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thereadingrambler's reviews
1040 reviews
Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin by Jonathan A. Allan
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
I picked up another book recently on the subject of circumcision, which, first of all, I DNF-ed because it was poorly written, and two, it was focused on intactivism as opposed to an overview of the subject and issues. In comparison, Allan’s book gave me exactly what I was looking for in trying to understand this subject better and more thoroughly. Although this is an academic text, I found the text to still be fairly accessible, and Allan’s writing is concise while still retaining thoroughness and nuance.
I could feel Allan’s struggle to keep his focus on the foreskin (the precise subject of his book) while the specter of circumcision lurks behind every sentence. The foreskin is only interesting to us because of its disappearing act, so to speak. Thus trying to talk about something that is interesting for its lack of presence is hard to do without discussing the process that eliminates it from view. But I found myself persuaded by Allan’s argumentation and evidence presentation, even when I was resistant to his points (a resistance I will fully admit was due to my own pre- and misconceptions).
Allan’s stated goal is to write an archive of the foreskin, tracing the foreskin through many different media for different audiences to explore all the different ways people engage with the foreskin and why. What are the stakes and anxieties of the discussions of the foreskin, and how are those played out in AMAB individuals’ bodies? He examined parenting manuals, sex manuals, intactivist literature, and classical and contemporary art, among others, to facilitate this discussion. Even though he covers such a broad range of topics, Allan is always careful to explicitly state that his arguments should under no circumstances be taken as antisemitic, Islamaphobic, or otherwise disparaging of religious practices or even cultural practices. He is not “taking a side” on the issue of circumcision; his goal is to present some of the main ways the foreskin has been discussed in North American contemporary media (he’s Canadian, but American cultural mores heavily influence Canada, so realistically he primarily analyzed works from the US).
I have never been very interested in men’s and masculinity studies (I have a degree in women’s studies, after all), but I do think the field is important to show how patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality impact men in negative and potentially traumatic ways. The reach of feminism has been expanding to an anti-patriarchy movement, critiquing all of the ways that patriarchal systems and structures hurt everyone, including the white cismen the system privileges. This is not to make the argument men are suffering from their male privilege to a greater degree than women are suffering under patriarchal oppression but to note that the system as a whole is damaging to mental and physical health. The manosphere and men’s rights activist groups have really done a disservice to men in co-opting useful terms and hiding serious issues under misogynistic garbage to the point where actual problems men are facing in our current culture are difficult to discuss without sounding misogynistic at points. I found my hackles rising at some points in Allan’s book because of my previous experiences with people talking about some of the issues in his book; they are usually presented in the context of men trying to argument that the world actually operates on “female privilege” and men are the truly disadvantaged ones in our society.
I hope that men reading this book or men contemplating these issues and their relationship to their circumcision status can develop a level of empathy for women who have medical procedures denied them or forced upon them because of their gender or who have had their stories of trauma dismissed because of their gender. All things which were discussed in testimonies from men within this book. I hope that, ultimately, this book can be used to bring men and women together to understand the problem is the patriarchal hegemony we live under that forces us from birth to conform to certain standards for gender that are also impossible to perfectly attain.
I could feel Allan’s struggle to keep his focus on the foreskin (the precise subject of his book) while the specter of circumcision lurks behind every sentence. The foreskin is only interesting to us because of its disappearing act, so to speak. Thus trying to talk about something that is interesting for its lack of presence is hard to do without discussing the process that eliminates it from view. But I found myself persuaded by Allan’s argumentation and evidence presentation, even when I was resistant to his points (a resistance I will fully admit was due to my own pre- and misconceptions).
Allan’s stated goal is to write an archive of the foreskin, tracing the foreskin through many different media for different audiences to explore all the different ways people engage with the foreskin and why. What are the stakes and anxieties of the discussions of the foreskin, and how are those played out in AMAB individuals’ bodies? He examined parenting manuals, sex manuals, intactivist literature, and classical and contemporary art, among others, to facilitate this discussion. Even though he covers such a broad range of topics, Allan is always careful to explicitly state that his arguments should under no circumstances be taken as antisemitic, Islamaphobic, or otherwise disparaging of religious practices or even cultural practices. He is not “taking a side” on the issue of circumcision; his goal is to present some of the main ways the foreskin has been discussed in North American contemporary media (he’s Canadian, but American cultural mores heavily influence Canada, so realistically he primarily analyzed works from the US).
I have never been very interested in men’s and masculinity studies (I have a degree in women’s studies, after all), but I do think the field is important to show how patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality impact men in negative and potentially traumatic ways. The reach of feminism has been expanding to an anti-patriarchy movement, critiquing all of the ways that patriarchal systems and structures hurt everyone, including the white cismen the system privileges. This is not to make the argument men are suffering from their male privilege to a greater degree than women are suffering under patriarchal oppression but to note that the system as a whole is damaging to mental and physical health. The manosphere and men’s rights activist groups have really done a disservice to men in co-opting useful terms and hiding serious issues under misogynistic garbage to the point where actual problems men are facing in our current culture are difficult to discuss without sounding misogynistic at points. I found my hackles rising at some points in Allan’s book because of my previous experiences with people talking about some of the issues in his book; they are usually presented in the context of men trying to argument that the world actually operates on “female privilege” and men are the truly disadvantaged ones in our society.
