Nate
Better than the first one. Closer to a 3.5.
The writing could definitely be better, the visuals in particular lack clarity and imagination, but I do really appreciate how digestible it is. Started it on a whim while working through some denser books and accidentally devoured the entire thing so there's that.
I don't love the world building, it feels somehow both overly expansive AND hollow? It's weird.
Has some great moments, and I did immediately start the next one so it probably deserves the bump to 4.
Been on the hunt for a certain type of book and was hoping this might scratch the itch, but no luck.
Overall a fun read though. Really breezy and digestible. Propulsive, with a great sense of pacing. One of those, “whoops, I accidentally stayed up til 3am reading” types of books.
Not a huge fan of the content. It's surprisingly hard to find wuxia that isn't full blown xianxia :/. I might come back to the series later. I can't say I'm not interested.
Some really great ideas in a lot of these, but aside from a few notable exceptions, the writing quality across the board is pretty atrocious.
‘Down in the Library Basement' by Rona Vaselaar, ‘When Dusk Falls on Hadley Township' by T.W. Grim and ‘A Trick of Perspective' by Matt Dymerski are the clear standouts imo and worth the price of admission alone.
The entire last ~30% of the book is a 1/5 slog.
Shit. I totally forgot to review this :(.
Finished it like 2 months ago at this point.
Really enjoyed it. Very fun take on vampire mythos. Loved all the characters, especially the creepy kids.
Definitely nowhere near as good as “Between Two Fires”, but it's basically the difference between “5-stars, one of the best books I read this year” and “5-stars, probably the best book I've ever read.” so it's not really fair to compare.
Biggest problem I had with it, and this is a personal, very minor gripe, is the repeated use of a specific stylistic element I kind of hate. I'm not sure if it has a name, but you know when a book has a line like... “She dashed across the room. Fast” or “He bit me on the arm. Hard” or “I scritched the kitty on the chin. Soft” or “I heard someone fart in the library. Loud” etc. etc. etc. It's a writing trope that annoys me. Lots. And it's used in this book. Constantly. Minor nitpick in an otherwise awesome book.
I need to check out “The Blacktongue Thief” soon
These books have legit the most bombastic climaxes of anything I've ever read. It's wild. Doubt anything will top book 3's but this one got pretty close.
Kind of hard for me to follow at the beginning since I'm trying to space my reading of these out a bit to not catch up too quickly and my memory is a box of farts, but I got there eventually.
Really curious what the long term plan for this series is. It's definitely not gonna go the full 18 or more books I feel like it's kinda implying it will right? I feel like something's got to give before that. Especially since there shouldn't be more than a handful of other crawlers by like #10 right? Hopefully it all gets blown up way before that, I can't hold that much story in my head for long enough to make it much further than that. Also because I think I like the one-offs like K:BS slightly better.
Straight tore through this. Couldn't put it down. Fucking looooooved it. I can see how it'd be hit or miss for some people. I thought it was surprisingly hilarious, super dark, and really witty and charming. Especially loved all the goofy little details (her LotR obsession omg hahaha) that made Irina feel especially realistic and affable underneath all the narcissism.
Also sent me down a ton of letterboxd rabbit holes which I always enjoy. She's got some eccentric taste and I'm here for it.
Unbelievably good.
His previous collection, Friday Black, was one of the best books I read in 2020, and one of the books that have stuck with me the longest. I never stop recommending it and regularly think about it.
Chain-Gang All-Stars is going up right next to it. It's perfect. I love it. It's operating on so many fucking levels. Every set of PoV characters are used with such intent and purpose and every message he tries to get across and every question he asks resound with such power and intensity and humanity and ugghh I just want to read the entire thing again. Adjei-Brenyah is brilliant and I can't wait to keep reading everything he puts out.
I would be VERY surprised if this doesn't get optioned for a TV show or a movie. I hope it does just for the fact that more people need to be exposed to this story and Nana deserves a massive fucking payday, but man I am certain they would ruin it lol. Maybe something like a 6 episode series directed by Jordan Peele with a 150+M budget and Nana Kwame doing the screenplay/on constant consultation?
I wanted to write a lot more about it, but I finished it the day I got hit by a car (like 2 weeks ago now..) and I've been on a ton of pain meds since
Really good! Super fun! Right up my alley.
Picked this up in a small bookstore in Old San Juan while on vacation last month and read through most of it there. Seeing that Akashic Books has an entire series of city based noir collections has got me very interested in grabbing a copies to take with me on trips to the title cities.
Very quick read, more a flash fiction collection than a short story collection which made it perfect for bumming around with.
Like all collections quality varies pretty dramatically with some absolute bangers (Two Deaths for Angela by Ana Maria Fuster Lavin and Death on the Scaffold by Janette Bacerra in particular) scattered throughout.
