Category Archives: Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives

Quick Review: The Midnight Star by Marie Lu

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midnight-star This series was different in that it billed itself as having the villain as the protagonist.  I argued in my review of the last book, The Rose Society that Adelina wasn’t really the true villain of the story.  While she does commit several villainous acts on her way to power she is just as much a victim as anyone else. I also argued that Teren, in his religious fervor was the character to be most feared then any of them.  After finishing The Midnight Star, I feel a little justified and also not.  It starts out with Adelina and her Roses conquering another country by fear.  She is merciless in her rule.  She has taken all the power away from the un-marked and given it to the marked.  She kills anyone who speaks out against her and punishes her family. She is by no means a heroine to be worshiped.  She is also a young girl who has been bullied, abused and marginalized her whole life.  In her mind she is righting the wrongs.  Taken power and given it back to the powerless.  I’m not saying it’s justified or what she did was right but I can also understand her too.  A crisis bigger then her own fears aligns her once again with the daggers and gives her a path of redemption.  Raffalle has figured out the origin of the blood fever that lead to the Young Elites powers. They was a rift in the mortal and the immortal world that allowed the powers of the Gods to effect the mortal world.  It’s now poisoning them.  Their powers are turning against them. Lucent, who could fly, bones are hallowing out.  Violetta’s power to block others including her own is not overcoming her.  Adelina’s voices in her head are her own illusions overtaking her.  The only way to save them and the world is to go to where the rift occurred and offer to give their powers back. Now these enemies will have to work together but how can there when there has been so much blood already spilled and the body count in this book is pretty high as well.  I wouldn’t say it had a happy ending but really the only ending that it could have.  It was bittersweet.  I will miss the lush atmosphere of this book.  Stylized after a medieval society, Marie Lu gave her settings life and beauty.  It was a good series and enjoyable read but year not going to lift you up.

Review: The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan

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hammer-of-thor Rick Riordan has written another winner here. I think I liked this more then the first book, The Sword of Summer.  It was flowed a little bit better and Magnus’ sassiness really went up a notch in this one and I loved it!  He wouldn’t let the fact that he was dead and will be spending eternity preparing for Ragnarok get him down.  Nope. But really what I loved about this book more then anything else is the positive representation of diverse characters.  I have praised Riordan in the past for his diversity and willingness to tackle difficult situations in his books.  True, his main characters have been mainly white boys but his willingness to include characters of color and other sexuality is admirable for a kids author.  So far his books have featured a Latino and Latina, Chinese Canadian, Gay teenagers, Biracial siblings, Native American girl, Black boy and girl, and Muslim girl and made them all well rounded full characters without ever falling into old stereotypes.  In The Hammer of Thor he introduces us to Alex a gender fluid teen.  As queer rights is becoming more and more a discussion point in our society, characters like Alex are even more important.  She (I’m going to refer to her as She as Alex says that she mostly identifies as a She and spends most of a book as a female but at times Alex also identifies as Male too) is a person has been marginalized and misunderstood her whole life but has a strong conviction of who she is.  Gender fluid people are not often depicted in pop-culture and not with the sensitivity and strength that Riordan writes her. But not only that, Riordan draws on the fact that Gender fluid people or argr as they were referred to by the vikings had a place in ancient Norse society.  I think there are many people today who sort of think that LGBTQ community are the result of recent sins of the last hundred years or so.  Not true.  Just like how he wrote about Nico coming out and relating it to Cupid story  he does it here. So props to you Mr. Riordan.

So let’s get back to the book.  In the last book, we know that Thor has lost his famed hammer and now we know that some Earth Giants have it.  They must get the Hammer back and thwart Loki’s plan to marry off Sam to the Giant, which is problematic since 1. Sam is still a teenager and 2. Sam has already been promised to marry Amir.  They must traverse the seven realms to find another famed weapon and look for clues as to what Loki’s real objective is.  Let’s just say, it’s not just to make sure his daughter is taken care of in a good marriage. Along the way, they meet democratic zombies, abusive father elves and giants who love to bowl.  It all makes sense when you read the book. Riordan has always been good balancing the humor with the action.  The book never waves or drags   It was just keeps going and going and I can’t wait for the next one where they finally get act like vikings and hit the seas and PERCY!

Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading Challenge Update

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bookchallenge2016imageWith only 2 months left of the year I thought I would take a look at my chanllenge and to see how I’m doing.  Not good. Of the 54 books I have read only 13 fall into any of our reading challenge requirements.  I realize this is my fault is that I haven’t done a very good job of pushing myself to branch out from norm. The Sub-challenge I’m doing the best is the genre one and the The Sub-challenge that I’m doing the worse is the Author challenge.  It turns out I read a lot of women authors, a lot of white woman authors. Not that there is anything wrong with that but I’m missing out on some really great books.

So I have 8 weeks left to read as many diverse books as I can.  I’m in the middle of book 14 because Hammer of Thor has a Trans Character and I have 15 and 16 already picked out so at least I’ll be halfway done.  I’ve got a lot of reading to do.

This Month in Reality: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

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When I posted my “What I’m Listening to” for this book I said that, just in the first chapters, I kept getting a lot of Tupac lyrics stuck in my head. In particular the line, “Instead of a war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so police can bother me.” This book made me in turns fucking furious, and heartbroken and uncomfortable, and increasingly aware that the U.S. is doing a big thing badly and that big thing is incarcerating citizens.

In this book, Michelle Alexander examines America’s prison systems and makes the argument that mass incarceration is a system of racial control that has taken the place of Jim Crow. And, her argument is pretty convincing. She looks at how, not all at once, but little by little changes have been made that have largely affected poor people and people of color. She looks at changes in the welfare system, changes in policing, the militarization of policing, and changes in drug policy.

Last year, I heard Piper Kerman speak at a local library function and this revisited some of the things that she touched on in her talk (and that at friend of mine touched on in a chat after the talk). We send a lot of people to prison. We send people to prison for murder. We send people to prison for rape (although, not often and not for very long but that’s a topic of discussion for another day). And, we send lots and lots of people to prison for non-violent drug offenses. How are we serving these people by putting them away for non-violent crime? How are we serving their communities by taking them out of the community? How are we serving them and their communities by disenfranchising them after they have served their time? How are we serving them and their communities by making access to welfare and public housing impossible after being convicted of a felony? I get it, if people do “bad” things, you don’t want to feel like you’re rewarding them. But, if you have nothing because you’ve just spent many years in prison and you want to do right and get back into the world, how can you do that with so many avenues closed off to you?

I don’t know.

This book raised way more questions than it answered for me but I am glad that I read it even if it means I now have to spend time thinking about these issues and how I can help set them right.

Review: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

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In terms of format, this is a really neat book. It is part text and part drawings. Junior, the narrator (and the part-time Indian) is an artist. He lives on the Spokane Indian reservation and, after an incident where he throws a textbook at a teacher after he feels the world collapsing in on him, he enrolls in the school in the next town over. The mostly white school. He’s a smart and funny kid with a lot of artistic talent. I was really taken by the voice of the narrator, who inhabits this in-between place. He’s Spokane, but because he’s left the reservation school and at least one of his friends feels abandoned he doesn’t always feel at home when he’s at home anymore. But, he’s always the outsider at his new school. Junior’s experiences highlight a lot of problems on reservations. There is crushing poverty and we see that through Junior and his family. There is lack of access to resources and we see that through his first school and through his interactions with his best friend and with his sister (who used to dream about being a romance author and now just lives as a shut-in in his parents basement.) There is racism when he leaves the rez and there is a high instance of alcoholism. There is cultural appropriation and cultural theft. We see all of these things in Junior’s story. While he has a lot of high points in his first year at his new high school, he has some terrible low ones. This book had me in tears more than once. But, it was an interesting read. In particular, it was really interesting to see this character struggle with and work through his identity moving between these two worlds that he inhabits.
And, while I have no doubts that things really are that bad (lack of access to resources, poverty, alcoholism, racism, troubling representations of native peoples, violence towards indigenous people, in particular indigenous women), I… I felt like towards the end of the novel that I was maybe being told things that someone may have thought I wanted to hear? Or, maybe like I was voyeuristically looking in on someone else’s tragedy and pain that was set up in a manner particular for my consumption? I don’t know. The characters were real and believable, the text was believable. I just…felt like I was being sung a sad song because that was the theater I’d walked into.
That being said, the book really is a neat format and the characters were really likable and if you know going into it that this book is going to make you cry and that’s something you don’t mind I recommend it.
This book counts as my book with a character who is Native America, Indigenous Mexican or First Nations in the Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Challenge.

