Review: My Favorite Thing is Monsters Vol. 1

5 stars. Absolutely perfect. This revolutionary graphic novel soothed aches in my soul I didn't even know existed. Every word - every image - is a precious treasure. This is a story wrapped in a story with other stories weaved throughout, but there's nothing precocious or overly ambitious. It reaches, it aims, it fires, and it hits the mark.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters (Vol. 1) is 10-year-old Karen Reyes' notebook, filled with her doodles and drawings and a personal narrative of her life in late-60's Chicago. Through her eyes we meet her mother (well-intentioned, strict), her brother (protective, hard-working), and a colorful cast of characters that dance in and out of her experiences. Her neighbor, Anka, has died under mysterious circumstances, and her effort to learn Anka's heartbreaking story becomes crucial in shaping her developing sense of self. Karen's identity is central here, and central to my personal reaction.

I hate when reviewers (and I am super guilty of this, too) end up competing over who appreciated a book more. It spoke to ME because XYZ. Well, it spoke to ME MORE because XYZ. That sort of thing. And I'm afraid that if I dive into why My Favorite Thing is Monsters resonated so strongly - took my breath away - it'll come across as even MORE ridiculously dramatic than the first paragraph in this response. So I'll keep myself out of it and try to keep things dry, if you will.

Narratively, it works. Each component of the story is immersive in its own way and doesn't ask too much of the reader. It avoids tropes and/or anything particularly gratuitous, though there is nudity and many mature themes. It addresses many difficult topics: murder, death, illness, mortality, the Holocaust, racism, discrimination, bullying, sexuality, etc. with grace and ease and also a freshness I haven't encountered before.

Visually, it's stunning. The artwork consists of doodles, portraits, illustrations and spectacular recreations of famous pieces of art. Several pages depict not only incredibly accurate individuals - but incredibly accurate expressions. 

If I had one quibble, it would be the age of the protagonist: she seems WAY too talented/intelligent for a 10-year-old! Nothing against 10-year-olds, but I would've been thrilled to have mastered the fancy S at that age. 

I'd recommend this for: outsiders. People who feel like aliens in their own bodies. Art lovers. Horror lovers. People who have struggled - who are still struggling. Minorities. Young folks. Old folks. People who have suffered tragedy at the hands of others. Victims. Creatives. Those who are constantly slapped in the face with the fact that the world is not what they expected nor what they hoped. Those who have to endure regardless. 

My Favorite Thing is Monsters Vol. 1 on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Gemina (The Illuminae Files #2)

4 stars. Can I get some ass slaps and high fives for making my way through a YA series like a champ? Slowly, I know, but still. Illuminae completely confused me - I literally thought it was so dumb and so spectacular at the same time. Can a book be both? Yes, apparently, because I feel the same way about Gemina. 

Oh man. So visually stunning. So twisty and turny. So utterly breathtaking. So fucking impossible to read on a Kindle. So shockingly annoying. Seriously - the romance, oh man. So annoying. It grates. It burns. It maybe even melted my ice cold heart, maybe just a little. But still. How can a work inspire so much appreciation and so much eye rolling simultaneously? Should we ask True Blood?

Also, where were all these cute, emotionally available, commitment-ready boys when I was a teenager? Hmm?

Gemina picks up where Illuminae left off. After attacking Kerenza, Evil Corp sends Bad Guys to the wormhole where the survivors are headed, and once again the fate of the world - ahem - lands in the laps of several obnoxious, love struck teenagers. Yes folks, we’ve got wisecracks. We’ve got underage geniuses. We’ve got romantic melodrama! We’ve even got disgusting drug monsters to replace zombies.

I know I sound critical, which I am, sort of. But somehow all of these “lame” tropes mix together to make some sort of engaging book magic. *shrugs* who knows? Am I feeling generous? Am I feeling desperate due to strange reading times? What’s happening?! 

The sci-fi elements here are truly entertaining, if not totally incomprehensible and therefore not really necessary to enjoy the plot. Bring on the quantum entanglements. And AIDAN, oh AIDAN!! My fave. This book puts out a refreshing take on an old trope: AI that knows its power but not its place.

Anyway, can’t wait to knock out the third and continue FINISHING THINGS TO COMPLETION. Series, I mean. Books. It’s not what you think. I've had three White Claws and I'm about to have three more. 

