Tag: books

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

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Chain-Gang All-Stars is a brutal novel about incarceration, in an America where prisoners can elect to be part of a blood sport where they fight for the death with the hope of freedom. Loretta Thurwar is an icon, having almost survived three years of deathly gladiator matches as a Link, an individual fighter as part of a Chain of others, alongside her love Hamara Stacker, aka Hurricane Staxx. Both hide secrets as they move towards Thurwar’s final fights, and meanwhile, a movement to stop the blood sport is trying to find traction.

There’s a lot packed into this novel, which uses a range of characters’ points of view to unfold the world of the narrative, a world both taken to extremes with the legal programme of prisoner gladiator death matches and not all that far away from the realities of the real life prison system and wider society, as footnotes throughout the book highlight with real facts and statistics. There’s plenty of the horror of the system, from the new methods of inflicting pain on prisoners to the ways in which every element of the Links’ lives is sold and televised as part of their agreement to be in the program. By combining many points of view, a lot of this detail can be organically shown throughout the book, rather than all the worldbuilding dumped at the start, and I appreciated this as it makes it much easier to get into the book.

The range of characters allow for a rich look into some of the nuances (I’ve seen other reviews calling everything too obvious or in your face, but for me there were plenty of small nuances), for example the experiences of two new Links being recruited into the program after torture at the prisons they were at, and the range of reasons why characters were imprisoned for so long in the first place. The book uses this to offer the reader ways in to thinking about abolition and restorative justice, and the fact that individuals do not have all the answers to this. At the same time, you get to see viewers of the show, both of the matches and the reality TV-esque parts which just follow the Links around in their Chain in between fights, and consider why people see it as okay to watch such content.

The doomed love story between Thurwar and Staxx is another crucial element, providing a heart-wrenching ending and a story that will draw in people who may otherwise find the book too brutal. You don’t always see a huge amount of them together, but what you do see is the ways in which their relationship is bound by their circumstances and how those who run the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment programme use and profit from their queerness as well as their strength as fighters. There’s also, unsurprisingly given that the book is about incarceration, a lot around race and who is imprisoned, and tensions that exist when people lack freedom.

There’s a lot to take in with Chain-Gang All-Stars, with a lot of perspectives and a long build up to its final confrontations, but it manages to be a powerful book that hurts on a character and a structural level. Being a high concept and brutal book, it won’t be for everyone, but I appreciated how it wove together so much and still had an atmospheric final moment as an ending.

The Unfortunates by J K Chukwu

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The Unfortunates is a darkly comic novel exploring the mental health of a Black student at a top American college. The narrator is Sahara, a Black woman with depression (her Life Partner, or LP) studying at a top University. She doesn’t want to disappoint her parents, who wish she would become a doctor instead of maybe majoring in English Literature, or her Ride Or Die best friend, or the woman she has a crush on, but her depression controls so much of her experiences, and soon things are spiralling out of control.

Written as if it was a university final project and incorporating visual art and surreal pieces interjected into the text, this is a distinctive novel with a memorable voice. Sahara uses acronyms to refer to everyone, apparently to anonymise the text as it is being submitted as a project, and there’s footnotes throughout, and all of these elements work together to make it really feel like a hybrid text created by someone trying to document their complex experiences not just with depression, but also with being a Black queer woman at a US college and not being how people expect her to be. The book is powerful and sad, but also witty, carefully balances to make what are very heavy topics (suicidal ideation features heavily in this book, which is worth being aware of before reading) have cutting commentary and even funny moments.

I wasn’t sure where the book would go and it almost felt inevitable, but I think that the narrative is carefully handled, making Sahara’s experiences seem realistic but also probing the depression-fuelled idea that there’s no support out there. Some of the real ridiculousnesses of university and especially in the way that elite institutions deal with tragedy and injustice are very pointedly depicted and The Unfortunates really shows that the dark side of academia many people experience isn’t some “dark academic” plot, but mundane inequalities, unfairness, and bigotry.

People need to go into this book knowing that it is a deep look at depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation, because that won’t be something everyone can just pick up and read, but when you do read it, it is a powerful exploration of mental health and race at a US college with a creative style and structure. I felt like it refreshed the idea of what a campus novel could be, especially one posing as an assignment, and how you can intertwine personal experiences with structural problems.

