Two recent books: Both good, very different!

It's been another low-reading (by my standards) month so far in March, and not likely to pick up a lot of pace, although I do have some hopes for the next two weekends, which are uncharacteristically free of too many commitments.

However, I have got through three new-to-me books, one of which (although I enjoyed it) doesn't really warrant a review, but the other two, I think, do. One is a literary fic with a central theme of disability, and the other is a Lovecraftian-coded horror dystopia SFF, so extremely not the same kind of book (and I would recommend them for very divergent audiences!), but I enjoyed both of them.

This is the story of two Hong Kong sisters - Marlowe, 27, who is a graduate student of entomology in England where she lives with her boyfriend Olly, and Harper, 20, who has Down Syndrome and lives in Hong Kong with the sisters' English father and Chinese grandmother, working part time in a library and enjoying her relationship with her boyfriend Louis (who also lives with Down Syndrome).

Harper, who has a serious heart defect, has reached the point where it's heart-lung transplant or death for her, which brings us to the inciting incident of the story - Harper is denied a spot on the transplant list, and her family are told to make her comfortable while she awaits her passing. Marlowe, returning from England at this time of crisis, is appalled, and goes to dangerous lengths to try to intervene.

There were many things I loved about this book. The use of language is absolutely stunning - the book frequently sings, which is something I really appreciate in all fiction. Harper and Louis are wonderful characters, and I loved how Bent gives Harper her full humanity, and considerable emotional and intellectual complexity, without trying to elide or write around her Down Syndrome or its impacts. Before I looked up any background information at all, I surmised that Bent probably has or had a sibling with an intellectual disability (she has an older sister with Down Syndrome and other conditions) - being such myself, I recognise some of the emotional beats very viscerally.

I also enjoyed some of the framing characters - the girls' Dad, grandmother, cousin, dead mother, and "stepmonster" are all complex in ways that aren't immediately apparent but become increasingly clear as the story progresses. The descriptions of food and culture are great, and the overall story arc works.

However.

My biggest two issues with the book, and the reason I've pulled back from giving it a super high score, are the level of emotional manipulation it employs (it gets quite heavy-handed at times), and the character Marlowe.

I just didn't get Marlowe at all and found her frustratingly inconsistent in her voice, her actions, and her motivations. She often "speaks" in a considerably less nuanced and alert voice than Harper does - the younger sister has much more emotional maturity and rationality, while keeping a sweetness and a verve that Marlowe entirely lacks. I did recognise some of the glass sibling behaviours for what they were, but even in that context, I still thought Marlowe was a poorly drawn character who let the book down.

So, even though this reads beautifully and I fell in love with Harper and Louis, I'm going to give this one 7/10. I think most general readers would like it, just be prepared for a few stomach punches when Bent turns the screw with the emotional battery.

This book is a wild ride, in the best possible way. It's dystopian, speculative, thinky, but also very action-oriented. It's eerie and creepy and, as soon as you start thinking about it for more than two minutes, horrifying. I don't think it *quite* stuck its landing, which is why I've pulled back from the top of my scoring, but I still really liked it and was chilled by it in the way that only mind-based horror can do for me (very visceral body-based horror just makes me feel sick rather than scared).

The premise is: What if there are entities - whether earth-evolved or from elsewhere - who have the ability to eat memories and implant or force malignant ideas (memes) into human brains? What if some of them are benign or indifferent and simply using their anti-mimetics to hide and be left alone, but others ... are very much not? How could humans resist such entities, and what would the world look like if we didn't or couldn't?

The hero of the story is Marie Quinn, head of the anti-memetics division of a mysterious agency responsible for the investigation and management of weird phenomena. I love Marie, not least because she is a woman in her 50s who is up for no bullshit from anyone or any entity, and she is the only person with the combined courage and intelligence to defeat the Final Boss (although the way that has to happen is very sad). 

In terms of tone and type, this book is basically what would happen if Archive 81, Daniel O'Malley's Checquy novels, The Laundry Files, The Magnus Archives, and HP Lovecraft were thrown into a blender together with a better female lead than any of them. It's creepy, it's chilling, its real-world parallelism is discernible but not laid on too thick (yes, evil ideas spread, folks, and they kill every bit as certainly as bombs in the long run). I listened to the audiobook and I really recommend that option if you have it - the narrator has a great voice for the story, and the added sound effects really enhance the impact.

I wasn't totally satisfied with the ending - I found it a little abrupt and incomplete - which is the only reason I haven't gone quite to the top for this one. Still, it deserves 8.5/10 even with the less than stunning end, because it was an immersive trip that I am still thinking about and will be for a while.