abbie_'s Reviews (1.79k)

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

The first of three translated French-Canadian reads I’ve read recently, and it was a bit of a miss for me unfortunately. I used to eat up books about middle and upper class people’s issues and inner lives, but the high levels of infidelity and sheer ignorance about their privilege just did nothing for me. I wanted to hear more about Celia and her grandparents’ salt water taffy business, not Adam whining about how he almost died (when Celia was the one truly injured) and talking about how demanding his job as a millionaire TV chef is. It could have done something really interesting with masculinity and mental health, but not one of the characters (bar Celia who we see for like 2 chapters) was redeemable to me, and the lack of awareness was painful. Adam’s partner Marion was honestly awful.

However, there obviously was something compelling about it as I did finish it. Nice translation by Susan Ouriou. 

Flights is such a bizarre book, snippets that flit from one narrative to the next, leaving the reader slightly dazed. It almost feels like several different novels smashed into one - when you reach a new storyline and get into it, the old one fades into the background, like a half-remembered dream, and it seems impossible that they’re part of the same book. A man who’s wife and child go missing, a woman who runs away from the responsibility of being a caregiver to her son, a drunk ferry captain who essentially kidnaps a group of passengers, a scientist curating preserved human remains - all of these stories  that don’t really go together and yet do. It’s quite something, I can’t say I loved it but it’s certainly unique, and I’m glad I read it. 

My thanks to the publisher for my free digital ARC! I read The Old Woman with the Knife by this author in 2022, and this book is a complete departure from that one - though I found both very enjoyable! Your Neighbour’s Table is a quieter novel, in which we follow a few different families who are living in a new communal building subsidised by the government. Couples who live there must have at least one child already, and sign a contract promising to try for more or else pay back their rent. It’s a nifty little way of creating a microcosm of Korean society to explore things like work, motherhood and gender roles. It’s a bit of a mix between The School for Good Mothers and Kim Jiyoung, 1984. Any mother who doesn’t fall into line with the cultural expectations of her peers is practically shunned. I particularly felt for one mother, an illustrator who works from home, who battled the injustice of expecting to be a full time caregiver while working a full time job, because she happens to be able to work from home. This book is full of little instances that make your blood boil at the unfairness of it all.

The translation was clear and concise, though the style overall was not the most exciting. I really enjoyed the ending, it was sort of like a ‘where are they now?’ but slightly more ominous. 

If you have a little patience with this book then it is a rich and moving read - but I can’t deny it takes a while to get moving. It switches back and forth, with Kimiâ Sadr narrating her family’s history in Iran and her own story in modern day France, a queer immigrant woman attempting to get pregnant via IVF. I was more invested in the modern day storyline, but anyone who knows me knows I love a good family saga, so I was pulled into Kimiâ’s family history eventually. I think for me the politics of the story, while crucial, bogged it down. I was always eager to get back to the more personal side of the story. 

It feels unfair of me to rate this so low, but I am trying to rate and review all of my 2024 reads. The low rating here is purely my personal enjoyment - I feel sure that this book has more to offer in print, but I can’t recommend the audiobook if you’re like me and need at least a sliver of plot to hold on to with audio. The narrator’s voice was lovely, but it felt like 4 hours of just unrelated pretty sentences. I couldn’t tell you a single thing of what I just listened to 🙈

This short story collection translated from Croatian contains some of the most fascinating sci-fi concepts I’ve read in ages. I’m so grateful to publishers like Feminist Press who take chances on authors in translation from regions we rarely see in western publishing. Bakić explores ideas of what we leave behind when we die, the ethics of harnessing AI, robot autonomy, queer love, immigration. There’s a lot going on in these stories, some weaker than others, but always compelling and also just nice to read in terms of style. It’s also not all sci-fi - one of my faves was two murderous women engaging in some sort of stand-off. Asja 5.0 and Abby were my other favourites, both of which explore scenarios that could arise if humans do turn to AI/technology to fulfil emotional needs usually met by other humans. I will definitely try to squeeze in SweetLust this year, as I’m excited to read more from this author!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC! This book won a prestigious Japanese literary award, with Saou Ichikawa being the first physically disabled author to do so. I thought it was stunning, honestly. Dark and disturbing, for sure, but forcing readers to confront their internal prejudices/stereotypes of disabled people - primarily that they’re non-sexual beings. The main character and narrator of this semi-autobiographical novel(la) was born with a muscular disorder, is a super rich orphan living in a care facility, and is incredibly horny. She yearns to live life the way able-bodied women do, and regularly tweets out inflammatory tweets along the lines of wishing she could try sex work or get an abortion. She writes SEO articles about sex clubs for seedy websites and publishes online erotica under several pen names. When a male careworker links Shaka to her online personas, things get dicey.

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Exploring lust, desire, abuses of power and privilege, ableism in Japan, money and the freedom the internet affords people denied it elsewhere, this is just a little bombshell of a book. Perhaps too little - I wanted more of Shaka, she’s cheeky, intelligent, headstrong and I could have read 200 pages more of her. The ending was fantastically grim and could be read a couple of ways. Flawlessly translated by Polly Barton. Desperately hoping this author has more to come!

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend writing your reviews for the books you finished in May in August, but it did make me realise I read two queer memoirs by older British writers in that month (Jackie Kay and Jeanette Winterson). Kay’s focuses less on her upbringing and queerness and more on connecting with her birth parents as an adult. Raised by white communists in Scotland, Kay’s upbringing was definitely unusual, and her anecdotes are often equal parts funny and sad. I loved that her parents were so supportive of Kay finding her birth parents, and this book primarily focuses on that journey - oftentimes a rollercoaster! It’s easy to read, very warm, like having a cuppa with the author as she regales you with her life story. 

I enjoyed this vignette collection as I read it, although it was rather slow, but now three months later (doing a mammoth review catch up) it’s unfortunately left almost zero impact on me 😬 Good if you want to read something set in Sri Lanka after the war, and see a country rebuild itself, throw off the shackles of colonialism while running into the arms of one of the few viable money-makers for the economy post-civil war and post-tsunami - tourism. 

I read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit years ago, liked it but probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I would now. Reading Winterson’s memoir which inspired that novel in 2024 was a gut punch. Honestly all you need to know is that the title is something Winterson’s (adopted) mother said to her after her daughter told her she was a lesbian. I finished this three months ago but that still hits me right in the stomach, and I’m so glad Winterson still found the strength to chase her own peace and happiness. A moving exploration of religion, class, queerness.