Review: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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I started this audio book on a road trip. At first I thought it was going to be too heavy for the drive. (You have to be careful with the books you pick. If the text is especially dense or the story doesn’t move along at a decent clip you can find yourself frustrated with the story in a way that you wouldn’t be frustrated if you weren’t also in the middle of a really long drive). But, by the beginning of chapter two, I was hooked. The book centers on Ifemelu, a woman from Nigeria who at the opening of the story has been living in the US for a while and is now preparing to move home to Lagos. The narrative switches between her current life and her preparations for (and arrival in) Lagos, posts from her blog on being a Non-American Black in America, and the story of her past. And, the whole thing was so beautifully written. I cared so much for the cast of characters in this book. Ifemelu was so likable. She broke my heart and made me laugh and I cheered for her. She met a lot of white people who made me cringe. Sometimes I cringed because I saw myself in their behavior. Other times I cringed because their behavior was just so surprising because it violated Ifemelu’s person or autonomy and it is surprising to me (although it probably shouldn’t be) that it’s 2016 and we don’t treat everyone with respect for their person and their autonomy. Let me give you an example: WHY WOULD YOU TOUCH A STRANGER’S HAIR???? EVER???? WHY???? Or, even a friend/lover/family member’s hair outside of them saying, “Oh my god my hair is so soft today! Feel it!” or otherwise inviting you to do so???? Or, why would you speak really slowly and loudly to someone who is not from here after they’ve told you that they’re from a former British colony where English is currently an official language? I get it, Americans aren’t good at geography and Africa is a huge freaking continent but… Nigeria, while being a place with incredible linguistic density and diversity, is also full of English speakers. And, most American universities require that you demonstrate English proficiency before you enroll. (For potentially obvious reasons, that kind of stuck in my craw and annoyed me long after the story had moved on.) Ifemelu’s observations on American race relations, on Americans and charitable organizations and on Obama’s 2008 campaign alone made this book worth the read.
I’ve seen Adichie’s TED talk and I’ve read articles that she’s written for various publications but this is the first book by her that I’ve read. It won’t be the last. She has a singular voice. Her characters are real and vivid and this story tackled big topics without feeling like it was preachy and also without making them the center of the story. Racism and anti-racism were woven into the narrative and it gave me so much cause to think (See: the cringe worthy white people) without shouting at me that I should be thinking. That right there is a hallmark of an awesome book. I was still thinking about issues it eluded to long after I finished the book.
So, if you’re interested in reading a contemporary African author but, for some reason, you’re worried that an African author will have nothing to say to you that will be relevant to you or that you’ll understand, well, you should probably examine why you think that. But, while you’re examining your thinking, you can read Americanah. It’s a book written by an African author that is largely set here in the States. It’s amazing. You’ll love it.
This is my book by an African author for the Diverse Lives, Diverse Stacks Challenge

Review: The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper

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First, I have to start with review by saying that these are fun books. They’re ridiculous books, but they are fun books. This is the second book in a series about a wolf pack in Alaska. Instead of centering on a woman who marries into the pack, it focuses on a woman in the pack, the love interest from the first book’s sister. There is a little drama. There is a little mystery. There’s an unbelievably hot scientist. There’s a happy ending. You know the drill. Amanda Ronconi who narrates the audiobook does a nice job. So, if you’re into fluffy, paranormal romance or if you’re looking for something light, I recommend you give this a go.

 

Potential Spoilers Ahead.

