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The Holiday is my favorite Christmas movie*--and I will physically fight anyone who disputes its status as a Christmas movie, thankyouverymuch--so I fell all over myself in a mad scramble to put The Holiday Trap on hold. For the first third, I thought that it might supplant the likes of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or A Lady for a Duke for the coveted title of my favorite book of the year. (This translates roughly to "book I read in the fastest frenzy and spent the most time telling my girlfriend about.")
There is so much here that I love, particularly Truman and every single thing about his story, but also the descriptions of New Orleans that made me want to visit again, the intergenerational friendships, and the tone of the writing that just felt really good to read.
For most of the book. Toward the end, especially in regards to Greta and Carys, the characters spend so much time lecturing each other about how to live, and I found it very annoying. Do actual queer twentysomethings do this? Yes, but it annoys me when real people do it, too, and makes me think that in general we need to step back from the therapy speak and pathologizing-every-human-behavior that characterizes our very-online interactions with each other. Which is just another way of saying that not everyone is a covert narcissist, Carys, and you should probably tell your girlfriend that cleaning while bitching about being hungover is something you're invested in when you tell her not to clean, not after when you're mad that she did something nice for you, because no one is going to think you enjoy cleaning while bitching about being hungover. Because who does?? Seriously, I headcanon Carys's housemates waking up and being like, "Wow, I feel kinda guilty that Greta cleaned everything herself, but damn, I'm glad we don't have to do it!" while Carys fumes.
Anyway. I still loved this book. It's queer, it's swoony, it's festive, it's fun. Give it a read.
*I posted this and then remembered that Carol is also my favorite Christmas movie, so consider it a tie. And yes, I'll fight you about Carol, too.
There is so much here that I love, particularly Truman and every single thing about his story, but also the descriptions of New Orleans that made me want to visit again, the intergenerational friendships, and the tone of the writing that just felt really good to read.
For most of the book. Toward the end, especially in regards to Greta and Carys, the characters spend so much time lecturing each other about how to live, and I found it very annoying. Do actual queer twentysomethings do this? Yes, but it annoys me when real people do it, too, and makes me think that in general we need to step back from the therapy speak and pathologizing-every-human-behavior that characterizes our very-online interactions with each other. Which is just another way of saying that not everyone is a covert narcissist, Carys, and you should probably tell your girlfriend that cleaning while bitching about being hungover is something you're invested in when you tell her not to clean, not after when you're mad that she did something nice for you, because no one is going to think you enjoy cleaning while bitching about being hungover. Because who does?? Seriously, I headcanon Carys's housemates waking up and being like, "Wow, I feel kinda guilty that Greta cleaned everything herself, but damn, I'm glad we don't have to do it!" while Carys fumes.
Anyway. I still loved this book. It's queer, it's swoony, it's festive, it's fun. Give it a read.
*I posted this and then remembered that Carol is also my favorite Christmas movie, so consider it a tie. And yes, I'll fight you about Carol, too.
A solid entry in the series and a welcome companion on election night--when I stood in line for more than two and a half hours waiting to vote, and read the first 100 pages of this book in one go. I enjoy cold cases, hidden library rooms, and Edgar Allan Poe, so I was glad to see all of those elements at play in my favorite cozy series. My only complaints are that the pacing was a bit slow in the first half (and subsequently rather fast in the second) and that there seemed to be less going on with the regular characters than usual.
Unsubtle but entertaining. Rachel Harrison writes books that just slide into your brain as smooth as melted butter, and I imagine that I’m going to keep reading them for as long as she puts them out.
There are two types of Paul Tremblay readers: the ones who like Paul Tremblay, and the ones who hate Paul Tremblay but seem to read everything he publishes, anyway, for the sole purpose of going online and telling people that everything he writes is shit.
I'm one of the first group, and tend to wonder if the second group might find better uses of their time reading books that they actually, you know, enjoy; and so, I had a good time reading The Pallbearers Club. It's best to go into this one with as little information as possible, so I won't detail the specifics of the creepy-crawliness at play. But I will say that it's a good hard look at the pitfalls of being mired in one's past, and an intellectually playful exercise in voice. Sections read as almost unbearably pretentious and try-hard, which is of course the point and very well executed, and I can't tell you how much amusement I got from the moments when I thought, "I don't know if I would've made that choice as a writer, Paul/Art, it seems a bit goofy" only to have Mercy's annotations critique the same exact thing.
This is not the book for you if you don't like character-driven books that build slowly to ambiguous conclusions, nor if you're the kind of reader who thinks that an author's inclusion of words you don't know means that their writing is "masturbatory." You won't like this book if you don't like horror that doesn't sit smack dab in the middle of the genre. Or if you don't like long paragraphs or long chapters (both of which are real criticisms that people have had in front of my own two hapless eyes). But, friends, these are things that all Paul Tremblay books do, and this is not his first one by a long shot, so you should know better by now! Just read another book!
I'm one of the first group, and tend to wonder if the second group might find better uses of their time reading books that they actually, you know, enjoy; and so, I had a good time reading The Pallbearers Club. It's best to go into this one with as little information as possible, so I won't detail the specifics of the creepy-crawliness at play. But I will say that it's a good hard look at the pitfalls of being mired in one's past, and an intellectually playful exercise in voice. Sections read as almost unbearably pretentious and try-hard, which is of course the point and very well executed, and I can't tell you how much amusement I got from the moments when I thought, "I don't know if I would've made that choice as a writer, Paul/Art, it seems a bit goofy" only to have Mercy's annotations critique the same exact thing.
