Signal to Noise was Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s debut novel, and I enjoyed it best out of all her novels that I have read so far (Mexican Gothic, Velvet was the Night and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau). It is a fantasy novel set in Mexico about a teenage girl who discovers that she can perform spells while listening to records.
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You have probably heard of Octavia E. Butler, who was a renowned writer of science fiction novels and who wrote at a time when there was not a lot of female sci-fi writers, let alone Black ones. Sci-fi is not a genre that I gravitate towards, so I had never read any of Butler’s novels. But since I am always expanding my reading horizons, I wanted to give Butler a try and came across Parable of the Sower. It turns out Parable of the Sower is not so much sci-fi as it is speculative fiction. It is set in a dystopian future where climate change has led to the break down of societal and economic norms. I think Parable of the Sower is an interesting novel, and I am glad that I read it, but to be honest, it does not inspire me to want to read the second novel (Parable of the Talents). I kind of wish that I had picked another one of Butler’s novels to read instead.
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The Whispers is the second novel by Ashley Audrain. I have reviewed her first novel, The Push, on this blog. Like The Push, The Whispers is a story about motherhood with a central mystery involving a child. Ten-year-old Xavier has fallen from his third story bedroom window and is in a coma with a traumatic head injury. But how did he fall out of the window? Did he jump? Or was he pushed – by his mother? Sounds thrilling, but The Whispers is not a thriller. The mystery of Xavier’s fall is a catalyst for exploring the different roles that women are expected to take on, and what little satisfaction women get out of juggling these different roles. It also leads to an implosion in the female relationships in the novel.
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Stone Blind is the newest novel by Natalie Haynes. I have previously reviewed her books A Thousand Ships and Pandora’s Jar on this blog, so if you have been following along, then you know that Haynes uses her extensive knowledge of Greek mythology to retell the stories of Greek mythological women through a feminist lens, picking apart the misogynist views passed through time by the white men who originally told their stories. Stone Blind is an interesting read infused with Haynes engaging humour, but it did not inspire any strong feelings in me, I guess because it does not tell me something I have not already learned through Haynes other books and through other feminist retellings of Greek mythology.
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I think I have a pretty good sense of humour. I love comedies such as Arrested Development, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Community, Schitt’s Creek, Party Down, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, The Other Two, I could go on and on. I try to see the humour in every situation (within reason – I am not completely heartless). But it seems like every book I have bought lately that is supposed to be “hilarious” I do not find funny at all. Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is the latest such book, but the reason I did not find this book funny is because it hits way too close to home for me.
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Okay, so I totally get the hype surrounding Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, although I would not go as far as John Green and call it the best book I have ever read it. It is a fantastic novel, though. It is a compelling and epic story about friendship that will suck you in and shatter your heart before putting the pieces back together so you feel content with the end. The characters are so well developed and complicated and mostly likeable, that you cannot help but become invested in their fictional lives. Not many books can make me cry, but this one certainly did.
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I think we have an unhealthy obsession with true crime. There is a plethora of true crime podcasts to listen to, and Ryan Murphy keeps churning out one true crime miniseries after another on Netflix. A recent series of Murphy’s, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, is about the serial killer who killed at least seventeen men between the years 1978 and 1991. Evan Peters played Jeffrey Dahmer and there was some online chatter about how empathetic he portrayed Dahmer, which led to some viewers developing a crush on him as he portrayed a serial killer. The family members of Dahmer’s victims said they were not consulted about the series. They have had old wounds ripped open and watched their lives turned into entertainment without their permission. But nobody cares what the people who survive monsters like Dahmer think, so long as they can produce content to satiate the public’s thirst for these “intriguing” men who commit murder. Danya Kukafka subverts this disturbing mania for serial killers in her thought-provoking novel Notes on an Execution, where the serial killer’s life is told through the perspective of the women in his life, revealing that there is nothing intriguing about serial killers after all.
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Warrior Girl Unearthed is a sequel of sorts to Boulley’s debut novel, Firekeeper’s Daughter. Perhaps not quite as good as Firekeeper’s Daughter, nonetheless I still enjoyed reading Warrior Girl Unearthed and wish there had been more novel to read. I appreciate the opportunity to revisit the Ojibwe community on Sugar Island, Michigan, and the characters from the first novel. I hope Boulley writes more novels about them.
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Yellowface is quite the divergence from R. F. Kuang’s last novel, Babel. It is a contemporary satire of the publishing industry, which I am surprised even got published. It does not hold back in its criticism of the racism that permeates the industry. Like Birnam Wood, I cannot say that I liked reading Yellowface. The novel’s “protagonist” is just so awful, I was angry the entire time I read it. However, it is a very interesting behind the scenes look at the publishing industry and how successful writers are made.
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I have read Eleanor Catton’s two other novels, The Rehearsal, which I did not like, and The Luminaries, which I found interesting enough to keep in case I want to read it again. Birnam Wood, published ten years after The Luminaries, is already being named one of the best releases of this year. This was enough to pique my interest, but the plot, a psychological eco-thriller set in New Zealand involving a gardening collective and a billionaire, was what compelled me to read it in the end. I cannot say that I liked reading Birnam Wood (named after the Birnam Wood referenced in Shakespeare’s MacBeth, which I will not even try to parse because I do not enjoy reading Shakespeare), but I do find it to be a fascinating novel. When I finished reading the novel’s shocking ending, my first reaction was WTF and then my second reaction was I wish I had someone to discuss this novel with.
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