Human interaction can be best understood as a never-ending arms race of politeness. Holding a door open too long can all too often lead to the next Hiroshima. Or Auckland! Or Pyongyang! Ha!"
Objectively, the writing, creativity, and delivery knocks it out of the park. If I had to critique anything, it would be that the pacing sometimes felt like it dragged in places and sometimes Jared’s bot babbling can bat a bit wide and run on off-topic tangents for too long. I’m a patient reader as long as the writing is doing something ambitious or creative, but I can easily see many readers tiring of the tone and unfocused chatter. Set My Heart to Five was more enjoyable for me when read in several short sessions, which gave me time to think about the commentary it was making and to avoid getting fatigued from Jared’s often excitable circuits. Although I’m not sure what I would’ve changed or cut, something about Jared’s journey to the west coast felt like it was longer than it needed to be and there was a bit of a slump once he got there.
While a lot of five star ratings are due to enjoying the reading experience or connecting with the characters, this one was more so for the wildly ambitious premise and objective quality of Stephenson’s writing. I was torn between a 4 and a 5 star rating (mostly due to the novel dragging at times while being solid on paper), but ultimately the last 60 pages or so sealed the deal for me. The less you know about the book’s storyline the better, but I found the ending to be near perfect and done in such an on-brand, Jared-written kind of way. Consistent with its warm tone (despite the situation and underlying Vonnegut-styled views), I was pleasantly surprised at how well it balanced being nuanced and emotional with being funny and sharp compared to similar stories that end on a wistful, exclusive sad note. This is an odd one that I would only recommend for intuitive readers or those interested in off-beat, sociology psyche, but it’s worth giving a try if nothing else to see how unique and creative it is.