L. Rambit's Blog, page 2

April 2022 Reads

(GIF made by @behindinfinity)

It's good to be back! I've been chugging along. trying to get my memoir (from last February) published. It's roughly finished, but I've been emailing my family a lot to fact-check for me. I hired an editor (Kathryn Lemieux) to work on the first eight chapters, but I'll have to wait a couple more paydays before I can re-hire her for the next few. Sigh. Money!

Guess who got another infection??? This time, it was the middle finger of my right hand. (Nooo! That's my favorite finger to wave in a friendly fashion at other drivers!) It was from an ingrown nail, which quickly spread to the rest of my hand until the whole thing was swollen and hot and shiny and very painful. Treatment involved lidocaine injections and some very gross things with a scalpel. And ten days of antibiotics. And an especially horrific moment where my finger split open, leaking blood and pus, while I was cleaning my kitchen. Why, body? Why???

I had to cut back on audiobooks this month, since Dad and I are going to a Welcome to Night Vale liveshow next month, and I wanted to listen to the last dozen or so episodes so I felt caught up.

Without further ado...

Books read in April 2022:

The Maid by Nita Prose. I mostly agree with criticisms that if you want to write an Autistic character, you should SAY they're Autistic. (Obviously there are exceptions if they can't be diagnosed, like if they're in a historical setting.) Just saying they're "quirky" or "different!" does the Autism community a disservice. Say it with your chest, and hire a dang sensitivity reader! ... That said, I mostly enjoyed The Maid, about an Autistic hotel maid experiencing loss and financial hardship thrown into a heap of trouble after she finds out shady things are going on in her hotel, and a man ends up dead. I found it charming, but I get why some people found Molly's portrayal offensive. Take my opinion with a grain of salt; though I am neurodivergent (I have ADHD), I'm not Autistic. I liked how the very real facts that both Autistic people and people of color are misunderstood and demonized by law enforcement, treated as automatically suspicious, is commented on clearly and directly. It wasn't dwelled on as much as I would have liked, but then, this was a light read. I usually prefer heavier fare, but I found this warm and touching.

Prosper's Demon by K.J. Parker was a very short read, at only 105 pages. I've made it clear before that I don't much care for short stories, and this is no exception. An interesting premise, an interesting voice. Even the story was interesting... But I hated the way it was written! The writing, the prose, was confusing and all over the place; it was hard to figure out what was going on. I think I would've enjoyed this more if it was clear and straightforward. However, it did end with a punch, which (IMHO) all short stories should. (Plot? A guy who hunts demons might actually be worse than his prey.)

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang. Oh wow, this was dark and grim, but I adored the protagonist! I love ruthless, anti-hero protagonists in general, especially female ones, but Rin was especially great. The fantasy war in this book is clearly based on the real Second-Sino Japanese War, despite being set in China. It reminded me significantly of "The Song of the Lioness" and "The Traitor Baru Cormorant," but I loved this in a way I never loved those. The tactics, machinations, betrayals, scheming! The lying and double-crossing! Absolutely delicious. And I'm always a fangirl for the "obsessed character pushes themself beyond reasonable limits, to the point of self-harm, because they're just that ambitious and driven" trope, coupled with the "underdog will stop at nothing to claw themself to the top" trope. What stopped this from being a five-star read was simply that it was far too long and dense; an editor REALLY needed to step in and say "Ms. Kuang, PLEASE break this into a series; this is insane." It could've filled five books (or at least three). Massive trigger warnings for war crimes (graphic genocide, mutilation, torture, murder, animal cruelty, rape, child soldiers, child marriage/sex slavery, etc) and intravenous drug use. If you're at all familiar with the real-world Nanjing massacre, or the heinous experimentation of Unit 731, this will ring especially harsh.

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh. I read my first Moshfegh earlier this year and had mixed feelings about it, but I thought I'd give her another try, and several people I follow said this one was her best. If that's the case, I don't think I'm gonna read any more Moshfeghs in the future, because I kind of hated it? The protagonist was miserable and obnoxious, and being inside her head sucked. The writing was fine, I guess, and it's admirable how the author can write these unpleasant characters so believably, but that doesn't make it fun. It's like hanging out with one of my awful uncles. Two stars, because while I hated it, it didn't suck on a technical level.

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James. I've said before that I didn't care for the Sun Down Motel, but I loved St. James's "The Broken Girls" so much that it went on my 'best of 2021' list. I suspect people might soon complain that this author has a very specific formula for her work, but I don't mind (yet). There are chapters set in the past, there are chapters set in modern-day, there are murders, there are feminist themes, there are ghosts. This book is no exception; this time it alternates between Beth, accused of murder in the 70s, and Shea, true crime-obsessed kidnapping survivor. And yes, there are murders and ghosts and feminist themes. Thankfully, I'm into all that shit, and I enjoyed this book.

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim. This was more fun than I expected! Very fast-paced, but still pretty. I guess it's an Asian retelling of a German fairy tale, but it's not a tale I've ever heard before. A princess and her six brothers are cursed by a demon. The brothers are transformed into cranes; the sister is rendered mute, because for every word she speaks, another one of her brothers drops down dead. They must find their way back home and free their father from the demon, and themselves from the curse. I really enjoyed this! I liked the fantasy elements, and I liked how resourceful and determined our heroine is, and how her relationship with her brothers is at the forefront; how they bond and learn to trust and rely on each other. It lost a star due to some imbalance; some vagueness, especially near the end. The demon and enchantress aspect was left unexplained, leaving me asking "wait, what?" several times during the climax. Still, I'm excited for the sequel this August.

The Flames of Hope by Tui T. Sutherland. The fifteenth WOF book is great, and well worth the wait! All about the Pantala dragons banding together with the Pyrrrhia dragons to stop a great evil, and FINALLY connect with the humans living underground in their lands. As always, Tui impresses with her inclusivity (characters who use they/them pronouns! Frank discussion of mental illness/mood disorders!) And we got a surprisingly bittersweet ending, too... I'm not sure if she'll be commissioned to continue the series or not, but it wouldn't surprise me, seeing how popular it is. She was clever to leave a few untied threads! Crossed fingers this series will continue.

Darkstalker by Tui T. Sutherland. In trying to read all the WOF books, of course I also have to read the spinoffs. And you know what? I loved this even more than I love the main series. Things got dark and surprisingly mature here! We got to see Darkstalker's inevitable fall from grace and imprisonment; how and why he disemboweled his own father; why his girlfriend and best friend teamed up to plot against him, how the road to hell is always paved in good intentions... Seriously excellent. I wish the rest of this series was as good! The reveal about his secret spells was particularly gut wrenching (pun not intended).

Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford. I'll confess to reading this one specifically because one of the Kindle challenges for Spring 2022 was to read a book off the 2021 bestsellers list, and this was the only eBook already on my TBR that was immediately available on Overdrive. Thankfully, it was only 200 pages long, and pretty good! Depressing as hell, though (trigger warnings for child abuse, animal cruelty, and COCSA (child-on-child sexual assault)). This is Ashley's memoir where she describes growing up fatherless, as her Dad is incarcerated after raping two women. I found the description misleading; rather than being ABOUT her relationship with her father, this book is about Ashley's tumultuous relationship with her mother, especially after surviving rape at a young age herself. Her father merely bookends the story. It was very well written, but it wasn't necessarily the story I wanted to read. Still, reading it earned me a shiny new badge on my Kindle.

Zombie Bake-Off by Stephen Graham Jones. Since we're not getting a Graham-Jones release this year after all (sad face), ZBO is a weird little tale of a zombie outbreak occurring in a convention center full of both pro wrestlers awaiting a rumble, and soccer moms having a bake-off. It's plenty gruesome and gory, and of course it's darkly funny, creative, and well-written (it's Graham-Jones, after all), but I didn't love it like I love most of his stuff. Maybe the characters were a little too flat and stereotypical? If I have to read about zombies in a convention center, I much prefer Mira Grant's more serious "San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats."

The Tiger Came to the Mountains by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. My complaints about short stories do not apply here; this was only 30 pages long and it was fantastic. I read it because April 23rd is national readers' day and one of the Kindle challenges was to read a book on that day. I wasn't close to finishing any of my other books, so I read the shortest one I had available. Got that badge! But I'm genuinely glad I read this story about Pancho Villa's soldiers attacking Mexicans in the late 1800s; my great-grandma was also attacked by his soldiers, which is why the family fled Mexico and moved to Arizona. But even if I didn't have that personal connection, this tale of kids hiding from soldiers in caves just to be attacked by a tiger from an escaped circus was beautifully written and absolutely sucked me in. 10/10; do recommend.

The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer. Now that I've finished Wings of Fire for my nieces, I wanted to read something with my middle nephew, and he said this is one of his faves. I... Didn't really care for it. The writing was of poor quality (and don't give me that "but it's a KID'S BOOK!" nonsense; some of the most beautiful works I've ever read were intended for children). Words were repeated ad nauseum; I counted one page where the word 'thornbush' was repeated five times in prose. Was the editor asleep??? The character of Conner was especially grating. He's supposed to be twelve, but he's written like a smug thirty-year-old man. The plot was super basic and predictable, hitting every beat of a subpar fantasy. (Sigh) I don't want to be mean, I just really didn't care for this and I'm not looking forward to reading the rest of the series, but I'll do it for Nephew. Giving this three stars, though it deserves two, because anything that can make that kid want to read must have some merit.

Books I recommended my library purchase in April of 2022:

1. The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas (expected release: May 2, 2022). I'm loving how much I'm seeing Hispanic authors and lit promoted on GR lately! My Grandpa was Mexican, so I know there's tons of history and stories to be told there! This is described as "Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca," so I'm all in. Intrigue and antigovernmental rebellion, too!

2. Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao (expected release: May 9, 2022). Xiran, my beloved!! Not that I'm not glad to get this (ancient Chinese underworld/death stuff? FASCINATING!) but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bummed this isn't Iron Widow 2. Hopefully soon...? I do like middle-grade lit, though. Maybe I can share this with my niblings!

3. Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel (expected release: May 9, 2022). Oof, look how creepy this cover is! Me likey. Cults, too! Love cults. I'm hoping the "Rosemary's Baby" comparisons hold true, since RB is one of my faves; if you scroll back far enough, it appeared on one of my best-of lists. Crossed fingers I love this, though I've never read this author before!

4. You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi (expected release: May 23, 2022). Well, this seems way out of left field for Emezi. If I'm understanding the blurb, it's about a girl hooking up with her boyfriend's father? I don't care for romance, but I DO live for that taboo drama, so I hope I'm not disappointed. Pretty cover, too.

5. Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong (expected release: September 26, 2022). Gong's "These Violent Delights" was way, way better than it had any right to be. A YA retelling of Romeo and Juliet sounds ripe for shallow schmaltz and sentimentality, but it was a surprisingly gruesome and good flapper-era period piece, chock full of violence and monsters and gang wars between fantasy Russian and Chinese gangs. Not to mention the queer characters... I must say, I'm excited to see what she does with this one.

I leave you with this incredible clip of Daniel Radcliffe that I've watched close to a thousand times now. You're welcome.



~ Goodnight, Goodreads. Goodnight! ~

Ebooks Recommended to Library, January-March 2022

I've learned that I basically WON'T read anything if I can't get it in either ebook or audiobook format (audiobooks preferred)... Physical books just don't Work for me, for a number of reasons. And I wouldn't call myself a MINIMALIST, but owning a lot of stuff Stresses Me Out. I'm a library gal; NOT a bookstore gal. (Unsurprising, as my parents MET at the library they both worked at; my sister is a librarian; I and multiple people in my family are authors...) What I'm saying is, if I want to read something, I turn to e-libraries.

My main e-library (I have cards to several) allows patrons to request the library purchase 5 books every 30 days. So you bet on the midnight before that special day, I'm up late with my list of books at the ready. I like to rec books that haven't been released yet, as 1. the library is more likely to acquiesce and buy them, and 2. that puts me at (or near) the front of the line if they DO buy it, so I get my hands on it all the sooner. Win-win scenario!

I'm doing something different this year and not talking much about the books I read... You'll just have to wait for my 'best of' list at the end of the year to see what I liked. (Or you can just look at my star ratings, I guess.) Those posts took too much effort to write, considering nobody even read them, so. (I'll put a '**' by the books I had particularly positive feelings for, just to help myself out when I'm choosing my best-of's.)

January 2022:

1. The Book of Living Secrets by Madeleine Roux. I... Actually haven't read a Roux novel yet (though she's been on my TBR for years...) But look how pretty that cover is! Expected release: March 7 of this year. (Sorry; I generally try not to spoil myself too much for new books. That sometimes includes reading summaries. I don't give a crap about movies, so I'll read spoilers all day every day for those, but not BOOKS!)

2. Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones (expected release: August 1). I'm beyond excited for this sequel to My Heart is a Chainsaw. I would gladly read this man's grocery lists. And I'm dead curious as to how he's gonna follow up on MHiaC, because that book felt very complete as-is. Update: Release has been rescheduled to Feb 6, 2023. Pro of putting a popular book on hold months before it's released? Puts you near the top of the list for when it finally comes out. Con? Rescheduling sometimes happens, and that sucks a little, but we'll live.

3. How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (epected release: July 11). I've been sleeping on Hendrix for a while! I put My Best Friend's Exorcism on the DNF after a few tepid chapters, but then I LOVED The Final Girl Support Group SO much... It was easily my #1 fave of 2021, so now all his books are back on my TBR. Update: Release has been rescheduled to Jan 16, 2023.

4. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James. I wasn't wild about St. James's The Sun Down Motel, but I adored her The Broken Girls. Looks like this is another generation-hopping tale of cold cases and spooky happenings... Hope it's a good one! Expected release: March 14. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5. The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Apparently Scalzi is fairly well-known? I'd never heard of him before! From what I've glimpsed, this is about a wildlife rehabilitation group that specializes in non-earthly animals. I love animals and cryptozoology, so this should be a treat. I don't know if this will be serious or silly, but I'm here to give it a shot. Expected release: March 14.