I hope that men reading this book or men contemplating these issues and their relationship to their circumcision status can develop a level of empathy for women who have medical procedures denied them or forced upon them because of their gender or who have had their stories of trauma dismissed because of their gender. All things which were discussed in testimonies from men within this book. I hope that, ultimately, this book can be used to bring men and women together to understand the problem is the patriarchal hegemony we live under that forces us from birth to conform to certain standards for gender that are also impossible to perfectly attain.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
Shesheshen is a monster—at least that is what everyone says. She is happily living in her lair with her pet bear, Blueberry, hunting down food when she needs it when she is woken from her slumber by a trio of monster hunters. Weakened, she is unable to kill them all and in her flight, she falls off a cliff, she assumes to her death. But she wakes up, wrapped in blankets, her wounds stitched up, and an unknown woman feeding her broth. Used to violence from humans, she doesn’t trust this woman, but Homily appears to be genuine and unaware that Shesheshen is a monster. Unfortunately, Homily reveals that she is hunting a monster who lives in the area who has cursed her family. Thus begins a confusing romance between monster and monster-hunter that manages to touch on so many complex subjects in such a caring and nuanced way I was continually impressed.
First and foremost, the book deals with the idea of the monster. The monster, especially the female monster, is a complicated figure in literature and media (my friend wrote her whole doctoral dissertation on this!). She is the site of many anxieties about women and the threat they could (and often do) pose to society. Shesheshen takes her deadliness as not only a given but a natural and logical response to her experiences. She stands as a foil to “civilization,” she is constantly questioning this entire concept and finds so many of the requirements of civilization to be baffling. She is a threat to the nebulous concept of civilization (which is the term she uses) in so many ways: literally, as she is the apex predator extraordinaire of the area, but also she disrupts the entire political and economic structure of the isthmus where she lives. Monsters are disruptive and dangerous but often in good and necessary ways.
As her relationship with Homily develops, Shesheshen is confronted with abuse and trauma. I was impressed with how this is handled within the book. In many romances, someone’s trauma is magicked away once they are in a loving, supportive romantic relationship, but Homily is not somehow free of her trauma triggers and responses once Shesheshen is in her life. In fact, Shesheshen realizes that she has fallen in love with Homily’s pain, and they have to renegotiate the relationship so Shesheshen is supporting Homily as she works through what happened to her. And the book doesn’t end with Homily being “fine;” it ends with hope for Homily and Shesheshen to have a strong relationship where they both will be made better and able to work through their trauma, pain, and emotional needs with each other as support.
This book is a little chaotic plot-wise. It is the author’s debut novel so I’m willing to be a little more forgiving, but the final 25% jumps through a number of twists very quickly. I didn’t disbelieve any of the twists, and they did raise the stakes in interesting ways, but the reader was never given a lot of time with the implications of these twists. Since this is a romantasy (technically), I think the plot fumbled a bit when trying to balance the romance climax with the fantasy climax. Obviously not in a way that ruined the book for me, but I did find myself pulled out of the book a bit, particularly when Shesheshen experienced the same consequences three or four times in a row from different confrontations. While each confrontation gave us more progression and development character and plot-wise, knowing how Shesheshen would recover every time did take away from the suspense and tension. On the other hand, this is a romance so the reader knows there is ultimately going to be a happy ending.
I would recommend this book to people who liked the tone and hijinks of Dead Cat Tail Assassins or the character depth of The Woods All Black or are chasing the more complex romantasy of The Emperor and the Endless Palace. I would also recommend this to people who are looking for something that deals with familial/parental abuse and trauma the MC’s partner has experienced and the impact that has on romantic relationships.
dark
emotional
funny
sad
fast-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
4.75
One Sentence Review: Although this book appears to be a black rom-com at first, this book is deeply layered and deals with familial/parental trauma and abuse, the idea of civilization, and what monstrosity means.
Shesheshen is a monster—at least that is what everyone says. She is happily living in her lair with her pet bear, Blueberry, hunting down food when she needs it when she is woken from her slumber by a trio of monster hunters. Weakened, she is unable to kill them all and in her flight, she falls off a cliff, she assumes to her death. But she wakes up, wrapped in blankets, her wounds stitched up, and an unknown woman feeding her broth. Used to violence from humans, she doesn’t trust this woman, but Homily appears to be genuine and unaware that Shesheshen is a monster. Unfortunately, Homily reveals that she is hunting a monster who lives in the area who has cursed her family. Thus begins a confusing romance between monster and monster-hunter that manages to touch on so many complex subjects in such a caring and nuanced way I was continually impressed.
First and foremost, the book deals with the idea of the monster. The monster, especially the female monster, is a complicated figure in literature and media (my friend wrote her whole doctoral dissertation on this!). She is the site of many anxieties about women and the threat they could (and often do) pose to society. Shesheshen takes her deadliness as not only a given but a natural and logical response to her experiences. She stands as a foil to “civilization,” she is constantly questioning this entire concept and finds so many of the requirements of civilization to be baffling. She is a threat to the nebulous concept of civilization (which is the term she uses) in so many ways: literally, as she is the apex predator extraordinaire of the area, but also she disrupts the entire political and economic structure of the isthmus where she lives. Monsters are disruptive and dangerous but often in good and necessary ways.
As her relationship with Homily develops, Shesheshen is confronted with abuse and trauma. I was impressed with how this is handled within the book. In many romances, someone’s trauma is magicked away once they are in a loving, supportive romantic relationship, but Homily is not somehow free of her trauma triggers and responses once Shesheshen is in her life. In fact, Shesheshen realizes that she has fallen in love with Homily’s pain, and they have to renegotiate the relationship so Shesheshen is supporting Homily as she works through what happened to her. And the book doesn’t end with Homily being “fine;” it ends with hope for Homily and Shesheshen to have a strong relationship where they both will be made better and able to work through their trauma, pain, and emotional needs with each other as support.
This book is a little chaotic plot-wise. It is the author’s debut novel so I’m willing to be a little more forgiving, but the final 25% jumps through a number of twists very quickly. I didn’t disbelieve any of the twists, and they did raise the stakes in interesting ways, but the reader was never given a lot of time with the implications of these twists. Since this is a romantasy (technically), I think the plot fumbled a bit when trying to balance the romance climax with the fantasy climax. Obviously not in a way that ruined the book for me, but I did find myself pulled out of the book a bit, particularly when Shesheshen experienced the same consequences three or four times in a row from different confrontations. While each confrontation gave us more progression and development character and plot-wise, knowing how Shesheshen would recover every time did take away from the suspense and tension. On the other hand, this is a romance so the reader knows there is ultimately going to be a happy ending.
