roach's reviews
268 reviews

 

I don't think using an insect hive as an analog for a dystopian world to explore fascist politics and themes of rebellion is very original at all, and I was definitely more into this one for the bug xenofiction aspect. So, the first half of this book didn't really grab me properly since it deals more with the rather straight-forward exploration of the rigid caste system of the bee hive. Granted, it's done well and I feel like the actual biology of the animals is incorporated greatly to find a nice balance between fantastical and naturalistic by the author. But I've seen similar settings before with other bugs, mostly ants, so it didn't really pull me in for a while.
Later on though, as the scope of the story stretches outside the hive and the protagonist explores the outside world more, the book ramped up significantly for me. I'm a huge sucker for exploring the world from a bug point of view anyway and Paull creates some very fun situations and interactions with other creatures.
Bug stories also lend themselves to quite horrific body horror and gore, and Paull is making full use of that, really adding a solid amount of effectively grim nastiness and some cool action scenes. The finale as well goes into pretty exciting territory.

And so the second half of the book really elevated The Bees from a decent read to a great one. If you can make it past the well-structured but somewhat generic initial set-up, you will be rewarded with a very well composed bug xenofiction adventure when it opens up to more variety halfway through. 

[Quote translated from German.]

I recently saw this ad in a German literature magazine about these books specifically made to read in the bathtub. They're short stories that are supposed to take you around 15 minutes to read and they're printed on these puffy, floating little plastic booklets. They honestly remind me a lot of those sensory books for toddlers and I believe children's toys is actually where they took the idea from. Except this time they are explicitly for adults with crime and romance stories.
It definitely sounds like a gimmick product more than anything. As someone who takes his physical books as well as his ebook device in the bathtub all the time, it seems a bit extra funny. I haven't dropped a book in the water yet but even so, at least my ebook device is actually waterproof. lol
(Hell, I'm even writing this review from the bathtub via my phone right now.)

Well, anyway... curiosity got over me and I bought one of these little bathtub books for like six bucks and a few days later, I read it as intended: In the tub with a bubble bath.
I picked a crime story which didn't sound too bad. The story revolves around fraud at a rubber ducky race in a park.
Honestly not a terrible premise for a fun short story, especially to read while taking a bath, but the writing is pretty dang flat. None of the characters are very interesting and the story progresssion doesn't really offer any engaging intrigue or surprises. The villain's motivation is eventually revealed in a very anticlimactic way. This definitely could have been written in a more entertaining way. 

I also noticed that there are frequent namedrops of specific sights and places of this real German town the story is placed in, without any purpose for the plot. It was no surprise when I looked up the author afterwards and noticed that they wrote a bunch of regional crime novels before. 
I'm sure those things are neat if that's what you're looking for and you actually know the place. But here it just felt like meaningless filler lines, mentioning random buildings or streets for no purpose.

Well, it's a pretty mediocre read. Not terrible but also not anything that needs to be read. It doesn't have anything to really remember it by. It's just one of those airy, fleeting stories like the bubbles in bathwater.

Oh, also: The cover says it should take the reader 15 minutes to read. I finished it in 10. 😎

 

What better way to celebrate Franz Kafka's birthday than by bonding over daddy issues?

There has been a lot about Kafka's fictional writing and his personal sentiments that I have related to over the years and so I'm not surprised I was able to find a lot here as well. Kafka is a deeply sympathetic writer to me and he pours his heart out in this letter to his father.
It feels even more intimate considering how it was released against his explicit will after his death by his closest friend, like a lot of his texts were. It is a worthy part of his authorship though that's well worth a read even aside from the possibly voyeuristic aspect of invading the privacy of a recognizable writer.

I've seen people say that they're sad that Franz never actually sent the letter to his father to read though I honestly don't think that was ever the point. To me, Franz's letter reads more like an exercise in self-reflection. Less about the wrongdoings of the father, more about Kafka's way of dealing with it. Hell, towards the end he even imagines a possible response from his father and acknowledges his own conscious and unconscious parts in the conflict.
Although the letter does contain a lot of examples of his father's behavior that have affected him negatively throughout his life, Franz seems less interested in blaming his father but more in recognizing and untangling how their vastly different personalities did not match, to try to find peace with it. By doing so, he wrote what honestly reads as a very engaging sort-of essay that stands pretty well on its own just as a text. As in, it's not just interesting because it's about Kafka's life but it's simply a well-written thoughtful read about people. About family, expectations, regrets, and personal independence. By someone who found his strength in writing. 

 

I have been curious about the Swamp Thing before but it wasn't until some friends recommended me specifically the Alan Moore run of the comic that I decided to actually go out and give it a shot. Though I wasn't able to get the Moore comics at the time and settled for this omnibus instead, collecting the original 70s run by Len Wein and Martin Pasko's issues of the 80s revival over whopping 900+ pages that I blasted through in a month to make the library deadline.

