Essentially an absurdist, apoplectic satire where a man dies and is reconstituted in something like a kafkaesque purgatory resembling human life as we know it--and he gets to peek into the "real" world from time to time to check in on his pregnant wife and strange house guest, who came into their lives shortly before his death.

The plot beats of this story were interesting enough to keep me reading throughout, and that's the kindest thing I can say about this. The humor was more miss than hit. Because it targets primarily a lot of philosophical intersections, which don't have concrete answers, it doesn't feel like any kind of actual interrogation of the schools of thought and is more like fodder for joke after joke after joke after joke. It gets pretty tideous precisely because it can't actually say anything about these subjects, and it's so long because its primary preoccupation is this absurdist bent that continues to perform magic tricks after the audience has seen through a trick.

Character work was fine, but rooted in, again, absurdism; undercutting any tension or emotion that was developing. Just when I was putting it down there would be a moment that lands, however. And I did complete it, so I can't bring myself to fully condemn it. I'm sure people more interested in this brand of humor would love it. Had it been truncated and reworked to not undercut itself it would have been great, I think.

2.5 rounded up -

Thanks to Netgalley for the E-ARC

I read this on the page as well as with an audio arc from Netgalley, and I must say, the audio production was sublime for this one. What a fantastic narrator.

This is a simple story with not that much of a plot. But that is very deceptive. A British painter comes to a remote Irish island in, from what I can tell, some months in 1979, to paint the cliffs. At the same time, a French academic writing a book on the dying language spoken there is the only other outsider. A grandmother, her daughter, her son, and the porter are the predominant cast. The mere presence of the Englishmen, solitary as he may perceive himself, begins to upset the dynamics and patterns of the people—including the study the Frenchmen is conducting.

Much of the prose is interior, which mimics the thinking of the Frenchmen and Englishmen for most of the book. Stream-of-consciousness that elucidates their history while showcasing their either lateral jumps in thought process or else emotional contusions run aground in long paragraphs that feel like worries and rants and the chunks of time that they are. It’s very personality-heavy prose work, that drips off the lines.

In a very subtle way, the weeks go by, and seemingly not that much happens. Only the events will alter some of peoples’ futures forever. Who and how that happens is a byproduct of the colonization and thinking ingrained from root to stem. Who is agitated and why, and what they do about it. Who has compassion for what, versus decried, spin-on, and attacked. And the responsibility for actions continually eschewed and replicated.

It’s a fascinating character study and a chilling tale. Especially as tensions grow with the interspersed news reports being relayed to the reader, while the characters comment on them often as well, especially later on. Absolutely brilliant bit of fiction.

Two counter-culture friends, bonded together through their art and quirks of personality, undergo an ambitious project of crop circles in ‘89, near London, attempting to outdo anything before constructed.

It’s a quiet, odd kind of story. Their relationship is very endearing. Neither militant or full-on hippies, but more concerned with what the book feels to be attempting to convey: Anyone with a radical idea can add another layer of mythos to culture. In this case in a very literal sense, as they use the land in a harmless way to produce art that hopefully entices people to question the nature of their society, and what they think they know about the world. Hoping to unconventionally and originally revolutionary, leaving an indelible mark.

Of course, I was a child at that time and I know very well, drop circles. We know that these two people constructing what was often said to be impossible, did leave a mark. But it’s also fiction, of course. But an interesting thought in relation to what crop circles beg to ask of the viewer. There’s some fun meta context reading this now, and I’m sure in the future.

This won’t be for everyone though. The prose are gorgeous. Sense of place, then natural world superbly well rendered. There’s no real plot other than the two working up to their final, grand design. The “conflicts” they encounter aren’t really that, and exactly what you’d expect. The ending does his a good note. But it certainly isn’t interested in telling anything other than a humble story of two humble people, stepped on by the government, fighting back in an unusual way. I could see some people saying it’s a book where nothing really happens, no plot, all those things. But plenty happens, it’s just not a conventional story. But not did it blow me away with its unconventionality, either. It’s a solid piece of writing that deserves to be consumed. No more, no less.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc.

This interconnected web of characters was fascinating at times, but mostly frustrating. I really wish it would have respected the reader more, because it could have truncated the book severely and made it a much more gripping book.

The cast of characters for the most part did have interesting things about their character arc, but the granularity of each is unnecessary, as they constantly retread the ground and their endings, aside from one, incredibly predictable. To the point of being perfunctory. The perspective itself feels very cinematic and the interiority less well rendered than the concrete moments. It would be better as a show or a movie, simply because the internal worlds are not convincing. And because you wait so long for the realizations that the reader has had before the characters, it becomes a game of annoying catch up all the way to the end. The prose style does nothing to mitigate this either, as it lacks specificity and interesting diction. It’s serviceable, invisible.

