quickly: it’s a jewish cult in 1700’s poland (an astral traveling matriarch accidentally floating above all of existence / a man who prides himself on being no one and knowing nothing, a simpleton, yet attracts followers from all over / prophetesses who see prophecies fulfilled / sects that are cults that are sects that are cults / a security detail made entirely of women).
this book is as long as life, and just as monotonous, which is what makes it all the more enriching. it is truly a world and a time, encapsulated in 961 pages. it is a true story, with a thin glaze of magical realism drizzled on top. it reads like the bible (or should i say the Torah), slow, dry, and impactful. it is crowded, like a city street during lunch hour, but if you follow Yente and Jacob through the story, you’ll never get lost.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
more thoughts: SPOILERS!
Some personal context… this is the first Big Book I’ve read since reading Infinite Jest back in like 2015. I’ve read a handful of books randomly from 2016-2022, going years sometimes without reading a full book. I was gifted a set of Goosebumps books by a friend last Christmas and the nostalgia inspired me to get reading again.
I went from Goosebumps to Fear Street to some brilliant new fiction (Sacrificio by Ernesto Mestre-Reed, The Boatman’s Daughter and The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson). THE BOOKS OF JACOB is the longest book I’ve read in years, and it was almost nothing I thought it would be. After the delicious but “short” novels I’d been reading lately, I was craving the truly immersive feeling of that could only be captured in a 900+ page book.
The synopsis excited me immediately: JEWISH CULT IN 1700s POLAND! BASED ON A TRUE STORY!
Now by no means do I have any serious education of Jewish culture. I’ve watched movies, read some books, but I am not versed. However, with the level and detail of writing that Tokarczuk achieves in this work (much of it based on fact), it made real some of the things that only existed in my mind as fragments of information.
The entire story is broken up into books, books are broken up into chapters, and chapters each have their own subsections. Most of these subsections are prose, some are letters, and others are ‘scraps’ or behind-the-scenes moments captured by Nahmen, Jacob’s most faithful follower.
THE BOOK OF FOG, is the opener. It sets the scene and introduces you to a network of characters that Jacob will soon be at the center of.
THE BOOK OF SAND, sees families start to form, and Yente turns into a goddess of the air as she astral travels through time and space. Jacob is introduced and we see his travels (culturally and geographically). His followers witness ‘the great spirit’ descending into him, causing his entire body to shed. This book is filled with miraculous stories and acts.
THE BOOK OF THE ROAD, sees Jacob leading his followers into a new land, and initiating some of his followers by secret rituals. Their practices make them enemies of local Jews and they are soon pursued by The State. Jews issue curses against them, and Jacob sends curses back.
THE BOOK OF THE COMET, sees a comet that appears, with many seeing it as an auger of end times. More rituals. The Shekinah, feminine goddess, is witnessed descending into a gold statue, plague erupts, and Jacob and his followers are held for questioning in regards to their religious practices, eventually banishing him to prison in a monastery. This is where Jacob starts to fray.
THE BOOK OF METAL AND SULFER (my personal favorite for some reason?), sees Jacob sent to prison, yet his followers still cling to him, setting up a village around him. They all wait for the Shekinah to appear from a painting in the church monastery where he is being held. Jacob is ill, a lot, getting older and losing his glow. He is not himself sometimes. Eventually, war breaks out, giving Jacob an opportunity to negotiate his freedom.
THE BOOK OF THE DISTANT COUNTRY, Jacob once again enters a new land, lord of a castle now, where he lives on the lower floors as an old ailing man. The toll of prison manifests in his body. His practices alarm some and enamor others. This book sees the death of Jacob.
THE BOOK OF NAMES, is almost a denouement, biblical style, rife with anecdotes of the deaths of Jacob’s closest followers, and some of their children. Yente, the goddess, closes the story from high above us, somewhere in the afterlife.
