2024 Reading – Krista Beucler

October 11, 2024October 11, 2024

September 2024 Books

Books Reread

The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan
The Trials of Apollo book 4
Continuing on my big Percy Jackson reread, here is the 4th Trials of Apollo book. I have to admit, I didn’t remember this one very well. It’s a good one though. I love that we get to meet some more Roman campers and spend some more time with Reyna. I don’t remember if I thought this the first time I read this book, but Reyna strikes me as kinda ace, and I love that for her. Love the way Apollo develops each book as well. Uncle Rick is really a master of the character arc.
3.5/5 ravens

New Books Read

My Dear Henry by Kalynn Bayron***
Remixed Classics series
CW: racism, homophobia
Last month I read the original Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so obviously immediately I had to read a retelling. This was fun. There’s a lot of homoerotic subtext in the original (there was in much of the literature of the time which was about men doing manly things and included almost no female characters or love plots. This was in response to literature from earlier in the century which was mostly written by women and featured romantic relationships as the main plot). But I digress. In this version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, our narrator Gabriel Utterson is in love with his classmate Henry Jekyll, but begins to worry about him when Jekyll breaks off their relationship and the mysterious Hyde appears. Nice to read a historical fiction that deals with queerness and race in history.
3.5/5 love letters

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
CW: n-word, racism, domestic violence, misogyny
This was my binge book for September, and I had a delightful day doing nothing but reading this book. Weaving forward and backward in time, this book tells the story of two women running a cafe in a small town in Alabama. But it also tells the story of the whole community and all the lives they touched with love and good food and the life they might have ended? (Just a little casual murder that’s never been solved.) This one has more serious themes than the other Fannie Flagg book I’ve read, but it still has her signature humor. Kind of reminded me of a cross between To Kill a Mockingbird and a John Irving novel, which doesn’t seem like a combination that should work, but it does. I liked the structure of it, the way it had the frame of Ninny telling Evelyn the story of Idgie and Ruth and then the flashbacks to them mixed with the newspaper bulletins and the development of Evelyn’s story arc in the present. Certainly there are a few things that didn’t age super well, but overall still a relevant story. Nice to see casual LGBTQIA+ rep in older books like this one.
3.5/5 fried green tomatoes

Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid*
CW: marital rape
This one was very atmospheric. Foggy. Moorish. Very weird to listen to it at the same time I was reading The Pairing. Very different vibes. You know me, I love a feminist retelling. Reid reimagines the story of Macbeth through the Lady’s eyes. A young girl from a French court, Roscilla comes to uncivilized Scotland to wed the Thane, aware of the power of her unhooded gaze to hoodwink men. Macbeth has other profane secrets and ambitions though and Roscilla must learn to navigate this new court and hold onto whatever power she can find.
3/5 veils

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
The polar opposite of Lady Macbeth. This one was fun. Kit and Theo broke each other’s hearts so when they accidentally end up on the same food and wine tour of Europe, three weeks together seems like it’s going to be unbearable. But they’re adults right? They can be friends again. They can start a friendly competition to see who can sleep with the most locals on the tour, right? What could go wrong? Unless they’re still in love with each other. This wasn’t my favorite of McQuiston’s books, but it was fun. I savored it one city at a time. I liked the way McQuiston positioned food and decadence and the beauty of Europe in summer and the pursuit of pleasure against sex to state the simple truth that we deserve to be happy and to be made to feel good and to enjoy this beautiful world that we live in and enjoy all the delights it has to offer. This book is very spicy, if you’re into that.
3.75/5 French pastries (I guess I’m doing .75s now? I do it on StoryGraph sometimes but I was only doing half points on the blog)

Hera by Jennifer Saint
CW: rape. There’s a lot of rape in Greek myths
Oh, look, another Greek myth retelling. This one is larger in scope than many retellings, tackling the whole life of Hera from her birth to when the influence of the gods began to wane. Hera is often cast as the villain of much of Greek mythology, but Saint does an amazing job of making her a well-rounded, sympathetic character whose motives we understand, even if we don’t agree with her actions. It wasn’t my favorite of Saint’s books, but it is a good one.
3.5/5 peacocks

Swimming Pretty by Vicki Valosik***
This is a nonfiction book about the history of synchronized or artistic swimming which is of course wrapped up in the history of competitive swimming, but also, less well known, is its connection to the history of women’s rights. Valosik takes us all the way through the history of swimming in this fascinating study. The prose is at times a little textbook-y and hard to get through, but for the most part the subject is interesting enough for it not to matter. There are also lots of pictures, so that was nice.
3/5 ballet legs

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. (Which is maybe historically accurate for Lady Macbeth.) Swimming Pretty focuses on straight, white, cis people, but Valosik acknowledges the history of segregation and racism and access that discouraged people of color from joining the sport.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read My Dear Henry for a story that deals with race and homosexuality in Victorian England. Read Swimming Pretty to learn about how access to sports like swimming advanced women’s rights.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ experience, feminism, BIPOC experience, social and political issues, history, identity, class, disability experience, immigration, gun violence, poverty, colorism, environmentalism, and more! The goal of these books is to diversify the stories we’re reading, grow our empathy for those who are different from us, and amplify voices who are often silenced.

September 9, 2024September 9, 2024

August 2024 Books

Books Reread

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
(Yes, I heard the news. Yes, I’m very disappointed about it.) This is still a masterpiece of contemporary fantasy. A man returns to his childhood neighbor’s pond, which she called an ocean, and remembers the events of his childhood when he and his neighbor had to fight inter-dimensional monsters. I feel like that wasn’t a good summary. It’s so much more than that. It’s so good. And it’s a frame narrative. For some reason, I’m really into frame narratives at the moment.
5/5 oceans inside ponds

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
If the perfect children’s fantasy novel exists, it’s this one. A cinderella retelling with a twist. Ella was ‘blessed’ by a fairy at birth to always be obedient. But when you must follow any direct command, it feels more like a curse. I listened to it this time and the audio performance is very, very good.
5/5 ogres

New Books Read

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James
This one was cool. A magical realist family saga following two different timelines in 1895 and 1964 Mexico. In 1895, Antonio Sonoro is robbing a train. His run-in with the Texas Rangers will set him on a course of vengeance and sorrow. In 1964, Jaime Sonoro is a successful actor and singer, but as he learns of his family, from Antonio back through a line of ruthless men, he’ll have to reckon with intergenerational trauma and the legacies colonialism and racism. The prose was lyrical and the whole thing felt like a gritty dream in the best possible way. And we always love that western desert aesthetic.
4/5 horses

The King of Faerie by A.J. Lancaster
Stariel book 4 of 5
This book wraps up Hetta and Wyn’s story from the first three books. Hetta and Wyn are just trying to get married and live happily ever after, but there are a lot of hoops they have to jump through before they can do that, including trying to establish peace between the Fae and Mortal realms. I really enjoyed this whole cozy fantasy series.
3.5/5 low fae

