April 2024 Book Reviews
zombies, thrillers, cannibals, and Moshfegh... Some flops, some goodies, and a new favorite! (mild spoilers)
The Books!
The Bloody Chamber (1971) by Angela Carter
Eileen (2015) by Ottessa Moshfegh
World War Z (2006) by Max Brooks
My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) by Ottessa Moshfegh
Tender is the Flesh (2017) by Agustina Bazterrica
Sharp Objects (2006) by Gillian Flynn
The Bloody Chamber (1971) by Angela Carter
(dark fantasy short story collection)
Rating: C
I don't know if I've ever read something so snobby-toned but what did I expect from a British second-wave feminist rewriting fairytales??? These stories were sharp, witty, and interesting. But DEAR GOD, it took forever to read.
She calls her style "purple prose" which means long descriptions and LOTS of adjectives. Her writing is beautiful, but I found myself frustrated constantly reading the details of a room when I wanted to get to the action of the story. She's excellent at creating atmospheres, though.
The Bloody Chamber is a collection of short stories inspired by fairy tales and monsters. Carter brings to light the patriarchal subtext in these stories through a feminist perspective - often switching the roles of damsel in distress and attacker. She plays with the different expectations thrust on women, and how they might choose to act one way or another in these magical scenarios.
My favorite by far is the Puss and Boots story, it was the least grim, and even though it had some voyeurism and murder, I found it lovely and fun.
There's also a vampire story here, and werewolf stories, 2 different spins on Beauty and the Beast, and a very dark version of the Snow White story. The title of the book comes from a version of the Bluebeard story, which had a very satisfying ending.
The stories are good, and there are some lines that will stick with me, but the reading experience itself was arduous. I will keep this on my shelf to look back on, but never to read through like this again... her style just isn’t for me.
Eileen (2015) by Ottessa Moshfegh
(literary fiction / thriller)
Rating: B
In preparation for a disgusting book I ordered, I got 2 more books from the same author at the library. Starting with her debut.
This main character is somehow both really unlikable and relatable! I feel like everybody has been overcome with self-absorbed angst at some point in their life, just probably not to this extreme.
Eileen is a miserable person. She's 24, She has no direction, she hates her job, everybody mistreats her, she lives in filth, keeps herself tight with judgement and shame, and there's not much special about her. Her main feature is how miserable she is and how that affects her temperament, which, that part itself, makes her a scary person! You don't know what to expect from her.
This no-life having ass has to occupy her time somehow! She enjoys shoplifting, stalking, voyeurism, fantasizing about murdering her coworkers, and being generally nasty! She's kinda endearing.
Like I read this, and I want better for Eileen. But she doesn't know how to act right, so when new things happen, I'm dreading what she'll do. (In this way it reminds me of unhealed versions of myself and loved ones)
She's unpredictable and erratic. And considering she uprooted her whole life with a violent crime 3 days after meeting her first friend, UMMMMM ya know, this was probably just the best journey for her. It's narrated the whole time by a future self who says she's better now and I believe her! But good Lord, she was such a hateful, hate-able person.
Eileen reminds me SO much of Eleanor from the Haunting of Hill House, which almost definitely is an inspiration. I mean for fuck’s sake look at the names, but the parallels in the story are undeniable. Single "spinster" women around 1960, socially isolated, resentful at caring for a sick parent, rigid to social norms, and a fast obsession with a first friend. The comparison is very clear to me, and it's interesting to look more closely into the inner world of a character like this.
Yeahhhh this was pretty fun to read. I see this as a case study on just how depraved a person can secretly be and where that can lead them. The last 60 pages were a rush. Good thriller! For a debut novel, this is fantastic.
World War Z (2006) by Max Brooks
(zombie apocalypse fiction / speculative journalism)
Rating: S
NO STONE LEFT UNTURNED. That's how I'd describe World War Z. How have I only ever heard of the shitty action movie and never read the book??? This is brilliant! WOW.
This is written through a series of interviews conducted by a reporter. He interviews all kinds of people from around the world, following a worldwide zombie plague in the early 21st century. Unlike the movie, this is not about one man’s survival. This is about the survival of humanity and no one person is the main focus.
The narrator/reporter does not insert his own opinions on what people say, just asks questions and makes probing comments. He lets everybody tell their story how they want to tell it and makes factual corrections with footnotes.
He talks to war criminals. Pharmaceutical profiteers. Soldiers who were "just following orders". Witnesses to chemical weapon attacks. Survivors of cannibalism. K-9 Unit Trainers. Internet hermits. Radio operators who have to decide who is important enough to dedicate resources to saving.
Stories that struck me the most: Sharon, a survivor of the "mercy" child killings by Christian fundamentalists. Joe Muhammed, a wheelchair-bound man who led neighborhood patrols. Christina Eliopolis, the only survivor of a plane crash whose stress-induced hallucinations saved her life. Paul Redeker, the South African genius behind the plan that would sacrifice most of humanity to save a fraction of it.
Each interview is like a short story that adds to the greater whole, but a lot of them are powerful and fully fledged with emotion and information within their own right. Some of these stories could be their own movie.
Overall, I am impressed! It must have taken so much research, and talking to experts, to accomplish this. I don't know if all of the international politics here are accurate, or if his depiction of history and other cultures are fair enough, but this was a massive project to take on nonetheless.
