Tag: 2025

Review: Sympathy Tower Tokyo

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Title: Sympathy Tower Tokyo
Author: Rie Qudan
Translator: Jesse Kirkwood
Pages: 208
Release: September 2, 2025

In near-future Japan, all criminals, now reclassified as Homo miserabilis, are considered victims of circumstance and are treated with extreme empathy. They are housed together in Sympathy Tower Tokyo, a hyper-egalitarian facility with conditions so humane that prisoners prefer to stay even when offered their freedom. The book follows Sara Machina, the tower’s architect, who grapples with the ethical consequences of her creation.

Qudan’s novel is surreal and conceptually fascinating, but ultimately left me cold. Its unclear structure and indistinct points of view make the narrative feel scattered and emotionally distant. For a story so rooted in the idea of empathy, it’s curiously devoid of warmth – an effect that may be intentional, but left me feeling hollow by the end.

Qudan’s meditation on the evolution of the Japanese language is compelling, particularly the universal idea that “words determine our reality,” a theme that threads itself throughout the book. Still, whether due to Jesse Kirkwood’s translation or the source text itself, Sympathy Tower Tokyo never quite connected for me.

Note: in keeping with the source material – roughly 5% of this review was generated with AI.

★★★

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley & Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Lucky Day

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Title: Lucky Day
Author: Chuck Tingle
Pages: 240
Release: August 12, 2025

Mr. Tingle, I was not familiar with your game. What a wild ride this was. 

The blend of absurdism and horror is beautifully done. Tingle’s twisted imagination shines brightest in the breathless sequences of gore and surreal terror. There’s a scene in a wave pool so gruesome it will make me think twice before dipping my toes into the deep end ever again.

Some of the broader, more otherworldly strokes – e.g., cosmic centipedes and literal voids in spacetime – kept me from fully embracing the premise. But the slick pacing ensures that no beat overstays its welcome, propelling the story forward with relentless energy. 

Count me as a Tingle fan from here on out. This was a bloody good time.

★★★½

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Chilco

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“The landscape we live in is falling apart; what we once loved is vanishing. Tomorrow seems to us an obsolete discourse, a privilege of past decades”

Title: Chilco
Author: Daniela Catrileo
Translator: Jacob Edelstein
Pages: 272
Release: July 15, 2025

An evocative meditation on colonialism, dispossession, and identity. Chilco unfolds in a city literally falling apart, while Mari’s collapse is more internal – she is caught between cultures, histories, and her own fractured sense of belonging. She grapples with the tension between rootedness and displacement, both within herself and those close to her. What is worth clinging to, and what can be left behind?

Catrileo’s writing is tender and quite lovely – more a breeze than a gale force wind. Subtle yet deeply moving.  The book’s nonlinear structure feels unnecessary, but it did not diminish the power of its themes. 

Before reading this, I knew little of Chilean history or the oral tradition of the Mapuche people. Chilco served as a compelling introduction, sparking my interest for further exploration.

★★★¾

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Dengue Boy

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Title: Dengue Boy
Author: Michel Nieva
Translator: Rahul Bery
Pages: 224
Release: February 4, 2025

An economy propped up by pandemic speculation. Capitalism built on climate destruction. And a giant mosquito boy with poor impulse control. This gross, engrossing, and absurd phantasmagoria is a feast for the senses. While the plot feels a bit thin, the absurdity and off-the-wall weirdness kept me intrigued. I enjoyed my time here, but Dengue Boy won’t be for everyone.

★★★½

My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: An Oral History of Atlantis

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Title: An Oral History of Atlantis: Stories
Author: Ed Park
Pages: 224
Release: July 29, 2025

Hot on the heels of his Pulitzer Prize-finalist masterwork, Same Bed Different Dreams, Ed Park returns with this superb short fiction collection. Twelve of the sixteen stories have been published elsewhere over the past 20+ years, but all were new to me.

Whether it’s the transcription of a DVD commentary on a cult classic science fiction film (“Weird Menace”) or a letter from an exasperated author to his overzealous translator (“A Note to My Translator”), no two stories are alike. Yet each delivers Park’s acerbic wit, sharp sense of irony, and keen eye for riffing on the mundanities of everyday life. With such variety, every reader is sure to find something to love here.

