Tag: compelling characters

Blurb Book Review: American Fantasy by Emma Straub (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Annie’s sister was supposed to be on the cruise with her, but had to bail at the last moment. The band Boy Talk was headlining the cruise, a band both Annie and her sister fawned over as teens, and Annie was going for her sister more than for herself. She’d long ago discarded the screaming fandom and teen lust of boy bands but was determined to try to enjoy herself while on the cruise.

It doesn’t help that her boss calls her and tells her that the intern, young enough to be Annie’s daughter, is now her boss.

While this is happening, Keith is having a hard time drumming up any enthusiasm for the cruise. As one of the members of Boy Talk, he’d been doing these cruises and one-off concerts for years. The pay was good and it helped him feel like he was supporting his brother, also a member of Boy Talk, and the other members of the band.

Keith’s personal life isn’t rosy, he hates boats, and he just wants his brother’s affection, something that’s perpetually out of reach.

Organizing the band and cruise is Sarah. She’s done several cruises with different bands and knew how to get each member where they needed to be and how to keep them happy while confined to the ship.

The three lives intersect near the end. Keith ends up having a bit of a breakdown, Annie comes to terms with her new work situation and develops a plan, Sarah looks forward to wrapping up the whole experience and moving on.

The novel is written well enough that I was engrossed. It helped that Annie is 50 and at a stage in her life where she can see and appreciate her past and has the opportunity to create a new future for herself. The juxtaposition of having a cruise full of women dressing as they did in their teens, loving a boy band from their teens, and going full-on fanatical when the band is around and Annie struggling to snap out of stasis and move forward was interesting and well executed.

Overall I really enjoyed the novel. It was a nice dive into the mind of a middle-aged woman who is hesitant at first to move on, but gains confidence as she experiences all that the cruise has to offer.

Blurb Book Review: I Love You Don’t Die by Jade Song (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

This novel is about depression, death, suicide, and life. There is a trigger warning right at the beginning of the novel, which was a delightful thing to see. More of that, please.

Vicky is obsessed with death; she works as a copywriter for a death planning company, lives above a funeral home, and collects zhizha whenever she can.

In an effort to live, she scrolls through a dating app and finds a couple that she likes. They hit it off immediately and Vicky now has a co-conspirator in depression; Angela. Vicky can talk about death with someone who also has some firm beliefs about it. Vicky’s best friend, only friend, Jen, is more upbeat but has also suffered with depression.

The novel shows the different kinds of depression; from the depths of chronic depression to the sharpness of acute depression to the dullness of seasonal depression. There’s no shying away from death here, instead it’s a reflection of life in that it shows that all things must come to an end.

While the theme is dark, the characters are very human and compelling. Definitely not a read for everyone, though.

Blurb Book Review: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (spoilers ahead)

~ Robin James ~ Leave a comment

Cover image from Goodreads.com

Absolutely none of the characters in this book are likeable, but they are compelling.

This book of short stories centres around the theme of rejection, but also, I think, what it’s like to be in an echo chamber. The characters are each absorbed by the internet, they’ve become so attached to a tunnel-vision view of their lives that they seem unable to function in the world as a whole.

The stories are cross-referenced with each other, some of them show up as little cameos in the stories of others, which provides a really interesting view on the difference of how a character thinks of themselves compared to what someone else thinks of them.

The author does a magnificent job in characterization. Each character felt so real, I felt like I knew these people – warts and all – intimately. Also, in one story, the author gives a fantastic definition of the difference between shame and embarrassment.

While this collection of stories is a bit depressing, I’d read the author’s work again. This one will stick with me for a while, and make me want to get away from screens.