...the Soul of Wit - Short Reviews

Haha, this will be one big rant post. It was an unlucky month for me and the book choices I made left much to desire. At the risk of sounding like grumpy İnci, I'm really unsatisfied with what I have read but I hope you enjoy the short reviews nevertheless.

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

First off – I did not like reading this book. I regret to say that I fell for yet another pretty cover, my friends… And it all started so hopeful, so good, the premise of The Centre making this one of my most anticipated books of the year: a translator wishing to learn more languages in order to enhance her chances of getting more jobs, miraculously discovering a school which makes quick language learning possible, a whole language within ten days to be exact. But there is a catch, which no one but our protagonist discovers.

The book assumes that a translator who could translate major works, important works into their own language, and from as many languages as possible would increase their professional success and do humanity some good. Kind of naive, right? As a translator, to me this is an utterly incomprehensible concept. I know I should be suspending my disbelief, but anyone who knows the industry will know that not knowing as many languages as possible will bring you more jobs – it is having good connections and (mostly in non-literary fields) translating for as cheap as possible.

I also don’t agree with this whole “beautiful language” thing so many people are on about, the main character here too. Languages are communication systems and although on a personal level I can understand having favorites or languages that are appealing aesthetically, please don’t claim positive or negative attributes for languages as a linguist, because that’s kind of an authority in the field.

Not even the grotesque twist did save this one.

The Only One Left by Riley Sager

It's the 80s and caretaker Kit McDeere has been assigned a job at a rich mansion to care for wheelchair user Lenora who is mute after a series of strokes and can only communicate by using an old typewriter. Lenora is kind of a celebrity murderer who is said to have killed her whole family in one night as a teenager. When Kit arrives there, Lenora offers her to tell her all her story. 

High were my hopes for the newest Riley Sager, but having finished The Only One Left, I feel let down. I was pretty sure that after one or two books I liked by the author, followed by two books I hated, that now would come the breakthrough and this one would be awesome. It wasn’t.

I feel like Sager’s books from when he wasn’t trying to insert a killer twist were nicer and they just feel forced at this point, I could only sigh when yet another one came. I wonder if there are cases like this in real life, like you start a job and there’s a past murder, some crime mystery and then some mind-blowing twist happens and it turns your world upside down and it all makes sense. Does that happen at all in real or just in fiction? And do villains write lengthy letters at all in which they explain everything in detail? Because I personally wouldn’t want to leave any proof lying around, would I? Even if it feels good to tell your story.

I liked the fact that there was an elderly character who wasn’t scary or dumb or evil. That’s it, though.
Anyway, I think that was it, me and Riley Sager, I’m quitting!

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant

These Silent Woods… The title is spot on since we follow two very silent lives in the woods, the mystery being how they ended up there.

I guess this just isn’t my cup of tea at all; the pace was way to slow, the subject uninteresting, too much romance and the mystery, or mysteries to be exact, too thin to leave an impression. I also wish I knew the main character's former profession before I went into the story.

I'm not sure, I think that if you're going to use a very isolated environment, you also need some other element apart from the environment, like for the main character to have a rich inner life or very exciting memories or super suspense to balance that out, which wasn't the case here at all. It was just dull.

Danse Macabre by Stephen King

"When you open your mouth, Stevie" my grandfather once said to me in despair "all your guts fall out."

That grandpa made me laugh, really...

Sure, Danse Macabre is a fallen out heap of guts – complete plots of books and movies told and re-told, dated anecdotes, everything you never wanted to know about everything horror, plenty of dad jokes, memories - a big heap of guts. Even though, at this point in my life, it felt like one of those “Best 35 Haunted House Stories You Need to Read Before You Die”, “Ten Books About Docile Clowns”, “Don't Miss These Fifteen Gothic Romances Set in Space” lists you find everywhere, useful only ever for newbies to the genre, there were still some hidden gems to be found in there, in terms of titles to discover, some theoretical meditations, as well as quotes, like the pearl above from Grandpa King.

Despite all, I have to say, I like Stephen King. I don't enjoy his newer books as I used to but he's one of the authors who made me start reading books in the first place when I was a kid and I owe him my sense of justice and the joy of fear, if nothing else. Things like that make you feel attached to an author.

Although I've read this book for my Mount TBR challenge, in which I pledged to read physical copies of older books I own only, I ended up resorting to the audio version because my tired eyes couldn't take the small printed copy I happen to own. And it was a good thing because this book is great to listen to, and would have taken me ages to read properly. Narrator William Dufris did a wonderful job.

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

An author, whose talented frenemy dies and an unfinished manuscript stays behind and is found by said author to publish without consequences. Or so she thought? Aggravating is the fact that dead author is Asian-American and mc is not, and the book about the history of China. Stupid decisions, really.

I think I would have liked this better if I hadn’t just recently read The Plot, which is exactly the same story but the stolen work is not about Chinese history but the marginalized group in question are socially disadvantaged women. So, I was put off just a little even though Yellowface was superbly written and very captivating. It’s not very easy to portray a morally questionable main character and make people interested in them, make them want to follow them and R.F. Kuang does that really well here. It is also a kind of reckoning with the publishing industry and its handling of social backgrounds.

A fun, quick romp about the popular question of who has the right to write a story and how far the policing of that right can go.