Sterling Karat Gold

Jaelyn reviewed Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner

Review of 'Sterling Karat Gold' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Kafka’s The Trial, if Kafka was having an acid trip at the time. Sterling is arrested despite their innocence and their world increasingly becomes more surreal and unhinged with bullfighters, spaceships and time travel via google streetview. Underpinning it, however, is a commentary on state-sanctioned violence against migrants, minorities and queer working-class people. I’d love to write more but, every time I try, my recollections seem even more unhinged than the book. It’s certainly a mood.

Eduardo Santiago reviewed Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner

Review of 'Sterling Karat Gold' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

Abandoned, p.78. I used to like a healthy dose of surrealism. Here, I tried and tried, but nope. Maybe I’ve grown too old. Maybe I’m not smart enough or hip enough for this book. Doesn’t matter. I found it monotonous: angry stream of consciousness, uninteresting first-person protagonist, and the story caroms disjointedly -- kind of like Meow Wolf, where it’s just slapped together randomly and feels fun for a while. Only a while. Oh, plus lots of sports and fashion talk with promise of more to come. No thanks.

Wolfgang Wopperer reviewed Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner

Kafka, time travel and bullfights in late-capitalist London

5 stars

Subverting conventions of plot construction as well as gender identity, Waidner amalgamates football lore, a reversed version of Kafka's "Process", Google Maps as a time-travelling device, and anti-queer violence expressed in spontaneously erupting bullfights, taking us on a near-psychedelic trip through migrant biographies, working class experience, time-tested friendship, and the struggle for respect and agency, if not justice in modern-day, hyper-unequal London. Highly recommended.