Books I read in January 2022: Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily R. Austin, Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life** by Susan Forward, Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh, Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix, The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, The Mist by Stephen King, Don't Tell a Soul** by Kirsten Miller, The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher, The Ancestor** by Danielle Trussoni, Escaping Peril by Tui T. Sutherland, and River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey. 11/90

February 2022:

1. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher. New Kingfisher book! I love her. Some of her books hit better than other ones, and I definitely prefer her horror to her fantasy/romance, but this one looks plenty spooky. I'm excited! Expected release: April 25. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi. I wasn't wild about this author's "Pet," but I loved their "Freshwater." This, unfortunately, sounds a little like the former... Artistry; teen rebellion... But I have hope; at least the plot sounds more concrete and less out-there. (Expected release: February 14.) (Update: OMG how did I not notice this book is literally a prequel to Pet until I started reading it???)

3. Portrait of a Thief by Grace D Li. An author I've never read for (since this is her debut, lol); an entry on several 'most anticipated' lists. Art theft! Long cons! Chinese-American cultural identity! What's not to love??? (Space filler: I've been making a lot of soup and soup stock lately. My favorite is black bean tortellini.) April 4 release.

4. Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin (expected release: Feb 28). Spooky dystopian tale of an agency that implants false memories in people's heads? Sign me up! (And it's set in the Arizona desert! Call me biased, but I'm a sucker for anything set in my backyard.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5. Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino (expected release: May 2) has a pretty cover and a premise about the goblin market... You know how I love my fair folk tales (so long as they're dark and creepy). Plus, as an aunt myself, I'm hype for a story about an aunt and a niece. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Books I read in February 2022: Talons of Power by Tui T. Sutherland, The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan, The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Winglets Quartet by Tui T. Sutherland, Darkness of Dragons by Tui T. Sutherland, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness** by Kabi Nagata, Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher, The Last House on Needless Street** by Catriona Ward, Taste of Marrow by Sarah Gailey, The Lost Continent by Tui T. Sutherland, Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, and The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires** by Grady Hendrix. 24/90

March 2022:

1. And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin (expected release: April 11). I've never read this author before, but after being compared to my faves Mira Grant and Stephen Graham Jones, of course I was curious! And you know me; I love dystopias, I love monsters... Color me intrigued. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston (expected release: May 2). I'm a lesbian. I like books about lesbians. Sue me. I generally dislike romance, especially YA romance (I’m Old and Grumpy, what do you expect), but... This one has a pretty cover, so. I'm prepared to be underwhelmed, but at least I'm supporting queer lit.

3. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (expected release: July 11). Another Kingfisher rec! And LOOK at that gorgeous cover, that title. And is that a 'house of Usher' reference I see in the summary??? I love creepy mushrooms — they're are inherently spooky, with their death association; unable to classify as plant or animal...

4. They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe (expected release: July 11). Ghost stories! Human sacrifice! Lesbians! Tiny, haunted sea-side towns! You can't see my face, but I'm grinning like a fiend. (It's hard to say much about stuff I'm hyped for. It contains stuff I like, and so I want to read it. That's all.)

5. The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik (expected release: September 26, 2022). Novik is one of my all-time faves. I am so beyond hyped for the last Scholomance book... This series is just aces. Brilliant and detailed worldbuilding woven tight as a drum, fast-paced plot where everything is earned at such a high price, exceptionally high stakes, exceptionally competent, genre-savvy characters who are going to have so much PTSD when they get outta here... I have full faith in Novik to end things satisfactorily.

Books I read in March 2022: All of Us Villains by Christine Lynn Herman and Amanda Foody, The Last Graduate** by Naomi Novik, Salem's Lot by Stephen King, Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi, Certain Dark Things** by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones, Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy, The Hive Queen by Tui T. Sutherland, The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo, The Poison Jungle by Tui T. Sutherland, White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson. The Dangerous Gift by Tui T. Sutherland, and Sundial by Catriona Ward. 37/90.

(I DNF'd Heather Webber's "Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe," Madeleine Roux's "The Book of Living Secrets" and Jo Harkin's "Tell me an Ending." Blackbird was too twee and cutesy, Secrets was more YA than I was expecting, and Ending did that thing I dislike, spanning tons of characters over a long time. I prefer a more focused, character-driven narrative.)

In hindsight, I miss writing monthly book blog posts. I think I'll go back to doing those... See you at the end of April!

2022 Plans

New year, new start, new books! I just turned 28 a couple days ago, can you believe? Capricorns unite. I set my goal for only 80 books this year, which is fairly low for me, but hopefully I'll find a new job this summer... Which means I won't have as much time to read. (Since I do most of my reading while I'm at my very boring job.)

I do wanna focus on my niblings more, including with the things I read. I'm gonna try to read all the stuff they recommend because it's such a good way to connect with them. Right now that means finishing the Wings of Fire series for my two older nieces, and starting the City of Ember series for my middle nephew. (I have six niblings in total; three nieces, three nephews. I highly doubt I'll have any more, as both of my siblings are approaching their 40s and have made semi-permanent contraceptive decisions. My oldest nibling is sixteen; he was born when I was eleven. And seeing as I'm an infertile lesbian too traumatized from childhood sexual abuse to enjoy any physical contact, I think that's it for us.)

Finally sank in that nobody reads these posts, so there's not much point in my continuing to write them. I probably won't be making another blog post for a while. I'm not gonna force myself to write, either... I suffered hella burnout last year after participating in a bunch of fanfic challenges that honestly weren't appreciated nearly as much as they should have been, for all that I melted myself down and poured Me into those works in such a short span of time. This year I'm just writing for me, whether that be fanfic or original.

I'm not setting any requirements or challenges for myself... I'm not interested in reading X amount of non-fiction or classics or whatever; I'm just kinda going with the flow, since that seems to be what works best (and since I am, as always, at the mercy of my ADHD and the hold systems of my various e-libraries).

As for what I plan to read in 2022, I'm still reading alongside the AppleGrant Bookclub podcast and the Newest Olympian podcast, so I'll definitely read more Katherine Applegate/Michael Grant books (I'm skipping the Soldier Girl series, though. Sorry, but that's just not appealing to me), and more Percy Jackson books.

I'd like to read at least a few of the physical books that I have on my shelf... I don't like physical books (I'm an ebook girl) and I dislike clutter/ collections/ generally owning stuff (I wouldn't say I'm a MINAMALIST, but...), so the sooner I read them, the sooner I can sell them. I'll read Thornhill, Lolita, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World, and The Gunslinger for this reason. (Speaking of podcasts, if you like history and literary analysis, the Lolita podcast is fantastic, going into Nabokov's life and the different responses different readers have to his work. And the very messed-up film/Broadway adaptions that paint this horrifying work as a romance and endanger the child actors...)

Similarly, I don't like owning ebooks (I'm a library girl). I should read some of the ebooks I bought and then... Never read. The ones that have been sitting in my Kindle for an embarrassingly long time. There's a ton, but I'll make it a goal to read The Fourth Whore, Radio Silence, My Secret Garden, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, Gideon the Ninth, Running With Lions, The Boy on the Bridge, and The Seafarer's Kiss so I finally can delete them.

There aren't too many new releases coming out this year that I'm aware of/ excited about (YET), but I am hyped for Mercy Thompson #13 (Soul Taken) in March, Wings of Fire #15 (The Flames of Hope) in April, the sequel to 'My Heart is a Chainsaw' in August, and the third Animorphs graphic novel by Chris Grine. Still very much invested in authors Stephen Graham Jones, Xiran Jay Zhao, Dan Wells, Katrina Leno, Julie Murphy, Caitlin Doughty, Grady Hendrix, Mona Awad, Naomi Novik, T. Kingfisher, Kristen Arnett, Katherine Applegate, Chloe Gong, and Mira Grant (and to a lesser extent her works under 'Seanan McGuire'). Hopefully they put out something new soon!

EDIT: I've since become aware of a number of upcoming 2022 releases that I'm excited for, including Madeleine Roux's "The Book of Living Secrets," Stephen Graham Jones's "Don't Fear the Reaper," Grady Hendrix's "How to Sell a Haunted House," Simone St. James's "The Book of Cold Cases," John Scalzi's "The Kaiju Preservation Society," Alex Segura's "Secret Identity," Grace D. Li's "Portrait of a Thief," Douglas Stuart's "Young Mungo," Jennifer Egan's "The Candy House," Xiran Jay Zhao's "Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor," Tori Bovalino's "Not Good for Maidens," Casey McQuiston's "I Kissed Shara Wheeler," Katrina Monroe's "They Drown Our Daughters," T. Kingfisher's "What Moves the Dead," Phoebe Wynne's "The Ruins," Sarah Gailey's "Just Like Home," and Rachel Gillig's "One Dark Window." I can only recommend my library purchase 5 books a month, so I've got the next few months sorted out, huh?

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My star rating system isn't exactly concrete, and is mostly based on gut feeling, but it goes something like:

5 stars: LOVED
4 stars: Liked/Strongly liked
3 stars: Neutral/meh/didn't hate or love
2 stars: Disliked/Strongly disliked
1 star: HATED

I very rarely give only one star to anything... As an author myself I try to be fair and subjective, like, 'was there anything of value to this, even if it didn't resonate with me personally?' (Also I like to think that I'm more discerning towards what I pick up to begin with... I'm better at looking at something and realizing 'NOPE that's not for me!' than I used to be. Which is good for everyone! I'm not stuck with a book I dislike, and the author doesn't get a bad rating from me.)

And I never ever give star ratings to anything I haven't 100% completed. (I also never 'count' a DNF towards my reading goal, and feel like it's cheating for others to do so. I (usually) won't say anything when I see other people doing it, but I WILL go "hmmm" to myself and side-eye their profile pic. SO THERE.) Often the last few pages of a book will influence my rating one way or another, so to condemn something I haven't read all the way through just feels wrong.

I feel like 3 stars are the worst, though. I'd rather someone hated my writing than felt indifferent towards it. I read because I want to feel strong emotions; it's okay if those emotions are negative, so long as they're strong.

Best of 2021

I read a lot in 2021. This list doesn't even make up 1% of my total books read, so you know it's the cream of the crop. Now, not everything here was published IN 2021, but I've certainly never read it before. It's new TO ME, 'cuz it's MY list. Capiche?

Broken Harbor is the fourth book in Tana French's 'Dublin Murder Squad' series, but it doesn't need to be read in order. While not quite standalones, each book stars a different protagonist; a different case. The point being that every detective has at least one case that changes their career and life (usually for the worse, as there are few happy endings to be found). Here, the protagonist is seasoned (pompous) Detective Mick Kennedy, known for being by-the-books and lawful, a stickler for the rules, with the highest solve rate on the squad. The case? Two children smothered in their beds; parents stabbed in the kitchen. I refuse to spoil how personal this case becomes for Mick, or how it messes with his head and forces him to question his morals, but just know that it's good enough to be my favorite in a series that I adore; the best of the best. French is so, so good at mingling Irish history with their more modern problems (this series is profoundly Irish, to the point where the city of Dublin feels like a character on its own) and keeping just a hint of "maybe supernatural" humming in the background, for anyone familiar with Celtic lore. I cannot praise it enough. (That said, here's a list I wrote arranging the 6 DMS books in order of most to least fave, and my elaborated feelings on each: [LINK]).

(Obviously Ireland's situation re: police brutality isn't the same as what's happening here in the states, so I don't expect French to approach from that angle, but it's nice that she does acknowledge the inherently corrupt nature of law enforcement. YES, this is a police procedural, but it seldom paints the cops favorably.)

On a completely different track, Camgirl is Italian-American author Isa Mazzei's memoir detailing her years as a sex worker. This is less a how-to guide and more a confessional as Mazzei shares her hypersexuality coupled with a hatred of sex itself; how she seeks sex for the attention while also using it as a form of self harm, and the trauma these feelings stem from. She guides the reader through her time as a sugar baby before delving into cam work. She talks a little about the stigma of sex work, and how sex workers deserve respect and protection, whether they're full-service or partial; whatever end of the spectrum they fall on... But mostly this story is Isa's and Isa's alone. Some readers have complained that she's an unsympathetic narrator due to how she uses men and lashes out, but personally I found her very engaging and relatable... As a sexual trauma survivor (and an aspiring sex worker), I saw myself in her journey. It's good to get these stories out there. This is a gripping read, and if you can handle a little darkness, a little grit in your lit, some explicit material, I'd highly recommend this.

2021 was the year I fell in love with bawdy comedian Samantha Irby and her hilarious, painfully relatable work. She's a blogger for bitchesgottaeat, but has since started collecting and publishing her essays in book format. I'm selecting Meaty as my favorite of these books, although they're all fantastic and have become comfort food for me — I frequently rotate through them on audio, just because her voice is so soothing. Irby is a fat, Black, chronically ill (physically and mentally) queer woman married to a white woman. She writes about everything from awkward sexual experiences to Crohn's disease-related issues, to child abuse, to homelessness, to how much she enjoys porn and masturbation, to extreme trauma. Her essay "My Mother, My Daughter" makes me cry like a baby every damn time. And then she'll turn right around and have me wheezing with laughter as she shares an anecdote involving shitting on the side of a busy road while hugging a frat boy's leg, or finding herself accidentally stumbling into a Civil War reenactment with only a butch lesbian for company. She's crude and crass and honest and heartfelt, and I'd give her my left kidney if ever she needed it. Samantha Irby, thank you for making my year a little less sucky. I love you madly.

