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The Man Who by Thom Cree is a diverse short story collection covering stories from traditional westerns to Russian espionage. As with most short story collections, this is hard to give a rating, with some stories being hits and others misses. This collection in particular is difficult to rate because of the vast diversity in the kinds of stories included, but I'm happy to say that I enjoyed the collection for the most part. Based on the table of contents, the book is broken into three different themes of stories: Historical Western, Contemporary, and Cold War Espionage. I found that the author's talented writing style was on full display in the four historical western stories. They were all uniquely rich, complex, and deeply engaging if not terribly brutal at times. I appreciated how the prose complemented what we would call "flowery" language of the time (think Ulysses Everett from O Brother, Where Art Thou). The hyper-focus on the individual experience from seemingly random people of that time painted a really interesting picture of what life might have been like. Is it authentic? I don't know, I don't really care. I enjoyed them all. The contemporary stories I remember less of. There were only two of them, and they didn't stick with me. I remember being surprised that the bordering on purple prose didn't carry over to the contemporary stories, and I think that's a testament to the author's versatility. Lastly we have the cold war espionage, this was actually one story, and took up most of the book. I suppose it was less of a short story and more of a novella, but I have mixed feelings about it. While a high level summary of the story might lead one to think it was very engaging and fast paced, I found myself confused and struggling to keep the characters straight in my head for the majority of the time. It all came together nicely in the end, but the confusion I had made this story really drag on for me. Overall, a mixed bag when it came to the stories, but I enjoyed the collection as a whole. I find myself wishing there were more western stories, and I would have really liked to see more installments in the contemporary category, but this was very strong.

Classic Moshfegh, Eileen is an atmospheric tale of addiction, obsession, and depressing delusion. We follow Eileen, a young 24 year old living in New England, living and caring for her retired, alcoholic ex-cop father who has nothing but disdain for her. The story is recounted by an older Eileen, telling the reader what led her to "escape from X-ville," her home town she disliked so much, she wouldn't deign to share its actual name. Eileen works in a juvenile detention center, managing the visits between the boys and their mothers. Her life is wholly unremarkable and her time is spent in toxic introspection, hyper focusing on her lack of self worth and desirability, obsessive vanity but without self awareness, enabling her father's alcoholism, and accepting all of his verbal abuse day after day. We get hints of her pathological obsessiveness when we learn that she regularly stalks one of the guard at the boy's prison who she doesn't even necessarily like, but because he is a man she has proximity to, she yearns for his approval and desire.

This all changes when Rebecca's starts at work. A new director of education brought in to teach the prisoners, Rebecca is seemingly everything Eileen wants to be, chic, elegant, witty, and sharp. For some reason, Rebecca takes a liking to Eileen and they spend time getting to know each other as Elieen's obsession shifts to focus solely on Rebecca. This results in a climactic, violent outcome.

Moshfegh is an expert at crafting the most pitiable, unlikable characters imaginable, but makes them more pathetic than they are bad, so you can't help but to feel sorry for them. For main characters, this makes them compelling to follow. For side characters, it can be a bit of a chore reading about how irredeemable they usually are. The pacing of this story was strange. Narrator Eileen often hinted to the climax that was coming, but the climax ended up happening within the last 25 pages, making the end feel rushed. In fact, considering this story is really about Eileen's obsession with Rebecca, I was surprised to see that Rebecca doesn't even enter the story until about half way through the book, with the first half setting the scene for Eileen's sad, Sisyphean life. Aside from the rushed ending, this didn't really bother me because I enjoyed the whole story, but I was surprised that it took so long to get to the central plot of the story for a rather short book.

There were a few moments of disgusting depravity here, but it was no Lapvona. I was expecting worse, but not necessarily hoping for it. Check the trigger warnings before picking this up though. If you like Moshfegh's other works, you'll love this even if it feels a bit tame in comparison.

Whale is a historically and atmospherically rich story centering around a shrewd woman named Geumbok in the 1950s. It is a full account of her birth, full life, death, and the full life of her daughter as well. With elements of mysticism, this was a surreal read as we followed Geumbok and all of the women that preceded and followed her in life, manifesting as a tragic, but oftentimes funny, family epic.

