mkobooks

[mkobooks]

The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb

*Spoilers for all three books!

Last year, I ran many miles while listening to The Wheel of Time series. This year, I’m apparently doing the same for Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings! This series is nearly as long, but broken down into discrete trilogies, and I finished the first which included the books Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest. 

For a series that’s as expansive and ostensibly as successful as Wheel of Time, I feel like it is much less-known. I often thought about how I’d even describe these books to people, to let them know what they’re about. Instead, I found that they’re so broad and cover so much in the main character, Fitz’s life. On top of that, they’re written within the frame story that a much older Fitz (actually, I was surprised in the end when it revealed that he isn’t an old man writing this, but rather someone around my own age) is writing a history of his land, The Six Duchies, but keeps getting side-tracked into his own tale and how he affected the events as the “Catalyst.” 

These three books tell much of his childhood, starting around age five, and through his coming of age and early adulthood/late teens. It’s an origin story, really, for someone who becomes infamous in his kingdom as an unwitting--unintentional?--element of change: first as the bastard son that shames his father, the king-in-waiting from stepping down from his titles; as the titular “assassin;” being executed and coming back to life thanks to the Wit; and finally helping his king turn into a dragon and save the kingdom by defeating foreign invaders. A lot happens in between and in a way, these books (especially the first two) are very “slice-of-life.” Some reviews hated that for being slow. I actually really enjoyed it. In particular, the second book, which I think is my favorite of the three.

Because if I were to say that these books were just about magic, assassinations, court intrigue, and war, that would really be missing the point. There are lots of fantasy books that have one or all of these elements. What really stands out to me in these books are both the relationships that Fitz has and his overwhelming feeling of loneliness.

He has so many incredibly deep and moving relationships: his father-son relationship with Burrich, his master-apprentice relationship with Chade, his Wit bond with Nighteyes, his mentor-mentee/king-subject relationship with Verity, his friendship and loyalty to Ketricken, and his strange brotherhood with the Fool. (And, I guess, the train wreck that was him and Molly- I suppose lots of people have a teenage, first love relationship that is a hot mess from start to finish. One of my favorite parts of the third book is when Kettle FINALLY calls him out on how crap their romance was. I felt so vindicated! Anyway.) 

Yet, throughout the entirety, he feels so sad and alone. He isolates himself throughout, caught up in his own lies and what he views as his responsibilities to his king and his kingdom. It is so overwhelming and sad and moving to read, but it is also frustrating since there are so many people who care about him if only he’d open up and trust a little more. But that’s not what kind of series this is.

These books are grim and they are sad. The “bad guys” are defeated in the end, but it’s implied that a cycle will start over again and as a result of their defeat, the bad guys will eventually be back. And, throughout the Six Duchies, there are people who are going to bear the scars of the tragedy of this conflict for many years to come. It’s grim but it’s also hopeful. 

In a way, they’re perfect books to listen to while jogging. Yes, they’re slow, but they’re straightforward and continue to chug along. They’re vivid, yet not so detailed that I start losing track of the action and progression of the plot. The characters are memorable and compelling. The mythology is intriguing without requiring me to constantly refer to a glossary or guide. Similarly, the magic is just the right amount of mysterious, consistent without being over explained. I go running, and I let the story flow over me. I don’t really care that it’s repetitive, a slog, or constantly the result of Fitz’s bad decisions. I’m invested. I’m immersed. I listen and I run and I think about how much I hate Fitz’s and Molly’s “relationship” rather than think about how much I hate running. 

Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

All the Dirty Parts - Daniel Handler

I read this a few months ago and I guess I needed a bit of distance from it before I felt ready to put my thoughts on it down on paper (on screen?). 

I’m a big fan of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I re-read them a few years back and enjoyed them maybe even more than I did as a kid. So, I was quite curious about Daniel Handler’s other books. When doing a bit of research, I saw that All The Dirty Parts was “edgy” and “challenged,” but how “dirty” could it be? It’s YA isn’t it? And one of the key characteristics of that genre, in my opinion, is that even though there are plenty of relationships and first loves, there’s rarely anything especially explicit.

This book should have been called Only the Dirty Parts because, in its terse, stream-of-conscious style, there was little else included in the narrative. To paraphrase Lemony Snicket: “what did you expect? I warned you in the title!” That is to say, I felt very self-conscious about reading this on a public bus.

The narrator, Cole, is a high-school boy who seemingly thinks of nothing else. He watches a lot of porn, has a lot of flings, and develops a “reputation” among the girls at his school. His “number” is--in my humble opinion--unrealistically high for someone his age and I felt that, at times, he was a somewhat “wish fulfillment” character for teen boys who may be reading. But the book is supposed to be a bit deeper than that by showing how Cole changes throughout the two relationships he gets into.

The first is with his best friend Alec. If the book had only been about this, I think it would have been much more interesting and surprising. Cole loves telling Alec about all the girls he’s been with and the two often watch porn together. Well, Cole is in a bit of a “slump�� and one things leads to another... since Cole is the narrator and the storyline outside of the “dirty parts” is a bit vague, it’s not entirely clear how long they’re together, but they are essentially dating and exclusive for a few months even if Cole outright refuses to see it that way. If Cole’s biggest internal struggle was coming to terms with the fact that he’s not super-super straight/womanizer and instead was bi/queer/pan whatever, I don’t think this book would be nearly as controversial as unlikely as that sound. It would have been an unconventional coming-of-age as Cole grapples with his identity and what/who he really wants plus the way his relationship with his friend has developed and changed. 

Instead, the latter half of the book shifts as Cole meets his other love interest- foreign-exchange student Grisaille. He basically ghosts Alec (if they were never “together” then they don’t need to break up, right?) to pursue Grisaille. The book changes back to teenage wish-fulfilment, I think, in that G is very much the “sexy exchange student” trope and in her, Cole has seemingly met his match. Their relationship is very passionate (or seems that way, since we only see the “dirty parts”) and it becomes clear that he’s way more into her than she is into him. 

She wants to take things up a notch and starts talking about opening the relationship. He’s actually not that into it, but he goes along with it which results in a very uncomfortable scene in which he coerces a freshman into hooking up with him at a party. After, things start to sour between him and Grisaille.

By the end, she’s with someone else, Alec is with someone else, and Cole is alone and feeling used. I know it’s supposed to be a comeuppance for him, that he’s finally getting a taste of his own medicine and learning firsthand what it’s been like for the numerous girls he hooked up with and dumped with little concern. But, since the entire story is somewhat superficial (again, it is almost literally, just the “dirty parts”), it doesn’t land as powerfully as it should.

A question that arises over and over again in discussions of this book is whether or not this is what teenagers (boys in particular) want to read. Obviously “horny teen” is a archetype based somewhat in reality, but isn’t it a bit insulting to insinuate that they are interested in nothing else? At the same time, I look back at the novels I wrote when I was Cole’s age and they focus a lot on relationships, romantic and purely physical, albeit without anything particularly explicit. I wonder what I would have thought of this book if I’d read it when I was 17. 

Not sure I would recommend this to anyone. I didn’t hate it, but found it was as superficial as its protagonist and disliked the direction it went in by the end. Its intention was to shock and I was pretty shocked reading it. All the Dirty Parts affected me enough that here I am writing about it, three months after I read it. 

All the Dirty Parts by Daniel Handler My rating: 2 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk

 The Caine Mutiny stands out to me as one of those famous titles in pop-culture--of course I’ve heard of it, seen it referenced and spoofed in other media, yet as for its actual substance, I knew relatively little about it. It was an old-timey, Hollywood movie; I didn’t realize it was a book, and, similarly to my last review, the novel didn’t come onto my “to-read” radar until I saw the retrospectives and memorials for its author, Herman Wouk, when he passed away in 2019. Like Roth, he’s Jewish-American and some of his bibliography concerns his relationship to religion, spirituality, and being Jewish in American. The Caine Mutiny is not really one of those books (there’s one prominent Jewish character but he doesn’t appear until the last ~30% of the book, and it’s a very looong book). 

