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?

Quick Review: Invision by Sherrilyn Kenyon

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invisionThis is book 7 in a wildly entertaining series.  Nick is fantastic as always with his wit and charm (he thinks he’s charming).  He can annoy even the most demonic of demons.  I love him. If you haven’t read any of these books, check out my Series You Should Read from last year because you really should read!  It’s one of those books that I can’t help but laugh out loud while reading. It’s funny.  It’s insane.  The situations that Nick and his friends get into are pretty insane.  And as sassy as Nick is he’s not alone in his sassiness.  Caleb, Kody, Acheron, Kyrian can give it right back to him and it’s awesome but no one can compare to my favorite barbecue-toting demon eater Simi.  No one tops Simi in hilarity.

Anyway, Nick has got a glimpse of his possible futures and no matter what he tries to do to stop himself from the fulfilling his destiny of destroying the world,it happens anyways.  So he chooses to drown his sorrows in beignets.  It sounds like a good idea to me too.  When word gets out that his once thought dead friend Zavid might not be dead, it breaks Nick out of his funk.  Nick has many virtues and one is how loyal he is to his friends but of course going after Zavid is not the best plan since he is being held by Noir, one of his many enemies.  Plans to rescue Zavid on hold, when Nick starts to lose his powers. The only way that Malachai can lose his powers is when his sons starts to gain his. Nick doesn’t have a son.  He hasn’t even had sex!  How can he losing his powers!  As the team try to figure out what’s going on.  Battle more demons. Do a little time traveling.  They make it through the day but not without sacrifices.  All of the books are fast paced and action packed.  It literally goes from one crisis to another.  It makes it very hard to stop reading because you are at your train stop and you have to go to work.  Work.  It just gets in the way.  You would think after seven books that it would start to get stale or repetitive but no.  Maybe that’s because they are not particularly long books so there isn’t a lot of filler.  Yet each character has a backstory.  They all have a role to play in the story. Nothing is wasted.  It’s just plain fun. Seriously, you all should read them.

The Past Couple of Months in Reality: I listened to a Feminist Classic

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So, I had a moment earlier this year where someone referenced the feminist classic the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and I realized that I hadn’t read it. It seems like something I should have read. So, I used one of my audible credits and I picked it up. And, then I spent hours cooking, cleaning and walking on the tread mill while Parker Posey read it to me.

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Isn’t that the creeepiest image?

Anyway, this classic was originally published in 1963 and it addressed a problem that women who bought (and a society that sold) the fantasy that the most fulfilling thing a woman could do with her life was get married and have children and how that not only affected those women but also had ripple effects within society. I can see, looking back, how this was a revolutionary book. It is important to know and remember that women are people and that women, all women, have capacities and interests and being stuck in and reduced to one or two roles for any person is potentially trapping.

But, this book was definitely written in a different time and was focused on different issues than the feminism is now. For one, every time Friedan wrote “women”, I found it was almost always easier to take if I added “Middle Class White” before “women”. While Friedan was probably trying to write about an ideal (and, a societal image of what a “woman” should be is certainly something everyone woman-identifying person has to contend with much like the idea of what a “man” should be is something all men-identifying people have to contend with.) most of the data she presented was about a very particular kind of woman. As already mentioned, middle class white women. And, that’s fine, but the problems that middle class white women face are not always the same as the problems that working class white women face. Or, Middle class African American women. Or, working class African American women. Or, Trans women. Or, Asian American women. Or, Native American women. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

I am glad that I read it, though. It is nice to be able to look back and think about how much we have accomplished and to note how much work we still have to do.

Quick Review: The Crown by Kiera Cass

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the crown So this is the final book in the series.  I think. I thought the same thing about the The One but I think this is really it.  I am grateful that this was only a duology and not a trilogy because while it was entertaining I feel it also ran it’s course.  I liked that it flipped the original plot on it’s head by having the Princess being the one to choose instead of being one of the choices.  Eadlyn, the Princess of Iliea is faced with many challenges for one being unliked by her people.  She is thought of as being cold and standoffish and inexperienced and she is a little bit of all of that but what stuck me is that this is the same criticism that many women in power have faced.  What I didn’t like about this book is that despite all of the self affirming moments in this book.  She finds that she is stronger then she thought.  She gains new perspective on not just her life but that of her peoples but in the end, it’s about who she is going to marry.  That is the whole point of the Selection.  To find the Princess a husband. In the first book, the selection was supposed to be a distraction and by the King more time to figure out how to handle the unrest but as the selection went on, it became more about making her more likable and then how to secure her crown when an outside threat emerges.  Sort of Spoilerish but not really, I think we all knew she was going to find her true love but  I really wished that by end she would realize that she didn’t have to actually get engaged.  That she could find her soul mate and say this is man I am going to marry some day but right now, I’m still a teenager and I want to live a little before I settle down.  That would have been a kick ass ending but this is a sort of fairy tale so you know.  I don’t want you all to think I didn’t enjoy this book or the series as a whole because I did but I think it could have been so much more.  And for what’s it’s worth, the guy she picked was my pick too so there is that.  I’ll be interested to read what Kiera Cass does to follow this one up.

