Tag: fiction reviews

#REVIEW: My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

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An interesting thing happened while I was thinking about reviewing this book: I popped over to Goodreads, saw my review, and knocked it down a star. Don’t misunderstand me; that change was from five stars to four, and this is still a book I enjoyed reading and can recommend to people. But if you’re going to read something by Oyinkan Braithwaite, and you should, you ought to start with Cursed Daughters, which I can be much more enthusiastic about.

MStSK begins on the floor in a bathroom, as our main character Korede uses bleach to remove the blood of her sister’s murdered boyfriend. Her sister, Ayoola, is perching on the toilet, blood drying on her body, as she waits for her sister to remove the evidence of her kill. Later, the two of them will dump the body off of a bridge into a lagoon below, hoping the local wildlife gets to it before anyone finds it.

(There are going to be some spoilers, more than I usually have in a review, so be aware of that. The tl;dr of the rest of the review is that I think this book would have been better if it had more room to breathe, and I don’t think it lived up to its own promise. It’s not a bad book, it’s just a distinct step down from Daughters.)

It is, as it turns out, the third boyfriend Ayoola has murdered, and the third Korede has helped her dispose of. Strangely, the police don’t seem to have noticed any sort of pattern, although Braithwaite is quick to emphasize how easily bribed and incompetent Nigerian police are. Ayoola is eventually questioned about this current boyfriend’s disappearance, but the body is never found and she’s never in any serious danger of arrest. And we don’t really get any details about the previous killings.

Here’s the thing: I read this in a couple of big gulps (and it’s short, so you probably will too) and in the moment it was a fun and interesting read. And it’s still a fun and interesting read, but it’s one of those books where a couple of days later the holes are going to start to show. Ayoola is younger and prettier than Korede, and has much better luck with men, and Korede is the more studious and responsible one as well. And eventually Ayoola meets the hot doctor that Korede has a crush on at her job (she’s a nurse; Ayoola is unemployed) and of course he falls for her, and this is supposed to be where the big emotional crux of the novel is, as Korede tries to decide what to do about the whole situation, but it just sort of fizzles. Ayoola temporarily abandons the doctor to fuck off to Dubai with another guy, this one married, and he somehow dies of either food poisoning or a drug overdose while they’re gone, a story Korede immediately doubts, and eventually she tries to stab the doctor but he ends up stabbing her himself in self-defense. Then Ayoola finds another man, and the book ends as Korede comes down the stairs in their home to meet him.

That sounds worse than it is, partially because I’m still in the bad mood I’ve been in all week, but I think the main problem with this book is missed potential. It’s about 220 pages long, and I think it could have used another thirty or so at least, and another hundred pages wouldn’t have been a problem. There’s a lot of backstory spent on Ayoola and Korede’s deceased (and abusive) father, and a side plot about a man in a coma who Korede has been caring for and using as her own private confessional, who wakes up and remembers more of what she told him than she expected. He wakes up and decides he’s in love with Korede, divorces his wife, and sort of hints around that he’s willing to hold what he knows over her head, but it doesn’t end up going anywhere.

So, yeah. Read more Nigerian fiction. Read Braithwaite. Just don’t start with this one.

#REVIEW: Taipei Story, by R.F. Kuang

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Goddammit.

I don’t like writing negative reviews of books by authors I like. I especially don’t like it when authors I like write two books in a row that I have to write negative reviews for. Kuang’s sixth book, Katabasis, wasn’t a bad book, and I didn’t dislike it, necessarily, but when you’re coming from an author whose books have nearly all ended up on my end-of-year best-of lists, a book not doing that is a downgrade. But I said in the review of that book that it might have fallen victim to my own expectations for it, and that I wanted to reread it at some point, and I still plan to do that.

Here’s the second-worst thing I can say about Taipei Story: it’s the first of Kuang’s books that I’m nearly certain I’m never going to revisit. Here’s the worst thing I can say about Taipei Story: if this was my first R.F. Kuang book and not my seventh, I would not be planning to pick up her next book.

