Scan barcode
storytold's reviews
387 reviews
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
5.0
Jesus Christ. Book of the year.
There was a point near the beginning where I thought seriously about DNFing. This too is a compliment to the book; I found Magos' grief incredibly difficult to share. I was meant to. This was very effective. Switching POV was the best thing this book could have done, and it did it brilliantly each time. Each perspective was gut-wrenching for its own reasons, and by the time we were spending the most time with Monstrilio, we understood these characters because we had spent time understanding what else they cared about, spent time within their inner lives.
It does all the trite things a book about grief does. It also finds ways to strike you in the face in little grace notes in between. Each person Monstrilio meets and interacts with is functionally responding to grief: some strike out, some succumb; others run, others accept to varying degrees. Keeping Peter in the dark was inexplicable in Joseph's chapters but made perfect sense by the end of the book. Outstanding. Everything about this book was outstanding to me. A DEBUT??? Jesus Christ, I say again.
Special shout out to Uncle Luke, a deeply needed character in this story. Everyone tried so hard. God!
There was a point near the beginning where I thought seriously about DNFing. This too is a compliment to the book; I found Magos' grief incredibly difficult to share. I was meant to. This was very effective. Switching POV was the best thing this book could have done, and it did it brilliantly each time. Each perspective was gut-wrenching for its own reasons, and by the time we were spending the most time with Monstrilio, we understood these characters because we had spent time understanding what else they cared about, spent time within their inner lives.
It does all the trite things a book about grief does. It also finds ways to strike you in the face in little grace notes in between. Each person Monstrilio meets and interacts with is functionally responding to grief: some strike out, some succumb; others run, others accept to varying degrees. Keeping Peter in the dark was inexplicable in Joseph's chapters but made perfect sense by the end of the book. Outstanding. Everything about this book was outstanding to me. A DEBUT??? Jesus Christ, I say again.
Special shout out to Uncle Luke, a deeply needed character in this story. Everyone tried so hard. God!
The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
2.0
One of the most pointless books I have ever read. More an extended philosophical meditation on armageddon than a novel in any meaningful sense, at the expense of legible character motives and most of its execution. The thing is that I think this book COULD have been made into something, but the author settled for making it merely readable (itself a feat! hence two stars) instead of at all challenging or inventive.
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
4.5
As with any collection, the stories were varied in quality and impact—but this is a collection I would ferociously recommend for variety in writing styles as well as for how thought-provoking every story is. My favourite was the last story, "Like What You See: A Documentary": epistolary, extremely well executed. I have rarely come away from a collection with my mind changed to the degree that I have with this one. I am creatively inspired and awed. Excellent and well worth the time and concentration some of the stories demand.
The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
3.5
I liked the writing style, but the story logic wasn't there for me. The very very end left me with a better feeling than I expected to end the book with, and things ultimately came back together for me a bit after the main twist disappointed me. I had high hopes for a book with very deeply weird premise and instead it was oddly mundane. This is, I would say, less horror than suspense with a strong emphasis on friendship. Well done for what it was, but didn't meet hype/expectations—reader error.
The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo
4.5
Excellent. The first third is confusingly slow—please stick with it. Deft, compelling writing in the back two thirds especially as we move between a minimum of three genres in addition to the beautiful fantastical world we've come to know and love. Addresses its own conceit beautifully, even as it decides not to fulfill it. I'll continue to show up for this series with every new entry, and to recommend it widely.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang
4.25
Fantastic effort, well plotted, genuinely great horror. But I felt kept at arm's length for the whole book for reasons more than simple narrative. The fragmentary nature of the narration meant I sometimes had trouble connecting the events, understanding how we got from one place to another. I needed more information about the Gunk's, for example, wanted more interiority to explain our protag's agency and to contextualize its limitations. But overall fantastic, especially for a debut. Would like to reread in a couple years.
There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura
4.25
This was so great, and I never would have picked it up if not for Buzzwordathon; point one for reading challenges. I had no idea what to expect through this entire book, and what I did get was absolutely lovely. I love: a work novel. I love: Kafkan nonsense. I love: the genre of story that is simply a mundane setting + Something Weird Is Going On. I would advise anyone who picks this up to give it until at least halfway through the second of the five vignettes before deciding to give up on it, because the first story does weirdness only very obliquely; the main interest is whether this is speculative or purely mundane, and my interest significantly picked up once Something Weird seemed demonstrably to happen.
My interpretation of this book is that some things that happened were speculative and some were purely mundane; that may be purely because I can't turn my brain off, or because the narration didn't NOT remind me of the Magnus Archives (honorific). It's a novel about burnout, but also a novel about what can happen if you let yourself recover from burnout by doing weird, deeply boring jobs; you may find the change of perspective apprises you of magic in the world. It is a very slow-paced novel, but it turns out incredibly poignant; only once the reader gets to the end does it become clear that the protagonist has been passing through jobs that have progressively become more social, progressively undone the alienation from her work and humanity that she starts this novel with. The end is absolutely saccharine, but it landed with me! I teared up at the gym! I love a blindside.
The translation was lovely, if—like a surprising amount of the Japanese fiction translated into English I have read—quite British. I enjoyed being able to identify the places where the translator likely localized information or expanded slightly for the benefit of an English-speaking audience. This book engaged my professional interest, stimulated my imagination, and offered emotional catharsis, all through a very consistent and surprisingly propulsive narrative once past the first story. What a wonderful surprise this book was. Will widely recommend to anyone who also loves a weird work novel.
My interpretation of this book is that some things that happened were speculative and some were purely mundane; that may be purely because I can't turn my brain off, or because the narration didn't NOT remind me of the Magnus Archives (honorific). It's a novel about burnout, but also a novel about what can happen if you let yourself recover from burnout by doing weird, deeply boring jobs; you may find the change of perspective apprises you of magic in the world. It is a very slow-paced novel, but it turns out incredibly poignant; only once the reader gets to the end does it become clear that the protagonist has been passing through jobs that have progressively become more social, progressively undone the alienation from her work and humanity that she starts this novel with. The end is absolutely saccharine, but it landed with me! I teared up at the gym! I love a blindside.
The translation was lovely, if—like a surprising amount of the Japanese fiction translated into English I have read—quite British. I enjoyed being able to identify the places where the translator likely localized information or expanded slightly for the benefit of an English-speaking audience. This book engaged my professional interest, stimulated my imagination, and offered emotional catharsis, all through a very consistent and surprisingly propulsive narrative once past the first story. What a wonderful surprise this book was. Will widely recommend to anyone who also loves a weird work novel.
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane
4.5
Excellent, heartbreaking. Clunky in places, especially on meditations of privilege, which were both necessary and fell flat in a book about oppression centering white characters; nothing to be done about that. There was also a point in the first half where I was tempted to DNF for the same reasons I DNF'd Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations near the 30% mark: The prose was so sedately pushing nothing along and so deeply melancholy that I no longer felt I was gleaning a terrific amount from the reading experience except a resurgence of clinical depression. But every time I thought about bailing, the story moved just enough and interestingly enough to pull me back in. This wound up being a book I deeply loved, a 4.5 despite its flaws. It is about grief in the front half and healing in the back half, and I think it was a fucking spectacular debut. Really excited to read from this author again.