Fake Accounts (by Lauren Oyler)

I was so delighted when I started this book; the narrative voice is unique and funny. It's set right after the election in 2016 and the premise is that a woman finds out her boyfriend is a secret Internet conspiracy theorist. There are amazing tidbits about 2016 America and living life on social media. Sample quote:

"The internet is always on, interaction always available, but it could not guarantee I would be able to interact with someone I liked and understood, or who (I thought) liked and understood me. I’d gotten used to using people I’d never met, or met a few times, to muffle the sound of time passing without transcendence or joy or any of the good emotions I wanted to experience during my life, and I knew the feeling was mutual, and that was the comfort in it."

But unfortunately the book quickly fizzles out. The plot never goes anywhere and it never adds up to anything. I started with such high hopes but man, was this a disappointment in the end.

Piranesi (by Susanna Clarke)

I read Jonathan Strange and Dr. Norrell years ago, and of course can't find any review I wrote of it, but I know I didn't like it much because there was some internal inconsistency in the magical system. That sounds very on brand for me.

I loved Piranesi, on the other hand. The magic is never explained, which is fine by me, and this is a far cry from the 1500 page behemoth of Jonathan Strange.  Instead this is almost a novella, about a person named Piranesi who lives in a mysterious labyrinth with one other person, named The Other.  Piranesi is (be still my heart) an unreliable narrator, and the true nature of the world unfolds slowly through his journal entries. 

It took a bit for me to get into this narrative (Piranesi likes to Capitalize many of his Words and it Illuminates his Character but Takes some getting Used To) but it soon casts a spell on the reader.  I feel like this is one of those novels that's Not for Everyone, but it definitely was For Me.

Memorial (by Bryan Washington)

The Tournament of Books has begun! This year, I finished six books (Memorial, The Vanishing Half, Transcendent Kingdom, Breasts and Eggs, Luster, Interior Chinatown) and read parts of two others before abandoning them (Deacon King Kong, Shuggie Bain) and read enough about Tender Is the Flesh to know I never want to read it. 

Memorial is a book told in alternating perspectives by two halves of a couple, Benson and Mike. Mike's estranged father is dying, and he flies to Japan to be with him; at the same time, Mike's mother stays with Ben in Houston.

I thought this would add up to more than it did. Ben and Mike seem to dislike each other; the author and even the other characters want you to root for these two crazy kids to make it, but why? The narrators aren't very distinct except Mike says "fuck" a lot and Ben doesn't. I enjoyed the two characters and their stories individually, but I expected more to happen between Ben and Mike's mom, or Ben and Mike, or overall for it to add up to something more than a big shrug at the end.

Breasts and Eggs is still my favorite of the ToB books; this was my least favorite. Hopefully in the next week I can finish Piranesi, which just came off library hold for me...