#prose!

A+: one of my favourite books getting a re-read.

Polly Perks joins the Discworld army to find her brother Paul. "Ozzer" cuts off her blonde braids, dons male garb, belches, scratches, and masters macho habits - aided by well-placed pair of socks. The legendary and seemingly ageless Sergeant Jackrum accepts her plus a vampire, Igor, troll, religious fanatic, and two close "friends". The best man for the job may be a woman. (from the Goodreads page)

I think this book, Going Postal, and Night Watch are some of the best Discworld books. This is Pratchett at his finest - mulling over gender and war and patriotism and coming to brilliant conclusions, all wrapped around a clever, hilarious plot.

Seriously, there’s nothing about this book that doesn’t shine - Polly herself is a fantastic main character, growing into herself more with every page. And her squad-mates are fantastic, too: my favourites are Lofty and Tonker, because I am nothing if not predictable, but they all shine.

And, of course, the man, the myth, the legend himself, Sergeant Jackrum, who is SO cool I want to clap every time he’s on the page doing something insane. He’s like Sam Vimes with no morals (so, not at all like Sam Vimes). It’s fantastic.

Speaking of Sam Vimes, we get some great City Watch and Ankh-Morpok Times cameos in this one.

Also, because it cannot be overstated: this book has one of the best understandings of women and gender I’ve ever seen from an old cishet guy. It’s truly impressive.

Plot: fast-paced and exciting. I hadn’t realized, the previous times I’d read it, how short of a span this book happens in: it really isn’t much more than a couple weeks. Normally, plots that happen so quickly bother me, because you can’t pack character development and friendship into so short a time and make it feel real. Pratchett manages it by focusing not so much on people becoming friends as people understanding each other, and making Polly’s own character development not a complete 180 so much as her letting go of her own hesitation to embrace what she already was.

Characters: these are my girls and I adore every last one of them. I really can’t say much about side characters without spoiling the first third of the story or so, but Pratchett does a great job of taking an ensemble squad and fleshing them out in a small amount of time. I forgot to mention Wazzer up above, another of Polly’s squad-mates with an absolutely killer storyline. And there’s Pratchett’s standard people-turn-something-quite-ordinary-into-something-more trope, which works out very well in this one. Also Maladict, a sarcastic vampire obsessed with coffee, is fantastic.

Setting: Borogravia doesn’t shine the way Ankh-Morpok does. Well, of course, Ankh-Morpok has never once in its life shone, but you know what I mean - it isn’t quite as developed. What is developed, though, is its people, and the conflicting ways they feel about it: which almost works better for the story.

Prose: we’ve got some great Pratchettisms in this one. One of my personal favourites is this one: “Polly felt questing eyes boring into her. She was embarrassed, of course. But not for the obvious reason. It was for the other one, the little lesson that life sometimes rams home with a stick: you are not the only one watching the world. Other people are people; while you watch them they watch you, and they think about you while you think about them. The world isn’t just about you.“ I think this one better fits the story, though: “Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust "Mothers of Borogravia!" and that was from the government. And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust? Very nearly everyone, come to think of it...”

A+ : this was stunning - beautiful, lush, and clever. I read it and then immediately flipped to the start and read it again, so I could get all the things I missed the first time.

A retelling of the Great Gatsby, flavoured with magic, demonic dealings, and a unique perspective on the American dream. The side character of Jordan Baker has been reimagined as a queer Vietnamese adoptee, and narrates her perspective of the summer of Gatsby’s parties and the tragedy of him, Nick, and Daisy.

Yes, before you ask, Nick and Gatsby do kiss in this one, although it’s messy and not at all the focus of the story. This revolves far more around Jordan and Daisy’s relationship, and Jordan’s own precarious position as an Asian girl in all-white circles. The part of the book that impressed me the most was her own relationship to her Asianness, how she spends lots of this summer quietly working out how she feels about it. What’s more American than the immigrant story, and what’s more immigrant story than the quiet identity crisis Jordan has so well in here?

But if you’re a big fan of toxic female friendships then oh boy, Jordan and Daisy delivers! They’re both such fantastic characters the way Vo writes them, and the book flashes back to their own histories as it winds the stories of the summer and Jordan’s life simultaneously.

That isn’t to say that Nick and Gatsby don’t play major roles in this, and they do stand out as characters, Gatsby especially. His terrible all-consuming love for Daisy and the things he did to gain his wealth are excellently done.

