Dark reads (also being artsy fartsy)

Sometimes, all I wanna do is curl up in bed with a novel that has a very dark plot. So dark that it feels like every time you open it, you're dipping your fingers in blood. I guess that's one reason why I'll never have a liking to Austen. But give me a novel where the women kill, where the world has gone into anarchic chaos, and a speculative world where the society is deeply matriarchal and religion is controlled by sorceresses. For some reason, the novels I chose for this post all feature women as major characters. Woot!

Yes, this novel is one of those that seems to ride on the popularity of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. It's not as suspenseful as those two novel though,but still entertaining. I guess I will never get tired of unreliable narrators.

This one I was 10% behind. It's some sort of a post-apocalyptic novel set in a world where people lose their shadows, and along with this loss goes their memories as well. It's a bit of a downer actually, especially when the protagonist couple get separated because the woman, after losing her shadow, decides to flee so that her husband is spared from all the tragedy that's bound to happen to her.

I've a thing for beautifully illustrated graphic novels,  much more if the story is so rich that every pagea is a delight This one is that rare comic. I love the world building and the religion-inspired imagery that the story conjures. Also, plus points for having relevant themes on feminism and race.

There's another thing that's happening this week, and that's our trip to Taiwan. Packing for trips gives me great anxiety. Do I pack an extra pair of shorts? How about underwear? Do I really need all these toiletries? Also, more importantly, should I bring two or three or four books? Or five?

In love with fabulist books

After reading this list of wonderful fabulist books from Flavorwire, I realized that I'm a huge fan of this genre. Yes, I know that what makes a book a fabulist one isn't clear cut. Are all fantasy books fabulist novels? How about sci-fi? And what about those with magical realism?

I guess these categories all come down to the reader, yes? As for me, I consider novels to be fabulist if they have a touch of magic, with a bit of a whimsical element in the writing. Eric Morgenstern's The Night Circus is a good example; the book is also our selection for the month, and we're discussing it this weekend.

I read The Night Circus almost 3 years ago, and I even posted an entry about it. I remember being captivated by the unconventional love story. It was a magical experience, reading Morgenstern's debut novel. And when I reread it this week, the book has not lost its magic. The fantastical story lines still enthrall, the mysterious characters still captivate.

I'm still craving for more fabulist reads as of the moment. If you have other recommendations that are not on Flavorwire's list, do let me know. I'll be sure to check them out. Right now, I have Helene Wecker's beautiful fabulist debut, The Golem and the Jinni, in my hands. It has Jewish and Persian mythologies, magic, the immigrant experience, and, quite possibly, a love story in its pages. (I'm still just a quarter of the way in!)

Fabulist . . . . Even that very word connotes something special. It reminds me of "fabulous," even though I know that it's root comes from "fable." We need more fables in our lives, yes? We need more people to weave stories that transcend realities of this harsh world we live in. It's precisely one of the reasons why I think I read books. If I want reality, I could just turn on the TV to watch the news.

When a book has won so many awards, it comes with expectations

Ah, literary awards. Such a double-edged sword in the life of a reader. If a novel, say, like Jo Walton's Among Others, has won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, you know that it can go both ways. One is that you'll be happy that the novel lived up to your expectations, and another is finishing the book and thinking that you missed something. You just didn't appreciate it that much. Unfortunately, the latter is what I felt when I finished Among Others.

All right, I don't think that Among Others isn't good. I just felt that it wasn't good enough; I was hoping for a wow factor. I was waiting for that glorious moment when I'd be blown away by all the fantasy elements melding together. I was hoping for magic. What I do get though is a beautiful coming-of-age story of a 15-year-old girl who sees fairies and who may or may not possess the ability to do magic.

At the start of the novel, there's poor Morwenna Phelps, the main character of Among Others. She's forced to live with her father who she hasn't seen for the longest time. Apparently, Mori's mother, a seemingly crazy woman who has her hands deep in black magic, is out to seek Mori. Why? Because Mori thwarted her mother's evil plans of becoming a powerful being. The cost of this was high for Mori though, for it involved a car accident that killed her twin sister and left her somewhat crippled.

