The Animators struck a deep chord with me on two levels: as an artist and as best friend to a fellow artist. If you are either, you'll likely love this novel as I did.

Funny and engaging from the first page, The Animators starts with our narrator, Sharon, in college, where she meets the charismatic Mel Vaught. Both are aspiring animators who are into the same shit and share an aesthetic; both come from poor, rural southern U.S. backgrounds. Many of us in the arts could identify that time when we learn we're not actually outsiders, that others share our interests; college tends to be a place where we find our tribe.

But this is not a novel about being a college arts student. The narrative quickly brings us to a present where Sharon and Mel have made a successful indie animated feature that centers on Mel's life. They live together in New York City. Mel drinks and does a lot of drugs; she's the life of the party. Sharon...is not. She spends a lot of time and emotions angsting over her latest romantic interest, of which there are many.

Tension develops between the two, much of it, from Sharon's perspective, owing to Mel's lifestyle. There's a blowout, followed by a shocking, life-altering health crisis for one of them. It's a reset that leads them on a path to mining Sharon's childhood for their next project. This raises very real questions artists face about using their lives in their art in ways that may hurt loved ones. I wasn't quite satisfied by the resolution to this issue, but I appreciated its being seriously considered.

This book excels at depicting partnerships between women, their working lives as artists, and craft. The prose is engaging, the characters vivid, and there are some heartbreaking and harrowing moments. Even if you're not an artist or friends with one, I can't imagine Whitaker's (first!) novel not winning you over from page one.

The Night Guest opens with elderly Ruth fearing she can hear and smell a tiger in her house--in Australia. One of the great pleasures of this book is its unreliable narrator, unreliable not because she's deceptive but because her mind isn't what it used to be and may be getting worse. Yet the phantom of the tiger presages what may be a real danger: the arrival of a woman named Frida who claims to be a government carer. Is she, or is she fleecing Ruth?

Ruth's narration leaves just enough room for the reader to come to their own conclusions about her and Frida. Some things are left diaphanous, but not so hazy as to cause confusion. On top of that, the prose is terrific: distinctive but not overbearingly poetic. McFarlane capture fine states of feeling or consciousness with her language and imagery. I really delighted in reading it.

Not so delightful is the nature of what's going on, or even the suspicion of it. My grandmother, who died a few years ago, suffered from dementia. She had an excellent aide, but my parents eventually had to put her in a nursing home close to where they live. Even the best of those places upset me, and it was hard for me to see my grandmother--the smartest person in my family--lose herself. This recent experience made it difficult to continue at times.

I also found myself thinking about Frida's race and physicality--she's a brown-skinned and heavyset woman. Ruth is tiny and was fair-haired. What's being said about Frida and race? I searched reviews and finally found one that addresses the issue by referencing the author's own explanation (in the Sydney Review of Books, here). This explanation satisfied me, though I'm still wondering about Frida's size.

Finally, it was lovely to see a bit of romance between Ruth and her almost-love from the past, who's even older than she is. A delicately handled rarity in literary fiction.

For lovers of Virginia Woolf, but also those interested in writing itself, as well as history (Woolf details the approach and beginning of World War II, including the bombing of her home in London). This "writer's diary," edited by husband and first reader, Leonard Woolf, comprises those entries where Woolf discusses her writing and reading as well as encounters with literary acquaintances.

There is a pattern to her writing process whereby she's excited about a new idea (which sometimes comes while she's working on another project) and rides a sort of high until she completes it. This is followed by depression and ambivalent feelings about reviews. Some books come easier than others, but the overall pattern remains the same. Every one feels like it might be a failure or badly reviewed, and she attempts to convince herself she doesn't care. The ups and downs in her mood suggest bipolar disorder, which contemporary psychologists believe afflicted her. Knowing her fate (she drowned herself not long after the last entry of this diary) made reading portions very sad.

On the other hand, Woolf felt she had just begun to know her own mind in her 40s, which gives me hope! Elements of her process and the way one negative review overrode all the positive responses created a sense of affinity for me as a writer. Woolf changed literature, and I'm glad she kept such a diary.

What an absolute riot this book was--when it wasn't breaking my heart.

If you've ever been a fan of anything (especially a teen girl fan) and participated in fandom, you will recognize these characters and some of their behavior. The lingo, the friendships borne of obsessing over the same band/show/books/whatever, the fanfic, the love-hate relationship between you and the object of your fannish devotion--Moldavsky captures it all in prose that made me laugh hard at least once a page.

