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Fiction
Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects: A reporter returns to her small town to investigate the deaths of two young girls, possible victims of a serial killer. She’s extremely damaged herself, and returning home plunges her back into her toxic relationship with her mother, memories of her dead younger sister, and a dangerous fascination with the even younger half-sister who has her mother’s favor and is just coming into her own sexual power. I’m not sure I could think of more horrible things for women to do to one another in this novel: mothers to daughters, sisters to sisters, friends to friends. Men occasionally pop in to take advantage of the damage done. There’s an element of truth here, of course, but I was reminded why I generally prefer to read f/sf and find some heroic endeavors somewhere among the characters.
Various authors, Sindustry: Original slash, hookerfic to be precise, much of it (possibly all) written by fanfic slashers. Not my kink, but I get why it’s hot, and these strike me as generally well-done for that particular taste: Sweet, fluffy and explicit OTP-ness, with very few obstacles to true love – in most of the stories, there are no barriers to exiting sex work or more than vague prejudices to overcome or anything like that. Exceptions at the end: one story by TL Merrow that features a beating (not by the love interest). For what it’s worth, that one was my favorite. Sample narration of (apparently) unrequited desire: “Stephen was looking at him like not only had he sprouted an extra head, but that the second one had managed the difficult feat of looking even more moronic than the first.” Aww. Another by Diana Copland has the aftermath of a violent attack (and some accounts of practicing law in DC that do not exactly square with my own experiences or observations; I should—and hereby do—volunteer to answer fanwriter questions about law student/law clerk/big-firm life to the best of my ability, though of course things are changing pretty fast in BigLaw land).
Rebecca Ore, Centuries Ago and Very Fast: Another original slash offering, this one a series of linked stories about an apparently immortal, time-jumping guy and a number of his lovers through history. And here’s the standard complaint of the fanfic reader: I didn’t get enough emotional (or other) history for these guys before the sex started, so it didn’t move me.
Shalom Auslander, Beware of God: A bunch of short stories about Orthodox Judaism, male angst over sex, male angst over the existence of God, etc., told in absurdist fashion (e.g., two hamsters debate the existence of God, who for them is the guy who puts the apples in their cage and takes out the crap; a devout teen wakes up, a la Gregor Samsa, as a goy). I wasn’t impressed, though there was a story that captured really well the experience, which I think is fairly common among preadolescent American Jews, of overdosing on information about the Holocaust: trying to make sense of this thing that happened that is essentially unimaginable and yet real. Trying to make sense of the fact that six million people were killed for being just like you; that the people who killed them would like to have killed you; that people in your family were killed; that most other people in the world who heard about it didn’t much care. Planning for what you’d do if it started to happen here; wondering which of the non-Jews you know would shelter you, or at least not betray you; meanwhile also doing homework and playing soccer and everything else that a preadolescent middle- or upper-class American kid does. It’s a weird mental state; why shouldn’t we be neurotic?
Various authors, Sindustry: Original slash, hookerfic to be precise, much of it (possibly all) written by fanfic slashers. Not my kink, but I get why it’s hot, and these strike me as generally well-done for that particular taste: Sweet, fluffy and explicit OTP-ness, with very few obstacles to true love – in most of the stories, there are no barriers to exiting sex work or more than vague prejudices to overcome or anything like that. Exceptions at the end: one story by TL Merrow that features a beating (not by the love interest). For what it’s worth, that one was my favorite. Sample narration of (apparently) unrequited desire: “Stephen was looking at him like not only had he sprouted an extra head, but that the second one had managed the difficult feat of looking even more moronic than the first.” Aww. Another by Diana Copland has the aftermath of a violent attack (and some accounts of practicing law in DC that do not exactly square with my own experiences or observations; I should—and hereby do—volunteer to answer fanwriter questions about law student/law clerk/big-firm life to the best of my ability, though of course things are changing pretty fast in BigLaw land).
Rebecca Ore, Centuries Ago and Very Fast: Another original slash offering, this one a series of linked stories about an apparently immortal, time-jumping guy and a number of his lovers through history. And here’s the standard complaint of the fanfic reader: I didn’t get enough emotional (or other) history for these guys before the sex started, so it didn’t move me.
Shalom Auslander, Beware of God: A bunch of short stories about Orthodox Judaism, male angst over sex, male angst over the existence of God, etc., told in absurdist fashion (e.g., two hamsters debate the existence of God, who for them is the guy who puts the apples in their cage and takes out the crap; a devout teen wakes up, a la Gregor Samsa, as a goy). I wasn’t impressed, though there was a story that captured really well the experience, which I think is fairly common among preadolescent American Jews, of overdosing on information about the Holocaust: trying to make sense of this thing that happened that is essentially unimaginable and yet real. Trying to make sense of the fact that six million people were killed for being just like you; that the people who killed them would like to have killed you; that people in your family were killed; that most other people in the world who heard about it didn’t much care. Planning for what you’d do if it started to happen here; wondering which of the non-Jews you know would shelter you, or at least not betray you; meanwhile also doing homework and playing soccer and everything else that a preadolescent middle- or upper-class American kid does. It’s a weird mental state; why shouldn’t we be neurotic?
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I also heard Auslander on This American Life and was curious about the book--maybe best a little bit at a time, it seems...
Thanks for the reviews!
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I'm glad you find the reviews worthwhile! I find that writing out my reactions makes me think about books differently.