Sarah Jamila Stevenson's Blog: Blog - Sarah Jamila Stevenson, page 39

Review: MS. MARVEL VOL. 2: GENERATION WHY

Summary : Some time ago I reviewed the first collected volume of the new (and surprisingly awesome) Ms. Marvel comic, starring the rebooted main character Kamala Khan: an ordinary American teenage girl from Jersey City who just happens to be a Pakistani-American from a Muslim family. As someone who has Muslim family (my dad's side), I was thrilled to see a realistic, sympathetic, and positive portrayal of American Muslims, and in today's social climate it's something we need more than ever. So I was happy when my friend Ross lent me the next volume in the graphic novelization, entitled Generation Why, which collects issues #6-10 and covers Ms. Marvel's continuing adventures defending her city from the mysterious giant-robot-building villain known only as The Inventor.

Peaks : There is so much to love about this comic series—and this is coming from someone who is admittedly not a huge fan of superhero comics in general or of Marvel characters in particular. Sorry; I guess I've just always been more of a DC girl (Vertigo, if you must know.). Anyway, one of the storylines I DO like in the Marvel universe is the X-Men, and, lo and behold, there was a cameo appearance by He of the Huge Ackman, the Wolverine himself. This was a very cool part of an even cooler plot arc in which we learn more tantalizing hints about Ms. Marvel's origins, get to see her charming, heartwarming, often hilarious interactions with her family, and watch her bring all kinds of entertaining and clever smackdowns on The Inventor's giant homicidal robots.

click to embiggenThis episode also focuses, for its moral message (because don't superhero comics usually have one? I find they do), on youth issues and the empowerment of the current generation beyond the stereotype of them being clueless, apathetic drones with smartphones grafted onto their hands. If you think about it, superhero comics have often been message-y, so I'm not going to pass judgment on that aspect because it just is what it is, but I will say that it's a message well suited to an audience of young readers, and I like the idea of this comic being able to appeal to a wide range of readers and interest a new generation in traditional comic-book heroes. Honestly, what's not to like? A butt-kicking girl hero, plenty of diversity, lots of humor and hilarity, and a giant, lovable, slobbering telepathic dog. Go read it.

One other thing which I didn't notice before that I just adored: Ms. Marvel's outfit. If you look carefully at it, it's actually a shalwar kameez, and instead of a cape she has a dupatta (shawl). It's pretty awesome, and it's featured prominently on the cover of this collection. The cultural aspects are well done, again, in this episode, and readers not as familiar with Pakistani culture or with Islam will see typical family interactions and learn, for instance, that dogs aren't considered to be clean animals you'd let live in your house. (This was a Thing when I was a kid, and as a kid who wanted a dog, it was not a thing I liked. However, having been to India since then, and seeing the sheer number of stray dogs all over the place, I kind of understand it more…) There's also a GREAT visit by Kamala to her imam at the mosque, who gives her very wise advice. Another really important scene, to me, given the number of people who have no idea what an imam really is or does beyond what they see on TV.

click to embiggen Valleys : I honestly don't see any real valleys to this one. There was a change in artist starting from issue #8, and I wasn't sure about it at first, but the new artist grew on me after a while. I guess if you're the type of person who has trouble with reboots, and can't cope with change, it could be hard to get used to. I was never much of a Marvel reader in the first place, so it bothered me not at all.

Conclusion : I really think comics fans should read this one. Girls, boys, grown-ups. It is just so much fun, and is a great reboot for reflecting the diverse time in which we live. Stay tuned for my review of Volume 3: Crushed, which is also in my TBR pile.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of a friend. You can find MS. MARVEL VOL. 2: GENERATION WHY by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, and Jacob Wyatt at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Pictures of Cool Typewriters

Since I still don't have a book review ready to post, I hereby shamelessly fill this space with writer porn, aka pictures of cool typewriters from the Museum of American History in Washington, DC, which I saw a few months ago. Here you go:

A cool-looking old-timey typewriter
Lawrence Ferlinghetti's typewriter!
And that's all I have. Happy Monday...

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Happy Monday, Guerrilla Girls Style

I don't have a new review for you yet, but I do have this photo that I took while in Australia, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. Enjoy your wry yet biting art-world commentary:


For more great stuff by the Guerrilla Girls, check out the Gallery of NSW.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

A Turkey Everyone Can Love

Vegetarian or vegan, kosher or carnivore, this is one turkey we can all get behind, especially book lovers and paper fetishists such as myself. Thanks to Reading With Scissors for this one:

Happy Thanksgiving, all! See you next week. In the meantime, check out my book review posts over at the Cybils blog, posted every MWF.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Thursday Review: THE DIVINE by A. Hanuka, T. Hanuka, and B. Lavie

Summary : This story of ancient spirits in a war-torn Southeast Asian country—the fictional land of Quanlom—is a fast read, saturated with the brutality of war's aftermath and its effects on children who no longer are given the luxury of a real childhood. I'd deem it a crossover title in terms of content and characters both; the story's protagonist here is Mark, an explosives expert with a pregnant wife and a solid job, a steady life. That is, until his old buddy Jason offers him a top-secret military contract in Quanlom, rigging up some explosives. The money sounds too good to be true…and then Mark discovers that not only does he have to contend with the moral and ethical horror of child soldiers, he also must face a land imbued with—and protected by—ancient spirits… and then decide whose side he is really on.

