I don't know what it is with Ursula Le Guin, but every one of her books, whatever the rate I end up giving the whole, have at least one instance where she emotionally wreaks me, and it's always exquisite. It's like looking at the page and feel like telling her "Damn, that's one beautiful dagger you are stabbing me with"*

I feel like pointing it out just because in this case, since it happens to clear my 3stars Le Guin base bar with ease to nestle by World is Forest, Forgiveness, and Left Hand. Maybe even like a caveat. Just so I can qualify that I'm biased and it's all emotionally stabbed city here.

And what stabs ME particularly, beyond the punctual sad, is the theme. While at first sight the theme seems to be religion and spirituality vs technologic advance or consumerism, what it's actually about is culture and all the infinite components that make it, and all the ways introducing an outsider element, even with the best intentions, can fuck it up enough for it to devour itself, or at least severely up-heave and endanger, what it's about is balance, and fanaticism, and dogmatic corruption. The Telling is the passing of cultural information. In it's basis, it's words, stories, oral and written, and funnily enough, when it comes down to it, science and religion are part of it, right along with dances, meals, music, rites, customs, history.

That is my interpretation for this book. As a person that loves books, and myths, and folklore, that seats to watch movies and series as a bonding activity with my family, that cleans while blasting music, that was taught religion formally even if never practiced, that learnt my regional dances from my grandmother and uncles, to cook from my grandfather, to love reading from my mother, and science from my father, this is like a love letter received, and like a verbalization of all that strange juggling or balancing act one does inside with all the pieces that make home/root/culture and seem incongruous, or even like they'd require alternate suspense of disbelief and double-though. Culture is a mess, and it's incongruous, and unfathomably vast, and it's made of big and little pieces that sometimes contradict, and it does never really make sense. But it's the ground you stand upon; to try to erase it is to loose your step. And its life-blood is the word.


*(and if you get internet in heaven, I hope you get this... from my catholic raised, agnostic leaning towards atheism ass... which is a bad joke that only makes sense in theme)

I write this review as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team (authors, if you are looking for reviews, check here), and I freely chose to review an ARC copy of this novel. It came highly recommended, and it’s one of those books that I’m sure won’t leave anybody indifferent.

This is not a book heavy on plot. It is a novel narrated in the first person by a would-be writer stuck in writers’ block and seemingly unable to unleash the immense and unique talent for literature he believes he has. He uses all the tried and tested methods most readers will be familiar with (drinking heavily, navel-gazing, taking drugs, isolating himself, constantly trying to call the muses…) and some pretty unique ones (he is obsessed with submarines, and a particular Russian submarine disaster; he is also interested in air disasters; he has a penchant for peculiar interior decorating and a unique sense of fashion; he loves his fish and model-making [submarine again]). He adopts a variety of names and identities throughout the book, and seems intent on outraging and destroying things around him in frustration for not being able to create something, although when he dreams of literary fame, it isn’t what most people would think a writer would dream about.

Rather than helping, everything he tries seems to send him down a slippery slope of self-destruction (and a fair deal of vandalism and petty crime as well), and as readers, we are privileged witnesses of this journey towards… Well, if you read it you can decide by yourselves.

Although Bukowski has been mentioned in several reviews, the main character made me think of several books and authors I’ve read as well, some quite recently. He did remind me of the main character in Malibu Motel, who is so self-involved and unrealistic that he keeps digging holes for himself. Inkker (to give him one of his adopted names) has more insight (even if fleeting), and there is something more genuine about him, although he keeps it under wraps and well hidden. It also reminded me of Eileen and other protagonists of Ottessa Moshfegh’s work, but her characters are more extreme and even though less likeable, we normally get more of a background and a better understanding of where they are coming from. And, the way Inkker’s angry simmers and boils until it explodes in outrage, reminded me of a fantastic essay I read many years back by John Waters (the film director) called ‘101 Things I Hate’ published in his collection Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters. What starts like a list of annoying things Waters is sharing with us, gets more and more outrageous as he gets more and more irate, and you can hear him shouting at you from the page by the end. It’s impossible not to nod and agree at many of the items on the list, but there is something at the same time darkly funny and scary in the way his emotions run so raw and close to the surface.

The book is beautifully observed and written, although, of course, it being in the first-person and the narrator a pretty unreliable one, we have to take all his comments and his opinions with a huge pinch of salt, and that goes for his depiction of other characters (and there are a few: an indie writer —of all things— and his girlfriend, an elderly neighbour, the guests at a disastrous dinner party, the locals at a pub, a couple of women, one he had a one-night-stand with and one he goes on a date with…). As you might suspect from the description, he is not particularly skilled in the social graces either and that results in some scenes that feel like watching a train wreck. It’s impossible to look away even when you know it’s going to get ugly, and I’m sure some of them will remain imprinted in the minds of readers for a long time.

Rum Hijack, which was first published in two separate parts, is darkly comedic (his quips at most writers, especially at self-published ones, will be ‘appreciated’ by those in the profession although perhaps not so much by readers not familiar with Twitter or with indie authors’ marketing techniques), and although in the face of it there is nothing particularly endearing about the protagonist, there is such vulnerability, such contradictions (he is reckless but careful, anarchic but worried about getting caught, a self-proclaimed outsider but eager to be admired and loved),  such need, and such self-loathing behind many of his actions that it’s impossible not to keep reading about his adventures and hope that things might take a turn for the better.

