Recent Harvard graduate Simon Putnam has been rejected from grad school and has thus returned to his parents’ place in Coney Island for the foreseeablRecent Harvard graduate Simon Putnam has been rejected from grad school and has thus returned to his parents’ place in Coney Island for the foreseeable future. It’s the summer of 1953, and Simon and his parents spend their evenings devotedly watching the news coverage of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s trial — an event that is especially emotionally charged for the Putnam family. Like the Rosenbergs, the Putnams are Jewish, and Ethel Rosenberg is a former classmate of Simon’s mother. Contrary to the predominant social attitude about the Rosenbergs, Simon and his parents watch with horror and disbelief as the execution takes place.
You can read my full review HERE on BookBrowse, and you can read a piece I wrote about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg HERE....more
The Other Black Girl is an interesting one — I don’t think this wholly succeeds either as a piece of literary fiction or genre fiction, but I still haThe Other Black Girl is an interesting one — I don’t think this wholly succeeds either as a piece of literary fiction or genre fiction, but I still had a lot of fun reading it. Set at a fictional competitive publishing house in New York, Wagner, whose toxic work environment is captured with aplomb, it follows Nella, an editorial assistant and the only Black employee who is thrilled when a new Black girl is hired in a role similar to her own. But shortly after, Nella starts receiving cryptic messages begging her to leave Wagner, and she doesn’t know who she can trust.
Where this fails as a thriller, it succeeds as literary fiction: the pace is practically glacial, but not for nothing; Zakiya Dalila Harris uses that time to wholly develop her characters and depict the toxic insularity of workplace microaggressions. There’s a lot of sharp, biting commentary in here about what it means to be Black in a white office, and what it takes to get ahead in the publishing industry; it’s an incisive read in that regard and I would happily have read an entire novel devoted solely to this element. But then the day-to-day office drudgery starts to fade into the background when the mystery element comes to the forefront.
Where this fails as literary fiction, it succeeds as a thriller: the writing itself is engaging but otherwise nothing special, there’s a weird, quasi-speculative twist that comes out of nowhere, there are random POV chapters interspersed from other women embroiled in the bigger picture thing that’s going on that don’t further the story in any way, but which I assume are there to add tension and intrigue. But the tension and intrigue are never fully there because the pacing is so uneven.
You could certainly laud this book, as many have, for being a sort of ‘genre-defying’ creation, but for me, this was just an overly ambitious project, especially for a debut. Its refusal to fit staunchly into a ‘literary’ or ‘genre’ box isn’t the issue; it’s that we end up with a book that’s half scathing social commentary of racism in corporate America, half a Get Out-style thriller, and it didn’t fully execute either of those aims as well as it could have. That said, even though this never came together in the way I was hoping for, I certainly did enjoy reading it — it’s unexpected, it’s original, it’s sharp, it’s funny — and I think Zakiya Dalila Harris is an author to watch out for....more
I guess it's natural to be slightly underwhelmed by a book that's gotten as much hype as Luster has. And it absolutely does deserve the hype, in a loI guess it's natural to be slightly underwhelmed by a book that's gotten as much hype as Luster has. And it absolutely does deserve the hype, in a lot of ways. Raven Leilani's voice and writing style are spectacular, and so is her characterization of protagonist Edie. This is very much a "disaster women" book (i.e., a subgenre of literary fiction about 20-something year-old women having a lot of casual sex and making terrible life decisions) but it's also its own thing, refreshing both in voice and structure.
My main issue with this book isn't even something it did wrong, per se - but about 40% through the book it took a turn that I didn't want it to take, and we ended up spending the rest of the book in a situation that I found much less interesting than the one that had been presented to us at the beginning. I didn't find Rebecca to be a particularly convincing figure and her dynamic with Edie really failed to engage or move me. Even less interesting to me was Eric, Edie's love interest, an older, married, white man (Edie is a Black woman, and much younger than Eric - it's a dynamic that facilitates moments of sharp insight on Leilani's part but Eric himself is something of a wet blanket). It's Edie herself that holds this novel together (she's a realistic, sympathetic, compelling figure); it's the circumstances she finds herself in that I felt didn't ultimately live up to their narrative potential.
