juushika: A black and white photo of an ink pen (Writing)
Title: Chain Letter
Author: Christopher Pike
Published: 1986
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 451,125
Text Number: 1576
Read Because: I was curious to read some Pike after watching the firmly mediocre The Midnight Club; borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: After a deadly car accident, a group of teens receive a chain letter blackmailing them into increasingly self-destructive stunts. The writing here is workmanlike for sure, but it's hard to begrudge that in such a pulpy book and it allows the more stylized sections (like Alison's attack) to shine. Similarly the characters are uninspired but serve their purpose: their blandness is an entertaining juxtaposition to the increasing tension of their predicament. The mystery is also on the right side of legible. I remember Pike having more gleeful & less morose antagonists/violence, so I'll probably read a few more. But as an experiment in "how does Pike read as an adult" the answer is: utterly unsurprising, but that's not a bad thing.


Title: Shadowplay
Author: Joseph O'Connor
Published: Europa, 2022 (2019)
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 360
Total Page Count: 452,455
Text Number: 1581
Read Because: cribbing off my mother's book club's October reading, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A fictionalization of Bram Stoker's life, managing the Lyceum Theatre under the tyrannical rule of its lead actor, Henry Irving, the model for Dracula. This isn't about writing Dracula, but it's about its inspirations, real and fictional: Irving, the rising homophobia of 19th Century England, and the background anxiety of the Ripper murders; and a sprinkling of namedrops and conjectures which grow gratuitous and offer limited insight into Stoker or Dracula. The good bits are rich, immersive, a nuanced imagining of life in period England. The bad bits made me roll my eyes, and I find this overstays its welcome, with a belabored, maudlin coda. Not mad I read it; probably would've benefited from reading some biographies instead.


Title: The Changeling Sea
Author: Patricia A. McKillip
Published: Firebird, 2003 (1988)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 140
Total Page Count: 453,395
Text Number: 1584
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Local tavern worker finds herself enmeshed in a world of princes, magicians, and the vast magics of the sea. As well established (since I mention it every time it comes up), I don't like water aesthetics; I took an age to pick this up as a result. There's so much that could bias me against it ... but no, it's beautiful. McKillip's evocation of the sea, its awe and beauty and danger, and the very real tension of living a mundane life on the border of something so unfathomable, marries perfectly to a fae-like understanding of magic and otherworlds. And it never hurts that McKillip loves to surround an unassuming female protagonist with numerous but non-competitive attractive, mysterious young men. It's wish-fulfillment, a fairy tale, but so nuanced in execution: emotionally intense and bittersweet. Still not a favorite, and blame that in fact on the water aesthetic, but I'm glad that I finally read it.
juushika: Photograph of the torso and legs of a feminine figure with a teddy bear (Bear)
Title: Twelfth Night
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1602
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 324,325
Text Number: 1143
Read Because: Shakespeare reading project
Review: As You Like It's improved successor, and one of my favorite plays. The A-plot grows better with each scene, increasingly playful but building a tension which is never resolved—I love that "Viola" is never present in the final act, that "Cesario" remains, persistently queer. And Viola/Cesario is a delight: great dialog, even better rapport with the audience, pulling us into the textual and metatextual layering of wordplay, identity, desire, and queerness. The Malvolio B-plot I've come to appreciate more over time (and thanks to amazing stage productions); again as in As You Like It, it's a dark mirror to the A-plot themes of the foolishness of love, funny but deceptively, profoundly cruel. I love this play down to its every detail (including Antonio, whose direct parallel to Cesario—without the social pardon provided by Viola—explores the play's boundaries), and yet it reads so trippingly. Immediately after Hamlet it feels like a reprieve, but it's still so accomplished, so complex.


Title: Sweet Blue Flowers Volumes 1-8
Author: Takako Shimura
Translator: John Werry
Published: VIZ Media, 2017-2018 (2004-2013)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 1555 (382+400+400+372)
Total Page Count: 325,880
Text Number: 1143-1151
Read Because: listed on the NYLP's A Beginner's Guide to LGBTQ+ Manga, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Review & rating stand for the series entire. Childhood friends are reunited when they begin high school, and this follows the social lives and romances of a cast across two high schools, structured loosely around interschool drama productions. Almost everything that can go wrong with this structure does: the cast is difficult to keep track of, sideplots peter out, and the plays take up too many valuable panels. The real culprit is the transitions, which are incredibly abrupt, particularly in the first few volumes and in the timeskip resolution, and which make everything more confusing and therefore distant. But when it clicks, it's subtle and profound and real—this is one of the first realistic depictions of the queer experience that I've encountered in manga, rather than metaphorical or subtextual or tropey or erotic, and that realism is valuable and nuanced: self-interrogative, bittersweet, validating; still funny and sweet, not so navel-gazey as to be irritating, with likable leads. Those aspects grew on me; I just wish the overall narrative were better. The art is beautiful, clean, and consistent, but the simple backgrounds and evolving character designs only exacerbate story issues.


Title: Jane, Unlimited
Author: Kristin Cashore
Published: Penguin Young Readers Group, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 470
Total Page Count: 326,350
Text Number: 1152
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review:While in mourning for her aunt, Jane is invited to a friend's deeply unusual family home. Her adventures then diverge into branching paths explored through varying genres, from mystery to gothic horror to scifi. It's a creative and experimental effort, and I appreciate it for that and for the places where it succeeds: the effective experiments in tone; the times where the multifaceted approach to identity and grief build something greater than a single narrative could achieve. But I wish it were weirder and bigger. The quirky tone threatens to overwhelm, particularly in the first and last narratives, and such a weird premise shouldn't feel boring. Too many connections between narratives are repetitive or subtextual, and Ivy—Jane's recurring touchstone—isn't rendered deeper than her first iteration; is in fact rarely present, and so Jane's attachment feel fixed, unaffected by the branching paths. I wonder if rearranging the narratives would help, to start somewhere stranger than a sedate mystery; putting the spoiler ) scifi story last would probably be a mistake—too easy, even trite—but I still wish the final narrative were more substantial.
juushika: A black and white photo of an ink pen (Writing)
Title: Harold and the Purple Crayon
Author: Crockett Johnson
Published: HarperCollins Publishers, 2015
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 65
Total Page Count: 323,045
Text Number: 1134
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: This flawlessly executes its conceit: imagination/creativity is escapism but can be isolating; it's a power and a risk and a solution—and this could be (and sure sounds like!) trite navel-gazing on the artistic process, but it speaks as more make-believe and the vast flexibility of childhood imagination; and the art and tone are entirely without pretension. The art is almost too clean, but the "crayon" makes pleasing smooth shapes, and the animals are delightfully wonky. (I do remember being disappointed to discover that creating art is actually much less forgiving!) I loved this as a kid and I can remember almost every panel, which must be an indicator of a successful kid's book. And it holds up.


Title: Hamlet
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1603
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 323,145
Text Number: 1134
Read Because: Shakespeare reading project
Review: Let's take for granted that there's nothing I can say in a review to add to 400 years of people talking about Hamlet. Instead, I like to play two games: 1) What did I learn this time?* and 2) What themes did I focus on this time, AKA when did I cry?** This isn't my favorite Shakespeare, which is Macbeth—but I fell in love with Macbeth from happenstance and for aesthetic. Hamlet is my second favorite, and easily the play with which I most resonate. 1) and 2) have cumulative effects, and each time I find a new focus within the play I take it with me going forward. My engagement, like the play's themes, reiterate and contradict and think themselves to death. (And I find more scenes to cry at! each time!)