If you are into: sci-fi, action, horror, politics, military, geography, ecology, or just reading a story about humanity's resilience, I think you will find this interesting and I highly recommend it. For me, this is a new favorite read that I didn’t realize was out there.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) by Ottessa Moshfegh
(psychological / literary fiction)
Rating: C
Another unlikable character from Moshfegh.... Soooo the premise for this book is that this girl is a very rich, recently orphaned young woman living in NYC. She's got a fat inheritance and she doesn't really need to work anymore. She's depressed and she decides to sleep for an entire year. She finds a wacky psychiatrist who she lies to in order to achieve her goal, and life unfolds around her while she goes in and out of consciousness.
This was a bit of a painful read for me, just because of how damn shallow the main character is. We get to know her back-story: a loveless childhood and a damaging relationship with an older man has culminated in her being a person who numbs herself to the world.
Learning that would normally make me more sympathetic to a character, but the more details I learn about her the less I'm convinced. It doesn't feel like I'm getting to know a character, it feels like she's trying to convince me she's a human who likes human things.
She doesn't want to be a caricature of an out-of-touch privileged person but she can't help it. Her interests, and even her pain, feel inauthentic because of how little she actually engages with them. I guess that's the point of her year of sleep - to completely disengage. But she never seemed engaged to begin with.
The relationship between the MC and Reva was the most interesting part for me. They're toxic and don't treat each other well yet they maintain being "best friends" because they fill a psychological need for each other. They're using each other. The MC is very honest about how inauthentic their friendship is and yet it persists, because they both benefit, and the MC just doesn’t care.
Living in a haze of downers, cigarettes, perfume, fur coats, and Chinese take-out is definitely a vibe, but completely inaccessible to most people. If Moshfegh's Eileen was a study on how depravity can create a person, this was a study on how wealth can create a person... And completely insulate them from the consequences of their actions. I liked Eileen more.
Tender is the Flesh (2017) by Agustina Bazterrica
(dystopian horror)
Rating: B
So, this is a story about legal and regulated cannibalism following a virus that makes most animals toxic to humans. In this society words, phrases, and ideas that call out the brutality of cannibalism are forbidden, and you can be sent to the municipal slaughterhouse for your crimes. The main character is a manager at a "processing plant" AKA slaughterhouse, and the story takes place over two "meat runs" where his job is visit breeding centers and the places they sell their "meat" to.
Over the course of a few months, he does increasingly depraved things he never thought himself capable of, but they aren't really far-fetched from the violence that's been normalized in his society. He's questioning these societal norms though, they feel oppressive, he doesn’t trust the government, and he's frustrated at having to constantly pretend that everything's fine.
This guy's got some deep problems that are both personal and highly influenced by the world he's forced to live in. The entire time the main character is simply referred to by the narrator as "he", which adds an interesting layer of depersonalization, but also created confusion for me sometimes as to who was doing what.
I was expecting this to be more brutal than it actually felt. Most of the gorey, horrifying bits are written in clinical terms, with very little description. It really gets across how dehumanized the people bred for meat are, and how desensitized the characters are to the violence happening around them.
There wasn't much emotion or analysis in this piece, but there were a lot of metaphors. It takes you through each facet of life that permitted cannibalism affects: butcher shops, dinner tables, wealth disparity, religion, industrial and domestic farming, human trafficking, brothels, leather tanners, lab research, and even hunting game reserves. It presents the facts of this world and the series of events, and it lets you come to your own conclusions, and create your own imagery out of the lack of detail. It puts humans in the position of animals who are used in all kinds of ways, showing how our bodies can also be used for the same purposes, and how people would justify it.
Overall, pretty interesting. This is a book that's thought-provoking rather than declaring any truth itself. The chapters are short and punchy, so it made for a quick read. The times I had to pause were to process how something so horrible could be written in an unemotional, short sentence. This is horror with a significant level of detachment, which isn't quite up my alley, but it definitely enhances the themes of the story.
Sharp Objects (2006) by Gillian Flynn
(southern gothic thriller / murder mystery)
Rating: S
This book made me SO emotional, but I couldn't stop reading! My friend had to make me take breaks, it was getting me so worked up. There was so much to relate to in this story, but it also had my skin crawling!
The main character is Camille, a reporter going to her hometown in Missouri, to cover a story on 2 murdered girls. It starts off pretty professional - reporter using her local connections to interview people and get as much information as she can about the case. It slowly and then rapidly goes off the rails, and it begins to involve Camille personally.
This is a dark, small, southern town, haunted by generational trauma, cycles of violence, and historic social norms. Cruelty, gossip, and neglect are commonplace and accepted in this community, though most people make sure to put on a nice face for folks, since reputation is important.
Everyone in this book has demons they're fighting or demons they've embraced. Everyone has their own brand of sickness, and they try to hide it behind an allure of beauty, righteousness, or pride. I was so curious to get to know these characters. Everyone carried an air of mystery about them, like they were hiding something that we had an idea of but couldn't quite see.
I loved how this was written. There was constantly new information, and I found it super immersive and engaging. There were many times I read a page, yelled "NO!" and put the book down, only to pick it right back up because I wanted to know more. Were there some things I wish I hadn't read? Yes. Did I like the reaction it got out of me? Yes.
I'm definitely going to read the other two Gillian Flynn novels. This was too good NOT to want to read more of her style. I will need a break though, because this was some psychologically heavy material.
thanks for reading :) Next reviews might be posted at the end of May! Now that I quit social media I’m reading way more, so maybe I can make this a monthly thing?