★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

• The Walls Around Us // Nova Ren Suma
• Published March 24th 2015 by Algonquin Books

“Ori’s dead because of what happened out behind the theater, in the tunnel made out of trees. She’s dead because she got sent to that place upstate, locked up with those monsters. And she got sent there because of me.”

The Walls Around Us is a ghostly story of suspense told in two voices—one still living and one long dead. On the outside, there’s Violet, an eighteen-year-old dancer days away from the life of her dreams when something threatens to expose the shocking truth of her achievement. On the inside, within the walls of a girls’ juvenile detention center, there’s Amber, locked up for so long she can’t imagine freedom. Tying these two worlds together is Orianna, who holds the key to unlocking all the girls’ darkest mysteries.

We hear Amber’s story and Violet’s, and through them Orianna’s, first from one angle, then from another, until gradually we begin to get the whole picture—which is not necessarily the one that either Amber or Violet wants us to see.

Why did I read this book? The cover is stunning (and extremely fitting, though I didn't know it at the time), there's a dead main character, and the summary suggests unreliable narrators protecting a painful truth. I could have wrapped myself in this book, it looked so perfect.

Well, it delivered. It delivered on every single front.

Many have described this book as Orange Is The New Black Swan (don't ask me whether I agree, I haven't watched either), for the way it interweaves life in a juvenile detention center with the mighty fall of two ballet dancers. We flow from Violet's POV, as she prepares for a life of stage bliss in New York City, to Amber's POV, as she prepares for... eternity spent inside the same four walls. They don't know each other, but they know Orianna, the Bloody Ballerina, the prodigy turned inmate, and through them, we get to know her too.

It'd be hard to get into plot points without spoiling the tremendous fun that it was to just... read along, and uncover tiny slivers of the overall story as I went. The book toes the line between whodunnit and whydunnit, and if at first we're pushed forward by the need to find out, we are soon transported to a place where all we can do is rub our hands and hope for retribution.

The writing style - so lyrical, so beautiful, so flawless - may put some people off, I believe, for the way it jumps from present to past and then to both at once (and perhaps also the future) with no "graphic" indicators to help the reader navigate the timeline. Nevertheless, this fluid concept of time is one of the things that makes The Walls Around Us a book in a million, and it was by far one of my favorite things about it.

The other was Amber's delicious ominous POV. First person plural? Hell yes, we are most amused.

Character-wise, I found most of the characters unlikable, but relatable. I wasn't surprised, for let's be real, I sure wasn't a juvenile delinquent back in the day, but if I met 15-year-old me today I probably wouldn't like her much either. I'd understand her general philosophy of life, though.

And as an afterthought, perhaps I'd tell her to stop keeping journals. Just in case.


NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

• A Darker Shade Of Magic // V.E. Schwab
• Expected publication: February 24th 2015 by Tor Books

Kell is one of the last Travelers—rare magicians who choose a parallel universe to visit.

Grey London is dirty, boring, lacks magic, ruled by mad King George. Red London is where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London is ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. People fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. Once there was Black London - but no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell smuggles for those willing to pay for even a glimpse of a world they’ll never see. This dangerous hobby sets him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, saves him from a dangerous enemy, then forces him to another world for her 'proper adventure'.

Why did I read this book? I'm going to be painfully honest. The cover. I was casually hanging around NetGalley when my eyes zeroed in on that wonder of art and design, and I couldn't not click. Click that too, it's about the cover. Just do it.

But less cover talk, more book talk. I've mentioned a couple of times that I am a tough reader to sway - if I hate your first 50 pages, chances are I'll hate your entire book. This preview is 150 pages long. I loved every single page. Do you see what I'm getting at?

V.E. Schwab won me over right on the first page, with her flawless description of Kell's multiple-sided, dimension-hopping, magical coat. Think Hermione Granger's purse, but red, and on the book cover.

As we follow Kell on one of his mail runs between Londons, I couldn't help but be charmed by the book's glorious worldbuilding - a series of parallel cities in constant communication through a select group of dimension-hopping magicians, sealed off from each other because of a vaguely apocalyptical Noodle Incident that is obviously not explained in the preview otherwise we wouldn't have to read the entire book. Red London stands as our prosperous HQ, a city of light and love and a troupe of royals who act part adoptive family part captor mob to our protagonist, Kell. Grey London is... our London, pretty much, ruled by a very real, very ill George III, whose characterisation is so endearingly on point that I wish we could have spent the entire preview talking to him. We also visit White London, a magical wasteland home to a vicious (ah!) set of twins I wouldn't want to cross on a bad day, and... we speak of Black London, though we never truly drop by.

I understand that my job here is to give you reasons why you should read this book, but I am remarkable bad at selling things to the masses so let me just say this - all I know is I spent 150 pages thinking to myself "I'm not quite sure of what's going on but I am enjoying it and I will therefore follow Kell into the dark, hopefully the literal dark, hopefully Black London". My faith in this book is the best thing I can give you, with a side of my faith in this author - because I have since read, recommended, and fangirled over Vicious, and let me tell you... you're in great hands here.

Do something nice for your soul this week, friends, and pre-order A Darker Shade Of Magic at your favourite place where books are exchanged for money. I'm not even getting paid to say this. Just do it.


[source]


NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

• The Undertaker's Daughter // Kate Mayfield
• Published January 13th 2015 by Gallery Books

What if the place you called home happened to be a funeral home? Kate Mayfield explores what it meant to be the daughter of a small-town undertaker in this fascinating memoir evocative of Six Feet Under and The Help, with a hint of Mary Roach's Stiff.

After Kate Mayfield was born, she was taken directly to a funeral home. Her father was an undertaker, and for thirteen years the family resided in a place nearly synonymous with death. A place where the living and the dead entered their house like a vapor. The place where Kate would spend the entirety of her childhood. In a memoir that reads like a Harper Lee novel, Mayfield draws the reader into a world of Southern mystique and ghosts.

Why did I read this book? It's about a girl who lives in a funeral home, it couldn't possibly be more up my alley.

Kate Mayfield's memoir, The Undertaker's Daughter, is real-life Southern Gothic. It tells the story of... you guessed it, Kate, as she spends her childhood among caskets and embalming fluid. Outside, the Civil Rights Movement pushes against the old ways of her very small, very segregated Kentucky hometown. Everybody's got secrets, but they're not often mentioned - and it's often down to the undertaker to bury them as discreetly as possible.

In telling her story, Kate Mayfield ended up telling the story of an entire cast of remarkable characters, from the ladies who gathered around her mother's table to play bridge, to the old rich woman who only ever wore red - her town's very own Miss Havisham. There was room to take this subject matter (small town funerals!) and build something sordid out of it, but this book seems to have come out into the world with nothing but respect. Perhaps even grace.

The author's voice toes the line between creepy and cute, and I felt a lot closer to her than I'd originally thought I would. I'm only a reader. I cannot tell you whether this book is honest, but I can tell you it feels honest. It also hit me quite close to home - that constant struggle between sticking to one's small town roots or spreading one's wings into the unknown is a very real, very authentic one. I connected with Kate's ideals. I was somewhat inspired by her take on life.

So let's just say it once and for all, I loved this book, and I'm going to order it as soon as I post this review. (it's going to look great on my shelf, right next to The American Way Of Death, where it belongs)


NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

• The Circus Of The Damned // Cornelia Grey
• Published November 3rd 2014 by Riptide Publishing

Magician Gilbert Blake has spent his entire life conning drunkards in the seediest pubs in the darkest towns, careful to hide the true depths of his power. But when he spends a little too much time in Shadowsea and the infamous slumlord Count Reuben gets wind of his abilities, hiding within the Circus of the Damned may be Gilbert’s only chance at survival.

But there’s more to the Circus than meets the eye. Every time a performer dies, a new one must take his place, or the entire circus suffers the consequences. And while the handsome ringmaster Jesse isn’t one to coerce unwilling performers into giving up their souls to the devil, a recent death in their ranks makes Gilbert exactly what they need.

