Tag: book review

Say Hello To My Little Friend by Jennine Capó Crucet

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Say Hello To My Little Friend is a novel about a twenty-year old Cuban man in Miami who decides to try and become Tony Montana, but who comes up against his own past, the city, and an orca. Izzy has just had a cease and desist stopping his burgeoning career as a Pitbull impersonator, so he pivots his dreams towards Scarface, planning out his steps to be Tony Montana. He finds a sidekick—his Manolo, Rudy—and someone who could be his Michelle Pfieffer love interest, but he also finds Lolita, the famed captive orca in Miami Seaquarium, and Izzy’s mind becomes obsessed with her, as does the water of Miami. As Izzy hunts down what happens to get him from Cuba to Miami as a boy, all of his plans start to seem more tragic than triumphant.

As I love the film Scarface, I was immediately drawn to this book, but actually, it goes a lot further than that, combining Scarface, Moby Dick, and the city of Miami itself into a damp, darkly comic novel. The narrative voice is playful, sometimes taking things seriously and sometimes not (there’s a part that recreates the success montage in Scarface but for the much lesser “success” of Izzy), and it casts a wry eye over everything, whilst still having a tense narrative as Izzy tries to uncover his own past (and makes a lot of missteps along the way). The plot centred around Lolita, the captive orca, is a wonderful example of bringing in an animal’s perspective in a novel, and makes this book more than a story of a failed gangster.

Combining a sea creature, dodgy aspirations, and Cuban life in Miami, Say Hello To My Little Friend is a distinctive book, fun yet bittersweet, about the tragedy of a young man without the past or future he hopes for. It’s a literary crime film and a free the orcas documentary and a magical tour of Miami all in one.

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

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Come and Get It is novel set on a university campus about a resident assistant and what happens when she allows a visiting professor to listen in to students’ conversations. Millie is an RA for her senior year at the University of Arkansas and is desperate to make money and do things right. When a professor, Agatha Paul, asks to speak to students, Millie arranges it, but soon this becomes a regular thing, and Millie is distracted from the students she oversees, including three roommates and their strange dynamic.

From the description of this book, I expected it to be more about a weird plot with Millie having to do a bizarre side hustle, but actually the book was a lot less weird than I feel the blurb made out, and was actually just a tale of college students and money, race, and inappropriate behaviour. The novel is told from multiple perspectives, focusing in on characters and backstories so you know a lot about the main characters, and not really being very plot-focused (the ending has more of a plot, but even then, it’s more like some things suddenly happening). It’s the sort of book that some people will enjoy and others will complain that nothing really happened.

The characters are an interesting, messy bunch, which is essentially the point of the book. Millie, Agatha, and Kennedy (one of the student roommates) are particularly vivid, all coming with very different perspectives, but all essentially trying to pave over the past into the future they want, or trying to find that future. Kennedy’s story is perhaps the most weird and makes for a great narrative, to the extent that it could’ve almost been a separate book, though explaining it would probably give away too much. Millie is a character who things she has things worked out (at the age of twenty-four), but actually is much less diligent than she wants to be, and is learning about desire and how people see her. Agatha seems like a bit of a lesbian professor stereotype, but then she’s also stealing students’ words to write Teen Vogue articles, which is a hilarious plot point.

The book is full of little conflicts and an exploration of the ways in which money, class, race, and sexuality impact people, but in a package that is mostly about some college students’ drama. It’s fun and a bit weird, though maybe not as weird as I wanted. 

Pity by Andrew McMillan

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Pity is a novel about the lives of a family in a South Yorkshire mining town and the impact of place and self to the people who live there. Brothers Brian and Alex have always lived in this town, once a mining town and now haunted by the memories of mining strikes and disaster. Alex’s son Simon lives there too, but his world is different, working in a call centre by day but by night doing drag shows and sharing content on OnlyFans. Researchers come to the town, looking at the effect of memory, but sometimes the scars aren’t what you’d expect.

This is Andrew McMillan’s debut novel and being a fan of his poetry, I was excited to read this. The narrative is told through a variety of elements—CCTV footage, third person narration, research notes—and this gives it a particular atmosphere of looking in, almost spying on the lives on the characters (and there’s a lot of watching throughout the book, a lot of viewers). It is focused a lot on place, but really the people who make up a place and how that can change as times change too, that a place isn’t always just one thing, even when it seems like “mining town” is just what somewhere is. Though the novel is short, there’s a lot to think about in terms of these elements, ideas of viewing and memory, and this kind of psychogeography.

