HALLOWE’EN SEASON 2020

October 31, 2020September 6, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

October is my best reading month. I’m a very seasonal, themed-oriented reader, and Hallowe’en, more than any other holiday, lends itself to these qualities pretty perfectly. I cut loose and read books that are a bit more fun than my usual fare, which makes it really easy to pick up book after book after book, something that I definitely don’t do in any other month of the year.

This particular Hallowe’en, however, felt a little off. It was to be expected considering, well, everything, but I guess I was just confident the holiday would lift my spirits up — it did during the harrowing aftermath of Hurricane María, after all. But as tragic as that event was, this pandemic is obviously so much worse and I foolishly ended up underestimating just how much it would affect my mood.

Add to that the fact that I decided to go all in on my bookstragram for Hallowe’en, wanting to put out pictures and reviews on a more or less consistent manner throughout the month. I succeeded, too, and I’m happy and proud I did it, but it was draining, and that sucked a bit of the fun out of it a bit.

I still ended up having a tremendous amount of fun, though, and I read a lot of damn fine books. I’m sad to see the spooky season go, but we all know that 𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊’𝖊𝖓 𝖎𝖘 𝖊𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖓𝖆𝖑 anyway.

PUMPKINHEADS by Rainbow Rowell, Faith Erin Hicks

I first read this graphic novel by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks when it came out last year. It didn’t take much for me to love it. So much so that I decided I would start a new tradition of reading it at the beginning of every October from then on. Because while the month to me mostly means spooky, atmospheric books and vibes, it also means fresher, gentler nights spent in warm nooks and beds. I want to start the month with something just as cozy and pleasant, and you’ll not find a more comfortable, delightful — more autumnal — book than Pumpkinheads. ⠀
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I loved it just as much this time around. That’s usually the case with stories written by Rainbow Rowell. She writes charismatic, immediately lovable characters, and Josie and Deja, our titular pumpkinheads, are some of her most charming yet. I really fell for them both, and I finish this story always wanting to know more about them. I want to read about their past pumpkin patch adventures just as much as I want to read about whatever future they have. I want to know what they’re up to. ⠀
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Faith Erin Hicks’ art I’ve long been a fan of, and she brought her A game to this graphic novel. I love the world she’s drawn up here, which feels just as lush and warm and inviting as it did on my first visit. And colorist Sarah Stern (whom I failed to mention in my first review) has, in the opinion of this tropical, Caribbean boy, created the quintessential fall palette. This book is now pretty much what I picture whenever I think of the season. ⠀
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Pumpkinheads, for me, acts as the perfect bright, light entrée before the headier, spookier course lined up for the rest of the month.

THE BABYSITTERS COVEN by Kate Williams

The Babysitters Coven didn’t do it for me at all.⠀
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A shame, really. The novel has a promising premise (The Baby-Sitters Club meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and a strong, genuinely unsettling opening chapter. I was fully on board with it. But it unfortunately turned out not to be as fun as any of its initial inspirations, and any tension and mood set by the beginning quickly dissipates as the story turns from what seemed to be the start of a supernatural thriller into a prosaic high school pariah account. What little energy it regains as it slogs through the first act is again stopped dead in its tracks halfway through by an infodump sequence so egregious that it almost made me drop the book entirely.⠀
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It’s a story that wears its influences on its flowy, Stevie Nicks sleeves, too, something that, when done well, I tend to appreciate. Here, though, these inspirations only act as reminders to the reader that there are better stories out there, so why aren’t you enjoying them instead?⠀
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It’s also, bizarrely, not remotely as witchy as the title and the excellent cover make it out to be? I think there are only two mentions of witches and covens in the whole thing? The characters are more Eleven from Stranger Things and Charlie from Firestarter than they are the badass weirdos of The Craft, which is sort of what’s promised? Where was thy witchy goodness, book???

DEVOLUTION by Max Brooks

Reading Devolution by Max Brooks turned out to be a pretty physical activity for me. At numerous points I would put my Kindle down to pace relentlessly around the room for a while before picking it up again. At others I would alternate between tossing and turning in bed and just straight up yelling at the book. I read it in two days, finishing it with a seven-hour spree, and it kept me, quite literally, on the edge of my seat (or mattress, rather) the entire time. ⠀
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It was downright exhausting. And also a hell of a lot of fun.

The colony of Greenloop is a modern marvel. Situated between the Cascades in Washington, this eco-community boasts all the comforts of modern city living in the midst of all the rugged beauty of the wilderness. Each dwelling is a smart house, powered by sunlight and biogas. If there are technical issues, a signal is sent to a nearby town where technicians and specialists will go up in self-driving vans to do any repairing. High-speed internet is, of course, readily available, and the residents can simply telecommute to work. Supplies and groceries are delivered weekly by drones. It is, by all accounts, a techno-utopia. A proverbial paradise.

Until nearby Mt. Rainier erupts, and while the compound is far enough away from the volcano to be safe from the initial blast, volcanic mudflow soon blocks the roads, while ash and debris interrupt any internet access and mobile reception. The remote, isolated Greenloop community is cut off from the world, and its residents — affluent urbanites for the most part — find themselves wholly unprepared for the events that follow. They have only a week’s worth of groceries, no tools, no survival skills of which to speak, and winter is fast approaching… bringing with it inconceivable primal terror.
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Devolution is truly a wild, tense ride. In the vein of Jurassic Park, it’s a bloody — often gory — cautionary tale of human hubris. Of what happens when we convince ourselves we are masters of nature. Of the dangers of relying too much on the comforts of technology.⠀
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As in Brooks’ previous novel, World War Z, much of the horror comes not from the monster but from the notion of just how easily the systems that we depend on can simply just… fail. Not just automated, mechanized systems, either, but social structures as well. Civilizations, Brooks’ novels remind us, can crumble just as easily as computers. A prospect more terrifying than any monstrous creature.⠀
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Which isn’t to take away the spotlight from this book’s Sasquatch star. Bigfoot is properly terrifying here, and I appreciate how much effort and attention Brooks devoted to portraying it like an actual animal rather than some uncanny supernatural being. Any time you can inject some semblance of reality into your horror story will always make it that much more striking, and a creature that’s after you because it’s hungry rather than for any deliberately malevolent purpose… well, that just triggers some of our base, primal fears, from the time before we developed enough brains to fool ourselves into thinking that we somehow, through sheer will and determination, broke away from the food chain.⠀
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I had a great time with this book. And it definitely cements Max Brooks as one of my favorite writers.

SKELETON MAN by Joseph Bruchac

Joseph Bruchac is an honest-to-goodness storyteller. Not just in the sense that he is a prolific author, but that he still participates in the storied tradition of actually getting up in front of people and telling tales.⠀
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Prolific as he is, I only found out about him earlier this year, listening to an interview with Adam Gidwitz wherein he sang the praises of Bruchac (they co-wrote a book in the Unicorn Rescue Society series). I immediately looked him up and the first thing I found was an old video of him telling a story of “The Skeleton Man,” about a man so lazy that, instead of going out hunting for food with the rest of his tribe, he cooks and eats his own flesh instead, until he is nothing more than a skeleton. Still hungry, the Skeleton Man proceeds to eats the rest of his family as they return, until one of his nieces, with the help of some wildlife, stops him for good.⠀
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It’s a deliciously macabre story, and one that Bruchac tells with enthusiasm and delight to a crowd of mostly kids, who react with shock and glee in equal measure. I was captivated, watching this man telling this old Native American tale to a similarly captivated young crowd. I looked up his works soon after and was thrilled to find that he had written a full book based on this same Mohawk fable.⠀
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A modern retelling of the story, Skeleton Man follows Molly, a young girl who, after the mysterious disappearance of her parents, is forced into the care of an uncle she never even knew she had. The uncle keeps her locked in the room of his decrepit house, letting her out only for school and to eat, which he is particularly insistent she does. She soon realizes that her “uncle” may not be entirely human but an otherworldly being with sinister intentions.⠀
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I enjoyed reading this short novel as much as I enjoyed Bruchac’s telling of the original story (which you should definitely look up). This contemporary rendition reads like a refined R.L. Stine, in the sense that, while ostensibly written for a young audience, it never talks down to them, and certainly does not shy away from the shuddersome aspects of this spooky tale.