Review: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

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hidden oracle***SPOILERS***

If you haven’t read The Blood of Olympus, the last book of the Heroes of Olympus series, then stop reading now!

 

 

Now that we got that out of the way.  Rick Riordan’s new series, The Trials of Apollo we follow the God Apollo who is being punished for his role in the rise of the Giants in the last series.  What’s his punishment?  Zeus has made him mortal.  This is something that Zeus has done to Apollo before so once again, Riordan has taken directly from the myths and created his own world.  We first meet the mortal Apollo in an alley in New York in January, a couple months after the end of the The Blood of Olympus. (For those who’ve read, Riordan’s Norse series with Magnus Chase, the first book in that series also took placed in January. So both of his current series are happening at the same time which may mean there may be some crossover coming) Apollo is as you expect him to be.  He’s vain, arrogant and totally can’t believe that Zeus would turn into a human.  Again.  He is quickly introduced to a new demigod, named Meg who he is now pledge to serve until he completes his trials and Zeus says he can be called a God again.  Things are rough for Apollo. 1. His mortal name is Lester.  2. He has none of his godly powers.  In archery he only hit the dead center.  He only made one person cry when he played the guitar. 3. He has acne.  4. He has no idea of why he’s being punished for one of his son’s role in the rising of the Giants and Gaea.  That’s totally not fair but then again when has Zeus ever been fair.  With the help of some familiar faces, *cough* Percy Jackson *cough* Apollo is taken to Camp Half Blood where he finds that the sins of his past are coming back to haunt him and also it turns out that not everyone loved him before.  With the help of the demigods, Apollo must face the trials to prove his worth and take down probably the biggest threat to humanity so far.  No big deal. For those who miss characters from previous books, some show up here and we get updates on a few others and hints that others will be making appearances in later books.  But what I like the most about Riordan’s writing is how he incorporates tough subjects into his stories without be heavy handed.  Like how he handled Nico’s coming to terms with his sexuality.  Here, we have one character deal with emotional abuse.  It was heartbreaking to read and I feel it will only get worse before it gets better but no less important to talk about.  I also love his sense of humor.  Apollo isn’t as sarcastic as Percy or as sassy as Magnus but he is not without a sense of humor.  Even when he isn’t in on the joke.  All in all, this was a very promising start to the series and I can’t wait to see what happens next when Apollo aka Lester takes the show on the road.

Review: Sad Girl Poems by Christopher Soto

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I never know what to say about poetry. I feel like, when you talk about poetry, you should say things about the poem’s anatomy. Its structure, the word choice, how those things contributed to the overall effect of what the author has presented. But, I never feel like I can do this. Or, maybe it’s that I don’t feel like I have the authority to do this. This is especially true with this chapbook. The author presents a series of poems that feature recurring references to a number of different people (Mother, Father, Rory, the cops). If you’ll excuse a little word play here, this book provides an arresting picture of how we are here for each other, how we fail to be here for each other and how the people who we love are the people who hurt us the most. And, I feel like I don’t have authority to tell you about the anatomy or word choice or structure of these poems because I feel like I was presented a snapshot of a time, some insight into someone else’s life, and the view was so radically different from my own life that the only thing I can do with it is listen and observe and feel grateful that this book was shared with the world.
This was a really intense read that had me in tears more than once. And, more than once I found myself shocked with the reality that with which I was being presented. For example, in the poem “Home [Chaos Theory]”, the author presents us with an image of a homeless woman and dialogue from colleagues and we are left with the disconnect between what someone has experienced and what we know about them. How many people in our lives carry invisible wounds? How often do we separate people from their experiences or help to build and support the idea of “other” in their lives. (“Oh, X is just like that. I mean, you’re X but  I’m not talking about you. You’re not like that.”) And, I was left wondering how often am I complicit in creating the realities that put queer people, people of color, queer people of color out of their homes? Out of jobs? In these situations where the prison complex then sweeps them up and punishes them for doing what they have to do in order to survive?
I really enjoyed this book. I really liked how the words seemed to wander across the page in some poems. I liked the use of parentheses. I loved how that made it feel sometimes like you were reading dialogue and other times like you were being given secret insight into what was said or what someone was thinking. These poems were heartbreaking and beautiful and I am so, so glad that I got the chance to read this book.
This is my Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives book for a book from a small press.