Yet the longer Gilbert stays with the Circus, the more danger he seems to bring them. Being with Jesse is more than Gilbert could have hoped for, but as Count Reuben’s men continue to search for Gilbert and the Circus loses another performer, they all face running out of time long before the Devil claims his due.

Why did I read this book? Point one, circus. Point two, mentions of a "handsome ringmaster". I may or may not be perpetually in love with that word. Ringmaster. It could hardly be more evocative, and the uniform is beautiful.

But I digress. The Circus Of The Damned, to get this review started, was exactly what I expected – an atmospheric read about one of my favorite settings of all time, with bonus Victorian and light steampunk elements, clouded with the ever-present relationship drama that must surely accompany two men trying to figure themselves (and each other) out. It gave me exactly what I bargained for, and for that, I must praise it.

There are downsides, though. This book doesn’t exactly market itself as the steamiest, most self-indulgent romance in the universe, which I appreciate – it isn’t. It’s so plot-heavy it kind of forgets about its romance, in fact. Gilbert, a lone magician whose concerns are limited to a) money, and b) his pet mouse, messes with the wrong people and bumps against a travelling circus troupe in his attempt to escape the city. He is promptly invited to join them, and because he’s fond of bad life decisions, he agrees. Too bad joining the circus means pledging your soul to a demon and never being able to leave, something he comes to fully understand in the following weeks. There are many ways to work with this kind of plot device, and the author chose to do it in a delightfully evil way – walk as far as you might, hop on a train, hide behind your grandmother’s rocking chair, threaten the ringmaster, do whatever you please... but let yourself fall asleep, and prepare to wake up back in the circus.

And speaking of circus. Gilbert eventually warms up – pun very much intended, for those who’ve read the book – to his new surroundings, and next thing he knows he’s actively invested in the show’s success. Too bad he’s still being followed by murderous mercenaries. Meanwhile, Jesse, the aforementioned handsome ringmaster who may or may not have sold his own soul a few hundred years prior just for the opportunity to run a circus (there’s Dorian Gray... and then there’s this guy), is struggling with his responsibilities, being broody but hot, and having second thoughts. Oh, and then the demon comes back to talk business, because this couldn’t possibly get any worse.

I’m telling you this so I can explain the downside – I didn’t really believe the book’s primary relationship. Gilbert and Jesse are okay together, I suppose, but I don't regret saying I liked their initial comradery better than I liked their established romance. Instead, I found myself cheering for Jesse and his demonic business partner. You would expect me to, of course, for as a woman of wealth and taste, rugged magicians are really not my type - but ultimately, not believing the romance also meant I didn’t believe the ending, which didn’t really work in favor of the book.

Another thing I didn’t particularly approve was the supporting cast – I wish the side characters had been more fleshed out, for I had a hard time telling some of them apart. I knew all about their appearance (the octopus in a top hat slayed me), but I didn’t know a thing about them as people. In the end, that made it hard to care for them.

But back to the bright side of things. I read this in a couple of sittings during my summer holiday (it’s been a while, sorry), and more than the story itself, I can safely say that what truly stuck with me was the worldbuilding. The descriptions, the trains and the circus wagons, the whole magical-slash-steampunk ambience... I felt very much immersed in the story, which is the greatest compliment I can pay a writer.

I’m giving this three stars, with a promise to read more of the author’s work.


Also, nobody asked me to review the publisher but I will do so anyway. The folks at Riptide Publishing call themselves "a boutique purveyor of some of the finest LGBTQ fiction, romance, and erotica", and I was happy to see they do quite a bit for the cause. Their online catalogue is a thing of beauty. You can browse books by heat wave (the amount of sexual content in the books), erotic frequency (how often you should expect to find explicit sex scenes), gender identity (cis, trans, nonbinary) and sexual orientation (hetero/homo/bi/pansexual, and most incredibly, asexual spectrum!) of the characters involved, kinks (everything from dirty talk to guns, they’ve got it written down so you know what to expect), and finally, and most importantly, warnings.

I cannot begin to explain how happy I was when I saw that every book had a small section for warnings – some of the warnings currently in use include drug use, dubious consent, and self-harm. I like this. I like that the people behind Riptide are genuinely respecting their readers and catering to their personal limits. It doesn’t take much to do this, and it makes me – and many others, I imagine – feel extremely comfortable around this publisher and their work. I approve.


NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ // did not finish

• White Tiger On Snow Mountain: Stories // David Gordon
• Published October 28th 2014 by New Harvest (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

In these funny, surprising, and touching stories, Gordon gets at the big stuff—art and religion, literature and madness, the supernatural, and the dark fringes of sexuality—in his own unique style, described by novelist Rivka Galchen as “Dashiell Hammett divided by Don DeLillo, to the power of Dostoyevsky—yet still pure David Gordon.”

Gordon's creations include ex-gangsters and terrifying writing coaches, Internet girlfriends and bogus memoirists, Chinatown ghosts, and vampires of Queens. “The Amateur” features a cafe encounter with a terrible artist who carries a mind-blowing secret. In the long, beautifully brutal title story, a man numbed by life finds himself flirting with and mourning lost souls in the purgatory of sex chatrooms. The result is both unflinching and hilarious, heartbreaking and life-affirming.

Why did I read this book? The blurb was (is!) fascinating, and it made the book sound like something up my alley. It misled me, but that's not what this review's about.

The other day, I was telling my Friends Who Read that 2015 is going to be the year I stop finishing books I don't love. After all, the world is full of good books, and I'm a grad student with limited free time - it doesn't make much sense to spend it on things that don't lift my spirits. And this book didn't lift my spirits, so I decided to ditch my new year's resolution and just... start earlier?

White Tiger On Snow Mountain is a collection of... let's call them personal short stories, so personal that I often found myself wondering if the author wasn't writing about himself in every single one of them. Writers, Jewish writers, Jewish writers in love (or lust, that too) with younger women, boys who would undoubtedly grow into Jewish writers in love or lust with younger women... the protagonists didn't offer much variety, and halfway through the book I told myself it'd be okay to stop.

Did I mention one of the protagonists is actually named David Gordon? (he used to write porn, now he doesn't anymore, and it makes him sad that none of the women he sleeps with want to read his novel-in-progress)


In the end, the stories felt incredibly repetitive, the overall tone was ManPain with a side of misogyny, and not even Gordon's remarkable use of language (the writing is beautiful, no doubt about it) could improve the collection's worth in my eyes. I'm sorry I couldn't finish, but the more I read the less I liked.

There is one sole exception, and that was a story named We Happy Few. It starts normally enough for the collection, with a middle-aged English teacher who, intent on sending a nude photo to a 20-year-old student, ends up sending it to the entire class. He is fired, and then hired right away by a mysterious stranger to play sober companion to "a terrific young writer". Chaos ensues, but our protagonist saves the day with his bottled up literary prowess, and all's well that ends well. It doesn't sound particularly alluring on this screen, I know, but the story stuck with me, and I wanted to make sure you knew - if you really must pick this up, I recommend that you start with that story, and then find your way from there.

Seeing as I didn't finish, there will be no star ratings. Over and out!


NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

• The Beauty // Aliya Whiteley
• Published August 1st 2014 by Unsung Stories

Somewhere away from the cities and towns, a group of men and boys gather around the fire each night to listen to their stories in the Valley of the Rocks. For when the women are all gone the rest of your life is all there is for everyone. The men are waiting to pass into the night.

The story shall be told to preserve the past. History has gone back to its aural roots and the power of words is strong. Meet Nate, the storyteller, and the new secrets he brings back from the woods. William rules the group with youth and strength, but how long can that last? And what about Uncle Ted, who spends so much time out in the woods?

Hear the tales, watch a myth be formed. For what can man hope to achieve in a world without women? When the past is only grief how long should you hold on to it? What secrets can the forest offer to change it all?

Discover the Beauty.

