Allen Bratton's Henry Henry chronicles a year in the life of Hal Lancaster. Readers already familiar with Shakespeare's history plays will immediatelyAllen Bratton's Henry Henry chronicles a year in the life of Hal Lancaster. Readers already familiar with Shakespeare's history plays will immediately recognize the landscape of Bratton's novel in this modern-day queer reimagining of the Henriad. There's Hal, the disaffected, wayward son; Henry, the stoic, dutiful father; Ned Poins, the working class, rowdy youth with whom Hal spends his days; Falstaff, the has-been drunkard who's obsessed with Hal; and Harry Percy, the rival, the golden boy—the dutiful son who exhibits all the ideal aristocratic traits Hal lacks. Readers unfamiliar with the narrative off which Bratton is riffing will lose very little in translation, as Bratton's characters are vividly realized, all authentic in their own right.
You can read my full review HERE on BookBrowse, and you can read a piece I wrote about Shakespeare's Henriad HERE....more
Was this bad? Yes. Was I entertained? Yes. Will I be reading the sequel? Listen—yeah. (Review to come but also just… don’t read this book if you’re soWas this bad? Yes. Was I entertained? Yes. Will I be reading the sequel? Listen—yeah. (Review to come but also just… don’t read this book if you’re someone who follows me because you like my taste in books. This is not my taste in books.)...more
I only requested this anthology so I could read the Lear story and move on with my life (in my quest to read every Lear retelling I can get my hands oI only requested this anthology so I could read the Lear story and move on with my life (in my quest to read every Lear retelling I can get my hands on), but what can I say, once I had it on my Kindle I couldn't resist. Even though I don't particularly like YA and didn't have the highest of hopes that these stories would engage with the plays in particularly interesting ways. Still, there were some pleasant surprises here.
That Way Madness Lies is a YA anthology by a handful of noted writers, each retelling a different Shakespeare play. The selection of plays itself is very good--there are the crowd pleasers as well as a couple of unexpected ones. The organization of this anthology bothered me on a couple of levels--first off, why is The Winter's Tale placed in the Late Romances category but not The Tempest? We're also frequently treated to 1-page author's notes after stories, all of the same tenor; "this is why the original play was problematic and here's how I decided to fix it". Which, aside from being jarring and downright annoying, showed such a blatant disregard for Shakespearean scholarship that I had to laugh--yes, of course this is a commercial anthology intended for a young audience but my god, patting yourself on the back for being brave enough to consider The Merchant of Venice through Shylock's perspective as if scholars, directors, actors, and audiences haven't been doing exactly that for centuries is solipsistic to the extreme.
Anyway, as always with anthologies, it's a mixed bag. Some of these stories are unexpected and brilliant and others fall spectacularly flat. So, let's do this.
Comedies
"Severe Weather Warning" by Austin Siegemund-Broka and Emily Wibberley (The Tempest) - 4 stars A nice and melancholy snapshot into sibling rivalry as a storm rages outside, delaying Prosper's sister's flight to a prestigious internship that she effectively stole from her sister. Really enjoyed this one and felt that it was one of the most successful stories in accessing the original play's themes even as a nonliteral reimagining.
"Shipwrecked" by Mark Oshiro (Twelfth Night) - 3 stars Twelfth Night meets high school prom--we've got some love and heartbreak coupled with mistaken identity shenanigans as one twin has recently come out as nonbinary and has started to resemble their brother. It's a bit corny but mostly harmless.
"King of the Fairies" by Anna-Marie McLemore (A Midsummer Night's Dream) - 1 star Midsummer from the perspective of the "Indian" child abducted by Oberon and Titania. Hands down one of my least favorites from this collection; it couldn't be more heavy-handed and patronizing if it tried. If you like McLemore's writing you'll probably like this story; I simply do not.
"Taming of the Soulmate" by K. Ancrum (The Taming of the Shrew) - 3 stars A soulmate AU where Katherine doesn't see color until she meets Petrucio at her sister Bianca's party; rather an inconvenience for her 5-year plan. I take umbrage at a modern retelling framing Petruchio as the Reasonable One, but I grudgingly ended up appreciating where this story arrived.
"We Have Seen Better Days" by Lily Anderson (As You Like It) - 2 stars I found this story perplexing. As You Like It, as far as I'm concerned, is fertile ground for a reimagining that focuses on gender identity (a topic otherwise omnipresent in this anthology)--and instead we get... a story about summer camp nostalgia and daddy issues? Anyway, I'd be happy to put my expectations aside about what this had the potential to be if it were any good at all, but it was objectively one of the weakest in the collection.
