July Reads
Hello! It’s been a busy month. We moved! It turns out I have some long Covid garbage! The kids had various camps and I’ve been running them back and forth and of course, this year, I couldn’t land a week where they were both entertained by someone else for the majority of the day so, you know. Mom stuff. It was my birthday, which I hate. Did I mention we moved? Still found some time to read though. Made time to read? Reading helps me not lose my shit so either way, it’s essential to my well-being and that of pretty much everyone around me. Especially the children who, in the case of the elder, has to be dragged out of his room and, in the case of the younger, is going through it and sometimes forgets that mom needs space too (luckily, we can sit next to each other and read out respective books which is an excellent compromise).
In which pages have I been hiding from reality this month? I will tell you:
The Inheritance Series by A.K. Faulkner
Do you enjoy being utterly traumatized? Then this is the series for you.
San Diego native Laurence has visions about a lot of things. His vision of a mysterious man playing the piano comes true when he meets British aristocrat Quentin. Quentin is passing through San Diego as his latest stop on a world tour to evade his past, and his family, for as long as possible. The sparks are immediate between the two, as is the drama and mayhem that ensues when their supernatural abilities lure dangerous, and powerful, enemies into their orbit.
Each of the books in the Inheritance Series is 300+ pages. There are eight so far (and several more to come, I have been reliably informed). I read them straight through as though they were a 2500+ page book in a week and a half. Yes, you read that right, a week and half. Yes, they are that good.
Solid urban fantasy is tricky. It’s tricky because the balance of urban and fantasy is a difficult one. Do the normies know about magic? Are they ignorant of it? Is there a mechanism in the magic that makes them forget what they’ve seen or do the magic wielders have to actively erase the memories? What effect does modernity have on magic if any? Faulkner finds a great balance that fits perfectly with modernity and it’s one I particularly enjoy: most humans are willing to believe what they’re told provided it fits their preconceived parameters, even if there are rough edges or strange, sharp bits. Those of a more inquisitive nature, however… well, they get to see there’s more to the world than fireworks and freak storms.
I really adore the magic systems in the books as well, not only because they’re interesting and fun and detailed and cohesive (and maybe because some loving fun is poked at Wicca) but also because there are several. It makes sense that in a varied and variable world, different types of powers would originate from different sources and work on different “wavelengths” (as it were). Of course, I thoroughly hate the warlock system but that has nothing to do with Faulkner’s writing and everything to do with the way its system.
There’s also fantastic LGBT+ representation in the series: our main couple, Quentin and Lawrence, are undefined/Demi and horny all the time/bi. That said, Quentin has some (a lot) of trauma surrounding sex and sexuality and Laurence’s patience, kindness, and his ability to adjust to Quentin’s needs on the fly is something everyone, regardless of gender and orientation deserves in a partner. The way he cares and checks in, even when he’s having a difficult time physically or emotionally is the fucking gold standard and the fact that he helps Quentin understand that he’s deserving of that kind of care is equally as important as the acts themselves.
To be clear, the plots of each novel, both separately and as a larger cycle, are pretty damn good too.
Fair warning: the series has pretty much every content warning other than animal death and there is some very graphic violence and some very graphic sexual assault of a minor. If that is going to upset you, do not read them. As much as I hate to dissuade anyone, they’re big, recurring themes and Faulkner gives them the due consideration they deserve aka, they don’t ever go away. Trauma is like addiction: you’re always in recovery and even once you’ve learned strategies to cope with it and work around it, it still affects the way you live your life. Quentin and Laurence are never going to escape the things they’ve done and the things that have been done to them. That’s very real, and it’s the author giving the psychological burden left behind, the imprint of the battles they’ve fought, their due. It also means the series isn’t for everyone. And that’s okay.
Read My Pins: Tales from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box by Madeline Korbel Albright
As those of you who have been here a while know, one of my weird pandemic hobbies has been learning random facts about jewelry. I recently listened to a lecture on the history of the brooch, originally invented to keep one’s clothes on and eventually evolving into a versatile accessory. The lecturer mentioned Secretary Albright’s collection and the book she wrote about it.
Famous for choosing her jewelry to send a message to whomever it was she was meeting, it turns out Albright’s brooches ranged from high end pieces designed and produced by Cartiér to costume jewelry found in junk and curiosities shops. Her propensity for the pieces had fashionistas clamoring for them after a lull in popularity and designers started adding them to yearly collections once more.
To think, it all started because Saddam Hussein called her a snake.
A fun little trip through a very niche slice of political and fashion history.
Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
This is not my favorite Grady Hendrix book but, in fairness, I started reading his catalogue at the back end and it’s real hard to beat The Final Girl Support Group and My Best Friend’s Exorcism. Which is not to say I didn’t like Horrorstör. I did. I mean, who among us hasn’t wondered what lurks behind the bright lights and pristine walls of each cheery, soothing, way-too-easy-to-get-lost-in Scandinavian home goods chain store? Or what the meatballs are made of.
For the record, there are reasons I’ve never had the meatballs.
I have had the candy though. I love the candy.
Well. Loved.
Comedy horror is extremely hard to pull off. I’ve done it once and if I never do it again, I’ll still feel accomplished. Horrorstör is legit fucking hilarious. Laugh out loud hilarious, which is different from Hendrix’s later books, which lean more toward sly and sarcastic. Which I also love but I love this too.
The thing that keeps this one hovering at three stars instead of four is the squick factor. Again, I’m comparing it to The Southern Book Club’s Guide etcetera which have icky moments but didn’t have me contemplating skipping pages. I don’t mind blood or bodily injury but I don’t like squishy stuff. Or, like warm, hairy stuff. Also, at a certain point, squick becomes squick just for the sake of squick and that feels… lazy? And I expect more… intentionality is the best word I can come up with… from Hendrix. And that’s me and people can be more than one thing and what this tells me is that his back catalog isn’t a great fit for me.
Not everything is. It might be your next favorite book, give it a try.
Deadbeat Druid by David Slayton (Oct 18th)
Right, disclosure time, David and I are friends. We became friends after I read and reviewed his first book, White Trash Warlock.
Deadbeat Druid is the final book in Slayton’s Adam Binder series and I hope he gets to write more some day because I am really going to miss dthese characters. There’s something different and special about them, starting with the fact that the series’ titular character, Adam, isn’t your typical urban fantasy lead: he’s from rural Oklahoma, he grew up in a trailer, and the fact he’s gay wasn’t taken for granted (let’s be honest, when you pick up an urban fantasy, you expect at least one queer character and that is fucking phenomenal and should be celebrated however… keep reading…). It is, in fact, a major point of contention in his family. He isn’t super powerful or once in a generation or a chosen one; he just is and just being is enough to get him locked in a horrible psych hospital where he survives by spending most of his time in another realm with a Fae boy who teaches him to use his powers and who turns out to be a prince.
We’ve followed Adam to Denver, where he fought a massive demon and met Vic, with whom he fell in love and who fell in love with him. We followed him back to Oklahoma and followed Vic who followed Adam (I’m trying not to give you too many spoilers here). We’ve watched them fight for one another and fight forces bigger than them. We’ve watched them uncover pieces of themselves and pieces of their history. We’ve watched them grow up.
And in Deadbeat Druid we watch them figure out what it all means.
This is a difficult book. There’s a lot of pain in it. But growing up is hard. Letting go is hard. Of who we thought we were and who we thought we wanted to be. It’s also very beautiful. Because when we let go, like Vic and Adam do, like Bobby, Adam’s brother does, like Vran does, sometimes we remember the dreams we had before there were boundaries. Before there was “you can’t” or “no” or “that’s not practical.” And sometimes, letting go makes space for what we could be, for a spark we couldn’t see before or a song we couldn’t hear or a story we didn’t have time to tell.
If Deadbeat Druid is the end, it’s a fitting end. If there’s more someday, then it’s also a fantastic beginning. Aren’t we lucky that David has given us both.
Hate Machine by Stephen Blackmoore (Sept 27th)
Hot fucking damn, we got two Eric Carter books this year, universe beware.
I love this series with all of my cold, black heart and I know we’re not supposed to love this asshole necromancer who claims he’s only out for himself but I do. I love him. He drinks and he swears and he murders people and he cuts off heads and makes incredibly problematic oracles and then flees the scene and I love him.
Alas, unfortunately for him, what happens in Vegas only stays in Vegas for so long.
Hate Machine is a really fun opportunity to see Eric out of LA for an extended period, outside his comfort zone, away from his co-star (he’s taken short trips and also died but, IIRC, never left LA for an entire book before). It shifted his energy, gave a different sort of edge: his inner monologue was more pensive, he was quicker on the trigger (or the blade as it were), more terminally violent, both more clinical and more emotional.
All while discovering that he can still use some of Mictlan’s powers.
Interesting. Very interesting.
Most series are slowing down by book eight. This one just keeps getting better and tighter and smarter and more snarky.
And there is a poker game… let me tell you. The back and forth is one of the best things I have ever read in my damn life.
And I’ve read a lot.