Skeleton Man is also a celebration of the strength of women, in particular Native American women. Bruchac dedicates this book to “all the young women who have yet to discover the courage that lives in their hearts,” and then, in the acknowledgements, he goes on to note just how deeply and how often strong women feature in traditional American Indian stories, a sharp contrast to the more commonly patriarchal European fairy tales.⠀
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Bearing that in mind, and the fact that I read this on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I feel it’s important to recognize the current epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women presently plaguing North America. I include some pertinent links, and encourage you all to read up on this tragedy and to please consider donating to relevant charities.

CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD by Adam Cesare

In the aftermath of her mother’s death, teenager Quinn Maybrook and her father are looking for a fresh start. They decide that moving from Philadelphia to the rural town of Kettle Springs, Missouri might just be exactly what they need. Instead of finding peace and quiet, however, they encounter a town brimming with tension between the older and younger generations, each side blaming the other for the community’s recent misfortunes. A conflict comes to a head during a high school party, where someone dressed as the town’s mascot — a forlorn looking clown — drops by for a homicidal visit. What follows is a confrontation between the cynical-yet-idealistic adolescents of the town and this sinister symbol of stagnant traditions — a fight that will not only determine their own survival but that of Kettle Springs itself. ⠀
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Adam Cesare knew exactly what he was doing when he called this Clown in a Cornfield. It’s as evocative a title as you can get. So much so that you don’t even have to mention the book’s genre; our reptilian brain simply knows.⠀
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HarperTeen knew exactly what they were doing, too, when they tapped artist Matt Ryan Tobin for the cover art, which, down to the color scheme and font, evokes everything from Zebra imprint’s line of horror in the seventies; to the Point Horror series in the nineties; up to more recent properties like Stranger Things. Mainly, though, it brings to mind the work of Stephen King — it’s a horror book about a killer clown, after all. The expectations have been set. You know exactly what you are getting into.⠀
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Except you don’t. Not quite. You do get a consummately creepy novel about a clown on a killing spree, to be sure — and it succeeds at being an excellent one at that — but you also get a story that features sharp social commentary that is all too relevant in our current landscape. That it manages to do so without feeling heavy-handed, and without letting it get in the way of, well, all the gory fun, speaks volumes of Cesare’s deft writing. This is a quick read, fun and riotous on the surface, with a lot more beneath if you care to look. Bodies in the basement, as it were.⠀
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It’s a story that’s dressed up in classic horror garb: from the setup to the premise to its euphoric exploration — and subsequent subversion — of established tropes. It’s all meant to feel familiar. What sets it apart, though, is that beneath that vintage veneer lies a thoroughly modern narrative about prejudice and hate; generational conflict and social strife. All the tensions of present-day dramas — which Clown in a Cornfield cuts right through, purposefully and methodically, with a circular saw.

HARROW COUNTY VOL. 3: SNAKE DOCTOR by Cullen Bunn, Tyler Crook, Various

Harrow County by writer Cullen Bunn and artist Tyler Crook follows Emmy Crawford, a humble young woman who finds out she is the reincarnation of an infamous witch who was executed by the residents of Harrow after letting loose countless uncanny creatures — called haints — that went on to wreak havoc on the province. Feeling shunned from her peers, who fear retribution, she concentrates her efforts on demonstrating just how different she is from her past wicked aspect. The series progresses more or less with a monster-of-the-month format that is interspersed with a higher, more elaborate arc regarding Emmy’s power and identity. ⠀
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I read the first two volumes of this series a couple of years ago for the Hallowe’en season and enjoyed them quite a bit. I failed to keep up with the comic, though, which meant that when I picked this ensuing volume I had a little trouble recalling what the actual story was about. But it’s a testament to Bunn’s writing that I felt caught up relatively quickly, pertinent details gleaned through context and dialogue. It helped, too, that this third volume (titled Snake Doctor) consisted mostly of standalone stories, with more of a focus on the secondary characters (the ghastly-but-sweet Skinless Boy, a haint and Emmy’s familiar, who gets an origin story of sorts here; and Bernice, her beleaguered best friend, who seems to be getting a larger story of her own in her dedicated issue). I had no problem getting invested once more in the characters and enjoying this set of issues.⠀
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Harrow County is a gorgeous comic, with art and writing that is decidedly, deliciously lush (Crook handles the bulk of the art, but this volume also features the work of guest artists Carla Speed McNeil and Hannah Christenson who do a great job of shaking things up, visually speaking) and a tone that’s as ominous as it is welcoming (which I attribute to dialogue that just drips with congenial Southern charm). I hope to pick up the remaining volumes of the series soon, as it exudes a most appropriate atmosphere for the spooky season.

MURDER HOUSE by C.V. Hunt

C.V. Hunt writes a kind of horror I don’t typically go for. I tend to prefer scary stories that focus on atmosphere and carry more of a mischievous sense of playfulness. Hunt’s tales lean decidedly into the dark and gritty end of the spooky spectrum, featuring troubled, wretched characters who have been already put through the wringer of life before the horror that is to befall them even knocks on their door, as it were. Bleak stories about bleak people that, more often than not, end in a bleak manner. There’s a certain mindset I have to be in in order to properly appreciate this kind of fiction.
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A mindset I must have been in when I read this slim novella recently because, while certainly dark and despondent, I found myself thoroughly compelled by it.⠀
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Murder House follows Laura and her partner Brent as they move into a run-down house in a run-down part of Detroit. The building was the infamous scene of a particularly grisly set of murders about which Brent, a down-on-his-luck writer, is doing a book. Struggling financially, Brent convinced his publisher to let them live rent-free in the dilapidated digs during the writing process. Laura’s not too thrilled about the arrangement: for one thing their relationship is not at its healthiest point (to put it mildly) and she’s not certain it can survive the stress of maintaining a wreck; for another, the place itself just fills her with dread. She tries to be a supportive partner, regardless, but the inherent creepiness of the house soon begins to get to her. It eventually gets to Brent as well, and their already turbulent life threatens to veer entirely off the rails.⠀
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I really admire how Hunt works with the haunted house aspect of the story. One of the primary plot points has to do with Laura having to stop buying her psychiatric medication in order to save money, (one of a handful of details that help make this story feel so grounded and real). She feels the effects of their absence at various points throughout the novella, which vary from mood swings to downright hallucinations. Hunt allows enough ambiguity here to make the reader question whether all the strange sights and sounds our protagonist keeps experiencing are the product of a haunted house or a haunted mind instead. Not a novel conceit by any means, but I appreciated Hunt’s empathetic approach to it: at no point does it feel exploitative; at no point does it feel as if mental health issues are being used for cheap thrills.⠀
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The characterization here is notably strong, too. Brent and Laura both feel like real people — painfully so at times, with all their flaws and vulnerabilities. Laura in particular I found very well-realized, and the battles she’s fighting (both inner and outer) make her immediately endearing. You want her to get out of this horror story — out of this toxic relationship, out of this cursed house — relatively safe and unscathed. Murder House has other plans for our heroine, however, and it demands we bear witness.

THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES by Grady Hendrix

In the close-knit community of Charleston’s Old Village, Patricia leads a very sheltered and stale sort of life. Kept busy by her role as housewife and mother of two, she spends her days doing the countless crucial but uncelebrated things mothers often do in order to keep their families and homes afloat, but she still can’t help feeling unfulfilled and constrained. Her only outlet is the monthly book club she attends with a handful of other women in the neighborhood, wherein these prim, genteel Southern women read garish books full of murder and morbidity — books from which Patricia gets the kind of thrills she finds lacking in her small corner of the world. But she gets more than she wishes for one night after she is suddenly attacked by a deranged, elderly neighbor, an aggression that leaves her both physically and mentally scarred. Her protective bubble has been burst, and she senses that something evil and wretched has crawled its way in. Which is when the charismatic, handsome figure of James Harris descends upon the town, bringing with him desire and dread; disruption and upheaval; and more frisson than Patricia could have ever hoped for or wanted.⠀

There are so many things I enjoyed about The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, the latest from Grady Hendrix: what it brought to vampire lore, with James Harris being something halfway between the vampires in The Strain and Interview with the Vampire; how the vampire, in a sleek reversal of conventions, seduced not the women but their husbands, sweet-talking and stirring them into friendships and partnerships; how it’s told more as a thriller than a straight up horror novel, with the monster behaving like the serial killers the book club love reading so much about; how it condemned the casual, rampant misogyny of the men (in a book full of skin-crawling scenes featuring rats, cockroaches and other pests, the segment with the men shamelessly, relentlessly gaslighting and berating their wives stands as one of the most vile); how it provoked sympathy for Patricia, our persevering protagonist, right from the outset. Mostly I loved that Book Club, like every Hendrix book I’ve read so far, packed quite the emotional punch. ⠀
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It’s not without its faults, however, mainly in regards to Hendrix’s handling of race, which leaves a lot to be desired. In many ways, this is a book about white supremacy (with Harris standing in as its ultimate symbol: a literal life-draining, racist, misogynist, uncompromising white man), about how the actions and inactions of a handful of wealthy white folk have great, detrimental effects on the marginalized communities around them. In the author’s note Hendrix writes about this book essentially being written from the point of view of his mother, who was a member of such a community, and that is a valid and interesting angle, but it also means that the harrowing experiences of Black people are perceived through the perspective of a privileged white Southern woman, and in a horror book where the bulk of the horror occurs to the mostly undepicted, unseen Black characters… Well, the optics aren’t great, to say the least.

To Hendrix’s credit he does try to acknowledge this problematic aspect near the end of the story, where the women of the book club recognize the consequences of their selfish actions — but it feels a little tacked on, and even then it comes accompanied with a hint of white saviorism. Again, not great. It’s a shame, really, as Mrs. Greene, the only major Black character, is terrific, and the story would have greatly benefited from being told, at least in part, from her perspective. Although it could be argued that the final confrontation is mainly told from her point of view, which slightly redeems her diminished role, as it is a gory, gruesome, and wholly gratifying affair.⠀
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Still, the horror novels I tend to appreciate are those that have something to say, even if they stumble while delivering their gospel. The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires has a hell of a lot to say, and it does stumble, and it’s a grand, boisterous, bloody spectacle all the same.

BEHIND YOU: ONE-SHOT HORROR STORIES by Brian Coldrick

Behind You is basically artist Brian Coldrick going, “New Yorker cartoons but make ‘em spooky.” Single illustrations accompanied by a short piece of text and can range from the morbidly amusing to the downright unsettling. Coldrick has been at it for a while (I remember when his work was being shared around Tumblr a few years back) and has, according to Joe Hill’s introduction, “refined and purified the entire idea of Horror into a single, vital idea,” which, you know, coming from Stephen King’s progeny is high praise indeed. As far as I can tell, the series is still going, and this volume collects just a select handful of these creepy cartoons.⠀
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The illustrations are, of course, the centerpiece, but the short text preceding them do a lot in terms of mood-setting and suggestion. They act almost as prompts: descriptive enough to tell at least part of a story, but simplistic and vague enough to let your mind entertain (or, depending on your disposition, torment) itself by thinking up the myriad of ways the scenes could play out. It’s almost as if you are the co-writer of this peculiar collection, which is an aspect I really enjoyed.⠀
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The series is very much an online thing, however, and you’ll definitely get more from it if you have more than a passing knowledge of internet culture as a lot of the images here draw from content cultivated from memes and creepypastas (Slender Men, naturally, are abound). A lot of the images online are subtly animated, too, which add to the tone, and that element is obviously lost here in this static form.⠀
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Behind You is a quick, fun Hallowe’en read, and you are sure to find an image that lingers in the back of your mind, especially if you read this alone in the small hours of the night. But I’m just assuming here because I definitely did not do that.

WELCOME TO DEAD HOUSE by R.L. Stine

Welcome to Dead House follows siblings Amanda and Josh as their family moves to the small, quiet town of Dark Falls (subtlety was never Stine’s specialty), to live in an old house their father has inherited from a previously unknown relative. In no time at all Amanda starts to experience weird things: she keeps seeing strange kids around the house, and hears mysterious giggling and whispering coming from her room at night. She’s soon convinced their new place is haunted, which her family thinks it’s only anxiety brought about by the move. But there’s also the fact that her usually easygoing dog gets agitated around the house, and seems to mistrust every single person they meet in town….⠀
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No Hallowe’en is complete for me without Goosebumps. I’ve been slowly making my way through them for the last couple of years, having never read the books when I was kid. This was my first time reading Welcome to Dead House, the first book of the series, an it is an auspicious beginning at that. It’s certainly darker than most other Goosebumps book I’ve read thus far, which never really strayed too far from relatively innocuous territory, whereas Dead House goes for that PG rating from the get-go. We are, after all, promptly treated to a sequence featuring a mostly skeletonized family, complete with bits of flesh still dangling from their bones. It’s a surprisingly gruesome book, all things considered, especially towards the end, which genuinely caught me by surprise. Stine is definitely not afraid to go hard. I was a fearful, finicky child and probably wouldn’t have enjoyed this kind of thing back then, but my present adult self certainly appreciates it. It’s very much a Goosebumps book at its heart, however, which means despite the macabre coating it’s still goofy and fun and a little schlocky.

The narrative itself does feel more streamlined when compared to later books in the series, where the stories tend to be a bit looser and meandering. But mostly I like how it seems like Stine had the structure (the skeleton, as it were) pretty much all worked out since the start of the series, chapter-ending cliffhangers and all. Goosebumps, after all, almost wasn’t even series, since it didn’t really sell until kids started getting a hold of them in school book fairs and went on to spread them around through word of mouth, causing a wave that would keep Goosebumps afloat through most of the nineties. Talk about coming up with such a winning formula from the outset.