Wein's original series was a mostly fun but chaotic romp, jumping around wild scenarios with each issue, many of them too brief to really get to the interesting parts of the concepts. Also, there is barely any actual swamp in the first 10 or so issues which was kind of funny but also a bit disappointing to me, considering this whole series is literally called Swamp Thing.
There were still some neat ideas and good art, and past the first 10 or so issues, the story does get a little bit more coherent between issues to make it a bit more engaging.
The revival run of the 80s called Saga of the Swamp Thing, helmed by writer Martin Pasko, was a blast though especially after reading it immediately after the originals. Because these issues were much more coherent between issues, actually trying to tell a bigger, overarching story, and Pasko manages to bring back concepts and characters from Wein's comics in much more interesting ways. Additionally, there are some amazing creature designs by the illustrators in here.

All in all, this made for a good look at the beginnings of this DC character and seeing the development from Wein to Pasko was actually really interesting.
But now I'm extra curious to see how this series developed once Moore took over since it seems to me like his take on Swamp Thing is considered the best one and Pasko already did some pretty great things with it. 

 

I don't usually read middlegrade books unless it's for personal nostalgia. But I was curious how a subject like being transgender is communicated to kids these days, so I picked up Alex Gino's Melissa which ended up being a pretty good, quick read.

I think Melissa overall does a good job at communicating a basic transgender experience to younger readers without going too much into the nitty-gritty complexities and keeping the conflicts to a necessary minimum. Yes, there are struggles. After all the protagonist is not coming out to anyone for a long time, and there is certainly some push-back from some adults and other kids, even if not always with bad intent. But the book doesn't dwell on these for too long and keeps the story lightweight, as well as populate it with plenty of supporting characters.
Part of me did wish it would confront some of these conflicts more aggressively or dive a bit deeper into certain aspects. I would have also personally liked a more critical view on the idea of binary gender as a whole. But I have to admit that it's probably a good idea to have a rather straight-forward and relatively easy story as an introduction to the subject for younger readers. There is time for the more complicated things later on.

There is some irony that this book was originally published under the title George, after what we would nowadays call the deadname of the protagonist Melissa. So now, many copies say "Melissa. Previously published as George".
The author added an FAQ to recent copies after the name-change about what's the deal with all that, which I thought was pretty reasonable. The protagonist is called George throughout most of the book (although pronouns are always she/her) until there is a key moment later from which on she is referred to as Melissa until the end of the book. So, yes, deadnaming is being taken more seriously these days. But as a stylistic choice to underline a turning point event in the protagonist's transition story, I thought it was a pretty effective decision to use both names of the protagonist.
As for the book title though, I think it should have been called Melissa from the beginning. The author says that it was originally supposed to be called Girl George, apparently as a bit of a nod to the musician Boy George, but the publisher wanted to simplify it to just George. Though eventually regret seeped in, and as awareness and sensibilities around the subject changed as well, the author made the choice to change the title. It's a bit awkward but there is something interesting about even the title of this book going through a gender transition in a way.

Anyway, Melissa is a comfortable, charming book that does a pretty good job at introducing a complex but timely subject to young people. 

 

I didn't know a single thing about The Epic of Gilgamesh beforehand but was curious to read (a version of) one of the oldest recorded fictional stories and see what people made up to entertain each other 4000 years ago.
This release with a contextual introduction and translation/collation by N.K. Sandars is a bit older and I don't know if in the years since its release there have been any major discoveries of new pieces to the puzzle, but for a first general touching point with this ancient text, I thought it was satisfiable.
About half the book gives context of the story's origins, how its different pieces and versions were discovered over time, and how one goes on to translate and put together what we know. Then the second half is Sandars' actual translation of the legendary story.

keep in mind that my rating for this isn't just based of my enjoyment of the Gilgamesh story but also (and probably more so) on the section of historical context and in a way the style or quality of the translation.
I felt like the introductory first half of the book gave me a very good overview of the story's place in time. Surely there is much more that can be said about it and I know there are plenty of books out there that do, but for me this relatively short text was all I really wanted for now.
The Gilgamesh story itself is fine. It has some cool ways to describe things and it's fascinating to read the elements that pre-dated major points in the Bible. But I described the story to friends as an ancient dudebro frat boy story. The relationship between the mighty Gilgamesh and Enkidu gave me mental images of two beefy dudes high-fiving and caressing each others' muscles every day, which was a bit funny in its own right. The (surely unintentional) slightly homoerotic undertones of their bromance is a nice bonus. Also, speaking of Enkidu, he is a much more interesting character than Gilgamesh and I wish the epic was more about him.

I could see myself dig a bit deeper with other, more recent texts about Gilgamesh if curiosity strikes. This was an interesting enough read for now. 

 

[Quote translated from German.]