Corey Fah Does Social Mobility by Isabel Waidner

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Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is an experimental novel, very much in Waidner’s typical style, which explores writing, cultural capital and social mobility, trying to balance things in your life, reality TV, and an eight legged horror a bit like Bambi. Corey Fah has won a literary prize, but is unable to collect the trophy, because it keeps flying away. Corey’s partner Drew just wants to watch their usual favourite daytime TV show, but it turns out the host has links to the strange occurrences when Corey tries to get the trophy, and it seems that winning was only the start of Corey’s problems.

I loved Waidner’s previous novels, We Are Made Of Diamond Stuff and Sterling Karat Gold, and I might’ve enjoyed this one even more, in which they manage to combine dreamlike, surreal happenings and a horror-style version of Bambi with a sharp attack on class and culture, borders and identities. The book also provides a sweet domestic love story at its heart and an exciting detour into an alternate history for Joe Orton, amongst other things. There’s so much stuff packed in, but there’s only a few main references to understand, making it accessible for a book that takes its source material so playfully. 

This is a book that is delightful to read, cutting yet funny, and also bittersweet, especially for anyone who has dreamed of achieving things that feel far too out of reach. The experimental and surreal style blends the political and domestic with so many little details that cut into the binaries and boundaries we encounter. I just love how Waidner’s books seem to enact a kind of non-binary poetics in which boundaries are there for disrupting and gender, like many other facets of identity, is there for people to do with what they will, in a revolutionary way. An exciting book, but also a strangely sweet story of trying to find your way even when the prize literally seems trapped by Kafkaesque rules.

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Silver Nitrate is a novel about occultism and movies, as two friends face off the magic of a strange film. Montserrat is a sound editor in Mexico City in the 90s, fighting for shifts from people who disregard her as a woman, and spending time with her best friend Tristán, a faded soap actor. When Tristán meets aging cult horror director Abel Urueta, Monserrat and Tristán are drawn into the story of a Nazi occultist who made a film with Urueta using silver nitrate film to try and capture magic, and soon it seems that magic is back and threatening them.

Pretty different from Mexican Gothic but still imbued with objects and ideas holding magic and horror, this novel starts slowly, building up the world of the two protagonists and their relationship and struggles. The threat is a slow burn one, as they start to believe in magic and ghosts thanks to darkness following them, but by the end there’s dramatic action. Moreno-Garcia explores ideas both of the film world and of the Nazi obsession with the occult, and how magic might be used by people who believe in hierarchy and oppression of those not “worthy” by weaving it into real life fascism, and this gives the book an unsettling feel.

A real highlight of the book for me was the relationship between Montserrat and Tristán and the way their individual characters are built up, with their childhood friendship and Montserrat having been in love with Tristán for a long time but having always pushed it away. The details in the ways in which they care for each other whilst also knowing each other too well gave the book a rich sense of character, and the fact they were tied to each other was crucial to the narrative. I also liked the fact that both of them were bisexual and it was just another thing about them, explored slightly in Tristán’s case from the perspective of being a soap star who had to appear to be straight.

This is a slow burn book that creates a rich world of horror films, dark magic, and two outsiders drawn into something beyond their control. Maybe ironically it might make a good film, though hopefully not one with magic burnt into it.

Rental Person Who Does Nothing by Shoji Morimoto

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Rental Person Who Does Nothing is a memoir about a Japanese man who ‘does nothing’ for people, spending time with people who contact him on Twitter for things they need someone else for. The book is intercut throughout with tweets that are either requests from people or Morimoto’s own tweets about particular clients, as he explains what he’s done and how he has found being a rental person who doesn’t do anything except be there, not offering advice but just existing.

This short book is both an account of how Morimoto became Rental Person and what he’s done as part of that, and also a consideration of what it means to do nothing for a living and if we should be able to have money to just exist. The stories of the clients are the really memorable elements of the book as there’s a lot of emotional and quietly lovely moments for people, whether it is a prompt that makes them finally do the dishes or someone trying to make the day of filing divorce memorable for another reason. The real variation of reasons that people rent Rental Person to be there with them are fascinating and it gives an insight into human connections and the kinds of transactions between people that happen every day.