AUTUMNCROW by Cameron Chaney

An old man laments the loss of an old flame when he hears the siren song of the sea. A widow builds a jack-o’-lantern effigy for her dead husband in the hopes of seeing him one more time. A strained relationship between siblings has uncanny, burning consequences; while all the way across town a lonesome boy makes friends with graveyard ghouls. There are faces in the forest and visitants from space; whispers in the wind and chattering in the cornfields. There’s something in the soil of the valley, folks say, that attracts all manner of curious folk and odd happenings to it like a magnet. The locals long accepted the quirks of their community and stand by it, but they still offer up a warning to visitors: tread carefully — there are monsters here. ⠀
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Welcome to Autumncrow, Cameron Chaney’s first collection of short stories that is nothing if not an absolute treat. It’s also pretty much the perfect read to cap off the spooky season. Do not be tricked by the cover and the catchline like I was, though — I went in expecting only a quirky compilation of Hallowe’en-themed tales, and while we certainly do get a taste of that with some of the selections, most of these fictional offerings are rather straight up, honest-to-goodness horror stories, with all that entails. Chaney explores different aspects of the genre with evident glee, while simultaneously running the reader through the gamut of emotions: joy and melancholy; delight and dread; playfulness and solemnity — often all at once, and often all in the same story.

Taken as a whole, however, Autumncrow is also essentially an examination of grief and loneliness. Most of the stories feature protagonists who are, in some way, looking to belong — to some place or to other people or to themselves. “Follow me in,” is a refrain that’s repeated throughout the collection, by various people and entities (and perhaps by the town itself). Some characters heed this call willingly, others are a bit more hesitant, some are even forced — but all of them can’t help but feel the alluring pull of the valley.⠀
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Which brings us to the setting: Autumncrow may not be the Halloweentown I expected it to be, but it is undeniably a far more interesting place. Chaney wisely plays it vague with the history of the place, leaving a lot to the reader’s imagination while still offering up enough particulars to make the town feel lived-in and, despite the paranormal phenomena, real. And like every real place, it is depicted as being sometimes dangerous, sometimes beautiful, sometimes just simply… there — but always, always alive. I would love to read more stories in this setting. Autumncrow Valley is the very same October Country Bradbury so fervently celebrated. ⠀
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I was highly impressed by this collection. It’s well worth the read.

THE DEVIL’S DETECTIVE by Simon Kurt Unsworth

September 21, 2020January 10, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite short stories is “Murder Mysteries,” by Neil Gaiman. It is, like a title says, a murder mystery, told in the same manner and style as countless murder mysteries before it. But it is unique in the sense that it is set in Heaven, where an angel is tasked with finding out the culprit behind Creation’s very first murder (or “Wrong Thing,” as it is called in the story, because there is no word for this particular cruel act among the Heavenly Host). It is a favorite not only because the conceit is exceedingly clever, but because the world (for a lack of a better word) it creates is just as ingenious and fascinating. Heaven is an actual city, gleaming and perfect. Its citizens, the angels — equally gleaming and perfect — are portrayed as workers, defined by their roles. The whole of the cosmos is being constructed inside a factory-like building, aspects of it discussed and decided by committee and delegated to teams of ethereal employees. It allows Gaiman play with the conventions of the gritty genre while still writing about shining, perfect beings. Seeing writers play around like that in stories is always fun.⠀
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It’s a story I was reminded of countless times while making my way through The Devil’s Detective by Simon Kurt Unsworth. In many ways it reads like a distorted, perverse reflection of Gaiman’s seraphic murder mystery. And Upside Down version, as it were. Which is nothing if not appropriate, I think: as above, so below, and so forth.⠀
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In The Devil’s Detective Hell also takes the form of a city, one populated by humans and demons alike. The former are given bleak tasks and roles to perform, while the latter, predictably, torture and torment them. It is a dreadful place, although not in the way you might initially imagine it. Because Unsworth has wrought a version of Hell that represents the scariest thing he could possible conceive: a bottomless pit of bureaucracy. Hell’s “operations” are overseen by a board of demons, with most of their work being relegated through a middleman, even. There are bars and brothels; offices and housing complexes. Trains and cabs are used to get around. The modern world as the underworld — or vice versa. There are even detectives, a thankless job in Hell if there ever was one.⠀
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This novel follows such a person, our unfortunately named protagonist Thomas Fool, one of Hell’s Information Men, the infernal analogue to the sleuthing occupation.⠀
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Hell is hosting angels, there to attend a slew of meetings where the parties of both Heaven and Hell perform a long-established practice of trading souls. The arrival of these heavenly beings coincides with a string of particularly horrific murders. Something is killing the humans of Hell, in a manner so gruesome that their very souls are released forcibly from their bodies, manifesting in a blinding blue light that dissipates in the accursed atmosphere. An atrocity that Fool and his team are sent to investigate.
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(In Unsworth’s Hell, those condemned to it are reincarnated into a new body, carrying no knowledge of their previous life other than they have sinned and are now paying for it. It makes sense in a sadistic sort of way: how much more oppressive would Hell’s suffering feel were you still alive, after all?)⠀
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Author Michael Chabon once said that detectives are great protagonists in mysteries because they have inherent access to every layer of society, from the proletariat to the elite. They can knock on any door. In gritty murder mysteries, these sleuthhounds often act as our guide through the more disreputable side of life. The Virgil to our Dante. In The Devil’s Detective, Fool gets to fill both roles of The Divine Comedy. He is the guide through this strange, twisted world, sure, but he himself is dragged along a journey through circles of Hell he never even fathomed.⠀
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I’m focusing on the worldbuilding because it is this book’s strongest aspect. Unsworth writes a very vivid, markedly macabre setting and does a great job establishing some semblance of logic to an inherently illogical place. There are rules in Hell, Fool repeatedly states throughout the story, they may not make sense, and they may get broken constantly, but there are rules just the same. It’s an engaging environment, and the sections where Fool just explores different districts of the city, searching for clues and answers, talking with characters of varying shapes and forms (the most curious of which being the Man of Plants and Flowers, a former human who has somehow transformed himself into, well, flowers and plants, and has spread himself throughout the city), were the ones that interested me the most. The world piqued my morbid curiosity, and I wanted to know more. It’s a rich backdrop, one that should easily lend itself to strong, solid plots.⠀
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Which makes it that much more of shame that we don’t exactly get one here. There’s enough to maintain your interest throughout the book’s four hundred and so pages, but the mystery at the center of it all is a little lacking. I suppose it’s maybe because I’m not the most perceptive of readers, but one of the reasons I enjoy mystery stories so much is that I hardly ever figure them out before they are done, and I love being pleasantly surprised. I figured out the who-and-whydunit in The Devil’s Detective a couple chapters in, which meant that I read the rest of the book hoping that I was wrong because it seemed so obvious. It didn’t help that the resolution came accompanied with a lackluster final confrontation, in which our main character spends a lot of time being disoriented to the point of not being able to properly tell what is going on around him. The ending proper just sort of peters out, leaving the characters and the story hanging off the proverbial cliff, awaiting a second book to continue their tale. It was a little underwhelming, to say the least. ⠀
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Still, I appreciated the excellent worldbuilding, and also the way the novel explores its central theme, which revolves around hope.⠀
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At the beginning of the story, Fool receives a feather from the wings of one of the angels. The feather gives off a bright glow that never dulls, and gives Fool comfort and clarity. He keeps it close to him for the remainder of the story, embracing its light in moments of difficulty and distress. Hope is the thing with feathers, etc. ⠀
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Hope is a double-edged sword in the world of The Devil’s Detective. At several points in the novel Fool bemoans the futility of it all. Why bother investigating horrific acts in Hell, when Hell will never cease to be a place in which horrific acts are the norm? Why bother standing outside the building in which the meetings between Heaven and Hell are held, waiting to become one of the souls chosen to be freed from torment? Fool is told plainly at one point that Hell lets its humans have some semblance of hope because it makes the ensuing torment that much more terrible. Shades of Gaiman, again: In an issue of The Sandman where protagonist Dream visits that universe’s version of Hell, Lucifer asks him what can hope serve in such a place. To which Dream replies, “What power would Hell have if those imprisoned here would not be able to dream of Heaven?” Why bother with anything at all?⠀
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But hope also begets change. The feather acts as a catalyst for Fool. Against his better judgement, he starts to imagine a different way of life in Hell. He begins to feel hope. And the condemned humans, inspired by his acts, follow suit.⠀
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And so The Devil’s Detective ends with change, both with Fool as a person and Hell as place, a change that happened because Fool and the people of Hell, despite their cruel circumstances, chose to go on, in the hopes that things will, eventually, get better. Which is all any of us can do, in the end, whether we’re living through hell or not. A fool’s hope indeed.