Footnotes )


Title: The Sound of Silence
Author: Katrina Goldsaito
Illustrator: Julia Kuo
Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 40
Total Page Count: 323,185
Text Number: 1135
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Richly colored, beautifully detailed illustrations of geometric layouts and a vivid, diverse portrait of Tokyo, but the art also zooms and and simplifies to compliment the themes of silence and mindfulness—the moments which lie between and ground the noise of life. (I only regret the obnoxious digital textures.) The narrative isn't especially complicated, but it's playful, gently contemplative, and effective, and because this can serve as child's introduction to Japanese setting and culture it pulls double duty weight. I didn't love this—I like more weirdness and wonder in my picture books—but it's a pleasure.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
Title: In Other Lands
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan
Narrator: Matthew Lloyd Davies
Published: Tantor Audio, 2018 (2014)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 440
Total Page Count: 320,695
Text Number: 1124
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A prickly 13-year-old attends a border training camp at the edge of portal fantasy territory, and forms an unlikely bond with a pair of unusual students. (N.B. Hidden bits obliquely spoil the romantic pairings.) Somewhere around the 30% mark I said aloud to an empty room, "oh no, I'm emotionally invested"—this has a sardonic tone, a long view of the protagonist and his clumsy education in intimacy, and a refreshing emotional and sexual honestly; it avoids the usual poor communication and drama I expect in YA and substitutes instead more realistic and complicated issues of emotional maturity and emotional needs. And the central trio is engaging wish-fulfillment, and given the way this book rejects genre formulas I felt and hoped for spoiler ).

What it does instead is spoiler ), and the way the book depicts and discusses sexual orientation is fantastic; and it's not the book's fault that it doesn't fulfill my particular hopes (and, unlike some similar disappointments, it doesn't bait). Nonetheless by the 60% mark most of my investment had worn out. All the strengths overstay their welcome: the humor grows thin, that intimate long view makes the end drag, and the heightened romance tropes grate against a frankly ridiculous number of public conversations about sex. And the romance and sex, and constant navel-gazing over romance and sex, overwhelm the erstwhile plot and a portal fantasy premise which is almost entirely without magic but focuses instead on the increasingly common meta-portal fantasy theme of choosing a world. It's not bad!—well-intended, engaging; never bad. But that initial spark dies, which disappoints me because I thought I was finally glimpsing that intense emotional investment that some readers have in YA novels.


Title: As You Like It
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1623
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 320,795
Text Number: 1125
Read Because: Shakespeare reading project*
Review: It would be disingenuous to call this a dry-run for Twelfth Night, despite the shared conceit which in Twelfth Night is better realized and even more queer, and that Twelfth Night has stronger and more diverse subplots—because As You Like It is strong in its own right: the transformative forest, always a pleasure in Shakespeare and here at its purest and most literal; the tension between the freedoms of the forest and the pressures of external reality, and the parallel interrogation of romance. For me this is most interesting in conjunction with other Shakespeare plays and isn't on its own a personal favorite, but it's an absolute pleasure.

* Cut for dead-dad talk. )


Title: The Complete Persepolis
Author: Marjane Satrapi
Translator: Mattias Ripa, Blake Ferris, Anjali Singh
Published: Pantheon Books, 2007 (2000, 2004)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 340
Total Page Count: 321,135
Text Number: 1126
Read Because: personal enjoyment
Review: A graphic memoir of a woman growing up during the Iranian Revolution and Iran-Iraq war. The art does nothing for me—it's consistent and inoffensive, but the blocky lines and simplistic faces contribute nothing, and the style falls apart in the more complex panels. The narrative leaves me more ambivalent. It provides a personal view of intensely complex issues, and effective evokes that singular response, particularly the way vast political issues are expressed in local, interpersonal strife—but those interpersonal issues aren't always interesting. Satrapi makes an effort to provide historical/political context, but the infodumps are disjointed; I discovered just how much I didn't know, but what I learned mostly came after from internet searches. A positive experience on the whole, but not an exemplary one.
juushika: Photograph of a row of books on a library shelf (Books Once More)
Title: Tomie
Author: Junji Ito
Translator: Naomi Kokubo
Published: VIZ, 2016
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 745
Total Page Count: 266,515
Text Number: 862
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After being murdered and dismembered, Tomie comes back to life—again and again, multiplying each time, repeating a cycle of violence by and towards women. This is a profoundly feminist narrative, in the sense that it's about feminist issues: about the jealousy, necessity, praise and condemnation that surrounds female beauty; about inter-community conflict between women, and the violence inflicted on them by men; about liebestod, the relationship between sex and death. It's also a hot mess. There's an overarching premise and occasional interconnected story, but most are one-off experiments with concept, and the concepts aren't as haunting as in Ito's better work; there's internal inconsistencies, some repetition, and it all runs overlong. And I'm not convinced that the actual execution does good by such prickly and complicated themes; among other flaws, it's objectifying—but that they are there, so complicated and so pointed, intrigues me. Thus I am ambivalent, but I'm glad I read the thing.


Title: Julius Caesar
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1623
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 266,615
Text Number: 863
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: To put the iconic murder at the center of the play rather the climax changes everything. Some of the final battle is lost in a script—this would benefit from the energy of production—so the ending somewhat falters. But to explore the absence of Caesar, to shift the focus to Brutus and to consequences, makes for significantly more interesting structure and themes. But I confess this feels something like a dress rehearsal for Othello, insofar as both plays concerns manipulation, motivation, and consequence, and this play can't but pale in comparison. I found it more interesting than personally effecting—but the best of the language is very good.


Title: Semiosis
Author: Sue Burke
Narrator Caitlin Davies, Daniel Thomas May
Published: Macmillan Audio, 2018
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 365
Total Page Count: 266,980
Text Number: 864
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Human refugees to an alien planet discovered an unexpected form of sapience. This has a great central concept—alien sapience; consent within symbiotic relationships; the relationship between personhood, body, and community; definitions of first contact and communication—and the extended timescale and diversity of PoVs compliments it well. The secondary thought experiment about community/utopia building is less interesting and compounded by weak dialog (especially glaring in audio). Occasionally, a high concept is sufficiently engaging that the narrative doesn't need to be particularly good—which isn't to say that this is bad (it's fine; overambitious, sometimes, but fine), but I was absolutely here just for the premise and it delivers—it's pulpy, engaging, creative; surprisingly fun, given the political content and darker moments.


Title: Her Body and Other Parties
Author: Carmen Maria Machado
Published: Graywolf Press, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 245
Total Page Count: 267,225
Text Number: 865
Read Because: multiple recommendations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Eight stories (some longer, perhaps novelettes) about women's bodies, gender, and sex explored via the speculative. Machado makes fantastic use of metaphor—the women who wear colored ribbons, the women who fade into air, are concepts which exist alongside multifaceted and recognizable explorations of prejudice; the fantastic isn't a poor mimic or mere reiteration, but rather adds depth and distinct, evocative imagery to the conversation. Some of these speculative metaphors don't work for me personally, some are too constrained or on the nose; the focus on sex and gender can preclude other issues—this is pointedly intersectional, but sometimes feels too familiar to other feminist works. But one of the middle stories is effectively regional gothic for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit—and that that exists here says more than I can about the tone of this collection, about its thematic focus, its playfulness and strangeness. It's a memorable debut, effective, intelligent, powerfully written; unsettling, confrontational, but addicting.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
Still summer, but it's been cool enough—and we still have the A/C on—and I've been sufficiently unwell (depression/anxiety/undersleeping lowers my body temperate & make me sensitive to cold; a silver lining) that I can wear my hoodie come evenings. My shameful, half-destroyed hoodie, with holes chewed in it by the guinea pigs these years ago, with the wrist cuffs cut off, at least three sizes too large; and I love it. It's a comfort object and I need me some comfort objects rn.