Favorite stories: “A Note to My Translator,” “The Gift,” “Bring on the Dancing Horses”

★★★★½

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Weepers

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Title: Weepers
Author: Peter Mendelsund
Pages: 320
Release: June 17, 2025

A melancholy and surreal neo-Western about a band of professional mourners who offer their tear-laden eyes to a desiccated world. It evokes Station Eleven, with its troupe of performers bringing their artistry and gifts to a world now bereft of them.

Our narrator, Ed, has a very distinct worldview and his colorful oratory style held me in thrall throughout. For instance, he describes a perky character as having, “…all that vim just soda-popping through her veins,” and someone who is even-keeled as, “…sticking to his fucking row, sure as shooting, regular as rust.” 

The vibes in this book are just off the charts, and I really dug how it all played out. Mendelsund has crafted a unique tale that will surely stick in my craw. It’s sad and mournful and centered around death, yet it pulses with life in Ed’s eyes and through his narration.

★★★★

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Written on the Dark

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Title: Written on the Dark
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Pages: 400
Release: May 27, 2025

It’s such a treat to get lost in Kay’s worlds, experiencing his unique spin on history with a splash of the fantastical. While this tale doesn’t break new ground or reinvent the genre, it’s an engaging and satisfying story that longtime fans of GGK and newcomers alike will certainly enjoy. The narrative isn’t as complex as some of his other works, featuring more accessible prose and POVs that stay close to the main action.

Though somewhat muted in its telling, there’s a glimmer of Kay’s storytelling spark shining through the fog – guiding us toward the light. His main character, Thierry Villar, who self-identifies as “inconsequential” to the world at large, is given his moment to shine as Kay builds his legend before our eyes. 

I’ve always loved how Kay grants even the most minor characters narrative arcs – sometimes in just a sentence or a paragraph, or, in this case, an entire book. Here, a tavern poet of medium renown makes his own indelible mark on the world. Someone who might have been a footnote in another story instead steals the spotlight.

★★★½

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Book of Records

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Title: The Book of Records
Author: Madeleine Thien
Pages: 352
Release: May 20, 2025

At its core, this is a tale of a father and daughter–adrift in the shifting sands of time. As they recount how they arrived at The Sea, a nebulous crossroads where time folds in on itself, they strike up a friendship with three neighbors–notable figures from history–each offering up prudent tales from their own lives.

Thien deftly explores the power of stories and their telling, the transient nature of time and memory, and the permanence of love and connection. Her writing is elegant and measured, with the intimate father-daughter relationship being the most effective and affecting aspect of the novel. The lengthy interspersed stories relayed by the historical figures, while clearly well-researched, bog down the narrative momentum, slowing the pace more than necessary.

The deeper Thien wades into philosophical territory, the harder I found it to keep up, which I see as more of a personal shortcoming than a flaw in the book. She operates at a philosophical frequency beyond my level of understanding, making significant portions frustrating and difficult to parse. While I never quite grasped the full scope of what Thien was trying to convey, I suspect more erudite readers will have better luck.

★★★

My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost

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“He can reflect all he wants but will not be able to pilot that flash of inspiration into the harbor of his memory. It has gone adrift and shimmers on the horizon of his imagination.”

Title: Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost
Author: Donald Niedekker
Translator: Jonathan Reeder
Pages: 196
Release: May 20, 2025

Based on the true story of Dutch explorers seeking the Northeast Passage, only to be thwarted by the weather, the expedition finds itself marooned in the Arctic. They wisely repurpose their ship into a livable abode to withstand the brutal elements. Our unnamed narrator does not survive the ordeal, but his newly unthawed corpse has enough wherewithal to recount his tale after 400 years on ice. While the story’s premise is rooted in the realities of climate change and our warming planet, it doesn’t dwell on this theme beyond a few subtle mentions. 

Such an odd and fascinating premise gives way to a richly imagined, beautifully translated, and appropriately wry tale. The narrator’s scattershot musings touch on life–his own and otherwise–his career as a poet, why he prefers rivers to seas, the geese’s annual migration overhead his icy grave, the state of exploration in the 16th century, and plenty more. There’s no sensible order or structure to his thoughts as he hops around, eventually admitting that he’s providing a “less-than-coherent narrative.” Agree! 

★★★★

My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.