The Final Girl Support Group (by Grady Hendrix)

This was my pick for the "weird horror" category in the Read Harder Challenge. I honestly don't know if it qualifies as "weird" horror specifically, but I'm not super familiar with the genre.  But as soon as I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. (Well, I kind of could, because it put me in a very weird headspace, but it is for sure a page-turner.) 

The premise of this one is fun too - it's a world in which slasher movie serieses (series? seri?) are based on true stories of women who have been the "final girl" to survive a slasher spree. They are all takeoffs on real series, so the "Dream King" is Freddy Kreuger, and the "Panhandle Meathook" series is Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The names are little Easter eggs too, and if even I (who does not enjoy slasher movies) picked up on them, I'm sure a horror fan would love it.

Anyway, the Final Girls are all in a support group, trying to process their trauma. Our narrator has become severely agoraphobic and paranoid, and it's fun to be inside her unreliable and extremely (justifiably) paranoid narration.  Of course, then someone starts coming after the Final Girls. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you, after all.

You'll probably know if this one is for you or not but, if it is, I highly recommend it! 

 

Flamer (by Mike Curato)

I read this graphic novel for the RHC task "read a banned book and complete a task on Book Riot’s How to Fight Book Bans guides."  I checked out the ALA list of most banned books last year to find the book, then donated to the Freedom to Read foundation for my activity. There are lots of amazing ways to help, especially during Banned Books Week, coming up in October.    

This graphic novel is semi-autobiographical, set in the summer of 1995 when a boy who grew up Catholic but doesn't quite fit in goes to Boy Scout camp, worries about what lies ahead in his first year of high school, and struggles with some confusing feelings for a friend.  A very quick read but very moving and reminded me of what it was like for my (Catholic, effeminate, turned out to be gay) best friend growing up and struggling with these same feelings in this era.  

An important book that deserves to be read. 

Crosstalk (by Connie Willis)

I tagged this "give-up" because I definitely would have given up on this book had it not been for the RHC category "a genre-blending book."  But so many of the other suggestions I'd looked at were a blend of fantasy and something, and I don't really love fantasy, so I stuck with it.

First off, Crosstalk is a blend of romcom (really, romantic farce) and speculative fiction.  The premise is that a woman named Briddey agrees to get a new procedure to get emotional closeness to her boyfriend - and it accidentally connects her to someone else. She has a really intrusive family with absolutely no boundaries (they call her constantly and show up at her work and at her house) and she seems really stupid at the outset - her boyfriend is obviously a douche (he's even named Trent, for god's sake) but also she doesn't even really seem to like him all that much? Why is she getting brain surgery!?

Between her family bombarding her and the results of the brain surgery, she's constantly feeling massive anxiety and the pace of the book is frenetic and it gave me secondhand anxiety to read.  I also think her sister, a massively neurotic helicopter mom, is supposed to be a funny character but honestly she came off as so awful and abusive to her child, it wasn't fun to read.  

Once Briddey finally started to figure out stuff that had been obvious to the reader for like THE ENTIRE BOOK, it got less annoying (happened at around the 70% mark, so, not ideal) and the ending was definitely better than the beginning. The romance was semi-problematic but whatever, it was cute.  I didn't hate it the whole way through, but I didn't totally enjoy it either. At least another category is checked off - only 5 more to go. 

The Do-Over (by Lynn Painter)

It may surprise you to know that this YA novel was actually also a RHC novel - for the category "a holiday romance that isn’t Christmas."  In this novel, Emilie relives the same Valentine's Day over and over, which places her in the path of classmate Nick instead of her not-so-perfect-after-all boyfriend, Josh.

The novel features familiar time loop tropes with a fun twist (no spoilers) and although it's predictable and the third-act breakup is a bit forced, it still wraps up sweetly.  Lynn Painter seems to have a lot of fans and this was cute - I will probably give her novels another shot. 

Silent Parade (by Keigo Higashino)

I should have a tag just for Japanese mysteries at this point, but here we are again. Part of the "Detective Galileo" series that includes The Devotion of Suspect X. 

