#and that’s on the potential of having queer characters and the hijinks that can ensue

[ashleyeveerson]

Who the fuck came up with the idea of Nandor falling for Freddie and why is it the best thing that’s ever happened on the show???

[needsmoresarcasm]

Favorite Books of 2019

I read a bunch of books in 2019. I loved a lot of them. Here are my ten favorites.

10. Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, Gretchen McCulloch

Most books about internet culture are garbage because they are written from the perspective of someone who is outside internet culture. Gretchen McCulloch, I am positive, is a part of internet culture. She was on fandom mailing lists and had a LiveJournal, I’m sure. She had to be to write Because Internet, which is an incredibly well written book about how language has evolved to fit online discourse. Because Internet is so fascinating, as it is able to explain thoughtfully (and compellingly) many things that internet people understand inherently. It parses through the evolution of a keysmash or an emoji. And it really helps show how language on the internet is not somehow the deterioration of language, but just another natural step forward.  9. HHhH, Laurent Binet

Originally written in French, HHhH deals with the entire genre of historical fiction. The narrator in HHhH is writing a novel about the murder of Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi official. That novel-within-the-novel is the bulk of the actual HHhH. But the narrator, who has spent years researching the actual facts, struggles with how much history and how much fiction he should be putting into the book. And so the book explicitly plays with the reader’s expectations, and comments at times on paths the story could take. The book works without the metatextual commentary, it’s propulsive and a little wry. But the added layer really just adds to the intrigue: what’s historical fiction supposed to do? And does any of it even matter? 8. Out East: Memoir of a Montauk Summer, John Glynn

Out East is a coming out memoir that deals with entirely internal struggles and not external hardships. Of course, there is an incredible amount of privilege at play for a coming out to be devoid of external hardships. And yes, the memoir, about a group of (mostly white) friends who rent a beach house in Montauk for a summer, is steeped in privilege, which John Glynn is acutely aware of. But John Glynn is not asking for your sympathy, he is instead telling a deeply personal story about self discovery and sexuality in the 2010s. He captures the world-shattering confusion and fear of learning that you don’t know yourself in a visceral way that still somehow maintains perspective. I cannot say that this book is for everyone, but man, was it for me.

7. Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston The year was 2019, and everything was awful. Enter Red, White & Royal Blue, a wildly escapist fantasy that dared to dream: what if the world wasn’t on fire? So Red, White & Royal Blue is truly the most escapist novel out there, a fun romp of a romantic comedy that is entirely unconcerned with the disasters of reality. No, we’re just going to take the biracial son of the first female President of the United States and the charming, responsible prince of England and let them fall in love. Let hijinks ensue. Let this wonderful, bubblegum, fizzy drink of a novel enter your brain and wipe away all your worries. God, I had a blast reading this novel. Make everything gay 2020.

6. Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Ruin and/or Improve Everything, Kelly & Zach Weinersmith

Soonish is the exact kind of nonfiction that I want. It made me feel smarter and also made me laugh. Soonish takes on exactly what its subhead describes: ten emerging technologies (robotics, fusion power, asteroid mining, bioprinting!) that may or may not prove disastrous. It walks through the current science and then the possibilities, and how far off those possibilities are. And then it walks through the potential benefits and consequences. It’s an incredibly accessible read, written with the right balance of information and levity, striking that xkcd Randall Munroe balance. And it also has very funny comics and illustrations interspersed throughout, which will just bring your life so much joy.

5. Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson

Too real. Just Mercy is too real. This is not the right space to get into all that this book says about racial injustice and the flaws of the American justice system. It says a lot, and it says it extremely powerfully. But Just Mercy is Bryan Stevenson’s memoir, too. And it’s equally powerful for what it reveals about Stevenson. It’s so incredibly intimate, and Stevenson really lets the reader into his mind. And I think that openness really makes the whole thing land. Because Stevenson is hopeful and dedicated, and being that close to his inner thoughts ends up turning his story into something inspiring, not enervating. There’s an anecdote about an old woman on a bench outside the courthouse that Stevenson describes, and Stevenson’s retelling is so sure of the overwhelming, indomitable potential goodness of the human spirit that I may have shed a tear. Or two. Or a hundred.

