Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran

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Spoiled Milk is a 1920s-set queer boarding school gothic novel about a group of upper sixth girls whose friend falls to her death. Emily is in her final year at Briarley School for Girls, a sanctuary for her and her classmates from the outside world. But when Violet, their erstwhile leader, falls to her death, they want answers, but as they start to investigate, it seems that things are rotten at Briarley, and the school isn’t going to let them go.

I’d heard quite a bit of hype about this novel so I was excited to read it, and it fits into the ‘cursed vibes England’ niche that I’d imagined it would, making you think of Julia Armfield and Alison Rumfitt. The story itself is gothic 1920s boarding school, not aimed at a YA audience even though the characters are seventeen and eighteen, and the horror starts slow and develops as the book goes on. It felt to me like it was about cycles of violence, both interpersonally in characters’ relationships and in terms of the boarding school setting and the haunted element. 

The latter two elements, the implications of the boarding school power structure and the actual malevolent force itself, are more subtext than text in the book, and I think the main thing I left the book wanting was more depth into the meaning(s) behind what happened beyond occasional allusions to the sugar trade past of the family who owned the house and gave the school its name. I think particularly because this book felt like a boarding school version of Tell Me I’m Worthless, which very much foregrounds how fascism is the haunting, I wanted a little more about how different themes in the book were part of the supernatural side.

The book is narrated by Emily, who is a biased narrator who changes opinion and doesn’t give or know the full story, and this makes for classic gothic novel assumptions as well as a bit of an exploration of queer repression. This isn’t the book for you if you’re looking for uncomplicated queer characters/romance, but instead there’s actually flawed teenagers suddenly thrown into a malevolent situation. A downside of the narrative POV is that you don’t get to see as much of the other upper sixth girls’ characters, but it suits the style of the novel and its atmosphere to have a singular perspective through which you interpret the narrative.

Overall, this is a gripping gothic novel that doesn’t always offer answers, but instead has a malevolent atmosphere and a well-captured sense of being trapped somewhere that is decaying everything in it. It perhaps wasn’t as dark as I expected—I would definitely see this as historical gothic rather than horror—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing!

Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

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Almost Life is a novel about the lives two women did and could’ve led, as their love story never quite goes the right way. Erica is eighteen and in Paris for the summer before starting university, where she meets Laure by the Sacré-Cœur, a doctoral student at the Sorbonne. They are  drawn to one another and fall in love, but the summer cannot last forever, and each choice they make changes their lives in different ways.

Told both from Erica and Laure’s perspectives, this novel spans through their lives, using time jumps to show the impact of what happens in each section. Some moments were particularly powerful, like the depiction of a character with AIDS and his friends’ support, and Laure’s reflections on not having children, and the book delves deep into the idea of lives not lived, though at times this imagining feels a bit overdone, wallowing in miscommunications. I really liked some of the characterisation, for example Laure and Michel’s friendship, and how the book explores the messiness of human connection. However, it did feel like any love that Erica or Laure felt other than for each other was stated by them a lot, but not really shown in any depth, even though these relationships were meant to be very important to the plot and their own relationship with each other.

This is a sad, queer ‘what if?’ type novel that hinges a lot around miscommunications and missed chances, exploring how sometimes romantic relationships never seem to get the right opportunity. Occasionally the conceit of everything being ‘almost’ was a bit wearing for me, but generally it is an emotional novel that feels like a successor to the gay novels mentioned in the book itself.

Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami

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Sisters in Yellow is a novel about friendship, betrayal, and crime on the streets of Tokyo. Hana is a teenager bored of school and fed up of her absent mother who works at a bar. When Kimiko, her mother’s friend, appears in Hana’s life, she offers an escape in the form of a new bar she’s setting up, Lemon. Now Hana has purpose, with a focus on making money with her new friends, but how far will she have to go to make and keep that wealth, and what will she think looking back on it all twenty years later, having discovered Kimiko was on trial?

I really didn’t know what to expect from this book, but having read several of Kawakami’s other novels, I wanted to give it a go. It turned out to be very much up my street in that it is really a literary take on a slow burn underworld story of crime, luck, and betrayal. Despite being quite a long book, I felt gripped throughout. It shows an almost mundane seedy side to areas of Tokyo, in which petty crime can be the only way to survive when you don’t have things like an ID or a bank account. Some of the things that happen seem larger than life, but the focus is on the characters, their mistakes, and the stories they tell themselves to justify what their actions.

This isn’t a book for anyone looking for fast-paced narrative, neat answers to questions of perspective, or likeable characters, but instead, it combines the messiness of women on the margins looking for community and safety with the world of hostess clubs and minor criminals. It felt really quite distinctive.

Lean Cat, Savage Cat by Lauren J. Joseph

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Lean Cat, Savage Cat is a novel about a woman who moves to Berlin after art school and falls for a musician in a world of parties, drugs, and obsession. Charli meets Alexander Geist, charismatic up-and-coming musician, in London and decides on a whim to move to Berlin with him. There, she falls in with old friends, but becomes increasingly obsessed with Alexander as they move between parties, and as Alexander’s success grows, Charli finds herself losing herself to him.

