Author Archives: Goddess in the Stacks

Sunday Miscellany

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Oh man, it’s been a rough week. Monday was a very hot, very humid day working at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I adore the friends I work with, but that heat and humidity just ruined me. I’ve spent most of the rest of this week in a bit of a daze, recovering. Couldn’t even stitch any codpieces. I got a little bit of reading done, but not much. And then Thursday night I couldn’t sleep worth a damn – I’d fall asleep for an hour or two and be woken up by a roommate getting home from work, or my husband’s alarm going off, or another roommate leaving for work – and each time, be up for at least an hour (sometimes three) before being able to sleep again.

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The Culprit looking innocent

So Friday night rolled around and I was really, REALLY looking forward to getting some sleep. Fell asleep a little after midnight – and woke up at 2 am to the cat puking up a hairball. Or trying to. It takes her a few tries sometimes. And then she wants to chew on plastic after she’s puked. So I was up until around 6:30 dealing with the cat. Then I got four hours of sleep – which was the biggest chunk of sleep I’d had in two nights so YAY! Hopefully I’m still asleep while you’re reading these words, as I’m writing it Saturday night before bed. I’m about to collapse.

I’m pretty sure I had a couple links pulled up to post here but I can’t remember what the heck they were.

So I’m just going to leave you with the soundtrack of my insomnia.

Book Review: All’s Faire in Middle School

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All's Faire in Middle SchoolAll’s Faire in Middle School
by Victoria Jamieson
Graphic Novel
248 pages
Published 2017

For those who didn’t know, I work at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, helping a friend of mine sell leather masks (and other leather goods). Throughout the year, I actually get to help her make them, including stitching the codpieces we sell at the Fair. So when I learned about this graphic novel set at a Renaissance Festival, I knew I had to grab it. I worked Labor Day Monday at Fair, so I popped over to the Fair’s bookshop, Page After Page, and picked up the book. (They even remembered I’d asked about the book over the summer to make sure they were going to carry it!)

Once I recovered from the heat and humidity at Fair on Monday, I cracked this book open and fell into it. It’s set at the Florida Ren Faire, and it captures the spirit of Rennies and the festival very, very well. One of my favorite parts was when Imogene announced she was going to middle school, and all the adults around her reply with variations of “MIDDLE SCHOOL SUCKED.” Imogene asks “Aren’t adults supposed to encourage kids to go to school?” and her dad replies “You got the wrong kind of adults, kid.” Oh, Rennies. There are D&D games, and thrift stores, and going to the store in garb, and speaking in accents while doing normal mundane things – yeah. This is a book about Rennies, alright.

I was a little disappointed in the adults not understanding the kind of pressure Imogene was under as the new girl at school. They all commiserated with middle school sucking, but didn’t give Imogene any slack for it, and in a couple of cases dismissed how important things were to her.

I loved seeing her go from school to Fair, and seeing the different environments contrasted. The art style is great. Each chapter begins with a page illustrated like a medieval manuscript, and a paragraph written like an epic story. “After months of preparations, including but not limited to careful outfit selection and triple-checking of school supplies, young Imogene is ready to embark on her journey into the Great Unknown. Like all explorers before her, our heroine has only one thought on her mind….”

I really loved this book. It would make a great gift for any kid headed to middle school who loves Ren Faires. (Or Rennie parents!)

From the cover of All’s Faire in Middle School:

Growing up with parents who work at the Renaissance Faire, Imogene has always been sure of who she is: a brave and noble knight. But now, after being homeschooled her whole life, she is about to embark on the epic adventure of . . . middle school!

Imogene will quickly discover that in real life there aren’t always clear-cut heroes and villains like there were at the Faire. How will she find her place (and new friends) in this strange and complicated land?

Friday 56 – The Girl Who Drank the Moon

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girl who drank the moonThe Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

Today’s quote is from The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill.

Memory was a slippery thing – slick moss on an unstable slope – and it was ever so easy to lose one’s footing and fall. And anyway, five hundred years was an awful lot to remember. But now, her memories came tumbling toward her – a kindly old man, a decrepit castle, a clutch of scholars with their faces buried in books, a mournful mother dragon saying good-bye. And something else, too. Something scary. Xan tried to pluck the memories as they tumbled by, but they were like bright pebbles in an avalanche: they flashed briefly in the light, and then they were gone.

Book Review: Her Body and Other Parties

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her body and other partiesHer Body and Other Parties
by Carmen Maria Machado
Fantasy/Magical Realism Short Stories
241 pages
Published 2017

This is another book off my Wronged Women list – women who have been part of the #metoo movement. Specifically the ones that have come out against Junot Diaz and Sherman Alexie, but I hope to expand it to others as well. Her Body and Other Parties is a collection of eight surreal stories. Magical Realism is probably the best categorization for them, as they’re not really fantasy. Real World stories with a touch of magic, or events that we’re not sure whether they could be magic or are just in the narrator’s head.