Still summer, and wildfires today caused an air advisory; the sky is a dim orange, thick and heavy. I've been wondering how to anticipate the approach of autumn when global warming is simultaneously Objectively One of the Biggest Problems, Perhaps the Largest Problem, the problem to make my family's woes look small—except that I am too deep in my family's woes to even contemplate a global crisis.

Went to the bank with my mum to sort away unused college finances. I was simultaneously grateful that she was willing to help (because, as I told her, and she acknowledged, this is not something I could right now handle alone) and perpetually ashamed to be the 30-year-old co-banking with a parent. It was one hell of a trip for the poor teller, though: obliquely explaining why I couldn't handle it myself; explaining my dad's cancer during the minor rigmarole of figuring out which accounts to use; explaining my grandmother's death when my mother mentioned putting more money into another account. She—my mother—is aiming to have easily accessible monies in a number of accounts, so that the events immediately after his death are easier to manage. "We're not a really happy family right now!" I explained to the teller with that sort of panicked laughter that comes with exposing an emotion to a stranger. Bank employees are a strange bunch—almost all the ones I've worked with have been kind and patient; there must be something about volunteering to do dry fiscal paperwork that demands it. But it's like a switch flips when they start to shill a bank deal: "deposit this much of your dead mother's inheritance in order to earn $100-500 cash-back to spend on your husband's funeral!" and it just ... beggars belief. I could have sworn that we were all, three minutes ago, emotionally vulnerable and conscientious human beings.

My birthday was on the 18th (two days ago). Devon baked me a flourless chocolate torte—above and beyond my favorite desert except, perhaps, straight-up chocolate; it was quite a project (or, at least, a learning process), but also a labor of love, and if anything it came out not sweet enough, which is a nice problem to have if you have my taste buds. He gave me Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, to complete my project to actually play the side-games before KHIII comes out. His parents gave me a Gund Chub Bear, who arrived today (almost a week ahead of schedule) and, y'all, he is floppy and wider than tall and just ridiculous; I love him. I went to see my family on Sunday the 19th, while my sister was in town. We had pancakes.

Sunday breakfast was my family's tradition throughout my childhood, and it's still a big part of how we come together. My dad makes french toast (with challah bread) and added waffles when we were older—and when I was much younger we used to make ebelskivers. But pancakes are the most traditional. His recipe comes (I believe) from the New York Times Cookbook—they're different than most pancakes, not thin, but not fluffy/cakey. They're particular. My sister and I can't eat anything else. Once, when he was traveling for work, my mum tried to make them on a Sunday—we couldn't get them to flip properly, it was a disaster. They became the pancakes only my dad could make.

My sister is learning to make them, or at least did most of the cooking this time. Learning to make because neither of us live at home now but we still sometimes want to eat pancakes; doing most of the cooking because my dad was recovering from a recent celiac plexus block and was too dizzy to stand through the whole thing. But it still felt like something happening because my dad will die—a skill to inherit before it's too late. It's so difficult to be there—every interaction is laden with a thousand thousand meanings. But avoiding visits is profoundly counterproductive. They were good pancakes.
juushika: Photograph of a row of books on a library shelf (Books Once More)
Title: The Merry Wives of Windsor
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1602
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 263,435
Text Number: 853
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: Honestly, I didn't think this was that bad—which may say more about my general expectations from the comedies than it does about this play in particular. Falstaff certainly doesn't sparkle here as he does elsewhere; Hal provides necessary contrast, in tone, in scope, and Falstaff here never rouses the competing emotions, the sympathetic distaste, that makes him so memorable in Henry IV. Here, he is only a laughingstock. The images of laundrybasket, etc. are memorable ones; I'm also engaged by the final tableau, and how the faux-fairies mirror the transformative function of forests in many of Shakespeare plays. Also interesting to me is the women—it's not an unproblematic approach to gender and relationships, but their agency and control is still a breath of fresh air. But the connective tissue, the individual lines and characters, are unremarkable.


Title: Much Ado About Nothing
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1600
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 263,535
Text Number: 854
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: I have less luck with the comedies, so I'm surprised by how well I enjoyed this. Beatrice and Benedick absolutely steal the show; their repartee is vivid and sharp, and the loving mockery at their change of heart is charming. I'm less invested in the Hero plot, but the interplay between the two plots enables the reiteration and alteration that I love so much in Shakespeare's thematic focus; it's playful and complex. This lacks the atmosphere that marks my more favorite of Shakespeare's plays, and I don't know yet if this makes my best of list, but what a pleasure to finally read and I would love to see it performed.


Title: The Night Watch
Author: Sarah Waters
Narrator: Juanita McMahon
Published: Recorded Books, 2006
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 500
Total Page Count: 264,035
Text Number: 855
Read Because: fan of the author, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A story of the intertwined lives of four individuals in London during World War II. Had I realized ahead of time that this were the setting, I wouldn't have read it; it's a historical period I prefer to avoid in fiction. That reservation made it difficult for me to immerse myself, which is something that Waters's work requires. (Audio was also a mistake. The narration is strong, but it's just so long.) This is a melodrama, heightened and lengthened; the living diversity of the queer characters adds depth to the tone, and Waters has a phenomenal grasp of lengthy, intimate scenes, both mundane and dramatic, which stylize the human condition. But I found this laborious. The reverse chronological narration is a gimmick—an intentional, even lampshaded one; it's occasionally effective, but it made me wish for something like the suspense in The Handmaiden. And so: a fine book but the wrong reader; I found it fairly unremarkable.
juushika: A black and white photo of an ink pen (Writing)
Title: The Black Tides of Heaven (Tensorate Book 1)
Author: J.Y. Yang
Published: Tor, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 261,880
Text Number: 848
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A pair of gifted twins find their paths diverging despite their shared fight against their mother's corrupt political reign. There's a lot going on in this slim novella: The voice and setting is evocative, with beautiful turns of phrase and a distinctive sense of place. The worldbuilding is original and I adore this type of political conflict, which addresses technological development within magical worlds and how technological access builds and informs social structures; it creates a conflict which is deeply tied not just to the characters but also to the speculative setting. The character development creates a unique narrative structure: at the beginning, the twins are almost indistinguishable and the narrative is slow, opaque; their estrangement—bittersweet, but also rich with gratifying intimacies and an engaging exploration of gender—builds a more accessible, attenuated narrative. It's not perfect—that slow start is still a detriment, and the ending is too clean—but this is a unique and ambitious work, and a successful one, especially for a debut. Of course I'll read the sequels.


Title: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Author: Philip K. Dick
Narrator: Scott Brick
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2007 (1974)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 262,115
Text Number: 849
Read Because: fan of the author, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A famous star find himself rendered unknown overnight within a dangerous police state. I've read Do Androids Dream and Scanner Darkly and almost all of his short fiction, but when looking for my next Dick novel most of the reviews (for all of them) fell along the lines of "interesting rather than enjoyable"—which is certainly true here. Success is twinned to failure: moments of sincere, affecting insight (into identity, into social relationships) are marred by an unlikable protagonist and the rambling, drugged tone that Dick defaults to; but that tone also raises recursive, thematically-apt questions of memory and identity and social role. It ends well, with a full and surprisingly cogent climax and denouement; yet the setting and plot device are never quite convincing. The question, then: do the relative strengths and successful marriage of theme to speculative concepts justify the interminable travails of a pretentious, misogynistic man, the grim satire of a dystopia, and the detours into drug use and psychosis? It can—Scanner Darkly is all these things and I love it, but it's also fueled by a message so personal as to make the work accessible and sympathetic; this is more theoretical, cerebral, and emotionally distant. Interesting—worth reading, perhaps—but not enjoyable; nor something I'd especially recommend.


