I read a line on Reddit calling Grady Hendrix’s books ‘Goosebumps for grown ups�. Like they’re a bunch of funny japes about people in day-glo clothin I read a line on Reddit calling Grady Hendrix’s books ‘Goosebumps for grown ups�. Like they’re a bunch of funny japes about people in day-glo clothing, mildly scary the way taco night sauces are mildly spicy. Like they can’t hurt you. But this one can, even though parts of it are funny.
This book hurts, it hurts pretty badly in a time where reproductive rights are in peril and all of the scenarios in the book are not consigned to dark history. It’s fresh and prescient, it stings and it cuts. I read it with psychological safety but many can’t. If you have not yet read it, pick it up, read the blurb and think of trigger warnings (sexual abuse in particular but even medical horrors).
One thing about Grady � he writes about women and girls so well that I sometimes wonder � how does he know we do that? Or think that? Some male writers portray us or try to embody us in a way that barely disguises their contempt; Grady writes about us truthfully.
Every Chekhov’s gun in this book is fired which is very satisfying.
I found this book light on horror, except body horror and the bone-deep coldness of being handled by an uncaring medical system. That said, there are a few scenes in this book that will stay with me for the rest of my life. ...more
Butter feels very of the zeitgeist, being Japanese, about a serial killer and covering parasocial relationships. It’s thick and luscious, a rich text Butter feels very of the zeitgeist, being Japanese, about a serial killer and covering parasocial relationships. It’s thick and luscious, a rich text in every sense of the word. I see how its giant yellow physicality works in its favour; this book just wouldn’t do as a light novel.
The killer, Kajii � the apparent killer, anyway � lives deliciously. She’s defiantly outside of social norms, she’s proudly living as an id, no superego. She’s all about bodily pleasure and so when our uptight journalist heroine who is all in her head, as someone who is poised to break new ground at work, begins to try on the killer’s life for size, we see something shifting. Will it make Rika the journalist better, or much worse?
Rika begins to undertaking various culinary challenges, set by Kajii, that involve indulgence. Rika is hoping to win her trust and her favour so when the betrayal comes, it is breathtaking.
The story is twisty and in ways that surprised me. Given the focus on the body, eating, serial killers and sex, I assumed at some point cannibalism would enter the picture and it didn’t. Given the portrayal of Rika’s friend Reiko as a flimsy sort of person, in physicality, it was a surprise to show her as an extremely strong, capable housewife and who is unbelievably intrepid. The abrupt switch to her point of view, then back to Rika, with us never going back to Reiko’s POV again, was a bit odd and I would have liked to have seen Melanie the collie in the end.
Butter looks at the ‘right� ways to be feminine or masculine in one’s milieu, and what happens if you begin to live authentically in defiance of the norms of femininity or masculinity.
There’s a good amount of horror in it. The creeping awfulness of being in an unfamiliar, unsanitary and isolated home. The anguished realities of dairy farming.
It’s also highly sensory. While it connects us with pleasure, it also has plenty of disgust in it. In short, don’t read it and dine at the same time....more
**spoiler alert** I knew I’d enjoy living in the world of Mary HK Choi’s writing as I’d read her recent essay on being an adult with an autism diagnos**spoiler alert** I knew I’d enjoy living in the world of Mary HK Choi’s writing as I’d read her recent essay on being an adult with an autism diagnosis. Choi is a competent craftsperson and you can live comfortably in her sentences. Her writing was much funnier than expected.
Emergency Contact felt true in a way that was painful even though some portrayals of characters were overly mannered. The hot girl ex of Sam’s was grating (sorry, but Lorraine is not a hot girl name, in this era.). But Choi’s way of demonstrating the excruciating awkwardness of being a young adult who has to figure out how to relate to people around her was dead on.
A lot of the book is cosy and charming � we have a handsome baker for a love interest and an impossibly girlish MILF-y mother. Being so cosy, the (spoiler alert, trigger warning) SA depiction was jarring. I had to read it twice to be sure I was reading it correctly. It was shocking, not for its violence (“He didn’t beat me up�) but for how commonplace Choi made it seem. How depressingly often this type of thing happens. The heroine just disconnects her mind from her body in the moment. The perpetrator has so far been a lovable dork, someone with too-small clothes who comes bearing comic books. Penny, our heroine � up until then � enjoys his company and wanted to kiss him. And then...
I had to sit with this scene and think about how it accorded with the rest of the book, the way it may go someway to explain the heroine’s revulsion at touch and her lack of trust and difficulties building friendships and relationships (see also: Mary HK Choi’s autism diagnosis and the clarity in her essay around how being neurodivergent has made her feel, at times, marooned on planet Earth, unable to understand the mores and customs of being a person in relation to other people, even her own husband.).
