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akkrosu · 5 months

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My Favorite Books of 2023

After seeing everyone’s end-of-the-year QL posts and having a look at my meticulous list of books I read this year, I was a little inspired to write up something myself, just not about QLs but books. I’ve been trying to be more vocal about things I like, and post things for myself, and only myself. So I don’t even care how long this is, and just have fun with it.

In terms of literature, this year was pretty slow for me (with only 48 finished books, about half of what it used to be, probably because I’ve been watching so many QLs) and fairly limited to the YA genre because I got stuck with high-school and college stories and haven’t really moved on since. But still I managed to put together the 10 I enjoyed most. Books (like shows) are very subjective to me in that it takes the right one at the right time for me to fall in love with it, so take every one of these with a grain of salt, I guess.

I’m not including any danmei I’m reading because they are so separate from other books to me in what they are and how they work that I can’t be objective with them. Also, I don’t care when any of these books came out, all that matters to me is that I read them for the first time this year.

1. The Inexplicable Logic of my Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

This might be my favorite book out of those on this list. I knew I loved Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s poetic and reflective writing after I read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, but this one hit all the right spots for me in a way I can’t compare to any other book I’ve read. It tells the story of a 17-year-old boy named Salvador, his close friends, and his gay father, who go through a million setbacks and tragedies and learn the meaning of life—in its essence, it’s a book about growing up and grieving and living. This author has a way of being painfully real while also wrapping everything in a beautiful language that makes it all even more real and touching. Two of my favorite quotes:

“I wanted to tell (my father) that all the awful things that happened in the old world were dead. And the new world, the world we lived in now, the world we were creating, that world would be better. But I didn’t say it, because I wasn’t sure it was true.”

“I realized that Sam wasn’t angry at all. She was hurt. At that moment I heard all the hurt she’d ever held. And it seemed to me that the whole house had quieted down to listen to her pain.”

2. If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang

I read this around the beginning of the year, so my memory isn’t the best, but I still love it like I did back then. In the story, Alice, the only scholarship student at a Chinese school for the Rich and Powerful, suddenly starts turning invisible and, due to financial and other pressures on her, decides to turn these new ‘powers’ into profit by obtaining information for classmates and selling it to them. The whole thing starts out pretty innocent, but the requests become more and more severe and dangerous, and Alice essentially has to decide where she draws the line and caves in to all the pressures surrounding her. It’s essentially critical commentary about Chinese society while taking a look at the blurry lines between good and bad, all wrapped in a modern story with fantastical elements.

3. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

I finished this book only a few days ago, so I’m still in my feels about it. Even though it’s a little sci-fi and not at all like the books I usually read—what with the army of powerful heroes using giant transforming robots to fight a war against mechatron aliens that eerily remind me of insects—, it absolutely grabbed me with its narration full of incredibly precise and succinct descriptions, balanced out by lines so funny that they had me cackling, and incredible character depth (which, to me, is often the most important thing). Wu Zetian as a main character was compelling to follow, because she is so strong and true to what she wants, rising to power while killing everyone in her path. And the poly storyline brought a lot of joy to my heart, because we get so little of it in YA literature. Plus, it was really nice to read a book examining gender roles without feeling dysphoric even once, which I think was only possible because it was written by a fellow enby person. Some more favorite quotes:

“Where does jealousy come from, if not an insecurity that I’ll lose you because of him? But that’s not how it works, no matter how many people believe it so. You’re not something to be kept or taken, and love isn’t some scarce resource to battle over. Love can be infinite, as much as your heart can be open.”

“Perks of refusing to play by the rules: you don’t have to choose between the boy who’d torture a man to death with you and the boy who’d welcome you back with pastries after.”

“It’s as if I’ve got a cocoon shriveled too tightly around my whole being. If I had my way, I’d exist like that butterfly, giving onlookers no easy way to bind me with a simple label.”

4. Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli

I hit this phase around the middle of the year where I was craving some sapphic romance novels, and this one fell right into my hands. I remember I started this on the 12-hour flight back from China, and it gripped me so hard I finished it in about a day, even though I guess nothing about it is super unique. It’s just a love story about a soon-to-be college student falling for her childhood friend’s new college friend while visiting campus, even though said childhood friend told everyone they are exes. I guess what I really liked about it is the exploration of community, especially queer community, because the protagonist often feels at war between starting to have feelings for a girl and not thinking she fits into what she believes queer people are or should be, causing her to repeatedly deny the possibility of her being queer. Plus, I love deeper thoughts and reflections under the guise of a simple romance plot, and this book is quintessential Becky Albertalli in that regard.