And yet I’m still not willing to call it a bad book. If you are interested in character studies, and if the idea of spending just shy of 300 pages in the head of an American college sophomore who has moved to Taiwan for a ten-week intensive summer Chinese program sounds like something you might want to read, you will probably like this book! I am, unfortunately, not that reader. Character studies really aren’t my thing, and while I generally don’t need my books to be about people who are like me– I read about wizards and dragons and space aliens, for fuck’s sake– Lily is so closed off and so internal that I couldn’t find a way to care about her. And while I’ve studied enough languages to know that a ten-week residential Chinese course would be insanely difficult, it … doesn’t make for a good story, unfortunately. Lily doesn’t really do much over the course of the book. She doesn’t get along with her roommate, she has the most insanely awkward sex scene in the history of the written word, and that’s really about it.(*)

The meat of the story is supposed to be about when her grandfather dies, a grandfather who she barely knows because she lives in America and he’s still in China, and it leads to this mental crisis where Lily feels like she was learning Chinese to get to know her family and her history, and one of her few connections to China has just died, and her grandmother is sliding into dementia and barely remembers her most of the time. She has a few conversations with her mother where it becomes clear that she doesn’t really know much about her family’s history, partially because she never asked and partially because no one ever bothered to tell her anything, and she has a bit of a breakdown for a while, and I can imagine someone who finds this really fascinating, but it’s just not me.

I’m also frustrated because for the second book in a row I feel like forces external to the book have affected my opinion of it. In the case of Katabasis it was the pre-reading checklists and the idea that the book was super complicated and deep and you needed background knowledge to properly appreciate it that was circling around, and it just turned out to not be true. In the case of this book, Kuang’s grandfather literally died while she was in Taipei at an intensive residential language study. I would really like her next book to Not Be About Her. Do I get to tell her what to write? No, I don’t. Do I get to be disappointed by her choices anyway? I do. But the big difference between Kuang and Lily is that Lily is 19 and Kuang’s experience was in her late twenties, so she’s written Lily as less mature and able to process her feelings than she thinks she was, and again, it just didn’t work for me.

Again, the book’s not bad by any means, and I’m still in on day one for whatever she writes next. But this one just didn’t work for me.

(*) It was awful. I had to put the book down and walk away for a while. Like, the scene was supposed to be alienating and kind of creepy and weird, and it succeeded so much in that goal that it made me not want to read the book any more for a while. That’s sort of a compliment? But I’m still cringing from secondhand embarrassment right now, and I finished this book three days ago.

It is possible that you just read this piece and are surprised that I didn’t address The Controversy. That is because I find The Controversy to be so fucking stupid that I lose brain cells every time I think about it. If you are unaware of The Controversy, do yourself a favor and don’t look into it. If you are upset by The Controversy, go touch some fucking grass and find a real problem, you zygote.

#REVIEW: Girl Dinner, by Olivie Blake

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This week I’m going to try to catch up on book reviews I should have already written, so naturally I’m going to start with the book I just finished yesterday. I’m not completely sure what caused me to pick this up beyond amusement at the title and the lovely pink stained edges; I feel like there was something else but it was a while ago.

Girl Dinner is a flawed book in a lot of ways; the middle is kinda flabby, the end comes out of nowhere unless I seriously missed something, and a lot of the time the characters, either being academics or literal sophomores, have their heads firmly implanted in their asses. There is a lot of navel-gazing in this book, to mix metaphors, and it gets tedious sometimes.

But despite that, fundamentally the book works, and I need somebody else to read it and talk about it with me. The book is a satire– mostly, at least– and explores the intersection of academic feminism, modern femininity, social media and Greek (specifically sorority) culture, with just the tiniest little squirt of the supernatural over it all for, y’know, flavor. The two main characters are the aforementioned sophomore girl who is rushing one of the most exclusive sororities on campus, and an exhausted adjunct professor with an eighteen-month-old and a husband who isn’t worth much. The characters’ stories start off entirely separate other than that they share the same university, but by the end of the book everything knits itself together really nicely, at least up until the wait, what? that happens on the last page.

I handed this four stars; I wouldn’t be too pressed if you gave it three, and if the middle hadn’t been a little much I might have given it five, if only because I know enough academics to know (and I say this with love) that navel-gazing is kinda y’all’s thing. I need someone who thinks it sounds interesting to read it and then be my friend, because I want to talk about it with someone.

#REVIEW: Cursed Daughters, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

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This is going to be one of those reviews where I talk more about myself than the book, so … brace yourself, I suppose.

I frequently make snap decisions about books. I learn of their existence and thirty seconds later money has left my bank account and a couple of days later I have a book. The problem comes when I don’t read that book immediately, and it gets worse when it sits on my Unread Shelf for four months.

(There are two books on that shelf that have been there longer. Soon. I swear.)

I have no idea why I purchased Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Cursed Daughters. No idea if someone recommended it to me, if I came across the author on BlueSky and decided I liked her … nothing. And by the time I got to it, I’d also completely forgotten what the book actually was. See, that cover kinda yells “fantasy” at me? And the book has the same physical format and size as every hardcover YA book I’ve bought for years. And note the “from the author of” at the bottom. Come on! You’re telling me My Sister, the Serial Killer somehow isn’t genre fiction??

Cursed Daughters is not a fantasy novel and it is absolutely not YA. It is, in fact, hated Litratcher.

It’s fucking brilliant.

I keep saying this, over and over: you should read more books by Nigerians, goddammit. The book scene out of Nigeria is amazing right now.

This is the second time this year I’ve had to apply the word “brilliant” to a work of genreless Literary Fiction. I remain salty about it. Because this is the only book I’ve read this year that came close to Tom’s Crossing. I need the swords and lasers and magic contingent to step up their damn game, is what I’m saying.

At the beginning of the book a Nigerian woman intentionally walks into the ocean to die. The same day, her cousin Ebun gives birth to a daughter. The baby resembles the dead woman, Monife, to such a degree that Monife and Ebun’s mothers immediately decide that the baby is Monife reincarnated. Ebun is … unconvinced, and frankly quite a bit upset by the entire thing. There is also the minor matter of a generations-old family curse, that no woman of this family can be happy in love.

It’s still not a fantasy book. There’s some traditional beliefs mixed into a book set in the modern day in Lagos, and there’s a juju woman as a minor side character, but it’s not a fantasy book. Ebun believes none of this nonsense, and her daughter Eniiyi wants nothing to do with it either, but has to live her entire life in her dead semicousin’s shadow. She dreams of Monife occasionally, and by the end of the book genuinely resents the effect on her life that this woman she’s never met has. She remains Monife’s spitting image, so when she occasionally runs into people who knew Monife she either provokes shock or is genuinely thought to be a ghost. And as her great-aunt gets older, she begins regularly mistaking Eniiyi for Monife, and eventually her dementia increases to the point where she forgets Eniiyi exists at all.

The book follows three generations of the family, with Ebun and Monife in the middle, and jumps back and forth from the nineties to modern day. You eventually learn why Monife chose to walk into the water, and I’m not going to spoil anything but God damn does it end well— like, “I gasped and had to put the book down for a minute” well. I started this yesterday afternoon, read a chapter or two and put it down. When I picked it up again in bed last night it cost me at least an hour of sleep, and I got home from work today and sat down in my chair and didn’t get up again until I finished it.

Absolutely phenomenal work. I ordered My Sister, the Serial Killer about ten minutes ago. It’ll be here tomorrow. Oyinkan Braithwaite is on my “buy immediately” list forever now, and I’d really like to know what the circumstances were that brought this book onto my radar. If it was you, thank you very much.

#REVIEWS: No Longer Human and The Setting Sun, by Osamu Dazai

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My lovely wife has returned from her long sojourn, and all is right with the world again. After lazing about and whining all day yesterday, I was a veritable dervish this morning, managing to tidy, vacuum and dust every room in the house other than the office, which still got a lick and a promise. I read two books today and built half a Lego set on top of everything else. I think I can call the last Saturday of break a success.

Reading two books in a day isn’t the accomplishment it might sound like, because both of them were novellas. I’ve seen a bunch of students over the last couple of years reading these two books, and because the covers are striking (and I pay attention to what they’re reading regardless) I asked a couple of kids about them last year, and was greeted with enthusiastic recommendations. I didn’t get around to it last year and then when I recently found another couple of kids reading them before Spring Break decided to jump on them.

I … don’t get it.

So, Osamu Dazai was born in Japan in 1909, which already places him well outside of anything my students are usually willing to read. His books are obviously translated, and both of these books were written post-war, in 1947 and 1948, right before Dazai died of suicide at 38, in a scenario that appears (I haven’t done a ton of research other than reading a Wiki article) to precisely match a suicide attempt described in No Longer Human. The books sound like they were written in the late forties, frankly, which isn’t a criticism but is another reason why I’m surprised that my students are reading them, because the style of a novel from the 1940s and 1950s is wildly different from the modern YA or romantasy that I catch them with most of the time, and that’s before you have to deal with the cultural unfamiliarity of being translated from Japanese.