You have until mid-October to catch up, people.
What are you sitting here for?
Ballad & Dagger by Daniel José Older
I have a bone to pick with Uncle Rick.
The bone is that this series is only going to be a duology.
Listen, I am a huge fan of DJ’s generally. But this book. Oh, this book.
First, it’s RR Presents first foray into YA and it was a brilliant choice. It’s a perfect transition for the kids who started with Aru Shah and are now ready to step into a world inhabited by characters with greater personal responsibility, higher personal stakes, more on the page tragedy, and also, more kissing.
But the absolute masterpiece at the center of this masterpiece (yes, I used a word twice in a sentence, sue me) is the fictional world folded around history that so many people don’t ever learn: that of marginalized groups who fled war in Europe and landed in the Caribbean. I know that I didn’t know anything about the Jewish community in Cuba that welcomed a part of my family that chose Havana over New York or Atlanta except that they had gone and then come here when Castro took power and kicked them out. We didn’t learn about it in Hebrew school or in synagogue. There were no exchanges like there were with Jewish youth in other parts of the world (Cuba wouldn’t have been doable back then but plenty of other places certainly were).
And, historically, in many parts of the Islamic world, Jews, Christians and Muslims, as well as various other peoples, met and mingled, traded goods and ideas. The idea of a culture forming that incorporated parts of each way of life? Makes sense to me. That those people would flee to escape war, say, the Crusades? Not so far fetched.
I love fantasy founded in “what if.”
Because “what if?”
So cool.
As someone who’s always felt like an outsider, because I’m Jewish, because I’m not neurotypical, because I have anxiety and depression, because I’m an artist in a family of scientists and mathematicians, because I’m shy, because I’m queer, because I’m fucking weird, I found myself longing for the community in Ballad & Dagger. I love how everyone fits, even when they don’t. I love that music is magic and the women are warriors and that you don’t need to believe in the spirits for them to believe in you. I love seeing Jewish culture outside of its limited European scope, integrated into a larger whole rather than used as an isolating factor and being explored for what it has to offer, for everything about it that’s beautiful, how it can spark a spirit of inquiry and lead people down the path of understanding even if that understanding is of something else entirely. That it was a community that realized people who were different were special. That difference was meaningful and could be a uniting factor instead of an isolating one.
Even as an adult, this book meant so much to me. I wish I’d had it when I was a teenager. I can only imagine what it will mean to my kids and those who come after them.
Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler
“… this old movie, But I’m a Cheerleader.” Fine. I’ll just dig my grave and crawl in.
Other than that, I absolutely adored this book, the cutest take on quarterback and cheerleader ever, with the former being an avowed lesbian and the later not yet sure of her label but going with “queer for now.” Saying much more will lead to spoilers but there’s a great subplot vis a vis a gay best friend, some fake dating, and a whole lot of girl power. Do read.
The Breaker Vol. 3 by Jeon Guk-Jin and Park Jin-Hwan
This manhua continues to be absolutely batshit and I could not be happier about that. If you’ve been around these parts for any amount of time you know that one of my absolute favorite genres is: thing that is the thing but is also a purposeful parody of the thing but at the same thing clearly loves the thing. The Breaker is nothing if not that.
We have martial arts. We have the bullied teen who stumbles on the secrets and finds a master. The master who’s on the run, of course. From some gangs. Mystical gangs. There’s a hot assassin. Ginormous tits. She and the master fight all the time but also, they’re in love. They’re protecting? Have kidnapped? Both? The heir to a mystical throne. There’s a younger master who’s suddenly wondering what he’s doing with his life. The assassin and the master have gone on the run with their prodigy and left the bullied kid behind with his new knowledge. He’s trying to live his life.
It is not going well.
The art is simple in a way that gives it that much more life, allows facial expression and posture and cigarette smoke to speak as much as the text does. Have I told you about the biker gang with out of this world accessories? Incredible. The dialogue is great. I laugh out loud a lot when I’m reading The Breaker. Also, in this most recent installment, we found out what a “breaker” actually is, so that’s nice.
Y’all are sleeping on the great stuff coming out of Korea and I’m sad for you. Sleep no longer. Go. Shoo. Order.
My Hero Academia Vol. 29-31 by Horikoshi Kohei
War arc? War arc.
I know some of you keep up via anime so I don’t want to say too much but I need to know this one thing: did anyone else get the impression from that flashback that Grand Torino is Nana Shimura’s baby daddy?
Inquiring minds.
Hope y’all find something to lay in front of your air conditioners with or, at the very least, something to look forward to along with the cooler weather.