So, Saving Noah is about a teenage pedophile. (Sit back down! Hear me out!) The main character, a mother of two, is devastated to learn that her 16-year-old son has molested several first-graders. He is taken to court and institutionalized at a center for underage sex offenders. Upon release, she tries to give him a happy homecoming, but struggles in the unravelling of her marriage, the rejection, harassment, and violent assault of their neighborhood, and her son's rapidly declining mental health. This story hurts. At times I grew frustrated with the mother's willful ignorance (when your son tells you that he's a pedophile and he will hurt kids again; he can't stop, maybe you should believe him). The ending in particular I have a lot of mixed feelings about — I seem to vacillate between "I HATE IT" and "But maybe I would have done the same? Maybe???" every few days (followed by an immediate "I'm so glad I don't have kids")... But the story kept me engaged from page one, it evoked a whole slew of emotions in me, and I haven't stopped thinking about it (what would I have done in their shoes?!) in the months that followed. In my opinion, that's the mark of a good book.

The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel is as short as it is nasty. I had it read in a single evening... I couldn't put it down! Set in a poverty-stricken corner of the Ozarks, waitress Eve is knocked off her feet by the murder of her teenage daughter. She goes back to her roots (read: her abusive, meth-addicted mother, and her mother's world of violently abusive dealers) to hunt down the killer, feeling she has nothing left to lose. No matter how bad your family is, they WERE still the ones who made you, and sometimes the apple doesn't fall as far from the tree as you might've hoped. If the ending had been any different than what it was, I wouldn't have loved the book nearly as much. It had the balls to go there and go there hard. I let out an audible "hoooooo!" at the very last page, wicking sweat off my forehead. Oh, how I love books with bite...

I don't think I've experienced a ghost story (book or movie) that I LOVED in... Maybe ever. Ghost stories always leave me disappointed, but apparently The Broken Girls is a diamond in the rough. It dragged my emotions in right away with a surprising Holocaust plotline, focusing on a young, orphaned refugee from Ravensbrück sent away to an American boarding school for "troubled" girls. The timeline bounces between 1950 (focusing on the boarding school) and 2014 (focusing on a thirty-something journalist following up on the school for personal and professional reasons). The modern portions didn't grab me immediately, but soon that plot caught up to the school plot in terms of quality, and I was left gripped by both. I like books that make me feel strong emotions, and boy oh boy did this book make me feel rage — at its heart, it's about broken girls. Girls unwanted, dismissed, ignored. Girls that are killed and forgotten. This is seen in both timelines, and both are rage-inducing. I particularly appreciated the mentions of female Nazis/ the way women hurt each other to benefit men, and American antisemitism (I get so annoyed with stories that like to pretend America was the BIG DAMN HERO in WWII. Yeah, right.) The ghost was very real and very freaky, but (like the best horror), also a metaphor for trauma and the damage misogyny wreaks on everyone.

The Reapers are the Angels is, oddly enough, not the FIRST zombie book I've ever cried for. (That honor would go to my beloved Mira Grant's "Newsflesh" series), but this is a gritty western, through and through, with a spunky teenage protagonist spitting the wisdom of the deep south. (Note: Just because Temple is a teen doesn't make this a YA book, despite what some reviews say.) It's told in small vignettes as Temple travels all over the American South, trying to find meaning and beauty in a desiccated world some 30+ years after the apocalypse. Despite the ugliness, the horror that follows her every step, despite the violence and trauma she carries inside herself, there's such a gentle optimism to this world, from caravans that travel the desert looking for people to protect, to groups of hunters who only want to see the natural wonders of the world. (Niagara Falls, here they come!) Not everyone will love the ending (I didn't), but I see what the author was going for. It was a very complete, effective story that wrenched at my emotions.

If one good thing happened in 2021, it's that I stumbled across Caitlin Doughty, aka "Ask a Mortician," on YouTube. She's hilarious, unapologetic, and highly informative, educating her audience on all things death-related (in delightful ooey-gooey detail) while still somehow being classy and respectful towards the deceased (even the ancient deceased!) and their families. If you haven't noticed, my tastes veer towards the dark and the macabre, so a six-foot-tall, very left-leaning Morticia Addams making 30-minute videos detailing the entire embalming process or the history of the bubonic plague is right up my alley. Naturally, I've read all the books she's published thus far, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory was my favorite. (It's significantly more personal than her other stuff. It goes into her childhood experiences with traumatic deaths, her schooling in becoming a mortician, her mental health... I feel like I got to know Caitlin a little more; why she does the work she does.)

Looks like this is the second time Stephen Graham Jones is showing up on one of my annual 'best of' lists. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is a phenomenal example of a character study. Without Jade, the teenage protagonist, the story would not be the same. It's her strange worldview, her obsession with horror movies, her inability to see the world outside of the lens of slashers, that defines this book, and it's extremely fun and rewarding to watch the tale unfold from this viewpoint. To notice things that Jade just can't, and wait for her to catch up. She's convinced her small town, currently undergoing gentrification, is about to be the site of a real-life slasher movie. Unsurprisingly, nobody believes her (would you believe the obsessive edgelord teen?). As she tries to suss out the final girl and the red herring and the dark past, things piece together differently than expected. Altogether this tells a gorgeous tale of the ways broken people cope; how abuse isn't always cyclical; how hope can be found in strange places. And yes: this made me cry like a little baby. Now excuse me while I make a blood sacrifice and perform some black magic to steal SGJ's mad writing skills, because this envy is killing me. (He's so good that I'm angry about it.)

I must've annoyed the crap out of my poor friends while I read Iron Widow; I just couldn't stop screaming about it! If you know me at all, you know I LOVE dark female protagonists. (And by 'dark' I don't mean that they swear a few times or jaywalk. I mean that in any other work, they'd be the uncontested villain.) I love unapologetic female protagonists who are overflowing with passion and obsession and rage; who strive single-mindedly towards a goal. Zetian gave me all that and more. Set in a fantasy version of ancient China, this is a SFF retelling of the legend of Wu Zetian, China's first and only female emperor. With GIANT ROBOTS battling BUG MONSTERS, because heck yeah. Join Zetian and her two boyfriends (canon polyamory and bisexuality? Possible gender non-conformity (as written by a non-binary author)? HECK YEAH!!!) as they dismantle a war effort's misogynistic and classist practices, one torture-murder at a time, and enjoy all the good twists along the way... Including some twists that had me screaming "WHAT?! NO!!!" (I told you: I like books that made me FEEL things. Any emotion is fine, so long as it's a strong one.) (And yes, before you ask, I was a fan of the author's YouTube channel even before the bestselling book came out. *adjusts my hipster glasses*)

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was... Extremely timely for me. Strangely so, even. Not to get too personal, but I was in the midst of fighting to have my records legally removed from the Mormon church (it's not a quick or easy process. I left almost a decade ago) when I read this. For a queer woman like myself, a childhood trapped in a misogynistic and homophobic cult (in a family of at least 5 generations of devout Mormons) is something filled with pain and trauma; I still feel betrayed and heartbroken, the more I learn about the church's sickening practices and lies and history. To the bottom of my heart, I feel like my entire childhood and my self-worth were robbed; maybe destroyed, and it's so hard to find anyone — even my psychiatrist — who can really understand the extent of my damage. But that's exactly what these nine short stories are about: Black women, sometimes queer Black women, and their complicated, often painful relationships with family/friends, sex, romantic partners, their own bodies/agency, predatory church leaders, and religion. It shows perspectives from converts, immigrants, different ages/generations, different levels of religious devotion... Honestly this was just a fascinating and gorgeously written collection that felt like a balm to my broken heart. Thank the stars; SOMEONE understands!!!

Some honorable mentions, before I finish this list off (note— the following links will lead to my reviews, if you want to know more): Katrina Leno’s “Horrid” (ghosts, fairy-tale, spooky, mental health), Naomi Novik’s "A Deadly Education” (where the stakes are high, the actions have consequences, and every victory is hard-won), John Ajvide Lindqvist’s “Let the Right One In” (I’ve never loved a vampire book before, but the Swedes do it right!!! Horror, dark comedy, and some surprising sweetness), Jonathan Parks-Ramange’s “Yes, Daddy” (absolutely HORRIFYING. Gave me nightmares), Krystal Sutherland's House of Hollow (FINALLY a fairy/changeling story that's ACTUALLY dark and creepy; y'know, the way they're SUPPOSED to be), Mariana Enríquez's The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (delightfully macabre and twisted short stories) and Chloe Gong’s “These Violent Delights.” (I know I’m mean to YA lit, but this Romeo and Juliet retelling was so weird and out there that I couldn’t help but enjoy it.)

The Final Girl Support Group might be my #1 fave of 2021. It just had everything I love all packed in together!!! A (nearly) all-female cast... And most of these women are 40+ year-old, hypercompetent badasses! They're (mostly) all queer and/or disabled women of color! They all KICK ASS, mentally and physically. UNRELIABLE NARRATORS, BABY! Self-aware horror tropes and references! A complete lack of ANY romantic subplot! I foresee this book becoming a frequent comfort read for me, right alongside Mira Grant's 'Into the Drowning Deep.' And while the prose wasn't especially flowery (it did the job of telling the story and not much more), the plot/pacing was VERY good, clever, and tight; this serves to make a satisfying re-read, as all the foreshadowing is RIGHT THERE for every twist. I wouldn't say you HAVE to be a big ol' horror movie lover like me to love this book; it's a bit more accessible/less obscure than 'My Heart is a Chainsaw' can get. But it probably helps. Still, even without that context, I feel like everyone can appreciate a story of 'women who've already survived intense trauma band together to solve a mystery before more lives are lost.' The research into how different people cope with CPTSD was respectful and accurate, and I really appreciated the commentary on male/incel entitlement, victim blaming, media capitalizing on tragedy, and how harmful the fans of true crime can be. (There's a big difference between reporting the facts and fangirling over actual serial killers. As someone who mostly lives online, I've seen my fair share of both.)

Well, that's all of 'em! Hope I've convinced you to give one or two of these a shot. Now it's time for me to read some new stuff and leave 2021 behind.

November 2021 Reads

Because I noticed I was running behind my 2021 reading goal, I decided to sort through my TBR and check out all the shortest audiobooks that were immediately available at the e-library (we're talking between 2-6 hours in length, each). If you think that's cheating... Uh. Bite me, I guess?

Anyway, the first of these audiobooks was the short story "The Willows" by classic horror author Algernon Blackwood, whom I first heard of when playing the "Until Dawn" video game. (He's referenced a lot there; probably because of his 'wendigo' short story. Just a heads up, fellow white folks: don't make stories/art about wendigos. They're not ours, and they have spiritual significance to first nations folks. Kind of a no-no.) I wanted to read this story of his in particular because it's the basis for T. Kingfisher's newest novel, The Hollow Places. And while that made it interesting to me (seeing as I love Kingfisher's horror-related works), it wasn't really my cup of tea. Eldritch horror in general doesn't do it for me; I like my spooks closer to home/reality. While in theory I can understand the fear our unnamed narrator and his companion experienced in such an uncanny place, it's not something I can relate to, y'know? "It's spooky because it's mysterious/unexplained" isn't enough for my sciency brain. BUT! It was well written, it ended with a punch (as all short stories should), and if what I've described sizzles your jollies, then I recommend you go for it.

Next I listened to Ruby Bridges' Through My Eyes, which I recommend people read specifically in audiobook format. The different narrators, the Black gospel music, and the interview with the author herself at the end really added to the experience. While a very short read (at 60 pages), it was impactful. Of course I'd heard Ruby's story before; who hasn't? I use her name specifically whenever I hear stupid people say "racism is over" or desegregation took place "a long time ago." Ruby is in her 60s now and still just as much of an activist now as she was at age six... Because the need for activism in the fight for racial equality is still extremely prevalent. It scrambles my brain that there were (are!) adult human beings who dedicated months of their lives to harassing and threatening children for (checks notes) going to school. If that doesn't make your blood boil, I don't even know what to say to you. Amazing story presented in an appealing way with first-hand accounts from many involved and others from the sidelines.

Third came The Joy Luck Club which I've been meaning to read for ages. (Note: I learned after listening that this was the abridged version. I hate the concept of abridging things (what's the point?!) and wouldn't have chosen this had I known. Maybe someday I'll read the full-length version, because I quite liked what I read here.) It tells the stories of several Chinese-American immigrants and their kids, with focus on strained or complicated mother/daughter relationships. The intersection of motherhood and immigrant status is a particular one I've been learning about lately through YouTube essayists and personal friendships, and this emotional, carefully-written book increased my already growing appreciation and respect for the topic.

Fourth was Convenience Store Woman. I read the author's other English-translated novel, Earthling, earlier this year. Earthling went to some wild places (read: pedophilia, incest and cannibalism), which I gathered from the comments was highly unexpected from the author of this charming tale. And yeah, I can see how it would be jarring... CSW tells the story of an Autistic-coded woman who is satisfied with her quiet life working at a convenience store well into her thirties, with no interest in ever having a boyfriend or climbing the corporate ladder. It's a commentary on capitalist culture and the social pressure to always advance and conform, to never feel happy with what you have, and ultimately resists that drive. If you're truly happy where you are in life, that's fine. Screw everything else. (As a neurodivergent person like myself who has little interest in careers and is likely to remain single, I really appreciate this, by the way!) And I imagine that's an especially radical message in Japan, where it was originally published. While it never went to the dark places that Earthling reached, the similarities are stark with their "unusual" female protagonists questioning their place in society, particularly regarding the constant pressure to marry and reproduce. This author clearly has a lot of feelings on the topic, and I'm beyond excited to see what she publishes next.

Kinda weird that I'd never read The Giver, considering I've read a lot of Lowry's work! Anyway, I've since rectified this. I kinda knew, going in, that it was "baby's first dystopia," and that much was accurate, but it had a lot more depth and care than I was expecting. I can see why it's a classic. I don't really have much to say about it, other than it's maddening what books parents try to ban. If you honestly don't think twelve-year-olds have thoughts and questions about death, suicide, authority, conformity, and sex, then either you've never met one, or they have reason to believe they can't talk to you. None of it was presented in an inappropriate way; I feel kids could only benefit from the discussions this book will raise.