5. El fabuloso mundo de las letras [The Fabulous World of the Letters] by Jordi Sierra i Fabra

Okay, so this is technically a children’s book written by a well-known Spanish author that was given to me while staying with a friend’s family in Spain, but regardless of the target group, I still absolutely loved it and ate it up. It’s a wonderful look at language and writing and creatively tries to spark enthusiasm for reading in children through fun little games, stories in which letters coming alive and form things like huge forests, crossword puzzles, and more. The frame for it is a story about a boy who hates reading sucked into the world of letters, where he gets to know them and how they work and learns how beautiful language is, which is 100% my thing as a linguist. I will forever grieve all the H’s in the hospital.

6. Tokioregen [Tokyo Rain] by Yasmin Shakarami

One of the few German books I still read, English has just taken over by now. It’s about a German high school student who spends a semester abroad in Japan, falls in love with the country and a classmate who shows her the hidden parts of Tokyo, and has to witness an earthquake that destroys most of the city. Somehow the author managed to convey Tokyo’s magic in a way I never expected, even though I’ve never been all that interested in Japan, so it sucked me in.

7. When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert

Oof, this one challenged my mental health, but I guess that’s exactly what it was trying to do. We have here a story about a group of close friends who are the most important people to each other, but when they find out one of them, Jason, is abused at home and he tries to kill himself, they all spiral and friendships start to fall apart. It basically takes you along for the ride as the protagonist Beth’s mental health and her friendships go through one of the most terrible experiences of their lives, and that makes you think about a lot of things in your life.

8. I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

I’ve been a huge fan of Casey McQuiston since Red, White & Royal Blue, because they write incredible queer stories with some of the best characterization I’ve ever seen. In this one, Chloe, held hostage by a Southern Christian small town with her moms, has made it her mission to beat child prodigy and good girl Shara as valedictorian, but instead Shara ends up kissing her (and two other classmates) before disappearing, leaving behind only a series of clues for the three to follow. Let’s just say I didn’t expect the plot to unfold like it did at all: it turns everything upside down and, once again, in the way Casey McQuiston does, ends up with the most compelling characters I’ve ever read about.

9. A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

Ugh, I love fantasy stories based on Chinese culture and mythology (see Iron Widow and If You Could See the Sun). This one makes use of the art of tea-brewing, which the protagonist Ning uses to create fantastical illusions and to participate in a competition looking for the new palace tea master, hoping to save her sister’s life by winning. The writing was great, and I really liked Ning, the protagonist. But to quote from my little book diary: “I’m rooting for the straights with the tea-induced magical connection, but I might be rooting a lot more for the princess-and-her-ferocious-handmaiden side couple.”

10. XOXO by Axie Oh

Okay, the last one, which I never expected to be good or original at all, and it’s a bit cliché even for me. But something about the story stuck with me, and so it made this list. It’s a bit of a typical k-pop (which is a genre I don’t even listen to) idol romance, in which Jenny, a cello player, spends an evening with (unbenownst to her) k-pop star Jaewoo in LA, only to reunite with him at a music conservatory in Seoul a few months later when Jenny moves to Korea. I guess you can sort of figure out the plot from there, but the characters are written very well (I think you can see the pattern here), and it’s a really nice read when you want something simple and sweet.

#books #ya literature #ya lit #the inexplicable logic of my life #benjamin alire sáenz #if you could see the sun #ann liang #imogen obviously #becky albertalli #el fabuloso mundo de las letras #jordi sierra i fabra #iron widow #xiran jay zhao #when we were infinite #i kissed shara wheeler #casey mcquiston #a magic steeped in poison

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paper-mario-wiki · 6 months

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Shangri-La Frontier mid-season review

This is by far the best fake video game I've ever seen written in fiction.

Most MMO-centric isekai stories have trouble with providing accurate and realistic depictions of the complexities and minutia that give MMOs the allure they have. I've seen so much handwavey bullshit tacked onto fake-games that introduce unrealistically overlooked mechanics for reasons like giving the protag immense power just because they're the protag and the story is about them. A good example of this is another MMO Isekai airing this season, "A Playthrough of a Certain Dude's VRMMO Life", wherein the main character becomes extremely rich, powerful, and famous by episode 2 because he stumbled into a stealth archer playstyle, a build which apparently no human in that universe had ever conceived of before, and then making a fortune by selling basic potions to everyone after NPCs stopped selling them (another thing he was uniquely able to do because not a single other player had the forethought to spec into alchemy). These lesser, dime-a-dozen isekai add up to be boring fantasy strories with gaming elements clumsily put in so that the author can demonstrate how powerful the world's inhabitants are by showing their stat allocation screen instead of, say, explaining anything about what they do that's so uniquely powerful and how they figured it out. Ya know, stuff you'd hope to hear about from any competent story.