The closest analog to No Longer Human that I can think of is that it feels like a Japanese Catcher in the Rye. It’s about a young, profoundly alienated man, and it’s casually misogynistic in the way work from that era frequently is. It’s written in first person and is semi autobiographical; the framing device is that it’s written as three notebooks by the narrator, covering a couple decades of his life, and there’s another unnamed individual in the preface and epilogue who talks about how the notebooks were given to him. I read The Setting Sun cover to cover in a single sitting and I can’t tell you what the hell its deal is. I mean, I can describe the plot, that’s simple enough– it’s another first-person narrative, this time of a woman named Kazuko in her late twenties, a member of a formerly aristocratic family that has fallen apart after World War II. Her mom dies. Her brother is a drunken mess who eventually kills himself. She tries to have some love affairs. Then she gets pregnant and the book ends. There’s some obvious symbolism scattered throughout– a bit about burning snake eggs, and snakes constantly showing up around moments of despair– but it’s mostly a pretty straightforward narrative.

So, yeah, I get the plot. I just can’t tell you why it’s a book, if that makes any sense. I feel like I get No Longer Human, and part of me can sort of see why it might appeal to teenagers, who respond to alienation narratives. I don’t know why the hell there’s a copy of Setting Sun in our school library or why the kids are professing to enjoy it as much as Human. There are strong themes of addiction and alcohol abuse through both books and a ton of suicidal ideation and successful suicides along with some genuinely terrible family situations. I dunno; I’m gonna ask some questions on Monday and maybe send an email to the kid who was most interested in me reading these last year. Don’t misunderstand me; neither are bad books, and No Longer Human is genuinely good, but I don’t see the appeal to 14-year-olds in 2025. I need answers here, y’all.

Sunday night book reviewlets

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I was gonna go see Deadpool & Wolverine today and life intervened, so let’s review a whole bunch of books.

The Tide Child Trilogy, by RJ Barker: Excellent, although it took me fifty pages or so of the first book to get used to RJ Barker’s writing style. Nautical fantasy is a sorely underexploited subgenre, and damn near the entire trilogy takes place on a boat. Now, it’s a boat made from dragon bone, and it’s sailed with the help of a walking bird-thing who can magically create wind, but outside of that I can’t imagine anyone who enjoys historical fiction would want to pass on this, and the fantasy elements are not as extensive as a lot of the other books I have read this year. Combine that with some lovely, subtle world building and a feminist perspective that is omnipresent and will still fly over the heads of some readers and you have something I really enjoyed.

Mornings in Jenin, by Susan Abulhawa. This is the second of Abulhawa’s books I’ve read this year and is actually her debut novel, but in all honesty it’s superior to Against the Loveless World in nearly every respect, and Against the Loveless World is a book I enjoyed quite a lot. Abulhawa is a Palestinian author and this book begins with the creation of Israel and follows a small handful of characters up to, more or less, present day (the book came out in 2006, and ends … 2002-ish, maybe? So close enough.)

All of the trigger warnings, and if you’re remotely human this book will leave you incandescent with rage at several different points. I need to do a whole bunch of research and then read it again. It might be the most important book I’ve read this year; everyone needs to read this one.

The Hunter, by Tana French, is the second book she’s written about Cal Hooper, the main character of her previous novel The Searcher. I don’t have a lot to say about it that I didn’t have to say about the first book she wrote about this guy; Cal is an American ex-cop who moves to Ireland in search of a slower, calmer life and ends up in the tiny (fictional) town of Ardnakelty, where he quickly forms a bond with Trey, a local teenager with some trauma in her background. In the first book, Cal got pulled into the disappearance of Trey’s brother, and in this book, her father reappears for the first time in years and brings all sorts of pain with him. This book is less about the central mystery (it’s technically a murder mystery, but the murder doesn’t take place until about the 60% mark) and more about the relationship between Cal and Trey and what it’s like to be an outsider in a small town, and I really feel like this and The Searcher are both triumphs. I’d love to see more about these two.

the book of elsewhere, by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville. I was super excited about this one, so I’m sad to say that this is quite easily the single most disappointing reading experience I’ve had this year. I don’t have any idea how the co-writing process worked between Reeves and Miéville; Reeves also “co-writes” the comic book series that this book builds upon, but I can say that the only thing in this book that felt like Miéville was the vocabulary. Had those two names not been on the cover, I’d not have made it past the prologue, which is so choppy and poorly-written that I can barely believe it made it to publication. I made it through about 120 of the book’s 340 or so pages before deciding I had other things to do, and I don’t see myself picking this back up. You should avoid this unless you’re a huge fan of BRZRKR, the comic it’s based on … and I don’t really think BRZRKR has any “huge fans.” Definitely stay away if you are a fan of Miéville; just pretend this book never happened.