I’ve been a fan of Anna-Marie McLemore since high school, but over the past two years or so, I’ve seen a decline in quality in their books; for their last two releases, I chalked it up to co-authoring (Venom & Vow) and being constrained by what they had to work with, although that could be a stretch (Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix). With their latest release, Flawless Girls, having a concerningly low average rating (3.30 at present), I expected the worst, but still wanted to believe that they could come back with something better. And…Flawless Girls was better, but only by a slim margin.
The Soler sisters—Isla and Renata—are famously wild, raised to be rebellious and questioning of their restrictive society from a young age. But their grandmother knows that society will frown upon such disobedient girls, and there is one last resort to keep them in line: the prestigious Alarie House, a finishing school famous for the assembly line of polite, high-society women that it churns out. After Renata returns from the Alarie House plagued by madness, Isla decides to dig into the dark corners of the school to see just what made her sister crumble. But what she finds in the corrupted heart of the Alarie House may put all of the girls in jeopardy…
TW/CW: prejudice against an intersex person, fire, body horror, misogyny, dysphoria, descriptions of injury, violence
For the past two years or so, I’ve seen a decline in Anna-Marie McLemore’s novels, which is something that I’ve dreaded saying. I didn’t want to force such words upon the same lyrical talent who wrote When the Moon Was Ours and Wild Beauty, but alas…maybe it wasn’t meant to last. Although it wasn’t as disappointing as Venom & Vow or Self-Made Boys, Flawless Girls was thoroughly messy, even if there were some bright spots in it.
What I want to emphasize the most about Flawless Girls is that, for all of its flaws (no pun intended), it had promise—it was just severely underdeveloped. If McLemore didn’t want to flesh out the concept of the novel, I think it would have worked spectacularly as a novella or even a short story. McLemore’s narration, even it wasn’t as lushly descriptive as I’ve come to know them for, had the feel of a cautionary fable, which was a perfect fit for this story. Even if it did feel like we were being sledgehammered in the face with the main metaphor, it nonetheless had the feeling of a dark fairytale or a fable. To be honest, Flawless Girls could work even better if it were aimed at younger YA audiences just coming into the genre, and I don’t mean that as a slight to the novel at all. It’s not subtle, but as a transitory book between middle grade and YA, it could work. With some significant polishing, of course.
Said main metaphor is femininity—more specifically the performance of it. The institution of the Alarie House served as a pointed commentary about the artificiality of our expectations for women and girls, and how unattainable and manicured these expectations are. It was especially poignant with Isla, a Latina and intersex protagonist struggling with performing femininity with a nonconforming body. Isla’s story felt incredibly personal—I had no idea that McLemore was also intersex, and it’s clear from every page that this is the story of their heart. There’s so little intersex representation out there, but that’s not the only reason why Flawless Girls, with a little polish, could be so important—it’s a fable of the madness that befalls women and feminine-presenting people crumbling under the weight of beauty and behavioral standards. Could it have been more subtle? Without a doubt. Was it impactful nonetheless? Absolutely.
That being said…a recurring thought I had while reading Flawless Girls was that it felt like a front for as many gemstone facts as possible. Next to the metaphor about femininity and performance, gemstones were right up there with the most striking motifs of the novel, but they were everywhere. Once you get past the 30% mark, characters will just ramble on about any kind of gemstone fact that they can shove in the span of two pages. At that point, a motif that bloats so much of the narrative just isn’t a motif anymore—it’s just swallowing everything else in its path. It did play a key role in the ending, but if McLemore wanted to make said ending more impactful, slimming down the endless character interactions where they just talk about gemstones for five pages would have been the right move. Like with jewelry, placement is key—you can’t just drown the narrative in a single motif and call it pretty.
Also, the worldbuilding is a mess. A complete mess. In the synopsis and the beginning of the novel, it’s stated that the reason that Isla and Renata are sent off to the Alarie House is that they’ve been raised to be rebellious and questioning of authority, and as they are Latina girls, it’s safer to teach them to keep quiet so that they don’t garner any unwanted attention. That would have been a very timely theme…if there was any indication of what society that Flawless Girls was set in! I assumed that it was a vaguely historical setting (and the author’s note didn’t clarify much else other than it being “historical”), but we get no sense of where we are in time, save for pre-21st century. Flawless Girls could equally work as being in a fantasy world or historical fiction with a touch of magical realism…but we have no idea which McLemore was going for, because outside of the Alarie House, nothing about the world is explained. No explanation of how and why the finishing schools came to be, no explanation of the technology level, no explanation of the (presumably) patriarchal powers pulling the strings and squeezing women into these molds. No worldbuilding, only gemstones!
All in all, a disappointing and messy effort from a longtime favorite that felt half-baked at best, but still shone in places. 3.25 stars.
Flawless Girls is a standalone, but Anna-Marie McLemore is also the author of Wild Beauty, When the Moon Was Ours, The Weight of Feathers, Lakelore, Dark and Deepest Red, Blanca & Roja, and Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix. They also co-authored Venom & Vow (with Elliott McLeMore) and Miss Meteor (with Tehlor Kay Mejia), and have contributed short stories to several anthologies, including All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages, Eternally Yours, Color Outside the Lines, and many others.
Today’s song:
one of my favorite songs from this album!!
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
This week on me being incredibly predictable: needless to say, I’m a wreck again. The demos. The David Bowie demos. They got me…………..
As if I wasn’t already eviscerated by what I’ve heard of Divine Symmetry (see: “Quicksand” [Demo]), we’re already back at it again with Rock n’ Roll Star!, a collection of demos, rarities, and live recordings from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. For me, an album is one of the few things that isn’t ruined by seeing all of the moving cogs inside of its stomach; seeing the nymphs of what would become rock classics makes the process even more admirable—and more human, knowing how many costumes each song had to try on before debuting. A piece of “Moonage Daydream” was once less than two minutes, much less spacey, and called “So Long 60’s”; “Lady Stardust” went through several vocal changes before coming out the other side. Most of these were changes that were necessary for the songs to shine.
And yet, the demo version of “Soul Love” feels like the proper way that the song should have been all along. On Ziggy Stardust, it serves to ground the grandiose, anguished lament of “Five Years,” calming the album in vignettes of grief and young lovers. This demo includes some of Bowie’s notes—you can hear him telling his producers that he envisions the final products with lots of saxophone, which it eventually gained. There was no way that “Soul Love” would have ever made it onto Ziggy Stardust in its sparse, acoustic form; there’s no room for that kind of true quiet on an album that’s not only so lofty in its story, but unabashedly theatrical and glam rock. “Soul Love” was always intimate, but in isolation, with only Bowie and his acoustic guitar, the intimacy feels exactly how it was intended. In such a soft, enclosed space, the secrecy of “A boy and girl are talking/New words/That only they can share” and the silent mourning of “She kneels before the grave/A brave son/Who gave his life to save the slogans.” In the landscape of the Ziggy Stardust narrative, “Soul Love” is the period after the announcement of Earth’s impending doom, where fleeting images of people are shown in private, emotional moments—lovers embracing in the darkness, and a mother grieving her fallen son, but thinking also of the future—was it for the best that he was slain before the calamitous end of the world? That privacy is what makes the acoustic version feel much more fitting to the true intent of the song; the performance itself is as secretive and soft of a moment as the very vignettes that Bowie describes; hunched over his guitar, for the first time, you understand the purpose with which he sings “all I have is my love of love,” solid against his beating heart like loose change in his breast pocket.
The more I listen to “Little Bird,” the more I’m tempted to just copy and paste the lyrics here in lieu of actually writing something, because how else could I do justice to this song? When you’ve got the talent to open a song like this, how do you describe it any better than her?
“Your heart sings like a kettle/And your words, they boil away like steam/And a lie burns long, while the truth bites quick/A heart is built for both, it seems/You are lonely as a church/Despite the queuing out your door/I am empty as a promise, no more.”