Great collection and a brilliant idea for a series.
Such a frustrating book. Probably about 100 pages too long.
Vacillates back and forth from brilliantly profound and hilariously surreal, to flat rambly nothingness frequently. In the first half I was convinced I had accidentally been putting off what would end up being the best book I'd ever read because of the leftover taste Murakami's mediocre Miso Soup left me with. But by the end I was just dragging myself over the finish line.
Really really disappointing.
Also maaaan Murakami seems to REALLY hate women. I remember thinking it in Miso Soup and Tokyo Decadence, but it is on FULL display here. Just unnecessarily hateful, and not in an interesting/satirical/transgressive way that feels like he's got something to say. But in that weird “hey fellow men, aren't women dumb and gross? Especially when they get older (read: over 20) but want to look younger (read: under 18)?” way that just feels meanspirited and disgusting.
But still. That first half is pretty incredible. There are some passages in this that are straight up all-timers. Just wish the diamonds were hidden in piles of dirt and not piles of shit :/
Not my favorite Cooper, but super good nonetheless. Devoured it. Love his writing style so much.
Feels kinda like a prototype to a lot of the themes he really leaned into later in The Sluts.
There's this vibe/tone Cooper's book exist in; something I'd maybe describe as like, lonely nihilism driven by a core of yearning? Or maybe like absurdist meaning found through transgression/self-destruction? It's a tone that speaks to me more directly than basically any other author. I imagine we'd get along.
I LOVED this. So much fun. So fucking weird.
Straddles genres so effectively, but stays perfectly cohesive the entire way through. It starts as a fun bedfellow with ‘Ingrid Goes West' before smoothly transitioning into an almost Yorgos Lanthimos-esque cringe-horror and then continues to take these wildly surprising sharp right turns until it drops you off in a place that you somehow could never have predicted but that also feels perfectly inevitable.
Super weird and really fuckin fun for how wildly depressing and nihilistic it is.
My favorite thing I'm discovering about Zeb's work is the sheer amount of creativity and unique ideas crammed into every single corner of his books.
Most authors are incredibly precious with their big ideas. They hold on tightly to their favorites to try and deploy them at the perfect moments. They try and craft entire novels to milk a single powerful idea. Zeb says fuck that shit, I'll shove more creativity into a 150 page novella than most authors will trickle out over a 1200 page trilogy, dump those babies out, he says, I'm an indefatigable fucking font of gonzo ass brilliance.
Breath of fresh fucking air this guy is. I love it.
Loved the style. Just dripping with cool and charm.
Story felt a bit threadbare though. Like 95% Pussy, 5% Detective. Not really a lot of tension or stakes. Mostly just a dope tone-piece with some really clever wordplay and moments of real wisdom.
Had a hard time separating some of the bits that felt like humorous/provocative tongue-in-cheek character-work from parts that felt like character-as-author's-mouthpiece moralizing, but I think that kind of thing will probably clear up as I read more of Duvay's future works and catch more of his vibe, which I'm super excited to do.
Just straight up fucking fun from beginning to end. This novel takes off at a dead sprint and doesn't let off for a second until the end. Really really liked it.
For a book so tight and hyperfocused it did a great job with the world-building. Very quickly established the delicate balance between multiple crime families, big pharma, the cartels, a lone-wolf incel redpill crimelord, the cops, and the protag's own small weird congregation and double life and then threw some snakes at it.
Felt a lot like the kind of movie they don't make anymore. A little bit Crank, a little bit Jackie Brown. This would definitely make a really good movie..
It is straight up criminal that Stokoe isn't as widely read as some of the more mainstream ‘transgressive' authors. I think it's probably because he's been sadly typecast by readers who've only heard about him because of ‘Cows' and are afraid to approach his other works. They're missing out. And also dumb >:[
In my mind, I lump Stokoe in with my other current favorite author Zahler. They're both doing really similar things but coming at it from different angles. They're both pulp kings, but where Zahler knows he's writing pulp and leans into as hard as possible aiming to make the most intricately crafted and idealized pulp possible, Stokoe reaches for grander literary aspirations. Zahler makes pulp so perfectly honed that it transcends its genre limitations while Stokoe intentionally pushes the limits of what storytelling can be/do while existing inside a pulp framework. I love and deeply appreciate both approaches.
I kinda feel like they're the literary equivalents of like Tarantino (Zahler) vs De Palma (Stokoe). Tarantino makes pulp so pure and brilliant and hyper-focused and stylish that it's elevated to capital-A, Art. De Palma on the other hand is an Artist first and foremost and uses the dark recesses of pulp fiction as his base materials.
It's a fun dichotomy. And I think about their works in conversation while reading them.
