violentdelights's reviews
75 reviews

A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver

More of a reference than a book so instead of a review I’ll list my key takeaways:

• Read. Workshops and whatnot can be important, but the best way to hone your craft is to read voraciously and widely.
• Imitate. Take those different poets you read from,  and copy their styles in your own poems. Doing this will be good practice and will allow you to develop your own style, given that you imitate many different poems and not just one.
• Get familiar with the sound of poetry - it’s a key factor in rhythm and diction. Get familiar with how sounds lump together, such as in alliteration or assonance.
• Iambic pentameter is the most common line type because it imitates natural breath capacity and stress. Variations from this shows a variation in the reading of the poem - such as a shorter lines portraying a sense of quickness or restlessness and longer lines portraying endurance or leisure.
• Both constancy and variation in rhythm is important. Too much constancy and a reader will get bored; too much variation and a reader won’t be able to naturally follow along. What is a song without a bridge, after all?
• Enjambment of a line of poetry quickens the way one reads the poetry out of curiosity of the way the line will finish. Ending on a natural pause, or a full stop or comma, will slow down the poem. Same with enjambment in stanzas.
• Create texture with your imagery. A poem lives and dies by its texture.
• Stand in the world of your poem. Live in it. A thin poem exists because the world of the poem what not studied enough.
• While a poem begins in an experience, divorce it from that experience when you revise. Poems do not exist to be experiences - they exist to be poems.
• “A poem is a confession of faith.” 

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

5.0

In parts a harrowing personal memoir on the author’s own experience with queer abuse, and in other parts a collection of how queer abuse lives in (and is erased from) other parts of media. A collection of vignettes told through various lenses (including fairy tales, court cases, and summaries of Star Trek episodes) that all come together to tell a very real, very common, but often very forgotten story of emotional and psychological abuse in queer spaces.

Hi Honey, I'm Homo! by Matt Baume

A very informative and niche (in the best way) read that chronologically follows sitcoms queer characters and relationships in tandem with the United State’s similar struggle. While this book never fully convinced me that the progression of representation in sitcoms of all things was partially a catalyst for progress in queer politics, it sure did make a convincing argument. Missing some obvious shows, of course (no Glee?) but a good read for anyone interested in learning more about queer sitcoms and queer history side-by-side.

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

3.75

No outright plot spoilers, but will definitely be talking about character development and differences from the Ramayana that happen in the later half of the book, so read at your own warning.

I liked this book more the less I knew about the Ramayana. Ultimately, it left me with very complicated feelings, most of it towards the end, as the beginning was five out of five, no notes: Kaikeyi's powers and the mystical Binding Place are so unique and something I want to steal for myself; the fantastical world set up was lush and lively - I mean, her father can talk to birds; the loving relationship she has with (at first) her brothers and (then) her sister-wives. It is all the bones of a beautiful story. Getting to know Kaikeyi and the people in her life was the best part of the novel, as the author's writing style was detailed but not overwhelming, and watching her and her loved ones grow into fully formed adults was an emotional journey.

It's when it interconnects with the story of the Ramayana that I wasn't a fan. While I understand that this is meant to be a feminist retelling, I think that thread is carried through in full through imaginations such as the women's council, Kaikeyi's training montage and ultimate spear-throwing that saved her husband; it felt unnecessary to have it so that Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, was a misogynist as well. Despite Patel's best efforts to rationalize his war-hungry and manipulative mindset, I was just not buying that this and his misogyny were inevitable outcomes for Rama, and instead it felt mean-spirited.

Additionally, Kaikeyi's actions in the Ramayana seemed to be influenced by everything except what ie believed to be influencing her in the Ramayana. Patel paints this action as one necessary to take due to

promises made to a demon, Kaikeyi's brother and father's urgings, the fear she had about her son as a ruler

instead of as one set into place by her most trusted servant. In fact,

when Manthari makes a suggestion as to how Kaikeyi should spend her boon, Kaikeyi ignores it altogether.

I was excited to see how someone who literally wields threads of influence over others may be manipulated, but was ultimately let down in this regard. It ultimately felt less feminist in this way, as

it was not a woman who could control Kaikeyi, but the whims and worries of several men.

Ultimately, I thought it was a very well-crafted book, even if it did fall a bit flat at the end. Patel created a character that was loveable but misguided, which I suppose is also how I feel about this book as a whole.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

I got bogged down somewhere in the middle but I absolutely tore through the last half. I kept waiting to see if it would fall into a low fantasy story or WHAT but it kept me hooked. I felt uncomfortably anxious the whole time - Kuang has the skill of writing novels with taut tension, everything is gripping and page turning.

Found this to be more subtle than Babel but still a little on the nose in that it wants to Ask Questions about authorial ownership, though it didn’t seem to have any answers presented. It was great reading this right after Peking Duck from Bliss Montage, which was another story that asked the same question, though maybe with more subtlety.

Still, my heart was racing, and I NEEDED to know what terrible decision would lead to what terrible consequence with our MC. Same as Babel. Brilliant pacing and tension.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

3.0

As always, Becky Chambers nails it with world building and loveable characters. However, this book didn’t necessarily speak to me because the central struggle of the book was not one I related to or understood. 

I know in theory that some people look around the world for purpose to drive them, but I’ve long ago made peace with the fact that my purpose on this Earth was to be safe and loved and enjoy myself. It feels hedonistic to admit, and maybe shallow as well, but I don’t in my adult life struggle with a purpose beyond simply being, so this didn’t feel like a necessary read to me.