Why did I read this book? Because the blurb promised me a world without women. Not "a world without women except for one who for some reason didn't die", but "a world without women, full stop". And let me tell you, to feminist me, this sounded incredibly intriguing.

So I gave it a shot.

This book, let me tell you, is a powerhouse. The story follows Nate, the resident storyteller in a small community of men who have chosen to live their last days in a quiet, isolated settlement - they call it Valley of the Rocks. The women are gone, dead and buried, but their memory lives on in Nate's stories, and the collective consciousness they shape in a world where history is but the spoken word.

This delicate balance doesn't last, though, and when a strange breed of mushroom starts popping up around the cemetery (look at that cover!), the small community is in for the ultimate takedown on their identity.

I won't spoil you with details, because I believe this is one book that should truly be savoured in all its twists and turns - but what Aliya Whiteley has achieved here is nothing short of incredible. Probably the most exquisitely orchestrated deconstruction of gender roles I have ever read in my life.

The book is beautifully written, the prose haunting but subtle. The pacing left a little to be desired at first (it's a small book, and I felt it took some time to reach its point of no return), but the second half was so daring, so... I can't even find a word to describe it, so impossibly strange yet easy to accept, considering the setting, that I just can't blame the beginning for lulling me into a sense of pseudo-normalcy.

Halfway through, I was telling like-minded friends "this is the weirdest thing I've ever read". But as soon as I was finished, I was telling those same like-minded friends "you HAVE to read this". Long story short, I was completely floored by this book, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Four stars, might bump it up to five if it stays in the back of my mind long enough. It probably will.


NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

• Alice Through Blood-Stained Glass // Dan Adams
• Published September 1st 2014 by Harper Collins

A fun, horror-style zombie retelling of Alice in Wonderland.

Alice is minding her younger sister when the Zombie apocalypse hits. She has to find safety but is thwarted at every turn - by a strange man, by two stoners. The world has gone made and she doesn't know who to trust.

Why did I read this book? Alice In Wonderland + zombies. I'm that easy.

I didn't quite get what I'd expected, though. Yes, the protagonist is named Alice and she does indeed fight zombies, as she roams a land so desolate that the rules of the world she's used to no longer apply, and she does meet a few folks with wonderfully suggestive names, such as Waistcoat or Hatter, and she does end up arousing the rage of a red Queen... but the book doesn't exactly feel like Alice In Wonderland. It doesn't even feel like a tribute, or a retelling - it feels like a coincidence. This survivalist with a handgun and a hair-trigger temper may be called Alice, but there's very little about her that feels familiar.

The book starts normally enough, with our protagonist minding her younger sister in a park when a stranger in a waistcoat runs past, informs her that all hell has broken loose in the shape of rabid zombies, and that she should, therefore, run. Alice runs. Her sister dies. She swears revenge, learns her way around guns, and the rest is your basic, run-of-the-mill post-apocalyptic survival story. There's nothing particularly creative about the zombies themselves (guess how they came to be...), or the way the plot is conducted throughout the book. Alice doesn't get much character development, and neither does anyone in the supporting cast - though that still didn't stop the resident Cheshire Cat from being a highly entertaining character.

The pacing is slightly awkward at first, putting Alice through a series of "levels" where she meets a character, fights along them for a while, and then carries on alone (either because her allies keep dying, or because she keeps leaving them). This issue is fixed around halfway through, where the structure changes radically to welcome some of the previously mentioned characters into Alice's clique.

Overall, we could say I found this book flawed, heavily so, but entertaining. It'll do more for the zombie lovers than the Alice lovers, with its no-holds-barred depiction of violence and its complete lack of whimsy, though, and for that I will give it two stars. It's campy, it's fun, it's morbid, it uses zombie toddlers as weaponry and I can't blame it, but its attempted association with Lewis Carroll's Alice may be doing it more harm than good.


NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

A Face Like Glass
Frances Hardinge
Ebook, aprox. 490 pages

In the underground city of Caverna the world's most skilled craftsmen toil in the darkness to create delicacies beyond compare. They create wines that can remove memories, cheeses that can make you hallucinate and perfumes that convince you to trust the wearer even as they slit your throat. The people of Caverna are more ordinary, but for one thing: their faces are as blank as untouched snow. Expressions must be learned. Only the famous Facesmiths can teach a person to show (or fake) joy, despair or fear — at a price.

Into this dark and distrustful world comes Neverfell, a little girl with no memory of her past and a face so terrifying to those around her that she must wear a mask at all times. For Neverfell's emotions are as obvious on her face as those of the most skilled Facesmiths, though entirely genuine. And that makes her very dangerous indeed...

Why did I read this book?
A world where facial expressions need to be learned, otherwise people's faces are always blank? How brilliant is that? That's all it took to get me interested in the book. I think I might have seen it recommended somewhere... but at this point I really can't remember.

1. Plot
Once upon a time, in an underground city where people were naturally unable to show facial expressions, there was a girl named Neverfell whose face was incredibly expressive. She'd always lived with her adoptive father, an old cheesemaker, in a secluded part of this aforementioned underground city, but one day she found a way out of his tunnels... and escaped into the big bad world outside. Mind you, I'm using outside as a relative term - she escapes the cheesemaker's tunnels to find larger, public tunnels, that's what I mean. She meets friendly nobles and unfriendly nobles, wins the favor of half of The Grand Steward (it's... complicated, I'll get there in a second), becomes his favorite food taster, spends half the book running and hiding, and eventually decides to save the poor and the oppressed by making them climb a rope ladder up into the Overground. Note, the Overground really is outside. It's where you and I live, with sky and birds and sunlight.

The plot twists and turns and I will admit it was hard, at times, to tell friend from foe, but then it got too caught up in court politics and I lost interest. And maybe even that isn't completely true, because I don't think I ever truly gained interest. Let me tell you something. 31 users on Goodreads have shelved this book as "Childrens > Middle Grade", while 51 users have shelved it as "Young Adult", and either way, it’s definitely too young for me. The stakes are high, true, but the author has a way of plucking our protagonist from trouble in the most Deus Ex Machina of ways ("and at that precise moment someone walked in"), to a point where I stop caring because I know she'll make it out, no matter what happens. Now, I understand this is probably what writers want to give a younger target audience, a little bit of hope, a little bit of "there's always a way out"... but I'm an older, slightly cynical reader, and it didn't work for me.

2. Characters
Our protagonist, Neverfell, is really young and hopeful and clumsy, and I can see why she's headlining this book. I couldn't empathise with her, though, because I kept snapping out of the story due to her jumbled thoughts. In a way, I felt like her "strangeness" and "craziness" were nothing but excuses to have Neverfell do these incredible deductions that make no sense in context, but are needed to move the plot along.

There are many other relevant characters, but I won’t get into them. What I will say, though, is that, in general, I didn't think there was much character development. The characters didn’t really grow throughout the book, except when the plot needed them to reveal themselves as hidden villains or allies – then, they’d sort of “snap” and become a different person altogether.

There is an honorable mention, though, for The Grand Steward of Caverna. In Frances Hardinge's own words, from her website, "the two halves of his brain take it in turn to sleep, so that one of them is always awake [...] one is cold, curt and does not suffer fools gladly, while the other is mute and unpredictable, communicating only in gestures". This, in my opinion, was all it took to create one of the most interesting, not to mention tragic, characters I've read in a while. It's bad enough when two halves of the brain work different shifts - it gets worse when they start thinking of each other as enemies.

3. Setting/worldbuilding
The setting is, by far, the best thing about this book. Hardinge explores various implications of the whole expressions-must-be-taught scenario, from the difficulties in everyday communication (you can’t tell what people are thinking, you’re never sure they’re not lying to you, you may not have the right face to portray what you’re feeling so you’ll have to approximate with an expression that may not be quite right) to the classist implications of not teaching the exploited workers any unhappy faces (since their expressions are all neutral, they’re unable to show anger or exhaustion, which in turn prompts the nobles to treat them as robots and push them further).

