The standout essays for me, as a GenX/Millennial cusp child whose first year of post-college adulthood was 2001, were the one about Al Gore's ill-fateThe standout essays for me, as a GenX/Millennial cusp child whose first year of post-college adulthood was 2001, were the one about Al Gore's ill-fated talk to a school class, the one about Sept. 11, and the one about George W. Bush's inauguration. My partner and I listened to the audiobook while driving around the southwest, and we had to keep stopping to process the early-2000s with each other. What if Al Gore -- a better man than Bill Clinton, by pretty much all accounts, if less charismatic -- had succeeded Clinton as President? What if no hanging chads, what if more scrupulous recounts, what if a different Supreme Court? (What if we'd believed Anita Hill?) What if Gore instead of W had presided over our nation's response to Sept. 11? What if no "weapons of mass destruction," no endless Iraq War, no torture approved by the highest offices in the land? Who would we be as a nation today? I'm kind of obsessed with the idea that the 2000 Election tipped us into the Darkest Timeline. Any glimpses into that Pres. Gore alternate universe endlessly fascinate me. Listening to this collection was like poking a bruise. Fair warning, etc....more
If the goal of reading a memoir is to put me inside the mind of someone who is very unlike me, this certainly succeeds. Jennifer frequently says someIf the goal of reading a memoir is to put me inside the mind of someone who is very unlike me, this certainly succeeds. Jennifer frequently says some version of, "I felt like I was watching someone else live my life," and yes -- that is how it appears nearly always. Her lack of agency and self-awareness is astonishing to me, though I have no reason to believe it isn't genuine.
She chose, twice, to rush into marriage with secretive men. The first one was terrifyingly abusive. The second one seems like a decent person, mostly, but has deep problems of his own. David's so settled in a patriarchal idea of "being the provider" that he pitched a hissy every time Jennifer asked him about their finances until she stopped asking, and then neglected to mention that he hadn't paid their taxes in years and took out a giant loan he couldn't repay. I'm a little concerned about all the "poor David, what a selfless partner" in some of the other reviews. A true partner (not to mention a halfway decent accountant) would have said, "Hey, look, this is my income; these are our expenses; these are our savings. Either we can figure out a way for you to contribute more to our income, or we can switch our kids back to public school, or we can move somewhere cheaper. Let's discuss."
So I want her to delve into the roots of her poor choice in husbands, and into the culture of toxic masculinity that sets up her powerlessness in relationships. I want her to unpack the difference between generational Appalachian poverty and "we made 6 figures in rural NC and ended up not only 'broke' but in serious legal trouble through a series of spectacularly bad decisions." Unfortunately she doesn’t seem to have the self-awareness to take her memoir in that direction. Life is just going to keep "happening" to her, relatively un-examined.
All that said, she's an entertaining writer and I want to keep listening. At nearly every turn she makes an entirely different decision from what I would have made. Trying to understand why is compelling.
I did eventually give up because I got bored of the lack of self-awareness, especially once nothing dramatic was happening anymore....more
The premise of this collection is that anytime you're doing social justice work, you're writing speculative fiction -- a premise I adore, as a personThe premise of this collection is that anytime you're doing social justice work, you're writing speculative fiction -- a premise I adore, as a person who became captivated by, and formed by, both social justice and science fiction at the same very young age. The writers of these stories are mostly not fiction writers but activists, shaping their activist vision into speculative fiction for the first time. I've never read anything like it.
The writers are virtually all of color, as are the editors. The tone of the stories is unlike any sci-fi I've read (though it is clearly informed by Octavia Butler, as the name would imply). All the endings are open-ended, beginnings more than endings and questions more than answers.
