jayisreading's reviews
512 reviews

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Zola’s Germinal is not a novel that I would normally pick up on my own accord, especially because I’m not particularly interested in the subject matter (though, I guess the average reader probably won’t be that invested in mining in France during the 1800s). When it comes to personal enjoyment, I would say that the novel fell in the middle ground, and I didn’t love or hate it. I think what really won me over, though, was Zola’s socio-political commentary, especially if you take into consideration who and what he may have been engaging with during the period he worked on this novel.

Directly inspired by the miners’ strikes that occurred in the 1860s, Zola crafted a fictional version of a miners’ strike in Northern France to dig deep into class struggle, particularly the exploitation of the working class by the bourgeoisie. There were other ideas that he considered as well, with I think the most surprising being the role of women in these spaces. I will say that the treatment of women in this novel was anything but great (to put it lightly), but I did appreciate Zola’s consideration of how women contributed to the labor movement. The living conditions that Zola described in Germinal were unbelievably bleak, but, in many ways, it did give him the chance to create powerful (even if, at times, heavy-handed) symbols reflecting on struggle and survival, particularly through his characters, notably Étienne and Catherine. On the note of his characters, I appreciated that Zola didn’t follow the good vs. evil model and, instead, chose to place them in murkier spaces.

Again, based on personal enjoyment alone, I would say that I don’t have any strong opinions and found the novel to be just okay. However, I have to fully acknowledge the richness of Zola’s symbolism, graphic details, and commentary in Germinal. I do think it’s worth picking this up, should you be able to handle the overwhelming bleakness, as it is a great exploration of class struggle while also giving a glimpse into how people such as Zola may have been reacting to Marxism. I was also a little surprised by his prose, which I found a bit different from his contemporaries. Relatedly, I thought it was more accessible to a modern reader who might be intimidated by nineteenth-century French literature, should that mean anything.

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Toward Eternity by Anton Hur

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

I am quite familiar with the name Anton Hur, having read many of his translations of contemporary South Korean literature. So, it came as a pleasant surprise when he announced that he was publishing a science fiction novel. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect in his prose, but reading Toward Eternity was very similar to admiring a pretty piece of abstract art. It was so clear in the frequency of their appearances that Hur absolutely loved the relationship between language, music, and poetry, as they interlocked throughout this novel. With a novel professing love for languages, then, it shouldn’t come as a total surprise that Hur also writes in an incredibly floral fashion. The purple prose will definitely not be for everyone (and may even frustrate some), and I’ll admit that it sometimes felt as though Hur got lost in the language itself and forgot to attend to the plot.

On that note, I think the weakest aspects of this novel were the plot and worldbuilding. There was just enough that it kept the story going, but in science fiction, I feel that these two components are quite crucial in developing a compelling story, and this wasn’t quite present in Toward Eternity. In other words, this is not a novel for those who are looking for something plot-driven with extensive worldbuilding. Instead, I think it’s safe to say that Hur was far more interested in philosophical meditations on the arts and their importance to humanness. I didn’t mind this at all, especially since I’m rather fond of such topics. However, I would be lying if I said that I wanted a bit more development on other fronts for this novel to really come together (and I think it could have afforded more pages, considering how short it was).

Ultimately, Hur offered a lot for the reader to think about in his first novel, which I truly appreciate, and I do think there’s genuine promise in his original works, should he choose to publish more. I just hope that, should he choose to write more fiction, there will be more engagement with the story itself.

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Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

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adventurous challenging medium-paced

3.0

I have mixed feelings about this novel, but, at its core, I enjoyed how Delany thought about language in his novel, particularly how language can define and limit the speaker and their understanding of the world around them. With that said, the novel is very much a product of its time (e.g., some insensitive approaches to certain cultures and peoples), though, at the same time, it had its surprisingly progressive moments (e.g., body modifications and the casual acceptance of queerness).

I did struggle a fair bit with how the story was told. I think this is more a me problem, though, which is that I was not a fan of Delany’s writing style. However, I also think there was a major issue with pacing in this novel, so the flow of the plot read strangely to me.

I think I would have more nuanced thoughts about this novel if I had a stronger background in linguistics, because I have no doubt there’s plenty to be said about what was left out from this novel.

