Magical Realism – Marked for Plot

Novella Readathon #20: Lanny

This is the third, and probably final, Literary leaning novella I’m reading for this project. If we’re nitpicking labels, Lanny is probably closest to Magical Realism, but I think it generally defies easy categorization. It took me a while to settle into Porter’s rhythm, but portions of this book had me in a stranglehold. I think it’s a more approachable entry point into Literary writing, only one step beyond The Spear Cuts Through Water. It’s a personal and intimate window into the souls orbiting around a very special young boy named Lanny and the village where he lives.

The Premise:
Lanny is a very special child. In his life are parents Jolie and Rob, an older artist named Pete who bonds with Lanny during art lessons, and the mythical creature Dead Papa Toothwort. Lanny is in tune with the supernatural, able to defy logic and physics. When Lanny disappears, the town blames Pete, who gets cast as a pedophilic gay man. You’ll enter the mind of townsfolk, visitors, and our core cast of humans. Part three sees them seeking out Lanny in the domain of Dead Papa Toothwort, and mostly reverts to the original prose style. Throughout the book, we never experience Lanny’s POV.

Read If Looking For: experimental storytelling techniques, nature and humanity elementally joined, gritty human relationships, joyful human relationships

Avoid If Looking For: good dads, the magic to make sense, pain-free books, standard narration and dialogue

Novella Readathon #7: Autobiography of Red

Two weeks ago, if you asked me the novella I was most excited to read, I’d have responded Autobiography of Red. It’s got several ardent supporters whose taste I trust, it tackles an obscure figure from Greek mythology, a creature whom exists only for Herakles to kill, and it deals in thorny and tragic gay relationships. Unfortunately, what should have been catnip for me ended up as a frustrating reminder of why I tend to avoid Literature. While I’ve enjoyed several novellas with a more Literary bent (most recently On the Calculation of Volume), this one ended up feeling more like work than enjoyment. I do plan to eventually reread it, and I’m hopeful that I’ll get more out of it on a second look, because the bits I liked were really quite phenomenal.

The Premise:
While there are some introductory materials and extra bits, most of this story is the autobiography of Geryon: a boy and man in the mid-1900s who is red and has wings. This goes largely unremarked in the story. It traces his troubled childhood and teenage affair with Herakles, his listlessness in adult life, and a chance reunion with Herakles that is perhaps not everything Geryon wanted it to be. This is … a poor description, I will admit. I’m not sure how to give a better one though. Mostly it asks you to crawl inside Geyron’s head as he floats through different portions of his childhood and young adult life.

Read If Looking For: Literature with a capital L, tortured souls, photography motifs, blank verse, books that feel like Indie Films

Avoid If Looking For: straightforward narratives, clear happy endings, adventure and thrills, Romance beats

The Many Deaths of Laila Starr – Vignettes on Death

This book has been sitting on my desk as a potential whole-class read for high school level comics classes. It’s award-nominated and generally has a phenomenal reputation. At 128 pages, this story is absolutely worth a look if you’re in the mood for something contemplative with some light humor elements. It feels very much like an Autumn book, in that it asks readers to think about their own relationship with death, but it remains pretty accessible throughout. Plus, it’s popular enough that you can likely nab a copy from your local library!

The Premise:
A child destined to discover immortality is born, and with it comes layoffs. Death finds herself without work, trapped in a human body and the pesky mortality that comes with it. This comic covers her many lives (she gets brought back by her companion Life often) as she comes into contact with the child (and later teen, adult, and elderly man) who caused her downfall.

Read If Looking For: a god experiencing mortality, episodic story structures, casual cigarettes, quiet storytelling with vibrant colors

Avoid If Looking For: the political machinations of gods, experimental art, novel and original endings

Comparable Media: Cloud Atlas, Sandman. I’ve also heard that it pairs delightfully with Daytripper and Karmen, both of which I’m intent on reading soon.