A quick disclaimer for adult language with this one—there are a few instances of strong language, because one of the main characters is a military-type guy with a monster attitude. That's the main reason why I'd consider this a crossover title, good for YA and above but certainly not below unless you want kids to ask uncomfortable questions about the C-word (the female one). As a story of war, it's also got its share of violence.

Photo by Apichart Weerawong. Source: NY Times Peaks : I love the fact that this story was actually inspired by a real-life photograph of two twelve-year-old twins from East Burma who had fought to defend their land by leading an army of refugees. Their story was surrounded by legends, but the kids were (and are) real, and the photo exists (it's reprinted at the end of the book). It's kind of a what-if-the-legends-were-real story, and it's also a painful reminder of the realities of what went on in Southeast Asia, the ground still seeded with land mines and permeated with past violence. It's a history that's easy to forget or ignore, and stories like this help us remember.

Click to embiggen Valleys : As mentioned above, this one isn't for every reader, due to violent content and language. That aside, I found myself wanting to know more about the mythology—there's a dragon-like creature, his soldiers that look like Buddhist tomb guardian figures, but not much in the way of background culture. Nevertheless, the art in those sections is atmospherically rendered, and does reward those with some existing understanding of the visual references.

Conclusion : This is a great one for guy readers, and particularly, I think, reluctant guy readers. It's fast-paced and action-packed, with cool supernatural elements and video-game violence. From a moral standpoint, the ending was also quite satisfying. And if it gets readers interested in the story behind the story, so much the better.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of the publisher, First Second. You can find THE DIVINE by Asaf Hanuka, Tomer Hanuka, and Boaz Lavie at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Thursday Review: THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN by Amber J. Keyser

Summary : Full disclosure: Amber Keyser is an author I met at a past KidLitCon; her editor Andrew Karre at Carolrhoda Lab I also know from KidLitCon (a different one) and I'm in contact with both of them online. They sent me my review copy of The Way Back from Broken.

OK, business now out of the way.

When I sat down to think about it, there really aren't that many "guy books" that deal with emotional issues. There are general "issue books" with male protagonists, but compared to the number of books with female protags that place emotional recovery front and center? The guy books aren't as numerous, that's for sure. The Way Back from Broken is one of those rare books with a male main character that foregrounds grief and recovery, friendship and love, and does it in an authentic and believable way, because yes, teenage boys deal with their emotions differently, but that doesn't mean they don't HAVE them.

Rakmen Cannon, the protagonist, is a good kid who's had bad things happen to him. He's still recovering from the grief of his baby sister's accidental death, his parents' marriage is crumbling before his very eyes, and he has to suffer the indignity of going to art therapy in a basement with a bunch of other grieving kids while his mom goes to the mother's support group upstairs. Things get even worse when ten-year-old Jacey, the new girl at art therapy, latches onto him and seems to think he can help her somehow. Oh, and Jacey's mom is one of Rakmen's teachers at school.

Rakmen has no idea what he could possibly do to help. He doesn't even want to talk about his own feelings; what can he do for a ten-year-old girl? And yet…she seems to look up to him. Almost like a brother. He hasn't had that feeling in a long time, but he's forced to confront it when his mom sends him along with Jacey and her mother on a summer wilderness trip. It's when the three of them leave the cabin and go au large--French Canadian for "on walkabout"—with just their packs and canoes, that they are forced to really start depending on one another…and that's when the walls start coming down.

Peaks : Besides what I already mentioned about how it's great to have another book for boys (and girls) that delves into the inevitability of both grief and recovery, another thing I found noteworthy about this book is that the protagonist Rakmen is of mixed race—he has a black father and Latina mother—and it's clearly portrayed but also just as clearly Not An Issue. It just is, and Rakmen is who he is, and there are a few ramifications there, but this isn't the central plot point by any means. (Did you hear that? His race doesn't define him! He is a Complex Individual!) That was really well done, in my opinion. And the girl he kind of likes, Molly—a girl in his support group—happens to be white, but that isn't a Thing. What hangs over them isn't race, but sadness.