So I didn’t know much of anything about The Caine Mutiny when I picked it off the library shelf other than I suspected I might find it a dull like the last boat-journey-based literary work I read (Rites of Passage by William Golding--I was so dang bored and disappointed, having really enjoyed Lord of the Flies when I read it in school). But, I challenge myself to read quote-unquote literature so I decided to give Caine a shot.

And I’m really glad I did! 

The titular Caine is a minesweeper-destroyer in WWII. It’s crappy and old, refitted from WWI ship and, despite being deployed in the height of the war, it doesn’t see combat. It mostly hangs around various Pacific ports towing other warships and waiting around. We’re brought onboard following Willie Keith, a spoiled rich kid turned ensign who barely makes it through his naval officer crash-course, but just tries to do his best. He feels singled out and unjustly disliked by the Caine’s initial captain--whom he also thinks has done a dismal job at maintaining the ship--and is excited when that captain is replaced by a new one: Captain Queeg.

Queeg is a stickler for the rules, which seems pretty good at first, until it starts to seem like Queeg might be out of his depth (no pun intended). Little episodes stack up from accidentally cutting a tow line (and blaming it, possibly unfairly, on one of the sailors), disproportionately harsh punishments for the entire crew, running away from battles and other ships that may be in need, and finally culminating in a bizarre investigation of the entire ship in search of some missing strawberries.

From here, the narrative shifts its focus from Willie (who goes from really liking Queeg to despising him) to two more senior officers: Maryk, the executive (seems like the first mate to me? I don’t know much about Naval chain of command) and Keefer. They begin to gather evidence to support a claim that Queeg is out of his mind and should be removed via Naval Regulations Section 184, which is essentially the 25th Amendment for a ship. Mind you, this had never been done before in the US Navy and I believe it’s still never been done.

It comes to a head during a typhoon in which Maryk disagrees with Queeg’s strategy for keeping the ship safe against the storm and declares that he’s mutinying and taking over the ship. Keith supports him; Keefer doesn’t. Nonetheless, Queeg steps down and the ship doesn’t sink.

There’s a time jump after this to Maryk’s and Keith’s court-martial trials and the book shifts in genre from a war drama to a legal drama. I have to admit that I didn’t find this as interesting as the descriptions of life aboard the Caine. Wouk managed to make the mind-numbing monotony of a piece-of-junk warship that barely sees any war interesting. Once they’re back in the US awaiting trial, the story gets a bit bogged down by the one plot point I really disliked--the relationship between Keith and his night-club singer girlfriend, May. 

In the end, Greenwald, the (Jewish) lawyer swoops in as a hero, taking the case to defend Maryk despite disagreeing with Maryk’s reasons for the mutiny. He gets an acquittal and, during the celebration, shames Keefer as being the real villain and coward. There’s a sort of extended epilogue in which Keefer becomes the Caine’s captain and he’s just as lousy at it as Queeg was. He steps down and then Keith becomes the Caine’s final captain before the ship is finally decommissioned. 

Throughout the entire story, Keith is smitten with a woman named May even though he knows that his very WASPy/old money parents would never approve of him marrying a working class, Italian-American singer. They date--chastely, which is another part of their relationship that really doesn’t age well--even though he doesn’t take the relationship all that seriously. When he goes on shore leave, they finally sleep together and afterward he basically decides that he knows he can never marry her, even though they don’t officially break up. May’s portrayal as both an independent woman with her music career and someone super needy and traditional is the only part of the story that really feels like it was written 50+ years ago. The narrative puts almost excessive emphasis on the fact that even though she works in a seedy nightclub she’s a “good” girl. Keith is selfish and immature and a mama’s boy and the relationship feels like a “romantic plot tumor” that doesn’t really go anywhere except to make Keith seem like an asshole. I also found May annoying and really didn’t care whether or not they were together in the end.

Overall, this book is a classic and deservedly so. I enjoyed the struggle on the ship and spending time with these characters. I don’t usually like war literature all that much, and was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining it was. It was a different take on a war story than what I’ve read (I feel like I’ve only read Holocaust stories / European theater) and was more of a psychological drama with clashing personalities having to get along on the ship. Keith was a so-so protagonist who fulfilled the “new kid” POV in order to help the reader who may not be familiar with life on a ship. I wish we would have gotten a little more about Keefer especially who seems like a special, snobbish kind of asshole compared to his brother (also called Keefer) who was Keith’s roommate. I wonder what a story from primarily Keefer’s POV would be like and if the moment when Greenwald calls him out would be more impactful. 

Interestingly, from what I’ve read, it seems like the film adaptation is more about Queeg (played by Humphrey Bogart) and makes him into a tragic hero. I definitely plan on watching it when I can.

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

Portnoy’s Complaint - Philip Roth

It’s been a minute in which I both gained and lost my job! So, I’ll be back to trying to write reviews weekly because what else better have I got to do? 👍

---

One of my biggest takeaways of my last review was that Interior Chinatown didn’t have the intended emotional resonance with me because I am not a member of the AAPI community. 

Well, that is very much not the case for Portnoy’s Complaint and me. Although this book has very, very male POV and was written over 50 years ago, the descriptions, caricatures, anxieties, and guilt of the American Jewish community were both identifiable, amusing, and weirdly relatable to me.

This was my first Roth book and, unlike my first JCO or Ishiguro books, Portnoy, I think, is probably his most famous work and the best place to start in the Roth bibliography. He’d always been on my radar, though I’d never considered reading him until seeing all his obituaries, memorials, and--let’s be honest--harsh critiques, following his death in 2018. I was curious about his work, but given my recent experiences with old school, white, male “literature” and the foreknowledge that some of his work can be incredibly sexist, I sort of expected to hate-read this one.

Actually, I really liked it. I almost hated how much I liked it.

Portnoy’s Complaint is ostensibly a long diatribe from the titular Alex Portnoy to his therapist in which he details his numerous problems and what caused them, going off into tangents about his parents and upbringing as well as his relationship with non-Jewish women including “The Monkey.” He’s absolutely disgusting, yet apparently somewhat successful in finding partners as well as in his career. So, a lot “happens” in the book through these various anecdotes, but I wouldn’t say there’s much of a plot thread to summarize.

What I liked the most were the stories about his childhood. He blames a lot on his mother, but as far as I could see, his mother was really not that bad? While my own Jewish mother is nowhere near the level of his, many of her actions reminded me of both real-life people and of the stock character of the Jewish mother in shows like Seinfeld or South Park. A scene that stands out in particular is when she is yelling at him through the bathroom door not to flush the toilet after he’s used it, so she can try and get to the bottom (heh) of his stomach troubles. Of course, this being Portnoy, he’s not really racing to the bathroom every 10 minutes because he ate hot-dogs with his friend after school; rather, he’s racing away from the dinner table to masturbate.

And there’s a lot of talk about “being the master of your own domain”! I’m not so easily grossed out. I was pretty amused by the most notorious episode in the book in which he jerks it into a piece of raw liver which he puts back in the kitchen for his mother to cook and serve to the family. It’s the precursor to movies like American Pie or the more recent series, Big Mouth--a cartoon that strikes a great balance between disgusting Jewish middle-schoolers, their relationships with their mothers, and sexual humor, albeit a more earnest and “woke” humor than anything in Portnoy.

Which brings me to Portnoy and “The Monkey,” his very dysfunctional, and frankly abusive relationship with a “shiksa” (a term for a non-Jewish woman, usually with the connotation that they’re corrupting or taking a Jewish man away from his community). He continues to refer to her as such throughout most of the book. He’s awful to her and by the end of the book (the emotional climax, if you will) basically rapes her. If you didn’t already think he was repugnant and morally bankrupt...