The book is comic but blackly so. The protagonist (who goes unnamed, though she tells those who ask a variety of names from 80s movies) and her three fellow fans, including her pretty and popular best friend, "accidentally" kidnap the least popular member of fictional British boy band The Ruperts (all named, you guessed it, Rupert). Things quickly spiral out of control, and the protagonist, who's "the sensible one," struggles to get a grip on the situation and defy her friends, about whom she realizes some unsettling things. That's where the heartbreak comes in. She has recently lost her father, and her Ruperts obsession has clearly become her lifeline. By the end of the book she's doubting her own sanity.

The author represents fandom lovingly and fairly, including its downsides: using fandom as a crutch, feeding on fame as a fan rather than the object of your devotion, fandom's temporality--some day you won't care or will be embarrassed. As a fan myself, I can't say I was ever offended; I enjoyed the accurate portrayal and the nuances of fan interactions and feelings that the author captures so well. I love that she doesn't define every bit of fannish jargon (e.g. "stans/stanning"), though it's always clear from context. I love that each girl has her favorite Rupert and role as a fan in a group of fannish friends (the leader, the one with connections, the one with money and access), and that The Ruperts feel like a fully realized band and fandom, complete with a secretly gay member who's dating a girl as a beard. Social media plays a central role, but it's not overdone.

This book is fun and demented and worth a read even if you don't think of yourself as particularly fannish. Best of all, it doesn't put the girls down for being fans.

If nothing else, you will laugh hysterically at what's in Apple's suitcase...

I bought this book shortly after it came out but moved it up the queue when I learned it's being made into a TV series helmed by Marti Noxon (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and UnREAL fame); having read it now, I'm excited for the show. Here's a synopsis of the book from the Entertainment Weekly article announcing the series:

Dietland follows 300-pound Plum Kettle, who is saving money for gastric bypass surgery. She thinks her real life will begin once she’s finally thin, but her plans are disrupted by an underground feminist collective who take it upon themselves to show Plum the error of her thinking. At the same time, a guerrilla feminist group known to the public as “Jennifer” is wreaking havoc on the male-dominated world, kidnapping rapists and dropping them from planes, and blackmailing the CEOs of sexist newspapers.

I'll keep this spoiler-free because Dietland functions partially as a mystery--who is "Jennifer" and why is/are she/they doing this? The story is Plum's, but alongside hers, and ultimately connected to it, the feminist extremists' actions, and the media and public's ensuing reactions, are interwoven in their own brief sections, in a different font. It creates a context for Plum's struggles, as well as those of the girls who write in to the teen magazine where Plum works. It also serves as a contrast between what the feminist "terrorists" are doing and what the collective at Calliope House undertakes together and as individuals. There's no easy "this is right, this is wrong" morality being touted, though the women at Calliope House certainly don't endorse "Jennifer's" violent tactics. These two strands of the book are skillfully braided throughout.

Uniqueness and novelty are qualities I admire in books, and I can say I've never read anything quite like Dietland. At moments I felt an odd double-reaction where I'd both laugh and be horrified. In part this reminds me of how I react to shocking or extremely violent moments in movies (though the book isn't extremely violent; however, it is true to life in its depiction of violence against women). But it's also due to Walker's excellent prose; I highlighted many passages of the book not just for content, but for language. Some examples:

It seemed there was no part of the American landscape that was not soggy with the tears of so many girls.

 

...so I went to the ladies' room [at media empire Austen Tower], winding my way through the corridors lined with the huge magazine covers--the models, with their glazed-over looks, like the heads hanging on a hunter's wall.

 

I expected the women [actresses] to radiate light like they did on the screen, where a tiny movement--the brush of lashes against a cheek--was exquisite and beautiful, a raven batting its wing. In person they were ghostlike, their normally bold features faint, as if their likenesses had been reproduced so many times that they were becoming faded.

I say the novel is fresh, though it clearly and meaningfully uses Alice in Wonderland, a much-loved animating narrative, for structure, theme, and characterization. Plum's legal name is Alicia, and one can see Leeta, the girl who gets Plum started on her journey, as the White Rabbit (or Cheshire Cat? now that I'm thinking about it...with her colorful tights). Kitty, the editor at teen magazine Daisy Chain, with her red hair, could be the Queen of Hearts. But the use of Alice isn't slavish or overbearing; these characters and story live and breathe on their own.

In the acknowledgements, Walker tips her hat to second-wave feminism, and this is evident in the book's treatment of makeup and porn. The critiques it makes are necessary and warranted, but to this no-wave feminist who's engaged in Porn Studies (yes, that's a thing) and whose brother criticized her for wearing makeup (which can be just as shaming as telling a woman to wear it), there's more nuance to be had. This isn't a criticism, more like food for thought as I read.

Dietland will make you angry in its accurate depiction of contemporary misogynist and fat-shaming American (and a bit of British) culture, but it also offers an antidote with its humor, cast of women, and Plum's hopeful journey. Just from reading it these few days, I know I was inspired to be kinder to myself.