Thought Train to Pusan

“Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting.” I hadn’t actually heard of this novel before, but saw it was a new offering on my library app, along with a comparison to One of Us Is Lying , a book that I reasonably enjoyed, coupled with a juicy-sounding concept. And given that I recently binged the Netflix Series, Elite , you might say I enjoy soapy teen dramas involving murder, secrets, the whole shebang from time to time. Yet, despite a really intriguing premise that could result in a range of focuses for the characters, I ultimately didn’t love this one, and felt myself heading towards what I suspected was a disappointing conclusion throughout the back-half of the story. This novel really wants to have some teeth to it, and while it presents a lot of serious topics (murder, drug use, bullying, suicide, abusive families, etc), the need for a surprise twist, along with a collection of characters that behave repetitively as little-m...

This was my first choice for reading out of the options of June’s The Future is Queer #CannonBookClub, though to be honest all of the 4 possible books for the book club sounded right up my alley! A group of so-called disasters having to come together to save themselves and the universe? A found family that comes together through their shared factor of being outcasts in one way or another? I love to see it. The Disasters opens with a group of 4 young people (largely centered on the POV of one boy named Nax) as they are being kicked out of an elite space academy called Ellis Station for various reasons. This space station trains people to take on important roles on newly established colony planets in space, as Earth grows increasingly populated. However, despite what should be a one-way trip back to earth for all of these academy rejects, the group witnesses a terrorist attack on the space station, and barely escape. Now they are on the run from authorities as the small crew is turne...

As I continue my journey with audiobooks (a new development for me over the past couple of months), my enjoyment of them has varied considerably depending on the narrator. In this case, it was a mixed bag: for the most part it was good but as the reading went on it’s as if more quirky inflections and voices were being out on to differentiate characters and moods, and honestly I’m learning that I hate the addition of silly voices to distinguish the characters. I can follow fine without it! Or even if it’s just a slight difference in speech, but without all the added flourish which I have heard coming from a number of readers at this point. In any case, let’s not get too tied up in my personal preferences of reading vs listening: Spellbound (the first of the Magic in Manhattan series by Allie Therin) introduces us to Rory Brodigan, a young man with the magical ability to scry the past life of an object, working in an antiques shop as an appraiser in New York in 1925. This work c...

Right off the bat I will say that I have not watched the HBO adaptation of this novel, so my review is free of any comparisons which may have affected my feelings on the novel. That said, it seems a little counterintuitive to read a story about the aftermath of the disappearance (and seeming death) of a percentage of the population around the world given *gestures vaguely* everything, you know? But I thought, maybe this will make these strange feelings and emotions I’m having right now feel as though they are being seen and validated. What I am experience more than anything right now is a sense of being checked-out: a numbness or all-encompassing feeling of “blah” if you will. And that is certainly echoed int his novel through the everyday mundanities and seeming detachment the main characters experience in most of the their days. But coupled with my own detachment to things, most of the characters left me feeling very little, with the exception of a couple. Am I not in the right mi...

Funny enough, after finishing this book, my friend and I started watching I’m Not Okay With This together (see: video chatting while watching separately, hitting play at the same moment), and both that show and this novel involve young people who are unable to control innate abilities within themselves, that always seem to burst forth when the individual is angry or agitated in some way. But in both cases, this concept, while integral to the plot, is a vehicle for reaching into the deeper truths of humanity, growing up, and finding a sense of belonging. Nothing to See Here centers on a woman named Lillian, years after a scandal at her private boarding school forced her to leave, and in the process leave behind her roommate and good friend, Madison. Since then, Lillian has been adrift in her life, working dead-end jobs and living in her mother’s attic. But when Madison contacts her one day with a potential job offer, Lillian is quick to reunite with her friend. The job? A nanny...

Like Gosford Park by way of Source Code , with a zest of Black Mirror . This might have been better as an actual read rather than an audiobook: due to the complexities of the plot and many many characters, if my mind drifted for even a second I would find myself confused as to what was happening or who was who. But then, with all the moving parts I might have had a time keeping everything straight even if I were to have read it. I know this book has been reviewed by a number of Cannonballers in the past couple years, so I’ll leave the recap brief: a man wakes up on the estate of an old manor with amnesia. After learning that he has been invited here among many people to attend a party that evening, he continues through a confusing day, trying to discover who is he and whether or not he really saw a woman being murdered in a forest the night before as he believes. At the end of the day, however, he wakes up in a new body, and the day starts all over again. He learns that he ...

This novel ended up on my to-read list after being recommended by our library’s website after I finished Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You . I really didn’t know what I was getting into though, to be honest, but I did assume that like Ng’s book, it would be some kind of personal family drama. That is certainly was, and this is a genre I usually quite like, but this time I find myself feeling a bit lukewarm about the whole endeavor. Commonwealth begins with a man named Bert Cousins showing up to the christening party of Fisk and Beverly Keating’s 2 nd daughter, Franny. Bert doesn’t really know the family, but has loose ties to friends-in-common through work, and goes to the party on a whim to have some time away from his own family. By the end of the party, however, Bert and Beverly end up kissing, and Bert can’t help but feel like his life has now changed forever. Unsurprisingly, this leads to an affair and eventual divorce, yet now the two families of the Cousins and t...