Tag Archives: GLBT

Book Review: The Merry Spinster

by

0

the merry spinsterThe Merry Spinster – Tales of Everyday Horror
by Daniel Mallory Ortberg
Fairy Tale Short Story Anthology
188 pages
Published March 2018

So this JUST came out. I’d had my eye on it for a few months, and put a request in as soon as my library ordered it. The author recently came out as trans, so it’s also part of my effort to read more inclusively. Ortberg definitely played with gender and sexuality in several of these tales; in one of them people decided whether to be the husband or the wife, independent of their gender, in their marriage. (One party to the marriage in the story stated “I’ve been trained for both roles.”) In another all of a man’s daughters used male pronouns and that was never explored further. That was slightly odd.

These were dark, twisted versions of these stories. “Our Friend Mr. Toad,” for example, involved gaslighting and psychologically torturing poor Mr. Toad. I found that one particularly disturbing. I enjoyed the title story, Ortberg’s version of Beauty and the Beast, which has a very different ending from expected. I also really liked “The Daughter Cells”, inspired by The Little Mermaid. I LOVED “Fear Not: An Incident Log.”

I think this was a great, albeit strange, little book. It’s unique, for sure, and a quick read. If you’re looking for a fairy tale collection that is VERY different, try this one.

From the cover of The Merry Spinster:

From Mallory Ortberg comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from the beloved “Children’s Stories Made Horrific” series, “The Merry Spinster” takes up the trademark wit that endeared Ortberg to readers of both The Toast and the best-selling debut Texts From Jane Eyre. The feature has become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Ortberg’s eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children’s stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief.

Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Ortberg’s boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Ortberg’s oeuvre will delight in this collection’s unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface.

Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night.

Bed time will never be the same.

Book Review: Queens of Geek

by

1

queens of geekQueens of Geek
by Jen Wilde
Contemporary YA
262 pages
Published 2017

THIS BOOK WAS GREAT. It was a fun, quick read, but it involved three BFFs, one of which is autistic with social anxiety, and her friends know this and are incredibly supportive. The second girl is openly bisexual. The third friend, the boy, is Hispanic. The three of them take an epic trip to a big Comicon in LA; the bisexual girl (Charlie) co-starred in a zombie movie, and is a popular Youtuber, so when she’s invited to the Con she drags her two BFFs with her. Once there, she meets an idol of hers, another Youtuber, and discovers that her idol has a crush on her! So while dealing with her douchebag ex (her co-star from the movie), the other Youtuber asks Charlie out, and the two girls start a romance.

Meanwhile, the autistic girl (Taylor) and the Hispanic boy (Jamie) have loved each other for ages but been too afraid to admit how they feel. Largely left on their own, because Charlie’s manager couldn’t get them VIP passes, they explore the Con, geeking out over things and meeting another autistic woman, a comic book artist who gives Taylor some amazing advice about being afraid but doing things anyway.

I really really loved this book. I loved seeing autistic characters treated by their peers as just regular people with quirks, like everyone has. Taylor’s friends support her when her brain freaks out, and make allowances for her needs, but don’t treat her like she’s disabled or fragile. I loved seeing how tight the bonds of friendship were between the three teens, and how excited for each other they were, even when good things happening meant less time to spend with each other.

This was just a really lovely, feel-good book with lots of minority representation, by an autistic author who knows what she’s talking about. This is one more book off my Autism Reading List, and my pick for a book about friendship from the Litsy Booked 2018 Challenge.

From the cover of Queens of Geek:

Charlie likes to stand out. She’s a vlogger and actress promoting her first movie at SupaCon, and this is her chance to show fans she’s over her public breakup with co-star Reese Ryan. When internet-famous cool-girl actress Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie’s long-time crush on her isn’t as one-sided as she thought.

Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there’s one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with her best guy friend Jamie—no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about a fan contest for her favorite fandom, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.

Book Review: Bright Smoke, Cold Fire

by

0

bright smokeBright Smoke, Cold Fire
by Rosamund Hodge
YA Fantasy
437 pages
Published 2016

I read the description of this book somewhere and immediately requested it from the library – a re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet in a dying world with necromancers? SIGN ME UP. And it did not disappoint!