Having read Lauren J. Joseph’s previous novel, I would’ve read this one regardless of what it was about, but in fact, the summary was right up my street: Berlin, rock stars, and a comparison to The Talented Mr Ripley that I should’ve remembered whilst reading. The novel has a faded glamour updated for the 21st century, with Charli the party girl who, as someone in the novel remarks, talks like a character in The Secret History, and who is fascinated by Berlin of the 1970s, Bowie and Romy Haag. You are immersed in the world as you would be in an Isherwood novel, but at the same time, there’s a concurrent narrative that gives hints that things aren’t all quite right. It’s hard to talk more about the plot without giving anything away, so I won’t.

There’s so much about queerness, sex, gender, fame, and the self in this book, but the reading experience is a rollercoaster of parties, gossip, and a hint of danger. I love how the real life figures of David Bowie and Romy Haag hang over the novel, all part of the doubling that takes place throughout. By combining contemporary and 20th century Berlin in this doubling, Lauren J. Joseph makes a book that feels timeless and exciting.

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang

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A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is a novel about intergenerational trauma told through a magical realist lens, as a woman reunites with her absent father only to learn more about his and his mother’s pasts in China. Qianze works in a high-powered accountancy job in New York City, but when her father appears back at the family home he walked out of on her fourteenth birthday, she is suddenly pulled back into the feelings brought up when he left. But her father is there to try and tell her a prophecy he can barely remember, and in the process, he shares more about his own past during the Cultural Revolution in China and his mother’s experiences under the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.

This is a dark and sprawling novel, set across three generations but in a way that intertwines them and never makes it difficult to know what is meant to be going on in each time period as some intergenerational novels can do. The narrative has a very slow burn start and for a long time, you’re not quite sure where it is going to go or if anything will happen, but by the later part of the novel, it is difficult to put down, unfolding horrifying things and using magical realism to explore the trauma that reverberates from them. The relationships between parents and children are also central to the novel, not just in the passing on of trauma, but also in the complexities of relationships, especially under the stresses of colonialism and poverty. There is a lot to take in, but the novel still ends with something hopeful.

A powerful debut, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is a book that I think will be difficult to forget. Around the middle of the book I did find myself struggling to get through it, but soon the pace picked up and the book revealed a lot of its darkness. I don’t know much about China’s history and this novel is a fascinating look into it as well as the story of a Chinese American woman reckoning with that history and her distance and connection to it.

I’ll Be the Monster by Sean Gilbert

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I’ll Be the Monster is a novel about a murderous couple on holiday who run into an old university friend and rehash the past. A couple who met at Cambridge are now trying to keep their marriage alive through a luxurious holiday, but a few days in, they run into Benny, who they know from those days. What follows is a tortuous game between them all, with secrets lurking underneath.

This book is a distinctively written story that is gripping, but doesn’t really get as dark as you might expect it to be. Much of the narrative is written from the second-person perspective of the husband, addressing his wife, and this creates an unreliable narrator through a lens that puts the reader at a remove from the action, which works well for this couple who you never really learn that much about. There are also chapters from the Cambridge days that show things from the wife’s and Benny’s perspectives to give a bit more backstory, and I welcomed these sections as they delve a bit further into the incident that they’re mostly thinking about in the novel. Otherwise, the story is a lot of interactions and paranoia without much actually revealed about anyone, making it at times more of a vibe. It is fascinating how much the book skirts around the couple’s actual actions at any point and I do feel conflicted about how much I liked that fact about it, but it is certainly an interesting choice.

I’ll Be the Monster is readable literary fiction that slowly draws you in and then toys with you, without offering too many definitive answers about the present day of the book. At times I wish it lingered more on the darker elements and the imagery of them—especially the central opening image of someone floating on a punt down the river—but I liked how excruciating the couple’s relationship with Benny and each other was as they navigated what him being there meant to them. I do think it is one of the many books that would benefit from not being compared to The Secret History, as I think some people have compared it to, as I think that misrepresents the narrative and focus of the book.

Super Nintendo: How One Japanese Company Helped the World Have Fun by Keza MacDonald

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Super Nintendo is a book exploring the history of Nintendo and their consoles and games. Keza MacDonald combines a concise history of the company and its employees with personal reflections and a look at the cultural impact of Mario, Link, Pikachu, and more. Each chapter focuses on a particular development or game series, and the book is carefully structured to unfold Nintendo’s direction from hanafuda cards to the Switch 2.

As someone for whom Nintendo has been the game company of choice ever since watching my friend play Pokemon Red on a Game Boy Colour as a young child, I really felt this was a love letter to the company that also taught me a lot about the development of the company and games. My interest in Nintendo has waxed and waned over the years (I read the official Nintendo magazine avidly c.2004, but didn’t play a console between my family’s Wii and finally buying a Switch in 2022), but this book felt like catching up with Nintendo across all of that time. I liked MacDonald’s personal anecdotes, which felt similar to my own just a little earlier, and details like discussing the competitive playing of Super Smash Bros Melee that prevailed for a long time.