Though the time with the characters is brief, there’s some interesting things going on with them. There’s the obvious different trajectories of Brian and Alex, the latter of whom’s plotline is half-unspoken, very much mirroring ideas of what he feels like he can talk about. Simon’s narrative is focused around him bringing his drag performance back to his hometown, where he’s changing things up for something more political, and exploring his relationship with Ryan, a security guard who wants to be in the police. There was some complex bits with Ryan and with their relationship, which the novel doesn’t delve into much as a lot is hinted at and implied rather than explicitly covered, like attitudes towards drag and who people are when they do or don’t change outfits or make up.

I would’ve read more of this book, but I also like the fact that it is very much a snapshot, a controlled piece that teases you with glimpses of lives and experiences, but ultimately doesn’t give you everything, just like the CCTV and Simon’s OnlyFans. I enjoyed how it depicted queer life across different kinds of experiences alongside the focus on place and geographical and mental scarring (brought together neatly and horribly by the spectre of Thatcher).

Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison

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Black Sheep is a novel about a woman who returns to the weird religious community she grew up in, only to discover a secret that changes how she sees herself. Vesper left home at eighteen, leaving her horror film star mother and everyone else she knew, and escaping from the religious upbringing she realised she didn’t believe in to work in depressing chain restaurants. An invitation to her cousin and former best friend Rosie’s wedding, even though Vesper shouldn’t be allowed back, leaves her returning home, but once there, she finds out something that blows apart everything she thought she knew.

I enjoyed Harrison’s previous novel Such Sharp Teeth and its combination of everyday and supernatural elements, and Black Sheepdoes a similar thing, taking a somewhat lost female protagonist and bringing in some light horror elements (neither are particularly horror in plot, more supernatural, or at least up until the ending of Black Sheep). The writing is gripping and it’s easy to speed through this book, with a few twists in the narrative (the earliest one I didn’t even realise until it was revealed, so I’m avoiding mentioning this element even though I think other reviews will probably talk about it specifically, as I enjoyed the reveal). The narrative could’ve lingered more on the community and what Vesper’s childhood was like, but I think the choice to make it really focus on Vesper as an adult and her perspective makes it a more fun book and more character focused.

Again, without spoilers, I will say that I think the religious community element is a very fun thing, but also (almost hilariously) misrepresents the real life versions of it to an extent it almost needs mentioning. I would’ve liked a bit more about the beliefs and how they work, as I think some of the religion/cult stuff felt a bit light and like you needed to know more about what they actually believed on various issues/topics. The twists in the book are the kind of twists I very much enjoy in a book, and it was almost funny that I didn’t realise going into the book that it was about this area, but I didn’t read anything about it beforehand. 

I like Rachel Harrison’s style of light horror that focuses on regular, often cynical protagonists dealing with supernatural situations, and Black Sheep is a fun read ideal for people who like character-first supernatural stories. The end goes a bit closer to darker horror and I really liked that, but also people who are less into horror could still enjoy this one as its not about the scares.

Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly

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Greta and Valdin is a literary novel about two queer siblings in New Zealand who attempt to navigate their complicated family and chaotic love lives. Greta and Valdin live together, with Valdin pining over his ex-boyfriend Xabi who left for Argentina once they broke up and Greta trying to deal with being an underemployed grad student with failed dating exploits and a girl who just seems to use her for help with work. Their Russian father and Maori mother—and their whole extended family—are eccentric in their own ways, but maybe Greta and Valdin can finally work out how to exist for themselves and still involve their family.

I’d heard this book hyped about, but wasn’t sure what to expect. From the opening pages, it was hilarious, and that really set the tone for me: I’m not used to literary fiction being this funny (there was one line in the book I had to stop and repeat to my partner because it was so good). At the same time, it is a book with complex interwoven messages about identity and queerness and family, particularly in the flexibility of what things mean to different people and how everyone forges their own sense of self and what their labels mean to them. The characters are endearing and messy, the kind where you are half-gripped to see what terrible decisions they make and half wanting to swoop in and save them from themselves.

