The slacking on the reviews continues, kind of. I’m still struggling trying to find patience to read or listen to audiobooks. At the very least, I still managed to knock out two books this month!
The first, a novella titled The Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling, a queer fantasy horror novella. I’ve been on Starling kick this year, having also read The Luminous Dead back in March & the Death of Jane Lawrence in February. She is a fantastic & engrossing author, so this short read really curbed my urges to pick up Jane Lawrence again.
And there was Shades of Grey, a strangely endearing dystopian novel where people are ranked by what colors they can see, and it’s written as charmingly absurd as Fforde can muster. Much like his Thursday Next series, he drops you unceremoniously into the midst of an intricately build world. No matter how bizarre the premise is, he doesn’t make it confusing or upsetting, but rather fun. In this one, you’re confronted with a world where visible light is restricted for nearly everyone (except for artificial colors. It’s never quite explained how that works.) Color swatches have pharmaceutical value, and it’s easy to fall into pigment abuse. That alone sold me on this book.