The Bandit Queens (Book Review)

I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff; it promised dark humor in the face of horrific abuse, and that can be a hard line to walk… and one that can go catastrophically wrong very quickly if the balance gets tipped off even for a moment. Still, the premise and cover sounded interesting enough that I was willing to go in with solid expectations even though I’ve gotten a bit skeptical of Barnes and Noble’s book club selections.

Seriously, though. Look at it. That is a fantastic cover. It’s visually striking, its vibe matches that of the novel itself, and it does not closely resemble any other books out there.

What’s it about?

After her drunken, abusive husband disappeared one day, Geeta has been treated with fear and suspicion by the others in her village. Although she had nothing to do with his sudden absence, everyone is convinced that Geeta murdered Ramesh. This reputation makes for a lonely existence, but it isn’t without its advantages: Geeta is now free from physical abuse, able to provide for herself without the money going to illegal alcohol, and people are scared not to buy her products. The problem arises when Farah, a member of Geeta’s local loan group, takes Geeta’s reputation a step farther and asks for Geeta’s assistance in killing her own violent husband.

What’d I think?

I really enjoyed The Bandit Queens. Don’t get me wrong: it is very dark and I suspect it could be quite triggering to some readers as the murder is really the tip of the iceberg. The Bandit Queens engages with alcoholism, sexism, domestic and sexual assault (including, briefly, of children), casteism, colorism, violence, and animal abuse. The humor, in my opinion, is used as a sort of coping mechanism, allowing Geeta—and, through her, Shroff—to address these subjects without being drowned by them. It can be a bit irreverent at times, but not (at least in my opinion) irreverently so. The novel and its tone never undercut the horrors by attempting to make them seem less horrible. Geeta’s humor is, like the career she makes of making widows, a direct if over-the-top response to abuses she suffers. When dealing with content like this, it’s all about the tone and the gravity. The Bandit Queens uses humor, but it never makes light of any of it. That’s the difference between something like The Bandit Queens and something like The Paper Palace (which was also a BN book club pick that engaged with sexual assault and pedophilia) which made me actively sick to my stomach. 

The banter between the characters is really fantastic, though. At our book club discussion we had lots of tangents where someone just said “remember when Saloni said such-and-such” or “oh my gosh that scene at the police station!” and we all took a minute to chuckle.

That being said, all potential readers should go into The Bandit Queens with their eyes open. If you are triggered by any of the above subjects, or if you would be upset by dark humor being utilized as a way to process trauma, this may not be a novel you want to engage with. There are lots of books out there, and life is too short to read ones that will distress you!

The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour (Graphic Novel Review)

I got into the graphic novel series The Adventure Zone by Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, and Carey Pietsch about a year ago; I read the existing four volumes one after another and had a very good time. They’re bizarre, irreverent, and fun and they’re such quick reads that when I finally got my hands on the new one, I was able to take it in The Eleventh Hour over the span of a single morning and a single cup of hot chocolate. 

What’s it about?

Once again, our heroes Magnus, Merle, and Taako are sent by the Bureau of Balance to track down a Grand Relic. This one is located in a small mining town that has been trapped in a bubble of time. Once inside, the adventurers quickly discover that the whole community is a few years behind the rest of the world, and they find themselves stuck in a time loop that restarts every time they die (which is a lot). 

What’d I think?

Time loops are one of those sci-fi/fantasy tropes that it feels like everything gets to eventually. It’s not my favorite, but it can be fun enough when done well. The Adventure Zone’s bread and butter is playing with expectations and providing meta commentary, so I figured this would be an inventive take on the trope. It’s an engaging story with some interesting new backstory on all three of our heroes that complicates them, but for the most part The Eleventh Hour plays everything pretty straight, or at least more straight than previous installments.

Griffin, the gamemaster, pops up less than usual and as a result there are fewer wink winks about the characters all knowing they’re in a story. At one point they ask Griffin to fast forward through one repeated scene and he complies, but other than that and a few other similarly small moments, they pretty much behave like normal characters (aside from Taako lampshading a death montage; Taako continues to be the best character). I do like that each individual installment has its own genre and overall feel that doesn’t match anything that came before or after, so there’s been a fluctuation of this throughout. It’s not like The Eleventh Hour feels dissonantly serious or anything. It still fits nicely into the overall tone of the series, but is perhaps not quite as meta as Here There Be Gerblins, which had the trio quibbling with Griffin over almost everything. Volume five is very funny, and there are still moments that capitalize on the fourth-wall-breaking humor that works so well here, but on the whole there’s a lot less interaction between the story’s primary reality and the one that involves its gamemaster.

In that the action does largely play out like a more traditional and less media-savvy adventure, I wished for a little more big-picture stuff and a little less on the monster-of-the-week shenanigans. Don’t get me wrong: the shenanigans are as fun as ever, with the one-off characters always being especially amusing.The last few installments have teased that the Bureau perhaps isn’t the paragon of goodness and universe-benefitting that they present themselves as, and the red-cloaked figure pops up in this one—as in his previous appearances—just enough to get me curious and whet my appetite for the upcoming reveals before disappearing. Similarly, I was a little sad at how little of Kravitz we saw. What with the premise of this one and the sheer number of deaths by our heroes, I assumed that Kravitz would be a near-constant presence and he isn’t. He’s just a little tease right at the end and that’s kind of a bummer because Kravitz is really cool and always a highlight in his brief cameos.