Tag: books

The Mars House by Natasha Pulley

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The Mars House is a literary sci-fi  queer romance novel about a Mars colony and the unlikely fake marriage between a refugee from Earth and a politician from Mars. January was a principle ballerina in London, but when London flooded he was forced to Mars, to live in the colony Tharsis. There, he’s an Earthstronger, seen as dangerous as they are stronger than those naturalised to Mars, and forced to work in a factory as his only option. When a politican named Aubrey Gale, who stands for forcing Earthstrongers to be surgically naturalised to protect those natural to Mars from accidents, meets January at the factory, a press junket blows up in their faces, and a plan is proposed: a five year marriage to protect January’s future and secure Gale’s political chances. There’s politics, environmental fears, and Gale’s mysterious past to contend with as the pair learn what it is like to be each other.

I don’t usually enjoy sci-fi books, but I was intrigued but the premise of this one (I’ve never seen a political sci-fi book that uses the romance ‘fake marriage’ trope before) and I’d heard of the author, though only read one of Pulley’s books before. What I found was a book packed with ideas, from the abolishment of gender to the primacy of Mandarin as a language (and its morphing into a new Mars dialect), and not bogged down by some of the things I don’t enjoy about sci-fi, like too much dry explanation and terminology. The writing felt playful, maybe because Pulley has moved from historical fiction to sci-fi so the genre was less solid, and the slow burn elements, particularly romance, meant that even though it was long, it was also gripping, creating plenty of tension around what would happen to the characters.

The plot itself was pretty straightforward, with the main twist being very easily guessable because it is quite heavily foreshadowed (and it was the kind of plot line that does frustrate me, without wanting to go into any spoilers), but there’s still a lot going on, and a focus on characters and particularly January’s experiences. Most of the book is focused on January, occasionally showing things from the perspective of someone else, and this gives it a particular slant, guiding the reader through things on Mars from the point of view of an outsider. This is a notable choice because a lot of the book is about perspective and morality, and the difficulty of making both big and small decisions when there are so many consequences and potential for people to be hurt. I liked how much the book engaged with these big ideas about morality and the complexity of the two main characters in arguing about it.

The relationship element is likely to be quite love/hate for people, because on the one hand you have a classic fake marriage scenario in which the two characters hate each other, or at least fear what each other believes, and then they have to learn to understand the bigger picture, but on the other hand, one of them does believe the other should be physically harmed in a process to make them no longer different to the “citizens” of the colony, and that seems like quite a hurdle to get over. Their characterisation does make this developing relationship believable, but there’s also a lot of unanswered elements, including the fact that both of them seem to have issues around relationships and romance that never get resolved or really addressed. The book almost needs a sequel to make it believable that they have a future.

One major part of the book that made it quite stressful to read was the choice to make the naturalised-to-Mars people all agender or something similar, with gendered terms and pronouns only used for Earthstrongers and animals. As a non-binary person, it is hard not to try and read into what the author is saying about the construction of gender in the novel, which is quite messy (as gender is) and doesn’t always have the space to explore the implications of this system. Especially earlier on in the novel, there can feel like a sense that the removal of binary gender is framed as a bad thing done in an effort to remove inequality, and though there are some moments that explore the implications of this, there were things that felt like they boiled down to ‘people just need to know what body parts someone has or they won’t be comfortable’ without delving into it. One thing that would’ve been interesting to address would be the implications for someone who was trans to come to Mars and be naturalised (maybe even in one of the book’s many footnotes if not in the narrative), but the book didn’t really discuss being queer or trans on Earth at all. There was also not much really about sexuality and romance in Tharsis, despite romance being central to the plot, as far as I remember.

In short, I enjoyed reading The Mars House and I liked the two main characters and the way in which their disagreements were about big questions of morality and society rather than some random grudge, but I also felt conflicted reading it at times due to the way in which it handled some of the big questions and ideas within it, flattening interesting messiness.

We Are Together Because by Kerry Andrew

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We Are Together Because is a twisting piece of literary fiction that starts with half siblings on holiday together and turns into an apocalyptic story of an eerie world ending. Luke and Connor’s father left their mother before Connor was born, and now they’re on holiday with their half sisters Thea and Violet, with their father planning to join them later. As the fragmented family deals with their own preoccupations, strange things start happening: a strange sound only Connor can hear, Violet seeing some kind of plane crash. And then, everything changes as the world seems to break before their eyes.

