And now for a little romance.
What I’m Reading Now: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
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Tag Archives: diverse lives
Review: Half Lost by Sally Green
I don’t even know where to begin with this review. After finishing this book I said this on Twitter.
I’m emotionally wrecked by the ending of Half Lost. Now how am I supposed to sleep? It was worth it though. @Sa11eGreen
— Beth D. (@Bethly126) March 15, 2016
So yeah. That ending. I can’t say what it is because that would be an obvious spoiler but damn. I’m still in tears thinking about it. This series has been very surprising. Sally Green did not hold back in the finally. It was chaotic and tense and painful. I’m heartbroken for so many characters, Nathan and particular. He is a boy who his whole life has been told he is bad for because of who he’s father is. He is not and has never been. Yes, he has done bad things. Some forgivable and some quite questionable but not a bad person. He has from a young age been tortured and manipulated. Used for one groups goals for another. He had few people who truly cared about him and betrayed by one he truly cared about. Only to find his true love, his soul mate. The one person who truly believed in him and that is Gabriel. I spent most of the first half, hoping that Nathan would look up an see Gabriel for who he really is and see that his love wasn’t just one way. Gabriel questioned Nathan, he challenged him not because he didn’t believe in him but because he did. He wanted what was best for Nathan and willing to go along with him no matter what. It was a beautiful love story. Nathan is not in a good place at the beginning of book but works his way through. He may have thrown himself with the Alliance because it was best chance for revenge but by then end he understood that the Alliance was the best way to get his freedom. As long as Soul and his White Witches continue to rule, he would always be watching his back. So he does what no one else can. He leads the fight. War is hard. There is always a price and the price Nathan paid may have been too much. I know it was for me. I felt a little broken like Nathan was by the end. The ending was nothing buy heartbreaking and tragic but happy endings don’t always happen in real life either.
Half Lost unexpectedly helping me with my Diverse Lives, Diverse Stacks Reading Challenge by being a book with a Queer Character. In the previous books, Gabriel’s feelings for Nathan were pretty clear but besides a kiss and some hints in Half Wild I didn’t think that Nathan would return Gabriel’s feelings. I hope he would. There was no confusion. No pronouncement, I am Gay or Bi or Queer. Just this was the person he wanted to be with and that was it. I do believe that Nathan did love Annalisse but not in love with her. She was first person outside his Grandma and siblings that treated him like he could be good or was good and he so desperately wanted but that wasn’t love. There was nothing fake or forced about his relationship with Gabriel it was true.
Review: Captain Marvel Vol. 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick
I didn’t know much about Captain Marvel besides she is soon to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. OK, maybe not that soon since she has yet to be cast and her movie keeps getting pushed back. (Thanks a lot Spider-Man!) So, I thought I would give her a shot. If I’m going to start reading comics, I figured I might as well start with a character that I don’t already have a history with and start fresh. Not to mention I wanted to read a story with a female lead.
At first I felt I was a little bit behind. In the early chapters (or is it issues?) there were references of things that happened before the action of the story began. A previous Avengers mission, for one, Captain Marvel’s ex and why she wasn’t ready to move forward with her relationship with Rhodey, aka Iron Patriot from the Iron Man movies. So, I feel like someone needs to recommend me comics to read that might explain what happened before. We open on Captain Marvel and Iron Patriot retrieving an unknown vessel that is hurtling towards New York. Inside is an alien from a planet that has been destroyed. Later that night, Iron Man finds Captain Marvel, or Carol Danvers, at home. Which is the Statue Liberty. That’s right, she lives in the Statue of Liberty. As someone who lives in New York and knows how much rent is, I can’t even imagine what rent would be to live in the crown of the Statue of Liberty! There has to be a story about how she got such a prime spot. Just another perk of being an Avenger? Anyway, Tony Stark has decided that they need an Avenger in space and Carol immediately volunteers. So, she and her cat go into space in take back the Alien, Tic, to her people. The problem is that Tic’s people are refugees from a destroyed planet. They were resettled on to an uninhabited planet but now they are getting sick so are being forced to leave and without their sick. This doesn’t sit well with them. They have lost most of the their loved ones, they were not going to leave behind more. While in Space, Carol meets up with the Guardians of the Galaxy. You know, Peter Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot. This leads to one of the funniest moments between Rocket and Carol’s cat. It also leads to the real problem of the story which surrounds Peter Quill’s father, who is not a good man.
Carol Danvers is a great character. She’s smart, brave and little head strong (but who isn’t). She believes in the missions of the Avengers and will go to great lengths to accomplish those goals, even putting her self on the line. She’s also pretty funny. I like that. This was a very fun book. I’m looking forward to read more about her. I’m also happy because this helps my Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives reading challenge. I’ll admit, I’m a little behind.
This Month in Reality: Tidying Up
When I get home tonight I’m going to take off my shoes and thank them (they are super cute and have done the hard work of keeping my feet out of the mud today). My wallet, essential oils bag (yes, I’m that kind of dirty hippie that brings her own aroma therapy with her everywhere she goes), my planner and the notebook I always carry with me will be taken out of my purse and I will thank them and put them in their new spots. I will hang my purse up and thank it. Then, I will feed my hungry, hungry monsters. Finally, I’ll try not to feel silly for expressing gratitude to inanimate objects. Hey, you know how I said I was done reading self-help books? Well, I lied to both of us. I read The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. All of this thanking is Kondo’s idea. I’m down with expressing gratitude as a regular practice. It’s allegedly good for you. Thanking things isn’t a problem. (It feels weird, but I do all kinds of weird things so what is one more?)