In many ways, this felt like a Korean "One Hundred Years of Solitude" with the satire dialed up quite a bit. I really enjoyed that aspect, as Solitude is one of my favorite classics. All of the characters were uniquely charming in their own way, even if they were unlikable. Even the characters that were likable had moments of unlikability, painting a realistic picture of who they were as people. Many had redemption, others fell into corruption. The structure of this story jumped back and forth between characters and timelines, always keeping you just at arms reach of what was going on and why we were shifting focus to a new character or story, but never enough to feel disjointed or sloppy.

The story itself I found to be quite touching, focusing on themes of abandonment, family connections and love so deep it can't be communicated. It is a story of extreme hardship and extreme wealth, fluctuating between the two several times. What resulted was an introspective, satisfying story that keeps you thinking about it long after the fact.

This book feels like an homage to contemporary classics. If you like classical literature, generational stories with aspects of political satire and equally lovable and unlovable characters, you should pick this up.

Many thanks to the publisher for sending me an advanced reader copy of this book for review.

This book is really a series of short stories following Jamie, a young man on vacation with his newish boyfriend Alex. Jamie recently lost both of his parents in rather quick succession, and is struggling with the immense grief weighing him down. We spend time both with Jamie, Alex, and Kit (their AirBnB host), and in the past in the various memories Jamie has with his parents. In these memories, we get to learn about the complex, sometimes troubled yet kind people Jamie's parents were, and we grow to understand the deep feeling of loss Jamie has.

This story was sweet, it really was. But I feel like it was more of an attempt at endearment that didn't quite land. We got to spend a lot of intimate time with our small cast of characters, and I genuinely enjoyed learning more about them. I loved learning more about the complex relationship and love Jamie had for his parents. I appreciated Jamie and Alex's "new boyfriend" relationship, it was really well executed. And I loved Kit, their host who seemed so genuine and kind.

However, there were a few stylistic choices that I think interfered with my enjoyment of the book. Firstly, few characters really had a distinct voice. Kit and Jamie's father come to mind as very unique, but everyone else blended together in tone. While this isn't a huge deal, it became troublesome with the formatting of dialogue. You see, the author rarely included markers such as 'Jamie remarked' or 'Kit inquired' or 'Alex asked', opting instead to allow the context of the passage indicate who is speaking. But because most of the characters didn't have a distinct voice, I was often confused as to who exactly was saying what. It wasn't until the middle of the book that I realized that it was Alex who was actually a person of color and not Jamie, and it was Jamie's old house they were hoping to visit, not Alex's.

This was further complicated by the fact that the dialogue was so stilted and inauthentic, it felt like an entire book of people talking past each other. No one seemed to really be engaging in conversation, rather just speaking at whomever was in the room with them. There were other stylistic inclusions that I suppose were Jamie's thoughts appearing mid-passage, but they felt so out of place and lacking context, I felt that they took me out of the narrative, questioning "What does that mean? Where is that from? Why is that there?"

Lastly, and this is more of a funny observation, but it took me until the very end of this book to realize that Alex was not a vampire. Yes, really. In the first chapter (titled 'We don't drink beer'), Kit says to the boys "you two...need to get inside and get your beers in the fridge" with Alex's response being:

"'Oh, we don't brink... beer,' Alex said, flashing his fangs"

I had to end up looking up if 'fangs' was some UK slang term (I thought I was familiar with English slang until I read this book), and it doesn't seem to be. Was Alex flashing his... teeth... in response? Why would he do that? Why would they be referred to as fangs? Why was specific emphasis put on 'beer' implying that it was something else they drink? So bizarre it stuck with me for the rest of the book.

All in all, I found this to be okay. It was short, and it was sweet. I just wish some of those aspects had been polished up a bit more so I wasn't pulled out of the narrative as often. Otherwise, I think it would have really resonated with me.

Many thanks to the publisher for providing me an advanced reader copy of Clear.

John is a Scottish Presbyterian minister who has fallen on financial instability as a result of the schism in the church resulting in his need to start a new congregation. While in this transitive state, he reaches out to his brother-in-law to see if there is any work that could be done, and is offered the opportunity to enforce an eviction on behalf of a wealthy land owner who needs to clear his land, a tiny island between Scotland and Norway. Its sole tenant is a man named Iver, the last of his family who has maintained the land his entire life. Upon reaching the island, circumstance drives the men together to form a deep bond, but the language barrier prevents John from being forthright about why he is there. As John learns more about the land and the man, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to reconcile doing what is smart for his family and what is morally right, particularly when unfamiliar feelings begin manifesting.