So Mori is then whisked from her Welsh origins to live with his father, Daniel, and his 3 sisters in the English countryside. Daniel has other plans for her though, as he enrolls Mori in an exclusive boarding school, where, naturally, Mori, is treated as an outcast. Mori then discovers one thing that allows father and discover to bond—their shared love for fantasy and SF books. It becomes clear in Among Others that this love for this particular kind of genre is significant. Mori is one SF and fantasy geek, having a deep love for Tolkien, Silverberg, Vonnegut, Lackey, Asimov, and other fantasy and SF greats. Her father introduces her to Herbert and Dune. The way Daniel lets this love for books grow in Mori is endearing.

Things pick up even more for Mori when she discovers a book club and is asked to join this like-minded group of individuals who have a deep passion for fantasy and SF. It is in the book club where Mori falls in love, where Mori finds the courage to speak out (and to speak out a lot), and basically just grow into her confident self.

But let's not forget Mori's mother, the dark witch. She's probably the only fantastical character in the novel, except for the fairies that Mori sees, which somehow don't figure prominently in the story. The novel's end has Mori confronting her mother in a somewhat anticlimatic manner, in my own opinion. Still, it's a happy ending, and one that makes clear that Among Others is, at its heart, a coming-of-age tale.

Again, there isn't any clear cut use of magic in Jo Walton's multi-awarded  novel. The opening sequence had my hopes up, but in the end, the reader is simply made to speculate whether it was magic that Mori wielded or not. It makes you think, which is definitely not a bad thing. If you're looking for something heavy on the fantasy though, then you're better off reading something else.

Read this book if:

1. You like your fantasy subtle.
2. You love unusual coming-of-age tales.
3. You'll read anything that has won the Hugo and the Nebula.

Lock me up in a room with these graphic novels and throw away the key

Glorious, glorious weekend. I spent a part of it reading Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's wonderfully dark series of graphic novels that begin with Locke & Key 1: Welcome to Lovecraft. If the rest of the series is half as good as this first installment, then I'm a happy camper.

Now, Joe Hill. 20th Century Ghosts, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box are books right up my alley. Creepy, gory, frightful fun. I guess being a son of Stephen King does have its perks, no? I can just imagine the family dinner conversations. (My horror is better than your horror. Hehehe.)

The first Locke & Key isn't an all-out horror graphic novel though. It starts with a murder. Sam Lesser, an unstable teenager, murders his guidance counselor, leaving Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode without a father. The three siblings and their mother then move to their Uncle Duncan's house (named Keyhouse) in a town called Lovecraft. Sam is locked up not in a jail but in a juvenile detention center because of his age.

Keyhouse is one weird house, I tell you. Lots of locked doors and rooms, there's a girl in a well that speaks to the Bode, the youngest Locke sibling. Bode is the first to discover how a key can open the Ghost Door. When he passes through it, he leaves his body and moves in his spirit form.

We do learn that the girl in the well has a more significant role in the story than I initially thought. Sam thinks of the girl as his master. And somehow, she is still connected to Sam even though he's locked away, giving Sam tools that pave the way for his escape. Sam travels to Keyhouse as ordered by the girl. It's all gore and mayhem from here. Sam takes the Locke family hostage, and Bode finds the Anywhere Key and hands it to the girl.

Sam is eventually killed though, and the girl in the well escapes. By the end of the novel, we see the girl in the well morph into a man. Such a deliciously creepy end to the first series, don't you think? I'm so in!

Read this book if:

1. You're looking to read a different kind of horror.
2. You love graphic novels not involving superheroes.
3. You like dark and wonderfully weird story lines. 

P.S. The illustrations are striking. Gabriel Rodriguez's panels are just too gorgeous. A few below.

When you go through the Ghost Door, your spirit leaves your body.
Basically, your physical body becomes dead.

The girl in the well house

One of the first few full-page panels
Sam Lesser knocking on the door of Locke's house to murder him