"Some Other Metal" by Amy Rose Capetta and Cory McCarthy (Much Ado About Nothing) - 1 star I kind of hate Much Ado so I was probably never going to like this very much but... yeah, it was bad. It follows two actors, Tegan and Taron, who play Beatrice and Benedick on stage, and off-stage have an antagonistic relationship, but they’re trying to be set up by their director. The meta narrative was painfully obvious and would be more fun if you enjoyed Beatrice and Benedick's dynamic in the slightest which I can't say I do. This story is also set in outer space for reasons that are of absolutely no consequence?
"I Bleed" by Dahlia Adler (The Merchant of Venice) - 5 stars Annoying author's note aside I honestly adored this. The Merchant of Venice + high school doesn't seem like a match made in heaven--right down to Antonio's occupation being declared in the title, this is an inarguably adult work. Part of the fun, then, becomes seeing how deftly Adler adapts this story's mature moving parts to a context which shouldn't work at all... but somehow does, brilliantly. It's a very literal adaptation which otherwise isn't my favorite approach in this collection, but I found this one very successful.
A Sonnet
"His Invitation" by Brittany Cavallaro (Sonnet 147) - 4 stars A couple take a road trip to California in the only story in this collection that tackles a sonnet. I have to say, this one didn't make a huge impression on me as I was reading (part of it due to being the shortest story in this collection), but interestingly it's really the only one I'm still thinking about after having finished.
Tragedies
"Partying is Such Sweet Sorrow" by Kiersten White (Romeo and Juliet) - 4 stars Yes, the title is stupid, but let’s move on. White actually does a remarkable job at capturing the simultaneous foolishness and lovability of the titular protagonists. This story is told entirely in text speak which admittedly is not my favorite, but it makes for fast, feverish reading, which is probably the effect that White intended. This story I felt was one of the most successful at transporting the emotional landscape of Shakespeare to a much smaller and more modern setting, and hands down the most effective story in the tragedy section.
"Dreaming of the Dark" by Lindsay Smith (Julius Caesar) - 2 stars Julius Caesar meets a private girl’s school and dark magic. The context of this one was so utterly contrived (Briony and Cassie have just killed Julia as a sacrifice to a dark god; Annamaria wants revenge) I couldn’t really take it seriously.
"The Tragedy of Cory Lanez" by Tochi Onyebuchi (Coriolanus) - 2 stars This one is probably better than I'm giving it credit for. Cameron Marcus, known by stage name Cory Lanez, is a rapper who was recently stabbed to death; this story tackles family, sexuality, and LA gang violence. Unfortunately it's also told as an oral history, and it's that format that I couldn't really get past--I don't think it works at all in short story form; the author hasn't earned the reader's investment in the character that we're mourning and the result is tedium. Which is kind of fitting for Coriolanus to be fair.
"Elsinore" by Patrice Caldwell (Hamlet) - 3 stars Hamlet retold as a penny dreadful--we're in Victorian England, and Claudius is a vampire. Anne (Hamlet) and Camilla (Ophelia) team up to take him down. This will work for a lot of readers better than it worked for me, it simply wasn't to my taste.
"Out of the Storm" by Joy McCullough (King Lear) - 1 star Oh boy, HERE WE GO. I was already approaching this with trepidation after despising McCullough's bestselling Blood Water Paint, but I think my mind was as open as it could have been under the circumstances. Anyway, I remain unconvinced that McCullough has read anything more than the wikipedia summary for Lear as this really failed to engage with it on... any level deeper than 'three sisters whose names start with G, R, C.' Written like a play script, it's a snapshot piece where we see Gabi and Cora at their dying father's bedside at the hospital; Rowan, the middle daughter, bursts in and we discover that she's absented herself from the family to get out from under their strict minister father's thumb. Arguments ensue; Rowan is accused of being selfish, she retaliates that she had the fortitude to escape, etc., that kind of thing. Look, I'm sympathetic to the fact that Lear is one of the hardest plays to retell and I'm happy for a reimagining to be nonliteral, as long as it accesses some of the original play's themes, which this just didn't, at all. Ample meditation on truth, power, aging, justice, human nature, and cosmic inevitability to draw from and you opt for... three sisters with an over-controlling father? (The play script format was insufferable as well; if this were a real play it would be peak 'family arguing at the dinner table' theatre.)
