...the Soul of Wit - First Short Reviews of the New Year

Here they are, the first short reviews of 2023!

I have been reading a little all over this past month and maybe a little too scattered since I feel my appetite for horror, my need to return to my roots growing again. But for this once I've read mostly books that have a horror element even though they aren't categorized as such.

Hope you had a good start to the new year and hope you enjoy my reads!

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

These ten stories by South Korean author Bora Chung started off with somewhat lighter, surreal, yet meaningful horror - the opening stories were just breathtaking: “The Head”, the story of a woman whose remains of all sorts, hair, skin, nails, feces assemble to form a new being; “The Embodiment”, in which a woman falls pregnant mysteriously to an even more mysterious “child”; and the titular “Cursed Bunny” in which karma finds its place through cursed objects. I liked the kind of sharp critique creeping through this intro, along with a very visual kind of storytelling. Alas, the strong intro was at the same time the highlight.

The stories then moved towards heavier, somewhat sadder dark fantasy territory. I am not a great fan of fantasy or fairy tales and that was prevalent in the longer writings of “Ruler of the Winds and Sands”, “Snare” or “Scars” which can teach much about the exploitative nature of humans. There’s even some good science fiction hidden in the scary folds of AI brains.

Nevertheless, no matter whether you do or don’t like singular stories, you need to give Chung her due; her work has something to say, offers a highly original style and when the stories are good, they are truly striking.

The Disaster Tourist by Yub Ko-eun

Here I am thinking what an absurd and surreal book idea it is to send your protagonist to catastrophe regions as a tourist… Only to find out that disaster tourism or dark tourism isn’t absurdism at all, but a real thing people do in this world. Why am I even disappointed in people’s exploiting and audacity, it is normal apparently?

What’s even more normal, and arguably morbid, is that once a region starts receiving endorsements and remedies, tourists start flowing and leaving their money, that region is going to do everything to keep those privileges, at the cost of continuous “disasters” happening.

In The Disaster Tourist Yun Ko-eun gives us the story of travel agent Yona Ko who works at such a travel agency and can’t with her job anymore. After enduring her boss’s disgusting sexual advances, she is being offered a special position – she is to visit the island Mui in Vietnam where a massacre has taken place in the past and examine whether the travel package is still necessary or not. After an interesting week, Yona gets lost on her way to the airport and not only does she discover the place is not the place she thought it was, she is also proposed a brand new and highly profitable position. Will she really do it?

There are so many social issues being broached here; sexual harassment at work, dark tourism, tourism in general, capitalism, value of human life and karma, possibly. More tragic than anything else, really. Somehow, I didn't really enjoy reading it.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

My first Liane Moriarty and I didn’t really know what to expect. Having now finished Nine Perfect Strangers, I still wouldn’t know how to shelf it, mystery, thriller without murder? The titular perfect strangers, a romance author, a family of three, a married couple, a football player, a divorce lawyer and a mother of four, arrive at the luxury spa Tranquillum House and soon discover that the methods used here are a little unusual, weird, illegal? And the owner of the spa is far from being your average entrepreneur, someone like a cult leader with questionable motives?

I did like this, it maybe drags a little and could have been a little more suspenseful. Apparently, there’s a series too.

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

Two fathers who couldn't be any more different, both lose their sons to violent murder - Ike is black, Buddy Lee is white and their sons were a married couple, which still doesn't sit quite right with either of them. Something is changing, though. They decide to join forces to find the killers and avenge their sons, but find much more than that along the way.

In books where random characters unite for a certain quest the chemistry between them is super important for me, so much so that plot or writing might become secondary and I keep reading just for the great interaction between these. This was definitively the case here, the budding and slowly growing friendship between Ike and Buddy Lee was so enjoyable that I wouldn't have minded if anything else wasn't right. Furthermore the writing is top and the mystery keeps you guessing at all times - a great read.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Jacob Finch Bonner, once a successful novelist, now a college teacher looking for ways to return to his glory days, can't believe his luck when he finds the perfect plot - the idea belonged to one of his students but now the student is dead and the stellar story doesn't have anyone to tell. Unless he does it. And he does it. And the book brings him fame and wealth and praise, but what if there still is someone who sees through his cheat? Bonner starts receiving anonymous threats that someone will blow the whistle on him, but who is it?

About the first 50% of the book is the cover description already, so that was kind of a bummer. It’s also quite predictable and has a few plot holes. BUT it does go in an interesting direction and even raises some moral questions revolving around authorship and writing and is really very enthralling, I couldn’t stop listening. Plus, I’m in the winter mood where I lack the energy to question and just want to listen to and enjoy a thriller. Speaking about listening, narrator Kirby Heyborne was amazing.

Colorful by Eto Mori

A soul who has committed a grave crime during its time on Earth is on the brink of being kicked out of the cycle of rebirth when an angel announces that it is being given a second chance because it has won a certain lottery. It receives the chance of a so-called “homestay” during which it will live in the body of a fourteen-year-old boy, Makoto Kobayashi, who has just committed suicide, and try to remember what it did and learn from its own mistakes. Once he turns into Makoto everything is pretty bad, though; having been bullied his whole life, with no friends to speak of and art his only outlet, Makoto himself leads a pretty grim existence and it is very hard to shape that into something different, into something good.

I loved reading Colorful, it was a heartwarming, lighthearted tale tackling a pretty serious subject. As much as I admire that issues like bullying and suicide among teenagers is being dealt with in literature, it is scary that these books are needed in the first place. The author states in her epilogue that she hopes to help those young people more than anything and I can only wish more power to her.

Hokuloa Road by Elizabeth Hand 

Grady Kendall has lost his job and his apartment in Maine during the pandemic but finds new hope when he sees the ad for a live-in caretaker job for a luxury property in Hawaiʻi. When he arrives at the beautiful estate on the remote Hokuloa Road, he finds an eccentric and filthy rich boss, but also a place where people seem to go missing without a trace. One of these missing people is the young woman whom he met on the plane and Grady is determined to find her.

A commentary on nature and culture preservation, pandemic, social ills, but also a love letter to Hawai’i, its mythology, its birds and fauna… If you know Elizabeth Hand’s writing, you’ll know this too is a slower burn, a calm mystery. Having never been to Hawai’i, this book did take me there for a few hours – very appreciated getaway.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

This is the story of two childhood friends who keep on finding and losing each other over the course of thirty years. Winner of the Good Reads Best Fiction Book Award for 2022 and goes to prove once again that GR best book awarded works usually don’t work for me.

The main characters in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Sadie and Sam, didn’t click with me at all, I found them unlikable and uninteresting, so their story was inevitably a struggle to get through. The relationship between them was toxic at best, and I’m not sure I would describe that as friendship at all, it is a sort of friend-zoned romance. However, I liked the writing style and some musings about fractured identity coming from the point of view of the “third” character Marx, which unfortunately didn’t delve deep enough.

All in all, unfortunately not a read I can recommend, but obviously I’m in the minority thinking that.