Books:
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
I couldn't do it. Despite never wanting to pick it up, I really kind of loved the author's prior book A Little Life as she's not only a talented writer but, in that book at least, there was a compulsiveness to her writing like she had to tell this particular story in this (somewhat) wildly overwritten way and I had to read it that way. That book was a big chewy piece of lit focusing on tragedy and friendship and an enormous amount of backstory and interior character stuff all of which made up for what was a fairly simple plot; the book was about immersing the reader in the minutiae of the people and their behavior which gave real vibrancy to the mundanity of the characters' existence. Meaning I understood, going into this most recent novel of hers, that this book would likely not be super plotty but rather more of the same as the prior book but in a different context, i.e. I expected it to be something I never wanted to pick but something I couldn't put down when I did which sounded fine to me as I was in the mood for some meaty writing. And, for the first section of the book, it was that. The book is broken up into three time periods, more or less 1890s, 1990s, and 2090s and honestly that was a huge turnoff from the beginning because I wasn't interested in reading her for sci-fi and I really dislike multigenerational books in general (this isn't one but same idea) because I don't want to get into a bunch of characters then have to start all over again.
But whatever I liked her writing and got into the first chunk which posited some alternative America - yeah, I was not into that either but it was more in the background - which was essentially like a Henry James novel but with gay people. And I liked it; it’s about a guy and an inheritance and a fixup with an older wealthier guy and then a torrid affair with some impoverished younger guy and, you know, a decent turn-of-the-century story about society and New York and people being trapped by circumstance and the choices they make and the consequences they suffer for those choices. It was a story. Then section two showed up and that was about... absolutely nothing. Nothing. NOTH. ING. The section was broken into two parts. The first was about a young paralegal dating an older lawyer at the same firm and a party they’re throwing for a friend of the older lawyer who’s going off to die (from AIDS presumably). The lead character is a zero who is nothing and wants nothing and does nothing other than recount what’s going on around him for pages and pages and pages. Nothing happens. He just unhappily sits at a party telling us what everyone else is doing which is so crazy boring and I kept hoping some plot would arise but, no, it got even worse because the second half of that section is a letter from the young guy's father explaining his life. So to be clear: we have a character - more a lens - doing nothing for hundreds of pages followed by another character doing nothing for hundreds of pages. There's no present-tense story, unlike in the first section, just all these boring boring words. I started skipping ahead because none of these sections are connected in any meaningful way meaning they’re kind of short/long stories. So section three, which is where I DNF'ed because I just couldn't for one second longer, is set in some post-pandemic NYC where, again, there's zero character with zero present-tense story, as in zero happening once again which then cuts to a bunch of backstory where even less happens. Yeah, maybe it all adds up to something later - apparently for some non-Janices this was their favorite section - but you know what? The author, by writing so many pages of boring drivel, had lost all rights to my time by that point and that was end. The reading experience in general is to some extent a trust exercise in that the author needs to give the reader enough to make them think their time investment will be worth it in whatever way each individual defines that. And she lost that for me. I honestly don't know how this book was published, like who in the entire process read this and thought any of it was remotely engaging? I'd like the names to avoid all future books that they've edited because they either have drastically different taste than I do or they just don't care and either way, I can't and advise, if this book is on your list, that you don't either.
TV/Streaming:
Alice In Borderland (Season 2):
This second season of a series about people trapped in a bunch of life or death games for reasons they don't understand is even better than the first and, I think, somehow got lost due in the shuffle to Squid Game which doesn't even come close to this show if you like this kind of genre. The reason this show is better is threefold. First, unlike with Squid Game, the characters in this show have no idea why they're in this situation and, when not competing for their lives, are also trying to unravel what's really going on and that mystery gives the show some drive. Second, the show is heavily focused on characters and relationships and the consequences of one's decisions in a way that plays out across both seasons. Not spoilering, but the nature of the games forces total strangers to band up and trust each other or double-cross each other or things of that nature and then those relationships continue in the downtime between the games. Thus you can have romance or friendships which grow or dissolve or betray then redeem (or not) which also keeps the show interesting since people's motives shift across the series and, in life or death games, they end up making more interesting choices than in the simplistic non-relationship non-character world of Squid Game (yeah, being vague to avoid spoilering) where the games seemed to be there primarily to display gore and not much else. Finally, the games in this show not only have a kind of logic-puzzle component to them beyond all the violent action - and there's plenty of that - meaning the solution isn't necessarily obvious from the start, but they also, especially in this season, start to play into moral choices and psychology and manipulation in a way that's interesting and makes it even less clear how exactly the games will play out. Since the show is in part based around the leads trying to figure out what's going on, I'm not going into much plot for spoiler reasons, but I was totally into this season, even more so than season 1 which, while good, didn't have as much texture and ended in a way that left me somewhat blargh. But that's not the case in this season. In fact, I'd say the final episode was really pretty interesting and managed to completely wrap up in the series or, if it gets picked up for a third season (knock wood), leave a minuscule something in place to make that viable. In other words, the mysteries are all explained in a satisfying way with a final shot that manages to allow for another season without detracting from any of the satisfaction of what you just watched, which is a pretty nice feat I'd say. The show is definitely in the combat tradition of martial arts movies (there's some actual martial arts but also a lot of gaming-type weaponry and explosions and the like) in that it's somewhat heightened - think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - with people surviving impossible amounts of bodily harm which also makes for some really good fight sequences. If you like this genre and haven't seen this show or were meh on season 1, I'd say give it (another) shot because this season really amped it up and I think this is just a flat-out solid piece of entertainment.
