Review: Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

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A tough read but one I can recommend. I almost DNFed it but came to my senses and realized what the author was saying.

This Is the sort of horror I prefer, i.e. where horror is used to frame social, personal, and political issues. Ring Shout, of which I will post a review later also does this well.

This is the story of a half-white American born Chinese woman living in New York City during the covid pandemic and having to deal with the suspicion and hostility toward Asians as if they are responsible for and carriers of the “Chinese disease”. She witnesses the horrific murder of her sister on a NY subway platform by a masked man who utters the words “bat eater” before shoving her in front of a train.

Bat Eater is a layered horror story; the horrors take several forms. She is a crime scene cleaner dealing with the gross, messy aftermath of murders which would be a horror to most of us. She observes that Asian women have been all the victims lately and bats found around the crime scene. Is there a racially motivated serial killer at work in the city? The authorities don’t seem to pick up on it.

Horror takes another form in the month-long Hungry Ghost Festival which takes place during the course of the story. During the festival, rituals are performed to placate wrathful ghosts. This includes feeding the ravenously hungry ghosts. Here, a cultural celebration becomes an actual threat to Vera’s life and sanity. It is fascinating the way the author weaves this traditional, important cultural celebration into the story.

The bigger horror is what Cora faces in herself. She lives between worlds, Asian and white, and doesn’t fit into either. She’s desperately lonely, has no real friends, and is almost debilitatingly fearful. The author makes Cora’s pain, trauma, and fear real as she faces racial hatred toward Asians which a serial killer may be acting upon and the hungry ghosts.

It’s difficult to describe how Cora’s first person narrative pulled me into her state of mind and created real empathy for Cora.

Review:Kobo Sage Review

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Rating: A

I’ve had my Kobo Sage for 100 days and read 20 books: books purchased from Kobo, books downloaded from a library via Overdrive, books downloaded from a library and sideloaded, and a book purchased from Google and sideloaded. I also have the stylus and PowerCover. I chose the Sage because I don’t need color.

TLDR: I enjoy the reading experience on the Sage and don’t miss my Kindle Oasis.

MINOR CONS

• It sometimes gets stuck in Sleep or Power Off mode requiring a hard restart but not often

• You need to make sure the device is powered off when you are done reading for a while or the battery will drain, especially overnight. I recommend the “Automatically Power Off After:” settings.

• It’s too heavy to comfortably read one-handed with the PowerCover.

• Only 1 library can be setup in the Sage’s Overdrive settings

• Overdrive options at your library are limited. You can see Holds but not your library Wish List. Also, the Sage gives me a network error when trying to view New eBooks. Maybe it’s a memory limitation.

Pros

• I like the 8”screen which makes it suitable to use horizontally.

• It has forward and back buttons. It comes with the Back button on top and forward on bottom but this can be switched if desired.

• As long as I make sure the Sage is powered off when not in use, I can go several days without charging.

• It doesn’t have the same range of font faces as my Kindle Oasis but I didn't have trouble finding one I like (Kobo UD Kakugo).

• It has a nice selection of options for reading: font face, font size, line spacing, margins, and justification. You can also select a header and footer. I have mine set for a page in chapter header and page in book footer.

• When you connect the Sage to a computer via USB-C you  have the option to Connect the Sage as a device which is important for sideloading

• You can download a library book directly to the Sage via Overdrivw.

•  I have access to 2 libraries but can only set up one. I download the ebook from the library and sideload it via Adobe Digital Editions. I register the Sage within ADE and it shows up as a device. I also do this with non-Kobo books I have purchased. Easy peasy and it takes less than a minute.

• For epubs without DRM, I download and put in Calibre where tthe Sage will be recognized as a device. Even more easy peasy.

• The stylus works well with the Sage both for annotating a book and writing in a notebook.

• The Sage has Bluetooth, web browser, DropBox and Google Drive options but I haven’t tried yet.

Review: Ring Shout by P Djèlí Clark

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Ring Shout is horror mixed with magical realism and historical events. To me, it’s a perfect horror story: it uses horror to frame something bigger. It’s set in 1922 in Macon, Georgia and follows Black female monster hunters as they confront the evil and horror of racial hatred embodied in the KKK. They face the everyday racism of the Klan but fight what they call Ku Kluxes, demons from another dimension who feed off hatred.Only some people can see the demons for what they are. These demon Ku Kluxes were responsible for the Tulsa race massacre in 1921, a real event. In this world, D. W. Griffith’s 1915 film, the Birth of a Nation, carries a magic that expands its influence over the second rise of the KKK. In our world it was used as Klan propaganda.