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Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park

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adventurous challenging informative mysterious medium-paced

4.25

Same Bed Different Dreams is one of those books that I feel would be an even better reading experience the second (or even third) time around due to Park’s very experimental approach. This is such a complex novel with its three interwoven narratives, which, ultimately, resulted in a very surreal experience. The first narrative to follow is about a Korean American, Soon Sheen, and his personal life. The second narrative is a book-within-a-book situation and is about the manuscript that Soon comes across that is about the Korean Provisional Government, and it is an unfinished novel that extensively explores history and culture. The third narrative is about a Black science fiction writer and Korean War veteran. I’m not entirely sure how, but Park managed to deftly weave all of these narratives together to show the ways in which lives and histories are inextricably connected, no matter how well-known or obscure they might be.

Park starts the novel with a question that seems simple: What is history? And it’s a question that repeatedly comes up throughout Same Bed Different Dreams. I think what I liked about this question and its ties to the themes of this novel is how Park reveals the incredibly subjective nature of history. Twentieth-century Korean history in particular proved to be a great point to explore this question, given how frequently the peninsula had to deal with foreign intervention, the Korean War being the apex of it all. Park speculates an alternative history for Korea through the KPG, should they have continued to exist after WWII, filled with dreams and what ifs.

I won’t lie, I don’t know if I fully understood most of this book, haha. There were so many ideas, themes, characters, and the likes that I (and I’m sure many other readers) had to juggle. Furthermore, Park does very little hand-holding, leaving it up to the reader to decide how much of what he wrote is going to be pieced together. Fiction and fact are blurred, there are layers upon layers upon layers found in this novel, all of which make for a strange and chaotic novel. I absolutely stuck around for the vibes, because everything was so fascinating to me. This is definitely a novel I’d love to revisit, especially with hopes of better understanding things.

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Song of My Softening by Omotara James

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

This was such a heartfelt collection that I know will touch certain readers more than others. I loved the way Omotara reflected on the intersections of being Black, fat, and queer in her poems with such grace and care. I also appreciated how her poems invited the reader to reflect on how they perceive their own body, how one can make space for themself in the world with the body they have.

Most of the poems themselves were beautifully crafted, easily conveying Omotara’s emotions and thoughts. I say easily in the sense that I found her poems quite approachable for all readers. The poems themselves may not resonate with everyone, especially considering how personal they are, but I think there’s a lot that the reader can take away from them.

Some favorites: “Half Girl, Then Elegy,” “Untouched,” “Ceremony,” “Ice Sculpture,” “On Repetition,” “Bang and a Whimper,” “Exhibition of the Queered Woman,” “The Butcher: A Love Poem,” “Sonnet of the Bull,” “In Lieu of Ode,” “Bodies Like Oceans,” “Tripartite,” “Museum of What Is Owed,” “Kiese Says, Black People Deserve Beautiful Sentences, but a Fragment is the Best I Can Do / Songbook for the Names I Have Been Called,” and “Last Days of Summer”

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Riambel by Priya Hein

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dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

A powerful novel from Priya Hein, Riambel is a contemplation on the legacies of slavery and colonization on Mauritius from the perspective of Noemi, a teenage girl who is also a native to the island. The story is told in a rather simplistic and straightforward fashion with very occasional touches of lyricism. I didn’t see this as a bad thing by any means, and, in fact, I thought it worked rather well, considering that the story is narrated primarily by a teenager. Furthermore, the chapters read like interconnected vignettes that I found effective in getting Hein’s ideas across.

I was impressed by how well Hein captured the complexities of Mauritius in such a short book. She reveled in the beauty of the land and its natives, with simple yet expressive imagery. At the same time, though, she reflected on the dark history of the island nation primarily through Noemi’s experiences, with written snippets of an enslaved woman from the past interspersed between chapters. This approach was really effective in how Hein wanted to demonstrate how the past haunts the present, while leaving the future open-ended.

Riambel was a quick read, but definitely an impactful one. Like many other short fictional works, there’s a desire for more. Overall, though, I think the sparseness of this book worked in Hein’s favor to get her points across.

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The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

2.0

I think this may have been one of the most disappointing reads of this year, which is really unfortunate. I liked the idea of a sci-fi murder mystery, but, really, the only thing that was sci-fi about this novel was that it mainly took place on a spaceship. It lacked the depth that sci-fi novels generally have in exploring the ins and outs of science and technology, which made the setting rather superficial. As for the murder mystery, it wasn’t especially engaging, and I personally thought the intrigue completely fizzled out halfway through the book.

