LRRC Week 25

Almost the end of June huh.

Saw something about how 2020 is 48% done and I'm not sure if that feels like too much or not enough but it sure is wild.

#49: ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED by Sophie Gonzales

I had a hard time getting into this book at first, to be honest (maybe because it's contemporary romance and I just wasn't really in the mood?), so for the first 50-75 pages, I struggled a little.

As it went, though, I did warm up to the story. I warmed up to the characters a lot, and I had a clearer sense of where it was all going. I did still experience that weird disconnect of like, wow, my high school experience was WILDLY different than all of this, but it was one I was able to tolerate.

Probably the thing that hit hardest and will stay with me, humorously more than the romance, was the truly heart-wrenching B storyline about the main character's aunt dying of cancer. It's possible that this hit hardest just due to my own personal shit, but regardless, it did hit all the same. It actually moved me to tears a couple of times.

I'm a little bit more lukewarm and kind of conflicted about how I feel about the bi girl secondary character, who is the "slutty" one of the friend group and who kisses another girl at parties partially for the enjoyment of the boys around her. The author complicates the depiction and the character in question is probably the most interesting character in the book, but she's also a bully and says some really fatphobic things to her friend.

Like I said, I did warm up to the character and like her, and I no longer claim the "bi" ID so I don't really have stake in this game, but I don't know, I guess it just feels a bit odd to still see these stereotypes at play in the year 2020, even if they are being subverted and the character does have to grapple with her issues.

#50: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME TRAVEL by Kate Mascarenhas

Hey, an actually decent representation of therapy/a therapist in a book! That's fun!

(I've had this book in my kindle for probably almost a year now. I'm very sorry to everyone.)

Honestly, I feel a little bit conflicted about this book! It's definitely really interesting, it's a very different kind of time travel than I'm used to. In this world, time travellers can interact with themselves in different timelines. I laughed out loud when they mention that they have specific terms for having sex with your past and/or future selves, because of course that's what would happen.

The dealing with mental health in this context is interesting, the abusive structure of the Conclave and the way in which it both refused to deal with mental health and actively traumatized its workers was fascinating and brought up a lot of questions. It presented an invitation to look at the way in which such things manifest in our own structures.

I thought the characters were all interesting and well-written, and I was definitely drawn into the mystery and into finding out what happened in the story.

As I ended the book, though, I left still feeling very perturbed - which is not necessarily a bad thing, I'm just not sure it was for intended reasons. Like, a lot of time is spent on how having knowledge of the future makes it so that people are locked into certain things, especially relationships, as it is portrayed as being basically impossible to change things (or, at least, people believe it is impossible to change things).

I found this to be a deeply depressing state of things, and I don't know that the book grappled with exactly how depressing this was to my satisfaction. Or maybe because there was no shred of hope, as far as I could see? Like, every character just did what they were "supposed" to, or "fated" to, and this was even, in some cases, portrayed as a happy ending. Characters knowing who they were going to marry, so they would resign themselves to it, even if they didn't know the person. I don't know, maybe I'm just contrary and stubborn.

Also, though I do think that the portrayal of the main therapist character and therapy are pretty decent, I could have done without the big scene where she confronts the antagonist and kind of diagnoses her, or at least uses psychology as a smackdown. Particularly because the monologue is all about the antagonist being narcissistic, which in my opinion is a MASSIVELY loaded term, and one I personally don't use. It's definitely not as bad as it could be, but it left a bit of a weird taste in my mouth.

NEXT WEEK'S AGENDA:
#51: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
#52: The Quantum Garden by Derek Künsken