One thing I liked � that the supporting cast of characters each had a chance to confront Penny to express their dismay at being held at arm’s length and to try to build or repair their bond with her. May the people in our lives who we’ve done this to because of deeply buried hurt give us the same opportunities. ...more
This book is a magic trick � it feels like it might be frothy and gossipy but it’s pitch black. It manages to be genuinely funny, as well as devastatiThis book is a magic trick � it feels like it might be frothy and gossipy but it’s pitch black. It manages to be genuinely funny, as well as devastating. The pressure, the tight, stressful core that runs through Jennette’s childhood through to adulthood, it twists like a rubber band around a finger, tighter, ever tighter. The same girl who is unable to advocate for a preference as simple as purple over pink � for this would mean defying a cut and dried image her mother has picked out for her � is, quite reasonably, unable to resist being forced into a career as a child actor that can only be described as a hostage situation, an act of emotional terrorism. I once dreamed of being in television commercials. But if you don’t want to perform, if you find it embarrassing, if you’re acting out someone else’s dream - the same person who has tethered yourself to your side and is eating the same child-sized ice cream cone, as in, she’s eating it with you, she does not have her own cone - it would be excruciating. The titular Mom is volatile, so violent and fickle that Jennette’s fawn response � the newly understood ‘f� to take its place among fight, flight and freeze � means she must please this Mom, she must perform, she has to succeed.
Despite McCurdy’s wry humour, it’s clear how much this all hurts � physically, emotionally. Since the young McCurdy’s ability to cry on cue is apparently impressive enough to make it onto her burgeoning resume, I looked up a scene with her crying. The explanation of how she had to visualise scenarios that brought out grief-wracked sobs made the scene a hard watch; that kid was beside herself.
Scenes of Debra, the mom, mercilessly altering young Jennette’s appearance makes me wonder if Jojo Siwa might have a similar memoir in her, since her own mother bleached Jojo’s hair from age 2. Beauty school dropout Debra trying to essentially clone herself, to treat her daughter as a do-over for her own unfulfilled dreams, is eerie, controlling and incredibly sinister when she showers her daughter and inspects her naked body until her late teens.
I had to laugh how “mom’s little actress� with her “actress’s peach butt� and not a “writer’s watermelon butt� has now sat atop the bestseller lists for 80 weeks. I hope she doesn’t give a fuck these days about the size of her butt, and what fruit it may be comparable to, but worry that she does since her book makes clear that a horribly ingrained habit, taught to her by her mother from the age of 11, sometimes still pops up, like a boogey man in a children’s book. The scratching of her throat as she purges, the physical horrors of being gripped by an eating disorder, are not shied away from. The worst part � they’re so, so repetitive.
Children’s television has often seemed too loud, too bright, the colours overly vivid, everyone’s porcelain teeth entirely too large, the smiles forced. Now, with Quiet On Set out with its devastating allegations, and McCurdy explaining having rebuffed $300,000 in what she called hush money, it seems awful, horrible that the life she had was not of her own choosing, the tension of it, the bigness of what was demanded of her and how small she felt she had to become. ...more
This book comforts with its bigness and its smallness. There’s excellent science communication about microscopic things, there’s illustrated scenes toThis book comforts with its bigness and its smallness. There’s excellent science communication about microscopic things, there’s illustrated scenes to provoke wonder and awe and there’s plenty of just a regular tabby shitting in a litter box. Sarah Firth is startlingly candid in her storytelling - we see glimpses of addiction, a complicated upbringing and being slut shamed in high school. But despite often portraying herself naked, she never seems vulnerable. Instead, she’s highly attuned to life, the universe and everything. What an extraordinary book from a highly unusual brain. I am sure I’ll consult it from time to time, like an atlas. It’s hard to explain precisely what this book even is. But I’m glad I finally have a copy just as I’m glad I went to college with Sarah many years ago....more
Sittenfeld really has a gift for capturing mortification. For capturing foibles in general. Many of the stories feel startlingly intimate, like suddenSittenfeld really has a gift for capturing mortification. For capturing foibles in general. Many of the stories feel startlingly intimate, like suddenly becoming a voyeur. Being so competent in her craftsmanship, this is an easy read. You’ll get through it like a can of Pringles and then a few of the images in the stories will haunt you. I read the first story that features a Hillary Clintonesque character right after seeing the actual Clinton present at a summit I attended. Sittenfeld’s Clinton was uncannily real. ...more
This book is brief and naturally comedic but while it seems to be doing very little, perhaps even nothing, it does in fact do quite a lot. It’s philosThis book is brief and naturally comedic but while it seems to be doing very little, perhaps even nothing, it does in fact do quite a lot. It’s philosophical at its heart. What does it mean to be a person? How do actions - and inactions - define us? How and why do we act differently in the company of another human, if there is a relationship there and if there isn’t?
