"The Couple Next Door" by Shari Lapena (2016)

The Couple Next Door is about a couple who were having a dinner party next door who left their infant daughter in her crib but took shifts checking on her. When they decided to head home, they discovered that their baby daughter, Cora, is gone.

What a roller-coaster of a ride the book was! Loved every minute of reading it. An absolute page-turner! Lapena has constructed a very intricate puzzle in which every teeny-tiny detail mattered and had colossal consequences later on. Chekhov's gun is fired and It. Is. Jaw-dropping!

The used diction isn't poetic and relies little on similes and metaphors, but in thrillers, the plot is the author's number one priority. This isn't a minus, mind you. Anyway, it isn't pretentious, and it presents its characters and settings in an accessible, straightforward way that allows readers to move forward at a super-sonic speed.

The characters felt alive and three-dimensional driven by their own motives. Yes, they can be described as foolish, dangerously reckless, or even psychopathic. For example, what could a slasher movie be any good without foolish characters running toward death? Thrillers need these kinds of fucked-up characters so we get to be entertained vicariously.

Summary:

The Couple Next Door is an enjoyable thriller loaded with twists and turns. It's really fast-paced and well-balanced in terms of length and distribution of plot points. What sets it apart from other thrillers is how realistic it is when it comes to its turning points. The twists aren't in the WTF category because if you put yourself in the character's shoes, it does make sense. 

I'd recommend the book to those looking forward to spending quality time reading during the weekend.

 

"Room" by Emma Donoghue (2010)

 

From the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Room tells the story of how the boy and his mother are locked up in a room for several years.

I'm not gonna treat Room like America's sweetheart Meryl Streep. Just because it deals with a painful, heart-wrenching experience and received high praise doesn't mean it's immune from objective criticism.

So...

I'm not gonna lie. This didn't click with me. I thought it would. A friend of mine likes it. People on GoodReads like it. The guys from the Academy Awards like the movie. So, what's wrong? I must be the odd one out. 

I was soldiering my way through from the beginning until the end (with the exception of the 40~50% bit which was the escape). There were times when I wanted to quit, but I had to give it another chance, and another, and another...

One of the major turn-offs for me was the author's choice to tell the story from the perspective of a very young boy, and not a normal one at that given the circumstances he found himself in. I respect her choice. It's her story after all. In fact, I found it extremely creative and imaginative, but after some time, it gets frustrating to the point of annoyance. For example, the way his thoughts/sentences/paragraphs are crammed together in a stream of consciousness kind of way and his constant 'butting in' in certain exchanges where we, as readers, wanted to know what's happening.

But I could deal with that. What I couldn't deal with was the fact that his perspective was like a dam between me and the other characters' emotions. Their feelings weren't accessible to me. In the case of short stories, it's solvable by the technique of inferring and extensive reliance on pragmatics. But when you're talking about a four-hundred-page-long book, the experience is so tiring and you feel like you're drifting through space. I'm not saying it's a hard book to read. It's just exhausting, mostly annoying, and not rewarding at all.

Summary:

If you're reading Room as a thriller, you're doing it wrong. It's not about escaping but rather about the trauma that arises from such an escape. The book raises questions about the development of children, about PTSD, and the trauma that survivors of rape and imprisonment are going through.

If you're into heartbreaking stories, this is for you.  This book is like raising a child. To enjoy it best, you have to be really patient. 

"Cursed Bunny" by Bora Chung

 

This is my first attempt at reading Korean literature. I just wanna know the background of movies like Parasite, Squid Game, or Sweet Home. What are the social factors that give birth to these works? What is it like to be born in South Korea? To get a better sense of what makes a Japanese individual Japanese, or a Korean Korean is reading their literature. 

Cursed Bunny is a collection of short stories that hops from genre to genre: body horror, gore, gothic ghost stories, fables, and fantasy. There's an undeniable sense of aloofness that blurs the lines of what's real and what's not. It reminded me of Charlie Kaufman's movies, like all these over-the-top weird happenings going on and the characters reacting to them matter-of-factly

It's a mushroom trip, a fever dream on period. There are ghosts, heads out of toilets, never-ending periods, fox spirits, multiplying bunnies, and more. Chung grotesquely amplifies her settings and plots to highlight the things she wants to convey.

