{"id":6370,"date":"2019-04-09T17:11:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T21:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=6370"},"modified":"2019-04-09T17:16:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T21:16:55","slug":"book-review-bitter-suites-by-angela-yuriko-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-bitter-suites-by-angela-yuriko-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Bitter Suites by Angela Yuriko Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Bitter Suites<\/em> by Angela Yuriko Smith<\/p>\n

Self-published, 2018<\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 978-1721546800<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

“Bitter Suites is supposed to entrich your life, not sap it.”\u00a0 That’s what the desk clerk, and owner, of\u00a0 Bitter Suites, a hotel specializing in “renewable death experiences” tells a client. It certainly is a popular enough place, but having read Angela Yuriko Smith’s novella, I can’t say that the owner accomplishes her goal. It certainly changes lives, but I don’t think I would say that’s necessarily for the better.<\/p>\n

Bitter Suites\u00a0<\/em>consists of a number of stories about customers of the business, some isolated and some linked. It reminded me a bit of Neal Shusterman’s\u00a0Scythe,\u00a0<\/em>in that technology is used to bring back the dead in that book as well, but in\u00a0Bitter Suites,\u00a0<\/em> this is an unusual technology available only to the very privileged, and different people have different reasons for booking a room. Early stories include a teen excited to experience his first “renewable death”, a romantic couple who choose a “Romeo and Juliet” experience that has unexpected consequences (except for the reader), a driver’s ed class that has a disturbing ending, and twins whose parents are hoping the experience brings them together (also not an especially surprising ending for the reader) Other stories are linked together as a “death junkie” finds himself banned from the hotel.<\/p>\n

The concept is interesting, and the idea of presenting individual choices and reactions to death knowing that it will be a “renewable death” was original. However, I wish the linked stories had told us a bit more about the owner, Azreal (although the author includes a story at the end that she says will explain the origins of the Bitter Suites in a forthcoming volume). I also feel that, while this would succeed as a novella had the author left this as a standalone book, her explanation that there will be a forthcoming volume that completes the story makes what would have seemed like a finished product seem only partially complete, and somewhat of a disappointment. Rather than presenting it as one of two volumes, she would be better off including a longer collection of stories in a single volume, such as presented in the collection\u00a0Machine of Death.\u00a0<\/em>Still, I very much enjoyed the concept. I have not read any other work by Angela Yuriko Smith to date, but I will certainly be on the lookout for volume two of\u00a0Bitter Suites.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contains: Violence, gore, graphic depictions of murder and suicide.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note:\u00a0Bitter Suites\u00a0<\/strong>is on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in Long Fiction.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitter Suites by Angela Yuriko Smith Self-published, 2018 ISBN-13: 978-1721546800 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition “Bitter Suites is supposed to entrich your life, not sap it.”\u00a0 That’s what the desk clerk, and owner, of\u00a0 Bitter Suites, a hotel specializing in “renewable death experiences” tells a client. It certainly is a popular enough place, but having read<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3737,3736,2474,3739,1305,2313,3740,3667,3738],"class_list":["post-6370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-angela-yuriko-smith","tag-bitter-suites","tag-book-review","tag-machine-of-death","tag-neal-shusterman","tag-novellas","tag-scythe","tag-stoker-awards-2018","tag-suicide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6370"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6413,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6370\/revisions\/6413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}