SEPT - Yellowthroat

September review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Yellowthroat by Penny Hayes, 1988. [western category]

In order to find a book for this category, I pretty much just googled "lesbian western." And I found Yellowthroat by Penny Hayes, who apparently is the lady who came up with the lesbian western in the first place! Good to know that I started from the beginning. I've always been sort of a purist that way.

Yellowthroat was published by Naiad Press, one of the publishing companies dedicated to lesbian lit (succeeded by Bella Books), and I think I may have gotten a very early edition of the book, because the pages were falling out of the old glued binding by the time I was done. But I love this copy. I love the cover design, I love the simplicity of it. It is what it is, and nothing more. A sentiment Margarita (the bandit) and Julia (the kidnapped) both emulate in their own ways by the end.

The gist of Yellowthroat is a wlw romance, which I am obviously here for. I loved the scandalous description on the back cover for what happens once Margarita's band of bandits is required to take a female hostage back to their camp because one of them is gravely injured: "Once more Margarita's life undergoes drastic changes. Because amid a growing emotional attachment to Julia Blake, she has discovered the unthinkable: a sexual attraction to another woman." GASP. This is exactly what I wanted. Another item of note in the pro column of this review, is that the lady romance is not the climax of the book. So many of the lesbian novels I read climax quite literally with a single sex scene between the two women in the last act of the book. But Yellowthroat subverts that by introducing the attraction early on, and allowing the falling action of the book to be the women coming back together for their happily ever after (once Margarita has stopped being an idiot).

That being said, the ending fixed itself. Throughout the latter half of the book, there was a lot of internal monologue of Margarita's where she denied herself her desire to live out the rest of her life with Julia. She claims she doesn't want to be tied down, but in the next breath talks of how she will most likely marry a man again eventually. The two women start a damn business together and move to a gold mining town and everything is going pretty great when Margarita throws a grenade into everything, saying "sorry I cannot be with you because it doesn't fit what I think my life should look like so bye." I am grateful that the scenes after where Margarita lives by herself in the valley again and berates herself for leaving go by quickly and do not take up nearly as many pages as their time together. I am also incredibly grateful for her finally coming to her senses and returning to Julia, even though she tells herself she's just stopping by as she passes through the town. (No one just stops by in the Old West. It takes too long to get there. It is very clear you wanted to see Julia and kiss her again so just admit it! -- my brain as I read the last few pages.)

But we do get a happily ever after! There is no kill your darlings, return to heteronormativity, or self-denial in this tale! And boy was I happy to get there. I do believe I will be checking out the rest of Penny Hayes's ouvre in the coming months. I do enjoy a woman who knows how to ride a horse...

SEPT - Ash

September review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Ash by Malinda Lo, 2009. [romance novel by POC category]

I really liked Ash by Malinda Lo. It was a simple retelling, which I always enjoy, but even moreso when they're queer! Because queers deserve fairy tales too. As in, all the fairy tales need to be queered. (Note to self: write queer fairy tales.) It is a reimagining of Cinderella but with faeries and hunters and lady love. As is standard with Cinderella stories, we begin with an overview of Ash's childhood: her mother's illness and subsequent death, her father's distance and remarriage, the tyranny of her new stepmother after her father passes. The one constant throughout all of her trials are the fairy stories her mother used to tell her, as well as a copy of a book of fairy tales her father bought her as a way to remember her mother. She copes with the death of her parents by escaping to the woods at night, trying to find the fairies, and Ash focuses a lot on what it means to love fairy tales, and how you would respond to the opportunity to live in one.

There's a fantastic review in the Los Angeles Review of Books that talks about the positions of women in this universe: the Huntress, Kaisa, at the head of the King's Hunt, Greenwitches responsible for the magic of the land, et cetera. Ash doesn't interact with very many men after her father dies, and the fairy she meets is not necessarily gendered, although she uses male pronouns to describe him. Women abound in Ash's world, and she is constantly trying to see how she is going to fit. She does not think that she has a place in any of these spaces, just a quiet orphan girl with no skills or anyone to back her up. But still she manages to find her way in the world, meeting a faerie and the King's Huntress and moving through it with their influences, conscious or no.

Ash starts to feel "something as yet unnamed" (p202) when she starts spending time with Kaisa, going on hunts and reading together in the sunshine. I absolutely love this phrase, the way it acknowledges the complexities of emotion and budding sexuality. She does not shy away from this, but keeps observing in her small, shy way, and goes to attend the final ball and see Kaisa once again. But, of course, she is thwarted and has to flee the night. Normally I root for the faeries but not when dawning lady love is at stake! Damn faeries...

But everything is alright in the end. And what an excellent ending, may I say!! Happy endings are few and far between for queer tales, and it left me incredibly pleased. I also enjoyed that (spoilers) she didn't have to choose between endings: she submitted to her deal with the faerie who helped her get out, and then she goes to find Kaisa and tells her that they are free to love each other and that she has found a home. I mean, how much more perfect can you get? Not only a happy ending, but one that was actively and determinedly chosen by a young girl who has found her own power in her story.

AUG - The Revolution of Marina M

August review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch, 2017. [BRICS country category - Russia]


{note--there will be general spoilers...}

The Revolution of Marina M is one of those books whose covers I saw a lot and stuck in my head until I finally picked it out. (Can we talk about the infuriating placement of library bar codes though? Since when is finding somewhere not blocking some cover content so hard??) A straight-backed, red-haired girl in profile, arms folded confidently and fingers splayed as she grips her own arm. This book tells the story of Marina, an upper-class Russian daughter of a government official who is mixed up (as is all of Russia, really) in the 1917 Russian Revolution and the downfall of the tsar. Fitch plots the revolution through the eyes of one sixteen-year-old girl, seeing purely what she sees of the revolution, how it affects her personal bubble, rather than the large-scale international repercussions.

Marina has occasion to be so many different women throughout her own personal revolution. She starts as the socialite and slips into the revolution by supplying her radical best friend with information about her father's dealings. She is a spy and a starving poet and a factory worker and a prisoner and a wife and a con woman and a follower and a revolutionary and an individual. She says often near the end, that she is "tired of Rooms." She goes on to tell how the rooms defined her relationships to the different people, different lovers, different parts of her life. Her childhood apartments and her relationship with her parents; the Poverty Artel where she moves in with her destitute poet lover and sleeps fully clothed and louse-ridden; the room where Kolya, her childhood crush, takes her when he returns and they stay for three nights of sex and food and abandon; the apartment where she is imprisoned by a mobster; the planetarium to which she escapes and spends a summer as a mute peasant girl; the prison where she is taken when picked up by the police; her best friend's room where she gives in and sleeps with a woman to repay her for saving her life; the old country house that she escapes to only to find it has been overrun by her mother's new-age cult friends. Each room is tied to a person: both a person who controls Marina and the person Marina is in that room, and on the last page of the novel, we end on Marina leaving, walking out into the air and a new start.

I think I could talk forever about my love for Marina's poetics. She uses phrases like "loping iambs and foot-dragging dactyls" to describe the works she immerses herself in. She talks of the difference of placing "word next to word" and creating meaning versus simply stringing sounds together, how old stories make her feel and how poets make the most excellent spies. Contrary to what one might think, Marina's revolution does not come with the publication of her work: in fact, that is where she starts, with her father arranging a small collection of her work, and she has to fight to keep it burning inside her as the revolution threatens to tear it out with her heart with every new tragedy. Not to mention her fire, her sexuality, her verve--I found that I met Marina as a friend, though our stories are worlds and years apart.

Janet Fitch wrote at the end of the book, "research was the oxygen in the water of this novel," and that thrilled me. I have long harbored a desire for writing historical fiction, as it takes a story like this to really cement history for me. I like to learn history through a person's eyes who has lived it, not by memorizing dates in a textbook. Never again will I forget that the Russian Revolution took place in 1917, and I am thrilled to learn that it is only one half of a two-part tale so I can learn more! Now that I'm not in school where I have to prove my knowledge in history essay exams (which give me terrible anxiety), I think I'd like to try my hand at writing a historical fiction project of my own. Marina has inspired me.

AUG - What A Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses

August review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: What A Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz, 2012. [nature category]

What A Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses was on the shelf in my work's library. As a neuroscience startup with a love of citizen science, our shelves are full of science-y books about how to make sense of the world around us, even if you're not a professional scientist. My coworker recommended this one when I mentioned I needed a book about nature for my Read Harder challenge, and I sped through it!