Don't be misled by the length of this. It's a very quick read but deeply complex. Despite its length, the tight story is exactly as long as it needs to be, the characters are all dynamic and well developed, and the setting is beautifully painted with rich, atmospheric descriptions of the far northern island landscape. I find it impressive that Davies was able to create such an impactful and well-developed story in as few pages as she did. At no point did I feel the story was rushed or stilted. Rather, it fluctuated between moments of peace and tension with ease and concluded flawlessly.

I loved sitting with all the characters and adored each one in a unique way. Our three main perspectives, Iver, John, and Mary (John's wife), were distinct, lovingly crafted and richly human. So much care was put into their development, and it is clear from the author's note that so much effort and work was put into getting aspects of the setting and culture just right. I found it fascinating to read.

The setting alone should captivate you, but it is the characterization that really stands out here. If you are a fan of a gentle dive into complex relationships between flawed people, you should pick this up, you won't be disappointed.

"Abitha could see that these people believed, truly believed, that they were doing God’s work here this day. And there was something about these people that horrified Abitha even worse than those whose faces were lined with cruelty. As at least cruelty was a thing that could be pointed out, confronted. But this belief, this absolute conviction that this evil they were doing was good, was God’s work—how, she wondered, how could such a dark conviction ever be overcome?"

Abitha is not having a good time. She was sent to the colony of Massachusetts to marry a man she never met by her father in London after her mother's death. Her mother was a "cunning" woman, or a woman known to make herbal remedies and charms, a gift that Abitha tries to keep alive amongst the pious Puritans. Thankfully, she comes to care for her husband, but the same cannot be said for her brother-in-law, Wallace, who owns the farm they live in and has put it up for collateral in a loan he owes to a local Magistrate. Being so close to owning their own land, Abitha and her husband work hard to make their final payment so they don't lose their farm, but tragic circumstances get in the way, and Wallace's sabotage isn't helping anything. But there's something stirring underground; a literal force of nature that seeks blood and vengeance, plagued by his own confusion and the spirits of the forest. This being and Abitha enter a seemingly mutually beneficial agreement so that Abitha can fulfill her promises and connect with her cunning ancestry, and the being can get answers as to who he is and what he is there to do. But can they overcome the hostile, unforgiving Puritan culture that threatens both of their lives?

This book was a journey, and a pretty good one. I walked into this book hating Puritans and how the culture of a disgusting, backwards people can be so pervasive that it is prevalent to this day. And I walked out of this book with the same amount of rabid hatred, but after having been radicalized by a fictionalized account of their bullshit. I like it when a book leads me to feel strong emotions, particularly when I feel that vindication is around the corner. This does a good job of that, the Bad characters are Very Bad, the Good characters are Very Good, and there's little in-between. Some people might not like that, preferring more dynamic characterization, but I think it worked for this story.

The pacing did feel stilted at times. There was a lot of build up, and there were thematically identical scenes happening over and over again just to really drive how how Good/Bad a character is. Some of the sub-plots also felt unsatisfying. Abitha's story was really interesting but Slewfoot's personal story was disjointed and often boring. I understand the necessity of it, but it could have been executed better.

Also, and this is 100% a personal preference, but I was hoping the gods in this book would have more mysticism around them rather than acting exactly like humans. I was disappointed that Abitha and Slewfoot basically had a buddy buddy friendship where they chatted and talked about their feelings. I would have liked this much more if Abitha had a deep reverence and fear of Slewfoot, only requesting his power when she was in deep need. That change would have enhanced my liking of the book, but as it is written, it didn't detract from it.

Overall, it was good. It made me angry, which is what it set out to do. And it paid off in the most righteous female rage/vengeance. I would say I support women's rights and wrongs, but I don't think Abitha did anything wrong!

A short book calls for a short summary. The Optician of Lampedusa follows the first hand account of that very man, The Optician of Lampedusa, as he and seven other Italians happen upon a capsized migrant ship with hundreds of migrants drowning in the water. They rescue all they could on their very small boat, but only a fraction of the migrants could be saved, with the vast majority of them drowning. The rest of the book focuses on The Optician, his wife, and his six friends as they have a Very Hard Time with reconciling the massive tragedy of over 200 migrants that they were unable to save. It touches on tensions with European and Italian policies and the callous attitudes towards migrants from those who do not have to face them directly.