I also liked the magical side of Caverna – the underground city is very much part of the real world you and I live in, but you see, people have discovered some sort of magic that allows them to create True Delicacies. These include wines able to erase or recover memories, cheeses that bring visions of the future, and perfumes that influence social interactions. There is a whole range of magical artifacts that can be used to further the plot, and Hardinge makes use of all of them.

4. Writing style
I underlined maybe one passage, so style-wise, we can say I found this book unremarkable - but again, considering the target audience, I think it does the job just fine. The first half could have been shortened, though. As is, it’s too slow to build up, which then leaves only the second half to develop and wrap up the whole plot. A little more balance would have been great.

Long story short...
I did not dislike this book. It lacks the sharp edges and grey moralities that make me boost ratings around here, but it's not fair to demand that from a book that's somewhere between middle grade and YA. Were I a few years younger, perhaps ten years younger, I think I would have loved this – but alas, today, it will only get three stars.

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★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Melancholy Of Anatomy
Shelley Jackson
Ebook, aprox. 200 pages

Amusing, touching, and unsettling, The Melancholy Of Anatomy is that most wonderful of fictions, one that makes us see the world in an entirely new light. Here is the body turned inside out, its members set free, its humors released upon the world. Hearts bigger than planets devour light and warp the space around them; the city of London has a menstrual flow that gushes through its underground pipes; gobs of phlegm cement friendships and sexual relationships; and a floating fetus larger than a human becomes the new town pastor. In this debut story collection, Shelley Jackson rewrites our private passages, and translates the dumb show of the body into prose as gorgeous as it is unhygienic.

Why did I read this book? First, the title-cover combo did the job of getting my attention. Then, the blurb struck me as very experimental, perhaps even a little pretentious. I googled Shelley Jackson, found her novel Half Life, and realised she was probably the kind of writer my bookshelf would like to be friends with.

I was right. The Melancholy Of Anatomy might just be the most original book I've ever read. It's a short story collection, which opens with a short short piece titled Heart before splitting into four sections, according to the four temperaments: Choleric brings us Egg, Sperm, and Foetus; Melancholic delivers Cancer, Nerve, and Dildo; Phlegmatic is composed of Phlegm, Hair, and Sleep; and Sanguine closes the show with Blood, Milk, and Fat.

Style-wise, Jackson is just the kind of writer I like - her words are beautiful and intricate, but they never overpower her content. It would be easy to file something this experimental under the good old "style and no substance" category, but there's a moment in every single one of Jackson's stories where you just can't pretend you're reading mindless surrealism. I've read short stories by Haruki Murakami, and those, I had to make peace with - sometimes, they really don't make any sense. But Jackson's stories do. Foetuses float and cities menstruate, but the people who inhabit this world are very much like the people who inhabit our own - their struggles are our struggles, sometimes oversimplified, sometimes exaggerated. Sure, they obsess over eggs and fall in love with nerve bundles, but so do we. They exchange bodily fluids to ascertain relationships, so do we. They try to keep their houses and cities squeaky clean, sterile, so do we. They battle blood and fat and their own organic fluids. So do we.

Coming as no surprise, considering the references I just made, my favorite stories of the bunch were Nerve and Blood, which were incredibly bittersweet, and tremendously well thought out, respectively. Besides those, Heart, Foetus, Cancer, and Fat will stay with me for a really, really long time. There was just one little thing I could have lived without, and that was Phlegm. A reviewer on Goodreads stated she "could not read [it] all the way through because it made [her] want to cry and die", and I have to agree. I made it through the whole thing relatively unharmed, and I did find the human element of the story very good, but gods, why phlegm. Why.

I was fully convinced, then and there, that Shelley Jackson doesn't give a damn about her reader's comfort, and I love her for it. This is a surreal, sometimes gross, sometimes shocking book. But it's also one of the most honest takes on the human condition (with all its strange fluids and organic mishaps) that I've ever read, and for that, it gets four stars. Probably five in three months, when I look back and realise I haven't stopped thinking about it. Go read it!

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★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Angelopolis
Danielle Trussoni
Ebook, aprox. 320 pages

A decade has passed since Verlaine saw Evangeline alight from the Brooklyn Bridge, the sight of her new wings a betrayal that haunts him still. Now an elite angel hunter for the Society of Angelology, he pursues his mission with single-minded devotion: to capture, imprison, and eliminate her kind.

But when Evangeline suddenly appears on a twilit Paris street, Verlaine finds her nature to be unlike any of the other creatures he so mercilessly pursues, casting him into a spiral of doubt and confusion that only grows when she is abducted before his eyes by a creature who has topped the society’s most-wanted list for more than a century. The ensuing chase drives Verlaine and his fellow angelologists from the shadows of the Eiffel Tower to the palaces of St. Petersburg and deep into the provinces of Siberia and the Black Sea coast, where the truth of Evangeline’s origins — as well as forces that could restore or annihilate them all—lie in wait.

Why did I read this book?
I am a bit of an angel fangirl, I have my own angel books to publish one day (hopefully) and I read Angelology back when it came out in 2010. I was... disappointed, to say the least, but alas, I have a slightly masochistic streak that makes me want to give bad books a second chance.

So, Angelology had quite a few flaws - three different POVs in three different timelines, a terrible love story, and a final twist that caught exactly no one by surprise. I was hoping Angelopolis would correct some of these flaws, and while it did... it also created some new, equally bad ones. Let me walk you through them.

1. Plot
From what I gather, this book has one main plot point and that is... Verlaine, who is now an angel hunter, needs/wants to find Evangeline. Why? Well, let’s see if I can explain it. Professionally, he needs to find her so he can kill her, but personally, he spends half the book yapping about how important she is to him even though they haven’t seen each other or communicated in any way in over ten years. Besides, let me remind you all that Angelology ended with Evangeline perched on a bridge opening her plot twisty angel wings, and Verlaine looking at her from below, in complete despair because that meant the end of their love story, even though they’d known each other for 48 hours.

I have a very big problem with this. Evangeline was the main character in the first book, so why was she only given 2-3 pages of “screentime” in this one? Why did the author decide to transform her just-turned-Nephilim (that's a human/angel hybrid, for the uninitiated) main character into a plot device to fuel Verlaine’s manpain? I would rather have read about Evangeline’s transformation. How does this woman cope with life as a Nephilim when the events of the first book have taught her to fear them above all else? How does she cope with becoming a monster, every inch like the monsters responsible for the eradication of her family? How does she learn to use her new powers? Is he self-taught? Does she make friends among the old Nephilim families? How does this transformation change her, as opposed to how does this transformation change the guy who fell for her in the first book? Personally, I found the POV change rather unsuccessful, simply because it kept a curtain between me and the things I truly wanted to know.

About the plot development itself... it was weak. I’ve told you about Verlaine’s goal, but that goal is nothing but an excuse to unveil conspiracies and historical secrets related to Fabergé eggs (hence the cover), John Dee’s hypothetical talks with angels, a pre-diluvian seed bank, and a Panopticon for angels. I love alternate interpretations of Biblical texts and Christan mythology, I really do, but if your goal is to write entertaining fiction, sometimes you need to know where to hold back the history and focus on the actual story.

2. Characters
I’ve mentioned that Angelology, this book’s predecessor, commited the grave mistake of telling three different stories in three different timelines – two of those timelines were much more interesting than the others, and it just so happened that the least interesting of all was the contemporary timeline, the one where Evangeline and Verlaine meet. Why? Well, because the characters couldn’t keep me interested.

So let me tell you, if the characters were bad in Angelology, you don’t want to hear about Angelopolis. Here, characters are nothing but names and physical descriptions – they sit around, they talk, sometimes they act, but they never really feel, and the same goes for me. It’s hard for me to stay interested in a book if I can’t connect with at least one of the characters, and these people were nothing but walking, talking textbooks. Their motivations, when not strictly professional, were a mystery to me – and let’s be honest, even if we assume their motivations were all strictly professional, who wants to read a book about people robotically doing their jobs?