It's uneven, even more so than short story collections usually are. It's about ideas more than great writing. But if you are a reader of science fiction and you spend a lot of time thinking about justice, I strongly recommend you pick this up....more
Creepy and utterly original. Everyone I know was reading this at the same time, but I never arranged a book club conversation and I regret it. There'sCreepy and utterly original. Everyone I know was reading this at the same time, but I never arranged a book club conversation and I regret it. There's so much to discuss. The collection holds together better than most short story collections, but also each story is such a horrifying little rotted jewel that I wanted to savor it alone rather than reading the whole collection quickly. I'm reviewing this months later, and the ones I still think about are the Velveteen Rabbit one (that was always a horror story for me anyway), "The Thankless Child," "Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters," and "The Frog's Princess."...more
A thoroughly delightful book! Because it's autobiography, I constantly wondered about the other characters' points of view -- especially the "villainsA thoroughly delightful book! Because it's autobiography, I constantly wondered about the other characters' points of view -- especially the "villains." I don't feel comfortable reading it as a journalistic document. But I learned a ton about Ghanaian culture, and enjoyed the never-ending drama of Peggy and her selfish, corrupt, childish elders. The audiobook performer did wonderful accents and voices.
ETA: Apparently J. Karen Thomas, the reader, was a role model for other Black gay actresses, and passed away two years ago at just 50. What a loss....more
Knisley humorously addresses all the Wedding-Industrial Complex challenges my friends have discussed as they plan their weddings: the assumption thatKnisley humorously addresses all the Wedding-Industrial Complex challenges my friends have discussed as they plan their weddings: the assumption that you'll diet; pressures from families, wedding planners, and others to care about things you don't care about; societal expectations about what being married means, including what marrying a man means for a bisexual woman... She does a good job, I think, of acknowledging her privileges -- she uses the word "lucky" on almost every other page -- while also acknowledging that planning a wedding is damn hard amid the unrealistic expectations our society sets for women. Every friend who got married in the last decade or so may be getting this for the next gift holiday....more
There's no way this could have lived up to my anticipation, and indeed it fell a bit short for me. I loved the first half, but then off they go in theThere's no way this could have lived up to my anticipation, and indeed it fell a bit short for me. I loved the first half, but then off they go in the titular boat and (view spoiler)[suddenly they're visiting island after island like they're in The Odyssey? But all these islands are supposedly in the middle of flooded England? How will this flood possibly sort itself out so England is functional again like ten years later when The Golden Compass begins? (hide spoiler)] It felt like I landed unexpectedly in a myth, when His Dark Materials was always grounded in clear explanations of how the universe worked. I'll read the next Book of Dust installment, of course, but I'll admit to being baffled so far....more
I read this because I had a ticket to see Blade Runner on the big screen, and I'd never read the original book. (Final Cut, if you are the sort of perI read this because I had a ticket to see Blade Runner on the big screen, and I'd never read the original book. (Final Cut, if you are the sort of person who's really into all the different versions of Blade Runner.) The book and movie are different in a number of ways, most notably that the Earth of the book is a nuclear wasteland from which nearly everyone has emigrated to planetary colonies, and animals are therefore so rare that having a real one becomes a crucial status symbol. Earth humans have all subscribed to a bizarre empathy religion called Mercerism, in which they commune with each other via an "empathy box." Having an animal to care for represents your "empathy." All of this was missing from the movie, which is too bad because it's definitely the most interesting part of the book.
