Walking Practice

This was really gross and weird. :) I think it lost a bit of its impact since I've both read and watched Under the Skin. But this one adds a gender/sexuality fluidity piece that Under the Skin is missing.

I can see that this was exploring important questions about what it means to be human, what humans owe one another, and loneliness. It was an imaginative, playful way to approach it. But there was also a lot of tedium and repetition that often made it surprisingly dull.

I think the most powerful part of this was the disappointment when Mumu finally comes across another alien like them. Pretty bleak, though!

Oh yeah, no way does it surprise me that people’s opinions on this book are divisive. You’re either gonna love this, or you’re gonna despise it.

Me? I love it. Adore it, even. It’s so fucked up, a flash in the pan, a twisted little glimpse into a murderous alien who uses hook-ups as a method to alleviate their unbearable emotional loneliness and literal starvation.

Min is doing something here I really appreciate. I love how they use queerness and gender passing as a concept through raw, disgusting imagery that just feels so, so cathartic. I love how the narrator is so consumed by social conformity, for as much as they insist that they aren’t. I love their blasé sense of humor, the way that it humanizes them. Another top contender for my favorite of 2023.

Again though, read the CW list on it first.