ANTI-RACIST READS

September 9, 2020September 2, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

Reading. Learning. Growing.

There was a tweet making the rounds back when the BLM protests first started up, mocking the history books North American and colonized students have been indoctrinated with since time immemorial. It went: “Slavery was bad but then Lincoln fixed it! Then, segregation was also bad but Malcolm X didn’t need to be so mean about it. But MLK went on a big walk and fixed racism! The last racist left killed him but then he went to jail the end.”

Which is to say I probably learned more about BIPOC history and race relations from these two books (both of which are aimed at younger audiences) than I ever did in any history or social studies class. Which is only slightly wild, to say the least.

Stamped is a book I’ve been looking forward to since it was first announced. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s original tome is on my wishlist, and I will get around to it someday, but I confess to being more than a little bit intimidated by it. Heavy books about heavy subjects! There’s certain mental preparation I have to do before I am able to tackle them. But I was familiar with Jason Reynolds’ work enough to be certain that his own adaption for younger readers— or remix, as they call it — would be perhaps a bit more approachable, full of language that is as playful as it is thoughtful; as lyrical as it is meaningful. Which is essentially Jason Reynolds’ trademark style. And that is what we get here: an immanently readable, fiercely empathetic, endlessly illuminating history lesson. A handful of passages even made my eyes well up. Don’t pass up on this book.

On July 2, 1826, Jefferson seemed to be fighting to stay alive. The eighty-three-year-old awoke before dawn on July 4 and called out for his house servants. The enslaved Black faces gathered around his bed. They were probably his final sight, and he gave them his final words. He had been a segregationist at times, an assimilationist at other times—usually both in the same act—but he never quite made it to being antiracist. He knew slavery was wrong, but not wrong enough to free his own slaves. He knew as a child that Black people were people, but never fully treated them as such. Saw them as “friends” but never saw them. He knew the freedom to live was fair, but not the freedom to live in America. The America built on their backs. He knew that all men are created equal. He wrote it. But couldn’t rewrite his own racist ideas. And the irony in that is that now his life had come full circle. In his earliest childhood memory and in his final lucid moment, Thomas Jefferson lay there dying—death being the ultimate equalizer—in the comfort of slavery. Surrounded by a comfort those slaves never felt.

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Whereas Stamped is concerned with the past and how it shaped our present, Tiffany Jewell’s This Book is Anti-Racist is more interested with how our current reality can shape our immediate future. And while Anti-Racist briefly talks about past events that led us to now, it is a thoroughly modern book. The amount of timely, relevant topics Jewell manages to cover in such a short amount of space (this book is less than 200 pages long) is truly staggering: activism (both true and performative); the internet’s influence on social discourse; internalized and institutionalized racism; prejudice and bias; identity and class. Jewell does more with these topics than a dozen hot take articles put together, and does so with grace, patience, and righteous outrage. Do not pass up on this book, either.

We have been conditioned to the bias of whiteness. We can undo this. People play a big role in keeping racism going. If we do not work to recognize our prejudices, we remain a part of the problem. When we become aware of our biases and our role in racism, then we can begin to understand how we are a part of a system that is much bigger than us.

My own education growing up may have been lacking, but I’m just glad that kids these days have access to books of this caliber, that discuss issues so often suppressed or actively ignored. Books that tell them — us — how things were, and how they are, and how they could be. Books that remind them — us — to keep growing, and learning, and reading.

READALIKES: MAD MEN

August 28, 2020September 5, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

I rewatched the entirety of Mad Men a couple months ago. Because what better thing to do during lockdown than spend seven seasons with characters full of angst and ennui?

As is my wont, whenever I immerse myself into a show or film, I always get the urge to seek out some readalikes — books that, in my mind at least, share similarities with whatever it is I’m watching. My criteria for this is a little loose and ambiguous, admittedly: sometimes I look for similar moods and themes; oftentimes it’s just a matter of aesthetics. The last time I did this with Mad Men I ended up reading Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man and Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything — books that read the part. This time around I thought it’d be fun to explore books that looked the part.

So I went with comics, of course. The ones I went with were perhaps not as deep and brooding as Mad Men, but they were certainly as stylish.

They were also mostly about murder, which is surprisingly common with stories set during this time, which makes me wonder what is about this certain period of American culture that fits so well with crime dramas and murder mysteries and thrillers? Is it the Hitchcock influence or is it that everyone was seemingly so repressed in those days that the thought of someone snapping only made one go, “well that was inevitable”?

In any case, I definitely consider it a genre (let’s call it Mid-Century Madness), and comics seem to do it better than almost anything else. And hardly any comic does it better than Darwyn Cooke’s adaptations of Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels (written under the Richard Stark pseudonym), which follow the eponymous lead across heists, murderous plots, and other criminal activities. I had read — and deeply enjoyed — the first two books in the series, but this was my first time reading through all four volumes (Cooke sadly passed away before working on any more). Westlake’s Parker novels were famously cold, bare-boned affairs, featuring stark prose (hence the pen name) and simple, straightforward plots.

There’s a famous scene from the 1967 film Point Blank, one of the first adaptations of the the Parker stories. It features lead Lee Marvin walking down a hallway with deadly purpose. There’s no music playing, just the metronome-like sound of his steady footsteps, meant to evoke the relentless nature of the character. He sounds unstoppable — a bullet out of a gun.

It’s a rhythm that Cooke translated beautifully into comic book form. Throughout the books he uses wide panels, with little to no dialogue. And this, combined Cooke’s sleek and sharp artwork, evokes a sense of speed. Like Westlake’s original novels, these books are meant to be read quickly. There’s no real story development and certainly no character growth. As with any decent heist: you get in, you get out. The end. Like a bullet out of a gun.

Visually this is the most Mad Men-looking of the bunch, mostly due to Cooke’s general retro aesthetic, but also because Parker comes from the same squared-jawed, handsomely generic mold as Don Draper.

I read all four volumes in the series and had a blast with each one. The third volume, The Score, might just be my favorite, though.

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Lady Killer, written by Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich and illustrated by Jones herself, follows Josie Schuller, a seemingly perfect homemaker in a seemingly picture-perfect sixties household, who also happens to moonlight as a professional assassin. Hijinks ensue. (The series was pitched as “Betty Draper meets Hannibal,” but I think it’s more accurate to think of it as “Midge Maisel meets John Wick.”) This is essentially a dark comedy — emphasis on dark (morbid humor abounds). Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich’s writing is perfectly sly and tongue-in-cheek and pairs well with Jones’ art, which manages to evoke the commercial art of the era while still retaining that modern edge.

There are only two volumes so far. I enjoyed the second one a lot more, mostly because it ramps up its California Cool aesthetic.