3. Setting/worldbuilding
Now, if there's one thing Danielle Trussoni is good at, is creating ambiance. From dark alleys in Paris to antique shops in St. Petersburg, from barren landscapes seen through the windows of the trans-siberian to greenhouses in Bulgaria filled with nothing but pre-diluvian plants... when Danielle Trussoni writes it, I can imagine myself there. The problem is... well, ambiance doesn't sell books unless you're Angela Carter (and your characters have a personality).

Apart from that, my biggest setting-related complaint goes to the way the author has chosen to frame her Nephilim. Back in 2010, I described this setting as "Nephilim are real and live undercover in their big-ass NYC penthouses" and "they're obnoxiously rich and throw parties round the clock and are responsible for all the evil in the world". This is all fine and dandy, more than fine and dandy, but the problem, I think, is that Danielle Trussoni doesn't know where to stop - if, in the first book, the Nephilim were connected to everyone from Adolf Hitler to Karl Marx, and I thought that was over the top, now they're also connected to the whole Romanov dynasty and Coco Chanel. Oh, and Jesus was a Nephilim too. We've gone from "interesting take on historical details" to full on conspiracy theory.


By now you all probably know I am a hardcore defender of the entertainment value of shows like Ancient Aliens, so... skip this book, go watch Giorgio A. Tsoukalos and his pyramid theories instead.

4. Writing style
I do remember liking, perhaps even loving the writing style in Angelology, but sadly, I didn’t feel that same wow factor in this book. While I have complimented the author’s ability to create ambiance and describe a setting to create a mood, the rest of the writing was definitely lackluster. The dialogues were wooden and unnatural - though perhaps we can consider that an unfortunate consequence of having only academic-type characters infodumping around coffee tables -, and the biggest chunk of writing was dedicated to exposition as opposed to character development and, you know, actual action.

Long story short...
Angelopolis is a disappointment. It doesn't live up to its already flawed predecessor, and it tries really hard to pave the way for a hypothetical third installment where, I assume, all hell will break loose and Evangeline and Verlaine will lead opposing factions into battle. It gets two stars from me, and before you ask... yes, yes, I'm pretty sure I'll still read the third one.

I have a slightly masochistic streak that makes me want to give bad books a third chance.

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Hello fellow White Christmas fans, and welcome to shipping central! First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who commented on the first installment of this recap, and/or reblogged it on Tumblr – also, thank you Mariam Watt for correcting me about Kangmo’s hearing aid! Yup. Cochlear implant. I will correct the previous post as soon as I can.

Like before, spoilers FOR THE WHOLE SHOW ahead, so don’t read if you haven’t watched it.

> Read more.

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Today, I bring you something a little different. After AHS:Coven ended, I realised I'd love to start writing episode recaps. I don't watch a lot of TV, but when I do, I tend to stay with the shows because there are various things I like about them - and the more things I like, the more I have to say. But, alas, Coven was too ambitious to start with, so I thought... why not recap White Christmas? It's a Korean drama, not one of the most popular, sadly, and there aren't that many recaps out there, so one more really can't hurt. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

A series of deaths, including murder and suicide, take place over eight days in a private, elite high school deep in the mountains, with the students cut off from the outside world and in highly volatile and unstable emotional conditions. The drama deals with the question of whether evil is organic or environmental, and the potential for adolescents to be extremely empathetic as well as equally cruel.

And here's what I'd like you to know: I'm going to talk about all the things that I like. I'm going to talk about foreshadowing, costume design, character relationships, camera angles, and whatever else I feel like adding. I will make regular pauses to look at pretty faces, and I will be slightly sarcastic about the whole thing. I will also spoil you, a lot, because I want to do a sort of hindsight recap and discuss the way certain quotes and scenes influence the ending. Conclusion: don't read this recap if you haven't watched THE WHOLE SHOW.

Let's go!

[edit: Read More links aren't working for some reason, so please click here]

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★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Pacific Rim: The Official Movie Novelization
Alex Irvine
Ebook, aprox. 270 pages

When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju.

On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot and an untested trainee - who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind's last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

I know, I know, so many good books in the world and here I am reviewing a movie novelization, shame on me. Well, at least we all know who to blame.



And perhaps we should add Tacit Ronin to the list too, since it's my favorite Jaeger of all time. It's my inner bug enthusiast, I look at it and all I see is a massive praying mantis.



But anyway, to the book! I won't write an exhaustive review, because most of us have watched the movie and know all about the plot, the characters, and the worldbuilding - there's no use in repeating all of that! Now, I chose to read this novelization because Pacific Rim really did grow on me over the past year. If at first I was a little disappointed in the movie (not enough robots, I said over and over again, not enough robots), as soon as I rewatched it, I was dragged into the hype all over again. I just couldn't stop thinking about the nearly unlimited potential of this Jaeger/Kaiju concept. I might have read 90% of the Wiki in a couple of days. And then, because my thirst for knowledge and backstory was so strong, I decided to read the book. Aaaaaaand I was disappointed.

This book's main problem is the writing style. Raleigh Beckett acts as our POV character, and I'll be honest, he's quite entertaining and witty at first. There are lots of little side notes and in-jokes that make the book a lot of fun, even if you've just finished watching the movie. The problem is that... it doesn't last. After a few dozen pages, the book goes downhill, quickly turning into, to put it simply, a step-by-step description of the movie. I don't know what's the usual modus operandi for writing novelizations, but it seriously seems like the author sat in a movie theatre, watched Pacific Rim, and described everything he saw on the screen. Then, to make people pay for the book, he scattered about a few extra tidbits. Profit!

The implications of this are really bad. You see, I don't like using the old show/tell comparison, because I don't think it holds all the time, but I'll have to use it here - this book is nothing but tell. There's no emotion. The characters have no inner lives. There are no risks, no challenges, and there's no causality from one action to the other. Imagine Striker Eureka punching a Kaiju on screen. The book will say "Striker Eureka punched a Kaiju". It's just... not good enough. Oh, and there's no character development either.

The other big problem here is that the book has no structure. It doesn't even look like something that's been planned - the author jumps from major scene to major scene without bothering to set things up or pad the events. One minute two Jaegers have been lost, next minute we're running all the way to the Breach with a bomb strapped to Striker's back. About the aforementioned tidbits of extra information, I'd just like to say... I wanted to learn more about the side characters (Tendo Choi, the Wei triplets, the Kaidanovskys, maybe even Pentecost?), but the extra info I did get arrived in the shape of "official documents" and newspaper cut-outs. They were mostly worldbuilding extras, really - still interesting, but not quite what I had in mind.

Finally, I'd like to mention the ending. The ending was one of the best parts of Pacific Rim, for me. Why? Well, because the leads didn't kiss, of course! It was a welcome change, and I was really happy with it. Unfortunately, good things never last, and they actually did kiss in the book. I didn't deserve that.

So, let's conclude this. This novelization is not a good novelization, and I think it could have been. Pacific Rim is a movie that relies heavily on the visuals and little on the actual plot - Cherno Alpha taunting the enemy via banging its fists together, the boat sword, the way everyone in the theatre gasped when Otachi opened its wings.... these are moments you can't recreate half as effectively in a book, for obvious reasons, but that still doesn't mean there wasn't anything worth exploring in print. What about Raleigh's trauma after losing his brother, or Pentecost's health problems, or Mako's big damn moment where she finally got to pilot a Jaeger? How did these people feel, throughout the movie? The book could have delved deeper into the inner lives of the characters, instead of simply grazing the surface in a bland retelling of the movie. Besides, the extras really weren't worth it - so I'm giving this a two-star rating.

Now the question is... am I going to read the prequel comic? Probably. I'll most definitely buy the artbook, though.

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★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe
Alison Rowlands (Editor)
Ebook, aprox. 270 pages

Men and masculinities are still inadequately incorporated into the historiography of early modern witch trials, despite the fact that 20-25% of all accused ‘witches’ were male. This book redresses this imbalance by making men the focus of the gender analysis and also covers the issue of regional variation in the gendering of witch persecution.

