Tag: mythology

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May 2024 Books

Books Reread

Disney Hyperion

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

Disney Hyperion

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

HarperCollins

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

PanMacmillan UK

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

DC Vertigo

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

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

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

Audible

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

DC Vertigo

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

HarperVoyager

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

Chicago Review Press

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

Audible

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

Van Rye Publishing

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

Macmillan

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

DC Vertigo

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

DC Black Label

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.

**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 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.

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.

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April 2024 Books

Books Reread

Tom Doherty Associates

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

Audible

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

Pushkin Press

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

HarperCollins

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

Simon and Schuster

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.

**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 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.

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.

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POV: You grew up loving Percy Jackson and now you need something to fill the Greek mythology shaped hole in your heart

First of all, just read Percy Jackson and the Olympians again. I promise, even if you haven’t read then since you were in the target audience, they hold up for adults. Still excellent. Then read the Heroes of Olympus. Then read the Trials of Apollo. Then The Sun and the Star. Then of course, the new additions to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. But after that, if you’re still hankering for some Greek mythology, check out these picks (click the link to go to my review of the book on the blog–you may have to scroll down):

The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, tr. Emily Wilson
Look, you can’t go wrong with the OGs. These two classics can seem dense and intimidating but let me just tell you: the Emily Wilson translations are a delight. Hers is the only translation that keeps the text in metered poetry and that oral/auditory quality really sets her translation apart from others (not that I’ve read another translation in full–I couldn’t get through any of them).

Circe by Madeline Miller
The story of the enchantress Circe on whose island Odysseus is shipwrecked and his men turned into pigs. Feminist take on one of the many women in Greek mythology who is painted as a villain. So, so lovely.

Song of Achillies by Madeline Miller
Gay and slaps. Trojan war retelling from the perspective of Patroclus. Sometimes I see TikToks of people who apparently don’t know how this story ends, (which always surprises me, but I guess some people don’t have a special interest in Greek mythology) so I won’t say more.

Lore by Alexandra Bracken
Modern urban fantasy. Purge style, once every seven years the Greek gods are made mortal and descendants of the ancient bloodlines try to kill them and seize their divine power and immortality. Super hard to put down and 10/10 banter.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint
The story of the women of the Trojan war: Clytemnestra, wife of Agamemnon, Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, and Cassandra, seer and sister of Paris. I adored this.

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
The tale of what happened to Ariadne after Theseus defeats the minotaur and takes Ariadne from her homeland. Sad but very good.

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint
Follows Atalanta, the only woman on Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece. Gorgeous.

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron
Contemporary fantasy about the descendants of Jason of the Golden Fleece. Gay and slaps.

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
The story of Medusa told in a constellation of POVs of the women around her. Feminist and fascinating.

Ithaca by Claire North
The Songs of Penelope book 1 of 3
What happened to Penelope while Odysseus was gone for 20 years. The story is told by Hera and it’s just fabulous.

Books I haven’t read yet but I’m excited about

Medea by Rosie Hewlett
Medea is usually painted as quite the villain (of the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, if you’re not a nerd), so I’m interested to see Hewlett’s take on her story.

Herc by Phoenicia Rogerson
How different is the Disney Hercules movie compared to the original myth? O let me count the ways. My sister said this book was really good, so I’m excited about it.

Hera by Jennifer Saint
Jennifer Saint has yet to write a book I don’t like, so I’m super excited for her next book which is coming out soon!

Lies We Sing to the Sea by Sarah Underwood
Based on the story of Penelope’s twelve handmaidens who were hanged, but taking place a generation later. I’ve heard it’s sapphic and I’m excited about it.

The rest of The Songs of Penelope series by Claire North
More Penelope? Yes, please.

The new Percy Jackson and the Olympians books
Need I say more?

Bonus: not Greek mythology, but same vibes

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
The Ramayana from the perspective of the so-called evil stepmother of Rama. I cannot convey how good this book is.

The Magnus Chase books by Rick Riordan
People be sleeping on these books. They’re really good.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Just some Norse myths, told excellently.

Really anything by Rick Riordan or from Rick Riordan Presents
Some stand outs include Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia and Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, but you really can’t go wrong.

A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross
Elements of Cadence book 1 of 2
Celtic mythology vibes.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
The Legendborn Cycle book 1 of 3
Contemporary take on Arthuian legend.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty
Sinbad the sailor vibes.

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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

Hodder Children’s Books

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

Tor Books

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

National Geographic Books

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

Broadway Books

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.

**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 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.

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.

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December 2023 Books and End of Year Roundup

End of Year Roundup

StoryGraph book total: 120 (includes all books, new and reread, and the two Seanan McGuire short stories)

Number of pages read this year: 44,021 (hours listened to audiobooks converted to pages)

Number of new books read this year: 98 (I did not count the two Seanan McGuire short stories on my spreadsheet)

Number of books reread this year: 20

Number of books by women, trans, and nonbinary people read this year (only counting new books read): 68

Number of books by BIPOC this year (only including new books read): 28

Number of books by disabled authors this year (only including new books read)*: 1

*This can only include authors I know are disabled. More on the list could be and I might not know. Definite room for improvement in this category!

Breakdown by genre (only counting new books read)
-Fiction: 76 (fantasy: 41; science fiction: 7; YA: 7*; historical fiction: 5; classics: 4; literary fiction: 4; thriller: 2; dystopian: 1; graphic novel: 1; mystery: 1; romance: 1; children’s literature: 1)
-Nonfiction: 21 (essays: 4; memoir: 4; true crime: 3; art: 2; biography: 2; graphic format: 2; reference: 2; autobiography: 1; history: 1)
-Poetry: 1
-Play: 1

*Many of the fantasy, sci-fi, and historical fiction books I read were also in the YA age range.

