Review: Wet Magic

5 stars. Well, I keep looking for a palette cleanser. Although instead of a bad taste, I want to scrub away reality. And the palette is in fact my anxious, exhausted brain. I keep looking for books that will, like, move me physically from this space to another. Books that will wash everything away.

Edith Nesbit did that for me so much when I was a kid, so I sort of had the idea to return to something reliable rather than try something new? And it sort of worked. I love her witty writing and clever characters. I adore the worlds she builds and her approach to writing about magic and the occasional meta details about stories and fairy tales. I love her ability to craft delightful, utter nonsense.

This one was always my favorite - a story about four children (and a tagalong friend) who rescue a captured mermaid. They are taken to her underwater kingdom and accidentally start a war with other oceanic creatures, which is a lot more delightful and a lot less scary than it sounds. I loved this one when I was a kid because I loved the sea and always secretly hoped I was actually a mermaid and would return home one day, like the well-adjusted super-reader that I was. 

Here's the thing: it didn't really hold up to my adult eyes. I still love it, and always will, but I enjoyed it more now from the perspective of: oh wow, she didn't just write tropes - she developed them. She originated them. Instead of feeling the pull of escape the way I did as a kid, I felt appreciation for her craft and for the influence she had on the fantasy genre. Which is not to say it was a bad reading experience, or a disappointment (not at all!), it was simply different and unexpected.

So, I'll keep looking. I'll poke around Dahl and Eager and Ibbotson and Keene and Hoeye and see if I can find a doorway that'll open enough for me to escape my current reality. Wish me luck. But ALSO - I do recommend this, especially for little ones, especially to be read aloud at bedtime, maybe on a trip to the beach. Don't forget to bring shiny pails and shovels and maybe, as the sun sets over a glistening expanse of ocean blue, you can whisper, just to see... "Sabrina fair..."

Wet Magic on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Abarat (Abarat #1)

5 stars. Every couple of years, I crave these books. I get nostalgic for the pure and colorful escape, for the deftly-named characters and the creative world-building. I get excited to travel to new places and meet old friends and face clever, layered villains. I get eager to pour over the brilliant and vivid illustrations, to dive into a true reading Experience-uppercase-E.

But here's the thing: for as many times as I've read and re-read the first book, I've never made it through the third. ACK. I know that Clive Barker intended this to be a quintet, but we've settled for three, and I can't even finish them all! My vague reading challenge for 2020 was to finish what I start (meaning: series) and I totally burnt out on The Expanse by Book 5. So here we are. Should I try to get something right for once? Should I actually cross something off the list?

CANDY QUACKENBUSH. A girl from Chickentown, Minnesota who finds herself in Abarat, a magical land - archipelago, actually - where each island occupies a single hour of the day. Candy meets creatures and monsters and animals beyond her wildest dreams - but something feels off. She's being hunted by Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight, whose interest in her borders on obsession. And as she immerses herself more in Abaratian ways, it all starts to feel ... familiar.

Tasty stuff.

Beyond the basic story (which is essentially just a vehicle for the world-building, which I don't mind at all?), I love the lessons here: Candy's an admirable Alice with a fantastic attitude. She demonstrates compassion and empathy and characters who don't are heartily and happily called out. There's exploration of fate and destiny and bravery and surrender. It's fantastic.

I recall very fondly going online (a slow, loud thing when I was a child in the 90s) and pouring over the Extremely Sophisticated Online Flash Animation on the website for these books. I believe there was an interactive map of The Beautiful Moment, fan art, and more. I painstakingly copied the illustrations with my colored pencils, I even tried to write my own pseudo-fanfiction-y version of the story in a pink spiral notebook involving a protagonist named Kandi and several fierce old women ... lol. 

But enough embarrassing shit about me. My point is just to say that these books are/were formative and foundational and special to me.

Fans of fantasy: read this. Fans of world-building: read this. Fans of art: read this. Fans of myths: read this. Fans of fun, creative villains: read this. These books make me fucking emotional, and not just because they offered so much comfort and so much inspiration when I was a kid. This series holds up as something truly unique - something beautiful - something with the potential to be important for generations to come. REMEMBER ABARAT, book world. Let's return together.

Abarat on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: House of Leaves

Kelly: stuck in the house.

Kelly: decides to read a book about a murderous house.

5 stars. This was ... really something. Unlike anything I've read before. I'm so excited to have read it - I feel accomplished - but I also feel ... hollowed out with a spoon. Scarred, scared, maybe a little shaky. Maybe a little traumatized. There are moments from this book that I will drag around with me for a long time (like for example the image of a man trying to read a book by the light of its burning pages … shiver).

