Review: House of Margins

House of Margins by Tlotlo Tsamaase
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is an unforgettable masterpiece. A gripping gothic tale of colonization and cultural appropriation, set against the backdrop of an African writing fellowship that’s run by white people still hoping to capitalize on Black trauma, in a Huis that’s haunted beyond belief with the spirits slain in centuries of genocide, and presented in the style of a true crime podcast hosted by the one white Afrikaner selected for this fellowship, while also exploring the traumas within the indigenous communities of the nations of Southern Africa…this is a novel anyone who reads it won’t soon forget, and for good goddamn reason.

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Review: Scorched Grace

Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first in this series introduces a singular new protagonist to the world of the mystery genre: Sister Holiday, a rough and tumble New Orleans nun with a dark and troubled past, and still prone to various vices and sins - hell, she’s smoking right there on the beautiful cover art, an early indication of this book’s massively blasphemous style. It’s a mystery, to be sure, but it’s much less about the arson plot and more about the tension between each and every character, especially as Sister Holiday has to reckon with her past. I’ll be reading the next two books very soon, that’s for sure.

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Review: Doing Time

Doing Time by Jodi Taylor
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I picked up this book thinking it would be a great time-travel adventure kind of story, and somehow...I don't know, it just fell flat for me, for some reason. The concept is a strong one - eerily predicting the TVA from Loki several years before that show first streamed on Disney+, and I'm surprised the notoriously litigious producers of El Ministerio del Tiempo didn't try to accuse Jodi Taylor of ripping them off the way they did with Timeless (which is how I first heard about them, and it's a shame the writer loves to sue the pants off everyone because that show was damn good stuff.) I think for me, what really brings this book down is the cast of characters, who feel like they belong more in a sitcom than anything else, but the humor just doesn't really land for me. Shame, that. I guess I won't be continuing with this series after all.

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Review: Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina

Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina by Chris Frantz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Talking Heads may be known for their chunky, complex music, but drummer Chris Frantz’s rock memoir is refreshingly unpretentious and straightforward. Primarily focused on the band’s early days - lots of dreadful NYC lofts to live in, grueling tours with the Ramones, Frantz meeting the love of his life in bassist Tina Weymouth - and eventually working up to Tom Tom Club as well, there’s definitely one recurring theme that anyone familiar with Talking Heads can tell you right off the bat. It’s that David Byrne is a dreadful role model for autistic people, not in terms of talent - his is undeniable - but in terms of personality, as Frantz recalls numerous occasions where Byrne went behind everyone else’s backs to ensure he would be the only credited writer on the band’s biggest hits. It’s too bad Byrne’s an asshole, because without Frantz and Weymouth’s rhythm section, that’s where the band’s legacy wouldn’t exist.

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Review: We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not unlike Dungeon Crawler Carl in how a major publisher picked up the series years after it started out as an indie piece, this Bobiverse has now come to my attention as a wacky piece of sci-fi satire. Bizarrely managing to serve as the missing link between Old Man's War and Ancillary Justice, with its main character getting a new lease on life as an AI with many clones of himself in a ship's computer, it also plays out with some clear influence from Parable of the Sower in the DNA. Between Bob's 21st century death and 22nd century revival, America falls to a religious nutcase fascist who is actually successful in his coup against his legitimate successor, precipitating lengthy wars and several countries sending colony ships out into deep space. It's a combination of dorky humor and the kind of politics we all need to keep down in order to get to the Star Trek universe humanity really needs to live, and while the marketing is angling for the legions of DCC fans, as one of the few DCC anti-fans, it's working for me, for now. At least I know this series has an ending...

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Review: A Song Only We Can Hear: A novel about cancer, music & love

A Song Only We Can Hear: A novel about cancer, music & love by Elliot Wake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After ten years away from the scene, Elliot Wake has returned at last with a new book that plays just a little bit lighter than the dark thrillers he was known for when he was getting started, but it's also got a foot in the well of black comedy and a foot in the well of relationship drama. Centering on a musical young man named Cam who's been struggling to break away from a very toxic relationship - his narcissistic influencer ex Tara being exactly the type to manipulate not only him, but also an entire social media following, painting herself as an abuser's victim in a perfectly infuriating example of DARVO - he's now dealing with cancer and chemo on top of everything else. Wake's previous books predate #MeToo, but this book incorporates it into the storyline as part of Tara's sinister social media grifting in ways that wouldn't be out of place in Black Iris or Bad Boy, and I'd be willing to bet Black Iris themselves would have their eye on Tara once they figure out the truth.

Review: Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous

Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous by Autumn K. England
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn’t realize until after I actually opened this book that it came from the author of one of my old faves from back in my bookstore ARC collecting days: The Disasters. Like that book, this one is a casually hyper inclusive narrative, this time in a cozy fantasy setting where queerness is accepted and encouraged. But there’s still a certain undercurrent of awfulness in the society of this little village, with a dread Inquisitor still chasing down the former acolytes of the evil Enchantrix (on which note, I have to say, this book is so queer-normative that the villain is nonbinary and even the local church doesn’t have a problem with that specifically), and unfortunately protagonist Oaklin is one of them. But the book is all about Oaklin learning to move on from their trauma, and make no mistake, the Enchantrix used them and countless others, while the church had the paladins kill first and ask questions never. But now that everyone’s in a sleepy farming village after the war, it’s time they all got along…and while this book stands alone, the note at the end suggests England is planning to write at least one more anthological entry…

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