One verse. One verse, and I can already feel my chest caving in. Christ. You can dress your story with all the metaphors you like, but Hannigan places them so intentionally that they were never throwaways to make anything more purple or flowery; there’s a quiet tragedy to them, like the squeal of a tea kettle as its contents boil. And it’s not just tying objects like teakettles and churches—thinking to make words disappear in a flush of steam and making the pinnacle of isolation a church is what makes them dig so deeply; it’s Hannigan gives new eyes to these metaphors that turn them into such gut-wrenching poetry. It encapsulates a sensation I often felt as a child, and on occasion now that I’m older: that of being in such a large crowd of people, and everything seeming to collapse into silence and loneliness around you, even though you’re as surrounded and secure as can be. Loneliness, homesickness, lovesickness—the more company it has, the more it aches, I find. Whatever the opposite of claustrophobia is how “Little Bird” is—the feeling of being in an enclosed space, but such a large and unfurnished one that it makes your body instinctively crouch into a small shape. It’s the caldera of loneliness as you grapple with the space one filled by someone, but now occupied by the tug-of-war between whatever made you stay and what made you let them go: “When the time comes/And rights have been read/I think of you often/But for once, I meant what I said.” But the paper-thin, lead-heavy lyrics would not be the same without their messenger—nothing brings it sailing back home like Hannigan’s solemn, wavering warble, each tremble never failing to give me full-body tremors.
In case that wasn’t enough to elicit a good cry, here’s her performance of it on her Tiny Desk Concert (skip to 2:32):
Of course I came back to this song in an election year. I distinctly remembering “We The People…” coloring the deep-rooted anxiety and turmoil of 2016, what with the hate machine that was Trump’s election campaign and eventual presidency. I really, really want to say that “We The People…” sounds dated, but nothing about it is. First off, A Tribe Called Quest are just that talented, but more importantly…nothing about this song’s politics is dated. Here we are in 2024, and Trump is back, and spewing the exact same rhetoric, now with callbacks to Hitler that aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. In his reelection campaign, the only change to his status are the impeachments (PLURAL, remember) and the 34 felony charges. Predictably, that’s done next to nothing to sway his rabid fanbase. I really wish I could say that this song was a product of its time. Maybe in 20 years, when all of this is behind us, it will be. But no, in eight years, nothing’s really changed. A Tribe Called Quest stripped the desires of Trump and his supporters down to the bone, and eight years later, it makes me ill to think that we’re trapped in this same cycle again.
But you know what else hasn’t changed? Our anger. Back in 2016, we knew the dangers of letting such a raging, narcissistic bigot with no political experience into the White House, and now we’ve survived it, and we’re bent on making sure it won’t happen again. The anger and determination of “We The People…” rings the same, but with more tenacity. It may be disheartening to be stuck in this hell time loop, but at least we have high-quality protest music whose wit (and infectious beat) hasn’t dulled in almost a decade. Thanks, Tribe.
I really don’t think it has, not at all. In fact, it only sharpens the image that “Aikea-Guinea” conjures as it fizzes like waves dissipating on a rocky shore. By 1985, gated reverb was king (and likely growing overused, at least in mainstream music…and remember, kids, we have “Intruder” to thank for it), but the Cocteau Twins knew just the way to use it to their advantage. By cloaking all of their percussion in it, “Aikea-Guinea” dissolves in your ears like fizzing candy, or more accurately, like crackling sea foam birthed from a freshly-broken wave. Like “Oomingmak,” it’s swathed in mist, but this mist comes from the aftermath of a storm out at sea, the air full of nostril-tingling salt and faint coldness making goosebumps prickle on your bare arms. With each punch of percussion, such seashells that Fraser described tumble through the water, colliding with each other as time and water erode them. Fraser’s voice, which bobs and balloons like frogs after nightfall, is as transient as plankton in the water, spiraling like the trails of bubbles that carry each shell through the currents of time.
I’m not even that ardent of a Creedence Clearwater Revival fan—my knowledge doesn’t extend much past the hits—but I firmly believe that this is one of those songs, like David Bowie’s “Kooks,” that every kid should have in their life. The only crime about this song is that it wasn’t released in the same key as the music video, which, in my opinion, makes the lighthearted daydream of it feel all the more daydream-like. And speaking of daydreams…usually, I don’t get all up in arms when a given song gets interpreted as being about drugs, but oh my god. Please. “Oh, it’s about tripping, the spoon is an allusion to cocaine, the—” SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JOHN FOGERTY WROTE THIS SONG FOR HIS THREE-YEAR-OLD SON, YOU EDGELORDS!!! IT’S NOT AN ACID TRIP, THE LYRICS WERE INSPIRED BY DR. SEUSS!!! For fuck’s sake, man…of all the lyric interpretation cop-outs, this has to be one of the most offensive for me. Just because it was written in 1969 doesn’t mean that it’s about acid…
I guess what tweaks me so much, other than how much of a mainstay of my childhood that “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” was, is that people automatically see silly, nonsensical imagery and automatically attribute it to acid. Do none of you have any imagination? What, did you forget how you got bored in your childhood and started imagining happy creatures dancing on the lawn? Is that how out of touch you are with your inner child?? Okay, I’m getting far too worked up about that, but god. It genuinely gets under my skin that a song of such purity still gets misinterpreted like this. Just goes to show you how we treat childlike wonder and imagination.
Anyway. All that said, no amount of misinterpretation will ever sully this song to me; there’s a joyous warmth to it that really can only be the product of happy creatures dancing on the lawn. I remember imagining them somewhere along the lines of Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter books, and that’s the beauty of it. This song, like Dr. Seuss, was made to be a picture book: the language is simple enough for a child to understand, but there’s so much silliness and vibrance abound that, just like a peeling, well-loved board book, they’ll be asking to hear “doo, doo, doo, lookin’ out my back door” time and time again.
On another note: I’d planned on including “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” this week anyway, but putting it on the heels of rewatching The Big Lebowski recently was only fitting:
Old news: I’m desperate for good cozy sci-fi, and most of that desperation comes from the fact that nobody does it like Becky Chambers, but publishers will slap “perfect for Becky Chambers fans!” on literally any sci-fi book with a hint of several people crammed on a ship. It has to stop. Floating Hotel looked like it might actually live up to those expectations, but I was hesitant because I didn’t enjoy Grace Curtis’ debut, Frontier. But I’m glad I gave Floating Hotel a chance, because it was just what I needed!
The Grand Abeona Hotel knows no borders, no political affiliations, and no galaxy or planet to call home. But for many, the Grand Abeona is their home away from home—a safe haven where nobody cares who you are and why you’re here. Run by Carl, the aging manager who first came to the hotel as a stowaway, the Grand Abeona is home to a vibrant cast of characters, all of whom will have paths that will unexpectedly intersect. And as small mysteries begin piling up in the far corners of the Grand Abeona, Carl and the hotel’s misfit staff must pull the pieces together before the hotel itself is put in harm’s way.
In retrospect, there’s really no better book that I could have read on my Kindle, which has the Grand Budapest Hotel on the case. Some things were just meant to be.
I doubt anyone will ever top Becky Chambers in terms of cozy sci-fi, but Grace Curtis comes close—and that’s exactly why I’m so glad that I gave her another chance. Though it’s not without its mystery and relatively high-stakes subplots, Floating Hotel is a cup of tea for the soul: quiet, observant, and downright warm and charming.
My main issue with Frontier was that it promised action, but delivered next to nothing; it’s not that I don’t like books without action, but when your book’s tagline is “love, loss, and laser guns,” you kind of…have to deliver there, no? After reading Floating Hotel, it’s clear that quieter, cozy sci-fi is what Curtis was meant to write; aside from the rebellion subplot, which was relatively under-the-radar and wasn’t a major issue until the last 20% of the novel, this novel had comfortably low stakes. Although there was a fair amount of turmoil in the empire established in the world of Floating Hotel, you really do feel like the Grand Abeona is a safe haven from all of the ills of the galaxy. There, nobody cares who you are, so long as you have a story to tell.
