it's sarablog

bookpost jul-oct-25

cuckoo, by gretchen felkner-martin

2024. queer body horror about but probably not for teens

You know the score - angry trans woman writes incredibly angry and cathartic horror book, attempt 2.
Manhunt had a silly premise - testosterone apocalypse - but Cuckoo's setting - modern day teen conversion camp in the desert - makes it feel more grounded, despite the alien monster of the week. It's more focused, aiming more accurately, hitting closer to the bone.
I think I liked this a bit more than Manhunt, but she still has a habit of writing casts too big for her to truly sustain. While I think the characterisation was stronger and she did a much better job at spinning all those plates, I did still have the same problem as I did last time when - quote from last July - "By the midpoint there had been so many girls introduced that when everything kicked off and they started dying I was like hmm I genuinely don't know who Margaret is. Sad I guess.". But I did genuinely like the main cast a lot. They suck in believable ways.

I think it scuppers the ending a bit too... I think it was always obvious that this alien bodysnatching monster that was like a network of disparate parts being led/used by a bigot was a The Thing for gays experiencing structural homo/transphobia but I think the epilogue being like 'And the government covered it up and the person/people we saved from all of this will continue to be paranoid' felt a bit. Yeah I guess that's true but by saying this you have congealed the metaphor far too much. And Lo Structural Violence Was Not Saved In A Day. The End. I also feel a bit ? about the key item that defeats the Metaphor For Bigotry being like. Ketamine. It's a justifiable choice narratively and thematically, and I guess considering the ending an explicitly temporary measure, but it just grated against me a bit. It's hard to write a we need an appropriate MacGuffin to beat the all-powerful enemy scene in a way that doesn't come off as like an adventure movie for kids being like... and the only thing that could beat my evil stepmother who wants to make me eat vegetables was by playing Garten of Banban 2 Obby a lot.

The monster descriptions were really good though, although not sure about the font choice for the telepathic call to the void shit that was going on. Kind of hard to read? But the creature itself was written very fleshy and grotesque, very fun. There wasn't a lot of opportunity in Manhunt for Felkner-Martin to write more abstract goopiness and I think she nailed it here, as well as the flowerier descriptions of shit like getting hooked up to the thing's brain. The climactic passages of things like that one character dying and Lara realising she's a girl were good. I guess while I'm writing a lot about it I should mention the fact that it's really horny. Maybe not the right word? Those teens were having or thinking about nasty sex a lot but it didn't feel like I was being, uh, invited. Perverted but not leery. It was character work, a state of being, a mode, etc. I'm personally happy with how it walked this line.

7/10 i liked it. less period sex next time thanks

beauty is a wound, by eka kurniawan

2002, eng translation 2015. deeply black comedy about colonial indonesian history told through a few families intertwining

I liked the strange, epic, folktale way this was told, like an oral history. Apparently Kurniawan was inspired somewhat by wayang, late-night puppet theatre, which makes sense - there's a universality to it, a playful pulpiness informed by low-cost local theatre. I was kind of unprepared for the structure though so I lost track of characters (this happens a lot to me...).

Recent Indonesian history sucks, huh. I'm no historian or geographer or otherwise smart and well-read, so I wasn't aware of just how young a country it is - arguably the very concept of Indonesia didn't exist until the 1920s. Dutch colonial rule starting in 1799, only overridden by a WW2 Japanese occupation from 1942 until 1945, followed by a war of independence against the Dutch lasting until 1949. And then after gaining independence the political situation was so rough there was a failed army coup blamed on the Communists (with CIA and British Foreign Office support, obviously) and mass killings followed. The book loosely follows these events with Dutch, Japanese, Communist etc characters who are both everyday people and obvious metaphorical figureheads. It's often very comic and lowbrow, about prostitution and shitting and the like, and this is important to note because it combines with a story about colonial rule by way of a frankly absurd amount of quite, uh, low-gravitas? rape. It's never gratituous or aspirational, and it is narratively and thematically important, but it is a constant factor, very matter-of-fact. Not to bring up the world's most hated site but I'm honestly quite shocked it's landed a 4+ on Goodreads considering the provocative tone and actions.

It's pretty good, I'd be interested to see how Kurniawan writes a novel that isn't decades in scope. I'm considering watching The Act of Killing sometime too - if I remember correctly, Sean from SFULTRA said in a recent podcast with cmrn knzlmn that he would screen it at mystery showings and then come out afterwards to see the audience reaction, which was normally horrified, sick, changed, etc.

the girl on the train, by paula hawkins

2015. mum thriller. for mums.