A Rake of his Own by A.J. Lancaster
Stariel book 5 of 5
This final installment follows Marius and Rakken and, though it takes place after the events of the first four Stariel books, can be read independently from them. This is a cozy queer fantasy murder mystery with a healthy amount of romance. I very much enjoyed it.
4/5 naked fae princes

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
CW: child neglect, alcoholism, mental health, institutionalization, death of a child, domestic violence
I’m not usually a thriller reader but I did like this one. At a summer camp in the 1970s, a girl goes missing. During the search for her, clues from the unsolved disappearance of her brother 14 years before begin to surface. I loved the interweaving timelines and the variety of POVs. And I loved the ending. My only complaint is that there was some kind of glitch with the ebook where instead of having the date at the start of each chapter, *every* possible date was at the start of *every* chapter, so I just had to figure out if we were in 1960 or July of 1974 or whatever. Luckily it wasn’t too hard to figure out once I figured out what was going on.
4/5 survival courses

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
I knew this was going to be sad, but yes, it was sad. In a world where Death-Cast calls to warn you when you’re going to die, two teenaged boys receive the notification on the same day. United by their impending deaths and the Last Friend app, they set out to make the most of their last day. This was very sweet and very sad. I also liked the sprinkled-in perspectives that sort of formed a constellation around them on their last day. It reminded me a little of Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star.
3.5/5 Death-Cast calls

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
**Book Hangover
This one was so good. Estranged half-sisters Joanna and Esther haven’t seen each other in ten years, but when their father is killed by one of the magical books he’s devoted his life to protecting, they must reunite to uncover an underworld of magical books and somewhat sinister librarians. The magic system in this book was so unique and fun. I also loved the characters and the banter. And I loved the overlapping multiple viewpoints (this is, I’m realizing, a theme for me).
5/5 magical books.

Pictured here with The Academy of Natural Science’s new exhibition on heirloom plants

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer***
**Book Hangover
Stunning. Exquisite. I’ve been meaning to read this for forever and finally did it, and boy do I wish I hadn’t waited so long. Botanist and member of the Potawatomi tribe, Kimmerer weaves a beautiful tapestry of essays that braid together indigenous wisdom, scientific study, the teachings of plants, philosophy, policy, climate change, and so much more. It was sad; it was hopeful. It left me longing for a world in which we’ve repaired our relationship with the earth, thanked her for her gifts, and protected and stewarded her for the future. Everyone should read this book.
10/5 sweetgrass braids

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson*
You know, I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like to read this book when it came out. To read it when you don’t know what the secret is. But Arthur spoiled that shit for me when I was like five. Lawyer Utterson is determined to find out who this suspicious and detestable Mr. Hyde character is and how he’s related to the honorable Dr. Jekyll. I also have to acknowledge that one of the greatest lines in literature has to be “If he is Mr. Hyde, then I shall be Mr. Seek.” Hilarious. Impeccable. This book is short, though the language is rather cumbersome and the framing of the narrative makes it somewhat less exciting. Frame narratives were quite common at the time, but I do wonder why Stevenson chose to tell the story from Utterson’s perspective instead of Jekyll’s. Possibly to preserve the mystery, though I think it would have been possible to still have the reveal be dramatic even if we’d been following Jekyll’s POV. Another reason authors of the time often employed frame narratives was to create distance between themselves and the potentially morally objectionable characters and between the reader and those characters. Utterson represents a normal dude that the reader can relate to and empathize with. Like so many other books of the time, this book includes not a single woman (unless you count the little girl Hyde injures and I don’t since she’s just a plot device to illustrate Hyde’s character) and utilizes the trope of physical disability and ugliness standing in for moral corruption.
3/5 mysterious powders

DNFs

Twilight Territory by Andrew X. Pham
This was the Big Library Read recently so they had unlimited copies of the ebook to check out. I figured it would be rude not to check it out so I did (also the cover is lovely, so that was definitely a factor). But I did not finish it. It’s a historical fiction set in Vietnam in WWII about a Japanese officer who falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman. I didn’t know anything about Vietnam during WWII so that part was kind of interesting. But I wasn’t interested in the love story. I thought it was boring, so I didn’t finish.
1/5 Japanese officers

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. Though I think you could argue that there’s homoerotic subtext in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There is in most of the boys’ boys books of that era.

**Book Hangover Alert indicates the kind of book that will leave you full up on love. Satisfied, but wishing the book never had to end. You’ll be laying on the floor with no idea what to do with yourself (other friends have called this feeling Good Book Depression or say that certain books necessitate Floor Time). This is the kind of book that gets its teeth in you and won’t let go easily. After the last page you’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. You’ll bother all your friends trying to get them to read it so that you won’t be alone in your Hangover.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read Braiding Sweetgrass to be a better human.

August 12, 2024August 13, 2024

July 2024 Books

Books Reread

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
CW: n-word, racism
This is the third time I’ve read this book (all three times for a class), and I think I got the most out of it this time. Before a backdrop of 1930s Alabama, six-year-old Scout comes of age and learns empathy. Her father Atticus is the lawyer defending a Black man against accusations of raping a white woman, the implications of which will shake the town and challenge Scout’s worldview. It is really well crafted and all of the pieces fit together really nicely to create a pretty nuanced depiction of racism in the south and childhood as one learns empathy. Reading it today it’s easy to look at it like a white savior narrative, and it does have elements of that, for sure, but it did have a profound impact on the way white people perceived race in the 1960s.
4/5 gifts in the tree

The Burning Maze by Rick Riordan
Trials of Apollo book 3 of 5
CW: child abuse
I haven’t reread the last two books in this series and I don’t honestly remember them very well, but I think this one is my favorite in this series. Notwithstanding the Sad Thing that happens. (No summary of this one since it’s in the middle of the series). Nice to spend some time with Grover and some new dryad friends.
3.5/5 aloe remedies

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Hunger Games book 1 of 3
CW: death of children, PTSD, alcoholism, gore
Just like the first time I read this book, I did it basically in one sitting. So happy when a book I loved when I was young still holds up as an adult. In a dystopian future America, the authoritarian Capitol chooses two children from each of 12 districts to fight to death in an arena as retribution for a failed revolution 74 years ago. When her younger sister is chosen, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her place, sparking a revolution that will shake the Capitol. I do think I definitely got more out of this book as an adult. Collins has written such a good critique of authoritarianism, class politics, and the media.
5/5 tributes

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins***
CW: death of children, PTSD, alcoholism, drug addiction
The Hunger Games book 2 of 3
The first time I read this book, I thought it was totally cliche that Collins *Spoiler* sent Katniss back to the Hunger Games. I was like ‘can’t you think of any other plots??’ But reading it now, I understand that that was the only course of action for Snow and the worst possible thing that could happen to Katniss. It is inevitable in the course of the building revolution. I am also a bit mad at my past self and all of my peers who were ‘team Peeta’ or ‘team Gale’ when really the point Collins was trying to make was that it’s fucked up that they’re trying to force Katniss to choose between them when if left to her own devices, she’d probably be ace. But for her own survival, she has to participate in this charade with Peeta and deal Gale being a whiny bitch about it.
4.5/5 former victors

