![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Spindle and Dagger (aka Lies and Miracles)
Author: J. Anderson Coats
Published: Candlewick, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: ?
Text Number: ?
Read Because: reviewed bychthonic_cassandra, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Deeply rooted historical fiction about a young woman attempting to sell the lie of a saint's blessings to a Welsh prince in order to buy her safety within the warband that killed her family. The protagonist's lie, her complicated relationships with other women, her tenuous position, her trauma, often intentionally lead her to communicate poorly; I adore that, but when combined with the number of bait and switch near-escapes, the structure starts to feel strained, almost contrived - which is frustrating because there's no emotional contrivance. So I can nitpick: I wish the structure were an inch different; I wish it weren't as yoked to its historical inspiration, because the larger plot is less interesting than the protagonist's story. But her story got me to read first-person present-tense YA and like it, which is near enough a miracle: the adherence to her point of view and willingness to allow her flaws makes for an astute, nuanced portrait of trauma.
Title: Tell Me I’m Worthless
Author: Alison Rumfitt
Published: Tor Nightfire, 2023 (2021)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 50 265
Total Page Count: 507,260
Text Number: 1816
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: DNF at 20%. You know that person who keeps pointing out [bad things happening to shared social group], and you go, I acknowledge and am horrified by this but I'm not sure what you want me to do with this information except to be angry about it? I understand what motivates that sharing; there's space for it, for shared rage, for pure acknowledgement; at best, it can be an impetus to action. But it's often just a suffering vortex, a spiral of anger and despair.
Tell Me I'm Worthless has a great title and undoubtedly has a receptive audience, but it was pulling me into the suffering vortex.
Title: Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?
Author: Roz Chast
Published: Bloomsbury USA, 2014
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 230
Total Page Count: 507,490
Text Number: 1817
Read Because: borrowed from a local Little Free Library
Review: A graphic memoir, this follows the author's relationship with her aging parents as they approach end of life. This runs into the usual issue of "how to rate a memoir": Not every page lands; predictably, it's the humor that fails me. But the complete text does work, which doesn't mean this is likeable or enjoyable so much as bitterly cathartic. I appreciate Chast's honesty, particularly in the insistence, and consequentially unfulfilling narrative structure, that these things that feel like they should be profound - end of life care, the loss of a parent, grief - don't necessarily offer closure or healing or profundity or anything, really, but a slow grind towards death.
Author: J. Anderson Coats
Published: Candlewick, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: ?
Text Number: ?
Read Because: reviewed by
chthonic_cassandra, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: Deeply rooted historical fiction about a young woman attempting to sell the lie of a saint's blessings to a Welsh prince in order to buy her safety within the warband that killed her family. The protagonist's lie, her complicated relationships with other women, her tenuous position, her trauma, often intentionally lead her to communicate poorly; I adore that, but when combined with the number of bait and switch near-escapes, the structure starts to feel strained, almost contrived - which is frustrating because there's no emotional contrivance. So I can nitpick: I wish the structure were an inch different; I wish it weren't as yoked to its historical inspiration, because the larger plot is less interesting than the protagonist's story. But her story got me to read first-person present-tense YA and like it, which is near enough a miracle: the adherence to her point of view and willingness to allow her flaws makes for an astute, nuanced portrait of trauma.
Title: Tell Me I’m Worthless
Author: Alison Rumfitt
Published: Tor Nightfire, 2023 (2021)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 50 265
Total Page Count: 507,260
Text Number: 1816
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: DNF at 20%. You know that person who keeps pointing out [bad things happening to shared social group], and you go, I acknowledge and am horrified by this but I'm not sure what you want me to do with this information except to be angry about it? I understand what motivates that sharing; there's space for it, for shared rage, for pure acknowledgement; at best, it can be an impetus to action. But it's often just a suffering vortex, a spiral of anger and despair.
Tell Me I'm Worthless has a great title and undoubtedly has a receptive audience, but it was pulling me into the suffering vortex.
Title: Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?
Author: Roz Chast
Published: Bloomsbury USA, 2014
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 230
Total Page Count: 507,490
Text Number: 1817
Read Because: borrowed from a local Little Free Library
Review: A graphic memoir, this follows the author's relationship with her aging parents as they approach end of life. This runs into the usual issue of "how to rate a memoir": Not every page lands; predictably, it's the humor that fails me. But the complete text does work, which doesn't mean this is likeable or enjoyable so much as bitterly cathartic. I appreciate Chast's honesty, particularly in the insistence, and consequentially unfulfilling narrative structure, that these things that feel like they should be profound - end of life care, the loss of a parent, grief - don't necessarily offer closure or healing or profundity or anything, really, but a slow grind towards death.