Some of you may have heard about that TV show, American Horror Story: Coven. You may have noticed the uprising of girls in their 20s who really identified with the show and its characters, and chose it as a good way to tell the world... you know what, when I was younger, I wanted to be a witch too.



Now, I am one of these girls. And Coven was particularly valuable to me, because it proved that witches are still very much relevant - when I was younger, I'd watch Bewitched on TV, religiously, every single night. I'd watch Sabrina The Teenage Witch. I'd watch Charmed too, but at the time I think it was a little too grown-up for me. There were lots of witches on TV (and movies!) in the 90s. Remember The Craft? Practical Magic? Willow, from Buffy The Vampire Slayer? I grew up with these girls, these women, these witches, but all of a sudden... they vanished. And then Coven brought them back.








My mind immediately jumped into writing mode. I wanted to write my own witch story, and I had very particular ideas about what I wanted it to be - namely, I wanted it to include boys, not as warlocks or wizards... but as witches. Witches mixing herbs in the kitchen, witches dancing naked in the moonlight, witches petting black cats while a storm roars outside. Because you see, when fictional men get magical powers, they don't do any of these things (think The Covenant), and I want them to. I want to invite them into these stories, and I want to see how they play by the rules already in place. Do they accept them? Do they fight them? Do they try to make these environments about them? What happens when you take the century-old archetype of the witch - a woman, usually ambitious, who doesn't fit in, a little asocial, perhaps even full on antisocial, - and get a man to play the role?



That was my question, and lo and behold, I discovered this book - actually a collection of academic articles -, the title of which seemed quite useful to help me answer it. The use of "witchcraft and masculinities" immediately made me think of a book that would take on, not only the sex of the people tried as witches, but their gender, and the social roles associated with that gender.

Right on the first few pages, though, I realised this book had a very clear agenda - present an alternative to the feminist perspective, which states witch hunts were, to put it simply, a misogynistic institution. I don't see a problem with this in theory, but in practise, what happened was I ended up subjecting myself to 270 pages of historians bending over backwards to come up with explanations based on, to point out the most egregious article of the bunch, one case of a tried man.

Some affirmations were so ridiculous that I had to take note. Here's my favorite:

Contrary to their alleged special hatred of women, however, the witch-finders were, as most men of their age, neither misogynists nor philogynists.

Well, clearly they weren't philogynists, but can you really say they weren't... misogynists? Because I can't even say that about 21st century men. In my eyes, there's no redemption for a book that tackles an issue as gendered as witchcraft, acknowledges that the great majority of the accused (and tried, and condemned) were women, without presenting a reasonable explanation as to why, and then states this sort of thing. I have actually summarized the book for all interested, here:

Listen we know this society was pretty sexist, and we know men made all the decisions, and we know women were more vulnerable to this kind of social persecution, and we know it was widely believed that women, being the weaker sex, would be the Devil's first choices when it came to corrupting innocent human souls, BUT THE FACT THAT WOMEN MADE UP THE MAJORITY OF THE ACCUSED HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.

Long story short, I was really disappointed with this volume. For once, it feels very scattered - the articles focus on different places and times, and there is no apparent connection between them (if we exclude "male witches" and "nope nope nope no feminism here"). The book keeps telling me that, in some parts of Europe, men made up the majority of the accused witches, but it didn't actually made me understand why - a major flaw, since this seems to be the book's main argument for the insufficiency of the feminist perspective. Last, but not least, I didn't like the tone of a few of the articles - calling a woman a "whore" in academic texts, really? How about "prostitute", or "sex worker"?

I still want to read a good, academic book about male witches. But I'd prefer one that doesn't disregard thousands of dead women across Europe to ask but what about the men. I'd prefer one that explores the cases of accused male witches inside the framework of feminist theory, instead of one that uses them as evidence that said theory is biased and insufficient. Surely, the world can do better than that.

This particularly snarky review has been brought to you by Pure Unadulterated Anger. You are welcome. Let's go rewatch Charmed.

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NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.



★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Waking Engine
David Edison
Ebook, aprox. 400 pages

Contrary to popular wisdom, death is not the end, nor is it a passage to some transcendent afterlife. Those who die merely awake as themselves on one of a million worlds, where they are fated to live until they die again, and wake up somewhere new. All are born only once, but die many times... until they come at last to the City Unspoken, where the gateway to True Death can be found.

Wayfarers and pilgrims are drawn to the City, which is home to murderous aristocrats, disguised gods and goddesses, a sadistic faerie princess, immortal prostitutes and queens, a captive angel, gangs of feral Death Boys and Charnel Girls... and one very confused New Yorker.

Late of Manhattan, Cooper finds himself in a City that is not what it once was. The gateway to True Death is failing, so that the City is becoming overrun by the Dying, who clot its byzantine streets and alleys... and a spreading madness threatens to engulf the entire metaverse.

Happy 2014, everyone! Sure, I am a little late, posting my first review on January 28, but I assure you I can explain.

Today, I bring you David Edison’s debut novel, The Waking Engine. I found this book on NetGalley, possibly two days after signing up, and the blurb made me really, really curious. I mean, people who keep dying only to wake up again in a whole new universe? A City where everybody comes to die after they've finished their joyride? And of course... Death Boys and Charnel Girls? If you know me, you'll know that's when I decided to request the book.

1. Plot
Cooper is not your average book protagonist. He’s gay, he’s overweight, and he’s dead. (this is where I give David Edison a respectful high five because YAY PROTAGONISTS THAT BREAK THE MOLD!) When he wakes up in the City Unspoken, with no idea of how he got there, he is immediately adopted by a grey-skinned man and a pink-haired woman, who seem to believe he is the solution to the overpopulation problem that plagues the City because the dying can no longer die. Of course, you and I know where this is going. Cooper, is of course, the good old Chosen One. In the span of a few days, he develops totally rad powers, including sensing people's fear in verbal form and traveling through some sort of anachronic faerie-powered internet, and in the end, he does what Chosen Ones usually do. Meh.

This is the main plot – and it’s pretty bland, compared to the subplots. Look above. Look at the blurb. See the murderous aristocrats? Sure, I know we see nobles killing each other in 90% of fantasy books... but not while they’re locked inside a glass dome, not over something as fickle as wearing the same dress two days in a row, and definitely not when none of them can actually die (since their souls are bound to their bodies). It’s inside the dome that we meet Purity Kloo, a noble girl desperate to find a way out – so desperate, indeed, that she spends a week slitting her own throat only to come back every single time.

Sure, a story about murderous teenage nobles dressed in the metaverse's equivalent of Lolita fashion wouldn't have appealed to the target audience that The Waking Engine is trying to attract, I suspect... but I had a lot of fun with Purity's subplot, and would have switched it for Cooper’s without so much as a second thought.

Final words about the plot: it's convoluted. I love the idea of the City Unspoken, but a setting that is part our world part every other world in existence demands time, and Edison doesn't cut the reader any slack before overwhelming them with references to greek mythology (Omphale, right, well played), the AIDS epidemic of the 80s, Cleopatra’s historical relevance, the wise advice of a beluga whale, and the literal ins-and-ours of a cyborg Queen.

2. Characters
As far as protagonists go, Cooper sure breaks a couple of molds, but it takes more than that to write a good character. It’s not just that he’s uninteresting, he’s not even very coherent – he speaks like an angry New Yorker ready to break a few noses, but his inner monologue is equal parts disoriented, skeptic, and terrified, and his actions are reactive at best. Sometimes I felt as if I was reading three different characters. And then, of course, he meets attractive men and his brain goes into full shutdown, which is both amusing and exasperating. Focus, sir!

About Purity (our other protagonist, sort of), I found her to be just the right balance between... well, what her name suggests her to be, and someone I wouldn’t want to cross on a bad day. She’s smart, she’s competent, she’s a bit of a wildcard, and she’s sexual without being sexualised. I could see her leading a girl gang, really.