First book of the year: Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

Last book of the year: Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

Most read author of the year: David Mitchell (8 books) and Rick Riordan (8 books)

Best books of the year (in no particular order; not including rereads):
Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater
The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin
A Fire Endless by Rebecca Ross
Babel by R.F. Kuang
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty
Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo
Atalanta by Jennifer Saint
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow (below)
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (below)
Ithaca by Claire North (below)

Worst books of the year:
The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu
Friday by Robert Heinlein (apologies to my father)

Books I didn’t finish:
Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir

December Books Reread

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
Book 1 of 5 Heroes of Olympus
I remember the first time I read this book, I was a little disappointed because Percy isn’t in it and I missed him as a narrator. But rereading it, I was happy to return to getting to know Jason, Leo, and Piper, who I had grown to love throughout the series. This is the first book in the Heroes of Olympus series, which follows the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. This book follows Jason Grace, who wakes up on a bus with Piper and Leo with no memory of who he is. He, Piper, and Leo, all half-bloods, end up at Camp Half Blood where they must go on a quest to save Hera, queen of the gods, get Jason’s memory back, and maybe figure out where Percy Jackson disappeared to. It is excellent. I love that the Aphrodite kids finally get a redemption hero in Piper.
4/5 baseball-bat-wielding satyrs

The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan
Book 2 of 5 Heroes of Olympus
And Percy’s back! This book follows Percy as he wakes up missing his own memory and must make his way to Camp Jupiter, a camp for Roman demigods. He meets Frank and Hazel and learns of the disappearance of Jason Grace from Camp Jupiter. Percy, Hazel, and Frank must go on their own quest and unite Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter for the impending fight with Gaia, foretold in the Great Prophesy. I love Frank and Hazel so much, so it was nice to reread this one.
4.5/5 gold-eating horses

New Books Read

The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak*
Do you ever binge-read things not because you like them but just because you want to? I didn’t think this book was amazing, but that did not stop me from reading it in like two days just because I wanted to spend the whole weekend reading. It’s a thriller. I’m realizing I don’t really like thrillers. CIA agent (whose name I can’t remember) gets a tip that an American politician is about to be assassinated, but her superiors don’t believe the tip. When the American politician dies, she is pulled into a Russian plot to destabilize the US, and the more she learns, the more she suspects her father, a former CIA agent, is somehow wrapped up in the intrigue, relating back to something that happened when he was stationed in Helsinki when she was just a child. The characters were pretty flat; the plot was reasonably entertaining. I kept waiting for a twist that didn’t really come, and the ending didn’t feel totally wrapped up. But it was okay.
3/5 Russian oligarchs

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
**Book Hangover Alert
This book was the spooky vibes I was looking for when I read The Stranger Upstairs. Opal is a young woman just trying to take care of her younger brother after the death of their mother in a small town slowly being poisoned by the nearby power plant. Out of desperation and strange curiosity, Opal takes a job as a housekeeper for the town’s most mysterious young man at the local haunted house. But Opal will learn there’s much more to the house, the young man, the town, and her own past than she ever knew. It was delightful. I loved Opal and her found family and the house and the spooky vibes.
5/5 spooky creatures

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins***
**Book Hangover Alert
*This book includes only straight white cis people
Prequel to the Hunger Games Series
CW: war, death, oppression
This book somehow ended up with all three designations. Yes, it only includes straight, white cis people, but I think it is at least partly intentional, as it supports the repressive society Collins is creating. And I still believe this is a book that will help improve your social consciousness, despite that lack of diversity. Collins writes an incisive critique of war, fascism, and the sensationalization of news and reality TV. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows a young Coriolanus Snow growing up in the Capital and shows how his involvement in the development of the Hunger Games leads to the games we see in the Hunger Games trilogy 64 years later. I know this book came out in 2020 and Collins probably wasn’t explicitly basing it on the Israel/Palestine conflict (and let’s face it, there are many authoritarian regimes to be inspired by–not least her explicit Roman Empire references), but it’s impossible not to draw parallels between the propaganda of Israel and the outsized reaction of the Israeli military following the October 7th Hamas attack. As the United States slides toward fascism, I feel like Collins was like, “You guys apparently didn’t get it when I wrote the first three Hunger Games books, so here’s another one. Do you get it now?!”
5/5 sponsors

Reading Pictures by Alberto Manguel
I read this in preparation for a class I’m going to teach in the spring. It is a series of essays about how to interpret art. It was fascinating and I enjoyed it very much. I plan to use several of the essays as readings for my class.
4/5 paintings

Zeroville by Steve Erickson
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: child abuse
I don’t even know how to write a review for this book. It was very weird. In a good way. Movie fanatic Vikar moves to LA in 1969 to work in the movies. He works as a set builder and movie editor and through dreams and the movies he sees, begins to make a momentous discovery. Vikar read as an autistic character to me, and I thought that was well done. I also liked the way Erikson played with form in this novel, from the chapter breaks and numeration, and the way his scenes sometimes read like individual frames in a movie. Wild.
4/5 movies

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: sexual assault, oppression, war, abuse, torture
If you’re looking to learn more about Palestine, but not really feeling history/nonfiction books, this is a great choice. The story follows Nahr, a Palestinian growing up in Kuwait, where her parents fled to from Palestine, and her journey to return to Palestine and work for the freedom of her homeland. The prose was lovely; Nahr’s journey from thoughtless teen to mature woman was beautifully done. And I also feel like a learned a lot about the Palestinian conflict, without having to read history.
4.5/5 dances

The Kingdom of Sweets by Erika Johansen*
This retelling of The Nutcracker was fun for December. It was deliciously dark and I really enjoyed it. Clara and Natasha are twins, blessed or cursed at birth by their godfather Herr Drosselmeyer, Clara to be light and Natasha to be dark. The sisters grow up and apart with these designations coloring all their relationships. The Christmas they turn seventeen, Herr Drosselmeyer returns with enchanted gifts: a nutcracker and a clown that seem to be more than just toys. That night the girls cross into the Kingdom of Sweets, and Natasha takes the chance to seize her own destiny. I was just a little disappointed there was no Mouse King in this retelling. I love a good Mouse King.
3.5/5 sweets

Ithaca by Claire North
**Book Hangover Alert
Book 1 of 3 House of Odysseus
You know me, I’m a sucker for a Greek myth retelling, especially a feminist one. This book tells the story of Penelope, wife of Odysseus, as she waited twenty long years for his return. If this is a story you think you know, you’ve never heard it told by Hera, queen of the gods. I loved it. It was excellent. I’m excited to read the rest of the books.
5/5 warrior women

Disney After Dark by Ridley Pearson*
Book 1 of 7 Kingdom Keepers
I’ve been meaning to read these for a long time. They’re fun for us crazy Disney nerds. Finn and four other kids are chosen to be holographic hosts at the Walt Disney World parks. But the kids quickly learn that it wasn’t just a quick acting job; every night when they go to sleep, they wake up as holographs in the Magic Kingdom. They must work together to save the park from the forces of evil. It’s fun. It’s not amazing or anything. But a quick, easy read.
3.5/5 Small World dolls

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim
**Book Hangover Alert
Book 1 of 2 Six Crimson Cranes
And we go out with a bang! My last book of the year was excellent, thanks for asking. This book has everything; a beautiful map, a lush, Asian-inspired fantasy world, evil enchanters, magic, dragons, a plucky young heroine, and just a little sprinkling of romance. I adored it. Shiori is dreading her betrothal, but she’s got bigger problems. Magic has been banned in Kiata, and Shiori has a natural talent. After Shiori learns her stepmother is also an enchantress, her stepmother curses her and her six brothers and banishes them to the outskirts of the empire. Shiori must figure out how to break the curse and save her kingdom.
4.5/5 paper birds

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

**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! First a caveat: I have decided that simply having queer people and/or people of color in a book is not enough to qualify it for the Books for a Social Conscience distinction. That sets the bar too low. So while in the past I would have included The Heroes of Olympus books, Starling House, Ithaca, and Six Crimson Cranes, I will not be including them in the new system. We love representation! Don’t get me wrong, but honestly at this point if you don’t have queer people and/or people of color in your book, like what are you doing? I will now be including a new designation: *This book only includes straight, white, cis people.

Anyway, read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes for a critique of fascism, war, and media. Read Against the Loveless World to learn more about the Israel/Palestine conflict, particularly how it affects women.

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.

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November 2023 Books

Books Reread

Disney Hyperion

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians book 5 of 5
**Book Hangover Alert
The thrilling conclusion! These books were so good. I am so excited for the new TV show.
5/5 pegasi

BBC

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare*
Yes, I read it again even though I read it last month. I listened to the BBC radio play version this time. Still stellar.
4/5 love flowers

New Books Read

Ways of Seeing by John Berger
It’s Nonfiction November apparently. I read this book in preparation for a class I’m going to teach in the spring about the connection between image and text, or art and writing. It was fabulous. It’s quite old, but still relevant.
4/5 visual essays

Graphic UniverseTM

Artie and the Wolf Moon by Olivia Stephens
This was the big library book club book, so they had unlimited e-copies for people to borrow. So obviously I got it and read it too. Artie is a teen struggling with all the regular teen things with her single mom when she discovers she’s a werewolf just like her mom. Suddenly, she has to deal with school and friendships and also learning to use her powers and staying safe from vampires. It’s a graphic novel so it’s a pretty light easy read. It was enjoyable. I don’t have a ton to say about it. I’m not in the target audience of young queer black girls, who I think will really love this book. For me I thought the author could have gone farther in developing the theme of community and its importance in African American society.
3/5 werewolves

Penguin Books Limited

That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey
This was fun. At a weeklong summer camp for adults, Garland must heal from the hurt of her divorce in order to discover the truth about herself and open herself to new queer love. It’s pretty simple and predictable, but I guess that’s what people want with romance books. I don’t read a ton of romance books unless they’re queer.
3/5 camp t-shirts

Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel by Lisa Cron
I read this for a fiction class I’m taking for my MFA program. I usually hate books like this. I don’t really believe that anyone can teach you how to write. They can teach you how they write, but you have to figure out what strategies work for you. I thought Cron had some useful things to say about story and your main character’s driving misbelief and how the inner story (the change the main character goes through) drives the plot. When she gets to the parts about outlining all the scenes, I experience my regular frustration at these books, though. I hate writing really in depth outlines because it makes me not excited to actually write the book because I already know everything about the story. I like writing to discover the story, not figuring everything out before I start. Maybe this isn’t as efficient as Cron’s system and I don’t have a book deal to prove my way works, so I could be wrong. But I don’t think I’ll be adopting all of Cron’s strategies.
2.5/5 scene cards

Abrams Books

Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd***
I read this hoping to learn more about queer London in the nineteenth century. Ackroyd’s history spans London’s queer history from the Romans until the 2010s. It was actually almost overwhelming how much information was in this book. I had planned to just read the section on the nineteenth century, but it was so fun, I read the whole thing. The main takeaway I think from Ackroyd’s book is that there have always been queer people, in London and elsewhere, and even if they would not define themselves with the words and categories we use today, these feelings and preferences aren’t new. It does make me quite sad though how much queer history is suppressed.
3.5/5 dancing boys

Fantagraphics

Palestine by Joe Sacco***
If you’re one of the many people right now trying to educate yourself on the Israel/Palestine conflict, this is a great primer. Sacco, a Maltese American, is a graphic journalist who visited Palestine in late 1991 and early 1992, trying to himself understand the conflict. What I like about Sacco is his honesty. He has no illusions about what he’s there to do. He’s looking for a story, for anything good for the comic. He’s suspicious and questions everything. He tries to unravel the complicated history and current situation by sharing the stories of many Palestinians, and even a few Israelis.
3.5/5 olive trees

Little, Brown

How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: eating disorders
This book was stunning and gorgeous. The ten lyrical personal essays each explore a different sea creature and through that creature, one facet of Imbler’s life. The metaphors aren’t gimmicky or trite, but are truly insightful and thought provoking. I read this because someone had recommended one of the essays as something I could use in my class that I’m designing, but it was so good that I had to read the whole book. I aspire to write essays like these.
4.5/5 salps

Disney Electronic Content

The Curse of the Specter Queen byJenny Elder Moke*
Book 1 of 2 Samantha Knox Series
This book was so fun. Definitely one of my lighter reads this month. Samantha Knox works in an antique bookstore repairing old books in the 1920s. When a mysterious package arrives followed by some sinister men that burn down her shop looking for the package, Sam is catapulted into an adventure trying to solve an archeological mystery and stop those who want to bring about the Curse of the Specter Queen. Full of Gaelic and Celtic folklore and a sparkling cast of characters, this book gave me the escape I needed. My only quibble is that Bennet was kind of a stuffed shirt.
4/5 antique books

Penguin Random House Canada

A History of my Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt***
Another book of essays, Belcourt examines the unique experience of being First Nations and queer in Canada. His essays are not only personal essays, but bring in theory and his deep reflections. Belcourt is also a poet and his style is interesting, both lyrical and academic as he tries to puzzle out how to live in this world.
3.5/5 queer bodies

Profile

Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape by Raja Shehadeh***
Another good one for those trying to learn more about Palestine. Shehadeh, a lawyer and human rights activist, takes readers on six walks through the hills of Palestine from 1978 to 2006. He reflects on the changing landscape, noticing new Israeli settlements and roads and new laws that prevent him from walking where he once did. Though his walks have become increasingly dangerous, it is so clear that Shehadeh is deeply connected to the land, and I feel his love for it as a reader. Reading about the destroyed ecosystems and now inaccessible walking routes, I feel great sadness for Shehadeh’s land. The policies the Israeli government used to take Palestinian land are eerily similar to the way American settlers took Native American land, claiming that no one was using or cultivating the land, when that was not true, and then mismanaging the land and causing its degradation. Shehadeh is from Ramullah in the West Bank, whereas Sacco focused on Gaza, so it was nice to read both to understand the two different areas and the way people live in each. The West Bank is a patchwork of ever increasing Israeli settlements, interspersed with Palestinian villages. Gaza is a concentration camp.
4/5 walks

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

**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! First a caveat: I have decided that simply having queer people and/or people of color in a book is not enough to qualify it for the Books for a Social Conscience distinction. That sets the bar too low. So while in the past I would have included Artie and the Wolf Moon and That Summer Feeling, I will not be including them in the new system. We love representation! Don’t get me wrong, but honestly at this point if you don’t have queer people and/or people of color in your book, like what are you doing? I will now be including a new designation: *This book only includes straight, white, cis people.