4. The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

I’m not usually one for deeply tragic stories, but The Song of Achilles I guess is the exception that proves the rule. Locked into the Iliad’s telling of Achilles and Patroclus’ fate, The Song of Achilles feels tragic from the first line. But every sentence builds their relationship and makes you invested, even as tragedy looms. The writing is gorgeous and almost musical; the passion swells and crashes like an orchestra. The book smartly focuses on Patroclus’s humanity to ground Achilles. It’s through Patroclus that we see and understand Achilles, which makes the sharp turns, where we see through Achilles, cut even deeper. In any event, the whole affair is horrifyingly romantic, and I loved it.

3. Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi

Everything about Homegoing is spectacularly audacious. It is an economical 300 page book with the weight, scope, and ambition of a thousand page page epic fantasy series. Homegoing begins by telling the story of two sisters who, by the whims of circumstance or luck or fate, end up on wildly divergent paths. In Ghana in the 18th century, one is sold into slavery and the other marries an Englishman. Homegoing then follows the parallel paths of their descendants through eight generations. Though Homegoing only devotes a single chapter to each character, it manages to develop those characters and their specific settings in more detail than some entire books can. And these chapters are great not only because of what they say about the larger themes of racism and colonialism and family and history, but because of the nuanced, particularized stories they’re able to tell about the individuals.

2. Picture Us in the Light, Kelly Loy Gilbert

Contemporary Young Adult books can feel hit or miss for me. Many of them end up feeling a little shallow or juvenile. And this isn’t a criticism of the books, but a necessary side effect of the fact that I’m not the intended audience. But Picture Us in the Light knocked me over with more force than any “adult” book I read.

Picture Us in the Light, at first blush, is a typical story about Danny Cheng, a Chinese American high school student worrying about getting into college, swirls with weighty plot elements--suicide, citizenship, poverty, familial sacrifice--but never resorts to melodrama. Each issue is treated with a deft, steady hand. But more than anything, it is just the story of Danny Cheng trying to figure out his life. His voice is specifically crafted to reflect everything he is: an aspiring artist, the child of immigrants, Asian American, maybe queer, a Californian, and, maybe most importantly, a teenager. Because Picture Us in the Light turns the youth of its genre, its audience, and its main character into an asset; it channels that unformed teenage energy of wonder, uncertainty, and anxiety to heighten every emotional beat. And mostly, it brims with empathy and optimism for Danny and, really, for everyone.

1. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern

The Starless Sea is the reason I read books. As a kid, I fell in love with reading by devouring entire series, getting lost in a fictional world for days or weeks or months at a time. What made reading so addicting was the feeling of being entirely immersed in the currents of a story. It’s a feeling I don’t get from books much any more. I read too fast, I think too much, and, mostly, I’m too easily distracted. But The Starless Sea brought that feeling of having just spent two weeks reading every Redwall or Lord of the Rings or Ender’s Game book and no longer being able to discern reality from fiction. And for that blissful literary hangover, it was the best book I read in 2019.

The Starless Sea is about Zachary Ezra Rawlins, a video game design graduate student, who comes across an old, unmarked book in his school library. In that book, he comes across a story that impossibly contains a moment from his past, and the book proceeds to unravel that mystery. However, this plot summary is misleading in its linearity; The Starless Sea is structured as books within a book, chapters will switch from the story of Zachary to the story Zachary is reading to maybe a different story altogether. And in this way, it unfolds as a puzzle box, or maybe as nesting dolls, or maybe a Mobius strip (or maybe all three), where figuring out exactly what stories are being told only adds to the experience. 

You won’t find a review of this book that doesn’t call Erin Morgenstern’s writing beautiful or atmospheric or dreamlike, which is appropriate because Erin Morgenstern’s writing is beautiful and atmospheric and dreamlike. Between the whimsical descriptive flourishes and the outward spiraling fantastical plot, the book is always on the verge of floating away or spinning out. But Zachary Ezra Rawlins grounds the story; he’s real and genuine and good, and never have I rooted more for a character. He believes in the power of a great story, and that’s ultimately what this book is about: the ways in which a story can sweep you away. And, truly, The Starless Sea just washed over me, lifted me up, and swept me away.