Ironically, it's what they share that keeps them isolated. Being able to open up can't just be done on command, though, and in this case, it takes an experience that gets Rakmen outside his own head. I've seen this to be true so often, and I like that it happens in this story. I also like that everything isn't tied up in a neat bow at the end, but is realistically a bit messy. Progress is made, there is hope, but you can't bring back the dead, and some things can't ever be quite healed.

Valleys : I have to admit, I wanted this to be a bit more of a survival story, when they got to their journey au large in the Canadian wilderness. There are scary moments and physical danger, but I never quite felt that life-threatening terror that I was, for some reason, expecting. I don't know that it's a problem with the book so much as with my expectations, though. And there's certainly enough emotional tribulation to go around without having to take their physical endurance to its limits.

Conclusion : This is the kind of story I'd put in the hands of a Chris Crutcher fan—because that's whose books this reminds me of. It's about love and loss and that elusive "learning to be a man" that can be so difficult and confusing, especially when you feel like you're supposed to control or hide your emotions. It's a really heartfelt story, with believably flawed characters, including the adults. This was a debut, and I look forward to reading more of the author's books in the future.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of the author and publisher. You can find THE WAY BACK FROM BROKEN by Amber J. Keyser at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Oz Books (and not the L. Frank Baum kind)

This post comes from the Land Down Under...which is why I've been absent. Too little time, slow hotel Internet, yadda yadda. But! Besides the amazing scenery, cool visit with half-sis and family, and incredible food, I happened upon this in the Queensland Art Gallery bookstore:

Yay, Liz! :) 
Here's one more photo from our first week in Brisbane, and one from Sydney:


More anon...assuming the internets cooperate.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Thursday Review: THE ORPHAN QUEEN by Jodi Meadows

Summary : When we meet Wilhelmina, she's a top player in a gang of orphans called the Ospreys, former nobles all, who were displaced when their country of Aecor was overrun by the neighboring Indigo Kingdom. Now they live on the fringes of the Indigo Kingdom's capital, Skyvale, thieving and deceiving in order to survive, all the while scheming to gather their scattered countrymen and take back their nation. And Wil is destined to be queen of Aecor. But she's got a secret: she can do magic. Magic is all but verboten in their world—they're living post-magical-apocalypse. Doing magic leads to the creation of wraith, a misty, creeping substance that's toxic and that…changes things. Makes small animals large and vicious. And the wraith and its creatures are spreading.

Against this tense backdrop, the Ospreys' success is riding on a daring plan to infiltrate the castle, with Wil and her friend Melanie posing as refugee noblewomen from a neighboring kingdom fleeing the wraith. But the more Wil learns about the reasons for the fighting between her own Aecor and Indigo, the more she sees of her new home, the less clear-cut her cause becomes…

Peaks : This was a wonderfully crafted book with respect to the political intrigue—there's plenty of it, but there's also a fair bit of magic, a lot of action and disguises and creeping about, and just enough romance to really foul things up for the protagonists and make everything tense and suspenseful. The key characters are all complex and everyone seems to have some sort of ulterior motive, even the narrator, Wil, who must keep her magic under wraps as well as her disguise intact. I really enjoyed this one. Even though I kind of guessed the identity of the mysterious Black Knife part of the way in, there was just enough uncertainty that I was still feeling the anticipation of the final reveal.

Valleys : Well, for me, this one had the distinct disadvantage of NOT HAVING A SEQUEL I COULD READ RIGHT THIS MINUTE. It's not out for MONTHS. Sigh. Time to look for a digital galley…

Conclusion : Fans of fantasy with strong, courageous, intelligent female protagonists will want to check this one out. It's kinda gritty, I suppose, so I'd definitely recommend it for a YA audience and above. If you like Tamora Pierce's YA stuff, if you like Graceling or The Winner's Curse, check this one out. But don't say I didn't warn you about that sequel not being available yet!!

I received my copy of this book courtesy of my library's ebook collection. You can find THE ORPHAN QUEEN by Jodi Meadows at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Monday Review: THE SCORPION RULES by Erin Bow

Summary : While you can certainly characterize all of Erin Bow's books so far as speculative fiction, they aren't easily categorized within that, nor are they similar to one another in any way—and I like that. Her first book Plain Kate (reviewed here) was a Cybils finalist, and her second book, Sorrow's Knot (reviewed here) was equally unique and enjoyable in my opinion, working with recognizable mythology and folk tales to weave a new, relevant, and gripping story.

The newly released The Scorpion Rules, like those two, creates a world that is recognizable as based on our own, but unlike the previous two, we are plunged not into a mythical past or present but a frightening dystopian future ruled by an all-too-humanlike AI. That AI, Talis, is the voice which starts the story, in an excerpt from his "Holy Utterances" describing how he all but destroyed humanity in order to save it. In the aftermath, Talis created the Children of Peace: 400 years later, and the heirs of the remaining human nation-states are kept sequestered in safe, pastoral Preceptures—not for their own safety, but as hostages.