Another issue with Frontier was that, with all of the characters and subplots it juggled, a lot of the plot points blended together, giving the reader little time to connect with anybody. If my leap from Frontier’s 2-star rating to my 4-star rating of Floating Hotel wasn’t indication enough, Curtis has significantly improved on that aspect of her writing in the space between the two novels! This novel similarly juggles a multitude of characters—many of whom only get one chapter in the vast sea of POVs—but all of them have a unique place in the story. None of the backstories or motivations felt forced, and all of them connected back to how the Grand Abeona has healed them as people; through all of their eyes, whether it’s a waitress, a piano player, or a professor visiting for a conference, you can see just how important of the Grand Abeona is as a safe haven. Floating Hotel is one of the few books with more than 10 (I think?) POVs that has truly worked for me, and it’s a combination of really being able to connect each one to the hotel and its story, and it incorporates other characters organically before we even get their POVs—the interconnectedness was so smooth that I didn’t mind the massive amount of voices displayed.
Curtis clearly understands the cozy part of cozy sci-fi that so many people who market books as “cozy” never seem to get—the near absence of stakes. For the majority of the novel, it’s a very down-to-earth, slice-of-life kind of plot where all of the mysteries are more humorous than troubling; I mean, one of the main subplots of the first half of the novel is trying to find the culprit of an anonymous admirer leaving love letters in the lobby index. And I ate it up. It’s just so gentle!! Is the fate of the galaxy at stake? Absolutely not! The hotel staff is just getting together once a week to watch terrible movies for nostalgia’s sake!! Peak cozy sci-fi right here, folks!! There are queer and disabled characters abound (WOOHOO!!), but neither homophobia nor ableism are plot points at all! They’re just going about their lives!! This is the stuff!!
What both Curtis and Becky Chambers get right about cozy sci-fi as well is that cozy doesn’t necessarily equal apolitical. In the background, there’s plenty of discussions of imperialism with the tyrannical empire crawling with shady cloning and nepotism (take a guess at how those two things tie together…). Curtis isn’t afraid to take stabs at capitalism, environmental destruction, xenophobia (I love the subplot about the empire banning media about aliens because it would compromise the perceived superiority of the human race), and so much more over the course of the novel, and it elevates it exponentially. It emphasizes another truth (for me, at least) about cozy sci-fi, and being a gentle person in general—cozy or quiet does not equal docile or unwilling to speak out about injustice. To quote IDLES, another bastion of kindness: “Ain’t no doormats here/It doesn’t mean you have to bow, or say “Your Highness”/Just kill ’em with kindness.”
All in all, a gentle and masterful piece of cozy sci-fi, and a marked improvement from Grace Curtis’ debut. Consider my faith in her writing restored! 4 stars!
Floating Hotel is a standalone, but Grace Curtis is also the author of Frontier.
Today’s song:
am I ashamed of listening to this on repeat while writing the third book in my sci-fi trilogy? absolutely not.
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Credit & link back to the creator: Isabelle @ Nine Tale Vixen
Each book you pick should have an LGBTQIA+ main character and/or an LGBTQIA+ author. Try to include diverse books: different romantic/sexual/gender orientations, different ethnicities, etc.
Let’s begin, shall we?
🌈READ THE RAINBOW BOOK TAG🌈
RED: A book that gives you courage or is about courage
An Unkindness of Ghostsis a story of courage and resistance in circumstances that have all but walled you in—a generation ship that oppresses its lower-class passengers of color much like the antebellum South. Rivers Solomon never misses!
ORANGE: A book with a passionate/fierce protagonist
Jin-Lu from Road to Ruinis as tough as they come, but will do anything to protect the ones she loves. This novel was the perfect blend of post-apocalyptic sci-fi and fantasy!
YELLOW: A book that celebrates friendship
All of Alechia Dow’s books sparkle with themes of connection, but A Song of Salvationcenters around the friendship (and eventual romance) between its three unlikely leads! Not her best, but still a sweet book.
GREEN: A Middle Grade book and/or a book featuring kids
It’s been ages since I’ve read (or even thought about) Star-Crossed, but I’m glad I remembered it—such a sweet coming-of-age story about a bisexual girl playing a genderbent Romeo in her class production of Romeo & Juliet!
BLUE: A book which includes a wedding or an already-established LGBTQIA+ couple
I seriously think that The Heartbreak Bakeryhas the most LGBTQ+ rep I’ve ever seen in a single book—several established queer couples, and characters spanning tons of sexualities, gender identities, and ethnicities!
PURPLE: A book featuring love at first sight
The Cybernetic Tea Shopis a sweet, cozy sci-fi novella about a robot who runs a tea shop and the romance that blooms between her and a technician!
BLACK: A book centered on an antihero or villain
Off With Their Headscenters around two cunning, bloodthirsty, and vengeful characters, in an equally bloodthirsty and vengeful world loosely based on Alice in Wonderland.
BROWN: A book that celebrates family, chosen or given
Don’t let the gritty-looking title and cover fool you—Activation Degradationis one of the most emotional celebrations of found family that I’ve read all year! Highly recommend it.
LIGHT BLUE: A book about star-crossed lovers
Across a Field of Starlightfeatures a nonbinary romance that stretches across solar systems, war, and ideology.
PINK: A book as sweet as cotton candy
Just Your Local Bisexual Disasteris a lighthearted, sweet romance about a bisexual girl scrambling to find a date for her sister’s quinceañera—and sort out her messy romantic history.
WHITE: A book that isn’t focused on romance
Another piece of lovely cozy sci-fi (from the cozy sci-fi queen herself), A Psalm for the Wild-Builthas no romance, and focuses on self-discovery and friendship!
PURPLE CIRCLE: A standalone book that is perfect and complete on its own
Only This Beautiful Momentis the story of three generations of men in an Iranian family, and the interwoven threads of sexuality, trauma, and love.
RAINBOW: Free choice! Recommend any LGBTQIA+ book that you love
A Half-Built Gardenwas one of the best pieces of sci-fi that I read last year—a wonderfully nuanced and human vision of first contact, featuring a whole host of cleverly designed aliens!
I TAG ANYONE WHO WANTS TO PARTICIPATE!
Today’s song:
:,,,,,,,,,,)
That’s it for this book tag! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
First off: happy Father’s Day to my incredible dad! Not only are you such a wonderful role model for being a genuinely kind, accepting, and truly empathetic person, you’ve given me the gift of sharing music—what these posts are all about. To be able to share music with you back brings me all the joy in the world. I love you.
This week: 🚨SOCCER MOMMY HAS COME TO SAVE THE SECOND HALF OF 2024, THIS IS NOT A DRILL🚨
SOCCER MOMMY RETURNS!!! Given the short tour (that’s nowhere near me……..no, I’m totally not mad, no way) that she’s currently embarking on to support some of this new material, there’s a fourth album (sixth, counting the self-released albums) on the horizon, and hopefully on a happier date. Poor thing. I still haven’t gotten over the fact that her last album, Sometimes, Forever, was unintentionally released on the day that Roe v. Wade was overturned. Jesus.
Something that I’ve admired over the years about Soccer Mommy is her willingness to experiment with her production. At their core, her songs have never changed their essence: honest, tender confessions of the trials of heartbreak, grief, and mental health. But the dressing is never the same twice, from color theory’s color-coded tonal shifts and synth-dusted melodies to the darker, more distorted soundscape of Sometimes, Forever. With the latter, Chelsea Wolfe wasn’t somebody that I’d readily compare to Soccer Mommy, but then she comes along with “Unholy Affliction,” and the comparison, at least on that track, is as clear as day. Just when you think she’s playing it safe, she comes out of nowhere with instrumentation that you’d never imagine attributed to her name—and almost every time, it still feels like nothing but Sophie Allison. There’s a boldness to her that’s rare in the genre; there is an expectation of sameness in the kind of indie circles she’s in, an expectation to box yourself into the image that the record label deems as “authentic” in order to stay in their good graces—and the good graces of fans who cling to their raw lyrics. Julien Baker, although her first two albums adhered to that, took a similar leap with Little Oblivions, and that, for me, was her best album to date.