One of our recent products at work is a Plant SpikerBox that can measure action potentials in plants, even though they have no nervous system! Being an English major, I've only had a tenuous grasp on the science here, so it was fun to read Chamovitz's book as he laid out a methodical narrative about how plants interact with the world, even without being able to move. It even answered some questions I wasn't sure how to phrase, like how pain medicine knows where you're hurting and stops it! Chamovitz ordered his chapters based on parallels between in human sensations and plants, such as "what a plant smells." Plants don't actually smell, but they do have processes which react and respond to odor chemicals!

There were so many other books I had on my list to read, and it made me realize that I don't read a lot of nonfiction, and I should change that. I love these challenges for pushing me out of my standard reading zone.

JUL - The Neverending Story

July review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, translated from German by Ralph Mannheim, 1979. [children's classic published before 1980 category]

The Neverending Story! I grew up on this movie. I wanted a Falkor so bad when I was little, and I used to call my old dog Luck Dragon because she looked pretty similar, if I do say so myself. As I'm sure many a reader of this book was, I was surprised to learn that the 1984 film only covered the first half of the book! Which in all honesty is totally fine with me, because second-half Bastian suuuuuucked. But we'll get to that. The Neverending Story is a book about a small boy named Bastian who is bullied and escapes his tormentors by hiding in a bookshop one day. He meets an old, cryptic man who is sort of mean but leaves a tantalizing book open, and Bastian feels called to it, so he steals it (like you do) and locks himself in the school attic to read all day. (And you wonder why this story appealed to me. Minus the bullying.)

Bastian gets caught up in the story and slowly realizes that him reading the story is part of the story (the original postmodern mindfuck), but can't bring himself to help the Childlike Empress, a fact that they wisely revised in the film. In the book, Bastian gets transported to Fantasia and meets the characters he fell in love with as he ventures. He is gifted with the Childlike Empress's amulet, but using its power comes with a price: he slowly loses the memories he had of being human on Earth. Coincidentally, with the loss of those memories, he sucks more and is ruder and ruder to the people he calls his friends and I was very upset with him. There is clearly some moral coding going on here, as he has to eventually make the decision to return home even though he more and more wants to give up the life he has forgotten and stay in Fantasia as the most powerful thing around.

One thing I loved stylistically about this book was the illuminated alphabet for the chapter titles! There were 26 chapters, and each started with the subsequent letter of the alphabet, illuminated in a full-page illustration that tied into the chapter's narrative. Some of the more difficult letters felt a little stilted, but it was helpful that in a fantasy world you can make up character names that start with X! Another was the repeated intrusion of the Real World into the book, what with phrases like "but that is a long story for another time."

I love stories about stories that take you places, and I did like this book, for the most part. It just dragged on a lot longer than I think it needed to. But who knows, maybe it was better in German!

JUL - Double Bind

July review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Double Bind: Women on Ambition ed. by Robin Romm, 2017. [essay collection category]

Double Bind: Women on Ambition is pretty self-explanatory as a collection title. Robin Romm has commissioned a series of essays from women in wide-ranging fields, from literature to butchery, Hollywood to dogsled racing. Romm starts with an intro that examines her impetus to collect these women's stories and what the word ambition meant to her personally. As a writer, clearly I resonated with the writer essays, but I was interestingly struck by some of the other ways in which I related, and some of the questions these essays raised in me.

I currently don't have my copy of this book on hand as I write, since I lent it to my mother--isn't that what you do with books about women? Lend them to the other women in your life?--and this writeup is long overdue so it is going to be a little more overview than specific, but I think I've got the important points jotted down. To begin at the beginning, this is an essay collection about ambition. What does ambition mean? Romm and her contributors talk about the difference between an ambitious man (seen as positive) and an ambitious woman (often seen as overbearing, out of place, unattractive), and there was another interesting thread about the word itself running through these essays. Many of the women asked the people in their lives if they thought the woman was ambitious; few claimed that word for themselves, citing discomfort with the aforementioned undesirable nature of an ambitious woman, impostor syndrome, and myriad other reasons.