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

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The Centre is a novel about a mysterious language learning centre and a Pakistani woman in London who is drawn into its strange world. Anisa wants to translate “great works of literature”, but actually translates Bollywood films, complains about life with her best friend Naima, and ends up with a white boyfriend, Adam, who seems to know a surprising number of languages fluently. After Adam learns Urdu almost instantly, Anisa needs to know his secret, but it turns out to be a strange language learning facility called the Centre, expensive and so secret you can only tell one person about it. Drawn by the promise of translation, Anisa signs up, follows its weird rules, and starts to uncover the secrets of the Centre, intoxicated by her mentor, Shiba.

This is a book that immediately draws you in, with a gripping writing style and opening chapters that give you plenty of clues that things are going to get stranger, especially with this concept of being able to learn a language so quickly. The blurb does give a fair bit of this away, meaning you are filled with unease even before Anisa goes to the Centre, but the novel also packs a lot of other ideas in too: thoughts about translation, privilege, race, class, and fulfilment that are woven throughout. Anisa is a complex narrator, often self-centred and unaware, trying to think about things but also justifying stuff to herself however she needs, and these become relevant to the book as a whole as it seems that the Centre’s secrets fit in with these elements too.

The twist is set up pretty well, so it is something you can guess, but also suits the suggested ominous tone with almost a darkly comic edge, satirising at times what rich people actually think is acceptable. The book doesn’t really answer the questions it raises, but rather invites you to consider some of the complexities and ambiguities within, like the act of translation. It is an entertaining ride that it is easy to get hooked by.

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

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Camp Damascus is a horror novel about a conversion camp and the dark secret embedded in a town. Rose is twenty but is treated like she’s much younger by her god-fearing parents, who try to force her to hide her autism and want to control her life. When Rose starts coughing up flies and seeing a strange woman in a red polo shirt that her parents don’t acknowledge, she starts to wonder what is going on, but her parents act like it is nothing. But Rose has questions, and those questions start to bring her back to the idea of Camp Damascus, the 100% success rate gay conversion therapy camp that makes their town famous.

I’d heard of Chuck Tingle as the internet-famous author of novelty erotica, but from the summary of this novel I had to give it a go, despite not knowing what Tingle’s horror would be like. Told from Rose’s perspective, Camp Damascus tells a gripping and strangely real-feeling (despite the demonic twists and turns) story of a conversion camp that makes you forget you ever went, and a woman forced to be someone she isn’t. The plot is straightforward, following a pretty predictable trajectory that goes in a satisfying way, though upon reflection I might’ve expected there to be more around Rose’s parents, who leave the narrative and never come back.

Rose is an interesting protagonist, a neurodiverse character who has to fight against the older adults in her life trying to quash anything she does that doesn’t seem neurotypical and someone who has always been told what to believe (or as far as she remembers) trying to work out what she does think as she realises this. As the book is quite plot-focuesd, you don’t get to see a huge amount of her relationships with other people, but later on in the narrative there is a focus on chosen family and the idea of both queer and neurodiverse people finding who they can be themselves around. The other major characters don’t get much backstory, partly due to the fact it is from Rose’s point of view and because the book is quite concise and doesn’t delve into character emotions that much.

I love queer horror and the demonic concept of this one combined with the horror of a conversion camp you can’t remember makes it a memorable read. There’s a few gruesome moments, but generally it’s pretty accessible for people who aren’t necessarily big horror fans, and I also think it would work well adapted into a film, as it is plot-focused and has some memorable set pieces. Some of the implications and nastier concepts weren’t really explored as much as I’d like (particularly one character who dies early on brings in some terrifying implications that don’t really get discussed in the narrative much), but I did like how quick and compelling it was to read.

Everything The Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

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Everything the Darkness Eats is a horror novel by novella and short story writer Eric LaRocca, about strange disappearances in the small town of Henley’s Edge. People keep disappearing in Henley’s Edge, but the police have no idea what is going on. Ghost, a widower, is drawn in by the strange Mr Crowley, and Malik, a policeman dealing with the homophobic reactions of the town to him and his husband’s moving there, finds himself up against an unknown enemy. Something is wrong in Henley’s Edge.

I really like LaRocca’s other work that I’ve read, particularly the novella Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, and I was excited to read this novel. It is quite different to the other stories I’ve read by LaRocca, with a low burn, almost Stephen King-esque start that cuts between a few points of view and sets up the town, but the slow pace suddenly changes at the end to something faster and more grim and dark. The novel is pretty short, as you might expect from a novella writer, and I appreciate that it is focused, building in mystery without going overboard with endless description or new characters you lose track of.