But Soccer Mommy can’t help but be herself. “Lost” strays nearer to some of her sparer, more traditionally indie roots, but with production that feels spun from silk; inside of the glowing cocoon where Allison resides, threads of synth, birdsong, and yearning strings coalesce in what can only be described as the musical form of a grainy polaroid, a sunset tinged with ink, film, and bygone memories. Bygone memories, like much of her other material, is at the core of “Lost,” specifically bygone memories of those bygone. Given the trajectory of “yellow is the color of her eyes,” some have speculated that “Lost” is about her mother’s death, although Allison has chosen to not disclose the subject. whatever the case, I’m glad that Soccer Mommy doesn’t have the kind of rabid Swiftie fanbase that would relentlessly strip away at the press and at Allison herself to get to the bottom of who she’s mourning, because…that’s her own business, dammit. I’m glad us…whatever Soccer Mommy fans are called (does this fanbase have a name?) have the heart to give a human being space to breathe, because, judging from the lyrics (and all of color theory, frankly), Allison needs it. “Lost” distills grief in the truths of the cliche that every movie seems to repeat about grief: “I wish I’d had more time.” Most media leans on that universal kernel to hold the weight of such a complex, unmappable sensation, but Allison scratches at its heart; her grief rests not just in tangible objects, but in the reminders of the time never spent: “I’ve got a way/Of keeping her with me where I go/But how she feels, I’ll never know/It’s lost to me.” The pain of this track is in the insurmountable truth of never being able to fully know a person; of course you can never fully, truly know a person beyond yourself, but grief exacerbates that unsurmountable summit—even if you tell yourself that you could be a cartographer of a brain outside your own, that chance has all but slipped through your fingers. Grief has unrealistic expectations of you; in its throes, it tells you that you could have made up for all of the missed regrets in your lifetime, and that’s half of the knife in your gut. Half of the pain isn’t what didn’t happen, but what can’t happen, even in the alternate reality it presents. When she repeats “If I had another chance/I’d ask her then,” it doesn’t feel like a throwaway from a stale funeral in the MCU—it feels like the testimony of something still putting down the compass and fountain pen, knowing that this expedition was doomed from the start.
So, what, you ask, might us sad girls do while we wait for Soccer Mommy’s fourth LP, which will inevitably destroy us? Watch Allison and fellow storied sad girl Phoebe Bridgers unite to cover Elliott Smith:
Contrary to the song title, Haley Heynderickx is (probably) not responsible for the kind of song that old men will sing in a pub while drunk for generations to come. I mean, that could be a possibility in some alternate universe. I’d like to see that. It’d make for an odd movie scene—nothing about this universe has changed, but instead of old Irish ballads, there’s a pub full of swaying people singing late-2010’s indie rock.
With a title like “Drinking Song,” I fully expected this song to be the prequel to “Oom Sha La La,” a telling of the period where “The milk [was] sour/I’ve barely been to college/And I’ve been doubtful/Of all that I have dreamed of.” Contrary to that, “Drinking Song” is a soft-spoken but resolute declaration of hope, delivered out a summer window while the crickets sing. Any darkness is the shroud of night, and all of the stars seem to bear witness to a constitution of better days to come: “And the edge of the world makes it seem/That everyone gone is still singing the same song/And I can believe in these things/That everyone’s singing along/The good and the bad and the gone.” There’s a kind of childlike optimism to the openness of Heynderickx’s declaration, but one with roots strong enough to hold it; with each repetition of “there’s a light at the end that I know,” that glow, like The Great Gatsby’s green light, pulses with more intensity with each incantation, until it becomes a portal to better times. It’s the opposite of negative overthinking; this song overflows with future vignettes of new cities to explore and new lovers to embrace, all held within the space of the back of your mind. “Drinking Song” is a snow globe containing every good future—all is too small to comprehend in the here and now, but with a little luck, you can hold them in your hands and watch them unfold before you.
I like plenty of bands and artists whose catalogue consists of one or two songs tops (see: Wet Leg, Suki Waterhouse, etc.). What distinguishes said bands, for me, is that they’ve made a career out of making those two songs worth your time—they may only be two songs, but they play them well. Sure, “I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams” may be one of Weezer’s one, maybe two songs (and even that’s generous), but it’s such a bright and shining piece of machinery that you can’t help but gaze at said one song and know that, yeah, it may be the same song they’ve been peddling since 1994, but it’s one fantastic song.
The more I listen to Ganser, the more I realize that they fall into that camp. I hate to say that every time, but like I said, it’s not always an insult. Although they do have a good amount of deviation here and there, most of Just Look At That Sky, as much as I enjoyed it, is the same three off-kilter, drawled post-punk songs about being numb, exhausted, and angry, or some combination of the three. They’ve got a brand. Ganser, for me, stands out in that their three songs sound different enough from any given song that you can excuse them for relative lack of variety. None of their chords ever align pleasantly—it’s abrasive, grating, and honestly? Fun. As with “People Watching” (which I reviewed at the beginning of the month), Ganser makes the kind of punk that’s aware of how punk it sounds, and they lean into every inch of theatricality with their bleary-eyed drawls and itchy, buzz-saw guitar riffs, fuzzy and stinging like staring straight at the sun—just as like the climax of “Bad Form.” Ganser is a band that’s not afraid to make music that scratches your skin like un-filed, bitten nails, and if that’s their three songs, then three cheers for making three songs that are bold enough to sound unappealing.
I was first introduced to “Transatlanticism” when I was about 12 or 13. A few months after the first listen (and being irreparably entranced), I had an internship at a local flower shop, where the owner had Sirius XMU playing. This song came on at some point, and I’ll never forget the deeply concerned look she gave me when I told her, in the most 13-year-old way possible, how much I “loooooooooooved” this song. She was entirely justified.
Another thing that music criticism does that I’ve never understood: categorizing Death Cab for Cutie as emo. If I suspend my disbelief enough, I can see the basis being in the whine in Ben Gibbard’s voice, especially when he performs live, and the dramatic emotion is there, but…in what world does Death Cab for Cutie belong in the same breath as My Chemical Romance? Really? I could almost see them being the middle ground between emo and indie, with some of the lingering whine and drama, but the key with selling drama is what has always lost me with most emo music: it actually feels authentic. Never once does Gibbard sound like a suburban teenage boy who’s just discovered heartbreak and black eyeliner in one fell swoop. The whine, although it can fit into some of said teenage boy sensibilities (see: “We Looked Like Giants”), just seems more of a product of Gibbard’s natural range than it does a forced vehicle for airbrushed angst.
In theory, “Transatlanticism” fails my test of withstanding a long song; most of the time, in order for a long song to hold enough water past around the six minute mark, there has to be at least some sort of shift, whether that’s tonal, lyrical, or instrumental; it’s why “Cop Shoot Cop” by Spiritualized really feels like it’s over 17 minutes long, with its largely extended sleepwalk of monotony, whereas Nina Simone’s ten minute epic “Sinnerman” has the fervor and gusto, as well as an act structure similar to classical pieces, is a nail-biting journey that never lets go of your shirt collar. (To be fair to J. Spaceman, my guess is that the tedium is the intended effect, seeing as it’s about how his heroin addiction all but made him into a dead man walking. Knowing him, it’s fully intentional.) However, there’s songs like Blur’s “Tender”—nearly eight minutes long and without much change—that have the pure, undiluted heart to keep its sails billowing. You feel everything—it’s an IV drip straight through to the sparest, most instinctual emotions, heart-wrenching in its delicately-crafted simplicity. “Transatlanticism” takes a trick out of that same book; until the last third, all that accompanies Gibbard’s thinning, tender lament is about four piano chords, played over and over with a purposeful negative space between them. Come to think of it, negative space is exactly why “Transatlanticism” works so well. Transatlanticism as a whole is a concept album about long-distance relationships, and even without the lyrics, crushing as they are, you can sense the abyssal gulf cutting down the middle of this song. At the four-minute mark, after Gibbard has finished with the first repetition of “I need you so much closer,” a full minute passes of a single, instrumental strain: those same four chords, a spare guitar lick, and tiny tendrils of synth that faintly moan and rattle like dying machinery, as if trying to conceal their death rattles without bothering anyone. Transatlancism was aided with Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they drew the same cards that produced Bowie’s “Sense of Doubt”—”emphasize difference” and “try to make everything as similar as possible.”