Title: Hellebore & Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic
Editors: JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff
Published: Lethe Press, 2012 (2011)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 262,355
Text Number: 850
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Twelve short stories about queer women and magic, a refreshing and engaging premise that fosters lovely atmospheres, like the 1980s urban fantasy vibe of Sorrell's "Counterbalance" or the magic-touched science fictional world of Moraine's "Thin Spin." The plots and sometimes the voices are less memorable but generally competent; only about three stories made me want to read more by the author, but only one (Berman's "D is for Delicious") is outright bad—so, an adequate collection. But given the premise, I wish there were more on-page queer relationships—there's a wealth of recent breakups, some meet-cutes, but it's not quite the representation I hoped for. I admire this more in concept than execution, and wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it, but it's fine.

Further thoughts on Hellebore & Rue, and urban fantasy, crossposted from Tumblr. )
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
Title: Inheritance (Adaptation Book 2)
Author: Malinda Lo
Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2013
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 475
Total Page Count: 258,050
Text Number: 833
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This picks up directly where Adaptation left off; the duology is effectively two halves of a whole. But it feels different, less of a kitchen sink approach and more cogent in focus, but not in a direction I enjoy; it's concerned primarily with the political fallout of events in the previous book, tedious and stifling, with underwhelming antagonists. (The moral ambiguity of the Imria is more successful.) For better and worse, it's frequently sidelined by the romantic relationships and a navigation towards polyamory—clumsy, talky, but beautifully well-intentioned, and enlivened by tropey moments (including "huddling together for warmth"!) which are satisfying in that corny way. The balance is frustrating and rewarding in equal measure, but worth it on the whole because compassionate, thoughtful relationship negotiation and polyamory (in my YA? it's more likely than you think!) is such a pleasure. I'll pick up more Lo in the future, and given my general apathy to YA that says something.


Title: Henry IV Part 1
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1709
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 258,150
Text Number: 834
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: I hate humor—it's a frequent holdup in my reading—and yet I love this; it's one of my favorite plays. What sets Falstaff apart is his complicated relationship with Prince Hal and also with the viewer. We criticize and adore, reject and embrace, simultaneously; we're invited to argue with the humor, and then shamed for arguing to stridently: Hal's ominious interactions with Falstaff are the beginning of a character arc that Hal intentionally sets for himself but which becomes more complicated and bittersweet than he intends. I find this play more satisfying now that I've finally read Richard II and have a better grasp on Henry IV's background and more context for the conversation about kingship that informs Prince Hal's arc. And I love Hotspur—he's one of my favorite Shakespeare characters, a memorable problematic fav, despite that he appears in a play with such strident competition. This is a superb play, affable and insidious; the clever interplay between the three plotlines, the diversity of tone, the engaging cast, is all a delight.


Title: The Girl with No Hands (and Other Tales)
Author: Angela Slatter
Published: Ticonderoga Publications, 2010
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 205
Total Page Count: 258,355
Text Number: 835
Read Because: reading more by the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 16 dark fairy tales. Many of these are very short, studies in concept explored though Slatter's rich fairytale imagery and straightforward sentence structure. With just one exception (the satirical "The Dead Ones Don't Hurt You" is pretty awful), these are solidly successful but not exceptional. But a few stand out, including those written for Slatter's Masters; these are longer and denser, allowing the voice to shine, and are more complicated in concept and theme. It's no surprise that "Red Skein," a red riding hood retelling which gives women a wolf's power, is my favorite. Slatter has a dim view of women's relationship with men and with sex—understandable, and a natural fit to dark fairy tales, but I side-eye the frequent depiction of sex work as a metaphorical exemplar. Her explorations of relationships between women—the politics of step-relationships, redeeming mothers-in-law, the value of mother/daughter bonds—are more interesting and complex. Form is something of a limiting factor here—novella length gave Of Sorrow and Such more room for characterization and subtlety—but it's solid, and I'd read more of Slatter's short fiction in the future.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
Title: The Merchant of Venice
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1600
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 257,040
Text Number: 830
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: The way that this engages/critiques/reinforces anti-Semitisim is markedly similar to the way that other plays (like The Taming of the Shrew) do sexism, but I found it significantly more difficult to countenance. The uneasy space that "if you prick us, do we not bleed?" shares with a forced conversion, that multidimensional characterization shares with explicit anti-Semitism, not just from the characters but from the playwright, including the stereotypes that Shylock is built upon, is impossible for me to resolve; if nothing else, it's a reminder to carry these reservations into other plays. Otherwise: good; not as obtrusively clever in language as some of the previous plays, but the movement between the dual plot lines is fluid and assured.

Reading this play was An Experience and one I regret on an emotional level but not on a in-context-of-this-project level; I wrote about it on tumblr, copied below for safekeeping.

Read more... )


Title: Adaptation (Adaptation Book 1)
Author: Malinda Lo
Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2012
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 257,425
Text Number: 831
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A national crisis sparks a series of strange events which alter a teenage girl. This opens with dystopic elements; it then backburners its big speculative twist (which is spoiled on my version of the cover! why!) for conspiracy theories and a sexual awakening slash bisexual love triangle which I'm under the impression resolves with polyamory. It's certainly not boring—if anything, it's cluttered—and Lo operates firmly within the YA genre but in conversation, and often argument, with its conventions. I bounce off of most YA, but the audacity and willingness to play against type held me here. It's not exceptional—in particular, I rarely had a grasp on the protagonist's personality (perhaps because she's still figuring it out herself). But I'm sufficiently engaged to read the sequel.


Title: The Ballad of Black Tom
Author: Victor LaValle
Narrator Kevin R. Free
Published: Macmillan Audio, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 257,575
Text Number: 832
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A Black hustler is hired by a rich man obsessed with the arcane. This isn't precisely subtle—it gets multiple direct thesis statements at the end—but I appreciate it: the anger, legitimate and productive but not uncomplicated, cathartic and self-advocating, is a worthy theme—especially so as direct confrontation to Lovecraft's racism. I'm not entirely impressed with the —the dialog is unrefined (which is exacerbated in audio) and the second PoV is lifeless; the historical setting and distinct atmosphere plays beautifully against the vivid, evocative imagery, but the obtrusive Cthulhu namedropping doesn't benefit it. But I liked this more than not; I should look for more by LaValle.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
Title: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Author: Mary Roach
Narrator: Shelly Frasier
Published: Tantor Media, 2003
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 305
Total Page Count: 256,375
Text Number: 826
Read Because: interest in the subject matter, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An overview of the various uses—and fates—of human bodies after death. Roach's trademark morbid, self-deprecatory humor is lost on me; it's unobtrusive, but certainly doesn't sell me on her voice (which I think it does for most readers). The compassion and human element are more successful. My favorite parts of this book are about the evolution of dissection and, with it, science's changing relationship with corpses: the disrespect, respect, depersonalization, and thanks with which individuals and institutions treat corpses are all tools for coping with death and mortality; and they're flawed tools, but changing ones. I wish she had applied this insight to mortuary practices, to analyse why certain methods make us squeamish and critique the depersonalization within those in the mainstream; here, as nowhere else, she feels limited by convention and squeamishness. But this isn't my first book on this subject, and I feel like Stiff makes a better beginning to the conversation than a middle; it covers a decent breadth of subjects, but none in any particular depth.


Title: King John
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1623
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 256,475
Text Number: 827
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This feels like a throwback to the earlier histories (specifically the Henry VI plays): it spends so much time summarizing and condensing events that characterization and theme fall by the wayside, left inconsistent or piecemeal, or simply unremarkable; King John himself suffers most in this, a vaguely unlikable character. The Bastard emerges as a more interesting candidate for protagonist, both because of his immediate connection to the audience in his asides and speeches, and because of his evolving characterization. The women are also intriguing; Constance and Eleanor between them have a confrontational, impassioned vibrancy that much of the play lacks. This is one of the plays I appreciate reading in the context of this project but wouldn't recommend in its own right.

