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Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (肉包不吃肉) [Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat]–Remnants of Filth / Yuwu (余污) [Pollution] Book 2 (2019) [translation 2023]

Posted in China, Danmei, Drinking, 肉包不吃肉, Humiliation, LGBTQ, Magic, Magical Realism, Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat, Military, Romance, Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou, Rui, Sex, Translation, Violence, Yu on May 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: May 13, 2023] Remnants of Filth Book 2

I didn’t expect to read any more books in this series, but then book 2 came to my desk and I had to see what happened next.  Now I’m half way into the series and I’m very curious how it will play out.  But I’m quite certain I’ll never see Part 3.  Incidentally, our library had books 2-4 of Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou’s more noteworthy series The Husky and the White Cat Shizun (why don’t we have book one?)

So, it’s been a while, what did I say last time?

The author of this book is Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (or Roubaobuchirou).  In Chinese that is 肉包不吃肉 which literally translates into Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat.  This last phrase is what she is commonly known as in the United States.

This book is danmei.  According to The Guardian:

Danmei is romantic fiction about men or male beings – ghosts, foxes, even a mushroom – falling in love, written almost exclusively by and for straight women and is the most popular genre of fiction in China.

This series is about two soldiers.  Mo Xi and Gu Mang.

The two were friends and then lovers when they were younger.  They fought together and they loved each other.  This was largely forbidden and no one knew of their relationship.

And then (and we don’t know why in this book), Gu Mang switched sides.  He joined forces with the enemy.  And on the battlefield when Mo Xi and Gu Mang faced each other, Gu Mang stabbed his friend and lover in the heart.  There’s magic in these books, and Mo Xi survived.

In book one, Mo Xi brought Gu Mang out of the slavery he was stuck in.  Mo Xi has to do some twisting of reality for people to believe that he is holding on to Gu Mang for reasonably reasons but Mo Xi is so virtuous, no one questions his motives. (more…)

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Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (肉包不吃肉) [Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat]–Remnants of Filth / Yuwu (余污) [Pollution] Book 1 (2019) [translation 2023]

Posted in China, Danmei, Drinking, 肉包不吃肉, Humiliation, LGBTQ, Magic, Magical Realism, Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat, Military, Romance, Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou, Rui, Sex, Translation, Violence, Yu on August 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: August 21, 2023] Remnants of Filth

First.  Unpack the name.

The author of this book is Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (or Roubaobuchirou).  In Chinese that is 肉包不吃肉 which literally translates into Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat.  This last phrase is what she is commonly known as in the United States.

In Chinese the book was called Yuwu (余污) which translates into Pollution.  And the English title is Remnants of Filth.

Second.  What is this?

This book is danmei.  According to The Guardian:

Danmei is romantic fiction about men or male beings – ghosts, foxes, even a mushroom – falling in love, written almost exclusively by and for straight women and is the most popular genre of fiction in China.

Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat is a very popular danmei writer and her first book series The Husky and His White Cat Shizun is a bestseller.

This series is about two soldiers.  Mo Xi and Gu Mang.  (more…)

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Dan Frey–The Future is Yours (2021) [audiobook 2021]

Posted in Aneesh Chaganty, Beer, Cary Hite, Catherine Ho, Dan Frey, Dion Graham, End of the World, Joshua Kane, Kyla Garcia, Marriage Trouble, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Natasha Soujek, Quantum, Ron Shapiro, Technology, Thérèse Plummer, The Future, Vikas Adam on July 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: July 2023] The Future is Yours

I didn’t know much about this book, but the blurb sounded good.

And wow, was it a a well-told future/time-travel story.  I also really enjoyed that whole cast that was employed for the book.  Usually a single narrator is fine, but there were so many different voices in this story that having multiple narrators was great.

I had known Cary Hite from a Mike Chen novel so his familiar voice was great.  He reads the part of Ben Boyce a young entrepreneur who has great ideas for how to get startups to work.  He is best friends with Adhi Chaudry (read by Vikas Adam).

