Book Reviews: Napkin, Monir; Bunny, Awad; Halfway Human, Gilman

[juushika]

Title: Napkin
Author: Carta Monir
Published: 2019
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 125
Total Page Count: 383,520
Text Number: 1443
Read Because: absolutely no memory of how I found this; pay-what-you-want download
Review: I enjoyed the hell out of this: joyful, painful, playful, frank, super sexy—and in combination transcendent, but in a format and with a voice that's eminently consumable, even breezy despite the content.


Title: Bunny
Author: Mona Awad
Published: Penguin Publishing Group, 2019
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 383,850
Text Number: 1444
Read Because: this BookTube video, according to my ancient notes; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A disaffected scholarship post-grad stands at the outside looking in at the hilariously claustrophobic, intense clique of her cohorts, who call themselves the Bunnies. The premise and atmosphere here is a lot of fun: slipstream Mean Girls with the contrast and saturation amped, grotesque and absurd, never believable but often immersive. Time with the Bunnies is a trip, but the plot is lackluster, and when it takes over in the second half the book falls flat.


Title: Halfway Human
Author: Carolyn Ives Gilman
Published: Phoenix Pick, 2017 (1998)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 400
Total Page Count: 384,570
Text Number: 1446
Read Because: reading more of the author & this particular book was reviewed by Rosamund; ebook purchased with actual dollars over my birthday, which I never do, but which is probably how I'll have to read any more Gilman
Review: Refugee Tedla is a bland, a neuter from an isolated planet whose tripart gender system uses blands as a slave caste. I find that work with the premise "wouldn't it be interesting if [absolutely real facet of queer experience; here, agender/asexual identities] existed in a speculative context" begins at a natural disadvantage, even if it was groundbreaking for its time. This also has issues with structure—the chronological first-person testimony is awfully convenient, and conveniently interrupted by cliffhanger mysteries and plot reveals and found documents.

But yanno what, those cliffhangers may be manipulative but they're also effective; and more importantly this builds into something surprisingly nuanced. It answers almost every flaw in narratives of this type, where a social justice issue is endemic to an alien people encountered by outsiders. It's a developed, thoughtful part of an alien culture, but its repercussions aren't endemic; the protagonist is a complete and complex person as well as an avenue of speculative exploration; outsider "savior" characters are put under intense scrutiny, and change comes slowly & from within.

So I don't like this as much as Dark Orbit, which I loved—distinctly there's no atmosphere, no sense of beauty; beauty here is innately tied to class and exploitation. But it defied all my initial doubts. An engaging read but only grows better as it goes. ...And now I really want to read more Gilman.

Comments

[ambyr]

Halfway Human is one of those books that every time I cull my shelves, I pick up, think "I'm never going to reread this," and then . . . put back anyway. I don't think it should work, but it does, and there's nothing else quite like it out there.

[juushika]

Exactly!

[starshipfox]

reading your review and then rereading my own was very funny, because I clearly loved this book, and yet I agree with all your points re. queer identity / convenience of the plot device. It reminds me that I really want to read more of Gilman's work though, and reread "Dark Orbit"

[juushika]

I love it as a sort of living example of a book being more than the sum of its parts. When I started it I was very "but I thought ... book was supposed to be perfect?"--and it's not, of course it's not, but! but it's so much more than those flaws; there's more to "great" than "perfect."

[starshipfox]

I saw someone on Tumblr say, "honestly i’ve stopped caring if media is good. all that matters is that Me, The Most Important Person, is having a good time," and I realise when I look back on books I've read that this is definitely my reviewing policy. Middlemarch, often considered the best novel in English? Three stars. A fun sci fi adventure? Five stars.

I do agree with you about this being one of the books that's more than the sum of its parts though. A lot of my favourite books just happen to scratch my Id in the right way and aren't actually like... good.