As usual, kept me turning the pages - and I wondered how Higashino was going to twist the ending, considering that a lot of things are known at the outset.  Is this a whodunit or a howcatchem? I thought to myself more than once. 

I wouldn't go to this as my first Higashino - I think Malice is my favorite so far - but it's another compelling, complex, satisfying mystery.

Summer Girls (by Jennifer Dugan)

A queer YA about two girls - one ridiculously rich who is in a beach town for the summer, the other lower middle class who works as a lifeguard there - who get together. Their conflicts are about their class differences, including the fact that one girl's dad is a real estate developer gentrifying the town.

I almost DNF this despite it being a quick read - the central relationship just didn't make sense or feel believable to me. They got together too quickly in the story and their romance seemed to pretty much just be based on the fact that they found each other hot. I closed the last page thinking, "Well, that will never last." 

Not exactly what you want from a young adult romance!  

 

This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something - Anything - Like Your Life Depends On It (by Tabitha Carvan)

I loved this, and not just because there's a whole chapter addressing Johnlock fanfiction. It's a memoir that uses the author's obsession with Benedict Cumberbatch as a lens to explore identity and motherhood.  In fact it's so entertaining that the message sneaks up on you - until you realize you're reading about how the desires, passions, and interests of girls and women are dismissed and criticized in a patriarchal world. This memoir could just as easily be about Twilight, or romance novels, or Disney princesses, or makeup, or Harry Styles, or anything else coded as female and therefore, immature or disposable. 

“When you’re a girl who really loves a thing, it’s never just about you and your thing. Everyone else makes it their problem. You can’t love the thing unseen, not even in your bedroom, alone. You either point-blank love the wrong thing, or you love the right thing but in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons.”

So the book is a great read, but also hits at a really core truth about what it means for girls and women to embrace our passions and how that can be a subversive, feminist act.  Highly recommend!

I Am Not Jessica Chen (by Ann Liang)

Read for the RHC category "2025 release by a BIPOC author."  I kind of accidentally read it - I'm reading a different book, but when I opened my Kindle app, this one was already open for some reason. Cut to me at two am, finishing it. 

The premise: a girl named Jenna Chen lives in the shadow of her smarter, pettier, more successful cousin Jessica, and makes a wise that she could be her.  The wish comes true, and she wakes up in Jessica's body. But is being Jessica Chen all it's cracked up to be? And what about Jenna - who everyone around her is slowly forgetting even existed?

Obviously a premise that requires you to suspend disbelief, but executed well. Jenna's journey from self-loathing to self-acceptance rings very true. I think Ann Liang does a great job creating well-rounded and authentic-feeling characters.   I did think the pacing was slightly off at the end, but maybe this is because it was the wee hours of the morning?  Anyway, as you can see, I couldn't put it down - which is probably the highest possible praise I can give it.

Iceland Books

I got a bit caught up on my reading goal and finished six books while I was on vacation. As per usual, here they are in vacation roundup format. 

We Solve Murders (by Richard Osman) 

My friend sent me a picture of this book on the recommendation shelf of a local independent bookstore, because it's written by Richard Osman, who has been on Taskmaster UK, a show he introduced me to. This is the moment I realized the Taskmaster Richard Osman is the same Richard Osman who wrote the Thursday Murder Club series! We Solve Murders is the beginning of a new series from him, and thanks to my friend, also meets the criteria of "a staff pick from an indie bookstore" for the Read Harder Challenge. Apart from that, it's a great kickoff to a new series - funny, unpredictable, cozy, with charming characters. If you liked Thursday Murder Club, you'll enoy this one too.

Shampoo Unicorn (by Sawyer Lovett)

The novel is about a queer podcast in rural America, shown from three points of view. I think the exploration of small town homophobia and transphobia will resonate with its audience, but it was not quite successful for me. Of the three point of view characters, one is kind of shoehorned in unsuccessfully, and another is in second person for seemingly no reason. More a book I'm glad exists for today's kids than one which landed with me.

Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says About Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds (by Joseph Laycock)

As the title suggests, this one is pretty academic and definitely reads like someone's published thesis (not that there's anything wrong with that). Read this for the RHC category "a book about a moral panic."  I did find it very interesting, as Laycock talks about how fantasy serves similar functions to religion in society and how that overlap can lead to moral panic. It also talks about how the secret to averting a theocracy is allowing people to explore imaginary worlds and alternative frameworks like art, fantasy, science, and religion (apart from the hegemonic one). A slow read but enjoyable.

Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart (by Eric Geron)

A queer YA, of course. On the plus side: had a real story of self-discovery that felt authentic, and wasn't formulaic.  On the negative side: the tone is confusing, a lot of plot is unresolved (like okay, his dad is a cartoon-like cheater and abuser, but his mom's family takes the dad's side? And that's not ever explained or resolved?), some of the side characters seem more like plot devices than actual people with motivation, and the central romance didn't work for me. So, an author with a ton of potential but a book that didn't quite work. 

A Psalm for the Wild Built (by Becky Chambers)

Sci-fi novella for the category "a queernorm book."  To me, reads like the prologue of an actual book. This is about a discontent "tea monk" named Dex who meets a sentient robot and they become friends and set off on an adventure. It's a classic Becky Chambers cozy sci-fi in a casually queer world but really feels like the story has barely begun. 

The Examiner (by Janice Hallet)

I loved the premise of this one - like The Appeal, a novel told through text messages and emails being reviewed by a third-party - in this case, an examiner (a grade-reviewer) for a master's degree art course populated by some deliciously unlikeable characters.  Also one of them might be dead.  First half of this was terrific, up to the first twist (which I loved) and then the denoument ended up being super long and convoluted, and I didn't quite follow everything that was even going on, what people's motivations were, or what the Maguffin even was. Maybe it was just because I was jetlagged by this point but I saw similar feedback on Goodreads so I didn't feel too alone. 

Two Weeks, Six Books

I went on back-to-back work trips to New York and Austin, and in the process, finished six books that were across the board pretty good! And two of them covered Read Harder Challenge categories: queer mystery and standalone fantasy.  Here are the books:

Murder in the Dressing Room (by Holly Stars) 

A fun cozy mystery about drag culture. I was convinced I knew the murderer the whole way through the book, to the 99% point, but turns out I didn't! The murderer wasn't really the point though, more an endearing story about a cute, nonbinary main character and an exploration of the world of drag. This is the only book on the list that didn't get a + next to it on my list, but it was cute!

Magic for Liars (by Sarah Gailey)

I was dreading the fantasy category until I found this, detective fiction set in a magic school! (I could call this "genre blending" too I suppose, but it's going to be harder to get standalone fantasy out of the way so I'm sticking with that one.) This is so well done. A woman whose twin sister is a mage - but who isn't magical herself - investigates a murder at a magic school. I loved the main character (in spite of her unlikeability) and really enjoyed all the characters, the treatment of magic, and the way it all played out.  

Lorne (by Susan Morrison)

It was fun to be reading this while I was in New York, and especially since I finally got to see Studio 8H on this visit! I knew many of the stories from being an SNL fan over the years but certainly didn't know all of them - and overall was a fascinating insight to the show and Lorne Michaels as a person.  Highly recommended for fans of Saturday Night Live. 

Newcomer (by Keigo Higashino)

Inventive! It's not only a murder mystery but functions as a set of linked short stories - Detective Kaga is a newcomer to this part of town, as is the murder victim, and as you explore different characters you see their connections to each other and to the victim. Often, the vignettes explore a storyline of a person in the neghborhood, as their secrets are revealed and characters loop in and out of the story. Another great offering from Higashino!

Lover Birds (by Leon Egan)

A queer retelling of Pride & Prejudice, wherein a posh London girl moves to Liverpool and meets Lou Byrne and her four best friends.  There are echoes of P&P everywhere (guess who the four best friends are intended to be) but the conflict between the characters ends up feeling organic, and the main character's struggles to manage her ADHD are really well done. Great chemistry between our main couple also! Just overall loved it. 