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins***
CW: death of children, PTSD, alcoholism, drug addiction, physical and psychological torture, sex trafficking, suicidal ideation, mass murder
The Hunger Games book 3 of 3
The first time I read this book I was like ‘wow, why does Katniss spend so much time whining and hiding?’ But now I realize that Collins actually wrote a very accurate portrayal of PTSD and it’s honestly crazy that Katniss wasn’t more traumatized than she was. I’m also really interested in the examination of propaganda in this book. Everyone should read this book and then apply this knowledge about the way BOTH SIDES use propaganda to further their cause to the way we consume media.
4/5 propos

New Books Read

The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty***
The Daevabad Trilogy book 3 of 3
CW: genocide, fantasy racism
The thrilling conclusion! These books were so good. I highly recommend this series. I won’t summarize it at all because I don’t want to give anything away, but believe me: you want to read these books.
4.5/5 crocodile gods

Red Rising by Pierce Brown*
Red Rising Saga book 1 of 7
CW: attempted rape, attempted suicide, murder of children, slavery, violence, misogyny, eugenics
I got this book to listen to on a family road trip because I thought my dad would like it. Darrow is a Red, the lowest caste, a lowly miner on Mars. After the execution of his wife for daring defiance, Darrow joins a group of rebels to infiltrate the Golds, the highest caste and plant the seeds for revolution. I enjoyed this dystopian sci-fi. I’m not sure I enjoyed it enough to read all 7 books. I thought the pacing was a little slow, and it took Darrow a long time to figure out his shit. But it was an interesting concept and I am interested to know how Darrow takes down the Golds and liberates the Reds. Alas, that probably won’t happen for 5 of 6 more books.
3/5 Reds

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
I’ll be honest, this was kind of a passive listen for me. As one of the last magicians with the power to travel between parallel worlds, Kell acts as an ambassador for Red London. But when a smuggling job goes wrong, he has to team up with a thief from Grey London to destroy a dangerous magical object. It was very enjoyable, though I don’t feel like I was paying that much attention to it and I already don’t remember it super well.
3/5 Londons

The Tower by Flora Carr***
**Book Hangover Alert
This book was so good. I really love this genre of historical fiction based around a real person and imagining some aspect of their life (Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein, Hamnet, and The Marriage Portrait are other examples). This book follows Mary Queen of Scots and her retinue as they are imprisoned in the tower at Lochleven. This was one of, if not the best, example of third person omniscient point of view I’ve ever read. It was really well done and very effective. I loved all the characters and I love seeing queerness in historical fiction.
4/5 lute players

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell***
CW: child abuse, gaslighting, trauma
This one was so fun! Shesheshen, a monster, is just looking for someone to lay her eggs inside, someone who will make a good nest. But this is complicated by monster hunters determined to kill her and the new feelings she begins to have for one of the monster hunters. This was a light, fun ace monster romance! Very enjoyable.
3.5/5 monsters

City of Thieves by David Benioff*
CW: cannibalism, starvation, war, death, forced prostitution
This was the opposite of fun. I would have stopped reading it if I wasn’t reading it for class. During the siege of Leningrad two young men are tasked with finding eggs for the wedding cake of some higher-up in the Russian army (can’t remember who). It was really awful. I hated everything about it. It was a poorly constructed frame narrative, the external plot was not well connected to the characters’ internal wants, no development of any significant themes, no critiques offered of the idea that the Russian higher-up should be able to have a dozen eggs for a wedding cake when everyone in Leningrad is starving to the point of cannibalism. Also it was what my friend calls a ‘tits and ass’ book, which just means it’s a book written by a man about a man who can only think about women’s tits and asses, despite being in a life and death situation. It was so bad.
1.5/5 eggs

Victorians and the Prehistoric: Tracks to a Lost World by Michael Freeman
I read this as research for a novel, and it was super interesting. It was cool to learn about what the Victorians knew about the history of the earth and what they thought about all the new fossils and things they were suddenly finding. It was fascinating how they attempted to fit these things into their worldview and cosmology.
3.5/5 fossils

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo***
**Book Hangover Alert
Excellent. This was such a cool book, combining historical fiction of the Qing Dynasty in China, folklore and mythology of the fox spirits, and a detective novel. It was so good. We follow Snow, a fox on a mission of vengeance to kill the man who killed her cub. But there are a lot of strange disappearances, rumblings of revolution, and charismatic figures around. Can Bao, a detective hired to discover the name of a woman found frozen to death in an alley, unravel all the tangled threads and discover if foxes are real and involved? I loved the strong voice of Snow and the characters of Bao, Tagtaa, and Shiro, all so different and well painted.
4/5 foxes

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. Though I suppose in the Red Rising society they literally engineer the people of each class to have the skin color and hair color of their class so the fact that they’re all white with golden hair is actually a critique.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Even though the Hunger Games trilogy isn’t incredibly diverse, the themes of anti-authoritarianism, class critique, and critique of the media make these books you should read for your social conscience. Read The Empire of Gold to read a wonderful fantasy set in an Arab-inspired world with LGBTQIA+ themes. Read The Tower for a feminist and LGBTQIA+ historical novel. Read Someone You Can Build a Nest In for a cute LGBTQIA+ fantasy. Read The Fox Wife for a fantasy inspired by folktales of foxes.

July 10, 2024July 10, 2024

June 2024 Books

New Books Read

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske***
The Last Binding book 3 of 3
**Book Hangover Alert
Delightful. Every book in this series has been utterly delightful. This one follows the romance between Lord Hawthorn and Alan Ross, journalist, thief, and seller of pornography who we met in the last book, as they continue to try to keep the Last Contract from stealing the magic of every magician in England. Adored it.
5/5 haughty lords

My Mama, Cass by Owen Elliot-Kugell*
CW: fat shaming
Fascinating memoir from the daughter of Mama Cass Elliot, of the Mamas and the Papas. Elliot-Kugell tells the story of her mother’s rise to fame and her incredible potential cut short. She shares memories of her own and of those close to Cass during her life. Elliot-Kugell also brings up the important theme of fat shaming, which was ever present in Cass’s life and likely had a hand in her untimely death. It’s well known that the medical establishment dismisses overweight people, especially women. We’ll never know for sure, but Elliot-Kugell implies that Cass likely had some serious undiagnosed health problem that led to her heart attack at age 32.
3.5/5 songs

Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle by Elaine Showalter
I read this book as research for my writing. Showalter compares the attitudes around sexual freedom at the end of the 19th century to those at the end of the 20th century. It was a fascinating book, though was more literary criticism than history (which I would have known going into it if I had bothered to look up Showalter, who is a literary critic). The book was written in the 1990s and I wonder what Showalter’s thoughts would be about sexual attitudes today.
3/5 male quest romances

