Tag: Driver

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 9/29/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: high school throwbacks, off-kilter oddities, and a few too many people trying to explore each other’s minds than I’m comfortable with. Cool it, Charles Xavier…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 9/29/24:

“Piano Fire” (feat. P.J. Harvey) – Sparklehorse

It’s a Wonderful Life is one of those albums that took me a bafflingly long time to listen to. I know, I know, I did it to myself, but the fact that I didn’t pick it up when I was 15 and irreparably mired in Good Morning Spider astonishes me. It’s probably owed to the fact that I was also even more irreparably mired in OK Computer, which tends to overshadow things a tad bit. Looking back, maybe it was for the best that I wasn’t on an all-Sparklehorse diet at that age. I already looked pathetic scuffing my snow boots through the hall while blasting “Maria’s Little Elbows” through my earbuds between classes. I was 15, guys. It was 100% that serious, trust me.

What I can say is that I think I would have felt the same way about It’s a Wonderful Life at 15 as I do now—it’s a triumph of an album. Scattering through surreal urgency and subdued melancholy, it has every kind of Sparklehorse you’d like—along with a smattering of collaborators. It’s almost funny how different said collaborators are (take Nina Persson’s delicate backing vocals on “Gold Day” and then Tom Waits growling like a hulking ogre on “Dog Door”), but the power of Sparklehorse has always lain in the disparate elements Mark Linkous cobbles together. Like some kind of American Gepetto, he constructs all of his songs into tiny figures made of warped wood and bird bones, and what totters to life creaks with every step. They’re quaint creatures with acorns for heads and cigarettes and toothpicks for legs, but there’s no other way to love them save for exactly as they are.

Those he chooses to collaborate with feel much the same way. P.J. Harvey, of all people, was a left-field choice when I first heard about her featuring on “Piano Fire.” The only Sparklehorse song I could conceive being able to contain the kind of raw fury she exudes was “Pig,” and that had already come and gone by the time It’s a Wonderful Life came out. “Piano Fire,” however, is one of the most upbeat tracks on the album; you feel a racing urgency to it, immediately sprinting down an overcast beach the minute the first guitar chords kick in. Or maybe it’s the searing heat of airport tarmac that you’re sprinting across the minute you hear the opening line: “I got sunburnt waiting for the jets to land.” Sunburnt describes “Piano Fire” surprisingly well; it has the texture of an old photograph left out in the sun too long, all of the colors now bleached to unnatural, pale shades. Linkous almost takes a backseat on his own song, never raising his voice when he dishes out surreal vignettes of “Fiery pianos wash up on a foggy coast/Squeaky old organs have given up the ghost/Fire them up and kill the piano birds.” But that urgency is why P.J. Harvey is so perfect for this song; once the chorus kicks in, her soaring voice provides the jet fuel for this creaky old jet to careen off the runway and into a sky littered with the strangest birds you’ve ever seen.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Love in the Time of Global Warming – Francesca Lia Block – Block’s bizarre, dreamlike prose certainly fits with the surreal imagery that Linkous employs in this song—and the majority of his catalogue.

“Gigantic” – Pixies

In almost two and a half years of making these Sunday Songs graphics…this is the first time I’ve double-dipped. It was bound to happen eventually, not just because my music taste is finite, but because this song has lingered with me from a young age. I faintly remember being around five or six and hearing this song in my dad’s old car, driving in fading light down the road back to my house, and hearing the iconic chorus: “Gigantic, gigantic/Gigantic, a big big love.”

I’ve often talked about how simplicity in lyrics can convey more than the most complex songs in some cases, and if you need further proof, look no further than “Gigantic.” Most of that work is done by the immense, never-fading talent of Kim Deal, who sells every metric ounce of explosive love in this song; with every cry of “A big big love,” you get it—there’s no other words that can adequately describe the kind of secretive, all-consuming romance that swirls through every pluck of the bass. That opening bass riff is the shy, cracking open of a bedroom window when the parents are asleep, an invitation with a blushing, anticipatory smile. What follows never fails to knock me off my feet. I say “knock” and not sweep or lift me off my feet precisely because that’s what it feels like, as though the ground has opened up beneath you, and you’re falling headfirst into the unknown—contained in a kiss that consumes every cell of your body.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Kindred – Alechia Dow – all-consuming, explosive, and intergalactic love.

