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Oxford University Press has named its word/phrase of the year, and it’s “brain rot.” It defines the phrase as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”
I’ve definitely noticed the phrase used online a lot this year, usually in a pejorative way, which is not surprising considering the “rot” part of it. Despite the negativity that surrounds things that are labeled as brain rot, I feel like engaging in a little cranium decay, maybe, isn’t so bad. I mean, the year (years?) have been rough, and it’s nice to turn off and reset every once in a while. Now, too much brain rotting and not enough brain building can be a problem, of course, but I’m just saying that maybe we should reserve time for our brains to rot. Just a little. As a treat.
Of course, there are other ways to take a break from it all that are the opposite of brain rotting. The specific ways I’m thinking involve sisters who used to be snakes in Tang Dynasty China, beaucoup romantasies, and even a trip to the Finnish underworld.
Sister Snake by Amanda Lee Koe
This is an interesting mix of fantasy and dark humor. Su and Emerald are sisters, but they don’t exactly see eye to eye. Su is content to live in Singapore as the perfect wife of a conservative politician, while Emerald lives a life of hedonism as a beautiful and charming sugar baby in New York City. Oh, and they were both once snakes living in the Tang Dynasty in China. After decades, it takes Emerald having a violent encounter in Central Park for Su to board a flight to New York City, and for the pair to reconcile. But when Emerald moves to conservative Singapore with Su, the eccentric sister may out them both.
The Last One by Rachel Howzell Hall
This romantasy—the latest from the bestselling Howzell Hall—promises The Witcher plus N.K. Jemisin realness. In it, Kai is a young woman lost—she doesn’t know who she is or how she came to be in a strange land with strange beasts, but she does know that she needs to get out before things get worse. She also knows that she has abilities she doesn’t quite understand and that receiving help from the town’s blacksmith can be as vexing as it can be exhilarating.
White Mulberry by Rosa Kwon Easton
It’s the late ’20s when 11-year-old Miyung gets the chance to leave her tiny farming village in Korea to go live and study with her older sister in Japan. But the move has costs—for one, it’ll mean leaving behind her sick mother. It’ll also mean leaving behind a huge piece of her identity. There are big anti-Korean feelings in Japan, and to get by unharassed, Miyoung becomes Miyoko. With this new name comes a new purpose; she becomes a nurse and settles into a new life. But her old self feels like it’s starting to slip away. A Korean church offers her some grounding and even an unexpected romance with an activist. Then a looming war—and a life-changing choice—threaten to upend everything,
Alter Ego by Alex Segura
Acclaimed filmmaker, author, and comic Annie Bustamante is psyched to write stories for her longtime favorite superhero but soon realizes that the opportunity to do so comes with baggage. She’ll have to uncover dark secrets about her favorite character if she wants to do their story justice.
I Will Scream to the World: My Story. My Fight. My Hope for Girls Everywhere by Jaha Marie Dukureh
If you’re wondering what Dukureh has to scream about to the world in this memoir, it’s some of the worst stuff ever. When she was 15, she was forced to marry, which led to her learning that she was a victim of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as a younger child. It’s after the second arranged marriage that she becomes an activist fighting for girls in her native Gambia and everywhere. She founded the organization Safe Hands, which eventually had FGM banned in Gambia. She’s now got her sights set on banishing FGM and child marriage worldwide within the next few years, and here, she gets into her work advocating for women and girls, and everything it has cost her.
North Is the Night: The Tuonela Duet by Emily Rath
A lot of this new romantasy—with its cold setting and old European ways that are being threatened by Christianity—sounds like The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden, the first book in a series I devoured one winter. It is a little different, though. For one, it has Finnish folklore, compared to Arden’s book’s Russian, and there is also a journey to the underworld. Our protagonist, Siiri, journeys there to save her friend Aina, who was dragged there by a death goddess. Question is, is Siiri a match for the underworld, or even the perilous journey it’ll take to get there?