This book was written by Emma-Jane Kirby, a BBC reporter, and is a novelized version of actual events in 2013 where an optician, Carmine Menna, rescued many migrants from a capsized boat off the Italian coast.

This is one of those books that I find difficult to review because of the difference in my opinions on how well it was written and my feelings towards the story. The writing was fine. Simple and straightforward. No nonsense, nothing remarkable. The dialogue was a bit stilted and artificial but I can't blame a reporter for not having a good handle on writing dialogue. It certainly wasn't bad.

But from cover to cover, I simply could not get past the question of "who is this for?", and as I continued reading, I got more and more frustrated. This is an event that actually happened, and mirrors similar events that continue to happen to this day. This is an important story that should absolutely be told and awareness brought to it, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why the author believed it was a good idea to center the story on the rescuers rather than the migrants.

Maybe this is a bitter, but this is exactly the kind of thing I would expect from a BBC reporter. Centering the experiences of the rich Europeans and how this awful tragedy made them oh so sad rather than centering on the migrants is tone deaf at best and completely callous at worst. De-centering the experience of the migrants is EXACTLY what drove the tension of the book! The poor Europeans were upset that they couldn't help more people and had difficulties dealing with the fact that the migrants weren't being treated like people. And in this story, the migrants were relegated to side characters! It feels so intentionally tactless, I cannot believe it was not done on purpose. How can the central theme of the book be so heavy handed while the book itself stands as a monument to the very thing it is trying to decry?

So I return to the question: who is this book for? What reasonable person who does not care about the lives of migrants will have their mind changed after reading about how privileged Italians got sad after rescuing them? What good is this story doing? Don't read this.

Partition by Kevin Kane is an ambitious exploration of the questions of what it means to be human and the struggle between what is good and what is right.

Our two primary characters are Eric, a washed up, has-been influencer turned party and club drug partaker, and... Eric... Well, Eric's "Night," a part of Eric's partitioned brain that takes control of his body from 8pm to 8am and works as a police investigator. Nights are designed to do whatever their "Days" want, which includes working, working out, or even crime. Nights MUST comply with whatever their Days request of them, after all. They're just Nights. The aren't real people. This is the way this cyberpunk society functions ever since the massive mega corporation Callosum invented partitioning as a way to free people from the tedium of working.

But this excessive freedom leads to some destructive vices. Eric partakes in a new club drug that allows all users in a local vicinity to share experiences, memories, and sensations, which unfortunately results in the mysterious death of a young woman. A crime that Eric's Nights then has to try to solve, as he attempts to get information out of his Day. The mystery deepens as the Nights of the other users of the club drug start to act erratically, disobeying orders of their Days, remembering their Day's memories, and event starting to resent the "owners" of the bodies they use.

But they're just Nights. They're not real people, just software uploaded into a brain. And as software, they aren't capable of staging a world-wide uprising, are they?

This was a really novel story set in a familiar backdrop. I love cyberpunk settings, and this did a great job of carefully fleshing out a detailed setting of vice, drugs, cybernetic enhancements, augmented reality, and futuristic, underground crime rings. It gently pull reference from cyberpunk pillars such as Blade Runner, Neuromancer, and even Cyberpunk 2077 while still feeling fresh and authentic.

The plot was very captivating, if not a bit overwhelming at times. It had a natural progression that you'd expect in a cop-based mystery, but there were a lot of different plot points that I sometimes had trouble keeping up with. The consistent action and fast pace contrasted the meticulous attention to detail that you needed to pay attention to so not to miss critical plot points amongst the quickly shifting scenes, characters, and exposition.

Some might complain about the loosely chronological, shifting POV between Eric and Eric's Night, but I thought it was VERY well done, and always had me guessing how the story beats would unfold.

I think there's some plot that can be cut from here though. There are a LOT of side stories, side characters, and minor plot points that I don't think were utilized to their fullest. The book is a whopping 636 pages, so its asking for a lot, being a fast paced book. I think it could have been streamlined for brevity, but I'm not complaining at the extra set dressing. I couldn't get over how immersive the world felt.

