Another month gone. Here’s what I read…
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger (audiobook read by David Aaron Baker)
I Cheerfully Refuse accomplishes what it set out to do, but considering that I don’t like the great novels it models itself after—Don Quixote, The Odyssey—it was asking a lot to think I’d get deeply into it. It starts strong with some compelling characters and dystopian elements, but once the plot kicks in it largely abandons the parts of the setup that interested me the most in exchange for an episodic sailing journey that sees the hero traveling across Lake Superior, encountering various colorful dystopian characters who help or hinder him on a journey to find his wife that is both literal and metaphorical. The writing is strong and it very much evokes several iconic classics, so I feel certain it’s a good book that literary fiction lovers will very much go for. As an individual, I am the wrong reader. However, once I got into a group setting, I found that my opinion of the book increased drastically. The follow through isn’t always what I would like, but I Cheerfully Refuse sparks a near-endless supply of discussion topics, and is the sort of novel that gets more and more interesting the longer you talk about it. I wouldn’t necessarily hand it to an individual looking for a good book to read, but I would absolutely give it to a group looking to prompt nuanced discussion.
Full review to come
A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
I really wanted to love this novel. It has a massive amount of unrealized potential, but it unfortunately takes the wrong route. Instead of focusing on the elements unique to it—an illegal safe haven for vampires being operated out of a teashop, a shadowy ruler who hides their face behind a mask while committing atrocities, a pair of orphans scrapping a life together from the remains of a childhood obliterated by colonization—it instead attempts a plot intentionally reminiscent of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows. The comparison does A Tempest of Tea no favors as its simple heist, contrived interpersonal conflicts, forced romances, and bland characterization are thrown into sharp relief against that superior novel. The reason A Tempest of Tea is so disappointing is not that it is bad; it’s that it tried to force its story into a shape that doesn’t fit it. A Tempest of Tea is written as and pitched as a fantasy heist, but the heist feels like an afterthought despite being the central plot device. There are a couple of elements in A Tempest of Tea that are so close to being great that I still plan to read more of Faizal’s work in the future, but unfortunately this particular book only made me wish I was rereading Six of Crows for the sixth time instead.
Full review to come
Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington (audiobook read by Ariel Blake)
I had a good time with Their Vicious Games, even if I felt like a lot of the logic and themes broke down with any serious consideration. I wouldn’t call it a good book, but it is certainly an entertaining one. Thematically it doesn’t quite hold up as just about every element requires a full handful of salt, but the twists and turns are exciting and even though there isn’t really a character that I rooted for in the traditional sense, I certainly was eager to find out about each new development and I laughed at the occasionally campy humor. It’s not necessarily a book I’ll bother recommending as it is similar enough to several other better books (for starters: The Hunger Games, Ace of Spades, All of Us Villains, Thieves’ Gambit)that it would take a specific set of circumstances for me to make my way all the way down the list to Their Vicious Games. It’s a fun romp of a novel that isn’t all that serious, and it makes for a quick, entertaining read.
Full review to come
Infinity Son by Adam Silvera
After a long wait, Infinity Kings is finally available. Naturally I bought it on its release day, and as much as I wanted to dive right back in I knew I would like it more if I went back and started over from the beginning. I believe I’ve now read Infinity Son three times, and I’ve enjoyed it all three times. It has a great blend of heightened fantasy and grounded family drama. I love that the primary relationship in this series is one between brothers, and the push and pull between Emil and Brighton is delightful (if painful on the reread with context from the end of Infinity Reaper). The way politics are integrated into the novel is excellent, giving the world a scarily realistic feel despite its multitude of magical creatures and superpowered people. X-Men is one of Silvera’s inspirations for the Infinity Cycle, and you can absolutely see that. This is a great first book in a great series.
