Adult Thriller – The Bookish Mutant

Book Review Tuesday (4/16/24) – Happy and You Know It

Posted on April 16, 2024 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Happy & You Know It was a book that’s outside of my usual reading comfort zone—I’m not usually a realistic fiction person, and it seemed literary, though it didn’t end up being very much so. Either way, the premise was enough to grab me out of my sci-fi/fantasy stint, and though it wasn’t executed the way I wanted it to be, Happy & You Know It was still a biting and entertaining piece of satire.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Happy and You Know It – Laura Hankin

Claire Martin has been unceremoniously thrown into the lowest point in her life. After her band, Vagabond, replaces her and rockets to stardom not long after, she’s left with fewer and fewer options to keep a job—and pay the rent in New York City. But when the opportunity presents itself to become a playgroup musician for a cohort of rich, Manhattan moms, Claire jumps at the chance—she’ll be paid for music again, even if it’s just singing nursery rhymes, and they’ll surely pay her exorbitantly. Claire is thrust into a world of mommy influencers, babies that are too well-dressed for their own good, and a multitude of secrets. This playgroup isn’t what it seems—and Claire may have been sucked into their whirlwind of lies too late…

TW/CW: substance abuse, cheating/affairs

Given the first page, I was expecting for Happy & You Know It to be a wilder ride than it actually was, but that’s not to say that it was a bad novel. Though I feel like the plot didn’t reach its full potential, it was still a fantastic piece of satire—biting, timely, and hilarious at all the right times.

The gauntlet you always have to run when writing satire—or any genre, honestly—that’s somehow involved with social media is making it sound realistic. Too often, authors heavily force a hand of making sure the characters use all of the right slang and terminology, and end up falling headfirst into what looks like a boomer’s distorted vision of the internet and how it operates. I was bracing myself for Happy & You Know It to have some of those trappings, but thankfully, none of that was to be found! Hankin’s depiction of this inner circle of rich, Manhattan mommy influencers felt scarily true to how such figures act, from the curation of every little aspect of their lives down to the tone-deaf, over-the-top names for their babies. It was ridiculous, but that was precisely the point—those kinds of influencers who treat their growing babies like playthings for them to dress up so they can get more likes is ridiculous, and Hankin clearly understood how twisted it gets when these behaviors are pushed to the extreme.

Claire was a perfect protagonist for Happy & You Know It: an outsider who is morbidly enchanted by this world of kale smoothies and sponsorships, but is so desperate that she falls in too deep just when she realizes how right her instincts were about the morbid part. Hankin did a fantastic job of detailing all of her motivations—given the care that was put into crafting her extensive backstory with her former band and the constant, emotional reminders she gets from their stardom, almost all of what she did made sense. She’s just the kind of person who thinks that she’s smart enough to run from a dangerous situation, but cornered enough to convince herself that she can make it out unscathed. I almost with that this novel was entirely from her perspective, and we didn’t get the POV shifts from most of the playgroup mom—I guess we wouldn’t have explicitly seen the details about Whitney and Christopher’s affair, but I’m sure there’s a way that it could have been revealed. The less we knew about the moms, I think, the better.

Perhaps that was part of what made the initial reveal about the true nature of the TrueMommy supplements (no spoilers) fall slightly flat—part of it may have been that it was a bit predictable, but part of it was that we knew too much about the rest of the moms. By the time that this reveal kicks in past the halfway point, my Spider-sense was already tingling—too much for how far into the novel it was. This amount of time should’ve been enough to ramp up the suspense, but I feel like I saw too much into their heads, and therefore, had a good guess of what the first twist was going to be. Especially since we only got some of the moms’ perspectives (Whitney, Gwen, and Amara), I feel like the balance was off. With Claire as an “outsider looking in” protagonist, it would have worked so much better if that secrecy was also confined to her POV—and nailed in that feel of the novel.

On that subject, given how gloriously over-the-top the introduction was, I expected the culmination of said twist to be a lot more dramatic than it was. It looked so messy from the start, and yet the ending felt wrapped up far too neatly—just a moment of confrontation, and then a time skip where everyone is (mostly) living happily ever after in wake of this supposedly drastic revelation. The one red herring we sort of got felt too obvious, and so it was easy to point to the real perpetrator, which dampened the effect. The setup didn’t match the end result—I guess I did want more of a disastrous downfall for almost all parties involved (can you tell I like Fargo?), but if you specifically have an introduction to hint at some spectacle of corruption and ruin, it needs to deliver—and unfortunately, Happy & You Know It missed the mark on that front.

All in all, a slightly disappointing mystery, but a deeply fulfilling and sharp satire. 3.5 stars!

Happy & You Know It is a standalone, but Laura Hankin is also the author of The Daydreams, A Special Place for Women, and the forthcoming One-Star Romance.