Can you believe I've never before read The Great Gatsby? Or seen the movies? I feel like my schools were all hella focused on Shakespeare and didn't teach much of anything else. And maybe they were right for that, because this was boring as shit. Barely anything happened, and as far as I could gather, the moral was just "rich people suck." Which... Everyone already knows that, right? (Right...???) Between all the casual antisemitism (they really just threw the K word out there, huh? Gross), I had to wonder why it was told from Nick's POV, instead of Gatsby's? If it was from Gatsby's POV, it might have been a bit more interesting, since then we could at least see the events firsthand instead of hearing about them after the fact. Anyway. Never reading that nonsense again.

I never read the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series as a kid (not sure why! I liked lots of animal-protagonist books), but a friend showed me the "moon blinked" scene from the movie, and it was so freaky and unsettling that I had to know more. (I love creepy kids' books!) Much to my delight, the writing in The Capture was (sometimes) even creepier than the movie, leaving me as one happy camper. It was a little weird and squicky, their obsession with food and passing pellets and all that. (I mean, they ARE owls, so. What are they SUPPOSED to revolve their lives around? But still; I feel like other animal-protagonist books I've read weren't so off-putting. Maybe it's because I've always had a bird phobia I try to keep quiet). Did they have to talk about their gizzards so much? I don't think I've ever talked about my digestive tract to anyone but doctors, personally. The snake-nanny was really cute, though.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies was... Extremely timely for me. Strangely so, even. Not to get too personal, but I was in the midst of having my records legally removed from the Mormon church, almost a decade after leaving, when I read this. For a queer woman like myself, a childhood trapped in a misogynistic and homophobic religion is something filled with pain and trauma. And that's exactly what these nine short stories are about: Black women, sometimes queer Black women, and their complicated, often painful relationships with family, sex, their own bodies/agency, and church. It shows perspectives of converts, immigrants, different ages/generations... Honestly this was just a fascinating and gorgeously written collection that took my heart and wrenched it out of my chest. (I don't even like short stories! What the hell?!) Five stars, for sure.

Milk Blood Heat was more what I'm used to when it comes to short story collections -- inconsistent and unsatisfying. Some of the stories were better than others, but nearly all of them ended without any kind of concrete resolution and left me asking, "so what was the point of all that?" The writing was good, and if you LIKE short story anthologies, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't like this one (I mean there are some trigger warnings going in. Miscarriages, suicide, infidelity, child sexual abuse, probably a few more I'm missing), but it didn't do much for me. 2.5 stars, rounded up.

The Nothing But Blackened Teeth audiobook was quite short, at under three hours (and I always listen at 2x speed, so...). I've seen a lot of complaints about the "purple prose," but honestly that was the best part of the book. It was fun to see how the author could re-word simple statements into elaborate spoolings of thought. Underneath all that, it was just your basic (if self-aware and diverse in sexuality and race) ghost story involving a bunch of unlikable twenty-somethings surviving (or not surviving) a night in a haunted house. If that's your cup of tea, you already know it. If it's not... It's not.

Of course, it wasn't JUST super-short audiobooks. I read a couple book books, too...

The Only is the third and final book in Applegate's Endling series. (I've said it before, but it's so pleasantly strange to me that there's a children's book series about preventing an oncoming war through political meetings, treaties, and forming allies.) There's very little action and, like Animorphs, the few battles shown are portrayed as tragic. It's deeply sad and traumatic to have to hurt and kill people! Also like Animorphs is the constant focus on the balance of nature and the environment; every species of plant and animal is vital to the greater whole. As always, Applegate manages to make my heart ache, but at least she didn't completely crush my soul with this ending like she did with Animorphs. In fact, this left me with the warm fuzzies! I feel good about this series and the messages about how much the price of peace and stability can cost.

Still reading the Wings of Fire series to bond with my niece! The Brightest Night is the fifth book in the series and the last of the initial dragonet prophecy arc (there are more books, though! Lots more!). I thought this was a good wrap-up all around for the arc, resolving all the major conflicts and advancing all the character development. I really appreciate how creative and fun this series is, particularly with worldbuilding. The science nerd in me loves the differing biology and cultures of all the dragon tribes. And I really appreciate the reminder that just because someone you care about has romantic feelings for you does not mean you owe them a relationship — we should see more things like that in kids' books.

And yeah, I'm trying to step up my 'Wings of Fire' reading, since book #15 comes out this upcoming April. Moon Rising is book #6, and stars my niece's favorite character, a NightWing called Moonwatcher. In my opinion, this new arc is a definite step up from the quality of the previous! I'm more interested in a story of young people unlearning bigotry with new friends than I am a prophecy/chosen one story. Plus, now that the rules of this world are fully established, we can have some fun subverting expectations! I was pleasantly surprised at the addition of a gay character, too, especially at how he (and his crush) weren't treated any differently from the straight crushes in the series. I know more and more kids' media includes gay characters nowadays, but every time I see it, I just feel a bittersweet kinda joy... Man, that would've meant the world to me, getting any kind of positive rep as a kid.

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Sorry I didn't write a wrap-up post on what I read for October... I just wasn't feeling it. I was kind of a depressed wreck last month and didn't read nearly as much as I'd planned, and definitely didn't want to do any writing. (Mental illness! Can't live with it..... Don't really have a choice......) If you're curious, though, I wrote reviews for every item:
- Pumpkin by Julie Murphy (4/5)
- From Here To Eternity by Caitlin Doughty (3/5)
- The First by Katherine Applegate (5/5)
- The Dark Secret by Tui T. Sutherland (4/5)
- Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (100/5)
- The second Animorphs graphic novel by Chris Grine (5/5)
- A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan (4/5)
- Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca (3/5)

For the 5 books I recommended my library purchase this month, we've got The Teller of Secrets by Bisi Adjapon, Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong, Insatiable: Porn - A Love Story by Asa Akira, Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness by Roy Richard Grinker, and Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Make of that what you will~

September 2021 Reads

I thought I'd add a new segment onto these blog posts... What books did I recommend my library purchase this month?

I use Overdrive pretty exclusively (fuck Amazon, I say, while selling my books on Amazon, using a Kindle on the daily, and writing these blog posts on an Amazon-owned website. But seriously: Fuck Amazon. Fuck Bezos. Fuck Capitalism). I have several library cards. One of my libraries allows me to make five new book recommendations every month. I have an ongoing list of books to recommend (yes it's an actual, physical list I keep in my wallet), so you bet I wait til midnight on the night my Overdrive refreshes, and then I pounce.

Here are the books I recommended this month: Patricia Briggs' Soul Taken and the second Animorphs graphic novel, The Visitor. (Neither of these books have been released yet, but I like to rec books before they're released because that means I get put on the hold list the second my library purchases them.)

(Whispers: I also logged into my dad's Overdrive account to recommend the My Heart Is a Chainsaw audiobook, but only because I REALLY LIKED that book and I want him to read it too, damn it! And since he doesn't 'read,' he only does audiobooks, well...) (It's not like I have his library card # written down and occasionally I put audiobooks on hold for him like a book fairy or anything like that, cough cough.....)

I also rec'd Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World, and The Fox Woman. Now I have to wait another month to make more requests... My library probably won't purchase all 5 of these requests, for various reasons (I once got an email (from my physical library, not Overdrive) denying my request for The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War because they "don't buy textbooks"? What??? It's not even a textbook...), but they're still worth making. Being as interactive as possible with your library services is the best thing you can do to keep libraries functioning; trust me — my parents met at the library they both worked at, and my sister is a librarian. Libraries are punk rock, and that's a hill I'll gladly die on!

PS: It's fine when people prefer physical books over ebooks... Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But it's really annoying when people go on and on about how inherently ~ superior ~ physical books are and how they smell, or whatever. And there's a gross academic elitism in the online book community over how many books you own / how the collection is displayed/ what condition they're in that sometimes grates on me (enjoy your collection, but don't act like you're "more of" a reader than others just because you can afford a nice collection). I'm visually impaired and I need ebooks so I can enlarge the text. (For reference: I just borrowed a large-print PAPERBACK copy of 'Deacon King Kong' from the library. It costs THIRTY. BUCKS. The 'normal' HARDBACK costs thirteen bucks). I'm poor. Like, 'trying to get on food stamps' poor. Quit being gross, please and thanks!

Now on to what I read this month (spoilers: not much. I had a bitch of a time keeping focused):

I knew only one thing going into The Lights of Prague: Bisexual vampires. Honestly, do I need any more reason than that to read something? It's already my cup of bloody tea! This is kinda what I'd hoped for when I read the (very disappointing) Serpent & Dove last year. I wanted a sexy, simmering enemies-to-lovers plot of a Bad Girl and a Good Boy in a historical European setting. This succeeds where S&D failed. Domek (the working class, vampire-hunting lamplighter, protecting the streets of Prague after dark) and Ora, the widowed, high-society vampire who wants to wash her hands of her species' brutal ways, have amazing chemistry. They genuinely like each other, and they're pretty cute together. And they actually fuck, instead of dancing around the issue for a billion pages. (Also Ora's queerness isn't a problem. She's cool with her sexuality; he's cool with her sexuality, they have mutual queer friends, so there's no tiresome gayngst going on.) There's a bunch of interesting plots afoot in the lamplighter brotherhood and in Ora's former coven, as well as among Prague's vampires growing restless and seeking more power... I hope the author intends to make this a series, as it feels like this book barely scratches the surface after setting up all the worldbuilding, and I'd like to see more.

(Shortened review for the sake of this blog post. See my full review here.) So I didn't hate Take Me Apart, but I didn't love it, either. I'm having a really hard time rating it, because on the one hand, I love what it has to say about the intersection between misogyny and ableism; the way "crazy" women have always been treated, and how dangerous it is to take our rights away and refuse to listen to us; how that will always end in tragedy.

On the other hand, I detested the main character, Kate, who completely lacks common sense. She's hired (by the son of the deceased) to archive a dead celebrity's personal effects, but she's constantly flouting the boundaries she's given for no reason. She signs a NDA, yet she's constantly telling everyone about what she finds. She goes to parts of the house she's forbidden access to, and refuses to take 'no' for an answer. Kate: Theo's traumatic childhood isn't yours to sell! Do your job and leave him alone! I understand that later she has reason to believe the famous Miranda's suicide may not have been a suicide, but what's her excuse for the first half, when she has no reason to think that at all? (Also, the Theo/Kate romance did NOT work for me. I felt no chemistry! I feel like the author was going for a Captain von Trapp/Fraulein Maria situation, but this was not that. It was so jarring... Why did they even like each other?! And if Kate supposedly cares about Theo, why does she treat him so badly?)

I'm upping this from 3 to 3.5 stars simply because of how timely this book feels after Texas's bullshit abortion ban, by the way. Abortion is a right. Reproductive rights are human rights, and Miranda's story in this book is just one of many reasons why.

I know I keep saying I'm done with comics, but comics are never done with me. I was finishing up a big fanfic project this month, and for one of the fanfics, I asked my friend what he wanted to see me write. Turns out he wanted something based on House of M #7, so hey; I had a little homework to do before I could start writing. I was confused as to what was happening, and I am not a visual person at all (and not just because I'm legally blind), so rest assured: I don't know shit about good art and bad art, but my simple monkey-brain thought: 'This Art Pretty.' So make of that what you will. My endless crush on every single member of the Magnet Fam reigns supreme. (Wanda, my beloved...) As usual, I"m left pissed off at Magdaddy's douchiness, which fuels my need to write yet more fanfic where he acts like a GOOD FATHER for once, DAMN IT. (It also fuels my need to keep calling him 'Magdaddy' just to make the fanboys shudder and twitch. I have to get my kicks somehow.) It did make me want to read the rest of House of M, which was probably the point. (I should do that anyway, seeing as I've owned the first volume for several years now.) Obviously I didn't count this towards my 2021 reading goal; it was only like 15 pages long, if that.

You thought I was done with K.A. Applegate and her husband after finishing Animorphs? Well... So did I, kinda, but then my favorite Ani-podcast (Animorphs Anonymous) morphed into the AppleGrant Book Club and started reading the Endling series, and whoops, I got sucked in. Especially unusual because, as stated before, high fantasy really isn't my thing. But I should've trusted Kathy Apples from the start... The Last brings all that good shit I love. Serious trauma that carries throughout a series, instead of being forgotten as soon as it becomes plot-inconvenient? Check. (Genocide for kids~!) A ton of focus on biology/ecology, even for fictional species? CHECK. Political upheaval? Found family? Subversion of gender norms? Group dynamics that bounce off each other in funny, witty ways? Check, check, check, and check! I don't know how much kids will enjoy this... It's pretty introspective and grim... I think my niece would've found it boring. But I sure liked it. Can't wait to get the sequel (and it looks like I won't have to wait — it's available for borrow at my elibrary. Click!)

I read the first couple books of the Percy Jackson series as a kid... I thought they were okay, but... Just 'okay', knowhatimean? But Schubes, of 'Potterless' fame, has started a new podcast where he covers this series (I'm sure he's glad to be reading something by an author known to be queer-positive, after so many months of awkwardly shuffling around Rowling's increasingly atrocious behavior), so I thought it would be fun to read along with him. Unfortunately, just like when I was a kid, I found myself underwhelmed by The Lightning Thief. The writing is bare-bones, the characters are one-dimensional, and the plot feels predictable and overly simplistic. (And before you say, 'but it's a kid's book!' Listen... I read a lot of kid's books. I could point you to any number of beautifully written, emotionally complex stories that grab my heart and won't let go.) The creativity is there, but if it weren't for the podcast, I wouldn't be reading the rest of the series. I don't dislike it! I'm just not blown away by the art, or whatever. I feel like Riordan could get so much more out of this premise if he just dug a little deeper. ... Or so I thought for the first half. I ended up giving this four stars, because the plot suckered me in sometime after the midpoint. My complaints still stand, but there's some exciting adventure in here, and I really appreciate the 'real world' issues this covers for kids, including mental health issues, struggling with schooling, and rough family situations (including domestic abuse!). I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I hit adulthood, but if I'd been diagnosed as a kid, this might have meant more to me then. This showed hints of maturity, too, particularly Percy's decisions re: his mother at the end, and the graceful release of a cloven-footed friend. I'm excited to re-read the sequel. (This is a silly aside, but it's so FUNNY going from the endless moral quandaries of Animorphs to Percy casually killing people left and right cuz "eh, they had it coming.")

