It’s nearly 2024 and increasingly I feel that we live in an echochamber of war propaganda and shit that, generally, isn’t really happening but everyone says its happening so it’s important we all take antidepressants because of it. The chasm between the normality and pleasantness of my regular life and the hellscape the media wants my life to be is where I reside, still checking Telegram channels to view handmade drones crashing into frozen trenches.
I also read some books.
The Devil All The Time - Donald Ray Pollack
I was in Argentina when I was reading this book and I left my kindle on a plane and freaked out so badly I had to run to an English language bookstore and read an Isabel Allende book (I know) because I can no longer function without having a book. I could have spent time with my friends or read the Illiad (lol) but no.
I remember this book doing fat serial killer well. I know its a Netflix movie with Tom Holland which means the movie version probably sucks. This is good death, grime, gruel, and shit in West Virginia kind of book. Real dark Americana. I was sad I left it on the plane but it also gave me bad dreams (sometimes the sign of a great book).
Tell Me Lies - Carola Lovering
As you will see, I’ve been trying to figure out the romance genre this year so that I may get rich. I’ve never been able to write good love stories. I like reading about people kissing but writing about people kissing? I start out wanting that and then they end up having a horrible breakup and I’m like wait, what, how did that happen? This book, like all romance novels, is about an abusive relationship that is *actually* extremely hot. One thing nearly all the adult romance novels I’ve ever read is about how a great relationship is based on mistrust, control, and the need to lock someone away for their own protection. Then, when they’re properly locked away, they will give it to her long and slow with their “proud thick lengths” (no small or average dicks) right in the very center of her being (what they call vaginas). This book claimed to be about how abusive relationships are bad but lets call it like it is. SHE KNOWS BETTER BUT SHE SIMPLY CAN’T STAY AWAY! The main couple had a lot of hot sex. The only difference between this and horny fairy books is that in this one the couple breaks up in the end.
Oh, also. Eating disorder. The main girl had a random eating disorder that was never resolved. You know what’s boring to read about? Eating disorders. A protagonist just agonizing over eating a cobb salad for lunch or how her body looks in size 0 jeans and how she has to run one more lap around the quad OR ELSE. I understand eating disorders suck and lets spread awareness yay but jesus christ are they fucking boring. I read because I watched the Hulu show and the main, abusive guy was hot. Of course.
Zorro - Isabel Allende
The book I was forced to buy in Argentina so I could read on my vacation after I lost my kindle. It was fun. Kind of read like a carnival. I can only do funny magical realism. The minute magical realism gets serious, it loses all its power. In grad school people were trying to be like “This talking tree is actually the Israel/Palestine conflict.” Embarrassing for them. I read more books this year than any other year in my life because I have no friends and I live in walking distance of a beach.
The Zone of Interest - Martin Amis
Paul Doll in this book is one of the best unreliable narrators of all time. Fucked up at the concentration camp with no concept at all of what’s going on and just really feeling himself.
Empty Theatre - Jac Jemc
This is the year I became obsessed with Empress Sisi of Austria who really has no accomplishments other than being hot, having a hot husband, and also having an eating disorder. They also had a terrible marriage and she probably fucked a hot Hungarian for most of it. I consume as much Sisi content as possible and it makes her seem way cooler than she actually was (weepy and whiney) but I like when people rewrite history to be cooler (NOT as you will see later, to be lamer). One historical fact that the fiction about Sisi doesn’t cover is that she always faked illnesses to go on awesome vacations for six months out of the year. She would claim to be on death’s door until someone shipped her to a spa in Switzerland and then she was like, I’m fine now! Really struck me that I need to start using FMLA for my “consumption.”
Vanishing Girls - Lauren Oliver
I’m not going to lie I had to google the plot to remember what this was about. Lets talk Ukraine! Last year I predicted Erdogan would win the Nobel Peace Prize for the grain deal even though he is a literal genocidal dictator. Well, he didn’t! He DID buckle to western pressure, give some shitty helicopters to Ukraine, while also selling some to Russia on the side at the same time, and then the grain deal fell apart because Russia was like, wtf. Choose a side, Erdogan. He was forced to in 2023 with Russia but he won’t in 2024. This year he will send Israel shitty helicopters while selling Hamas shitty helicopters on the low at the same time. The loser in this? Armenia. Genocided and nobody cares. Again. Mainstream media and podcast community, how do I know what genocides to care about and which ones to ignore completely.