What the book and the movie have in common is icky misogyny! Rape=love, sex and emotional labor are the only things women are good for, sexual manipulation is the only way for a woman to have power. Not to mention the slavery fetishization inherent in building sentient androids -- the book even straight-up includes an ad for androids, targeting those who "long for the halcyon days of the pre-Civil War South" (a line that is obviously meant to be appalling, so at least the book is acknowledging its racism in a way it doesn't its sexism?). It will never fail to amaze me that classic science fiction authors could imagine a universe full of colonies and androids virtually indistinguishable from people, but they couldn't imagine one not entirely run by white dudes. ...more
Surprisingly thorough history of MA confectionaries, grocery stores, advertising, commercial radio, and other tidbits woven through the story of FluffSurprisingly thorough history of MA confectionaries, grocery stores, advertising, commercial radio, and other tidbits woven through the story of Fluff -- the iconic marshmallow creme which is way too sweet for me, and which I had never even heard of until I moved to New England. The author is a friend, and her Fluff Festival is an anchoring event in my adopted hometown, but I think even without those connections I would have enjoyed this book. ...more
Women, single or formerly single: you need this book in your life. It reinforced all the comforting, realistic things my friends said to me in my worsWomen, single or formerly single: you need this book in your life. It reinforced all the comforting, realistic things my friends said to me in my worst "my life is not following the Official Path" moments -- with historical context and data! Traister is a real journalist who understands that you can't just tell your story and those of your (also white and well-educated) friends and pretend that it's a book about women in general. She acknowledges that there's a slant towards people who look like her, but is scrupulous about including a diversity of stories. Multiple people are getting this one from me for Winter Gift Season....more
I have brought points from this book up in uncountable conversations over the last few weeks. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who's been on theI have brought points from this book up in uncountable conversations over the last few weeks. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who's been on the dating market at any point since, say, 2001....more
I read this because I'm traveling to Cuba in a few weeks and it was recommended by the local tour company. I appreciated the author's perspective as sI read this because I'm traveling to Cuba in a few weeks and it was recommended by the local tour company. I appreciated the author's perspective as someone who started out an outsider and, over a decade, became invested in the country.
He devoted plenty of time to lengthy quotes from those friends about their daily lives and thoughts about the Revolution. I was especially interested in a deeply humane, insightful comment by Victor, a man who had been involved in the Revolution and was still a staunch supporter of the world's last Marxist government:
"I am a Marxist," he said in response. "I believe it's the solution for the third world. But I am also a humanist, and our Revolution's great contribution was that it gave the individual man [especially black men, persecuted under the Spanish and Batista regimes] a dignity, a liberty, a freedom. If you know our past, you understand that. You know how bad things were before the Revolution and how much the Revolution changed Cuba. Our Cuban viewpoint was very different from those of China and Russia. We had an original way, a Cuban way. Because our culture was very different, so was our Revolution.
"Our big mistake? I'll tell you. To compromise with the Soviets. We took their model of government and society and lost our own way. The Soviet ideology in which the state has to control everything, even education and the media, and looks over the lives of everybody should never have been adopted in Cuba. Never.
"But that's what we had to do to survive against American guns. Fidel's wisdom is that he saved the core of the Revolution, even until today. Fidel did it the only way possible. Without Fidel there would be nothing."
The author (who is definitely the protagonist -- the introduction makes a big deal about the drawbacks of journalistic "objectivity") is a Baby Boomer and comes at this from a very Boomer perspective. He's constantly responding to assumptions his generation has about Cuba -- Communism made them all miserable and starving -- that my generation doesn't share, or even think about much. Which is fine; the book was published when I was in college, so that was his audience. The book is at its best, though, when Ripley is quoting Cubans and giving context, rather than editorializing.
Because good grief, his overwritten romanticizing! He insists upon referring to Cuba with a female pronoun, and every other sentence is a forced metaphor of the form: "Paulo was young and on the make, like Cuba herself" [paraphrase]. He also has a vaguely gross, exoticizing attitude toward young women, using phrases like "an innocent cry by a latte-colored beauty" [not, unfortunately, a paraphrase] and portraying Castro's crackdown on Cuban prostitutes as primarily affecting foreign men who no longer came on vacation and the trickle-down effect on Cuba's economy. No exploration at all of the forced choices many of those women were likely making. He couldn't even bring himself to straight-up use the word "prostitution," describing them only as girls looking for entertainment that they couldn't afford if foreign men weren't paying.
I went back and forth between rolling my eyes and being fascinated by this American portrayal of 1990s Cuba. I'm glad I read it, I think, but I definitely need an updated perspective -- ideally by a Cuban woman....more
The choice of apocalypse -- a slow, increasing change in earth's orbit -- is kind of bizarre. I'm interested in how it may have allowed the author toThe choice of apocalypse -- a slow, increasing change in earth's orbit -- is kind of bizarre. I'm interested in how it may have allowed the author to tell a story about climate change without telling a story about climate change. (Although, why not just tell a story about climate change already? I am getting a bit frustrated with the changes in orbits and random meteors.)
