yurishippingolympics | Member Posts

I read a very normal 17 books in July, but mostly because all my ebook holds came in at once and I was too stubborn to postpone 3 of them so I was juggling like 6 books at a time. I returned The Safekeep late and had to extend my hold on Afterparties and stay up late to finish the Chee book on time. But I enjoyed most of them!

In reverse chronological order as usual.

Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See by Bianca Bosker

Impulse-bought thinking it’d be useful for my future art school dark academia idea. This was a very fun read! Bosker is a lively narrator who makes her subjects really interesting, though some of the art history stuff I already knew bc I did take art history classes in school lol. Jack Barrett sounds like she was trying really hard to make him sound less evil than he was, but holy shit you cannot treat an assistant like that even if she is a journalist! I should go to more gallery openings.

Hungerstone by Kat Dunn

Writing style reminded me of the writing style of my own languishing WIP (the draft of which I should be working on now instead of typing up this lol). I liked this Carmilla retelling. The vampirism was more of a metaphor, but I thought it was a very effective metaphor. Plot worked.

Among Friends by Hal Ebbott

I finished reading and then looked up the author to see if he was associated in any way with that one guy that said there’s not enough novels about men and their feelings these days, but apparently not. This is exactly the kind of book I’d imagined that publisher putting out though. I did not find any of the female characters convincing; Retsy and Sophie felt the least distinct to me. Claire and Anna’s mother-daughter relationship did not make sense to me either. Otherwise it was like. Fine. I guess. I will probably forget everything about it in a month.

The Most by Jessica Anthony

Very short but enjoyable. I liked the different perspectives and the surprise title reveal. I think it worked pretty well for me, not sure it would’ve if it was longer.

Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

THAT’S RIGHT I’D MANAGED TO SKIP READING THE SEMINAL YA GRAPHIC NOVEL CLASSIC UP UNTIL NOW. Not as brilliant as their later work imo but a lot of fun things going on in this one too. And even early Jillian Tamaki is so gorgeous.

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So

I have a hard time reading collections of shorter works. I think it’s bc each short thing feels complete in itself so there’s less motivation to go on to the next thing. I didn’t really love this collection, I think all of the stories together felt kind of samey/repetitive... Then I looked up the author to see what else he’d done and felt sad (accidental overdose before the book even came out ): ) Banger cover art though.

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder by Nina Swamidoss McConigley

Read for internship book club lol. Interesting! Not sure if it all gels together smoothly. The section on casting fishing line == caste seemed like a bit of a reach. Goodreads reviewer who said it was confusing the main character called her sister by two different names is a fool. Skill issue. Get good.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

This won a bunch of big awards and I was like no way it’s all that and then I finished reading and goddamn. It sure was. All that. I guessed the twist a little before it happened and screeched through the reveal. Wowee. Possibly book of the year for me.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee

As soon as I read this I could feel it changing how I write nonfiction. I have half a draft of my attempt to explain writing reviews and it smells like this now. My usual resistance to collections of short works didn’t apply as much to this one because the essays flowed together so well it was like they were all chapters in a single narrative, even though they were published separately at first and some even years apart. I want to start a rose garden. I want to write good. After I finished the book I kept going to my reading app and trying to open it again thinking oh I want to read more of that. How do I make other people do that with my books.

Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth

This is what I was talking about with my f/f litfic post. Insanely horny. Unreasonably horny for a relatively short word count. I think I liked it overall.

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

No one told me this classic of lesbian literature started with several pages of an American WASP going on about why Jews have it rough in the world. Very strange. Not as much lesbianism as I was led to believe. Most of the page count is one annoying guy talking a lot. I fear Djuna Barnes may not be my kind of thing after all.

Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum

I’ve never been a huge reality TV person, but I have enjoyed a show or two in my day. Have never seen Survivor but I did watch Endurance when I was a kid which was blatantly ripping it off but for kiddies, lmao. This was really interesting. Very comprehensive, going back to the very first iteration of Candid Microphone (a radio show!) and going forward up until The Apprentice, and actually interested in interrogating the racial and gender dynamics going on onscreen and off unlike in that Disney High book I read a few months ago. I feel like I gained more respect for the medium. Kind of want to try watching more old reality TV now.

The Gay Best Friend by Nicolas DiDomizio

I liked this more than I expected because a) I love mess and b) it’s mostly a friendship novel with a romance subplot instead of a romance. The titular Gay Best Friend has to run a bachelor’s and bachelorette party for both halves of one straight couple because the groom’s his childhood bestie and the bride is his adult life bestie, and he is totally cool with everything until he very much isn’t. It’s funny! Very evocative depictions of place and several different, complicated social dynamics. Overall theme of respectability versus staying true to yourself was well-developed.

A Rotten Girl by J. Ursula Topaz

This has some very specific positions on certain internet discourses I do not quite agree with. And then I saw someone I have blocked on Twitter thanked in the acknowledgements and it all made sense. Worse than the discourse though is the way the Twitter conversations are rendered like regular dialogue, and the way absolutely nobody posts like real people post. At least it was short.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

Not as paradigm-shifting as Songbirds and Snakes was, though some new details revealed here were very interesting. Haymitch as a narrative voice is very similar to Katniss, which I think is the point bc he did say he saw a lot of himself in her, but also makes this feel repetitive when read after the main trilogy.

The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

This book is presented as a (blatantly autobiographical) novel translated by one of the people who appears in the novel, whom the narrator really really hates and whose footnotes get more and more aggrieved as the story goes on. This makes it a very fun reading experience. Even though the narrator is annoying, the translator is more annoyed than I am. It does do that annoying contemporary litfic thing of adding homoerotic undertones for flavor without committing to the bit (like Butter and The Ministry of Time), but at least the object of the homoerotic undertones is married to a woman for once.

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

Easier to read than Le Carre was. Somewhat funnier. Not sure I enjoyed it enough to read the sequels. Maybe eventually.

Personal life updates: My internship is going well and I cannot get a full-time job after it : ) still grinding away at the romantasy redraft, hopefully it’ll be normal-book length in time for DVPit. My friend printed a really nice edition of my minicomic for me! Will show off when I am. Less exhausted.