I Watched GDT’s Frankenstein and Now My Cat is Obsessed with Oscar Isaac
Which is only tangential to books but it’s kind of hilarious.
Osamu clearly has impeccable taste and I’m very proud of him. His brother did not join us so I can’t yet pass judgment on Atsumu; dear readers, I have high hopes.
Cat tax in the cover photo.
What have I read in the last couple of weeks? Allonz-y:
My Documents by Kevin Nguyen (One World)
Just FYI: There is a diacritical mark over the “M” in My Documents in the title of the book that changes the meaning of the word when translated from Vietnamese. I have English and Mandarin keyboards set up on my computer so my keyboard won’t create that letter but it’s important for you to know that it’s supposed to be there. It changes everything.
A group of Vietnamese men perpetuate an act of terrorism against the United States. The government’s response is to round up all Vietnamese residents, citizens, and people of Vietnamese descent living in the country and ship them to internment camps.
If you don’t think this could happen, you’re not paying attention.
There are still 800-1200 people missing from that closed camp in Florida. Where do you think they went and why aren’t more of us asking?
My Documents traces follows two pairs of siblings, cousins in the Nguyen family, through the three year internment period: Jen, pulled from her studies at NYU, and her brother Duncan, a young man who just wants to play football; and Ursula, a reporter stuck in a dead-end beauty blog position until her combined ancestry gives her the leverage she needs to catapult into the limelight reporting on camp life using information Jen smuggles out to her, and her brother Alvin, a software engineer protected by the status of his tech-giant employer.
The books wrestles with a lot of difficult questions, questions that have become even more meaningful over the last year, a year when rhetorical questions are suddenly very real inquiries: who am I? Who do other people think I am? What is identity? Who is American? Who gets to decide who’s American? What do we do when the people who are supposed to protect us can’t see any further than a strongly worded letter? What do the people do when the government fails us in a democracy (or a federalist republic) if we want to maintain a democracy? What do we do when our elected officials fail us so thoroughly they become actual enemies (looking at you, Fetterman)? How do we save our neighbors? How do we save ourselves? Where did all of this hate come from? A polite veneer was never enough and we know that now so what the fuck are we going to do about it?
This is not an easy book to read. You will be uncomfortable even if you would never condone putting a group of people in camps due to the acts of a few because you will remember times you didn’t speak up and times you could have acted that you didn’t and microaggressions against other people you didn’t recognize at the time. Learn from that discomfort. Use it to speak up, act out, call people on their bullshit. We’ve ended up with this dystopia as a potential future once. Let’s not end up here again.
My Documents: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780593731680
Peerless Vol. 5 by Meng Xi Shi (Seven Seas)
And then I had my last date with my two favorite bitches because I really needed it.
I am a huge fan of authors who know when to close out a story and honestly, this was a perfect ending for Peerless. That said, I am really going to miss Cui Buqu and Feng Xiao. I think they may have replaced Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei in my danmei heart. I know, I know, I didn’t think I’d ever say that either but these two… These two absolute chucklefucks are so damn perfect and the way they strive to get the last word in, drive one another absolutely insane, are in an eternal contest to beat one another to the prize but help one another get there, and never, ever forget that deal they made about the deep significance of when they call one another “Daddy?”
Listen, I can be mature when I want but I can also not be mature and this is an era in which balance is called for.
Also, the political intrigue is top notch, even if the only part you remember is that the current Princess Leiping used to be the empress and then the empress dowager and then her father usurped her husband’s family and became emperor so now she’s the reigning couple’s daughter which means she can never hold a rank higher than princess even though she used to be the empress and then the empress dowager. Oh, and the current emperor really loves his wife and they basically share the throne, which is a nice change from the usual. Also, there are poisoned worms (?) taking control of essential members of the court.
Like I said, balance.
This novel is dynamic and funny. The dialogue is great, the secondary characters are appropriately aggrieved that their bosses won’t just kiss already, there are tricks and pranks and puzzles and magic, being smart is actually lauded, there are some decent female characters (including the Empress), the treachery is melodramatic, and love wins in its own special way.
Do highly recommend.
Peerless Vol. 1: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9798888438183
Peerless Vol. 5 :https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9798891605893
Vol. 3 of Sa Ye (https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9798893737240) was also excellent but I’ll wait a little longer to do another full review. Currently working on The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling (https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780063418813) which is real fucking weird in the best possible way and I just found out Okinkan Braithwaite of My Sister the Serial Killer (https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780525564201) fame finally has a new book out (https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780385551472 and I’m waiting for my library hold to come in, at which point it will immediately jump to the top of the listI’ll do my best of 2025 the first week in December so you’ll have time to buy bookish for the appropriate people on your list. Happy reading!