A creepy, "keep calm and carry on" sense that everything is fine even when it manifestly isn't is this book's greatest strength, and its strongest message about how we are handling climate change. Changes come, the privileged suburbanites of the story adapt, any discussion of the utter unsustainability of the situation is left for the margins. (Julia occasionally muses about how much things must suck on poorer continents, but it is -- believably -- not something she investigates further.) This is an excellent narrow view on a slow, cushioned apocalypse.
At the beginning, there was a press conference, a "breaking news" announcement that a day was no longer 24 hours. It shocked everyone, governments swung into action with an understanding that Life As We Know It was about to change. How many buried, blown off press conferences have scientists had about climate change? Even though the changes will, if ignored, eventually be this extreme? I suppose a single starting point after which everyone understands the danger is useful for storytelling, but it weakened the analogy.
(view spoiler)[ Where the worldbuilding falls apart is at the end. We know it's a retrospective from Julia ten years after the start of the slowing. At which point... apparently there's still sufficient nutrition, at least for some people? There's still energy to support greenhouses and air conditioners? Everyone hasn't died of skin cancer? She's thinking about med school, so infrastructure continues to function? But HOW? Did anyone ever figure out what happened in the first place, and whether Earth will just continue to slingshot further and further into space? Maybe I'm not supposed to care because it's Literary Fiction, but those seem important questions. (hide spoiler)]
Strong 7th or 8th grade readers could get into this thought experiment, but the operative word here is definitely "slow." I'd be more likely to give it to readers of adult or New Adult crossovers (All the Light We Cannot See or Irises) than more content-similar titles like Life As We Knew It or How I Live Now....more
I picked up this ARC at ALA Midwinter because the author was there and the back blurb looked interesting enough for me to actually read it -- unusualI picked up this ARC at ALA Midwinter because the author was there and the back blurb looked interesting enough for me to actually read it -- unusual for me with an adult book by a new author! I am so glad I did. Greenidge's prose is clear and descriptive, and while I can't exactly say I "enjoyed" spending time with the Freemans and Nymphadora -- it's not much of a spoiler to say their stories are painful -- I can say that the questions the book asked encouraged me to think about race and history in new ways. ...more
This kept me turning pages, for sure; it's just straight-up good science fiction. And as someone involved in teaching history I'm still thinking aboutThis kept me turning pages, for sure; it's just straight-up good science fiction. And as someone involved in teaching history I'm still thinking about it as an analog for Black slavery in America: orogenes are a group of people whose power (in this case superpower, not ordinary physical strength) builds or makes possible the world, while they are feared and kept controlled. I was frustrated by the totally unresolved ending, though. I prefer when the first volume in a trilogy concludes some parts of the story rather than just being the first third of a really long book. I don't realistically have time to read the subsequent thousand pages anytime soon, unfortunately....more
Stunning, whether you think you're interested in the topic or not. (Though not for the weak of stomach. My four hour bus ride home from Thanksgiving iStunning, whether you think you're interested in the topic or not. (Though not for the weak of stomach. My four hour bus ride home from Thanksgiving included an hour of pet-eating and cannibalism.) The descriptions of music are some of the clearest I've ever read. I don't understand classical music or the stories it tells; this book starts from the assumption that most readers don't and explains beautifully from there. I bought the audiobook to hear the music as he's describing it -- unfortunately there are fewer music clips than I wanted.