This novel is hard not to describe as one of two halves, because the story so suddenly changes partway through (and not having reread the blurb before reading, I wasn’t expecting it, either). It moves between the perspectives of the four protagonists, exploring their mindsets and their dynamics as they spend a hot summer in France, and the characters’ stories are quite varied, with Violet dealing with a traumatic event in her past, Luke avoiding a relationship that turned abusive, and Connor and Thea having a strange incest-y subplot. Just when you think that whatever happens will come out of these plotlines, the book takes an apocalyptic turn, and it becomes about survival and humanity in an eerily desolate setting. The second half unfolds quite expectedly, not answering any questions and focusing on the characters still in a way that makes for an unsettling sense of how it might feel to have these events happen to you.

I found We Are Together Because gripping and I liked how it went from coming of age to end of the world whilst staying very lyrical (though occasionally there were moments of description so jarring that they pulled me out of the narrative). As with Andrew’s previous books, there’s a lot of exploration of language and sounds and gender and sex, but this time with an unnerving end of the world element. A lot of people will probably prefer one half or the other, but I liked how the parts of the story talked to each other, and how the characters’ preoccupations didn’t disappear because things had radically changed.

A Small Apocalyse by Laura Chow Reeve

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A Small Apocalypse is a collection of short stories, many of them with interweaving characters, exploring both uncanny situations and everyday queerness. Memorable individual stories tell tales of people turning into reptiles and tragedy at Disney World, whilst a group of queer friends in Florida form the basis of many of the stories, exploring ghosts and alienation and a dead flamingo. Themes that run throughout the collection are swampy Florida, Asian American experience, queerness, and unsettling moments.

As someone who isn’t always a huge fan of short story collections, I was drawn to the blurb of this one, particularly the queerness and mention of something bad happening at Disney World, and I’m so glad I was. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed both the standalone stories and the ones which featured recurring characters, and the two types of story interweave in the book like you never know what might recur and what won’t, which I found an extension of the slightly unsettling vibe of some of the stories. I did love the Disney theme park story, both in its execution and in the story it tells, and I also really liked a lot of the more mundane stories that focused on character, relationships, and place, that place mostly being Florida. I appreciated how much even the interconnected stories were very different, offering some building blocks from other stories but also being their own thing.

If you’re looking for short stories that come together as a collection, that explore queerness, race, place, relationships, and fears in ways that are both everyday and weird, then A Small Apocalypse is well worth a read. It made me feel refreshed by the idea of short stories and what it means to read a collection of them by an author.

Diavola by Jennifer Thorne

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Diavola is a horror novel about a chaotic family holiday in Tuscany turning into a nightmare, as the black sheep of the family finds herself with more than she bargained for. Anna starts off her family vacation by lying about getting there early to have time for herself, and that’s only the start. She’s stuck in a villa with her twin brother and his opinionated new boyfriend, her always in control older sister and her family, and her parents, who don’t understand Anna’s life choices and just want this holiday they’ve paid for to go perfectly. Her sister plans every day down to the minute, but strange noises and weird warnings from the locals not to open the door to the tower lead to haunting confusion, and it seems everyone just wants to blame Anna for not having a good time. Only, it might not all be Anna’s fault.

From the start of the book, you’re drawn in to the messy family side of things: this is a well-off family with minor gripes about each other and two young children to look after in the Italian heat. Anna’s position as the black sheep slowly becomes apparent, but at the same time, the villa becomes unnerving, and the horror element gradually builds up. The narrative takes a turn partway through that I wasn’t expecting, and I liked that the book wasn’t quite as I assumed from the start, even though it might’ve be scarier if it was entirely set at the villa. The parts when things start to go wrong at the villa were genuinely creepy, but the horror turns into a less scary haunting as the book goes on, though still a gripping narrative.

I liked how this book combines the well-off yet dysfunctional American family drama, almost satire at times, with the ‘locals warn you against it’ horror, and the narrative’s ending has one of those classic horror epilogues in which the main character has gone in a new direction, which I also enjoyed. The creepiness of the book wasn’t sustained throughout, but early on I liked the unknown dread, and I do wish that some of the darker elements were more drawn out or less ambiguous. Overall, Diavola is a fun horror novel that feels fresh and is infused with the horror not only of a haunted villa, but of a terrible family holiday.

Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI by Madhumita Murgia

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Code Dependent is an investigation into the human side of AI: the ordinary, non-Silicon Valley people affected by and involved in areas relating to artificial intelligence. Journalist Madhumita Murgia tells the stories of people and communities impacted by AI from people labelling AI training data to people whose lives are changed by the decisions of AI systems or having deep fake videos made of them. Not everything is negative: there’s also healthcare benefits, if only these technologies can be made freely available and in places that most need them. And as the book moves towards the ending, Murgia argues that these stories give us principles we should consider going forward to ensure AI works for ordinary people, not the other way around.

Notably, this book focuses on the human side of technology, rather than the technological side, and foregrounds the experiences of people and the complexity of AI’s role. Even for areas that are often discussed in other books, such as predictive policing, this book offers examples I’ve not seen before and direct interviews with people affected, not something all technology books have. At the same time, it does provide an accessible description of a lot of AI-related technologies; for example, it’s the first time I’ve seen—as someone who reads a lot about AI—a simple explanation of what a ‘transformer’ is and why it has been so important for generative AI. This combination makes Code Dependent useful both for people who do read tech books, but are interested in human stories rather than the same talking points, and people who are newer to the topic and would like a way in that focuses on people.

Sometimes I found the framing or phrasing a bit simplistic or lacking nuance and complexity, but generally, it was an accessible book about AI that tells stories rather than just facts, and takes areas we might have heard or read plenty about and shows specific people’s lives in relation to these topics. The parting message about religions coming together to discuss AI was not where I expected the book to go and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that being the conclusion (given that high up people in a religion aren’t really ‘ordinary people’ necessarily), but I do appreciate that this was a book about AI that had a lot of things I’d not read about before, or at least not in this form.

Given the current hype and fear around AI, Code Dependent is likely to become a much-talked-about book, offering people a different way in to reading and thinking about artificial intelligence and what it means for our lives.

Butter by Asako Yuzuki

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Butter is a novel about food and women in Japan, as a journalist tries to uncover the secrets of a gourmet cook who seemingly killed three men. Rika is a journalist who lives off instant noodles and convenience store food, focused on her work and getting tips from a connection she has, whilst keeping in touch with her old friend who is trying to build her life as a housewife. Meanwhile, Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre, refusing to talk to journalists, until Rika tries asking her for a recipe. Suddenly, Rika has a way to catch Kajii’s attention, and her gastronomical life is changed by Kajii’s instructions, but soon Rika and Kajii are caught in a strange game of fascination and food.

Told almost entirely from Rika’s point of view, this novel could just be a generic crime story about a journalist uncovering the truth, but actually, it is far more focused on food, society, and women’s roles within both, considering desire in terms of food and sexuality and exploring different kinds of relationships between people. For a book that is seemingly a crime novel, it has a slow, languishing plot, and is packed full of description, particularly of food and cooking, and it really does capture the titular butter and its impact on both protagonists’ lives through this. It also critiques Japanese society’s beauty standards and ideas about what makes a woman successful, in a way that is quite obvious, but as we’ve seen from things like the Barbie film, still a message that resonates with a lot of people.

Some of the subtler elements and points were more fascinating, like Rika’s own past and feelings of guilt around her father’s death, her best friend’s complex relationship to being a wife and looking to have a child, and generally the way that the wider cast of characters interact with each other and what they feel like they can do. There’s an undercurrent of female desire, and particularly queer female desire, that sits at odds with the images of heterosexual romance that characters want to perform, and though these elements are small, it’s interesting how they are hinted at. Another part that isn’t really addressed, but is running underneath the novel is ideas of Japanese and Western cuisine—particularly French cookery—and how these may or may not sit nicely alongside one another in modern Japan. Maybe these parts could be more overt, but I like how a novel that is quite big and obvious in its main points can also have these subtleties.

This is a novel that makes you hungry. People looking for something similar to other popular translated Japanese authors like Sayaka Murata may be disappointed, as it is far less transgressive than something like Earthlings, but instead it is a slowly simmering novel about people finding different places for themselves in Japanese society whilst also talking a lot about feminism and food.

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.