Anyway, read Queer City to learn about how queerness has always existed and been part of history. Read Palestine to learn more about the Israel/Palestine conflict. Read How Far the Light Reaches to discover more queer, non-white perspectives. Read A History of My Brief Body to understand how Canada’s colonialism still affects Native populations, especially queer Natives. Read Palestinian Walks to learn more about the Israel/Palestine conflict, specifically in how it relates to the land.

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.

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October 2023 Books

Books Reread

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang***
**Book Hangover Alert
Lots of rereading this month. I reread Kuang’s Yellowface, even though I just read it in May, because Kuang came to speak to my MFA cohort. She was fabulous. So smart and so kind. This book was also just as good the second time. I really admire how Kuang created the character of June–someone who we don’t like, who is not a good person, but is still compelling and complicated, and I have to keep reading about. (About the photo, Kuang told us in one of her chats with my MFA cohort that one of the early design drafts of the book had a maneki neko on the back cover, which is not relevant at all to the story. They’re Japanese, not Chinese, but I guess maybe the designers were like ‘they’re stereotypically Asian? And the book is about Asian stereotypes as perceived by white people?’)
5/5 angry tweets

Audible

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians book 4 of 5
This is the Percy Jackson book that I remembered the least about. It was nice to reread it and get to see more of Rachel Elizabeth Dare and Tyson.
3.5/5 hundred handed ones

St. Martin’s Griffin

Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston***
**Book Hangover Alert
Still gay. Still slaps. You can read my original review in the January 2021 blog. I wanted to reread this after seeing the movie, which I think Amazon Prime did a great job with. Of course a lot of the details are missing–there’s only so much of a 400 page book you can put in a 2 hour movie. I was sad Alex’s sister June disappeared, but she was kind of combined with Nora. I was also a little sad the movie cut the Rafael Luna subplot and much of Henry’s family drama. But my biggest beef with the movie, I think, is that the president wasn’t divorced. I really appreciated the family dynamics in the book.
5/5 historical love letters

*A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
The project I’m writing for NaNoWriMo this year is a retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in a high school a la She’s the Man and 10 Things I Hate About You. So I reread the play. A Midsummer Night’s Dream involves many couples and a lot of confusion as Oberon, king of the faeries and his sidekick Puck do a little matchmaking that doesn’t go quite as planned. I don’t think this is Shakespeare’s best comedy, but it is still great and it’s the first Shakespeare story I remember reading. I also saw it performed at the Globe in London and it was most excellent. So I had fun reading it and underlining good lines and being inspired for my NaNo project.
4/5 faeries

New Books Read

Macmillan Publishers

Teach the Torches to Burn by Caleb Roehrig
Part of the Remixed Classics series
In the realm of Shakespeare retellings is this Romeo and Juliet retelling. It’s unfortunately not set in a high school, but is set in the original time and place. The story follows Romeo, who is gay in this version, and explores the question of controlling one’s own destiny. I enjoyed it. It wasn’t how I would have done an R&J retelling, but that is okay. I did really like that Juliet was ace. One thing I struggle with in Shakespeare adaptations is the language. In my opinion the best options are: 1) keep Shakespeare’s language no matter what else you change (this is why Baz Luhrman’s R&J works and the 2013 movie with Hailee Steinfeld does not) or 2) stick to contemporary language (see She’s the Man, 10 things I Hate About You, and Rosaline). Where the Hailee Steinfeld movie goes wrong is by not using Shakespeare’s words, but still trying to use some kind of old fashioned language. It’s just bad. This novel I felt did try a to sound a little old fashioned in its prose which really bothered me during the first half. I eventually got used to it, but I thought Roehrig should have just stuck with a more contemporary voice.
3.5/5 torches

Audible

*Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
CW: murder, gore, body horror
I love an Erik Larson history book. Thunderstruck follows the development of Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless communication technology, interwoven with the story of Hawley Crippen, a mild-mannered doctor who becomes an unlikely murderer. Larson seamlessly weaves these two seemingly disparate stories together. I wasn’t as interested in all the technical discussion of Marconi’s invention, but Larson does do a pretty good job of making it understandable for those of us who don’t know much about science or technology.
3.5/5 wireless messages

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
Legends and Lattes book 1
This book has been described as a warm hug of a book, and that is 100% correct. Leaving a life of adventuring, Viv opens a coffee shop in a city that’s never heard of coffee before. With her newfound friends, she has to learn to solve problems without her sword. I just adored it. I love a good found family trope. I love a low stakes reading experience. I love two strong independent women falling in love.
5/5 cups of coffee

*The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin
CW: alcoholism, murder, depression, anxiety
This was my Book of the Month for September and I must say I was disappointed. I’m in general not much of a thriller reader but I thought I’d try it. It sounded spooky and fun for autumn. It was not really that spooky and not really fun. I also wouldn’t say I found myself ‘thrilled.’ Sarah Slade and her husband move into a spooky murder house with the intention of fixing it up and selling it. But Sarah’s Instagram perfect life isn’t perfect IRL. Her marriage is failing and it seems like the house doesn’t want to be fixed. The main character is really unlikable, and while I don’t think that’s a problem in and of itself (see June from Yellowface above), I didn’t find the main character compelling in any way. I didn’t care if she lived or died. I didn’t care if anyone in the story lived or died (except for the cat! I was concerned when the cat almost died). One more complaint which is a spoiler: Read More: SPOILERS AHEAD

I also didn’t feel like Matlin actually decided what the deal with the house was. Was the house actually alive and driving people crazy? Or was it just carbon monoxide poisoning? Instead of the ending feeling ambiguous and open for the reader, it just felt like Matlin didn’t make a decision.