In all, I was moved by the beautiful lacing of Jewish lore and mythology throughout the story. I found Jacob to be repulsive, arrogant, wise, contradictory, and ridiculous. Not much different from today’s cult leaders. He eventually endures that long hard ego death that only the body can devise. Throughout the story we see women who guard the knowledge of paternity, all women guards, Yente who knows all, Hayah the Prophetess who sees all, the holy trinity’s fourth part—the great divine feminine, and so on. I found the magic of the feminine, the resistance to “tradition”, and the movement of a people, to be incredible to read about.
I understand and sympathize with those who say they couldn’t read past the first half and were confused and lost in the sea of characters, especially when the main characters decide to switch names mid-story.
A SECRET: There are really only two names to keep up with in the story. Yente, and Jacob. Yente is easy to remember… she is Jacob’s grandmother, and she is also the sky, the wind, the air, and the ether. She is everywhere at all times, at any time, like God. So it’s hard to lose her in the story. Then there’s Jacob. The star upon which all other stars orbit and constellate. If you watch them throughout the pages, all others move around him, forming the loose, lingering, and prescient story arc that only life can form. Everyone else can be identified by their actions.
quickly: a father tries everything in his earthly and unearthly power to prevent his son from inheriting a legacy of horror (abuse from the one who loves you most / blessed curses and buried secrets / bisexuality so powerful it’s omnisexual and omnipotent / chalk circles and pits of bones / closed doors opening / evil grandparents with old money / haunted houses with locked rooms / like father, like son / Lord of Doors, Signs, and Symbols / missing limbs and missing mothers / people lost in the darkness / something dark in the woods).
The story begins with a young Gaspar being spirited away by his migraine-stricken father Juan, and it follows him through his adolescence, as his father tries to keep him safe from their own evil family—by any means necessary. These people are not Disney© evil by the way, these families that include Juan’s in-laws, known as The Order, are vicious, kidnapping, human trafficking plutocrats. They practice a philosophy of magic where darkness begets darkness, and in that darker darkness they reign. They cage children, abduct and torture strangers, and will even spill their own blood to conjure chaos. Unfortunately for The Order however, their ability to render magic from their dark deeds is almost useless without a medium.
★★★★★ Fantastic horror.
This was a book I read in March of 2024 after seeing it on a list from @bloodmaarked!
To Juan’s disappointment, his young son is showing signs of becoming a powerful medium at a young age, making him susceptible to the deplorable whims of The Order. To keep young Gaspar protected, he must also keep Gaspar ignorant to the powerful magic and sorcery flowing through his blood. As so often happens in families filled with trauma and secrets, the repression of Gaspar’s powers will cause him to be an overly sensitive and deeply emotionally wounded child who has a habit of walking backward into the traps his father works ceaselessly to keep him unaware of.
In time, it will be revealed to Gaspar that Juan is a Great and tortured medium; the vessel of a dark, powerful, and ruthless force known by many as The Darkness. The Darkness is an old god, often presenting itself as a massive black cloud of energy, and makes its power known through tragedy, bloodshed, foreknowledge, and the locking and unlocking of doors to other realms. This ‘demented’ and ‘savage’ force blesses whatever it curses and can mark its followers by wounding them with its golden talons. If you were to reach into this black cloud, you’d pull your arm back to find that your hand has been cleanly amputated and cauterized. Eaten. You may also wake up the next day, marked, with the ability to unlock locked things, or sense people before they appear.
Meanwhile, until Juan’s truth is revealed to his son, Gaspar must learn to grow up with two versions of his dad. One version of Juan is the kind, serious, wise teacher. The other Juan, the dark version, is irrational, voracious, bloodthirsty, and almost evil. Though Gaspar has no knowledge of the powerful magic that flows within him and his father, he has an uncanny understanding that there is something lying beneath the surface of the waking world of reality. Sometimes he even finds himself opening doors no one else can open. No one but Juan.