A lot of the responses also dealt with the "have it all" mentality, the perennial question plaguing working moms and stay-at-home moms alike: how do career ambition and home life ambition coexist? These essays covered women with kids: women who adopted children, women who had children and left their careers, women who compromised and devoted a lot to their careers but still missed their children. My partner and I have talked about kids vaguely, in some future era when we're both done with our sports, talked about who would have them or if we would adopt, etc, but this book gave me a little pause. I guess I had painted standard children desire over my own thoughts without ever outright asking myself about those desires. Don't get me wrong, I still want kids, but I need to reexamine the hows and the whens and I am lucky to have a partner who is open and honest and supportive of those discussions.

Reading this book in the midst of my sports season made me question whether you can be ambitious in some areas of your life but not necessarily others. Can I strive for a top slot on the charter team but also resign myself to an under-paying job because it's easier to deal with at the moment? Can I be ambitious but lazy, so my ambitions never bear fruit because I don't allow myself enough time on them? Is there something self-sabotaging about that, something inherently misogynistic about a creeping doubt that maybe I should just be happy with what I have? Don't get too big for your britches, my dear, you might regret it. And the answer I came up with is, I don't know. I think that is the point of this essay collection too: no one really knows. It is the asking that is important, the self-analysis that is expected of women categorically more often than men, the constant weighing of our lives against various other shining stars or gutter flops. What does it mean to me? Well that's the question, now isn't it?

JUN - When Breath Becomes Air

June review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, 2016. [book published posthumously category]

I knew that this was going to be a hard book to read. When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi, is the memoir of a 36-year-old neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with lung cancer before the end of his residency. It was published posthumously (hence its ability to be counted for this category), but that wasn't necessarily what was going to make it hard. Earlier this year, my father was diagnosed with Stage IV Esophageal Cancer. His prognosis is decidedly better than Kalanithi's, and he has finished his first eight-week round of chemo with little to no worsening of his condition. But still. The way that cancer works is that when it infects your life, it becomes a capital letter. Cancer. You can't think about it the same way anymore. It is not remote, like the tragic but heartwarming story of someone that Lifetime made a movie about. It isn't a cautionary tale about someone forty years ago who got it from cigarettes. My father is the single healthiest sixty-year-old man that I know, and he still has cancer. He did everything (mostly) right. He hasn't smoked in over thirty years. He exercises every day, sometimes multiple times. Sure, his hydration could be better, and he could always do more yoga, but still. Cancer wasn't something that happened to someone like him. And yet.

Paul Kalanithi was almost done with his neurosurgery training when he was diagnosed with cancer. He details the beginning of his career, how from the outset he was fascinated not only with biology and life, but also with what made life worth living and definable, things he could only really parse through by immersing himself in literature. It was hard to read this book, but it was also beautiful, the way he talked about language and life and death. There is a passage Kalanithi writes where he talks about the brain and the mind and his resonance with T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land that absolutely floored me: "Literature not only illuminated another's experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection. My brief forays into the formal ethics of analytic philosophy felt dry as a bone, missing the messiness and weight of real human life" (p31).

Reading Kalanithi talk about his own illness and his process of divorcing his doctor side from his patient side was illuminating. My father is an engineer, not a doctor, but he has a similar predilection for control and information that he is learning how to balance. That we are all learning how to balance. Thinking about cancer with a capital C and reading about someone who wanted to not only stave off death in his patients but also understand it has helped me in ways that I was not fully expecting. I know that this story is not my dad's story. He is treatable and positive and a fighter (even though cancer doesn't really care how much you're willing to fight, it's just biology).  My dad is healthy, except that he has cancer. My dad is strong. He still teaches spin class (pictured left) even when he has his post-treatment treatment fanny pack, and he still laughs at my jokes and sends me pictures of squirrels. He is doing great and I am so goddamn proud to be here to witness it. I love you, Dad.

JUN - Wide Sargasso Sea

June review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, 1966. [colonial/postcolonial literature category]

One of the reasons I love challenges like this is that it forces me to read things that have been sitting on my shelf for years but I have not had the impetus to pick up. (There are just so many good books in the world, y'all. And new ones every day!) The category of postcolonial literature listed Wide Sargasso Sea atop many of its lists, and as a retelling of Jane Eyre, I was hungry to delve in. Wide Sargasso Sea tells the untold story of the madwoman in the attic, the woman who exists almost purely as a tragic backstory for Rochester, an eerie element of Jane's life, and an impediment to their relationship. Very rarely is her name even referenced when discussing Jane Eyre: often she is simply "the mad wife," a small sliver that is quickly dealt with, a side story tangential to Jane's. She is a question that has always stuck out to me, and one I was grateful to see someone had attempted to answer.

