Sidequests 10/1-10/7

I was going to go on that history marathon, I swear. And it will happen soon. But just when I got myself all set up for the project, it happened.

Bookmail.

Sometimes I have control over it, sometimes I don’t.

Yes, fine, I’m easily bookstracted.

Anyway. Here’s what I ended up shoving into my brain this week:

Spy x Family Vol. 6 by Endo Tatsuya (Viz)

The adventures of the Forger family continue as Twilight and his old partner seek to infiltrate an enemy’s art collection, Anya stakes out Damian’s meeting with his father to help her dad score points with his main target, and Yor realizes she might actually have feelings for her fake husband. Does he return the sentiment?

As with The Way of the Househusband, the more I get of this story, the more I love it. It’s funny, it has pathos, it’s sweet, and it’s very, very, very, very weird. There are so many moving parts and so much trope twisting and so many sub-sub plots it shouldn’t work but it 100% does and cracking a new volume, or re-reading an old one for that matter, makes my day better. I’m not a huge emoter-while-reading but I consistently laugh out loud during consumption of Spy X Family, usually at something Anya-related because spy-business interpreted through the filter of a telepathic child is for sure something to behold though Yor’s secret police brother has caught me off guard more than once.

Spy x Family is also special because it’s one of the manga I read that I can share with my 9 year old and they get as excited about it as I do. They and Anya have a lot in common and I love watching them giggle at their sarcasm-and-shenanigan twin’s exploits. I also love the way it sparks their own creativity; the kiddo has a very specific smile they beam when they’re making up stories in their head and they always seem to wear it immediately after devouring the latest Spy x Family. Great story and story fodder too. Can’t ask for much more than that.

Moriarty the Patriot Vol. 1 by Takeuchi Ryosuke and Miyoshi Hikaru (Viz)

Husbeast has been watching the anime adapted from this manga and it grabbed my interest because I have long loved a great many things Sherlock Holmes related. Not all things, but most things. As it happens, only a very few things focus on the opponent who hit Sherlock where he lived: his intellect. So, I was rather excited to find one wherein Moriarty was the titular character. One where, it turns out, the author has put a rather interesting spin on his motive: to bring down the British aristocracy.

Listen. This sort of tension in a main character is one of my jams. Give me all the villains with legitimate motivations and I will read your books and watch your movies. Writing a compelling villain is so much harder than writing a decent hero because the line between fascinating, deep, intriguing villain and either anti-hero or pure evil is very, very fine and if the character tips either way, he becomes a trope who isn’t nearly as interesting. This Moriarty though? You don’t particularly like him. You know his methods are highly problematic. But part of you, the greater part, wants him to win because he isn’t wrong.

I love it.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (Vintage)

Interior Chinatown is a tough book to review. It’s sad. It’s brilliant. It’s wild. It stabs you in the gut very much like life. It plays with form and function and film tropes and roles on camera and roles in life and everything in between. It has so much to say about immigration and promises, and who we are and who we’ll be, whether or not we’re trapped by history and circumstance, whether or not we can ever break free.

Saying too much would ruin it for those of you who decide to pick it up (which I hope is all of you) but I’m glad Yu’s author event popped up in my email because otherwise, I may have gone my whole life without ever reading Interior Chinatown. Now, I have and I can’t wait to delve into more of Yu’s books and to hear him talk about his writing and his own story, next week.

The Bone Shard Emperor (The Drowning Empire #2) by Andrea Stewart (Orbit, 11/23/21)

Did you all read The Bone Shard Daughter? I hope so because there are moving islands and constructs powered by bones harvested as tithes from living people and clones and mystery familiars and pirates and…

Listen, it’s amazing.

I’m about a quarter of the way through book 2 but I wanted to yell about it because so far it has all the good stuff and my favorite characters from book 1: Lin (the titular emperor - gender neutral term in this universe, yaaaaas!), Jovis (ex-smuggler, now both Captain of the Guard and spy for the resistance… maybe? Probably? Maybe?), and Mephi (his mystery? dragon? sea serpent? mystery? familiar) are the disaster trio of my dreams and I am. So. Happy. I know eventually something horrible is going to happen because, duh, middle book of a trilogy, but for now, I am enjoying all three of them being glorious idiots.

I’m making no promises for next week because then, when the list is totally random again, I won’t have to apologize. Happy reading!