Hodge has written a few other books – Cruel Beauty, a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and Crimson Bound, a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. (She also has a novella that spins Cinderella.) You all know how much I like my redone Fairy Tales! Bright Smoke, Cold Fire, is a little different in that it’s a Shakespeare play, instead of a fairy tale. I recently read and reviewed Miranda and Caliban, another Shakespeare reskin, but this, I think, is much better.

The Capulets have become the Catresou, and the Montagues the Mahyanai in this dark fantasy. The Ruining has killed every human outside the city of Viyara/Verona – only stopped by the mystical walls put up by a long-dead priestess and maintained by a mysterious cult of nuns.

My favorite characters in this book – and arguably the main characters – are Runajo (Rosaline) and Paris, rather than Romeo and the Juliet. (It’s a title, not a name – her name was stripped from her as an infant when the magic was worked to make her “the Juliet.”) The original play doesn’t give either of them much time, and they are both fascinating characters in this novel – Runajo a little more than Paris, in my opinion. Runajo is a member of the Sisters of Thorns – the cult of nuns keeping the walls of Viyara up against The Ruining. When she accidentally brings the Juliet back from death, she becomes – or at least thinks she becomes – that which she and the city fear the most. A necromancer. Runajo and the Juliet both believe they will (and should) die for this crime, but still use the time they have left to try and save the city from the necromancers operating within.

Meanwhile, Paris and Romeo have found themselves bound by the magic that should have bound Romeo and Juliet, had it not gone terribly wrong. They can feel each other’s emotions, see each other’s memories, hear each other’s thoughts. This is understandably awkward for Paris as he feels Romeo’s grief for the Juliet’s supposed death, and occasionally catches flashes of more intimate moments between the two. They decide to take on the city’s necromancers in memory of the Juliet.

I liked how, similar to the play, Romeo and Juliet both operate for the entirety of the book under the assumption that the other one is dead. They both take risks and agree to things they would not have done if they didn’t each welcome death in their own way.

I also very much enjoyed a side, non-binary character who I really want to see more of!

The book ended on an upsetting cliffhanger, which is really my only problem with it. The sequel is due out this summer (Endless Water, Starless Sky) and I will definitely be picking it up.

Great book, but you may want to wait a few months so you can immediately follow it with the sequel!

From the cover of Bright Smoke, Cold Fire:

When the mysterious fog of the Ruining crept over the world, the living died and the dead rose. Only the city of Viyara was left untouched. 

As the heirs of Viyara’s most powerful – and warring – families, Mahyanai Romeo and Juliet Catresou share a love deeper than duty, honor, even life. But the magic laid on the Juliet at birth compels her to punish her clan’s enemies, and Romeo has just killed her cousin Tybalt. Which means he must die. 

Paris Catresou has always wanted to serve his family by guarding the Juliet. But when his ward tries to escape her fate, magic goes terribly wrong, killing her and leaving Paris bound to Romeo. If he wants to discover the truth of what happened, Paris must delve deep into the city, ally with his worst enemy . . . and perhaps turn against his clan.

Mahyanai Runajo just wants to protect her city – but she’s the only one who believes it’s in peril. In her desperate hunt for information, she accidentally pulls the Juliet from the mouth of death and finds herself bound to the bitter, angry girl, only to learn she might be the one person who can help her recover the secret to saving Viyara. 

Both pairs will find friendship where they least expect it. Both will find that Viyara holds more secrets and dangers than anyone ever expected. And outside the city’s walls, death is waiting.

Book Review: Tomboy Survival Guide

by

0

tomboy survival guideTomboy Survival Guide
by Ivan Coyote
Memoir
208 pages
Published 2016

This is the second book I read for my personal 24 in 48 challenge, and it was excellent. Ivan is a natural storyteller – each chapter flows seamlessly into the next, even though each is a separate vignette from their life, and they aren’t chronological. I was never confused about where in the timeline we were; it was just like they were sitting down telling stories about their life, and that naturally ebbs and flows as people are reminded of different things that have happened to them.

It’s not really fully clear whether Ivan is a transman, or simply non-binary, not that it should matter. They use they/them pronouns, and straddle the androgynous line enough that bathrooms and dressing rooms are a constant issue for them, one they touch on repeatedly through the book. Maybe if our bathrooms weren’t so binary-focused, it wouldn’t be as much of an issue when someone is gender-nonconforming!