Didn't love this play; did love reading about it after the fact! Historical critical reaction to it is fascinating & also gross. I wrote about this on tumblr; copied below for safekeeping.

Read more... )


Title: Monstress Volume 2: The Blood
Author: Marjorie M. Liu
Illustrator: Sana Takeda
Published: Image Comics, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 155
Total Page Count: 256,630
Text Number: 828
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I like this more than volume one—the routine developments in worldbuilding are out of the way; what progresses is more plotty and more personal to the cast. That said, Maika feels less distinct here; her early characterization is vivid, emotive, distant, angry; her mother issues reiterate that, and the resolution is trite. It's the god which saves things. While perhaps not as vast or strange as I'd like, it's vast enough, strange enough, which improves the tone and keeps that strange central relationship with Maika dynamic and intense. Again, the art is profoundly beautiful—and, perhaps because there's more supernatural/inhuman figures in this volume, it feels less gratuitous. This is an apt continuation, and while I still haven't fallen in love as most readers have, the series is well worth reading.


Title: The Party
Author: Elizabeth Day
Published: Little, Brown and Company, 2017
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 256,940
Text Number: 829
Read Because: reviewed as similar to The Secret History, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Events at an elaborate birthday party mark the unraveling point of an unlikely friendship between two men divided by their economic backgrounds and united by a shared secret. This namedrops Donna Tartt early on, but feels more like Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (and its questionable elision of queer attraction and sociopathy) or Hughes's In a Lonely Place (with an antihero PoV manipulating the reader's sympathy and disdain) than it does The Secret History, while possessing the atmosphere of none of these. There is no fragile idealization to balance out the unlikable characters and events; it becomes tedious, and the revelations aren't substantial enough to justify the tortured pacing. The only saving grace is the complexity of the characterization, specifically the way they change in interior and exterior views. But it isn't enough; I considered giving up halfway through, and honestly I should have.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
Title: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1600
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 253,775
Text Number: 819
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This has long been one of my favorite plays, and it holds up entirely. It's profoundly evocative and aesthetic even as a script, with a dreamlike atmosphere of slipping time and drugged revelry: transporting, seductive, flirting with danger. (Compare to Love's Labour's Lost, where the dreamlike pacing and repetition is smothering, instead.) I love how the trio of plotlines intersect while remaining distinct, and the ways they explore themes of identity and attraction (and attraction's interactions with, and refusal of, convention), but loosely, playfully. The language is more assured and the humor less forced than in earlier comedies; the blatant "ass" puns and fairy commentary on mortal failings (even as they engage their own squabbles) possess a tolerant self-mockery which suits both the themes and my personal taste. Each time I read (or see) this play, I become lost in it; it glitters, it sparkles; it's otherworldly and playful and just the right sort of ruthless; it's a complete experience, and I'm never disappointed.


Title: An Unkindness of Ghosts
Author: Rivers Solomon
Narrator: Cherise Boothe
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2017
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 254,125
Text Number: 820
Read Because: multiple recommendations, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A young doctor on a generation ship begins to solve the mysteries around her mother's death. There's some narrative jumps—flashbacks, headhopping—that I don't enjoy as a technique; and that's effectively my only complaint. This is an ambitious book, especially for a debut, but it's a successful one. The forgotten history of generation ships is one of my favorite speculative premises, and this one is intriguing and contributes a mystery plot with significant momentum. The themes meanwhile are brutal, discomforting, and profoundly intersectional: the lives of gender-divergent, neuro-divergent trauma survivors in a racist society. These elements build on each other—the use of language as an exploration of race/class and of worldbuilding is especially good—but also balance each other: upticks in plot keep the themes from growing too grim or preachy. It's a delicate balance, and through it Solomon creates a world which is vibrant and engaging, painful and complicated. This left me in awe. It's one of my favorite books of the year, and Solomon is an author to watch out for.


Title: Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day
Author: Seanan McGuire
Narrator: Emily Bauer
Published: Tor, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 180
Total Page Count: 254,305
Text Number: 821
Read Because: multiple recommendations, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A ghost who's trying to ethically earn her passing on discovers that other ghosts are disappearing. This has engaging concepts on paper—a ghost working a suicide hotline! ghosts and corn witches making lives for themselves in New York!—but as a narrative is fairly slight: short, no significant subplots, a character arc familiar to McGuire's work and a pragmatic voice enlivened by the occasional, but outlying, poetic turn of phrase (like the title). It lost me at the magic system, wherein time as a currency bartered and stolen between ghosts, witches, and mortals; it's a concept which has no particular resonance with ghost superstition and which is delivered in heavy-handed exposition. This fell flat for me, but harmlessly so, it's still a quick read; fans of urban fantasy may like it more than I.

(I've been reading a lot of McGuire just to learn that only some tidbits from the Wayward Children concept really work for me; everything else has just been shrug emoji. She seems like such a decent person, and I appreciate her social media presence; this isn't the first time that I've thrown myself against an author for wanting to like them, with no success. Usually it's for urban fantasy/post-apocalyptic/"fun" writing, and each time I wish I could ... have different standards, be more open to "fun"—and every time that makes me feel like a snob. Reminder to self that my own "fun" just means something different, that there are no obligations in media consumption, and to. just stop.)
juushika: Photograph of the torso and legs of a feminine figure with a teddy bear (Bear)
Title: All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries Book 1)
Author: Martha Wells
Published: Tor, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 150
Total Page Count: 253,185
Text Number: 816
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After hacking itself, this security robot could have killed whenever it wanted; instead, it became addicted to serial media and kept half-assing its job. Social anxiety, escapism, otherness, and a gradual, pessimistic form of self-actualization make for a sympathetic protagonist, but the "Murderbot" name introduces a disaffected, affectedly-causal voice that persists throughout and which I found grating. The plot is slight, constricted perhaps by novella format: adequate action and intrigue capitalize on the bulk of the narrative; I like how this sidelines worldbuilding elements that the protagonist doesn't care about into an evocative, light-handed background, but I wish the bots were better explored. They're insufficiently non-human, a missed opportunity which further undermines the protagonist's arc. I'd call this a case of decent story/wrong reader; I'm not compelled to read the sequel.


Title: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Author and Narrator: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Published: Tantor Audio, 2016 (2013)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 390
Total Page Count: 253,575
Text Number: 817
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A series of interconnected essays in which an ecologist, Native woman, and mother explores the ways in which these identities inform each other and her understanding of the relationship between humans and the Earth. The structure sometimes lacks direction, is often overlong, but also builds a genuinely complex worldview. Her anger and grief is articulate, the problems are overwhelming, but the thread of hope she finds is all the more affecting by contrast; her understanding is complicated and her influences diverse. My only complaint is: what now? Kimmerer offers a compelling appeal but, like much of the target audience, I come already convinced of the basic environmental premise. Her solution is individual: that we each reform our relationship with the land, that we branch into local community; but explicitly brushing aside government and industrial reform and placing all onus on the individual is insufficient, and that lingering frustration leaves a sour aftertaste.


Title: Romeo and Juliet
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1597
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 253,675
Text Number: 818
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: I'm surprised by how much I love this. Liebestod permeates everything, essential to the sexual and romantic elements even before the play's tone becomes tragic, inseparable from the eroticism, and it's a compelling combination. There's much more wordplay than I recalled, pervasive and not limited to humor; it's a skill Shakespeare has developed elsewhere, but here is applying to characterization and themes in ways his earlier plays lacked. Mercutio is a particular delight, so distinct in so few scenes, without which his death wouldn't mark such a pivotal change in tone. One benefit of reading the plays in chronological order is watching the playwright evolve, and this is spectacular evidence of that: he's using developed skills to set his work apart from his inspirations and sources and, occasionally, his own plays.