What makes it even worse is how “fake-woke” he is (to use 2021 parlance). In his professional life, he is a crusader against injustice and inequality. In doing a brief search for other reviews and summaries of the book, I feel like this detail is somewhat overlooked. Yeah, he’s terrible, but he’s even more terrible in how hypocritical he is.

As a pretty assimilated American Jew (who’s married to a “gentile”), it was interesting to read a book from “my” community. Throughout the past ~2 years, I’ve been making an effort to read more diverse authors, so I don’t even remember the last time I read about the American Jewish community; Spinning Silver by Naomi Novak was the last book I read with a Jewish protagonist and I really can’t recall any others before that. Do I wish that this Jewish protagonist wasn’t so repellent? Yes. But, I also have the cultural knowledge that self-deprecation is a staple of Jewish humor as well as feel like I can critique and comment on this book more candidly than those concerning communities I am not a part of. 

Incidentally, when I described some of the funny Jewish mother scenes to my spouse as hilarious and relatable, he was a little bit disturbed. I can’t recall my mother ever begging me not to flush the toilet so she could see what’s in there, but at the same time, it doesn’t sound entirely crazy and ridiculous to me. 

At the end of the day, characters who are awful people don’t automatically make a book awful. I’ve already mentioned Seinfeld, but other shows like Always Sunny in Philadelphia are great entertainment because we know they’re awful and they’re hilariously so. I wonder how I would have felt about this book if I were reading it for the first time in the 1970s, but as someone who watched a lot of South Park in my teens, I thought Portnoy’s Complaint was both hilarious and thought-provoking. 

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

Interior Chinatown - Charles Yu

I guess my biggest regret upon reading this book is that I considered going into Singapore’s Chinatown Complex Hawker Centre for a snack and decided I didn’t feel like it. I deprived myself of that excellent “Reading Interior Chinatown while literally inside Chinatown” pic! 

If I recall correctly, this book landed on my “to-read” after I saw it on a NPR Books “Best of 2020.” That said, what I expected this book to be about was entirely different from what it actually was. And what was it precisely? That’s sort of hard to answer and I feel is what makes this book either terrific and original or gimmicky and preachy.

Roughly, this is the story of Willis Wu, a wannabe movie star who’s stuck as a background player in the role “Generic Asian Man.” He really wants to be a “Kung Fu Guy” or to be recognized as more than Asian in the same way that “Black” and “White” are able to play nuanced characters that transcend their races. Throughout his struggle, he’s stuck in Chinatown where he grew up, living in near-poverty and taking care of his aging parents (also former actors). At some point he starts to break through a little, he meets a woman and gets married, and has a reckoning about what it means to be an Asian American:

“This is it. The root of it all. The real history of yellow people in America. Two hundred years of being perpetual foreigners.” 

“What is about an Asian man that makes him so hard to assimilate?... Who gets to be an American? What does an American look like?” 

At the same time, this isn’t a straightforward novel: the entire book is printed in “Courier” and large parts of it are designed to look like a screenplay. At times, it was difficult for me to distinguish which parts were what was really happening to Willis and which parts were his fantasy or dreams. Perhaps all of it was--the book was very post-modern in its satirical take on the Asian-American experience, the immigrant story, Asian portrayal in pop-culture, and the entertainment industry as a whole.

It was a very quick read (part of why I decided not to stop in Chinatown that day was that I thought I’d have another opportunity to do so!) and I finished it in little over a day. It was easily readable, and parts--in particular the story of how his parents moved to the US, established their own careers, and fell in love--were quite compelling. I just couldn’t get behind Willis. He was insufferable and became worse once he married a “white-passing” part-Asian woman. And, though the quotes above are moving, the entire sequence in which he comes to terms with his identity--written like the script of a very melodramatic court-room drama--didn’t quite land with me. They were a little too soap-boxy. 

What is kind of wild is that this book was released in January 2020. I wonder what the reception would have been like if it had been released only a few months later. Reading now, in the wake of the “Stop Asian Hate” movement, it is a bit surreal in how on the nose the idea of Asians as a perpetual foreigner is. 

On the other hand, I have a unique relationship with Asia and Asian culture. Not that I am complaining, but try being white in Asia! I could lay down roots here, become a PR, have kids who serve NS, 说中文 and bercakap Bahasa Melayu, and still always be a foreigner. It’s one thing to say that about Hong Kong which is ~90% Chinese, but Singapore prides itself on its diversity and racial harmony (despite also having a ~70% Chinese majority). It’s not the same of course; local people don’t treat me like a disease vector because I’m from a country that’s recorded 33mil+++ COVID cases, there is some well-deserved baggage from being a British colony, and being “Ang Mo” in Asia (or a laowai, gweilo, take your pick...)  is still somewhat desirable in a way. Willis also addresses this: 

“I’m guilty of it as anyone... romanticizing white women. Wishing I were a white man. Putting myself into this category... by putting ourselves below everyone, we’re building in a self-defense mechanism.” 

And I feel that if you look at the Singapore subreddit, it’s not hard to find some of this “AMDK” sentiment . 

But I’ve gone a bit off track. In the end, I thought this book was just OK. I don’t think I’d recommend it. Yet, I’d still be interested in more of what Charles Yu writes. There were some thought-provoking ideas, but it fell flat for me--which may just be because I live in Asia + I am not Asian American, so although I’ve heard similar sentiment from friends and from voices online, it’s not my story and not as poignant to me. Plus, I also hate reading Courier font. 

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu My rating: 3 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro

This is my first Ishiguro book, picked because Never Let Me Go has been on my “to-read” for awhile, but it wasn’t available in the library; The Buried Giant was. And, similar to my first time reading Joyce Carol Oates (I read The Accursed instead of Blonde) and Endo Shusako (I read The Volcano instead of Silence), I wonder if I’ve again chosen the wrong novel as my introduction to a prolific author’s work. 

The Buried Giant is a fantasy novel set in medieval Britain. It centers around an elderly married couple called Axl and Beatrice as they set off on a journey to meet a son whom they haven’t seen in years and can scarcely remember. Everyone in their village can’t seem to remember things very well because there is a strange fog upon the land. For instance, a child goes missing and when she returns, the village seems hardly happy about it which gives the story a mysterious and somewhat unnerving atmosphere. I was intrigued and wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery.

And, though we do find out the source of the fog (a dragon!) it is not nearly as exciting or interesting as I was hoping it would be. In fact, the book went at a pace as slow and plodding as I imagined Axl and Beatrice’s walking speed was. They encountered interesting snapshots about their world including: a boy bitten by an ogre, the cultural differences between the Britons and the Saxons, King Arthur’s nephew Sir Gawain, monks with a disturbing custom of letting birds eat them alive (?), pixies, and an island where couples must undergo an interview to prove they truly love each other in order to be ferried to it together. Yet, they were just snapshots, superficial episodes that remained vague and were, honestly, presented to the reader in an incredibly monotone way.

This was one of those novels I continued to read in anticipation of something interesting happening. Then, it never really came.

It did, however, present two thought-provoking dilemmas about memory. The first was on a more personal level: Axl and Beatrice lived a comfortable life even if they struggled to remember most of their life together. What if, once their memories returned, they discovered something bitter or unpleasant about each other? And, second, a side effect of the memory-fog was that the Britons and the Saxons who were formerly at war, were able to live in peace next to one another. If the dragon causing the fog was slain, what might the consequences be? Will the conflict be even bloodier the next time around?

As it turns out, there was some unpleasantness in Axl and Beatrice’s past, but in the present, they love each other enough that it is not an issue. And the Saxon warrior who slays the dragon does so, acknowledging that the “buried giant” of hatred between the two peoples will begin to stir again. 

