Love and apes: books read

Film critic Roger Ebert once observed that love stories are always a cliche; what makes them interesting is that the cast keeps changing. Case in point, the fake-dating rom-com RENT A BOYFRIEND by Gloria Chao. It’s obvious as soon as Chinese-American protagonist Chloe hires a fake boyfriend from Rent For Your ‘Rents (whatever your parents want for you, your fake boyfriend can fake it to a T) that she and Andrew will end up together. It’s still fascinating watching them navigate cultural issues, dysfunctional parents and their own personal issues to get to the HEA.

This was a fun romance and I give Chao points for not resolving the family dysfunction easily. I hate the “Oh, they really love their kid after all, let’s forget what awful parents they were” resolution (I’ve seen it a few times in movies and TV) and no, the story doesn’t hand-wave any of the problems. I’m not sure if Rent for Your ‘Rents makes sense (is one visit really going to satisfy your parents everything’s fine with your love life?) but thumbs up for this one.

Not so much SINGLE PLAYER by Tara Tai. The protagonist of this lesbian rom-com is a computer-game writer a gaming company hires to provide their soon-to-be-legendary next release with some romantic plotlines. That doesn’t sit well with the nonbinary game designer, who wants to avoid any such elements, and boy do these two find each other Obnoxious and Irritating … Sounded promising, but the first few chapters were so heavy into gaming talk and nerdy references that as a non-gamer I couldn’t get into it. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad concept — a lot of people do care passionately about gaming — but it’s not one that works for me.

As the climax of Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde is a blatant riff on King Kong — Bernie Casey as a now berserk Dr. Pride climbs the Watts Towers for a standoff with the cops before falling to his death — I decided to dig deeper and bought TRACKING KING KONG: A Hollywood Icon in World Culture by Cynthia Erb. The author looks at King Kong, it’s 1976 remake (Erb mentions that Peter Jackson is thinking about a remake of his own) and spinoffs such as King Kong vs. Godzilla and Jack Kirby’s Kamandi #7 (cover by Kirby). That makes me surprised by the stuff she doesn’t mention, such as the 1960s King Kong cartoon or the film Konga — though she’s not making an encyclopedic survey so I don’t think that’s a flaw in the book.

Erb argues that while King Kong was seen as a horror film at the time and a monster movie in the 1950s (after its rerelease inspired both American and Japanese kaiju films) it also has a romance element, a jungle-movie element and some similarities with director Merriam C. Cooper’s earlier documentaries. She also looks at the racial subtext, with a bunch of white adventurers invading the jungle and carrying a dark-skinned jungle dweller home in chains; his rampage through New York can be seen as embodying the dangerous black savage or a righteous pushback against the white oppressor

That material is fascinating but it bogs down in the heavy academese Erb writes in. A fair amount of space goes to discussing different academic interpretive schemes and the pros and cons of each; possibly this would have worked if I was in the same field as Erb … but I’m not. So a favorable review, but not an enthusiastic one.

Cover by Kirby. All rights to images remain with current holders.