That being said, my main gripe with this novel was how the characters were depicted. At best, the characters felt half-finished with how barely developed they were. There was never much sense of what the characters’ motives and aspirations were, there were minimal descriptions on what they even looked like, and their personalities felt one-dimensional to me. As for the protagonist, Asuka, I really wanted more from her. Unfortunately, she ended up a character whose entire persona was having major insecurities about being biracial and dealing with something not unlike an inferiority complex about her identity and position in the crew. I initially felt sympathy toward Asuka, but I got increasingly frustrated with how self-absorbed she was, which was exacerbated by the fact that she never grew as an individual over the course of the novel.

Relatedly, I was really bothered by Kitasei’s attempt to create an inclusive cast of characters. A few characters were trans/nonbinary (which was only ever depicted through pronouns use), but it seemed like they were given these identities for the sole purpose of having some kind of queer representation. I found the approach she took particularly harmful, especially considering that the novel centered a crew that was sent to space with the goal for them to have babies (which also had its own problems, but I digress). This isn’t to say that trans/nonbinary people can’t get pregnant, but Kitasei’s failure to develop her characters with care completely erased the complexities of what pregnancy/childbirth might mean for trans/nonbinary people (especially in relation to their gender identity), and, as a result, they ended up reading as “Women Lite.” I can’t help but wonder if any sensitivity readers were involved, and, if so, how this was never brought to attention.

I don’t think Kitasei is a terrible writer when it comes to stylistic choices, but there was so much left to be desired. I really wish she had taken more time to develop the plot and characters, especially the characters.

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The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

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challenging informative mysterious slow-paced

3.0

I’ll admit that it never crossed my mind to pick up this novel, partially because of my slight aversion to semiotics (which Eco is well-known for). However, knowing that it was a huge influence on a video game I absolutely loved (i.e., Pentiment), I thought I’d give his novel a try.

Not entirely to my surprise, The Name of the Rose was quite dense in its themes, writing style, and theoretical frameworks. I would even go so far as to say that Eco’s philosophical interests overshadowed the story itself. As a result of this, I felt a bit frustrated by the novel, because I wasn’t particularly interested in the erudite discussions that somewhat strayed from the main story, which I wanted more of. Ultimately, I think I would have liked the novel far more if there was a better balance of creative storytelling and scholarly writing. To me, at least, I felt that Eco had a very particular group of people in mind while writing this novel; I was definitely not a member of this audience, which might be why a fair bit of what he wrote flew over my head (for example, I know very little about Catholicism, which is central to the story).

That being said, I will say that this is a novel that demands the reader’s full attention, as well as their willingness to take the time to digest Eco’s ideas. Unfortunately, I didn’t have either of these due to my schedule and having borrowed the book from the library (i.e., I had limited time), so these definitely played into why I struggled to fully appreciate this novel. I guess this is to say take this review with a grain of salt, because it’s clear that a fair number of readers found the book quite rich and engaging (e.g., the developers of Pentiment, haha), and that’s likely because they had the time to sit with Eco’s words.

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Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

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dark mysterious medium-paced

2.75

I think the best way to explain how I feel about this novel is that I wish it was written by someone else. I really liked the premise and overall atmosphere of the novel, considering that it had an autumnal setting with the right amount of eerie and unsettling. Unfortunately, I think Bradbury’s delivery of the story fell short, and I would say his writing style is somewhat to blame. There were some instances when his distinct lyricism worked in his favor, but in most other cases, I found it strange and cumbersome, which made it difficult for me to fully immerse myself into the story. Regarding plot and characters, it was hard for me to get a lot out of either because of Bradbury’s writing style, or I felt that they lacked substance, particularly the characters. Another issue I had with the novel was the language, which I found really dated. To be fair to Bradbury, this isn’t his fault— It’s just how things go as language about certain things and ideas change over time.

I really wanted to like this novel, but it didn’t work for me. I also think it’s quite possible that I’m just not a fan of Bradbury’s writings, despite being interested in the themes and ideas he has. (This is also likely why I started this review with the wish that someone else had written this novel.)

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Violets by Kyung-sook Shin

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

I don’t think I was in the right headspace to read and appreciate Violets to its fullest, because I really struggled to get through this novel. I found the pacing a bit too slow, and the ending threw me off a little. I also couldn’t wrap my mind around a particularly sad story at the time of reading. There’s a lot of quiet grief in these pages, and I will say that while I did have some trouble reading this novel, I did appreciate the reflective nature of the novel in thinking about suppressing queer desire, feeling isolated in South Korean society, and existing on the margins, all of which is further complicated by being a woman.

On an unrelated note, hats off to Anton Hur, as always, for a phenomenal translation.

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jayisreading's reviews 512 reviews

jayisreading's reviews
512 reviews