Enter Post Title…

… is what my app tells me to do and normally, I can come up with something at least mildly clever but my husband went to Texas and brought us back COVID as a little treat. That means my engines aren’t revving the way they usually do when I get to talk about books and I figured I’d keep what I have for the actual reviews. Let’s go!

City of Stardust by Georgia Summers (Redhook, 1/30)

Though the plot is completely different, City of Stardust felt very much like Alix Harrow’s Starling House in that dark, creeping, terrible, awe-soaked, essence of true fairy tale sort of way that glues a reader (well, a me, anyway) to it, enthralls them, and holds them captive until the very end. It’s not what I was expecting to find from the book’s description but I am thrilled it’s what I got.

Yes, the characters are complex, interesting, and imperfect (as y’all know, this is one of my big three criteria for a top-notch read). Yes, the plot is interesting and compelling and unfolds at a perfect pace. And yes, the world is fascinating, weird, and a little scary. Like many of the books that live rent free in my mind, there are things left unsaid and undone when the tale wraps up because that’s art and it’s story and it’s life.

But, and you’ll have to go with me here, sometimes, you judge a book by the way it feels as you’re reading it. On vibes if you will, which sounds like… not a way to judge a book but I’m not sure how else to explain the feeling of a set of words collected into a narrative that sets your brain humming happily in time to its rhythms, its cadence, its heartbeat. And I can use all the fancy words I want to tell you why I liked City of Stardust but in the end, it was, honestly, down to the way the collection of words and sentences and paragraphs and pages tickled my neurons. Just vibes. Lovely, all-encompassing, wonderful vibes.

Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai WeiWei with Elettra Stamboulis and Illustrated by Gianluca Costantini (10 Speed PRess, 1/30)

One of the most important distinctions I’ve learned to make in the past few years is between autobiography and memoir: an autobiography is what someone writes when they want to relay the facts of their life and memoir is what someone crafts when they want to relay its spirit. Memoirs aren’t intended to be factual narratives; they’re meant to play with narrative, flirt with truth by expanding it, explaining to those outside with authors head how they learned what became most important to them, how small moments loomed large in their minds, how fiction wrapped their facts in words and symbols, how what was gray acquired color and brightness.

Zodiac is a stunning memoir of Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei’s relationship to a homeland that attempted to silence him more than it accepted him, to art, to his son, and to one of his most famous international works, Zodiac Heads (which I had the opportunity to see when they were at the Carnegie Museum of Art here in Pittsburgh. I went probably five times in the few months they were here).

I’ve come to prefer memoir over autobiography. Facts are easy to find these days, provided you know where to look for reliable ones (Ai has his own website and several museums have compiled accurate ones as well) but we’ve come to guard what’s in our head very closely and carefully (for good reason). When a prolific, creative, and iconoclastic artist chooses to share his musings, including those that have been, and may still be, dangerous to himself and his family (Ai spent most of his childhood in a work camp after his father, once a renown poet, was deemed an enemy of the Cultural Revolution and was arrested several times himself when his own work was deemed counter to China’s laws regarding artistic expression. He left China permanently in 2015) I count myself lucky to have a window into those thoughts.

Constantine did a fantastic job with the line art in Zodiac as well. It fits the pared back story and adds to the urgency of Ai’s musings about whether or not he should flee to Europe without being anything other than itself. I’m not certain as to whether or not the final version will have color but I rather like this particular book without; it’s reminiscent of both brush painting and manhua, which links it to the visual history of Ai’s country of birth as well as the narrative and emotional one.

Beyond all else, Ai Wei Wei is a fascinating guy and I’ll take any chance to learn a little more about him and if you haven’t looked him up, I think you’ll want to after. There are even a few panels in Zodiac that pay homage to his art to pique your interest: his middle finger series and the pieces he made out of smashed antique pottery, both of which I adore. There is alas, no reference to his recent chandelier made of tiny glass genitals…

Can’t have everything.

Fall Through by Nate Powell (Abrams Comics, 2/6)

Old punks never die, they just get lost in time when their lead singer casts a spell that extends their tour back and forth through it.

Listen, I would love a few extra days here and there but at the cost of what’s important to me? At the cost of my friend’s trust? That’s a little trickier.

Then again, I’ve finally found exactly what it is I want to do in life and giving it up does sound like the worst thing in the world. Especially since I get to do it with my best friend, my sister from another mister, the one I chose and who chose me. So where does that leave me?

In a van, driving across the country, staying in other bands’ filthy houses with no showers and no food but it’s that or the van, apparently.

The thing Fall Through reminds us, though, is that even if we stop, life keeps moving. We can choose to remain static, sure, but then, what’s the point of living? There will always be sad mad bad things but there will always be good things as well and we all deserve to experience those good things, those new things, those special things. None of us want to lose friends, lose joy, lose that best time but we if it stays the way it is, it isn’t going to be the best anymore. It’s going to degrade, decay, fall away and become one more routine, one more “have to,” one more “should.”

Don’t be a “should.” My therapist tells me all the time it’s a dirty word.

Tadek and the Princess by Alexandra Rowland (self-published)

Attention A Taste of Gold and Iron peeps! We have a prequel novella starring our favorite armsman! Where did he come from? Why is he so loyal to Kadou? Where did he get that snarky ass attitude?

Seriously, Tadek and the Princess is delightful and also very sad and sweet and I pretty much read it in one sitting.

I am hoping this means more books in universe as well because I really enjoyed the first one and I would like more.

Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth by Natalie Haynes (HarperPerennial)

For those of you who don’t know, Natalie Haynes is not only a classicist but a brilliant comedian. And while her first book, Pandora’s Jar, as well as her most recent novel, Stone Blind, definitely had comedic moments, whomever was responsible for Divine Might said, “Natalie, put your comedy pants on and have at it.” Because while this book dives into the backstories, personalities, and not-so-nice tendency toward extreme retribution shared by the Olympian goddesses, it is also uproariously funny. I found myself laughing out loud every couple of pages while also realizing there was quite I bit I didn’t know about each of these larger-than-life ladies despite the fact I’ve been reading about them for years.

The fact that’s it’s 2024 doesn’t stop a lot of being from being stuffy about the classics, from declaring all things Greek and Roman should be on pedestals (literal or figurative) to be worshipped by dusty old men in suits with elbow patches. And that’s ridiculous. Especially when we have Natalie Haynes and Emily Wilson, throwing out Taylor Swift references and pointing out that, for the majority of The Iliad, Achilles’s job was beach (look it up, I’m dying). These stories are fun (well, some more than others but you know what I mean). There’s magic, and people turning into trees and weird animals and Zeus being a dumbass and Hermes just sitting there watching everyone bicker and laughing, violent drunken revelry, dick jokes…) And those statues? They used to have color all over them.

So don’t be fooled.

And let these talented women make Greek Mythology fun again.

I also listened to The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schaefer which is from 2022 so I’m not going to do a full review (also, I’m running out of steam) but I will say it was phenomenal, as have all of TikTok reviewer José Orlando (orlandoreads) recommendations. There, is, apparently, a sequel coming out in October! Yay!

Okay, nap time. Hope you found something that looks amazing!