Gemina on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Acceptance (Southern Reach #3)

5 stars. Ack, these are the times I miss being in college, where I was literally trained to read and understand and comprehend better. There’s a deeper meaning knocking its way out of this trilogy but I can’t seem to wrap my head around it. Which is maybe the point? Or at least an acceptable reaction to such a mindfuck of a reading experience? I’m actually dying to dive into it again, maybe via print version. I’m desperate to hear a lecture or two on the narrative themes - and the narrative construction! Wow.

Acceptance picks up where Authority drops off, with the addition of flashbacks from key characters. We are granted answers, for which I’m so grateful (sometimes you can just explain what happened! Seriously!), and we are presented with new questions, which I didn’t mind either. It’s true that the writing sustains a sort of dense tone, requiring intense focus. But it washes over you, or at least it did for me, in a way that was refreshingly immersive and interesting. It’s trippy.

This trilogy is something that, as I mentioned in my review of the first book, has become special to me. I’m quite sure it has and will to others as well. It’s unique but personal and penetrating and mindblowing. I hesitate to call it philosophical, because it’s almost too ... matter-of-fact. But it does connect (like many things these days) with the classic everything-you-think-you-know-is-wrong gut punch. The way this manifests in the character’s varying stories is a little sad and a little joyful at the same time. 

I wouldn't know how to classify this even if I tried: horror? Science fiction? Psychological thriller with an eco twist? But that's okay - it's all of these and more. I'm so bummed it's over and I'm so ready to read about it. I read the last few pages on a very rainy day and that felt appropriate. 

Last note: I was relieved to hear from my beloved biologist again and to witness the end of her story (or maybe ... the beginning?). I mentioned in my review of the first book that I admired her ability to adjust and adapt and ... well, evolve. Turns out that's a fundamental component of these novels and one that I will absolutely take with me. Nature - sciences - physics - space - math - it all shifted in Area X. And therefore we must too. Even if the shifts are unknowable, unmeasurable, unattainable. Even if there's deeper meaning knocking its way out and you can't wrap your head around it. Even if that means we lose.

"Acceptance moves past denial, and maybe there's defiance in that, too."

AHHHHHHH so good. AHHHHHH. 

Acceptance (Southern Reach #3) on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Authority (Southern Reach #2)

4 stars. Wow. I loved this. I missed the biologist - I missed her voice - but Authority kept my attention even under these weird reading circumstances. What an aptly-named book, by the way. Area X is fascinating, but I was more fascinated by the way the author played with broad concepts. The authority we seek (or, ahem, control) globally, over the planet, over countries, over the environment, and also the authority we seek on petty levels, over colleagues, over spaces, over emotions we can't truly stifle or escape from.

Authority picks up where we left off in Annihilation with a perspective shift to a new director at Southern Reach. He has replaced the psychologist and must adapt to this role while navigating office politics and attempting to solve the mystery of Area X itself. The members of the twelfth expedition have returned, apparently including the biologist, and this sparks an explosive series of events that completely erode the new director's impression of his job, his role, his purpose, and his identity.

Narratively and tone-wise the writing is more dense here, more complex than in the first book. I adored Annihilation for its simplicity and direction and voice, and Authority is simply not simple or direct or even trustworthy at times. But I was rewarded with a casually catastrophic third act that left me breathless and smiling ... a true gunshot of an ending both surprising and inevitable. For a book so freakish in premise and horrifying in a few seriously disturbing, if not a little cartoonish, ways, there are some skewering truths about humanity embedded in its pages.

I recently read House of Leaves, so of course it stuck out to me that the author played with space here in ways that are interesting. The idea that space - physical space - isn't reliable? Terrifying. He similarly plays with memory, logic, and intention. I'm not sure I enjoyed how the protagonist's character unraveled - a lot of seemingly random quotes from old family members - but I think that's partly too because I just simply loved and admired the biologist so deeply.

I can't recommend Jeff VanderMeer enough. From his concepts to his writing to his ability to create and maintain subtle threads of apprehension and dread - this trilogy is excellent. I look forward to the last one. 

Authority (Southern Reach #2) on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Abarat: Absolute Midnight (Abarat #3)

(No Rating.) Okay. I went in prepared. I did my research, I looked at reviews, I knew what to expect. But can we put all that aside for one tiny second and celebrate because I DID IT! I read it, I finished what's available, I completed what I started. Phew, I'm good for something after all (I joke. I'm good for nothing. I'm utterly useless during these weird times and also during normal times.). But I can finally cross a series (incomplete though it is) off my list and say that I'm banging along my 2020 reading challenge. Yay.

