The Book Blog At The Edge Of The World

Providing you lovely people with book recs and inflicting my horrible ramblings onto you

[amaliacornaros]

Music is never about music. If it was, we’d be writing songs about guitars.

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Silver in the Wood, by Emily Tesh

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"We call them Bunnies because that is what they call each other. Seriously. Bunny. Example: Hi, Bunny! Hi, Bunny! What did you do last night, Bunny? I hung out with you, Bunny. Remember, Bunny? That's right, Bunny, you hung out with me and it was the best time I ever had. Bunny, I love you. I love you, Bunny." Bunny was one of my favorite books of the year. Follow loner grad student Samantha as she's suddenly sucked into a whole other world; the world of the Bunnies. When invited to join the casual writing workshop the other women in her class host after hours, Samantha doesn't know whether to be excited to finally be included or contemptuous of their girlish clique behavior. Her indecision only grows stronger the deeper into the bunnies' lair she goes, finding both solidarity and friendship along with horror and scornful selfishness. As Samantha slowly starts losing herself and her foundations, she questions what in her life is real and what she wants to make real. Reading this is like reading one of those weird teen movies from the '80s, like Weird Science or Heathers. In fact, with the hidden venom girl clique, blase feel towards death and horror, and the overall iconic sense of style, it feels like Bunny is paying one helluva tribute towards Heathers. I mean, come on, Samantha's middle name is even Heather. The story is focusing on group of ladies that could be classified as both women and girls, and they act accordingly; struggling to be modern and feminist, to stand in solidarity while still pitting against each other, to be strong and independent while still wanting companionship so badly you're willing to make a guy the Frankenstein way out of rabbits. What's a girl to do? Awad also weaves such intricate details through the book that leave you gasping in shock at the end, then going back to reread it all and seeing what you missed. Surreal in a way that's just so close to reality, you spend the entire book thinking you're losing your mind right alongside Samantha.

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Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, 1990

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Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, 1928 -1940

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I have read so many books on the old gods, tarots, all the spooky old myth stuff and by god I love. You got to admit, though, like every genre some stories are better than others. After reading so many of the same, sometimes it’s hard to find something original again. So when I picked up Bryan Camp’s City of Lost Fortunes ten minutes before the library closed, I didn’t have high hopes.

God, does it feel good to be wrong.

The first novel in a series and the first novel from this writer, you can tell a lot of work went into Lost Fortunes. The story focuses on Jude, a magician of New Orleans who’s lost his way in the years since Hurricane Katrina. 

Now, I know what you’re thinking; there are a hundred and one stories surrounding the mystic magic of New Orleans. With Lost Fortunes, though, there’s something just a little more real. Jude walks by boarded-up houses with water damage above his head and talks about a city still trying to pull itself together long after the rest of the country has moved on. Sometimes, with all the mysticism in our stories, we forget that the places we talk about are very real with real people. Camp adds real street names and bars, singers and diners with such subtlety it doesn’t take away from the plot at all. He grounds the story by including these details and makes it all the more believable.

Plus, this dude is awesome on the representation scale. It’s a well-known fact throughout the book that Jude is bisexual (or maybe pan), and it talks about the fluidity of some gods and magical beings when it comes to gender and sexuality. There is even a point (no spoilers!) where pronouns are switched for a main character, with the right amount of humor thrown in. As for racial representation, Camp is quick to point out the skin tone if not race of each new person, so it doesn’t leave a lot for the imagination but he does make more than half the cast black or a minority (the other half are skeletons or dogs anyway). Camp even devotes a good amount of Jude’s internal struggle to his mixed-race heritage that leads into bigger struggles. 

I am so happy to see that a new book is already in the works for Camp, cause I just sped through Lost Fortunes. Hopefully, we will hear more from him in the future, cause I really want to buy a plane ticket to New Orleans right now.

To anyone looking for a fresh take on myth and legend fiction, everyday magic, and a dappling in the occult, you seriously need to read this book.

- Page Turner