I did find the end to be a pretty major disappointment unfortunately. I did not go into this thinking it would be the first installment in a series, though I might have gleaned that from the structure of the title, but it almost felt like the decision to make it a series was hastily made in the last 15% of the book. The story was really on track to resolve, but seemingly out of nowhere, we abandon some of the most important characters like Dee, Diane, and Belle to launch into the climax with some of the lesser involved characters, like D'Souza, officer Lobley, and Foresman. It culminates in.. not much.. not even a cliffhanger really, with a promise to continue the fight. I'm sure I'll pick up the next one if it comes out, but I felt cheated investing many many many hours into an otherwise well-written book just for it to not really resolve anything.

But with that being said, I'd definitely recommend you pick this up. Especially if you are a fan of science fiction and cyberpunk in particular.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

"He can’t help Marianne, no matter what he does. There’s something frightening about her, some huge emptiness in the pit of her being. It’s like waiting for a lift to arrive and when the doors open nothing is there, just the terrible dark emptiness of the elevator shaft, on and on forever. She’s missing some primal instinct, self-defense or self-preservation, which makes other human beings comprehensible. You lean in expecting resistance, and everything just falls away in front of you."

I'd obviously heard a lot of buzz about this book over the years, and among my friends, mostly mixed things. Which made me more intrigued to pick it up, as I'd heard it was a pretty intense character study of two people and how their relationship manifests from childhood into young adulthood, constantly orbit each other in irregular (and sometimes toxic) ways. I ended up really loving this. The depth that Sally Rooney was able to develop Connell and Marianne was incredible. I loved the unique ways that they were both deeply flawed and broken, and instead of leaning on each other as a fix, they lean on each other as a source of unconditional love.

The pacing was slow at times, and I would buy the argument that some of the beats were repetitive (do we really need to head ANOTHER long winded story about how Marianne drunkenly fights with her current toxic boyfriend of the month?), but I didn't mind this detail. Rooney writes quite accessibly and don't let the other reviews dupe you into thinking the lack of quotes was off-putting. I got confused about it maybe twice in the whole book because the formatting makes the dialogue clear.

It might be silly to say about a book with such high praise, but I'd be hesitant to recommend this widely. For those who love plot, this isn't the book for you. While it wasn't aimless, it was absolutely hyper focused on character and relationship development. For people who adore lovable characters, I also wouldn't recommend this. The characters often act in brash, disagreeable ways, driven by emotion or with the intention to hurt. For me, that's great characterization, but I know it's not for everyone. There's a bit of light social commentary in here as well, Rooney dances around issues of injustice, wealth, and privilege, but don't expect any of this to be fully realized. She hits a bit harder on the topic of class disparity which I appreciated. But if you love learning about Ireland, this has some really cool detail on regional and cultural differences within the country!

Anyway, this was good. I'll probably have to take a beat to recover before I pick up anything else by the author, but I'd certainly continue to read her works.

Thanks so much to the publisher for providing an advanced reader copy for me to review.

Firstly, this book contains the exact recipe for a book that I would love. To Be Taught If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers, Providence by Max Barry, The Freeze Frame Revolution and Blindsight by Peter Watts... if it involves a few people on a spaceship together with no space and no choice but to become deeply invested in each other's lives, I'm very likely going to love it.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey was no exception. We follow one "day" cycle of 6 astronauts from different backgrounds orbiting the earth in the present day, 16 orbits total. However briefly in this quick ~200 page book, we get to spend an intimate amount of time with these astronauts: their thoughts, their duties, and their relationships, almost as if we are the seventh astronaut sharing the claustrophobic space of the research space station they call home. While there is little story that drives the narrative, I didn't think this setting called for that kind of structure. This was a deeply introspective examination of the human condition, aspirations, emotion, and loss. It did not need a strong story progression to be compelling and beautiful.

Also, the amount of research that went into this was extremely commendable. There are so many small details about life in orbit that was clearly informed by actual experts. The acknowledgements thank NASA and the ESA for their insights, so I have to commend the author for being diligent in creating a stunning and authentic story.

While some of the routine activities interrupted with descriptions of the orbital path and philosophizing might read as tedious to some, I found it to be necessary to flesh out the otherwise indescribable experience of an astronaut's relationship with their own humanity while being at the forefront of the terrifying precipice of human achievement. The structure did take some getting used to however, with frequent jumps from one character to another, then to no character at all between paragraphs, but it wasn't too disruptive. Regarding the overall story, I do think I would have appreciated a bit more relationship development between the characters. What was there was done so well, it had me really yearning for more, but otherwise this was an excellent read and I very much recommend it.