This is not a book for readers eager for adventure and action, who love a complex plot and consistent characters. It is not for those who dislike first-person narrations or prefer clean, edifying and inspiring plots and messages. If you enjoy literary fiction, books about writing (or writers’ block), are eager to find new voices, and love your humour very dark, check a sample of this book. You will either love it or hate it (yes, it’s a marmite kind of book). It’s up to you.

Oh, as a clarification to readers here on Booklikes, my review refers to the whole novel, not only to part one. It's called Rum Hijack, and I couldn't find it here.

Content warnings for this book: suicide, child abuse and neglect, multiple deaths due to cancer.

In the late 1960s, the Namiya General Store became known for its particular gimmick: the owner would write serious replies to any letters asking for advice, even those that were clearly intended to be pranks. People would slide their letters through the store's mail slot after it closed for the night, and in the morning they'd find a response in the store's milk crate. This continued for about a decade, until the owner was no longer able to run the store.

In the book's present (probably about the same time it was published, 2012), three delinquents named Shota, Kohei, and Atsuya have completed their first big theft and need a place to hide out until morning. The hideout they select is the abandoned Namiya General Store. A short while after they arrive, someone drops a letter into the store's mail slot. Scared that they've been found out, but also curious, they open the letter. It's written by someone going by the name "Moon Rabbit," a female athlete who's faced with a serious dilemma. Her boyfriend is dying of cancer and she wants to be by his side, but both she and her boyfriend also want her to qualify for the Olympics. She can't train at the level and amount required and also be by his side, and she wants to know what she should do.

The three guys quickly find themselves emotionally invested in the letter writer's problems, but as they attempt to help her, and the other letter writers after her, they realize that there's something odd going on at the Namiya General Store. Somehow the letters coming through the mail slot are arriving from decades in the past.

If I hadn't already known it, I would never have guessed that this book was written by the same author who wrote the Detective Galileo mysteries. The tone and genre were so completely different. By the end, though, I suppose I could see some similarities between The Miracles of the Namiya General Store and, say, The Devotion of Suspect X. Both novels eventually took a bunch of little details and tied them all together into one intricate whole.

Initially, it seemed like this book would be a series of stories connected only by the Namiya General Store and the three delinquents. They'd get a new letter asking for advice, do their best to answer, and so on, until they finally left the store in the morning.

And it sort of was like that, at first. The first chapter dealt with the female athlete whose boyfriend was dying. The second chapter took place entirely in the past, focusing on the letter writer, a young man trying to decide between taking over his family's fish shop and pursuing his dream of becoming a famous musician, rather than on the three delinquents. The third chapter went deeper into the past, when the owner of the Namiya General Store was still alive and answering letters. The fourth chapter followed the structure established in the second chapter and focused on one of the letter writers, a young man who'd written the Namiya General Store's first serious request for advice.

It's around Chapter 4, but definitely Chapter 5, that Higashino starts tying things together. The characters in this book were much more interconnected than was immediately apparent. The interconnectedness of everything got to be a bit much for me, and aspects of the story became incredibly sappy. Like, "angels watching over us" kind of sappy, only not so religious.

I don't know how I feel about how certain things worked out. Both Mr. Namiya and the delinquents eventually realized that they weren't necessarily giving the letter writers answers but rather helping them feel better about the choices they were going to make regardless. The one part that made me unhappy was the end of Chapter 4, the things he discovered, and the conclusions that the author seemed to be nudging the readers towards. It looked as though the author believed that the letter writer, a teenager at the time, had been faced with two choices, a right one and a wrong one, and had made the wrong choice. However, I'm not sure that any choice could have been the right one in that situation. He had been at the mercy of his parents' decisions.

As far as emotionally manipulative books go, this wasn't bad, but I've read better. I found myself repeatedly thinking of A Man Called Ove - similar efforts to draw you into characters' lives and make you cry about them, although the stories and character types were completely different.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

This was a fun read. Maisa had a habit of speeding when she's driving through Coot Lake MN to visit her uncle. Sam is the one who always pulls her over. This worked because Sam and Maisa had a bit of a prior relationship before the book started. This doesn't rate higher because there were a few continuity errors, Maisa takes some time to warm up to (and she had a TSTL moment). The secondary characters were hilarious too.
I read this for Romance-opoly Lady Lane moon track square.

Do I dare call this full of symbolism, and therefore feel the need to scratch under the surface of these tales? Then again, is there any fairy tale worth it's salt that is not so.

Lets start saying that the way this is written is incredibly sensual. I was surprised because I was sure the first tale (The Bloddy Chamber), would turn up into a hardcore purple prose BDSM. It does not become explicit, but the erotic charge and the tug of war between desire for freedom and sexual or base hungers, innocence and a curiousity for corruption, is heavy and all encompassing on that one and several others in this collection (The Tiger's Bride, The Erl-king).

Puss in Boots was hilarious in all it's terribleness. Not one character in it can be called good, our narrator least of all, and yet. Lots of laughing OMG, no!

The Snow Child was... How do you pack it that fast? It takes infinitely more to unpack.

All of them are incredibly evocative. Also disturbing. Oh, and they screw with your mind with the POVs and tenses too.

I'm a still quite discombobulated by much of this, and I'm pretty certain I don't get even most  of what this is conveying, but frankly, at some point I started researching some fairy-tale stuff for background, and found out there are whole freaking books essaying on the meanings of this collection, so I reckon I'm good enough just keeping it floating on the back-burners of my mind.