Let us Descend by Jesmyn Ward***
CW: racism, slavery
Ward’s prose is just lovely. This book tells the story of Annis, born into slavery in the deep south. Her mother teaches her to fight and teaches her to stories of her warrior grandmother. Stories that will help Annis when she is sold down the river and must navigate the hell that is the journey south, the slave market, and a new master. Very heavy, obviously, but Ward is clearly a master.
3.5/5 fighting staffs

The Olympian Affair by Jim Butcher*
Cinder Spires book 2 of ?
I’ll be honest, I read the first book in this series a long time ago, and I remember almost nothing about it except that I liked it and was mad I had to wait so long for the second one. I still enjoyed this book, even though I didn’t remember much about the plot of the first one or the relationships of the characters to one another, or if we’d even met some of the characters before. Still enjoyable. Still a big fan of Rowl the cat.
3.5/5 cats

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky***
**Book Hangover
CW: war
I went to an author event at the Philly library with this author and Sara Novic of True Biz, which was so cool. I got both books at the event. This is a poetry book that tells the story of a small town resisting military occupation by all pretending to be deaf. It’s utterly gorgeous and heartbreaking. It was interesting because it wasn’t quite a novel-in-verse, but the poems were related and built on each other in a way you don’t usually see with poetry collections. I loved it. The first poem in the book hit me so hard I had to stop and sit there for a long moment.
5/5 puppets

Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck*
This book was an easy and enjoyable read. Wren’s husband is turning into a great white shark, literally. She must figure out how to navigate love and her marriage through the transformation. I liked the premise of this story. I loved the magical realism aspect of there being an incurable disease where people just slowly turn into animals. I also liked the love story. I didn’t really love the lyric writing style. Occasionally the prose would devolve into poetry, but it felt like it was trying too hard. I didn’t feel like that choice improved the storytelling. I also reached part 2 and was like oh, that’s where I thought the story was going to end. Why are there 200 more pages? I did read the whole thing, and I did enjoy part 2 (which turned out to be Wren’s mom’s backstory), but I thought maybe the timelines of part 1 and part 2 could have been woven together so that they didn’t feel so separate. I literally would have been satisfied stopping at the end of part 1.
3.5/5 great white sharks

Legend by Marie Lu*
Legend book 1 of 4
I loved Lu’s The Kingdom of Back, and one of my MFA professors recommended I read this book as research on writing styles. The novel follows two teens in Los Angeles of the totalitarian future. June is a prodigy groomed for service in the military. Day is a rebel from the slums sabotaging the Republic. When June’s brother, a commander for the Republic is killed and Day is blamed for the murder, the two must race to uncover the truth of what’s really going on in the Republic. It was fun and fast paced.
3/5 trials

The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman*
Sandman Universe
This story is in the Sandman universe as well and follows Timothy Hunter as he tries to decide whether to become a magician. We see John Constantin, a character from the other Sandman comics, and three other magicians each show Timothy something of the world of magic. I think what I liked most about this was the way each section had a different illustrator and a slightly different style. It was really cool.
3/5 owls

Sandman: World’s End by Neil Gaiman
Sandman Volume 8 of 11
I think I’m finally satisfied on my Sandman kick for a while. Can’t read the rest too fast or it’ll be over. This volume is fun. It’s a bunch of nested tales told by people stranded at the inn at the end of the world. Very fun.
3.5/5 necropoli

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. My Mama, Cass is a memoir, so maybe this designation isn’t fair. The Olympian Affair might have some non-white character but race isn’t an important part of the narrative, so it doesn’t seem significant. One of the characters in Shark Heart has a lesbian relationship at one point but the book still feels very straight, you know what I mean? Legend has a few nonwhite characters as well, though race isn’t really examined in this future society.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read A Power Unbound for LGBTQIA+ rep and class consciousness in fantasy. Read Let Us Descend for a magical realism tale of slavery that includes LGBTQIA+ rep. Read Deaf Republic for disability rep and community solidarity during wartime.

June 10, 2024June 10, 2024

May 2024 Books

Books Reread

The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan
The Trials of Apollo book 1 of 5
CW: child abuse, gaslighting
After I finished rereading all the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books and all the Heroes of Olympus books, I thought…why not just keep going? So here I am rereading the Trials of Apollo books too. Enjoyable as ever. Apollo, god of the sun, has been punished by his father Zeus, king of the gods, to be a mortal teenager, until he can restore the great oracles, fix the magic of prophesy, and defeat the sinister Triumvirate. This series is full of old friends and new. Big fan of Meg McCaffrey.
3.5/5 dumpsters

The Dark Prophesy by Rick Riordan
The Trials of Apollo book 2 of 5
CW: child abuse, gaslighting, animal abuse
Apollo continues on his quest with help from some familiar friends. I won’t spoil it.
3.5/5 gryphons

New Books Read

Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood
**Book Hangover
CW: femicide
We all know I love a Greek mythology inspired story, especially queer and feminist ones. This one isn’t a retelling, more of a continuation. When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca from the Trojan War, he kills all the suitors who had been occupying his home and harassing his wife. But he also kills 12 of Penelope’s handmaidens, supposedly corrupted by the suitors. This results in a curse from Poseidon that can only be satisfied by sacrificing 12 more girls every year. But this year, Leto, a girl marked for sacrifice, Matthias, the prince of Ithaca, and Melantho, a mysterious Poseidon-blessed girl, are determined to break the curse. I really enjoyed this one.
4/5 girls with scales around their throats

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske***
**Book Hangover
The Last Binding book 2 of 3
Big fan of these books. The sequel to A Marvellous Light follows Maud Blythe and Violet Debenham as they attempt to help Robin and Edwin to find the last pieces of the contract and stop the sinister plots of the Assembly of magicians. And of course, they fall in love. If you’re looking for a queer, spicy, historical romance, these books are the ones for you.
4/5 illusions

Sandman: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman
Sandman Vol 5
CW: transphobia, gore, murder
I went on a crazy Sandman kick this month. The new Netflix show Dead Boy Detectives (a Sandman spin off) came out and put me in the mood. In this volume Barbie, who first appears in A Doll’s House, must return to her dream land to fight the sinister Cuckoo who is destroying the kingdom Barbie created. This is a good one. Gaiman’s inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters is pretty revolutionary for the 1990s, though not everything aged well.
4/5 dream creatures

Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
I work at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and one of the temporary exhibitions we have right now is about the Tiktaalik fossil, so I wanted to read a little more about it. This book is by one of the paleontologists who found Tiktaalik and he discusses the patterns we can see in the human body and how they are part of the body plans of ancient animals and organisms. Very informative, though I would have liked a little more of the book spent discussing Tiktaalik.
3/5 fish

Sandman: Act III by Neil Gaiman
Sandman radio play
CW: gore, adult themes
Like I said, a kick. I listened to the Sandman Act III radio play on Audible. It covers volumes 6-8 of the comics. It was very enjoyable. Really good performances, and I always enjoy trying to identify the voice actors.
3.5/5 stories told in an inn during a storm at the end of the world

