SITREP - Fantasy, Frankenstein, & Fails

The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is believed to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

Apr 28, 2024

Have you read Tadhg Hoey’s article on Percival Everett - the man, the myth, the legend? I’ve read two Everett’s, and I loved them both. 1

Book Things:

Currently Reading:

The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan: This is 100% pretentious, and I dig it. We follow a musician who experiences sudden profound hearing loss. There is no apparent cure, and she tries several experimental treatments throughout the book. In a series of vignettes, we explore how her hearing loss shapes her interaction with family, friends, and the world. It’s a super short book that I’ve been reading on my book phone when I have a few minutes to kill.

While preparing for a soon-to-be-released TBR Lowdown episode about celebrity book clubs (seriously, why are there so many?) I found Dakota Johnson’s book club, TeeTime, and saw The Hearing Test was the April pick. Consider this my first celebrity book club taste test. I am very impressed with the Instagram broadcast channel. We get mini deep dives on people, places, and art mentioned in the book which adds to the reading experience. Whoever is running this for Dakota is doing an excellent job. (65%)

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson: Not me watching YouTube videos to try to understand this world's politics and setup. Nope. Nope. Nope. Apparently, Gardens of the Moon is supposed to be confusing at the start because…mystery (insert jazz hands). Last week, I was so confident there were necromancers, but now I’m not sure. Maybe I made it all up. I do know for sure there’s a puppet spy and a mysterious girl named Sorry. I need someone to hold my hand through this one, please! (27%)

Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb: I’m chugging my way through this first installment of Liveship Traders (or I should say I’m sailing through…ok, I’ll stop). I love ballsy Althea Vestrit and am curious about our short king Wintrow. I wish we had more time with Ephron Vestrit. I’d love more from his backstory. I also wish I knew what Kenneth is up to. Meanwhile, Kyle can suck on a rock! The vibes of this series are so different from The Farseer Trilogy. I’m itching to see the rest of the worlds Hobb created for the Realm of the Elderlings. The magic in Liveship is nothing like in Farseer; learning about the ships and magic wizardwood is fascinating. The question is, can I finish this before the end of April? (24%)

Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante: We were sitting at 40%, and we’re still sitting at 40%. Will I make progress in this next week? You’ll have to subscribe to find out.

Recently Finished:

Overall, I’m pretty meh on all my finished reads this week.

Ours by Phillip B. Williams (Patreon pick): I’m starting to wonder if Britt Bennett calling this an “ambitious epic” was meant as a backhanded compliment. There are hints of One Hundred Years of Solitude, but Ours fails to live up to the inspiration. Part 3 was better than parts 1 & 2 (and not because the book was almost over). The story was more straightforward when we got to part 3, and it felt like a breath of fresh air. Though I enjoyed the end, where Williams finally reveals Saint’s backstory and what has been happening in and around the town of Ours, it wasn’t enough to make up for the overly convoluted beginning of the novel. I enjoyed the moments when fiction touched on historical facts; maybe having more of these moments to help ground the story would have made it easier for readers to connect with the text. There’s so much potential, but unfortunately, it didn’t work for me. I’m sad about this one; it should have been a five-star read.

I Fell In Love With Hope by Lancali: This is the story of four kids with chronic illnesses living in a hospital. They find family and comfort in each other while facing down death. It’s moving and incredibly sad. I respect what the author is trying to do with this book. She spent much of her youth in and out of hospitals dealing with chronic illness and wanted to write a story for kids like her. I think she succeeds in doing this. Much of the book is beautifully written, and the message of hope is very important. Unfortunately, I think it was overwritten with too much purple prose, which undermines some of the truly beautiful passages. The author is very young, and I Fell In Love With Hope is a promising start for her writing career. I would be very interested to see how her style develops as she matures as an author.

A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock: First, can we get some snaps for this cover? GORGEOUS! Now onto the contents: This is a queer, Victorian, fungus-filled reimagining of Frankenstein. As an avid mushroom lover, I appreciated the use of mycelium as the life source for the botanical daughter. Some moments are funny, and many more are sad, but doesn’t feel like “horror” to me. Our botanical daughter, Chloe, is a fascinating character, while her fathers, Simon and Gregor, are often unlikeable (especially Gregor). The relationship between Chloe and Jennifer is beautiful. These four people (?) form a truly unconventional family. It’s ultimately a more positive take on Frankenstein, and I’d love to see this as an anime.