I'd say it was worth it for someone like me: willing to put in the work and super interested in unsettling academic horror. GET READY FOR A LOT. YES, it gave me a headache like five times. YES, I had to turn the book upside down and read from different angles. YES, it's a little bit up its own ass. But I'd say it's pretty brilliant, and pretty scary.

Ahhh, how to describe it. Well, there are essentially three stories here: one about a family who moves into a peculiar house, one about an old man who writes about their experiences / their captured film about it, and one about a young man who finds the old man's writing. It's sort of a Russian Doll novel like Cloud Atlas, except the stories are woven together with footnotes, not neatly divided with chapters. And it's gorgeous. Visually.

Like if Kubrick directed a version of Alice in Wonderland.

It's also - delightfully and unexpectedly - funny. There's a lot of satire here and I found myself snorting at Danielewski's brilliant mockery of academia and analysis. It all felt so familiar and so accurate and so hilarious. Very clever. Overwrought in a good way. I also enjoyed, without knowing how or why, feeling like I was in L.A. in the 90's. L.A. is hard to capture but it works here, simply. <- That's a super random detail to pull from such an epic, expansive book but there you go.

I am super, super tempted to dive into an in-depth exploration of how women are portrayed - would love to analyze every female character - but, well, hmm. To offer commentary on something like that would be playing into the books hands ... falling into its trap ... exhuming a skeleton of sorts. Better left alone, I'd say.

Beyond all that though, under the layers, behind the door... this book stretches. It stretches what a book can be, it stretches your imagination, it stretches fear into something really thoughtful and provocative. The author takes primarily intangible, abstract "things:" space, time, walls, a staircase; and makes them profoundly eerie. Ultimately, though, I was left feeling warm. It's not just horror. It's deeply wonderful and romantic. 

House of Leaves on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Horrorstör

5 stars. I LOVED THIS! That ending! *Punches the air ecstatically* This is the clever type of horror that really scratches an itch! And it only took me like forty billion years to read it during the apocalypse! Ahhhhhhhhh.

I can't read these days. I have all the time in the world and no energy or focus. As much as I absolutely loved this, I could barely get through it. I know a lot of readers are experiencing something similar and I just want to say: it's cool. No pressure. Do what feels right.

ANYHOO. Horrorstör. Brilliant. It's about a young woman named Amy who feels a bit trapped - trapped by her circumstances and her job and her poor financial situation. She works at an Ikea-adjacent furniture store called Orsk and slogs through the day with sarcasm and eye rolls.

But something is off at Orsk! Something mysterious is happening and Amy gets roped into investigating. She and her uber-enthusiastic manager Basil find themselves in a nightmare of epic proportions as the store transforms into something gross and dangerous - and I'm not just talking about Corporate America.

So, so smart. Seriously. This is intelligent, self-aware horror that is also SUPER campy and SUPER intense. It's funny, scary, gory, and manages to critically probe corporate / consumer culture while keeping it shallow and light. It's mockery at its FINEST. Readers who have worked in retail will especially appreciate the references here. Oh, and the design - incredible. I suggest buying this in print.

I won't strip away the incredible layers embedded within every ironic plot device, cause that would ruin the fun. Take my advice and read it and enjoy it and let something ridiculous soothe your soul.

Horrorstör on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Fleishman is in Trouble

3 stars. Brisk, funny, painful. My reaction to this book - about a man attempting to navigate sex and dating and parenting post-divorce - is so weird and I'm sure that's because I'm super distracted by a fucking. global. pandemic. and can't be invested in reading about insufferable hypocrites. But let's try to break it down:

Taffy's goals here - to spit on the rich, to put a harsh spotlight on the incredible male ego, to explore a dysfunctional marriage, to let women be complicated - are obvious. Admirable goals, to be sure, and I think she achieves them. But she telegraphs these themes so early that perhaps they're too obvious - I think I prefer a little more wrapping paper around my gifts. I already know the rich are horrible and I already know men are assholes and I already know that we as a species are spectacularly horrible at choosing and keeping mates and I already know that women are fucking spectacular multifaceted creatures who are punished for literally everything they do.

So maybe ... it needed a bit more editing and a bit more color and fewer dense sentences and a more balanced narrative. Maybe the repetition was too heavy. Maybe the perspective shift shouldn't have felt so jarring despite a lot of foreshadowing. Maybe the sex parts could've felt a little less like a woman-writing-a-man. Maybe it needed to feel crisper and less soggy. Maybe the narrator could've fit more neatly into the story.