I would recommend this book to people who liked the tone and hijinks of Dead Cat Tail Assassins or the character depth of The Woods All Black or are chasing the more complex romantasy of The Emperor and the Endless Palace. I would also recommend this to people who are looking for something that deals with familial/parental abuse and trauma the MC’s partner has experienced and the impact that has on romantic relationships.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cannibalism, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes
Ghost Station demonstrates that Barnes knows how to write one specific plot and write that plot in an engaging way, but I’m not sure if there is much depth otherwise to her writing. The same things I loved and the same problems I had with Dead Silence are also present in this book. I’ve been sick for like two weeks, so something predictable and easy to consume was exactly the thing I needed. So I’m not faulting the book for being what it is, but if you’re expecting something mind-blowing or terrifying, this is not that book.
The main character is Ophelia, a psychologist who has recently witnessed the suicide of one of her patients. Both unable to cope with what she saw and the guilt she feels and wanting to escape the pressures of her wealthy family, she takes an assignment with a space exploration team that recently lost a member. Her purpose is to test new preventative therapies for a space illness that can cause the sufferer to experience a potentially violent psychotic break. The crew she is joining is not welcoming of her presence, but their problems with her are quickly overtaken by the weirdness on the planet they’re surveying.
If you read this book, I would highly recommend not reading the blurb first because the front flap makes it seem like a specific event will happen fairly early on in the book, but it actually doesn’t happen until around the halfway mark. So I spent a lot of the book just waiting for that thing to happen which took a lot of the suspense out of the experience.
fast-paced
2.5
One-sentence review: If you’ve read Dead Silence then you’ve read this book, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Ghost Station demonstrates that Barnes knows how to write one specific plot and write that plot in an engaging way, but I’m not sure if there is much depth otherwise to her writing. The same things I loved and the same problems I had with Dead Silence are also present in this book. I’ve been sick for like two weeks, so something predictable and easy to consume was exactly the thing I needed. So I’m not faulting the book for being what it is, but if you’re expecting something mind-blowing or terrifying, this is not that book.
The main character is Ophelia, a psychologist who has recently witnessed the suicide of one of her patients. Both unable to cope with what she saw and the guilt she feels and wanting to escape the pressures of her wealthy family, she takes an assignment with a space exploration team that recently lost a member. Her purpose is to test new preventative therapies for a space illness that can cause the sufferer to experience a potentially violent psychotic break. The crew she is joining is not welcoming of her presence, but their problems with her are quickly overtaken by the weirdness on the planet they’re surveying.
If you read this book, I would highly recommend not reading the blurb first because the front flap makes it seem like a specific event will happen fairly early on in the book, but it actually doesn’t happen until around the halfway mark. So I spent a lot of the book just waiting for that thing to happen which took a lot of the suspense out of the experience.
Sociopath: a Memoir by Patric Gagne
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Reviewing a non-fiction book, particularly a memoir, is always difficult, in my opinion; you don’t want to appear that you’re criticizing someone’s experiences. Given the topic and purpose of this particular memoir that is even more of a risk. Patric Gagnes is a diagnosed sociopath—although part of the memoir is dedicated to the fact this isn’t a precise or specific diagnosis. The memoir documents her life from childhood to the present as she comes to grips with her diagnosis, understands it, embraces it, and eventually becomes a psychologist to research the disorder and help people with it. I am cautious about how I approach this review because “sociopath” is a loaded term and heavily stigmatized. Gagnes’s stated goal with this memoir is to give visibility to the disorder and reach other people who see their experience reflected in hers. She openly acknowledges her privileged position (gender, race, socioeconomic status) allowed her to get the help she needed. Like most people with stigmatized and rare/underdiagnosed conditions, people with antisocial personality disorder/sociopathy, are often in very under-privileged situations, often due to their disorder. Gagnes first encounters other people with this disorder when she is doing her internship at a community healthcare clinic. She was given all of the “problem” clients that no one else at the clinic could help, AKA the sociopaths.
Sociopaths, as defined by Gagnes, are people who have to put significantly more effort into learning the learned (social) emotions. According to this psychology theory (and I’m not a psychologist, so I’m offering no commentary on this theory), there are inherent emotions and learned emotions. Gagnes does experience emotion, but emotions that are connected to other people, such as love and empathy, are significantly harder for her to access and require concerted effort, whereas non-sociopaths generally learn these emotions naturally while growing up in a community. This general apathy and lack of connection is what led to Gagnes’s aberrant or criminal behavior (and the stereotype of sociopaths as violent): she would break into houses or stalk people (innocently, not obsessively) because it would give her a release from the overwhelming apathy. She called this sociopathic stress, and doing these deviant behaviors released the stress.
The book expertly wove together Gagnes’s experiences and her research. She would introduce a symptom or behavior of her disorder and her growing understanding of herself as she ages, and then later explain why she did this thing and what psychological benefit she was deriving from stealing cars or violent fantasies. For someone who openly has a disorder that makes empathy almost impossible to access emotion and who is explicitly writing about this difficulty, I found myself able to easily empathize with Gagnes; her writing style is engaging and accessible. I was rooting for her the entire time, even as I found some of her thought processes disturbing. As she works through her behavior in therapy and her own research, she comes to the belief that sociopaths, yes, need to curtail their criminal and deviant actions, but they need to embrace their differences rather than try to meet societal expectations. She observes how this logic applies to many other disorders, but the heavy stigmatization of sociopathy means that people are reluctant or outright resistant to allowing for this disorder to actually be recognized and treated. Many people believe that sociopaths “belong” in prison as they are too “dangerous” to society. And yes, she fully admits that sociopaths can be dangerous—but so can anyone else.