This is a book for fans, seeing a company as something bringing joy or sparking innovation rather than about the money. For me, it was an emotional read, thinking about my own history with these consoles and games and the fact that so many other people have these histories too.

As If by Isabel Waidner

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As If is the new novel by Isabel Waidner, a story of two men with strangely mirrored lives who want each other’s opportunities. Lewis was an actor, but since the death of his wife he’s too depressed to go to auditions. Korine has a wife and child, but feels unfulfilled. Both look strangely similar and went to the same school. A chance meeting leads them to talk in Lewis’ flat, and from there, their mirror lives turn upside down.

Waidner is one of my favourite current novelists so I was very excited for this book. As If definitely represents a new direction in their writing, though it retains many distinctive elements (in style and existential nature, but also the Prick Up Your Ears references and interest in class and opportunity). It is direct and reflective, without as many surreal turns as their previous novel (and my favourite) Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, but instead plays the dark comedy straight, making the book feel even more like a midcentury British play (fittingly, of course, for the theme of acting and the kinds of plays/playwrights referenced in the book).

As If is a strangely timeless novel that would make an accessible entry point into Waidner’s work, but it is also a deeply existential story exploring failures and chances. I like how the story feels so straightforward, but also anything but—a clash between the real and the absurd that creates a hum of humour under everything even as both men fail to get anywhere in their new opportunities. I went into the book expecting another book following Waidner’s previous novels, but  I got something else, and I’m starting to appreciate that maybe that’s what I needed, even if it wasn’t what I expected. Whilst reading, I thought it was good but not mindblowing, but now I’m finished, I find that I want to recommend it to everyone.

Crux by Gabriel Tallent

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Crux is a novel about two best friends coming of age with dreams of rock climbing, and real life getting in the way of their dreams. Tamma and Dan live in Calfornia near Joshua Tree National Park, where they’re in their senior year of high school. Previously their mothers were best friends, but now Dan’s parents see Tamma as a bad influence, an unpredictable queer girl without a future, and in the way of Dan going to college. Dan and Tamma have rock climbing plans, but without money, it’s more of a gamble than usual, and they have to rely on their belief in one another.

Having enjoyed Tallent’s previous novel, My Absolute Darling, I went for Crux even though it didn’t immediately jump out as the sort of book I’d read, and I’m really glad that I did. It is a vivid picture of growing up poor in California and trying to have dreams when the only person who believes in your dreams is your best friend, and it is packed full of emotion and dusty, dangerous climbing. Even without knowing a lot of the context (I’m not American, I’ve never done rock climbing like that), I felt like I immediately was immersed in the vibe of the book and connected to the characters, especially Tamma. She’s such a standout character—a queer, seemingly feral girl who has a lot more depth than anyone other than Dan gives her credit for, and who ends up not only facing the harsh realities of her rock climbing dreams, but also putting so much work into caring for her sister’s children.

Crux is about friendship and the reality of who gets what kinds of dreams, and it is a powerful book that is as tense in its interpersonal scenes as its rock climbing ones. It really surprised me, a slow burn that drew me into the world of the characters so I felt wrung out by the end.

Blank Canvas by Grace Murray

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Blank Canvas is a novel about a woman at an arts college who lies about her father’s death. Charlotte studies at a small arts college in New York state and when she tells one classmate that her father died, it spirals into a new reality for her. However, her father is alive in England, and as Charlotte falls into a relationship with her classmate Katarina, she finds herself caught in a web of lies.

It almost feels surprising that this book doesn’t already exist: it’s a campus novel that mixes that liberal arts college atmosphere (e.g. The Secret History) with a dash of Ripley-style lying, and the narrative voice is distinctive, with Charlotte being distant and harsh and having secrets in her past she tries not to think about. Her first person perspective means you never quite know what is meant to be real, and there’s a sense that people might think of her entirely differently to how she believes, especially given that she often lies or holds in what she really thinks of others. There’s a definite atmosphere created, with her as a reinvented outsider who seems to have difficulty expressing her actual feelings and preferences, and it is interesting to see how it unfolds. I liked the fact she’s from the UK and that brings an extra layer to the US campus novel, though the book being told from Charlotte’s perspective means that you don’t always see the full effects of this.

The romance side of the book is excruciating at times, in a good way: it really explores the ways in which Charlotte and Katarina have very different ideas about their relationship, and with the reader knowing the huge lie at the centre of it, you have to wince as it goes on. With so many campus novels being about unspoken homoerotic relationships, I like when they have actual queer relationships and let these be appropriately messed up for the genre.

I did feel that the plot didn’t quite hold up to the promise, with the ending feeling frustrating in ways I couldn’t quite define. Overall, this is a campus novel with a strong premise and a fascinating protagonist and central relationship, that asks what happens when we try to reinvent ourselves and what might be lurking underneath that.