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juushikaI have fallen down a new picture book rabbit hole, which means that, in order to avoid being drowned by 23904823 reviews I've failed to crosspost, I should ... crosspost ... reviews. Each year I'm pretty sure I should start posting these individually and then I don't; here we are to another year of that.
Title: House of Hunger
Author: Alexis Henderson
Published: Ace, 2022
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 503,620
Text Number: 1792
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A poor young woman from the slums is selected to be a bloodmaid, a pampered indentured servant whose blood is consumed by a member of the powerful foreign aristocracy. An Elizabeth Báthory-inspired gothic confection, this has an abundance of style and a rich premise: a blood-fueled social economy, an inherent violence, a romantic danger, and a whirlwind, unhinged sapphic romance. I love the setting; I want to like the romance despite unconvincing insta-love elements.
But the action is only fractionally as interesting as the rest of the book is or could be. Not because itupsets the central romance or because Lisavet is the villain, but rather because the action is compressed and repetitive and weirdly uncomplicated, which is typified by the two identical "I find you compelling but we're destined to fight" confrontations which are heavy on telling and don't show any real character arc. It feels in bad faith to say that gothic horror exaggerates to its downfall; on the contrary, it should delight in the bombastic. But Lisavet literally sucking the life force from her victims is less interesting than - anything: the cultural cachet of blood, the inherent power imbalance between the central characters, Lisavet as both victim to and participant in the cycle of violence and objectification. This grabbed my complete attention, but I feel like it could be a much better version of itself with some redrafting.
Title: Skellig
Author: David Almond
Published: Yearling, 2000 (1998)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 503,810
Text Number: 1793
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist's newborn sister is in ill health; and he discovers a strange man living in his family's deteriorating garage. This is weird, no doubt about it, and I love to see middle grade books get weird; unfortunately, it's not a weird that grabbed me. Something about "the man living in our garage, but it's magical realism" stretched my suspension of disbelief; it's more creepy than magical, although I continue to love Almond's prose, sparse, occasionally evasive, with mundane, realistic dialog and convincingly childish characters. Fine, but didn't blow me out of the water the way Kit's Wilderness did.
Title: The World Cannot Give
Author: Tara Isabella Burton
Published: Simon & Schuster, 2022
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 504,130
Text Number: 1794
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The new girl at an elite boarding school falls in with the campus choir, an insular group wrapped around its untouchable, charismatic female lead. This is another "perfect, no, probably not; but so much my catnip that I don't care" book; like Social Creature seen slantwise, action toned down, feelings turned up, with the same toxic female friendships verging unsubtly into queer longing; and I did roll around in the hot mess of it, intoxicated and overjoyed. A book about wishing for transcendence; about toxic friendships, the near-pleasurable misery of unrequited queer attraction; melodramatic, funny, painfully self-aware, but more emotional than frenetic. I'm here for all of it; this is definite reread material.
(FYI Burton has an essay about Queer Friendship and the Psychological Thriller that helped me knit together some pieces about why I've fallen so hard for toxic female friendships lately.)
Title: House of Hunger
Author: Alexis Henderson
Published: Ace, 2022
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 503,620
Text Number: 1792
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A poor young woman from the slums is selected to be a bloodmaid, a pampered indentured servant whose blood is consumed by a member of the powerful foreign aristocracy. An Elizabeth Báthory-inspired gothic confection, this has an abundance of style and a rich premise: a blood-fueled social economy, an inherent violence, a romantic danger, and a whirlwind, unhinged sapphic romance. I love the setting; I want to like the romance despite unconvincing insta-love elements.
But the action is only fractionally as interesting as the rest of the book is or could be. Not because it
Title: Skellig
Author: David Almond
Published: Yearling, 2000 (1998)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 503,810
Text Number: 1793
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist's newborn sister is in ill health; and he discovers a strange man living in his family's deteriorating garage. This is weird, no doubt about it, and I love to see middle grade books get weird; unfortunately, it's not a weird that grabbed me. Something about "the man living in our garage, but it's magical realism" stretched my suspension of disbelief; it's more creepy than magical, although I continue to love Almond's prose, sparse, occasionally evasive, with mundane, realistic dialog and convincingly childish characters. Fine, but didn't blow me out of the water the way Kit's Wilderness did.
Title: The World Cannot Give
Author: Tara Isabella Burton
Published: Simon & Schuster, 2022
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 504,130
Text Number: 1794
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The new girl at an elite boarding school falls in with the campus choir, an insular group wrapped around its untouchable, charismatic female lead. This is another "perfect, no, probably not; but so much my catnip that I don't care" book; like Social Creature seen slantwise, action toned down, feelings turned up, with the same toxic female friendships verging unsubtly into queer longing; and I did roll around in the hot mess of it, intoxicated and overjoyed. A book about wishing for transcendence; about toxic friendships, the near-pleasurable misery of unrequited queer attraction; melodramatic, funny, painfully self-aware, but more emotional than frenetic. I'm here for all of it; this is definite reread material.
(FYI Burton has an essay about Queer Friendship and the Psychological Thriller that helped me knit together some pieces about why I've fallen so hard for toxic female friendships lately.)