The Husband Stitch is the first story, and it’s a retelling of an old children’s story that I recently saw being discussed on Twitter – the one with the woman who had a green ribbon tied around her neck. Her husband always wanted to ask about it, but she refused to answer any questions about it, and wouldn’t let him touch it until she was on her deathbed. In Machado’s version, it isn’t just the narrator that has one. Every woman does. It’s different colors, in different places, but it’s still never talked about. I think she means it as a metaphor for trauma. It works well.

Eight Bites is a particularly haunting piece about self-hate, body acceptance, and peer pressure. It’s probably my second favorite story after The Husband Stitch.

The only one I didn’t love was Especially Heinous. It was written as episode synopses of a television show, and it was interesting, but it just went on too long.

All of the stories are written well, though, and each one makes a different point. I think this would make an amazing Book Club book, because I’d love to discuss the meanings of the stories with other people. Other women, specifically. It would definitely be a great book for discussion.

From the cover of Her Body and Other Parties:

In her electrifying debut, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. Here are eight startling stories that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties enlarges the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

Library Loot Wednesday, and a few more acquisitions

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Picked up five books this week, after turning in four. I really have to start swapping those numbers around!

Grace and Fury
Bannerless
The Wild Dead
The Weight of Feathers
Heart of Thorns

I loved Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series, so I’m looking forward to this post-apocalyptic set. The Weight of Feathers is a Romeo and Juliet retelling by an author I love on Twitter, Grace and Fury is about the bond between sisters, and Heart of Thorns is the “discover you are the very thing you thought you hated for no good reason” trope. Which I enjoy. So five fun books this week!

In addition to my Library Loot, my Book of the Month arrived yesterday! I picked The Silence of the Girls, another book about the women involved in the Trojan War. This one centers on Briseis, who was a queen of a country that neighbored Troy. It released yesterday as well.

Monday I spent at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, helping out at Tiger Torre Art. (And DYING in the heat and humidity, holy cow can it be winter yet?!) Just before cannon, I ran over to Page After Page, the fair’s bookstore. They carry all kinds of medieval-themed books, both fiction and nonfiction. I picked up All’s Faire in Middle School, an adorable-looking graphic novel about a kid who grew up at a Ren Faire because his parents work there.

Book Review: A Thousand Beginnings and Endings

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a thousand beginnings and endingsA Thousand Beginnings and Endings
Edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman
Retold Asian Mythology Anthology
328 pages
Published June 2018

This is one of the many new releases I have been eagerly awaiting from the library, and it did not disappoint! There are fifteen stories here, reimagining Asian myths, legends, and fairytales. Each story has an author’s note following it, giving a little bit of background information on the inspiration for the story. I didn’t realize until reading the author bios in the back of the book that three of the authors (including the two editors) are from the We Need Diverse Books team, which is one of my favorite book twitters! (@diversebooks) Their book recommendations are always fantastic. One of the editors is actually local to me, so that’s pretty neat, too!

I think my favorite stories were the last two in the book – Eyes Like Candlelight (by Julie Kagawa), about a Kitsune falling in love with a mortal, and The Crimson Cloak (Cindy Pon), about a goddess falling in love with a mortal. Stories range from Japanese mythology (Eyes Like Candlelight) to Filipino, Hmong, and Punjabi-inspired tales. The diversity in both culture, style, and time period of these tales is fantastic. I really enjoy Asian mythology, and I love seeing more and more books exploring it. (Forest of a Thousand Lanterns was another semi-recent one.)

Because it’s a bunch of short stories, it’s an easy book to take in small bites – a story here, a story there. I like mixing short story collections in with my longer reads; they make for nice breaks. I highly recommend this book, and I’ll be looking up the authors to find some of their other works! (That’s another reason I love short story collections – they introduce me to authors I might not otherwise read!)

From the cover of A Thousand Beginnings and Endings:

Star-crossed lovers. Meddling immortals. Feigned identities. Dire warnings.

These are the stuff of myth and legend. Add a dangerous smile, a game that pulls players out of one world and into another, a ghost town, a never-ending war, a night of dancing . . . and this collection of inspired and original retellings is only just beginning. Fifteen acclaimed authors reimagine tales from their own East and South Asian cultures. Classic epics, lush fantasy, inventive science fiction, sparkling contemporary – there is a story here for every reader to devour.

But beware . . . not every tale has a happy ending.