Sandman: Fables & Reflections by Neil Gaiman
Sandman Vol 6
CW: gore
This volume is a collection of one-off stories from the Sandman universe. There are some really good ones, including the Orpheus ones. The others are a little less memorable, but still good.
3/5 wishes

The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty***
**Book Hangover
The Daevabad Trilogy book 2 of 3
CW: attempted genocide, fantasy racism
I was basically screaming through the last hundred pages of the first book in this series, so I was very excited to read the next one. And now I’m dying to read the third one. I won’t do a summary for this one because I don’t want to share any spoilers. Just trust me, you want to read these.
4.5/5 ifrit

The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age by Jake S. Friedman*
This was a super fascinating history book about the labor strikes going on in Hollywood in the 1940s, including at the Walt Disney Company. Friedman does a great job of painting portraits of the two men on either side of the conflict: Walt Disney and Art Babbitt, animator and one of the main strike leaders. Friedman humanizes both men and shows how each came to have his own understanding of the world. Just all around a fascinating read if you’re at all interested in unions, Disney, or animation history.
4/5 striking animators

The Court of Mortals by A.J. Lancaster*
Stariel book 3 of 5
This is such a good cozy fantasy series. Thousand Spire is without a ruler and seems to want Win; the Queen of Priden wants to talk to Hetta; and Win’s murderous sister keeps sending monsters into the mortal realm. I really enjoy this series. I love all the characters, and the reader of the audiobooks does a great job.
3.5/5 grouchy Fae siblings

Dinosaurs: 101 What Everyone Should Know about Dinosaur Anatomy, Ecology, Evolution, and More by Matthew Vavrek, Philip J. Currie, and Victoria Arbour
Since I work at a natural history museum, I’m often asked questions about dinosaurs, which I know nothing about. So I was trying to get a good base of knowledge about dinosaurs. This is a good primer for anyone who just wants a brief, easy overview about dinosaurs.
3/5 triceratops

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo*
**Book Hangover
I’ve heard some people were disappointed by this book. I don’t think I liked it as much as Ninth House but there were some really interesting things happening that I’ll talk more about in a moment. Using the language of her Jewish heritage–dangerous in the time of the Spanish Inquisition–Luzia, a scullery maid, can do small miracles. When her employer finds out, she finds herself embroiled in a competition to serve the King. She must convince the world that her miracles are holy and not blasphemous. At first I was confused about the POV choice. It’s kind of an omniscient narrator, and I couldn’t figure out why we were in Valentina’s head or really spending time with any character other than Luzia. The POV choice felt odd and a little unsettling. Then, I was reading a paper about using the painting Las Meninas to teach Don Quixote to students and how the study of the painting can enhance our understanding of the text and vice versa. And then I thought that Las Meninas actually pairs really well with The Familiar too. The weird thing about the painting is that it looks like its perspective makes sense, but the longer you look at it, the more you realize that the space within the painting isn’t quite possible. It’s so mysterious: what is Velazquez painting on his huge canvas? The King and Queen? Us? Perhaps he’s preparing to paint the Infanta. Maybe there’s a huge mirror where we’re standing and the painting he’s working on is this painting. We as viewers appear to be standing where the King and Queen would be standing were they getting their portrait painted, as we could infer from the mirror at the back of the room reflecting them. All this to say that when I think about The Familiar in relation to Las Meninas, the POV choices make more sense to me. The omniscient narrator views the events from many different angles and when those perspectives are all overlaid on the story, the whole picture doesn’t quite line up in a way that I think is intentional.
4/5 milagritos

Sandman: Brief Lives
Sandman Vol 7
This is a good one. Delirium and Dream go to look for their missing brother Destruction. I am a big fan of Delirium and it was fun to see her play off Dream. I also really like the art in this volume. There are several really good panels.
4/5 sigils

Dead Boy Detectives by Pornsak Pichetshote***
The Sandman Universe
CW: gore
This is a more recent Dead Boy Detectives issue, taking place after the events of the show and the first series of comics, but I couldn’t get a copy of the first book of comics. Edwin and Charles are in LA helping some Thai ghosts after Crystal Palace has left the agency. This one was really fun and it was nice to learn more about Thai concepts of ghosts as Edwin and Charles helped out some newly dead Thai kids.
3/5 ghosts

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. The Familiar does include one lesbian relationship, but for the most part it’s pretty white and pretty straight and pretty cis. The Court of Mortals also has one main gay character, but mostly the book is pretty straight. I know Marius does get his own book though so I’m excited about that. I included The Disney Revolt in this designation even though perhaps the genders, sexualities, and races of those working at Disney at the time weren’t relevant. But I think that may have been something interesting to explore more. Art Babbitt struck me as a bisexual.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read A Restless Truth for LGBTQIA+ romance in historical fantasy. Read A Kingdom of Copper for Arab inspired fantasy with LGBTQIA+ rep. Read Dead Boy Detectives for Thai lore and mythology.

May 1, 2024May 1, 2024

April 2024 Books

Books Reread

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
CW: abusive relationship, alcohol abuse, assault (physical and sexual), death, depression, drugs, prostitution, sexism, suicide (attempted), war
I reread this one this month as a reference for one of my MFA classes. A woman in 1714 makes a deal with the Dark to live forever. But there’s a catch, no one will ever remember her. Three hundred years later, she meets a boy who does. I’ve already reviewed this one for the blog, and you can read my original review here. I was paying more attention to the construction of the novel this time and the way information was revealed to the reader, which I thought was done quite well. Also, addressing my thoughts from the first time I read it, new editions have fixed the Rembrandt mistake. There’s still a mistake that Addie tries Champagne for the first time twice. And about the ending, I like it more now than I did the first time I read it. I love the art history aspects of the story and the way Addie learns to make her mark, but I will say, she could have been fixing climate change or stopping wars by planting ideas in the brains of powerful people, instead of just inspiring artists to make art about her. Just saying. Also, Julia Whelan reads the audiobook, and she has to be one of my favorite narrators.
3.5/5 forgotten faces

The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan
**Book Hangover Alert
The final installment of this wonderful series! The final smackdown with Gaia. Is it controversial of me to like this series even more than the PJO books? We love to see more Reyna and Nico and their developing friendship. We love Piper and Annabeth’s friendship. We love Nico in a Hawaiian shirt. We love Reyna being made pegasus friend (sobbing). We love Will Solace. We love Leo. We love Percy and Annabeth. This book is just excellent, and I don’t have anything else to say about it.
4.5/5 drops of demigod blood (looking at you, Percy)

New Books Read

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer*
CW: sexual assault, domestic abuse, misogyny
About once a month, I just have the urge to binge read a book. This was the book for this month. I read it in one night while my roommates were at a party. Annie is an android designed to be a girlfriend for her owner Doug. But of course, Annie grows and develops and begins to question her place in the world. I liked the concept and the exploration of power, humanity, and misogyny. This reminded me a little of the Sonmi section of Cloud Atlas and a little of Ex Machina. I think the question of what constitutes personhood is really interesting, and I think the critique of women as objects is cleverly done.
3.5/5 robots

