chantaal's Reviews (2.32k)

Well, this was quite a disappointment. I didn't go into this expecting something pedestrian, but I also didn't except to be mostly confused and adrift, and not in a good way.

The writing was the strength of this story, and in a way also the worst part of it for me. My brain really did not gel well with the stylistic choices made here. It seemed like Martine purposefully wrote in a way to keep the story itself and the reader feeling unmoored, as strange and off-kilter as being in the Rose House would feel for the characters. Unfortunately, purposeful as it may be, I bounced off those writing choices. 

I left this story feeling like there wasn't really a point. 

A noir detective story with a speculative backdrop, Off-Time Jive is a pleasant surprise. It's based in an alternate Harlem Renaissance where black joy can create magic, and follows investigator Bessie Knox who has had enough heartbreak in her past that conjuring up feelings of joy is difficult at the best of times. When a murder occurs, Bessie begins to investigate and cracks open a connection to her past. 

There's some interesting magic here, and a decent mystery. The writing was the strongest part, giving Bessie a pretty good voice and anchoring it firmly in this alternate Harlem Renaissance. I think the mystery itself kind of fell apart toward the end, not really making any sense to me a reader - Bessie comes up with ideas and clues that never felt like they were concretely tied too what I was reading on the page at the time. The ending felt a little confusing as well, but also left things tied off with a great deal of hope. 

It's still a lovely and unique novella, well worth giving it a good try. 

Rating solely for Rabbit Test by Samantha Mills.  https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/rabbit-test/ 

I got the themes - hard NOT to - but I haaaaated the stylistic writing choices.

I’ve lost interest in this world, and Zinnia’s  meta and self aware voice is incredibly grating. 

Squid Game?? I am begging people to expand their minds and find other South Korean media to compare books to. The only similarity this book has to Squid Game is that they're both South Korean. That's it.

This was a weird fucking book, but it used its weirdness to great effect. We follow the life of a shapeshifting alien stranded on Earth, who must shift into a man or woman to meet up with humans for sex before eating them. The alien reflects on gender roles and expectations, on being separate from humans because it can't always meet those gender roles (and also, it's an alien), and on social and cultural expectations people place on each other. All of this, of course, from a South Korean lens - but you can extrapolate it to any culture. 

The book also uses the physical form of the text, sometimes using extra spacing in words for emphasis and disorientation. I liked how the author played with the text in that way. 

Overall this wasn't quite as satisfying a read for me, but it did what it set out to do really well. If you like weird literary fiction and want to branch into translated fiction, this is a pretty good book to check out. 

Content warnings for gore and explicit sexual activity.

ohhhh bitch it's been a while since i rage DNF'd a book. and in the middle of a serious series binge? incredible. 52% of the audio. just finished chapter 32.

i had to sit through MULTIPLE chapters of absolutely dumb shit with the dog and casey chasing it without thinking and them getting lost and then more dog bullshit and now casey is in a precarious life threatening position (AGAIN mere CHAPTERS later) and FOR WHAT? FOR FUCKING WHAAAAAAT???? TO FIND A BODY? i was screaming in my car about how STUPID she is and i don't care that she calls herself out for it (thank you, casey's inner dalton voice) because i've have to sit here listening to her be FUCKING STUPID and TAKE ALL THE BLAME and fucking GUILT TRIP HERSELF every other moment and now it's too late and she's reaping what she fucking sowed.

LIKE, THE COUGAR WASN'T ENOUGH???????

this feels incredibly petty and i'm almost certainly going to skim the rest of the ebook to see how this ends but my god i am too aggravated by casey and this whole series of events right now to want to continue.

FUCK EVERYTHING THAT JUST HAPPENED

FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF

I'm in love with this sci-fi cozy-adjacent murder mystery sub-genre - and to get even more micro about the subgenre, I love sci-fi cozy-adjacent murder mysteries on space ships/space hotels/space cruises/space living. It hits all the right buttons for me, and Murder by Memory is an excellent example of what I love about it. 

In this novella, we're introduced to Dorothy Gentleman, who wakes up in a body that is not her own. On this space habitat, humans can save their minds in a great library, and can be put in a new body. But usually they make that choice, and stumbling into the middle of a murder mystery is not normal. Mostly. Dorothy is a detective, after all.

I'd like to leave the summary at that, because this is so short. What I will say is that there's a great amount of world exploration done in such a short amount of time, and Olivia Waite does it well. Dorothy explores the mystery at hand, and we get to learn so much about this space habitat and how it works and the people who live in it, and there is a YARN SHOP and I loved that almost as much as Dorothy did. It's charming and warm despite the murder. People comping this to Miss Marple or similar are not wrong.

I enjoyed the entire experience of reading this, and I can't wait for more. Couple this with Malka Older's Mossa & Pleiti series and you'll see what I mean by this sub-genre. I really love it.

I desperately need more Kinsmen books, like what do you MEAN there's only four stories, two of them are novellas and one is a short story on the Andrews' website??

This is one of those books where you really come here to get exactly what you want. You know the world, you get a taste of some interesting characters and world building, some sliiiiight tension, and a happy romance ending.