(The podcast, The Newest Olympian, is a lot of fun, by the way. You should check it out; Schubes is about to post episode five.)

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I'm trying out this new thing called 'self care...' Not sure how I feel about it yet. Apparently I'm, like, supposed to eat healthy foods and get decent sleep every night??? Wild. Anyway, as part of this bizarre regimen, I'm supposed to (checks notes) socialize with other human beings on a semi-regular basis. So I signed up for my library's bookclub meet-ups. I listened to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, a 17-hour audiobook by an author who's work I already knew I disliked, all so I could sit in a room in my library with complete strangers and talk about it for an hour. Self care! (Spoiler alert: I didn't go to the meeting. But I still read the book.) And... I didn't hate it! Which is annoying, because I had my heart set on complaining A Lot about it. NOW what am I supposed to complain about; kids today? The weather?! Don't get me wrong; I didn't love it. It lost me in the last 20% or so, and I found the ending to be lackluster (I would have preferred a fully happy or a fully tragic ending — preferably tragic, as I am a Total Edgelord (derogatory)). Still: really creative story of a girl cursed/blessed to live forever in a world nobody is capable of retaining any memory of her whatsoever. She floats through centuries of history, tailed by a devil, leaving no more mark upon the world than a ghost. Then, of course, she stumbles across a love interest with an equally unusual past... (And listen: I'm bitter and gay as hell and I find 99% of romances tedious, but I can appreciate bisexual Jewish boys who drink their 'respect women' juice, gives good head, and takes you on cute dates. I GET it, Addie; he's a keeper.) Apparently some reviews on here are Big Mad because they thought the romance would be between Addie and the devil... Since I didn't read the book's description/summary before reading, I had no such expectations, but yeah — that doesn't happen. For me, the big appeal of the book is 1. The pretty writing 2. Addie's experiences throughout history 3. The clever ways in which Addie manages and exploits the terms of her curse. Unfortunately, by the end, I was just like "okay, you can stop, I'm bored now." BUT that first 80% was really damn good!

The Hidden Kingdom is the third book of the Wings of Fire series, which I still tell people I'm reading to appease my tweenage niece, but really I'm just reading 'cuz I like 'em. #3 focuses on my favorite of the five dragonets, Glory, the grumpy and sarcastic RainWing. (I want to be a RainWing, yo. They nap all day, eat fruit, have color-changing rainbow scales, spit acidic, face-melting venom, APPARENTLY get high off of rainforest frogs, and HAVE SLOTH FAMILIARS. I WOULD KILL FOR A PET SLOTH, OKAY???) In this book, Glory and the gang head to meet Glory's family in the rainforest, where (par for this series' course), she finds her origins interesting, but not what she expected. When they uncover a plot of kidnapped RainWings (despite them supposedly being far-removed from the wider dragon war!), they have a mystery to solve. She has to learn to 'play nice' with the others, knowing when it's best to lean on them, despite her highly independent nature... And when it's time to take charge! I'm really proud of Glory's growth throughout this book; her arc of feeling unwanted, unneeded coming to a resolution. And for once, I was on board for the love-interest; he's 200% my type. (What? I like 'em twisty!) I really appreciated certain details, like the RainWing's non-violence policy, and the compassion and aid they offer to disabled characters. One thing I didn't appreciate in this particular book were a few fatphobic jokes about one character... She seriously existed just TO be the butt of fat jokes. But my niece and I did have an interesting conversation about it afterwards ("You know it's not okay to judge people by their body types, right?" and "why does the author think it's okay for Clay to be big and eat a lot, but not Exquisite?"), so there's that. Generally, I just really enjoy these books. They're gruesome, creative, and a lot of fun.

Looks like this is the second year in a row that Stephen Graham Jones will show up on my annual 'best of' list. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is fucking phenomenal, and proof of why you should recommend books to your local library... It was released Aug 31, and I got it Sept 14. Nice. This book is a love letter to the slasher movie genre (aka: the chainsaw MY little heart has revved to since my own early teens). I don't think you need to be a big slasher fan to enjoy this book (although it IS fun catching all the references, obvious AND obscure), because Graham Jones's writing is just as incredible, creative, and gore-tastic here as it was in 'The Only Good Indians.' (I will say though, this book focused less on Blackfeet culture than 'Indians' did, to make room for beloved horror references and a protagonist so unique and dear that she made my heart ache, made me tear up, more than once.) Jade is a strange, strange girl who views the world through slasher-fan lenses as a coping mechanism for her own trauma (#RELATABLE), but when she tries to warn her small lake town that they're about to be mascaraed (all the signs are there!), they assume the weird goth teen is just acting up again. It's up to HER to train the Final Girl and decode all the red herrings... Or is it? Wouldn't it just be better to let the hated little town go up in a spray of blood? And there's the unfortunate little snag that real life doesn't always follow movie rules... I loved this book, I loved the way it was written and presented through Jade's hyper-focused gaze (she refuses to see anything outside her own odd little perspective, she lets details that would be important to anyone else slip by the wayside in her single-minded vision, and it's some DAMN good character writing), and Jade, so much... To call it a 'favorite' feels like a disservice. It just feels like another piece of my soul. Stephen Graham Jones, my horror-loving heart is yours.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully next month reading and writing will flow easier for me; I really felt stuck in my head for most of this month.

(Also, get vaccinated and wear your goddamn mask! There's no two ways about it; we can't be friends if you think it's okay to expose people to a deadly virus.)

August 2021 Reads

I'm a busy bitch these days (no, I don't care to elaborate just yet), so let's get right into it:

I don't think I've experienced a ghost story (in any form; book, movie...) that I LOVED in a long-ass time... Maybe ever. There's always something about them that doesn't sit right. The Broken Girls might very well be the diamond in the rough, because it... Was pretty damn perfect. A no-brainer for the 'best of 2021' list, anyway. I read my first Simone St. James novel (The Sun Down Motel) earlier this year, and I liked it, but I didn't love it. This one, however, dragged my emotions in right away with a surprising Holocaust plotline, focusing on a young, orphaned refugee from Ravensbrück sent away to an American boarding school for "troubled" girls... That also happens to be haunted by a malicious ghost. The timeline bounces between 1950 (focusing on the boarding school girls) and 2014 (focusing on a thirty-something journalist following up on the school for personal and professional reasons). Like Sun Down Motel, the modern portions didn't grab me immediately (not least of all because the protagonist was romantically involved with a cop — ew), but soon that plot caught up to the boarding school plot in terms of quality, and I was left gripped by both. I like books that make me feel strong emotions, and boy oh boy did this book make me feel rage — at its heart, it's about broken girls. Girls unwanted by society. Girls that are dismissed, ignored, talked over. Girls that are killed and forgotten. This is seen (in different ways) in both timelines, and both were equally rage-inducing. This was cleverly put together and carefully researched; I particularly appreciated the mentions of female Nazis/ the way women hurt each other to benefit men, and American antisemitism (I get so annoyed with stories that like to pretend America was the BIG DAMN HERO in WWII. Yeah, right.) The ghost was very real and very freaky, but (like the best horror), also a metaphor for trauma and the damage misogyny (and the long-running refusal to listen to women) wreaks on everyone. (And don't worry; the cop thing was woven in a way I didn't hate. It was definitely a narrative Choice.) Fantastic; five freaking stars.

Since my Animorphs re-read is coming to a close, I decided to pick up another series from childhood, A Series of Unfortunate Events. I really enjoyed these books as a kid. They were a Big Deal in my elementary school, and I especially loved the audiobooks, narrated by Tim Curry, who is perfect for the job. Kid-Me cackled like a madwoman while listening to the audiocassettes on my little red tape-player. (A note: I got the audiobooks from my e-library, but I HATE what they've done to them, adding a full cast and ambient noises. I get why they did it: they want to attract a new generation of kids from the Netflix show. But it still sucks. So I'm just listening to the old audiobooks blessedly, illegally loaded to YouTube, instead. God bless pirates.) These books ARE funny, with that bone-dry humor, those ghastly puns... It was exactly kid-me's cup of tea.) The Bad Beginning isn't the best of the series, but the first book rarely is. (If the first book is the best in your long-running series, you're doing something wrong as an author.) It's pretty surface-level stuff presented in a humorous style (kids lose parents, get evil new guardian, spend 13 books escaping him)... But I think there's some value to be had. For the most part, the abuse these kids face is so outlandish it's absurd (kids forced to sleep in unsafe accommodations? Sad. Kids forced to sleep in a shack literally made of soup cans, full of menacing crabs? What?!).

Sometimes, though, absurdism is a gentle way to introduce concepts. For example, this book was the first step in kid-me's journey of learning that I was being abused. I truly thought it was perfectly normal for parents to hit kids in the face just for annoying them... The Baudelaire's reaction to it, though, led to my realization that maybe it's not so normal, after all. Kids need stories with a little darkness. It's mind-expanding! It helps prepare for real-world situations with similar emotional heft. Kid-me didn't pick on Olaf's advances towards Violet, but he and his friends constantly remarking on her attractiveness, stroking her face, etc. (and her silent, "horrified" response)? That would ring familiar for other kids suffering sexual predation. (Which isn't a topic that crops up a lot in popular kid-lit, making it all the more important and necessary. No, kid, it isn't okay for adults to say/do that to you. They are wrong and bad for doing so.) And of course Mr. Poe always coughing or being distracted when the kids try to confide in him about Olaf's abuse is all-too real for kids in abusive homes who are constantly dismissed or ignored by "trustworthy" authority figures. I've heard people call this series "depressing," but I feel like if you've been through it, you might find comfort in the dark humor; the reassurance that "yeah, adults be shitty sometimes, and no, it doesn't always get better, but please survive by any means necessary and get out on the other side." That's a realistic message kid-me needed, and I'm certain it's of value to many other kids and former-kids, too.

I picked up an omnibus of the first three Wayside School books on a nostalgic whim after I saw people on Tumblr comparing the humorous surreality to that of Welcome to Night Vale (and yeah, actually that's an apt comparison!). I thought these books were hilarious when I was in elementary school. They didn't age perfectly, and I admit the shine wore off by the time I reached book #3, though... I probably should just have read the first one. But it was fun to revisit the world, nevertheless.

Wow, Nightbitch was a weird one, and sort of made me want to hack my ovaries out with a rusty spoon. This book was very weird. Usually I like weird. I... Liked the first 3/4 of it, I guess? I hated the ending enough to drop my rating down to two stars. It's about a young mother who finds she's turning into a dog (in a literal, werewolfy fashion). And the transformation is a manifestation of her repressed resentment towards her absent husband; about the misogynistic, cultish culture of modern suburban "mommy" hood, about having to lose her career for a child she didn't want to have, the pressure of social expectations... I love all that. And I love any discussion on the deliberate, malicious mediocrity of men (mediocrity is a choice men get to make). You know the type; the "do the chores wrong so your wife gets frustrated and does it for you!" THAT shit. And I was pleased and surprised when it touched on the way Pyramid schemes so often prey on lonely, dissatisfied mothers. I was on board til maybe the 70% mark, when it became less social commentary and more... Shitty modern art and indigenous appropriation? What the fuck. I keep seeing people compare this book to Mona Awad's "Bunny," which irritates me. Bunny is surreal, yes, but it's also brilliant — it rewards multiple rereads, and several messages can be interpreted from the text. What can be gathered from THIS? "If your husband is a piece of shit, just tell him to shape up and he'll immediately do so"? Sure. This book just kinda ended on a wet fart for me, but apparently it's getting high reviews, so... Neato. Huge trigger warning for graphic pet death at the 66% mark (I saw it coming, and I'm usually a fan of gore, but that was... A lot).

Of course I had to read All's Well as soon as it was available... Mona Awad cemented herself as a favorite author with last year's 'Bunny.' The thing I love about Awad's writing (in addition to extreme levels of bizarre, surreal "WTF IS HAPPENING?!?!") is that it's dark academia that hates academia. (I hate academia. I never went to college. I hate the classist, cliquish structure, the enforced conformity, the elitist snobbery, the inherent ableism... It's everything that pisses me off.) But Awad takes the common settings and characters and turns them inside-out... Like our protag Miranda, here; a former Shakespearean actress turned theater professor, pushing 40, disabled, divorced, and suffering from severe chronic pain that doctors constantly gaslight as female hysteria that's "all in her head". She navigates the intricacies of the medical world AND the school system, jumping through all the hoops, the favoritism/nepotism/money money MONEY of the setting as she tries to teach Shakespeare to kids who just aren't that into it... And finds herself stumbling into a Shakespeare story of her own; one with witches and enchantments (or are they curses?) and madness... I loved it. "If We Were Villains," eat your mediocre, overhyped little heart out. I feel like some of it went over my head, and I don't plan to re-read it the way I do 'Bunny,' but still... Fantastic. (Readers who suffer chronic pain might find it a little too accurate, even triggering, at points though.)

As I promised my niece, I read the second Wings of Fire book. The Lost Heir is from the POV of the SeaWing dragonet, Tsunami. She takes the other four dragonets of destiny to her homeland, the sea kingdom, to meet her mother (Queen Coral) for the first time. Though she expected to be welcomed with open arms, there's a lot of political unrest a-brewing, both in the larger dragon war and smaller kingdom issues. Assassination attempts, imprisonment, war council meetings, patricide, plots and intrigue abound! For the most part I'm enjoying the series, though the mini "romances" are... Unnecessary and poorly incorporated, and it's a little frustrating that there's absolutely nobody these kids can turn to for help — dragons seem to be a douchey species, all around. (Also it has that problem I see in a lot of fantasy lit, where characters keep getting killed off just when you become invested in them. You can only do that so many times before you start losing the audience's trust and death starts feeling cheap...) Still, despite its problems, it's a creative and engaging series. I'm curious to see what it's gonna do with the "chosen one" trope. If I'm right, it's gonna be completely subverted by the end, and I'm so here for that. Looking forward to book #3!