I won’t write about every character, so let me just wrap this section by saying this book achieved something really, really good with its female characters. Here, women move most of the plot, making this book something I’d like to show all those male writers who say “they can’t write women”. Listen, here’s the secret: write more than one-two, and give them a personality of their own. Thank you, David Edison.

3. Setting/worldbuilding
I’ve already written a bit about my love for the City Unspoken as a concept, but now I’d like to present a complaint about the way it was written. For a place where people of all universes come to die, the City was a little overpopulated by humans, no? Even the architecture of the place was awfully familiar – taverns, shady boarding houses, classy bordellos, sex workers on every street corner. If your City is a repository of culture for every universe, why does it look like every dark medieval-ish city I’ve ever read? Surely beings from other universes have priorities other than food-sleep-sex, no? If not, I call lazy writing. It takes more than supernatural powers and skin of an unnatural color to create a different species.

Now to the good points: I loved the Apostery, a temple for dead religions. (what an idea!) I also found the different types of “prostitutes” very interesting – I mean, it’s terribly morbid to have someone body-bound accepting their own murder every day in exchange for money, but it’s a good idea that fits perfectly with the bigger picture. I could have lived with a little less “whores” and “sluts” every two paragraphs, though.

4. Writing style
As a general rule, I don’t complain too much about elaborate writing styles, because I like them. Here, though, I found the “style” really overwhelming – there were sentences I had to read over and over again, just to extract some meaning from their structure and the excess of strange, possibly universe-relevant but plot-irrelevant words.

Conclusion: the ideas behind this book are all very good, but the execution left quite a bit to be desired. The main-main character, Cooper, is easily the least interesting character in the book. The setting wasn’t as exhaustively explored as it should have been – or, in any case, as I wish it could have been. The writing style was a little too much for me. It’s not bad, in any way, but I can’t lie – it took me a month to get through it, and that simply doesn’t happen with books I like. So, it shall receive a two-star rating, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed for David Edison’s next book.

The Waking Engine will be released on February 11th. You can pre-order it from the publisher here, or through Amazon here.

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★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Selected Short Stories
Ann Somerville
Ebook, aprox. 90 pages

A collection of gay themed short stories ranging from the sad to the whimsical, serving as a wonderful introduction to Ann Somerville's writing. Erotic, naughty, or sweet, there will be something here to delight and amuse almost any reader who loves Somerville's work, or who enjoys good prose, strong characters, and stories just a little out of the ordinary.

Contains two stories with BDSM themes.

I know I keep telling this story, but earlier this year I got addicted to this Android game, Nun Attack: Run & Gun, and I needed diamonds to upgrade my Nuns. Fortunately, I noticed I could get a whole bunch of diamonds if only I spent 3€ in the Kobo Store... and this happened.

“This” is a book composed of six gay-themed short stories by Ann Somerville, one of them impossibly longer than the others – but that’s kind of the rule for collections, isn’t? Anyway. Having read The Surrogate, I kind of knew what to expect from Somerville, and I wasn’t disappointed (though I can’t say I was surprised, either). The autor’s writing style is simple and adequate to the stories she’s telling – straightforward in the more traditional stories (the first two and the last, where boy meets boy and physical contact ensues), and a little more elaborate in the others (Autumn Rains is very conceptual, Fire, Fire is almost a character study, and Going Away has a little something whimsical to it, as well).

The first two stories, Time Out and the shockingly named Tom and Sean (really? character names as title? and they’re not even special names or anything? I don’t know why but it’s kind of jarring), include BDSM, and I like how the author took the time to deal with safewords and aftercare and sub space. I mean, I read Fifty Shades Of Grey, it’s good to know there are writers out there doing it a little bit better than E.L. James.

The final story, The Gift of Giving is probably the one I remember the best, though I considered it a little... too convenient? It’s hard to explain. Conveniently reassuring, maybe. I've seen reviewers say it's an important story because it understands that love and sex are different things, and that may be true... but how much is that worth if you just know there's going to be sex eventually? It's like saying "hey I know the cookie and the cream and different things, but take the cookie now and stick around, I'll add the rest later". You're still getting both, with the added implication that you're just buying time with the first until you get the second. I don't know how I feel about that.

Conclusion: I didn’t realy have any favorites, mostly because none of the stories really struck me as special. It’s a small book, I read it in one swift session, and that’s all there is to it – there’s something to be said for somewhat well-written BDSM, but besides that, hey, take it or leave it.

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★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Panopticon
Jenni Fagan
Ebook, aprox. 330 pages

Pa`nop´ti`con ( noun). A circular prison with cells so constructed that the prisoners can be observed at all times. Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car, headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember the events that led her here, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and there is blood on Anais's school uniform. Smart, funny and fierce, Anais is a counter-culture outlaw, a bohemian philosopher in sailor shorts and a pillbox hat. She is also a child who has been let down, or worse, by just about every adult she has ever met. The residents of the Panopticon form intense bonds, heightened by their place on the periphery, and Anais finds herself part of an ad hoc family there. Much more suspicious are the social workers, especially Helen, who is about to leave her job for an elephant sanctuary in India but is determined to force Anais to confront the circumstances of her birth before she goes. Looking up at the watchtower that looms over the residents, Anais knows her fate: she is part of an experiment, she always was, it's a given, a liberty - a fact. And the experiment is closing in.

In language dazzling, energetic and pure, The Panopticon introduces us to a heartbreaking young heroine and an incredibly assured and outstanding new voice in fiction.

So... I have a Criminology degree, and Jeremy Bentham and his Panopticon are kind of a big deal. The first time I saw a picture of what the panopticon was supposed to look like, chills ran down my spine. A circular prison, with a central tower, from where the guards can look into every cell. Of course, they can’t watch every cell at the same time, but the prisoners can’t exactly guess when their turn will be – so they behave as if they’re being watched. Ultimately, the panopticon would be able to run solely on the prisoners’ belief that they are being watched – even if months went by without them ever seeing a guard.

This is what I wanted to read about when I started this book. This is what I got:

1. Plot
Judging by other reviews, I’m not alone when I say that I somehow expected this to take place in a dystopia – but I honestly don’t know where I got that idea, because there’s nothing clearly dystopian about the synopsis. Maybe it’s the panopticon itself. Maybe I’m still seeing it as some of manipulative experiment with no place in the real world.

But anyway, plot. This book is about Anais, a rebel (with or without a case, that’s your call) who is sent to the panopticon, “a home for chronic young offenders”, after leaving a policewoman in a coma. This is the inciting incident, and while it does come with its own set of questions – did she do it? if so, why? if not, then why is there blood on her clothes? why can’t she remember? is she lying? –, they are never really explored or resolved. Now, I could be bothered by this, but I’m not. This isn’t a murder mystery. This isn’t a thriller. This is the story of a girl struggling to find her way, with the full conscience that she hasn’t exactly begun with a head start. She gets into fights, she smokes, she uses drugs, she misses the biological mother she never met, and she misses the foster mother who taught her all about silk robes and fancy cigarettes. There’s so much to this character that I don’t feel a structured plot was really necessary.

The author thought the same way, choosing instead to guide the reader through the character’s life without paying much mind to literary conventions – there are lots of questions that never find an answer, but still the ending manages to bring some closure, and, dare I even say this, hope.

Finally, and because it’s always important to point out these things, I’d just like to warn everyone that the book delves into rape, self-harm, and prostitution, so... keep that in mind.