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Oh Fyodor Fyodor Fyodor…will you ever write a woman that sounds real? Our narrator lost me when he decided to follow Nastenka to craft his own “meet cute” (I’ll save you the time; he stalks her and then saves her from being harassed by a drunk man on the street). Watching him set himself up as her “friend” while secretly dreaming she would fall in love with him made me cringe. I can see how this is a meditation on the dangers of believing our own fantasies, but I can’t get past how uncomfortable this made me feel. How many women have had a male “friend” lurking around, hoping you’d choose them? Honestly, our narrator can call himself a dreamer, but he reads like an incel. Nastenka sounds like a hollow caricature of a woman, while the narrator is entirely too dramatic for me. I’m sure someone will tell me I missed the point, but trust me, I see it, and I still hated this reading experience from start to finish. If you want a better review from someone who wasn’t cringing throughout, Unsolicited Advice has a great video on White Nights.

Just in from publishers:

No publisher mail this week instead, let’s highlight a couple of books from publishers that are languishing on my shelves (I need more time to read!):

Clear by Carys Davies (From Scribner, Out Now): Set in the 1840s, during the infamous Scottish Clearances, this stunning novel explores the “differences and connections between us, the way history shapes our deepest convictions, and how the human spirit can survive despite all odds.” The story follows a minister dispatched to a remote Scottish island to “clear” the last inhabitants, but they don’t intend to leave.

Fervor by Toby Lloyd (From Avid Reader Press, Out Now): The blurb hit me with buzz words like: “campus novel,” “horror tale,“ and “mysticism.” How could I pass this up? At its heart, this is a family story “where personal allegiances compete with obligations to history and to mysterious forces that offer both consolation and devastation.” Set in London, we follow a close-knit Jewish family who are “pushed to the brink when they suspect their daughter is a witch.” (Bonus points for that stunning cover!)

If you’ve read either of these, please comment below with your elevator pitch to read (or not read) them.

3, 2, 1, Round-up:

(AKA Random Non-Bookish Things because I totally have other interests)

Three Random Things I’m Loving:

It’s nearly time for Dracula Daily! Did you know the whole story of Dracula takes place from May 3 to November 7? Dracula Daily takes this classic epistolary novel and chops it up into small digestible bites. A newsletter is sent each day something happens in the book. It’s a fun and novel way to buddy-read this classic. (They also have a book version.) Someone should do this with Pamela.
I finally found the perfect gel polish for me! I love it when my nails are done, but it feels pointless since work destroys my hands. Also, I’m too lazy to go to the nail salon every few weeks. Most things you can do at home don’t stand up to the beating I put my hands through at the hospital. And if they do stand up, the polish destroys my nails. Not this Green Flash Gel from Manicurist. (You didn’t know you were coming here for nail girlie content, did you?)2
I’m throwing this in here because book collecting and reading are entirely different interests. One afternoon before work, I read Walter Benjamin’s essay Unpacking My Library3 (sometimes good things come from watching Ruby Granger). It’s a beautiful essay on the joys of book collecting. Sometimes, I feel silly having so many books and spending so much time hunting down titles for my collection. I wonder what it’s all for. But then I read essays like this, and I’m reminded of how thrilling (and culturally important) book collecting is. Not that anyone in the future will be clambering to get ahold of my extensive collection of Rebecca’s, but still. Book collecting is a wonderful hobby, even if I never read every book on my shelves.4
“And the non-reading of books, you will object, should be characteristic of collectors? This is news to me, you may say. It is not news at all. Experts will bear me out when I say that it is the oldest thing in the world.”
-Walter Benjamin

Bonus: I can’t call this something I love, but I left the house and watched an actual movie in the theater! We saw the new Guy Ritchie, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which was alright. Like most Guy Ritchie films, the music was fantastic and it was cinematically beautiful. But it was missing the snappy, fast-paced, witty banter that I’ve come to expect from Ritchie. We were nearly there with the sausage and black bread scene, but that was a tease. Of course, Henry Cavill was as dreamy as ever, but Alan Ritchson’s character, Anders Lassen, stole the show. Rory Kinnear was the worst Churchill I’ve ever seen on screen. It was laughably bad. But it entertained me, and I guess that’s the bare minimum you need a movie to do.

Two Videos to Watch:

It was hard to pick only two videos this week:

Ana Wallace Johnson opened up about her journey with sobriety. It’s a very raw video. It’s so easy for having fun to slip into drinking too much, especially when so many of our social interactions center around drinking. I loved her honesty!

Ah, Dakota Warren, love or hate her, I don’t care. I’m not ashamed to admit I loved her most recent video about journaling. I found it inspiring as someone who waffles between avid journaling and leaving my notebooks forgotten under a pile of unread books.