A book review + book thoughts
Nov. 9th, 2024 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkThe Dark Becomes Her by Judy I. Lin
Genre: YA, horror
I may attempt to keep listening to this audiobook, but right now, it's looking like a DNF in the first half.
I'm dying for more horror based on non-Western folklore/history, because the possibilities are endless. I wanted to love this book so badly, but sadly, I'm not enjoying it much.
Judy Lin's books have always been mixed reads for me, and this one is no different. My biggest problem is with the pacing. It's, frankly, very slow. And while slow-burn horror is a thing (like Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia), what makes slow-burn horror work is the slowly creeping sense of unease and dread. This book doesn't really have that. Instead, random ghost attacks are interspersed with a pretty slice-of-life narrative about Ruby's life. There isn't a slow build/escalation as much as random acceleration and deceleration in the pacing. It feels like it took until 1/3 of the way through the book for the second act to even start. And that's just too slow to keep my attention.
Other problems I had: the horror parts did not feel atmospheric enough to me. Also, I feel like Lin's protagonists all sound almost exactly the same, and it's become rather noticeable.
What the book does nail is portraying the second-generation Chinese/Taiwanese immigrant experience, for better or for worse. Some of the things Ruby's mom says to her reminded me of what my mom said to me as a kid (like, in a mildly triggering way). But I did find myself grinning when Ruby's parents spoke Chinglish in one chapter, because that's exactly how my parents talked:
"我们next Wednesday晚上有空吗？"
"...Maybe? 我看一下schedule."
*
I've been complaining a lot about how a lot of books I've read this year have not been well written, and another consequence of that is that I can't find any comfort reads.
I used to read a lot of queer romance/queer romantasy as comfort reads. But the traditionally published queer romances I've tried are too rubbish to be comfort reads. And so I'm left in a constant state of frustration (and also rereading my own novels to scratch that romance comfort read itch).
I don't think my standards are that high? I just want some romantic tension and chemistry between the leads, so I can really root for them as a couple. Even trashy self-published Amazon romances do better than tradpubbed romantasies in this respect, because they've nailed that tension down to a science. There's something deeply comforting about the familiar rhythm of a romance novel, the waiting with anticipation for two characters who are clearly attracted to each other to get over their hang-ups and get together.
And I just don't get why that's so hard to find in tradpubbed queer romantasy. Sigh.
Genre: YA, horror
I may attempt to keep listening to this audiobook, but right now, it's looking like a DNF in the first half.
I'm dying for more horror based on non-Western folklore/history, because the possibilities are endless. I wanted to love this book so badly, but sadly, I'm not enjoying it much.
Judy Lin's books have always been mixed reads for me, and this one is no different. My biggest problem is with the pacing. It's, frankly, very slow. And while slow-burn horror is a thing (like Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia), what makes slow-burn horror work is the slowly creeping sense of unease and dread. This book doesn't really have that. Instead, random ghost attacks are interspersed with a pretty slice-of-life narrative about Ruby's life. There isn't a slow build/escalation as much as random acceleration and deceleration in the pacing. It feels like it took until 1/3 of the way through the book for the second act to even start. And that's just too slow to keep my attention.
Other problems I had: the horror parts did not feel atmospheric enough to me. Also, I feel like Lin's protagonists all sound almost exactly the same, and it's become rather noticeable.
What the book does nail is portraying the second-generation Chinese/Taiwanese immigrant experience, for better or for worse. Some of the things Ruby's mom says to her reminded me of what my mom said to me as a kid (like, in a mildly triggering way). But I did find myself grinning when Ruby's parents spoke Chinglish in one chapter, because that's exactly how my parents talked:
"我们next Wednesday晚上有空吗？"
"...Maybe? 我看一下schedule."
*
I've been complaining a lot about how a lot of books I've read this year have not been well written, and another consequence of that is that I can't find any comfort reads.
I used to read a lot of queer romance/queer romantasy as comfort reads. But the traditionally published queer romances I've tried are too rubbish to be comfort reads. And so I'm left in a constant state of frustration (and also rereading my own novels to scratch that romance comfort read itch).
I don't think my standards are that high? I just want some romantic tension and chemistry between the leads, so I can really root for them as a couple. Even trashy self-published Amazon romances do better than tradpubbed romantasies in this respect, because they've nailed that tension down to a science. There's something deeply comforting about the familiar rhythm of a romance novel, the waiting with anticipation for two characters who are clearly attracted to each other to get over their hang-ups and get together.
And I just don't get why that's so hard to find in tradpubbed queer romantasy. Sigh.