My mother and I had similar personal responses: we had both internalized a certain amount of the cultural bias that the play is a ridiculous romance for high school girls, that it's somehow limited by any of these associations, despite that we had both read and/or seen it before. We were both happily wrong, and retroactively angry at—ourselves? society? for the misconception.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
Title: Love's Labour's Lost
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1598
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 252,600
Text Number: 813
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: Reading this play without easy cultural access to its allusions means that the only thing I consistently caught was the sex jokes—and there are so many, perhaps too many, although I imagine it strikes a better balance with, again, easy access to cultural context. The handling of gender reminds me of The Taming of the Shrew in the ways in both criticizes and reinforces misogyny; or, more specifically, masculine desire: its hypocrisy and foolishness, but also its essentialism and socialized deserving and therefore justification. It works well alongside the criticism of intellectualism; the doubling of foolish wisemen and wise fools parallels the doubled criticism/reinforcement of gender issues and, even without accessible cultural context, much of the wordplay is a delight, particularly the repetition in Holofernes's lines. But there is perhaps too much doubling, enough to grow redundant, especially in the number of characters running parallel plots; the dreamlike repetition of couples lining up in rows grows tedious. This is alleviated by the postponed happy ending, which is an engaging violation of genre convention. All told: interesting, inaccessible; I can see why this hasn't aged well and I concur.


Title: The Hidden Memory of Objects
Author: Danielle Mages Amato
Published: Balzer & Bray, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 252,935
Text Number: 814
Read Because: reviewed by [personal profile] mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A bereaved teenage girl investigates her brother's death, uncovering secrets which change her perception of him and of herself. The plotting here is very neat, a preponderance of Chekhov's guns, some of them strained (the housekeys especially so). By contrast, the inspirations, themes, and speculative element are diverse and messy—grief and coming of age, but also activism and Lincoln's assassination, also art and something magical. I admire what it gets right—the premise of a collage artist who can sense the history of objects is a rich one, and the speculative element has a lot of weight given that this is ostensibly a contemporary novel. (I also appreciate that it sidesteps a love triangle—would that more YA did.) But as a finished work it's simultaneously too raw and too polished, and it's simply not good enough to recommend.


Title: Richard II
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1597
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 253,035
Text Number: 815
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This is impossible to separate from Henry 4 & 5, plays I love, and yet I'd never read it; it fills in many gaps and, while it may not be as robust as those plays, I love it just as much. The issue of kingship and the king's body will be carried through and reexamined throughout the tetralogy; I love the way that it interacts with the theme of grief here. There are deaths, but they're more distant than in the other histories, less visceral than the action scenes in the Henry 6 plays, less guilty pleasure than in Richard III; much of the mourning is conceptual or, like the Queen's, preemptive: grief at the loss of life as defined by social and political role as much as blood and breath. Shakespeare's language here is superb, and of a different breed than the wit and wordplay which I've enjoyed watching evolve in other plays; it's more eloquent, providing an emotional depth and introspection which is necessary to the themes. I appreciate seeing the tetralogy as a whole, but what won me was just that refrain of grief, empathetic, thoughtful, but in many ways deserved, with vast personal and political reverberations.

(My mother and I had the same response to this one, that sense of "why did no one ever tell me?: we saw Henry IV parts 1 & 2 at OSF last year and they were phenomenal; Henry V is this year and has overlapping casting, of course, and we expect great things; I still have good memories of their production of Henry V in 2011/2012; I know those plays, and fairly well, and Henry V himself is a remarkable character and so I understand the emphasis on them and him. But it all begins here; it contributes so much to plays I thought I knew.

And also is amazing in its own right. I wrote more about it here on Tumblr, reposted below the cut.)

Read more... )
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (Default)
Title: Carol (The Price of Salt)
Author: Patricia Highsmith
Narrator: Cassandra Campbell
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2015 (1952)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 250,605
Text Number: 804
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A discontented shopgirl becomes infatuated with a wealthy divorcée. Highsmith's propensity for detail, for fully inhabiting singular moments in all their mundanity and profundity, is occasionally tedious (especially in those early discontented sections) and occasionally superb. At best, they're crystalline—evocative, perfectly-preserved glimpses into a woman's personal growth and experience; interior, minute epiphanies which, in their contractions, create a nuanced and private portrait of queer attraction. The plot engages homophobia in painful, even trite ways as it flirts with genre conventions of doomed same-gender romance; it also intentionally subverts them. The last few pages are sublime; they see the themes and tone through to fruition, they're subtle and profound, and they pay off earlier missteps. This isn't a perfect book, but its ending is.


Title: The Comedy of Errors
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1595
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 250,705
Text Number: 805
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This isn't the first time I've wondered if I could like play were I not so biased against miscommunication as a plot device (a bias with much justification! but I admit I don't moderate it well); I don't think so. There's not much depth here outside the clever wordplay: no character development, no themes to speak of, just humor—and, mistaken identity aside (the entire play could be one act if bad communication wasn't baked into the premise), most of what's left is unappealing slapstick. At best, this feels like an experiment in tone and wit; it reads quickly. I still don't like it.


Title: Rendezvous at Rama (Rama Book 1)
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Published: RosettaBooks, 2012 (1973)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 235
Total Page Count: 250,940
Text Number: 806
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi
Review: An alien generation ship prompts a human exploratory mission. This is in the same school as Weir's The Martian (but, rest assured, better written): a speculative concept explored through boots-on-the-ground problem-solving of broadcasted, discrete crises. It's not particularly graceful in pacing, and has an air of smugness (no one could anticipate/solve this! except these science experts ... and me, the unhumble author!), but it's lively and engaging. The strange, echoing, titanic landscape elevates the tone, although I found it useful to look up cover illustrations in order to get a grasp of Rama's layout. The human element is relatively light; given that this is a book that introduces a female character via the movement of her breasts in zero-g, that's probably for the best. The tidbits of near-future human society are interesting and relatively diverse; the politics are boring and the characters unremarkable. All told, this holds up well; the mystery of its end leaves both cast and reader stimulated but pleasantly unfulfilled. (I've no particular desire to read the sequels.)
juushika: A black and white photo of an ink pen (Writing)
Title: In a Lonely Place
Author: Dorothy B. Hughes
Published: New York Review of Books, 2017 (1947)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 205
Total Page Count: 249,820
Text Number: 801
Read Because: borrowed from my father, who picked it up because of this NPR segment
Review: A grifter tempts fate when he reconnects with an old friend turned detective. This is reminiscent of its noir contemporaries (I'm reminded of Highsmith and Cain, but only because they're the authors with which I'm most familiar): contemplations on class; a stylized voice that sets introspective, slow sections against tense, elevated action; a dark but indulgent tone. The antihero protagonist is engaging and confrontational, especially alongside the book's feminist themes: Hughes's challenges the reader's instinct to sympathize with the protagonist and, with it, his misogyny. The gendered violence is never depicted on page, and the female characters defy the limitations of their genre roles. The building tension set against the reader's disavowal of the protagonist is unexpectedly refined. This has held up well, and Megan Abbott's afterward is succinct and productive.


Title: The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
Author: Kate Summerscale
Published: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 250,205
Text Number: 802
Read Because: reviewed here by [personal profile] truepenny, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In London 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes murdered his mother; then, for ten days, Robert, his 12-year-old brother Nattie, and an unwitting family friend lived in the house with the corpse decaying in a locked room upstairs. This has some tedious sections (including, perhaps ironically, the murder and its immediate aftermath) which are unaided by Summerscale's precise, exhaustive research and the cultural and anecdotal details that flesh out the historical setting. But it pays for itself in Summerscale's compassionate, complex reading of the case, specifically of Robert's motives and emotions, in the crime and its baffling immediate aftermath, but also during the trial and into adulthood. (One almost wishes for more: a comparison between historical and modern moral panics over popular media is the obvious oversight.) Her refusal of simple answers makes for compelling arguments which are firmly rooted in, but not limited by, historical context—and she still manages to inhabit that morbid, escapist ten-day interlude which makes this case so engaging.


