Cupid Bow Mouth

I keep making plans to get back into DW just as a way to get my thoughts out and down, and then I don't follow-through. Life is life-ing as per usual and its hard to find the focus. If I'm honest, its even worse as we watch the chaos on the federal level as the current administration actively works to undermine the stability of the government and create a dictatorship from the evocation of executive orders as a means of governing. Congress is complicit in the attempt and I can't quite understand why. You're duly elected officials and you're completely willing to ceded your authority to the executive branch and its shadow king?

When not trying to figure out the reasons for intentionally eroding our democracy that are not apocalyptic, I've been writing. I feel like the novel is going well except for the lack of time I have to work on it. Like much of corporate America, the micro-managing overlords at my company required that we be back in the office Mon-Fri for the day. That means I once again have a two hour commute. I don't work late anymore because the 2+ hours I used to work past 8 hours now belongs to my commute. It means I am perpetually behind but I'm over it, honestly. Also trying to get in the gym more (my doctor basically called me fat although all of my blood work trends towards great and always has). I mapped a pie with 24 hours on it and I have in the neighborhood of 5 hours of life administration time to eat, shower, clean, pay bills, read and write. I dropped social media except on one day of the weekend (literally took IG off my phone) and I'm not keeping up with any shows so that when I do have a corner of time its dedicated to writing.

Unfortunately, it can take me more than 2 hours to find a rhythm and by then, it's bed time.

And then there are days like today where I am just tired, so that all I want to do is go back to sleep. Focusing is hard. I still have so many things to do, so I'm writing this instead of writing into the MSS.

This book was not for me.

I made it 1/3 of the way through (80/245 pages) and Did Not Care. At any point. I found Piranesi tedious and excruciatingly boring. I wanted to like it. I've heard so many things! Alas, not my cup of tea, and if it does get interesting at some point, it took too long to get there. My general rule is you get 3 chapters. I gave the essentially chapter-less Piranesi more than a fair shake.

It's an allegory of the mind is the best I can come up with. The specifically opaque and meandering plot, at times, reminded me of The Sound and the Fury. Other times, I was reminded of Beloved. I LOVE Beloved. As a narrative committed to the very limited (re: intentionally restrictive) interiority of its main character, I was reminded of Sold and The Drowning Girl. Books that I also love. Unfortunately, Piranesi with his cataloguing and naivete failed to engage me and at too close to the halfway mark, I gave it up. After falling asleep on it for the umpteenth time, I woke very cranky and out of sorts with this book. So we are done. C'est la vie.

Cassandra Khaw kills me every time. A Song for Quiet is 100 pages of beautiful, bitter music vacillating between hope and despair. Khaw is Asian American and lovingly draws a careful portrait of the rawness of real life in Jim Crow America. If you're nervous about writing someone else's experience, I think this is a great example of how to truthfully and respectfully do that. Khaw is always a poet. She creates visceral experiences full of texture and emotion. A Song for Quiet is a jazz riff. It's tense, horrific, and grieves for human kind. If you've gone on to read Victor LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom, I think you'll love this!

Well. Damn.

"Arson is a crime of passion."

We always knew how this was going to end and it was both satisfying and anti-climatic. The fire? I wanted more of it. I wanted to watch the Theatre des Vampires WRITHE while it burned. The tragedy of Claudia's death, the snuffed potential of her immortality, in episode seven demanded it. The way she fought for herself and Madeleine, the way she fought SO HARD to be heard demanded a reckoning reflected from the eyes of her tormentors. I wanted the coven, and especially Santiago to SUFFER.

The ending was peculiarly cold in comparison to Alderman Fenwick back in season 1. His death was so personal in a way that the fire, despite its passion, was not. Maybe its because most of the coven were locked in their caskets so we only got their screams when I wanted them to SEE their executioner and look him in the eyes while he tore them to pieces. Claudia DESERVED that level of retribution.

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Holy Mary Mother of Fucking Gods!!!!!!

What did I just read?! The twisty, bendy, creepy psychological tale spin that is We Used to Live Here just kicked my chest in. I wasn't sure what to expect except that every review I came across was a good one. Finally the Bookstagram algorithm actually used its powers for good.

We Used to Live Here was deliciously creepy and strange and felt like walking on shale or sand that's falling away beneath your feet. No matter how fast you try to move to keep up, its never going to end with you on solid ground. Firm footing is impossible to obtain.

Its like Everything, Everywhere All At Once had a baby with The Shining and then moved to Silent Hill. It's a slippery book and every time something changed, I could SEE it but still couldn't put my finger on how or why.

AND THEN THAT END. I was not prepared. I'm having thoughts about a conversation I had with sarahbatistapereira this July and how much I need to decide on the landing for the end of April and Darling.

For this! I don't have words. Just get thee hence and read it. Let's discuss. I need my slippery, creep loving storytellers to read this and help me think about how it works.

I'm digging the surge in Gothic novels.

What Moves the Dead is atmospheric and chilling in the best way. The waitress at lunch startled me TWICE while bringing me water where I sat outside in the afternoon sun!!! Its written close to the bones of its inspiration (its a rework of Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher) and carries well the flavors of Romantic 19th century literature. I loved the ways that it was updated, Easton and Miss Potter specifically, but also the creepy fungi with a side of body horror. Oh, yes, please!

Let's talk about Louis -- how he's been transformed from the melancholy, self-flagellating moral mess to almost equal parts temper and angst, ever balanced between joy and hope and rage.

I can't compare this series to the books because it is a different beast altogether, and I LOVE the changes.

( Louis: You promised you wouldn’t talk. Lestat: I love you. )

I love when I read a book that, somewhere along the way, warns me this will not end well.

Addie LaRue shoved my heart into my throat and left me light headed for better than half the book. All I could think was "this way lies disaster." I adored it. How did it take me so long to discover V.E. Schwab? How was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue such a gift waiting to be found?

I'll be over here pondering and melancholy and deeply in love for a good long while.

Damn, that was a good book ...

Edited to add: I think Gideon the Ninth was the last book to leave me in an emotional hole quite this deep. Damn.

I miss you guys.

Three books behind on this year's Reading Challenge that, if I'm honest, has everything to do with the way I'm mood reading my way through life these days. Bookmarks (of the chaotic kind) live in three things that I'm moving through regularly and three other things that are on the back burner but that I'm still picking at.

The sum of which means that I haven't finishing anything and I'm three books behind on #goals.

1. My Heart is a Chainsaw - Stephen Graham Jones
2. Gallant - V.E. Schwab
3. The Searcher - Tana French
4. The World That We Know - Alice Hoffman
5. Unlock Your Storybook Heart
6. A Song of Fire and Ice - George R.R. Martin

And then there's the things that are just kind of floating:

7. Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
8. Salem's Lot - Stephen King

I am a mood reader and all over the place. And because I am writing and chasing aesthetics, I re-read a passage or two of Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia and Daughter of Hounds by Caitlin R. Kiernan before I get started. I've added in Cassandra Khaw's Nothing But Blackened Teeth for parts of the novel because I'm also studying how body horror and dread work. It's a job of work on top of work. But I love it and it continues and the finish line is so close I can taste it.