2. Characters
I have already written a little bit about Anais, so I will just add a couple of points here. At first, I didn’t think she was going to be a great protagonist (“is she just going to swear and complain aaaaaaall the way through?”), but she ended up growing on me, along with her infinite set of quirks and dreams. (and can we please refrain from saying the book has “lesbian undertones”, as if her attraction to her own gender is just a flight of fancy in an otherwise straight girl? Anais is probably bisexual, people, let’s not invalidate that)

About the rest of the cast, I confess the kids from the panopticon kind of blurred together for me. The exceptions were John, who I found really intriguing, especially because we never really got to know much about him, and Isla and Tash, who were just heartbreaking. I loved how their relationship was treated in-universe, not only as valid, but as the most important connection in their lives. Isla’s guilt over having accidentally passed HIV to her children, her self-harm as coping mechanism, Tash’s determination to raise enough money to rent them a flat by working as a prostitute... I wanted to wrap these girls in a blanket and give them the world on a silver platter.

I was also quite fond of Angus, by far the most understanding member of the panopticon staff, and I liked the way he was contrasted against the rest of the guards, nurses, policemen, and so on. The way the characters reacted to these figures of authority really does show that Jenni Fagan has some knowledge of child protection – sometimes a simple conversation will work better than a locked room, and it takes someone like Angus to understand that

3. Setting/worldbuilding
I started this review with my initial expectations for this book, and yes, most of them were related to the panopticon itself, as a building. The truth is, the panopticon in this book has very little to do with the panopticon as Jeremy Bentham envisioned it. The tower is still there, and so are the cells, but they have been turned into somewhat comfortable rooms, and there are doors the kids can close for privacy (not completely, but still). They are allowed to go out in the evenings, and if they behave properly they get a small allowance, as well.

I said this on Facebook, and I’ll say it again – Bentham must be kicking his glass case right about now, this is not his panopticon.

But there’s something interesting about this, though. Throughout the book, Anais talks about “the experiment”. We never really get to understand what it is, but we know it’s watching her. Maybe she’s paranoid, maybe she’s hallucinating again, but that feeling, that constant notion that one is being watched, observed, tested at all times... that is what the panopticon is about. So in a way, the title of this story fits more than the building it takes place in - because the panopticon, turns out, is everywhere.

Bentham must be sitting proud in his glass case.

4. Writing style
I don’t have a lot to say on this book’s writing style, except that I really wasn’t ready for the Scottish expressions. It took me a good forty-fifty pages to get used to them, but hey, I have only myself to blame for that.

Apart from that, I found the writing competent, and above all, adequate. No overindulgent, straight-out-of-the-dictionary prose here, sorry to say – though this doesn’t stop some passages from having a delightful air of surrealism to them. And can I just say that every time the flying cat was mentioned, I couldn’t hep but be reminded of The Master And Margarita? Strange. Behemoth wasn’t a flying cat, was he?

Anyway, let’s wrap this up. Jenni Fagan’s The Panopticon is a good book, and it managed to get me all teary-eyed on two different moments. A solid four-star rating, and I look forward to the author’s next novel. Read it, it'll be worth your time.

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★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Say It Ain't So
J.C. Henderson
Ebook, aprox. 160 pages

A party, hosted by the enigmatic young playboy Thomas, will affect the lives of the many partygoers- including Paul, who comes to the party looking for an escape from his misery and hopefully, never have to face a single person there. But instead, he meets the lively and seductive Abby, who will take him through the party in such a way that changes his life forever.

Say It Ain't So is a tale of debauchery, the mysteries of physical attraction, and how personal pain can be the very thing that pulls us together, or tear us apart.

NOTE: This book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

With that out of the way, I’d like to add that I chose to read this book because the premise reminded me of the French movie Les Rencontres d'Après Minuit. I haven’t watched said movie yet, so forgive me if the comparison doesn’t stand (it probably doesn’t, since the movie is about an orgy) but still, now you know.

1. Plot
Paul, a young man struggling with the loss of his best friend, is invited to what I assume must be the local party central. His plan (The Plan, capitalised) is to get drunk beyond all means so he can forget his woes, but halfway through the party he meets Abby, and it all goes downhill from there. There are a handful of named characters, and 99% of the action takes place inside Thomas’s house. That’s it.

From my reading, what I understand is that the author wanted to write a character study above all else, by putting his protagonist in a unfamiliar scenario and then throwing all sorts of strange events in his direction. Now, I’m all up for loosely plotted character studies, assuming they have well-constructed and compelling characters to keep them afloat (part of the reason why I organise my reviews in four categories, so they can balance each other out), but this book didn’t really work for me.

I’ll explain why in the section below.

2. Characters
I’m always willing to excuse weak characters if the plot is strong; likewise, I’m always willing to excuse a weak plot if the characters are strong. I say this almost as a joke, but if the character is interesting enough, I will happily read their grocery list and give it a five-star rating – I’m easy like that.

What happened here, I believe, was that this book demanded a certain degree of empathy between the reader and the main character, and I... I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything for Paul. He’s a young man who likes to drink, but doesn’t exactly love the whole crowded party scene. He tries really hard to act “manly” in front of Abby, but he’s more than willing to be his usually emotional self around Thomas and Rick. He’s really not the kind of character I enjoy spending time with, and that definitely made this read a loss less enjoyable than it could have been.

The supporting cast is even messier. About Abby, I find it funny that the author himself states that she doesn’t look like a “hipster” – which is almost ironic considering that the girl he has, in fact, written is a well-known trope in “hipster” media, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. As a character, Abby exists to be nonchalant about nudity, smoke thoughtful cigarettes, and ditch the main character for some other guy who’s “got more of what she’s looking for” (that’s a quote, by the way). What is she looking for? Who knows. She’s a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, it doesn’t matter. She’ll come and she’ll go, and the hero will feel heartbroken (our Paul here chose to call her a whore) but invigorated by the whole experience. It’s not new, it’s not surprising, it’s not even interesting anymore – and there was nothing I liked about this relationship.

Rick is another complicated case. He starts off as a nondescript bully, but by the end of the book he’s getting drunk with our main character and telling him about his past. Where does the change happen? Why does he grow into a different person in the span of a few hours? Who knows. I most certainly don’t.

Then Thomas. Thomas is described, in the blurb, as an “enigmatic young playboy”, and I won’t even pretend those three words weren’t responsible for much of my interest in this book. But then, lo and behold, Thomas isn’t that enigmatic after all. He’s yet another character we’ve seen before – the young, filthy rich kid who doesn’t quite know what to do with his life, so he spends his money on sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll, hoping they’ll be enough to fill the void.

3. Setting/worldbuilding
Say It Ain’t So isn’t exactly varied in its settings. The story takes place inside Thomas’s mansion, and when the characters do step outside, it’s only for a couple of scenes (which would probably amount to minutes in-universe). Still, I like how the author has managed to portray the mansion as an entity, almost. There are hundreds of doors, some locked, some leading into futuristic bathrooms, some leading into dance halls, some leading into arcades and libraries. It’s vaguely disorienting, both for the main character and the reader, and I actually really enjoyed that.

4. Writing style
Let me just start by saying that I discovered this book in a Goodreads group, where it was listed as Literary Fiction. Now, I don’t know who decided to list it as such, but that’s beside the point. The point is that I started reading this with certain high expectations, no doubt reinforced by the cover (which is quite serious in tone) and the aforementioned categorization as Literary Fiction, so I wasn’t prepared to deal with... well, with what I actually found.

For starters, there are a few instances where the author momentarily forgets which tense he’s supposed to be using, resulting in passages written in half past, half present tense. Then, the way some of the sentences are structured feels extremely uncanny to me:

It was a luxurious bedroom if I’ve ever seen one; it had a television hanging from the ceiling that automatically came down when we entered the room, the entire ceiling was a mirror that reflected everything and the largest bed I’d ever seen in my life was in the far right corner.

And finally, I need to address the repetitions. Did we really need to read the word “ceiling” twice in the above passage? Probably not. But still I’d say the most obvious example was the repeated use of the expression “a bunch of” throughout the book. This isn’t something I’d usually notice, but it was simply too obvious – it’s not a pretty expression, it’s too casual, and it stands out every time it’s used.

So, time to wrap this up. I enjoyed the setting, had a few bones to pick with the writing, and thought the plot, being so thin, demanded stronger characters. All in all, it’s a solid two-star rating.

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