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray*
This was not my favorite Victorian novel. It follows Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley during the Napoleonic Wars. I liked the character of Becky Sharp and the satirizing of British society. It was a bit long, and the audio performance a bit slow (I had to speed it up to 1.2x). It was still enjoyable though.
3/5 cashmere shawls

The Iliad by Homer, tr. Emily Wilson
**Book Hangover
I read Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey last year, so I was excited for The Iliad. The Iliad follows Achilles, Patroclus, and Hector during the Trojan War from the point where Agamemnon offends Achilles who then refuses to fight for the Greeks anymore, through to just after Hector’s death. I think I liked The Iliad more than The Odyssey, even though there really are a lot of names and cataloguing of the Greeks and the Trojans. I really like the poetic form Wilson uses, which lends itself so well to reading aloud, just like the original epic poem was intended. I also loved the more accessible language (Pope’s translation seems needlessly obfuscating). I recommend reading the Translator’s Note first (to get in a properly awed state), then read the poem, then go back and read the Introduction.
4/5 shields of Achilles

The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England from 1811-1901 by Kristine Hughes*
I read this book for research for my novel. An every day history book covering the Regency and Victorian periods. It was kind of useful, but I did feel like the majority of the book focused on the 1840s instead of the whole period it says it covers. I was most interested in the 1880s so I didn’t feel like this book was super useful for me. Good background knowledge on the era, though.
2.5/5 pudding recipes

The Story of Art without Men by Katy Hessel***
This book is gorgeous and timely. Named after one of the seminal art history textbooks (The Story of Art), Hessel remedies the dearth of women in that book and shifts the focus to the many woman who have been forgotten or under-appreciated. I didn’t love Hessel’s writing style (a lot of long, overly complicated sentences), and I felt that the book could have been a little more carefully edited. But that said, it’s a wonderful work with beautiful, full-color images that finally gives women artists a little bit of the recognition they deserve.
4/5 women artists

Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Ann Eekhout
**Book Hangover Alert
One of my current favorite genres is historical novels that imagine something about the life of a real person. This story follows Mary Shelley on the fateful trip to Switzerland where she wrote Frankenstein, and a trip she took to Scotland a few years before, weaving the two together to paint a portrait of the inspiration for one of the most famous horror stories ever written. Frankenstein is one of my favorite classics, and I loved this spooky, dream-like, magical look into the mind of Mary. Not sure how much of Eekhout’s characterization of Percy Bysshe Shelley was invented and how much was based on truth, but I found myself questioning why someone as smart and interesting as Mary wound up with him.
4/5 monsters

The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty***
**Book Hangover Alert
Daevabad Trilogy book 1 of 3
CW: fantasy racism, genocide, child trafficking
This book was excellent. Street thief scam artist Nahri accidentally calls up a djinn while doing a fake exorcism on the streets of Cairo. This results in the discovery that she is part djinn and the ifrit are after her. So the djinn she calls up takes her to Daevabad, a city of djinn, where she has to learn to survive the intrigue of the court. The whole ending was a wild ride and I could barely keep myself from throwing the book against the wall (which would have been bad because I was reading the e-version on my iPad). It was so good. I loved the world and the characters and the intrigue. Super excited to read the rest of the series.
5/5 djinn

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist–the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England by Daniel Pool*
I read this one for research as well. It is also a Victorian history book, referencing a lot of things from Victorian novels that are confusing for modern readers. I thought it was a little more useful for my purposes than the Writer’s Guide above, but it could have had more info about death, mourning, and grieving. It does not matter how many Victorian history books I read, I will never understand what English pudding is. (One other interesting thing I learned from this book was that lady’s maids were known as abigails which is actually referenced in Annie Bot–the androids in cleaning and housekeeping mode are called Abigails.)
3/5 types of pudding

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. The main character of Annie Bot is technically not white (the man who owns Annie the android chooses to model her on his Black ex-girlfriend, but made her skin a few shades lighter). But the book doesn’t really engage much with racism, so I’m still giving it this designation. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew has one paragraph on gay men.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read The Story of Art without Men to acknowledge the amazing contribution to art that women, trans, and nonbinary people have made. Read The City of Brass for an amazing Middle Eastern inspired fantasy with some LGBTQIA+ rep.

March 31, 2024March 31, 2024

March 2024 Books

Books Reread

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan
**Book Hangover Alert
Still really enjoying rereading these. Not going to blurb this one because spoilers. Still in awe of Uncle Rick. I really admire the way he had POV chapters from all 7 main characters and it worked. I like the way each section from a certain character had it’s own mini character arc within the whole. Also love my baby Nico, who must be protected at all costs.
4.5/5 dead legionnaires

New Books Read

Ebony Gate by Ken Bebelle and Julia Vee
The Phoenix Hoard book 1 of 2
This one was fun. I read it for my world building class. Emiko is just trying to leave her bloody history in the past, but when a magical debt is called in by a death god, she must take up her sword again to save her new home, San Francisco’s Chinatown. I enjoyed the world and the family politics Vee and Bebelle set up.
3/5 swords

The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: domestic violence, alcoholism
Full disclosure, J.R. Dawson is one of the professors for my program who taught the world building class I keep mentioning. In 1926 the Ringmaster, Rin, keeps her circus of Sparks (individuals with powers) one step ahead of the shadow chasing her from her past, while trying to prevent the next Great War that she and Mauve, a Spark who can see the future, can see coming. Rin must find a way to protect her circus and all those who love her and learn to believe herself worthy of that love. I loved the world of the circus and the nonlinear storytelling and the found family, queer vibes.
4/5 illusions

This Appearing House by Ally Malinenko*
CW: cancer
Once again just have to say that middle grade authors get so much respect from me. They are so important, and everyone should read middle grade books. (I read this one for world building as well.) A house appears at the end of Jac’s street out of nowhere and that combined with Jac’s shaking hands and headaches makes her afraid that her cancer could be returning, 5 years after diagnosis and successful treatment. Jac and her best friend enter the house on a dare, but this isn’t your average haunted house. Jac is sure it’s trying to tell her something. But can she figure it out before it kills her? This book is so important for any kids (or even adults really) living with or recovered from cancer. I cried. I think the percentage of middle grade books that make me cry is higher than the percentage of adult books that make me cry.
4/5 mourners

Apsara Engine by Bishakh Som***
Delightfully strange and queer. This is a collection of graphic short stories. They are very weird but also very good. The art is also lovely.
3/5 odd little creatures

Gone Wolf by Amber McBride***
**Book Hangover
CW: slavery, racism, trauma, grief, death, animal death
This one is middle grade too. Same sentiment as above. I read this in one evening and it was excellent. Inmate Eleven lives in the Bible Boot, a dystopian future American South after a second Civil War. Inmate Eleven is a Blue, brainwashed to believe she is inferior to the Clones. She’s also a genetic match for the president’s son, kept to ensure he lives a long life. In 2022 Virginia, Imogen is struggling to come to terms with the pandemic and the history and present reality of racial trauma in America. The two stories weave together beautifully to paint a portrait of a young Black woman learning to find healing and empowerment. McBride’s poetry background lent a gorgeous lyricism, rhythm, and repetition to the prose. I cried.
4/5 wolves

