Without You – The Bookish Mutant

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

This week: sort of doing a 180 on Let’s Dance, and reverting to my high school self via Stranger in the Alps.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 6/28/26

Seeing old photos of Roxy Music always cracks me up…5/6 of them look goofy as hell in all that leather and animal print, and then there’s Brian Eno over here casually serving enough looks to feed a family of four. Good god, I don’t think anybody’s gotten that closet to valiantly fighting male-pattern baldness and winning. The receding hairline fought hard, but damn if Brian Eno wasn’t fighting just as hard.

Okay, maybe I should go easier on the other members of the band, because “Virginia Plain” reminds me of why I love early ’70s glam rock so dearly. This song is just immaculate. It’s at that perfect, Ziggy-era moment in time right before glam fully broke into the mainstream. It’s all swagger, sheen, and pure skill—it’s a blast, but this song feels chiseled and streamlined to a meticulous level. Most of the Roxy Music songs I’ve heard instantly recall The Rocky Horror Picture Show to me, and Bryan Ferry’s seductive vocals feel so proto-Frank-N-Furter—I’d be surprised if Tim Curry didn’t take a few cues from him for his performance; the lyrics are classic glam as well (“You’re so sheer/You’re so chic/Teenage rebel of the week”). Phil Manzanera’s acrobatic guitar work soars, but it effortlessly shape-shifts from classic, guitar-based rock to electronic freakouts in mere seconds, leaving the space between the two eerily natural. I can’t imagine being alive in the ’70s and hearing Brian Eno’s space-age keyboards get unleashed in “Virginia Plain”—it would’ve cracked my mind in two, for sure. Some old British guy in 1972 definitely had a heart attack watching this. But to me, “Virginia Plain” embodies the best of glam rock: a sound that was meant to send a shock to the system, but pushed boundaries creatively as well as socially. It’s all shiny, leather boots and smudged eyeshadow, full to the brim with hard-earned confidence.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

You Sexy Thing – Cat Rambo – I know this series is called Disco Space Opera, but…it’s just the vibes. The overwhelming vibes.

“Would You Rather” – Phoebe Bridgers

CW: domestic violence

Unfortunately for you all, the pharb sleeper agent that’s been inactive since about 2023 has been reawakened. You’ve been warned.

One of the hallmarks of early Phoebe Bridgers tracks is that they often had male duet partners who were an odd fit, vocally—they’re all good singers, but their vocal ranges and styles run counter to Bridgers’s style (see also: “Garden Song”). I think that was the initial reason that, when I first listened to Stranger in the Alps back in high school, that I was turned off from “Would You Rather”; Conor Oberst duets with Bridgers in the chorus—he’s objectively a talented singer, but his nasally voice just does not mesh with Bridgers. The same can be said for the music video, directed by Phoebe Bridgers’s younger brother, Jackson Bridgers…her penchant for gallows humor aside, what’s Conor Oberst doing with that stupid grin on his face while lip-syncing along to “in a suicide pact with our family and friends” at 1:53? Read the room, my dude…

But as with several songs on Stranger in the Alps that didn’t grab me on the first listen, “Would You Rather” only gets better—and more devastating—with each listen; her best instrumentation sounds like watching embers from a campfire become stars in the sky, and the delicate plucking at 1:05 is one such beautiful moment. According to Bridgers, “Would You Rather” was inspired by a mix of events—her childhood home burning down and her brother being suspected as the culprit, as well as an undercurrent of domestic violence; even for someone so usually candid about her experiences, I’m not surprised that neither she or the song has divulged any details of the latter. Sometimes the only way to be vulnerable is to always have the safety net of metaphor—to protect yourselves and the ones you love. Yet at the heart of it seems to be their bond as siblings: the chorus of “Come to find out/I’m a can on a string, you’re on the end/We found our way out/Of the suicide pact of our family and friends” emphasizes the lifeline that they’ve built with each other in spite of the strife that surrounded them growing up. There’s a bedraggled, burdened hope to it; despite the sense of being trapped by family, their mutual connection is what keeps them afloat in the end.

If you or a loved one is/has been a victim of domestic violence, click here for a link to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Where Sleeping Girls Lie – Faridah Àbíké-Íyímíde – “Come to find out/I’m a can on a string, you’re on the end/We found our way out/Of the suicide pact of our family and friends

“Without You” – David Bowie

I owe you an apology, Let’s Dance (1983), I wasn’t familiar with your game.

It’s easy to think of the album as David Bowie’s sellout pop album, the one where he cast aside all the pretense of experimental daring and weirdness that he’d built up with the Berlin Trilogy and Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), not to mention the infamous “David Bowie Straight” magazine cover for an accompanying issue of Rolling Stone. Here’s the thing: yes, it is a pop album. But it’s not as if Bowie wasn’t making pop music for a significant portion of his career in the ’70s. Sure, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust was stranger than most things on the airwaves, but it was pop. This was just his ’80s pop record, and like the albums before it, Let’s Dance has so many enduring hits to spare. Sure, it’s more sparse than some of his other albums, and there’s clearly a few afterthought tracks that were just made to make it complete, with its slim eight-track, 40-minute runtime (lookin’ at you, “Shake It”). But let’s be real: it’s hard to measure up when the first track on this album is “Modern Love.” Come on.