I initially gave this 4 stars but I waited a few weeks to write this review and in that time this book has sort of faded in my estimation and I haven't really thought about it since putting it down, so that's never an amazing sign. I think this is a promising debut in a lot of ways and Raven Leilani is absolutely an author I'll be keeping an eye on, but this didn't quite do what I wanted it to do for me.
Thank you to Netgalley and FSG for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
Hysteria belongs to a Marmite subset of literary fiction that I like to call 'books about disaster women'. (Other disaster women books include, for eHysteria belongs to a Marmite subset of literary fiction that I like to call 'books about disaster women'. (Other disaster women books include, for example: The Pisces, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Almost Love.) These books tend to feature young women in their 20s-30s who have abrasive personalities and make poor decisions and have a lot of casual sex usually for the wrong reasons. If you do not enjoy disaster women books, you will not like Hysteria, it's important to get that out of the way. This will not be the book to change your mind and embrace this whole subgenre if it's something you've henceforth found uninteresting or repulsive.
But with that said, if you do enjoy disaster women books, it's a damn good one. In Hysteria we follow an unnamed narrator living in Brooklyn, who goes into her local bar one day and discovers a new bartender has just started working there; she becomes compelled by him and starts to believe that he is none other than Sigmund Freud.
Hysteria is short, punchy, and shocking. The way Jessica Gross juxtaposes the narrator's meditations on sexual desire and meditations on daughterhood are uncomfortable to the extreme - I'm trying to avoid using the word oedipal in this review as I know that isn't an enticing prospect for most people - but what works is that Gross's writing never tips into gratuitousness. It isn't provocative for the sake of being provocative; she actually does have incisive points to make as she simultaneously celebrates and interrogates the narrator's lasciviousness. Not a book for everyone but highly recommended to those who it appeals to.
Thank you to Unnamed Press for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
In Red at the Bone, a quick, engrossing, fairly plotless read, Jacqueline Woodson dissects the anatomy of a family. She's able to skillfully distill In Red at the Bone, a quick, engrossing, fairly plotless read, Jacqueline Woodson dissects the anatomy of a family. She's able to skillfully distill a collection of lives down to their bare essentials, without anything feeling rushed or underdeveloped, a feat in a book that's scarcely 200 pages. The novel is narrated by a handful of characters and centers on Melody, a teenage girl preparing for her coming of age ceremony in her family's home in Brooklyn. The narrative then weaves in and out of the past and present, in short, readable chapters, all pervaded by a sense of nostalgia and melancholy.
At times I found Woodson's writing a tad overwrought (here I will cite the most obvious offender: WHY do authors feel compelled to have characters narrate their own births - has anyone else noticed that this is a growing trend?!). However, on the whole I found that subjects were navigated with deftness and subtlety - the chapter in particular which introduces a major world event I found positively gutting.
The downside of short, punchy books like this is that they never tend to leave much of a lasting impression on me, and I doubt Red at the Bone will be an exception in the long run, but I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with it....more
This book was a bit of a rollercoaster for me: I loved it and I hated it, I found it brilliant and I found it frustrating. I was actually expecting vThis book was a bit of a rollercoaster for me: I loved it and I hated it, I found it brilliant and I found it frustrating. I was actually expecting very little from it (books about rich people's marriages failing just aren't my thing; see: Fates and Furies) so on the whole I'd categorize it as a pleasant surprise, though I do have a few too many qualms to raise my rating higher than a solid 3 star.
What I found brilliant about this book was the character work. As others have said ad nauseum, every character in this book is deplorable, and if that's a problem for you, you aren't going to get anything out of this. I didn't like Toby and Rachel, I didn't find them sympathetic, and I found the stakes (how ever will this family survive on Toby's $200k salary alone!) mind-numbingly low. So I suppose it's to Brodesser-Akner's credit that I was invested. I did care about whether these annoying kids would have to be uprooted from their life. I did care about whether Rachel would resume the mantel of motherhood, or whether she had abandoned her family for good. And I think the reason for that is that every major character in this book felt so thoroughly fleshed out and human. This is a book about fallible people failing; it's a train wreck that you can't look away from. That's exactly what it sets out to be, and it succeeds magnificently in that regard.