By the time Gaspar reaches adulthood, he grows up to be just like his father… exceptionally powerful, stunningly beautiful, and outrageously unpredictable (maybe even a little bi too). The final phase of Juan’s elaborate plan to destroy The Order is set into motion by his death, leaving it up to fate, Gaspar, and those who love Juan and his son, to hopefully and finally, close the door to evil for good.
This is sophisticated, detailed, high-level horror, with excellent dialogue and conversation about family, community, lineage, capital, sex, grief, despair, power, and action—and by action I mean forming a well thought out plan and doing what it takes to see your plan through.
quickly: the death of a woman’s neighbor reveals the fury of mother nature (a ‘crazy old woman’ with ailments and astrology / estranged neighbors / friends who make life easier / blood in the snow / small town gossip / dreams of the dead / the will of man vs. nature).
how much of the natural world can an old, country, polish woman try to save on her own? Mrs. Duszejko doesn’t eat meat and is almost at an age where she can’t survive a hard winter alone. she lives outside of town, with two other neighbors and only a handful of visitors. after one of her neighbors is found dead, she begins to see signs all around that nature is reclaiming its territory. her protests and letters to the local police about her theories often go unheeded or are discarded as the ramblings of an ‘old crone’. after many philosophical wanderings through the forests and hills, Mrs. Duszejko reveals the nature of the truth.
★ ★ ★ ★
more thoughts: SPOILERS!
Some personal context… I read Olga Tokarczuk’s THE BOOKS OF JACOB not too long ago. It was an immersively lengthy and detailed read, but worth it. Drawn to her writing style and choice of subject matter, I was curious to try something more novelistic, from her pen. I’m also back in my thriller/horror bag and was delighted to find out Olga had written something in the genre.
I was drawn to the murder and the astrology, and I received fulfilling helpings of both.
The story opens and the action immediately begins, which I loved. We are with Olga in the middle of her astrology studies, on a dark winter evening, when her neighbor, Oddball, informs her that their other neighbor, Bigfoot, is dead in his home.On the cold walk to Bigfoot’s home, we learn that our beloved Mrs. Duszejko communes with the forest in some inner spiritual way. She believes the animals and trees and hills are just as alive as any of us, and have their rights too. This is why she believes Bigfoot died choking on a deer bone; he transgressed some law of nature by killing and eating a fawn.
As they take the time to dress Bigfoot and contort his twisted body into something less humiliating and dishonorable, a sort of religious awakening happens for Mrs. Duszejko. She believes the woodland creatures of the dark winter night are forming a pact with her, assigning her some duty to speak for them. So begins her petitions. She visits the local police station to inform them that the animals are exacting their ‘revenge’, and it was them who were responsible for the death of Bigfoot… as a result of him killing one of their own.
Fast forward past her being laughed out of the police station and every other public office in town. Her letters, which public officials are required to respond to within 14 days, go without an answer. She tells her theory to anyone that will listen. Including her frequent visitor Dizzy, a friend, who works at the police station and passes along gossip, but translates old poetry, by Blake, with Mrs. Duszejko in his free time. They eat lots of soups. He tells her to keep her theories to herself. Her living neighbor, Oddball, doesn’t say much at all on his infrequent visits.
In between these visits for tea, and Mrs. Duszejko’s campaigns at public offices and letters to public officials, the bodies are piling up. The police, and the public, are concocting a grand theory of mobsters and poachers and two-timing policemen. Mrs. Duszejko points to the abundance of animal evidence found at the scenes of the crimes, and also to the climate changing, and the imbalances of nature that could cause wildlife to change. Just as importantly, don’t forget the astrology! Not only do the individual birth charts of the victims show they are destined for death caused by an animal, but the current transits of the planets confirm animal madness as well!
As more men are found dead, her fervor grows. She not only theorizes that the animals are killing people, but that we must give them their rights in order for it to cease. She cites legal cases from hundreds of years ago where insects and animals were tried in courts of law. She proclaims we must stop polluting and disturbing the natural lands. We must stop overkilling, poaching, and shooting anything that moves. Because of her proximity to some of the victims, and her reputation, she is even arrested for a day, while her home is searched.