Full (original) review here
Infinity Reaper by Adam Silvera
This may be a controversial take, but I prefer the Infinity Cycle to Silvera’s more popular DeathCast series. Don’t get me wrong: they’re both great. But this series has so much of what I love. I love the messiness of the emotions and the contrast that is formed between the characters who lean into their worst sides against those who cling to the best. The politics get even more painfully real in this novel; even though there is an element of good-vs-evil, the battle is much more complex than simply killing one monster to save the day. There’s even some good romance in there; I’m not the biggest fan of love triangles, but this one gets a pass because 1) gay people don’t get love triangles nearly as often as straight people do, and everyone deserves cheesy tropes and 2) neither love interest devolves into an asshole so the reader knows who to root for (but for what it’s worth, I’m team Ness). If you’ve spent any time on my blog, you’ll know that I love the second book of a trilogy and this is a good example of why. The stakes set up from the original book get heightened and new developments emerge and take the story in dramatic and unexpected directions. I’m very glad I decided to do this reread, because this novel ends with two or three very dramatic plot twists, and while I remembered the setup to the biggest conflict (although admittedly the least surprising of the twists), I had forgotten at least two other major developments that are clearly going to play out in a big way in Infinity Kings. I’m super excited to see how it ends up.
Full (original) review here
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (audiobook read by Alexander Scourby)
I hadn’t read this one since high school, but I’ve been looking into the new Broadway shows pre-Tony Awards and since I’m a fan of both Jeremy Jordan and Eva Noblezada, The Great Gatsby has been on my mind. I figured why not reread it? It’s an excellent book, and it hits very differently for a thirty-year-old reader than it did for a teen me. The Great Gatsby is about the futility of the American dream and the careless cruelty of the rich, and those have never felt more relevant. There are some truly beautiful lines in The Great Gatsby, and Gatsby’s impossible, selfish yearning to return to the past is more painfully relatable than I’d like it to be, as is Nick’s paralyzed, often complacent observance. Revisiting it, I was struck by how succinct it is; it’s a very short novel, and every scene builds firmly to the finale, whether thematically or through plot foreshadowing. I was very impressed. I know that Fitzgerald wasn’t a good person, but he was an excellent writer. I liked The Great Gatsby when I read it in high school, and I liked it even more now. Audiobook isn’t necessarily the format I’d choose for it, or at least this audiobook. It’s definitely an old one; there’s a smidge of static in the background throughout that was noticeable when it occasionally cut out, as if the reader was taking a break. Scourby enjoyed himself a little too much when affecting drunkenness, making the drunk and giddy characters quite hard to understand, and a few of the best sentences didn’t get quite the significant reading that I’d expected for them, but on the whole this was a rewarding reread.
Here’s what I watched…
Girls5Eva
It was only a matter of time before I watched Girls5Eva. If there’s one thing I’m guaranteed to love, it’s a musical TV show, and one with Renée Elise Goldsberry headlining was an even more obvious choice. I love her voice, and she is (unsurprisingly) the best part of Girls5Eva by a pretty wide margin. It’s an enjoyable show for sure. It follows the exploits of four middle-aged women staging a comeback years after their 90s girl band “Girls5Eva” broke up. For obvious reasons, the show’s musical references are largely 90s pop bands; the plot and humor stem from that as well. That’s not quite as up-my-alley as some of the other musical shows I’ve watched, as I haven’t listened to a whole lot of NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, or [insert your favorite 90s pop band here]. I was young and definitely not culturally aware, and I generally listen to modern pop and Broadway these says, so the more specific parodies and references to the era and the genre don’t hit as hard for me as, say, the showtune references in Schmigadoon. Still, it’s fun (and, for a show that’s not a Broadway show, it’s full of Broadway stars: aside from Goldsberry and Sara Bareilles, there are recurring appearances from Andrew Rannells, Erika Henningsen, Grey Henson, Ashley Park, and Daniel Breaker; it’s particularly fun how many Mean Girls alums are in Girls5Eva).
Girls5Eva certainly has its charms—a lot of that is Goldsberry’s Wickie, who is a force of egotistical hilarity—but I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. Part of that is because it doesn’t feel like a musical TV show in the same way that something like Hazbin Hotel or Julie and the Phantoms does, because the songs are more joke than song. Like, I laugh when they play and I might be impressed by the vocals being displayed, but I wouldn’t even listen to the soundtrack. I don’t think I could hum any of the songs beyond the title track, and that’s more down to frequency than quality (which surprises me since I really like Jeff Richmond’s Mean Girls music and Sara Bareilles’ Waitress music).
