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Ingrid Yang has based her dissertation on the poetry of Xiao-Wen Chou who everyone believes died of pancreatic cancer at 42. Her research has stalled, as has her appetite for the project. But a mystery emerges that casts doubt on the identity of Chou. Her fiancé, a translator, is on book tour with his author, a Japanese woman who writes rom-coms that verge on pornographic. While he’s gone, Ingrid pursues her suspicions and comes upon a shocking truth. However, the entitled white academics—all men (of course)— don’t let this undermine their stake in his work. Vivian Vo, a feminist firebrand, who was initially pitted against Ingrid, joins forces with her and her friend Eunice to uncover the story. There’s satire galore in this novel from 2022, which seems very prescient as we face similar issues of cultural appropriation and wokeness today.
Subtitled Misadventures of An Anonymous Chef, hence the author’s nom de plume. She’s easily bored, so the drama and intensity of restaurant kitchens feeds her need for constant challenges. She’s also quite horny and runs through as many relationships and hookups as she does jobs. It’s primarily a man’s world, so she has to work twice as hard to be recognized. Slutty has considerable self-knowledge as well as a fine sense of the absurd. She also can write about sexual encounters with an economical, refreshing grace I haven’t often found on the page. Inside dope always piques my appetite, and this nonfiction offering filled me up.
A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer
Kathy has an unusual, clandestine occupation. She is tasked with plucking souls from the newly deceased and sending them on their way. Otherwise they get stuck as ghosts on earth, a miserable fate. However young Connor presents a problem: her department is Natural Deaths and he’s been killed, so he falls between administrative cracks, and the murderer must be a S.C.Y.T.H.E. staff member; that’s short for Secure Collection, Yielding and Transportation of Human Essences. This all sounds pretty ridiculous, but Connor is such a delightful character—a truculent teen who won my (and Kathy’s) heart—that I went along with it with pleasure. The author’s from Ontario, Canada, where the mystery is set.
Maggie is not doing what the title implies after her husband Jon decamps. She’s hurting badly. They’d lived together for 9 years, and then tied the knot. But soon after the actual wedding, their ongoing cumulative domestic annoyances led to the split. In Canada there’s a waiting period before a divorce can take place, and in this limbo, she tries everything to pry herself out of depression and let him go, without success. Classes, hobbies, dating apps all come to naught. Finally (thank god) she gets some therapy. The author is also a comedian (she wrote for TV’s Schitt’s Creek, a favorite of mine), and this novel makes great comedic hay out of the straw of misery.
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