It doesn't change the fact that her goals ARE admirable and this stuff SHOULD be written about and these stories SHOULD be read widely. And that ending - oh my god what a gut punch. We NEED more quotes like this: 

"If you are a smart woman, you cannot stand by and remain sane once you fully understand, as a smart person does, the constraints of this world on a woman." 

And this: 

"So I would go home and would wedge myself back into my life. I would wonder, globally, how you could be so desperately unhappy when you are so essentially happy." 

And this: 

"Whatever kind of woman you are, even when you’re a lot of kinds of women, you’re still always just a woman, which is to say you’re always a little bit less than a man." 

MORE OF THIS. More of this conflict. More of this push and pull. More of these pithy validating observations that make me breathless and seen and hopeless and grateful.

So yes, it hit me weird. But I recommend it. And I will read what she writes next.

Fleishman is in Trouble on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: The Outsider

3 stars. When I started this, I was kinda disappointed. It took me a minute to readjust to King's gleeful / outdated colloquialisms (a kid literally says, "gee" at one point, as in "gee mister, I got a nickel to take to the diner for a milkshake"), but by 20% I was hooked. Only he could take one of my least favorite premises - where every. single. character is stuck between a rock and a hard place - and make it so captivating (I just finished The Expanse #4, in which the entire plot is one clusterfuck after another, so I may be sensitive to this ATM). 

The Outsider focuses on the horrible abduction and murder of a young boy in a small town. The forensic evidence points exclusively and conclusively to one man - a beloved Little League couch with no history of violent behavior or criminal tendencies - so the police arrest him. Unfortunately, he has a rock solid alibi, which leads everyone (the cops, his family, his lawyer, his kids) to question: how can one man be in two places at once?

It has all the ingredients for a great King read: distinct, well-intentioned characters, a fleshed out small town setting, a gruesome murder, and an impossible, slightly supernatural mystery at its heart. I really respect the eerie unfolding of this particular plot - I didn't find anything too frightening, but I was definitely unsettled. King filled this book with more metadata than usual (expect easter eggs, kids), but it moves along nicely with all the finesse you'd expect.

So, if you can get beyond the somewhat eyeroll-y dialogue (a woman literally says "let's get funky" to her "husband of mine" in one conversation), this is great. But (Sarah Jessica Parker voice) I can't help but wonder: does this feel more cookie cutter than King's earlier works? It felt a little long and a little predictable. I think maybe it's because - ugh, I hate even letting this impact my reading experience - I knew what to expect. The supernatural aspects weren't a surprise, and I went in anticipating a high level of detail and characterization, and then ... I didn't get the gut punch I was hoping for. 

I guess the problem is that when you're That Good, I expect Great. And King can't help but continue to explore his favorite themes: addiction, justice, monster-hunting. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it reminded me a lot of 'Salem's Lot and a little of It. I think I was hoping for something that tasted a little spicier. Still, I've said it before and I'll say it again: mediocre King is still miles above the rest. 

I absolutely cannot wait to watch the adaptation. I’ve heard such good things.

The Outsider on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Cibola Burn (The Expanse #4)

2 stars. Wow. This really didn’t do it for me. Here’s why:

1. The female characters (again - just like the other books). Elvi starts out with so much promise - a kickass, brilliant female scientist? I’m in. And what does she do, immediately? She falls in love with Holden. GAG. She does play her part, in the end, but her trajectory smelled weird to me.

2. Holden. I really can’t stand the golden hero boy. Every time another character makes fun of him it’s an attempt for the authors to act self-aware but it all falls flat. Holden is who he is: who (many) male readers want to be.

3. The entire plot consists of things going wrong. I loved the constant disasters in the first three books because it kept the pages turning and gave us some heart pounding, high stakes action sequences. But here it gets EXHAUSTING. Give us a win! Quit pushing these characters to outlandish limits! When things go THAT wrong, it just feels lucky when they go right again. I personally enjoy reading about problem solving, not luck.

4. Murtry. The Expanse series features some truly great antagonists, often complicated ones (love), but this one just has a cartoon villain. Murtry’s entire character felt FORCED. It’s like they wrote him into the story, realized he didn’t come across as bad enough, and subsequently made the other characters think “I hate that guy” a lot to fix it. FORCED. I don’t have sympathy for him or anything - he was super psychopathic - but I’m so confused about why he had to be Evil with an uppercase e. Why did he go after Holden? He just felt ... unneeded. Bland. There to give Amos someone to crack his knuckles at.