Somewhat ironically perhaps, I walked away from the book with a much deeper empathy for sociopaths and even more skepticism about the true crime community’s rhetoric and approach to criminal behavior.
Sociopaths, as defined by Gagnes, are people who have to put significantly more effort into learning the learned (social) emotions. According to this psychology theory (and I’m not a psychologist, so I’m offering no commentary on this theory), there are inherent emotions and learned emotions. Gagnes does experience emotion, but emotions that are connected to other people, such as love and empathy, are significantly harder for her to access and require concerted effort, whereas non-sociopaths generally learn these emotions naturally while growing up in a community. This general apathy and lack of connection is what led to Gagnes’s aberrant or criminal behavior (and the stereotype of sociopaths as violent): she would break into houses or stalk people (innocently, not obsessively) because it would give her a release from the overwhelming apathy. She called this sociopathic stress, and doing these deviant behaviors released the stress.
The book expertly wove together Gagnes’s experiences and her research. She would introduce a symptom or behavior of her disorder and her growing understanding of herself as she ages, and then later explain why she did this thing and what psychological benefit she was deriving from stealing cars or violent fantasies. For someone who openly has a disorder that makes empathy almost impossible to access emotion and who is explicitly writing about this difficulty, I found myself able to easily empathize with Gagnes; her writing style is engaging and accessible. I was rooting for her the entire time, even as I found some of her thought processes disturbing. As she works through her behavior in therapy and her own research, she comes to the belief that sociopaths, yes, need to curtail their criminal and deviant actions, but they need to embrace their differences rather than try to meet societal expectations. She observes how this logic applies to many other disorders, but the heavy stigmatization of sociopathy means that people are reluctant or outright resistant to allowing for this disorder to actually be recognized and treated. Many people believe that sociopaths “belong” in prison as they are too “dangerous” to society. And yes, she fully admits that sociopaths can be dangerous—but so can anyone else.
Somewhat ironically perhaps, I walked away from the book with a much deeper empathy for sociopaths and even more skepticism about the true crime community’s rhetoric and approach to criminal behavior.
The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang
emotional
fast-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
The Emperor and the Endless Palace
One Sentence Review: This is the romantasy I want: emotional, compelling, beautiful; a book that says something about something and gives us a beautiful story with elegant writing and emotional depth.
This book’s blurbs are effusive: “iconic,” “exuberant celebration,” “brilliantly imaginative,” and “groundbreaking,” to pull a few descriptors from the back. I was interested in the book when I saw it announced and put it on hold at my library, not knowing the advance praise it had received. When I read the back, my skeptical barometer ticked up. I know they select the best quotes, but did they really have *five* fairly big names in multiple industries and genres giving reviews that adulatory for a debut author? More importantly, did this book deserve that level of praise? I’m pleased to report that, in my opinion, at least, it did.
The Emperor and the Endless Palace follows two queer Asian men across time as they are reincarnated and find each other again and again. One of the pair always Remembers (capital R) the past lifetimes, and one sometimes does. They don’t always meet in every lifetime, but in the ones they do, it always ends tragically for them.
Despite the seeming complexity of the plot, the book is fairly short (just over 300 pages), largely because the reader isn’t given much information about how all this reincarnation works and why one man can Remember. The reader has to accept this. You’re told on the front flap that this is a reincarnation love story, and I think knowing that going in is helpful because the narrative doesn’t make that clearest until fairly far into the book. I think without that piece of information in advance, the reader would struggle significantly more with figuring out why we have these three timelines and how (and if) they are connected. There are clues seeded (some more obvious than others) along the way, but I think knowing about reincarnation in advance lets me focus on the emotional aspects of the story versus trying to figure out who these people were. And let me assure you that the real plot twist(s) have nothing to do with revealing that they are reincarnated souls over millennia. That is somewhat incidental to their story. The weight and heft are in our two main characters.
Most of the cast is repeated throughout time, but they are not the same character. For instance, the villain always looks the same and has the same motivation but is unique in each iteration—his personality, tastes, career, skills, etc. This is the same for every character, including the two leads. They are complex and layered—I loved and hated them in equal measure, but I was always rooting for them to get what they wanted and to find success and happiness in every one of their lives, even as I knew the possibility of that was slim or doomed.
I would recommend this book to people who like the idea of romantasy but haven’t been able to find one they like because they are entering romantasy from a love of fantasy, not a love of romance. I would recommend this to people who enjoy their fantasy to skew a bit more magical realist than BrandoSando magic system.
Oof. And that ending.
CW: Sexual assault
One Sentence Review: This is the romantasy I want: emotional, compelling, beautiful; a book that says something about something and gives us a beautiful story with elegant writing and emotional depth.
This book’s blurbs are effusive: “iconic,” “exuberant celebration,” “brilliantly imaginative,” and “groundbreaking,” to pull a few descriptors from the back. I was interested in the book when I saw it announced and put it on hold at my library, not knowing the advance praise it had received. When I read the back, my skeptical barometer ticked up. I know they select the best quotes, but did they really have *five* fairly big names in multiple industries and genres giving reviews that adulatory for a debut author? More importantly, did this book deserve that level of praise? I’m pleased to report that, in my opinion, at least, it did.
The Emperor and the Endless Palace follows two queer Asian men across time as they are reincarnated and find each other again and again. One of the pair always Remembers (capital R) the past lifetimes, and one sometimes does. They don’t always meet in every lifetime, but in the ones they do, it always ends tragically for them.
Despite the seeming complexity of the plot, the book is fairly short (just over 300 pages), largely because the reader isn’t given much information about how all this reincarnation works and why one man can Remember. The reader has to accept this. You’re told on the front flap that this is a reincarnation love story, and I think knowing that going in is helpful because the narrative doesn’t make that clearest until fairly far into the book. I think without that piece of information in advance, the reader would struggle significantly more with figuring out why we have these three timelines and how (and if) they are connected. There are clues seeded (some more obvious than others) along the way, but I think knowing about reincarnation in advance lets me focus on the emotional aspects of the story versus trying to figure out who these people were. And let me assure you that the real plot twist(s) have nothing to do with revealing that they are reincarnated souls over millennia. That is somewhat incidental to their story. The weight and heft are in our two main characters.