Hurricane Katrina, poverty, parental neglect, dog-fighting, and teenage pregnancy ahoy. Salvage the Bones is proof that author Jesmyn Ward is an incredible wordsmith; her prose was beautiful and devastating; I felt emotionally wrecked for the duration of this fairly short novel. If you like artsy, very descriptive novels with flowing prose about harsh, gritty reality, you'll like this. (Also, and I've said this before, but sex ed, birth control, condoms, and abortion should be free and accessible to everyone, especially teens in poverty. Healthcare is a right.) Trigger warning for dog-fighting and all the bloody misery that accompanies it.

I usually have issues with thrillers. Nine times out of ten, they're disappointing and cheap, and the author is so fixated on the BIG TWIST ENDING that everything else suffers for it. The Girls Are All So Nice Here is one of the rare thrillers actually worth reading; the kind where the author has the talent and care to pull off a tricky story in an effective way. It takes the familiar premise of "adults did something terrible in their youth; now called back to the scene of the crime for payback" and makes it fresh; intriguing. Obviously I don't want to spoil anything, but I found it very cathartic (which might speak to a darker side of me, but these protagonists are all terrible people and 100% deserved to be brought down). Trigger warnings for bullying, rape, slut-shaming/victim blaming, and gaslighting. It got pretty intense at points. As an abuse survivor, it was more than a little uncomfortable to read. Well-written and carefully plotted, though, for sure.

Once again I chose an audiobook based solely on length (I needed something short to cap off the month). The Reapers are the Angels was much, much better than anticipated — MAYBE good enough to go on the 'best of 2021' list. (I still have mixed feelings about the ending. I... Wanted it to end differently. Which isn't a slight against the author; it was well set up, and by God was it well-written! It just left me feeling like a sad little baby who needs a hug.) So it's a zombie story, but any horror fan knows that good zombie stories aren't REALLY about the zombies. It feels more like a gritty western, with a sassy, highly competent teenager as the cowboy riding off into the sunset, her footsteps dogged by a scoundrel intent on her demise. It was told in vignettes, with our introspective hero (Temple) making her way by foot, car, and train all over the southern US, encountering friendly, zombie-eating hunters, hillbilly mutants, and (of course) zombies along her way. And did I mention the writing was gorgeous? It made me tear up a couple times. Despite the post-apocalyptic setting, there was a gentle optimism throughout that squeezed my heart... For the most part, humans are decent; good to each other. It gave me Emotions. Again, I'm not 100% sure how I feel about the ending, but if you don't mind some blood and gore, I'd highly recommend this. (Especially the audio version; the Georgia peach accent Temple speaks in is delightful.) Unless you're one of those bores who gets hung up on stuff like "but how do they still have gasoline/ soda/ electricity?!" etc — that's not the point and you know it. Get over yourselves.

So after reading Animorphs #51-#54, I've officially completed the series. Damn and wow; I'm really glad I went back and finished such an influential series from my childhood. I've had so much fun interacting with the fandom, writing fanfiction, and listening to podcasts for these books. I wrote a lengthier blog-post wrapping up a lot of my feelings re: this series here. I'm really happy to say my little niece is now reading the series, and she seems to be enjoying it, too. Let's radicalize the youths! (Just kidding. Maybe. Not really.) Anyway, I'm so glad this series exists. It meant a lot to me as a gay little punk, and it means a lot to me now (as a gay large punk). I'll continue collecting all the physical volumes, reading all the graphic novels as they come out, and listening to the audiobooks. Here's hoping the (eventual) upcoming movie doesn't suck.

Anyway, that's all for this month. Wear your mask. Get your vaccines. Be nice to retail and food service employees. Be a fucking decent human, please.

Animorphs Rankings

So I made a ranking of all of the Animorphs books (excluding Alternamorphs because ugh). Mostly this list is just for my use in the future, when I want to re-read the series... Which are the best books, which ones are essential, which ones can be skipped.

The first round is all necessary for character introduction, character MOTIVATION, and world-building. Things are just getting started, so be prepared for some weirdness, inconsistencies, etc.



A lot of filler; a lot of exploring the world. I’d still suggest you read the WHOLE series at least once to get the full effect, but many of these CAN be skipped.



"Recommended" means it's not ESSENTIAL, but it still touches on topics, plot-lines, and themes that carry over to other books.



This contains the infamous “David” trilogy (#20-#22), which you CAN’T miss. Also the Hork-Bajir Chronicles, which MIGHT be the best Animorphs-related thing ever.



This is when the ghost writers show up… For better or for worse.



More ghost writer miscellany



WHY DOES RACHEL ALWAYS GET THE WORST BOOKS? WHY???



FINALLY Ax and Tobias are both added to the full rotation! I guess Scholastic figured out that they’re fan-favorites. Also we’re definitely approaching the climax!



Unsurprisingly, the last 5 are all essential. (Okay, #51 isn’t ESSENTIAL, but. It still is. Read it.) Also yay; Applegate is back to writing the books at the end!



Rather than choose one favorite book (it's either #29 or #49 or Hork-Bajir Chronicles, btw), I thought I'd pick one favorite per POV character. (Obviously they're ALL POV characters for the Megamorph books and #54, but I'm not counting those.)

Jake is the POV character for 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31, 36, 41, 47, and 53. It's easy to eliminate #47, which is one of the worst of the series, and #11 and #41. As essential as #1 is, it's not the best character book (too busy establishing the story and world). I'm fond of #6, #26, and #31; they're exciting and different, and drive home what it means to be both a leader and a child soldier in general, and Jake in particular. In one podcast I listened to, a child psychiatrist served as a guest star and explained Jake's particular trauma, even compared to the other Animorphs; not only is he a soldier, but he never has a safe place to fall back on, due to his family situation. Watching him harden and crumble as a character is among the ultimate tragedies of the series. (I love Jake. Fight me, Jake haters.) As is watching him study leaders of past wars, so desperate for any role model to teach him how to keep his friends alive... And oh how the mighty fall. And that's exactly why #53, The Answer, as the best Jake book: it's tragic payoff after so much buildup. Jake is a broken person; he's hard and cruel, but damn if he isn't effective. He so expertly carries the message that war is an ugly thing, and nobody really "comes back" from it. Every choice he makes in #53 had me gasping, my heart pounding. Jake, baby boy... Jake the Yeerk Killer. What a journey.

Rachel is the narrator for books 2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27, 32, 37, 42, and 48. Rachel is a difficult character for me to relate to. She's very different from me as a person, and I often become frustrated with her choices; her personality. I'm very introspective and self-doubting, so when she barrels into situations thoughtlessly and causes problems for everyone, it makes me want to scream. What's worse, she often (inexplicably!) gets the worst books... #37 and #42 are easily among the worst of the whole series, while #12 and #32 are particularly odd filler. That said, when pitted against a foil, she brings some interesting discussions to the table... I love her books with David. She finally takes the time to slow down and think, and the choices and sacrifices she makes really let her good qualities (bravery, loyalty) shine. #22 and especially #48 are her best books for that reason. The Return does an amazing job of setting up her eventual fate for the series and, just like with Jake's books, drives home what a tragedy it all is.

There's no such thing as a bad Tobias book. He's not my favorite character, but I see why he's so damn popular. As the narrator for 3, 13, 23, 33, 43, and 49 (he gets fewer books than the other kids because Scholastic genuinely thought readers would find a bird narrator unrelatable... What the hell?!), he has to make every book count... And he succeeds. He brings so much to the table; mainly discussions of identity and suicidality and the role of violence and survival in the animal kingdom. In any other series, his unusual parentage and depressing childhood would make him the "chosen one," and I respect Animorphs for subverting that... And for leaving some questions unanswered. (Did he get trapped in the body of a hawk on purpose? I think so.) Watching his hero worship for Jake turn slowly to hatred (especially as he switches places with Jake, the nuclear Golden Boy. He gains a family (Ax and Loren) just as Jake is losing his... and then even that is subverted) absolutely breaks my heart. I love the bird-boy; what can I say? (I spoiled it earlier; #49, The Diversion, is obviously my favorite.)

Cassie might be the most polarizing character of the series. A lot of fans absolutely hate her, which depresses the fuck out of me, since she's such a keystone for everything and I love her so damn much. (Cassie deserves better! I have a lot of feelings re: Jake's decision to leave her out of things in the final book, and they all amount to "Jake's definition of 'doing things right this time' involves losing his moral anchor... Interesting....") The things everyone loves most about Animorphs; the things that make it not just another bit of trashy sci-fi kid-lit? The moral dilemmas, the quandaries, the horrors of war? What makes the enemies people, rather than just faceless mooks the heroes can gun down without remorse? Cassie brings all that to the table. She asks the big questions. She keeps the others from straying too far from their original good, moral intentions (of course they all go off the rails at the end, but they would've done so way sooner without her). Cassie narrates books 4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 29, 34, 39, 44, and 50. While she has some filler (14, 24), there are no truly bad Cassie books. Some fans interpret her solo adventure books (29, 39, 44) as filler. but I disagree; I think of "filler" as unnecessary fluff that advances neither plot nor character... and these books absolutely advance her character. For a number of reasons (because she's so true to her morals, though they do slip, and because the other Animorphs (especially Rachel) protect her), she's possibly the sole "survivor" of the series, in that she goes on to live a more or less normal life once the war is over. She's what puts the "sweet" in "bittersweet." She teaches us that sometimes you can take a third option; sometimes big risks are worth taking. (And sometimes they're not! It would feel disingenuous if her actions never had negative consequences.) Anyway, #29 (The Sickness) is my favorite Cassie book because she's a total badass and Gets Shit Done, and I love the conclusion. Very satisfying.

MARCO IS MY BOY, okay??? My baby. I've already written a blog post [link] ranting about why he's my favorite, so I'll try to keep it succinct. (I love when things go unsaid in text, but are so completely obvious to readers paying attention, and I LOVE the "sad clown" trope; the "crouching moron, hidden badass" trope. I love how self aware Marco is; how he is so resistant to start, but then nods and agrees, "down to hell we go, hand in unlovable hand." His ruthlessness. I have a Thing for characters who are willing to do horrible things for the Greater Good, fully aware they're designing their own destruction all the while. I love that he's selfish and self serving, but he looks to Jake and says, "you. I choose to protect you." (The drama! The tragedy!!) I love characters, antiheroes, who AREN'T inherently good people, but still go against their nature and make the hard, right choice for a greater end because they see the big picture.
... Okay, enough ranting. Marco narrates books #5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and 51. Among these choices, #35 is godawful, and I'm indifferent to #25. My favorite quote of the entire series is in #15. #51 is a great time; probably the last moment of levity in the series. Marco's main arc is finished fairly early on, leaving him free to make his own decisions after that, which is interesting to see. (Side note: I love Marco's parents, and the evil part of me loves what he does to his stepmom because HOLY SHIT SCHOLASITC, THIS IS A KID'S SERIES!) ANYWAY #45, The Revelation, is my favorite Marco book because it's the beginning of the end for the Animorphs; some HUGE shit goes down and it goes fast. The whole book had me breathless start to finish, and I'm so glad Marco got to start the (metaphorical) avalanche. (I might have considered #30 as a favorite, based on plot alone, but I didn't particularly care for the ghost writer working on it, and felt they didn't always write him correctly.)

I didn't struggle at all deciding on the best Ax book. Like Tobias, Ax has only half the number of books the "human" kids have, which is total bunk; hate that. He narrates #8, 18, 28, 38, 46, and 52. Of those, I'm pretty indifferent to one and outright dislike another (so many good moments, though, particularly regarding Andalite culture and understanding he brings to the table. He's an actual soldier, unlike these kids who stumbled into it; he understands war in a way they haven't had to before). Ax frustrates me. He feels like he's constantly yo-yo-ing in loyalty. Every time he's like "Okay, I'm loyal to Jake and Jake alone now!" and I'm like "okay good! Glad you made up your mind." Then he's right back to indecision. Realistic? Maybe. But really annoying and repetitive to read. He brings a lot of humor into the series, which I appreciate. I really enjoy his "king and lionheart"-type relationship with Jake (I'm shipper trash; so sue me) and have several headcanons about it that I may or may not someday turn into fanfic, and they have some intense interactions in #26 and #31 (both Jake books) that I really love. (Also Jake calling him "mine" in #54... I digress.) The Deception is Ax's second-to-last book, and again: I adore what goes down between him and Jake. Without too many spoilers, this is perhaps the first time he directly challenges Jake's authority in a pretty catastrophic way. It's intense, it's ruthless, and I just. I have so many feelings about it... jklasdfkl This series is so good, you guys, so good. (Would Ax have gone through with his decision? I say absolutely, yes.)

...................................................................................................................................................................

Lastly, I wanted to talk about podcasts. When I get obsessed with something, I go in all the way, learning everything I can about it. As of writing this blog post, I've listened in full to all the 'casts mentioned:

Animorphs Anonymous is by far the best Ani-podcast I've found yet. They go into great depth discussing every minor detail of each individual book. Sometimes I disagree with their takes (particularly their dislike of Cassie), but they present their points in a reasonable way, backing their opinions up with series facts; I can at least see where they're coming from. You can tell they're true fans every time they squeal and gush and fangirl, and I love that; that's exactly how I feel about the books. One host has re-read the entire series so many times she's able to make connections, remember details, that have slipped my mind. Plus, they offer good fanfiction recommendations! Love that. (Unfortunately, one of the hosts' voices sounds exactly like my ex, so I can't listen while I'm falling asleep because it freaks my brain out.)