So, I read this book and now I feel like I need to divest myself of half of my possessions. Which, on the whole, is probably not a bad thing. I am kind of a pack rat so I hang onto things longer than I need to. (And, I’m on the job market expecting that a move is in my future if I want to stay in my field, so having fewer things to move would be pretty awesome.)
The Konmari method seems to work as follows: Go through all your possessions one category at a time and get rid of anything you don’t need. Don’t move it to your Mom’s. Don’t put it in storage. Straight up give it away or sell it or throw it away. No longer have it within your reach. Keep the stuff that makes you happy. Not the stuff you feel like you should keep, not the stuff that you have “just in case”. Just the stuff that makes you happy. If you use your stuff as a barrier between you and the world to keep you safe, this is going to be an awful process. However, she gives you something to deal with the anxiety-inducing trash-fest. She wants you to start by thinking about what you want from life. How do you want to be seen? How do you see yourself? What are trying to radiate? How does your space reflect that? So, the life-changing art of tidying up is not just about divesting yourself of possessions. It is also about divesting yourself of ideas, thoughts, and patterns that no longer serve you.
In short, this is going to be a rough ride.
I think this is a great way to approach tidying up your space and your life. But, I also think that confronting your feelings and thought patterns is rough work and that it might be easier when you have Kondo there in the room with you. So, I recommend this book. It was an interesting read. But, if you’re going to use the Konmari method to get rid of stuff in your life you may also want to be in therapy or keep a journal of the process so you can work out your feelings as you throw out your stuff.
This book counts as my book by an Asian author in the Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading Challenge.
Review: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
So It may surprise you or at least my friends who read this blog but this was the first graphic novel I’ve ever read. Yeah, I know. I talk a good game. Kate and I watched the Saturday morning cartoons of X-Men and Spider-Man when were kids and, well, I pay attention. I listened to my friends and customers when they talked about various superheroes. I’ve pretty much seen all the movies. I’ve read various articles and critiques. I love Agent Carter. So I’ve paid attention and have been able to piece together this and that, enough that when I talk about comic characters and movies, I’ve come off as I know what I’m talking about. I’m a total fraud and I know it. I’m trying to fix that.
Nimona isn’t your typical superhero story. Actually she a villain’s sidekick. One day she shows up at Lord Blackheart’s place telling him she is going to be his sidekick and help him take over the kingdom and finally defeat his nemesis, Sir Goldenloin and the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics. Blackheart is resistant at first since there are rules but Nimona will not take no and once she shows him her shape-shifting abilities, he gives her a chance. At first, she’s a little bit too enthusiastic and dives in head first but eventually she and Blackheart find the perfect working relationship. After their first mission into the Institution, they come across the Institution’s questionable plans and it makes you ask who are the heroes and who are the villains.
There are many things I liked about this book. One is Nimona. She’s spunky, funny, loyal, brave, vulnerable, angry, lonely, friendly. She’s all those things and more. She clearly hasn’t had an easy upbringing. Her ability has made her an outsider, a monster, but really she is just a little girl looking for somewhere to belong. Lord Blackheart is a smart, curious man who feels he has been wronged and then took up the role he thought he was expected to play. He is really the first to see Nimona for who she really is. The world is not black and white. There is both good and bad and all of us. I was really taken with the story. The artwork was very nice. I liked the medieval aesthetic with a modern twist. Nimona is drawn as a sorta emo girl with pink and purple half shaven hair. She’s round not thin. She’s real. I was really touched by the story. It wasn’t just good versus evil or what does it mean to be good and evil but also finding our place in the world. Hoping to be judged on who they actually are and not what they are perceived to be. Isn’t that what we all ultimately want? I truly loved this book and I can say my first foray into graphic novels has been a success.
What I’m Reading Now: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
One of my birthday gifts!
Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Update: Preferences on Bookish Emails
I am working on putting up a page that will contain links to books and authors that can serve as suggestions for anyone looking to diversify their reading stacks this year. I was just going through my BookBub emails from the weekend and I googled all of the authors of books that interested me and noticed that they were not all that diverse. So, I went to check what my preferences were set to. There are categories that are just LGBT and African-American interest. I just changed my settings today, so hopefully this will bring a little diversity to the subjects and authors in my daily emails.
It does, however, raise a really obvious question: If LGBT and African-American interest are separate categories, then who is served by all of the other categories (which are subject based and not demographic based)? This is why diverse reading challenges are important. Books with African-American characters aren’t only of interest to African-Americans and until readers start demanding diversity in the genres they read, this kind of categorizing won’t change.
(That being said, since African-American and LGBT voices aren’t well represented in broader categories, I think this kind of categorization is needed and important.)
Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading Challenge.
Beth and I have done a lot of talking about the kinds of things that reading can do for a person. It really is a magical thing. It can transport you to different worlds. It can imagine new history. It can see potential futures. Studies have even shown that reading literary fiction can help you relate better to other people. So, with this in mind, we’ve put together our first reading challenge. Inspired by #weneedmorediversebooks, we’ve come up with a challenge to make us think about who we are reading and what we are reading about. Our challenge has three sub-challenges: one related to characters, one related to authors, and one related to books themselves. Each sub-challenge is only ten books long, so you can do any of the sub-challenges without changing how you read for the whole year. As a reader, you can tackle the whole challenge or one or more of the sub-challenges.
I will be maintaining a page here on this blog full of possible books to fulfill the challenge that I find in my reading travels. Of course, any suggestions will be helpfully added to the list. Part of what makes diversifying your reading difficult is that you don’t always know something is diverse going in. We are going to endeavor to make that easy by keeping a separate page of suggestions.
Since this challenge is only 30 books, we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of diversity in literature and in life, but we hope that this list and the books that are read because of it will create interesting and thoughtful discussions. We hope that you will consider taking the challenge and reading along with us in 2016!
2 Women, So Many Books 