I didn't talk about ‘Empty Mile' at all.
Is real good. 5/5.
God damn. I fucking LOVED this book.
It's not often that a book comes around that completely reinvigorates your love of reading, recontextualizes what a book can be/do, and reminds you why you love the hobby so much in the first place.
This book is one of those books for me.
Halfway through, I dropped my bookmark in, put the book aside, and went online to order every other book Zeb has written. I am enchanted.
There's a thing this book does that I'm not sure I've ever seen before. A specific framing of satire that might already exist but is very new for me.
So like, typically with satire, a concept is reframed in a sort of allegorical way that changes the factual basis to point out or examine some sort of inherent absurdity/idiocy right?
The trick Zeb pulls in this book is a thing I'd want to call like, Gonzo Satire? Hyper-Satire? The satire isn't used to examine an idiotic situation, because the thing being satirized is already clearly fucking insane. The satire is over the top and super hyperbolic and used instead as a way to reflect on and observe the internal feelings of the author/reader.
It's really really clever and I felt a lot of camaraderie in rage with Zeb while reading. Weirdly cathartic.
Most authors would just stop there though. I know I would. But fuck no says Zeb.
There's also tremendously cool and meaningful worldbuilding. A heartrending through-line about alcoholism that hits a biiiiit too close to home. And a small treatise on solipsism and death and the lies we tell ourselves that came out of fucking nowhere, disarmed me, and stabbed me right in the chest before whirling away.
So much more too. Like how myths and ancient thoughts infect and spread and corrupt through eras, the horrors of weaponized technology, the existential angst of feeling internally youthful as your desiccated meatsuit decomposes around you. And tons of other stuff I forgot/didn't catch.
Oh, and also the book is funny and written well? Like come on dude. Leave some fucking talent for the rest of us.
aaaaaand the illusion Blake Crouch had cast on me is completely shattered.
2/5 instead of a 1 because despite everything, I really like the way Blake Crouch writes. His books are so tightly edited and efficient that I just kind of look at one of his books out of the corner of my eye and suddenly I'm 150 pages in. I don't know how he does it and as much flak as he gets for it, it takes real talent to put so little obstacle between the information on the page and the brain of the reader. His style reminds me of like.. a super simple dish done to perfection, or maybe even a Barnett Newman painting. The kind of painting where at first you're like ‘ok, just a big red canvas' then you walk closer and realize how absolutely flawlessly it's done. It takes a lot more confidence and dexterity to perform this efficiently than he really gets credit for.
Everything else about this book suuuuuuuucks. Holy shit.
I am so disappointed. I thought maybe, just MAYBE, in the Crouch novel where the protagonist is a failed scientist who accidentally gets upgraded into a hyper-intelligent post-human genius we'd get a plot that isn't just resolved by meathead jingoistic pewpew gunfight bullshit. But I guess not.
It blows my mind how hard the ball got fumbled on this. Like what even does Crouch think intelligence is? Because the answer he comes to in this book is being smarter = being better at shoot gun good.
You would think, that in a novel pitting the two smartest humans who ever lived against each other in a high concept battle of wits to decide the philosophical path the human species will take in their race against a self-imposed extinction due to climate change / inequality, that maybe there would be some cat-and-mouse style twists and turns? Plans and subterfuge and subversion and tricks and backstabbing and I dunno, drama? Maybe a philosophical debate or two where we can see their opposing viewpoints? Nah, of course not. It's a Blake Crouch book. So fuck all the pretense, here's some pewpew gunfight bullshit.
Not my favorite Zahler, but all that means is it's one of the best books I've read in years and not one of the best I've read in my entire life.
I think this is his best written, and probably most mainstream approachable work. In it his writing style has finally crystalized into what it feels like he's been trying to do all along. Everything is weighty and impactful. Mythic characters rip through with this immense gravitational wake that pulls and warps everything around them and when they collide it's cosmically devastating. Every act of violence is tragic and important.
It's also funny? Like legitimately. The voicemail in the denouement in particular is one of the most gonzo/amazing/hilarious things I've ever read, and the perfect tension-break/cherry-on-top after the titular ‘Mean Business'. I want a spinoff novella of just that character.
I loved it. Sad that I'm out of Zahler novels. Guess it's time to check out his comics.
I really hope we get some more of his movies again soon. How long have Brigands and Stone Grid been in development hell for? :/
Really good book to end the year on. Definitely my favorite Blake Crouch so far.
Its got the same issues I've had with all of his other novels though. He can't seem to write a conflict that doesn't devolve into boring pewpew gunfights, and his protagonists all fetishize violence in a way that really turns me off. Their reactions to anything upsetting them is always to throw tantrums and stomp around and break shit or fantasize about hurting people. They revel in violence in a way that is gleeful and masturbatory and toxic in that absusive boomer-dad sort of way that makes my eyes roll so far back into my skull that I'm afraid I'm gonna give myself permanent damage.
