Book Reviews: Huntress, Lo; Dream Animals, Martin; The Were-Wolf, Housman; The Pervert, Perez

Title: Huntress
Author: Malinda Lo
Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2011
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 395
Total Page Count: 314,155
Text Number: 1077
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Generations before Ash, a group of humans make an unusual journey to the fairy court in hopes of ending an unnaturally long winter. I sometimes find overland journey narratives tedious or unstructured; sometimes, I love the emphasis they place on survival and growing camaraderie. This falls in the latter group, which may have as much to do with how long it's been since I encountered the structure as it does the book itself. The slow-burn intimacy particularly flatters the development of a romance—but, that said, what interests me most in the romance is the vision that presages it, and Matrix-like ("would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"), I wish that had been a source of tension; what tensions exist instead, in the characters's diverging paths, I find less interesting.

The entire post-roadtrip section falters. The climax is in two parts, and the second part feels tacked on. I have complains re: plot holes (why summon a king when what they needed was a hunter?), and that the protagonist assumes her role out of necessity and because she has the ability, rather than because she finds any fulfillment in it, makes for an unsatisfying ending. The most egregious aspect is the headhopping, which should have been made into omniscient narrator but is instead messy and smacks of the worst of YA writing. This was still more enjoyable, if not more successful, than Ash, so I'm not sorry to've read it, but it has a gentle downward slope.


Title: Dream Animals: A Bedtime Story
Author: Emily Winfield Martin
Published: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2013
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 35
Total Page Count: 314,190
Text Number: 1078
Read Because: personal enjoyment, board book borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: A pleasure! Twee, absolutely, and I can't vouch for (nor do I honestly care about) "actually helps kids sleep"—but playful, fantastic, with lush art; I can get behind this sort of fantasy idealization of a dreamland which largely reads like a loveletter to children's and MG literature. I'm glad I read this in print instead of digitally; the glossy prints are gorgeous.

(This is the second modern picture book I've encountered that depicts fish in 1-gallon fish bowls. Both were published around 2010—when did we begin the cultural realization that these habitats are actually really awful? is this a cultural realization, yet, or just something I've been exposed to in my social circles? I'll admit to being (justifiably!) sensitive about idealized and/or outdated problematic depictions of pets in media, but the goldfish=fishbowl association really needs to die.)


Title: The Were-Wolf
Author: Clemence Housman
Published: Gutenberg, 2004 (1896)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 60
Total Page Count: 314,250
Text Number: 1079
Read Because: fan of the trope, ebook free from Gutenberg
Review: A woman in the arrives of wake of ominous portents, leaving wolf tracks behind her. This has held up phenomenally well since 1896. The antiquated language is a minor hurdle, especially in such a short text, and a beautiful but strong, axe-wielding woman who straddles gender stereotypes and has an erotic but ambiguous danger still feels progressive and still feels like a fresh take the werewolf trope. It's one of the more satisfying werewolf narratives I've encountered: the climax is an extended, grueling, numinous chase; it's a fulfilling take on an aspect of the trope which is generally underutilized. There are flaws elsewhere—the slow build and overdrawn resolution are effective but nothing exceptional—but that middle section is flawless and won me entirely.


Title: The Pervert
Author: Michelle Perez
Illustrator: Remy Boydell
Published: Image Comics, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 314,410
Text Number: 1086
Read Because: fan of the author group, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: on this list of graphic novels about queer women, paper back borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: The chronicles of a sex worker in Seattle as she progresses through her transition. All the reviews remarking on how the anthropomorphic art contrast the mature issues of sex work and trans* identity are hilarious—it's just furry art, y'all; it's gonna be okay. I'm not enamored of this—there's a roughness, both in the art (the lingering pencil lines tip it from "raw" to "messy") and in the writing, which is poorly condensed to the point of incoherence. The overall effect I like better: it's honest, confrontational, personal, and complex; the vignette format builds into a nuanced portrait. This is worth reading, nonetheleast because it's so quick to read, but flawed.

Water leak, unpacked, summer weather--an update of mundanities

One adventure in apartment living:

I woke to weird splashing sound to find that the inside of a windowsill was dripping because the upstairs neighbors had a leaky tub. Two weeks of ~daily maintenance visits + two fans and one massive, incredibly hot dehumidifier followed. Needing to be here to cat-wrangle for maintenance plus heat plus noise made for a lot of sleepless anxiety. (I've relied a lot on white noise to fight anxiety, but the ultra-fan combo was a smothering, anxiety-inducing sort of white noise that I didn't even know was possible.)

One weekend after the bathroom was rendered usable, the other bathroom had a backed-up shower. It was resolved that same weekend by a very-satisfying/-gross hair clog removal. But! please will things calm down for like five minutes!

Our major takeaway from all this is that communication is hard (we never seemed to get warning phone calls or time windows, and Dev had to make a number of trips to the office) but the complex moves quickly on structurally damaging things and the actual maintenance crew are personable and considerate. Forever grateful for the maintenance guy that was actively angry at the neighbors, who he suspected should have seen the leak (I'm sticking strictly to no assumptions/no ill will, if only to avoid second-guessing everything they do from now on, but the man had opinions), and told me "oh, this started a week ago? it must feel like a month, with us coming in and out all the time." I appreciate the reminder that no one wants to deal with this sort of thing, although my (not-)dealing was absolutely impacted by being big-time crazy and therefore overwhelmed by the need to masquerade as a grown adult for any length of time.


One victory in apartment living:

We reached critical (anti-)mass in our unpacking to just a few boxes and a few more donation piles, which gave us incredible impetus to finish sorting and actually take in donations and buy our last storage shelves and just be done. There's a part of me that wants to live in the domestic clutter of a Miyazaki film, and a center of me that has a lot of anxiety re: not having things and is hugely emotionally attached to specific things I do have, and part of me that is weighed upon by possessions and liberated by space. Devon comes from a family of hoarders, and so—at least while recovering from that, and determining how he wants to operate his own spaces—has a distinct "miles of open, empty carpet" aesthetic. I think we're finding a good balance: functional, no obsessive minimalism, but empty—clean—so much room to breathe.

The cats love it. Cat furniture is on our to-buy list, and an actual cat tree will reclaim some of that freed space. But open spaces have transformed August into a new beast who sprints the length of the house. There's a garden window reserved for growing sun-warmed cats. They have things to look at out windows, but more than that have safety and space to roam and play in.


Adventures elsewise:

I have a deep ambivalence over summer, because I hate sun and heat—but the summer's ubiquitous, intense* sun and heat create evocative atmospheres and memories. But my usual fear/anticipation has been colored this year by headaches. I've always had light-/heat-/tension-/dehydration-/stress-/exhaustion-headaches, and this feels like a combination of all of the above; and my usual remedies chip away, but nothing eases it completely. We're looking into blackout curtains; in the meanwhile, it's curtailing what I can do, like use the computer or my eyes at all TBH. I'm grateful for audiobooks, but frustrated. I've fallen behind on book reviews, personal correspondence, journaling.

* In as far as "intense" applies the Pacific Northwest; insofar as a PNW resident views any heat or sun at all as intense.

I've been watching a lot of JessiMew's LPs to wind down when my eyes/head feel better, especially in the evenings. I've always enjoyed her videos, but their gentleness is working particularly well for me just now.