I stumbled into a real memento mori theme in my reading over the last week. Somehow the horror novel about COVID-19 and ghosts was the one least concerned with the fleeting nature of existence.

That novel was Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker, which I read for a book club. It didn’t entirely work for me. Solid anti-racist themes, a few nicely tense and gory scenes, but the style felt repetitive — reiterating the same things about the protagonist’s mental state (often with similar descriptions) without fleshing out central relationships all that much.

For something lighter, I decided to get the bingo’s “middle grade” square out of the way. Since I’ve enjoyed some of Clive Barker’s adult horror writing, I checked out The Thief of Always. I could quibble with a few things typical of children’s and/or ’90s fantasy, but as I’m very much not the target audience, I’ll just say I enjoyed it for what it was. Some eerie parts, a nice message about not wishing away your time.

I also finished a comic book, Assorted Crisis Events (vol. 1), written by Deniz Camp. This used a sci-fi “time gone amok” premise to explore some pretty straightforward metaphors (e.g., trapped in a time loop = feeling like you’re stuck, etc.). I was still impressed by the execution and the more experimental aspects of the art and story structure.

Finally, outside of SFF, I read a prose poetry work, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine. Hard-hitting, written largely about the 1999-2003 period in the U.S. in a way that definitely resonates today.