Rutabaga's Reads 2022: Part 18

An unusual achievement for me, here is the second adult fiction compilation post for 2022!

A Spindle Splintered (Oct. 5, 2021) by Alix E. Harrow.

*This is the first novella in a series.*

It isn’t the spindle of a spinning wheel that will be Zinnia Gray’s downfall, but industrial pollution. Zinnia has Generalized Roseville Malady, and no person diagnosed has lived to turn 22 years old; Zinnia has just turned 21. It’s her last birthday, and her best friend, Charm (Charmaine Baldwin, “best/only friend”), has pulled out all the stops for Zin’s last birthday. It’s sleeping-beauty-themed (Zin’s a bit of an expert), complete with a tower (of the old state penitentiary), a plastic princess crown and a spinning wheel. When Charm dares her to prick her finger on the spinning wheel, she does – of course she does – but something happens. Someone calls out, “Help.” And Zinnia answers that call. It turns out sleeping beauties do exist, but their stories are not necessarily the stories one’s familiar with. Bits and pieces, yes, but not the entire narrative. In helping another sleeping beauty, will Zinnia be able to alter – or escape – her fate?

            If you’re looking for a fractured fairy tale, consider picking this one up. If you’re looking for a Disney-esque fairy tale, keep looking. “A Spindle Splintered” is the first in the Fractured Fables series. A feminist story that’s acerbic but sometimes sweet, subversive but still charming in a dark, twisted way, and entertaining despite its sometimes one-dimensional feel. (I think its one-dimensional feel came from its novella size, as opposed to a full-length novel where the author could better flesh characters out, especially supporting ones). It’s a story of sisterhood and stubbornness, imagination and fracture. It’s got a queer romance-in-the-making. It is a story gone rogue that still manages to be magical.

The God of Lost Words (Nov. 2, 2021) by A.J. Hackwith.

*This is the final novel in a trilogy.*

*Spoilers included if you haven’t read the previous books in the series.*

The Library of the Unwritten is in trouble. Malphas, general of Hell and the “Grandmother of Ghosts,” is a chief demon in Lucifer’s absence. Although Hell does not govern the Unwritten and Arcane Wings of Hell’s Library, Malphas has learned that the stories are souls. She will do whatever she can, through force and cunning, to harness those souls and gain more power. If that happens, it would mean obliteration for the Library. Arcanist and former Librarian Claire, Librarian and former muse Brevity, rakish Hero and the angel-Watcher Ramiel (Rami) will have to band together to outwit Hell and start a revolution. They will traverse the libraries of other realms to try to gain allies, but the effort seems futile. The Unwritten Wing’s Librarians’ log tends to hide entries until they are needed. That is how Claire discovers the entries of Poppaea Julia. She once rebelled against Hell and almost succeeded. Claire is on the lookout for “a realm, a guide, a library, a god.” That is what will purportedly keep them safe from Hell’s grasp forever. They’ve got to write the Library a new chapter.

            The concluding novel in an inventive trilogy, the fast-paced plot, intriguing world-building and the ​standout characters coalesce into a story that journeys to a hopeful yet bittersweet end. Hackwith’s writing is striking, the prose often thoughtful and deep, but inserts cheekiness as well. The action is both colorful and dark with plenty of emotion. There is queer representation, but what’s most poignant about all the characters, be they fallen, of an unwritten story, once a muse or once a living, breathing human, is that they are complex characters with wants and fears, brave fronts and self doubts, making them feel real to the readers. Though it may sound strange to say about a series titled Hell’s Library, this saga has been a delight to read. What a journey!

            Book One: The Library of the Unwritten

            Book Two: The Archive of the Forgotten​

            Favorite lines: “But that’s what stories did. Let enough impossible things pass through you and they gain a kind of reality. Stories grant the impossible emotional gravity, create new orbits – and your mental universe expands.” (p. 239)

Pachinko (Feb. 7, 2017) by Min Jin Lee.

*This is a standalone novel.*

“A woman’s lot is to suffer.” Kim Sunja is no stranger to this when her father dies when she’s 13, and she takes on more responsibility in helping her mom manage and take care of a boardinghouse. As a teenager in the early 1930s in Yeongdo, Sunja becomes pregnant with a married man’s child, and she refuses to be his mistress. Baek Isak, a kindhearted but frail minister, feels called to marry Sunja if she’ll have him and will give their child a name, though the baby isn’t his by blood. They marry and immigrate to Osaka, Japan, where Isak’s brother and sister-in-law live (Yoseb and Kyunghee). Sunja’s son, Noa (inspired by the Bible’s Noah), is her world, and later, so is Mozasu (inspired by Moses), her son with Isak. But life in Osaka is not easy. It is difficult for Koreans in Japan to find work, as it seems impossible to any of them that they could become Japanese citizens, so even with Noa and Mozasu being born in Japan, they are treated like foreigners or worse, like scum. The boys grow up and go different directions, having families of their own, and their dynamics are so different from each other. The story goes through 1989, when Sunja is in her 70s. Through these decades, never completely out of the picture is Noa’s birth father, Koh Hansu, who married into the second most powerful yakuza (gangster) family in Kansai (a region of Japan, which includes Osaka and Kyoto).

            As a National Book Award Finalist, I expected this book to be impressive, and it is. It is amazingly well-written, but the story is replete with hardship. It isn’t only about hardship and suffering with nothing else to go on, but hardship and love, suffering and family, sacrifice and ambition. From the dusty streets of the poor in Ikaino (the ghetto where the Koreans in Osaka live) to the pachinko parlors of the gambling-obsessed and from Korea to Japan to one character’s stint in New York for school, “Pachinko” is a multifaceted story filled with strong women, devoted families, moral crises, survival and anguish, even as the characters rise to thrive. It makes a reader think about history in a way that’s harsh but exquisite. It is haunting and brilliantly presented. Those who love Korea should read this, as should those who know nothing about Korea outside of K-dramas, K-pop, kimchi, Hyundai and Samsung, because, wow, this book has soul.