Book Review: Last Days of an Immortal, Fabien Vehlmann, illus. Gwénaël de Bonneval

Title: Last Days of an Immortal
Author: Fabien Vehlmann
Illustrator: Gwénaël de Bonneval
Translator: Edward Gauvin
Published: Boom Entertainment, 2012 (2010)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 525,420
Text Number: 1921
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: In a distant, intergalactic culture, a member of the police-equivalent solves interpersonal and intercultural disputes across space while juggling his relationship with his instanced self and the degradation it causes in his immortal memory. Very cerebral, and made moreso by the understated art, which creates an emotional distance from what's often an emotional text. I'm not a big fan of that approach, and Scott-Clary's Post-Self series does such a good job, and a much more thorny and emotional and nuanced job, with highly speculative instanced identities meeting casefic that I can't help but making the (admittedly niche) comparison to find that this falls short. I still like what it's trying to do, and it's an interesting, quick read, surprisingly dense narrative in a deceptively sparse style.

Book Review: House of Hollow, Krystal Sutherland, narr. Eleanor Bennett

Title: House of Hollow
Author: Krystal Sutherland
Illustrator: Eleanor Bennett
Published: Books on Tape, 2021
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 315
Total Page Count: 525,735
Text Number: 1922
Read Because: reviewed by rachelmanija, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County library
Review: As children, the Hollow sisters disappeared for two weeks and then came back changed; now, the eldest has disappeared again, and her sisters must uncover their past to find her. I struggle with YA, so that I don't hate this is backhanded compliment but compliment nonetheless. It retains YA markers that bug me: Snark's hard to write, Sutherland does a mediocre job, so instead of balancing out the dark fantasy aesthetic it just exaggerates an already exaggerated tone; predictably, a bevy of neat explanations undermines the very intentional liminality.

But this is willing to get dark & fantastic, and I appreciate that. It's a slow, overly-broadcasted journey into the speculative, but it has payoff, big spooky fairyland vibes, good; every reveal and consequence is generally as awful as it could possibly be, even better. Grey's character and her stranglehold over her sisters is seductive and empowered and ruthless and toxic, and that messy, compelling heart of the story doubles down on its own weirdness even when the plot resolves too neatly around it.