Recent reading pt. 2

[troisoiseaux]

Read The Thing in the Snow by Sean Adams: three caretakers at an isolated, abandoned arctic research facility spend their days completing random makework tasks until their routine is shaken up by the mysterious appearance of, well, a thing in the snow. This book is kind of what I had expected Molly McGhee's Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind would be— e.g., Severance-ish— but also reminded me a bit of Piranesi, in a "exploration of a surreal physical space from the POV of a narrator who doesn't realize how weird their situation is" way.

Read Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine (yes, with exclamation points), a novella about a self-absorbed slacker who becomes obsessed with Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and decides to live her life by its Core Values of Boldness, Resolution, Independence, and Horn-Blowing. This goes terribly, because a. apparently step one is "steal from your employer to buy a parrot" and, not unrelatedly, b. the main character is an atrocious person. Reminiscent of Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but funnier.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

Treasure Island!!! sounds hilarious. Is the main character an atrocious person mostly a "stealing from your employer to buy a parrot" way (funny), or a way where she is being mean to people?

[troisoiseaux]

Very much the latter, in a "steamrolls and screws over everyone in her path" way. Complete trainwreck, 7 dead and 3 critically injured (metaphorically speaking). But something about her breezy confidence as she narrates the self-caused chaos around her had me in absolute stitches.

[lunabee34]

Treasure Island!!! sounds really funny. I love that kind of satiric riff on a classic.

[troisoiseaux]

It's certainly a wild ride.

[regshoe]

Treasure Island!!! sounds amazing from the title onwards. I will have to keep it in mind for when I finally read Treasure Island itself XD

[troisoiseaux]

I don't know that you necessarily need to have read Treasure Island first— it's been approximately a million years since I read it as a kid (and most of what I remember is from adaptations, anyway). It's more... well, as I've been describing this to friends: "It's My Year of Rest and Relaxation for Tumblr girlies (gender neutral) that are really into random 19th century novels rather than the Lana Del Rey #coquette Tumblr girlies." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