Hey everyone! Hope your passage to the new year was smooth and you've made it healthy and happy and maybe a little drunk into 2025! In my first post of the new year I give you mostly reads from the end of last year which I had somehow left unreviewed (mainly because I didn't enjoy them too much, but there are a couple I really loved too), so here are the short reviews, enjoy!
Letters to the Purple Satin Killer by Joshua Chaplinsky
I know some short stories by horror author Joshua Chaplinsky that I like and my hopes for Letters to the Purple Satin Killer were accordingly higher than if this title were by an author completely unknown to me. It's not that I didn't like this or I'm disappointed or something, it's just that the story consists of exactly what the title says: letters to notorious serial killer Jonas Williker, who always left a stripe of purple satin with (or in) his victims' bodies, by family, friends, fans and some random people writing to him during his time in jail until his execution, and nothing more.
The brutal rapes and murders Williker committed have left their mark on popular culture and he's equally loved and loathed by the masses. So the letters he receives include letters from his mother, giving some background to a child turned sadist, two childhood friends who both had crushes on him, a random woman who declared herself his friend and to be fair faithfully keeps writing him until he is executed, some collectors of memorabilia, some mentally sick teenagers, young men who can related to him, and some formal correspondence like a digital platform which pulishes his poems. Through the letters we learn more about the writers of the letters than we do of their sadistic recipient, reflecting their own lives and emotions and wishes on him, while murderer Williker stays astonishingly objective, blank.
I guess what was missing in this book for me was the lack of connection, or the failure to build up to something bigger and coherent, but in the end, they were just letters who kind of loosely hang there, some of the writers disappearing without any explanation. So it kind of dragged for me and the tone of voice of some characters were kind of similar and not distinct enough. Kind of a missed chance, as the concept is actually cool.
The Vegetarian Han Kang
The story of a woman who stops eating meat and is treated like a lunatic for it. It turns our she'd rather eat nothing at all.
Although
this was difficult to go through, I like where the novel takes us,
determining your own fate, your own life and freedom etc. It's told from
three different points of view, and the focus of the book shifts
according to who is telling the story, so there's really lots of themes
treated here. A tough read, though, not pleasant at all.
As in the previous book, the main character of the story is remarkably absent and the differing points of view tell us more about the side characters than they do about the strangely blank focal point, the vegetarian woman. This book kind of made me hate people a little more, if that's possible.
The Radiator Boy and The Holly Country Zoltan Komor
A child who grew up tied to a steel-plate radiator and tortured by his sadistic father sets off into the wide world to find “Christmas” because he has heard much about it. Fate will throw him from one freaky adventure to another, and he'll meet many many bizarre characters before becoming a crooked sort of "chosen one", the one to bring warmth to people trapped in a cold land.
I really wish I could say that I liked reading this, but the truth is, I hated it. Komor surely can write, and he can do so with a confident pen, but each sentence was packed too much with heavy language and way too much bizzarity that it really tired me to read this. I don't know much about his writing so I don't even know if this is his usual style, but honestly, it does come across like the author is trying a little too hard for the writing to come across as natural.
The Trunk by Kim Ryeo-ryeong
Inji (which is pronounced exactly like my name, and that's why I decided
to read this!) works at NM (New Marriages) which offers on-paper
marriages in which two people make a contract to live like a married
couple in every aspect for a year or two, to then, at the end of the
agreement, go their own way. You need to be selected to do this job, and
if you reject a potential partner three times you get fired. Inji
reached her third chance and has to marry a husband, who requests to
marry her for a second time.
Beside her work, she also has her
own little apartment and a coffee machine she shares with her neighbor
Granny who is a treasure trove of wisdom and pearls, and her best friend
who carries a deep secret herself, plus a somewhat funny stalker, who
keeps on bringing her tteok cakes (I'm aware there's nothing amusing
about being stalked, but the way this subplot was done, it kind of was,
and he's not really stalking her, just bringing her cake every now and
then).
This was an entertaining book with very vivid characters
who all had something interesting to say and with situations as
believable as they were spellbinding, and a solid feminist message. I
don't really see this being a thriller or mystery as tagged on GR,
just a great contemporary book.
Good Neighbours by Sarah Langan
Meet the Wildes - aging rock star Arlo, his wife Gertie, former serial beauty pageant contestant, and their two children, prepubescent Julia and autistic sweetheart Larry. From the depths of Brooklyn they move into a suburban family house in Maple Street, Long Island, thinking they actually made it. And in the beginning, it almost looked like they would have, they were exotic and exciting enough to garner positive attention. After a couple of slight dissonances though the neighborhood decides that they don't belong, and especially one of them has it in for them and starts a seriously mean-spirited campaign of intrigues, accusations, and attacks, leading to calamitous ruin. A dangerous sinkhole that opens in a nearby park will even further the disaster (and stand as a neat metaphor).
There's so much going on in this book, so many little jabs, wrongdoings, so much injustice that I was yearning for redemption, for satisfaction. It was a really smart writing technique to announce beforehand that something disastrous has happened (the book starts with newspaper clippings, interviews, and even academic papers on the impact of the events in Maple Street) but only ever giving breadcrumbs enough to slowly piece together the bigger picture by the end of the book, which gave me, as a reader, the feeling of being pro-active, of joining in, and I loved that. A fan of Langan now, I will look for further books by her.
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