When the Moon Hits Your Eye (by John Scalzi) 

Last but not least, my pal John Scalzi's latest! I wasn't hugely into Kaiju Preservation Society but this one I really enjoyed. The high concept premise - the moon turns to cheese - becomes an exploration of shared humanity and how we find meaning in our lives.  It's often clever and funny (classic Scalzi) but also surprisingly meditative and profound at points too. Honestly exceeded my expectations! 

An Extraordinary Union (by Alyssa Cole)

Read for the RHC categtory "a romance book that doesn’t have an illustrated cover." I'm not much of a romance reader, so this is one of the more difficult categories for me this year.  This book is about a free woman with an eidedic memory posing as a mute slave to spy for the Union, and a Pinkerton detective pretending to be a Confederate soldier, both loosely based on real people, against the backdrop of the Civil War.

Despite the setting, it doesn't have a sense of realism - really more of a frothy romance despite what you might expect. Alyssa Cole is a Black author and clearly she wanted to keep true ugliness out of it - of course many horrors are alluded to; still, how it plays out is absolutely a romance fantasy and not grounded in reality of the time and place. Ditto with the spy element - if you're fucking in the bushes and sleeping over at each other's places, and you are a white man and a Black (ostensibly enslaved) woman, you're pretty bad spies with zero sense of self-preservation!

I also am indifferent to sex scenes, which I know are the whole point of romance but, shrug, that's why I don't read them. A lot of people loved this novel though so maybe it's not them, it's me.  On to the next category!

Grief in the Fourth Dimension (by Jennifer Yu)

I picked this one up after my frantic Tournament of Books reading (I ended up reading 14 of the 18 books this year) since it has been lingering in my backlog and I enjoy young adult and speculative fiction. (Oh, you don't say...)

Two high school students die and are reborn into a mysterious room where they can view - and attempt to communicate with - their loved ones back on earth.  Definitely interesting enough to finish, although it didn't make me cry despite being about literal death so clearly there was something missing for me. I feel like maybe I didn't get to know the characters enough or didn't like them enough. (There are also some editing mistakes that pulled me out of it - one character is named Iris, but is referred to as "Alice" multiple times, for example.)

Not a must-read but also an interesting premise and not a DNF.  (And I picked up two more YAs this week that I quickly DNF'd so that's not totally hollow praise!)

Birthday Retreat Books

I spent a week taking the sea air on the Mendocino coast, and while there, finished four books!

The Making of Pride & Prejudice (by Sue Birtwistle & Susie Conklin)  

This was a gift from a few years ago and part of my quest to read through some of my physical books this year. The photos are a bit blurry and I would have enjoyed clearer photos, more interviews with the cast, basically a book ten times the size of this relatively slim volume. It definitely made me appreciate a lot of nuances that went into making the miniseries (this is about the BBC miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth), from custom-printing fabrics on muslin to hiding lighting equipment with foliage in a ballroom. A must-read for 1995 devotees, but you'll definitely wish it were longer!

Headshot (by Rita Bullwinkel)  

Tournament of Books selection and I'm gonna be honest, I hated it. The repetitive style (which is I'm sure deliberate, because this is about boxing and it makes you feel like being punched with names repeated over and over and over again...) drove me mad. I enjoyed the flash forwards but they added up to nothing I was wholly uninterested in the winner, as the only characters I really enjoyed weren't in the final. I also hate boxing. I also found it implausible that none of the 8 girls were explicitly non-white, and race wasn't even mentioned. So either they were all white, or race never impacted their lives. Did not work for me. 

The Wedding People (by Alison Espach) 

Also in the ToB, but it was very "beach read" with romcom vibes and a predictable plot. That said, I immediately loved our main character Phoebe (who shows up at a hotel that has been rented out for a wedding, and gets drawn into the lives of the wedding people) and the fun cast of characters. I could see where this was going a mile off but I stayed up late to finish it anyway because it was delightful. Will make a perfect movie.  

Mansfield Park (by Jane Austen) 

I can't remember the last time I read Mansfield Park from cover to cover, so I'll include it here! It's been decades, probably. I enjoyed it so much this time around - I'm very familiar with the 1999 film and it actually takes fewer liberties than I thought it did! (The scene of Mary undressing Fanny in the rain, for one.) Jane Austen is always a joy.