A real good quote )


Title: Edward III
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1596
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 250,305
Text Number: 803
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This is relatively unremarkable. The interactions between King Edward and the Countess of Salisbury are unsettling and intense (and I swear this was my favorite part even before I read theories about which sections Shakespeare authored); in the second half, the best is Prince Edward's dynamic, substantial character arc. But the two halves are disconnected and, however impressive it may be to condense such a long time period into a single sequence, the series of battles is routine and uninspired. Like Henry VI Part 1: there are seeds of potential, but it lacks the robust, cogent meeting of themes/language/characters which makes Shakespeare's better plays successful.
juushika: A black and white photo of an ink pen (Writing)
Title: Night's Master (Tales from the Flat Earth Book 1)
Author: Tanith Lee
Published: DAW, 2016 (1978)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 249,225
Text Number: 797
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A series of folktales chained together by overlapping events and a central figure: Azhrarn, prince of demons and the night. It requires an overarching plot in order to transition from interlinked stories to a novel; there's just enough of one, but it's backloaded and doesn't do as much with the book's themes as I'd like. Trauma is portrayed as a cycle of violence wherein victims become monsters and, therefore, perpetrators; Azhrarn's overarching story ties in to this, but fails to directly confront his role as instigator, undermining the book's cumulative effect. Characters from individual stories aren't especially memorable, but the narrative style and setting speaks to Lee's strengths; the tone is darkly fantastic, the style lush, sensual, sexual; a fluid, dreamlike, mythic space. I didn't connect with this as much as I have books with a similar structure (particularly Valente's Orphan's Tales series, which benefits from tonal and thematic variation), but it's an interesting effort.


Title: Titus Andronicus
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1594
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 249,325
Text Number: 798
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: That any other early plays have been criticized for mimetic rather than diegetic action now seems ridiculous; this is a play defined by its violence. I would love to see it staged—I don't think its effectiveness necessarily hinges on SFX style or quality, but the violence is important. it's in conversation with the play's themes and use of language, particularly violence as action vs. interpretation: how characters understand and internalize what they witness, and how it motivates future violence. Lavinia is central to this conversation but also excluded from it—the profound irony of Titus professing to be her interpreter is devastating. I can see why this play is controversial, I can also imagine some productions are ridiculous; it's also sincerely engaging, visceral, thoughtful, and must be quite the spectacle.


Title: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Author: Audre Lorde
Narrator: Robin Eller
Published: Tantor Audio, 2016 (1984)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 249,515
Text Number: 799
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A collection of essays, speeches, letters, and various other pieces from a black lesbian feminist poet. The focus of Lorde's work is intersectionality, and her ability to articulate and insist on these overlaps, to explore the complicated ways that they inform her experience and her feminism, is phenomenal. If her arguments feel familiar, it's because it was her work which helped establish them; but these essays don't feel redundant. She puts complicated concepts into remarkably clear language, is self-possessed and self-interrogative, profoundly compassionate and angry, and refuses reductionism even when exploring gendered and racialized archetypes. If anything, her essays feel too relevant; white feminism is still catching up. This isn't perfect in collection—the tone and format is changeable, the content occasionally overlaps, and the tools by which Lorde defines and insists on her identity won't speak to everyone. But the sum effort is far greater than these quibbles.

Some personal highlights: "Frequently, when speaking with men and white women, I am reminded of how difficult and time-consuming it is to have to reinvent the pencil every time you want to send a message." The interview with Adrienne Rich, which provides useful context about Lorde's life and contains a firm and mutually respectful conversation about the emotional labor that minority individuals are not obligated to perform in these discussions. Compelling, disquieting explorations of intra-community discrimination; "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." Her work to preemptively claim aspects of her identity, that they cannot be weaponized against her. Lorde has a knack for a powerful, quotable line (it makes sense, given her background in poetry); these lines are even better within the context of a complex, passionate argument.


Title: Richard III
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1597
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 249,615
Text Number: 800
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This is the first play in my chronological readthrough which feels like Shakespeare as I know him—the first which is truly phenomenal. (Is this influenced by my having studied it previously? probably, but I don't care.) Richard is fantastic, particularly his use of language and his rapport with the audience, but also the humor of his shortcomings; he's a compelling study of an antihero, and of the complicated relationship between antihero and audience. But it's the women that push this play above and beyond: the seduction of Lady Anne is keenly unsettling, and set in effective counterpoint to the less successful persuasion of Queen Elizabeth; Margaret is dynamic, and her conversation with the Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth is a rare moment of centralizing women—imperfectly, but effectively, especially as their conversation functions as a reflection of the entire tetralogy. It's a complex, vibrant, coherent play, and it's those exact elements that draw me to Shakespeare's work.
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
Title: Dark Mirror (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Author: Diane Duane
Published: Pocket Books, 1993
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 340
Total Page Count: 248,595
Text Number: 794
Read Because: mentioned here, used paperback purchased from the Book Bin
Review: At the edge of the galaxy, the Enterprise is pulled into the mirror universe by its predatory counterpart. This is my first time reading a spin-off novel for any franchise, which can't help but color my experience; seeing a franchise adapted to text is as interesting as the story itself. A novel allows for significantly more interiority and infodumping. Of the latter there's plenty, not delivered with exceptional grace but building a more thorough view of the mirror universe, particularly its history; it feels somewhat reductionist, but given context perhaps it has to be, and it does satisfy the itch for more information. The interiority is welcome, and is most robust in Picard but especially Troi, whose double is the best developed and most compelling; this is where the concept graduates from the broad fear of one's own worst tendencies and develops into a conflicted admiration/jealousy/fear of the selves one might have been—especially interesting in a character so association with emotions as is Troi. I wish this pushed further, but it's a strong attempt.

Novel length also allows for subplots, and they're well-intended (especially the non-humanoid alien) but rarely compliment the larger narrative. The best minor addition is the downtime, the anxious waiting, the technical difficulties which would kill the pacing of an episode but here make the setting feel enjoyably realistic. It helps that I didn't have high expectations and that the sheer novelty is a selling point, because the quality here is just so-so—but the experience is engaging and gratifying; I'm surprised by how much I liked this.


Title: Geisha, A Life
Author: Mineko Iwasaki
Translator: Rande Brown
Published: Atria Books, 2002
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 248,915
Text Number: 795
Read Because: see Tumblr post linked below, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The autobiography of Mineko Iwasaki, the most famous geisha in Japan until her sudden retirement at the height of her career. This is written partially in response to Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha (although it never says so directly); as such, it's made accessible to a foreign audience and does much to explain the controversy surrounding Memoirs, particularly the liberties that book takes with Iwasaki's life story, as well as the way it elides geisha and prostitution. This is also a memoir in its own right. Iwasaki relies heavily on anecdotes; her memory is precise, her language evocative, her personality changeable and occasionally smug. She simultaneously loves and criticizes the hierarchical social structure, restrictiveness, skill, artistry, and effort that contribute to a geisha's craft, particularly as interacts with gender and as it has failed to change with the times; her experience and opinions are fervent and complex. This throughline isn't as solid as it could be—in particular, it wants for a stronger conclusion, perhaps an argument about what she believes the future of geisha should look like. But it's a compelling effort, and especially valuable in a world where Memoirs of a Geisha is such a problematic and popular text.