Adhi is a once-in-a-generation genius.  He writes a thesis that postulates creating a kind of time travel machine using quantum computers.  Fortunately, there’s not a lot of hard science here, so you don’t really have to know what they’re talking about (I also have no idea if what they postulate is feasible in reality).  The thesis is so theoretical that Stanford doesn’t want him to defend it because they think it’s more philosophical than computer science based.

Adhi struggles with things a lot (he is bipolar) but Ben is always there for him.  Ben believes in him 100%.  So when Adhi gets a job at Google (and hates it) and Ben has tried a few startups (that have failed), Ben asks Adhi about that thesis.  And what they might be able to do with it. (more…)

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Andi Watson, Simon Gane–Sunburn (2022)

Posted in Andi Watson, Donkeys, Drinking, Graphic Novel, Greece, Humiliation, Image Comics, Romance, Simon Gane, Vacation on July 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: June 25, 2023] Sunburn

I haven’t read a book by Andi Watson in a long time.

I used to be a big fan of his indie comics and then I lost touch with him–turns out he was hired by the big guns and has been working with Dark Horse for a pretty long time.

This surprises me, because his stories were usually very quiet and introspective.  Like this one.

It also surprises me that Simon Gane did the art for this book because I was especially attracted to Watson for his drawing style.  However, Gane’s designs are quite excellent and work really well for this story.

The story starts out pretty simply.  Rachel is a sixteen year old British school girl.  Her parents are typical, with her dad giving her a hard time because she doesn’t like eggs.  And making dad jokes.

Then her mom comes in the kitchen and says that Peter, Rachel’s dad old friend, has invited Rachel out for the summer holidays.  Rachel is mortified at the thought of spending the summer with her parents’ friends–ones she doesn’t even remember–is horrifying.

Until her mom says that they are vacationing in Greece.

Greece is lovely–so much more beautiful than rainy England.  Peter is an older gent and is super nice, but it’s Peter’s wife Diane who is full of ebullience and life.  She swoops down, gives Rachel a huge hug and tells her to make herself at home.   She gives her regionally appropriate clothes to wear (British swim suits are very different from Grecian ones) and even lets her have some wine with dinner.

That first night they go out to a grown up (boring) party.  Fortunately, there’s a local boy, Benjamin, who is very nice to her and they begin hanging out. Rachel teaches him to swim and he provides her with her first kiss.

But things seem a little off.  Or if not off exactly, then maybe uncomfortable.  Benjamin says that everyone knows everyone else at these parties.  There’s no secrets.  “I know who cheats at backgammon and I know who’s gobbling pills by the handful just to make it through the day.”

It turns out that everyone at these parties also knows about Ben and Rachel.  One day Diane warns her to be careful to not bring home “anything unwanted.”  She is offended by the lectureand is upset when Ben doesn’t act the way she thought he would.  He basically says that no one cares about what they do, but it sounds a bit like he means he doesn;t care what he does either.

Things grows tense.  And then even more tense when an actual secret comes out.  I was rather surprised by the secret myself.

But it’s also nice that Rachel grows from the experience.

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Peter Swanson–All the Beautiful Lies (2018) [audiobook 2018]

Posted in Drinking, Feminism, Guns, Maine, Marriage Trouble, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Peter Swanson, Sarah Mollo-Christensen, Sex, Sexism, Unlikable main character, Violence, Yuck! on June 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: June 2023] All the Beautiful Lies

I loved Swanson’s Eight Perfect Murders.  I hated the characters in The Kind Worth Killing (but I loved the twists).  So I had this third book as a kind of final litmus test for if I would listen to anymore books by him.

And the answer is no.

Once again, Swanson’s twist and surprises (and the ending) are really good.  But if possible, he made main characters who are even more horrible and unlikable.  How was that possible?

There’s a few spoilers in this review, although none that reveal the twists or who the murderer(s) is/are.

I’m just going to get this over with, so yes, there’s a spoiler here.  One of the main characters is a pedophile.

