Radiance

I love this book so much. Every time I read it, I get something new out of it. It's fantastic and dense and remains a glittering kaleidoscope of a story. This time through I recognized a lot more of the references to Greek mythology, having recently read The Odyssey, and I'm a little floored by how well Valente wove all those references into her story. And I still love the way she bounces between genres while somehow creating a cohesive whole.

That said, I'm not as big a fan of the Gothic section, which gets a bit unwieldy at times. But I suspect that has more to do with my own unfamiliarity with that particular genre. The fairy tale and closed-room mysteries are delightful, balancing perfectly between homage and send-up of their respective genres, and if I read a bit more Gothic literature, I'm sure I'd find that section to be equally ingenious.

Valente uses all those genre trappings and tropes to remind that reader that a life is not a story. A person can't be so easily reduced a narrative with a tidy beginning, middle, and end. Even though that's how our brains are built to process the world. We're constantly telling stories and shaping ourselves by the stories we tell. But it's good to remember that that ultimately does a disservice. People are more complicated than that, and if you try to force someone to fit a narrative, you miss some of their essential humanity. Especially when you do it to yourself.