Fictional Worlds for Full-Fledged Infatuation
Five beefy reviews of fiction with enthralling worlds, delightful characters, or strange conceits. Plus a birthday tribute to a top-tier Virgo!
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Hello! We gather today to celebrate Kim Namjoon, leader of BTS and king of my heart. His birthday (9/12) is always a good excuse to remind the world that he is not only a master of moody vibes and heady verses, but he is also an avid art collector/patron, literary treasure, and overall hottie. He even likes to post passages of books he’s reading to his Instagram, making him a man of the people. I am currently reading one of his recommendations, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee, in his honor.
We also gather here today to catch up on all things you and me. I've been bullying boys into bringing legendary L&B Spumoni Gardens pizza to my door; buying vintage bags from Ottessa Moshfegh's depop store; drinking gin while watching the sunset; frequenting Grand Central station to take Metro-North; making friends at the newly-rennovated Three Lives bookstore and immediately spending $47; relishing the incredible lemon risotto from Via Carota (cacio e pepe to the back of the line, please); meandering for hours along the Brooklyn piers; singing my little heart out to kick off a new season of the Young New Yorkers' Chorus; and more, if you'll believe it. What's going on in your neck of the woods?
The Books
After being thoroughly wrecked by my most recent read (more below), I am in something of a fiction-reading slump. It's not very back-to-school-season of me, but I'm sure I'll perk up soon. Here are some thoughts on novels I read pre-slump, all of which infatuated me at some point or another.
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To scratch my inner child’s eternal itch for a portal world, I read The Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura. It’s a concept built for an anime (and will be adapted into one later this year): seven middle schoolers find themselves inside a mysterious castle, where a girl in a wolf mask explains that they must find a wish-granting key before time runs out. I found it pleasantly trope-landen—magic mirrors transport a group of lonely misfits to solve a mystery with potentially deadly consequences—but with plenty of character-building and misdirection to keep it both engaging and surprising. For instance, the students almost immediately decide to mostly ignore their quest, rendering the castle more tween lounge than wish-granting puzzle. Much of the action instead centers on the comings and goings of each student (since they can’t stay in the castle overnight), and the friendships formed and anxieties depicted are far more fascinating than the threat of being eaten by wolves if the castle’s curfew is broken. Tsujimura’s visceral depictions of bullying and her precise narrative voice as middle schooler also grant the novel a unique emotional core, which is particularly unusual for a book with this kind of conceit. I read most of it in one sitting, despite the fact that it takes its time unfurling into a lovely story.
RIYL: The Brothers Grimm fairy tales; whimsy; Your Name (2016); the Wayward Children series, obviously.
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I finally finished Yoko Tawada's bewildering novel, Scattered All Over The Earth, which imagines a world in which countries disappear from humanity's collective consciousness. Japan, known only as "the land of sushi," is among the disappeared nations; Hiroko, a former citizen and current refugee, searches for fellow native speakers of Japanese through Western Europe's remaining nations. Tawada renders compelling characters, alternating between their voices each chapter and switching their languages even more often. Between her discussions of each language's particular flavor and acquisition, she weaves in enough interpersonal drama to tell a captivating story but doesn't quite explain the mechanics of the world she imagines. I wish there had been more of that central plot and perhaps a character or two fewer, but I enjoyed being dropped into a world with such an intriguing conceit. It is a book I read more for its strange energy than for its plot, so it did take about a month to complete.
RIYL: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, for its similar preoccupation with memory and disappearance; Duolingo; confusion, generally.
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Conversely, I read This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladsone in a spellbound 72-hour state. I firmly believe that you should know very little about this novella to maximize your reading experience, but this should suffice: two enemies on opposite sides of a war across time and space begin to communicate, first through missions and then through letters. The text is silly and referential and intricate, though it gets to be almost cheesily romantic. (It is sapphic, however, so we shall allow it.) Any longer, and this book would've been unbearably flowery in its language. Any shorter, and it wouldn't make sense why I became so invested in a war with no explained catalyst. It is exactly right for what it is, which is a propulsive and imaginative literary treat.
RIYL: steampunk, aesthetically; Poison Ivy, sapphically.
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The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas, which has been marketed to fans of The Hunger Games (me) and Percy Jackson (not me, but could be!), is another one I read with haste. Teen semidioses compete in trials to determine a winner, who will distribute life throughout the Mexican-inspired fantasy world of Reino del Sol, and a loser, who will be sacrificed. Surprising nobody who has read either The Hunger Games or Percy Jackson, an unlikely protagonist is plucked from obscurity and positioned as an underdog who JuSt MiGhT wIn the whole thing... but aT wHaT cOsT?! My favorite parts of the book reveled in the vibrant cities of Reino del Sol and the well-depicted interiority of the trial participants, since I generally predicted major plot points beat-for-beat. That said, the book's queer and trans representation makes it one I'd recommend especially for young people who might not otherwise see well-rounded depictions of kindred themes and characters.
RIYL: The aforementioned media juggernauts; gay pining.
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is a book that we, collectively, knew would wreck me. It follows the powerful friendship and creative partnership of two video game designers, and it made me cry at least thrice. It is accessible literary fiction, as consumed by the development of its characters as with their experiences in the world (specifically, those of elite academia and tech development in the 90s and early aughts). It’s well-written but not arcane, and it’s particularly salient for those of us who have, in fact, died of dysentery. It depicts things like heartbreak, chronic pain, abusive relationships, and coming of age with tenderness and compassion and even humor, and manages to imagine the world through gameplay that doesn't feel gimmicky or reliant on references. Instead, "Zevin probes at many of the themes that energize video games as a medium: their narrative depth, their therapeutic value, their casual violence, their toxic industry. And the possibility of living a better life in a virtual world." I read it swiftly over the course of a day, and only interrupted my reading with an occasional break to enjoy my latest playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. It’s a game I know so well and enjoy so much that I recite its button combinations and hum its tunes despite the years that have passed since I last played. Reading this book made me feel like that's not such a crazy thing.
RIYL: Zoombinis and Leapfrog, for my fellow 90s babies; dramatic irony; learning to code on MySpace; emotionally attaching yourself to fictional characters.
I've held you hostage long enough. As I mentioned, I am thoroughly book-hungover because of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which means I am spiraling dangerously down the rabbit hole of fanfiction and reading a few pages per day of nonfiction on my phone. I will know literary joy again one day. But until then, I’ll free you from the torment of my thoughts. Bye!