The narrative is mostly around interpersonal relationships and character development, as you’d expect from literary fiction, and I liked the ending and the fact that it offered hope in a range of ways. The split perspective of the narration worked well to give you a sense of the similarities and differences between the siblings, and leave you fully entangled in their lives. I love the sort of literary fiction that feels fun, where there’s plenty of serious stuff in there and some interesting things to navigate and explore, but also you get ridiculous banter along the way. The sense of place was also a big selling point, as there’s a lot of culturally specific elements that feel very embedded into the book, and though I’m sure I didn’t get a lot of them first time around as I’ve never been to New Zealand, I appreciated it and the way the novel uses place for a family that might seem dislocated.

I didn’t know I needed literary fiction about messy queer siblings, but Greta and Valdin proved that I did. There’s a lot packed into a book that is both hilarious and quite touching, and it felt worth the hype to me.

Piglet by Lottie Hazell

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Piglet is a novel about a woman whose wedding is approaching, as a perfect ideal of a life seems to be falling apart. Piglet—her family’s nickname for her—is due to marry Kit, whose upper middle class Oxford parents are a far cry from her own, and soon they will have a perfect life of dinner parties and domestic bliss. But when Kit reveals a secret thirteen days before their wedding, Piglet must decide what she wants to do and what she really desires.

This book opens with Waitrose, and that really is a good marker of what is to come. Piglet takes aim at ideas of domestic bliss and a middle class idea of what people should do, blending satirical ridiculousness (Piglet and Kit’s families are complete stereotypes) with extended descriptions of food. It is also very much about disordered eating and ways people unhealthily use food to cope, but in a literary way where this is not really addressed head on, as much of the book is. From the blurb, it might be difficult to tell how much this is literary fiction, about unlikeable characters and stereotypes and extended description that forces you to focus on the food, and not on the secret Kit has revealed, which is likely to make the book not for everyone.

The way Kit’s secret is handled is also probably divisive, and I couldn’t decide whilst reading it if the way the book does it (not wanting to entirely give spoilers) works best, especially as I did hope the book would get darker with the secret, breaking even further away from the conventions it is ridiculing. It does well to create a sense of horror around a lot of expected traditions, which might hit differently for people who have gone through them, and counters it with the subplot of Piglet’s best friend Margot and her wife having a baby and Margot being a very different voice to everyone else around Piglet.

Taking aim at the idea of a domestic goddess who also shouldn’t eat too much, Piglet is a bold novel that might not always satisfy, but was a compelling read. It’s harsh and exaggerated, and it really does, unfortunately, make you hungry.

The Mantis by Kotaro Isaka

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The Mantis is a thriller about an assassin who just wants to retire, but knows his family would be under threat if he did. Kabuto works an office job, tries to keep on the good side of his wife, and worries about his son going to college. He also goes to the doctor’s office, but it isn’t any old doctor’s office: he is being given jobs for assassinations. Despite his skill in this world, Kabuto wants to retire, to pay his way out and stick to family life, but the doctor doesn’t want to see him go.

Having enjoyed Bullet Train and the combination of fast-paced thriller and dark assassin comedy, I was hoping for similar from The Mantis, and it didn’t disappoint. The narrative has a great balance of Kabuto in action as an assassin and Kabuto dealing with things like wanting to have a friend and trying to make his wife happy whilst his son sees him as a pushover. There’s some fun twists and turns (though nothing hugely surprising) and cameos/references to the events of Bullet Train, and generally this book is the same kind of good time you get from dark action films like the John Wick films (also with the assassin retirement theme). The pages flew by and as someone who usually prefers watching thrillers to reading them, Kotaro Isaka’s books really give me that experience.

The Future by Naomi Alderman

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The Future is a dystopian novel about tech billionaires, cults, survivalists, and what you’d do to protect the future. Told from multiple perspectives, it follows the daughter of a cult leader, a survivalist vlogger who was in a refugee camp, an ousted tech company boss, the non-binary problem child of one of the tech CEOs, and a programmer turned billionaire’s wife, alongside three tech CEOs, as the end of the world looms. The billionaires who destroy the world plan to be safe from any apocalypse, but the future isn’t so clear cut.

