A book that leaves you feeling confused, yet strangely satisfied
Thank you so much to The Write Reads and Mark Richardson for allowing me to be part of this experience and also providing me with a complimentary eARC and media kit!
Purchase this book (affiliate link): Amazon
About the Author
Mark Richardson is the author of the novels Malibu Burns, The Sun Casts No Shadow, and Hunt for the Troll.
His short stories have appeared in numerous crime and literary publications, including Hobart, Fugue, Segue, Crime Factory, Switchback, and Nth Position.
Born in the Chicago area, he graduated from the University of Iowa, and promptly escaped the midwestern winters for sunny California, first living in Los Angeles and then San Francisco. He spent thirty years working as a writer and marketer for tech companies in Silicon Valley.
Mark now lives in the East Bay with his wife, two children, and the world's cutest dog. He spends his time writing fiction, obsessing about the Chicago Cubs, attending his daughter's softball games, and reading stacks of books. He loves genre-bending fiction, especially speculative writing with a noir flavor. In 2019, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and supports the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
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Review
Book CWs
For a list of warnings, tropes, and representation for this book, check out its page on BookTriggerWarnings.com.
Premise
Near-future San Francisco is a dark world where reality is changeable and different dimensions overlap.
Teen Malibu Makimura discovers she can feel people's emotions, and senses an ominous voice growing inside her. She lands a job at a women's nightclub drawing surrealist caricatures. One night while drawing a portrait, she feels a sinister emotion projected by a woman named Luciana, who invites Malibu to her Presidio Heights mansion.
There, she makes a peculiar request - and Malibu agrees. With each following act the evil inside her grows, and Malibu begins to wonder if she will ever be in control again… or if she even wants to be.
Review (No Spoilers)
I'm not at all joking when I say this: I have zero idea what I just read.
If I had to describe what type of book Malibu Burns is, I would probably say something along the line of "speculative fiction in a vaguely dystopic setting with hints of magical realism". There is no single genre that could encapsulate what the book is, making this one of the greatest examples of genre-defying fiction.
I went into this book without knowing what it was going to be about, and I finished it still not really knowing what it's about. The plot follows a Japanese American woman named Malibu who seems to have this uncanny ability to read thoughts and emotions from certain people around her. She's approached by a mysterious woman who works for an even more mysterious man and is given the task of lighting cottages on fire for seemingly no good reason.
Reading this book was extremely disorienting in such a unique way. Not only is the timeline initially not chronological, but the book also makes great use of the unreliable narrator trope, leaving the readers confused about what is real and what is the result of psychological illusions. As I was reading, I was continuously reminded of how it felt to read/watch Fight Club for the first time. I think this book has a very similar mood and style attached to it as that film and book have.
Overall, I would definitely recommend Malibu Burns to people who enjoy reading genre-defying novels that leave you questioning everything. This is a book that ends on an extremely confusing note with almost nothing explained, but that's somehow one of its greatest features.
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