In public, she is getting into physical altercations with soldiers disturbing the forest, and cursing priests who preach about the glories and goodness of hunting. In private, at home, she is dreaming of the dead… people, family, animals, etc. She is a caretaker of empty houses, caretaker of forested lands, caretaker of animal graves and headstones. From the time the story has opened, until the close, Mrs. Duszejko has cried liters and liters of tears. She isn’t sure if it’s her astrology, her ailments, or her nature. (Maybe some of all, if everything is connected.)
The end of the world comes after Mrs. Duszejko’s reputation as an eco-warrior is fully established. The police return to her during their investigation, this time with cause for arrest. Gossip gets to her first and she is able to hide herself away, down in the basement boiler room with the memories of her deceased mother and grandmother and animals.
The story ends with Mrs. Duszejko safe from harm, making it past that treacherous Saturn transit. She is ailing, but alive, safe with her astrology, and confident in her knowledge that though she hurts, she is not dying anytime soon.
There’s something about her ecological spirit, her knowledge of the earth, and her use of astrology, that reminds me of Yente (The Goddess) from The Books of Jacob. Both are strange, aged, feminine figures who resist the solar masculine order and uphold the lunar and natural feminine realm. Yente resisting death and time and space. Mrs. Duszejko resisting man and his laws.
I fluctuate between a high 4 and a 5. There were parts that lingered just a beat longer than I’d liked. I would’ve loved just a bit more suspense, but that doesn’t really seem to be Olga’s style. Her writing (of the two books I’ve read so far) lends itself to the freedom of the details of moments in time. Large parts of this book felt like I was sitting with the nice old lady in the neighborhood, talking about nothing. Tea time.
I also feel like, in time, I will re-read this book and be delighted in the little breadcrumbs and apple cores left here and there, that eventually lead up to Mrs. Dusjeko’s grand reveal as a guardian goddess of the forest, divine and unreal, unseeable by most mortals, but known well by all the other blessed creatures.
can you tell that it’s spooky season reading list:
A FAMILY OF KILLERS by BRYCE MOORE SURVIVE THE NIGHT by RILEY SAGER EYNHALLOW by TIM McGREGOR (not pictured) THESE SILENT WOODS by KIMI CUNNINGHAM GRANT YOU LIKE IT DARKER by STEPHEN KING
quickly: a self-emancipated woman is tormented by her past long after she’s made it to freedom (an ex-slave who has slavery living inside of her / children born in the shadow of trauma / a grandmother who can smell the future on the wind / jealous daughters who speak their minds / a house haunted by the dead / stolen milk and blessed berries / blood magic / the deep dark evil of slavery)
what a wild, lush, furious nightmare of a story. this is the story of Sethe, how she escaped slavery, and how she ended up in a house haunted by the ghost of a dead child. this is truly a southern gothic horror tale in every sense. there are psychological and physical traumas, some obtained from slavery and its perpetrators, some obtained from attempts at resisting slavery. there is magic, not the stereotypical “voodoo/hoodoo”, but something older, darker, and less defined. there’s injustice, southern lands, hard times, etc. at first, toni’s writing is like a dense forest, but once you find your footpath, the journey will carry you forward.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
more thoughts: SPOILERS!
Some personal context… I’ve been on the hunt for truly thrilling stories that take my breath away and Toni Morrison’s work did more than that. This read was preceded by “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson. I chose it based on it being a classic of gothic horror, a sub-genre I love. I was disappointed by its lack of thrill, passion, or anything, other than Eleanor’s unraveling.