So, it’s not really much of a conclusion. Then it is followed by the stylistic final chapter written in first person POV of a ferryman who takes Beatrice (alone) to this mysterious island (=death?) which overall leaves the reader with as much or more uncertainty than when the story began.

Even though I didn’t love this book, Axl and Beatrice were a unique highlight. Their love for each other is a touching constant throughout and they are kind to to the various people they meet despite how dangerous the land is and the fact that they really shouldn’t be so trusting. I’ve read so few books with elderly protagonists and I found them charming despite the overall blandness of the story.

Not sure I’d recommend this one unless you were really interested in post-Roman Britain, Arthur mythos, or needed something very dull and soothing to fall asleep to. 

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

[mkobooks]

Rodham - Curtis Sittenfeld

This book appeared on my radar last year when I saw a snippet on Reddit that showed--of course--a somewhat cringe-inducingly explicit sex scene between two real life public figures: Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton. The comments were very nonplussed and even I found it difficult to stomach. At the same time, I was intrigued. I stuck it on my “to-read” list and didn’t give it a second thought until I stumbled across it on the shelf a few weeks ago. I grabbed it, thinking I’d get a kick out of the weirdness of it. To my surprise, I found it extremely compelling and, what’s more, it really scratched the itch of not having any new episodes of The West Wing or Veep to watch.

In Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld imagines an alternate history hinging on a single, simple change: Hillary Rodham never marries Bill Clinton. A whole cascade of changes blossom from there including George HW Bush winning the 1992 election, 9/11 not happening (under President John McCain), and Trump endorsing Hillary in 2016 rather than opposing her. All that because she turned Bill’s proposal down.

On one hand, this book appears to be no more than an attempt to stir up controversy. It is, at the end of the day, a wish-fulfilment story about Hillary’s rise to power, but its commentary about how much extra women have to do to compete for the same opportunities as men is incredibly moving. At every step of her journey, people question her choices to “rebel” against tradition. She attends Yale Law School at a time where there were relatively few students and even as she excels, the men she meets seem to expect her to settle down and become a housewife after everything’s said and done. They call into question whether or not she’s suitable to be the first lady of Arkansas. Then she decides for herself that she isn’t.

Later on, once she becomes a politician (by defeating Carol Mosely Braun in an interesting minor-plot about her blindness when it comes to racial issues) she rails against the fact that she needs to hire a hair and makeup and wardrobe team all the time, the double standard between a male politician being able to have skeletons in his closet and still be electable, and why, even after all this time, people still ask her about marriage and motherhood. In this version, Hillary never marries nor has any children and she worries about whether that makes her seem too ruthless, or not likeable enough--why can an unmarried man run for office without question while she constantly needs to justify herself? 

As I was reading, I wondered whether or not this book would work with a fictional politician. Would the story of “Selena Meyer” have been taken as seriously or inspired as much discussion? I am confident that an author as skilled as Sittenfeld could probably write a story with as biting a feminist commentary as Rodham, but would I have been as interested in reading it? Probably not. So, even though writing a so-called “Hillary fanfic” is clearly a gimmick, Sittenfeld executes it so well, that I was really drawn into Hillary’s mind and her life in this alternate US.

My one disappointment was at the end. I was really getting into the election process--the silly campaign events, late night emergency meetings, debate prep... the things I enjoyed from the election seasons of The West Wing--and then the book culminates at the first Democratic primary debate and wraps up shortly after. I think I would have liked to read another 50 pages about the tail end of the campaign instead of just skipping ahead to suddenly Hillary’s looking back at how significant that debate was for her.

Spoilers!

yes, she won.

I empathized with Hillary throughout the story. It was impossible not to. Yet, I was strangely disappointed that she won. It seemed almost the easy way out, or the fairytale ending. I enjoyed reading about her struggles and her fight for women’s equality. I think her/Sittenfeld’s reflections on the glass ceiling and what she would do next would have made for a more satisfying bittersweet conclusion and I’m curious about whether it was difficult for Sittenfeld to decide the 2016 election. I did appreciate the extended punchline of Trump not only supporting Hillary rather than Bill (a tech VC, vegan Bill who runs against her in the Democratic primary via viral Trump-esque rallies featuring the chant “shut her up”), but delivering a version of his campaign announcement speech for her. 

This was a quick read and weirdly enjoyable. I recommend it, especially to fans of political dramas like The West Wing. That said, I don’t think anyone who already dislikes Hillary will get much out of it, but I don’t think this book was really written for them.

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

The Flight Attendant - Chris Bohjalian

Anyone who loves reading probably has a complex relationship with book to movie/TV adaptations. There’s a pretty constant drumbeat of the book is better!, analyzing and over-analyzing what changes worked and which didn’t, and--at least for me--a compulsion to read it before watching it. What’s not much talked about is the pleasant surprise of enjoying a TV series then discovering that it was actually based on a book. Starting with Outlander a few years ago, and most recently adding Bridgerton to my “To-read” list, I’ve found that reading a book after watching it can be a curious experience. Does it color my opinion of the book to know the big twists and turns? I enjoyed Game of Thrones while knowing all the while what was going to happen at the “Red Wedding;” and I was still on the edge of my seat throughout Gone Girl despite it being a pretty close adaptation. If anything, I often find that the deeper experience of reading something after watching it, makes me love the story even more.

I really liked HBO’s The Flight Attendant, so I had high hopes for the novel. I hate to call it “stylish,” but that’s really what it was with its chic split-screen montages of people walking through airports and flight attendants getting on planes. It was both exciting, tragic, and at times darkly funny. I’ve got a short attention span and am not usually very quick at binging series and I finished this one in just a few sittings.

The book was also a quick read, but it lacked the sharp, snappy charm as well as the deeper look into the childhood of Cassie, the titular flight attendant. 

Cassie has been a flight attendant for about twenty years and throughout this time--and throughout her whole life--she’s an alcoholic. She makes frequent, bad decisions while drunk and is no stranger to waking up after a blackout. One morning she wakes up next to, Alex, a passenger from her previous day’s flight and finds that he’s been very brutally and violently murdered. She freaks out and wonders if she did it while she was blacked out (she decides, probably not but it still bothers her) or why who ever did murder him spared her.

From there, she tries to act normal, working her assigned flights while meeting with the FBI and a lawyer as well as trying to put together the missing pieces of that night and do a bit of investigation of her own. In between chapters, there are interludes from the POV of the assassin, a Russian agent. We learn a little more about her, the agency she works for, and why she was targeting this guy--but now it’s been about two weeks since I finished the book and I can’t recall precisely what they were. But in the overall plot, the motive of the murder isn’t really important.

The story was fine and I didn’t hate Cassie despite bad decision after bad decision. The show expanded a few side characters that I liked and was a little disappointed to see were barely present in the book. And it was gripping and engaging... until the end. I really did not like the ending.

In the show, Cassie works through her problems with alcohol. She’s not “healed” or anything, but the fact that she was so blacked out she can’t remember a murder that happened when she was in the same room forces her to reflect on her relationship with her father (also an alcoholic) and how she became the way she is. This exists somewhat in the book, but not to the extent that it feels particularly deep or satisfying. And in the end, she does get better. How? Because *spoiler* ...... she becomes a mom.

Ugh! I can’t with male authors sometimes! 

She becomes a single mom thanks to her night with Alex! Perhaps if this were the case in the show, I’d buy it more because in the show, Alex remains a character throughout. Cassie “talks” with him as she tries to figure out what happened and it was strangely romantic. In the book, all she’s got is their one night together which she can barely remember--and which ended in his murder. 

So, overall, I enjoyed the ride of the book even if the loose ends were wrapped up very, very quickly and in a way that I wasn’t thrilled about I won’t spoil the other parts of the ending which were very similar to the show which was definitely better. 