I bought this book for a high price at an art gallery store. Now that I think of it, I absolutely curate my actions depending on whether I’m alone or not. On this day, I was by myself. So I felt free to dip in and out of the gallery store, pondering its merchandise, while this luridly coloured book slowly gripped onto me. I could tell it would be a delicious read, that it would be all fun, no work. If I had been in the company of another person at the gallery, I wouldn’t have spent so much time at the store. Wouldn’t have wanted to seem like a frivolous person who loves products so much. Unless, perhaps, if I were accompanied by Rental Person. Then maybe I’d feel free to do whatever, because he would do nothing. What a wonderful thing: to do nothing.
Full disclosure: I’m one of the writers. Highly recommend this to any horror fan. It’s like a big delicious spooky buffet that will surprise, delight Full disclosure: I’m one of the writers. Highly recommend this to any horror fan. It’s like a big delicious spooky buffet that will surprise, delight - and creep you out. A buffet in the underworld, perhaps. Special mention to Chuck McKenzie's The Dark Man, By Referral which has strong Stephen King energy. Also Claire L Smith's The Last Runt which is cinematic and took a piece out of me. Tansy Rayner Roberts' The Haunting of Lift Three is hilarious - why would anyone keep entering an extremely haunted lift?! Put up an ‘out of order� sign! It’s such a fun collection. Publishing debutante Annie McCann is one to watch, expect big things from her! ...more
Am I a little biased because Chuck and I were on the same panel at the launch of an anthology we both worked on? Maybe. But I know for a fact* that huAm I a little biased because Chuck and I were on the same panel at the launch of an anthology we both worked on? Maybe. But I know for a fact* that humour is hard to write and Conversations With My Cat had me grinning from the acknowledgments page onwards. If you are a cat person, this will prove everything you ever imagined about cats. If you are a dog person, it will prove everything you ever imagined about cats.
* Seriously I once wrote a page of funny content or so I thought. I got to watch through glass as my editors had a hushed closed-door meeting and emerged to gravely inform me that my piece wasn’t funny. ...more
I was excited to read this book - how many Malaysian-Australian YA paranormal novels are there, really?
Points in its favour: it’s bizarre and immersiI was excited to read this book - how many Malaysian-Australian YA paranormal novels are there, really?
Points in its favour: it’s bizarre and immersive in a way that helped me pass the time in hospital. It’s diverse in a natural way - it’s just populated with diverse characters, much like the city of Sydney which is its setting. I loved the sly winks to Spider-Man (there’s an Aunt Mei). Also, the horror can be quite visceral. khoo doesn’t shy away from the bodily reality of being spider-like: that petite teen Zhi has a throat that stretches when she swallows her prey was really quite something to read and think about.
Four stars because I got a little confused in the end. Also, to me, Dior is so strongly associated with a brand that I had trouble thinking of Dior as a character’s name.
Thank you to Cabramatta Community for the free copy of the book....more
This book was gifted to me by a friend who packaged it up as a ‘blind date�. I must say, her taste is exquisite. It fit me perfectly with its fun soutThis book was gifted to me by a friend who packaged it up as a ‘blind date�. I must say, her taste is exquisite. It fit me perfectly with its fun southern gothic charm and eccentric sensibilities. It also has deeply emotional parts that will speak to anyone who has grieved or grieves still. There’s a couple of parts that made me teary. Someone my age probably shouldn’t have encountered as much death as I have. The book’s treatment of death is a warm embrace. The romance was very signposted but in an enjoyable way - there are several sly winks to the tropes of the genre. Great fun and likely to be reread a few times. ...more
Five stars easily. I was thoroughly entertained and had a wonderful time in the world of this book. It’s a sensory experience and lavish in its prose.Five stars easily. I was thoroughly entertained and had a wonderful time in the world of this book. It’s a sensory experience and lavish in its prose. If you understand Chinese culture - eg haw candies and Pixiu mythical beasts - it adds something to the text. I have a feeling the heroine, who has strong ‘not like other girls� energy may grate on some readers. She uses specific slang and insults that are quite repetitive. Nonetheless it was fun and rewarding to read. I have a feeling it includes deeper themes about, for example, being mixed race, being adopted, growing up and finding one’s place in the world. But it’s equally a romp and a love story and full of glittering jewels....more
I liked how many of the characters - probably most - weren’t likable. Why be likable when one can be funny, flawed, weird, grasping, desperate? Some oI liked how many of the characters - probably most - weren’t likable. Why be likable when one can be funny, flawed, weird, grasping, desperate? Some of the character flaws are rather extreme, though - one plainly beats his puppy.