Shangri-La Frontier is a breath of fresh air for anyone who, like me, is sick of authors ignoring the things that actually make video games compelling in service of creating a stock-standard narratives in fantasy worlds because it allows them to get away with bullshit. I've always found it very convenient that many isekai narratives indulge in things like chattel slavery, because it's societally normal enough for the protag to purchase a beautiful, vulnerable girl to add to his harem (dont worry, she is always inexplicably in love with him no matter what because he's SUCH a kind master). And it never really seems to go anywhere. Because the Video Game Isekai, while an interesting premise in theory, is more often than not used exclusively as a means to simplify the structure of a world's power scaling to abide by an arbitrary set of omnipresent universal rules (e.g. what people who have never cared to look into game development think of video games). This anime, by comparison, is VERY clearly authored by someone who plays a LOT of games.

Every piece of logic used to drive the plot forward, so far, is congruent to a real-world example of video game conventions, and I'm not just talking about levelling up and selling monster parts. Story elements that I've rarely (if ever) seen explored in other isekai are ever-present and genuinely clever and amusingly introduced. My favorite example of this so far has been the way the protagonist has been able to go head to head with so many overlevelled foes in the first 9 episodes. The story of course makes note of how good of a gamer Sanraku (our hero) is, but much like in real life games, being super duper good at dodging attacks doesn't really make up for a 70 level gap in items and learned skills. For that reason, he gets his ass whooped more often than he actually outsmarts others (so far he hasn't beaten a single player in pvp). So how is he getting out of these situations without dying so frequently? Simple: he got access to a later area too early relative to his level (sequence break) and got access to a high level follower NPC that's been carrying him. This is something he acknowledges directly several times, specifically using words like "Emul has been hard-carrying me for a while." This, to me, is extraordinarily meaningful. That's something you can exploit in Skyrim, man. That's REALISTIC CHEESE STRATS. The excitement and wonder I find in this show doesn't come from watching the protag do something unexpected, but by watching him do something that I would think to do.

This knowledge the author has demonstrated regarding modern gaming culture extends further into the actual realistic nature of game design and community. The story exists in a reality where full-dive VRMMOs are the be-all-end-all of gaming, and given the prohibitively expensive nature of developing and designing expansive, immersive worlds, most games are pretty shit. It's been hinted at so far that this is due to a monopolistic megacorp which is one of the only entities rich and powerful enough to make a good game (the game in question being the one that shares the title of the anime), but so far the strife of the characters have been pretty centralized to the happenings of the game world and its politics. By the way, lets talk about the game world's player base politics, which I'm also quite pleased with. It exists in the form of guilds and clans who struggle for power not by participating in seemingly random pvp with other powerful players to see who is the most epic and badass warrior (again, like many contemporary isekai typically opt for), but by gaining actual realistic support from a fictional playerbase with realistic desires and playstyles. Some guilds are interested in lore, some gather for alliance and boss raids, some for things like animal husbandry, and (naturally) at least one is dedicated to trolling and PKing. Each of these factions, through the very little that we've seen of them so far, communicate on forums and only know as much as is reasonable for them to know. The only reason they give a shit about the protagonist at all is because he gained access to a high-level unique scenario quest that they want information on how to access, and the only reason word of that got out in the first place was because someone posted a screenshot of him with a unique NPC onto a forum, asking about it as "where can i find this pet summon, its super cute!" That's real. That's video games, baby.

I like this show a lot so far. I like that it cares about video games, but I also like its writing. I like the main character and how hes less of an ultra badass super cool guy, and more of an earnest challenge-run lets player. Like, a lot of his dialogue straight up sounds strikingly similar to Japanese youtubers. And he's naturally always quick to point out inconsistencies in the game world's logic. I ALSO really like his community of pals from a janky old fighting game, and I ADORE the girl from his school who has a crush on him and also just so happens to be an exceptionally high level player from a top clan, and how she had to spend 9 episodes working up the courage to send him a friend request. I love that so, so much, dude.

I highly recommend this show if you're into a single thing I've mentioned. The animation is great. The world is beautiful. The character design is immaculate. And I'm looking forward to watching it continue.

#text #shangri la frontier

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