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian My rating: 2 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Wanted to finish this within February (Black History Month) but better late than never!

A year and a half ago, I read Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. On paper, its premise is similar to The Water Dancer: what if there was some sort of actual magic that helped slaves escape from the plantations in the American South? However, Whitehead and Coates went in entirely opposite directions and I’m not entirely sure which I prefer.

Water Dancer is about Hiram--the son of a slave woman and the owner of the plantation. Hiram is a bright young boy who remembers everything, except anything concerning his family or his mother who was sold when he was a child. His father treats him slightly better than a “normal” slave--or a “tasking man” as the book frequently refers to the enslaved--in that he allows him to be tutored, but at the end of the day, Hiram lives in the slave quarters of the house and is raised to be the personal servant for his half-brother Maynard. Maynard is an idiot and their father expects Hiram to prevent him from making bad decisions when Maynard inherits the plantation.

At the same time, this “old Virginia” is dying. This was an interesting aspect that I hadn’t seen in any of the other “slave stories” I’ve read recently. Their plantation and many others are failing and running out of money and there is a sense in the air that a big change is coming. But for the time being, the white plantation owners are hanging on in any way they can.

Hiram wants to get out and he does, though it doesn’t come easy for him. He is eventually “rescued” by the Underground and is recruited as an agent for them. That sort of language feels very modern-thriller novel to me, and I wonder if they actually referred to them as such. He gets to live in the free north for a time and he meets “Moses” who helps people escape through the power of “conduction.”

When Moses and her powers are first alluded to, I thought that was pretty cool. When she basically becomes a secondary character, I started to cringe. It felt, in a way, like those Sing-lit novels shoe-horning in LKY. Like, we get it, she’s great but to include her in your anti-slavery novel as literally having magic powers, was like unnecessary wish fulfillment to me. Then, we got to see her powers in action.

Chapter 25 redeemed this part of the story for me, but I’m not sure if it would have if I’d been reading instead of listening. Here’s a link to listen. Minor spoilers, but it’s worth it.

The rest of the book sort of dragged for me. There were lots of stories within the story and it made me think that Coates probably should have written something more akin to Homegoing which is like a series of mini-stories that are loosely linked. On top of that, thanks to my experiences reading The Underground Railroad, I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The Underground Railroad is about Cora, an escaped slave who takes the railroad (it is a literally train underground) to escape from her un-escapable plantation. I won’t do a full review of that book, but here are a few things I wrote about it shortly after I finished it: 

“This book reminded me of the movie “12 Years a Slave” in how grotesque and over the top (though based in historical accuracy?) the tortuous treatment of slaves was.”

“The abstract desire of coming across Mabel [Cora’s mother] in the free states drives Cora’s desire to keep going. It made me feel hopeful as I read--which was stupid as bad thing after bad thing happens to Cora. Whenever something remotely good happens to her, it is returned and squashed by something awful.”

“The whole book felt like a setup to this punchline of pessimism; like Whitehead had this twisted idea about the only slave to ever “escape” from this plantation... it made me feel frustrated and disappointed to read which is probably intentional--it is a book about slavery after all.”

Unlike Underground Railroad, Water Dancer ends on a somewhat optimistic note. Is it wrong of me to prefer that? I’m still so affected by what I read in Underground Railroad; I’m not sure if Water Dancer will have the same effect. And, in a way, I feel like stories about slavery should make me feel uncomfortable, angry and sad. To be sure, Water Dancer had some rough parts, but there was nothing I could think of that remotely compares to the unending pessimistic downer that was Underground Railroad. 

Finally, that it was Black History Month in US (not in Singapore obviously where there are very, very few Black people) reminds me of why I keep doing this to myself; why I keep bumming myself out by listening to Homegoing, Lovecraft Country, then The Water Dancer all in a row. Admittedly, all three of these ended on a bittersweet/positive note and I know I wouldn’t be able to read three gut-punches in a row. I mean, after Underground Railroad (which I read in summer 2019) I didn’t read another book about American slavery until Homegoing in December 2020! Not sure when I’ll read another, but I don’t think it’ll be as long of a gap.

The Water Dancer was a pretty solid 3/5 for me. I wanted to like it more, but it didn’t keep my attention despite its lyrical prose. Would definitely recommend the audiobook over "normal” reading.

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews

[mkobooks]

The Authenticity Project - by Clare Pooley

This isn’t a kind of book I’d normally choose to read.

Yet, it was a pleasant little story that fits thematically with some of what I’ve been writing lately and with the topic for my podcast discussion club this month--friendship. Because I feel that this is the most important takeaway from The Authenticity Club: the importance of being vulnerable in order to open yourself up to new and unexpected friendships.

The Authenticity Project is a book within this book; it’s a plain green notebook in which Julian, a lonely old widower and former b-list celebrity artist wonders: “Everyone lies about their lives. What would happen if you shared the truth instead? The one thing that defines you, that makes everything else fall into place? Not on the internet, but with those real people around you!”

Already, I’m a rolling my eyes and “OK, boomer”-ing this book. It’s lucky it’s charming, because it is often a little too on the nose with the “why is everyone always looking at their phones?” 

Anyway--he shares his truth and leaves the notebook in a local cafe where it’s found by the cafe’s owner Monica, who’s actually quite a bit like Monica Geller in her fastidiousness and obsession with getting married and having a baby. She confesses this then leaves the book at a restaurant where it is found by Wolf of Wallstreet wannabe, Hazard, who confesses he’s an addict. Then he passes the book to Riley...

Honestly, if the whole book were just about how the notebook moves from person to person and how challenging themselves to be more honest change them for the better, then I think I would have liked it a lot more. Similarly, if it was about how all these disparate and struggling people came together and became a new, unlikely “family” thanks to their openness with each other, then I’d like that a lot too.

While those are both key parts of The Authenticity Project, I feel the overall arc of the story is weighed down by some unnecessary drama and an unsatisfying romance. Strangely, I wish it were more like Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. No, it doesn’t need lizard aliens, sentient AI, or spaceships. Rather, it could have been more “slice of life” and episodic as it explores the way in which the ensemble is affected by what they learn from being authentic to themselves and with others in their community.

This book was too focused on critiquing the “fake” persona that people cultivate online. One of the characters who discovers the notebook is literally an influencer whose actual, non-Instagram life is a miserable mess. When she finds the strength to leave her illusion behind, she’s makes the decision on her own. I would have found it more satisfying if it was something she realized through the support of her new group of friends who love her for who she really is.

Finally, the ending of the book really undercut the “friendship” theme and honestly knocked my overall rating down at least a half a point. Monica--who is the primary character in the ensemble--really wants a husband and a child. She dabbles in a relationship with Riley, one of the recipients of TAP but she can’t commit because it is clear that it’s never going to work. She ends up with Hazard who, even with his new, sober outlook on life, is also still terrible for her.

I was listening to a podcast last night that featured an interview with Dr. Marisa Franco. Dr. Franco argues that it’s a shame our society over-prioritizes romantic relationships when friendships are just as important and meaningful. She suggests being intentional when making friends, in the same way that you’d be intention when dating; you need to be open and vulnerable, the same thing that The Authenticity Project advocates. So why the heck did Monica need to find romance for it to be a “happy” ending?? Dangit--she should adopt and then her baby will be raised in the new community she’s created around her cafe, her other baby that she’s nurtured into something great.

I’ve been thinking about romance versus friendships and satisfying story conclusions a lot for my own writing so I’ll definitely keep The Authenticity Project in mind as I make my own decisions as an author-in-training. It was a charming little break from my usual book choices and I’ll enjoy hearing what my book club thinks! Overall, 2.5/5-- it’s a pleasant book to read on an airplane or during a long bus ride.