What I found frustrating about this book was the structure. For one thing, it was overly long: this could have been an intimate, thorough excavation of this marriage, and still been 150 pages shorter. It wasn't the page-count alone that bothered me: it was the fact that flashbacks were awkwardly woven into the narrative in a way that was like 'Toby saw a family with three kids get on the subway. He and Rachel used to want to have three kids. [Cue 8 page backstory about that.]' Incessantly. It felt rather amateurishly constructed in this regard.
My biggest problem though was the book's choice of narrator. Full disclosure: first person minor rarely ever works for me, and this was not the book to change my mind. It's not narrated by Toby or Rachel, but rather Libby, one of Toby's college friends who becomes invested in their marriage. I found this to be such a flimsy framing device that ultimately didn't add very much, and there were a few painfully on the nose moments where the author aimed for a larger commentary about how Libby's role in the narrative was being sidelined (middle aged women are invisible, etc), but the fact that it was the author's own narrative choice to sideline Libby made the whole thing a bit of an eye-roll.
So anyway, a mixed bag, but I certainly got a lot more out of this than I had expected to. I do think it's a brilliant commentary on marriage and the sort of contradictory societal expectations placed on women, and if that sounds appealing to you and you're willing to navigate through it with loathsome characters, I would recommend it....more
In the opening pages of her debut novel, Alexis Schaitkin introduces the reader to an idyllic beach scene, where mostly American tourists are loungingIn the opening pages of her debut novel, Alexis Schaitkin introduces the reader to an idyllic beach scene, where mostly American tourists are lounging around on the fictional island of Saint X. Within a few pages idyll turns to tragedy as the 18-year-old daughter of the Thomas family, Alison, goes missing, and days later turns up dead. Two men are charged with her murder, but both are acquitted, and the mystery goes unsolved. Years later, we follow Alison's younger sister, Claire, who was only seven years old at the time of Alison's death. Now living in New York, Claire has a chance encounter that brings her into contact with Clive Richardson, one of the two men that had been charged with killing Alison. Believing their encounter to be an act of fate, Claire latches onto her connection with Clive in an attempt to discover what really happened to her sister.
You can read my full review HERE, and a piece I wrote about Caribbean immigration to the US HERE....more
Divide Me By Zero begins with an encounter between the narrator, Katya Geller, a 40-something mother of two, and a fish seller in Staten Island from wDivide Me By Zero begins with an encounter between the narrator, Katya Geller, a 40-something mother of two, and a fish seller in Staten Island from whom Katya is buying caviar. “I was brought up in the Soviet Union, where caviar was considered a special food reserved for children and dying parents,” Katya says. The fish seller, another Soviet immigrant, understands Katya’s meaning and the two lock eyes and begin to cry. This moment of intense connection between two strangers charts the course for Lara Vapnyar’s frank and emotionally honest story of love and loss.
You can read the rest of my review HERE on BookBrowse, and you can read a piece I wrote on the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky HERE....more
Devotion is this summer's Social Creature, a propulsive 'poor girl meets rich girl' story set in Manhattan, chronicling the mutually destructive relatDevotion is this summer's Social Creature, a propulsive 'poor girl meets rich girl' story set in Manhattan, chronicling the mutually destructive relationship between two young women, Elle and Lonnie. Elle is hired as a nanny for Lonnie's infant son, and soon her resentment toward her employer turns into an unhealthy obsession.
Despite the inevitable Social Creature comparison, Devotion isn't quite as suspenseful or climactic, and its protagonists left less of an impression on me. Even so, I had a hard time putting this down; for a slow-moving story it never really loses momentum, and it has that 'need to know what happens next' quality that mercifully doesn't feel like a cop-out when nothing ever really happens.
Madeline Stevens achieves this with pitch-perfect characterization of the novel's narrator, Elle, whose 'do I want to be her or do I want to sleep with her' dynamic with Lonnie is the morbidly compelling thread that holds this plotness novel together and keeps you turning pages. Ultimately: a quick, addictive read that doesn't offer much in the way of thrills or chills, but still has an eerie and unsettling quality that makes it impossible to look away, and which offers a deceptively nuanced commentary on living on the periphery of extreme wealth.
Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
What a lush and lovely book. I picked up The Parting Glass partially on a whim, but it captivated me practically from the first page. It tells the stoWhat a lush and lovely book. I picked up The Parting Glass partially on a whim, but it captivated me practically from the first page. It tells the story of lady's maid Maire O'Farren, alias Mary Ballard, an Irish immigrant employed by the beautiful young mistress Charlotte Walden in 19th century New York. Maire is captivated by Charlotte to the point of obsession, but Charlotte is having an affair with the stable groom, who happens to be Maire's twin brother. Through this awkward love triangle of sorts, The Parting Glass explores passion and obsession and sexuality and corruption and social unrest in a turbulent period of American and Irish history, and it does so with a gripping, pacy story that I could not put down.
One thing I loved about this book was its rich historical detail. In the afterward you can get a sense of the amount of research that Gina Marie Guadagnino put into this novel, and it really does show the whole way through. Though she never pulls the historical context to the forefront in a distracting way, she still firmly establishes the setting, which she could have easily downplayed in favor of the various romantic subplots. Instead, this is actually an impressive piece of historical fiction that focuses on the reception of Irish immigrants to America in the 19th century - not exactly untread territory, but it's handled in a way that feels relevant and immediate.
The other huge strength of this book for me was Maire's relationship with her brother Seanin. With a mother who died in childbirth and a father who died when they were young, growing up in Ireland Maire and Seanin were inseparable, and it's not until they move to the US that cracks in their relationship begin to form, Charlotte only acting as a catalyst for a rift that runs much deeper. I thought it was a fantastic depiction of a close, intense relationship that can easily flip the switch from love to hate. While Maire and Seanin's characterization was brilliant, I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Charlotte, though I'm wondering if her character was kept deliberately hazy as a reflection of Maire's idolization.
I will say, to anyone picking this up because of its Fingersmith comparison, don't expect Sarah Waters' quality of prose (I haven't read Fingersmith, but I have read Waters before). Though I do think Guadagnino has a fantastic command of language, this isn't quite on that same literary level, which I point out only because I imagine that's going to be the main criticism held against this novel. It almost feels overly dismissive to call this a beach read for Waters fans, but there may be some truth to that; it's certainly a clever book, but not half as dense as Waters. But I'd recommend you just ignore that comparison and enjoy it for what it is - a gem of lesbian historical fiction with compelling characters and a well-developed political backdrop.
Thank you to Edelweiss and Atria for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
Even after its National Book Award win I was hesitant to pick up The Friend, which I feared would be saccharine and emotionally manipulative, the two Even after its National Book Award win I was hesitant to pick up The Friend, which I feared would be saccharine and emotionally manipulative, the two reasons I tend to avoid books about animals. Mercifully it was nothing of the sort, and it was in fact nothing at all like I was expecting, but I was utterly enchanted by it.
The Friend follows an unnamed narrator whose best friend has just committed suicide, and in the midst of processing her own grief she's entreated to look after her friend's dog, a massive Great Dane. Animals aren't allowed in her rent controlled Manhattan apartment, but she feels a certain loyalty to this dog which won't allow her to give him up. But the plot itself is never really the focus; this is instead a philosophical book that mainly uses its premise as backdrop for its thematic conceits, and admittedly I understand why that doesn't work for a lot of readers, and why The Friend has been a divisive read, but my god did I love it.
This book is filled with beautifully crafted sentences (more understated than lyrical) that meditate on certain questions about grief and loss and friendship and writing that plague the narrator. Unable to make sense of her friend's sudden death, she's encouraged by her therapist to write about it (does writing actually help us process grief - another question interrogated by the narrator throughout the novel), and the result is the book that the reader is holding. At times I had to keep reminding myself this wasn't a memoir; the verisimilitude of the narrative voice was eerie, she'd mention a certain article she once wrote and I'd think 'that sounds interesting, I'll have to look that up' before remembering this was all fictional. The integration of literary allusions, another element that I think may vex certain readers with its frequency, I thought was done in a wonderfully authentic way, and the various writers mentioned gave me a good sense of how this character interacted with the world.