Lifelode – A Domestic Fantasy to Chew On

I am so happy that I read Lifelode. It isn’t a perfect book, but I love how it defies easy comparisons and pushed boundaries of fantasy in the 2000s structurally and thematically. It’s got delightfully weird worldbuilding and, if pressed, would use One Hundred Years of Solitude as the closest comparison I’ve read (though even that isn’t right). More selfishly, it’s also probably one of the best books I’ve read for a book club, simply because I think Lifelode makes so many bold choices that will spark interesting discussion. Certainly my views here on how Walton handled theme don’t seem to be universally shared amongst those who, like me, ended up reading far ahead for our midway discussion. Lifelode isn’t necessarily a dense book, but there’s a lot of interesting choices here which set a great foundation for discussion whether you loved or hated the directions the story took.

The Premise:
Applekirk is a rural farming town run by a lord and his family, who live in a large manor. Taveth is one of the four adults of the marriage, committed to maintaining the house. One of her husbands is Lord, another manages the sheep and farms. Meanwhile Chayra, the other wife of the house, has found joy in throwing pots. Their lives are thrown out of routine with the arrival of a flirtatious travelling scholar, a meanspirited ancestor to one of Taveth’s husbands, and a priestess of the goddess of marriage who has been sent to bring said ancestor to the goddess’ justice. Just as important, however, is the harvest and all preparations it requires.

Read if Looking For: books without easy comparisons, celebration of traditionally feminine work, Gods as hiveminds, reimagined family structures

Avoid if you Dislike: pastoral settings, relationship drama, complex family trees, peas, petty characters

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

Sometimes, incredible books fall in your lap for no seeming reason (and by no seeming reason, I really mean Audible’s algorithim has learned that I like books about gay men). It’s certainly not my normal fare: I don’t read a ton of magical realism, and even less that pushes more on the literary end of things than the genre fiction side of that subgenre. Yet I’m so incredibly thankful I indulged the whim to dive into this book. It isn’t perfect, and likely won’t crack my favorite reads of the year, but it’s going to stick with me for a long time.

The Premise:
Maali is dead, stuck in a queue to find his way to the next life. He doesn’t know how he died, but he knows that he has unfinished business in the land of the living. He’s a war photographer in 1990 Sri Lanka, a gambler who loses more money than he makes, and a slut who has trouble remaining monogamous to the boyfriend he really does dearly love. He learns he has seven days before he is stuck forever in the in-between, and promptly sets off to try and get his partner and best friend to find his photographs, which have the power to topple a government.

Read if You Like: Magical Realism, ghosts, critiques of colonialism, dry humor

Avoid if You Dislike: tight plotting, morally upright characters, books lacking answers hard questions they bring attention to

The Other Valley

Literary Fantasy/Science Fiction isn’t something I read a ton of, but after this year I’m starting to think I should be reading more of it. The Other Valley wasn’t on my radar at all until it starting coming up repeatedly by reviewers I trust as one of the top books of 2024. As someone who read a lot of books published last year, this book is going to be my go-to example for how there are more phenomenal books coming out every year than you will ever be able to read. This is a frustrating and humbling thought, and one I’m slowly beginning to accept. It’s also the type of book that gave me a small existential crisis on whether I was doing anything meaningful with my life, which I’m still in the process of working through.

The Premise:
Odile lives in a small, unnamed town surrounded by villages, mountains, and a lake. The only thing distinguishing it from any part of rural France is that it is neighbored by it’s own past and future. Travel and visitation is highly regulated by the Conseils, who approve requests to visit only from family members who have lost a loved one, or who know their impending death will mean they miss important milestone’s in their family’s life, and even then visits are anonymous and highly monitored to avoid changing the timeline. Odile applies to apprentice as a Conseil, mostly at the request of her overbearing mother, even though she isn’t sure what she wants to do with her life. Normally quiet and tepid, she begins to open up to some other teens, right when she identifies a visitor from another valley, which shifts her trajectory in life forever.

