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Idol, Burning by Rin Usami
“Everything about him was precious. When it came to my oshi, I wanted to offer him everything I had.” Rin Usami’s Idol, Burning gives readers insight into fandom culture and celebrity worship through the lens of Akari, a high-school student whose thoughts are always on Masaki Ueno, her oshi, a former child actor who is…
1st pov, 2.5 STARS, adolescence, Adult, ALIENATION, ambiguous protagonist, ANGST, anxiety, boybands, bullying, cold tone, coming of age, Contemporary, DEPRESSION, desire, ennui, entertainment industry, fandom culture, female authors, feverish, HIGH SCHOOL, Idol Burning, japan, JAPANESE AUTHOR, LITERARY FICTION, musicians, navel gazing, published in 2020, read in 2023, Rin Usami, social media, subject over characters/story, the body, the female malaise, TRANSLATED FICTION -
Hardboiled & Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto
“I felt as if this place I had come to was nowhere. As if I no longer had a home to return to. That road I had been on didn’t lead anywhere, this trip would never end—it seemed to me as if next morning would never arrive.” Banana Yoshimoto is at her whimsical best in…
1990s, 1st pov, 3.5 STARS, Adult, ハードボイルド／ハードラック, Banana Yoshimoto, collection of short stories, Contemporary, DEATH, dreamlike quality, Dreams, existentialism, f/f, favourite authors, female authors, forgiveness, ghosts/spirits, GRIEF, heartbreak/breakups, hotel, illness, japan, JAPANESE AUTHOR, lgbtq+, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, Longing, MAGICAL REALISM, melancholy, MEMORY, navel gazing, no plot just vibes, published in 1999, queer, read in 2023, right person wrong time, sapphic, short stories, SISTERS, SLICE OF LIFE, suicide, surreal, TRANSLATED FICTION, unnamed narrator, uplifting reads -
Nothing Can Hurt You Now by Simone Campos
A banger of a premise is let-down by sensationalistic storytelling, a banal plot, and a writing style that for all its attempts to be gritty & edgy comes across as laughable. Worst still, the narrative seems under the impression that it is doing a lot, in terms of unconventional female characters and challenging simplistic representations…
2 STARS, 3rd pov, Adult, amateur detective, brazil, brazilian author, Contemporary, f/f, female authors, graphic content, kidnapping, LESBIAN, lgbtq+, men who are sleazy, missing girls, missing persons, models, MYSTERY, Neurodiversity, Not Like Other Girls, Nothing Can Hurt You Now, prostitution, published in 2019, queer, read in 2022, sapphic, sex, sex scenes that are yikes, Simone Campos, SISTERS, smut, style over character, survival, SUSPENSE, THRILLER, TRANSLATED FICTION, trying and failing @ feminism, wannabe gone girl -
Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto
Over the last couple of years, I have made slow but steady progress reading my way through Banana Yoshimoto’s oeuvre. Amrita marks the thirteenth work that I have read by her and, as in many ways, it exhibits many textbook Yoshimoto traits: an atypical family unity, an irreverently optimistic tone (regardless of the subject matter),…
1990s, 1st pov, 3 STARS, abuse, Adult, adulthood, amnesia, Amrita, アムリタ, Banana Yoshimoto, celebrities, Contemporary, existentialism, female authors, GRIEF, japan, JAPANESE AUTHOR, KIDS WITH POWERS, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, Longing, MAGICAL REALISM, MEMORY, mumblecore, navel gazing, no plot just vibes, POWERS, published in 1994, read in 2022, ROMANCE, siblings, SLICE OF LIFE, slow pacing, surreal, TRANSLATED FICTION -
Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada
Having read Hiroko Oyamada’s The Hole and The Factory, I was intrigued by the premise of Weasels in the Attic, which has recently been translated into English. This book is divided into three self-contained episodes centred on the same character. Our narrator’s wife really wants to have children but he seems far less enthused by…
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The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin
“I felt almost affectionate towards those machines, a kind of pity tinged with fear. As soon as they were fed, their contents would be regurgitated, undigested.” I am happy to report that I found Shua Dusapin’s second novel much more to my liking than her first one (which i actually tried revisiting hoping that it…
1st pov, 3.25 stars, Adult, adulthood, ambivalent mood, cold tone, Contemporary, contemporary malaise, cultural dissonance, dreamlike quality, Elisa Shua Dusapin, ennui, female authors, FRANCE, French Korean author, grandparents, introspective, japan, Korea, language, loneliness, melancholy, navel gazing, published in 2018, read in 2022, stylised prose, teachers, the female malaise, The Pachinko Parlour, tokyo, TRANSLATED FICTION -
All This I Will Give to You by Dolores Redondo
“There’s a type of open grief that’s public, one of tears and mourning; and there’s another, immense and silent, that is a million times more powerful.” Initially, the premise for All This I Will Give to You intrigued me and I was gripped by the story’s tragic momentum. Manuel, a bestselling author, receives a visit…
3 STARS, 3rd pov, Adult, All This I Will Give to You, books about writers, class, Contemporary, CRIME, Dolores Redondo, drama, female authors, gay, GRIEF, lgbtq+, m/m, MURDER, murder mystery, MYSTERY, police, published in 2016, queer, read in 2022, rich people, SMALL TOWN, small town crime, spain, spanish author, SUSPENSE, TRANSLATED FICTION, widows -
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi
“Inside of me, there’s another person, with a form all his own, moving around as he pleases. It’s like my own body has become foreign to me.” The premise for Diary of a Void promised a ‘surreal and wryly humorous cultural critique’ and I am afraid that while the commentary within this novel is fairly…
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Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez
“You have something of mine, I passed on something of me to you, and hopefully it isn’t cursed, I don’t know if I can leave you something that isn’t dirty, that isn’t dark, our share of night” Although I have previously quoted Lady Gaga’s iconic “talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same,…
1980s, 1990s, 4 STARS, abuse, Adult, ALIENATION, all of the trigger warnings, argentina, argentinian author, atmospheric, big books, BISEXUAL/PANSEXUAL, boyhood, child abuse, CHILDHOOD, coming of age, creepy setting, cults, dark, DEATH, england, FANTASY, fathers & sons, female authors, friendships, gay side characters, graphic content, GRIEF, grotesque, growing up, GUILT, haunted house, HISTORICAL FICTION, HORROR, illness, latin america, lgbtq+, loneliness, Mariana Enríquez, missing girls, missing persons, morality, occult, orphans, otherness, Our Share of Night, parallel universes, PARANORMAL, POWERS, published in 2019, queer, read in 2022, road trip, sexual assault/abuse/rape, strong sense of place, summer reads, SUPERNATURAL, toxic relationships, tragedy, TRANSLATED FICTION, trauma, unrequited love, violence -
We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets
We Had to Remove This Post is one of those books that leaves me thinking…well, not much beyond: this is a thing that exists It doesn’t happen all that much but now and again I read books that spectacularly fail to elicit any discernible feeling or emotion in me (beyond ‘meh’). This is ironic given…
1st pov, 2 STARS, Adult, cold tone, Contemporary, dutch author, f/f, female authors, feverish, Hanna Bervoets, HORROR, jealousy, LESBIAN, lgbtq+, LITERARY FICTION, morality, Netherlands, NOVELLA/SHORT STORY, obsession, office, paranoia, psychological, published in 2021, queer, read in 2022, sapphic, social issues, social media, subject over characters/story, technology, TRANSLATED FICTION, unreliable narrators, violence, We Had to Remove This Post, work culture
luce [is reading] 