I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness - Claire Vaye Watkins
This is just a book about literary gossip. It’s called “autofiction” so people can write about themselves and their boring lives while also adding teeth in their vaginas and a general social acceptance for leaving your infant child and husband to fuck a random in Tahoe. I vaguely knew the people in this memoir (sorry, “autofiction”) from Las Vegas and the fictional part of her memoir also makes everybody better looking. I love fiction! Sorry, memoir. Sorry, fiction!
The Easter Parade - Richard Yates
Oh, man. Maybe one of the best books of all time. Everybody is so miserable and well-written! Being alive is a continual agonizing disappointment.
Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead
I love how everyone who went to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop has this prose that lulls you into a state of sated elitism. It feels like cozying up in your Upper East Side penthouse and having a glass of wine before doing some insider trading with your son. It feels good.
Circe - Madeline Miller
Most insane moment of the year: Prigozhen’s aborted coup on Moscow and then HELICOPTER MURDER. I still think the whole thing may have been fake. That or Putin really does be leading a czarist regime where the nobles below him kill each other but never actually coup. The subtext of this whole coup is that Prigozhen was “saving” Putin from Shoigu who was not giving Wagner enough weapons to fight in Bahkmut, even though they won that battle. Prigohzen was then banished to Belarus (God, imagine) and went to fight some normal proxy wars in Africa, where he made an insane video, then was killed the next day. Life rules.
Oh yeah, people are still writing sexy “feminist’ retellings of Greek epics.
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty - Robert Massie
In 1906 there were like 2 million Russians on strike and like literally over 1,000 political assassinations? Really makes you think about January 6. People just straight up throwing bombs in an elite nobleman’s carriage and blasting him to bits in front of his entire family. Nicholas was a terrible leader. Every decision worse than the last. Alexandra was an even worse empress. I do think Rasputin may have been the last real wizard on earth. He would get blind drunk and perform spells. There are great journals in this book from soldiers who guarded Rasputin’s bedchambers about all of his drunken exploits and every chick he fucked. Book is worth it for that alone.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
It’s like if Hideo Kogima made the Sims and then a literary darling wrote a book about it and tacked on a mass shooting to the end for good measure.
Of Light and Shadow - Tanaz Bhathena
I think I read maybe six books this year with the exact same plot. Girl who is good at fighting accidentally falls in love with a pRiNcE.
Seating Arrangements - Maggie Shipstead
People say weddings are about the bride but really they’re about other people, the book.
Astonish Me - Maggie Shipstead
This is a novel about ballet and after I read it I started watching lots of YouTube videos of hot male ballerinas. After 100+ viewings I discovered my favorite one, who is in a bunch of Hozier music videos, had not only a Nazi symbol tattooed on his chest but also three (three!) tattoos of Vladimir Putin’s face on his chest. When asked why in an interview, he said “I do trolling lol.” Bad boy of ballet, indeed. He’s from the Donbass! He posts all these pics of him hanging out with Russian soldiers in Ukraine. My crush! Life is weird.
Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros
In this book, the hot people are bonded to their dragons and when their dragons are horny, it makes the people horny too, so they have to learn how to ignore the horny feelings they get when their dragons have sex, because having sex when horny by dragons is rape? It also uses a lot of curse words, which I’m not that mad about, but saying “fuck” isn’t an entire personality for a character.
The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker
I read so many feminist retellings of the Iliad or Odyssey this year that I literally don’t remember what happens in this one.
The Tip Line - Vanessa Cuti
This is a thriller about a serial killer (based on the Gilgo Beach murders) and when I was reading it in Long Island, they actually solved the murder. It’s about a chick who works for the cops in order to do marriage to a hot guy and this whole murder thing gets in the way of her getting that dick. Five stars.
The Firebrand - Marion Bradley Zimmer
Feminist retelling of the Iliad featuring Cassandra the crazy one who prophesied but nobody believed her because she was cursed with borderline personality disorder by the god, Apollo. In this, of course, she is a baba yaga type magician warrior who is not crazy. I also read while reading this that Marion Bradley Zimmer is canceled because her husband sexually assaulted her kids and she knew and did nothing. A huge bummer because the Mists of Avalon is a good book.
Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo
Who is hotter? The evil prince (the “dark one” ofc they are always called the “dark one”) or the guy you grew up with and always had a crush on but never noticed you until someone else liked you first? The question we all want answered. I will say, for a YA, this has good prose, and is Russia-coded, which is unusual for this genre. Usually everything is “feminist retelling of the Iliad” coded.
