Books of October ’24
New Nghi Vo! New Nghi Vo! New Vajra Chandrasekera too, although that came out in June, but I’ve been saving it for October. Sometimes I just know which books are gonna be bangers, and I want to save them for my birthday month. And of course, a few horror reads too. Although nothing tops the horror of poetry from Palestine.
The City in Glass — Nghi Vo (2024) ⚭
The blurbs compared it to Le Guin and Calvino, and with any other author, that would be a disastrous claim to make. Here, Nghi Vo only takes the playful metaphysics of Calvino and the gentle worldbuilding of Le Guin, and weaves it with so much raw emotion that this slim little volume shouldn’t be able to contain it all. Vitrine, as tender as a demon could be, makes and remakes her beloved city, tending it like a garden, after the angels, in their cruelty, level it to ash. It’s about how to survive in the aftermath. How the best and worst lives within all of us. How to let grief break you and still love.
A Lady for a Duke — Alexis Hall (2022) ⚭
Re-read. Drastic measures were needed after so many historical romance duds lately, especially with duke in the title. I wanted something full of sweeping romance on a foggy moor, angst and glory and tenderness. This was the safest bet possible.
I liked it the first time, but I loved it this time. Gracewood and his sister Miranda’s relationship stood out to me more than before, particularly how he has to unlearn the old patriarchal roles and see and hear her for who she is—an echo, of course, to his love story with Viola. He is the one expected to bear the responsibility for his actions, and to change—it’s not up to Miranda nor Viola to save him. Love and support him, yes. But neither the lover nor the sister must put their needs aside to tend solely to his.
Now that’s a breath of air, and a welcome one. Add that to the gorgeous… *gestures*… everything else, and it’s one of those small things that adds up to a quiet revolution.
Small acts of defiance, he well knew, could become great acts of rebellion, and little intimacies could become alliances or passions that shaped lives and worlds.
The Spring Before Obergefell — Ben Grossberg (2024) ⚭
It’s strange how a book like this—small-town rural Ohio circa 2015—can feel like an artifact of the past and yet an ongoing present. Mike is middle-aged, gay, single, and lost, with no cultural script for how someone like him can find connection and happiness. He believes the best he can hope for is hookup apps and casual flings, until he meets the capricious Matteo and the enigmatic Dave, who each challenge him in different ways.
What stood out to me is that, just like Mike without a script, this book has no formula. It’s not a romance that would fit in that genre; it’s not quite litfic of a midlife crisis either. It feels like it’s mapping new terrain, page by page, stuck when Mike is stuck, forging new paths as Mike forges them, unpredictable the way real life is. It could have gone any number of ways right up until the end, which makes the outcome all the more poignant. As another review on Goodreads says, it opens up portals of possibility, with a tough conversations along the way. I like that. I like the idea that those portals are there to find. New scripts to be written, new paths to forge, new maps to make. With a bit of guts, with a bit of love, with a bit of honesty and vulnerability. May we all be so brave.
Finding the Fool — Meg Jones Wall (2023) ⚭
Bounced off it big time. I like the introduction, especially with Meg Jones Wall’s ex-evangelical background, but once she got to the cards, very little resonates. I feel at odds with her perspective and energy level, and not in a challenging, interesting way. I’ll stick with Tarot for Change and keep exploring.
Earl Crush — Alexandra Vasti (2024) ⚭
Listen, I’ve just about sworn off m/f romance after so many recent flops, but this one snuck in under the wire, as I was already committed to the ARC. It’s good! Not amazing, but good, in the fulfilled-the-brief, let’s-not-overthink-it kind of way I’ve been looking for since August. A few pacing niggles here or there, especially in the latter half, and I called both plot twists. The fact this did not deter me is basically a ringing endorsement at this point. I might even read more from Vasti when I’m in the mood again.
(Also noted: The climax with pistols does not require another rant; after reading Jane Austen, The Secret Radical and I’m Sorry for My Loss, the epistolary epilogue full of multiple childbirths had me stressed; the gold standard of and-then-there-were-children epilogues belongs to A Lady for A Duke, don’t @ me.)