Most of the cast is repeated throughout time, but they are not the same character. For instance, the villain always looks the same and has the same motivation but is unique in each iteration—his personality, tastes, career, skills, etc. This is the same for every character, including the two leads. They are complex and layered—I loved and hated them in equal measure, but I was always rooting for them to get what they wanted and to find success and happiness in every one of their lives, even as I knew the possibility of that was slim or doomed.
I would recommend this book to people who like the idea of romantasy but haven’t been able to find one they like because they are entering romantasy from a love of fantasy, not a love of romance. I would recommend this to people who enjoy their fantasy to skew a bit more magical realist than BrandoSando magic system.
Oof. And that ending.
CW: Sexual assault
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault
Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
One Sentence Review: A well-constructed and engaging climate fiction novella that attempts to blend science and mythology but falls into the trap of privileging one over the other in advocating for a posthuman vision of the future.
Lost Ark Dreaming is sent in the Pinnacle, the tallest and only remaining tower from The Fingers, a five-tower complex built off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria, on an artificially constructed island in the closing days of Earth’s ability to sustain our current way of life. Built to withstand inevitable flooding, people from Lagos flee to The Fingers, but each of the other four towers is abandoned as they become uninhabitable. Many people are left to die in the waters, and our main characters are haunted by this very recent history. The tower itself is divided into a fairly strict class hierarchy—literally. The richest and most privileged lived at the top of the tower (with the founder’s descendent, the nominal ruler of the tower, living at the very top), and each level decreased in status, wealth, and power. Our main characters are Ngozi, a fairly high-level bureaucrat, Tuoyo, a mid-level analyst, and Yekini, a low-level foreman. Ngozi and Tuoyo are summoned to Yekini’s level to deal with a breach, a situation that could prove catastrophic. Ngozi strongly and obviously does not want to be there and comes burdened with stereotypes, privilege, and ego; Tuoyo has significantly more mixed feelings but quickly sides with Yekini against Ngozi’s arrogant attitude. The first half of the novella focuses on figuring out what caused the breach, and the second half focuses on the secrets the tower leadership is keeping and their disregard for the lower levels/classes.
In the one-sentence review, I mentioned the inclusion of mythology in this book, and I can’t get more into how mythology enters the book without giving away the twist so just trust me that it is there in the rest of the discussion. A lot of climate fiction has the technofix problem, i.e., if we find the right technology, then all our problems will be solved, and we won’t have to give up too much of our accustomed way of life. I call this a problem because (at least in my opinion) this is a fairly delusional way of thinking as it allows the reader to escape any critical examination of our contemporary behavior. Lost Ark Dreaming does not fully fall into the technofix trap: the world has dramatically changed from what we recognize in some ways, but it still heavily relies on the idea that our salvation will come through the timely appearance of some quasi-magic invention. The only people who are saved are the ones who are able to get to The Pinnacle somehow.
The intrusion into the book of the mythological elements presents a counterpoint to the above observation about the technological elements. And I mean that very literally. It is not just a philosophical difference (although it is that) but one of direct conflict. This is what makes this not a solarpunk novel. Instead of thinking through the implication of intertwining traditional beliefs with the necessity of lifestyle and civilization change separates this from that tradition. The book does end with a gesture to a better future that could embrace the posthuman and confront problematic past choices, but nothing is done with that promise.
The strongest aspect of this novella is the characters. All three of the central characters are narrators with POV chapters that cycle through each person. Each character expresses a lot of their interiority, so the readers get a good look into how each character’s perspectives and beliefs shift through the book as they encounter new information. The plot is well-paced with information reveals given at the right time for character development.The world building did take some shortcuts in the form of relying on the reader already agreeing with the author on some element (i.e., those in power inherently bad) without giving the reader too much information about why. There is no main villain besides a vague power that be. This made the excellent character construction and development of the protagonists fall a little flat at the end.
I love a found documents book and while this isn’t directly a found documents book, there are interstitial chapters which are found documents and this was definitely a personal highlight to get some of the world building and history of this world. I love this kind of
This has nothing to do with the book because the author doesn’t write their own blurbs, but: I think the blurb for this book does it a huge disservice. It is described as being “high-octane” and also implies that all five of the towers are still intact and occupied. The blurb seems to have been written from a synopsis of the book not the actual book.
If you are interested in climate fiction either as an already established connoisseur or someone who is looking to get into the genre, I would recommend this book. I don’t think it is the strongest entry in the genre, but it does present many of the core conflicts and tensions of the genre. The African setting is a welcome breath of fresh air in the American publishing scene as well.
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Lost Ark Dreaming I received this book as an eARC from the publisher
One Sentence Review: A well-constructed and engaging climate fiction novella that attempts to blend science and mythology but falls into the trap of privileging one over the other in advocating for a posthuman vision of the future.
Lost Ark Dreaming is sent in the Pinnacle, the tallest and only remaining tower from The Fingers, a five-tower complex built off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria, on an artificially constructed island in the closing days of Earth’s ability to sustain our current way of life. Built to withstand inevitable flooding, people from Lagos flee to The Fingers, but each of the other four towers is abandoned as they become uninhabitable. Many people are left to die in the waters, and our main characters are haunted by this very recent history. The tower itself is divided into a fairly strict class hierarchy—literally. The richest and most privileged lived at the top of the tower (with the founder’s descendent, the nominal ruler of the tower, living at the very top), and each level decreased in status, wealth, and power. Our main characters are Ngozi, a fairly high-level bureaucrat, Tuoyo, a mid-level analyst, and Yekini, a low-level foreman. Ngozi and Tuoyo are summoned to Yekini’s level to deal with a breach, a situation that could prove catastrophic. Ngozi strongly and obviously does not want to be there and comes burdened with stereotypes, privilege, and ego; Tuoyo has significantly more mixed feelings but quickly sides with Yekini against Ngozi’s arrogant attitude. The first half of the novella focuses on figuring out what caused the breach, and the second half focuses on the secrets the tower leadership is keeping and their disregard for the lower levels/classes.