Mrs. Fazilet & Her Daughters:
Yeah, Turkish soap operas - think: somewhere between Guiding Light and Knots Landing (and, as with those shows, promoting some unbelievably sexist morality from a prior era) - are dumb. And long. And repetitive. And yet... I'm hooked! I've talked about them before (like here for example) but basically they're designed to tap into some lowest-common-denominator of our emotional brainstem where, no matter how absurd the plot, how repetitive which I'm repeating to underscore the repetitiveness, how utterly ridiculous the character behavior is, and how long they go on, somehow a kind of primal human-relationship-centric neurotransmitter gets released in mass quantities and I find myself sitting there outraged at this person interfering with those other two, hoping those other two finally realize they're in love, nervous that that one is going to get caught doing that thing to the other one, and on and on for an insanely large episode count all while knowing I'm being completely manipulated and yet I just don't care. Turkish soap operas are, for me, the absolute perfect last-thing-before-bed shows because they're utterly engaging while watching yet so stupid you can fall asleep on them without losing a plot beat. All that said, this one was total core in that regard. The basic plot is a poor but determined woman with two beautiful daughters schemes and plots to get them all into the mansion of one of the richest families in the country. See how primal that is? To this show's credit - and honestly no matter how dumb a show is, don't you kind of have to tip a hat to something that goes on for 166 45 minutes episodes without ever being boring? - it's a little different than other Turkish soap operas I've seen. Most of them are thwarted love stories, usually rich/poor, where big plot issues, usually crimes or shady behavior or things of that ilk, force the unlikely couple to eventually, 9 million episodes later, hook up at which point a whole series of obstacles gets thrown in their way. This show has that but what it also has and which was a kind of objectively interesting choice, is zero likeability. I mean every single person in the show lies, blackmails, betrays, and emotionally wrecks the very people they love over and over and over. All for comprehensible, if really idiotic, reasons; everyone's a lead while also being someone else's villain so you're watching people do awful things while also understanding why. What this meant was right to the very end, it really wasn't clear how the show was going to resolve. For the first chunk of it, it wasn't even clear who the main love relationship was (the one that's inevitably thwarted nonstop later); even after that solidified, it still wasn't clear whether or not it would all work out. Also - and really I'm giving credit where credit's due but this still remains an absurd soap opera no matter what - the characters genuinely shifted across the series which also gave it some interest. I mean people grew and changed as a result of their circumstances which also meant their motives and subsequent actions changed which, in turn, kept the show interesting even though when you really get down to it, you're looking at the same 10-12ish characters the whole time. Enough. If you like soap opera-y things, something addictive but put-down-able, I'd hunt this one up (it's all over the internets and, believe me, it shows in the subtitles where there's a lot of confusion around gender pronouns and not in a way that's trying to be current but in a way where it looks like each episode was churned through Google Translate followed by a 10 minute skim by a Turkish student practicing their English). Just to be 100% clear: it's not good, but it is entertaining and heck isn't that enough right before falling asleep?
Movies:
The Immortal - This is a movie about what happens between Seasons 4 and 5 of the CRAZY AWESOME Italian series Gomorrah and there's literally no point in watching it if you haven't seen that show nor, if you have seen that show, should you watch this movie until you've completed Season 4 because otherwise things will definitely be spoilered for you, but clearly you should read this review NO MATTER WHAT. Thus I'm not going into plot at all because there's no way to discuss it without spoilering but to give you an overview: the film runs in two tracks, one picking up in a chunk of time right after Season 4 and one in the childhood past of the lead character, and these two tracks eventually come together in an interesting way. Look the writers of this show/movie are so great especially at long-game plots (to hardly mention insane amounts of violence) as well as characters who are constantly scheming in unexpected ways that the movie is just entertaining on that level and sort of plays like an extended episode of the series. I'd say it took around 20 or 30 minutes for the thing to pick up - I was kinda worried it was going to be a disappointment prior to that - because it wasn't clear how or if the past/present stories would glue together plus there was a lot of necessary setup, i.e. lots of new characters and whatnot. The writers don't do exposition in a traditional way of just telling you everything; rather they put people in places and kind of make you figure it out which is really a strength of the show and to an extent of the movie though, with a series, you know you're investing some time sorting out early confusion for a much longer payoff whereas with a movie it's a fair amount of investment for something much shorter. It didn't matter though. The backstory and present-tense story were both interesting in their own rights and, as with this entire series, it all feels like an incredibly modern, vicious, and non-goombah non-red-sauce take on the Mafia and a look at true, awful criminals operating ruthlessly on behalf of their businesses. Also, as always with this writer/producer team, they cast interesting actors so even though there's a fair amount of silence in the movie (part of what's happening with the lead is very interior) the acting tells you what you need to know. If you're a fan of the series, while your mind won't be blown away by the film, you'll be perfectly satisfied with it and glad you watched it and it will serve as a kind of appetizer before watching the final season; if you're not a fan of the series and you can stomach a ton of violence well stop reading this and go watch immediately!