Let's hear it for olf woman yuri!!!

Elephant Company was a book for a local book club. To be blunt, it's blisteringly racist. As a wildlife journalist, Coke was probably just searching around for a new, heartwarming animal-human friendship story for her next book when she chose James Williams. What she in no way accounted for is that she is an American Westerner writing about a former colonized SW Asian country. She only refers to Myanmar by its colonized name, Burma. One could argue that "Burma" is in period for Williams, but Coke isn't writing in period, with Williams' limits. She demotes Myanmar culture's gods, the nats, to "sprites." The Naga people are "notorious head-hunters," with zero authorial acknowledgement that it's British propaganda. The Myanmar people are props and unnamed helpers in her narrative about Williams, who she breathlessly narrates with starry eyes. Elephant Company honestly felt like a historical fiction novelization of Williams' journals. It's definitely not a nonfiction investigation and intelligent, nuanced accounting of a historical event. Coke ignores the socio-political context of Williams' journey, what it means that White people came into a jungle, extracted cultural knowledge at gunpoint, and ordered an indigenous tribe to call them "master."

I was shocked that a book published in 2014 was so pro-colonialization, with how much Coke didn't care about Mynamer and its people. I don't recommend this book to anyone. If you want a pleasant story about White people flailing around in Myanmar, try Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan.

When I first cracked open Ink Blood Sister Scribe, I didn’t think it would be an appropriate pick for our sapphic book club. Then Esther fingered her girlfriend (tastefully) on page five and I was like bingo!!!!

Even though her family kicked her out, Esther has kept her promise to them: don’t stay in one place over a year. However, she’s really liking her electrician work in Antarctica and possibly dating her future wife. Surely, she can stay another season and it won’t matter...? Turns out it does matter, if the body in the bathroom is anything to go by. Meanwhile, Joanna finds their father dead, and the ultra rich, ultra isolated Nick feels way woozier than usual lately.

When Törzs’s Author’s Note stated that she was originally a literary fiction writer, I was not surprised. Ink Blood Sister Scribe feels like literary fiction and fantasy fiction had a perfectly average baby. Queer characters exist, but There’s an aggravating lack of queer labels said on page, which is especially irksome with bisexual characters. The Kalotay family are Jewish, but the identity failed to add much to the story besides bringing up the “Jewish people do blood magic” stereotype. Plot holes and inaccuracies contribute to an undercooked feeling–a random example is buckwheat honey is not light brown, but a deep, dark brown. Some of the holes and begged questions can be explained away by the main theme. This book is about how the older generation limits access to knowledge in order to control and consume their young. A stellar and juicy idea in theory, but in practice it led to frustration as all the POV characters struggled with mysteries I’d solved 50 pages ago.

Overall, Ink Blood Sister Scribe was a fine book. If you’re a fantasy fan looking to dip a toe in literary fiction, or vice versa, Emma Törzs’ debut could be a great novel to bridge the gap.