Amazing Asia — Rashmi Sirdeshpande (2024) ⚭
The “explain it like I’m 5” primer that more people beyond the age of 5 could appreciate. It’s more thorough, interesting, and engaging than what got taught in school, that’s for sure.
The Believers: Stories — A.K. Herman (2024) ⚭
“The Believers”—as in, the first of the eight stories, from which this collection takes its title—is a barnburner. A houseburner? That’s what literally happens in the end, when a couple from Jamaica try to disentangle themselves from the creepy church who sponsors them in Brooklyn and wants to marry off their daughter. The rest of the stories more or less live up to that bar, especially “The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez).” Off-kilter and vicious and great.
Cash Delgado is Living the Dream — Tehlor Kay Mejia (2024) ⚭
This is so good. As in, read the sample, bought immediately, read the rest, finished at 10:30 at night. It takes several of my recent disappointments—Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, Kiss Her Once for Me, Late Bloomer—and does that vibe right. Two grown-ass adults, realistic and frustrating capitalism (saving a bar where 20k is a big chunk of money), diverse and marvelous cast, a truly swoony romance. (And the corporate Tom Hanks character is ditched like the smarmbag he is instead of reconciled as the love interest. HALLELUJAH.)
Really, apart from the friends-to-lovers, my favorite part is the work that goes into this community. It’s not a magical Hallmark-esque, Stars Hollow town. It takes effort and collaboration to keep the economy functioning, the gentrification and predatory corporations at bay, and to stand up to those who want to police or exclude others. (Bigots, jerks, bullies, et al.) The fact they succeed (at least temporarily) may skew towards fantasy these days, but it’s a refreshing change from the maintenance-free, almost creepy conformity of the usual quirky romancelandia small towns.
Forest of Noise — Mosab Abu Toha (2024) ⚭
How do you write the unimaginable? How do you craft art from the horror? How do you count your loved ones, now dead, in lines of poems?
I read this twice, once fast, once slow, and let it break me. 50 years of occupation and apartheid. Years of incremental genocide; now a full year of genocide, full stop. A farce of an election in the US with both parties fighting over who can kill the most Palestinian children. Mosab Abu Toha is one more voice out of millions, asking us to bear witness. Gaza tells us who we are. Now what?
Rakesfall — Vajra Chandrasekera (2024) ⚭
For the first half of this, it’s very much a sister-book to The Saint of Bright Doors. If you didn’t like that one, you probably won’t vibe with this one. But if, like me, you loved Saint, then Rakesfall levels up and then some. More hallucinatory, more vertiginous. Deep time and myth cycles into the deep past and deep future. There was a point where I wasn’t even sure all the threads could tie together at the end, but holy hell, DID THEY. Chandrasekera is writing like no one else out there. Or if he is, PLEASE TELL ME, I want their books too.
Note: I don’t want to spoil anything because the book just needs to be experienced, but I really need to highlight this part: when one twist is that the trillionaire techbros have achieved their coveted immortality, but they must spend it trapped on the earth they’ve ravaged into oblivion… let’s just say that was cathartic AF.
Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology — edited by Shane Hawk, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (2024) ⚭
As awesome as the cover. I agree with Stephen Graham Jones, who writes the foreword, that the cream of the current horror crop is written by indigenous authors.
“But what feels like an even better explanation for why we tend to like our stories to end like that, with bleeding over, bleeding across, haunting us, it’s that it feels kind of fake and wrong and all too American to throw up walls between what’s real and what’s maybe not real. So, telling ourselves stories about the world being bigger than we thought, big enough for bigfoot and little people, that’s really kind of saying to the so-called settlers that, hey, yeah, so you took all that land you could see. But what about all this other territory you don’t even know about, man?”
The Salt Grows Heavy — Cassandra Khaw (2023) ⚭
Truly grisly horror with a truly touching love story. Most fairytale retellings (here, The Little Mermaid) course-correct from the Disney versions back to Hans Christian Andersen territory. This overshoots Andersen by quite some distance, landing in the realm of rapacious colonizers and ghoulish Mengele-style war crimes. I loved the sharp teeth of it, literally speaking. And the little flame of hope and tenderness it cradled amongst the gore.
Previously: Books of September ’24