“Without You” is often regarded by critics as one of said afterthoughts to beef up Let’s Dance. I get where they’re coming from. For a songwriter like David Bowie, the lyrics are…well, yes, even as a fan, it’s a bit bland. But I feel like a three-year gap between releases after a powerhouse like Scary Monster (And Super Creeps) justifies it. Anybody would have to recharge after that. But “Without You” feels like Bowie’s take on a slow, yearning pop song, and he hits it out of the park. Strung with guitar flourishes that glimmer like string lights, “Without You” is a warm and wistful yearner, aided by the rich, graceful deepening of Bowie’s voice as he aged into his forties. Is it as instantly memorable or well-constructed as “Modern Love” or “Let’s Dance?” Maybe not, but it’s a damn good pop song.

As a bonus: even though they’re two distinct songs, Perfume Genius also has a great song called “Without You,” and for what it’s worth, it’s a good pairing with this song.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Full Speed to a Crash Landing – Beth Revis – “Just when I’m ready to throw in my hand/Just when the best things in life are gone/I look into your eyes…”

“5AM Waltz” – Men I Trust

5 a.m. really is the perfect hour for this song. “5AM Waltz” is woozy in every sense of the word. Awash in reverb, the first two thirds feel like you’re stumbling around the kitchen in the middle of the night, trying to find the light-switch; it’s almost enough to feel directionless, but the directionlessness feels fully intentional. There’s lots of hyphenated genres that you find hints of—trip-hop, dream-pop, indie-pop—but whatever you’d call it, “5AM Waltz” is downright melodic and atmospheric, an exercise in crafting something memorable from less than two minutes.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Floating Hotel – Grace Curtis – fitting background music for a giant hotel in space, right?

“Oochy Woochy” – Graham Coxon

Chances are, if you haven’t listened to a ton of Graham Coxon’s solo work (like me), this song won’t give you a good idea of how his sound generally is. “Oochy Woochy” doesn’t sound anything like the frenetic, anxious indie-rock that he usually writes. But I think it’s proof of him being one of the members of Blur who was most willing to take risks with their sound, and it translated instantly when he had more creative freedom. I mean, this is basically a jazzy saxophone loop with a hip-hop-inflected beat. The lyrics amount to only “Oochy woochy/Yeah, baby,” with the later drawled like James Acaster. And it’s so fun. It’s the perfect walk-on song. That prolonged silence at the beginning allows the full force of the saxophones to bowl you over, and from there, it’s just such a fun, carefree groove to get lost in. Even the little quacking sounds punctuating the beat are strangely natural. He’s got range.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Killing Spell – Shay Kauwe – the ideal soundtrack for plunging into a crowded ballroom…somewhere in a post-apocalyptic L.A. with magic and murder running amok.

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!

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles! Halfway through 2026 now…😵‍💫

If you told me about 3 years ago that I was this excited for a new Grace Curtis book, I wouldn’t have believed you. Full disclosure: I didn’t like Frontier, but the premise of Floating Hotel was so endearing to me that I took a chance on it…and loved it. And here I am now. (Special shoutout to Kat @ The Lily Cafe, who is the reason that I know that this book exists. Thanks, Kat!) I had a feeling I was going to enjoy Idolfire, but as we’re officially halfway through the year…this might be one of my favorite books that I’ve read this year!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Idolfire – Grace Curtis

After illness tears her family apart, Kirby of Wall’s End sets off on the road to Nivela, a famed kingdom that has fallen from grace, but retains the promise of magic beyond its gates. Across the world, Aleya Ana-Ulai is searching for Nivela too, eager to prove herself after being abandoned by her family. When these two women from disparate regions meet on the road, neither knows that their togetherness is key to their survival. But the road to Nivela is long and treacherous, and it seems to hold everything but the answers they need within it. Aleya and Kirby must decide if the promise of Nivela is worth it—and if they’ll be able to survive at all.

TW/CW: violence, blood, war themes, loss of loved ones, child death, infertility

First off—this isn’t a slight on the book, but if you’re going in (like I did) expecting science fantasy, Idolfire is not that. This is straight up fantasy. I’m convinced that the “science fantasy” thing was tacked on for marketing reasons after Curtis wrote two sci-fi novels. Just be forewarned about that…and the fact that this book came dangerously close to destroying me. This might be one of the best books I’ve read all year.