Here's my take on the ten short stories:

1. The Head (2.5/5)

This is batshit KA-RAAI-ZY. To give you an idea of how crazy this story is, check out the first few lines:

She was about to flush the toilet.

“Mother?”

She looked back. There was a head popping out of the toilet, calling for her.

“Mother?”

The woman looked at it for a moment. Then, she flushed the toilet. The head disappeared in a rush of water.

She left the bathroom.

I don't even know how to describe it. It's horrifying, disgusting, disturbing, even funny in an absurd way? The atmosphere in The Head has an unmissable quality of nonchalance and detachment. Crazy things are happening and the people in this world go like 'so what'. But as a rule of thumb, the crazier a story gets, the meaningful it becomes. I tried to come up with an explanation. All I could hear is the story whispering to me things like: 'live in the now', 'cherish your body', 'accept yourself', 'don't settle for less',...

I guess Chung is playing with the expression 'down the drain' and the things that the protagonist dump on the toilet are a metaphor for her life, her youth.

2. The Embodiment (3.5/5)

A young woman is having a problem with her period that lasts for two weeks. She goes to a doctor and the doctor prescribes a two-week course of contraceptive pills. After three weeks, the problem isn't cured, so the young woman repeats the treatment only to discover later that she is pregnant.

Is the story about the importance of family as a unit? The pressures imposed on women? A criticism about patriarchy, that a baby isn't complete and whole in such a society? That women can't be independent and raise a child? You tell me.

3. Cursed Bunny (3/5)

A grandfather retelling a story to his grandson, about his distiller friend who lost everything to a competitive company that sells cheap wine.

A story about capitalism, corruption, how flawed the legal system is, greed, and revenge.

4. The Frozen Finger (3/5)

A woman trapped in a car sinking slowly in a swamp.

This feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone. The atmosphere is phenomenal: dark and eerie and scary in the sense of not-knowing-what-the-hell-is-going-on. It's also confusing, but you'll get the gist of it. A line got stuck in my head:

"It’s not her fault that her husband had an affair … Don’t you think it’s unfair?"

Maybe, it's about the double-standards women suffer from a patriarchal society, that men do whatever they want to do and not face the same consequences as women. 

5. Snare (4/5)

Written in the style of ol' school fairytales, a traveling man comes across a fox caught in a trap, liquid matter pours out from its wound. When it dries, it turns into gold.

I didn't expect this one to veer into dark, dark territories. My absolute favorite of the collection. 

6. Goodbye, my Love (2.5/5)

A developer working in a company that manufactures artificial companions transfers the data of her first model to a newer one.

Although this one deals with AI's, it soaks with emotion... and blood. Just another cliche.

7. Scars (2.5/5)

Dragged by unknown figures, a young man is thrown into a cave with shackles restraining him for good. A monster comes to feed on him regularly. 

I don't know how to rate this one. I simply don't know what it's about. I mean, I thought I was, but then, that ending! But I'm sensing a sense of 'departure from the departure', whatever the departure is.

8. Home Sweet Home (1/5)

A young couple buys a four-story building and moves in.

9. Ruler of the Wind and Sand (3.5/5)

A princess sets out on a quest across the desert to lift the curse of a blind prince.

This one feels different in tone and style. Reading about strong female characters is a breath of fresh air.

10. Reunion (1/5)

A Korean woman listening to a Polish old man telling her about his grandfather.

A PTSD story.

_______________________________________________________

A couple of issue I must point out:

- the prose of some of the stories felt like a script. It felt cold and detached, mainly made for the purpose of advancing the plot.

- the stories at the beginning of the book had more oomph than the rest. In the second half, the stories kinda lost their appeal as their themes became paler due to the stories' length. 

- the recurrence of unnamed characters throughout the book bothered me. For example, Chung referred to her characters as the following: the young man, the youth, the female, the woman, the little girl, the grandfather's friend, the grandfather of the old man, etc.

Maybe, Chung wanted her characters to be 'culturally free' and marinate them in a sense of timelessness and objectivism, but the outcome occasionally confused me trying to figure out who was speaking to whom.

______________________________________________________

Summary:

Cursed Bunny is the Korean Love Death + Robots but with an emphasis on women's issues. Relying on the WTF factor, each short story is a genre of its own with themes teetering between capitalism, feminism, greed, gender inequality, patriarchy, etc. 

First impressions are not entirely true. Be patient with the collection. Read one story at a time, and then attack the book the next day. I promise you'll get gems out of it. 

"Tender is the Flesh" by Agustina Bazterrica (2020)

What the flying flamingo did I just read?!

Most importantly...

Why on earth did I continue reading?!

It's not disturbing. It's beyond disturbing. It has the whole package: talk about cannibalism, racism, rape, animal cruelty, you name it. But other than all of that, 'slavery' is bad. Like are you for real?!

Anyway, Tender is the Flesh is about this man, Marcos, who works at a meat processing plant, a plant that processes 'human' meat. Yep! That's right. In this apocalyptic world, cannibalism has been normalized since all animals have been infected with an uncurbable virus that causes death to humans. So, say goodbye to your chicken breasts and beef stakes and chocolate-flavored whey protein shakes. In this world, you'll get all your precious protein from your fellow humans, ones who are considered literal pieces of meat, bred in farms and enhanced genetically and pumped by hormones. Imagine that dreaded skin-flaying scene in Haruki Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle stretched to two hundred pages. 

During my read, I felt mostly light-headed, like literally, I felt nausea. The graphic descriptions were too much. I understand that the whole book is about making a statement, a bloated and a very biased one, from the perspective of veganism, but come on, Agustina, you gotta admit, this shit went beyond the stratosphere. I mean, if this is how vegans see the world, I gotta say it's a hell of a nightmare.

Anyway, the book is a comment about how humans put their species above all other species and how hypocritical we are. The main character sees his society in a different light and sees how false and self-blinded it is with its emotionless technicalities and euphemisms, but in the end, he isn't any better. That's how conformity works. You see what your peers do, and you decide—consciously or subconsciously—to follow the herd. You might have thoughts in opposition, or even might give voice to your thoughts... but you will not. Why? But deep, deep down, you wanna survive, even at the cost of your values, morals and what you consider ideal.

“After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other. If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other. The Transition has enabled us to be less hypocritical.”

Summary:

On the surface, Tender is the Flesh is a thriller/horror that inclines towards shock rather than gore and violence with a hell of a plot twist. But if you remove the bones, the marrow of the book is simply a satire about crowd/mob psychology and everything it entails: consumerism, how societies collectively manipulate words and attitudes based on their needs and priorities.

It's a book that will affect you for days and make you think. I wouldn't recommend it for the weak-hearted. If you can stomach bloody plots, then this is for you. If you don't and still are intrigued by its premise "however absurd and refutable it is", read it but don't take everything literally.

"The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig (2020)

 

I remember when I was but a little boy my father asking me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I remember looking him in the eye and saying with absolute conviction, "I want to be an astronaut." In retrospect, naivety mixed with a buttload of space cartoons was doing the answering for me back then. But putting all of that aside, my words were true and honest, and I believed them.

But then... life happened.

And I found myself dragging my ass through medical school, switching to architectural school right to majoring in English. And here I am, the sum of all my past experiences and disappointments and even achievements, a modest high school teacher.

The Midnight Library tells the story of Nora, a fixer-upper low-achiever. After many regrets during the course of her life, from abandoning pursuing swimming professionally, quitting the band, not venturing into Australia along with her friend, not committing to a serious relationship, getting fired, right to blaming herself for her cat's death, Nora decided that life wasn't worth living.

Nora was so real and relatable to me that made the reading experience extremely painful. I don't usually get emotional, but I understand where she's coming from. I bet we all have been there. Disappointment after a disappointment after a disappointment... until depression becomes your shadow trailing you everywhere, even in your sleep. 

Luckily, The Midnight Library isn't about falling into the pit of despair, not about rising out of it like a phoenix, but rather about understanding why one descends into depression in the first place. It's about the struggle between what we are and what we might become, about one's potentiality, their abilities and interests, and how they could redirect them in a way that may bring happiness and meaning to their lives. It's a self-help book in disguise as a well-written story. It doesn't offer a magic recipe for overcoming failure, but it guides you towards whatever end you desire in life. 

I appreciate the short chapters and their witty, remarkable titles and Matt's light-hearted humor. His words are charged with emotion and filled with objective wisdom. He made me sad and laugh. He made me tearful and thoughtful.

Summary:

The Midnight Library is a sci-fi/fantasy story about regrets, lost and wasted opportunities, and crushed hopes. The reading experience is therapeutic and rewarding. It's Square Enix's Life is Strange (the first installment) meeting Blake Crouch's Dark Matter... or at least, the vibe of them. 

I'd recommend this book for those who have lost their way in life, for those who can't see beyond today, for those who are in desperate need of love and connection. 

"Dune Messiah" by Frank Herbert (Dune Chronicles, #2, 1969)

 

[This review contains mild spoilers as it delves into the character of Paul.]

The saga continues. The Harkonnens have been defeated. The Emperor of the Known Universe dethroned. And his daughter, Princess Irulen, to be wed to Paul Muad'Dib. That's how the story in the first book ended. It's a standalone book. The ending is a happy one. But naturally, I was curious to know what would happen in Paul's rein. What about the bloody future he saw? So, I decided to continue reading.

Dune Messiah is told in the third person omniscient. It continues the story of Paul Muad'Dib focusing on the consequences of his reign that lasted twelve years after the events of the first book. Where the first book was all about the rise of a hero, the second is about his downfall. It's like a balance. Paul is an example of "you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain".  

In the first book, we all were rooting for him; he was but a fifteen-year-old child when he was indirectly uprooted from his homeworld Caladin by decree of the emperor Shaddam IV, his father was killed by the Harkonnens and was forced into exile along with his mother. His rallying the Fremen against the Harkonnen usurpers was just and his jihad was justifiable. I felt exhilarated throughout his journey as he gained his abilities, from being a Mentat, a Bene Gesserit adept to a full-blown navigator of prescience. 

By the end of the first book, anyway, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that Paul is turning into another perfect Gary Stu: the Bene Gesserit paving the way for the Fremen's Mehdi through their Missionaria Protectiva, Paul's royal blood of both houses Atreides and Harkonnen, and all his powers. All these attributes condensed in a single character are overkill. In short, he got it easy. There's nothing unique about him because hidden hands were at work. What matters then for the readers to feel and relate to him are his choices and actions, which the second book will highlight these aspects.

Dune Messiah tells a different kind of hero, one readers of sci-fi and fantasy aren't accustomed to. In the introduction by the author's son, Brian Herbert, he says that editors rejected the book and called it the "disappointment of the year". They "loved the majestic, heroic aspects of Dune and hated the antithetical elements of the sequel. Readers wanted stories about heroes accomplishing great feats", not stories that take into account the realistic and humanistic nature of the hero.

In this sense, Paul's quest in the sequel isn't outwards. It's inwards. He's still the same  (At least, he thinks so), but his ability of prescience leads him eventually to be the very thing he always feard of becoming—a figurehead, even a god, for militant religious fanatics of an interstellar religious government. Throughout the book, Herbert keeps reminding us that Paul didn't want any of it. He snatched the position of Emperor to prevent a bloody future, but when that bloody future came to be, Paul stated that it was better than a bloodier future. It's a cycle, a vicious one, Paul finds himself trapped in... because violence only leads to violence. He's just a player, a mote of dust stirred by the wind, and the wind is Jihad. He thought that he could control it, and he did, when he used it to free the Fremen, but then things got out of hand and Jihad became Paul's boogeyman. 

"He didn't use the Jihad. The Jihad used him."

How? Because Jihad is an idea that existed long before him, and once ideas embed themselves in one's consciousness, they become hard to kill.

“You can’t stop a mental epidemic. It leaps from person to person across parsecs. It’s overwhelmingly contagious. It strikes at the unprotected side, in the place where we lodge the fragments of other such plagues. Who can stop such a thing? Muad’Dib hasn’t the antidote. The thing has roots in chaos. Can orders reach there?"

 

Since the first book, everything Paul ever did was an attempt to put an end to this holy war. Guided—or misguided—by his visions, he committed unthinkable atrocities in the name of peace. 

“Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I’ve killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I’ve wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since—   

Paul just replaced a blood-thirsty emperor with a worse one. In the book, the guy equates himself with Ghengis Khan and Hitler, and even smirks at their not-very-impressive statistics of people killed in their wars. I was like, "Whoa! Wait a sec!" That was the tipping point when I lost interest in him.