I just thoroughly loved this, and though it brought me to tears at one point, it certainly isn't a 'weepy dog book,' so if that's what's been keeping you away from this one I'd highly encourage you to give it a try - provided that you don't mind your novels heavier on philosophy than plot. There's also an ingeniously executed twist(?) in the penultimate chapter that allows you to read the entire book in one of two ways, and ambiguous endings (when done well) are always my favorites. This book is smart and emotionally honest all at once, my favorite combination....more
Nope, not for me I'm afraid. Asymmetry is more of an experiment than a novel, and an experiment that didn't warrant half as much tedium as what I founNope, not for me I'm afraid. Asymmetry is more of an experiment than a novel, and an experiment that didn't warrant half as much tedium as what I found myself subjected to. I 'got it' but I didn't find the payoff rewarding at all. There's a good argument to be made that the first two sections were badly written on purpose (once you figure out from the third section the thread that connects the two disparate stories) but if poorly executed structural innovation is all it takes for a book to be lauded as a masterpiece these days I think we need to raise that bar just a little bit higher....more
There are a lot of elements from Severance that we've all seen before - the global pandemic which brings an abrupt halt to civilization as we know it,There are a lot of elements from Severance that we've all seen before - the global pandemic which brings an abrupt halt to civilization as we know it, the few survivors trying to forge ahead in the absence of a structured society, the juxtaposition of before and after narratives. But the similarities to Station Eleven or Bird Box end there, because what Ling Ma does with Severance is fuse the post-apocalyptic survival genre with anti-capitalist satire, and it works almost startlingly well.
Both wry and meditative, Severance offers a positively haunting commentary on corporate greed and what that means for the individual, and that awful paradox of being trapped inside a system that you feel guilty having any part of. The fictional Shen Fever was pretty awful; rather than offering a quick death it would essentially turn people into zombies who performed rote tasks ad infinitum - it's heavy-handed but it works - but the most horrifying part of this novel was probably how much of the directionless millennial narrative resonated, and the amount of decisions these characters had to make at the detriment of their happiness just to survive, both before and after.
I did think the book's structure could have been more cohesive as a whole, and I felt like Ling Ma didn't really know what she wanted to do with the ending, but ultimately I loved this strong and unexpected debut. I can't wait to see what Ling Ma does next....more
I can't think of another contemporary thriller writer that does the page-turner as well as Riley Sager, and here he's come up with yet another brilliaI can't think of another contemporary thriller writer that does the page-turner as well as Riley Sager, and here he's come up with yet another brilliant premise: a young woman answers an ad to be an apartment sitter in a swanky building in the Upper West Side - and she's being paid $12,000 to do it, so what's the catch? (I think the less you know going into this book the better, so I'll just leave it there.) I imagine that Lock Every Door's pace will be the main drawback for some - our protagonist Jules does play amateur detective to no avail for about half the book - but with the way Sager writes, she probably could have been playing a game of chess and I'd have been equally as thrilled.
And no spoilers, but I loved that ending. I imagine it's also going to divide opinions, as it's not the most... conventional thriller resolution, but I thought it hit that perfect sweet spot of 'I really should have thought of that, but I never would have thought of that.' In my opinion this isn't as strong as Sager's debut Final Girls (which is pretty hard to beat), but I liked it a lot better than his follow-up effort The Last Time I Lied. I found Lock Every Door to be creepier and more original, and its protagonist more convincing. I do think Final Girls and The Last Time I Lied are more traditional crowd-pleasers, so maybe stick to one of those for an introduction to Sager, but I loved this; this is the most fun I've had with a thriller in ages....more
Vincent—a young woman named for American poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay—is working as a bartender in a hotel on a remote island in BritisVincent—a young woman named for American poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay—is working as a bartender in a hotel on a remote island in British Columbia, when one day a message is scrawled across the hotel window that reads: “Why don’t you swallow broken glass.” This sets off the unexpected chain of events that are chronicled by Emily St. John Mandel in her highly anticipated novel The Glass Hotel, which follows Vincent from rural Canada to Wall Street as she becomes involved with a high-level financial executive, whose successful business is revealed to be fronting a Ponzi scheme. This is the first novel that Mandel has published since the release of the wildly successful Station Eleven in 2014.