Animorphing Time: I may have bitched... A lot about this podcast in previous blog posts. They infuriate me with their bad character interpretations (Jake is not stupid or useless! Marco isn't a fucking "incel," for Christ's sake). Sometimes I get so mad at them I have to stop listening for days, weeks at a time. And yet, I keep coming back because they have these amazing, lengthy (sometimes 3+ hours long) discussions about morality and themes and personal trauma. They bring in guest stars like child psychiatrists or people involved in the series. They always give me a lot to think about. So while they do make me want to throw a few punches, they keep reeling me back in. It's still ongoing, and they only upload twice a month, so my binging needs are getting blueballed, but it's fine. (It's fine!)

Fanimorphs: The Dork-Bajir Chronicles is a very silly podcast. I don't have much to say for it, other than that it's fun to listen to the hosts banter and joke (and sing) their way through each individual book of the series. Unfortunately, they don't go as in-depth as I'd like. I want page-by-page recaps, while they skim over entire chapters in their summaries. Sometimes they mess details up, which leaves me frothing at the mouth with nerd-girl "WELL, ACTUALLY—!" rage. (Yes. Yes, I am That Annoying Bitch... But only on the inside.) Anyway, they're good for a giggle. Sometimes they can be a little much, though, like tone the energy back 5% please; I feel like I'm having a manic episode.

I binged all the Fandalite episodes in a single weekend. The best part was the adult discussions of sci-fi tropes and writing skills; I felt like I was in a college discussion sometimes, for how polished and professional it felt? Other than that, it... Was okay. Again, I'm a person that likes a point-by-point recap, and it bothered me how these hosts skimmed by entire chapters at a time, but that's just a matter of preference. (And they didn't like the whole series. One host especially hated the ending. That's fine! Everyone is entitled to their opinion! And I'm entitled to be a pouty child when people disagree with me. But only on the inside. I'll still be nice to you.) These hosts seem very... Like, obviously they're nerds, but they seem to be the type of nerd who has their shit together, relationship and career wise. They sound like Real Adults. And very heterosexual. (Not rude! Just... Straight. It made me laugh when they were like "it's surprising how many trans/queer people are fans of this series!" Oh, honey...) Anyway I find them kind of alienating and unrelatable, but that's okay. (It's fine! It's fine!!!)

The Wonder Yeerks is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Everyone involved is a queer disaster, so I feel right at home. They get very giggly and lost in goofy banter sometimes, so the episodes go on long, but I enjoy it. (It feels like having friends! I say, sitting alone in my underwear in my dark condo.) More importantly, they love shipping and they love fanfiction, so again: my people. And they discuss everything one scene at a time, rather than skimming, so automatically I prefer their approach over others. They're the type of people to shout "MY BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY/GIRL!" every time one of the characters does something ridiculous, so yes! I relate 100%.

Anyway, there are more podcasts (there's a list of them here), but those are all the ones I've completed thus far. Maybe I'll listen to some more; maybe not... We'll see.

July 2021

Can I just say: stuff summer? My seasonal depression is at an all-time high, it's 112°F as I type this (that's not an exaggeration), monsoon season makes it hard to drive... At least my parents had me stay at their house to watch their dogs (and enjoy their AC) a lot while they were out galaxy-hopping. I certainly didn't spend the month using their Netflix account to binge my way through two seasons of Miraculous Ladybug, or anything (cough, cough...) I'm also now 51% finished with Kinktober fills and 16% finished with Kinkmas fills. I probably won't have time to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, but one can hope.

Also I got another ear infection. That's the second July in a row I've had to go on antibiotics because my left ear decided "hey, screw you!" for no apparent reason. The doctor jammed a tube in my ear, yo! The only thing that makes life worth living at the moment are the ridiculously fancy ice cream flavors Private Selection keeps putting out.

Anyway. Yeah, I read some shit this month. Mostly good shit. Here you go:

More Caitlin Doughty, because she scratches the morbid humor/science nerd sides of my brain so well. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is her first published book and mainly focuses on her crematory work (as opposed to the more general death information she gives in Will My Cat Eat my Eyeballs). And it's much more personal! While Eyeballs is mostly just facts in a question/answer format, Smoke is about Caitlin's journey establishing a career in the death industry; her schooling and various jobs as she figured out how she wanted to approach the work; misogyny and general opposition she's faced for her more modern, tell-all approach, etc. It was very compelling (and very gross. The concept of a dress soaked in "molten human fat" is gonna stick with me for a while; pun not intended). Sometimes I feel uncomfortable when celebrities get personal on matters like mental health, romance, and such — I prefer to view people from a distance, both in books and in real life... But there was something about Caitlin's story that softened me towards her. She always gives me a lot to think about; teaches me stuff I wouldn't otherwise know; while still making me laugh. I genuinely like her as a creator and an educator and a person. Five stars.

I read so many audiobooks this month... I was in a weird slump where I just wanted to lay still and listen. And damn, Luster was a good one to listen to. This read like poetry; the prose was gorgeous. The story starts with the NYC wannabe artist and "office slut" (her words, not mine) Edie, getting involved with a married guy twice her age. Through a series of depressing events, she loses her job and home and moves in with him and his wife... And their newly adopted daughter, Akilah. Since the married couple are white, while Edie and Akilah are Black, they ask Edie to help bridge the gap between themselves and their daughter, with topics ranging from hair care to police brutality and everything in between. It's often a frustrating story, because the characters are so fallibly human, and sow the seeds of their own destruction. This is pretty bittersweet throughout, and realistic in its depiction of wealthy white people who MEAN well but often just don't get it. Also showing age-gap relationships; the toxic appeal of power imbalances. This was imperfect (yes, like most readers, I had trouble pinpointing the timeline... She's a millennial, but she's 23, but her guy was born in the 60s, but her dad was a Vietnam vet, but— wait a second; that math doesn't add up! — but who cares? It's not ABOUT that. Let it go.) And some Black readers have commented that she seems to have the full package of Black stereotypes and storylines— absentee father? Drug addict mother? Teen pregnancy? Racist employers? Check check check check — we've got a bingo. Since the author was also Black, and I'm very white, I'm aware that I don't have a voice in this concern; only that it has been made, and I'm acknowledging it; I totally see what everyone's saying. All I know is this was hypnotic to listen to, and I couldn't put it down — I read it through in one sitting and I really liked it, so it gets five stars from me.

The Hollow Places is the third Kingfisher book I've read. It feels like a direct companion piece to The Twisted Ones; similar enough in plot, characters, and themes to work as a double feature. I'm not saying it was boring or a re-tread; I loved it. Kingfisher is hilarious. Just like Twisted Ones, I appreciated that the protagonist was in her 30s with absolutely no interest in romance. It's setting the bar low, sure, but it's rare enough in fiction that I love it when I see it. While Twisted Ones and Hollow Places are both on the scale of surreal horror, I personally think TO is scarier. Mileage may vary on that assessment — I'm not particularly bothered by Eldritch locations and Lovecraftian monsters above human comprehension, etc etc. So I'm sure some readers did find parts of this scary. The body horror was pretty good, anyway (coming from me, a lover of all things gory and body horror-y. It got my stamp of approval). But I loved the characters, I loved their voices; I loved how sassy and snarky and meta they were in their approach to a portal to an alternate dimension in the back of an old museum. I loved how self-aware they were; how they tried to face illogical situations with as much logic (and alcohol) as possible. I love middle-aged gay men who take too many shrooms and wear fishnets and eyeliner while traipsing through alternate universe swamps full of zombies. I don't think I'll ever want to read more than one Kingfisher book per year, because I can see myself getting tired of the constant quirkiness (sliding somewhere between Juno and Welcome to Night Vale), but it's delightful as an occasional treat. Also I'm now significantly more afraid of river otters than I used to be — did you know they're over five feet long and group-hunt crocodiles together while giggling like human children?

The Child Finder was an interesting take on the 'detective finds missing child' subgenre (is that a subgenre? I feel like I've read a lot of stuff with that premise). For some reason I assumed the book would have a supernatural slant, but it didn't (unless you count the fantasy world the child victim concocts to cope with three years of abduction and abuse). There's not much sleuthing involved in this mystery — I won't say the clues are just handed to detective Naomi, as she does do the work, but the story doesn't really focus on that side of things. More, it's a tale of how people cope with trauma. Detective Naomi herself has repressed memories of her own childhood abduction that spur her career (as well as other coping mechanisms and responses... low levels of empathy, struggling to relate/connect to others, etc). It was a really nuanced take on child abuse (particularly child sexual abuse) that I rarely see in books, and I appreciated it... Especially kids learning to accept/cope with this particular trauma and not being shamed for it, for doing what they must to survive (using sex to earn favors, etc) — without being graphic or tasteless. This is a reality for exploited children; for children recovering from extended abuse. It's horrible, but it's accurate. Kids are resilient! Kids are amazing at doing whatever it takes to survive, including killing people or hurting themselves, and I feel like most books don't depict that properly; that they think it tarnishes some fragile, overly-prioritized ideal of 'innocence.' I thought the parts of this story that focused more on the kids and less on Naomi (and her completely unnecessary love interest) were what really made this shine. In the Naomi books going forward, I'd like to see more focus on the kids (and on finding said kids) and less on Naomi herself.

Yes, I began The Butterfly Girl immediately after finishing Child Finder. It was... Very good. It more than made up for sloughing through the mediocre chunks in the first book. I had to suspend my disbelief a tiny bit (what are the odds the guy who kidnapped child-Naomi also happened to be the one kidnapping this new batch of girls?), but that was easily forgiven because Celia, the deuteragonist, was an amazing child character fully embodying the tragedy that is homeless youth, non-consensual (underaged) sex work, and the all-around failure of child protective services, (And it was nice seeing Naomi through an outside perspective. She feels slightly less like a Mary Sue when you see her faults through the eyes of someone she's supposedly helping.) Celia isn't an angel of a child herself — she's borderline feral and makes many ugly, realistic mistakes of her own. I loved her a ton. I felt less annoyed by the Jerome/Naomi romance, too... It helped that the book started out with them already married. There was no more 'getting together' subplot, but rather the subplot of "traumatized people sometimes make shitty partners," which I found way more interesting (and accurate. There's a reason I'm single, lol). I don't know; it just felt like this sequel polished up the things I didn't like about the first book and better enhanced the things I did like. If this is the conclusion to the series, I feel satisfied with it. Five stars.

For some reason, I keep picking up books just like this. YA murder mysteries centered around teen girls (girl victim, girl suspects). Books with frequent perspective shifts to police interviews. Last summer was I Killed Zoe Spanos, and I guess this summer is The Good Girls. I... Liked this one better than IKZS, at least, but it had its problems, particularly in the police segments. I cringed so hard when these girls were "talking" — they spoke the way an author writes: in flowing prose. Nobody talks like that, I don't care how smart they are. I guessed the killer and the big twist pretty early on, which isn't always the worst... If the story is written well, it's more about the journey than the destination anyway. But I just felt tired with the premise; the characters. Maybe I'm too cranky (and tired of men) to feel playful. (Unrelated, but the full-cast audiobook had tons of readers, and none of them could do a Welsh accent right. This was more funny than it was bad.)

I was saving Evan Hunter's Last Summer for summertime on purpose, just for the atmosphere of it all. Oof, this one is a sour little lemon, with Great Gatsby's disdain towards the wealthy and Clockwork Orange's terror of the teen mindset. It astounds me how many reviews for this book say things like "the characters were bad people!" Like... I don't know how they could possibly miss that that's the point. 'Protagonist' doesn't automatically mean 'hero'!! Hell; I barely passed high school, and I still saw plenty worth discussing here. How about the parallels between the seagull and Rhoda? Both briefly became these characters' pet project until they (literally) bit Sandy; then she destroyed them, and the boys helped. What about the sexual predation both girls faced throughout the entire story? Sandy was preyed on by adults she should've been able to trust; her friends Peter and David; and complete strangers. I don't think it's a coincidence that she "gave" Rhoda to her friends as a malicious way to protect herself, perhaps annoyed with Rhoda's cautious, old-fashioned nature. The mental absence of the wealthy parents felt very Gatsby-esque, too; entire pages were just the most inane, repetitive conversations just to show how disconnected the parents are from their kids. I feel like there's a lot going on here; stuff I'm not necessarily smart enough to pick up on. It deserves better than the comments just saying "I didn't like the characters! Weh! :C " like a bunch of babies. (Trigger warnings for animal abuse/death, homophobic/racial slurs, and gang rape.)

I grabbed Jonny Appleseed on the basis that 1. it was one of the few books in my library wishlist that had both the audio and ebook available immediately that was 2. under 6 hours long. (My selection process, ladies and gents.) I didn't even know what it was about, other than that it was queer and indigenous. Can I just say that every book I've ever read written by an indigenous author was amazing? This is no exception. I want more! The protagonist, Jonny, a two-spirit Cree sex worker, tells his non-linear life story, somehow making mundane (or downright depressing) childhood experiences beautiful through his storytelling. Some of the prose here made my soul ache, the way only damn good writing (especially poetry) does. I can't really sum up the plot, as there isn't much of a plot (aside from "sex worker struggles to bag enough clients in one night to pay for a trip home for his stepdad's funeral, frequently interrupted by existential musings,") but come on; it's not very long. Just read it and ache with me. (Trigger warnings for underaged sexual experiences of dubious consent involving copious use of drugs and alcohol. If you're easily offended by crassness, this probably isn't the book for you... But then, my whole account (and life, and personality...) isn't for you if you're easily offended by crassness, so...) Can I just mention: I really appreciate the lack of clear definition for 'two-spirit.' It doesn't fully mean trans. It doesn't fully mean gay. It's the equivalent of the word 'queer,' which is the word I most often use to describe myself. Jonny can't, won't, fit into a single definition, and neither will I. (Before someone accuses me of appropriating, I would never use the words 'two spirit' to describe my white ass. I KNOW that's an indiginous-only concept. I already HAVE a word to describe myself, and that word is 'queer.' I'm saying I find a lot of the experiences and ideas expressed in this book relatable.)