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On the more serious end of the spectrum we have The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, who pretty much have the crime corner of comics covered. This series owes a lot more to Old Hollywood lore and the visual flair of film noir than it does the sleek aesthetics of the mid-fifties. True to conventions, it tells the story of the tragic murder of a rising starlet. Unlike Parker and Lady Killer, this is played as straight as it could be, which is probably why I didn’t vibe with is as much. Brubaker’s writing is great, and Phillips’ art is fantastic, but it just didn’t speak to me as much as the rest of these readalikes so I don’t think I’ll be continuing it.

BOOKED by Kwame Alexander

June 19, 2020January 12, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

Well, hello there.⠀
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Thing’s are a bit overwhelming, aren’t they? At least more so than they were before, and they already pretty dang whelming. I’ve certainly been feeling it, which is why I’ve been more or less neglecting this blog. I’m still reading, but haven’t felt enough creative energy for writing out my thoughts, much less for taking and editing pictures. I’ll get back on it soon enough, I expect.⠀
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In the meantime: read more books by Black authors. The current discourse focuses mostly on non-fiction and understandably so: one of the many things the BLM movement has taught us is that most of us have so much to learn, still. Non-fiction works are crucial. But I am a firm believer in the power of fiction to help us see the world through the eyes of people who are not you, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the importance of reading it, too. Stories are, after all, the ultimate empathy engine.⠀
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Kwame Alexander’s Booked is a particularly lovely example. I finished it back in April, and I liked it so much I read it again before the month was out. It’s about Nick Hall, a smart young Black kid who lives and breathes soccer, and how he deals with having his world turned upside-down after some turmoil erupts in his home life. Helping him deal with this is an eccentric, decidedly uncool, hip hop loving librarian who is constantly giving Nick books he thinks will help. I loved the emphasis of words in the story, too: Nick’s overbearing father is a linguistics professor with “chronic verbomania.” So much so that he has written a book of obscure words that he makes his son read every day. Nick resents this, of course, but he also very clearly loves words, as he is constantly using them in sly, clever ways. It’s a novel written in verse, which I had never read before, and I found the experience highly enjoyable. It’s very specifically a book about language, and about how words can hurt us just as much as they can heal us. Which is something we all need to be reminded of from time to time. ⠀
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It also happened to round up the trifecta of sports books I was picking up at the time. That was another fun little reading detour for me.

DRAGON HOOPS by Gene Luen Yang

May 16, 2020July 19, 2022 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

At the beginning of this book, Gene Luen Yang, high school teacher and acclaimed author of graphic novels, is worried that he has no more stories to tell. He’s felt a hole in his life since his last book was released, and that was over six years ago, but he’s unable to find a story that just grabs his heart and runs away with it.⠀
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Until he starts hearing the excitement in the hallways of Bishop O’Dowd High School. Their basketball team, the Dragons, is set to go to State and is causing quite the stir. Yang does not follow basketball so he has no idea what this means, but the hold it has on other people fascinates him, and he starts to think there might be a story there. He’s hesitant at first — the computer science teacher and comic book guy writing about sports of all things? But he feels the hook in his heart and so, tentatively, he takes the first step.⠀
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Dragon Hoops is the true story about a basketball team overcoming all manner of odds on their way to becoming champions. It’s about the people that make up the team, and their stories. And its about the rich history of the game they play.⠀
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A game in which, when I first picked up this book, I had next to no interest in, it having gone away in the aftermath Space Jam and Michael Jordan’s second retirement. Which, for me at least, made Yang the perfect audience surrogate: he begins his journey caring not much for the game but for the stories it generates. He ends it, not exactly a superfan, but as someone who now appreciates basketball and its deep cultural importance.⠀
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Which perfectly mirrored my own journey with Dragon Hoops. There’s a reason why after finishing the book I: read Phil Bildner’s A Whole New Ballgame; have been keeping up with The Last Dance documentary miniseries on ESPN; bought Kwame Alexander’s Crossover; and, yes, re-watched Space Jam (still a masterpiece).⠀Like Yang, I haven’t become suddenly a superfan — I don’t think I’ll sit down and follow every single game once they start back up again — but I am definitely more interested in it, and appreciative of its history, and of its cultural impact.⠀
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There’s just so many things Dragon Hoops does right for me. On the surface it’s just your typical tale of a team on its way towards victory. It’s a story we’ve seen countless times before. But the difference, as always, is in the telling:⠀
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It’s a story about basketball, but it’s also a perfectly accurate portrayal about the agony and joy of writing. We get to see Yang as he tries to write the story while the actual story unfolds. We see him struggle with what to add and what to omit as the action plays out in front of him. He talks with the people he’s portraying about how they should be depicted, and we see the changes in the art during these conversations. He even addresses the reader at one point. Which is one of the advantages of this being a graphic novel: these are all things you can pull off in comics that you can’t easily do in other mediums. And by this point in his career, Yang has such a handle on sequential storytelling that he takes full advantage of the form here.⠀(The art, despite all the times the author disparages it as inadequate in the book, is wonderful. Yang’s form is clean and clear, and it translates surprisingly well into the dynamic basketball scenes.)

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It’s also a story about stories. A handful of chapters are focused on key members of the team. Preceding their stories however, we get a short history lesson on the game of basketball, which are fun and fairly informative: we learn why the game of basketball became so popular with minority communities and in the inner cities; we learn that women have always been playing the game pretty much since its inception; we learn the myriad ways different people took steps to take the game forward; and we learn many other things besides. The most interesting and impressive thing Yang does with these brief classes, however, is showing how their lessons are still relevant to the life of the individual being discussed in the chapter, thus creating a direct link between the past and the present. It’s very effective and probably my favorite thing this book does.⠀
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Tying all this together is the recurring image of stepping forward. Each and every person in this book, author included, is facing a set of challenges, varied as the people themselves: trying to win a basketball game; trying to decide whether or not to take a job offer; forming new friendships; balancing relationships; prejudice (in all its infuriating forms); how to best tell a story. And the thread that runs through each and every person facing these obstacles, from the past to the present, no matter how uncertain or how scared they were, is that they took a step forward. They stepped into the court. After all, how else are you going to know what happens unless you play the game?⠀

Dragon Hoops is a wonderful delight, and probably Gene Luen Yang’s best, most ambitious work to date. I see myself revisiting often (indeed, I’ve already read it twice).

A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME by Phil Bildner

April 20, 2020January 12, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

Mason “Rip” Irving and Blake “Red” Daniels think they know exactly what to expect from fifth grade. They know their principal, Ms. Darling (real name) is going to stand at the entrance to greet all the students. They know that Ms. Hamburger (real name) is going to be their homeroom teacher. And, most importantly, they know they can finally try out for the district’s basketball team.⠀
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But when they arrive at school nobody is there to greet them out in front. When they get to their homeroom they find, not Ms. Hamburger, but a young, long-haired, tattooed teacher called Mr. Acevedo.⠀
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More changes await the two best friend that will turn their precious little world upside down, and especially so for Red, who thrives on order and routine. But they have one another. And they will soon find that every challenge comes with the opportunity for new allies as well.⠀