As I said, there are redeemable qualities. Some moments land with catharsis because you know they are coming, and are struck well enough. The actual dysfunctions render the family far better than most narratives with Muslim characters with multiple generations. Usually they are about, solely, radicalization. This is far more comprehensive and therefor more novel and humanistic. I just wish it didn’t feel like it had to hold the hand of the reader for every single minute detail.

The narration in this is excellent 4/5

I am trying to remember reading something like this, and I can’t. As an open letter to an unknown person, this fictional memoir renders a pre ‘New’ India. One in which Arun, the narrator, comes from a poor, low-caste family but manages to improve his lot by going to ITT: the India Institute of Technology. Where he meets two boys aspiring to grow up and become the new thinkers embedded in a new wave that will constitute this India. Broken up in four parts, each roughly corresponding to adolescence, adulthood, mid-life, and present circumstances—we see how the method in constructing the modern man has left Arun a kind of non-protagonist protagonist. Trauma and obligations, the lack of a galvanizing, positive force in his life has left him listless and disaffected. His life is a sail boat riding privilege, and he knows this, as he pens an incredibly apt changes in India, even while feeling removed from them himself.

But who is he writing to? Why is it rooted in these two boyhood friends? How does their trajectory compare, as a microcosm of the new India, to himself? These mysteries, along with just superb prose work—as well as an MFA approach where the feeling Arun lacks is embedded in the structure and granularity of what is occurring—propel the novel consistently. Even when it is gruelling, it took me a while to figure out that this feeling is what Arun is unable to articulate. He does so through the book only. His character; his memory of himself is an indictment of the modern man in a way I have not seen before. There is no rags to riches or intelligence overcoming things, or emotional pathos. The breakthrough IS the novel. Everything he loathed about himself is there.

It is nothing more than a gesture at attempting to show what most life paths are like for the average man, even with privilege. And why and how it has led to a great many of them unable to find a voice and a purpose that isn’t a lie that fits society. Which is then counterpointed to the other two boys, and the mysterious figure, to whom he writes all of this out for. It is not romantic. It’s not sexy. It is truly an indictment and therefor perhaps one of the only non aggrandizing self reflections of a person. One that, as I say, wouldn’t be a protagonist in any other book, really. But is also a perfect reflection of malaise and willful distortion expected of people to make a good living. Or any living.

It is methodically paced, meta in a literature MFA kind of way for the voice, concerned with capturing the character paralleling the growth of a nation, as well as place. Not so much time, though. Which is quite fluid. Positioning everything as memory. Moving from sweeping to extremely granular as buttressing for this fictional, mystery writer, who watched his classmates cash-in on the Wests desire to fetishize India intellectuals, quite aptly, as the modern white man possesses the same disaffected malaise captured here with Arun.

It’s a challenging read, but more than a worthy one.

An unusual novel centering queer men on opposite cultures aligned against one another, only actually agreeing on their condemnation of queer people. It traces their relationship and it’s disintegration as homophobia and secrecy and fall out from the conflict directly impacts their lives, to a granular level. Each ends up down a very different path.

One in particular is unlikable to the extreme, treading a line of privilege and inexcusable behaviour with the way society treats him as an immigrant and as a queer man unable to come into his existence at basically any point in his life. He lashes out at everyone and engages in self destructive behaviour. The other man has a similar heartbreaking trajectory.

Both, you constantly hope will rearrange their lives and figure out a way to be different, and get out of their circumstances.it is excellent at showing systemic barriers and consequences; the harm that it does to an individual, but also a society. The prose work is generally quite great. The dialogue, though it always makes sense and I think works to slot each person in a distinctive “class”, didn’t quite work for me. It often feels incongruent with the prose, which created a dissidence for me. That is the only thing keeping it from a 5 star rating, I think. Though I could do without the seeming meta insert of the writer as well.

It’s a challenging read. Gripping. Allows for queer people to exist without performing in a way they usually have to in literature. In that way it’s quite a subversive work and highly effective. Completely worth reading.


The narration for this one is top notch. One for each main character and each do a great job.

In contrast to Here Goes Nothing, this apoplectic, one-second in the future dystopia, set in the U.S of today—right now—constructed and embedded with a meta context of very current historical events, actually hit similar themes in a very different, but much more effective way. There’s a mass suicide epidemic that breaks out. Beginning with the daughter of a pharmaceutical mogul (analogous to the Sackler family), she papers her walls with OxyContin and leaves the world. Her younger brother goes to a facility to treat adolescents with mental illness and absconds with a supposed prophet to save the world from all too-real factional elements as a civil war breaks out in America.

What is unique about this is that it would be absurdism, if it weren’t integrating the meta context via interjections from the author himself, serving as infodumps of the real world factions or natural disasters; tapping the vein of the predominate current anxieties. So when the book shifts into an act that feels bombastic and slightly askew and absurd, it’s constructed of elements and problems that counteract that dissonance, giving more credence to what would be a kind of thrillery, wild and violent, sometimes plain strange, plot.