Every review of this book mentions the words ‘lush’ or ‘evocative’, and they’re all entirely correct. The setting is gorgeous, both in luxuries real and fantastical, all beautiful clothes and demonic wine and secret speakeasies. Even the non-descriptive prose is full of Jordan’s acerbic wit and observations on the characters of the places she goes and the people she’s with.

I didn’t read the Great Gatsby before I read this book, and I do think the experience would have been improved by knowing the greater context of plot: while most of it stands on its own, I did have to use the Sparknotes summary a few times to understand who George and Myrtle Wilson were. What’s nice, though, is that although it follows the plot of the Great Gatsby pretty closely, Vo has added her own twists to the material, so you’re in for a surprise either way.

Featuring...

Obviously, lesbian necromancers in space. This is what everyone hears and it’s a fantastic concept. But the execution is so much better than you could have dreamed

First of all, no one mentions it’s hilarious. It’s hilarious. Gideon is amazing and immature and makes stupid jokes at the worst (read: best) possible time. Everyone else delivers great wisecracks and the narration is witty and clever

Second, no one mentions its emotional beats hit like a punch to the gut. The freaking emotional connections these characters have to each other (not just positive ones, not just romantic ones) - even the side characters, how so much lives under the surface but is so fascinatingly illustrated I’m losing my mind just thinking about it 

Speaking of punches to the gut, there’s a mystery at the centre of this - of Gideon and Harrow’s past, of how to become a Lyctor, of a dozen twists and turns that made me so excited for every single one of them. For a few I had to physically put the book down and take a walk around the room to collect myself

A+ world- and magical system-building! I love an original concept, especially one further expanded upon.

Also these characters!!!! Gideon and Harrow are fantastic (Gideon in particular has my undying love) but even the smaller side characters are all so interesting and charming I would have read a book about any of them. Well. Maybe not, like, Ortus. But most of the others.

Plot: those twists, though. Just - everything about it! It’s a gradually building mystery and the payoff is fantastic. Strangely enough, though, this doesn’t mean the rest of the book is unbearable before we get to the reveal - I was still enjoying myself seeing Gideon and Harrow work through trials and interact with people, not wanting it to hurry along so I could figure out what exactly was happening. 

Characters: Gideon please marry me. She’s just... funny and strong and caring and I love her. But if she married me she couldn’t marry Harrow and their relationship as they grow to trust each other is one of my favourite parts of this book that is one of my favourite books. I don’t as a general rule like enemies to lovers - I don’t see how you can forgive someone who’s hurt you and let them into your life like that. But this one works - this one works so beautifully. Even Harrow - I liked her at the start of the book knowing that there was more to her than tormenting Gideon and the more that there was to her made me adore her by the end. (Seriously, these two: “One flesh, one end, bitch.” “I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it.” I love them.) But I got attached to the side characters as well - Isaac and Jeannemary, Palmedes and Camilla, Magnus (I have a soft spot for characters named Magnus), Dulcinea. They’re clearly and cleverly drawn and each of them have so much going on under the surface - even ones we don’t spend much time with like the people from the Second and Eighth house. And the relationships between a necromancer and their cavalier - it’s about the devotion and the fealty and the different ways that can look. 

 Setting: love me a good magic system. Love me a good war being fought at the edges of the empire. Love me a good spacefaring civilization. Love me, most of all, a place with history - uncovered and waiting to be. I’m so excited for Muir to explore this more in the next book or two. We got a little bit in this book, enough that the middle of the map was nicely coloured in, but Muir made us aware of the edges and I’d love for those to be filled as well. 

Prose: I laughed a whole lot. And then I wanted to cry a whole lot. It’s as funny as it’s been billed as. Both in narration and in things Gideon and other characters actually say, Muir’s wit shines through and it’s so much fun to see. She’s also a good narrator of action - so much of this book, especially the latter half, isn’t dialogue, but is people running from place to place fighting and uncovering mysteries. My attention span means if those paragraphs aren’t interesting I’ll skim them, but I was invested the whole time. And the emotional beats - bro.

Not-great things: honestly, this might just be because I’m still hyped up with what a good time I had, but I don’t have anything to concretely warn I didn’t like. I was a bit confused in the first half of the book as to who was who - the cast of characters at the beginning helped, but not enough until I got into the rhythm of it. 

5/5 - I’ve been really excited to read this and it did not disappoint.

Casiopea Tun spends her life doing chores for her wealthy grandfather and her terrible cousin Martin, until she opens a forbidden chest and resurrects the Mayan death god Hun-Kame. Now she’s stuck with him as they travel through Mexico in the 1920s and try to win him back his kingdom.