Ascension - Nicholas Binge
Why are dudes so obsessed with ancient aliens? Is it so crazy to believe that humans built the fucking pyramids? My fiance read this book in two hours in Cancun which is nuts because I didn’t realize he could read that fast. Lawyers have two traits: reading fast and spilling condiments on their suits.
Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud - Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman
This year is the year that I quote replied to a tweet about bitcoin by Ryan from The OC and he retweeted me. 12 year-old me was finally proud of 33 year-old me. But seriously, if you want to understand what a scam crypto is (and a lot of tech tbh), read this book.
A Court of Thorns and Roses - Sarah J. Maas
Feminist retelling of Beauty and the Beast? Except thank Heavenly Father in the acknowledgements? I really got sick of podcasts this year. I listen to a lot of political ones and everybody has the same opinion about the same atrocity that they are outraged about that month. It’s like everybody follows the same map through life of what to get offended about. Why was I not delivered the map?
There is lots to be offended by but all these podcastors have the same point of view. They’re never talking about the real issues like how Joe Biden wants to ban menthol cigarettes. I started listening to romance fantasy audiobooks instead because even if they too were all the same, at least they were funny. Always funny to hear someone who sounds like Sandra Day O’Conner panting and begging some fairy to fuck her until she can’t walk. Much funnier than lecturing me on how I should feel about geopolitics or how I need to support this strike or donate to that cause or else? Eternal damnation? The religion of American politics.
A Court of Mist and Fury - Sarah J. Maas
The Audible narrator sounded like Ruth Bader Ginsberg getting fingerbanged by a emo-coded fairy lord. Another thing that many of these romance fantasy books have in common is the male protagonist experiences rape at the hands of a woman and is going through that trauma so that no matter what they do (say, locking a woman up for her own good or not telling her about her at-risk pregnancy) is really just a reflection of the trauma so we should fell bad because they are broken by their ex. It’s always tacked on too. Oh, I was imprisoned for 50 years and used to execute people and kept in a prison cell and also RAPED. I only note this because this same storyline (kept in a cell and raped by women) has happened in many of these books by different authors and the height of the girl’s trauma is like “my sister was mean to me.”
The Guest - Emma Cline
Did you know it costs $50 to park at the only public beach in Southampton? Unpopular opinion: I wish the Hollywood writers strike went on forever. Everything on TV and most every movie sucks anyway and I literally wouldn’t notice if AI wrote the teen drama about ice skating. It would probably be better! I was hoping for the novelist to rise again because there was no more Stranger Things (big loss). Honestly, Hollywood people have co-opted strikes for their own nefarious means. In other industries, it’s about work conditions where they won’t literally die and not woring 18 hours a day. For Hollywood, it’s like oh I can’t afford this $10 latte anymore. Everyone I know who is a TV writer gets paid way more than me, and yet, complain way more as well. Get over it. As a novelist, you stole my job first, and it’s going to be wonderful to watch AI steal yours.
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon - Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis really wanted SBF to transform the world. To make a lot of money on the stock market and then donate it to climate change and just be Santa Claus. Even when faced with evidence of obvious and clear MULTIBILLION DOLLAR FRAUD, Michael Lewis was like “SBF is just misunderstood! And autistic!” He said that on national television! The guy who wrote The Big Short was conned by a moron doing the same thing with fake currency. I do believe he just saw himself or his son in SBF and couldn’t believe SBF was out to steal. He was out to steal, Michael Lewis. Sad!
Good read if you want to read the defense of somebody who is clearly stealing but pretending they care about climate change and democracy and are not actually stealing.
Trust - Hernan Diaz
Todd Haynes is making an HBO miniseries of this book starring Kate Winslet which doesn’t really make sense because the structure (which is pretty cool) is five unreliable narrators telling different versions of the same story. How do you make that into one cohesive television narrative? Good luck to Todd and Kate. Luckily, you have AI to write it for you. It’s on Obama’s book list. If you’re looking for a book for your parents, always (ALWAYS) pick one off Obama’s book list. No matter what their politics are. They’ll love it.
The Weaver and the Witch Queen - Genevieve Gornichec
Remember how I said that rewriting history is cool? Well, it turns out that’s only the case if what you are rewriting into it is interesting. The people in this book were Vikings in the year 700 and the dialogue felt ripped from a 2022 TikTok. At some point during this book one Viking definitely said “Whatever!” to another Viking. It was just a bunch of girl bosses in Viking times doing their She-EO thing. It was like they took today’s politics and put them in the year 700. I think this author just rewrote the past as kinder in this novel in the hope of one day virtue signaling on NPR.