It’s quite hard to talk about this book without giving away some of the plot twists and turns, but it is a fun dystopian novel that really takes as its premise ‘what does the future mean to tech billionaires and to other people’. The three CEOs and their companies are pretty blatant parodies of real tech companies, which is enjoyable though occasionally a bit too on the nose (there’s only so many ways to obfuscate some of the more outlandish things real tech billionaires have done), and the narrative moves between past and present a lot, building up a picture of a near-future that isn’t too different from what we have today. The plot is slightly confusing at first, as it is hard to tell where it is going and chapters jump between past and present a lot, but then moves towards a conclusion that is maybe surprising for a dystopia, if quite neat.

The characters add a lot to the book, and particularly Zhen (the internet survivalist) and Martha (the cult leader’s daughter) get a lot of exploration, as well as a teasing romance. The sections of the book are separated by forum posts, many of which are by Martha, which explore some of the cult’s pseudo-religious ideas and how they relate to survival and the future, and these are a nice addition, plus there’s a subplot that relies on them. Some of the other characters appear less frequently, but were compelling enough that I almost wished there was more of them (e.g. the gay ousted tech boss, the non-binary child of the tech CEO trying to make a difference in the world, the former-programmer-turned-tech-wife, all of whom could really be the protagonist of a book about tech billionaires themselves.

As with many dystopias, The Future can be a bit too on the nose and simplistic at times, but it also engages with the current moment in an interesting way, considering what the future actually means to different people and what might need to happen to change the world. I enjoyed it more than Alderman’s previous The Power (my rogue favourite of her novels is The Lessons), maybe because I like content that is critical of Big Tech and this book does it in a light-hearted way that is gripping to read.

Death Valley by Melissa Broder

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Death Valley is a novel about grief and the self, set in the California desert. A woman is staying in a Best Western, escaping her father in the ICU and her chronically ill husband, but without purpose. When a receptionist suggests a nearby hiking trail, the narrator finds a strange giant cactus, unusually there and with a gash that allows you to climb inside, and transfixed by the cactus, the woman is drawn back to the place again and again.

I didn’t know what to expect from this book and any summary doesn’t really give away the hazy, unreal nature of it, really capturing the sense of this character out in the desert, experiencing things that don’t seem real. The narrative keeps being interrupted both by memories and by calls from the narrator’s family members, and this all gives a real sense of the character as she reflects on her own selfish ideas of other people’s illnesses and deaths. Later in the book is a more extended sequence in the desert and this was my favourite part—I wasn’t expecting it and it was both surreal and grounded in a sense of danger. Other than this, not a huge amount happens in the novel, but it is the little details that stand out, like the contents of the Grab N Go breakfast packs.

This book won’t be for everyone, as it is fairly anticlimactic, but I liked the combination of a narrator who doesn’t know what she should be thinking and feeling with a surreal cactus and some strange details. 

Machine Readable Me: The Hidden Ways Tech Shapes Our Identities by Zara Rahman

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Machine Readable Me is an exploration of the data collected about individuals and what this means for the lives of people globally. Part of 404 Ink’s Inklings series, it is a pocket-sized look into the world of digital data, identification, and biometrics that then goes on to question if we should accept being categorised in such rigid, unchangeable ways.

I’ve enjoyed other books in this series, but this one was particularly exciting for me because I tend to read quite a few ‘tech books’ looking at similar topics. By the end of Machine Readable Me I felt revitalised in my interest in our technological past, present, and future, because it was a fresh look into the tech world and had a global focus (many of the books are very US-centric). As it’s a short book, it can only cover so many examples, but there’s a lot of situations I’d not seen covered before in other books rather than using the same old talking points.

The power of categorisation feels central in the book, and Rahman builds on other tech writers’ work to question some of the societal reasons behind power and tech, rather than focusing just on the technology itself. I’ve heard people talking about the need to let data be messier and less machine focused, letting humans and their needs take centre stage, and it was good to see that argued here.

I think Machine Readable Me is a good introduction to the area of personal data and technology, borders and ID cards, that focuses on people not tech companies, politics and society rather than just capitalism. At the same time, for people who are already engaged in the area, I think the energy and examples bring fresh insight and something a bit different, all in an accessible size.