The difference, in this case, is a shift in lyrical style; It’s all but silent compared to the lyrics in the first half, but that silence conveys the feeling of separation, of having a strand of your soul stretched across an ocean and not being able to see who’s on the other shore, just as heartbreakingly as words do. After Gibbard’s lament (“The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door/Have been silenced forevermore/The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row/It seems farther than ever before”), the exhaustion of sorrow leaves you with no strength to do anything but stare into the canyon wrought by distance, too far to even touch fingertips over. Simplicity is what kills me about this song; after that instrumental break, Gibbard repeats the “I need you so much closer” refrain, only to transform it to “I need you so much closer…so come on.” When all of the poetry’s drained, sometimes the most sparing lyricism destroys me. The ocean has spread its impossible distance before you, and all you can do is stare as far as you can, towards the bottom, with only the most baseline instincts of longing to keep you company. It’s such an artful buildup and approach to portraying such deep yearning—you feel that negative space as a tangible barrier. See what I mean about Death Cab for Cutie making their angst authentic? “Transatlanticism” hits me like a goddamn steam train every time without fail. Ow, dude, who kidnapped me and abandoned me in the onion-cutting factory?
Blur’s self-titled album [slides Anthony Fantano glasses up bridge of nose] is an exercise in becoming the very thing you swore to destroy. After years of being right smack in the middle of the spotlight, participating in a manufactured battle of the bands, and pushing their mutual abuse of multiple substances to the edge, the band collectively decided that a change needed to be made. They packed their bags, temporarily relocated to Iceland, and hammered out a new album. The result was Blur, which had a much dingier, edgier, and altogether harder sound, with a lead single that famously parodied grunge, but then…circled around to being a smash success and an enduring stadium classic. That’s another story. (I’ll give you a hint: wooooooooohoo!) Yet, as much as they poked fun at American grunge, in all of its nihilistic, self-deprecating time in the sun, they slipped straight into the lifestyle, shedding their Britpop gloss for aggressive, alternative guitar, stubble, and, to the detriment of the whole band, excessive abuse of alcohol and heroin (see: “Beetlebum”).
Though the drug use is lamentable (to say the least), as all of the band members now agree, it was their mutual exhaustion and anger at being put through the British media meat grinder that allowed for such a hard—and delicious—left turn. On the verge of snapping, the band decided to put Parklife behind them and get grungy. It was bound to happen eventually, what with Graham Coxon’s adoration for the American alternative scene and the guitar sounds they were producing (should’ve listened to him earlier on that one…). Blur is all but absent of a bad track, crashing with the equivalent of a drum set tossed through a window one minute (“Chinese Bombs”) and slipping into acoustic melancholia in the next (“You’re So Great”). But “Country Sad Ballad Man,” for me, is a highlight I find myself sniffing out every six months or so. With one of the drier and more self-explanatory titles, this track feels like food left to rot out in a heatwave, festering and twangy. Every other lyric finds Damon Albarn stretching his voice into a creaky, scratching highs, as though mocking his own state of lying squarely at rock-bottom: “I haven’t felt my legs/Since the summer/And I don’t call my friends/Forgot their numbers.” The strings on Alex James’ upright bass come loose and unsteady, as though a few more takes of this song would’ve seen them snap off and collapse on the floor. Graham Coxon relishes in the alternative aggression that Britpop never fully allowed for, twisting riffs that seem to languish like drooping eyelids, dripping sweat and numbness. But the real freakout, one that must have been canned and compressed for ages, explodes in a vomit of wobbly distortion and screeching falsetto. It’s a vertigo-inducing outro that caves in like the mold-rotted roof of a wooden house, shattering in a hail of splinters and nails. In all of its spring-plucking chaos, there’s really no other lyric that fits it than Albarn’s self-aggrandizing, high-pitched screech of “I’ve done and fucked it!” yelled straight up from the well of rock bottom.
Here in the U.S., June is Pride Month! And every month, I find myself having a downer of an introduction, just because the world only gets kinder to queer people in the smallest increments, it seems. The vocal minority in this country are still bent on erasing all evidence that queer people exist in the first place, like an offending stain on a white tablecloth. (A note to homophobes: has it ever occurred to you that you don’t have to look at pride flags or queer couples? You can just look away and not make it anybody else’s problem…life is so short, man.) But our community is one characterized by resilience: no amount of book bans, culture wars, or bigotry will wipe us off the map. We are are here, we have always been here, and we will always be here. Nothing you do will make us disappear. Don’t let the vocal minority distract you from the beauty created and progress made by our community.
So once again, here’s a list of YA and Adult books with queer characters and themes, curated by your local bisexual. I also added the specific representation of each book.
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, did you enjoy them? What are some of your favorite queer books that you’ve read in the last year? Let me know in the comments!
Today’s song:
That’s it for this year’s pride recommendations! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles! I’m back from vacation, and I’m feeling rested—and ready to review one of the books I read on my trip.
Junker Seven hung around on my TBR for about a year, and I ended up buying it on Kindle for my trip; as I’ve said ad nauseam, queer sci-fi is the stuff of life for me, so I’ll always lap it up when given the chance. Although I wish the worldbuilding (and the politics) were more creative, it was a solid tale of of love and the joy in reminding yourself that your existence is an act of resistance.
Castor Quasar makes a solitary but dangerous living as a junker, ferrying scrap—and fugitives—across the galaxy. They prefer to stay out of the business of others, whether that’s the widespread political unrest throughout the galaxy or simply making friends. But when Castor is offered a job with an exorbitant amount of money, they can’t help but be suspicious, even though the offer would mean valuable repairs for their ship—and an easier living. Their cargo is Juno Marcus, a trans activist with a target on her back and an urgent need to escape before the Intergalactic Peace Force finds her. Castor reluctantly agrees, but they soon find themself in over their head—and head over heels in love…
TW/CW: murder, loss of loved ones, transphobia, deadnaming, misgendering, ableism, police brutality
Junker Seven was by no means without its flaws, but if you’re looking for a love letter to trans love and identity, a slow-burn romance, and resistance in space, then you’ve come to the right place! Not my favorite, but this was a good book to start off pride month—unabashedly queer and political.
Structurally, there were a lot of odd worldbuilding choices (I’ll get to that later), but despite that, the world of Junker Seven felt wonderfully lived-in. The quiet moments where Castor was alone on their ship were what convinced me of this world being tangible; not everything is sleek, clean, and untouched. You never get the sense that the ship is cramped just because it was made so, but because of all of the choices that led Castor to the place they are today. It’s not just a plot device vehicle—it’s got special nooks and crannies that have been shifted over the years, and there’s a goldfish that’s been there through it all, Castor’s only constant companion. Details like this, as well as some of the pockets of resistance that Castor and Juno find throughout their journey, added a real human element to the story. Even with only two characters for most of the novel, Kelley did an excellent job of making the galaxy seem like a tangible place where humans have settled—and brought their unique ways into a new, far-future world.
If you’re looking for representation, especially trans representation, then you’re in the right place—Junker Seven has diversity in spades! Both the main character and the love interest are trans, as well as several side characters, and Castor is also disabled—they have burn scars, a prosthetic leg, and autism! The key part of said representation is that it never felt like a checklist; if the acknowledgements are any indication, Kelley’s goal was to create a resonant story of trans joy, love, and resistance, and though I’m not trans (disabled and queer, though), that love shone through; Junker Seven felt like a love letter to trans resistance all the way through, from Castor and Juno’s slowburn romance to Castor’s gradual radicalization. I love how the disability representation was handled as well! All of the details about Castor’s autism affects their job felt authentic as a neurodivergent person; no stone was left unturned, whether it was how wearing their prosthetic affected their sensory issues to how it affected their relationships. It’s clear from every page that the diversity in this novel wasn’t borne out of a need to tick off every possible marginalization—it was borne of a need to put authentic queer, trans, and disabled stories out into the world.