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Middle grade books do so much. Not only do they have to be breezy, fun reads in order to sustain the attention of kids who live in a world of extremely loud and incredibly constant distraction, but they often have to do so while exploring some serious, sensitive issues — without losing that sense of playfulness and optimism we tend to associate with childhood.⠀
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It’s a lot to handle. We’re currently living through a sort of Renaissance in children’s literature, though, so there’s no shortage of books that manage to carry this weight — and Phil Bildner’s A Whole New Ballgame is certainly among these.⠀
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It’s a simple story told with a lot of heart, with wonderfully realized characters. Rip and Red are charming and endearing and immediately likable. Their relationship is the heart of the book and its portrayal is fittingly heartwarming. Even side characters with limited roles like Avery and Rip’s mother are given their fair share of story. And of course you can’t help but root for Mr. Acevedo right from the get-go, an idealist who stands in for those modern educators who prioritize dynamic and fun learning methods, tailored to their student’s needs, rather than relying on the rigid and often outdated practices that hinder our current educational system, especially so in the Western world.⠀
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Which is one of those serious subjects that creep in: the boy’s school doesn’t look the way they expected it to because of severe cuts in their district’s budget, something that happens all too often in the real world, as any teacher can surely discuss at length.⠀
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Another interesting aspect of this book is in its depiction of disability. Avery is a wheelchair user who, rather than being treated as a one-dimensional character, as the trope tends to do, gets a fair amount of depth. Some of her experiences are discussed at length in a charming and amusing manner. (She even gets to be a bit of a jerk). And then there’s Red himself, who is on the autism spectrum. He struggles a bit with all the changes going on around him, but he’s portrayed as a tenacious and clever character. And luckily his best friend Rip offers plenty of support and encouragement, as does Mr. Acevedo and a handful of other teachers. I thought author Phil Bildner, a former teacher himself, did an admirable job with their depiction. ⠀
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Middle grade books do so much. A Whole New Ballgame is certainly no exception.⠀
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Oh and there’s a decent amount of basketball in here, too, as the title suggests. Like most books involving sports, though, it’s a metaphor. Because what’s life after sudden change if not a whole new….⠀
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Well, you know.⠀

GET A LIFE, CHLOE BROWN by Talia Hibbert

March 31, 2020September 2, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

Get a Life, Chloe Brown begins with the titular character getting almost run over by a car, a sudden brush with death that, combined with a number of other issues she’s been dealing with, compel Chloe to, as the cover exclaims, get a LIFE. Type A person that she is, Chloe goes about this by making a list of the things she believes constitute a full, well-rounded life. The entries ranging from the momentous (move out of parent’s house; travel the world) to the positively frivolous (enjoy a drunken night out; have meaningless sex).⠀

It’s a pretty great beginning.

Chloe immediately begins checking off items by moving into her own flat in London, in a building managed by our other protagonist and inevitable love interest, Red — tall, literally ginger my god Hibbert, and handsome — a former painter who has withdrawn from the art world. Their relationship starts off, in classic rom-com fashion, as positively hostile: Chloe finds him an uncouth oaf; Red finds her a spoiled, standoffish brat. A series of mishaps and circumstances soon lead both characters to come together, however, with Chloe agreeing to build Red a website that will hopefully rekindle interest in his neglected art career, and Red helping Chloe get through her Get a Life list.⠀
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It’s a pretty great set-up. You do worry for a moment that their frenemy dynamic might end up overstaying its welcome, but, refreshingly, it begins to break down and evolve only a couple of chapters in, as the stimulating chemistry between Chloe and Red softens their respective distant and defensive exteriors. Which is when they realize they’re also helping one another in entirely unexpected ways.⠀

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I don’t tend to pick up many romance novels, although I quite like the few that I have read. The works of Rainbow Rowell and Stephanie Perkins quickly come to mind. But while their novels are certainly full of love and all its clutter, they tend to slant more towards the emotional side of the romantic spectrum. This novel decidedly leans toward the other end. The physical end. Whereas a lot of stories with romantic plots often leave you wanting to shout “would you just kiss already” at the stubborn, exasperating characters, Chloe Brown simply skips all that noise and just goes straight into the more risqué aspects of courtship. I was surprised but amused by how quickly — and frankly how often — the book got down to this sort of business. There are enough steamy scenes to fill up several saunas.

Which isn’t to say there’s no emotion to be found in this novel. Meaningless sex may be an item on Chloe’s list, but, as she also realizes, things aren’t always so straightforward, and people often carry their emotional baggage with them. Our main characters being no different.⠀
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Chloe, for one thing, lives with fibromyalgia, and while she’s developed a myriad of methods to manage it, emotionally, it’s taken a toll. As is often the case with invisible illnesses, non-disabled people struggle to sympathize with those who deal with them. They can get, as Chloe puts it at one point, “bored with lists and rain checks and careful coping mechanisms.” And, sometimes, they leave. Which is where we find Chloe at the beginning: determined and resolute, but lonely.⠀
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We find Red in a like manner. Dealing with his own trust issues stemming from the fallout of a particularly ruinous relationship that left him feeling adrift and uncertain about his life. That this former partner was, like Chloe, affluent, only adds to his inner turmoil, his more modest background having been a constant issue before.⠀

How Chloe and Red deal with these knotty circumstances is nothing if not compelling. How they support one another is, frankly, adorable. How they fall for one another is just thoroughly sweet and, indeed, quite sexy. The development of their relationship might seem a little rushed, but it’s believable, and you quickly root for them.

I’m doing it for you because that’s how people should behave; they should fill in each other’s gaps.

Mental health and chronic illness. Class conflict. Toxic relationships and their aftermaths. These are all complicated subjects that can prove too much for any single story to handle, but Chloe Brown does so with thoughtfulness and tact, and it’s what impressed me the most about this “kissing book.”⠀
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They are also subjects that can weigh down a story, casting a somber shadow over even the most lighthearted of comedies. Chloe Brown avoids this hazard by boasting a small but well-realized and obscenely charismatic cast of characters. Because not only do both protagonists read as real, actual people, the side characters do as well. Chloe’s family in particular plays a substantial supporting — and supportive — role: Gigi, her glamorous, flamboyant grandmother (who my brain immediately envisioned as British Eartha Kitt, much to my delight) dutifully doles out wisdom and guidance with wit and candor to spare; and her two enigmatic and energetic younger sisters, Dani and Eve, routinely drop by her flat to check in on her well-being — and to also discuss the latest, greatest gossip, usually concerning Red. (The sisters were hilarious and fun to read, and I’m glad to see that Hibbert is going to tell their story in future installments.)

Talia Hibbert’s author biography states that she writes “sexy and diverse” stories. And she certainly delivers on both fronts with Get a Life, Chloe Brown. I want to make special note of the diversity aspect, though: Because while I don’t know much about the romance genre, I’m willing to bet that characters like Chloe (a self-assured, Black, fat, nerdy, disabled woman who is regularly revered over her beauty), or even like Red (whose constantly cheerful and confident demeanor belies intense insecurity), are not so readily found within it, simply due to the fact that they are few and far between in most other types of stories as well. Which is, of course, a shame. Representation is important, and fiction is always in need of other voices, and other lives.

Representation […] means accepting, then celebrating, the fact that difference is normal. To do that, we have to carve out space for the voices of marginalized people, because underrepresentation can’t be fixed unless you actively do the work.

— Talia Hibbert

So I’m glad Hibbert is out there, actively doing the work, and that she’s using her voice to share Chloe Brown’s life with us.

We would do well to listen. That’s part of the work too.

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So I quite enjoyed the book. Started this one in the middle of February, for obvious reasons, but while I liked what I read, it didn’t manage to hold my attention, and I put it down about halfway through.⠀⠀

Fast forward a couple of years, to March. The world is even more terrifying than usual, and most of us are stuck at home until who knows when. I’ve been doing fine, relatively speaking. In a decent place, mentally speaking. Until last week when 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖌𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖒 finally got me and caused me to spend the following weekend in a depressive daze.⠀

I had been reading a couple of thematically relevant books — mostly non-fiction accounts about humanity overcoming all kinds of calamities and disasters. Books that assured we were going to get through all this. Books that I absolutely refused to read after the anxiety hit. It all felt too real, too unwieldy. I wanted instead to read something as far removed from our current situation as possible. ⠀

Enter Chloe. It did the trick. I managed to crawl out of that dark headspace and into the light and delightful world of this book. I tore through the remaining half in a single, sleepless night.

