Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Essentially, the pitch for this book is “What if The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was a scientist?” or “What if Bones was Betty Crocker?”. It’s a fun and clever romp, but it’s so trapped in antiquated tropes it’s like reading history. I read to discover the new and different. I want what’s innovative and creative, not what’s already been tread on. The fact that this takes place in the 1950s is bad enough, but it contains all the old pastiches, especially regarding women in the workplace (e.g. sexual assault by a boss, women not being able to break the glass ceiling, being fired for being pregnant, etc.) Prepare to be frustrated because everyone acts exceptionally bastardly just for the sake of moving the plot along.
The problem is the message–women have as much value in the workplace as men. Everyone knows this already. Just some people aren’t doing anything about it because they can get away with it. And if you didn’t know it, you’re a bigot. It’s like reading a story that demonstrates why the Holocaust was morally wrong.
The biggest issue is that the main character is clearly autistic. The problem is no one knew what autism was back then, so she comes off as a self-important twit. Prepare to roll your eyes at yet another character who uses big/technically correct words for things instead of normal ones just to prove how much smarter they are than everyone else (e.g. Sheldon Cooper, Steve Urkel, Billy on Power Rangers, Beast from X-Men, Mr. Ray from Finding Nemo, Egon Spengler, Doctor Emmett Brown, Brainy Smurf, any robot or android, the entirety of “The Eye of Argon”). Even Einstein asked for salt on his potatoes, not sodium chloride.
This also includes being selfish and demanding and unable to adapt to anything. Stubbornness is not a character flaw, nor is it an admirable trait. When she’s on TV (which is only half the book, despite the back cover copy), she relentlessly refuses to budge on any changes the producers want to make. And they’re not all unreasonable, especially for this time period. But she just says “no” to everything. No to not wearing a labcoat for a cooking show. No changes to the set. Bitch, it’s NOT YOUR SHOW. It’s TELEVISION! It’s a collaborative effort. You’ve got to make some capitulations to make everyone happy–sponsors, producers, censors, audience. She doesn’t even compromise. She says “meet me halfway” then takes a step backward.
This is not a character I would get along with. In a way, she’s the bad guy in this story, as her personality is as antagonistic as the real antagonists. She’s kind of a sociopath and I have a hard time believing this person is capable of loving a man or a daughter. I mean, look who they got to play her in the Apple TV+ series–Brie Larson. Watch the trailer for it. She plays the character like a Stepford Wife robot, the same unemotional, cold tone she used in Captain Marvel. Sandra Bullock in Birdbox named her kids “Boy” and “Girl” and she showed more affection than this character.
Bat Pussy by Brad Jones
A gritty fictional retelling of the world’s worst pornographic film (not really a retelling because there’s nothing there to tell in the first place–its origins are unknown), as imagined by a guy who’s watched the worst of the worst when it comes to anything committed to celluloid or videotape. Some of the highlights include movie theaters in a gang war, guerilla film-making, D-list mafia, and Ronald Reagan. It’s the story that couldn’t be told… because no one knows what happened.
This is much much better than Jones’s previous debut. I’m not sure if he learned from his mistakes or he’s just better suited to this kind of material than apocalyptic science fiction, but I enjoyed reading it. This one scoops tropes from crimesploitation movies like Death Wish, The Mechanic, The French Connection, Violent City, and other revenge movies, along with crappy shot-in-Italy movies with nudie girls and stalker creeps. Not that there aren’t still distracting errors, but those are mostly typos this time around. And it has an ending I didn’t expect, which is always a good thing–it’s hard to surprise me. Don’t let the title throw you–it’s not the novelization of Bat Pussy (which fills me with shivers just thinking about), but it’s a good throwback to dirty crime with good characters.
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
I saw the movie a while ago. It had an awesome first twenty minutes with the cities chasing each other, but then it fizzled. It didn’t take enough bold storytelling risks. It was all effects and set pieces and odd plot points that don’t work in a movie, but could work in a book. So why not try reading the book?