That being said, the worldbuilding of Junker Seven gets stranger the more I think about it. There are enough pockets that could convince you that, yes, this could be hard sci-fi that had some thought put into it, but the actual worldbuilding ends at the descriptions of the climates of the planets that Castor and Juno are hopping to and from. Other than that, the politics are the main focus, but given howpolitical this book is, I was surprised at how unoriginal it was in terms of the evolution of politics and queer resistance. Junker Seven is set several hundred years from now, and yet the politics are all but copied and pasted from the U.S. politics of today—no changes whatsoever, save for being stricter when it comes to the treatment of trans people in particular. Yes, history does tend to repeat itself in terms of treatment of the marginalized, but it’s never in the exact same way twice; technology changes, rhetoric changes, leadership changes. None of that is reflected in Junker Seven; honestly, it was familiar to such a degree that it would have worked more if it were set in a less futuristic dystopia set on Earth. This story is set so far in the future that minimal changes in language and policy just makes no sense. It would have been so much more potent—and creative, frankly—to see how the adapted technology of the future actually factored into how trans people in this universe were being oppressed. There were a few throwaway mentions of more advanced technology that was being used to surveil trans people, but that was about the extent that anything changed. It all boiled down to unused potential—there were so many opportunities to explore how (possible) aspects like advancing technology, increased policing, and advancements in genetic modification could affect the status of trans people throughout the galaxy. And yet, Kelley chose to change almost nothing about our current political climate and paste it into space—to the detriment of my suspension of disbelief. Oppression of marginalized groups remains the same in its goals, but not necessarily in its methods—those change with the times.
What also suspended my disbelief was how little we knew about Marwood save for that he was horrible. Save for being a Trump stand-in, we knew almost nothing about him, save for that a) he’s evil (Trump), b) there’s a widespread news network that’s basically his mouthpiece that he uses to demonize trans people (Fox News), and c) did I mention? He’s evil. I will give Kelley some credit for at least establishing the Zephyr News aspect and the fact that his nepotistic predecessor both ended presidential term limits and instated Marwood in a corrupt, illegitimate election so that his fascist, ultra-conservative values would live on. That, at least, felt like a reasonable enough start for a villainous character, but that was it. The key word here is start. I wouldn’t say it completely falls into the dystopian trope of “we’re not going to say anything about the government, but you have to understand. They’re BAD, guys. BAD,” but it comes rather close. This circles back to my overarching issue of unoriginal worldbuilding, but I wanted to know what separated Marwood from any other run-of-the-mill fascist—did he come from a celebrity background and had no real political experience, like Reagan or Trump, or was he a more cold and calculating type with political prowess who knows exactly how to undo any kind of progress and twist the laws in order to abuse his power? A successful, frightening villain needs to be more than an evil cardboard standup that lurks in the shadows, and we never got more than fragments to show that Marwood was more than a stand-in fascist to move the plot along. (Also, did the entire galaxy, after blending into an almost universal accent after several hundred years, universally adopt a vaguely American two-party system and government? It’s…yeah, I have trouble believing that too.)
Although the disability representation is excellent, as I said before, I did find it odd that it wasn’t a part of Castor’s radicalization; being disabled in the 21st century is already a cyberpunk dystopia as it is, so I’m surprised that there wasn’t much discussion of not just Castor’s experience with being disabled, but how it affected their work or their perception of politics. Save for a throwaway line about an autistic person being driven to a life of crime because of how poorly said autism was treated and handled, there wasn’t much rumination on it other than that. I get that the main focus of Junker Seven was trans resistance specifically, I do wish we at least got more of it than what we got. Come to think of it…as diverse as Junker Seven was, there wasn’t a whole lot of intersectionality in terms of politics. I think there was…maybe one line about race and police brutality, and that was about it? I wouldn’t say that this is inherently a flaw of the book itself, but, once again, given how unabashedly political it was, I did find it odd that there wasn’t at least a small mention of the intersection of queer/trans issues with aspects like race, class, and disability.
All in all, a solid piece of queer sci-fi which suffered from unoriginal and nonsensical worldbuilding, but was nonetheless a shining ode to queer resistance. 3.5 stars!
Junker Seven is the first of the Twin Suns duology, followed by the forthcoming sequel Rebel Rising, which is slated for release in September. Kelley has also released D3F3CT: A Twin Suns Novella, set in the same universe as Junker Seven, as well as the novellas As the Light Goes Out and A Very Lighthouse Christmas. They have also contributed to Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology and the forthcoming Dead Cowpokes Don’t Wrangle: A Weird West Anthology.
Today’s song:
why, why, WHY DID I PUT OFF LISTENING TO THIS ALBUM FOR SO LONG??
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Quick announcement before we begin: I’ll be going radio silent as far as posts go for the next week because I’ll be on vacation. See you next week!
This week: diversity win! The person who yelled “I WANNA HAVE YOUR BABIES!” at Joe Talbot during the IDLES show a few weeks back was a man! Happy pride, bibliophiles.
I think I know what my process is with liking Chappell Roan songs now: inevitably, I hear a snippet on social media and think, “oh, that’s okay,” I hear it a few more times, and then I actually like it. Somehow, I wasn’t wowed by “Red Wine Supernova” until I’d listened to snippets of it three times over the course of several months, and then, boom. It’s my 10th most listened-to song of this year. Oops. “Good Luck, Babe!” hasn’t taken that title, but nonetheless, I’ve found another song to dramatically drape myself out of windows to, and to make matters better, it’s so gay. IT’S SO GAY! CAMPY QUEER POP STARS ARE SO BACK! I’m all for leaving the ’80s (mostly) in the dust, but we need some glittery, romantic ridiculousness to shake things up now and then, right? And if the last chorus of “Red Wine Supernova” wasn’t enough to convince you, then this one will convince you that Roan has, in my limited scope, some of the best pipes in pop music right now. And, whatever, the whole “graphic design is my passion” aesthetic was kind of tired for me even before this lyric video, but for a song as red-gowned and dramatic as “Good Luck, Babe!”…we need more. We need some more visualdrama, something like The Kick Inside-era Kate Bush, minus the one-time fedora incident. The chances of Roan or any member of her team actually seeing this post are slim to none, but if they are: somebody needs to “Wuthering Heights” this shit up.
I’m choosing to believe that the combination of the glorious Grammys afterparty pig makeup for the single and the title had to be a reference to Babe, right? Some way or another? Maybe I’m reading too much into it. It’s fine. It’s cool, even…that’ll do, pig.
Something I learned a few Saturdays ago: I may be somewhat punk in spirit, but I am…not built for punk shows. Once IDLES actually came onstage, the music took me out of the grossness of the crowd, but we accidentally wandered too far into the Bro Zone™️, which was anxiety-inducing, to say the least. Love is the fing, but I’m not really feeling the love when I’m pressed up against excessively sweaty and inebriated people on almost all sides and getting conked on the shoulder with unknown objects. Ladies, gentlemen, and others: sensory issues. Also, alcohol.
But if you take anything away from that, it’s that the music took me out of the grossness. IDLES absolutely tore down the house with joyous screamers old and new alike. Even if Joe Talbot summoning the mosh vortex in the middle of the crowd made me want to go in the opposite direction (now I know how anchovies feel inside of those bait balls), he had such a command of the crowd, and not only that, but nothing but positivity to say: chants for Palestine, odes to love and connection between our fellow man, and just calls to get up on our feet and dance. And dance we did. Even just Talbot and Mark Bowen belting “All I Want For Christmas Is You” in mid-May got the crowd (myself included) going crazy. An IDLES show is, without a doubt, an experience of a lifetime. Not all of it was a good experience, per se, but none of the bad had anything to do with how loving and talented the band were all the way through.
