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juushikaTitle: Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook
Author: Christina Henry
Published: Berkley Books, 2017
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 336,190
Text Number: 1222
Read Because: multiple recommedations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After many years living beside Peter Pan, the first lost boy begins to have doubts about Peter's motives. When I read Barrie's Peter and Wendy, I was captured by Peter's unsettling characterization—there's certainly room to explore the repercussions of his amorality, or even room for a fun horror retelling. But this does a poor job of both, largely due to the narrative voice. There's no proof of the preceding good times with Peter except for the narrator's word, so there's no sense of betrayal. The narrative is packed with reflections on straightforward or predictable plot developments and incessant realizations that Peter, once trusted, is actually Bad—and this is what kills the book: the bland, repetitive interiority strips away the psychological tension while the straightforward writing style undermines the violence, and what's left is a short narrative stretched thin. This is an inversion, maybe, for Disney's adaptation, and the basic plot makes for a sufficiently compelling argument; but the original novel is honestly more haunting than this is.
Title: The Turn of the Screw
Author: Henry James
Published: Gutenberg, 2008 (1898)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 120
Total Page Count: 336,310
Text Number: 1223
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook via Gutenberg
Review: A new governess attends orphaned children at an isolated country manor, and their incredible loveliness belies something strange. I can see why this has aged well: the subjectivity/ambiguity of the narrator is a substantial part of the reading experience—it's more subtle than an obvious unreliable narrator, and the unresolved elements linger and grow richer for the attention paid to them. I'd call this more ambiguous than haunting, but it's a haunting ambiguity, an interpersonal discomfort; creepy children can be such a cheap trope, but their characterization here, brilliant and canny, is so much better than I'm used to. But for all that I like this in theory, I found the reading itself unexpectedly rocky. I've read plenty of classics without issue, but there's something in James's vocabulary and run-on sentence structure that I never adapted to.
Title: The Murders of Molly Southbourne 1(Molly Southbourne Book 1)
Author: Tade Thompson
Published: Tor, 2017
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 120
Total Page Count: 336,430
Text Number: 1224
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A strange little girl grows up under strict rules, because every time she bleeds she spawns a copy of herself who eventually tries to kill her. This has a first person frame narrative with a decent function but a bland voice. But the central narrative, third person, cold and almost clinical in tone, high-concept brutal action in content, is a hell of a ride. It's grim sometimes to excess and wraps up too many elements too neatly in the fourth act, but it's aggressively strange, pushing the speculative elements just that extra bit further particularly re: what it means to "bleed," how limited or ineffectual are the rules. And the brutality is contrasted by slivers of broken intimacy between the protagonist and her doubles. Those indefinable, secret spaces and unanswered questions about personhood are almost but not quite overshadowed by the violence, and they're what make this work for me. It's not flawless, I don't love the sequel, but this is well worth the single-sitting read.
Title: The Survival of Molly Southbourne (Molly Southbourne Book 2)
Author: Tade Thompson
Published: Tor, 2019
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 110
Total Page Count: 336,570
Text Number: 1226
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The only surviving molly takes over her original's life. The first book has a close "story of my life" focus that contrasts a cold, violent tone with intangible intimate moments. This second book has a wider scope and more worldbuilding, but it's not long enough for that breadth and becomes cluttered and disjointed. But what disappoints me most is that I wanted a molly's PoV, I wanted insight into their minds and particularly into their murder-drive—and this engages some interesting questions of identity and introduces the potential for intimacy, which is the best part of the narrative, but it doesn't worldbuild the murder-drive much at all. Leaving the most difficult part unexplored is a cop-out and missed opportunity. This is still readable, still has a unique concept and a distinct tension in its tone, but I didn't find it as engaging as the first book.
Also: gross fatphobia.
Author: Christina Henry
Published: Berkley Books, 2017
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 336,190
Text Number: 1222
Read Because: multiple recommedations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After many years living beside Peter Pan, the first lost boy begins to have doubts about Peter's motives. When I read Barrie's Peter and Wendy, I was captured by Peter's unsettling characterization—there's certainly room to explore the repercussions of his amorality, or even room for a fun horror retelling. But this does a poor job of both, largely due to the narrative voice. There's no proof of the preceding good times with Peter except for the narrator's word, so there's no sense of betrayal. The narrative is packed with reflections on straightforward or predictable plot developments and incessant realizations that Peter, once trusted, is actually Bad—and this is what kills the book: the bland, repetitive interiority strips away the psychological tension while the straightforward writing style undermines the violence, and what's left is a short narrative stretched thin. This is an inversion, maybe, for Disney's adaptation, and the basic plot makes for a sufficiently compelling argument; but the original novel is honestly more haunting than this is.
Title: The Turn of the Screw
Author: Henry James
Published: Gutenberg, 2008 (1898)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 120
Total Page Count: 336,310
Text Number: 1223
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook via Gutenberg
Review: A new governess attends orphaned children at an isolated country manor, and their incredible loveliness belies something strange. I can see why this has aged well: the subjectivity/ambiguity of the narrator is a substantial part of the reading experience—it's more subtle than an obvious unreliable narrator, and the unresolved elements linger and grow richer for the attention paid to them. I'd call this more ambiguous than haunting, but it's a haunting ambiguity, an interpersonal discomfort; creepy children can be such a cheap trope, but their characterization here, brilliant and canny, is so much better than I'm used to. But for all that I like this in theory, I found the reading itself unexpectedly rocky. I've read plenty of classics without issue, but there's something in James's vocabulary and run-on sentence structure that I never adapted to.
Title: The Murders of Molly Southbourne 1(Molly Southbourne Book 1)
Author: Tade Thompson
Published: Tor, 2017
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 120
Total Page Count: 336,430
Text Number: 1224
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A strange little girl grows up under strict rules, because every time she bleeds she spawns a copy of herself who eventually tries to kill her. This has a first person frame narrative with a decent function but a bland voice. But the central narrative, third person, cold and almost clinical in tone, high-concept brutal action in content, is a hell of a ride. It's grim sometimes to excess and wraps up too many elements too neatly in the fourth act, but it's aggressively strange, pushing the speculative elements just that extra bit further particularly re: what it means to "bleed," how limited or ineffectual are the rules. And the brutality is contrasted by slivers of broken intimacy between the protagonist and her doubles. Those indefinable, secret spaces and unanswered questions about personhood are almost but not quite overshadowed by the violence, and they're what make this work for me. It's not flawless, I don't love the sequel, but this is well worth the single-sitting read.
Title: The Survival of Molly Southbourne (Molly Southbourne Book 2)
Author: Tade Thompson
Published: Tor, 2019
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 110
Total Page Count: 336,570
Text Number: 1226
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The only surviving molly takes over her original's life. The first book has a close "story of my life" focus that contrasts a cold, violent tone with intangible intimate moments. This second book has a wider scope and more worldbuilding, but it's not long enough for that breadth and becomes cluttered and disjointed. But what disappoints me most is that I wanted a molly's PoV, I wanted insight into their minds and particularly into their murder-drive—and this engages some interesting questions of identity and introduces the potential for intimacy, which is the best part of the narrative, but it doesn't worldbuild the murder-drive much at all. Leaving the most difficult part unexplored is a cop-out and missed opportunity. This is still readable, still has a unique concept and a distinct tension in its tone, but I didn't find it as engaging as the first book.
Also: gross fatphobia.