The problem is that the book isn’t much better. It’s all action and no character. I wanted to know the back story of Hester Shaw, but it never came up. She’s the most interesting character and the author is playing keepaway with it like a mean kid. Her mom found the biggest weapon in the world, and then was killed for it, which made her into an orphan and she got adopted by a zombie and there’s a huge scar across her face and we don’t get explanations about any of that? Screw you.
Instead it focuses on the nerdy guy with her and the daughter of an “Ernesto de la Cruz” type (IYKYK). Too many frustratingly unanswered questions, leading to an unsatisfying reader experience.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Chapter one was a little sketchy. It was missing signs of Hendrix’s signature tone of horror and humor, and I have difficulty garnering sympathy for people who make bad decisions, no matter what time period they’re in. Chapter two was a banger though. That was my green light to settle in.
I usually say that Grady Hendrix is like if Stephen King wore fifteen pieces of flair. But for all the comparisons, King never wrote much about feminism. He did write female POVs, but those stories were always about the horror of being in an abusive situation, usually with something supernatural sprinkled in. Carrie, Dolores Claiborne, Gerald’s Game. They’re about women versus an evil person, not women versus the patriarchy. This, however, is very feminist, which I have no problem with. But there are good and bad ways to do it. Lessons in Chemistry used a bad way. This one is the good way, although it’s light on scares. The true horror comes from being a pregnant teenager, which is more of a social horror, like The Purge or Civil War.
It also comes from being undesirably pregnant in 1970. Roe vs. Wade is still a few years away. Equal rights haven’t been codified. When women were sent to a home to have their babies then come back like nothing happened, as if you just needed to shut a window for a while until the bad smell had gone away. It’s about being treated like a non-person because of something you can’t control, and having no control at all because of that. Dismissed by doctors, harassed by house mothers, ordered like a prisoner. That’s where the witchcraft comes in. It shows them a way to matter, a way that they can have agency again. But like any divine power, there’s a price to be paid.
It’s like The Craft, but less angsty teen and more How to Make an American Quilt. The ending is not as punchy as his other books. Maybe because witches just aren’t that scary (e.g. Sabrina, Hocus Pocus, Wicked, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hermione, The Witches). The content isn’t as funny as “How to Sell a Haunted House” or “My Best Friend’s Exorcism“. But you will grind your teeth over how much these girls suffer in their impossible situation and can do nothing about it, like Memento or The Color Purple.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
(unfinished)
After the first two chapters I thought “the old lady and the octopus are gonna fuuuuuuu–“
There’s a sad old lady, an angsty young man, a lovelorn grocery store clerk, an old octopus in an aquarium. And none of their storylines crossover (at least not in the first quarter). I just got bored. Nothing was happening. No one wanted anything. There were no stakes. The chapters about the octopus were short and it’s just him being conceited and looking down on humanity with some pithy observation (like he’s better than us because he didn’t invent nuclear weapons). The old lady doesn’t like anything because her son died. The man is a trailer trash fuck-up who acts like a fuck-up and then wonders why there are consequences for his actions.
At 22% no story had started. No conflict, no problem, just vibes. This book is for retired ladies who want cozy stories.
Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
(unfinished)
This was in a list of recommended fantasy books that weren’t all about big epic wars or complex worlds. I was worried that it was going to turn out like every other story about Greek Gods, where they’re assholes corrupted by their power and use it for selfish means. And it is.
Very first chapter and we’re talking about raping and assaulting mortals just because they can. It’s old, treating people like ants. I’ve seen the same thing so many times. The same thing happens in Percy Jackson, Hadestown, Hades, that netflix series with Jeff Goldblum that got cancelled a week after it came out, Wonder Woman, Circe, Star Trek, God of War, Hercules, Hercules, Hercules, Clash of the Titans, Lore Olympus, and many many more…
It never got better from fluffy trash. Even the plot sucks–Cupid shoots a god and then shoots a mortal. I think the same thing happened in a Looney Tunes cartoon. I’m sure hijinks ensued but I just didn’t care enough to see them. Why should I read about terrible people? There’s enough of them in reality. And there was no counterforce of good to balance it out. In fact, the story was so bad that they made a movie out of it, including stars like Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken, Sharon Stone, and Oliver Platt, and still didn’t release it.
Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment by Jason Schreier
I’ve never really been a Blizzard guy. I’m not much for complex video games and I’m terrible at strategy games where you try to claim territory, like Risk or Stratego. I like the story-building behind them, like Diablo and Warcraft and Overwatch, but I never liked the gameplay.
The author doesn’t talk much about the biographies of the creators like Masters of Doom did. But I liked Schreier’s other book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels okay. This one is an in-depth story of how Blizzard rose to greatness in the days of PC gaming from a little company to a product of the overindulgence of capitalism.
My one complaint is that it jumps around in time a lot. The book is divided into “chunks” based on the event, like the formation of Overwatch, sexual harassment suits, acquiring Diablo, etc. There starts to be a lot of names to remember. Blizzard’s had quite a revolving door of CTOs and CEOs. It’s hard to keep track of who’s who and when’s when. A dramatis personae or timeline in the back would have been nice. Otherwise, it’s a solid four stars.
Among Others by Jo Walton
(unfinished)
I remember this from a long long time ago when I posted about “The Hugos and Where to Find Them” and at the time I thought it looked interesting, but this was before I kept better track of books I wanted to read and it fell off the radar. But it was a Hugo winner, so it always stayed in the back of my mind.
Unfortunately, this book failed The Pepsi Challenge, in which the overall piece doesn’t work because of the principle that people prefer something sweeter when just taking a sip, but not when drinking a whole can. Which means that when I read past the excerpt, I was disappointed. The story is laid out in some girl’s diary entries. She’s getting over a traumatic event (which is that her mom is a crazy witch and killed her sister) and a dad she doesn’t know sends her to a boarding school. I thought a boarding school book would be fun, like Harry Potter or Looking for Alaska or The Great Brain. There are always colorful characters and shenanigans.
Not here. Nothing ever happens. All she does is talk about the classic science fiction books she’s read. (Whenever I see an author doing this, is like A) when a bad movie has a different movie on in the background as an homage, but you wish you were watching the better movie instead B) the author being smug about how they’ve read all the classics.) And when she’s not doing that, she’s complaining about food, tea, the library, the small town, her father, the teachers, the school. And her backstory is only dropped in vague hints providing no conflict.
She’s not like regular girls because she reads. She’s Wednesday or Daria except with no quick wit or dark cynical humor. If this were real life, she’d be the weird girl reading on the bleachers during gym class. There’s no story here, I don’t care how many classics you’ve read.
Memories of an Overlord by Victar
(unfinished)
Someone commented on this blog that Victar hasn’t gone away. This is the guy who wrote my very favorite fan fiction of all time. Maybe my favorite story of all time. And he’s still around? I know he wrote a sequel, but I didn’t read that because A) it was more about Tekken than Mortal Kombat and B) I didn’t want to ruin what I already thought was a perfect tale. But it turns out he didn’t stop after that! So how could I not check out his latest release–“Memories of the Overlord”.
The problem is… this is not Victar. I don’t know who it is, but nothing matches up. For one thing, he nearly always writes about tournament fighting games–Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, Soul Edge, etc. But this one’s based on… an obscure isekai cell phone RPG?
And the writing style isn’t what I remember. Where’s the blood? Where’s the witty writing? Where’s the martial arts? What happened to the fascinating complex characters? Victar doesn’t write fantasy about bards and crystals–he writes gritty dark fantasy survival redemption stories. The first chapter reads like every anime opening ever, where the main character is a typical Japanese teenage boy waking up in a field with a harem staring at him.
Yet I can’t find evidence that this isn’t the same guy. Did someone steal his identity? Did he have a stroke? Did he find Jesus? I can’t believe the same guy who wrote “The Blood on My Hands” (Kitana murders people in Outworld then has a nervous breakdown) and “The Coming of Winter” (Sub-Zero is dead travels through hell) wrote this. It should be closer to Jason Pargin, but instead it’s like teenage girl drivel written for a few schoolmates on fanfiction.net. The themes are lifted from Final Fantasy X, not Mortal Kombat. The exposition is through dialogue, not interaction.
Something’s not right here. And I refuse to read until I figure out what happened.