Enter Toni Morrison. This is my first read by the late and great author, and it couldn’t have been any more perfect of an introduction for me. I’ll never hear “southern gothic” without thinking of BELOVED, which should be the staple of the genre (sorry, not sorry, Shirley J.). Rarely have I heard this work referred to as such. (If I had, I probably would’ve read it earlier.) I almost feel ‘honored’ to have read this book, though I’m not sure why. Maybe something to do with this incredible black writer penning a story so beautifully terrifying that people forget to call it ‘horror’. Maybe because she met and exceeded what I expected, exceeded what popular culture has had me to expect, and embodied that uniqueness that comes with being called Great.
We begin in a mess of spite and timelines. A blurred view of the world, and everyone in it. From 124, the home at the center of the story, we meet Sethe and the rest of her family who are, and are not there. We are given a brief survey of all that has occurred or been endured, from people running away to a haunting being born from the death of a child. Then, Paul D, a man she hasn’t seen in years, has found his way to her.
Time is layered in this story… at times in the present, at times in the past, sometimes glimpsing the future. Morrison moves through lives and their perspectives in a God-like fashion, without warning, but with the knowledge of all things that have occurred or will come. The way she gives details and expounds on storylines can be unsettling, at first, like coming into a dense and thick forest. Without some studying of what lies before you, it can be easy to get lost. She is a writer who gives glimpses of things before unveiling a fuller truth that towers and shadows and swallows. Sometimes these glimpses of the plot can seem like you missed something, but, artfully, the revelations in future pages have a way of connecting past pages, to form a continuous story.
From behind the eyes of Sethe, her daughter Denver, and Paul D (Sethes old friend and new lover), we come to know the history of Sweet Home (the plantation the family is from) and the history of the people who left it. Through their memories and inner reflections, they relay all we need to know about who they are and why.
In short, they belonged to “good” white people, but things changed when their owner died and others came in to rule over them. Going from being treated like dogs, to being treated like less than that, prompted them to head to freedom. Most of the core trauma of this story is sourced in that transitional period between their old master passing away and them becoming their own masters out of desperation and survival.
Throughout this story, poetically, are piercing observations, questions, and philosophical dilemmas about slavery and the white supremacy and capitalism supporting it. Toni illustrates quite sharply how monstrous this process of dehumanization is, and how profoundly evil these acts of violence were. So evil in fact, it seemed to spread throughout the entire white race, able to make itself disappear and become known at any time, even in the most “good” of whites. It is an evil so big it seems impossible to have existed (and still exist). Like its appearance should have ended the world, like some demonic apocalyptic revelation from The Bible. (A Bible that has not served the slaves well, and Toni captures this black theological resentment perfectly.)
One of the most disheartening moments is when Grandma Suggs, renowned backwoods high priestess, forgoes her ‘gift’ of preaching. After living a tormented life and finally making it to a place where she is hers, she was collapsed by the intrusion of white men into her seemingly sanctified space. Their privileged appearance and sudden disruption cause Grandma Suggs to question all of existence, finally realizing, that there is no promised land. There are no sacred spaces for them. Maybe no God for them either. She forgoes preaching and spends the rest of what little time she has, thinking about colors. Something she never had time to do as a slave. When asked if she was “punishing God” by not preaching his word, she responds, “Not like He punish me”.
Sethe is troubled by the child that she killed, a child that has haunted 124 since she died. Paul D is able to rid the house of the spirit, but that only leads to it manifesting in physical form… a girl named Beloved. She appears out of the river one day, sick and dying, and Sethe nurses her back to life. After gaining strength, Beloved proceeds to wreak havoc on relationships and resources. It takes Denver, Sethe’s daughter, to gather the community to rid the house of Beloved, the beautiful demon born of crimes against the flesh.
That is the story. And I am reducing it to fumes for the point of this commentary, but it is such a rich reading I’m not really spoiling anything. This brief summarization and my recounting of a fraction of my reflections is pale compared to the full color of Morrison’s masterpiece.