Grace Curtis’s prose keeps getting better and better with each novel she writes. It’s prose that gave me genuine, heartwarming joy to read. She just has this way of making everything, from the setting to the subtle glances between characters, so wholly human; it goes beyond feeling lived-in and real and becomes something with a real heartbeat. Where Curtis succeeds is in shedding light on the unsaid; slight turns of phrase became quietly heartwarming or heartbreaking with a single word. Her renderings of the varied landscapes that Aleya and Kirby travel through are so rich and full of life. Every line of dialogue is razor-sharp, both in their humor and their power to devastate. If you want proof of Curtis’s improvement as a writer, Idolfire is the perfect evidence.

One of the strongest aspects of Idolfire was how it balanced humor and more sobering, serious themes. Curtis has really honed her talent for humor—there were so many moments throughout that were laugh-out-loud funny. Aleya and Kirby had such excellent chemistry (more on that later), but their separate senses of humor pinged off of each other exceptionally well, making for a fantastical road trip that never had a dull moment. And yet, Curtis gave the same amount of care to depict the darker themes of the novel alongside the lighter ones. Curtis’s depiction of war was one that has stayed with me; her descriptions of it have no interest in glorifying its purpose or its participants. Even for a novel billed with swordfighting, her sparse, devastating language in describing the horrors of war were so impactful in a genre where there’s often a degree of romantic language ascribed to something so horrendous. From the effect it has on the minds of individual soldiers to the scars that it wrought across the lands of Idolfire, Curtis explored every facet of living during wartime. Yet Curtis had the same level of care in the lighthearted and dark aspects of Idolfire—for a novel like this, it was a very difficult balance to strike, but Curtis absolutely clinched it, making for a novel that was, above all, human.

I didn’t think that Curtis’s character writing could get much better after Floating Hotel, but I was proven wrong. Although I loved the slice-of-life roving between multiple characters, I think that narrowing her focus down to two central characters did a great service to their development. Aleya and Kirby were some of the most memorable characters that Curtis has ever written. A less talented writer would’ve slapped a hasty grumpy-sunshine dynamic on them and left it at that, but they both had such richly layered personalities. Both of them had trauma so deeply embedded in their psyches, but Curtis did an excellent job of showing us how it manifested in both of them and shaped their personalities. I loved how Aleya’s more reserved, stoic nature played off of Kirby’s more mischievous personality, but the deeper you get, the more you realize that both of these traits serve as shields for both of them. They had such immediate, lovable chemistry, and the progression from begrudging companions on the road to lovers was impeccably paced, and every step of that progression felt so natural—and instantly lovable to root for. Without spoiling anything, things do turn out bittersweet for them, but I think the way that Curtis ended their story was poignant and fitting for both of them.

I also adored the road trip plot of Idolfire, and it kept me guessing constantly. Curtis’s talent for character writing also applied to the menagerie of weirdos that Aleya and Kirby met along the road to Nivela. Even the smallest glimpses we got of the denizens of Idolfire‘s expansive fantasy world were so fleshed-out, and they added so much life to the already fantastic worldbuilding. Balance is something that Curtis clearly has been honing, because like the balance between levity and darkness, there was a great balance of more action-packed moments—such as Aleya’s many swordfights—and downtime with Aleya and Kirby. The pacing was neat as a pin, and even the downtime between the more climactic parts of the novel were measured out to near-perfection. Idolfire really was a balancing act in so many ways, but Curtis toed the lines she set with enviable ease.

And if there’s anything that you can expect Curtis to do well with, it’s sharp commentary on empires and imperialism. Floating Hotel excelled at that as a point in the background, and Idolfire honed in on it even more. I think what Idolfire brings to the conversation is how ideas shape the image of an empire. Fully acknowledging that Curtis is British and I’m just projecting my experience onto this book, but I couldn’t help but think about Nivela—and Aleya and Kirby’s goals—in terms of the permanently out of reach “American dream,” and how an empire can build up an idea of itself while hiding a crumbling foundation beneath it. The further they go on their journey, the more they see the destructive aftermath of an idea twisted into something that excuses genocide and imperialism. I also liked how it tied into the magic system, with belief being what makes certain magic work/not work, and how that translated into the belief in Nivela, which has been faltering to the point of destruction. (Without getting into spoilery territory, there’s some really fascinating stuff about the very literal, human cost that this has in the world of Idolfire.) In the end, I think it was a beautiful meditation on the power of ideas, and how they can be twisted into something so terrible that it swallows the world, but how we can use that same power to create a more equitable world worth living in.

Ultimately, with ratings like these, there’s always that slight oomph that pushes it into 5 star territory. I think there’s still a few small nitpicks that made 5 stars not justifiable, but it sure was close. Overall, Idolfire was a deeply moving and human road trip fantasy, a meditation on the nature of the ideas and idols we hold up in our minds. 4.75 stars!

Idolfire is a standalone, but it has a companion novel, Heaven’s Graveyard, set 2,000 years later in the same universe. Grace Curtis is also the author of Frontier and Floating Hotel.

Today’s song: