Microtips
Judging by Instagram comments, half of you are deeply curious about whether prestige literary fiction is worth reading, and the other half want to know if the cute-looking books about robots and love after death are worth reading. Here are four tiny reviews to help you decide.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built Becky Chambers
Cryptic plot summary: a tea-brewing monk goes rogue in search of fulfillment, makes first contact with a sentient robot instead.
Best enjoyed if: you’re looking for a macaron of a fiction. Chambers announces in the dedication that this book is, “For anybody who could use a break,” and it certainly hits the mark. Chambers spends the first two thirds of the book lavishing attention on Dex the Monk’s tea sourcing and service practices. The robot arrives late in the story and is clearly a device for Chambers to inject some light philosophy and set up a sequel…which is due to arrive in July 2022.
Is it worth reading? Yes, if you’re looking for light refreshment.
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness Claire Vaye Watkins
Cryptic plot summary: a new mother goes AWOL from her family to reckon with her own childhood, hook up with a mountain dude for van sex, and teach schoolchildren about making art while high.
Best enjoyed if: you’re a fan of autofiction, deserts, and emotional annihilation. Watkins as fictional character and Watkins as author are deliberately conflated as the narrator takes stock of her marriage, a baby, and life as a newly-anointed It Author. Watkins rejects the lot and decides to reforge herself in the heat of the desert. I suspect there’s going to be a wave of “This Book Broke My Marriage” personal essays published a few years from now because of this.
Is it worth reading? Only if you can tolerate a bit of clunkiness on the way to catharsis. The book loses a lot of its verve in the epistolary sections. Also: if you did not enjoy Battleborn or Gold Fame Citrus, this book is unlikely to convert you into a Claire Vaye Watkins fan.
Under the Whispering Door TJ Klune
Cryptic plot summary: a horrible man dies but redeems himself on the doorstep to the afterlife thanks to friendship, love, muffins, and personal acceptance.
Best enjoyed if: you want winsome queer romance with brisk plotting and snappy dialogue. I teared up at the ending, even though I could see every how every plot point inevitably mapped out that ending. Klune makes good structural choices so that everything gently slides into place by the last page. It’s satisfying even if it’s not always sophisticated.
Is it worth reading? Yes, as a cozy book for a drizzly weekend. The House on the Cerulean Sea is, for my money, the better Klune book and should be read first.
Mouth to Mouth Antoine Wilson
Cryptic plot summary: estranged college acquaintances meet by chance in an airport lounge. One tells the other a story about saving a man’s life only to destroy it.
Best enjoyed if: you’re a sucker for rich people behaving badly. This book taps so many of my aesthetic buttons: terrible rich people; set in California; characters meeting by chance (good) in an airport (even better) then getting tipsy in the first class lounge (my god yes). There’s an exotic ski vacation as a last-ditch attempt to save a marriage, characters talking about the nature of art while barely containing their urge to bang, and a dramatic rescue on a beach. It really swings for the fences and hits more often than not.
Is it worth reading? Yes, and please tell me when you do so we can talk about it.