I think I picked this up after my DNF below because I was talking to a friend about trying to read more and fitting something like, easy in, and she recommended this as a fun if basic thriller - 'the type that mums read on the beach'. 2015 bestseller, film rights acquired before it was published, premiered in 2016. It was exactly what was promised honestly. Just a smooth bit of easy unreliable narration about women who are truly Going Through It (alcoholism, affairs, the lot).

I didn't really like the finale... the ex-husband's heel turn into a villain takes his dialogue from reasonably natural into, like, You Don't Want To Make Daddy Angry-type dialogue. Writing mastermind-type villains (esp het men doing interpersonal violence) requires a lot of care or else they start sounding like bed_whip.gif. The final confrontation being a symbolic action - killing him with the corkscrew, the final act of the alcoholism his gaslighting caused, knowing where to find it because the fight was in their old flat and she just Knew where everything still was and he hadn't changed anything with his new wife - it's too neat for a book about being messy as fuck. Gave me the same sort of emotions the Ketamine MacGuffin in Cuckoo did. I don't like neat symbolic objects of finality I think. If there's anything Kamen Rider has taught me it's that 'fighting the enemy with the cursed weapon the enemy gave me' should be the start of your story, not the end.

a memory called empire, by arkady martine

my otaku cultural liason can't be this cute!!!

First of all, I put this book on my library holds in FEBRUARY and only got to it in OCTOBER, and then I fucked up allocating reading time so despite having plenty of time to prepare I had to chug the last like 100+ pages in one day. It's real good though! It reminded me a lot of Baru - recent queer scifantasy about a lesbian with secret identity things ending up in a foreign empire that they know a lot about (due to empire cultural expansion) and they do administrative government work under duress, tragic love that can't ever work out, etc. Baru's about like taxes and catastrophically violent oppression whereas AMCE is about poetry and only the regular amount of oppression though. The focus on linguistic play is super fun, I loved reading scifi technobabble but about rhyming couplets instead. You can do dramatic shonen battle narration bits like - no - it can't be - is he really going for it...?! - but it's about devastating sonnets inciting civil war instead of spirit energy and million-hit combos. It's deft enough it can get witty and quippy without getting exhausting, and I felt that every bit of banter did serve to further the characters and setting. Just really engaging political drama all around. Did nearly make me cry a bit.

stag dance, by torrey peters

2025. trans women can do terrible things too

Three short stories and one novella, all roughly about transfemininity. They're not fully genre, but they're more genre than Detransition, Baby.

The first and last stories were novellas posted online pre-Detransition, Baby, collected here. All in all, a book that took over a decade to collect.
I think the title story was my favourite, there's some unfathomably good character work in there, it ebbs and flows beautifully and the light supernatural elements push it so far. I've never read anything like it honestly - albeit I didn't know the etymology of stag dances going in. I've seen people dislike it because the logger slang is impenetrable and that it's too long, but I was delighted it was so weird and lengthy because it got to get into so much interiority from so many interesting angles.
Maybe my least favourite was the post-apocalypse - perhaps because I've already read works that build off of it? I wasn't so invested in the characters, catty city girls without the length of a full story like DB to flesh them out. The timeline back and forth meant it felt oddly paced.
The Chaser was crazy, just unbearably cruel in the best way. Lightest in genre and hardest to talk about but no less worthwhile, I think.
The Masker is horror, but not in the sense that anyone dies or is in mortal danger or there's a monster, but in the way it's so deeply claustrophobic. Hellish, even. Really funny to put this one at the end - you've been through so much tragedy and cruelty already! What if it got worse!! Capping off the entire collection on the most hideous and repulsive sex scene of all time is bold stuff.

It was all great though. Bleak, evocative, gripping. Had me in shock regularly.
People seem down on the fact the collection doesn't have any kind of direct thematic link but I liked that about it. Seen someone describe it as about illegible trans people - about exploring the bit outside of modern trans language and scope where the G/T line gets blurred, but given enough focus, are obviously transfeminine. Published book you can get at the regular bookstore that mentions Fictionmania by name also, lol.

DNF:

night shift, by stephen king

steve's short stories

I couldn't fit a paperback in a bag I was taking to a concert so I just started reading whatever was on my ereader, ended up being the first story in here, Jerusalem's Lot. Same location as Salem's Lot apparently, but I also don't know that. Epistolary about finding a horrible cult. Fun!! I can't be bothered to read any more right now!!

the corner that held them, by sylvia townsend warner

nun's

Name came up in the SA Lit thread a lot and was described as funny so I threw it on my library reservations. Despite only getting about 80 pages into it it was really good. It's like a living history of a nunnery over years chronicling all the terrible events that happened to it, which are generally things like 'ran out of money' 'The Black Death' 'priest went mad' etc. I really want to go back to it but maybe on a commute? Found it a bit hard to keep up with all the prioresses, need to keep at it daily.

#2025 #bookpost