Fantasy and Sci-Fi

 Weird Kid

Eekhout, Greg Van. Weird Kid. 208p. Harper/Harper Collins. Jul 2021. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780062970602.

    Part of fantasy and sci-fi is buying into the world building and suspension of reality. Being a person who generally does not self-select media from either genre, this is something I struggle with. I don’t necessarily feel like an authority on whether or not this book moves from reality to imagination without breaking credibility, because it’s really hard for me to not bring questions of realism with me. The general idea of supernatural things happening in a suburb and it is mysterious and strange is believable. However, a mysterious thing crash landing in someone’s neighborhood, a couple going to investigate, and then just accepting it as a baby made of goo, that they are now going to raise? Not believable. Their first reaction to discovering goo that becomes a child, is to take it home? Raise it? Become its parents? The author does a good job at weaving different elements of the story together, information from the beginning comes back at the end, but for me, why this couple can just acquire a baby is a fairly distracting, and unexplored plot hole from the beginning.  

As a reader, I did not find the theme of this book to be overly obvious. It could be the distraction of how it was conveyed, but for readers of sci-fi, maybe it is more evident. Generally, the theme has to do with being yourself and being open and accepting. However, I do think this gets a bit convoluted in the end of the book where elements of selfishness and greed are explored through the foiling of the evil plot and big companies trampling over the less powerful. The story also touches on what and who is home. It did feel a bit like spaghetti at the wall, with an attempt at teaching too many lessons. 

I don’t think supernatural-suburb is groundbreaking, but it works for the story. It is clear that the author took creative liberties and used their imagination in this story. The writing was funny, especially the dialogue. The more sci-fi elements weren’t exactly for me, but I thought the imblobsters not making any sense was funny, I liked Gravy and Dairy and that they kept calling their mom their monkey. I thought Agnes was the most interesting and fully developed character, and enjoyed reading about her. As a reader, I found a disconnect between Jake being made of goo and uncontrollably shape-shifting due to the Hum, and the blobs taking over other forms. When it seemed like it was going the route of stress makes Jake shape-shift uncontrollably, I was following. But when it became, stress makes Jake shape-shift, and also, goo can take over any object and turn it into any mishmash of a creature, this was harder for me to track. I think if what the goo can do had been a bit more narrowed down, the end of the story would have come together more clearly for me. While there are brief moments of scientific relevance, such as the geosonicagitator, this book seems to be largely fiction, without a clear base of science. With Jake being ultimately accepted for who he is, goo and all, the book does raise ideas about how we treat other beings. 

Lola

Valenti, Karla Arenas. Lola. 247p. Knopf. Sept. 2024. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978059317006.

    The author self-categorizes this book as magical realism, which I agree with. The incorporation of magical elements into an otherwise normal setting is made even more believable by the fact that it is disclosed the parents do not see the magical elements. For a majority of this book, I had a hard time differentiating what was actually happening and what was a function of the characters imagination. However, in the last 3 chapters of the book the pieces started falling into place for me. While I wouldn’t have suspected it initially, this story does deal with universal truth. It is about life, death, acceptance, and grief. I’m sure the reader's own experiences will inform how they grasp and apply the themes, but it would be hard to walk away from reading this without taking away the basic understanding of those 4 main themes. The magical realism borrows aspects that felt reminiscent of other fantasy to me, the closet being a portal (The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe), sailing to the other realm (Where the Wild Things Are), the queen and food that changes your state(Alice in Wonderland). That being said, despite these not being never-before-tried ideas, it did feel like a fresh take to me. 

    Mexican culture is interwoven throughout the book, and while there is a note at the end that provides definitions for some of the Spanish vocabulary, I would have appreciated the inclusion of footnotes when new phrases were introduced. I gathered my own working ideas of unfamiliar words from context, but an earlier explanation could have been helpful.