The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley My rating: 2 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevesky

Last year, I read Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. I had mixed feelings about--it was at times incredible and moving and at numerous others, an enormous slog. Until a few weeks ago, it was the only Russian classic that I’d read.

Crime and Punishment was one of those books I’d heard of, of course, but it never came onto my radar as something I might want to read until I saw it featured as a “McGuffin” in The Flight Attendant on HBO (I got the novel from the library the other day and will probably be reviewing it in about a month). Then, as luck would have it, I stumbled onto Reddit’s “Classic Book Club” subreddit. They were staring off 2021 with C&P so I decided to join in thinking that reading one chapter per day shouldn’t be too difficult. Instead, the greater challenge was to limit myself to read only one chapter each day!

Spoilers for a 150+ year old classic~~

From the very beginning, I found myself pitying and relating to Rodya, the destitute former student who commits the eponymous crime and suffers its punishment. He’d been keeping to himself inside his (completely disgusting) apartment, reluctant to even run into his land-lady, and moping about without purpose. Despite his poverty, he gives money to the sickly wife of Marmeladov a stranger he meets at a pub, and despite his listlessness, he has actually been formulating a plan to murder and rob the pawnbroker to whom he has sold several possessions. 

Then, he does it. He actually does it! 🪓 🪓

And Dostoyevsky presents the reader with the question that is prominent through the novel: Is there good in Rodya’s heart? Or is he a deranged murderer?

To further complicate things, a police detective seems right on his tail thanks to Rodya’s recently published article about criminals and their motivations, and his sister, Dunia, is engaged to Luzhin, a rich, creepy, asshole, and being low-key stalked by Svidrigailov and even creepier asshole. All the while, Rodya goes back and forth about whether or not he should turn himself in or kill himself.

This novel was at times a thriller--so many tense moments between Rodya and the detective, Porfiry--and at others an intense character study and philosophical critique. Is the murder of one “louse”--as Rodya often characterizes his victim--justified if it could help hundreds of others?

That said, Rodya is not a great person and he spends most of the book irritable, sickly, or just plain rude to his friends and family. But when contrasted with the other monstrous men in this book: Marmeladov, whose alcoholism has impoverished and ruined his family; Luzhin who’s looking for a poor but pretty woman to “rescue” through marriage; and Svidrigailov who killed his wife and abused several others, is he that bad? Is he redeemable? Should he be redeemed and like Lazarus, be able to come back to life?

I enjoyed the comparisons between these objectively terrible men--and the contrasts with the more decent male characters, Detective Porfiry, and Rodya’s friend Razumihin. Yet, as a modern reader, I couldn’t help but bristle at the treatment of Rodya’s foil and eventual love interest, Sonia.

Marmeladov’s daughter from his first marriage, Sonia is forced to become a prostitute (a “yellow ticket” as it’s referred to in the book) in order to support her family. She is described as child-like and innocent in her devotion to her family (she is “technically” a young adult) yet the narrative presenters her as sinful as he. “The murder and the harlot” as they’re described shortly before Rodya implores her to go away with him, exclaiming: “we are both accursed, ... [because] you, too, have transgressed... you have laid hands on yourself, you have destroyed a life... your own (it’s all the same!).”

It’s never exactly clear why Sonia likes him, but without her support Rodya never would have been able to confess and--bafflingly--she follows him to Siberia where he is imprisoned. This angered me when I read it in the first part of the epilogue. Why would she follow this loser to the least hospitable part of Russia where he was sentenced to eight years in jail? 

But, to my surprise, C&P ends on an optimistic note. Unlike Petersburg, the rural village in Siberia is actually great for Sonia. She helps the prisoners and easily earns the love and respect she deserves from the community. And, thanks to her love, Rodya is able to see the “dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life.” In my opinion, he’s not exactly redeemed since he’s not all that contrite, but at the very least, he’s less unpleasant and open to changing himself and finding a way to repay Sonia.

This is just scratching the surface of everything that happened within this book. I would absolutely recommend it (here it is on Project Gutenberg). It is exciting, thought-provoking, and timeless; well-deserving of its status as a “classic.” 

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken.

[mkobooks]

Lovecraft Country - by Matt Ruff

I was going to hold off on writing my review until I’d watched the TV adaptation, but I’ve been watching less TV and haven’t finished any other books worth reviewing lately. 

My understanding of Lovecraft Country, based solely on buzz around the HBO series, was that it was about a black couple who were stuck in a “sundown town” that had something much more sinister going on in it besides super racist white people. I don’t know what the series is actually about, but the book is nothing like this at all.

Instead, Lovecraft Country is a series of horror vignettes involving one of the main cast of characters. There is an overarching storyline, but in my opinion, it only provided the background in which each of the stories played out. For instance, my favorite story of the bunch, “Jekyll In Hyde Park” wouldn’t make sense without the exposition about the mysterious Mr. Braithwhite and his sorcerer abilities established in earlier stories (he and the other sorcerers are unambiguously able to do magic--something that I appreciated because I hate when horror books leave these supernatural events too open. It feels like a cop-out).

The stories are at times humorous and at others chilling, and they share a theme that I also observed in Homegoing and in my current read, The Water Dancer--a critique of the disgustingly crude notion that even long after the end of slavery in the US, white people still feel “entitled” to the use of black people’s bodies. 

The action in Lovecraft Country is kicked off when Samuel Braithwhite, a white sorcerer tracks down a black Korean War veteran named Atticus Turner because Atticus is the last descendent of Titus Braithwhite who founded their Lodge. Ruff is not very subtle; just as Titus Braithwhite presumably “used” Atticus’s progenitor without her consent, the 1950s Braithwhites wish to use Atticus’s blood for a ritual and give him little choice in the matter.

From there, Samuel Braithwhite’s ambitious son, Caleb, continues to do something between harass, help, hound, Atticus and his friends and family in his quest to become the most dominant sorcerer in America. In return, Atticus and the others devise a plan to use Caleb’s magic against him. Throughout, the divide between white men in power--such as the other Lodge leaders and local policemen, some of whom are also sorcerers--is an ever present source of tension and horror independent of the Marks of Cain, demon dolls, and portals to other worlds.

The fifth story, “Jekyll in Hyde Park” was the most intriguing to me. 

*spoilers* 

It was probably the least “scary” and action-packed, but it made up for it in how thought-provoking it was. Caleb Braithwhite offers a job to Atticus’ friend Ruby and it comes with more than a generous salary; one of the perks of this job is, in Caleb’s words, “freedom.” Ruby takes him up on his offer... and wakes up in the body of a white woman. Suddenly, doors are opened to her--when she is “Hillary” she can do anything she wants. Of course, she soon learns how Braithwhite makes the potion for her to become white and that it comes at a heavy cost yet, she’s still tempted.

Ruff does such a good job at portraying the stark differences between the life of Ruby versus the life that “Hillary” can have. He challenges the reader to put themselves in Ruby’s shoes even if they--like myself--have only ever lived as “Hillary.” How can someone make the choice to live with less “freedom”? Is it wrong to see it that way? How can Ruby find the life she wants to live without making this bargain with the devil? 

I listened to this book while jogging and it kept me entertained even though I’m not a huge horror fan. The ending was a bit too neat for me, but I enjoyed the stories as standalone spooky tales.

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff My rating: 3 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

We Ride Upon Sticks - by Quan Barry

Whenever a book uses a narrative “person” that isn’t first or third, there is inevitably an excessive amount of scrutiny (just see every review ever written for NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy). We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry uses first person plural (”we”) and as someone who dedicated a massive chunk of her youth to team sports, I can’t get over how brilliant a choice this is. Even though it’s cliché to say “there’s no I in team” it’s so incredibly true. During the season, whether it’s soccer, lacrosse, or field hockey, there is no “I.” Your whole life, your whole identity is tied up in the “we” of that team. 