“Take Me To The River” – Al Green

I’m sure Al Green is a perfectly nice guy, but…that album cover and title is not it, man…”Al Green Explores Your Mind?” Can he…can he not?

The fact that they were just naming albums anything back in the day aside…how did I not know about this song for so long? I’ve loved the Talking Heads cover for years, but somehow, it never dawned on me to look it up and discover that it was a cover. There’s something to be said for the phenomenon of white artists’ covers of songs by Black artists overshadowing the originals, but this isn’t quite the case—from the looks of it, between the amount of times that this song has been covered (most recently by Lorde for a Talking Heads tribute album, oddly enough) and the royalties from [checks notes] those animatronic wall fish, it’s cemented itself as an enduring classic of soul. I’m sure Al Green isn’t complaining about the latter though, given that he’s gotten the most royalties from the fish cover. Yet no matter the strange journey that “Take Me To The River” has taken, none of it has overshadowed how deliciously groovy it is. It’s endured for five decades in counting precisely because it wastes no time in getting straight into its slinky, infectious funk. Green’s voice flies from slick to howling in seconds and recovers in record time, all in time with the blasts of an impeccable horn section. 50 years, and you can’t not bop your head. I’m still not jazzed about Al Green exploring my mind, but I can’t deny that he worked some undeniable, immortal magic with this one.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev – Dawnie Walton – though the musical genres differ, the atmosphere and climate of the ’70s runs through both.

“Secretarial” – A.C. Newman

I’ve had a turnaround. I’ll be honest—even though I’ve liked several New Pornographers songs since I was young, “Secretarial” has always bugged me for some reason. I never hated it, but it was always one of those songs where, over the years, I developed a reflex of just skipping it whenever it came on shuffle. I didn’t question it for a while. Many years have passed, and for once, I didn’t skip…and here we are.

A.C. Newman—and most of The New Pornographers’ catalogue, by extension—has this songwriting style that’s just so distinctive in a way that I can’t put my finger on. Even if you separated his or Neko Case’s voice from the lyrics, I could hear a line like “So come on, let the sun in/We’ve been gunning for promotion/Postering the slogans on the roadsigns.” and immediately go “yup, A.C. Newman wrote that.” What makes it so distinct has bugged me for years, and to this day, I can’t fully put my finger on it. The closest I can say is that their specific diction has an inherently off-kilter quality to it. Newman is never overly verbose, but the way he arranges words is always slightly askew. His lyrics dwell in the thin limbo between obtuse poetry and sense, situated in a place where you can decently get the metaphor he’s going for, but instinctually, you know that those syllables just don’t go together neatly. “Secretarial,” like another other Newman product, might as well be a puzzle, in that sense, but one that was put together wrong with the pieces that only look like they should fit together, but stick and slide against each other. I’ve never been great with time signatures, but this one is angular enough to match the slanted lyrics. Even if you don’t know the guy, you can’t deny that it takes some serious talent to not just think of but pull off “Lady, it’s secretarial” as a hook.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Lagoon – Nnedi Okorafor – I’ve used this book more than once, but it was right there…

“One day you blew across the water/After racing through the countdown/Spewing ancient wisdom like your friend/The revelation had come and they were looking for me…”

“Henry” – Soccer Mommy

Oh, early Soccer Mommy…oh, “Henry.” This one sure soundtracked many a one-earbud-in free draw in art class my sophomore year. I think it was in the fall that I found this song as well; it carries a distinct smell of wet leaves and wood chips in the pumpkin patch. Cheesy as the title of this album, the self-released For Young Hearts, is, it’s not like it’s a lie. Here’s to many more high schoolers listening to this in art class.