Maybe this is a book I’ll have to come back to, but currently I’m in a place of such contentedness with my life that the philosophy didn’t do much for me, though I did fall in love with the concept of tea monks and robots named after various parts of wilderness.

Rouge by Mona Awad

5.0

I have no idea what the fuck just happened but I love it. I felt like I was sleepwalking with my eyes forced open through that whole book, like I was being dragged along through this weird atmospheric language to somewhere I didn’t want to go.

Heard some people complain about the pace, but I personally absolutely tore through this book. Un-put-down-able and something that felt like it was going to haunt my nightmares. So creepy and fucked up. and impossible to explain to anyone, but it HOOKED me.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

challenging dark informative

4.75

Let me start with what I didn’t like because it’s few and far between:

• The pacing. This book went at a snails pace for something so action-packed. We learn of a rule change in one of the first chapters and it takes the entirety of the novel for it to come to any head. This was probably the biggest one for me as I kept waiting for something to happen.
• The Marches and-by extension- the structure of the reality show. I found the Marches as an activity boring, as it was literally just a group of people walking, and actionless, aiding to the crawling pace. As a result, it made me wonder why viewers of this as a reality show would be interested in anything in between the matches, if it were just to be walking and camping and the occasional melee.

As for what I liked:

• The characters. Oh god, the characters were treated shockingly human despite their crimes and the larger-than-life setting. Despite the large cast of characters, each character felt uniquely memorable and with their own voice and heart. When they die, they are given a footnote that does its best to add context to the character, no matter how small. Even characters that only exist for a few pages that I have to page through to remember their first introduction, there is love behind them. They are treated as whole no matter what. 
• Hamara and Loretta’s relationship. It’s hard to write such a complex dynamic and still make it feel like it was real love. Even if I didn’t feel that they were perfect for each other or even always healthy for one another, I believed they loved each other.
• The realism. Even if you don’t know a lot about the horrors incarcerated people face, the footnotes add real information from our world to ground this futuristic setting and make what is being read about seen all that more plausible; a sign of a good dystopian novel in my opinion is one that feels just out of reach of our current reality.
• The different perspectives. You had those already participating in the reality show, but also incarcerated people who joined the show as a means of escaping a worse situation, and the scientist who made elements of the worse situation come to life, and the protesters who didn’t agree with the reality show, and the audience members who ate it up, and most everything in between. It made the world feel so lived in and whole.
• The unfolding of the world. There was so much of this world to take in, but it never felt overwhelming learning of all the different structures or technologies in place because it was fed to us patiently and timed properly,
• The fights. As someone who isn’t a huge action person, I enjoyed the fights not just for the choreography but also because they were intense characterization moments.
  Especially those last few moments.

My favourite thing, however, was the apparent care put into this book. Very clearly the author had a story that they felt had to be told, and they put great effort to ensure they told it to the best of their ability. 

Out On a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young

3.0

Very strong chemistry between the two leads, but there were some icks for me as a man-hating lesbian and also didn’t feel like there was a very strong reason keeping them apart for so long. Started off very strong but sort of fizzled out by the end.

In Universes by Emet North

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

 I wish I liked this book more; that is not to say I dislike it, only that I wish I liked it more. I wish I could give this whole-hearted a 5-star rating, but unfortunately my feelings fluctuate so much that I probably won’t give this a star rating at all. I think where I get stuck is that I wanted a book with more than marginal pieces of overlap with the original story, but everything was so distantly connected from one another that it felt more like a collection of unrelated short stories than something with a strong through line.

 Saying that, as a collection of short stories it is quite strong. In Part I, the first parallel universe - that is, the second chapter - is the strongest. The introduction to Britt and the horse and Raffi’s greatest regret, one that haunts them in every universe, was almost a strong enough throughline that it carried me throughout the book. At the very least, it was palpable and heart-breaking and devastatingly human. 

However, the rest of Part I sort of fell flat for me. There were strengths of weaknesses unique to each story, but in very broad strokes they can be summed up like this: the settings were beautiful; the male characters were nothing. The haunting taxidermy garden, the larger-than-life sandcastle architecture, the echoing hotel cistern – these were all magical backdrops for our trans and female characters. Unfortunately, you just could not pay me to care about Buck or Caleb or whoever Alice’s husband was. The only one with any depth is Graham, who

fluctuates pronoun usage throughout universes.

 

Part II was where the money was for me – every single story was a banger upon surrealist banger. There was an octopus fetus and a motherhorde and a Sontag reference; what more could you ask for? Everything was absurdist while still having feelings deeply grounded in reality, which I believe the best absurdist stories require. This entire section orbits around the theme of regret – the whole book does this, ultimately, but it is strongest in Part II. Here, the regret manifests itself in incurable illnesses and haunted houses and self-fracturing, and it is absolutely mind-blowing. 

Part III makes me feel out of my depth It brings Britt and the horse and Raffi’s regret back to the forefront, and crafts a longer story that brings all the former unconnected ones into a single universe. These things I loved. But The City of Refuge never felt fully in my grasp as a concept, and the new characters – Miko and Rebecca, namely – did not have the same weight that the other characters only managed to gain over several universes of development. Ultimately, there was little I understood, and less I cared about, in this part. 

In Universes is a wonderful concept. It is beautifully written. It has real and true characters with honest and heart-wrenching flaws. It has fantastical elements and settings. To me, however, it cannot live up to the sum of these parts. Maybe in another universe I understand it the way it was meant to be understood.