In the one-sentence review, I mentioned the inclusion of mythology in this book, and I can’t get more into how mythology enters the book without giving away the twist so just trust me that it is there in the rest of the discussion. A lot of climate fiction has the technofix problem, i.e., if we find the right technology, then all our problems will be solved, and we won’t have to give up too much of our accustomed way of life. I call this a problem because (at least in my opinion) this is a fairly delusional way of thinking as it allows the reader to escape any critical examination of our contemporary behavior. Lost Ark Dreaming does not fully fall into the technofix trap: the world has dramatically changed from what we recognize in some ways, but it still heavily relies on the idea that our salvation will come through the timely appearance of some quasi-magic invention. The only people who are saved are the ones who are able to get to The Pinnacle somehow.
The intrusion into the book of the mythological elements presents a counterpoint to the above observation about the technological elements. And I mean that very literally. It is not just a philosophical difference (although it is that) but one of direct conflict. This is what makes this not a solarpunk novel. Instead of thinking through the implication of intertwining traditional beliefs with the necessity of lifestyle and civilization change separates this from that tradition. The book does end with a gesture to a better future that could embrace the posthuman and confront problematic past choices, but nothing is done with that promise.
The strongest aspect of this novella is the characters. All three of the central characters are narrators with POV chapters that cycle through each person. Each character expresses a lot of their interiority, so the readers get a good look into how each character’s perspectives and beliefs shift through the book as they encounter new information. The plot is well-paced with information reveals given at the right time for character development.The world building did take some shortcuts in the form of relying on the reader already agreeing with the author on some element (i.e., those in power inherently bad) without giving the reader too much information about why. There is no main villain besides a vague power that be. This made the excellent character construction and development of the protagonists fall a little flat at the end.
I love a found documents book and while this isn’t directly a found documents book, there are interstitial chapters which are found documents and this was definitely a personal highlight to get some of the world building and history of this world. I love this kind of
This has nothing to do with the book because the author doesn’t write their own blurbs, but: I think the blurb for this book does it a huge disservice. It is described as being “high-octane” and also implies that all five of the towers are still intact and occupied. The blurb seems to have been written from a synopsis of the book not the actual book.
If you are interested in climate fiction either as an already established connoisseur or someone who is looking to get into the genre, I would recommend this book. I don’t think it is the strongest entry in the genre, but it does present many of the core conflicts and tensions of the genre. The African setting is a welcome breath of fresh air in the American publishing scene as well.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
In another article, Mel Ashford explains,
From a more academic perspective, Morgan Podraza writes in her article on Laurie Strode,
To the contemporary horror fan, the figure of the Final Girl is familiar to the point of mundanity, but the term was first introduced by Carol J. Clover in her article “Her Body, Himself” in 1987. This article explored the identification between the (observed/assumed) adolescent boy audience of slasher films and the young woman or teenage girl who eventually defeated the slasher (usually) himself. Many scholars have come after Clover expanding on these ideas—discussing points of intersectionality—and con-temporizing it for the 21st century. In the introduction to the 2015 edition of her book, Clover notes that the Final Girl is often seen through a “girl power,” or feminist, lens—imbuing her with a sense of power. It is this interpretation that Jade romanticizes, explaining to the reader (to herself?) over and over that the Final Girl is there to put everything to rights. For Jade, if the Slasher (the person) is here to avenge something, his murdering spree is justified (however twistedly), but eventually, he must be stopped. The Final Girl is able to rise above everything that happened to her and enact justice—not revenge.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
As would be expected from Saga Press and Stephen Graham Jones, My Heart is a Chainsaw is a complicated, layered, and nuanced book that brings ties together so many elements in equally and elegantly gruesome and heartbreaking ways. The book opens with the mysterious deaths of two tourists to Proofrock, a small mountain town in Idaho. We then cut to Jade, our main character, a half-white, half-Native American girl and a senior in high school. Her father is neglectful to the point of abuse; her mother is entirely absent. Jade is obsessed with slasher films, particularly ones from the Golden Age of slashers: the 70s and 80s. She’s seen them all, obsessively re-watches them, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of their history, production, trivia, and legacy. The reader learns through Jade’s narration and through interstitial chapters called “Slasher 101,” which are Jade’s extra credit essays for her history teacher, Mr. Holmes. Jade wants nothing more than to find herself in the middle of a slasher film, so when a beautiful, rich girl shows up at her school (the daughter of one of the mega-rich building luxury vacation homes across the lake) and then almost immediately discovers the corpse of one of the dead tourists, Jade begins piecing together omens and signs of a coming slasher. She takes it upon herself to train this girl, Letha, to be the Final Girl. As the novel progresses, Jade’s life falls apart more and more quickly, concomitantly with her increasing obsession with the predicted slasher film.
