Everything Matters!

I really love this book. It has its issues, but I’m a fan of the omniscient second-person, and the countdown to the end, and even the sort of epilogue and the way it doesn’t fix everything, doesn’t really fix anything. I am all for Currie’s writing, just about always.

4.5/5

Late Nights on Air

I have very little patience for novels that decide to use dreams and memories to flesh out their characters instead of bothering with proper characterization, and this is one of the most heinous offenders I’ve ever seen. Nor does it help that I don’t care about any of the characters enough to want to know anything more about them, and that the drudgery of those characters is surrounded by the drudgery of the Yukon landscape, which this book tries—and fails—to make interesting.

1.5/5

Funny Boy

I’m always interested in a view of Sri Lanka after falling in love with Michael Ondaatje, and this does offer that, if not much else to distinguish itself from other coming of age queer stories, just another set of being different and realization of what that interest is, and veiled sexualities of supporting characters.

3/5

The Book of Salt

I really dislike books that decide to use minor historical figures and flesh them out—make it really dislike when those historical figures are Gertrude Stein and her lover, Alice B. Toklas. I think I can settle for Stein’s actual writing, instead of a stupid, shallow book that decides to take the viewpoint of her chef, and only distinguish itself from another mediocre whiny book by the fact that Truong decides to steal Stein’s fame to bolster her own.

2/5

Beat the Reaper

This is fun reading at its best; sharp, smart, and full of shark tanks. The asides are brilliant, the events are just ludicrous enough to work, and the narrator is just unlikeable enough. Though maybe I could have done without a bone knife.

4/5

Dangerous Laughter

Millhauser has some really really interesting ideas, unfortunately, he doesn’t have a very discerning editor. Each of his stories intrigues me for a short time, then loses its appeal, and then really, really wears out his welcome. If this collection was half the length or had twice the stories, it’d be a good one, as it is, Millhauser needs a new editor, or an ability to viciously cut the chaff.

2/5

Zami

Lourde is a poet, so it’s not surprising that Zami is often poetic. It’s lucky, actually, because that poetic musing is about the only thing that saves it from being yet another autobiography that carefully tells the reader all about the author’s sex and love life.

3/5