That show made me come back to “I’m Scum,” a performance that had me jumping for joy the entire time. I’ve loved it since I discovered their 2019 Tiny Desk Concert, which is a sight to behold: here we are at said Tiny Desk, surrounded by small toys and trinkets and walled in by office decor, and Joe Talbot’s over here turning beet red and drenched with sweat while Mark Bowen, shirtless and wearing American flag leggings, is climbing onto the desk. It’s glorious. Barely contained chaos. “I’m Scum” is taken from Joy as an Act of Resistance., an album title which, before “Grace” and “love is the fing,” was the preeminent positivity slogan to sum up their aggressively kind ethos. As Talbot explained before the band launched into this song, “I’m Scum” was borne of the words of their critics—taking words like “scum” and “loser” and making them into badges of pride. More broadly, said words came from music critics who derided them, as Talbot recounted in Glastonbury in 2019, as “too fat, too old, too stupid, too ugly. Now we’ve been told we’re too good, too nice. Well this is for the critics: eat shit. This song is a celebration of just how ugly, stupid, old and ugly we are.” Never have I sung along to the lyrics “for a long, long while I’ve known I’m/dirty, rotten, filthy scum!” so loudly. Just like any given song of theirs, it’s undeniably joyous, a parade flag-waver as you skip through the streets, save for the fact that you’re yelling “SCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM” so loud that your throat goes raw. “This snowflake’s an avalanche” is one of the most hilarious but unifying rallying cries I can think of. The more I reflect on it, the more I can say that this is one of the IDLES songs that I’ve resonated with the most. I’ve grappled with being weird in a broader sense for most of my life, but late high school and college were when I most owned it—I wasn’t concerned with how people thought of me. Now that the former stage is over, I’ve turned that confidence into getting weirder still, especially with my makeup; a friend told me that I wasn’t afraid to camouflage, and there’s nothing that I could say that sums it up better. God, I LOVE being unpalatable. I love being weird. I love being the kind of person that gets stares from the suited-up business majors across the street. I love looking like I don’t belong on this planet. And that’s when I feel most myself, when I outwardly enhance how weird I am and how weird I’ve felt. I’m lefty, I’m soft. And I LOVE being dirty, rotten, filthy SCUM if I do say so myself. Embrace the scum!
My introduction to the Cocteau Twins came right before I started making these Sunday Songs graphics, so I suppose that’s the only reason that I’ve never covered them here before. In my mind, there’s no band quite like them in the sense that the moods that they glean from me are rare in any other band. When an anonymous person put the iconic “Cherry-Coloured Funk” on the class playlist in art in my senior year of high school, I felt energized in a way that I hadn’t before—energized, but caught in the spacelike fabric of something beyond the world, like wading through cloth and stars. “Energized” isn’t the word I’d use to describe everything else I’ve heard of their catalogue—I’d lean more towards dreamlike and peaceful. The label “dream pop” is more fitting of them than any other band, save for maybe Beach House, who were no doubt influenced a great deal by them; they didn’t just pioneer the sound: they fully embody it. Every song sounds like a dream—Elizabeth Fraser’s method of lilting, nonsensical lyrics contribute to that feeling in no small part. But it’s more the atmosphere of it; somehow, they manage to replicate the feeling of waking up in the early hours of morning after waking from an unusually vivid dream, but not being able to remember it, save for how vivid it felt in the moment.
“Oomingmak” is a mist of peace that falls over your shoulders like a veil—or snow, more fittingly, a shawl woven from the crystalline fragments of snowflakes that melt the moment they make contact with your skin. There’s a simultaneous warmth and coldness to it, a watery swirl that coalesces around a glowing, amorphous radiance; this contact of warmth and chill creates the dewdrop-laden feel of the song. The effects on Robin Guthrie’s delicate lattice of guitar playing are so thin and misty that I thought they were synths—I’ve heard hardly anyone else that can make the guitar quite this delicate. You can play it delicate, sure, but this is the closest I think a guitar has ever gotten to being transparent, shiny as beads and thinner than a strand of hair. Hearing “Oomingmak” for the first time was like having a draught poured over my head, some kind of ambrosia that trickled into my eyes and mouth and induced a trancelike peace, a sense of calm that no other band I know has been able to replicate. Like dewdrops, you feel all of your earthly tethers dissolve.
And it seems the snowy, misty feel was intentional in every sense; much of Victorialand, named after the region in Antarctica, and its imagery owes to the Arctic and Antarctic regions, in no small part thanks to The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth, David Attenborough’s companion novel to the ’80s nature documentary of the same name. DAVID ATTENBOROUGH!! MY GUY!! Having watched The Living Planet as a kid, I love seeing that connection—and man, imagine if the ridiculous ’80s soundtrack made its way into Victorialand in any way…again, “Oomingmak” is the only track I’ve heard from this album, but I’m fully preparing myself for some Living Planet flute action. Many of the titles in particular were handpicked from passages of A Portrait of the Earth relating to the Arctic and Antarctic—I assume “Oomingmak” was one of such titles, as it’s the Inuit word for musk ox, literally translated as “the bearded one.”
…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:
Alone Out Here – Riley Redgate – slower Cocteau Twins songs feel like the ideal soundtrack for being anxious and wandering aimlessly inside of a spaceship.
Apologies to everybody who I told that this band’s name was Gaster. Who knows how I got that into my head in the space between the IDLES opener being announced and the show itself. I guess I was only one letter off?
Either way, Ganser was a fantastic opener for IDLES—they had just the right amount of energy to pump up the crowd (although I suspect that none of the crowd needed any convincing to get pumped up) and retained the punk attitude that IDLES later blew through the roof. I later ended up searching through their catalogue for the songs in their setlist, and just ended up listening to their 2020 album Just Look At That Sky in its entirety. And I’m a fan! Not my newest obsession, or anything, but I’m so glad that IDLES exposed me to them. Although “People Watching” isn’t off of Just Look At That Sky, to me, it’s the best—or most fun, at least—representation of their sound today. Although both bassist Alicia Gaines and keyboardist Nadia Garofalo trade off on vocal duties (it’s usually a 50-50 split for lead, from what I’ve listened to), both of them have their place in the sun on “People Watching,” and both of them deliver disaffected vocals that conjure the title of their previous album, an exasperated, exhausted glance at the clouds as they inch through the blue. Gaines takes the backseat, save for a chant-like bridge, but Garofalo tends more towards a theatrical, gothic drawl as the chorus drones into a monotone lament: “Oh yeah, the world is big/And you could do better/You shake when you’re nervous/But it doesn’t matter.” It feels like what would happen if Raven from Teen Titans sat down to record a song in her bedroom, vocals and all. And yeah, nihilism is boring and silly, but at least Ganser shake that snowglobe around enough to make it gargle and glitter for three and a half minutes.
As Sophie Allison has been teasing new music (!!!!!!!!!!!) and doing a select number of intimate U.S. dates to potentially demo some of it (!!!!!!!!!!!! but nowhere near me ), I’ve been looking back at her old catalogue. “Death By Chocolate” appears on Collection, a re-recorded…collection of songs, many of which were originally self-released on Bandcamp; it originally appeared on the EP songs from my bedroom back in 2015. Like with the early Phoebe Bridgers track “Waiting Room” (which I reviewed last June), it’s a portrait of nascent talent, but still not quite out of the teenage woods just yet. Two years after initially recording “Death By Chocolate” at 18, the squirming larva of the original has been reformed into something with wings that can carry it, ready with star-shine guitar work and synths. Allison’s voice, which, at 20 and breaking free of the apparent shyness of recording demos in dorms, still has a few more hurdles to jump—this recording, even post-bedroom, feels like she’s either been mixed into submission or is just vocally holding back. But when her voice does break through, it’s as sweet and trickling as fudgy ice cream, the remnants dribbling down the corner of your lips as you dig through your sundae to find the stem of a maraschino cherry. But man…the lyrics? Thematically, it feels like the first iteration of “lucy,” with its bad boy love interest (that turns from human to, presumably, some manifestation of Lucifer or what he represents), but where “lucy” has more refinement, this has…[checks notes] “I wanna kill myself/I’m gonna go to hell/And he’s the way I’m gonna do it.” Hooooowhee… subtlety has left the building. Slow down, Juliet, just put the knife down…he can’t be all that. Lordy. Even so, it’s so teenage that it can’t not earn its place—all that angst is a part of growing up, and who am I to rag on a queen for letting it out? Gotta get it out of the system.
Finally summer! Finally, more time to read…and most of what I’ve read this month has been good, I’d say.