The History of Sound (by Ben Shattuck)

This was one of those great Tournament of Books surprises! I am not typically a short story fan so I never would have given this a shot otherwise. But this book is an absolute gem. Just a series of perfect short stories that are linked together - the first is connected to the last, and then there are pairings in between, spanning centuries at times, but always located in (what is now known as) New England. 

The Tournament has been hit or miss but with Irena Ray and now History of Sound, my faith is renewed.  (Today's judgment is also delightful; it busted my bracket but I couldn't agree with it more.)  

They've turned the first and final stories into a movie starring Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal, and I already know I'm unprepared. If you have seen All of Us Strangers you'll have a slight idea what you're in for, and not just because Paul Mescal is in that one too. 

Anyway, that's beside the point. These stories are amazing! And you should read this collection. The end.

Seattle Books

I visited Seattle for work last week and finished four books, pretty much all on airplanes, as is my wont.  Two for the ToB, one for the RHC, one for fun. Here they are:

The Extinction of Irena Rey (by Jennifer Croft) 

Read for the Tournament of Books, and probably my favorite so far apart from James in this somewhat underwhelming year so far.  It's got a sprinkling of Pale Fire (footnotes of an unreliable narrator who is allegedly translating a book written in Polish by a Spanish translator into English...) and Annihilation (gathering of semi-strangers in an uncanny landscape). This novel is about a group of translators who get together, kind of cult-like, to translate the magnum opus of a Polish author, who disappears, and things get weirder from there. It's one of those gems that the ToB helps me discover and it was a surreal read.

The (Big) Year That Flew By: Twelve Months, Six Continents, and the Ultimate Birding Record (by Arjan Dwarshuis)

Read for the RHC category of "a nonfiction book about nature or the environment." This is a Dutch birder who broke the global Big Year record and raised money for the Preventing Extinctions Program. His memoir is equally about birding and observations on conservation efforts (and the impact of climate change and deforestation) that he sees along the way.  I would have liked it to be more linear - he does a lot of flashbacks to his childhood that interrupt the narrative - but enjoyed it overall.

Colored Television (by Danzy Senna)

About a biracial author living in Los Angeles who gets drawn into the television industry.  I loved this until the halfway mark where the main character started making inexplicable decisions and I started getting annoyed because this is not how Hollywood works! I liked the unpredictability of the ending and my annoyance had ebbed by the end. Well written overall and would definitely read more by Senna.

The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy (by Elizabeth Kendall and Molly Kendall)

Whenever I drive by Lake Sammamish I think about Ted Bundy. I dipped back into The Stranger Beside Me and then followed some breadcrumbs to this memoir, which I didn't know had been rereleased and updated in 2020.  Kendall was Ted Bundy's girlfriend for many years and ended up going to the police no less than three times when she started to suspect his involvement in the murders.  Molly was her young daughter, to whom Bundy was a father figure. She first wrote the memoir at a time when she still talks about how part of her will always love him; she's traumatized and still healing.  The memoir is kept intact with a new afterword that talks about how she feels now, decades later. There's also a chapter from Molly that is unforgettably chilling and satisfyingly full of rage. Worth reading for true crime fans! 

Wild About You (by Kaitlin Hill)

A quick vacation read about teenagers doing a reality competition on the Appalachian Trail.  This was above average and I think one of the standout elements for me was the humor (our main character's voice was delightful and legitimately hilarious. For example, when she's scaring off a bear by yelling at him about the misogynistic nature of the Incredible Hulk, and which Chris is best.) (It's Pine.)

Secondly, her journey is rooted in anxiety and familial trauma that is very well-handled and doesn't get tied up in a bow.  The conflicts are not manufactured but rooted in actual character. So I really liked that part!

I didn't love it so much that I need to go read the rest of her novels immediately - need some more queerness to really hit the spot for me - but I'd absolutely read another book from her in the future.

Great Expectations (by Vinson Cunningham)

Vinson Cunningham worked as a staffer on the Obama campaign; the main character of this novel, David, is a young Black man working on the campaign of an unnamed politician who is obviously Obama. It melds fact and fiction into a story that actually maps in a few subtle ways onto Great Expectations, if you squint a bit.

