...the Soul of Wit - Short Reviews

Although I have read a lot, I feel like I haven't been reading anything of much substance the last few weeks. On the one hand I have all these novellas I want to go through because I need a certain amount of novellas to choose from for my end of the year list, on the other hand I want a long book. It sucks but I also feel like I get bored easily and can't really focus on longer books right now, even though I have a mountain of them waiting on my bed side. I sincerely hope to get out of that slump quickly and really really wish to get completely captivated and lost again in a long story. Maybe I'll yet find that story this summer. Enjoy the shorties!

#thighgap by Chandler Morrison

In some way, it is inherent to horror to be extreme. Take for example any situation or state, even something positive like happiness or a relationship, and drive it to the extreme, make too much of it, make it excessive and cross a certain limit, and it will, in my opinion, end up being horror. The bigger the contrast between the starting point and the end, the more interesting to me.
But take a thing which isn’t associated with positivity at all, like an eating disorder, a situation strongly related to the feelings of wanting to disappear or losing control of one’s life, manifesting itself in an excessive control over the body, a nightmare situation for some, and drive that further and you have hell. #thighgap is hellish in that sense.

I want to be nothing but bone. I want to disappear.

The life of former aspiring filmmaker Louanne, now skinny model Helene Troy in LA is, of course, a very dark and sharpened version of where an eating disorder can lead if left to blossom in an environment which endorses and encourages it - biting critique of that very environment that is LA of course included.

The extremeness which marks the plot in #thighgap doesn’t spare its characters: there’s really not one remotely likable character in this book, except maybe the uber driver. From her extremely superficial crush, to the film director she casually hooks up with, to her therapist - every single male character actively contributes to Helen sinking deeper and deeper into the bony pit of anorexia. Helen herself acts out of a need for a sense of superiority, even though we’re shown where that comes from, our compassion for her is limited.

But anyway, this was great, I can't remember the last time I finished and reviewed a book in one day. Looking at the author’s page I found his influences are Brett Easton Ellis or Chuck Palahniuk and I definitely see that connection in his writing, especially that LA-uncanny atmosphere.

Favorite quote – “I can’t tell if he’s hitting on me, or if he’s just gay.” – lol, so Berlin!

Soft Targets by Carson Winter

Don’t be fooled by number(of page)s - this novella might be bite-sized but the subject matter is hard to digest.

What starts as a playful idea of a “tidal reality”, days during which reality is less real, providing a hall pass for doing anything you ever wanted to do without fearing consequences, turns into a somber reflection on the liberties we take when we can and what they say about us. Mental illnesses, mass shootings, murder, escalating violence - it’s all here.

And somewhere amongst those big words a little friendship trying to shoulder more than it can take.

The book comes with a warning of mass shooter scenes and I thought it would be appropriate to pass that warning on here too.

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

Two 14-year-old students are being beaten, bullied, ridiculed, thrown disgusting trash at and generally being tormented physically and psychologically by their class mates. While they try to make sense of what is happening to them and why, they parrot passages cut out from your introduction to philosophy book in an attempt at explaning the influence of thought currents on our everyday behavior.

What sounds like a noble idea is in reality so badly executed I am really surprised by the rave reviews and awards this book got, so it's a me problem? To me this is a clumsy torture porn in Sophie's World kind of universe. Of course I'm not crazy about young people being bullied even in fiction (even though this was another higher level of bullying, wtf is wrong with these people?) but done right it can be super effective. Not here - students barely out of pre-puberty sounding like a recording of a philosophy lecture took all the credibility and effectivity away for me.

Above all and sadly, reading all these books set in Japanese schools (I think I have read five in the last year) my view of Japan changed drastically. I used to have a good impression of the country, now I think people I like might have been that bully, so I definitely need to read books that focus on other aspects.

I never want to revisit this and because the writing didn't impress me either, I may not read this author again.

High on Bigfoot by Armand Rosamilia

I don’t even know why I was expecting anything at all from a book with the title High on Bigfoot, maybe that it would be trash anyway and hoping it would be, like, really exaggerated "bad trash", as Stephen King calls those books.

In the end, it was a decent story on the beloved mountain ape. Based on the cover I was expecting a little more cryptid rage, roar, guts and blood but in reality, it was mostly about a couple of guys from a drug cartel being chased and running away, not as interesting as Bigfoot ripping humans. My only visceral takeaway is that Bigfoot stinks big time and has sharp claws.

Black Lake Manor by Guy Morpuss

And the wolf ate time.

A superb mystery - a man whose heart has been ripped out and eaten; ghost dancers, human avatars who can do anything but kill; a chess game of a different sort; an isolated manor and a tribe which can turn back time. Black Lake Manor is a convoluted, complex, puzzle fun reminiscent of the high-level mysteries of Stuart Turton.

The blurb says “Agatha Christie on steroids”, but I respectfully disagree. This is Agatha on the floor of the crack den around the corner asking for her golden shot, if you must have a drug analogy.