Today’s song:

aaaaaaaaaaand that’s another album added straight to my bucket list

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (4/2/24) – Drunk on All Your Strange New Words

Posted on April 2, 2024April 2, 2024 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Ever since it came out, Drunk on All Your Strange New Words has been on my radar; beforehand, I hadn’t even heard of Eddie Robson, but the premise was so fascinating that I just had to get my hands on it. After several trips to several bookstores with no luck in finding it, my hold finally came on Kindle—and it was a delight to read!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words – Eddie Robson

For Lydia, First Contact started in the mind. The aliens we greeted were called the Logi, and they communicated entirely telepathically. Lydia works as a translator for a Logi cultural attaché named Fitz. It’s a pleasant job—Fitz is good-natured, and together, they pick apart plays and literature to determine if they are suited for intergalactic sales to the Logi. The unfortunate side effect is that translating the Logi’s telepathic language into English makes her feel drunk, earning her a less-than-stellar reputation on the job. But when Fitz is murdered and all eyes land on her as the suspect, Lydia must keep the police and Logi ambassadors off of her tail—and get to the bottom of Fitz’s murder.

TW/CW: xenophobia (fictional), murder/assassination, mild violence, death threats

I am on my hands and knees trying to find sci-fi with aliens that really feel alien. The quest is ongoing. But if you’re on that same quest with me (let us join hands, sisters in disappointed with humanoid aliens), Drunk on All Your Strange New Worlds is the cure for all that ails—all that and a dose of some good ol’ British humor.

I get to go off about aliens!! I GET TO GO OFF ABOUT ALIENS!! ALIENS WOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR

First off: the Logi! Drunk on All Your Strange New Words boasts some incredible alien design and culture, and I had so much fun exploring it throughout the novel. The whole concept of telepathic aliens whose speech makes the act of translation make humans feel drunk was already fascinating to me; it was so out of left field, and a concept I’d never really considered before; the only other instance I’ve seen of alien speech having unintended physical effects on the human body or brain was in A Desolation Called Peace (though that was arguably more drastic), but it still felt truly weird, which a lot of sci-fi doesn’t touch on, strangely. I loved getting such a complex, multilayered picture of the Logi beyond that, from the head coverings they wear to protect from Earth’s atmosphere to their unexpected strength; some of the elements of them almost veered into the supernatural (technically not much of a spoiler since it happens early on, but the reveal was so cool to me that I’ll keep my mouth shut for your enjoyment), but even that felt like a marker of an alien well done—so outlandish that the only explanation that humans can come up with is paranormal.

Creating all of that excellent background for the Logi is one thing, but it wasn’t all left as a lofty concept to puff up the worldbuilding—it had real, tangible effects on the characters and the plot, which I was so grateful for. Robson executed the real-time effects of humans interacting with a lot of these alien behaviors exceedingly well! It isn’t just that Lydia feels like she’s had a few too many after a long translation job—the feeling of drunkenness extends to drunken behaviors, the consequences of which had unfortunate implications for keeping said job. Having that was also a great device to start putting Lydia under suspicion for the other characters—there were enough instances of perceived instability or unprofessional attitudes that the authorities had all the more evidence to implicate her in Fitz’s murder. This is all to say that Robson really left no stone unturned when it came to the worldbuilding, and my enjoyment skyrocketed because of that!

The cultural environment around First Contact and the integration of the Logi into human culture also felt a little too real, in the best and worst way possible. At this point, the world has advanced into an undefined point in the future, and enough time has passed between now and First Contact that there aren’t just bigots and zealots with xenophobic intention, but organizations targeting aliens and professors giving whole lectures on what they perceive as a Logi encroachment into human culture, literature, and media. Paired with the faulty software that scores the truthfulness of the news that Lydia consumes (that aspect felt very “three days from now”), it felt like a more realistic depiction of alien contact and communication than we usually get; at heart, we still fear what we don’t understand, but it’s neither all-out annihilation of the aliens nor a global, complete hippie kumbaya event of unity. It’s demonstrative of human nature in the face of what we don’t understand: the bad and the very ugly, but enough good to keep us afloat and on good terms with the visitors from another world.

For most of the novel, I was really into the mystery surrounding Fitz’s murder. (I knew it was gonna happen from the start, since, y’know, in the blurb, but I didn’t want for him to die. I just wanna see the little alien guys!! Let them vibe!!) The slow burn of it kept me turning page after page, and for most of the novel, felt appropriately paced. It didn’t feel like we were jumping from place to place for no reason—every outing had a motive and revelation that added to the mystery in a way that made sense. However, though I enjoyed much of it, I feel like it got a little too slow-burn. The subtlety was good for most of the novel, but it got to a point where I was 90% of the way through the book and we still had no idea who the killer was and who the prime suspect was, now that most of the others had been eliminated by that point. Said killer was also introduced very late into the novel and quite sparingly, which made the reveal feel unearned—if we’ve spent all this time poring through suspects and barely touched on the actual killer, then what was the point? For such a clever novel, that felt like such an amateurish move—the only reason that we didn’t suspect them was because we had no idea who they even were for almost the entire novel.