It's been 4 volumes now and I'm still absolutely in love with the wild, chaotic, and nightmarish art style. Even if the plot isn't the clearest at all times with its big ideas of pulling from all sorts of real-world conspiracy theories in a grand scheme about reality and fiction, the awesome art makes up for some of the weaker spots in writing. In fact, it complements the swirling, blurry themes of the plot incredibly well.
Since this story is getting closer to a conclusion, the threads have to start coming together more clearly and I'm incredibly curious how they're gonna decide on ending this whole thing. But for now, I'm still enjoying the mysterious, dream-like vibe of this entire project. 

 

[Quote translated from German.]

Volume 3 of The Department of Truth is a bit different as it spends time with some deviations, portraying some characters' background stories. To do that, the artist changes the art style for each chapter, often emulating popular comic art styles of the time the story is set in, it seems. It's a fun concept for sure. I did miss the amazing, smeared, nightmarish collage work of the usual issues though. And while it was neat to learn more about people's past, it did make for an overall less engaging read with its anthology style.
The most memorable chapter for me was the lengthy mothman one, which also had some of the best visuals in my opinion. But I think after the fantastic bigfoot segment of the previous volume, I was hoping for a little bit more with mothman.

Still a good read with a very well made artistic concept. Just not the most exciting or impactful in the series for me so far. 

 

At the beginning of the year, I started putting out some nuts on my windowsill to attract any hungry birds. Living in the middle of the city, not much came around. But eventually a few magpies became frequent visitors and picked them up regularly. I began to see them more often in the trees in front of my house and after a while, they began to build one of their huge, domed nests right across the street in plain view of my living room window. It was pretty dang awesome to see the whole thing live. Especially knowing that I, as a reliable food source throughout the end of winter and then spring, probably was at least part of the reason why they chose that particular tree as their home.
So, I decided to actually read up on these birds I always liked but never knew much about.

Birkhead's book The Magpies might be the only book of its kind, truly and thoroughly focusing only on magpies.
It's a bit dry at parts since it's first and foremost an academic compilation of studies and findings, filled with the relating stats and graphs. But if that's what you're looking for, a very comprehensive collection of knowledge about these specific birds, then you really can't complain. It covers a lot of ground and draws from a ton of different sources as well as the author's own results of watching these birds for years with an obvious passion.
Every now and then there is a nice anecdote for some color as well. On that note, the chapter about the relationship between magpies and humans towards the end of the book might have been my favorite chapter as it relied less on raw data and more about history.

A great book if you want to learn about these birds. Possibly more suited as reference than to read front-to-back though. 

 

A while ago, I was looking around for speculative fiction about a world where Christianity never existed or became as popular as it is, expecting people to have explored how a world with less or no influence from that religion might have developed. An incredibly interesting subject to me, considering how deeply rooted Christianity is in the world's history and how much it shaped our cultures and way of life, especially throughout the West, even outside of the church and its believers, often in ways that we don't even recognize anymore as stemming from Christianity.
Many people recommended me Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt because of that and the basic premise of this alternate history novel sounded like a perfect match. Here is a world where the black plague kills almost all of Europe and with it Christian beliefs, leaving more space for other beliefs to grow and shape the world.

Reading this book was a lot of ups and downs for me. The initial thought experiment is super interesting and the reincarnation theme of following the same souls throughout different bodies and different times is a very cool concept. It makes for quite a lot of variety as this book basically ends up being an anthology of different short stories or novella sections with some connecting details and a couple of scenes in the bardo space between lives. And these stories are populated with quite a lot of interesting characters.
But these individual stories also felt more isolated from each other than I would have hoped and there were definitely some settings and situations I would have much preferred to spend more time with while others didn't engage me at all.
Additionally, while I loved all the dialog of different characters discussing life and death, and criticizing or philosophizing about different religions and beliefs, I had some big gripes with the author's lengthy expository sections that completely ignored the "show, don't tell" rule and turned potentially interesting developments into dry walls of text.
But making it through those dry sections, I was always eventually greeted by another section that suddenly made me excited to read on. Like feminist movements challenging patriarchal religious systems or exploring the Americas in a world that never had Europeans invade and colonize it. It's also very satisfying to meet characters close to the end of the book that now, many decades past the initial black plague situation, get to look back at, study, and ponder about this alternate version of world history.

In the end, The Years of Rice and Salt is a mostly engaging reflection of what the concept of history even is, what we do with the knowledge of the past, and where beliefs and sciences lead us. As well as being a general love letter to all the little, undocumented things people do that don't become part of the general world history despite being part of it just like every other action and reaction is.
I was hoping for the reincarnation theme to have a bit of a more palpable development and pay-off, and wished the author would do less "telling" and more "showing. But overall this was a book I'm glad I read and stuck with. Some parts of it were genuinely awesome.