(I wrote a relatively popular, v. shitty review of Memoirs of a Geisha back in the day that will! never! die!, but had still never read this important response to it (despite having provided it as recommended reading), so I finally corrected the issue. I wrote about that trash fire, and some more immediate and emotional reactions to Geisha, A Life, here on my Tumblr, crossposted below.)

Read more... )


Title: Henry VI Part 3
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1595
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 249,015
Text Number: 796
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: The link this makes between personal, selfish, revenge-driven motives and the futility and pain of a civil war creates a solid, well-rounded thematic center which is echoed in the best scenes, including Rutland's murder, the King with the father/son murders, and Richard's fantastic speeches. I wonder if I would have enjoyed this so much if I weren't familiar with & looking forward to Richard III, because he was absolutely my favorite thing about this play, but he's a great character regardless. The momentum, language, and thematic consistency in this play reminds me of the better, later Shakespeare plays with which I'm more familiar; a solidly enjoyable experience.
juushika: Screen capture of the Farplane from Final Fantasy X: a surreal landscape of waterfalls and flowers. (Anime/Game)
Title: An Apprentice to Elves (Iskryne World Book 3)
Author: Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
Published: Tor, 2015
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 247,745
Text Number: 791
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: At long last, war with Rhean comes. The second most interesting thing in A Companion to Wolves (the first is its interrogation of the companion animal trope) is the issue of gender—a society more diverse and, perhaps, enlightened than its real-world equivalent, but profoundly affected by sexism, with a narrative that confronts that issue. Here, all the PoV characters are directly impacted by sexism, and it's a change that centralizes the issue. It interacts with worldbuilding but also with multiple character arcs; The Tempering of Men depended on the central romance for its near-only emotional investment, but they're abundant in this book. Earlier sections drag, the end is rushed, and it doesn't live up to ridiculous id-indulgences of first book—but this is the sort intellectual/emotional engagement that I came looking for, and it's a satisfying end to things.


Title: Henry VI Part 2
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1623
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 247,845
Text Number: 792
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: This is a profound improvement: less petty bickering, clearer motivations, and a stronger interpersonal focus (exactly what I wished for after Part 1) mean more to latch onto, which grounds the length and large cast. Even the action scenes works better here, primarily because the grotesque treatment of corpses gives weight to the violence. Margaret—simultaneously more observant and self-interested than Henry, without the short-sighted egoism of his adversaries; apparently mundane, but capable of such emotional excess (foiled by Eleanor's superstition and self-possession)—is what makes this play, for me. Her dynamic with Suffolk remains engaging and her contrast to Henry is my favorite of the play's themes. This was a pleasant surprise, especially as a Part 2.


Title: Under the Pendulum Sun
Author: Jeannette Ng
Published: Angry Robot, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 410
Total Page Count: 248,255
Text Number: 793
Read Because: reviewed by [personal profile] mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A Victorian woman joins her Reverend brother's missionary's work in fairyland. The tone here is dark, fantastic, a little whimsical; the theological focus sets it apart, and while not always accessible it's distinctive and fundamental to the setting and characters. But the craft is lacking in numerous little ways—a backload of twists and revelations, supporting characters and subplots that feel more utilitarian than real, and the language simply isn't robust enough for the content—and while none of these alone condemns the book, the cumulative effect holds it back. I look forward to Ng's next book; I think she has such potential, and just wants for more experience.

Space whale quote from Under the Pendulum Sun, for safekeeping. )
juushika: Drawing of a sleeping orange cat (I should have been born a cat)
Yesterday I was set to visit my family in the evening when I got an email saying they'd remembered they had play tickets, so I moved my plans up an hour, then my mother offered me her ticket. In the end, Dad and I went out to dinner and the play. It was an unexpectedly long and active visit! on four hours of sleep! but certainly fulfilled "meaningful family time."

Dinner was the Woodsman, the closest thing to good "local" Thai, one town over. My dad recommended the palam, a peanut curry over fresh spinach, which I tried because I do like all those ingredients despite that I am the least adventuresome of all possible diners. It was awesome, in every sense: servings there are towering, gigantic—a huge bowl of piled, falling fresh spinach wilting in a sea of peanut curry. The peanut was intense, salty savory and just a little sweet, incredibly strong; so many roasted chopped peanuts; spinach fresh and crunchy, tofu unfried and soft. I ate maybe a fourth of the dish and the leftovers almost didn't fit in the take-home container. Frankly intimidating, and incredibly good.

The play was a polished script reading of Anna Ziegler's Boy, a fictionalized account of the life of David Reimer, who was assigned female after birth and part of the "John/Joan" experiment. (Part of the reason my mum gave me her ticket is because she knew I would probably be more interested in its gender issues than she was, which is true, because I was previously aware of Reimer's case.) The Majestic does monthly readings that are performed one day only; my parents say they've grown more fleshed out, minimalist costuming and props but players still working from scripts. (They also did a Q&A with director and cast for the first time this month, but we skipped it because it had been a long day.) It's a great balance of low-key, inexpensive production and watchability, both in the sense of feeling practiced and in the general quality of the acting. The lead actor was especially strong in a demanding role, alternating between a female-assigned child and an early 20s man.

I am of conflicted feelings regarding the play. I enjoyed it, it's emotionally engaging and I resonate with the narrative-about-narratives, and the lead's ability to carry such a heavy weight is the fulcrum of success. Reimer's case is inherently complex; it's not exclusively about nature/nurture, or gender existentialism, or even (although it is significantly) about the fact that individuals are the gender they say they are & are entitled to inhabit and express that gender no matter what it is or how it interacts with their bodies—it's also about medical abuse. The play channels that later into the argument that you can sincerely love someone and cause them unforgivable harm, and that's an argument which is close to my heart and which I think is an appropriate representation of this doctor/patient dynamic. But the play's other major narrative is that self-knowledge and -acceptance can be mirrored in reconciliations with and/or acceptance by loved ones, and it frames that as an end point#151;which, in the real case, it was not: Reimer's familial and romantic relationships were troubled, and he committed suicide.

Reimer's case is so complex and has had such lasting impact in how we view gender and "confirmation" surgeries, especially in children; I understand how compelling it can be—:I learned of it through Law & Order: SVU!—and believe popular and fictional depictions allow us to discover and explore its complexities. I also understand the value in a narrative that insists reclaiming your identity will make you happy—there's an inherent social value in "it gets better," as well as a narrative value in a happy ending. But it bothers me because Reimer's experience is not apocryphal, not a narrative; it is recent history: he died in 2004. There are probably still surviving family members, people being depicted in these retellings. Reimer committed suicide after separating from his wife—so what does her fictional equivalent in Boy say to her: if you had stayed, he could have had a happy ending? How unfair, how simplistic. There is also value in the instance that it does not get better, because it validates the trauma that people experience and its profound, lasting effects; also because, in this case, it more accurately depicts a real person's story and his decision to end his life.

It reminds me of a section from Colin Dickey's Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places where he looks into a 1949 murder that took place where I lived in Portland. As explained in this interview:

Many ghost stories are based on past tragedies, but when I first learned about Thelma Taylor's story, I was struck because this wasn't a tragedy from the 19th century, but something still fairly recent. People still have memories of Thelma Taylor—including her sister, whom I interviewed for the book—and that changes the way we might otherwise approach any stories of her ghost haunting Portland. I wanted to write about her story to examine how a relatively recent tragedy can be transformed—almost in real time—into a ghost legend.


Reimer's case has a huge and complex legacy; he was also a real person, not that long ago. Anyway, I have two modes of critical response, and the first was "uh huh, mhm, I thought the staging was surprisingly successful and that lead can really act" and the latter was a 15 minute verbal essay about the complicated ethics of adaptation theory that I delivered in the car on our way home. The car smelled profoundly of peanut sauce. It was a good evening, after which my sleep deprivation caught up with me and I slept for a combined 16 hour over three blocks.

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