If I had any real criticism to offer, is that I thought it relied too much on the cliché, at times. And also that it was definitely, maybe, just a tiny bit too melodramatic. But then again I figured that sort of went with the territory. I don’t know! You get swept up. I did.

I you’re looking for something to pick up something that’s light but still compelling in these dark and strange times, though, you could certainly do worse than reading about Chloe Brown’s life.

DEATH WINS A GOLDFISH by Brian Rea

March 25, 2020January 12, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

Death Wins a Goldfish is a book about living, author Brian Rea writes in the introduction. More specifically, it is a book about Death living.⠀
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In the world presented in this story, Death works, like so many of us, in a cubicle farm (in an office full of other grim reapers). He lives for the job, so to speak. He’s been doing it for so long, after all, and without a single pause. But one day he receives a letter from Human Resources informing him of the fact that he has a year’s worth of vacation days accumulated, and that he must make use of them.⠀
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So Death takes a holiday. Only he has no idea what to do with all the time that has been given to him. Dedicated as he’s been to his occupation — defined by it, you could say — he never quite managed to build a life outside of it. And so we follow Death along as he tries to figure out how to best go about living.⠀
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This is a picture book, although it is decidedly not intended for kids. Not because there’s anything explicit about its illustrations (which are fun and clever and charming in their rushed, scratchy quality), but because it deals with topics relatable mostly to us adults who may or may not feel as if their job occupies too much of their personal identity.⠀
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Like Death, I work as an office drone. And while I appreciate the stability and structure that it gives my days, one of its main challenges has always been having some semblance of a life after I clock out at the end of the day. The job is not hard, physically speaking (back pain notwithstanding), but it is certainly mentally draining. When I get home, oftentimes the only thing I want to do is shut off my brain, do nothing but unwind and rest before heading back into the office the next day.⠀
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But I don’t want to let myself — my life — get stagnant. So I make routines. I carve out time to work out; to hang out with my partner; to read; to write a little. I try to make the best use of my time as possible.⠀
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Not that I’m always successful at it. Some days I don’t even bother with any of that.

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And that’s fine, too. Mileage varies, as it often does. Later on in the introduction, Rea offers a piece of advice given to him by a former mentor: learn when to row your boat, and when to rest your oars. In our current society, however, where hustle culture is so prevalent, constant productivity is placed on such a large pedestal that you can be easily excused for thinking it’s the only path towards having a successful, meaningful life. There are no hobbies — there are only side jobs. There is no downtime — every waking moment is an opportunity to be productive. Your life gains meaning only by putting in the work.⠀
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But that path only really leads to burnout. It’s not sustainable. And more importantly, it’s just not how people work. How life works. As with all things, there’s a balance that must be struck: You have to learn when to row. You have to learn when to rest.⠀

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Reading this book now, though, in the context of our current situation, was interesting, to say the least. It gave it an unexpected new layer. Those of us whose jobs have been deemed non-essential now find ourselves at home with all this free time suddenly dropped on our laps. It’s a weird situation in which to be, confusing and also somewhat overwhelming. It can even get a little existential: Who are we when something that takes up so much of our lives gets taken away? How do we fill our time when we now have so much of it?⠀

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us, as the wizard once said. It’s the theme Death Wins a Goldfish explores, and we could do worse than to emulate its findings. We can’t, of course, currently do all the traveling and outdoor activities Death does in this story (my favorite being the running of the bulls — although I don’t approve of the practice).

But we can read some books. We can make some art. We can take care of our loved ones (pet fish certainly count). We can rethink our lives and our worldviews. We can look within and work on ourselves.

We can, in other words, work on living, while we’re still able.

Or we can just rest. That’s as much part of life as anything else.

KEEP GOING by Austin Kleon

March 19, 2020September 2, 2024 ~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

The world has changed since last I wrote about a week ago, something that feels more uncanny than it does anything else. Needless to say, we’re going through wild, uncertain times, and I can only hope that you are safe, doing your part in flattening the curve.

I have not left my house since Saturday. And Sunday, my office sent out a message saying we would be closed until the end of the month. This is, technically speaking, the first time off I’ve had in over a year, and I wanted to take advantage of it as best I could. I would read all of the books, for one. I would write. I would do this and that and also this.

But, like a lot of others right now, anxiety has gotten the best of me these last couple of days, completely shot my focus, and just making it difficult for me to enjoy the things I generally love.

Which is where Keep Going comes in.

Austin Kleon has made a name for himself writing motivational books about being a more creative person in the modern, digital age. His first book of this kind, Steal Like an Artist, was all about channeling your influences (my nicer way of saying “just straight up steal from your idols”) in order to create something that may not be entirely new and unique, but that is entirely and uniquely yours. Show Your Work! was more business-like in nature, expounding advice and industry knowledge on how to share your stuff with the world and making a space for yourself within it.

Keep Going feels like a natural progression from those themes, but its central message is perhaps less tangible in nature. It is a book about being creative, yes, and it is also full of useful, practical information — but it is also a book that is less interested with the external side of things than it is with the internal. Less concerned with the how than it is the why of making art. Where the first two books deal with the more physical, material aspects of creating art, Keep Going is about what it feels to create said art. Specifically how it feels to create art when things aren’t going that well.

If the past handful of years have shown us anything, it’s that we live in tumultuous times. One glance at any recent headline is enough to fill anyone with dread and dismay. With so many cheerless and complicated things going on in the world it can be easy to feel as if doing anything artful and creative is a trivial endeavor at best, or actively selfish at worst. How can you sit there, frivolously frolicking away while the world crumbles around us?

With Keep Going, however, Austin Kleon reminds us that art is not a gratuitous, self-indulgent thing. That it is important and necessary. And especially so during times of strife, where it acquires even greater significance. “To any creators who feel guilty making art when the house is on fire,” author V.E. Schwab wrote recently, “please remember: you make the doorways out.” And here’s Kleon quoting the late, great Toni Morrison:

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.

It should be noted, however, that at no point does this book imply that you have this obligation to be creative in spite of the difficulties around you. Everyone deals with hardship in their own way, after all.

Here’s writer Robin Sloan, in a recent edition of his newsletter:

In 1816, the gloomy “Year Without a Summer,” Mary Shelley stayed indoors at a lakeside hotel; not quarantine, but maybe quarantine-adjacent. There, bored and haunted, she conceived the story that would grow into her novel Frankenstein, the foundation stone of the genre we now call science fiction.

It’s moderately annoying when people invoke work like that, because it feels like the implication is, if you’re not writing Frankenstein what are you even DOING? That’s not what I mean. It’s just that the big, bright examples help us see it clearly: toil in the shadow of calamity will have its day.

Toil in the shadow of calamity WILL have its day.

A crack in everything; that’s how the art gets in.

Keep Going acts more like a permission slip. You can create art, it says, if you want to. If you are able. If you must.

Go easy on yourself and take your time. Worry less about getting things done. Worry more about things worth doing. Worry less about being a great artist. Worry more about being a good human being who makes art. Worry less about making a mark. Worry more about leaving things better than you found them.

The world can only benefit from your contribution, ultimately, if you just keep going.