The Danvers High School field hockey team (class of ‘90) takes it a little further. After yet another thrashing during summer hockey camp, the players decide to dabble in a little witch craft in order to make their senior season their first winning season in years. They sign their name in a notebook with Emilio Estevez on it and tie a piece of blue tube sock to their arm and vow not to take it off until they are the Massachusetts State Champs. 

Almost immediately, they begin to get results. They win the rest of their games at camp and enjoy success in their regular season. Witchcraft, of course, comes with a catch. They need to keep “renewing” the power through more and more daring and border-line illegal pranks and antics. Will they get away with it and become the first Danvers High Field Hockey team to win States?

This would be a fun romp through sisterhood and late 80s hijinks, but Barry’s prose really elevates the story and makes it a breezy and engaging read. Each of the 11 players comes of age in a unique way and I’d be hard-pressed to choose a favorite. As their own individual stories unfolded, I was constantly curious to see how far they would go both to “please Emilio” (as they called the increasingly bad things they did) and as a team in the field hockey league. Unfortunately--for me--I felt that the ending was somewhat abrupt and there wasn’t a satisfying conclusion to those two threads. 

Minor spoilers- just when the book got to its highest point of tension the night before the championship game, it jumped forward to the present day. While a “where are they now” ending is part and parcel of an 80s story, I really wanted to see the championship game and the fall-out from getting caught by their parents. 

That didn’t ruin my overall enjoyment of We Ride Upon Sticks. I loved this story and her characters and definitely recommend it, especially to anyone who was a high school athlete. I felt so nostalgic for the days of my own high school soccer team. The true magic of this story is the camaraderie that exists between girls who are all so different yet bound together by an unlikely and long-shot goal: winning the state championships. 

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry My rating: 4 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

The City of Brass - S.A. Chakraborty

Around the halfway mark The City of Brass, I went from confused to can’t put it down. In addition, as an aspiring fantasy writer, I found this concept of this book very inspiring.

The City of Brass is the first in a trilogy set in a magical version of the medieval Middle East. Nahri, our heroine, is a thief living in Cairo who makes her way duping the rich, foreign occupants of the city. She dreams about becoming a doctor because she has an inherent, magical talent for healing which she generally keeps secret. During one of her dupes, she accidentally summons Dara, a super-powered, undead warrior Daeva who saves her from ifrit, the evil demon cousins of the “djinn,” the magical beings in this world. Even though I read and enjoyed this book, there was a lot of terminology. I’m not sure if I didn’t fully understand Dara and his backstory and powers or if it was never fully explained (yet?). 

These ifrit and other evil beings chase Nahri and Dara out of Cairo and they’re forced to flee to the djinn-only city of Daevabad even though Dara is a fugitive and thinks he’ll get arrested as soon as he passes through the city gate.

Meanwhile, the prince of Daevabad, Ali, is secretly funding a sect of rebellious half-djinn-half-humans called shafit. Shafit are pretty angry because they’re second-class citizens and Ali, being super religious, genuinely wants to help them. That’s not the only conflict in Daevabad: the Daeva tribe of djinn don’t exactly get along with the other djinn tribes and there’s a long history of conflict that’s only recently been somewhat smoothed over. It doesn’t help that Daevabad used to be ruled by Daevas called Nahids. All the Nahid are dead now... or are they?

So, as you can guess, there is a lot of place-setting at the very start of this book. It’s as cumbersome to sum up as it was to read. However, once Nahri and Dara get to Daevabad, Nahri’s heritage as a Nahid is revealed, and she meets Ali and his family, things get much more interesting. It was probably this third quarter of the book that I enjoyed the most: Nahri’s troubles with adjusting to her new life, her friendship (or is it more?) with Ali versus her (unrequited?) feelings for Dara as well as the various political plots and learning the djinn magic and history in a more organic way.

The ending left me with more questions than answers, but it is the first book in a trilogy. I’m sure I’ll get around to reading the second and third installments sometime this year. 

I’ve had some light-hearted complaints about the overload of unfamiliar culture and terminology, but it wasn’t insurmountable. It’s helped me answer a question that’s been nagging me about my own writing: how much foreign-ness in a book is “too much”? I’ve been writing my own fantasy trilogy that’s heavily inspired by Southeast Asia: specifically the Malay archipelago and the overseas/Peranakan Chinese culture. I don’t expect most of my future readers to be familiar with this, but I’ve been leaning in hard to the clothes, the food, and some colorful Hokkien language. I’ll put a glossary in the back, it’ll be fine.

The City of Brass was a solid 3/5 for me. I was entertained, the setting was different from anything I’ve read in awhile, and I have opinions about the love triangle (Team Ali 100%; Dara is 1400 years old and undead). What more can I really ask for in a book?

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews

[mkobooks]

A God in Ruins - by Kate Atkinson book review

Spoilers! Can’t really discuss this book without discussing the ending. 

I don’t often read historical fiction--except for what I’ve been calling “Historical SFF”, books like Outlander, or The Winternight Trilogy that have about a 75/25 split between historical and speculative fiction. A God In Ruins, by Kate Atkinson seems to be a straightforward historical fiction epic about a man (Teddy Todd) who was a pilot in WWII and how his experiences in the war shaped the next ~60 years of his life. He’s only slightly “unstuck in time” as the narrative jumps between his time as a pilot and episodes throughout his life that are not precisely in chronological order. There was some family drama and I was enjoying it.

I’d forgotten that this is the companion book to Life after Life! Silly me for thinking at the end, in the chapter entitled “The Last Flight” that Teddy would be fine. I’ve already read the 400-odd pages of his life after the war. He’ll survive this.

And he did. Or did he?

On the cover of my edition, there’s a rabbit. When I showed it to my dad, he asked "why’s there a rabbit?” I finally got to the scene with a rabbit and was going to share it along with my rather annoyed first impression of the ending: the rabbit didn’t mean anything; nothing in the story meant anything. I thought he survived WWII and had a long life afterward, but actually the whole thing was in his head. Why did I read 500+ pages of this? Why did I become so emotionally invested in not only Teddy but his daughter, Viola, and his two grandchildren, Sunny and Bertie?

I went back and read the “reveal” twice I was so annoyed. I couldn’t believe that Atkinson had done this crap to me and I’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

Then, I slept on it and began to wonder: Am I angry at the "it was all a dream"-ness of it or because of the tragedy of how many young lives were taken during WWII?

Atkinson writes: “Across the world, millions of lives are altered by the absence of the dead, but three members of Teddy’s last crew all bale out successfully... they all marry and have children, fractals of the future.”

In a previous section, we were led to believe that Teddy survived and those men didn’t. And that was a good thing, because we know Teddy and his life and what happened to him after. Yet, what was missed in Teddy’s story as a result of those other men’s absences?

If Teddy is anything like his sister Ursula, then that was probably one of dozens of deaths Teddy suffered through his life, creating uncountable realities--we just happened to read the outcome of one. And I wonder: Does a story that condemns the atrocities of WWII become stronger if the protagonist lives or if he dies? A God in Ruins presents us with examples of both and they are equally infuriating and poignant.

On the whole, I still don’t love historical fiction and I’m not exactly enthralled with WWII books; Slaughterhouse 5 will perennially be a tough act to follow, yet my enjoyment of A God in Ruins increased substantially when I noticed their similarities. (Of course, Teddy was the one dropping the bombs whereas Billy Pilgrim was getting the bombs dropped on him.) 

Atkinson makes her point loud and clear:

“Fifty-five thousand, five hundred and seventy-three dead from Bomber Command. Seven million German dead, including five hundred thousand killed by the Allied bombing campaign. The sixty million dead overall of the Second World War, including eleven million murdered in the Holocaust... all the birds who were never born, all the songs that were never sung and so can only exist in the imagination.” 