I started reading the Wings of Fire series because two of my nieces asked me to. I'm not a very good aunt, but I try, sometimes. The Dragonet Prophecy surprised (and impressed!) me with its dark opening; the double murder of soldier and infant (is it still called 'murder' when all involved — killers, victims — are dragons?). Anyway, this was intense! We've got an ongoing war between different queendoms, when every queen involved is a crazy, violent bitch. There's nobody to root for! At least Clay and the other little Dragonets were adorable... I think my favorite part of middle-grade lit is how I can rarely predict what will happen next. I don't particularly care for YA lit for that same reason; it's predictable and boring. But middle-grade sci-fi/fantasy just explodes with creativity. As far as first books go, this one did well setting up the brutal nature of this dragon-run world; the chaotic political climate these unprepared kids are stumbling into. (It probably says something about my sense of humor that, when a human character was introduced for the first time and our dragonets stared at "it" in wonder, Queen Scarlet swooping in and abruptly removing "its" head with her teeth had me laughing. Terrible, really... But it was just so sudden!)

I read Animorphs 47-50 (and The Ellimist Chronicles) this month, meaning there's only four books left! Aaaa! (Update on the collection: I got a set of four books late in the series, including #53, for $50. I want to scream this from the heavens because if I hadn't stumbled across that deal, I'd've paid well over $100 for that particular set. #53 is one of the most expensive to find! Now if I could just find #51 for less than sixty bucks, that would really be rad.) Anyway, this was a particularly harrowing collection to read. #49 was my favorite, because the kids came clean with their families about all of it; the war, their involvement, the state of the world... Sometimes it was hilarious, usually it was tragic... I had so many feelings. (Casual reminder that the series is absoultely a tragedy, and a well-written tragedy is carefully put together, so you can see every step of the downfall.)

Anyhoo, I'd better get going before my claws run out and I'm forced to reveal my top-secret civilian identity.

June 2021

I very much don't want to talk about how I'm doing this month. (Hint: You know that noise Snoopy makes in the Peanuts cartoons? "Bleeeeeeh!"? That's me.) But I did okay-ish on reading, and... Less okay-ish at writing (but! I'm now 60% done with my Bad Things Happen Bingo fills, 32% done with my Kinktober fills, and 8% done with my Kinkmas fills), so. Here's what I read:

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Cripes, Yes, Daddy just gutted me. Queer sexual trauma with a religious slant? Did you mean MY ENTIRE LIFE??? This was 280 pages of intensity. It's emotionally cathartic in the way being beaten with a baseball bat is emotionally cathartic. I almost tapped out several times because it hit way too close to home. People trying to market this as an erotic thriller are nuts. This... No. This is not erotic; this is pure horror. And it's SUPPOSED to be pure horror. It tells a story that needs to be told. And if you know me, you KNOW I love a victim with edges. I myself am not a perfect little angel of an abuse survivor, and neither is Jonah in this story. That doesn't mean we deserved what happened to us; our story is still worth telling. (Trigger warnings for domestic abuse, abuse of authority, rape (underage rape, sexual abuse re: religious authority, etc), trafficking, cults, religious trauma, conversion therapy... The list goes on!) Anyway; this was fantastically written and fantastically paced, and I never want to read it again; it made me furious and sick to my stomach in turns. Five stars aren't enough; give it ten stars. Twenty. Going on my 'best of 2021' list for sure. This first-time author was perfect for the job; he managed to write a story of this heft while keeping it brisk and brief, never romanticizing the horror. If "illegal gay sex ring in the Hamptons shortly before the #metoo movement strikes" sounds at all interesting to you, you must read this. (And can I just say, I seriously appreciated the way the author twisted the 'toxic billionaire love interest is just traumatized from his own abuse, but he can be fixed by love!' trope onto its head? Yes, Richard was probably molested by his mother. No, that doesn't make any part of his actions okay. I'm glad that was spelled out so clearly. Christian Grey, he ain't.)

Continuing my newly resurrected (one might say "exhumed," heh) obsession with all things death, I read Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. (Caitlin Doughty is responsible for this, by the way. Her "Ask a Mortician" series is a macabre, often hilarious, always insightful delight... I've binged dozens of episodes in the past few weeks.) I... Don't enjoy Roach's work as much as I do Doughty's. Roach has the irritating habit of trash-talking the industry and the people involved with her "clever" little comments. Yes, she provides detailed and clear information, but do we really need to know her quippy opinions on how "gross" and "disturbing" everything all is, or her thoughts on scientists' fashion choices and facial features? Like... Please be professional. Death and decay are huge interests of mine, and I don't appreciate any ragging on them. It's not entirely Roach's fault -- she's a journalist; not someone who works in the death industry. And I do appreciate what she does as a journalist... The thorough work that went into researching and interviewing the actual experts, getting multiple perspectives on the page. She did her job and did it well, which is why my rating stays at four stars despite my annoyance. As always, I'm frustrated with peoples' impracticality on matters of death (embalming ain't really a great thing! Stop it! Just let corpses rot; it's what they're supposed to do! Rotting is good!), especially in the face of scientists trying and failing to earn public support towards more environmentally conscious methods. There was still a ton of really interesting stuff here; the history of cadaver use in medical science, for example; how taboo it used to be, how far professors went to acquire bodies (grave robbing! Hit men! Oh boy!). Laws and regulations and what it means to die in today's society. If this is an interest of yours, I recommend the read... Just be prepared for some unnecessary snark along the way.

In With Teeth, Arnett brings to the table the same dishes she'd brought with Mostly Dead Things: dysfunctional, unhappy queer families in the soupy heat of Florida. Like with MDT, I very much appreciate the message (spelled out explicitly), that queer relationships are just as difficult as straight ones. Lesbians can be manipulative and abusive, too! (As a lesbian, I really get sick of the 'wholesome and pure' or 'overly sexed' narratives I see in a lot of fiction. People assuming we're naturally maternal or intuitive or understanding of one another's bodies or whatever nonsense. It's annoying and, worse, dangerous, when people don't take us seriously if we say we're being abused.) This book also brings to light the pressure I see (and feel) everywhere: the need to portray perfection on the surface, because people are watching. We have to be the Good Example of our Kind. The good queers; palatable. Look; a business butch and a housewife femme mother! See! We're normal! If het couples fuck up with their parenting, they're just one couple. If a queer couple fucks up with parenting, then it's "proof gays shouldn't adopt" or "proof that Nuclear families are the only acceptable path" or whatever the fuck.

There's a lot of things on the table that make it hard to seek outside help, is what I'm saying, and all of that is present here. This was a frustrating read, at times, at this family's inability to communicate. But it did feel realistic. I disagree with the reviews calling the teenage son a "sociopath" -- I know so many teenage boys just like him; it's not even funny. (Why do you think I never want to be a parent?! Kids are the worst! I know; I was one!) What's more, his mental process is pretty clear. The anger, resentment, frustration he feels with his moms at different times; all of it is easily understood if you have any empathy or memory of the teen mindset. The realism here is painful, so much so that I wouldn't call this a "fun" read. It's full of flawed and lonely humans being flawed and lonely, and it hits too close to home to serve as good escapism. My biggest complaint is that there's no proper ending; the story just... Stops, leaving a lot unsaid. Mostly Dead Things was a more enjoyable read, in my opinion, but they're both books I recommend if you want a better understanding of the queer experience.

So I've been on the outs with YA lit for a while (though I won't say I feel that I'm "too old" for it, because I don't believe in any age restrictions on media). And I'm also not as wild about the fantasy genre as I used to be. So when presented with a "YA fantasy novel," you'd think I'd turn up my nose. Thankfully, youtuber Dominic Noble convinced me to give Raybearer a shot (book lovers, please watch his videos. He's such a sweetheart). I loved this. I won't categorize it as "LGBT lit," despite there being some queer characters and themes, because that aspect wasn't at the forefront of the story, but it was one of many character choices that I appreciated (and it contributed to avoiding a cheap love triangle entirely, thank God). Fans of Marvel's Black Panther will appreciate this, too, (not just because it's set in West Africa with similar fantastical worldbuilding and aesthetic choices -- I'm not saying all African stories are the same. But the author herself is a fan and directly cites the influence in her 'about the author' segment. It's very present). I often have a hard time with high fantasy, because I just can't suspend my disbelief long enough to really get into it. That was not a problem here. From page one, author Jordan Ifueko brought me in with her gorgeous writing. Nothing was bogged down by lengthy exposition; the magical and the political and the geographical aspects of this world were naturally unfolded in a clear and logical way that helped me feel at home. I wasn't an outsider looking in; I was part of the story, travelling on lodestones to the palace with Tarisai and her friends. Political intrigue unfolded for me just as it did for the characters, and we often arrived to the same conclusions at the same time. A skilled author like this is able to bridge that gap of disbelief with the reader; to hold our hand and show us their vision, so that by the time the conflict hits, the stakes climb high, we're fully invested. I enjoyed the hell out of this adventure, and I'm super hyped for the sequel.

Rabbit is the memoir of comedian Patricia Williams, and damn... Damn, does it hit hard. First off, the writing voice here was fabulous; Patricia's personality and humor shines through every word, which is the sugar needed to swallow this medicine down. (Seriously, I felt so bad laughing at some of this. When Rabbit talks about the outfit she chose for her mother's body to wear during her funeral, I had tears of laughter rolling down my face... Despite the scene being about a teenager laying her abusive mother to rest. Miss Pat is just that skilled at story-telling; at injecting humor into every sentence.) She writes about growing up impoverished and hungry in the ghetto; about an abusive alcoholic mother and a perpetually undernourished body, about the shame society heaps on poverty; the vicious cycle of it all. The sexual abuse she faces leading up to her first pregnancy at age thirteen made me sick to my stomach... While there were some people (a teacher, a case worker), who tried to help her, the system, the cycle of poverty and addiction and abuse and police brutality, are just so stacked against her. Of course she sold crack to get by; wouldn't you? Stories like this are so important, because so much of the world wants to glorify suffering as a 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps' sort of thing; to view it as just one step on the ladder to success. It doesn't work like that. Most people, born into this cycle, will die in it. Rabbit is the rare exception. And it's not because she's morally "better" or "stronger" than her family and friends, either -- it's all luck. There are so many moments she could have died, or fallen into a pit she couldn't climb out of. This was harrowing -- this was stressful. Whenever I hear stupid white people spouting hateful nonsense about 'welfare queens' or 'crack dealers' or teenage pregnancy or Black people targeted for the prison system, I just want to slap this book in their face (and then slap them a few more times for good measure). Oppression, segregation, racism -- it's alive and thriving. We keep people down because it benefits us. It gives us bodies to stand on while we reach higher and higher for that capitalist wealth and unearned privilege. I kind of want to introduce this book into peoples' lives as "Baby's First Look into Racial Justice," because Miss Pat is such a charismatic and warm voice; because she explains large and abstract concepts in a simple and personal way that surely even the most hardheaded bigot could understand.

Confession time: I'd never even heard of author Ursula Le Guin until a year or so ago. Crazy, considering how beloved and prolific she was. Anyway, yes, I finally gave A Wizard of Earthsea a shot. As I said for Raybearer, high fantasy isn't really my thing. I'm more of a sci-fi person these days... Even back when I liked fantasy, I was more of an urban fantasy gal. Edit: Apparently my dad tried to get me to read this series when I was little, but I thought it was boring and forgot it entirely. I'm gonna have to agree with my kid-self here: this was dry as unbuttered toast. It felt so... Clinical? Impersonal? It feels like we're watching this bratty kid's life from the range of a telescope; not like we're PART of it. His emotions are so muted... Even when he's doing horrible things, like pulling a creature out of hell(?), you're not really in the moment with him. Use some exclamation points, please! I can get behind an unlikable protagonist (and Ged's arrogance and superiority over other young wizards certainly qualifies him as such), but since we never see life from his point of view, he just comes across as annoying; a boy who causes problems and can't fix them for years upon years. His shame, his fear, his gratitude... All of it is EXPLAINED to us ("Ged felt," "Ged was," "Ged did,") rather than including us. Anyway, I DNF'd the book at the 50% mark, which means I didn't give it a star-rating (I feel like you can't rate a book unless you've read the whole thing), but I thought I would at least try to explain WHY I don't care for certain genres; why books like Raybearer work for me, while Wizard of Earthsea (or His Dark Materials, or Game of Thrones, or...) don't, despite all having good writing and creative world-building. For me, it's all about connecting with the protagonist, and I just didn't feel that here.

I'm making serious progress on my Animorphs collection! I own many of the books, and I got pretty good deals on them all, buying in bulk from ebay or etsy or thrift stores (I've got one deal coming up that I'm HELLA hyped for because collecting like this pours some much needed serotonin into my noggin. Oh, I have zero intention of KEEPING this collection; I'm gonna sell it once I get them all. I don't like to keep things. It's the JOURNEY I'm here for.) Anyway, I did a lot of Ani-reading! I read volumes 41-46, and may I just say that shit is getting real?! We're in the final stretch of the main series, and it shows. It feels like Marco's entire character arc is resolved! Unfortunately I'm pretty sure that #42 was the worst in the entire series, so, uh... I'm never reading that one again. But they can't all be great, and all was more than forgiven with the excellent punches that followed. The hits start comin' and they don't stop comin'! Remind me to make a list(s) when this is over of the must reads, the should reads, and the KILL IT WITH FIREs (of which there are few). Oh, also I've been into the podcast Animorphs Anonymous for a while, but now I also really like the Dork-Bajir Chronicles (they're hilarious, they love Marco as much as I do, AND they ship Marco/Rachel ALMOST as much as I do). I'm still very on the fence about Animorphing Time... They have some interesting discussions, but they have such bad-faith readings of my favorite characters that they piss me off more than not.