It’s bad enough when, at some point in the middle of the book, we learn that he is happily going to essentially make a new life with the daughter of his second wife (step-daughter, so not incest, but Jesus Fucking Christ).  And then we find out that this guy was introduced to sex when he was a teenager by a bored housewife.  So he is basically “paying it forward.”

How did Swanson even write these words?   How did his moral compass allow these words to pass his fingers onto the page?

I mean, the blurb on Goodreads starts with this:

Harry Ackerson has always considered his stepmother Alice to be sexy and beautiful, in an “otherworldly” way. She has always been kind and attentive, if a little aloof in the last few years.

I mean, who reads that blurb and wants to read more (I go into my books totally blind, so I had no idea this was coming). (more…)

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Peter Swanson–The Kind Worth Killing (2015) [audiobook 2012]

Posted in Airplanes, Drinking, Feminism, Guns, Johnny Heller, Karen White, Kathleen Early, Keith Szarabajka, Maine, Marriage Trouble, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Peter Swanson, Sex, Sexism, Unlikable main character, Violence on June 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: June 2023] The Kind Worth Killing

I had enjoyed Peter Swanson’s Eight Perfect Murders so much that I wanted to get more audio books by him.  I had heard that he was creating a sequel to one of his popular books, but I didn’t know which one.  It turns out it was this one.

So this seemed like a good one to start with.

As it opened, I absolutely hated it.  It may have been Johnny Heller’s voice, which I did not like.  Although it also sounded familiar and I wondered if I knew him from reading a children’s book and I didn’t like him in an adult role.

Why did I hate it?  Because within the first few minutes, his character, Ted Severson says something to the effect of, “My wife cheated on me.  So I have to kill her.”  I mean, who the hell thinks like that?  And who bases an entire book on that?  That is psychopathic.

Interestingly, I have read many complaints about Swanson’s bland characters, and while I’m not sure they are bland, exactly, they are certainly deadpan or flat or disinterested.  At least that’s how the narrators read them.

So when Karen White took over as narrator for Lily Kintner’s parts, I enjoyed the book more.  Lily was a flat character, but I found her dispassionate voice to be kind of interesting.  (more…)

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Nick Kent–The Unstable Boys (2021)

Posted in Amsterdam Netherlands, Books about music, Books about writers, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Nick Kent, Poo, Pornography, Prostitution, Sex, Sexism, Sexual Assault, The Pretty Things, Violence on March 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE PRETTY BOYS-“Midnight to Six Man,” “Don’t Bring me Down,” “Rosalyn.” (1966, 1964, 1964).

The Pretty Boys are referenced a lot in this novel and I realized I never knew them.

According to Classic Rock History, these are t he band’s top three songs.

I guess as a reference point, I can see what Kent was going for.  The lead singer sounds like a bit of a wild man, with lots of screams.  Each song is a kind of rowdy garage rock. They’ve got a lot of energy, but very mid 60’s energy which really doesn’t appeal to me.

And none of the songs have anything remotely resembling the kind of musical genius that the guitarist in the novel is supposed to have.

So I wasn’t missing anything.

[READ: February 28, 2022] The Unstable Boys

I’m usually a pretty good judge of books when I see them at work.  We get a lot of novels that I would never read, but we occasionally get a gem that I’d never see anywhere else.

I looked at The Unstable Boys and thought I had a gem.  And it started out as one.

The book is about a fictional band from the 60s called The Unstable Boys.

The opening of the book is clippings from various articles about the band.

They were a mix of personalities with two talented members, an array of drummers and a lead singer called The Boy who was a force of nature.  He was, simply, an asshole.  But he was charismatic and unpredictable and people were intrigued by him.  They had a hit, they were poised to do some big stuff and then their second guitarist died.  They were about to go on a major American tour and wanted to postpone.  But the label wouldn’t let them.  The label threw in some new members for the tour and the band imploded.

Guitarist Ral Coombs was a really talented and sensitive musician.  He and The Boy nearly came to blows.  They vowed to never reunite or even speak to each other again.

Then the story begins properly.  We meet Trevor Bourne. He is recently single and, as a freelance writer, not very successful.  He had written a story about The Unstable Boys a while back, but hasn’t had much success lately.