And if human nations are presumptuous enough to defy Talis and go to war, their hostages' lives are forfeit. Too bad the newly created nation the Cumberland Alliance, dry and desolate, is willing to start a war over water with its northern neighbor, the Pan-Polar Confederacy. Too bad, in particular, for the confederacy's Princess Greta. Greta's really only known life at the Precepture, going to school and farming for food under the AI's watchful panopticon. Until, that is, the Cumberland Alliance's hostage Elian suddenly appears and changes the way she sees her circumscribed world…

Peaks : One of the interesting things about this book is that the POV characters are not necessarily the "us" characters in the story. Elian, who we only see through the eyes of Greta, is the character "most like us," whose life and outlook is the most similar to the reader's. This keeps us fully immersed in the world setting, understanding it, at the same time as there's this little voice that keeps us (and Greta) questioning it. It's an interesting storytelling strategy, one which makes the reader question oneself and how easily we ourselves might be led into acceptance of a morally murky reality.

Another fascinating aspect of the story harkens back to older hard sci-fi of the Asimov era: the question it poses that perhaps we humans are unfit to govern ourselves and would be better governed by an emotionally impartial entity. And yet, as always, this begs the question of the extent to which such an entity, having been created by humans in the first place, will still mirror our flaws as much as we want it to mirror only our ideals. And Talis, the AI in this story, is in many ways all too human. I do love stories that are not afraid to pose difficult philosophical problems—but at the same time, The Scorpion Rules doesn't allow theoretical questions to impede the telling of a good story, about the indomitability of friendship and love and human connection, and the survival of the HUMAN spirit and self against impossible odds, even our own determination to destroy ourselves and each other.

Valleys : I won't lie; this is a pretty strange world Greta and her companions live in. Because we are told the story primarily through Greta's viewpoint, we are given an automatic entrance into her world, but it's a rather alien one in many respects. And because Greta IS a child of her world, her reasons for doing things, her emotions, reflect that recognizable-but-fundamentally-altered worldview. For me, this meant a certain automatic distance from the narrator and the story itself, because of her rarefied existence. It's extremely well done—appropriate to the story, certainly—but part of me kept wondering what the story would have been like if we'd also gotten Elian's viewpoint, if we'd gotten to be the "us" character, even if only here and there. But maybe that would have been too much telling us what to think.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you are bothered by ambiguity, whether narrative or moral, this might be a difficult one.

Conclusion : In many ways this story reminded me of some of the most thought-provoking of adult spec fic novels—the dystopian A Canticle For Leibowitz, say (reviewed here); the more recent Station Eleven; or, of course, the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey with its rogue AI Hal. It doesn't give the reader easy answers OR easy questions, but it will make you think hard, and wonder.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley; all comments are based on the advance review copy. You can find THE SCORPION RULES by Erin Bow at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Cybils Nominations, and Are Banned Books Passé?

Are yooouuuuuu ready to NOMINATE? ...for the Cybils Awards? Nominations are officially open to the public (that means YOU, readers) for ten categories of children's and young adult books. You have between Oct. 1-15 to nominate your favorite book in each category. So GO! Do it! And if you really want to support Cybils, buy some great official swag with this year's colorful 10th birthday logo designed by yours truly.



I almost missed the fact that this week is Banned Books Week, during which we can all thank our lucky stars that very, very few books actually make it from challenged to outright banned any more (although I feel like it's sort of over the top to title one's article "Banned Books Week is a Crock" in order to make that legitimate point). It sort of feels like saying we don't need the Voting Rights Act since we don't have racist prejudice any more. But ANYWAY, enough of my snark. There's plenty of fun to be had for readers during Banned Books Week, especially for readers who like the annual reminder that we've come such a long way, and still might have a little way to go.

For one thing, you can check out the list of 2014's most challenged books, which includes (yet again) Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Reasons: anti-family, cultural insensitivity, drugs/alcohol/smoking, gambling, offensive language, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group, violence. Additional reasons: “depictions of bullying”), which I reviewed here. The list also includes two graphic novels: Marjane Satrapi's wonderful Persepolis and Raina Telgemaier's Drama (which I think is on my TBR pile from ages ago...oops.)

And, just for fun, check out Powell's Books' blog post on 10 Strange Reasons for Banning a Book, pulled from 35 years' worth of Oregon school and library records. True, the vast majority were not ultimately removed from the school or library in question, but the reasons for challenging the books were...well, let's just say that 50 Harlequin romances were challenged on the basis that "Teenagers already have trouble with their emotions without being stimulated by poorly written books."

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.