Hello Beautiful - Ann Napolitano
I feel like TV bipolar and real bipolar are different beasts. In TV, bipolar is usually something a really hot girl (or if it’s Degrassi, Craig) has and sometimes she will act very methed out and have a party that really ruins everyone’s day! But she had to go off her medication because she ice skates better without it and the competition is tomorrow! Then she gets ahold of someone’s credit card and buys too much shit and brings a bunch of poor people over to her rich boyfriend’s penthouse!
These shows always pat themselves on the back for dealing with mental health issues but like TV bipolar is not real. I wish it was and I had it because it would mean lots of hot guys are fighting over me. Anyway, this book had a believable depression storyline and it’s how somebody just does nothing, sitting motionless, quietly, until they try to kill themselves. Not compelling drama for a Netflix 10-episode season about ice skaters.
A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4) - Sarah J. Maas
I skipped the third one. In this book, despite everyone being imprisoned by a guy or girl they weren’t that into, they finally decide that for her own good and mental health they need to enslave the main character’s sister and force her into mandatory aerobics and indentured servitude. She was simply having too much fun! We can’t have that!
As I’ve said mulyiplr times in this post, everybody needs to be imprisoned in order to find their one true love. Spoiler alert: she finds her mate (barf). Another thing that these romance novels have in common (no point in providing a real review for any of them) is that there is always some kind of “bond” that unites the two soulmates and nobody can really fight against these bonds. They’re primal and typically involve tattoos that allow them to telepathically speak to one another (a storyline in both horny dragons and horny faires). So, if a guy likes you, he REALLY likes you. In fact, you’re stuck with him forever. I think that’s something people like to hear. That their significant other is biologically incapable of leaving them. This is the BEST horny fairy book by the way.
The Ash Family - Molly Dektar
Boring book with nice details about a boring cult. I’m sure it got some nice awards and that Molly Dektar is still a miserable adjunct somewhere. I need to write a horny (noun) book. It’s obviously the only way to throw off the yoke of a full-time job and make real money writing. What will it be? Horny dragons and faries are done obviously. Horny vampires are coming back but also done. Horny lion tamers? Horny werewolves might be good. Usually werewolves are underpowered side characters in horny vampire books. Teen Wolf had a comeback this year and did well. The data points to horny werewolves. I’ll make sure my couple has a tattoo they speak through that ensures the dude never leaves her for his werewolf secretary.
The Jasad Heir - Sarah Hashem
The romantasy horny genre meets Hunger Games plot device with Egyptian-coded lore. These books sometime feel like a Mad Libs of tropes. It was actually the best of the horny fantasy books probably because it was the least horny. The romance was a slow burn (not a slow burn of being fignerbanged 18 times before they finally go all the way and the tension deflates completely) and the world was cool.
The Bee Sting - Paul Murray
This book really kicked ass. Best book of the year.
From Blood and Ash - Jennifer Armentrout
The geopolitical world of the most boring romance-fantasy book ever (conversations can last legit 20 pages where the main character asks the hot guy stupid questions) in this book needs some… work. The problem for the “good guys” is that their kingdom doesn’t have enough living space which like… I think as a writer it’s important to avoid Hitler’s main justification for World War II as the primary war aim for the good guys in your book. Lebensraum is not going to endear your readership to the good guys. The main character is also insanely fixated on bloodlines (sigh). Maybe stop asking questions about eugenics, Poppy, and go have a threesome!
Queen Hereafter - Isabelle Schuler
My relationship is probably a failure because it’s not toxic. This book is a feminist retelling of Lady Macbeth. Who I guess is a real person! In all these books, the feminist hero is always a pagan defying gender roles and making potions. I need to stop reading these books in 2024.
Iron Flame - Rebecca Yarros
At the end of the book, I was actively rooting for the main character to die. There isn’t anything left to say about these romance fantasy books other than that the authors are rich and I am poor and that’s not right.
The Glow - Jessie Gaynor
Novels can’t just be funny these days. If a novel is funny and it also wants to be taken seriously, it’s “cutting satire.” Can’t a novel be funny? Does everything need to be so fucking tragic all the time? When will it be okay to be funny again?
Kill the Rich - Jack Allison & Kate Shapiro
The best book of the millenium. A cutting satire. Buy it today and support your local novelists.
Perhaps in 2024, there will be peace in Eastern Europe. Perhaps, I’ll read less fantasy-romance books and get a life. Probably not. See you then, suckers.