5. Same old themes. Humans are stupid, bonk me on the head with it why don’t ya?

Alas, because the weather’s nice and I’m feeling generous, I will point out a few things I loved:

1. MILLER. My fave. My adorable, confused, cryptic alien babe.

2. Death slugs.

I will absolutely continue with this series because I swore to myself and my husband that I would, but I’m a little burned out. Don't worry, I'll get there. 

Cibola Burn on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: The Mothers

5 stars. The Mothers is wonderful and painful, much like the experience of being female. It questions and explores so much. It’s about expectations and fear and assumption and choices and mistakes and the lies we tell each other and the lies we tell ourselves. It reflects the impossible battles we face every day as the hugely imperfect individuals we all are.

I was looking for something exactly like this - something introspective and harrowing and rich with detail. It’s a somewhat short but packed story about a young girl, Nadia, who faces an unplanned pregnancy at seventeen. She (not a spoiler) has an abortion and the book examines its impact on her identity as well as those of the people around her. 

The narrative is a winding road that connects Nadia with her distant father, her dead mother, her damaged best friend, her lover, and her community. I felt so deeply for each character and the decisions they faced. I particularly love the way the book posits how occasionally connection cannot be defined - it just is. Sometimes it's wonderful and stimulating and warm, sometimes it's cold and ugly and painful, and sometimes - often, maybe - it's both. 

The writing itself is lovely, practically flawless. The setting feels timeless (I was almost jarred by mentions of cell phones and Barrack Obama). The characters are distinct and complicated and therefore realistic, to me. Nadia makes imperfect choices and I could relate to every. single. one. It's not a fun read, but I wasn't looking for one. I wanted to sink into scalding water for a moment and The Mothers delivered.

I know that my perspective is unneeded here - probably unwanted - but more books like this need to be published.

The Mothers on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: The Ten Thousand Doors of January

3 stars. Charming! The Ten Thousand Doors of January is about a young woman in the early 1900's who lives in a mansion full of strange artifacts. Her father comes and goes on mysterious missions and she is stuck under the charge of a strict but seemingly supportive caretaker. Until one day, she discovers a door. And a book.

A magical and enchanting story weaves itself beautifully as January makes friends, learns about her past, and runs into trouble. Sure, it's about excitement and adventure and facing misfortune, but it's also about a woman finding herself - loving herself - doubling down on her very sense of self - when everyone else fails. 

If this was a straight up professional-ish review, I'd rate it higher - it's a good book. Well-paced, well-written and it hits certain spots that many readers are nostalgic for after HP and Wayward Children and Narnia. I adore portal fantasies and felt the familiar "man I wish I could find my door" feeling. I also couldn't put it down!

But since this is more of a reaction than a review, I'll call it trope-y, and I'm docking a star, as I always do, for a UDD (Unnecessary Dog Death - even if it's a fake one). The writing comes across as quaint to me, maybe a little cute. I also don't believe in True Love, and sometimes this felt like a romance disguising itself as a fantasy. And the plot contains IMO many impossibilities, which may kind of be the point, but I like writing that solves its problems with a little more finesse. 

Anyway, I do really love the energy here. It's quirky, fun and a great debut.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Abaddon's Gate (The Expanse #3)

4 stars. Yeesh, I made it through another one. I don't know why these books - these fast-paced, cinematic, deeply entertaining books - take me so long. I enjoy them so much, and I love the way the series unfolds in this one, but reading them just ... takes me awhile. They're tiring. And this one explores a lot of religious and moral themes that I couldn't wrap my head around, as much as I wanted to.

Otherwise, it's excellent space stuff. We still have Holden (gag me) and his crew, plus a few new characters: a young woman bent on revenge, a Russian preacher committed to helping humanity through the crisis of encountering alien life, and a hardened OPA officer trying to keep humans from shooting each other. Each character is distinct and charming as always. And the action is so extra - in a good way.

Whereas the last book threw alien life into a largely political arena, this one is more philosophical. Concepts like revenge, morality, forgiveness and love are all central themes; strangely juxtaposed with the protomolecule and its actions. The characters are squeezed and pushed to their limits and forced to show their true colors. I like this kind of writing, writing that doubles down on the complexities of what it means to be human. I respect the way these authors write about PTSD and traumatic identity fractures. 

I still have issues with the female characters and the weird way everyone quickly devolved into "good" or "bad" when the time came, but like I've said in previous reviews: this is golden science fiction. I'm looking forward to what's next, even if it takes me fifty years. (It might. Just saying.)

Abaddon’s Gate on: Amazon | Goodreads