You can read my full review HERE and a piece I wrote about Ponzi schemes HERE....more
This book was a weird and offbeat delight. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is exactly what its title advertises - our unnamed narrator decides that allThis book was a weird and offbeat delight. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is exactly what its title advertises - our unnamed narrator decides that all she wants out of life is to sleep for a year straight. But not just 8 hour a night sleep - she wants to pass an entire year mostly unconscious, which she attempts to achieve with the help of a cocktail of pharmaceuticals prescribed by the least qualified psychiatrist of all time who she happened to find in the yellow pages.
I'm having a hard time putting my finger on what it is I liked so much about this book, when the interesting thing about it is that it makes no effort whatsoever to be likable. The narrator is a selfish twenty-something with no sense of responsibility toward anything or anyone in her life. The circumstances of her life are probably difficult for most readers to relate to - she's rich, she's thin, she's pretty, she lives in the Upper East Side in an apartment paid for by her inheritance - and she neither needs nor wants our pity. But at the same time, this candid and frank style has its own kind of charm and dark humor (it reminded me a bit of The Idiot in tone), and I found the overall effect to be both intriguing and a bit unsettling.
And, as with all good unlikable protagonists, there's definitely more to our narrator than she wants us to see. Her (borderline?) abusive relationship with her now dead parents certainly plays into the fact that she holds everyone - including us, including herself - at an arm's length. She resists accessing her emotions to such an extent that at first you wonder if she might actually be heartless, but throughout the book you start to notice certain cracks in her carefully constructed facade. She tells the reader ad nauseum that she doesn't care about her friend Reva, but this statement is occasionally belied by her actions especially under the influence of drugs. It's an interesting look at repression as a coping mechanism, as well as the lengths we're willing to go to to avoid the things we don't want to face.
Ironically, while the narrator's goal is laid out plainly from the first page - she wants to sleep for a year - Moshfegh's agenda with this novel is much more opaque. I will gladly admit to thinking on more than one occasion "I don't get it, I don't get what Moghfegh is trying to achieve with this." Because this book is just what it says on the tin: it's about a girl taking a lot of drugs and sleeping for a year. But even through those moments of doubt, I was engrossed. Moshfegh's prose is effortlessly engaging, and her rather unconventional exploration of mental health and ennui just really struck a chord with me. And the final page is like an emotional gut-punch. Having read this, I have a very good idea of why Ottessa Moshfegh seems to be such a polarizing writer, but if the rest of her books are this intriguing, I'm officially hooked....more
The Museum of Modern Love is a tender and thought-provoking book. Fusing fact and fiction, it centers around a real piece of performance art that was The Museum of Modern Love is a tender and thought-provoking book. Fusing fact and fiction, it centers around a real piece of performance art that was showcased at the MOMA in 2010 - The Artist is Present by the Serbian artist Marina Abramović. It then weaves together the narratives of several fictional characters, all of whom attend the performance and become so captivated by it that they attempt to use Marina's art as a way to process the grief in their own lives.
As someone who adores contemporary art and performance art, I find the highly controversial Marina Abramović to be a fascinating figure. The love and respect that Heather Rose has for Marina (to whom this novel is dedicated) can be felt on every page and it made it a joy to read. The parts of the novel that focused on Marina were the highlights for me - they helped give me such a clear picture of this piece of art and where it fit in with the rest of Marina's career
Unfortunately this did naturally mean that Rose's fictional creations, Arky and Jane, paled in comparison for me. I never fully believed Jane's character - she seemed too poised and too articulate for the role that she was supposed to be playing in the story. Arky on the other hand I did find more interesting, though he resisted my emotional engagement rather strongly and consequently I never felt particularly compelled by his narrative. But for its thoughtful portrayal of Marina and its tender exploration of grief and its wonderful depiction of the contemporary art world, I just loved this....more
Suicide Club is a book full of brilliant concepts that never develop into a convincing or engaging narrative. It's a speculative novel set in a near-fSuicide Club is a book full of brilliant concepts that never develop into a convincing or engaging narrative. It's a speculative novel set in a near-future New York society in which death is illegal and the pursuit of immortality is all-consuming. 100-year-old Lea Kirino is a model citizen; she has a high-level job on the New York exchange, which now deals in trading human organs, she has a genetically beautiful fiancé, and she's being considered for a promotion. But things change for Lea when she spots her estranged, fugitive father for the first time in 88 years, and she comes in contact with a group called the Suicide Club, which advocates for the right for everyone to live and die on their own terms.
