so-soNeeded more of everything: depth, substance... The memoir portions were wishy-washy and uninteresting; the biographical portions about David Starr Jordan were weakened by bland, speculative daydreaming. It did eventually swing towards interest when the biographical became more factually rigorous, but my overall impression upon finishing is that the whole book is limp, flimsy, grasping but falling short. 1/2
so-soAudiobook. It passed the time. Not a single likeable nor compelling character in the book or the book-within-the-book. Very over-explained, details reiterated again and again. Well narrated, which carried it for me. I do have the second book in progress (bought them together) and so far it's a wee bit better.
so-soAudiobook. Solomon wrote this before Sorrowland, and it's interesting to see how faer writing developed between books. Excellent premise; black, neurodivergent, queer protagonist; own voices. Sadly all plot threads slowly sunk into a swamp and never re-emerged. 1/2
pickSorrowland kept showing up in my searches (stories about cults, about queerness), but I never added it to my list. For a moment I forgot why that was, so I borrowed the audiobook from the library and immediately ran into a LOT of a content-warning I try to avoid. But I kept going because the story is so strange, intriguing, surprising, and I'm really glad I did. 1/2
so-soIf the writing wasn‘t so good, this would be a Pan. Descriptions and sentiments are wonderful, but the story is a mess of extraneous details irrelevant to the plot, too many meaningless background characters, and a useless protagonist. Confusing without being mysterious, ending did not feel earned.
pickI listened to the audiobook a couple of years ago. Re-experiencing the story in words was no less wondrous and surprising: seeing how Piranesi punctuates his text, capitalises every word relating to the House. I love how startling some of the details are (meeting the People), how truly sublime some of the descriptions, how shocking the bleedthrough between worlds is despite manifesting in items as mundane as a white gel-pen, a plastic bowl. 1/2
so-soI‘m glad I read this, for the strangeness of it, the reminder that words are ours for the wielding to shape stories as we wish. Was aware of a theme of distance/observation (fitting for a detective main character I guess) and of recurring motifs, but not perceptive enough to piece together their importance. In that sense, as a reader I was distanced. Separated from the story by its opacity. I looked at words on a page, then closed the cover.
pickThese are slow stories that twist the mundane into something unsettled and uncomfortable. Maybe it‘s the relatability of the domestic that renders porous the barrier between what is ordinary and what is horrifying. A terrible kind of horror that is not scraping at doors, howling in the night, but growing inside us like mould. 1/4
A strange and timely coincidence to read the sections about eugenics in the US after reading Sorrowland. 2/2 1w