The book moves between stories of Ivan’s childhood in small-town Canada, their realization they are attracted to women, their experiences in largely male-dominated career fields, and their actual career as an author and public speaker. They talk about how their own family has been supportive of their transition (mostly) and how other parents have written them letters asking how to be supportive of their non-cisgender children. There are scenes of strangers being supportive, and scenes of shocking discrimination and transphobia.

The book is, overall, excellent, and a good introductory look at the life of a non-binary person. Ivan has written several other books, and I definitely want to track down Gender Failure, which they co-wrote with another non-binary person about, well, gender failure!

Ivan Coyote is Canadian, making this one of my Read Canadian Challenge books.

My other Canadian reviews:
1. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth
2. The Red Winter Trilogy
3. Station Eleven
4. The Courier
5. The Last Neanderthal
6. American War
7. Next Year, For Sure
8. That Inevitable Victorian Thing
9. All The Rage
10. The Clothesline Swing
11. Saints and Misfits
12. this book!
13. The Wolves of Winter

From the cover of Tomboy Survival Guide:

Ivan Coyote is a celebrated storyteller and the author of ten previous books, including Gender Failure(with Rae Spoon) and One in Every Crowd, a collection for LGBT youth. Tomboy Survival Guide is a funny and moving memoir told in stories, in which Ivan recounts the pleasures and difficulties of growing up a tomboy in Canada’s Yukon, and how they learned to embrace their tomboy past while carving out a space for those of us who don’t fit neatly into boxes or identities or labels.

Ivan writes movingly about many firsts: the first time they were mistaken for a boy; the first time they purposely discarded their bikini top so they could join the boys at the local swimming pool; and the first time they were chastised for using the women’s washroom. Ivan also explores their years as a young butch, dealing with new infatuations and old baggage, and life as a gender-box-defying adult, in which they offer advice to young people while seeking guidance from others. (And for tomboys in training, there are even directions on building your very own unicorn trap.)

Tomboy Survival Guide warmly recounts Ivan’s adventures and mishaps as a diffident yet free-spirited tomboy, and maps their journey through treacherous gender landscapes and a maze of labels that don’t quite stick, to a place of self-acceptance and an authentic and personal strength. These heartfelt, funny, and moving stories are about the culture of difference—a “guide” to being true to one’s self.

Book Review: The Clothesline Swing

by

0

clothesline swingThe Clothesline Swing
Ahmad Danny Ramadan
Fictional Memoir?
288 pages
Published April 2017

I had to force myself to finish this book. It was okay at the beginning – I was hoping it would get better, and it did not. The Clothesline Swing is the the story of two gay Syrian refugees. It’s an interesting framework; the narrator, one of the two, is telling stories to his husband to keep him in the world of the living. (The husband is dying from an unnamed illness.) There’s a catch, though – Death is also with them, as an actual presence that can be talked to and interacted with. He smokes a joint with the narrator at one point, and tells stories of his own – even plans a party – at another point. The story flicks back and forth between their past and their present with some unpredictability as the narrator tells his stories.

Because of the presence of Death, and the kind of hazy, in-between space that the stories reside in (between life and death, between awake and asleep, between fantasy and reality), the entire book is a little dream-like. I don’t particularly enjoy ever-shifting books that don’t have some kind of solid foundation for me to start on.

The book did a good job of showing the dangers of being gay in middle-eastern society, and also showed how hard it is to be a citizen of a country at war with itself. The list of friends who have died in violent ways is threaded through the entire book of stories. She was caught in a crossfire in an alley – he killed himself after being forced to marry a woman – he died when his office was shelled – she died from a car bomb.

I don’t know. It’s a strange book. I’m hesitant to say don’t waste your time, because it covers important topics, but the dreamy quality just ruined it for me.

Ramadan is a Syrian refugee living in British Columbia, making this book part of my Read Canadian Challenge. It’s also my pick for “book about death or mourning” for the Popsugar 2018 challenge, and “unconventional romance” for the Litsy Booked Challenge.

