en-US Sat, 12 Apr 2025 17:52:48 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg ReadStatus9301957775 Sat, 12 Apr 2025 17:52:48 -0700 /review/show/7483807962 Christopher is currently reading The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
]]> Review7468297584 Sat, 12 Apr 2025 17:43:59 -0700 /review/show/7468297584 Christopher gave 4 stars to Pew (Hardcover) by Catherine Lacey
bookshelves: 21st-century, american, fiction, nameless-characters
A vague but moving story. On the surface, it's about a nameless, faceless, genderless, nearly featureless character who's thrown at the mercy of a small Southern town. Pew (as the narrator becomes known, because they are found sleeping on a church pew) isn't actually the star of the show. They are simply the vessel used for the townsfolk to let down their guard and expose their secrets; Pew, who speaks no more than twenty or thirty words in the whole novel, is a recording angel for a bunch of folk who think they've moved past the past but they haven't.

It gets a bit strange and ambiguous, but it's a story that's filled with humanity—both the good and bad parts. ]]> Review7447331676 Sun, 06 Apr 2025 12:35:24 -0700 /review/show/7447331676 Christopher gave 5 stars to The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership (Paperback) by Wendell Berry
bookshelves: 20th-century, american, fiction
Wendell Berry's fiction offers up a different kind of escapism; there are no spaceships or lasers or wizards. These are stories that, if I were to describe them (an attorney trying to fulfill a will, an old man going for a walk in the woods and remembering things, children working in fields and messing around), would sound pretty mundane. And it probably seems odd to call something that's so entrenched in realism "escapism".

But the more I get involved in the modern world (the more days I spend at a desk and the fewer days I spend out in the woods or playing in a stream or whatever), the more I wish to escape to Berry's Port William, where you know everyone's family history and where, sure, there are problems and conflicts, but they're all manageable, and for the most part the people are good people. Wouldn't it be nice to be a member of that membership? ]]> Review7467591242 Sun, 06 Apr 2025 12:33:39 -0700 /review/show/7467591242 Christopher gave 2 stars to Eat the Rich (Paperback) by Sarah Gailey
bookshelves: 21st-century, american, comics-graphic-novels, fiction, horror
A half-baked rip-off of Get Out. ]]> ReadStatus9249513140 Sun, 30 Mar 2025 07:30:51 -0700 /review/show/7447331676 Christopher is currently reading The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership by Wendell Berry
]]> Review7394961455 Fri, 28 Mar 2025 04:37:36 -0700 /review/show/7394961455 Christopher gave 5 stars to Black Swan Green (Paperback) by David Mitchell
bookshelves: 21st-century, bildungsroman, british, fiction
A wonderful coming of age novel that belongs on a bookshelf alongside To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, and Dandelion Wine. ]]> ReadStatus9202656954 Tue, 18 Mar 2025 12:32:28 -0700 /review/show/383170940 Christopher is currently reading The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
]]> Review7384003801 Tue, 18 Mar 2025 10:02:53 -0700 /review/show/7384003801 Christopher gave 5 stars to The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Hardcover) by Brian Selznick
bookshelves: american, children-s, future-classics, 21st-century, historical-fiction, fiction, bildungsroman
Sometimes children's literature is the best literature. Somehow this is all at once a Dickensian tale of poverty, an education in early twentieth century arts and technology, a saga of generational trauma, and a quest to uncover one's identity. Plus, it's got some beautiful art, incorporated in a novel way.

5 stars! ]]> ReadStatus9174589440 Tue, 11 Mar 2025 11:09:17 -0700 /review/show/7394961455 Christopher is currently reading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
]]> Review7384026441 Tue, 11 Mar 2025 05:06:05 -0700 /review/show/7384026441 Christopher gave 3 stars to Cult X (Hardcover) by Fuminori Nakamura
bookshelves: 21st-century, japanese, fiction
I think that every Japanese book I've ever read has been about conformity or nonconformity. Is that because that's what the Japanese write about, or because that's what becomes popular and makes it to an English translation? The Factory and The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, Nipponia Nippon by Kazushige Abe, 1Q84 and Kafka on the Shore by Murakami, In the Miso Soup by the "other" Murakami, even The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe... these are all books about characters transgressing from normal society and finding a path that is better suited for themselves.

That's taken to an extreme with Cult X, which is actually about two cults: one with a good (or relatively harmless) leader, and one with the epitome of evil at its head. Naturally, it focuses a bit more on the evil cult, and things get very, very dark. Thematically, this book roams all over the place. Conformity is top of mind, but it also goes into conspiracy theories, Japanese political history, particle physics, metaphysics, mysticism, the existence of god, and sexuality.

Despite its rough subject matter, it's an entertaining read. The plot moves quickly and there are plenty of twists, especially in the endgame. Some of it feels a bit ham-handed; this book pulls a strange trick in that it provides almost no character building in the front half of the book. For some reason, it waits until near the end to give characters backstory and motivations, so for the first half you're kind of just going on faith that the author will tie everything together and make it all make sense. ]]>