Matt

I'm not a reader of horror, but after listening to an interview with the author, it sounded good and I got the book as a kindle deal. The first part of the book was fantastic. There's something akin to a sexual thrill hearing the supporting characters lay their ids bare to the protagonist and revealing their most horrible desires. It slows up a bit with the backstory, although the backstory is necessary in order to give the characters and the book some depth. There were a few cool twists, and although I don't know if it's a story that's going to stick with me, it was a very entertaining read.

Absolute money corrupts and destroys musically brilliant baby-men and their thug entourage absolutely. Just reading about the never-ending insanity nearly wore me out. How many fucking pieces of furniture can you throw out of a hotel window before it gets exhausting? Outside of that an entertaining and informative book. Spitz tells enough about certain crimes that I can only assume there were statutes of limitations involved.

I picked this up because I love E. Lily Yu's work, but I couldn't imagine being interested in what had to be depressing subject matter. Once I started, however, I barreled on. It proves a great writer can make any situation compelling.

Struggle is what good fiction is made of. This family not only struggles with their flight from Afghanistan, but with the trauma of the trip itself. And each family member for much of the story has only other traumatized family members to bounce up against while they're trying to deal with their feelings. It's claustrophobic and sad and real.

I'm still trying to fully understand one of the themes of the book which centers around the idea that nightmares lose their power if they're broken down into their constituent stories. And there are little stories all over this book, as each family member casts versions of themself or the others in off-the-cuff fairy tales, breaking down breaking down.

What I'm wondering is, how true is that? I'm sure telling stories helps when dealing with trauma. I've seen it. But can stories completely dismantle trauma? Can anything?

If you've read the original Ultimates you already know that nearly every character is kind of a shitty person in some way. Mark Millar is awesome at making that happen. Growing up in the seventies, I looked to superheroes as paragons of goodness. In my pre-pubescent mind, they were. As an adult I know that morals vary from reader to reader, but I think everyone needs their version of good people in at least a portion of their entertainment. I'm not sure that good people are often available.

Having said all that, shitty people do make for page turning. Even thought I feel worse about the world, I have to say the story is compelling.

Epic. Deep. A blast. This is my second reading, the first being nearly forty years ago. These books were written to last. I may be enjoying them even more than I did as a teenager. A deeper knowledge of the world only enriches the experience. Nearly everything I remember from this series came from the first two books. This is exciting, as these books are my favorite adventure story. It's similar to reading them for the first time. The end of book 2 knocked the game board over and scattered the pieces. Here, those that remain gather strength and make fragile alliances. Julian May was absolutely brilliant, her layers of knowledge stack atop one another to make (brace yourself for this metaphor) a magnificent baklava, honeyed by her cinematic writing style. I can't wait to see how it turns out (again).

Wonderful is what I've come to expect from Helen Marshall's work. Here, a book that begins with a new facet of a well-worn trope shifts gears to become something very different while maintaining the same dreary-dark mood. In its final moments, it shifts once again and achieves flight when the poetic prose Marshall holds close to her chest is released like???well, it's too on the nose, but I'll say anyway???a flock of birds.

Helen Marshall always surprises, always dazzles, but always keeps us wrapped in the warmth of humanity, of love, of that wonder of discovering we can take one small step into the place we've never before thought to wander, and become something more than we realized we could ever be.