Also, I must say, the Everyman’s Library binding is BEAUTIFUL and comes with useful chronologies and a short biography of the author—and it is well bound! So much better than the penguin hardcovers I see in the library sometimes, which are often too tightly sewn. Just a random note.
And again, I am HONORED to have read such a masterful work of horror and to have experienced this world built by Toni Morrison’s words. There’s an Everyman’s Library hardcover Song of Solomon, so maybe I’ll read that soon.
quickly: after being captured and brainwashed by her government, a girl makes a second attempt to free herself physically, mentally, and spiritually (criminal activity is cool / blood cults are lit / designer mansions / animated tattoos / hot air balloon rides / best friends are the worst enemies / social experiments / evil scientists / two pills in a pod / nature as the cure / forest guardians / invisible fences / colonial conquest disguised as scientific exploration / questioning ‘god’).
My re-read of the UGLIES series continues, and so far has not disappointed me.
If you wake up tomorrow and realize you’ve been living in a simulation your whole life, what do you do? Do you continue living within a dream world, or do you wake up and take responsibility for your existence? Hidden in the pages of this dystopian teen sci-fi novel is a beautiful existential exploration of what it means to ‘be’.
★★★★
quickly: a new friend wakes a teenage girl up to the not-so-pretty world she is living in (new face, who dis! / pretty privilege / mandatory plastic surgery / pranks and tricks as a lifestyle / journeys over the river and through the woods / solar powered hoverboards / dehydrated foodstuffs / engineered plastic and nanotech glues / ecofriendly totalitarianism / the deep deep state / underground facilities / government programming / citizen deprogramming / backstabbing the backstabbers).
Rereading since originally reading it back in 2007. First book of 2024!
Vintage clothing is cool, but what will we do when our entire society and way of life becomes vintage? What if, in an effort to rid society of its ills (war, illness, violence, etc.) we developed a medical procedure that made everyone the same and dulled our sensibilities? Scott Westerfeld isn’t a master wordsmith with a poet’s pen, but that’s not what we came here for anyway. We came for the well-constructed futuristic dystopian universe jam-packed with unimaginable avant-garde technology and the social dilemmas that erupt when humanity and technology collide. There are hoverboards that work by magnetism, medical procedures that can regrow all the skin on your body and reshape your entire bone structure, and surveillance so precise it practically knows what you are thinking.
At the center of all of this is Tally, a fifteen-year-old girl who wants exactly what everyone else in her world has been programmed to want: to be pretty. While she is awaiting the government-facilitated procedure that will make her “the standard” and initiate her into young adult society, she meets a new friend who is also nearing the time of her pretty procedure. Her new friend is a radical, transfixed by the idea of a land faraway called “The Smoke”, where many of the Uglies have been escaping to evade the overseeing technological eyes of their government… a government so secret that some don’t believe it even exists. As Tally is exposed to life outside The Cities, she becomes the focal point of a massive movement of rebellion. This was a fun, wild hoverboard ride through a very futuristic world that felt very grounded in today’s times.
★ ★ ★ ★
more thoughts: SPOILERS!
Thoughts are italicized, spoilers are not:
Some personal context… I originally read the entire Uglies trilogy one summer in 2007. I had a boxed set that included UGLIES, PRETTIES, and SPECIALS. EXTRAS hadn’t come out yet, and I’ve never read it. I vividly remember the 3 book set with the high-fashion editorial style covers. My original copies were lost in what I call “The Flood”, which took a great number of pieces in my literary collection to a moldy watery grave. I found a pic of them on Amazon though.
These covers are SO MUCH better than the current blank generic covers they have in stores and libraries. I plan on rereading the entire series and finshing with a first read of the last book, EXTRAS.
This book made me feel like it was 2007 again, and that I could throw this book down at any moment, step outside, and find my friends waiting for me to go along on one of our adventures playing in the woods that connected our backyards.