So it pretty much goes without saying that this is a fantastic premise; where Suicide Club falls apart is in the execution. It starts out on a promising enough note - the worldbuilding at first seems impressive, and Rachel Heng does a good job of integrating her new terminology into the narrative so that it doesn't overwhelm. It's not until you get a decent amount of the way in that numerous holes begin to develop - and it's not so much in the nitty-gritty details as it is in the overarching concept. If society is still comprised of so many "sub-100s" (people with a 'normal' lifespan), how has death become such a cultural taboo? And why don't these groups revolt against those in power to gain access to their technology? Why is Lea so closely monitored for a supposed suicide attempt after she's hit by a car; does no one ever have a genuine accident in this society? In some ways this reminded me of Felicia Yap's Yesterday, another underwhelming speculative novel whose premise falls to pieces if you look too closely.
But the biggest problem with this book was the protagonist, Lea. I don't even know where to begin. I was sort of buddy reading this with my friend Hannah, who at one point said that the only logical explanation she would accept for Lea's behavior was if she were revealed to be an alien at the end of the book. Spoiler alert: she isn't. But I think that just about sums it up. Even though Lea has a lifespan of 200-300 years (so she's technically only middle aged), she's still 100-years-old, so you'd think we'd see some wisdom and life experience occasionally reflected in her behavior. Instead, she is the world's most wooden, immature, simple-minded character, who makes the most incomprehensible decisions and shows absolutely zero critical thinking skills. This would be convincing characterization for an 11-year-old girl; not a 100-year-old New York businesswoman. Her backstory too is laughably incongruous with her characterization, and her character development is hackneyed and unrealistic. Despite the questionable worldbuilding and positively dull narrative, I think this book could have been saved if we'd been focusing on someone other than Lea.
Which brings my to my next point, which is that we follow another character for a few chapters, Anja, a Swedish immigrant living in New York with her mother who is being kept alive in a vegetative state. Anja is vulnerable, complex, sympathetic - everything I hoped Lea would be - and it makes no sense to me why we follow Lea's journey so closely at the expense of Anja's. The split between their chapters is probably 70/30 in Lea's favor, which makes me wonder how Lea can come across as so under-developed when she has more than twice the narrative that Anja has.
So all in all, a disappointment. But it's worth noting that this is a debut novel, and a rather ambitious one at that. The writing itself was solid, and again, the premise was brilliant, so I think Rachel Heng shows promise. I'll be interested to see where she goes from here - though hopefully it's somewhere with a more convincing and sympathetic protagonist.
Thank you to Netgalley, Henry Holt, and Rachel Heng for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
The Cranes Dance follows Kate Crane, a soloist in a professional ballet company in New York, where she dances alongside her younger and more talented The Cranes Dance follows Kate Crane, a soloist in a professional ballet company in New York, where she dances alongside her younger and more talented sister Gwen. But Gwen has recently suffered a nervous breakdown and returned home, and now alone for the first time, Kate feels unmoored and on the verge of some kind of collapse herself, even though her sister's absence could allow for advancement in Kate's own career.
I already forgot that I finished this book last night which I think speaks to how anticlimactic I found the ending, but otherwise, I just loved this. I don't know the first second or third thing about ballet so I'm afraid I can't comment on how accurate of a portrayal this was, but I'm inclined to believe that former professional ballet dancer Meg Howrey knows her stuff. The ballet scenes were electrifying to read at any rate.
But the best thing about this book for me was its protagonist Kate - I probably went into this expecting to be more intrigued by Kate's sister Gwen, talented and tortured, who remains a sort of shadowy figure in the background throughout Kate's story, but it was actually Kate herself that was the heart and soul of this novel. Her narration is snarky, hard-edged, honest, and surprisingly vulnerable, and I found myself rationing my reading of this so I could spend more time with her. The pacing could have used a lot of work - about 100 pages could have been cut easily and never at any point could I figure out how much time was passing between chapters - but ultimately, for a character-driven novel it got the job done, because I was so invested in this character and in Howrey's candid portrayal of mental illness and its many manifestations. ...more
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