So it goes. So it goes. So it goes....

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews

[mkobooks]

Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation - by Anne Helen Petersen

This year, I’m making more of an effort to read nonfiction. I heard Prof Petersen on a podcast and I was very intrigued by what she had to say, so when I saw that Can’t Even was available on my library’s “Libby” app, I decided to check it out. I'm a Millennial who does say “Can’t Even” a lot. Perhaps this book would speak to me. Would I discover I’m “burnt out”? 

In Can’t Even, Prof Petersen combines her own anecdotes, research from psychologists and experts on “work”, and interviews and stories from Millennials of all different backgrounds. She paints a picture of the phenomenon of Millennial Burnout by describing what it’s like to be burnt out, identifying sources of burnout that are both expected (graduating into the Great Recession) and unexpected (”Boomer” generation parenting methods), and noting the effects of widespread burnout on society as a whole.

She highlights with the concept of precarity. According to Petersen, the Millennial generation live in a state of constant precarity thanks to student loans, an unstable economy, stagnating wages, and anxiety to stay within the middle class. In response, many Millennials constantly work to the point where even our leisure time seems like something else on a long checklist of things we need to do. We’re constantly too broke and too tired. Everything is uncertain and that is stressful. 

But we don’t have to live that way, right?

In the end, Prof Petersen doesn’t offer any advice, and admits that’s not her purpose. Instead, she declares that we need to stop accepting things the way they are and work together to change the system as a whole. In her conclusion, she writes:

“We shouldn’t have to choose between excelling in work and thriving as individuals. We should feel good about listening to our bodies when they tell us ... that we should stop... We shouldn’t be this worried, this terrified, this anxious about everything.” 

What this book does really well is describe something that I--and I suspect many other Millennials--already knew about myself, my friends, me colleagues, and my classmates despite never being aware of that knowledge. Sort of when I studied grammar in my TESL course, and learned that we use “past perfect” tense (aka “had eaten”, “had seen” etc) to describe something in the past that happened before another past event when I’d always used this grammar correctly without ever thinking about why.

In the same way, I was so familiar with so much of what was described in Can’t Even that it wasn’t something I needed to think about. It was something I had internalized as part of life as a 20-something living in the 2010s. As a would-be novelist making up stories about Millennials, I’ve realized that so many of the characters I’ve created would probably read Can’t Even and discover how burnt out they are. This wasn’t something I did on purpose; rather, it’s the result of the fact that “being a Millennial” is essentially equivalent to “being burnt out.” Can’t Even articulates this phenomenon in a chillingly accurate way.

So while I--an unemployed, not raised by Boomers, married super young for a Millennial, expat, with $0 of student debt--don’t feel like I’m experiencing as strong a burnout as the interviewees in the book, I’m still so effected by it because it’s the reality of my peers. People I know and love are burned out and I don’t doubt that I if I was working, I’d feel more burnt out too. There’s a reason why I haven’t been searching for a new job all these months. Perhaps I’m suffering from such a “precarity” that I don’t even know where to start in looking for “a cool job that I’m passionate about” because I don’t even know what I’m passionate about. Besides, I’m plenty anxious already without having work to worry about!

Or, conversely, do I want to turn my passions into a career? My last job was almost a textbook case of what Can’t Even warns. I got a job working for a company that involved playing my favorite sport. It was pretty cool actually, yet all that enthusiasm got me was, in Petersen’s words, “permission to be paid very little.” And I was. In fact, I was so underpaid that when I included my monthly salary on the Singapore census, a census-worker called me thinking I’d made a typo, perhaps missed a zero? Nope.

Overall, this book was as entertaining as it was frustrating and sad. I don’t want to live this way; I don’t want my friends and family to live this way. I hate how accurate it is and how we’ve all internalized it to the point where we never thought to question why things are this way. We do need to just flip a table and storm away from this broken system because we really can’t even. 

Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen My rating: 3 of 5 stars

[mkobooks]

Jade War by Fonda Lee - book review

When I finished my read of Wheel of Time in November, I wasn’t expecting to be hooked on a new series so quickly! I’d spared a passing thought on how difficult it must have been for WOT fans in the 90s and early aughts to have to wait between books. Now, as I join Lee’s countdown to Jade Legacy, I have a bit of an idea of how they felt. Luckily, I’ve only got to wait ‘til the end of the year to see how the Saga of the Kaul family concludes.

As a fantasy fan and something of a Sinophile with a MA in China Studies + trying to read more diverse books and actually living over here in Asia, The Green Bone saga was exactly what I have been looking for. It hooked me where Ken Liu’s Dandelion Dynasty left me a bit cold, had more compelling characters than the somewhat robotic protagonists of Liu Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth's Past (3 Body Problem books), featured tragedy and brutality that didn’t just piss me off like RF Kuang’s The Poppy War, and was more modern and accessible to lao-wai (westerners/gweilo/ang-moh...etc) than the epic wu-xia classic Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong. However, I think my familiarity with these books (especially Condor Heroes) is what made the first two Green Bone Saga books really “pop” for me.

These books are about a battle for control over the city of Janloon, the pan-Asian-influenced capital city on the island of Kekon. Until ~20-30 years before the start of the story, Kekon was ruled by the larger, foreign empire of Shotar (which made me think Kekon was a bit like Taiwan under Japanese occupation though Lee says there is not one influence for the setting... as a former Hong Kong-er, Janloon definitely didn’t “feel” like HK to me though). What makes Kekon special among all the other lands in this world is that it is the only place that produces jade. This isn’t normal jade like we know it. Rather, it gives people something of a “power-up” effect and the Kekonese people are the only ones who are able to hone it without becoming addicted or losing their minds. It is central to their culture and they have a rigorous code of honor controlling who can have it, how they train to use it, and what these “Green Bones” can and can’t do with it. 

During the occupation, there was one Green Bone clan called the One Mountain Society that organized a successful rebellion for independence. Now, in peacetime, that one clan has splintered into two, the Mountain and the No Peak, and are more like rival mafias squabbling over control of territory, business interests, and influence over politicians in the rapidly developing and prosperous modern Kekon. 

When I realized that their jade-powered magic system was the same as the feats of the heroic "Seven Freaks of Jiangnan" in Condor Heroes, this book sunk its claws into me and would not let go. Because for as much as this book is pitched as “The Godfather, but Asian,” it is that homage to the wu-xia genre that really made it special for me. To be fair, it contains plenty of “mafia” tropes--fancy cars (that may or may not explode), visits to brothels and gambling dens, and the struggle of supporting your family or leaving that life behind--but these mafiosos have the power of super strength and speed, are impossibly light on their feet, can make their skin unbreakable to blades, and the most powerful can “channel” the life right out of someone. If you’re having trouble imagining this, here’s a short clip I found from a Condor Heroes adaptation (there are a million of them) showing a wu-xia stye fight. What I loved about this book is that it’s this but in suits in a contemporary, ~1960s-70s setting. Almost like Legend of Korra and Republic City, but much grittier and adult.

There are a plenty of exciting twists and turns in these books that I would be remiss to spoil. I’ve definitely become attached to the Kaul family, the “heroes” (or anti-heroes?) of the book, and I am really excited for both the final book to be released this year and for the potential TV adaptation because there are many exciting fight scenes that would like great on screen. The combination of guns, knives, swords, martial arts, magic... it was fun to read but damn would it be even more fun to watch!

I loved these books, though I’m not sure who I’d recommend them too since I think it is my love for and familiarity with Chinese and other Asian media that took these books from good to great for me. As with any unfinished series, I’ll just have to wait and read the last one before passing final judgement. Perhaps I’ll squeeze in a reread in the mean time. 

Jade War

by

Fonda Lee

My rating:

4 of 5 stars