Read if you Like: stoic protagonists pushed to their limits, snapshots of emotional intensity, books that feel like indie-films

Avoid if You Dislike: Time travel that makes very little sense when you pick it apart, fast-paced novels

Spirits Abroad

Short Fiction Anthologies are the types of books that I add to my TBR list, but never seem to get around to. I say I want to read more short fiction, say I want to try out some magazines, but never commit the time to it. Spirits Abroad is a first step in trying to make progress on that front and, while it definitely isn’t the best anthology I’ve read, provided several enjoyable reads, including one that I’ll be using in the high school genre fiction class I teach!

The Premise:
As with any anthology, it’s tough to give a succinct summary of the entire experience of this book. However, the collection is consistently grounded in Malaysian culture, folklore, and mythology. Oftentimes immigrant experiences or examinations of how misogyny uniquely affects Malaysian women are themes and motifs. You should also expect to encounter Malaysian terminology and dialect in each story (the audiobook narrator does a fantastic job), and while most foriegn terms aren’t explained, both absorbing general ideas up from context or pausing to do research can work for a good reading experience. You should also expect darker elements in many stories, with some verging into horror territory.

Read If Looking For: Urban Fantasy or Magical Realism short fiction, tight focus on Malaysian communities around the world, simple and straightforward language, feminist themes

Avoid if Looking For: writing that experiments with style or structure

Split Tooth

Split Tooth is not a novel I should have enjoyed. Despite being an English major in college, Literature with a capital L has always rubbed me the wrong way. Even the more experimental Fantasy stuff I love tends to have strong roots in genre fiction tropes, like The Spear Cuts Through Water. Split Tooth was none of what I typically love, but I found that it became my first five star read of 2025.

The Premise:
Split Tooth follows a girl in Nunavut through her childhood and adolescence. While the story defies traditional plot arcs, you’ll find reflections on her family life, navigating school, pregnancy and motherhood, and the bridging of spirit and physical worlds.

Read if Looking For: books that blend poetry and prose, sparse magical realism stories, books with sharp edges, indigenous voices

Avoid if Looking For: traditional fantasy plot structures, easy reading

I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

About an hour into my listen of this audiobook, I was convinced that it was going to be my first 5/5 read of the year. I was lost in Marisa Crane’s intensely emotional writing, and felt like I was living in the skin of another person, feeling what they felt. Then, as the story shifted from something amorphous and reflective into a more traditional plot, I ran headfirst into walls of frustration and disappointment. The things I love about this book are intoxicating, but it wasn’t enough to hold the story together until the ending for me.

The Premise
In this version of America, those who harm others receive an additional shadow. Those with shadows are second class citizens: taxed higher, let go from jobs, harassed on the street. And of course, fairness and justice aren’t particularly high on the list of concerns for the government organization assigning shadows, and people of color, queer folks, and those living with mental health challenges are much more likely to get one. That list includes Kris, who just lost her wife in childbirth, and her newborn baby who got a second shadow for ‘killing’ her mother during birth. Lost in grief, Kris must find a path forward in this world and figure out how to life her life (and raise a child) when the lodestone of her world is gone.

Read If Looking For: meditations on grief and motherhood, dynamic queer relationships (romantic and platonic), thoughtful depictions of mental health struggles

Avoid if Looking For: dystopian settings with the intensity of The Handmaid’s Tale, realistic depictions of children

The Bullet Swallower

The intersection between Speculative Fiction and Westerns is something I’ve been interested in exploring for a while now. I’ve got both American Hippo and Make Me No Grave on my bookshelf right now, waiting for me to find the time to get around to them. This was my first foray into the genre, primarily because the Magical Realism elements were intriguing, as was the parallel storyline in the pitch.

The Premise:
The Bullet Swallower primarily follows the bandit Antonio Sonoro, the descendent of a long line of tyrants and despots. He’s chasing after the score to end all scores, but quickly ends up trapped in a cycle of survival, hunting, and being hunted. Seventy years later, Jaime Sonoro, a movie star, is gifted a book chronicling his family’s cruel history. And lingering above it all is Remedio, a being who knows the men are damned, and can do nothing to escape the twisted fate of the Sonoro family.

Read If Looking For: frank depictions of characters, family sagas, heaps of bravado

Avoid if Looking For: fast paced stories, lots of action scenes