Claire Stevens's Blog, page 2

Spinning by Tillie Waldren

So, this is a graphic memoir with bullying and LGBT themes based around ... figure skating.  I would never usually pick up a sports-related memoir (or story, or film, or TV program ... you get the picture).  This book kept getting recommended to me though so I decided to give it a whirl.  

I did quite enjoy the story, but I thought it was really quite sad.  Tillie's parents are like 0% engaged with her life and it turns out this was why she carried on ice skating even thought she didn't actually enjoy it.

I've never really understood anyone who is so mad keen on their chosen sport that they do the whole getting up at 4am to practice for hours before school thing, let alone anyone who does that when they don't actually enjoy the sport they're doing.  I did buy into Tillie's reasons for carrying on skating, but it looked like a super lonely existence.

Just as an aside, I can't believe the author was only 21 (!!!) when she wrote this book, both in terms of wow, I don't know how she managed to craft a story and artwork of such high calibre at such a relatively young age and blimey, how do you manage to have such an insightful and objective view of your childhood when in was literally just a couple of years ago.

4 stars

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite

I read The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics earlier this year and really really enjoyed it so I was excited to read the second in the series.  I didn't think it was quite as good as the first book, but equally it didn't disappoint.

It's the story of two middle-aged women in 1820 who find friendship and then love together.  It was a slow-moving, but ultimately quite saucy romance and I really ended up rooting for the two MCs.  In addition, the story dealt with the lot of women in society in the 1800s (which in case you didn't know, was shit), although not to the extent that the first book in the series did.  I really liked that one of the side characters refused to get married so as not to be under the control of a dude.

The characterisation was very well done and there was plenty of detail  about both characters before their friendship started so you could see how good they'd be for each other.  The plot was a bit weavey and didn't have a huge amount of structure, but it still kept me reading.

There are a couple of crossover points with characters from the first book, but this could easily have been a standalone novel, you don't have to have read the first book to enjoy this one.

The only bad thing about this book was the front cover.  Take a look at it.  It does not by any stretch of the imagination depict two middle-aged women living in the English countryside in 1820.  It just doesn't. The fashions in 1820 were still in the Regency style, especially for not-upper-class women.  The yellow dress has an empire waistline, just about, but the sleeves are all wrong and the hairstyle the yellow-dress-woman has is all wrong.  The other woman is wearing a trouser suit like she's about to go to work in a bank circa 2002.  And quite apart from the anachronistic clothes, both of the women in the book wear men's clothes a lot of the time.  If I was judging this book by the cover (as I often do) there's no way I would have picked it up.

4.5 stars

Know Not Why by Hannah Johnson

This was a pretty good story about a guy who thinks he's all about the girls but turns out to be super gay.  He even gets a job in an arts and crafts shop specifically to meet girls. 

I really liked that the story deals with the super levels of denial people can live with even when they are surrounded by people are really accepting and who love them a lot just because of how heteronormative society is.

Howie was an interesting character - he was really funny and his internal monologue was hilarious to read.  I didn't think he was quite introspective enough given the fairly huge life changes he was going through.

I really liked Artie.  He was a dude super at home with his gayness but was also incredibly supportive of what his new boyfriend was going through.  

I would have liked Howie to have investigated his gayness a bit more.  Like, had there ever been crushes on guys before?  Is Artie the Key To His Closet? Or is Howie straight with an exception?  Or bi?

The plot was ok - it mainly dealt with Artie and Howie's new relationship and their relationship with their co-workers and family.  It did drag a bit and there was a whole section at the end that should have been brutally edited and that I ended up skimming a bit.  On the whole though, I quite enjoyed it.

I read this at the same time as my 13-year-old kids - they thought it was amazeballs, like one of the best books they've read all year.

3.5 stars

Parachutes by Kelly Yang

Witness by Karen Hesse

This has been recommended to me a whole bunch of times  and I finally got around to reading it. I’m so glad I did! 

The story revolves around a small town is Vermont that the KKK are trying to infiltrate and shows how they go about it, who they approach and the reaction of the townspeople. Apparently it’s based on a true story. 

The book is told in free verse from the viewpoints of the townspeople around the time that a black family and a Jewish family are being persecuted by the new KKK group in town. Its set a hundred years ago but could quite believably have been set in recent times and I guess that’s what makes it such a powerful read. 

Because the narrative is split between so many people you don’t get a sense of character development and I didn’t get much of a sense of what the town was like before the events in the book. It does deal heavily with social narrative and themes like small town hypocrisy. 

4 stars

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

So, on the back of reading Pulp by Robin Talley I decided to pick up The Price of Salt (the original book that the film Carol was based on). 