"We Fail" by Samantha Mabry (Macbeth) - 1 star Just dreadful. Drea, a high school senior, has recently suffered a miscarriage, and her fiancé, Mateo, has been passed over for a football scholarship. When the two get in a car crash and their friend Duncan is pinned beneath the car, Drea convinces Mateo to wait before calling for help, so Duncan will die and Mateo can take his scholarship; and also because she's still mourning the loss of her child and needs to take control of their future. I really despise Macbeth retellings that have a hyperfixation on Lady Macbeth's fertility, and for that narrative to be given to a high schooler made it all the more perplexing and oddly melodramatic in a way that didn't show a similar self-awareness as the Romeo and Juliet story. This was too rushed as well; maybe it could have done something interesting as a longer story, but hurtling through the events of Macbeth at breakneck speed just didn't work.
Late Romance
"Lost Girl" by Melissa Bashardoust (The Winter's Tale) - 4 stars This was a lovely story about Perdita who recently discovered the identity of her absent father, trying to cope with that as her new relationship with classics student Zal blossoms. It's short and sweet and a nice note to end on.
Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
I read Taylor's short story Anne of Cleves ages ago (which appears in this collection), and I quickly fell in love. In some ways it's a melancholic, hI read Taylor's short story Anne of Cleves ages ago (which appears in this collection), and I quickly fell in love. In some ways it's a melancholic, heavy story, but there's also a playfulness to it, and I found that tone so refreshing that I was sure that Filthy Animals was going to end up as one of my favorite books of the year.
Instead, this book is unendingly bleak. Anne of Cleves offers a brief respite from the misery, but it's otherwise a weightier collection than I had expected. Every alternating story in this collection follows the same narrative: a depressed Black man named Lionel has just met a white couple at a party, Charles and Sophie, who are in an open relationship; he hooks up with Charles and then gets drawn into their lives. I loved the choice to anchor the collection to a single narrative, and without fail these stories were my favorites and the ones where Taylor most succeeded at accessing the characters' complex emotional landscapes.
The other stories left less of an impression on me, and I think it's because we just don't spend enough time with the characters to fully earn the emotional impact that Taylor is aiming for, and that he nails so well with Wallace's story in Real Life. I finished this a week ago and Lionel's story is really the only one that has stuck in my mind since then.
I still really enjoyed reading this--a discussed, I love Taylor's writing--and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. It's a skillful exploration of the intersection of loneliness, trauma, and intimacy--it just wasn't entirely what I needed it to be. But that is a-okay! Will still devour whatever Taylor publishes next....more
Like most anthologies, Kink: Stories was a mixed bag, though it's certainly enjoyable for its novelty alone (its thesis being that erotica has a placeLike most anthologies, Kink: Stories was a mixed bag, though it's certainly enjoyable for its novelty alone (its thesis being that erotica has a place in literary fiction). I found the preponderance of stories about BDSM started to get a little boring after a while, but this was otherwise a refreshing collection that I enjoyed spending time with.
I felt the stories that were the most successful were the ones that contextualized the characters’ kinks—I don’t mean that in a ‘every kink comes from a fucked up childhood’ kind of way; I mean that your life and your sex life are part of the same whole and some of these stories were more interested in interrogating that intersection than others.
The two absolute stand-outs were Brandon Taylor's Oh, Youth (tender, devastating) and Carmen Maria Machado's The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror (weird, sensual)--incidentally the two longest stories in the collection. The other surprising highlight for me was Trust by Larissa Pham, an author I'd never heard of, whose Vermont-set story I found evocative and effectively moving.
The less said about Roxane Gay's Reach the better, and a handful of other stories fell flat too, mostly the ones that lacked interiority of any kind. You could tell that a lot of these authors wanted to forgo character and dive straight into Commentary About Desire, and I always found that much less effective.
(Also, anyone looking forward to new Garth Greenwell should know that his story, Gospodar, is a chapter taken straight from Cleanness--I ended up skipping it when I realized I recognized what I was reading as I hadn't particularly enjoyed that chapter the first time.)
Bottom line is that it's honestly worth the price of admission for Taylor and Machado, but otherwise it didn't totally reach its promising potential.
Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
They Never Learn was the most fun I've had with a book in ages. It's far from perfect (it notably leans into an obsession with the glam femme fatale They Never Learn was the most fun I've had with a book in ages. It's far from perfect (it notably leans into an obsession with the glam femme fatale in a way that wouldn't have been out of place with mid-2000s feminist media), but I'm just going to leave that criticism at the door because I had such a damn good time reading this.
