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Book Review of With a Kiss, by Kim Dare

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With a KissI picked up a copy of Kim Dare‘s With a Kiss when it was free on Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
When Liam Bates volunteered to visit lonely patients at his local hospital, he expected them to be able to talk back when he chatted to them. But, when he’s assigned to visit a comatose man, he soon finds himself spilling out his whole life story in an effort to fill the silence. It’s not long before the peace and comfort he finds in the man’s hospital room becomes Liam’s refuge from an increasingly hostile world.

Vampire Marcus Corrigan has been trapped inside his paralyzed body for over three years, unable to communicate with anyone. The chatty young man who visits Marcus quickly captivates him, and Liam’s softly spoken words soon have him determined to rescue the boy from his current life, but, unable to move a muscle, all Marcus can actually do is lay there and listen.

There’s only one thing that can wake up Marcus. There’s only one thing that can save Liam’s sanity. Everything is about to change for them both, and it will change with a kiss.

Review:
I decided to give this a chance, despite its frankly appalling cover. OMG, so bad. Luckily, the book is better than it looks. I thought the writing especially good and the editing fine. I even liked the storyline and appreciated that the effects of trauma weren’t magically swept away, for either character.

However, I have a real problem with the idea of healing trauma from abuse (or any kind) with BDSM. Both because it makes no sense to me (Yes, I’m afraid because I’ve been beaten, so tie me up hit me again and I’ll like it. WTF?) and because I think it’s a misrepresentation of what I understand BDSM to be about.

Similarly, while I liked that Liam showed PTSD-like characteristics, I thought his desire to submit was handled well in general, and I liked Marcus’ confusion on how to help him sometimes, I got tired of him acting and being treated like a child. Eventually he stopped feeling like a man with a traumatic past and on-going issues to deal with and more like a frightened rabbit instead. It made it hard to see them as any sort of equal party in the relationship.

Lastly, there was what I thought to be a fairly large plot hole. What caused Marcus’ coma was eventually shown to be something well known in the vampire community, which would suggest it’s solution was known. In fact, it turned out to be fairly simple. So, why was he left to languish in a hospital?

So, I’ll call this book a partial success for me. I’d read another Dare book, but I can’t say this one lit me on fire.

The Mechanical Universe

Book Review of The Mechanical Universe, by EE Ottoman

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The Mechanical UniverseI purchased a copy of The Mechanical Universe, by EE Ottoman.

Description from Goodreads:
A world of mechanical animation, spell craft, beauty, and romance…

A Matter of Disagreement
Bad enough the rise of mechanical animation is a threat to Andrea’s scholarly pursuits. Much worse that it’s a threat to the livelihood of those who depend on him for support. But all his protestations bring him is notoriety and an unwanted introduction to the man responsible for ruining his life…

Duende
Famed opera singer Aimé has a lot in common with Badri, the Royal Ballet Company’s most popular male lead. They have both dedicated their entire lives to their art and struggle to be taken seriously among the Empire’s elite. But the cost of such dedication is that it leaves no room for other pursuits, least of all those of a personal nature…

Winter’s Bees
Lord Marcel is a brilliant mathematician, member of the mechanical animation movement, and all around dandy. He is less successful in his love for Prince Gilbert. An arranged marriage should have been the perfect solution for bringing secret fantasies to life, but Gilbert wants no part of romance, especially not with a man he regards as a brother.

Review:
On the whole I really enjoyed this story collection. I liked the alternative history, magical world. I loved that all the main characters are people who almost never get to be romantic leads—fat men, trans men, differently abled, castrato, PoC (who fall in love with other PoC), men considered ugly by the standards of their couture, men with small penises. I would have really liked to have seen a woman or two. There are female side characters and they all seemed strong (if strong in very male ways), but no lead females.

The writing is very good, and the editing for the first two stories is pretty good too. It falls apart for the last one for some reason. I mean, really noticeably! But this isn’t the first Ottoman book I’ve read and it won’t be the last.

What I’m drinking: I call it tourist tea. Technically, it’s English Breakfast Tea. But it’s in a cute little red phone box souvenir tin (one in a set of three) that my aunt-in-law brought be from England. Thus, tourist tea…with milk.

The Vegetarian

Book Review of The Vegetarian, by Han Kang

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The VegetarianI received a copy of Han Kang‘s The Vegetarian through Blogging For Books.

Description from Goodreads:
Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.

A disturbing, yet beautifully composed narrative told in three parts, The Vegetarian is an allegorical novel about modern day South Korea, but also a story of obsession, choice, and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.

Review:
This was nothing like I expected, which isn’ a bad thing. Translated from Korean, a lot of it hinges on the culture in which it is set, but not so much that you can’t understand it. As expected, it is a book about Yeong-hye, who chooses one day to become vegetarian. Unexpectedly, however, she’s not the subject of the book. She’s the object. She is the point on which people around her revolve, for better or worse. In fact, she hardly speaks in the book and those few words she does utter are almost all, “I don’t eat meat.” But that single decision on her part has disastrous ripples. Many of which reveal weaknesses in the relationships around her, if not simply the people.

This is one of those books in which no one is happy, no one at all. Possibly Yeong-hye, but I suspect not. (Though I also think she’s changing that.) The first part of the book is from the perspective of Yeong-hye’s selfish, disinterested husband, who views Yeong-hye with disguised disgust. The second, from that of her brother-in-law, who finds in her an object of obsession. And finally from that of her sister, for whom Yeong-hye is both an instigator of guilt and envy. It’s in her I found what I thought to be the most important passage of the book, the closest thing to a theme I identified, even.

The Vegetarian, Han Kang, pg. 148

While the writing in The Vegetarian is lovely, haunting even, as the blurb asserts, it is one of those books that ends without telling you what it’s about. It requires you to figure it out on your own. To choose for yourself. I choose to believe it is a book about social constrains and personal agency. It’s the easiest choice, next to she’s just crazy, perhaps, not as deep as some others may choose but the one I like.

All in all, I certainly see why it won the Man Booker International Prize and have no problem recommending it to readers.

What I’m drinking: Beef sipping broth from Boylard’s Meat & Provisions. It’s delicious; flavored with ginger, kaffir lime & lemongrass. I gotta have it extra hot though!