Review – Winters Writer

Posted on 22nd May 2024 by seasonsshadow

The Only Book I Ever DNF’d

Always curious to me is why people choose to not finish a book. I know people who give a book three chapters, and if they’re not hooked by then, they put it down and walk away. I know others that if they get bored at any point in reading it, then they put it down and walk away. Yet more that can only handle so much poor sentence structure before putting their book down. Some people can’t handle bad or unrealistic dialogue. I am proud to say that there’s only one book that I ever flat out did not finish.

But recently, I was SO CLOSE to adding a second title to that list.

The Ghost Woods by C. J. Cooke has a lot of things I really like. A beautiful cover, sapphic elements, a gothic setting, the suggestion of creatures not of this world, and quirky and unsettling characters. I was hooked early on its concept and how it presented the unsettling conflict, building it in slow spirals that had me trying to guess the twist.

And then I got to the middle third of this book.

The story’s premise is deeply intertwined with pregnancy and childbirth, but I guess I wasn’t expecting such a pocket of uncomfortably emotional motherhood. The creepy elements of the ghost woods, the mysteries of the house, and the crumbling sanity of the characters were all put to such an absolute halt that the dreaded words floated into my head…

“Wow. This book really isn’t for me.”

Emphasis on that is on “FOR” and not “ISN’T”.

It wasn’t like the writing suddenly took a nosedive, the whole thing was very well written. It’s just that I’ve never been a mother, I’ve never given birth, and I’ve never experienced any kind of “if you love them then let them go” morality crisis. The emotional hellscape the characters were fighting through had very little impact on me.

As I was talking myself into adding it to my donation box, I decided to give it a few more chapters. There was still a third of the book left, and we couldn’t possibly have set up all these weird and twisted, gothic and supernatural elements to just leave them there. Right?

RIGHT.

I am SO GLAD I kept on reading! After that middle lull, all the elements that had piqued my interest in the first place came back in full force and spiralled around the characters to tear them down in gruesome and wonderful ways.

Did you like the mini-series “Haunting of Hill House”? Then you’ll like this. Promise. Just push through that middle bit (or be crushed on an additional emotional level if you are a mother and/or can relate to the set-it-free morality problem stated above) and you won’t be sorry!

Now that you’ve read my review, are you curious about the only book I have closed and intentionally put away forever?

The Time Traveller’s Wife.

Fuck you Audrey Niffenegger.

I resent being set up with a beautiful story and an incredibly interesting plot device, only to be promised heartache. I DNF’d it like 10 years ago and I’m still salty about it.

“What about Nicholas Sparks?” you may ask me. I’ll allow it. I’ll even answer you. His books get you invested in the people only for real life to happen all over them and you. I live in real life. I’m familiar with the bullshit it can dish out to people who are otherwise just minding their own business and staying in their lane.

But a soft and cute fantasy where the premise is interesting and begging to be explored? Just to have some bullshit happen all over them because of my least favourite plot device: the misunderstanding? No. Go home.

Which leads me to wonder, what are some books other people have viciously DNF’d and why?

Posted on 4th Feb 20244th Feb 2024 by seasonsshadow

Have You Heard the 2023 Word of the Year?

Rizz: Pertaining to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness, this term is from the middle part of the word ‘charisma’, which is an unusual word formation pattern.
Oxford University Press

Okay. You know what? I’m not mad. There were a lot of contenders for the word of the year I would have been far more upset with. For example “Swiftie” was in the running. I don’t think that counts. It’s a nickname. Just like “Belieber” or “Blockheads”.

And I will never NOT be big mad that the 2015 word of the year was an EMOJI.

But rizz? It’s fun for a couple of reasons. First, it’s one of the few words where the shortened form is taken from the middle of the bigger word. The examples that Oxford University Press gives are “fridge” from the word “refrigerator” and the word “flu” from “influenza”.

The second reason I think it’s fun is that it’s similar to other slang words from the 1920’s or thereabouts. Razzmatazz was documented in and around 1917 and meant showy, or sparkle, or robust and enthusiastic. Razz appeared around the same time but also meant something completely different – to heckle someone or to give them a hard time.

Language is always evolving, and it’s interesting to see what happens as we move forward, especially with how things trend on social media and the internet. For those of you who have read 1984, do you remember the dictionary department? They were continuously working on making the dictionary smaller and smaller. Ignoring the fascist ideology behind their reasoning for doing so, I feel as though we are moving consistently in the opposite direction. Expanding our ability to understand and communicate with one another in a society that is progressing through movements and trends at break-neck speeds. Scary, but also interesting.

So tell me! Are there any words voted “Word of the Year” that angered you? Or are there slang words that have recently cropped up that just tickle you the right way? I’d love to know in the comments!

References

Posted on 4th Mar 202324th Mar 2023 by seasonsshadow

Book Review – March 23rd

Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

Hello friends! We have a theme! I also took a long time to decide if I was going to review THIS book! Now, let me back up. For those that have read my blog post about the books I would like to read this year (which can be found here), you may be looking at this post and your calendar. You are right, Memoirs of a Geisha was scheduled for May, not for March. The Master and Margarita was scheduled for March.

Yeah. About that.

Apparently, everyone and their dog wants to read that right now. When I searched for it, there were already TEN holds on it. My library system is pretty good, but they only have 2 copies of the damned thing. As of writing this, I am hold five of eleven, so there is some hope that I can have it by the end of May. In similar news, since I am skeptical that I will like many of the books on my list, I am not purchasing them.

This book kind of underlines why.

First, I want to address the lawsuits that surrounded the author, Arthur Golden, after the publication of this book. For those of you that don’t know, Geisha culture is a fairly tight-lipped affair, so speaking out about practices, norms, expectations, and events hasn’t been very widely approved of. Golden’s Memoirs certainly spurred a flurry of information and fact-finding, but I honestly can’t say it was for the right reasons.

One of the women that Golden interviewed for background had requested that her identity remain a secret. That was not respected as he thanked her in the acknowledgements, and although I’m sure the author meant well, caused a lot of problems for this woman. She received death threats and it caused a strain on her interpersonal relationships. Golden was sued for breach of contract and ended up settling out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Now that I’ve mentioned that, please buckle in for a not-very-friendly review.

Do you remember the book “A Million Little Pieces”? Do you remember how it was marketed as a memoir, but then a little while after, it came out that the author James Frey was making his story more dramatic so it had to be remarketed as general fiction and/or misery literature?

Memoirs felt a lot like that, but more… amateur. Like you know those fanfictions you wrote in high school, where you shamelessly self-inserted yourself into a story and your love interest of choice notices you for your *whatever trait you choose*? Your voice, your hair, your eyes, your singing, your height? Well, that’s sort of how this started. Everyone notices Sayuri’s eyes. They’re pale and unusual.

Now, I don’t typically mind this, because people are unusual! People have a lot of cool traits! There’s usually something of someone to look at and appreciate! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sucked into the story in the first few chapters. However, the moment Sayuri gets to Gion, everything goes downhill and the entire rest of the story made me increasingly more uncomfortable.

When I ranted to my partner about the plot, he summed it up really nicely by offering me “Sounds like it’s a whole book of terrible people making terrible choices.” It’s not ALL really that bad, but… I found myself unable to get much evidence to the contrary.

I typically try my best to read a book objectively. Just because I don’t like the plot, doesn’t mean that I think the book is bad. So why then, did this super popular book get such a low rating from me? I alluded to it in the paragraph talking about fanfiction. Arthur Golden has a degree in art history, in Japanese history, and one in English. He interviewed Mineko Iwasaka for her deep knowledge and involvement with the Geisha lifestyle.

AND YET. Some of the language and connections that he used and made felt like he had learned about certain aspects of life in an okiya and as a Geisha, and then just ran away with them. Some may argue “yes. That is what fiction is. You learn about something, or you speculate on something, and you write about it.” Which yes. Yes, that’s how that works. I’m not arguing that. What point I hope to slide in here is that when you are writing something on a topic that’s so tight-lipped, you have to be careful which face you decide to show in your writing. The book was written for an English audience, and how do you think people received it when he compares Geisha to escorts and prostitutes? He allegedly rewrote Memoirs three times, each from a different perspective, until he settled on Sayuri’s.

To Golden’s credit, Sayuri is believable as a narrator. Her personality is consistent throughout the book (almost to a fault) and you go through the book (mostly) being able to get behind her motivations. Not all authors can say that, especially when the author is writing a gender that he does not identify as, from a culture that he does not identify with.

What all this blather is trying to say is: Arthur Golden writes his book very well, on a topic that was done not very well.

It’s sort of like the uncanny valley. The book falls too much into ‘realism’ to be completely dismissed, but aspects of it are so squidgy and uncomfortable that it’s hard to completely settle into it.

All in all, take it as it is – fiction, and maybe watch the equally problematic cinematic release featuring Chinese actresses and save yourself some time.

References:

Posted on 25th Jan 202212th Feb 2023 by seasonsshadow

Book Review – January 23rd

The Starless Sea – Erin Morgenstern

So I feel tricked by this book. It was a gift from a good friend of mine.

“Here” she said. “I think you’ll like this book.” she said.

I began to read. It was beautiful. It was like meeting an incredibly attractive stranger at a fancy party you snuck into. Here is a whiff of their perfume/cologne. There you hear them laugh softly somewhere in a crowd of people. You can feel a brush of their fabric against your skin as again you just miss them. Their name, you must have their name!

Instead you find a scrap of paper. On it, there are three numbers. Could it possibly be a phone number? Or maybe a time. You know it’s important, but right now you don’t know just how.

You keep following the story, desperately drinking the magnificent word choices and the startlingly consistent tenses of the passages. Deeper it draws you in. You feel cradled.

The exploration of character was not a forward theme of this novel and yet by the end you feel as though you know each intimately. Like you share something private with them. Each piece of the split plot falls into place and the feeling of pride when you stand back and look at the whole thing is true. This is one of the most beautiful journeys that I have been on in a long time and my hat is off to the author for bringing this art into a readable format.