Thought Train to Pusan

There is a fine line between cute and cringe, but then again, we all participate in cringe in our own ways, in many different flavors. I say this, because as I was reading The Extraordinaries , there were things to love, but also a lot that felt very put-on and almost too much ™. But as someone who is also a little much herself, well, who am I to judge? At the end of the day, what we have here is a cute little story that tries to put a little humanity and reality into the world of superheroes, and the people who see them and idolize them. It does come across almost like a self-insert, superhero fanfic of some kind (and in fact the protagonist engages in fanfic writing themselves, which might be a little clue there), so depending on how you feel about that kind of thing your mileage may vary. I’m sitting at a middle-to-positive. The Extraordinaries takes place in a universe where certain people are born with special abilities, and thereby called Extraordinaries. In Nova City, two such ...

Not really sure what to make of this one! It’s a slow build that’s a bit bizarre, cryptic, and mysterious. I wouldn’t say it was dull (there’s some juicy stuff in there and quite a bit of body horror) but the presentation is almost… blunted? The protagonists’ point of view is a hard one to crack into because of her personality, how she thinks, and how she speaks. Let’s get into it so I can explain. The official synopsis within the jacket of Follow Me to Ground reads:  “Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with...

It’s been a minute since I’ve read a collection of short stories (or really, short stories in general), so I figured it might be worth a little revisit with Oyeyemi’s collection in What is Not Yours is Not Yours . Once again, I find my personal experience with short stories to be a bit of a mixed bag, not to mention how with any collection put together there are going to be those that are favored and those that are not. For the most part, these stories resonated on at least some level, and there was more positive than negative for me, though not completely. The nine stories in What is Not Yours is Not Your s are all connected through the motif of keys and locks, and the possibilities of what lies beyond a lock or what a key may open. A short blip to describe each is as follows (though they are pretty vague so as not to give anything away): “Books and Roses” - Two interconnected tales of loss and loneliness. A young orphan has a key around her neck, so similar to a key that was given to...

BIG OOF on this one! As I neared the end of this novel, I noticed a pull-quote on the cover that I originally didn’t pay attention to on account of being in an unappealing font to read (I’m weird about fonts, y’all, it’s part of my job after all). Upon actually looking at it, however, I saw that it was written by someone I very much don’t care for. So in retrospect, that might have been a clue that I wasn’t going to enjoy this novel for a few reasons. But let’s get on with the book!! Bunny centers on a young woman named Samantha (Sam) who is in the final year of a highly selective writing MFA program. The only other members of her cohort in this program are a clique of four women who possess all the stereotypical “girly girl” traits you can imagine, but each with a slightly different style. They call each other Bunny and so, Sam calls them the Bunnies. These four women all seem to be operating on the same hivemind, and Sam hates them. Yet she is also fascinated by them, so when the gi...

A cover showing a woman lovingly embracing a fish AND a title which is my star sign (a sign that I personally extremely exemplify in all manners of my behavior)? Sign me up! Or so I thought. Turns out, despite wanting to know where this would go and thereby finishing it quite quickly, I wasn’t feeling it for a few reasons. And yes, I will get into all of them because I have realized that when I don’t like things I always feel like I have to go into a big explanation of it. As if I’m not allowed to simply not enjoy things unless there is a reason for it. Hmmm… that’s probably something I’ll personally have to ruminate over for a while. In any case! On with the plot: The Pisces follows Lucy, a woman who has been stuck working on her dissertation on Sappho for 13 years, and recently broke up with her boyfriend, Jamie. Despite being unhappy in this relationship, she is devastated and falls into depression. After engaging in a number of erratic behaviors, Lucy’s half-sister insists that sh...

“Reality never changes. Only our recollections of it do. Whenever a moment passes, we pass along with it into the realm of memory. And in that realm, geometries change. Contours shift, shades lighten, objectivities dissolve. Memory becomes what we need it to be.” The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a coming-of-age novel that takes place over one fateful summer where lessons are learned and relationships take on new meanings. Our protagonist is a 12 year-old boy named Jake, living in Niagara Falls in the 1980s. This particular summer, Jake befriends two siblings, Ben and Dove, and the three take part in a “Saturday Night Ghost Club” that is hosted by Jake’s eccentric uncle, Calvin. Calvin runs the local occultorium, and is deeply invested in conspiracy theories and the occult, but is generally a kind and fun, if slightly offbeat man. As the summer goes on, however, Jake starts to wonder if there is something off about his uncle and their ghost-hunting adventures. Interspersed with narrati...

Living in the suburbs on the edges of a major Canadian city my whole life, I have a tendency to romanticize small-town living a little bit. With a lot of family living in small-town Alberta, I only get glimpses of what it’s like when I visit, but I like to believe in the possibilities of community in such areas. Is it realistic? Maybe not. But I like to daydream, you see. So sometimes I just want to read or watch something that takes me out of the cities I know and into a specific time and place with a history that is so deeply connected to the people who make it what it is. And Shotgun Lovesongs is a pretty good example of that, as a more thoughtful, character-driven novel.  Our story takes us to a small town called Little Wing, Wisconsin, and centers on a group of 4 male friends who were born and raised in the town, along with a woman named Beth who was also born and raised there, and is now married to one of the 4 men, Henry. A quick rundown on the characters: Henry - Lives wit...