It follows Scarlett, a professor-turned-vigilante serial killer who spends her evenings tracking down and murdering men who have abused women. We also follow a student at her university, Carly, a shy 18-year-old who becomes infatuated with her roommate. Their chapters alternate, each a short, 3-5 page segment that confidently leaps from one perspective to the next, daring the reader to keep up. This book is a page-turner, first and foremost, and it does a spectacular job at cohering into something that you can devour in a single sitting if you're so inclined.
This book is so clever, so unexpected, so deliciously indulgent. Scarlett is a brilliant creation, and Carly's chapters work to ground the novel and develop a character whose quotidian anxieties you can sympathize with, while Scarlett's chapters amp up the stakes. Highly recommended to all thriller fans, with the caveat of there being a significant trigger warning for sexual assault.
I won an advanced copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway; thanks Gallery Scout Press. All thoughts are my own....more
A bit of a repetitive and underdeveloped read. I wanted to see more of a reckoning for the protagonist whose obsession with her aloof best friend singA bit of a repetitive and underdeveloped read. I wanted to see more of a reckoning for the protagonist whose obsession with her aloof best friend singularly dominated this novel, but the narrative never really turned a corner. I find it frustrating when a book takes itself too seriously to be a breezy beach read yet not seriously enough to live up to its literary potential. The result was kind of just Temu Elena Ferrante. ...more
I finished In the Dream House a few weeks ago but I haven't found myself able to rise to the challenge of reviewing this book. It's one of the best tI finished In the Dream House a few weeks ago but I haven't found myself able to rise to the challenge of reviewing this book. It's one of the best things I've read all year; one of the best memoirs I've read ever. My instinct is to say that this book won't be for everyone due to its highly inventive structure, but where I find that literary invention tends to be alienating, Carmen Maria Machado's memoir is so fiercely personal that I doubt anyone could accuse it of being emotionally removed.
In the Dream House tells the story of an abusive relationship that Machado was in with another woman in her 20s; she draws the reader into the alarming reality that she lived for years, with just enough of the abuse detailed that it avoids gratuity while still becoming a sickening, terrifying read, oddly reminiscent of an old-fashioned horror film. This book is written in first and second person, with present-day Carmen speaking to past-Carmen, allowing her to display a vulnerability to the reader that can be hard to achieve in even the most open of memoirs.
Machado is very conscious of the fact that she's written a singular, pioneering text; there's commentary woven throughout the narrative about how woefully under-researched the subject of abuse in queer female relationships is. In contrast with the cultural misconception that women cannot abuse each other, she integrates references to myth, literature, history, and scholarship into her own story, heightening the timelessness, the commonality of her own horrifying experiences.
This is a chilling, clear-eyed, conceptually brilliant text that I sincerely hope reaches the readers who need it the most. Highly recommended.
Thank you to Graywolf for the comp copy; this did not impact my rating in any way....more
I can't believe it took me so long to read this and I'm very appreciative for Rick's Booktube Spin and the lucky number #15 for finally making this haI can't believe it took me so long to read this and I'm very appreciative for Rick's Booktube Spin and the lucky number #15 for finally making this happen for me. I thought Real Life was tremendous. It follows Wallace, a Black student in a predominantly white biochemistry master's program at a midwestern university.
Brandon Taylor captures two things with unerring precision: the first being the microaggressions that Wallace faces at the hands of his friends, mentors, and colleagues. There's an infuriating scene toward the end where Wallace is in a situation where he's been falsely accused of something, and rather than standing up for himself he quietly accepts his punishment. What's infuriating isn't that Wallace doesn't speak up, but rather, that the reader knows exactly why he doesn't, because Taylor has shown the reader that systemic dismissal, belittlement, and scorn does more than infuriate: it wears you down.
The second thing Taylor captures beautifully is academia as a suspension of reality, an almost liminal space between young adulthood and adulthood that exists somehow within the real world while following its own set of logic and social norms. Campus novels often glorify this lifestyle in a way that can be fun and deliciously indulgent, but Taylor leans into the opposite--digging into the way some people use academia as a crutch, accepting all of its quiet, mundane horrors in an effort to avoid 'real life'.
I guess the prose in Real Life is very love-it-or-hate-it; I've seen a lot of people refer to it as labored and overwrought, and as someone who frequently cites overwrought prose as an offense, I don't really see where that argument is coming from. The language is often poetic but to me 'overwrought' implies a certain lack of control over word choice and sentence structure; Taylor's writing is on the other hand rather exact. This was a horrendously sad book in many ways, but also one that was pleasurable to spend time with....more
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls was a breath of fresh air. If you isolate many of its thematic elements and you read a lot of this type of meLong Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls was a breath of fresh air. If you isolate many of its thematic elements and you read a lot of this type of memoir, there's plenty of familiarity - coming of age, coming to terms with queerness, racial identity, sexual assault, trauma, drugs, love, family ties. But T Kira Madden does something completely unique with it, revealing enough of her life to the reader in each chapter to keep us absorbed, yet employing a non-linear structure so faultlessly that its full impact cannot be felt until you turn the final page.