It’s a silly, entertaining show, but there’s nothing about it that I love. Aside from Wickie, who is a hoot, the characters are just kind of there (Gloria and Summer feel one small step removed from stock characters). The timing of this review also comes at a bad time for Girls5Eva because it just fell victim to my #1 all time least favorite story beat: when the woman who said clearly and unambiguously that she did not want kids gets unexpectedly pregnant. Dawn has a whole plotline in season one in which she and her husband are trying for a second child and she realizes that she doesn’t want one, and realizes her son will be fine without siblings. Her husband very creepily pretends to be okay with that and is like oh we will have a second kid just you wait in a way that (and I am not kidding) justified immediate divorce. And then Dawn gets pregnant in season two and we’re supposed to just forget that whole thing? And not wonder if her I used my birth control as a hairtie joke is actually supposed to be taken at face value? Girls5Eva would have gotten a better review if I hadn’t just run into this horrible plotline, but I did and it is what it is.
I’m going to keep watching, because I do like the show, but I did think I was going to like it more than I actually do.
Helluva Boss
I got very deeply into Hazbin Hotel. The internet recommended it to me and the music won me over. I was initially skeptical of the show, but I was won over by the complex characters and the incredible strength of the Broadway-worthy soundtrack. Once I’d finished watching Hazbin Hotel (twice) and was feeling a bit of a media hangover, I decided to move over to YouTube and try out its sister show Helluva Boss. I’d heard a little about Helluva Boss, but it definitely didn’t flood my feed in the same way. Still, it was made by the same creative team and was set in the same universe. Also, I’d seen comments and conversations underneath Hazbin content from people adamant that Helluva Boss was the better of the two shows. I figured I’d give it a shot.
From my POV, it is absolutely not the better of the two shows. With Hazbin, I had to adjust myself to some of the crasser, darker elements and it was worth it. I wrote in my review of that show that once you get over the sometimes unnecessarily over-the-top violence and shock value, the strength of the music and ensemble of characters is absolutely worth it. It’s impossible to overstate how important the music is to Hazbin Hotel (the near-endless roster of Broadway heavyweights was instrumental in my decision to watch it). Helluva Boss is, in a way, the opposite of Hazbin Hotel: it is similar in content, but the proportions are flipped. It is a lot more violent, a lot crasser, a lot more sexually explicit, and a lot more line-crossing. There are songs, technically, but they aren’t a focus (and, like in Girls5Eva, they’re typically more joke-in-musical-form than true song). Hazbin Hotel has two incredible songs per episode. Helluva Boss has one forgettable song per episode. If I’d stumbled upon Helluva Boss first, there is absolutely no chance that I would have gotten beyond the first episode.
Episode one is disturbing. Even now that I’m caught up (well, mostly. I haven’t seen “The Full Moon” yet), I still think that “Murder Family” is unnecessarily disturbing. The retroactively non-canonical pilot is a lot better (Blitzø’s phone-blender gag is still possibly the funniest thing to come out of Helluva Boss), but “Murder Family” starts the whole thing out on—at least for me—the worst possible foot. For some reasons, shows often come out of the gate with their hardest swings (all the violence! all the nudity! all the swearing!) and then never go that far again. At least so far, that’s absolutely the case here. Helluva Boss is about contract killers in hell but it is a comedy, and “Murder Family” is way too grim; I watched it though gritted teeth. Since then, I’ve more or less come around. It helps that subsequent episodes dialed back on its worst elements (and “Loo Loo Land” showing up almost immediately afterward helped; the episodes with Fizz—even a robo version—are far better than those without). I definitely wouldn’t have stuck with the show except to fill the Hazbin hole, but since I did that I am now somewhat invested and I do like a couple of characters: Blitzø is consistently funny, and my interest shot up once Fizz became a semi-regular presence. To the shock of literally no one, the music improved significantly once Alex Brightman and James Monroe Iglehart started singing it. To be fair, Bryce Pinkham is also a Broadway guy, but since I don’t really like Stolas (controversial, I know), he doesn’t count in quite the same way.