Although all the aspects of her trauma are given out in drips and drabs, the reader can quickly identify Jade is a heavily traumatized teenager—if her interactions with her father and his drinking buddy in the first chapter isn’t enough, driving her out into the freezing cold of Idahoan spring, her suicide attempt at the end of the first chapter should really tip the reader off. Jade’s fixation on slashers is quickly understood to be some kind of coping mechanism, particularly through her “Slasher 101” essays. In her first entry, she ends by writing, “that in the slasher, wrongs are always punished….all the dead people are people who were asking for it” (34). Jade’s explanation for her affinity reflects what others have written. S.F. Whitaker writes,
You would think rape-revenge or other revenge trope stories would be immensely painful for survivors. The opposite is quite true for some. They will pick up the book knowing full well that the tome in their hands addresses rape, and murder, and harm of a child. Instead of just reliving and rehashing pain, there is a pay off. There is strength in the survivor, and gratification in the villain getting theirs. You triumph with the protagonist, rather than being dragged down by the subject matter. I will admit, as a trauma survivor, I find these journeys to be comforting. I don’t relive events over and over, but instead find triumph right along with the characters in the book. (Whitaker)
In another article, Mel Ashford explains,
That the opportunity for controlled confrontation of our anxieties can be deeply powerful should come as no surprise. After all, a large part of the experience of trauma comes from and is experienced as a loss of control—often in horrific, unpleasant ways. And the situation only deepens after experiencing trauma, as survivors can feel like they’re losing control of their lives as they wrestle with the emotions their experience has left them with. (Ashford)
From a more academic perspective, Morgan Podraza writes in her article on Laurie Strode,
We can use the final girl trope now to reimagine spaces for healing or futures for people with trauma. A survivor’s future will always include memories of that trauma, and it’s important to acknowledge that trauma exists and continues to affect the reality of people who experience it. They deserve happy, healthy futures, too. People don’t have to only be defined by the negative parts of this experience. (Podraza)
To the contemporary horror fan, the figure of the Final Girl is familiar to the point of mundanity, but the term was first introduced by Carol J. Clover in her article “Her Body, Himself” in 1987. This article explored the identification between the (observed/assumed) adolescent boy audience of slasher films and the young woman or teenage girl who eventually defeated the slasher (usually) himself. Many scholars have come after Clover expanding on these ideas—discussing points of intersectionality—and con-temporizing it for the 21st century. In the introduction to the 2015 edition of her book, Clover notes that the Final Girl is often seen through a “girl power,” or feminist, lens—imbuing her with a sense of power. It is this interpretation that Jade romanticizes, explaining to the reader (to herself?) over and over that the Final Girl is there to put everything to rights. For Jade, if the Slasher (the person) is here to avenge something, his murdering spree is justified (however twistedly), but eventually, he must be stopped. The Final Girl is able to rise above everything that happened to her and enact justice—not revenge.
In the light of Clover’s and other’s analyses, horror cinema of the 90s and 00s leaned in even more heavily to this idea of the empowered Final Girl, with the 2010s and 2020s seeing a rise of meta-horror—where the Final Girl trope is explicitly called out and made a central part of the film or book itself, a move that pushes even further into the possible feminist interpretations of the Final Girl. Thus My Heart is a Chainsaw rests at an interesting juncture. The book was published in 2021, and the meta-horror element is clear—Jade is actively trying to create a Final Girl (we will return in a moment to why she cannot imagine herself as the Final Girl)—but the book is set in 2014—a time of a pretty different interpretation of “girl power” than 2021. But Jade’s references are almost entirely from the 80s. Thus, Jones brings together many aspects, analyses, and presentations of the Final Girl to construct Jade and her story.
As I noted before, Jade cannot imagine herself as the Final Girl. Traditionally (thus in Jade’s references and conception), the Final Girl is “pure,” and, Clover adds, has a “boyish” element. Clover specifically notes how Final Girls often have “masculine” names (e.g., Stevie, Marti, Ripley) or engage in “masculine” activities (e.g., Girl Scout, DJ, mechanic). Their purity is commonly (and correctly) connected to their virginity (with other girls being killed off for their supposed sexual promiscuity), but scholars have observed the Final Girl is usually white, gesturing to a “racial purity.” Final Girls are supposed to represent an idealized notion of femininity, the proto-typical white girl who inspires protectiveness and admiration for her virtue in an American audience. Thus, mixed-race, poor, traumatized Jade does not fit that mold, so she automatically excludes herself from the category of Final Girl. Interestingly, her chosen Final Girl, Letha, is Black.
Although this book is about slashers and a Slasher, I’m not sure if I would class it in the slasher genre because of the way Jones plays with the genre tropes. Every element of the slasher is present—often in a very forced way as Jade tries to make her fantasies a reality. Jade’s role as the main character but refusal to identify as the Final Girl flies in the face of Clover’s observation that the Final Girl becomes the point of view character in a film, the character hiding and running with her, killing the Slasher with her, and experiencing triumph with her. Jade aligns herself with the viewer, often sneaking through the town and woods to observe her Slasher suspects or Letha. She is the traumatized viewer of the film, identifying with the Slasher’s revenge drive and the Final Girl’s ultimate restoration of justice. The Slasher will kill all the people who have wronged her and enact her revenge, and then Final Girl will bring about an era of peace where Jade’s trauma is behind her, healed and forgotten.
To avoid spoilers, I won’t say more, except to gesture to the fact Jones’s toying and twisting of genre extends all the way to the end, variously positioning Jade in all of the major roles and plot points of the slasher film that she identifies at the beginning of the book. Overall, this was a brilliant horror novel that played with the genre and exhibited a meta-awareness without becoming didactic or preachy. His depiction of a traumatized teenage girl is hard to read—her personality, actions, and logic take massive leaps, and her decision-making skills are about as good as you expect an entirely unsupervised and un-parented 17-year-old to be—but she is realistic if heartbreaking.
The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
On the surface, The Siege of Burning Grass is about a twentieth-century-esque war set in a secondary world focusing on Alefret, one of the founding members of the Pact, a pacifist organization, after his own countrymen bomb him, take him prisoner, and then torture him in the name of pursuing peace. That description makes it sound like this is a high-octane kind of book, but it is anything but. The book is a carefully considered romp through some of the most difficult philosophical questions about violence, war, and peace. When does pacifism become passivity and complicity? When (if ever) is violence necessary? When (if ever) is violence the answer? And to what question? I had to put this book down multiple times just to think over what I had just read. I’ve been struggling lately with the fact violence is often The Solution in a lot of fantasy novels. This belief is that if you just kill the right people, then the day/country/world will be saved. And that’s part of the fantasy we want: That if we just figure out the Right Thing, then all of the problems in our world will be fixed. Everything would be so much easier that way. But that’s not how it works. For the biggest problems in the world, there is no straightforward or simple solution. All of the solutions require work—a lot of work—and demand significant sacrifice and struggle. This is what this book is about: Complicated questions with no easy answers. No, not even no easy answers, no real answers, just decisions that must be made, and every choice will come with costs and people who will have to suffer, but we cannot stagnate and hope the problems will go away. This is the best kind of work that speculative fiction can do: bring us out of our own world and into another one where we can examine these questions through different lenses that present us with things sideways and upside down.
Mohamed’s writing style is elegant and engrossing. She seamlessly blends plot and character development with philosophical meditation; the reading experience doesn’t feel weighted too much one way or the other—at least for my reading tastes. This is a book that does hold you at a little bit of a distance from the narrator/main character. While you are in Alefret’s head, this isn’t a story about him as much as about the moral conflicts he is struggling with. We are not precisely watching Alefret’s character develop or change in response to the new situations he is put in—really, he doesn’t change that much as a character at all; the final conflict is resolved through his commitment to his principles—but rather how those principles are tested and tried. They are shown to be difficult, complex, faulty, and inconsistent—but also something he holds dear and sees as more right than any of the other options presented to him through the book.
While I never felt a closeness to Alefret, I did feel a deep and burning hatred toward Qhudur. He is Alefret’s companion (”minder”) through this adventure and his greatest enemy. From the beginning of the book, Alefret calmly rests on the knowledge that Qhudur is going to kill him eventually. Alefret and Qhudur are philosophically extreme opposites to the point that Qhudur calls Alefret a monster for his refusal to fight. Qhudur is the one primarily poking holes into Alaefret’s philosophy. Alefret initially dismisses a lot of Qhudur says—he is worn down by the war and the torture and is not exactly happy about being on this adventure—but some of Qhudur’s actions and rationales begin to seep into Alefret’s mind, turning the antagonistic relationship into more of one between two foils.
There are a few action sequences—I don’t want to give the impression that this is a group of people sitting around discussing philosophy; in fact, people are pretty rarely just sitting around at all. This is a book about praxis. What will you believe when you are forced to confront the actions those beliefs require and the consequences coming from them in the most intense way: war? If you like the writing style and the speculative philosophy of Ursula Le Guin, I would definitely recommend The Siege of Burning Grass.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism and War
Moderate: Torture
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-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? No
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is a short book that packs quite a punch in terms of plot and characters but will not be everyone’s cup of tea due to the cavalier approach to violence and the quirky narratorial voice. This was exactly my cup of tea though. The book follows Eveen the Eviscerater, who is one of the Dead Cat Tail Assassins, an undead woman who is sworn to a century of assassination services to Ayeril, the Matron of Assassins. There are three vows to her order: the contract must be just, the assassin can only kill who the hit is contracted for, and the assassin must kill the target. When those who have given their lives to Ayeril are resurrected, they have forgotten everything about their pasts and are resurrected far enough away from their death-date that anyone who might’ve known them is probably dead. Eveen is very good at her job and enjoys it well enough, but everything is thrown off-course when she discovers that she recognizes her target for the night is someone she remembers from the Before. This sets of a series of events through the night about what Eveen might remember, who this girl is she is contracted to kill, and why.
The book immediately takes an irreverent tone that jolted me in the best way possible. I did not enjoy A Master of Djinnor Ring Shout, so I wasn’t sure if Clark was going to continue to be an author I followed, but I was drawn in by the tagline for the book: Dead Cat Tail Assassins are not cats. Nor do they have tails. But they are most assuredly dead. From this, I thought the book was going to be gritty, dark, and intense. The book opens with this line, but the reader quickly finds out this line is on a business card. This is a brilliant and hilarious twist to reader expectations and from there we are on a raucous ride that makes some of the most ridiculous jokes, including a very clever breaking of the fourth wall.
That said, because there is a streak of black (this is a book about an undead assassin after all) and sardonic humor throughout this book, it is not going to be for everyone. This is not written in first-person nor is it a “dear reader” kind of narratorial style, but there is a strong and unique narratorial voice that deftly and definitely shapes the way the reader understands the story. This was something I greatly enjoyed, but I understand why people might not.
This is a novella, so the world-building goes fast, and there is a lot of it. Almost none of it is given through exposition; the reader has to figure out everything from the dialog and descriptions. For instance, this story takes place on one night, which happens on the night of a major festival. In the background of pretty much every scene are people celebrating in various ways through the streets. From these comments, the reader can (should) pick up on why this festival is happening, and eventually the story of the festival ties into the plot.
This is a balanced character- and plot-driven book. Eveen grounds the book and her relationship with Fennis and Sky gives her balance and propels her forward through the plot, which is opaque to reader and characters for much of the book. They are trying to unravel the mystery of why Eveen has been given this contract and also how this contract is even possible given the confines of things like time, space, physics, reality, and the will of the gods. This is not a mystery, though, the reader is given many of the clues to figure out what happened and how the characters are going to solve it, but we skip over the final confrontation planning montage and right to said final confrontation. This didn’t bother me as, for the most part, their plan goes off without a hitch and gives the reader a satisfying (if bloodthirsty) ending—so seeing them plan it would’ve just spoiled the ending. A planning montage always means the plan is going to fail. And I didn’t want to see Eveen fail. I was really rooting for her by the end of the book—even if her solution to 90% of her problems is violence.
I would recommend this book to people who like Murderbot—a somewhat reluctant main character who really would prefer to just enjoy simple pleasures and be left alone but unfortunately is very good at their job and unwillingly cares about other people in their life and even more unfortunately discovers a massive conspiracy they somehow are in the middle of without even realizing it.