A middle-grade graphic novel about a boba shop with a secret.

Aria comes to stay with her grandmother in San Francisco for the summer to escape a bad social situation. Her grandmother owns a boba shop that doesn't seem too popular, and Aria throws herself into making it more so - most successfully when Grandma's cat Bao has eight kittens, and Aria advertises it as a kitten cafe. But why is Grandma so adamant about never letting Aria set foot in the kitchen, and kicking out the customers at 6:00 on the dot? Why do the prairie dogs in the backyard seem so smart?

This graphic novel has absolutely adorable illustrations. The story isn't as strong. The first half is mostly a realistic, gentle, cozy slice of life. The second half is a fantasy adventure with light horror aspects. Even though the latter is throughly foreshadowed in the former, it still feels kind of like two books jammed together.

My larger issue was with tone and content that also felt jammed together. The book is somewhat didactic - which is fine, especially in a middle-grade book - but I feel like if the book is teaching lessons, it should teach them consistently and appropriately. The lessons in this book were a bit off or inconsistent, creating an uncanny valley feeling.

Spoilers! ( Read more... )

Fantastic art, kind of odd story.

The Haddesley family has an ancient tradition: when the patriarch dies, the oldest son summons a wife from the bog. Now living in Appalachia, the current patriarch is dying and a new bog wife must be summoned soon, but their covenant with the bog may be going wrong: one daughter fled years ago to live in the modern world, the last bog wife vanished under mysterious circumstances, the bog is drying up, and something very bad has happened to the oldest son...

Isn't that an amazing premise? The actual book absolutely lives up to it, but not in the way that I expected.

It was marketed as horror, and was the inaugural book of the Paper & Clay horror book club. But my very first question to the club was "Do you think this book is horror?"

The club's consensus was no, or not exactly; it definitely has strong folk horror elements, but overall we found it hard to categorize by genre. I am currently cross-shelving it in literary fiction. We all loved it though, and it was a great book to discuss in a book club; very thought-provoking.

One of the aspects I enjoyed was how unpredictable it was. The plot both did and didn't go in directions I expected, partly because the pacing was also unpredictable: events didn't happen at the pace or in the order I expected from the premise. If the book sounds interesting to you, I recommend not spoiling yourself.

The family is a basically a small family cult, living in depressing squalor under the rule of the patriarch. It's basically anti-cottagecore, where being close to nature in modern America may mean deluding yourself that you're living an ancient tradition of natural life where you're not even close to being self-sustaining, but also missing all the advantages of modern life like medical treatment and hot water. I found all this incredibly relatable and validating, as I grew up in similar circumstances though with the reason of religion rather than an ancient covenant with the bog.

The family has been psychologically twisted by their circumstances, so they're all pretty weird and also don't get along. I didn't like them for large stretches, but I did care a lot about them all by the end, and was very invested in their fates. (Except the patriarch. He can go fuck himself.)

It's beautifully written, incredibly atmospheric, and very well-characterized. The atmosphere is very oppressive and claustrophobic, but if you're up for the journey, it will take you somewhere very worthwhile. The book club discussion of the ending was completely split on its emotional implications (not on the actual events, those are clear): we were equally divided between thinking it was mostly hopeful/uplifing with bittersweet elements, mostly sad with some hopeful elements, and perfectly bittersweet.

SPOILERS!

( Read more... )

Katabasis releases at the end of August. I read an advance copy.

I have to conclude that R. F. Kuang's fiction is just not to my taste. This is the first book of hers that I even managed to finish, having previously given up on both Babel (anvillicious, with anvillicious footnotes) and The Poppy War (boring) quite early on. However, a lot of my customers love her books, so I will buy and sell multiple copies of this one.

The structure and concept of Katabasis is quite appealing. Alice Law is at magic college, obsessively determined to succeed. When exploitative working conditions lead to her making a mistake that gorily kills her mentor Professor Grimes, Alice still needs his recommendation... so she goes to Hell to fetch him back! She's followed by another student, Peter, who is a perfect genius who she doesn't realize is in love with her. Their journey through Hell takes up almost all of the book, interspersed by flashbacks to college.

Lots of people will undoubtedly love this book. I found it thuddingly obvious and lacking in charm. The humor was mildly amusing at best. The magic is boring and highly technical. Alice is frustratingly oblivious, self-centered, and monomaniacal - which is clearly a deliberate character choice, but I did not enjoy reading about her. Hell was boring - how do you make Hell boring?!

Spoilery reveal about Peter: ( Read more... )

The entire book, I felt like I was sitting there twiddling my fingers waiting for Alice to figure out that it's not okay for college to be exploitative and abusive, that it was bad for Professor Grimes to have sexually assaulted her, that Peter loved her, and that success isn't everything. Though at least it didn't have anvillicious footnotes [1] like Babel!

[1] Legally and morally, Professor Grimes sexually assaulted Alice. It is common for survivors of sexual assault to not recognize it as such at the time, especially when the assault involves an abuse of power. [2]

[2] It is an abuse of power for a professor to make any sexual overture to a student, even a seemingly consensual [3] one.

[3] Due to the power differential, no sexual relations between a professor and a student can ever be truly consensual.

I will continue to stock Kuang's books but this is probably the last time I will attempt to actually read one.

I do love the cover.

Have you read any of these? What did you think?