It seems that “Driver” has put a pin in this tradition, but “Henry” is part of a long lineage of Soccer Mommy songs about the seduction of Bad Boys™️ (see also: “Death By Chocolate”). Of course, the natural conclusion was that the ultimate bad boy was to be conquered in “lucy,” that being…the devil himself. (God, I need to stop. I sound like a youth pastor.) But here in 2016, “Henry” chronicled the kind of guy who hung out behind the high school, smoking cigarettes in a leather jacket, and giving you a wicked smile as you passed. Sophie Allison’s younger voice, along with the plucky instrumentation (cannot get enough of that bass), makes you feel like you’re following a mischievous wood sprite through sunlit woods. Light and lovesick, it captures that heady, teenage love drug that makes every step stumble: “‘Cause Henry has a laugh like fire/And it’s spreading through the streets and burning on telephone wires/I don’t know just what it is/But he’s driving all the good girls bad with that evil smile of his.” Soccer Mommy’s had that golden, indie touch all along—”Henry” remains a classic to me.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Carry On (Simon Snow, #1) – Rainbow Rowell – “I don’t know/Just what it is/But he’s driving all the good girls bad with that evil smile of his…”

Since this song consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

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

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 9/22/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: I apologize in advance for every single driving mention and/or pun that I made in this post. I didn’t even notice it at a certain point…I just couldn’t…stop…

1:58-2:07

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 9/22/24

“Bloody Ice Cream” – Bikini Kill

It’s been just under a month since I had the privilege of seeing Bikini Kill live, and even as someone who isn’t a hardcore fan of the band, I had SUCH a wonderful time! That’s owed in no small part to the commanding presence of Kathleen Hanna, not just in the history she carries, but in just how real she was. There she was, a pioneer of feminist punk, just onstage joking about how her bra was too tight and recounting a memory of rich girls pelting her with squirt guns before she walked into a job interview. Never at any moment was there a pretense of acting cool or punk. It was nothing but Kathleen Hanna, in all of her smudged-mascara and sequined glory. Bless Kathleen Hanna, really.

So when she introduced this song, which I was familiar with only in name, by saying that it was dedicated to “all woman writers,” you bet that I stood up and saluted her like it was the national anthem. And even as a fan on the sidelines, I’d accept “Bloody Ice Cream” as a new kind of anthem. It articulates in less than one and a half minutes what so many creators—chiefly women—are told about the profession: “The Sylvia Plath story is told/To girls who write/They want us to think/That to be a girl poet/Means you have to die.” The unspoken doctrine of your craft not being valid unless you sobbed and suffered over it permeates all kinds of media. I’ve been around so many people who think that trauma is the secret to good writing, whether it’s slapping it onto their characters or thinking that their hope in their message is invalid because it doesn’t show the bleakness of the real world. Counterpoint: ever experience happiness? Even once? Was that not in the real world?

The modern world may be far from perfect, but we have an understanding that could nurture and heal the Sylvia Plaths and Virginia Woolfs of tomorrow. And we have the recognition that there is no power greater than joy. In and outside of the writer’s world, we’re taught that to feel downtrodden is to experience the real world, competing each other for how exhausted we are, how much we have on our plates, and how sad and gloomy our projects are. Is this really what creativity is? It’s not like there’s no value in showing the darker aspects of life, but for how much it clogs the literary world, I feel like so many people have forgotten that writing—and imagination—isn’t just a contest for who can work themselves to the bone the most artfully. I write to put out the energy I want to see reflected in the world around me. And that energy is joy. The systems of oppression that surround us want to see people like us being so downtrodden that we have no energy to question them. So write. Write joy. Write what’s in your heart. Scream and dance like Kathleen Hanna. And don’t underestimate the value of kindness. They hate to see you joyous.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Crane Husband – Kelly Barnhill – “Who was it/That told me/All girls who write/Must suicide?”

“My Impure Hair” – Blonde Redhead

The best shoegaze sounds like you’re slipping in and out of a dream, that limbo best experienced from 1-4 in the morning when you’ve woken up from a dream, your eyes are gummy, and you’re not sure if the hazy shapes forming the walls and bed around you are part of another dream you’ve yet to wake up from. I guess that’s why it’s so easy for people to get high to this kind of music, but like…well, all things, sobriety is better suited to experiencing them. “My Impure Hair” is the closing track on 23 (I’m not even a diehard fan, but I just LOVE that album cover), and even from this tiny taste, it feels like an artfully placed closing track. It has the quality of a lullaby; every element, from the soft instrumentation to Kazu Makino’s vocals, is whispered, as though not to disturb a swaddled baby drifting off in their crib. Once you think you’ve heard a distinct sound, it bleeds into another like spilled watercolors, creating a pale wisp that floats, airless, on the passing wind.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The First Sister – Linden A. Lewis – “But in the end/We defend our decadence/You never wept like that/Whatever lost, I won’t forget about you…”

“Kanga Roo” – Big Star

Nothing baffles me more about “Kanga Roo” than the fact that, although it didn’t officially see the light until 1978, it was recorded sometime in 1974. I suppose there’s some ’60s psychedelic bands that got close to the sound here, but this kind of deterioration feels so modern. It doesn’t sound like 1974! It sounds like a less fuzzy Spacemen 3 or the first take of a Bends-era Radiohead b-side. One of the top comments on the official audio called it “the rough draft for Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,“ which is the most astute description I’ve ever seen ascribed to it—I don’t know how it never clicked, but suddenly, “Ashes of American Flags” makes eons more sense.

I can only imagine what hearing this in 1978 felt like—probably the musical equivalent of “mom, come pick me up, I’m scared” after expecting something more like “In The Street.” Jesus. That feeling certainly crept into me when I first heard this song, while driving home from a concert late at night, navigating a winding canyon road in near-pitch black. All of the shrill mechanical squeals sound much more menacing when you’re barely awake. “Kanga Roo” sounds like it’s actively pulling itself apart at the seams, a threadbare rag only attached to its halves by a few strands of fraying string. The drums are never on beat or consistent in volume, somebody’s banging on a cowbell for about 15 seconds, and all the electric guitars are doing is getting scratched and squealed into oblivion. It’s a bizarre experience, watching a song crumble like charcoal in a dead firepit the morning after a campfire. Yet there’s an innocence to it; Alex Chilton’s voice is the only clear sound in “Kanga Roo.” You’re hearing the instruments fighting for their lives while Chilton’s plainly singing “You was at a party/Thought you was a queen.” The iconic line that gave the song its name (“oh, I want you/Like a kangaroo”) almost makes no sense, and I’m not sure if Chilton has ever offered up an explanation, but somehow, I see it. I imagine one of those towering, buck kangaroos standing at full height, and feeling the desire to grasp someone in your arms with the strength of such a creature.

I included This Mortal Coil’s cover of “Kangaroo” in one of my past Sunday Songs that I didn’t get around to writing because I was occupied with moving and school; I have too much homework to fully go into who’s coming out victorious if we’re pitting the original against this one, but I’m at least partial to it for how sparse it feels, even with the soaring strings. It’s much more put-together than the original (not to disparage the artful chaos), but there’s something to be said for what it does with the negative space that the Big Star version drowns out. What can I say? They got me. They got me with the big feels.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth – Andrew Joseph White – the lyrics could match up with any number of books, but it’s the creaking, uneasy atmosphere that puts it squarely in this novel’s company.

“Driver” – Soccer Mommy

I’m so glad that Soccer Mommy has become a prominent enough artist that she has the means to do funny marketing campaigns, because whoever came up with the one for “Driver” had a stroke of genius. By calling a number that Sophie Allison posted, you could get a snippet of the track before it came out, followed by “how’s my driving?”-style call prompt. Maybe we are in an okay timeline.

Without a doubt, Sophie Allison has never been more sure of herself at the wheel. A departure from the expression of beauty in lingering grief that were the two lead singles, “Lost” and “M,” “Driver” presents a more lighthearted detour to the landscape of Evergreen. The backing guitars and effects have gained a grungier, grimier edge, but Allison’s sunshine puts them all in a dusty, golden light. As the guitars and drums thrum like gravel skipping across a dirt road, Allison turns her attention to the present loves of her life. You almost get the feeling that she’s slipping into the self-deprecation of her early career, but there’s nothing but affection for herself, but more in terms of her partner, who puts up with her “losing [her] concentration on every whim.” Allison presents herself as the more emotional, scatterbrained half of the couple, which her partner is playful about, but is also the one to ground her when she gets too far into her head with a reminder of “where are we going now?” She’s never completely blameless, but she’s full of nothing but love for her anchor that keeps her from veering off the path; it’s not like some of her earlier songs, like this would indicate that she’s in danger of slipping away entirely, but it’s an exercise in learning to rein yourself in—and find somebody who isn’t afraid to rest a hand on your shoulders and remind you where your feet are planted.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle, #2) – Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – not to get all 2020 Madeline on you all, but…the Kalauri in this song…I’m gonna keel over…

“I’m a five foot four engine waiting to move/I’m a test of his patience with all that I do/‘Cause I’m hot and he stays cool, I don’t know why/But he puts up with my moods/And he makes me smile when he says/’Where are we going now?'”