I feel like I'm going through this year's ToB not really loving anything except, so far, James.  This is a fine read, and Vinson's prose is outstanding, but a little episodic and philosophical, lacking drama or plot, and not particularly compelling. I felt like I'd rather read Cunningham's memoir about his real experience vs. a thinly fictionalized version. 

Two Black Stallions (by Walter Farley)

One of the categories of this year's Read Harder Challenge was to re-read a childhood favorite book. The Black Stallion's Filly was the only Black Stallion book I read as a child, and I re-read it so many times; I think I still have it, all beaten up, on a shelf somewhere.  Everything I know about horse racing and the Kentucky Derby is from that book, and I loved the main character, the horse Black Minx.

I don't know how I stumbled across it, but I found a review of the book that said The Black Stallion’s Courage also features Black Minx, so I checked that one out as well. And it's almost a direct sequel! It's very strange to read about so many of the same people and horses 40 years later.  But here's my review of each:

The Black Stallion’s Filly (by Walter Farley) 

Read this through the haze of nostalgia. I know more about horse racing these days than I did in the 80s, and I can see more flaws in the writing. (In particular, Farley does that thing where the "dialogue" contains sentences nobody would actually say aloud.) Also while growing up I skimmed right past the part about Alec spending time in the "breeding shed" and certainly didn't have the internet to look up exactly what thoroughbred breeding is all about, and it turns out it's crazy.  But I remember so many moments about this book and it was just a comforting read all around.

The Black Stallion’s Courage (by Walter Farley) 

In this one, I noticed the uneven writing a bit more (there are perspective shifts mid-chapter sometimes that are a bit weird, and suddenly all the horses from the last book have nicknames?) but Black Minx falls in love with another horse, which is pretty hilarious. The main plot is the Black Stallion (who, was basically not in Filly so I have no attachment to him at all) racing in various handicap races, which entails different horses being given different weights so the race comes out even. (I never knew what a handicap race was. Again for 40 years I basically only knew what was in The Black Stallion’s Filly.) The plot is thin - they have to raise $100,000 to rebuild a barn that burned down and $20,000 to buy Black Minx her horse boyfriend. But my inner child was thrilled by the whole experience.

The Book-Censor’s Library (by Buthaina Al Eissa)

A Tournament of Books entry from a Kuwaiti author, translated from Arabic. It's a pastiche of (and explicit homage to) dystopian novels like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 as well as Alice in Wonderland and Zorba the Greek. A Book-Censor starts to read forbidden books, and is drawn into an underground (see: Alice) world of illicit literature.

The plot goes a bit off the rails at the end - I did enjoy the metatexual ending a lot as well as the inversion of Orwell, so maybe I'm just holding the daughter's fate (which made me sad) against the author here. Still, it's going up against James in the first round, and although underdogs win in the ToB all the time, my personal vote would go to James. 

Martyr! (by Kaveh Akbar)

A book from the Tournament of Books that also qualifies for the RHC under the category of "a book about immigration or refugees."  Cyrus's family is Persian; his mother was killed when an Iranian passenger flight was shot down by the United States, and he and his father relocated to Indiana. 

It's told in vignettes (for example, Cyrus pairs up people and listens to their conversations in dreams, so there is an interlude of his father talking to Rumi, or his brother talking to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar); there are multiple points of view in addition to Cyrus's, like his best friend or his mother or a dying artist he befriends. Cyrus wants his death to mean something; he longs for martyrdom and is writing a book about it.

I'm not a huge short story reader because the context changes so often; I felt the same in the first part of this novel, where the POV kept shifting and I had to regain a toe hold on the material.  It comes together in the back half though, where the throughline of the novel becomes clear.  It's interesting how many of these ToB novels are from the perspective of, frankly, whiny men. Cyrus is like George from Book of George is like John from Liars - but he's the best of the three and I enjoyed where the narrative takes him. 

I loved this less than many ToB fans did, who raved about it in the Goodreads group, but I did enjoy it and it has lovely passages and moments. The Persian-American perspective was especially good. Overall, I liked it. Four stars.