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
The Vampire Chronicles book 1 of 13
CW: slavery, pedophilia vibes?
I can’t say whether or not I liked this book. It was kind of a slog to get through and I was wishing it was over for most of it. But now that it is over…I sort of want to read the next book? I sort of want to see the movie or the new show? I can’t stop thinking about it? The vampire Louis narrates his life story from his conversion to a vampire in the late 1700s until present day to a human journalist. It’s kinda gay (but could be gayer, tbh). It’s kinda unhinged.
3/5 fangs

Books I did not finish

Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn by Amira El-Zein
I feel bad saying I didn’t finish this because I didn’t stop because it wasn’t good. I was reading it for research on a potential project. For now the project is shelved, but I may continue it some time in the future, in which case I’ll probably return to this book. I did learn a lot about the Muslim concept of the jinn in comparison to humans and it was very interesting.

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read The First Bright Thing for historical fiction that doesn’t erase queer people. Read Apsara Engine for trans voices in graphic storytelling. Read Gone Wolf for a better understanding of racial trauma.

March 2, 2024March 2, 2024

February 2024 Books

February was kind of a reading slump for me.

Books Reread

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan
**Book Hangover Alert
Heroes of Olympus book 3 of 5
This book is just so excellent. I really enjoy the first two books, but this one, when the team is all assembled? *Chef’s kiss* Now that the seven Greek and Roman heroes are all assembled, the quest to defeat Gaia can begin in earnest. This book focuses on the team’s first task, following the Mark of Athena to recover the Athena Parthenos. I’m really impressed by Riordan’s ability to navigate POV with so many important characters. I’ve been thinking a lot about craft lately and his books are just so well structured from a craft standpoint.
10/5 pairs of Chinese handcuffs

New Books Read

The Arrival by Shaun Tan***
This is a lovely little graphic novel told in only pictures. It follows our protagonist as he moves to an unfamiliar, fantastical land and has to adapt to new cultures and customs, make new friends, and not lose himself along the way. It’s so lovely and heartwarming and the way the art tells the story is really impressive. I also love the world Tan creates and all the little creatures that populate it.
3.5/5 lil creatures

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
**Book Hangover Alert
It was so hard to fulfill my obligations while I was reading this book because I just wanted to keep reading it. I love McGuire’s Wayward Children books, but honestly, this book is on another level. It is so good. Alchemist James Reed is attempting to build the Doctrine of Ethos, believed by alchemists to be the fundamental force of the universe. But when he creates two children to embody the Doctrine, he fails to take into account their humanity. Roger and Dodger were created for a purpose, but must find their own way. I feel like that was a very inadequate blurb, so just ignore it and go read the book. This book also has ace rep, which we love. I see you Dodger. Also, not really important, but I learned so much about Hands of Glory? And they are way cooler and have way more lore than JK Rowling made it seem like in Harry Potter.
5/5 timelines

Tethered to Other Stars by Elisa Stone Leahy***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: bullying, microaggressions, racism
Another absolute banger. I read this for my world building class this quarter and it was fantastic. Middle grade novels do not get enough praise. Wendy is a middle schooler trying to fit in to a new school, keeping her head down and avoiding the notice of ICE, when Luz, an undocumented immigrant, takes sanctuary at the church near Wendy’s house and refuses to be deported. Wendy faces bullying, injustice, and the struggles of making new friends. This book tackles a lot of really big issues in such an empathetic, human, and approachable way.
5/5 telescopes

Blind Man’s Bluff by James Tate Hill***
*
This is a fascinating memoir about a man who lost his sight as a teenager but continued to pretend that he could see much better than he could. The story follows his journey through internalized ableism to self-acceptance. I enjoyed this. I thought it was really interesting, though I do feel like Hill could have grappled a little more explicitly with internalized ableism and societal ableism. By the end of the book, it’s understood that he’s come to terms with his own blindness, but I guess I would have appreciated more of a critique of ableism. Hill made some interesting POV choices, telling a couple of the chapters in second person. While I think that was a cool choice and it let me as a reader feel I was experiencing what he did, it did get a little tiresome to read after a while. I think it may have been better to restrict that POV choice to the prologue and tell the rest in first person. But that’s probably just personal preference.
3.5/5 screen readers

Before the Borderless: Dialogues with the Art of Cy Twombly by Dean Rader
**Book Hangover Alert
This book is a collection of ekphrastic poetry on the art of Cy Twombly. When I was the Editor-in-Chief of the Rappahannock Review, we published a poem by Rader that appears in this book, though the version in this book is revised a little. I’ve been thinking a lot about ekphrasis lately as I’m getting ready to teach a course on the interplay between image and text. This whole book was so good. I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of Twombly’s art, but Rader’s poems bring them a lot more meaning and dimension for me. And conversely, when I look at the art, the poems gain new meaning as well. I’m really impressed by Rader’s use of white space and enjambment, and I highly recommend this book to poetry and art lovers.
4/5 paintings

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson*
My dad has been bugging me to read this book for forever, and now I finally have. It gives a good background for understanding Western science up to 2003. I prefer Bryson’s travel writing, just because I’m generally more interested in that, but this book did have some good general knowledge things that I’m glad I know now. It was published in 2003, though, so some things are now outdated. I would personally have been more interested in learning about women’s contributions to science and scientific inquiry form non-Western countries, but I guess that wasn’t the goal of this book.
3/5 male scientists

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett*
City watch book 1 of 8
Discworld book 8 of 41
It’s always a good day to read a Terry Pratchett book. The Night Watch, led by Captain Vimes, is a bit of a joke in Anhk-Morpork, capital of the Discworld, but when a mysterious Brotherhood begins summoning dragons as part of a plot to put a puppet king on the throne, Vimes has got to shape up and get to the bottom of it. This book has all of the trademarks of a wonderful Terry Pratchett novel, plus some cute swamp dragons.
3.5/5 dragons

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people.

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read The Arrival for a visual telling of an immigration story. Read Tethered to Other Stars to learn more about undocumented immigration and racism and microaggressions as they affect children and families. Though I feel like it could have done more, Read Blind Man’s Bluff to learn more about internalized ableism and to learn more about an experience of blindness.

February 1, 2024March 2, 2024

January 2024 Books

January’s books set a pretty high standard for the year. I hope all the books I read this year are as good.