But then again, Paul isn't that clear-cut and prone to easy interpretation. Remember that he's just a man who happened to have certain abilities, who thought he could do something good, who fucked up, who realized later that, 

"there are problems in this universe for which there are no answers. Nothing. Nothing can be done."

That's the reason why he realized that he shouldn't have tampered with the flow of the future in the first place. But the realization was too late. It came at the expense of his reason to live, at the expense of his beloved Chani.

Summary: 

Dune Messiah is a book that plays with the ideal hero image and presents something realistic. It's about political intrigue, power struggle, ideas of morality, and immortality. 

To get the best experience of the second book, do NOT approach it while having the first book as a reference. Read it as a standalone book. 

Even though the rating is lower than the first book, I still want to invest in the third book, Children of Dune.

"Verity" by Colleen Hoover (2018)

[This review is spoiler free]

Nothing ever good comes out of a job offering a substantial amount of money. There's always a catch. Take a note for a future reference. Lock Every Door; The Turn of the Key. And now Verity.

When I finished the book, I was like:

Verity follows Lowen Ashleigh, a reclusive, unknown writer with a failing career and finances who recently lost her mother to cancer. She accepts a tempting offer to co-write and continue the series of a famous writer called Verity. Of course, she doesn't accept right away, but the man [who comforted her after she witnessed the death of a random dude in an accident, the man who happened to be going to the same meeting that day who happened to be Verity's husband] is too charmingly persuasive. She drives to the Verity's house to pick up everything related to the stories so that she can make a layout of the remaining books in the series. When she reaches the house, she discovered that Verity is in a coma...

This is pretty much how the 336-page-long book starts. It was a quick, quick read. I really enjoyed the writing style, but I didn't expect how mature and graphic the content was since this is my first experience reading a book by Colleen Hoover. All I ever knew about the author was that she wrote YA fiction or new adult fiction. So, this was a shock to me. Not that I mind such content if the plot is worth it. 

The book is linear in its approach. It doesn't sidetrack. It doesn't stretch a section of the story at the expense of other sections; the chapters are equal and short. And the choice of diction is well done: completely comprehensible and not pretentious.

I have mixed opinions regarding the characters. Lowen, for example, wasn't the kind of character I'd root for; many of her choices were poor. Yes, I related to her at the beginning, being a struggling writer such as myself with no fanbase before I decided to quit once and for all... but the way she decided to handle things at the end... well, I'm not a fan. Jeremy, on the other hand, is painted two-dimensionally. Hoover has 'bespoke tailored' him to be the perfect husband. Who'd buy that?! That's the reason I had my suspicions wrapped around him right from the get-go [don't worry. This is not a spoiler]. As for Verity, for the sake of not spoiling anything, I'm not going to talk about her.

As for the ending, well, I understand there are mixed reviews concerning it. It's a hit-and-miss; either readers may like it or not. Personally, I'm inclined to say nothing about it. I mean, yes, it's totally unexpected, I get that, but the premise of the plot promised something more. When I reached the ending, it felt flat, like where the hell did all that momentum go?! While I was reading, I thought of so many cool and extreme hypotheses to figure out Verity... but I got nothing except for a meh ending. But, I must point out, there's a slight chance, the ending is open. If that's the case, then I'm good with that. In fact, I think it's brilliant.

One of the major issues I've had with the plot is [spoiler alert] how could anyone fake being in a coma. To borrow Jeremy's words "It doesn't make sense". No one can hold still for minutes, let alone hours. They're bound to make a move, any move, at least involuntarily. Besides, there are procedures for doctors to check on coma patients, the Glasgow Coma Scale, for instance. I'm sure that for such a critical medical case, a doctor will examine her occasionally at home to see if there's progress. S/He would examine her reflexes to stimuli, be it auditory/visual/physical. She will make a response: her pupils contracting or her knee jerking. It's a given. [end of spoiler]. I could overlook this detail, but the whole book is based on Verity's state.

Summary:

Verity is like the new Gone Girl... except it's not. It's a thriller/horror. It's extremely disturbing and equally disgusting. It's understandable that many readers would find it difficult to continue reading, but the ending would explain why it only has to be written that way. 

Anyway, it's a story about lust, obsession, parenting... but the heart of it is about the process of creative writing. I'd recommend Verity for readers who like disturbing thrillers with a not-so-bad ending.