Set mostly in Boca Raton where Madden grew up, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls chronicles a childhood marked both by privilege and instability (she grew up with many material comforts being related to the Steve Madden shoe dynasty, but under the guardianship of neglectful parents battling addiction). Each chapter, charting a different period of Madden's life, is in its own way fresh, dynamic, and heart-wrenching, but the titular chapter is probably the stand-out - the depiction of the tight bonds of teenage girlhood underscored by Madden's burgeoning sexual awakening made my heart hurt - as well as the final chapter that so brilliantly ties the whole book together.
It's hard to talk about this book without getting into specifics which would neuter some of the impact if you know too much of what to expect, but I can't say enough good things about it and about Madden's prose. It was gentle, visceral, intricate, and structured with a kind of careful deliberation that ultimately elevates what was already going to be an exquisite book....more
On Swift Horses is a book that seemed like it was going to be tailor-made for me; queer historical fiction and horses are two things I'm always drawn On Swift Horses is a book that seemed like it was going to be tailor-made for me; queer historical fiction and horses are two things I'm always drawn to. But this unfortunately ended up being a slog, to the point where I forced myself to read the last 200 pages in one sitting because I never wanted to pick this up once I put it down. (And I would have actually DNF'd this - I know, I never DNF books, but I swear to god I would have made an exception, if I hadn't been assigned to review this for a publication. Which didn't end up panning out, because I hated it too much.)
Basically, this book follows two characters, Muriel and Julius - Muriel is a young newlywed who's recently moved from Kansas to San Diego with her husband, and Julius is her gay brother-in-law - and I'm not going to say any more than that, because apparently this is one of those cases where the dust jacket gives away the entire plot.
This may seem like a weird detail to get hung up on, but to me, this book's most egregious offense was the author's decision to write it in the present tense, especially given that she didn't show much aptitude for it. I felt like I was being forcibly dragged by the author from one sentence to the next. Imagine looking at a painting with your nose pressed up against the canvas. It's a suffocating view.
I just felt like this book was trying so hard to come across as Literary and Important, and this forced 'lyrical' writing style came at the expense of... literally everything else. Plot, character development, setting. You may have noticed the incredibly bland words I used to describe Muriel and Julius up above - 'newlywed,' 'gay' - but I'm afraid that after hundreds of pages I still do not know a single thing about either of these people's personalities. I know what they want from life, I guess, but each of their characters felt so clumsily crafted that there was never really anything to latch onto. I don't know a single thing about these characters or this narrative that I hadn't gleaned from the summary. What a terrific waste of time....more
I liked everything about this book except for the writing style--this is where the Aciman and Greenwell comparisons do Swimming in the Dark a disadvanI liked everything about this book except for the writing style--this is where the Aciman and Greenwell comparisons do Swimming in the Dark a disadvantage, because Jedrowski’s novel is a much more commercial creation and the caliber of prose isn’t quite there. There are a lot of painfully on the nose declarations throughout, like “It struck me how little my name meant to me, how absurd it was in its attempt to contain me.” It was just lacking the sort of finesse that its comparison authors are able to achieve more effortlessly.
There’s also Jedrowski’s penchant for similes that started to drive me mad after about five pages:
“I ran and started to shiver all over, like a child who’s broken through ice and fallen into a lake and only just managed to crawl out.”
“A pair of panties. White and lacy, discarded like someone’s fantasy.”
“Your ass was powerful, like two great smooth rocks sculpted by the sea.”
“Winter came early that year. Every week pulled us deeper into its gloom, every day shorter than the last, as if time was running out.”
If you don’t mind that sort of thing this obviously won’t be an issue for you, but it wasn’t really for me and was definitely an insurmountable hurdle when it came to loving this book as much as I had hoped to.
Still, I enjoyed my time with it well enough. It’s a fiercely political coming-of-age story about two gay students in 1980s Poland, both educative and entertaining in equal measure. The Giovanni’s Room commentary is well-employed, the historical detail is immersive, the novel’s structure is impeccable. It’s an intimate, sad, moving story; its characters are vibrant and life-like, and the feeling of loss throughout is palpable. It’s just a bit overwritten....more
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