abbie_'s Reviews (1.79k)

I was super excited for this one as it’s been translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem, who translated one of favourite WIT books, Learning to Talk to Plants by Marta Orriols. My second offering from the Catalan language was poles apart in terms of content but just as brilliant! The language here is stunning, absolutely gorgeous imagery which Lethem has worked wonders with. The language and style can be quite playful at times and so I imagine it was difficult to wrangle with on a technical level, but she pulls it off.

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Funnily enough, it’s got something in common with We Are Light which I read and loved last month (which you could also read for WIT month!) - unique perspectives! In When I Sing, Mountains Dance we hear from rain clouds, mushrooms, a roe deer, a mountain, all things which draw your attention to the incredible landscape of the mountain village where this book is set.

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Interspersed with these unusual POV chapters are almost vignettes from every day life in Pyrenees. The book starts with a man being struck dead by lightening while picking mushrooms and spirals out from there. We see the knock-on effects of his death on his family, as well as their interactions with other village folk. It was fascinating to experience how tragedies affect a tiny village, where everyone knows everyone. Pretty much every chapter gives you a new perspective of someone in the village and they all felt so alive.

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I don’t think I’ll get over just how beautiful the writing was, a feat I always admire even more when that beauty is shining through in translation. Gorgeous, evocative, melancholy, definitely a recommendation from me 😍

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

Honestly it must be difficult when your magnum opus is published in English first and all your English-speaking audience is expecting is another Eighth Life 😂 I was sort of disappointed in Haratischwili’s second English translation, My Soul Twin, but Juja fared better. This is her debut novel in fact, and I think, depressing as it is, it’s a solid debut though not without a few weaknesses.

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Translated again by Ruth Martin, Juja is told through a variety of perspectives. At its centre is a mysterious little book, written by 17-year-old Jeanne Saré whose tragic suicide then inspired 14 copycats after reading her book Ice Age. The main POVs are ‘Brother’, a vile little man half in love with his own sister, and Laura, a Dutch academic who is semi-coerced into embarking upon a research project focusing on Saré.

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It goes without saying that Juja is filled with awful acts, it’s bleak and explores the darkest recesses of the human mind. The first half of the book was a lot stronger than the second. Sometimes a couple of the POVs felt difficult to distinguish. Their voices felt too similar, and I suppose that may be down to the fact that all of them are experiencing terrible sadnesses. I was definitely intrigued throughout, and was keen to know how all the storylines would come together - which some did more satisfyingly than others.

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Juja is an exploration of the power of storytellings, the idea of myth and finding what we want to find in the literature we consume. The characters are all battling their own demons, and I think their stories are well-developed on their own, but the book stumbles when it comes to tying them together. The mysterious draw of the book, its effect on its readers and the legend of Saré was what I found most compelling.

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Book 4 for #WomenInTranslation month

I knew nothing about this one going in, but generally with Peirene Press you know you’re in safe hands when it comes to translated fiction. The Looking-Glass Sisters is translated from the Norwegian and set in the lonely plains of Northern Norway. In a house far from anyone there live two sisters, one has been the caretaker for the other since they were little girls. After the death of their parents fairly young, Ragna is the sole caretaker of her younger sister, who is unnamed and narrating the novel. She’s left unable to walk without aid after a childhood illness and never leaves the house.

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Even before the arrival of Johan, the sisters do not share a bond. The narrator is subjected to small cruelties at the hands of Ragna, things that on their own as one-offs might not look so bad, but which strip the narrator of her dignity when inflicted day in, day out. But when Ragna’s attention is diverted by Johan, the younger sister’s plight worsens as she becomes convinced the pair are trying to ship her off to a nursing home. Although limited by her physical disability, she still does her best to make their lives as miserable as they make hers.

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It’s a bleak read for sure, the degradation of the narrator against the brutal landscape of Northern Norway makes for a grim pairing. But the prose often crackles with an almost mischievous tone, the translation by John Irons is extremely well done. Much of the book takes place within the claustrophobic confines of the narrator’s head, and I never felt like the intensity of that was lessened by a clumsy turn of phrase.

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One I’m very glad I picked up for #WomenInTranslation month, a bleak and disturbing little number that I’d recommend to fans of grim psychological fiction.

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

I was so hoping to love this one but unfortunately a couple of things didn’t work for me. Never something I like reporting about books, but especially one that’s both queer and translated! 😭

Wound is a highly autobiographical work of fiction which details one woman’s journey to bury her mother’s ashes in Siberia. Usually I’d love something like this, as I love books that take a deep dive into mother/daughter relationships. And indeed that part of the novel was fascinating, even though I found the prose (possibly the translation) a little uninspired at times.

I like the lingering over the logistics of death, the mundane technicalities that have to be taken care of in the throes of grief. Packing your mother’s ashes swaddled in socks so it won’t get smashed by a careless airport worker, booking in a slot to say goodbye to a parent in a funeral home, all of this while dealing with a gaping hole in your life.

But it was impossible to forget the throwaway mention of the protagonist’s ex-girlfriend who accused her of r*pe. The narrator dismisses these claims on some ridiculous grounds around blurred consent. Whether or not this is fiction or not made it extremely difficult to spend the rest of the book with her, and it made me feel very uncomfortable.

This was my first pick for #WomenInTranslation month and thankfully my next two are looking better.

Interestingly before I started reading The Idiot, I read that Batuman came out later in life, now identifying as queer, and that Selin shares a lot of the same characteristics as closeted Batuman, bound by comp-het. As someone who realised they liked women by 12 or 13 but only came out as a lesbian at 26, I hungrily looked for these points of reference and they are there. Selin wants validation from men because she feels it’s what she should want. She looks at a man and recognises that he’s attractive only because her friends tell her so. She and her female friend attend a gay pride parade and she describes her hand as feeling ‘bereft’ when Svetlana lets go of it. I never got the sense that she actually cared about Ivan romantically, only that she felt she *should* care.

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Hidden queerness aside, The Idiot was an intriguing read. I was very aware while I was reading that it could very easily tip into desperately dull, and it did lose a bit of steam towards the middle, but once Selin ended up in Hungary I was once again hooked. The dry, self-deprecating humour that runs through this book was much needed and provided a touch of lightness. Batuman pokes fun at academia, I loved the first part where Selin arrives at Harvard and everything is just so constructed, everyone living in their own little bubble which has nothing to do with real life. Then when Selin sets off to teach English in a tiny Hungarian village in the second half, you get that distinct impression of being in your early 20s (actually she is 19 so late teens) that life is happening to you, rather than you experiencing life. Selin is more concerned with wryly observing what’s happening to her rather than living it fully - like she’s at a distance from her own life.

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Not a book I’d recommend to everybody, but if you know your tastes and know you like a plotless novel with lots of meandering self-introspection, then give The Idiot a go!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC in exchange for a review!

Sea Change was a beautifully melancholy reflection on complex family relationships, muddling through your late 20s and dealing with heartbreak - with a giant octopus thrown in for good measure.

I think this book is set in a near future, given Ro’s boyfriend has left her for an experimental trip to Mars and her father went missing on a research trip to a part of the ocean made dangerously strange by climate change, but otherwise it’s rooted in our reality. Gina Chung does an amazing job of bringing complicated relationships to life, and I loved how the main focus wasn’t actually on romantic relationships. I’d say the majority of the time is spent reflecting on Ro’s relationship with her parents, both before and after her father’s disappearance, and the one with her childhood best friend who is getting married.

Ro does have a massive self-destructive streak, so if you have little patience for that then consider this your warning. But if you love a messy character then you’ll love Ro. I liked the back and forth narrative, as we get to see Ro growing up, the tumultuous relationship with her parents evolve, and I think it helps understand why she is the way she is at 30. Chung addresses all the messy family stuff like resentment, infidelity, unmet expectations. The focus is mainly on Ro, but we also get a glimpse into her mother’s disappointment at life in America as Korean immigrants.

I had a deep fascination with marine biology as a kid, so I loved the Dolores side plot even though octopuses do scare the shit out of me. But Dolores was amazing and I loved how Chung managed to write a moving human-animal friendship without sacrificing Dolores’ wildness.

I’d definitely recommend this one if you like messy, reflective books with not much plot but a lot of complex relationships!

An engaging and fascinating journey looking at people who ignored, challenged or broke through gender barriers throughout history. I loved that this one was narrated by the author as you could really hear their passion for trans history. I also appreciated that they avoided making big sweeping generalisations. I can understand why some readers might find this frustrating, as often it felt like no concrete conclusions could be drawn - but can they ever?? History is often so one-sided, with nuance lost to the years. The idea that figures from history can ‘belong’ to different groups of people (as in, lesbian history and nonbinary history) is a comforting one. My only complaint was my own choice of format, as it jumps around quite a lot and all the figures were hard to keep track of via audio - print may have been a better choice!

A book written more than 40 years ago which could have been written yesterday examining Black womanhood, racism in the feminist movement, and dynamics between Black women and Black men. It discusses how Black women were effectively erased from the feminist and Black liberation movements. White women feminists were too hung up on sisterhood to acknowledge the role racism played in further oppressing Black women under patriarchy, while in the Black liberation movement, Black women were often relegated to admin roles while Black men were the policy-makers on the frontlines. hooks points out how the stereotype of Black women as strong comes from their ability to endure, not overcome, oppression, as nothing ever changes. This goes back to slavery, where Black women were forced into the same brutalities and humiliations as Black men, but with the added sexual degradation at the hands of white slave owners on top.

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This book did feel more academic than the nonfiction I’m used to (usually narrative memoir), and as a result I sometimes found it overly repetitive. I haven’t read texts like this since uni, where hooks would use multiple sources to back up a point, so the argument kept being repeated. Obviously necessary, and likely would not be as obvious in print.

Gritty, nasty, compulsive, Penance explores the toxicity of 2000-2010 tumblr and the true crime community, and of course the sheer hellscape that is teenage girlhood. I loved Boy Parts and am glad to report that Eliza Clark’s second novel does not disappoint. It has things I loved about Boy Parts, including pitch perfect dialogue, mixed media like blog posts & texts, and an impeccable sense of place, but it’s also something new entirely.

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In this book within a book, we’re in the hands of Alec, a journalist with a controversial past, who is looking for his next big break. He finds it in the brutal murder of Joan Wilson, a 16-year-old girl burned alive by three of her classmates in a fictional northern seaside town. Alec travels to Crow-on-Sea to research the definitive account of this crime, burying into the psyche of the three teenage perpetrators and their victim.

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I’m not sure whether it’s just because they’re set in the North where I live, but I just love how well authors like Eliza Clark and Jessica Andrews capture what it’s like to grow up here. Even if your experiences are (hopefully) very different to the characters, there’s still so many ‘omg yes’ moments to the setting, the schools, even the supporting characters. With Penance, Clark explores what could happen when the ennui of a small town, the lure of dangerous online communities, and the general treachery of growing up a teenage girl mix into a lethal cocktail.

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Stories told from multiple perspectives and incorporating different media always work well for me, and Eliza Clark pulls it off incredibly well. It’s quite a chunky book but I blew through it in like two days because you literally cannot stop reading. A definite yes from me!