The book starts with Tally pulling a trick by sneaking into the highly monitored New Pretty Town to visit an old friend. Tally is a young, simple, coming-of-age girl who thinks just like everyone around her… life is useless until you turn 16 and the government turns you pretty, and then life is great. Until 16, nothing matters and no one takes you seriously. Uglies, as people are lovingly called pre-operation, are expected to be wild, uncontrollable, trouble-making good for nothings. This is why all of their pranks are referred to as ugly tricks, or simply tricks. When you’re a pretty, you don’t have time for such trickery.
The Uglies live in dorms that are bland and interchangeable. The Pretties live in a glamorous city within a city, where life is a party with a formal dress code. Then eventually Pretties undergo a second operation to become a “Middle Pretty” where they move out to the suburbs to have “Littlies”, before turning into “Crumblies” and are moved further to the edges of society. Of course, all this turns out to be well-thought-out propoganda
Tally makes a new friend, Shay, after her old best friend Peris reaches Pretty age and undergoes the operation. He moves to New Pretty Town immediately after, as is customary, leaving Ugly life behind. After busting into New Pretty Town to see how much Peris has changed, she decides it is best to just wait until she has her own operation to see him again. Her time spent with the rebellious and adventurous Shay increases.
Shay teaches Tally how to hack her hoverboard, sneak out of The City, and tells her about The Smoke. A place where people live as ‘Uglies’ by choice, opting out of having the operation to become pretty. Shay teaches Tally the way to the rusting city ruins where Uglies meet up to find the mysterious David who will someday lead those willing to make the journey to The Smoke.
Tally can’t comprehend life lived as an Ugly, and doesn’t understand why anyone would want to forgo the operation to become Pretty. This is why she can’t tell Shay YES, when Shay asks Tally to run away to the smoke with her before her operation. Tally ends up making the journey anyway, alone, after she is manipulated by Special Circumstances (a secret underground division of the government) into betraying her friend and everyone at The Smoke.
Life in The Smoke opens her eyes to the real world that has been hidden from her. Her desire to be pretty wanes, and disappears after bonding with the other residents. She falls in love with David and plans to stay. After accidentally triggering the tracking device given to her by Special Circumstances, Tally leads SC directly to The Smoke. It is swiftly destroyed and all the Smokies are detained. (Cue big breakout scene where Tally escapes custody, tracks down the detainees, and frees them.)
After all the hell she’s raised, Tally ends up developing a plan to help right some of her wrongs, but you’ll have to make it through to the end to see what that may be.
The rest is for you to read on your own!
I’ve read some of the reviews on Goodreads that criticize Tally’s character as being too vain, dumb, selfish, etc. This makes me wonder if the readers with those opinions understood the circumstances of the world that Tally was a part of. Everyone was vain, dumb, and selfish. No one wanted to look under the veneer of their society because there was no reason to. Everything was taken care of. The people in this world were programmed to think that the past was a monstrous barbaric place and that all the world’s problems were solved by the development of ’the Cities’ and the Pretty operation.
I’ve also read some reviews that criticize the fact that Tally’s love interest David is what inspires her to make her big decision to leave the cities for good. I think that is a poor summarization of this character’s journey. After having to make the long journey to The Smoke by herself, Tally endured a process of disillusionment that separated her from her life in The City. She had gone from a place where everything was planned, every move was monitored, and the threat of world catastrophe was linked to how ugly or pretty citizens were. She had never been in real danger until she made her journey to The Smoke. She had never met anyone older than 16 who was not “pretty” until she arrived at the camp, The Smoke. David was just one of the reasons she made her decisions, not the sole reason. In fact, Tally’s journey begins and ends with her trying to save her girl-friend Shay.