Helluva Boss does have some interesting character work and relationships, and it is often funny (if in a way that is more risqué than my usual taste) but I don’t love that the longer it goes on the more invested it gets—to the detriment of other, more interesting dynamics—in the central romance between Stolas and Blitzø. I don’t hate the dynamic and in fact I initially liked it, but the longer it has gone on the more it has eaten up a disproportionate percentage of the show and gotten bogged down in (admittedly character-driven) miscommunication. I know the pilot has been retroactively made uncanonical (I’m convinced 100% because of Stolas and the way the Stolas/Blitzø dynamic is portrayed), but the quick walkback from Stolas as an abuser to Stolas as a woobified sadboi felt forced and disingenuous. The early episodes felt interested in a morally ambiguous character who was somewhere between a lovably clueless weirdo and a perverted creep, but he’s kind of devolved into a hopeless dweeb who just sits around fantasizing about love and has never done anything wrong (except how he wears his robe; I hate it). Stolas/Blitzø not my least favorite fictional relationship ever, but it is a little frustrating that the part of the show that I perceive as the weakest is centralized and prioritized as though they are the strengths.
I would definitely rather have more Hazbin Hotel than more Helluva Boss, but as of right now I’m happily watching both.
Hazbin Hotel review here
LOST
Two years ago my dad and I started watching LOST, him for the first time, me for the second time. We didn’t finish at the time because my mom, who had been out of town, came home and hadn’t seen any of it. We don’t have a whole lot of taste in common, so we pick it back up every time it’s just the two of us watching. That doesn’t happen often, so it had been a long time since we’d put it down. It was a hard adjustment finding out where we were and what had been going on, but once we oriented ourselves around it it was fun to jump back in. There are definitely some elements of the show that haven’t aged great (I really wish that Sayid had gotten some plotlines that weren’t about torture or murder, and the constant focus on the love triangle feels very dated), but on the whole it stands up as a highly exciting, character-driven show.
I really enjoy the construction of the show, which pairs the main storyline with a flashback or—later in the run—a flashforward or flashsideways that deepens the character’s development and motivations while adding to the intrigue of the plot. I have long maintained that LOST is first and foremost a show about full, interesting characters. There are a number of plot mysteries, of course, which get resolved to varying degrees of completeness. A lot of people don’t like that there isn’t necessarily a full, definite answer to every mystery, but in this particular show that didn’t bother me as the things about it that most intrigue me are the personal stories: the way Sawyer grows from a traumatized child into a calculating conman and then develops into a caring and mature leader, or the tragic way Faraday’s overbearing mother casts an inescapable shadow over his fractured life, or how Jack’s faith in himself and in fate builds and breaks in cycles as the world becomes increasingly difficult to understand around him. There’s not a solely good or solely bad character on the show, and that what makes it interesting. No one ever gets their bad parts sanded off to be more palatable, and even the worst villains have their moments of humanity. Because the show answers most of the questions and focuses primarily on emotional resolutions to the years-long development, it satisfies me (even if some of the religious allusions feel occasionally heavy-handed). I like the way that the mysteries build in discussable ways and the way that there are real stakes to the dangers (I don’t like it when my favorite characters die, but I like it less when a fictional universe makes death meaningless). Also, it can be pretty darn funny at times. The mix of heartbreaking drama and light humor is excellent. I was deeply obsessed with this show the first time I watched it, and I’m definitely liking it on the rewatch as well (even though I’m at the point where most of my favorites are dead RIP).
Previous review here
Tony Nominees
I have never been to Broadway (though I am lucky enough that I get to see lots of touring and community theatre productions), but despite that I get deeply invested in the Tony Awards. There’s nothing quite like Tonys season to provide me with lots of fresh theatre content. The nominated shows make the rounds on various TV shows and an official list comes out highlighting some of the best new shows Broadway has to offer. I’ve spent the month listening to all the available cast recordings and watching all the performances I can find on YouTube. Not every show has released a full recording so far, but from what I’ve heard so far I’m rooting for The Outsiders to get Best Musical.
More thoughts to come
- Total Books: 6
- Novels: 6
- Nonfiction: 0
- Graphic novels: 0
- YA books: 4
- Adult books: 2
- JF books: 0
- Fantasy: 3
- Historical fiction: 0
- Contemporary books: 1
- Dystopian books: 1
- Classics: 1
- Romances: 0
- Mysteries: 0
- Thrillers: 1
- New-to-me books by new-to-me authors: 3
- Rereads: 3
- New-to-me books by authors I’ve read before: 0
- Debuts: 1
- Books by female authors: 2
- Books by male authors: 4
- Books by trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary authors: 0
- Books by POC authors: 4
- Books with significant LGBTQ+ content: 2
- Audiobooks: 3
A Blog of Books and Musicals 