“Bishop’s Robes” – Radiohead

The connection of inspiration between Radiohead and The Smiths never surprises me, but sometimes, with bands that inspire another, you find a single song that you know is the missing link in the evolutionary tree, the line of ancestry concretely delineating their music as kin. More specifically, it makes sense next to their cover of “The Headmaster Ritual,” though “Bishop’s Robes” takes a much more subdued turn.

Yorke’s raw lyricism thrives in both simplicity and complexity; he can weave any number of stories with denser, more prosey lyrics, but he knows just what kind of simple, unadorned phrases to stab you in the gut with. In this case, it’s the chorus, repeated like a shaky-voiced prayer in a dark corner: “I am not going back.” It becomes more of a reminder than a statement, as though to convince his brain that no, he’s not back in his pre-teen years under the reign of his “bastard Headmaster.” Volumes have been written about the horrors and abuse of the British education system back in the day (see: pretty much anything by Pink Floyd)—and some continuing into now, I would imagine—but what sets “Bishop’s Robes” apart is the mood. It might be more accurate to call it a lack, as the most overwhelming feeling you get from this track is not anger but numbness. There’s a resignation to it, weighing down the music, as though, even in adulthood, the experience has sapped him: Yorke doesn’t have the energy to fling insults along the lines of “spineless swines” or “belligerent ghouls” at his abusive childhood tormentors—all he can do is “bastard.” And it’s that eyebagged, forlorn crawl that sells the lasting effect it had on him. After years of unyielding discipline, I can imagine the fear of not raising your voice—a haunting presence that permeates every note of this track, constantly looking over its shoulder to guard innocent contraband that doesn’t exist.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Agnes at the End of the World – Kelly McWilliams – secrecy, escape, and the horrors of a perverted version of Christianity in the hands of the wrong man.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

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

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (9/10/24) – The Sun and the Void

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Looks like I’m back! I’ve returned to college, and, as it always does, it has taken me some time to settle in. My ducks aren’t fully in a row, but they’re straightened enough that I’ve figured out when and where I’ll have times to squeeze in some writing. Key word is some: chances are I’ll stick to the two posts a week for a while now that I’ve got lots of schoolwork on my hands.

For this week’s Book Review Tuesday, I have a book that it’s almost miraculous that I liked as much as I did; at their worst, overly long epic fantasy novels are the bane of my existence. The Sun and the Void clocks in at nearly 600 pages, and I expected at least some of it to be a slog. Lo and behold, this novel held so much more in store—vibrant characters, Venezuelan-inspired mythology, and a daring quest across an inhospitable land.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Sun and the Void (The Warring Gods, #1) – Gabriela Romero Lacruz

Reina has lived her life on the outskirts of society. Though her kind, the nozariels, have won their freedom, her tail and features mark her as an outcast. Reina returns to her estranged grandmother in dire need of healing—and answers. Now kept alive by means of dark, unpredictable magic, she is now the owner of a terrible secret: her grandmother is in league with a demon-god hungry for sacrifices, and one such sacrifice may be someone that she holds dear.

On the other side of the kingdom, Eva struggles to hide her true self. Her mixed heritage—part human, part valco—makes her a target. Soon after she is set to be married off to a man she barely knows, she falls in with a revolutionary. But this charming, volatile man has a darker side, a hunger for power that will not spare her if she stands in the way.

The paths of these women intersect as the clock ticks, and the fate of both of their worlds may hang in the balance…

TW/CW (from the author): alcohol, assault, blood, child death, childbirth, death, demons, emotional abuse, gore, infertility, kidnapping, pregnancy, racism, religion, sexually explicit scenes, mentions of slavery, violence

Ever since my tastes started drifting more into adult novels, I’ve had a history of getting a hundreds or so pages into an epic fantasy novel, losing my way, and coming out with only the vaguest sense of plot and one character. There’s some of it that’s on me, but it’s often a case of rambling; I’ve found many such novels to be more wordy than necessary and convoluted in their delivery of the worldbuilding. I lowered my expectations for The Sun and the Void for this very reason, though I clung onto it because of the promise of the Venezuelan and Colombian-inspired setting and anticolonial storyline (!!!!!!!!!!!!). Beyond being sick of generic, catch-all European settings in fantasy, my half-Colombian Spidey sense was tingling…and for good reason! The Sun and the Void is an overlooked gem of epic fantasy, with magic and action abound.

The vibrant setting that Romero Lacruz crafts was the clear star of The Sun and the Void. Her South American-inspired landscape was a breath of fresh air in a sea of vaguely European epic fantasies, breathing some much-needed life and diversity into the genre. Logistically, this region of South America—Venezuela and Colombia—also provides a variety of biomes to play with: we get flashes of deserts, forests, and glittering, tropical beaches, all with a fantastical dash of demons and monsters. That alone would have already put it a step above your average epic fantasy, but it was this series’ unique fantasy races that truly shone! As metaphors for oppression and who the dominant power in society deems “acceptable,” the nozariels and valcos were effective on that front. Their designs, however, were what made them so fun, making for memorable characters in looks and culture as well as personality.

In my experience, there are certain brands of epic fantasy that are allergic to accessible writing. When I say accessible, I don’t mean simple; accessible doesn’t mean the absence of artful prose or clever metaphor. For me, accessible prose is inventive, but not so caught up in making itself sound clever that it becomes a chore to read. Romero Lacruz’s writing is a fantastic case study in how to hit the balance between artful and digestible. Every action scene, political machination, and argument is rendered in ways that do feel like how people talk, and yet she never forgets to season her prose with unique metaphors and descriptors of the characters and their surroundings that keep you hooked—or, in my case, vigorously highlighting on my Kindle. At no point did the writing feel pompous or overly convinced of its own talent—it’s writing for writing’s taste, which is what writing should be.

Power dynamics were at the forefront of The Sun and the Void, and the explorations of them were some of the most impactful parts of the novel. Through the side characters, Romero Lacruz portrays the different way that power manifests itself in people; no matter how “noble” their causes, characters like Doña Ursulina and Javier became so obsessed with achieving their goals that it subtly began to eclipse all else. What was unique about The Sun and the Void, however, was how it was framed: through the eyes of vulnerable, sensitive women that get pulled under their spells. Such abusive dynamics meant that Reina and Eva were respectively drawn into the web of these other characters. At no point were they helpless—they were victim to people that promised them healing or freedom, and became so entangled in the schemes of others that they had to fight tooth and claw to find their way back to the light.

That being said, the weakest links in The Sun and the Void lay in the worldbuilding. Even though this novel is one of the few lengthy epic fantasies that I’ve read that miraculously doesn’t get overly convoluted, the price it paid was that some of the worldbuilding was left messy and sloppy once I took a closer look. The glossary was helpful, but it took quite a while to get used to some of the intricacies of the magic system. Terms are thrown around in a very slipshod way, and instead of the dreaded page-long block of worldbuilding exposition, we get…a few sentences, at most, before said facet of the magic system is barely mentioned for the rest of the novel. It’s an issue with followthrough—once something was mentioned, it often took 300 pages for it to make a brief appearance, only to poof back into the unexplained ether. It’s clear that there was a lot of thought behind the worldbuilding, but the issue was more of following the time-honored rule of Chekhov’s gun—Chekhov’s magic system, in this case. The gun did go off in the end, but it took so long to get to that moment that I completely forgot the significance of it being there in the first place.

All in all, an epic fantasy that defied the conventions of the genre—setting, writing style, and more—in all of the best ways. 4 stars!

The Sun and the Void is the first novel in the Warring Gods series, followed by The River and the Star, which is slated for release in 2025. The Sun and the Void is Romero Lacruz’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

BLESSED WITH ANOTHER NEW SOCCER MOMMY TRACK AND A NORTH AMERICAN TOUR NEXT YEAR!!!!!

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