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A Shot of Gin by Phoebe Wagner
Juniper “Gin” Cain works security for a vampire-owned casino in Reno, Nevada, after discovering that her blood is gross to vampires, implying she is not quite as human as she thought she was. That was two years ago, and since then, she’s only gotten pulled further into what she calls the darkness, the secret world of fae, vampires, werewolves, witches, and more. The longer Gin spends in the darkness, the more strange powers she discovers she has. She resists learning to control them, afraid of herself and everything else, even as she finds a new home and family with the other casino employees. Everything starts to fall apart when a zombie appears, not just because there is a zombie in the casino but because zombies are supposed to be extinct.
Gin is supremely relatable and likable. She has undergone a series of traumatic events and responds to them in a way that I found believable and understandable. Her responses and actions came out of a place of confusion, trauma, fear, longing for normality, and loneliness countered by her stubbornness, cleverness, and generally being a good person. There was something so relatable about her struggle to deal with everything she’s learned about the world and herself but still have friends and community and do right by them. We are given enough about her backstory to understand where she came from and where she wants to go, but not so much that we are bogged down in the details of tragedy to create cheap sympathy. Wagner creates a realistic, lived-in young woman who has a past, present, and future without having to overwork her emotional and mental experiences.
The secondary characters fleshed out Gin’s character and this paranormal version of Reno. The two main vampires, Colton and Clarisse, were delightfully twisted and ambivalent in their allegiances with the perfect dash of sexy hunter (or huntress). Leia, Gin’s former college roommate and a witch, was a complicated character mirroring Gin’s own complexity. Their relationship fell apart, and they have their own interpretations of why that happened and what the results are now. Winston, the changeling, is the world’s most supportive friend. I appreciated how all of Gin’s friends gave her the space to process what was going on in her world but didn’t let her wallow in a pity party. She was given a night to get drunk and forget everything, but the next day, she needed to get back to solving her problems. I want to know more about every single character.
This isn’t a book with a staggeringly original plot, but like with most of my favorite books, I don’t care if the plot is predictable if the characters are interesting. After all, how many of us live truly original lives, but aren’t we still each individual?
adventurous
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? No
3.75
One Sentence Review: A vampire/urban fantasy novel that presents much-needed updates and twists on the genre, leaving me wanting more.
Juniper “Gin” Cain works security for a vampire-owned casino in Reno, Nevada, after discovering that her blood is gross to vampires, implying she is not quite as human as she thought she was. That was two years ago, and since then, she’s only gotten pulled further into what she calls the darkness, the secret world of fae, vampires, werewolves, witches, and more. The longer Gin spends in the darkness, the more strange powers she discovers she has. She resists learning to control them, afraid of herself and everything else, even as she finds a new home and family with the other casino employees. Everything starts to fall apart when a zombie appears, not just because there is a zombie in the casino but because zombies are supposed to be extinct.
Gin is supremely relatable and likable. She has undergone a series of traumatic events and responds to them in a way that I found believable and understandable. Her responses and actions came out of a place of confusion, trauma, fear, longing for normality, and loneliness countered by her stubbornness, cleverness, and generally being a good person. There was something so relatable about her struggle to deal with everything she’s learned about the world and herself but still have friends and community and do right by them. We are given enough about her backstory to understand where she came from and where she wants to go, but not so much that we are bogged down in the details of tragedy to create cheap sympathy. Wagner creates a realistic, lived-in young woman who has a past, present, and future without having to overwork her emotional and mental experiences.
The secondary characters fleshed out Gin’s character and this paranormal version of Reno. The two main vampires, Colton and Clarisse, were delightfully twisted and ambivalent in their allegiances with the perfect dash of sexy hunter (or huntress). Leia, Gin’s former college roommate and a witch, was a complicated character mirroring Gin’s own complexity. Their relationship fell apart, and they have their own interpretations of why that happened and what the results are now. Winston, the changeling, is the world’s most supportive friend. I appreciated how all of Gin’s friends gave her the space to process what was going on in her world but didn’t let her wallow in a pity party. She was given a night to get drunk and forget everything, but the next day, she needed to get back to solving her problems. I want to know more about every single character.
This isn’t a book with a staggeringly original plot, but like with most of my favorite books, I don’t care if the plot is predictable if the characters are interesting. After all, how many of us live truly original lives, but aren’t we still each individual?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, and Blood
Moderate: Sexual assault
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar
2.5
One Sentence Review: This novella has a really strong promise, but too much of the plot relied on world building that was never done in the book, leaving the reader confused and unsatisified.
At this point, I should be more suspicious of Tordotcom’s novellas, really. Tor and its imprints are consistently among my least favorite books (although they occasionally knock one out of the park, like The Locked Tomb trilogy), but for the most part, the books are playacting at being more radical than they actually are. The premises give you a promise of something revolutionary that is considering significant elements of our present moment, but in execution, they are watered down to the point of uselessness. I’m beginning to suspect Tordotcom particularly is doing this on purpose because there is so much in this book that I want to love. The world we’re thrust into is so interesting. The intense class structure, the mining economy, and the spacefaring culture. There are so many questions: what are the people in the hold even doing? Where did this fleet come from and why? What is beyond this fleet? Anything? I suspect Samatar has the answers to these things, but the editors at Tordotcom made her take these answers out to pull back on making any statements that could be considered offensive to some readers. The result is a bland book when it should’ve had teeth.
At this point, I should be more suspicious of Tordotcom’s novellas, really. Tor and its imprints are consistently among my least favorite books (although they occasionally knock one out of the park, like The Locked Tomb trilogy), but for the most part, the books are playacting at being more radical than they actually are. The premises give you a promise of something revolutionary that is considering significant elements of our present moment, but in execution, they are watered down to the point of uselessness. I’m beginning to suspect Tordotcom particularly is doing this on purpose because there is so much in this book that I want to love. The world we’re thrust into is so interesting. The intense class structure, the mining economy, and the spacefaring culture. There are so many questions: what are the people in the hold even doing? Where did this fleet come from and why? What is beyond this fleet? Anything? I suspect Samatar has the answers to these things, but the editors at Tordotcom made her take these answers out to pull back on making any statements that could be considered offensive to some readers. The result is a bland book when it should’ve had teeth.
Colossus by Ryan Leslie
When I was teaching at a large state university, I designed a Nature Writing course. The course was divided into four units that focused on different kinds of writing about nature, and each was connected with a different kind of relationship humanity has with nature (including a unit on what nature even is). One of the units was on nature and technology, i.e., how technology mediates nature to us, from very simple technologies like trail markers to more complex things like virtual reality. During one of our classes, we started talking about AI (which at that point was more theoretical than the ChatGPT et al. we are familiar with in 2024), and I posed the question to them if God is an AI, trying to push them to think more abstractly, critically, and creatively. For students who wanted to explore that question more, I would’ve recommended this book if it had been available, for that’s (one of) the core question(s) of the book.
The back of this book does not even begin to capture the true spirit of this book. Yes, this book is about Clay, the ramifications of the drug Dying Wish on the world, and the complexity of memory and identity, but the plot of this book (while gripping, especially the third act) serves to confront the reader with some of the most difficult questions of our present moment. My copy of the book is marked up with notes and underlines because I found my mind going a mile a minute trying to keep up with each new element. As some might know, I’m very taken with discussions of religion in science fiction. So many science fiction novels seem to assume religion has just died out in the future, as if humanity has “evolved” beyond the need for faith. But I strongly doubt this will be true. In fact, I think the opposite will be true. The more we supposedly “know” about the universe, the more we “reveal” the mysteries of space and time the more we will rely on religion for comfort and security in the face of the increasingly knowable. The infinite is incomprehensible, and the more humans attempt to understand it, the more fully we will grasp the incomprehensibility. For me, that was the most interesting exploration in this book. Being vague to avoid spoilers, humanity develops the ability to communicate with parallel universes (on the theory that every decision spawns a parallel universe where a different decision was made), and this ability is both incredible and overwhelming for the human mind—but not for the AI minds who are seeking singularity across all the universes.
Underneath all of the theoretical physics, insane philosophy, and murderous AIs, the core of this novel is one man’s love for a woman. The book centers on Clay and Karla and Clay’s quest to find his way back to the woman he loves, crossing as many universes as necessary to do that. I did think that having their relationship not only be an age gap romance but also between a professor and student was unnecessary and didn’t really add anything to the plot in any meaningful way. There were plenty of other ways for Clay to lose everything without having unethical goings-on.
There were some inconsistencies in the book that should’ve been caught during line editing, but I know that for these small presses, there’s a lot of unpaid work being done by only a handful of people. There were also some printing errors, which isn’t the fault of the press at all but was annoying. My biggest criticism is definitely with the relationship dynamics. There were a couple of small plot holes, but nothing that I found too distracting from the main force of the book.
My comps for this book are Prophet by Sin Blaché and Helen Macdonald and This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar. Colossus has the same complicated mix of romance, thriller, lit fic, and sf that Prophet does, and it shares the romance against all odds in a mind-bending setting with This is How You Lose The Time War. If you’re looking for something that is philosophical, confusing in the best possible way, grounded by the relationship between two people, I would highly recommend Colossus (and those other two books).
dark
emotional
sad
tense
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
4.5
One Sentence Review: Leslie adroitly explores complicated questions of identity, God, and love within a tightly plotted novel that doesn’t shy away from asking impossible questions that will never have final answers.
When I was teaching at a large state university, I designed a Nature Writing course. The course was divided into four units that focused on different kinds of writing about nature, and each was connected with a different kind of relationship humanity has with nature (including a unit on what nature even is). One of the units was on nature and technology, i.e., how technology mediates nature to us, from very simple technologies like trail markers to more complex things like virtual reality. During one of our classes, we started talking about AI (which at that point was more theoretical than the ChatGPT et al. we are familiar with in 2024), and I posed the question to them if God is an AI, trying to push them to think more abstractly, critically, and creatively. For students who wanted to explore that question more, I would’ve recommended this book if it had been available, for that’s (one of) the core question(s) of the book.
The back of this book does not even begin to capture the true spirit of this book. Yes, this book is about Clay, the ramifications of the drug Dying Wish on the world, and the complexity of memory and identity, but the plot of this book (while gripping, especially the third act) serves to confront the reader with some of the most difficult questions of our present moment. My copy of the book is marked up with notes and underlines because I found my mind going a mile a minute trying to keep up with each new element. As some might know, I’m very taken with discussions of religion in science fiction. So many science fiction novels seem to assume religion has just died out in the future, as if humanity has “evolved” beyond the need for faith. But I strongly doubt this will be true. In fact, I think the opposite will be true. The more we supposedly “know” about the universe, the more we “reveal” the mysteries of space and time the more we will rely on religion for comfort and security in the face of the increasingly knowable. The infinite is incomprehensible, and the more humans attempt to understand it, the more fully we will grasp the incomprehensibility. For me, that was the most interesting exploration in this book. Being vague to avoid spoilers, humanity develops the ability to communicate with parallel universes (on the theory that every decision spawns a parallel universe where a different decision was made), and this ability is both incredible and overwhelming for the human mind—but not for the AI minds who are seeking singularity across all the universes.
Underneath all of the theoretical physics, insane philosophy, and murderous AIs, the core of this novel is one man’s love for a woman. The book centers on Clay and Karla and Clay’s quest to find his way back to the woman he loves, crossing as many universes as necessary to do that. I did think that having their relationship not only be an age gap romance but also between a professor and student was unnecessary and didn’t really add anything to the plot in any meaningful way. There were plenty of other ways for Clay to lose everything without having unethical goings-on.
There were some inconsistencies in the book that should’ve been caught during line editing, but I know that for these small presses, there’s a lot of unpaid work being done by only a handful of people. There were also some printing errors, which isn’t the fault of the press at all but was annoying. My biggest criticism is definitely with the relationship dynamics. There were a couple of small plot holes, but nothing that I found too distracting from the main force of the book.
My comps for this book are Prophet by Sin Blaché and Helen Macdonald and This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar. Colossus has the same complicated mix of romance, thriller, lit fic, and sf that Prophet does, and it shares the romance against all odds in a mind-bending setting with This is How You Lose The Time War. If you’re looking for something that is philosophical, confusing in the best possible way, grounded by the relationship between two people, I would highly recommend Colossus (and those other two books).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail
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: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Blood, and Cannibalism
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
4.0
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
5.0
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
2.5
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
4.0
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.