Enter Michael Martindale.  He is a very rich and successful fiction writer.  (more…)

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Nada Surf (White Eagle Hall, Jersey City, NJ, November 19, 2021) [rescheduled, rescheduled again]

Posted in Drinking, Jersey City, NJ, Nada Surf, Pom Pom Squad, The Gravel Pit, White Eagle Hall on November 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 21, 2021] Nada Surf [rescheduled from May 28, 2020 and April 18, 2021]

This is my third timing seeing Nada Surf and I decided that S. needed to see them as well.

This was the third time for this show and I was delighted that it finally happened.  And at the nearby (relatively) White Eagle Hall.

My plan was to not get too close to the stage, but we were so early that it was hard not to get too close (especially as the taller guys start filling in the gaps).

The one difference for this show was that bassist Daniel Lorca was not there.  He had hurt his leg and had to miss the tour.

Friends, we sadly have to report that Daniel can’t be with us for the November US tour due to knee and ankle injuries he recently suffered. In his place will be the band’s longtime friend Ed Valauskas of The Gravel Pit. Here’s to a speedy recovery!

I wasn’t familiar with The Gravel Pit, but Valauskas did a great job.  Although I did miss Lorca’s dreadlocks and unique bass sound.

Their set was an excellent mix of songs from throughout their nine song career.  It was interesting that they essentially played all of the songs that the previous time I saw them in 2020 (one of the few bands I saw in 2020), but they added all of the new songs on top of it.   So this concert was six songs longer! (more…)

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Pom Pom Squad (White Eagle Hall, Jersey City, NJ, November 19, 2021) [rescheduled, rescheduled again]

Posted in Drinking, Jersey City, NJ, Nada Surf, Pom Pom Squad, White Eagle Hall on November 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: November 21, 2021] Pom Pom Squad S.G. Goodman [rescheduled from May 28, 2020 and April 18, 2021]

Initially the opener for this show was supposed to be S.G. Goodman who had a song with a lot of airplay on the WXPN.  I liked it and then I got sick of it, but was interested in seeing her.

But when she was replaced by Pom Pom Squad I was pretty thrilled.

I had seen a Pom Pom Squad video some time ago and I loved their 90’s grunge sound and attitude.  They seemed like a bit of an odd fit for Nada Surf who is a bit more mellow, but it seemed like they were maybe going set the tone for Nada Surf a bit more.

The band was initially a solo project for Mia Berrin, but have expanded to include an unnamed bassist, Shelby Keller on drums and Alex Mercuri on lead guitar.

I had recently read Rock Stars on the Record and Mia Berrin was interviewed in it and she said her favorite album was Live Through This by Hole.   That totally makes sense given their overall sound.  However, Mia, who is in her early twenties, seems relatively drama free at the moment. (more…)

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Graham Norton–Holding (2016)

Posted in Death, Drinking, Graham Norton, Ireland, Irish Writer, Marriage Trouble, Mystery, Romance on August 4, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: July 2021] Holding

Graham Norton is a fairly peripheral entertainer in our lives  I’ve always enjoyed him when I’ve watched him, but I don’t watch him very often.  He’s a good (and funny) talk show host, but who knew that he also wrote novels?  And not comic ones.

This story is a mystery set in the remote Irish village of Duneen.  They have one policeman (guard), Sergeant P.J. Collins who is overweight and alone.  Collins is central to the story, as are Brid Riordan and Evelyn Ross.

Brid Riordan is a wife and mother and she is unhappy.  She’s been drinking a lot and her husband has been getting on her case about it–even taking the kids away to his mother’s a few times.

Evelyn Ross is the youngest of the three Ross sisters–a wealthy trio of (orphaned and single) women living in a large estate called Ard Carraig. Abigail and Florence are her older sisters and they dote on Evelyn because a) she found their father when he hung himself and b) she was more of less left at the altar.

Nothing much happens in Duneen.  The biggest news is the development that’s going up.  And what they find when they start to dig the foundation–human bones. (more…)

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