Books we've read in 2021

[Stan]

Yes.

[Kyle]

My Sister, the Serial Killer- Oyinkan Braithwaite. What an awesome surprise this was. So I checked this book out because it was relatively short (4.5 hours) and in a setting I was unfamiliar with- modern day Lagos, Nigeria. From the title and description, I was expecting a bit of a gonzo ride through crazy killings and gory circumstances. What I was treated to was much better. It's a very understated, contemplative story about a nurse who is struggling to find her own identity and purpose through the lens of constantly having to help cover up for her sister, who is in fact a serial killer. But it's not played for laughs and the killer sister is not an over-the-top villain (or even a villain at all). She's a well-realized character that is crucial to our protagonist's journey. In the end, this is a complex tale about feminism, oppression and self-realization, and it's quite wonderfully told. Normally I complain when books are too short, but this one was just the perfect length. A great read.

[Kyle]

Harrow- Joy Williams. So while I didn't enjoy this book, I'm putting most of that on me and not the author. I was interested in this because it had good critical acclaim and was billed as a modern fantasy revolving around a dying world. And even though that's not what this book is, it's actually not wrong either. The book is actually a surreally-told biblical laced parable about people who have destroyed the world and are now stuck in their own versions of purgatory.* It's not pro-religion or preachy (maybe just the opposite) and it's extremely well written. It's just not what I was looking for. To put this in context- I was in the car driving for 8 and a half hours yesterday and started and finished the book on the trip. And it takes a bit of work to connect all the dots in this beautiful, but complicated, tale. Much of the book is told like a fever dream, and I just found myself zoning out for long stretches when I didn't understand what was going on. If I had recently read Dante's purgatory book, I probably would have made many more connections and the references would have been deeper and more meaningful for me, but I didn't, so I was conscious the whole time that there were these important references that meant nothing to me.

*- Note- I don't research books after I read them. I draw my conclusions and find that if I read other's analysis, that it tends to lessen my experience. So I might be completely off the money for what this book was about.

[Kyle]

Survive the Night- Riley Sager. So Riley Sager is a pseudonym for a guy who tried publishing thrillers under the guise of being a young woman. After his first book (Final Girls?) was a modest success, it was revealed he's a dude that's published before. It always struck me as a bit gross, but people publish under fake names and identities all the time. And I remember reading the first book and, while I know I was disappointed with it, I also thought that it wasn't bad for thriller/horror mass market genre novels. Then I started reading this and I remembered why I didn't like the first book- he's just trying to hard to write a book for the sole purpose of having it be marketable for movie rights. The idea behind this book is simple- the college student female protagonist (in 1991) agrees to rideshare back home with a dude she doesn't know, but during the course of the trip, finds out he's a serial killer who killed her best friend. It sounds contrite, and it is, but the twists and turns are fairly good and when you think you've got the thing figured out, you don't. Plot-wise, my big complaint was that it felt the need to wrap up all the loose ends in the plot, and it would have been much better if it hadn't. But stylistically I had a real problem with this book for two reasons. The first is the set-up which starts by telling you our protagonist is an unreliable narrator- in fact she sees movies in her head that she can't tell are real or just fictitious. Jeez. Okay. You could be less heavy handed with it. But second is that this entire novel is written as though it's a movie, including these unnecessary intros for each chapter that has screen writing intros ("Interior Diner. Night."). The main character goes through the motions of having an arc and character development, but it doesn't feel authentic- it feels like something you would write for a movie, basically ignoring all the real estate and leeway you get with a novel. Throughout this book I kept rolling my eyes and thinking, "I get it, dude. You see how this would play out on the big screen." But here's my biggest problem-- none of the character motivations made any sense. It was the typical horror movie dilemma. There are no less than half a dozen times that the main character should have done something sensible and gotten herself to safety, but for EXTREMELY contrived reasons chose not to. It was tiresome and just kind of dumb. Did not enjoy this book.

[Stan]

And I think Mike and I have talked about it before, but the acting and narration by Kevin Free is some of the best I've heard. Really made it that much better.

2 quick things.
1. I listened the 6th Murderbot book, another novella. It's a murder mystery and the weakest of the series but still a very good book.

2. Having Kevin R Free in the car with me again inspired me to look him up. He created and starred in a short web series on youtube called Gemma and the Bear. The whole thing is less than an hour. I feel bad that it has only a couple thousand views as it's decent and Kevin is really charismatic. It's about a woman who has Kevin as her alternative identity.