Reading Wednesday
Aug. 26th, 2020 09:06 am I read a lot this week but it was mostly short.
Just finished: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Loved this one, and Noémi might be my second favourite of the author's smart, prickly protagonists after Meche in Signal To Noise. After clinging tightly to Gothic horror tropes, it went in a delightfully bizarre direction that I don't want to spoil. Anyway, highly recommend this one.
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi. This is one of a bunch of free books I get from Tor every month now. It's the story of siblings Ella and Kevin. She has near godlike superpowers and understandable anger issues, he has a bright future that is curtailed by virtue of being a young Black man in America. Kevin is born during the 1992 LA riots (hence, Riot Baby), and the story follows their relationship over the years as the timeline diverges from our own.
Onyebuchi's writing is gorgeous; there's a vivid sense of place and voice to his language that grounds the fantastical elements in the specificity of character and setting. I appreciate that we get no explanation whatsoever for Ella's powers, or the timeline divergence; it puts the story more in the magic realist genre than in sci-fi or fantasy, and allows the focus to stay on the characters' inner worlds. I don't want to give away the ending but I loved it, particularly in contrast to some other current event stories I've read that don't follow their premise to its logical conclusion.
Query Craft: The Writer-In-the-Know Guide to Getting Your Manuscript Requested by Angie Hodapp. I'm at the stage with writing (revising large swathes of Book 1 of my eek-series and cutting it down to a publishable length; almost 20,000 words into Part 2) where I need to send out query letters to agents and publishers. Which is not something I want to be doing, because it's like a cover letter but worse. I mentioned this on a writer friend's FB page and one of her writer friends popped up to say "read this!" So I did—admittedly in part because I was procrastinating on writing a query letter—but it was hugely helpful, and I ended up getting said query letter written and sent. And now I have what I think is a strong synopsis and pitch for my book that I can use elsewhere.
Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mordorbot recommended this one to me because we were talking about female violence and complicity. It's...not a good book? But it's an interesting book. It's a mystery-thriller set in a small town called Wind Gap; Camille, a journalist living in Chicago but originally from Wind Gap, is sent because of her connection there after two little girls are murdered.
Everyone is horrible. This is Gillian Flynn; basically she's known for writing internalized misogyny and you're not sure whether it's the character's opinions or her own? Of course, within this context, I too would be female misogynist as all of the female characters, including the little girls, are completely awful. The men are kind of just there. It's dark and nihilistic and all of the trigger warnings apply (why have I been reading so much about rape and self-harm lately? It's not on purpose!). None of the characters are realistically awful. As highly stylized noir, it did work for me in much the same way as, like, 13 Reasons Why worked for me. It's not good but it's compelling.
Silver In the Wood by Emily Tesh. Another Tor novella, and I honestly had no idea what it was about and just downloaded it because the cover was pretty.
Hah so what it's about is boning the Green Man. I mean, not really, no actually boning happens on page. But this is a monsterfucker book and it's I am here for it. Basically boy meets wild man of the woods, boy gets swept off by the Summer King, wild man of the woods teams up with boy's firecracker monster-hunting mother to rescue him. It's all very romantic and sweet.
Besides the premise (which is hilarious and great) what intrigued me about this one was how it did not particularly follow a commercial fantasy structure. Tesh leans hard into the feel of Celtic folklore and mythology. The result is that the protagonists are not particularly active, the story beats don't fall where we expect, and the overall sense I got upon finishing it was that I'd woken up from a very strange and lovely dream. Read it, it'll take you under an hour and it's a good use of that hour.
Currently reading: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. I remember some big fuss being made when this came out and it was hitting everyone's top genre book lists. And I can see why. I'm only a chapter in, but it's got themes of imperialism and colonialism within a vivid and grounded fantasy setting. Baru is a young girl living an idyllic life with her two dads and mom when the Masquerade arrives on their shores, disrupting their traditional way of life. One of her dads is killed and to keep her safe, her remaining parents send her to the new shiny school that the conquerers have built, where they impose their own religious and political beliefs on the children. It's a grim and intriguing opening and I'm excited to read the rest.
Just finished: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Loved this one, and Noémi might be my second favourite of the author's smart, prickly protagonists after Meche in Signal To Noise. After clinging tightly to Gothic horror tropes, it went in a delightfully bizarre direction that I don't want to spoil. Anyway, highly recommend this one.
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi. This is one of a bunch of free books I get from Tor every month now. It's the story of siblings Ella and Kevin. She has near godlike superpowers and understandable anger issues, he has a bright future that is curtailed by virtue of being a young Black man in America. Kevin is born during the 1992 LA riots (hence, Riot Baby), and the story follows their relationship over the years as the timeline diverges from our own.
Onyebuchi's writing is gorgeous; there's a vivid sense of place and voice to his language that grounds the fantastical elements in the specificity of character and setting. I appreciate that we get no explanation whatsoever for Ella's powers, or the timeline divergence; it puts the story more in the magic realist genre than in sci-fi or fantasy, and allows the focus to stay on the characters' inner worlds. I don't want to give away the ending but I loved it, particularly in contrast to some other current event stories I've read that don't follow their premise to its logical conclusion.
Query Craft: The Writer-In-the-Know Guide to Getting Your Manuscript Requested by Angie Hodapp. I'm at the stage with writing (revising large swathes of Book 1 of my eek-series and cutting it down to a publishable length; almost 20,000 words into Part 2) where I need to send out query letters to agents and publishers. Which is not something I want to be doing, because it's like a cover letter but worse. I mentioned this on a writer friend's FB page and one of her writer friends popped up to say "read this!" So I did—admittedly in part because I was procrastinating on writing a query letter—but it was hugely helpful, and I ended up getting said query letter written and sent. And now I have what I think is a strong synopsis and pitch for my book that I can use elsewhere.
Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn.
mordorbot recommended this one to me because we were talking about female violence and complicity. It's...not a good book? But it's an interesting book. It's a mystery-thriller set in a small town called Wind Gap; Camille, a journalist living in Chicago but originally from Wind Gap, is sent because of her connection there after two little girls are murdered. Everyone is horrible. This is Gillian Flynn; basically she's known for writing internalized misogyny and you're not sure whether it's the character's opinions or her own? Of course, within this context, I too would be female misogynist as all of the female characters, including the little girls, are completely awful. The men are kind of just there. It's dark and nihilistic and all of the trigger warnings apply (why have I been reading so much about rape and self-harm lately? It's not on purpose!). None of the characters are realistically awful. As highly stylized noir, it did work for me in much the same way as, like, 13 Reasons Why worked for me. It's not good but it's compelling.
Silver In the Wood by Emily Tesh. Another Tor novella, and I honestly had no idea what it was about and just downloaded it because the cover was pretty.
Hah so what it's about is boning the Green Man. I mean, not really, no actually boning happens on page. But this is a monsterfucker book and it's I am here for it. Basically boy meets wild man of the woods, boy gets swept off by the Summer King, wild man of the woods teams up with boy's firecracker monster-hunting mother to rescue him. It's all very romantic and sweet.
Besides the premise (which is hilarious and great) what intrigued me about this one was how it did not particularly follow a commercial fantasy structure. Tesh leans hard into the feel of Celtic folklore and mythology. The result is that the protagonists are not particularly active, the story beats don't fall where we expect, and the overall sense I got upon finishing it was that I'd woken up from a very strange and lovely dream. Read it, it'll take you under an hour and it's a good use of that hour.
Currently reading: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. I remember some big fuss being made when this came out and it was hitting everyone's top genre book lists. And I can see why. I'm only a chapter in, but it's got themes of imperialism and colonialism within a vivid and grounded fantasy setting. Baru is a young girl living an idyllic life with her two dads and mom when the Masquerade arrives on their shores, disrupting their traditional way of life. One of her dads is killed and to keep her safe, her remaining parents send her to the new shiny school that the conquerers have built, where they impose their own religious and political beliefs on the children. It's a grim and intriguing opening and I'm excited to read the rest.