 

And now that I’ve said that, I need to talk about something that bothered me so much in this book. The werewolves are infertile with anyone but the partner they’ve bonded with. I can’t imagine that there is any evolutionary benefit to this. At all. It seems like the stupidest design feature of a creature ever invented and it also perfectly explains why werewolves as a species are dying out. I’d get it if werewolves were monogamous and pretty devoted (possibly to the point of being creepy) to their partners. I mean, I wouldn’t want it, but I’d get it. And, there’s evidence in the animal kingdom of some animals mating monogamously and/or for life (easier done when life is only a few months or years, I’d venture to guess.) But, being fertile with only one partner forever? Whu?? What kind of testing apparatus would the body have to have internally to be able to tell one partner from another? And, what about close genetic matches? I couldn’t stop either questioning how that worked or feeling completely flabbergasted that it happened at all.

 

Anyway, this featured heavily in the plot and it took me right out of the narrative because it was ridiculous. So, if you like fluffy paranormal romance but you also like at least a modicum of believable scientific accuracy, this book is not for you.

 

 

This book is my audio book selection for the Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Challenge.

Review: Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick

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In this dystopian future, Non-compliant women are shipped off to a prison planet where they are kept out of the population and away from the compliant women. They are separated so that they do not destroy society. And, so that they do not infect other women with their non-compliance.
The prison is awful. Women are beaten. They are spied on. They are occasionally murdered by the guards (sometimes on the request of someone in the prison’s administration. Sometimes to protect compliant women from being confused with non-compliant women. Like, if your new husband’s ex-wife is non-compliant and a warrant is issued for her arrest but they get confused and arrest the wrong Mrs….well, what’s a girl to do?)
The women of the prison planet (colloquially known as Bitch Planet) are given the opportunity to play in a competition of a sport some people call dua mille and some people call Megaton. The sport seems to be a no-holds-barred life or death kind of rugby. You can have as many players as you like as long as the total weight of your entire team is 2,000 pounds. (Hence the name of the game). The women could win their freedom but the cards are stacked against them. Even in their practices they are not safe from an unholy level of violence, scheming and trickery. But, they have a few secret weapons.  But, no spoilers so this is where this description stops.
Oh my god. This comic. This comic is soooo good. The art is great. The colors are muted but still there. Especially in the prison. The places where they are the most vibrant are on TV broadcasts. We see compliant women and bright, pastel colors and it really seems forced, which was perfect. The characters, at least the prisoners, are sympathetic. I so want them to win. At everything. Forever. There are a few characters on the outside as well who are sympathetic. And, it ended on a huge cliffhanger. Huge enough that, even though I waited for the first collected volume to come out, I’ve since picked up the individual issues to catch up. (Of course, there was no wisdom in that since I haven’t had time to catch up. But, such is life.)
This counts as my non-super hero comic in the Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives challenge.

 

Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading Challenge Update Part 2

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Since Kate posted her update, I figured I should do mine.  I’m doing much better on the Meduim/Genre/Industry Sub-Challenge then the other 2.  So far I have read Captain Marvel for my Graphic Novel with a superhero, Nimona for Graphic Novel without a superhero.  The Hidden Oracle for a book meant for Children and Cravings a cookbook by Chrissy Teigen for a book from a genre I’ve never read.  Half Lost, a book with a Queer Character. To All The Boys I’ve Loved, a book with an Asian American Character. And finally Endure by Sara b Larson for a book by a  Woman author. To be honest, I could have picked almost any book I’ve read this year for that last one because so far I have only read 3 books written by a man.

So that brings my total up to 7 out of 30. Yikes, that’s not great but it’s 1 better then Kate. ;-).

Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Challenge Update

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Sooooo…. I thought, since it is now June, that it might be a good idea to check and see how I’m doing on our book challenge for the year.

 

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So far this year I have read a book with characters from various socioeconomic classes (The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater), A book by an Asian author (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo), A book by a woman author (Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes), A book by a small press (Sad Girl Poems by Christopher Soto) , an audiobook (The feminist Mystique by Betty Friedan), and a graphic novel (with a superhero character.) (Y’all, I’ve read so much Captain America it ain’t even funny anymore.)  That’s six out of thirty.

 

I’m not even a quarter of the way done with the challenge. But, I have some things I’ve picked up that are in the pipeline that should fill out some of these categories. I hope. I just started Kindred by Octavia Butler, so that counts as a book with an African American character.

 

Are you doing a book challenge this year? How are you doing on it? What have you read on the challenge that you loved but wouldn’t have read otherwise?