All in all, a delightful combination of sci-fi and murder mystery that boasted some of my favorite aliens that I’ve read in a while. 4 stars!

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words is a standalone, but Eddie Robson is also the author of Hearts of Oak.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (1/30/24) – Yellowface

Posted on January 30, 2024 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve had several books by R.F. Kuang on my TBR for a year or two, and I’d forgotten about this one until it happened to come up as one of those “skip the line” checkouts on Libby. I decided to take the opportunity (as the holds line is usually nuts for this book), and I found myself adoring it so much more than I thought it would—a biting and timely satire of the publishing industry.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Yellowface – R.F. Kuang

June Hayward and Athena Liu have been friends since attending Yale together, working through writing projects and slowly finding themselves publishing their own works. But while Athena is enjoying success, six-figure book deals, and Netflix adaptations, June has barely been able to get a third printing of her only book. So when Athena dies in an unexpected accident, June sees the perfect opportunity: steal her unfinished manuscript, pass it off as hers, and profit. Armed with a new pseudonym and a racially ambiguous author photo, June Hayward becomes Juniper Song, and her book, The Last Front, becomes the toast of the literary scene. But evidence is beginning to pile up against her, and June will do anything to keep her newfound fame.

TW/CW: racism, death by choking, vomiting, substance abuse (alcohol), harassment, gaslighting, suicidal ideation

I’m glad I had my expectations at an average level for Yellowface, because this is one of the best satirical novels I’ve read in ages! This novel truly felt like it was attuned to the beating pulse of the dark side of the publishing industry, and it’s an exploration of diversity and publishing that’s incredibly necessary in this day and age.

I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a novel that’s felt so true to today’s publishing scene in a long time—or ever, really, but to be fair, I haven’t read a lot of realistic fiction books in this vein. Yellowface is a biting, unflinching callout to how publishers view diversity; June’s story, though fictional, is testament to how the publishing industry views diversity and marginalization as profit to be made, not stories and identities to be uplifted, and how once they’ve checked one person of a certain demographic off a checklist, they think they’re set for “diversity.” Beyond that, it’s proof of how willingly publishers will silence marginalized voices in favor of white voices telling the stories of the marginalized, and how far they’re willing to go to keep up the façade. Truth be told, this novel did make me slightly spiral about the state of publishing as an aspiring author, but I suppose that means that R.F. Kuang did her job.

I’ve seen several reviews of Yellowface complaining that at least one of the main characters were self-inserts, but other than the whistleblower character (who only has a minor role until the end), the two main characters were dreadfully unlikable. To be fair, I’m not as familiar with Kuang’s work, but I don’t take her to be the kind of person to be so self-deprecating that she makes her self-insert into a disgusting mess of a character. In fact, Kuang excelled at making them incredibly unlikable—and hilarious in the process. I liked that, although Athena didn’t deserve what she got, that both her and June were depicted as despicable people in their own ways, but June was still portrayed to be disgustingly in the wrong—nobody’s angelic in this situation, and everybody has their flaws, but some people’s flaws pile up until they fester and collapse on top of them (June). Everything written in her voice was so cringey it was hysterical—watching her, for instance, editing the manuscript to make the British soldiers “more sympathetic” cracked me up, and Kuang clearly knew just the kind of circumstances that a white author would twist a marginalized story into—it felt painfully real, and painfully funny at the same time.

Typically, I’m not habitual thriller reader, but I’m a sucker for a story about a character digging their own grave, and god, Yellowface was the perfect scratch for that itch. June’s story of jealousy, temptation, and clinging towards fame that fall like dominoes toward her until culminating in the climax was painful but exhilarating to watch—for me, there’s nothing like watching a character’s downfall right before our eyes. June just kept digging herself further and further into eventual ruin, and with each push closer to the edge of being exposed for her (MANY) wrongdoings, Kuang perfectly amped up the tension. I was definitely white-knuckling my Kindle for a significant portion of the book just because of the sheer audacity of June thinking that none of her actions would amount to anything. It has the same feel as many of the self-destructive arcs in Fargo—the same kind of eventual tension that builds, and all the while, you know exactly how it ends, but what keeps you reading is wanting to discover how everything collapses onto them.

Without spoiling anything, I’ll say something brief about the ending. At first, it seemed a bit rushed and anticlimactic—I still hold that it was slightly rushed, but it’s a way-homer kind of ending. It wasn’t just a continuation of June feeding her own delusion—it’s terrifying proof that the system still works in favor of white authors clearly in the wrong. She may have hit the breaking point, but this controversy, just like the others, will only continue to drive up her sales. The system has not changed. As long as the publishing industry stays the way it is, she’ll still be rewarded. And that was the kind of scary reality that Kuang has proven with this novel.

All in all, a darkly witty thriller that brought a timely conversation about the publishing industry to the table—and executed it stellarly. 4.25 stars!

Yellowface is a standalone, but R.F. Kuang is also the author of the Poppy War trilogy (The Poppy War, The Dragon Republic, and The Burning God) and Babel.

Today’s song:

really and truly OBSESSED with this album

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (8/8/23) – Machinehood

Posted on August 8, 2023 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

After I read Meru back in June, I immediately went through the rest of S.B. Divya’s full-length books and put them on my TBR. Even though sci-fi is my favorite genre, I don’t readily jump for sci-fi thrillers quite as often, but after loving Meru, I was willing to give this one a chance. And while it wasn’t without its flaws, Machinehood was an incredibly detailed and twisty novel!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Machinehood – S.B. Divya

2095. In Welga Ramirez’s world, humans and machines work in an uneasy symbiosis. Artificial intelligence has become so advanced that humans must take all manner of pills, not only for them to keep from getting sick, but to be strong enough to compete with the machine labor force. Welga has intentions to retire from being a bodyguard. But after a client is killed in front of her and a hybrid human-machine terrorist group called the Machinehood is to blame, she must track down her killer—and the members of the Machinehood that have threatened to attack every major pill funder until production comes to a standstill.

TW/CW: violence, murder, racism, substance abuse, abortion/forced pregnancy, miscarriage

You ever finish a book that’s so detailed in its worldbuilding that not only can you imagine all of the described conventions and their ramifications, but the massive google doc that was probably behind it all? That’s how Machinehood felt to me—aside from the one other S.B. Divya book that I’ve read so far, Machinehood was one of the most thoughtfully-crafted books I’ve read in a long time.

At its best moments, Machinehood felt like a good Christopher Nolan movie. There was no shortage of suspense, and while it was difficult to keep up with at times, it was always an enjoyable read. I don’t gravitate towards sci-fi thrillers as much, even though sci-fi is my favorite genre, but this novel reminded me of what the really well-written ones are capable of doing; the suspense kept me guessing, the tension hardly ever let up, and there were twists aplenty to satisfy any sci-fi reader’s appetite. And of course, nothing makes a thriller like a main character about to retire, and then has to do that One Last Mission™️. When it’s not a part of a huge franchise, it works for me.

Machinehood is S.B. Divya’s first novel, and even then, it’s easy to see the threads from where they eventually branched off to Meru. The most prominent of those was, by a long shot, the worldbuilding. Like Meru, the dystopian, AI-dominated world of Machinehood is painstakingly detailed, down to the most minute consequence of any given sociopolitical ramification. I wouldn’t be surprised if Divya had some kind of Pepe Silvia-style conspiracy cork board to keep track of all the possibilities of this world that they created. There truly was no stone left unturned, and for the most part, it was a positive experience—between the moments of suspense, it was fascinating to see these possibilities unfold. From the myriad of pills that keep humans competing with the AI labor force to the ways that genetic and physical modification advanced, there was nothing that Divya didn’t think of, and that created one of the most fleshed-out sci-fi worlds that I’ve read recently.

Unfortunately, the downside of all of that excellent worldbuilding was its delivery. Having read Meru first, it’s easy to see how Divya improved on this delivery from Machinehood to there. Meru deftly toed the line between explaining its complex worldbuilding and dumping it all in one sitting. Machinehood, on the other hand, could have used some work in that department. As much as I enjoyed how richly layered the worldbuilding was, Divya had a frequent tendency to ramble on about said worldbuilding; even with all of the suspenseful plot points falling into place, this novel took frequent breaks to explain why [x] was a result of [y] and [z], which took away from the tension built up during the parts where the actual plot occurred. It’s a pitfall that I can almost excuse, given that a) Divya’s worldbuilding is obviously top-tier, and b) this was their debut novel, but it definitely took away from some of my enjoyment of the book as a whole. This novel probably would’ve gotten the full 4 stars from me if not for all of this.

All in all, a twisty and suspenseful debut with extensive worldbuilding that sometimes suffered from just as extensive rambling. 3.75 stars, rounded up to 4!

Machinehood is a standalone, and S.B. Divya’s first novel. Divya is also the author of the Alloy Era series (Meru, Loka, and an untitled third book) and Runtime, and has contributed to many short story collections.

Today’s song: