A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? This anguished cover has been haunting me from bestseller tables for years, but it wasn’t until a friend gave me her copy that I considered reading it. And I’m glad she did, because I have thoughts.

Why not 3 or more stars? Four tidily diverse men meet in college, make mistakes, fall in love, and somehow all achieve incredible success in their respective professions. A Little Life is set in a fantasy world in which people receive everything they ever wanted, including permission to avoid their issues indefinitely and to damage those who support and enable them. The most extreme of these examples is Jude St. Francis (oh, I will get to the names in this book in a moment), whose youth is so brutal that even this cynical reader couldn’t decide whether to feel irritation or pity when Jude gets to sniveling. Jude’s horrific backstory proves not enough for Yanagihara; the story freedives through its last hundred pages to a truly punishing level of bleakness. A Little Life doesn’t earn its hefty page count, weighed down with clunky imagery and sloppy rephrasings that read as if written by early AI. Speaking of AI, the names in this book! Citizen van Straaten? Andy Contractor? Millicent Stein-Hernandez? So bad that I bet you can’t guess which one I made up.

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? You know I pre-ordered the third installment of the Empyrean series and cracked this baby open the day it arrived.

Why not 3 or more stars? Welcome back to the land of ticking jaws! Onyx Storm boasts some serious highlights. The plot finds its stride during a journey to the Isles, Ridoc gets interesting, and the final act is a rollicking nail-biter. I hate to harp on it, but the writing. I couldn’t figure out what in Malek was going on for the first fifty pages, even after skimming through Iron Flame in preparation. An impressive feat in a series rife with repetition. And Xaden goes full corn in Onyx Storm, making him creepier and less sexy than ever. While highly entertaining, the book is a mess that often made me laugh out loud. Regardless, I eagerly await the next one. To put it Yarros style: Get. Your. Leathers. Ready.

Jaw tick count: 15

Mistakes We Never Made by Hannah Brown

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? As a die-hard member of Bachelor Nation, I have been anticipating this book for months. Hannah Brown is one of the show’s most beloved Bachelorettes and gave the world some epic reality TV moments.

Why not 3 or more stars? Mistakes We Never Made was written with a ghostwriter, and when multiple minds are working on a text, I expect a certain level of mastery. I expect the protagonist to be bearable, even if obnoxiously self-deluded. I expect the two sex scenes in a romance novel to be more than a few paragraphs of missionary. I expect to be reminded only sporadically of the love interest’s signature odor of “woodsmoke and lavender.” I expect a mostly chronological story that takes place over three days to eschew chapter titles alerting the reader to the day of the week. I expect the unresolved plot points laying the ground for the next installment to be treated more elegantly.

The book delivers in one crucial way for Hannah’s fans by including Easter eggs from her time as the Bachelorette, like an homage to that iconic pedestal move.

I did not like this book, and Jesus still loves me.

Milk by Dorothea Lasky

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? I recently read Lasky’s The Shining and was interested to check out more of her work. This copy came from Multnomah County Library.

Why not 3 or more stars? I appreciated Lasky’s approach to the themes of motherhood and the limitations of the corporeal; the sensuality of her work evokes Lana Del Rey. The piece “There is no name yet” certainly deserves a read. That said, the often singsong quality to the poems and throwaway nature of their logic read as underdeveloped. The style of poetry in Milk is simply not my taste.

Supermarket by Bobby Hall

1/5 STARS

How’d I find it? Bless the Little Free Libraries of the world. On a rainy day in DC while walking to the metro, I spotted this bright cover and tucked it into my jacket.

Why not 3 or more stars? Hall shows his hand far too soon in this novel about aspiring writer Flynn, who takes his craft so seriously that inspiration and mental illness quickly muddle. The cues that suggest that all is not what seems give the game away around page 16, and the rest is preposterous dialogue and signal fires for the truly inattentive.

The Rain Watcher by Tatiana de Rosnay

1/5 STARS

How’d I find it? This copy was sent by a friend who knows how much I love French literature.

Why not 3 or more stars? Illness and secrets make up the drama in this story of a Franco-American family reuniting in Paris during a catastrophic flood. The Rain Watcher understands neither stakes nor timing and simply runs out of gas, ending its tale in a sigh after bungling a long-awaited reveal. Reader, head for higher ground.

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? With much anticipation, I picked up my copy at Atomic Books on publication day.

Why not 3 or more stars? I know. I eviscerated Fourth Wing like a clubtail. Don’t expect much different from Iron Flame. Xaden’s jaw is ticking, Violet is lifting her chin, and Ridoc is clapping people on the back. Repetition of key plot points, characters’ states of mind, and personality traits ensure quick consumption of this book’s 622 pages, with twists served up so gently and obviously that you feel like a genius for having guessed them. I give this five stars for entertainment value and anxiously await the third installment.

Jaw tick count: 11

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? After watching readers at Solid State Books clamor for weeks over the store’s trickle of copies, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

Why not 3 or more stars? Jaws can clench, tense, drop, and harden; they can be thrust or jutted or set. But can they tick? Seriously, I am asking. This is one of many (many) linguistic hurdles of Fourth Wing, the first installment of the highly entertaining dragon-riding series by Rebecca Yarros. I inhaled this book gleefully but required frequent breaks because (and I’m going to use Yarros’ darling ellipsis here)…the writing. Some pauses were giggle fits brought on by the narrative billboards that were characters’ names (The love interests? Xaden and Dain.) or by our protagonist’s vagina being described as her “entrance.” Others were little mind puzzles, like ticking jaws (maybe it’s part of this world’s language?) and a wild reveal that you will nevertheless see coming after 450 pages of passive-aggressive flirting and chin cupping. While I recognized some nods to empowerment and identity acceptance that felt fresh, I also noted that Yarros carefully skirts race and oppression in a book run through with classism.

In a society where remakes and products of mass appeal comprise much of our cultural diet, Fourth Wing demands nothing from the consumer, and it’s no surprise. Disappointing, yes, but no surprise. What can I say? I can’t wait to read Iron Flame.

Jaw tick count: 11

Counterweight by Djuna, translated by Anton Hur

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? A face-out at Solid State Books that I couldn’t resist.

Why not 3 or more stars? The all-powerful LK Group colonizes the island of Patusan for the establishment of Earth’s first space elevator. Mac, an investigator in LK’s External Affairs department, discovers a plot that could threaten the LK Group and his own identity. While this sounds like the start of a promising mystery, the most interesting plot turns are given in dialogue between characters, and the space elevator makes only a brief appearance. Alas, my favorite thing about Counterweight is its incredible cover.

The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson

1/5 stars

How’d I find it? I came across this book at Politics & Prose and added it to my growing stack.

Why not 3 or more stars? I hesitate to tag this book as anything but memoir, despite the tantalizing subtitle of Searching for Life on Another World. The focus is Johnson herself, who is a scientist and female. That’s it. That’s the “edge” here. While the book roughly sketches out the history of Martian discovery, I wanted much more astronomy and fewer forced analogies between interplanetary exploration and motherhood.