This is not the book for you if you don't like character-driven books that build slowly to ambiguous conclusions, nor if you're the kind of reader who thinks that an author's inclusion of words you don't know means that their writing is "masturbatory." You won't like this book if you don't like horror that doesn't sit smack dab in the middle of the genre. Or if you don't like long paragraphs or long chapters (both of which are real criticisms that people have had in front of my own two hapless eyes). But, friends, these are things that all Paul Tremblay books do, and this is not his first one by a long shot, so you should know better by now! Just read another book!
This is another book that I read because it seems like everyone who listens to Reading Glasses is obsessed with it, and I guess I am not as immune to hype as I once thought I was. It makes perfect sense to me that Legends and Lattes is having A Moment right now, because it's about someone starting over and taking control of her life and finding community, and in 2022 things are pretty terrible, a lot of us are struggling to figure out what to do after two horrible years that seem to be petering out into a generally horrible forever, most of us have little control over our circumstances, and we're all pretty lonely while we try to connect with one another via the alienating scroll. Also, everyone likes D&D now, and Legends and Lattes is very D&D.
If my assessment of why everyone loves this book seems cynical, let me reassure you: I, too, really liked it! It has much that I love, including mundane details of everyday life, baking, a woman running her own small business, and a very gentle, slowburn, sapphic romance that moved at the pace of my demisexual heart. I also thought that the author's narration on the audiobook was perfection.
If you want something challenging or plot-heavy, this is not your book right now. But if you're craving a cozy story about what happens after one kind of adventuring ends and another, very different kind, begins, Travis Baldree has you covered.
If my assessment of why everyone loves this book seems cynical, let me reassure you: I, too, really liked it! It has much that I love, including mundane details of everyday life, baking, a woman running her own small business, and a very gentle, slowburn, sapphic romance that moved at the pace of my demisexual heart. I also thought that the author's narration on the audiobook was perfection.
If you want something challenging or plot-heavy, this is not your book right now. But if you're craving a cozy story about what happens after one kind of adventuring ends and another, very different kind, begins, Travis Baldree has you covered.
In 2022 I've read more new releases than usual--and I've been burned more than once. So when Lavender House came in for me at the library, I added it to my Kindle with some trepidation. I did not want this book to be another dud.
Luckily, Lev AC Rosen really delivers here. The marketing around this book made it sound a lot cozier and more humorous than it is, so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be more hardboiled than I expected! It's clear from the writing itself (and confirmed in the author's note) that Rosen did his research into queer history and brought that knowledge to the page, and I appreciated both the feeling of authenticity and the willingness to look dead-on at homophobia.
I feel like most of the queer books coming out now are incredibly fluffy, and look: I get why, and I'm glad that fluffy books exist. I will always come down on the side of more queer books existing. But I can't exaggerate how relieved I am to read something grittier. A book where bad things happen and no one talks like they're trying to get an A in therapy. Something that doesn't feel like the queer literary equivalent of spiritual bypassing. When my state is trying to legislate trans people out of existence, remove queer books from schools and libraries, and eradicate pride festivals, head-in-sand, escapist positivity sometimes rings hollow. Lavender House, on the other hand, is galvanizing.
Luckily, Lev AC Rosen really delivers here. The marketing around this book made it sound a lot cozier and more humorous than it is, so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be more hardboiled than I expected! It's clear from the writing itself (and confirmed in the author's note) that Rosen did his research into queer history and brought that knowledge to the page, and I appreciated both the feeling of authenticity and the willingness to look dead-on at homophobia.
I feel like most of the queer books coming out now are incredibly fluffy, and look: I get why, and I'm glad that fluffy books exist. I will always come down on the side of more queer books existing. But I can't exaggerate how relieved I am to read something grittier. A book where bad things happen and no one talks like they're trying to get an A in therapy. Something that doesn't feel like the queer literary equivalent of spiritual bypassing. When my state is trying to legislate trans people out of existence, remove queer books from schools and libraries, and eradicate pride festivals, head-in-sand, escapist positivity sometimes rings hollow. Lavender House, on the other hand, is galvanizing.
This book is probably for a lot of people, but I'm not one of them, although when I read the premise I thought that I was. I should have stopped reading when it started annoying me (before the 50% mark), but I finished it because I wanted to find out what happened. And I did. But it was a slog through unengaging prose and an unending series of conversations that should have been the characters' off-page therapy sessions.
There is a rant review threatening to jump out of me the longer I type, so I'm going to stop now.
There is a rant review threatening to jump out of me the longer I type, so I'm going to stop now.
...It looks like Goodreads ate my review? That I know I posted right after finishing this? And included a lot of thoughts about how good it feels to read a queer new release that isn't fluffy, and that instead engages with queer history and homophobia and in the process delivers an entertaining mystery?
*sighs*
*sighs*
After a small break, my quest to read all of the yuri in all my local libraries continues with Doughnuts Under a Crescent Moon! This is a gentle, slow-paced story about an office worker in her twenties who is convinced that if she wears the right clothes and makeup and studies fashion magazines, she will surely become "normal," fall in love with a man, and find happiness. However, she feels much more of a connection with her sometimes taciturn coworker, another woman. In this volume they begin to get to know one another better, seeing past the personas they are known for at work and sowing the seeds of a growing relationship.
Sweet, relatable... I need volume 2.
Sweet, relatable... I need volume 2.