It effectively taps into very real frustrations. For me, there’s an element of catharsis in not deviating from the anxieties I have. Acknowledging them and trying to wake up Americans in a non ahistorical, nor satirical, very plain and literal way. Because satire isn’t working. Frankly, 90% of the time it feels like it allows the reader to dismiss what is being subverted, these days. So how about running right into the anxiety? Will that wake some people up? It used to be that imperialistic countries would make their citizens docile by providing a much better standard of living than the rest of the world. America can’t claim that, but tries to, because of propaganda and indoctrination.

So, why not just have the civil war kick off and include the elements that are so stupid, such as Qanon, and bring up the American price tags of items on a guy who stormed the capital during the fiction, and the maths of the cost of one of the richest men in the world to find and destroy women he sexually assaults across the globe. Why not talk about of empathy is helping or hindering humanity address global issues?

Though, this book is certainly leaning into the white male neo-liberal space and not great at intersectionality at all—I do think it’s novel and it did stir something up in me that tired satires and boring dystopias, at this point, always attempt, but fail at. This is at least not skirting past the problems and forced the reader to confront them during a book that would otherwise probably be simple escapism, like many of the rest that claim to be About these issues. I’m sure it’s not a book many will enjoy or want to pick up for those reasons. I found it reduced my anxiety for a story to handle things the way this does though, and hadn’t expected that.

The audiobook has narration from the author himself interspersed, but the meat of the thing is from someone else, who was quite good. A solid performance that got the job done and didn’t bother me. No emotion really, but good inflection (3.5/5)

Told in three linear parts—interspersed with historical context around defenestration itself—the story of twins Marta and Nick is told at different points in their life. A lot of this is for information control and pacing, but it’s also fairly novel. Primarily, the story seeks to interrogate a family mythos around defenestration; the family curse that strikes at seemingly everyone; claiming lives or else merely taking a toll. The story has infested Marta, the narrator, who spirals throughout the story in her efforts to help her brother, who has taken a fall, deal with the psychological aspects of it in a meandering, frankly tedious ongoing bar scene where she waxes on about various stories, and distant past, which has alienated the twins from their mother. Begging the question: Where is the father?

It’s a successful, if barely, for me, format. But has some serious middle book syndrome. Reoccurring plot beats, narrative tension deflating with every reoccurrence of the same point made differently, and uneven prose, made this a bit of a slog. Unfortunate, since the start was actually quite gripping and it does land the ending relatively nicely. The theme is enmeshed in the many narratives. The characters are believable and have descent arcs. It is substantive. It also has structural issues. Overall, a mixed bag, for me.

One year after his father passed away, Akash returns home to say goodbye to his mother, who is leaving for England, the house sold. The chapters alternate from him to his mother, as they recount their past, articulating their respective secrets for the first time in their lives. Both are crippling unhappy. They lash out against one another rather than try to understand one another, stuck in self-destructive patterns.

There is a deceptively complex story here. Dealing with racism, brown bodies, immigrants, trying to make a new life. Being a closeted gay man, and the irreparable damage of siloing aspects of your identity.

Plot readers may struggle with this. It’s character driven, but does have some plot. It’s primarily concerned with interiority, which is usually my preference. Because the characters are always concerned with their tale, it’s also not that interested in situating itself in place, and the time is usually in their past, rather than present. This suited the story well. There’s the impression that they are always dwelling in memory. Physicality is typically distant, like they aren’t full embodied. At least, not yet.

If you’re interested in the themes and how the story is framed, perspective wise, you’d probably like this as much as I did. This was far more affecting and effective for me than, say, Love Marriage.

This is a coming-of-age tale in Sri Lanka, about a girl obsessed with knowledge of the natural world, who grows up to face extreme hardship, during a civil war that has torn the country her family apart. There are three parts, each very distinct. Nature writing is predominate in the first half and does an incredible job situating the fiction in time and place—likening various animals to people in compelling ways, intrinsic to their nature, without anthropomorphizing people.

As the book goes on, it is safe to say it becomes much more bleak. There is always an undercurrent of hope, as she tries to understand apply her ability to construct an ecosystem for her current circumstances, enabling her to continue to transition into each new part of the novel.

It’s more epic than I expected, and probably one of the best epic books I’ve read, though only 300 and change pages long. The prose work is great, especially with grammar. The diction itself is accessible and particularly flowery with the nature writing, and otherwise gets the job done, but wasn’t as evocative in urban areas. It’s a book that constantly kept me guessing and was always balanced in characterization and plot beats.

An extremely well constructed book and the primary themes are well struck. No complaints. If it gets a bit dark for you, just keep going. The characters nature consistently shines through, and it always navigates to something else if you are less interested in a particular entanglement.