Let’s begin, shall we?
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
Save for the first week of the month, May has been the first month where I’ve been able to relax somewhat! Finals were over and I’d moved out of my dorm before I knew it. Straight A’s and finally being free of my STEM requirements isn’t too shabby, I’d say! I’m so proud of what I’ve accomplished this year—and I’m so glad that I can have some downtime. And I’ve made good use of it so far—May has been my best month in terms of amount of books read (although the quality of…some of said books is another story), and I’ve definitely benefitted from the time spent reading! I’ve also been trying to focus more on art this summer, and consciously taking a slice out of each day to draw has been an adventure so far. I had a solid week where I had three or four blog posts all on the back burner simultaneously, so I unintentionally made a loose schedule for blogging every day as well, so I’m getting some writing in while I recover from writing two short stories and a 20,000 word novella all in one semester. I’ve also been pruning my Goodreads TBR…I’ve managed to cut it down from around 770 to around 720, so I’d say that’s been a success?
Other than that, I’ve just been cleaning things out of the dorm and bringing them back to my house, sleeping, watching Abbott Elementary (THEY FINALLY DID IT!!! THEY FINALLY LET THEM KISS!!!), Taskmaster, and Hacks (we love Jean Smart in this house), and relishing in the warm weather and the beginning of summer. I feel like every time I’m in the car with my family, I just pass the hills and feel the need to comment on how much I love that shade of green that summertime brings. But it’s so beautiful. Every single time. It never gets old. Thank you, shades of summer green.
READING AND BLOGGING:
I read 19 books this month! I’ve been oscillating between both ends of the spectrum this month, for sure—I read one of the worst books I’ve read this year, but also two of the very best. Somehow, it’s pretty evenly split as far as ratings go when I’ve lined them all up that way, but it’s been up and down all month, but on a track towards betterment midway through. I focused on AAPI books for May, and I found some fantastic books as a result from both familiar and new-to-me authors!
I’ve been trying to find and read more translated books, but in my hunt, I’d completely forgotten that I’d put The Traveling Cat Chronicles on my TBR over four years ago. Any story about a cat is right up my alley (yes, I was a Warriors kid back in the day, why do you ask?), but now that I’ve read this one, I’ve concluded that it’s an essential read for all cat lovers—and anyone who’s ever experienced the unbreakable bond of having a special pet.
Ever since Satoru rescued a stray cat, from the brink of death, they have been inseparable from day one as cat and owner. Nana, named for his crooked tail that looks like the number seven, loves to spend time with Satoru. But due to circumstances that Nana has yet to comprehend, Satoru can no longer take care of his beloved cat. In an attempt to find an adequate home for Nana, human and cat go on a roadtrip in a van across Japan, visiting childhood friends in order to find a suitable candidate. On this trip of a lifetime, Nana will discover things beyond his comprehension—and a love for his owner that will only grow deeper.
TW/CW: illness, animal injury, loss of loved ones (past)
Goodness…this was the sweetest book I’ve read in a long time. It’s essential reading for anybody who’s ever owned and loved a cat, but also for anyone who has ever felt the sacred connection of a good pet. It’s full of laughs, but tugs at the heartstrings in a perfect balance—it’s a wholly human book, but a wholly feline one as well.
Having a good cat voice in a novel aimed mainly at adults is not an easy task. Especially since this book was first published in 2012, it would have been far too easy to go down the “I can haz cheezburger, hooman?” route and just derail the emotional core of the narrative. But Nana’s voice was hysterical, and not in a forced way at all. It’s clearly the voice of a cat from a longtime cat owner; Nana is very particular about everything, doesn’t like change, doesn’t like being petted the wrong way, and is very picky about his food. When Satoru makes an assumption about his habits, he openly derails the flow of the story just so he can clear the air and admit that no, he does not, in fact, like those mouse toys. What made it so funny was how believable it is—no matter the temperament of the cats you may have owned, you’ve 100% owned a cat like Nana. I found myself thinking of my sweet girl Hobbes, who has a similarly no-nonsense attitude about where and when she’s petted and likes to go after small birds but doesn’t kill them, leaving them to fly around the house and shed feathers everywhere She’s an angel, obviously.
Even though parts of the narrative switch to the perspectives of the human characters, Nana’s perspective was what made the heart of The Traveling Cat Chronicles. Throughout their trip through Japan, I loved seeing all of these new sights through Nana’s feline eyes, whether it was seeing the ocean (very bad) and Mt. Fuji (very good) for the first time or meeting Satoru’s many childhood friends. Perceiving all of this novelty through the narration of a cat wasn’t necessarily new to me, given my reading habits from ages 7-12, but for an adult novel, I loved seeing this perspective with more maturity, but the same amount of humor. Hearing Nana describe things as simple as the music coming from Satoru’s car radio (how does this cat come up with such eloquent metaphors?) to the chatter of the dogs on the boat towards the end of the novel in ways that felt so new, but wholly feline—and for that, I have to give so much praise to Hiro Arikawa; some of it was humorous, but some of these observations felt heartwarming in that they felt real, just the passing thoughts of a smaller animal in a big, big world.
However, Nana’s voice isn’t the entire novel—The Traveling Cat Chronicles also sees the backstories of not just its main character, Satoru, but of the childhood friends and family members that he visits. Nana was the star of the show, but some of these flashback sequences served to deepen the emotional core of the novel, especially in the case of Satoru; from his troubled childhood to his adolescence, we see Satoru’s life through other people’s eyes. Even beyond Nana’s narration, we only ever get glimpses Satoru, one of the novel’s two protagonists, entirely through lenses other than his own. Another strength was that these flashbacks were spaced apart perfectly: frequently enough that we could get fragments of Satoru’s backstory and understand it in concert with the current timeline, but far enough apart that they didn’t strangle the story. And each flashback was emotional in its own right, no matter how momentous or insignificant each vignette was. Each one felt authentic in its focus—in our minds, something as fleeting as sneaking off on a field trip weighs as much as a death in the family, and that was exactly how Arikawa told these stories.
I’ll refrain from spoiling the ending (although you can easily predict it from a few hints scattered throughout the novel), but it doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking—and beautiful. The cat’s-eye view on the events unfolding before Nana make them all the more harrowing, simply because you can’t quite explain these things to a cat, even if they understand in the abstract that something’s wrong. For cats, we are seemingly immortal monoliths until we aren’t—and it’s confusing for a creature that can understand our language, but just barely misses what makes us what we are. But beyond that, it reminds us of the inseparable connections between us and our pets. Our lives are short, but the lives of our cats, dogs, and other animals are even shorter; yet still, the mark that they leave on our lives, just like our friends, is a mark that cannot be replicated or replaced.
As I read the end of The Traveling Cat Chronicles, I was reminded of my Anakin, who passed about two months ago. He’d been in my life since I was a little kid, and by the time he peacefully passed at the ripe old age of 17, I was almost finished with my sophomore year of college. There will never be another cat quite like him, in all of his crusty, screamy, and truly lovable glory. His absence has been harder for me to take than some of my other childhood pets that have passed; when his lifelong companion Padmé died, I grieved heavily, but I had Anakin there to console me. When I came back home for the first time after he passed, I expected to see him in the guest room. Two months later, and I still peer over at the sofa, expecting him to be curled up between the cushions, fitfully sleeping in a pile of his own shedded fur. But that is the mark that he’s left on my life—impermanent, but unlike any other creature. Just as we must look to the small pleasures of life, we, like Satoru and Nana, must appreciate the impact of the smallest lifetimes on our hearts.
All in all, a cat-lover’s dream book which balances humor and heart in equal measure. 5 stars!
The Traveling Cat Chronicles is not part of a series, but Hiro Arikawa has also written a companion book of short stories, The Goodbye Cat. She is also the author of several other novels that have been translated into multiple languages.
Today’s song:
yeah this has a chokehold on me yet again 🕺
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
), I’ve been looking back at her old catalogue. “Death By Chocolate” appears on Collection, a re-recorded…collection of songs, many of which were originally self-released on Bandcamp; it originally appeared on 
The Bookish Mutant 