What’s unsettling may trouble us for good reason, but it can also question existing power structures, provide insight into paths forward, and more. This spooky season, ROOM 48.3 REST/UNREST‘s Lead Editor Rachel Thompson, Assistant Editor Holly Lam, and Shadow Editor Hamdah Shabbir delve into what they’re reading, from novels about resisting colonization to conversations about the horror genre as a challenge to patriarchy.
Rachel Thompson’s reads:
A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow
Rachel: “I recently read A Spindle Splintered (Tordotcom, 2022) by Alix E. Harrow. Zinnia, living with a terminal diagnosis, has her life mapped by timelines and medical authority. This YA novel refuses the tragic, passive girl, revels in queer kinship, and follows a main character who rewrites the story she’s been given. In Rest/Unrest terms, it holds exhaustion and defiance, with survival that is collaborative, inventive, and beautiful.”
Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Rachel: “I’m currently reading Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies (University of Minnesota Press, 2022) by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, a novel that moves between past/present, land/body, survival/care, showing how Indigenous people navigate systems that demand compliance. The book features human, non-human, and Two-Spirit characters whose stories interweave across memory, community, and place. Simpson’s prose is intimate, lyrical, and urgent, and brimming with rest, care, refusal, and resistance.”
Holly Lam’s reads:
Who Is Wellness For? An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind by Fariha Roísín
Holly: “A recent read that comes to mind is Who Is Wellness For? An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind by Fariha Roísín (Harper Wave, 2022). I started this way back when we were reading submissions for our issue, and was struck by its connections to our theme. Roísín delves into the commodification of wellness; how so much of the wellness industry in North America has been appropriated and extracted from other cultures and disconnected from its origins. The book explores how a quest for rest for the few has caused much unrest for the many.”
“The Feminine Grotesque” at the Vancouver Writers’ Festival
Holly: “Since it’s spooky season, I’ll also mention an event I just went to at the Vancouver Writers’ Fest, called “The Feminine Grotesque”. Jen Sookfong Lee, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Mona Awad discussed their new novels—respectively, The Hunger We Pass Down, The Bewitching, and We Love You, Bunny. The panel covered why horror is a fitting genre to convey female experience, among many other topics. All three books dwell in a space of unrest and ambiguity—of identity, of unresolved trauma, of reality vs. non-reality—and involve elements of surrealism, supernaturalism, and horror. The conversation will be airing as an episode of the CBC podcast Bookends!”
Hamdah Shabbir’s reads:
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung
Hamdah: “I recently picked Cursed Bunny (Algonquin Books, 2022) by Bora Chung as one of my October horror reads, and it did not disappoint. Often through absurdism, humour, and crude body horror, Cursed Bunny features ten short stories that unravel the horrors of capitalist greed, exploitation, and patriarchal struggles. “Snare” is a standout: a greedy father manipulates his son to spill his sister’s golden blood for his own financial gain. Many of Chung’s troubled characters demonstrate their feelings of unrest by seeking justice of their own volition – through acts of vengeance.”
Chlorine by Jade Song
Hamdah: “Another great read was Chlorine (William Morrow, 2023) by Jade Song, a sapphic, coming-of-age horror story about an ambitious swimmer’s strange transformation into a mermaid. Song delivers an unsettling story that explores the darkside of ambition and the protagonist’s slow descent into madness and obsession. The story depicts the consequences of competitive pressure, and how it can force someone to disregard their need for sufficient rest in exchange for success, no matter the detrimental cost to their well being.”
Unrest propels us to create from our deep discomfort with a world shaped by profound injustice. Rest gives our words and art the space to breathe and develop. Yet rest is also too often imposed through exhaustion, manufactured by institutions invested in silence and denial of their ongoing violence.
In the pages of ROOM 48.3 REST/UNREST, we untangle those forces that deny us rest, while also celebrating the radical act of reclaiming it.