My other Canadian reviews:
1. An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth
2. The Red Winter Trilogy
3. Station Eleven
4. The Courier
5. The Last Neanderthal
6. American War
7. Next Year, For Sure
8. That Inevitable Victorian Thing
9. All The Rage
10. this book!
11. Saints and Misfits
12. Tomboy Survival Guide
13. The Wolves of Winter

From the cover of The Clothesline Swing:

The Clothesline Swing is a journey through the troublesome aftermath of the Arab Spring. A former Syrian refugee himself, Ramadan unveils an enthralling tale of courage that weaves through the mountains of Syria, the valleys of Lebanon, the encircling seas of Turkey, the heat of Egypt and finally, the hope of a new home in Canada.

Inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, The Clothesline Swing tells the epic story of two lovers anchored to the memory of a dying Syria. One is a Hakawati, a storyteller, keeping life in forward motion by relaying remembered fables to his dying partner. Each night he weaves stories of his childhood in Damascus, of the cruelty he has endured for his sexuality, of leaving home, of war, of his fated meeting with his lover. Meanwhile Death himself, in his dark cloak, shares the house with the two men, eavesdropping on their secrets as he awaits their final undoing.

Book Review: Reign of the Fallen

by

0

fallenReign of the Fallen
by Sarah Glenn Marsh
YA Fantasy
379 pages
Published January 2018

One of my book-centered social networks, Litsy, does an occasional “24 in 48” where the goal is to spend 24 hours out of 48 hours reading. I’m almost never able to participate in these because my weekends are pretty busy – and I don’t want to ignore my husband for an entire weekend! However, he went out of town for one of the last weekends in February, and I was able to spend it doing my own personal 24 in 48. Reign of the Fallen is the first of many books I read that weekend!

Reign of the Fallen has a pretty interesting premise – there are a few different school of magic in this world, and our main character is a necromancer. (One of the side characters is a Beast Master, and another is a Healer. We also see Weather Mages.) Necromancers, far from being the mysterious evil mages we see in most fantasy, are revered and noble in this world; they bring souls back from the Deadlands, when they can, so they can continue “living” in the real world. “Living” is a loose term – they must make sure they are completely covered at all times – if a living person sees any of their flesh, they turn – immediately – into terrifying monsters that hunt and kill both the living and the Dead. And the more they kill, the more powerful they become. Thankfully, people are very, very careful, and so Shades are very rare! …..or they were. Now that someone has started to purposefully make them, shit’s hitting the fan.

Odessa and her friends – three other Necromancers, a Healer, a Beast Master, and a Princess – set out to solve this mystery and take out the shades wreaking havoc on the kingdom. Entwined in that plot is the near-breaking of Odessa’s spirit when one of her friends dies, and the recovery from that, as well as romances with people of both genders. Yay for bisexual representation! (One of her Necromancer friends is also in a homosexual relationship with the Healer, and it’s all perfectly normal. I love seeing so many fantasy YA books these days not treating that as something special or other. Yay for culture changing! Maybe someday it won’t even be so out-of-the-ordinary that I’ll feel the need to point it out!)

The book had a few technical problems – a few scenes where I was confused how a character had gotten someplace when I thought they were somewhere else, some confusion in how a scene was described – but those could be overlooked with how wonderful the rest of the book was.

The plot was wrapped up very nicely by the end of the book, so I don’t know if there will be a sequel or not, but I really enjoyed the world and would definitely read one if she writes it!

As a bonus, the author lives in Richmond, Virginia, so I’m counting this as a book by a local author for the PopSugar 2018 Challenge!

From the cover of Reign of the Fallen:

Without the dead, she’d be no one.

Odessa is one of Karthia’s master necromancers, catering to the kingdom’s ruling Dead. Whenever a noble dies, it’s Odessa’s job to raise them by retrieving their soul from a dreamy and dangerous shadow world called the Deadlands. But there is a cost to being raised: the Dead must remain shrouded. If even a hint of flesh is exposed, a grotesque transformation begins, turning the Dead into terrifying, bloodthirsty Shades.

A dramatic uptick in Shade attacks raises suspicions and fears around the kingdom. Soon, a crushing loss of one of her closest companions leaves Odessa shattered, and reveals a disturbing conspiracy in Karthia: Someone is intentionally creating Shades by tearing shrouds from the Dead–and training them to attack. Odessa is forced to contemplate a terrifying question: What if her magic is the weapon that brings the kingdom to its knees? 

Fighting alongside her fellow mages–and a powerful girl as enthralling as she is infuriating–Odessa must untangle the gruesome plot to destroy Karthia before the Shades take everything she loves.