There are really two stories within the novel: the one with the strange older man, Mr Crowley, and Ghost and a mysterious darkness, and then one in which a gay couple deal with homophobia from their neighbours, with horrific consequences. They both feel quite separate, even when they do come together, and the ending which brings them together happens very quickly, so they can feel a bit disjointed, despite being interesting things to explore in horror separately. A lot of the book is more lingering, without much horror but with more of a mystery of what is going on, and then there’s a darker ending where some really horrible stuff happens, which is a pretty classic horror set up, though some people might want more of the nasty stuff earlier on.

Everything the Darkness Eats felt like a solid horror novel for me, but it didn’t capture the unnerving power of You’ve Lost A Lot of Blood or Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke for me, so was maybe a bit of a let down in that way, as I was expecting something that really stood out. This book explored some classic horror elements and also insidious hatred within a community and I like the use of small town horror to tell a queer horror story. It’s a good book, but maybe I was expecting the distinctive use of storytelling and cursed vibes of LaRocca’s novellas, and I didn’t feel this novel quite had enough of these elements.

All About Romance by Daniel Tawse

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All About Romance is a YA novel about a non-binary teenager in the North East looking for their big romance. Roman Bright lives in Tynemouth with their mum and brother, appearing confident and uncaring at their school and around their two best friends, but still unsure after they were messed around last summer by sporty JJ. When anonymous postcards signed by ‘Big Red’ appear in Roman’s things and then Big Red seems to be painting murals around school, maybe something exciting is happening to Roman, but will they get too caught up in the excitement, even with new boy Beau to keep them grounded?

As a queer YA book set in the north of England, All About Romance definitely stands out, showing one teenager’s experiences of growing up different in a small town and trying to deal with that. Consequently, Roman is your classic flawed young adult protagonist: they frequently don’t see things from other people’s points of view and get caught up in their own ideas of what is happening. Supporting characters like Roman’s mum and best friends are there to try and help them have a bit of perspective, and also to provide support to Roman, showing that despite difficulties at school, there’s still people around them who love them for who they are. It’s good to see Roman as a teenage non-binary character whose story is not about coming out, and who is allowed to be a sometimes annoying teenager who throws out too many pop culture references.

The main narrative, about the mysterious wall art and postcards, is pretty predictable (it’s easy to work out almost instantly who it is) and fairly similar to Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda, so will appeal to people who like that romcom kind of plotline where you know that the protagonist is misunderstanding something, but don’t yet know the full story. A few elements of the writing style didn’t work for me (there were a lot of asides in brackets, possibly too many), but this book brings what people are likely looking for from the genre: a heartwarming story that still has some tough moments for characters, exploring queer characters at school and how they ultimately carve their own spaces. As an adult, it makes me hope that queer teenagers do get to have the freedom to make mistakes and be themselves and grow, even though I’m not really the target audience of the book itself.

Bellies by Nicola Dinan

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Bellies is a coming of age novel that explores where a love story goes when its protagonists change and when one person in the relationship transitions, as well as the difficulty of people finding who they are after university. Tom and Ming meet at a drag night at university and are drawn together, with Ming a playwright and Tom not quite sure what he’s doing, recently out as a gay man after breaking up with his girlfriend when they both came out. When Tom and Ming move to London after leaving university, Ming announces that she is transitioning. The novel follows the pair of them as they navigate what happens next and try to work out what they mean in each other’s life.

This is a tender book that at its heart focuses on the time after graduating university and how people look for the lives they want. The chapters are told from Tom and Ming’s points of view, and this dual perspective is vital for the narrative, allowing you to see into both of their lives and understand how vulnerability (as the title refers to) can be precious, but also leave people feeling exposed. You also see more into their respective experiences, both Ming with OCD and with being trans and having grown up in Malaysia, and Tom’s ways of navigating what he seems to see as things happening to him and a sense of loneliness. There’s a great cast of supporting characters, with a web of messy friendships at the core of the book that both explore the trials and tribulations of holding down friendships as you leave university and also difficult modes of queer friendship.

I found myself deeply drawn into the story and wasn’t sure how the book could end considering that it is only the start of their lives, but actually the hopeful ending worked well for me, offering up something transformational and satisfying that felt like a good conclusion to a coming of age novel. Bellies offers something that feels fresh after all the novels about straight white people trying to find themselves after university: a messy yet tender experience in which people make mistakes and try to find what is vital to their lives, but without a sense of certainty or necessarily models to follow.