2.5/5 poisoned cats

Tor Publishing Group

In Mercy, Rain by Seanan McGuire
Wayward Children companion
This isn’t a novel, it’s a short story companion to the Wayward Children books, but I’m including it on the blog anyway. I usually grab one of the Wayward Children books from the library every time I don’t have anything to read on Libby because my holds won’t be in for a few weeks. But this time I discovered I’ve read all the Wayward Children books that are currently published. So I checked out this short story and the next one. This one is a story about Jack, one of our enduring favorite characters from the series, and it explores her training with Dr. Bleak and her meeting Alexis.
3/5 lightning strikes

Tor Publishing Group

Skeleton Song by Seanan McGuire
Wayward Children companion
I’m so glad McGuire wrote this because I’ve been wondering about Mariposa ever since we met Christopher in the first book. I always love exploring new worlds with McGuire’s characters, and this little tidbit was so fun.
3/5 bones

Dutton Books

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Carls book 2 of 2
I had to stop in the middle of this one because it returned itself to the library, but I finally finished it! I really enjoyed this book, possibly even more than the first one, though to be fair, I didn’t remember the first one amazingly well (I read the wikipedia page on the first one before I read this one). I liked the examination of power and technology. I liked the found family trope and all the characters (except Andy was a little annoying sometimes).
4/5 alien presences

**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! First a caveat: I have decided that simply having queer people and/or people of color in a book is not enough to qualify it for the Books for a Social Conscience distinction. That sets the bar too low. So while in the past I would have marked Teach the Torches to Burn, Legends & Lattes, and the Wayward Children stories, I am not counting them under the new system. We love representation! Don’t get me wrong, but honestly at this point if you don’t have queer people and/or people of color in your book, like what are you doing? I will now be including a new designation: *This book only includes straight, white, cis people.

Anyway, read Yellowface for a nuanced look at anti-Asian racism and racism in general in the publishing industry. Read Red, White, & Royal Blue not only for LGBTQIA+ representation, but also for how those identities interact with life in the public sphere. Read A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor to explore technology, power, and privilege.

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.

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

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June 2023 Books

Books Reread

The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians book 3 of 5
Last month I read Riordan’s new book about Nico so it was nice to reread this one to remember how it all began. Baby Nico is so cute! In this installment of the Percy Jackson series, Percy and Grover must team up with the Hunters of Artemis to save both Annabeth and Artemis herself in a cross-country adventure full of monsters, gods, good friends, and bad jokes.
4/5 dam store t-shirts

New Books Read

Indian No More by Traci Sorell and Charlene Willing McManis***
CW: racism
Regina and her family are moving off the Umpqua rez and 10-year-old Regina isn’t sure why. Her mom says the government doesn’t recognize them as Indians anymore. Her dad says it will be a great opportunity for them to move to the city and become real Americans with better opportunities. Regina has to balance fitting in in her new home with holding onto her history and identity that her grandmother passes down to her in the form of stories. This is a great middle grade read for anyone looking to learn more about Native Americans, particularly the Indian termination policy of the 1950s.
3.5/5 neighborhood kids

Dry by Jarrod Shusterman and Neal Shusterman
CW: climate change, natural disaster, attempted rape
This book was frighteningly plausible. In a near future climate crisis, the water in Los Angeles is shut off as the Colorado River is diverted from flowing into California. All the nearby lakes, rivers, and reservoirs have already dried up. The book follows four teens and one child as they try to navigate an increasingly desperate situation. I really liked this book; I think everyone should probably read it. I liked the way the authors gave the reader several archetypes of the kind of people who emerge in natural disasters like these: the kind of end-of-the-world preparer type, who of course will never really be prepared enough, the opportunistic capitalist who knows they can make a few dollars off everyone else’s desperation, the one who is just trying to survive, the one who keeps their humanity and wants to help others, and the sort of everyman, who is trying to balance being a leader who can keep their group alive with difficult decisions they might not be able to live with. I thought it created a really interesting dynamic in the group.
3.5/5 water bottles

Milkweed Editions

The Lost Journals of Sacajewea by Debra Magpie Earling***
CW: rape, rape of children, slavery
This book is stunningly unique and thought provoking. In an imagined history of one of the most celebrated Native American women in history, Earling fills in the gaps of what history knows about Sacajewea. Everything we know about her comes from accounts of white men: Lewis, Clark, Sacajewea’s “husband” Charbonneau (who let’s not forget purchased her as a 13-year-old, forced her into a nonconsensual marriage and raped her). So Earling’s book takes the reader on a journey of what it may have been like to be Sacajewea. The most arresting part of Earling’s narrative is the style in which she writes. She uses rhythm and sound and repetition in a way that makes the whole narrative almost an epic prose poem. It’s challenging but also visceral and immediate. Earling doesn’t shy away from the horrifying parts of Sacajewea’s story–in fact the history we learn of Sacajewea is almost devoid of horror, despite the known facts of her kidnap, slavery, and rape as a child, so Earling’s narrative reminds readers that Sacajewea was a human and however great her contributions to history, geography, science, and this nation, she was a child who was wronged.
4/5 horses

Crown

The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama***
Every year former president Barak Obama shares a list of the best books he read. This book topped his list in 2022—though he may be a little biased. Following her gorgeous memoir Becoming, The Light We Carry walks the line between a memoir and a self-help book. Obama shares fresh stories from her life and uses them to impart wisdom and insight on living through increasingly uncertain times. Since her first book, the world has faced a global pandemic, political turmoil, economic and climate insecurity. Obama offers practical advice on understanding and using fear, caring for relationships with friends, partners, and children, and what it truly means to “go high.” Compassionate, compelling, and inspiring, Obama’s book oozes with sincerity and conviction. Obama also reads her own audiobook which I highly recommend.
3.5/5

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia***
CW: forced marriage, murder, infanticide
I rescued this book, along with Dry and Indian No More from the trash room at my apartment complex. They deserved a better home. I really liked this book. Noémi, a young socialite in Mexico City, receives a concerning letter from her cousin, married to an Englishman in a remote part of Mexico. Noémi travels to the dilapidated manor where her cousin and the Englishman’s family live in the ruins of their wealth from a now closed mine. It doesn’t take long for Noémi to realize something odd is going on. Is the house haunted? Is it driving her cousin mad? Is it driving her mad? Is her cousin being poisoned? And worst of all, will the house let her leave? I very much enjoyed this. It was dark, it was mysterious. Noémi was plucky and smart. It was a treat for anyone who loves a good old Victorian gothic novel.
4/5 mushrooms

Scholastic Inc

Solitaire by Alice Oseman
CW: depression, eating disorders, homophobia
This book follows one of my favorite characters from the Heartstopper series: Tori Spring, Charlie’s older sister. Tori Spring is just trying to figure out how to survive high school; she doesn’t have the time to figure out how to be happy. Two new boys join her year: Lucas, who was a childhood friend, and Micheal, whose reputation as a prankster precedes him. At the same time, a mysterious individual or organization named Solitaire begins to prank the school. Tori isn’t really interested in finding out who’s behind the pranks…though they all seem to be connected to her. I really enjoyed this book. I read a review that compared it to Catcher in the Rye and I do see the similarities, but Tori Spring is just so much more likable than Holden Caulfield. It’s a timeless exploration of coming of age, friendship, and finding happiness and purpose as a teenager.
3.5/5

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee***
CW: AIDS epidemic, rape, sexual harassment, trauma, death of a parent
Undoubtedly one of America’s best writers, Chee constructs intimate windows into his life in the form of personal essays. Each essay stands alone, but taken together in this book, the essays become a mosaic of a queer writer’s life. Chee writes about his mixed-race identity, the particular challenges of being a writer in the industry, the experience of being a gay man during the AIDS epidemic, the long shadow of trauma, and much more. My favorite essays included “The Querent,” about how to believe in or trust what isn’t visible or easily explained, and “Rosary,” an essay about growing a rose garden, but also an essay about creating something out of barren ground, about being shaped in turn by this thing you’ve created. Chee writes with searing honesty about extremely personal subjects, and yet the universality of his essays is apparent. They are relatable and resonant, contemplative and insightful, and I can’t recommend them enough.   
4/5 roses

I reviewed this book for Under the Sun. You can read the full review here.

Pan Macmillan

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes***
CW: rape, victim blaming
I will never not be obsessed with feminist retellings of Greek myths. A retelling of the myths of Medusa and Andromeda, Haynes conducts the reader through the myth from only female perspectives, changing a story we thought we all knew–how Perseus slew the evil gorgon Medusa and then used her severed head to kill the monster that was menacing the Princess Andromeda–and showing us that we never really knew it at all. Haynes gives us an arsenal of complex and interesting female characters and writes with an intimate and casual tone, evoking a bedtime story told by a grandmother. I was a big fan.
4.5/5 stones

**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 Indian No More to learn about Native American history and how Native identities were erased by this policy. Read The Lost Journals of Sacajewea to finally hear about the great journey of Lewis and Clark from Sacajewea’s perspective–even if it must necessarily be speculative. Read The Light We Carry to become a better person. Read Mexican Gothic for a diverse and anti-colonial take on the Victorian gothic horror genre. Read How to Write and Autobiographical Novel to learn more about a gay man’s experience living through the AIDS epidemic, and about navigating the world as a mixed race child of immigrants. Read Stone Blind for Greek myths but make it feminist.

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.

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May 2023 Books

New Books Read

Simon & Schuster

The Last Hero by Linden A. Lewis***
Book Hangover Alert**
The First Sister Trilogy book 3 of 3
CW: fantasy racism, oppression, scientific research and testing without consent, prostitution
The stunning conclusion to the First Sister Trilogy, this book is a whirlwind of war, politics, and resistance. I won’t say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read the first two books. I enjoyed the final book, though I do feel like the pacing was relentless in that every chapter we switched character POVs and every chapter the POV character was in mortal danger. It was exhausting as a reader. The book is already pretty long, but I felt I need some places to rest when the characters could breathe. But I found the series conclusion satisfying.
4/5 synthetics

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer***
CW: slavery, n-word, racism
I wanted to like this book more than I did. In Barbados just after the end of slavery, a mother searches for her children who were sold away from her plantation. She discovers freedom in the long shadow of slavery. While I was interested in learning more about the history of slavery in the Caribbean and about the legacy of slavery, particularly how it continued with the ‘apprenticeships’ after the legal end of slavery, I didn’t feel like I connected with any of the characters. I also felt that the protagonist’s journey was almost too easy. She actually does find out what happened to all of her children which seems sort of unlikely. I also found the way the dialogue was written to be rather jarring. I’m sure it was probably historically more accurate than writing the dialogue like we speak today, but it pulled me out of the story.
3/5 rivers

Hellbent by Leigh Bardugo
Book Hangover Alert**
Alex Stern book 2 of at least 2
I was utterly useless for three days while I sat and read this book, doing everything one handed and complaining about going to work. Alex Stern, agent of Lethe, the oversight agency of the secret societies at Yale, continues her quest to rescue her mentor Darlington, ready to go through hell and back to bring him home. It was excellent. Perhaps even better than the first one. There are a few pretty traumatic events in the first book, and this one was in my opinion less traumatic. We also got to spend more time with characters we already love, so that’s why I think I enjoyed it even more than Ninth House.
5/5 rituals to open a portal to hell

Temeraire LLC

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Scholomance book 1 of 3
This book was very enjoyable. In an odd way, it reminded me of Gideon the Ninth in that it was a fantasy with a complicated magic system and world building with a protagonist with a very distinctive voice. Unlike Gideon the Ninth though, I liked it. I liked El’s distinct voice and how she grew over the novel. It was a little hard to understand the magic system and world at first but it was very unique and worth the effort to understand it.
3.5/5 mals

Disney Hyperion

The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro***
Companion to the Percy Jackson series
CW: trauma
We’ve all been waiting for Uncle Rick to give us a book about Nico and Will and it’s finally here! Nico, son of Hades, and Will, son of Apollo, must undertake a quest to Tartarus to rescue a friend. Along the way, they’ll learn just how much they mean to one another. This book was good. It was enjoyable and I’m grateful to Riordan and Oshiro for writing it because it think there are some teenaged queers that need to see themselves represented in fantasy. I didn’t love it as much as I’d hoped; I didn’t love it as much as the first two series of Percy Jackson books. There was a lot of working through trauma and developing healthy relationships, which are of course good things, but sometimes you just want demigods making jokes and killing monsters.
3.5/5 nightmares

Macmillan

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill
CW: domestic violence
I love Barnhill’s work. In the near future, a teenaged girl’s mother falls in love with a man who is sometimes a crane, and sometimes a man. The crane soon becomes an abusive and menacing presence, demanding the mother, a talented weaver, create a masterpiece for him. The protagonist is then left to care for the house and her younger brother alone without the income from her mother’s work, and unable to convince her mother of the evil of the crane. The novella is a dark fantasy reimagining of the crane wife folktale from Japanese mythology, and it does a wonderful job of examining domestic violence, generational trauma, and the patriarchy.
4.5/5 cranes

Hachette Book Group

The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Drowning Empire book 3 of 3
Another conclusion to a trilogy this month. Two years after the conclusion of book two, Emperor Lin is struggling to hold her empire together as the governors grumble, resistance factions spring up, and the secrets of the Alanga threaten to tumble her rule. Sometimes I feel like writers give their characters too much adversity. I realize the story would be boring without it, but at this point I just want Lin and Jovis to be happy. The conclusion to the series was bittersweet and satisfying, which is really the most I can ask of any book.
4/5 ossalen

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz***
CW: homophobia, hate crimes
This book gets a lot of hype on BookTok, and I’ll be honest, I thought it was going to be more gay. In this coming of age novel, Mexican-American Ari and his best friend Dante learn how to be themselves in a world that’s not always kind. The book is compulsively readable but I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it. Ari has a lot of self loathing to work out, which is a relatable experience for many queer teens, but is not always enjoyable to read. I have one other qualm but it’s a spoiler so read on at your own risk. Read More: SPOILERS AHEAD

Throughout the book, Ari is obsessed with knowing more about his brother who has been in jail since he was young and no one in his family will talk about him. Ari eventually finds out that his brother committed a homophobic hate crime, murdering a trans person. And that doesn’t really seem to bother Ari that much? Which I thought was odd? Ari is irate when he learns Dante is beaten to within an inch of his life for being gay, but he seems to feel no anger that his brother committed that crime. And I understand that Ari is worried about becoming like his brother because he also has anger issues and likes to fight. But he chooses to put up photos of his brother and wants to write to him in prison and while I’m all for forgiveness and healing, I didn’t understand why he wasn’t more upset that his brother MURDERED someone, specifically a trans woman.

3/5 birds with broken wings

Me trying to be as cool as Claude Cahun with her self portrait photography

Exist Otherwise: The Life and Works of Claude Cahun by Jennifer L. Shaw***
CW: antisemitism, homophobia
This lovely coffee table book details the life of Claude Cahun, an artist and writer active in the Surrealist movement of the 1920s. Cahun and her partner Marcel Moore also resisted fascism, running a sophisticated anti-Nazi propaganda movement on the occupied island of Jersey during WWII. The book is fascinating and full of photographs of Cahun and Moore’s work. Moore was an artist in her own right and she and Cahun collaborated on much of their artistic work.
3.5/5 surreal collages

Flatiron Books

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint
CW: victim blaming, rape
Jennifer Saint is one of my favorite writers of mythological reimaginings. Atalanta follows the titular character from her abandonment on a mountain as a baby, her childhood being raised by bears and nymphs of Artemis, and her involvement in the Argonaut’s quest for the golden fleece. The champion of Artemis and the only woman on the quest, through Atalanta’s eyes we get to experience the myth of the golden fleece anew through a feminist lens. I adored it.
5/5 bears

Lake Union Publishing

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan***
CW: genocide, slavery, antisemitism, war
Based on a true story, this novel follows the experiences of Pino Lella during WWII as he helped refugees flee across the Alps from Italy to Switzerland and then became a spy for the resistance in the Nazi high command by driving for General Hans Leyers. The book was definitely very engaging and interesting. I didn’t know much about the war in Italy. That being said, there have been some rumblings on the internet about how much truth there is in this ‘true story.’ The author’s note states the following:

“Due to the document burning, the collective amnesia, and the death of so many characters by the time I learned of the story, I have been forced in places to construct scenes and dialogue based solely on Pino’s memory decades later, the scant physical evidence that remains, and my imagination fueled by my research and informed suspicions. I have also comingled or compressed events and characters for the sake of narrative coherence and have fully dramatized incidents that were described to me in much more truncated forms.

As a result, then, the story you are about to read is not a work of narrative nonfiction, but a novel of biographical and historical fiction that hews closely to what happened to Pino Lella between June 1943 and May 1945.”

-Mark T. Sullivan

So perhaps it’s more constructive to think about this book like a movie based on a true story–as we know movies always “Hollywoodize” the true story. Several different people on the internet have made different claims about the veracity of several pieces of the narrative. So I guess I would say to read the book, enjoy it, learn more about the broad strokes of WWII in Italy, but treat the book more as a historical fiction.
3.5/5 cathedrals of God

Weyward by Emilia Hart
CW: domestic violence, abuse, trauma, rape
I enjoyed this book. It was my March BOTM pick. The novel follows three women from different generations of the Weyward family as they discover their affinity with nature, survive abusive men, and come into their own power. I found all three narratives compelling and I liked the way they were all woven together. I did find the writing style a little choppy and featuring too many em dashes (which contributed to the choppiness) at least in the first half of the book. It didn’t bother me as much in the second half, either because I got used to it or the writing flowed better later on.
3.5/5 crows

HarperCollins

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang***
The Poppy War book 1 of 3
CW: genocide, extreme body horror and mutilation, rape, war, addiction, colorism, racism, human experimentation, self harm, slavery
I loved Babel by Kuang so I was really excited to read this book. The start to an epic fantasy trilogy, the story follows Rin, an orphan from a remote part of the Nikara Empire who tests into the elite military academy Sinegard where she attempts to prove she belongs there. Along the way she discovers her own shamanic powers and begins to unravel the mysteries of her past. The book is inspired by Chinese military history from the mid-20th century but set in a world closer to the Song Dynasty of the 13th century, with fantastical elements. It’s an incredible work of fantasy to be sure. I didn’t love it, and it isn’t because it wasn’t good. It was good. All the characters, but especially Rin, were so complex and interesting and flawed. It was so fresh and new and I’ve never read anything like it. But it was a little too dark for my taste. It was a little too gory. The atrocities were more gruesome and horrifying than I wanted to read about. I’m not very knowledgable about Chinese and Japanese history, so it’s possible that some of the atrocities described by Kuang are inspired by actual events, in which case I think it’s important to learn about those things, however, I didn’t necessarily pick up this book because I wanted to read 101 ways humans can desecrate other humans. That being said, I’ll probably still read the rest of them.
4/5 poppy seeds

HarperCollins

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang***
Book Hangover Alert**
CW: racism, microaggressions, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts
I can’t stop thinking about this book. And I’m not sure I’ve thought about it long enough to form a coherent review of it. Yellowface follows June Hayward, a white author who steals an unfinished novel draft from her Asian-American author friend after her untimely death. June finishes the novel and passes it off as her own and we watch as everything spirals out of control. This book reminded me of Self Care in it’s page-turning, watching-a-train-wreck quality. And June reminded me of the protagonists in Self Care, who were the same kind of white woman (we all know the one). Kuang’s biting satire of the publishing industry brings up a lot of important issues like who should be able to tell what kind of story, what is cultural appropriation, how the publishing industry treats writers of color, how privilege operates in the industry, how white women weaponize their own victimhood. It was so good. I might have more to say later, but I’m still in the lie-on-the-floor stage of the Book Hangover.
5/5 stolen manuscripts

**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 The Last Hero for disability, LGBTQIA+ rep in sci-fi. Read River Sing Me Home to learn about the legacy of slavery in Barbados. Read The Sun and the Star for LGBTQIA+ rep in fantasy. Read The Bone Shard War for an Asian inspired fantasy with LGBTQIA+ rep. Read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe for a Mexican-America, gay coming of age story. Read Exist Otherwise: The Life and Words of Claude Cahun to learn about a forgotten female, lesbian artist and her heroic resistance against the Nazis. Read Beneath a Scarlet Sky to learn more about WWII and the atrocities committed in Italy. Read The Poppy War for a fantasy inspired by Chinese and Japanese history. Read Yellowface to learn more about racism and microaggressions in the publishing industry.