Several things come together to make it a perfect horror:

The characters — the women in this story are fully realized, three dimensional characters with both strength and flaws. They show courage, heroism, self-sacrifice and strong bonds of friendship. There isn’t one I wouldn’t want to know.

Emotions — Ring Shout engenders heightened emotions as the women battle evil and face loss and defeat. There are others to affect the reader: the sensual atmosphere in a night club and the ecstatic power of music in the religious ring shout dance.

Language — the language used isn’t forced but a natural part of the characters. Spoken Gullah and Gullah culture are also used effectively.

Story — This isn’t a long book(192 pages) and I read it in one sitting but from the strong opening chapter through to the end it has a flowing narrative that pulled me into the story. The way it blends fact and fiction contributes significantly to the story.

Horror — There is intense visceral gore so beware but it is necessary to the story and well written

Clark is a terrific writer. If you can handle some gore I recommend this book for its story telling and the story it tells and the characters in the story.

Review: Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

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This is billed as a romantic comedy which is way outside my usual reading but it’s much more than that. It follows the life of Nina Dean, a single woman in her 30s living in North London and published author. The story is described on Goodreads and Amazon so I’m going to focus on how I feel about the book.

It is very funny with that dry, wry, cynical observational humor often found in British novels. For example:” …and happy that big arses had come back in fashion. So much so that I had observed with pride that we now occupied more than two categories on any given porn streaming platform.” Her observations on navigating a dating app are a hoot. She finds humor in even the most mundane things in everyday life.

I found it sad and poignant within the humor.There is Nina’s loneliness at being single in a world where everyone is married with children. She wants to be in a relationship and thinks she’s found it in Max. She and Lola, the only other single woman in her friend group, often find themselves several bottles deep into wondering where their lives have gone. Much of this book will/should make male readers uncomfortable but I saw it as a glimpse into another world and giving some understanding of that world. We see the strength of female friendship.

One aspect hit especially close to home for me. Nina’s father has Alzheimer's and the author really captures the pain of watching a loved one slipping away, the man he was disappearing as she watches.I went through that myself and I appreciate how the author is able to bring out the rawness of the experience,

As for the title, there are a couple of ways it relates to the story. You’ll see.

Ghosts is a remarkable five star read for me and not what I was expecting in a “romantic comedy”. Highly recommended.

Trigger warning for misogynists and incels: they will hate this book and rant about it on subreddits.

For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll

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IFor He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll

I tend to review dark books but now I want to recommend this short (54 pages on Kobo) 5 star fantasy where the main characters are cats. This isn't a cozy, the stakes are much higher, it’s a battle of good vs evil. It is only available as an ebook as of this date. And is not that  cover fantastic.

In 1757, the poet Christopher Smart was confined in St. Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics and he was accompanied by his cat Jeoffry. Smart was a real 18th Century poet, who was sent to a lunatic asylum, and had a cat named Jeoffry. The rest is fantasy…perhaps.

Smart led a dwild early life and Satan helped him out. Now the devil has come to collect: Smart is to write a poem that will bring about armageddon. The great Jeoffry, ruler of the asylum, a  warrior cat who fights  the imps that torture the inmates, has no intention of letting Satan interfer with his human. After losing a fierce, bloody battle with Satan, Jeoffry asks Black Tom, Polly, and Nighthunter Moppet to help him save his human.

For He Can Creep is funny, heroic, and poignant. It is a story of loyalty and courage, taking a stand against evil. NO cats die in case you were worrying. Carroll wonderfully describes the smug, superior attitude of the great Jeoffry. In the poem “For I will consider my cat Jeoffry”, Smart describes Jeoffry and Carroll brings the poem to vibrant life to create this fantasy:

From the poem:

For he keeps the lord’s watch in the night against the adversary

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electric skin and glaring eyes

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

Booktuber @ChanelChapters reviewed this book, on her YT channel and, like her, “I would follow Jeoffry into a battle, into a sunbeam, into hell itself.” Look for the “haunted housewives & heroic cats” post on her channel. Here's a link — haunted housewives & heroic cats | short books reading vlog | all under 200pgs

I’m sure even non-cat people will admire Jeoffry but as a cat person I was like “hell yeah Jeoffry I want a cat like you looking after me”. I recommend reading Smart’s poem, he really knows his cat.