New Books Read

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi***
CW: war
If you’re trying to educate yourself on the Israel/Palestine conflict, this is a good one. Khalidi begins his history in 1917 after the break up of the Ottoman empire and traces the impacts of various outside forces on the region. Khaldi breaks his survey int 6 declarations of war, or resolutions or accords that resulted in the continued colonization and oppression of the Palestinian people. This book has so much information in it. I think my main problem in reading it was that I didn’t have much background knowledge of the region. This wouldn’t be the book I would start with, if you’re trying to learn about Palestine, but it does have tons of good information.
3/5 declarations of war

Lucha of the Night Forest by Tehlor Kay Mejia
Lucha of the Night Forest book 1 of 2
CW: addiction, substance abuse
This was a nice little dark fantasy. After Lucha loses everything, she makes a pact with a sinister god to destroy the thing that has destroyed her city, her mother, and now her sister: a drug called olvida. But there’s more to the forest–and to Lucha–than meets the eye. With the help of a priestess of the forest goddess, Lucha discovers her own powers and the secrets of the gods. This was enjoyable. I liked the world. I’m not sure it needs to be a series. I did feel like we could have solved all the problems in one book if we’d tried harder.
3.5/5 hallucinogenic hares

Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber
Once upon a Broken Heart book 1 of 3
This one was so fun. Just before the wedding of her lover and her step-sister, broken-hearted Evangeline Fox makes a wish to crafty Fate, Jacks, the Prince of Broken Hearts. This foolish wish sets off a chain of events and intrigues that span continents as Evangeline tries to find her happily ever after. This book takes place in the same world as Caraval, and I love the world Garber created. It’s also nice to see Jacks again. (How can a character with zero morals be so lovable??) Garber is also excellent at describing clothing. I want every outfit described in the book. Excited to read the rest!
4/5 gorgeous outfits

Felix Ever After by Kacen Calendar***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: anti-trans prejudice, dead-naming, misgendering, body dysphoria
I love that I read a book whose title included the words “once upon” and then immediately read a book with a title including the words “ever after.” I just think it’s neat. Felix is a trans high schooler trying to find love and focus on his summer art portfolio for his elite high school. But Felix is being harassed online and in school by an anonymous fellow student at his school. Determined to figure out who’s behind it and get revenge, Felix is blind to the love that surrounds him. This book was so wonderful. I read the first 50 pages and then the next day I read the rest of it in one go. I could not put it down. The end was so healing and wonderful.
5/5 self-portraits

G. P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray
Beasts of Prey 1 of 3
I wanted to like this book and I didn’t and I couldn’t really figure out why. After a terrible fire at the Night Zoo, indentured servant Koffi and disgraced initiate Ekon must work together to track down a terrifying beast in the impenetrable Greater Jungle. But they each have their own agenda and, worse, so does a suspiciously cult-like religious order of warriors Ekon was expelled from, who are also looking for the beast. This book has an interesting world, character development, a pretty map in the front cover. I don’t know why I didn’t like it. I just didn’t really want to keep reading it. I got to the end of every chapter, and I was like, I could be done now. Maybe I just wasn’t the target audience (which is okay!). I did finish it because I didn’t feel it was fair to give up when I didn’t even know why I didn’t like it. But I won’t be reading the rest of them.
3/5 jungle beasts

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune
**Book Hangover Alert
Obsessed with TJ Klune. I loved The House on the Cerulean Sea, and I love this book too. Think Pinocchio + Wall-e, with a dash of Frankenstein–if Frankenstein had loved his monster instead of fearing him. Obsessed. Victor grows up in the woods, the only human raised by three robots on the edge of civilization. After Victor’s father (also a robot) is destroyed and taken to the city, Victor and his robot friends must go on a journey to save him–and also the world. We love to see asexual representation, and this book has it. For me, there was exactly the right amount of romance in this book (which I do realize means less than most people seem to want). Also I want to say that the narrator of the audiobook is 10/10. This book is a warm hug. It’s hilarious. It’s poignant. It’s devastating. It’s beautiful. I adored it.
5/5 robots

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: anti-trans prejudice, misgendering, body dysmorphia, dead naming
This book was a wild ride from start to finish. Shizuka Satomi, a famous violin teacher, is looking for her seventh and final student, whose soul will complete the bargain Shizuka made with Hell. Shizuka finds Katrina, a young trans violinist, who has been forced to run away from home. But both Shizuka and Katrina get a little more than they bargained for and discover the secret to escaping Hell. There are also aliens building a Stargate in a giant donut. This book is just so good. Also a warm hug. So healing and lovely. The research Aoki had to do for this book just astounds me. And don’t read this book on an empty stomach. The food descriptions are incredible.
5/5 donuts

Mother Clap’s Molly House by Rictor Norton***
CW: homophobia, rape, pedophilia
I’ve been trying to get my hands on a copy of this book for ages, and I finally got it through inter-library loans at Drexel. Norton’s book explores the formation of a gay subculture in England between 1700 and 1830. This includes the examination of molly houses, or the first gay clubs. It was so fascinating. There’s so little research out there on molly houses, so I’m glad I finally got to read this book.
3.5/5 molly houses

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: foot binding, misogyny
This book was stunning. A sweeping historical fiction that follows the life of Lady Tan Yunxian, a woman doctor who really lived during the late 1400s and early 1500s in Imperial China. Though we have some documentation about Lady Tan, much about her life remains unknown. See creates an incredibly vivid nuanced portrait of Yunxian and the lives of women in this time period. It’s a wonderful story of women’s friendship and how woman can thrive in a society designed for and by men. I will say the descriptions of foot binding were very difficult to read. I’m in pain just thinking about it. Also so impressed by the amount of research See did.
4.5/5 remedies

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
CW: torture, genocide, experimentation on humans, rape
Randomly decided to read this because I was thinking about a quote from the movie. This series of comics follows V, a mysterious masked vigilante as he works for vengeance and anarchy in a near-future Great Britain. It’s actually surprisingly different from the movie. I guess serialized comics are a much different shape than a 2 hour movie. I know Alan Moore also hated the movie. The comics are less about the people organizing to overthrow the government and more about vengeance and anarchy. The government men in the comics in general had more nuance (although I couldn’t keep them all straight), and it was disappointing that two of the five female characters in the comics didn’t get to be in the movie. Moore and Lloyd’s comic was interesting in that it came out in the 80s and 90s and it had more than just one type of woman. It’s not perfect, but it’s surprisingly good in it’s female representation. Also the oppressive authoritarian government thing, unfortunately still relevant. One more thing, but it’s a spoiler. Read More: SPOILERS AHEAD

I’m not sure I can forgive V for torturing Evey, even if it was to teach her something, “to free her” from the oppression in her mind, even if she forgave him. However, I’m not sure the comics really ask me to forgive him. The movie does, and I think that’s why I’ve always felt weird about it. But in the comics, I don’t feel like I’m asked to excuse V’s behavior. He’s not a good guy. He’s bringing down an oppressive regime, yes, but he’s not noble. Or at least, that was my interpretation.

3.5/5 Guy Fawkes masks

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine for an in-depth look at conflict in the region. Read Felix Ever After for a heartwarming LGBTQIA+ love story. Read Light from Uncommon Stars for a warm hug of a book that deals with LGBTQIA+ themes. Read Mother Clap’s Molly House to learn more about gay and lesbian history in England. Read Lady Tan’s Circle of Women for an empowering tale of women in Imperial China.