I figured it would be fun when I read more to just get all my thoughts about the books I read together in little snippets. I'm too lazy to review things, but sometimes it's nice to take the luxury to get my thoughts down.
I fell in love with The Empress of Salt and Fortune. It has beautiful prose, subtle layering of meaning, and it's empowering without descending into outright preachiness (a delicate tightrope I've not seen many writers navigate gracefully). I would happily reread this one often. It's also the perfect length. Long enough to go into depth with the story and characters, but pithy enough to devour in one evening.
I read both Tokyo Express and The Black Swan Mystery fairly close together and regret it a little because they were so similar. The culprit is apparent very early for a mystery, so the bulk of the plot ends up being this frustratingly intricate dissection of the suspects' alibi so they leant more to police procedural after their midway points and made the pacing uneven. The story loop was very maddening too! It was an endless series of "I think I got it!" moments that were of course thwarted because we're only 61% in and we have to have 20 more false leads before we can crack that sweet sweet alibi. By the time the denouement hits, I felt more meh than impressed at the complex machinations behind it.
Today I finished The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina. It's a bit difficult to describe the experience. I binged it in a weekend. It felt vast, yet incredibly intimate. I always adored magical realism, even when I didn't realize I did. I only knew that when I read García Marquez and Murakami I felt like anything was possible. Like I was floating on air. Don't laugh and shake your head that I am overdramatic! There is poetry in magical realism that is not often seen in prose. This particular book made me feel seen. Elegantly articulating everything I love, fear, and grieve in a fantastical story that spans less than 400 pages. I took 66 highlights, often pausing because a passage took my breath away. Either because of how incisive it was, or how it evoked the quietly sensory pleasure of quotidian life. I tried to read it years ago and stopped 10% in. Now I realize I wasn't ready for it. That happens sometimes with books. I learned that it's wiser to wait till I am ready for the message before I try again. Also, I found the flower inheritance was evocative to me of the dimensions of the experience of feeling "other." For Marimar, we see the fear it evokes for her lover. For Rey, his flower makes everyone feel entitled to disrespect boundaries and bodily autonomy. Rhiannon experiences the exclusion from her father's side of the family. Details like that hit me hard because it captures how things that are different are beautiful, but also isolating.
I read Shady Hollow last week and enjoyed it a good bit! It promised to be a cross between The Wind in the Willows and Agatha Christie. I felt that was pretty accurate. It wasn't a particularly memorable book. But not all books have to be memorable, so I still enjoyed it thoroughly. The pacing was pretty consistent, the length was perfect, and the mystery was interesting. I'm a sucker for cozy read too so bonus points for that!
Orquídea had tried to be so careful with her heart. It had already been broken once, the day her father shoved a purse full of coins in her hands and told her not to look for him. How could she not look for him when every time she saw her own reflection, fractures of him stared back at her? The parts desperate to be loved but never feeling quite whole enough to be loved.
– Zoraida Córdova (The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina)