the bookshelf

I don't normally review DNFs, but since this was one of my anticipated releases of the year, why not? It's not a good sign that you want to DNF a book less than 20 pages in. By the time I reached page 59 (24% of the way through), I still wanted to DNF. The only reason I didn't at first is because, as I mentioned, it's one of my anticipated reads. I also figured it was good, sometimes, to sit with your discomfort with a book, to work through it. But my GOD, does this book make me uncomfortable. And it's not even the things that make other people uncomfortable (like the vulgar, explicit sex scenes featuring a teenage character or the framing of the story that Waldo is the pursuer). I mean, those DO make me uncomfortable. The sex scenes in particular feel like they were written for shock value. But what REALLY makes me uncomfortable, what I simply *CAN'T* get over, is how exploitative and voyeuristic this book feels. I can't separate Waldo the character from Jennette McCurdy the author.

I listened to her memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died, when it came out and thought it was excellent. Highly recommend, even if you didn't grow up watching her on Nickelodeon. But in it, she talks about her toxic, unhealthy relationships, both romantic and with her mother. Her first relationship was with a man in his mid 30s and she was 18. Waldo is a 17 year old high school student and her teacher is around 40. Jennette didn't have a good relationship with her mom. Waldo doesn't have a good relationship with her mom either, as her mother is neglectful and constantly chasing men. There are even mentions of Mormonism (except Waldo isn't Mormon; her friend is). Waldo has the same voice as Jennette. Jennette even narrates the audiobook herself.

For all intents and purposes, it feels like Waldo IS Jennette. And I don't mean in a self-insert wish-fulfillment sort of way. It feels like Waldo is a vessel for Jennette to work through things, to process her trauma. This book feels like a therapeutic exercise, like something private and intimate that should never have been published. Reading this book feels like I'm looking into Jennette's mind and seeing her trauma reflected onto the pages. I feel both deeply violated and like I'm violating the privacy of the deepest, hidden depths of her psyche, even though she's the one that chose to write and publish this. I saw a clip from an interview with her, where Jennette was describing the process of writing this book and how angry she felt, how she realized she was still very angry about things that happened in her life. And when I consider this and her memoir, and I look at Waldo, who speaks in Jennette's voice while being groomed by a much older man, I feel sad. Reading this book is an exercise in voyeurism. I feel like a window peeper. And I don't think I can handle an entire book of that.

The Unworthy is a horror novel about a cult set within a post-apocalyptic setting. It is told in the form of diary entries from an unnamed narrator. The narrator is a member of the Sacred Sisterhood, an all-female religious organization led by the Sister Superior and Him. She is a member of the unworthy, lower-ranked members that are just above servants. The unworthy are lesser, controlled and punished, forced to make sacrifices to please God, but within the convent they are safe from the ravaged world outside. When an outsider joins them, she is forced to reconsider her life at the convent. Is security worth the price of freedom? Why can't she remember her life before entering the Sacred Sisterhood? And what truly happens to those who are elevated beyond the rank of unworthy?

This book seems to be a bit polarizing, but I really enjoyed it! I adore books about fucked-up religions (especially if they're Christianity-inspired) and post-apocalyptic settings, so I think I would have liked this book regardless. After some consideration, I settled on 4 stars. I think the ending brought it down for me. It wasn't bad by any means, and it was suitable given the premise of the novel, but I did find it to be a little unsatisfactory. The slow unraveling of the ravaged, post-apocalyptic setting was fascinating, and I enjoyed the fever dream (fever nightmare?) quality to the writing. I liked the choice of narration style and thought it was really interesting how the narrator would self-censor in her writing. ("Beyond it is the Refuge of the Enlightened. They don't live with the Chosen because they're the Sacred Sisterhood's most valued treasure (that's why they're not mutilated like the three orders of the Chosen—Minor Saints, the Diaphanous Spirits, and Full Auras.) [...] I imagined the day I'd be consecrated as Enlightened (and not as Chosen, I don't want to be Chosen).") I think the need to self-censor is a universal experience for those in fundamental religions. It was interesting to see what she would self-censor, and how it would change over time. I also liked the meditative style the writing occasionally took. The phrasing was similar to biblical verses and chants to be repeated over and over. It added flavor to the writing and helped to evoke the feeling that the narrator truly was a member of a religious convent. ("He told us that to be Enlightened we would have to relinquish our origin, the erroneous God, the false son, the negative mother, the trivial ideas, the nocturnal filth that drags itself slowly and invisibly through our blood.") I really like books that drop you in the middle of a story and you slowly learn things over time. If you don't have the patience for that, you won't like this. I also found the cult to be fascinating and was left with some questions regarding the religion. Was any of it real? This is a horror novel, but it's not the scary type of horror. Rather, it depicts disturbing content. If you get squeamish reading descriptions about body mutilation, maybe stay clear.

"The Enlightened anticipate catastrophe. They're the only ones who know God's name. The rest of us can't pronounce it, because the secret language must be learned, and it hides from us like a white snake devouring itself. To speak it is to be torn apart; it's like music composed of splinters, a mouthful of scorpions."

"Someone might read me, read us. There are times I think that none of this matters. Why put myself in danger with this book of the night? But I have to write it, then it was real; if I write it, maybe we won't just be part of a dream contained in a planet, inside a universe hidden in the imagination of someone who lives in the mouth of God. Each of these words contains my pulse. My blood. My breath."

"How can you excise pain that radiates through your body, that torments your blood, that clings to your bones?"

January's pick for Bookbug! Read the review here

Suyeon is a police detective investigating the back-to-back suicides of four elderly individuals. Each person resided in the same hospital and each committed suicide by jumping off of the top floor. Her superiors dismiss the case. While unfortunate, they don't think anything of the suicides. But Suyeon believes something more nefarious is at hand and she fears for the safety of her dear friend, Granny Eunshim, a lonely elderly woman who lives at that same hospital. Against her superiors' wishes, Suyeon begins to investigate alone. During her investigation, she meets a mysterious woman named Violette, who claims that a vampire is behind the deaths. Suyeon is skeptical at first, until forensics reveals that the bodies have been drained of blood, forcing her to consider the possibility that supernatural forces are at play.

From the description, I thought that this would be more of a thriller or a murder mystery, but The Midnight Shift is actually a quiet exploration of loss, loneliness, and grief. The book is split into three perspectives. First is Suyeon and her investigation, next is Violette during her past as a Korean girl adopted into a French family, and finally is Nanju, the bitter nurse with a secret. I thought Violette's perspective was the most compelling, with her quiet yearning for the mysterious Lily and the tragic relationship between human and vampire. Nanju's was the least interesting and Suyeon was somewhere in the middle. This book is marketed as a fast-paced vampire murder mystery, which I feel like is a disservice to the book. I found the story to be more slow and on the quieter side. There are vampires, but this isn't what I would classify as a "Vampire Book." They aren't really the main focus and only serve as vessels to explore the themes of the story. Like a lot of translated Asian literature I've read, the plot and characters are done in broad strokes. I am reminded of hazy impressionistic paintings, where from afar, they form a cohesive image, but when you look closely, the details are blurry and lacking. If you are looking for a book with detailed characterization or a complex plot, this probably will disappoint you. Personally, I didn't mind it and quite liked the melancholic tone of the book and how the author explored grief. I appreciated the ways she touched on different aspects of Korean society and its issues, ranging from drug addiction to the loneliness epidemic, particularly in the elderly, and I thought her descriptions of yearning between Violette and Lily were quite nice.

"The littlest things eventually turn into affection. When these things become impossible to count, when they become impossible to pinpoint, that's when people find themselves saying 'just because'."

"Sadness was heavy. If it needed a shape, it would steal a human's. A tar-like substance, it would drape itself over their silhouette, covering them from head to toe, not leaving out a single strand of hair, so that if they stopped paying attention to their breathing, they'd soon realize they were slowly being smothered."

"Everyone has their own loneliness to bear, and so we can't expect anyone to take ours away. At least there's comfort in knowing we're alone together."

"If only people could be like this flower. But there's nothing we can do about it. Nothing that can stop us from wilting. Still, the fact that we're only wilting because we've bloomed...that's quite beautiful, isn't it?"

"Humans are never tethered to their past. They always find an escape. They forget, they bury, they lay to rest, they leave. Then, they welcome a different world."