For reference - my review of Abarat and of Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War. For those too lazy to click - they are glowing, rave reviews of what I considered to be one of the most creative, imaginative, vivid, mindblowing fantasy series of all time. So there's some context for you: these books are super important to me and and actually quite beloved in terms of reading memories from my younger days.

On to the book. I don’t think I can summarize without spoilers bleeding through, but let’s just say: Mater Motley’s evil plan is revealed and executed to devastating results. Candy and her friends attempt to navigate the catastrophe while she sorts through the mess that is her very identity/sense of self. Abarat is, well, changed forever. It's not like he didn't warn us. The first two books are full of warnings and foreshadowing about nightmares to come. 

"There was worse to come, much worse. Whatever the fear-flooded mind might have imagined when it thought of Midnight - the unholy rituals performed there in the name of Chaos and Cruelty, the blank-eyed brutalities that took the sanity or the lives of any innocent who ventured there; the stink out of its gaping graves, and the dead who had climbed from them, raised for mischief's sake, and left to wander where they would - all this was just the first line in a great book of terror that the two powers who had once ruled Gorgossium, Christopher Carrion and his grandmother, Mater Motley, had begun to write."

About a hundred pages in, in the middle of a certain fight/chase scene, I sat back, closed the book and sort of went phew, how did we end up here?! Yup, the gloves came off, the claws came out and Clive Barker really let things run wild. And you know what? I kind of enjoyed it.

Okay, so this book starts with one of the weirdest rug pulls I've ever experienced. I kind of LIKED THAT! 

Okay, so the plot train went careening off the rails and into the Lovecraftian abyss. Almost literally. BRING IT ON! 

Okay, so the feel-good fairy tale turned out to be a lot darker, and weirder. SO WHAT? MOST OF THEM ARE!

Okay, so from a technical perspective the tone was REALLY different and the writing felt like a bad Jackson Pollack painting - borderline nonsensical at times - and the characters were not themselves and there were a lot of wait what moments that felt sloppy and forced (like a certain love story). I still couldn't put it down!

I've decided not to give this book a star rating because I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist in a universe where that would even be relevant. Read this fever dream if you dare. 

Abarat: Absolute Midnight on: Amazon | Goodreads

Review: Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War (Abarat #2)

5 stars. Happy/melancholy sigh. I wish I could jump into a glorious ocean and leave Chickentown-I-mean-Earth forever for a magical land full of colorful creatures and vivid wonders and honorable people and layered villains (lol). I wish I could start fresh with a found family of loyal friends and fierce warriors and lovely souls. Luckily, the second book in Clive Baker’s Abarat series, Days of Magic, Nights of War, beautifully offers that opportunity in a truly exciting sequel to the first.

Candy Quackenbush is busy exploring her new home with her best friend Malingo when it becomes horribly apparent she’s being hunted. Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight, has plans for her - mysterious, dangerous plans. When she daringly escapes from his clutches by using magic, her new friends (and her enemies) begin to wonder if they’ve seen this girl before - and if she has a deeper purpose in coming to their land.

While the plot here is again a vehicle for the worldbuilding (which I didn’t mind in the first book and I don’t mind here), this book to me is BIGGER and WIDER and WILDER and DEEPER. It’s truly exciting and full of sequences that left me breathless. Abarat is so FULL and I couldn’t get enough. The stories, the myths, the dreams, the monsters, the beautiful illustrations merge into what is a truly captivating reading Experience-uppercase-E.

Also like in the first book, Barker circles some fascinating Big Themes, like morality and character and victimhood and intent and loyalty and abuse and cycles of abuse and most painfully/beautifully, love. I’m not normally one for love (or sentimentality of any kind lol), but I love his messages here. Love is love is love is love and it’s worth fighting for. Hate is hate is hate is hate and it can be super complicated, actually.

And there’s fun stuff too, like carnivals! And a battle! With ships! And dragons!

I wish these books had gained the notoriety/audience/longevity of other fantasy series from the 2000’s, as I truly believe they’d speak to readers of all ages, types and sizes. I guess they’ll just be iconic in my own mind, like my reviews ;) Anyway, onto the third - which I’ve never finished - and then I’ll cry big fat tears because the goddess Izabella will never take me away...

Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War on: Amazon | Goodreads

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