The pathos in this one though is fucking outstanding. Crouch is so good at taking a mind-bending sci-fi concept and wrapping it around a tight relatable emotional core. Recursion did a great job of this too, but I think Dark Matter is where he crushes it. Still pretty awful at writing female characters though...
Blake Crouch really is just the Christopher Nolan of books and I'm here for it. As many issues as I have, he's the only author that'll keep me up til 3am finishing one of his books.
I almost never go into spoilers or plot details, but there ARE two things about this book I really need to talk about that I think were HUGE missed opportunities. I'm almost certain that in an earlier version of the manuscript that these were the original ideas and they didn't test well with beta-readers or something? (too nihilistic?)
#1 (minor spoilers)There is a scene at around the midpoint with Jason1 and Amanda where the box they've been using to travel between parallel universes is buried by a snowstorm. Their tracks are gone, they have no food, and will freeze to death if they don't find the box. They mention that if they go out without a plan their chances to find the box are miniscule. In a scene directly before, they have a discussion about Jason2 and the creation of the box. Their conversation centers on the fact that even if the odds were desparately miniscule, Jason2's creation of the box was 100% certain because alongside infinite parallel universes where he failed there would inevitably be a universe where he succeeded. This is obvious mirroring right?? Jason2 sacrificed unknowable billions of alternate versions of himself to failure at the tiny chance that one of them would be able to remedy his ultimate regret. The set-up is RIGHT THERE. The solution is for Jason1 and Amanda to go digging randomly right? Jason1 sacrificing unknowably huge numbers of his parallel selves to freeze to death in the cold because random chance dictates that one of them (obviously the protagonist version) walks to the exact right spot and digs straight down to the box. It reinforces the themes perfectly and sets up mirror characterizations between Jason1 and Jason2.Instead they just deus ex machina themselves to the box because they remember it's super magnetic and they have a compass. Dumb.#2 (MAJOR SPOILERS)At the end of the book, the big twist is that universe has obviously kept on branching and that dozens of Jasons have shown up to the original reality. Each one is a version of Jason who made a slightly different choice since the novel began and each one wants his life back. Then they start fighting and fucking shit up for each other in increasingly dumb ways. Protag Jason eventually steals Daniela away and convinces other Jasons to let him escape with her into another universe. This doesn't really work for me, and I think the original ending planned was set-up and is actually the one I'm about to describe. Right before the final showdown, protagonist Jason gets in contact with the parallel Jasons and suggests a lottery. He suggests they all meet up, use random chance to decide which Jason can have his old life back and then destroy the box and go their separate ways. Earlier in the book Crouch makes a big point to talk about Schrodinger's cat and how Jason's box is Schrodinger's box where a person can be the cat. Can you see where I'm going with this? I see a super philosophically interesting and tidy way to tie up all these loose ends without resorting to a pewpew gun violence action scene. One that uses his established characterization as a brilliant quantum physicist to solve the problem and also tie it together with all of the overarching themes set up. Meet up for the lottery. Use the box to set up some sort of quantum random number generator. Hook all the Jasons up to it ala Schrodinger's cat. When the box opens, the random number is read and the suicide machine they built kills every Jason except one. The thing is though, we're running on multiverse rules. When the box opens, the universe splits into every possible outcome. So every single Jason dies and every single Jason lives. Schrodinger's Jason. Every Jason lives on in their own splinter universe where they were the only surviving Jason. That Jason (obviously our protagonist version) destroys the box so no other Jasons can show up (shit, or maybe he even leaves it undestroyed so he can give any stragglers their own happy endings??) and goes out into the world and reclaims his old life. I like my ending better.
I found out they're turning this one into a TV series and I would be kind of surprised if this isn't the direction they take it... It's right there right? I'm not missing something?
Finished this like a month ago and meant to write a semi-analytical review once I was able to gather my thoughts. Now I can't remember what I wanted to say... ADHD strikes again.
Absolutely amazing book, one of my top 5 of the year. Stokoe is like my ideal fusion of Dennis Cooper and Zahler. Like Zahler with more ambitious literary aspirations. Or maybe like Cooper with more pulp sensibilities?
There are a few scenes (the liquor store!) and ideas that will stick with me for a long time. A perfect companion piece to De Palma's ‘Body Double' which I watched for the first time when I was like 50% through this book and really informed the way I interpreted it. I'm pretty certain this book was heavily inspired by that film. At the very least they're in deep conversation, and IMO anyone who reads this book needs to also go watch that film.
Hopefully full-er review to come...