The YA audience will be very particular, but they're out there, and there's no reason this wouldn't work as an adult book as well....more
Everyone's saying "required modern reading," and I cannot disagree. It's like 150 little pages. Read it. And read it with a pen in your hand. This isEveryone's saying "required modern reading," and I cannot disagree. It's like 150 little pages. Read it. And read it with a pen in your hand. This is a book to converse with, not just read straight through. I read most of it on my back patio, and also found it helpful to have a phone nearby for looking up the references and allusions he makes. I'm ashamed not to know many of the black historical figures he mentions, but now at least I'll recognize the names if I see them again....more
The two stories fit together satisfyingly. Both narrators are clearly unreliable from the beginning, which is a device I love when done well. The futuThe two stories fit together satisfyingly. Both narrators are clearly unreliable from the beginning, which is a device I love when done well. The futuristic inventions, chiefly a wave-energy-capturing bridge across the Indian Ocean, are grounded enough to feel like more than fantastical plot devices. This is literary fiction that isn't ashamed to also be science fiction.
These versions of futuristic India and Ethiopia were totally engaging worlds in which to spend time, though of course I do wish they had been written by someone with more cultural connection than a white American who visited Ethiopia one time. She acknowledges in her author's note how hard it was to integrate into Ethiopia as an outsider, and I respect her for trying and writing a book with a non-western setting anyway... but I certainly don't know enough to tell how much of this is based on an Addis Ababa or a Kerala that people with cultural roots in those places would recognize and it worries me that my understanding of those places will now be shaped by this story.
I will say I am grateful to be a person who's pretty good at remembering names and unfamiliar words. If that's a challenge for you, you might find this book frustrating, as many of the clues as to the connections between the stories rely on remembering names dropped once three chapters ago. I am not a person who carries around a good world map in my head, so I wish the publisher had seen fit to provide me with one -- both stories involve road trips, for heaven's sake! Don't make me look up where all those cities are.
This is definitely an adult novel, though I suppose it could have older-YA appeal to strong readers. Recommended to those who loved Cloud Atlas (and those like me who didn't, because they wanted the stories to fit together more explicitly) or Nnedi Okorafor's adult novels. It would be an excellent book club book: not too long, never draggy, much to discuss....more
I described this book as "charming" to the friend who recommended it, and it was at the beginning -- there's something inherently charming about 1920sI described this book as "charming" to the friend who recommended it, and it was at the beginning -- there's something inherently charming about 1920s England. She corrected me, though, and she was right. There is too much about the horrors of war and its aftermath to truly be "charming." Nevertheless, it was an engrossing mystery in a charming setting, and I enjoyed it immensely. My only quibble is that Maisie seemed too good to be true: so brilliant, so polite, such a good daughter and friend and pupil and boss, so hardworking it became a bit implausible. I look forward to seeing some flaws in future books....more
I'm halfway through and still don't know who Jyoti/Jasmine/Jane is. This might be intentional -- the author seems to be making some sort of point abouI'm halfway through and still don't know who Jyoti/Jasmine/Jane is. This might be intentional -- the author seems to be making some sort of point about immigrants, especially female ones, having to mold themselves to the desires of their American hosts -- but it doesn't make for an engaging book.
What's more, it is exactly the sort of depressing story about hopeless lives that is the reason I don't read adult fiction. In this book, women are at best symbols, at worst transactions -- never people. I have no doubt that this is true for a lot of women in the world. But I have learned that it does me no good to read novels that make me want to give up on humanity. If I'm going to read a made-up story, it may as well inspire rather than depress me, right? Depressing things aren't by definition more true. I'm giving up on this one....more
The language is beautiful, if too dense for the 8th graders I was hoping it would work for. The unnamed Holmes as an elderly man dealing with the dullThe language is beautiful, if too dense for the 8th graders I was hoping it would work for. The unnamed Holmes as an elderly man dealing with the dulling of his intellect was poignant. But... other than Holmes ("the old man") I didn't care enough about anyone to feel invested in the story. An adult novella is a tough form for me -- the usual "why isn't anything happening?" problem I have with writing for adults, without enough time to delve deeply into complex characters in the way adult novels tend to do better than middle grade or YA -- so your mileage may vary more than usual....more
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