Despite loving Middlesex, the short story with the Peter Luce character (The Oracular Vulva) was distasteful.
I got along much better with Capricious Gardens which was prettily written as well as hilarious, a kind of Frasier-style scenario.
The white collar crime-related story was dry. It’s overall an uneven collection but enough in it is well worth your time. ...more
This was so fun and charming. It was such a pleasure to read, so naturally and genuinely funny, that I finished it in a day. The distinctive voice of This was so fun and charming. It was such a pleasure to read, so naturally and genuinely funny, that I finished it in a day. The distinctive voice of Don reminds me of the speaking and thinking style of people I have known and loved. In fact, I’ve been Don at times: excruciatingly pedantic and literal, disliking hugs and clinging to routine. I’d like to think I’m more like Rosie, but no, I’m Don. Is this book considered a romance? I’m not sure. It was recommended to me by a stranger at the book sale and I’m recommending it to you now. ...more
I re-read this recently because I got to ask two questions of Curtis Sittenfeld on BBC World Book Club and didn’t want to embarrass myself. My own copI re-read this recently because I got to ask two questions of Curtis Sittenfeld on BBC World Book Club and didn’t want to embarrass myself. My own copy is out there somewhere - I lent it to a former colleague, someone and she didn’t give it back. So I paged through a library copy. Parts of it felt so familiar it was like accessing my own memories. Parts of it didn’t resonate at all. Parts of it have this deep secondhand cringe attached to them. It’s intentional of course, but the cringe is so deep it makes you want to tear off your own skin. Some of it felt good to read, some of it bothered me, like a splinter. Sittenfeld, in answering my question, did say she might have approached some of the racial issues in the book differently if she were writing today. Overall, this book is worth your time if you love deep introspection and incredible amounts of teenage awkwardness....more
This is a DNF. I found it too dull and repetitive to complete. About 100 pages in and extremely little has happened other than the central mystery. ThThis is a DNF. I found it too dull and repetitive to complete. About 100 pages in and extremely little has happened other than the central mystery. There’s no sense of building tension. I’m sure the heroine’s people-watching is meant to be intriguing but I can’t bring myself to care about her observations, which are so unvarying: that a family of four’s matriarch dotes on one son, leaving the other son starving for attention. That a newlywed couple seem to dislike each other. That her husband seems increasingly unlike the man she married. And repeat.
I thought a plush resort might be a fun setting but characters really do almost nothing as they are on holiday. I suppose it might suddenly spring to life and become the fascinating thriller it’s described as but life’s too short to put myself through this....more
I really wanted to like it. It was charming and fun in the bookstore where it stood out to me in the horror section. But I found it quite clunky - sorI really wanted to like it. It was charming and fun in the bookstore where it stood out to me in the horror section. But I found it quite clunky - sort of young, like a debut novel. It was made up of vibes mostly. Very little happened for quite some time. And even when the beast is awakened and is on a rampage, I wasn’t scared, and I scare easily. I had to stop reading Rosemary’s Baby because I was freaking out. This never felt scary - and never felt immersive. I never got lost in the world of the book. It never resonated with me, except the first chapter or so which were endearing like an old Monster of the Week X-Files episode. ...more
Having finished the book and being so satisfied by it, I’m a little melancholy as I’ll miss the characters.
It’s essentially a character study - a studHaving finished the book and being so satisfied by it, I’m a little melancholy as I’ll miss the characters.
It’s essentially a character study - a study of many characters, in fact - done on a grand scale. Not much plot but it’s bursting with love and life and is all masterfully stitched together like a beautiful quilt.
Everything is superlative: the most handsome or beautiful, the most chaotic or promiscuous or dilapidated. Things pay off instantly: put on a show and it’s an overnight hit. See a handsome man; love him immediately.
It tangles with the joys of an unconventional life, of living outside the boxes other people have set out for you. What if instead of a conservative and rich wife and mother, you were a gleefully promiscuous seamstress piecing together gowns from scrap fabrics? What if your home was a ruined theatre and the people who loved you best were your eccentric aunt and a loud rag trader? What if love was best expressed through a devoted lifetime of service? Through lengthy nighttime walks together? Through helping raise a child not your own? Through understanding yourself deeply enough to fulfil your own needs?
It’s easy to read. For all she goes through, there just isn’t much sorrow for our heroine nor anyone else. This book is a big box of chocolates and once you like the taste, you’ll gobble it up at all hours of the day and night, furtively and joyfully, and savour the taste. ...more
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