Reading Recap: November '25

 

Clockers by Richard Price

This is the reason why books should be 600 pages. The reader is immersed in Price's world and understands the thought process behind each characters' choices, even if they know from the start that it isn't going to work. A big part of that is striking a balance between omniscience and the characters' points of view. We spend most of the story in the dark about the inciting incident, and somehow it isn't frustrating. I thought 50 different things were happening behind the scenes. I think I was right about 10% of the time.

    Price's strength is blurring the line between sadness and anger and apathy until there isn't a difference. Strike thinks he's in this haze, when he really feels things too much to be sustainable. Strike thinks Victor is perfect and feeling and compassionate, but Victor lets his apathy sit and congeal into a point that brings him to the edge of reason. It was still his choice, though. A million little things could've changed what happened, but would Strike get out if it did? Is it always a life for a life? / ★★★★½

Reading Recap: October '25

 

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Like most things I downloaded on my Kindle, this was a palette cleanser in between a string of chunky books. Murata's style definitely caught my attention, and I'm excited to read Earthlings, but I wish that the characters were more fleshed out. It felt more like a pitch than a complete story.

    To be honest, I didn't love the ending. It's one of those situations where I understand what Murata was trying to say, and why she went about it in the way that she did, while still wishing that it could've gone differently. I appreciate that Keiko never lost her characterization. Murata reminds me a lot of Delphine Lecompte; both write about women being trapped in retail, feeling a step behind what it means to be human. I'm not sure if that's an insult. / ★★★

Reading Recap: September '25

 

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Well. Let's just say it was a very strong way to start the month and christen by brand new Kindle (!). I've been wanting to read this for a while, but I didn't want to buy it because I wasn't sure what my reaction would be--it's probably good that I held off.

    I want to make it clear that I didn't dislike this book because of the content. I believe that everything should be explored in media, and the people who say this book is inherently problematic and encouraging of pedophilia didn't finish it. The reason it got a 2.5 was because the writing style sucked shit. It felt more like a writing exercise than a fully fleshed out story with complex characters, and I don't want to root for Celeste, but there needs to be a little more there. / ★★½

Reading Recap: August '25

 

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I absolutely devoured this over the course of 48 hours on my annual camping trip. I knew the major themes of the book, but I managed to stay mostly spoiler free which I think is a big part of my rating. Flynn gracefully straddled the line of having her book be direct enough to zip through, yet vague enough that your imagination wanders. With such an unreliable narrator, who knows what really happened? Her descriptions are unexpectedly disgusting. I need to read it five more times.

    Another aspect Flynn killed (haha) was the reveal. I won't spoil it, but she did a great job of setting it up and still including something refreshing. Every character is written with empathy even if they seem cartoonishly evil at times. It feels a lot like the grown up version of V.C. Andrews, which is probably why I like it so much. / ★★★★½

Reading Recap: July '25

 

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

It's complicated: while the plot didn't pull me in like Tartt's other novels, Harriet is the protagonist I relate to the most. Tartt understands that the terror of childhood comes from a lack of autonomy—this is a horror story. She also does an amazing job of creating a character that's genuinely annoying while making the audience sympathize with her. Harriet sucks and there's no world where she doesn't because all 12-year-old outcasts locked in their childhood home-turned-crypt suck (not that I'm speaking from experience).

    The evolution of Tartt's writing style is strange. The Secret History and the Goldfinch have essentially the same format, with a male protagonist reflecting on his past and telling it to the reader as he sees fit. The Little Friend's narrator is everywhere and nowhere, presumably because Harriet is incapable of knowing everything happening, and that's not a good or bad thing about the book, it just is. I hope Tartt focuses more on female characters in her upcoming novel. There's a sense that she as the narrator looks down on them (or shuns them—Donna when are you transitioning) that makes her male protagonists misogynistic, but her female protagonists multidimensional. Weird women and girls make the world go round./ ★★★★

PotD #8: Music for Voice

Music for Voice
Kim Ok, 1923

Reading Recap: June '25

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

A problem I face with books I don't like is justifying their flaws as "stylistic." The pacing felt weird, but isn't that because Dylan admitted his childhood consumed everything that came after? It was derivative of Kavalier and Clay's Brooklyn comic book utopia and Toni Morrison's blend of metaphor and fantasy, but that's unfair to the book. Nothing is original.

    I think at a certain point, I have to admit that it didn't work for me, but I still appreciate what it's trying to do. My actual criticism is how clunky a lot of the sentences are. I caught upwards of a dozen typos and grammatical errors, and that's just sloppy. The alternating sidesteps and acknowledgements of racism and stereotypes seemed odd until I realized how much of the book is autobiographical. That doesn't fix all of the book's issues, but it explains some of the strange stances it takes and the weirdness he acquired (or had to already have) during his time at Bennington. Lethem is sharing his own childhood, so of course it's going to be biased and vague. Even if he hates where he came from, he can't stop loving it. / ★★

Essential Riverdale Edits

A couple of years ago I burned a DVD of all of the Riverdale edits I had reblogged at some point in my Riverdale career. A lot of great content has been made since then, and while mindlessly updating the edits folder on my hard drive, I got to thinking. Which edits are fundamental to my viewing of Riverdale?

 

This isn't me saying that these are the only good edits or these are my favorites. I have plenty of others that I watch over and over again. The edits I've chosen are special because they shaped the way I watch the show. If you want to see more edits I've enjoyed, visit my Tumblr, or, you know, spend the majority of your teenage years on the front lines like I did.

PotD #7: Obedience School

Obedience School
Jim Daniels, 2021

Reading Recap: April-May '25

 

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Something I took for granted in the past was authors being able to create multiple distinct pieces of work. As much as I wish Tartt finished books quicker, it's worth it when the outcome is this iconic. Not only do the timeskips not anger me, I can see their worth in separating the moods of the books. There must have been an insane amount of research that went into this, from major plot points to minute background details, and you can tell. Theo Decker is a real person. I wish I had read this back in 2019 when Donna Tartt Mania was making its way around Tumblr, and I have a million thoughts about what the movie could've been, but at the end of the day this is a beautiful stand alone piece of writing that invites its audience to read between the lines. The book is only half the story. / ★★★★½