I’m obsessed with the narration of this - it has a certain distance from the events I can’t really describe, and sometimes the narrator will take a step back and speak eloquently and beautifully about Mexico, or the nature of gods, or Casiopea herself in a way I really loved

If you love the ordinary-girl-falls-in-love-with-someone-powerful trope, you’re in for a treat. If you don’t like it, I don’t either but this is easily the best example of it I’ve ever seen, and it won me over completely.

Casiopea was such a charming main character and I have a great deal of affection for her.

The setting is beautifully realized - both the real world of Jazz Age Mexico and the fantasy world of Xibalba.

That ending was perfect.

Plot: no complaints. I liked how we followed both teams, but spent far more time on Casiopea because she was more interesting. Good pacing and execution. Seriously, that ending - both the climax (which made me put the book down and take a walk around the room) and the resolution.

Characters: all excellent, especially Casiopea. This book doesn’t really have many characters to it, which means Moreno-Garcia is able to realize the ones present excellently. Martin and Vacub-Kame were excellent villains in that they weren’t cartoonishly villainous so much as cowardly and motivated differently (not in a misunderstood-baby way, just in a realistic one). Hun-Kame and the conflict between his godhood and the mortality Casiopea was giving him was fascinating to see - Moreno-Garcia does a stunning job of making him unfamiliar in the way a god should be, someone who didn’t consider morality on the same level as regular people, and then grappling with if that was good. And Casiopea herself: the narration understands her beautifully, not only showing just her strengths and flaws but also the things she tells herself because she needs to, and whether or not they are true. 

Setting: wonderfully described. Seriously, Xibalba in the third act? Mexico City and Merida in the second? Uukumil, Casiopea’s village in the Yucatan, in the first? They’re given the same depth and importance as Casiopea herself and it results in stunning atmospheres whose personalities you understand.

Prose: “Mythmaking. It’s greater than you or I, this tale.” This is a story wonderfully self-aware it’s a story, and it shows in the excellent narration and prose more than anything else. Full marks.

5/5

Newlyweds Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli are leaving their home in Calcutta to move to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their son, nicknamed Gogol after the Russian writer, will grow up never fully belonging to either world.

I mostly read sci-fi, and I’ve got a childish bias against literary fiction: something about how characters are rarely perfectly happy at the end, how it’s a mundane sort of unhappiness that could happen to anyone, has always bothered me a little bit. This book has the same sort of ending: not so much bittersweet as it is mundane. Gogol and Ashima live ordinary lives, which we follow, and then we don’t anymore.

Regardless of this, I did love this book. It’s half because of Lahiri’s careful, specific prose, and half from the depth of character she gives her mains, extraordinary in so short a book.

My mother loves her South Asian immigrant stories, so I’ve read several and I’ll probably read several more. This one doesn’t leave the formula much, but it’s one of the finest examples of it I’ve ever read.

Plot: winding. Like life, Lahiri doesn’t bother much with foreshadowing or three-act structure: it progresses steadily and the twists are unexpected in the same way they are in life. The only thing tying it together is that theme of Nikolai Gogol, whose works changed Ashoke’s life and whose name haunts Gogol his whole life. I loved seeing that theme weave its way in and out of the story, to come full circle at the end.

Characters: excellent. They’re carefully realized people, flawed and loveable. Lahiri’s narrators are charismatic, and even when I didn’t like them I wanted to hear more about them. She’s got a gift for specific little gestures and turns of phrase that bring people to life, and I love how we see characters though various eyes and perspectives.

Setting: beautiful and detailed. So much of this book is summary: paragraphs of the ordinary parts of living, of journeys and schoolwork and the places we live. Lahiri pays more attention to them than perhaps any other author I’ve read, until Cambridge and Calcutta and their house in the suburbs are as much members of the story as Gogol’s love interests.

Prose: specific and unique. There’s an interesting narrative voice going on here: it’s removed a certain amount from the characters, and doubles back on itself to explain some things, never addressing the audience directly but sort of halfway-aware of them anyways. Here’s an example from page 2: “When she calls out to Ashoke, she doesn’t say his name. Ashima never thinks of her husband’s name when she things of her husband, even though she knows perfectly well what it is. She has adopted his surname but refuses, for propriety’s sake, to utter his first. It’s not the type of thing that Bengali wives do. Like a kiss or caress in a Hindi movie, a husband’s name is something intimate and therefore unspoken, cleverly patched over. And so, instead of saying Ashoke’s name she utters the interrogative that has come to replace it, which translates roughly as, “Are you listening to me?”” I read this and was hooked - my grandmother does the exact same thing, down to the ‘me kya ji’ Ashima uses instead.