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.

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March 2023 Books

New Books Read

A Venom Dark and Sweet by Judy I. Lin***
The Book of Tea book 2 of 2
I really enjoyed this one too. I read the first book last month and all the things I liked about it continued in this one. This one is a little more focused on the political issues of the empire than the first one was, but I thought it was really well done. I liked learning about the gods and the mythology of the world Lin created.
3.5/5 relics from gods

Pan Macmillan

A Victorian Flower Diction: The Language of the Flowers Companion by Vanessa Diffenbaugh and Mandy Kirby
I read this book as research for the novel I’m writing but I did find it both interesting and very helpful. The book talks in depth about 50 flowers, sharing their meaning for the Victorians and sharing art and poetry that uses these flowers as symbols. The book also contains a longer list of dictionary entries for more flowers and their basic meanings. I haven’t read The Language of the Flowers, the novel that this dictionary is a companion to, but the book was very helpful for my purposes.
3/5 chrysanthemums

Babel by R. F. Kuang***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: racism, racial slurs, death, Imperialism
I adored this book. If you’re not interested in linguistics and language and the academic theory surrounding language, this book is probably not for you. I thought it was fascinating, and I loved the setting of magical Victorian Oxford and the dark academia vibe. It reminded me a little of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, but with more likable and diverse characters. I also loved the exploration of Imperialism and racism and the difficult pull and push between one’s homeland and one’s adopted homeland, especially when one’s adopted homeland is exploiting one’s homeland. I love that this book is an anti-Imperialism, labor union book. It’s a very niche genre but one I love. My only criticisms are that I wished it had a happier end (though I’m not sure a happier end would have been believable), and I wished Ramy and Robin had a little happiness together.
5/5 silver bars

Penguin Publishing Group

Homicide and Halo-Halo***
Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries book 2 of 4
CW: PTSD, trauma
This book has an author content warning at the beginning, so make sure to read it for a full list of triggers that may be in the book. I enjoyed this book too. The first book in this series was my book of the month a couple years ago and it’s a super enjoyable cozy mystery full of delicious food. This one continues in the same vein. I loved learning more about Filipino cuisine and I loved the beauty pageant aspect of the plot. We love mysteries (or really any books) with excellent female and BIPOC representation.
3.5/5 Filipino baked goods

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, translated by Kencho Suematsu
CW: pedophilia, grooming of a child
This book is considered one of if not the first fiction novel ever written. This translation is supposedly one of the first translations of the book into English, however it only translates the first 17 chapters and not all 54. I don’t know why they didn’t translate the whole thing, but I must say, I’m grateful because 17 chapters was more than enough. Of course this book is important historically in that it is one of the first fictional novels ever written and it was written by a woman, so that’s cool. But that doesn’t make it good. It was not good. It was actually quite awful. It had no plot and no interesting characters. Prince Genji, the main character, was just the worst, a womanizer and a pedophile. It was also confusing for someone who has no knowledge of Japanese court structure, life, or customs in the year 1000. I hated it.
1.5/5 ladies named after flowers (I have to give it more than a 1 because I did finish reading it)

Alfred A. Knopf

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
I loved it. This book reminded me a bit of David Mitchell, one of my favorite authors. I loved how the story weaved through time and created such a neat, satisfying well resolved ending. I don’t want to say too much because spoilers, but I adored it. I read it in basically one sitting.
5/5 moon colonies

Penguin Random House

Spare by Prince Harry
CW: PTSD, trauma, death of a parent, suicide, suicidal thoughts
Prince Harry’s memoir was fascinating. We all know a little about the royal family and we all know a little about Princess Diana and her death, but getting to see the royal family and Princess Diana through Harry’s eyes was very interesting and also heartbreaking. Harry reads the audiobook which was cool to get to hear it in his voice. I was left with the conviction that the monarchy is no longer relevant and continues to be a harmful institution, and with the conviction that the way the press dehumanizes and commodifies famous people is disgusting. I wish only the best for Harry, Megan and their children and only the worst for everyone else in the royal family.
4/5 tabloids

Cursed by Marissa Meyer
Gilded book 2 of 2
CW: death of children, loss of bodily autonomy
This was a month of reading second books in series apparently. Cursed is the sequel to Gilded, and the duology is a retelling of Rumpelstitskin. I don’t think I liked this series as much as Meyer’s first fairytale retelling, The Lunar Chronicles, but it was still very enjoyable. I really liked the world she created and the magical creatures and gods in it.
3.5/5 golden chains

Lion Forge Comics / Oni Press

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe***
Book Hangover Alert**
CW: body dysmorphia
I tried to buy this book for Banned Books Week last year and it was sold out so I still don’t have a copy, but this month for Trans Rights Read-A-Thon, I thought I would go ahead and get it from the library. It was great. You know I’m always trying to find more ace representation and Kobabe’s graphic memoir explores eir experience as a nonbinary asexual person. My complaint on the last book I read with ace rep (Loveless) was that it didn’t reflect my experience as an ace of not really wanting romantic or sexual relationships. I felt Kobabe’s experience of discovering asexuality more closely mirrored mine, although I identify as a cis woman. I hope everyone can read this book and more books like it. Stop banning books, you cowards.
5/5 pronouns

W. W. Norton & Company

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
CW: slavery
Two translated books and one book about translation this month. I’ve read parts of The Odyssey before from other translations but this is the first time I’ve read it straight though. Emily Watson’s translation is quite new and comes with a more feminist lens which was super interesting. I enjoyed it. I liked that she kept it as a metered poem, which it is in the original Greek. Other translations translate it to basically a prose poem, keeping the line breaks, but losing the meter and form. I do think it’s a little too long and there’s too much time spent between Odysseus returning to Ithaca and finally confronting the suitors. Also I didn’t realize how much help he had from Athena. Like Odysseus had a great reputation for being so smart and a great warrior, but really he just had a lot of help.
3/5 wine-dark seas

**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 A Venom Dark and Sweet for a lush Asian inspired fantasy with LGBTQIA+ rep. Read Babel for anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, immigrant experiences and LGBTQIA+ rep. Read Homicide and Halo-Halo for BIPOC rep, strong ladies, and LGBTQIA+ rep. Read Gender Queer for experiences in self discovery and LGBTQIA+ rep.

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.

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