Ok, so, I actually didn’t enjoy this as much as I’d hoped. Sorry. I know I’m supposed to think it’s amazeballs because it’s a classic and whatever, but I didn’t think it was all that great. I think the way it really let me down was in the characters. I thought Therese was really immature and quickly became weirdo-obsessed with Carol and I couldn’t really see why because I didn’t think Carol was all that nice. She was frequently kind of mean to Therese and patronising towards her.  I thought when Richard accused Therese of having a schoolgirl crush on Carol he actually hit the nail on the head as her feelings never seemed to be fully formed. 

Having said this, this book was actually quite ahead of its time in that although Carol has some personal tragedy the two women in it didn’t end up (a) going mad and being committed to an asylum, (b) dying, or (c) remembering that they liked dudes all along (how silly - must have forgotten!). Because this was the ending to the vast majority of lesbian pulp books at the time and the only way publishers could put these books out onto the market and not fall foul of indecency laws. 

Although I didn’t really love this book as much as I’d hoped, I can still recognise it for its importance and the hope it gave to its readers. 

​3 stars

Pulp by Robin Talley

​I’ve tried to read Robin Talley’s books in the past and haven’t really got on with them. I’m not sure why I picked this one up, other than that I read Odd Girl Out not so long ago and was interested in the fifties lesbian pulp phenomenon. I’m really glad I did pick it up though because it turned out to be such a good read. 

So, lesbian pulp books were available in drugstores and stations in the US or basically anywhere that had those spinner racks of books in the fifties and up until the mid sixties. They were freely available everywhere, despite homosexuality being illegal and the whole McCarthy witch hunts being held for anyone who didn’t ‘conform’. 

The book is split between two girls in the fifties, one of whom is an aspiring lesbian pulp writer, who fall in love but have to hide their burgeoning relationship from everyone (especially as one of them works for the government) and a girl in the present time who is a lesbian and out and has support and acceptance in spades and decides to look at lesbian pulp books as part of her senior year project. 

I don’t want to say too much about the plot but needless to say the two timelines converge and show us the differences in society and how far we have come. 

I enjoyed this book so much. It really taught me a lot. 

5 stars

52 Times Britain Was a Bell-End by James Felton

This was a pretty funny read - kind of a potted history of all the times Britain, and by Britain I mean England, had been a dick to other countries as well as its own countrymen and women. 

Turns out we have a long, non-illustrious history of dickishness and surprise surprise we don’t get taught about it in school. Nor is it splashed over the front cover of the Mail. There were a few stories that made me think, ok, we weren’t the only country being dicks at this point in history (e.g. the many many horrible things we did whilst empire building) and then I remembered that actually you CAN judge past deeds by today’s standards and yes, we were dicks. 

Favourite story: we stole the Elgin Marbles and then passed a law that made it illegal for us to give them back. 

Not advised for anyone who voted Leave. 

4 stars

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

​I really enjoyed this collection of essays, which are based on the author's life and spring from a successful blog she ran.  I had never heard of the author going in, but now I kind of want to read her other books too.

I think it was the self-depricating humour that spoke to me the most (as a Brit).  I mean she's definitely led a chaotic life (in part due to her own decisions, in part due to circumstances around her, like grinding poverty in her childhood) and that made me squinch a bit as I'm Rain-Man structured in my life, but it was incredibly funny and well-written.

So this is her third (?) collection of essays and as she is now established as an author and more settled in her personal life she touches on subjects like getting an agent, being a reluctant homeowner, having to discipline yourself to write every day for a living and the bonkersness of Hollywood.

I kind of wish I'd read her first two collections of essays or her blog before reading this.  I picked it up on a 99p sale on Kindle and just took a punt based on the front cover (shallow) but I'll definitely look for more of her work.
​
4 stars

Girl Town by Carolyn Nowak

Huh.  Not entirely sure what to make of this really.  

Girl Town is an anthology of comics by Caolyn Nowak, who I'd not previously heard of but who is apparently low key famous in comic circles and it was recommended to me by someone, can't remember who, on the basis that I like comics and this is kinda feminist and I've been known to read feminist stuff...  Dunno.  It did seem like a legit recommendation though.

So the first thing that struck me was the art, which is really cool.  I know zero about comic book art, so I can only really say that I liked it, not why I liked it.  I guess it was really colourful and fun and lent something to the stories.

The stories themselves were odd, really.  They started up with virtually no introduction and ended suddenly with no resolution.  They were really eclectic too, but all focussed on women/girls and the kind of stuff they're going through.  I'm pretty sure I liked them.  In fact I'm sure I did.  The random starting/ending points were odd though.  Kind of like vignettes I guess?

The book is also really short - I read it in about half an hour.  It's not a criticism of the author, but something to be aware of if you're buying it hoping to get value for money (I think I paid seven quid for it).

3.5 stars