I won’t go into too much more detail about the story. It was just a fun read, an adventure, a journey, all those things. So glad to have re-read it, and so glad it held up after all these years. There are plenty of high-speed chases, thrilling escapes, and ingenious hi-jinks to keep you turning the page. And if you’re a tumblr kid like me, there are loads of nostalgia in reading this book again all these years later. It’s wild to think that this never made it to the big screen or as a series on someone’s streaming service.
quickly: a formerly active marine is enlisted to solve the murder of a local preacher (men in uniform with anger issues / a woman all the men want / nosy old ladies / crafty and devious henchmen / blood-filled knee-breaking fist fights / hot and steamy hotel nights / churches with more money than god / local and state corruption).
this is a crime thriller that does the genre justice. it feels like a fast-paced car ride with that rowdy cousin who just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. i picked it up late one night and couldn’t stop turning the page. nathan, a man who used to wear uniforms but doesn’t any longer, tries to solve a murder without getting himself killed. the writing is easy without being simplistic. there are just enough characters and just enough character development to fulfill your literary appetite without being weighted down by words. it’s adult, graphic, and bloody, without overdoing it. for all the broken bones and grittiness, it maintains an earthy and realistic view.
★ ★ ★ ★
more thoughts: SPOILERS!
Some personal context… this is the first crime thriller novel I’ve read since my joyous reunion with reading began. I truly found it entertaining, and I am excited to read more by Cosby specifically. As a true fan of the genre, Cosby placed several cultural references throughout the story, with a large portion of them referring to other crime novels and writers… something to explore when I need something else to read.
Since it’s a crime mystery thriller, I won’t reveal too much in the commentary. It was fun to wonder what happened next. Which is of course, along with the sweaty must of inebriated masculinity, a key element of the genre.
I hate to be shallow, but it was the cover that got me.
The story opens with our action figure of a hero, Nathan: a marine who is no longer active in the service; and an ex-policeman who left the force dishonorably, depending on whose honor system you use. He is a man who is not a stranger to violence but is mostly a gentleman on most accounts. By day he works at his cousin’s funeral home. By night, he shoots pool down at the local dive. But sometimes, when vengeance calls, he moves in shadows to exact the justice and revenge law enforcement is incapable of.
After the preacher of a mega-bank mega-church dies under mysterious circumstances, Nathan is asked by two old ladies of the church to do some further investigation. They believe his history and familiarity with the aforementioned law enforcement would allow him to see something the local cops may have been trying to hide. Thinking this will be a quick job and easy money, Nathan opens a can of worms that results in several deaths and broken phalanges. Some people, Nathan makes sure disappear, never to be found again. Others he leaves for someone else to find and draw conclusions.
This detective is not a detective, but, his time in uniform has taught him how to ask questions and get answers. This portrayal of the classic tragic noir detective has all the blood, booze, and hot passionate sex that you need… and it feels current. Not like some vintage paperback I found at a book barn. It is of the time.
Will certainly be reading more S. A. Cosby soon.
"Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you had to at least try to grow your own brain. Otherwise, you might as well be living on a reservation, worshiping a bunch of bogus gods."
Scott Westerfeld, Pretties
“Anything dead coming back to life hurts.”
Toni Morrison, BELOVED
quickly: unresolved childhood grief leads to irrepressible ghosts in adulthood (grief and regret / friends and foes / backyard campouts / shaken suburbs / “don’t go chasin’ waterfalls…” / strangers in the woods / kisses kept secret / occult dinner parties / marriage and miscarriages / talking ghosts).
A quiet night in the summer heat turns into a lifelong nightmare for young Ethan Marsh. After his neighbor Billy disappears into thin air, the neighborhood is left traumatized, and Ethan is left wondering what he could’ve done differently for his weird, ghost-obsessed neighbor. Now 40 and moving back into the house where Billy disappeared, Ethan is starting to see things… shadows, messages, and warnings.
An enjoyable and easy read. Great for warm weather weekends. It was like Fear Street but for grown-ups… the highly emotional and angsty decisions of teenagers and adults, the blurred lines between the horrors of human nature and the supernatural, and the well-paced page-turning thrill of discovering what truth lies at the heart of the mystery. Looking forward to more Riley Sager.
★★★★
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