Postcolonial literature is, simply put, literature written by and about people of formerly colonized countries, and WSS does this twofold: it centers the a character from a postcolonial country (Antoinette Cosway, the mad wife) and is written by a woman of similar background (Jean Rhys is from Dominica). The introduction for my copy of WSS is by Francis Wyndham and notes that this book, while inextricably linked to Jane Eyre, stands on its own: "the Bronte book provided the initial inspiration for an imaginative feat almost uncanny in its vivid intensity." Rhys's reclaiming of Antoinette's story is almost an attempt to undo the colonization of her home and her voice, and she does it impeccably.

I've always loved Jane Eyre, so it was interesting to see a different perspective of that story. In addition, I am a sucker for thought-provoking perspective shifts, so Wide Sargasso Sea has long been a part of my to-be-read pile. I was pitched the book as a retelling of JE from the madwoman's point of view: I therefore did not expect the text to change point of view. The three distinct viewpoints of the story mark three distinct parts of her life: the first-person of Antoinette's childhood, growing up on the island; part two switches to an unnamed man's perspective, assumed to be Rochester upon his marriage to Antoinette and subsequent disillusionment; and part three, told through the eyes of a broken woman taken from her home, Antoinette has become the madwoman and echoes the events that take place in JE. Now, I didn't particularly like Mr. Rochester when I read JE initially--every subsequent re-read makes me question what she sees that allows her to marry him--and this retelling made me dislike Rochester more. He is stubborn and arrogant and self-serving and violent, and his perspective did nothing to quell that or humanize him in any way. His character lacking that humanization again made me examine what it is that I love about Jane Eyre, why I keep going back to it. It is definitely mostly for Jane herself, and for the middle bits. The parts that lead up to her leaving Rochester and coming into her own. In a perfect world, Rhys's novel would mesh with JE, Jane would realize that Rochester is a monster and she would whisk Antoinette away to be cared for like the human that she is. A girl can dream, right?

MAY - Moonstruck

May review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Moonstruck Vol 1: Magic to Brew by Grace Ellis, Shae Beagle, and Kate Leth, 2018. [one-sitting category]

I read Moonstruck in one sitting, in bed next to my fiance on my birthday morning. I had purchased it from Queen City Bookstore on a derby road trip earlier this year for a number of reasons: because Kate Leth was a contributor, one of the other contributors spelled her name like I do (Caitlin!), it was created by the fantastic Lumberjanes creator, and there are two ladies googley-eyeing each other on the cover. Queer stories with magic in them! What more could you ask for!

I was absolutely not disappointed. "Monsters, romance, and magical hijinks--oh my!" cries the back cover gleefully (and don't think I didn't swoon over that Oxford comma. I did). The blurb continues with a slightly confusing if not entirely-lesbian-appropriate sentence: "But all heck breaks loose when she and her new girlfriend Selena go on a disastrous first date that ends with a magician casting a horrible spell on their friend Chet." Girlfriend and first date in the same breath? I am intrigued. There's a human with snakes for hair on the back! It's rated E for Everyone! Sold.

Chapter One opens right in the middle of the story. More and more I am finding that I fucking love in medias res. It jumps right into the close-up brewing of a cappuccino while two characters discuss how perfect this girl is. The cappuccino almost drops when surprise! horse hands catch it. Bam, magical creatures on page 1. This is Chet, the flamboyant centaur barista, who is listening to our protagonist Julie gush about a girl she likes. So many good things are happening already. Julie is a bookworm, obsessed with a fictional series I can only assume is the magical equivalent of The Babysitter's Club, which also allows for a fun story-within-a-story complete with protagonist commentary on the page. In this world, lots of people seem to be part-animal-part-human, and it is insinuated that Julie is too, but there seems to be some shame around it from the beginning. (Some closeted queer coding, mayhaps.) Turns out Julie is a werewolf, but it's great because Selena is too! And they spend some time working through some of Julie's issues while they work to solve what happened to Chet's butt! (no spoilers...) There are some fun Easter eggs to watch out for, and just a really pure good time.

Moonstruck was so much fun, and I am looking forward to picking up the next collection of issues. I am committed to supporting queer art and artists wherever I come across them, so if you have any suggestions for me, let me know!

MAY - Thunderstruck

May review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Thunderstruck by Erik Larson, 2006. [true crime category]

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson is just so FULL.  Full of information, full of characters, just full full full. I remember reading Devil In The White City by Larson in high school, and it was the same kind of full. Engaging but still informational and relatively unbiased. I was excited to read something by him again. Thunderstruck is a historical novel describing one of the greatest criminal chases of all time, the way a murderer was caught using a new-fangled technology: wireless communication! I tell you what, I know more about the minutiae of wireless telegraphy than I ever thought I would, after reading this book.

However, there is a downfall to such depth: it took so long to get to the murder. LOTS of backstory. Larson basically starts at the beginning of both men's lives: Hawley Crippen, the unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the much-debated "creator" of wireless communication. There is so much detail that at points you forget that this is a book about a murder at all! Which was definitely an interesting way to present a true crime book.

Speaking of the murder. We never actually see it. The ending of the book was unbiased -- it presented differing opinions of how or why or when Crippen killed his wife, making sure to illustrate points of contention, although they may bear no fruit. It is a disaffected way to look at a crime, especially one as controversial as this one was, but I feel like the ambiguity lends itself to this story. Bury yourself in a historical book and pick up some Erik Larson.

APR - Children of Blood and Bone

April review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, 2018. [first book in a new-to-you YA series category]

Children of Blood and Bone is a goddamn revelation. Oh. My. God. Tomi Adeyemi has created a whole new, beautiful world that is actually not that new--it just goes somewhere very little fantasy has gone before. CB&B has been described to me as "Black Panther meets The Last Airbender" (the book jacket actually says "But everything changed when the Fire Nation I MEAN once magic disappeared," so you catch my drift).  Other reviewers can and have done it better, so I will keep my discussion of the throughline of the plot quick, because I have other things I want to focus on in my review.

The land is called Orïsha, clearly and beautifully influenced by African mythology and culture. Orïsha is ruled by a despotic tyrant king who has outlawed magic and made it punishable by death, ensuring compliance through genocide of any active maji and the essential enslavement of their progeny, those who have the capacity for magic but it has not been awakened, the Divîners. These Divîners are visually Othered by their white hair (that doesn't take dye, so there's no passing), and they are routinely treated like third-class citizens. This clear allegory for racism reverberates throughout the book, and it is raw and frank in its dealing with the frustration and violence that engenders. As this NPR review notes, most fantasy is about rebellion, overthrowing an oppressive system that often singles people out based on differences. Caitlyn Paxson notes, "The narrative empowers without preaching, weaving its message deftly into a rip-roaring tale."

In her Author's note at the end of the book, Adeyemi touches on her inspiration for this story, pleading with the reader: "...if this story affected you in any way, all I ask is that you don't let it stop within the pages of this text." She goes on to describe the tragic situational parallels of lives lost and grief in this book with real police brutality against Black folx in our society today. She has crafted a beautiful allegory without being heavy-handed, a call to action couched in a high fantasy, and it is one that we desperately need.

I could talk forever about the imagery and the beautiful writing in this book; the fact that Adeyemi doesn't include a glossary so you have to really read closely and create one for yourself as the story goes on; the inherent matriarchy of the religious structure with the Sky Mother at its peak; the incredible phrase "children of blood and bone" itself. So maybe I'll write another post, after my bestie has read it and we have talked.

One of the most striking things about this book is something that it doesn't come right out and say: virtually every character you are introduced to is Black. Not a half-baked Black stereotype that was clearly only put in to check the "diversity" box for a story. But authentic, three-dimensional characters that are fallible and human and downright compelling. This is truly what representation means. I love this review by Kyndal Wilson from Black Girl Nerds, in which she talks about this more eloquently. She connects to this book in a way that I obviously cannot, as I am a white reader, but I can absolutely appreciate the beauty of this thing Adeyemi has given breath to, and I will do my damnedest to help make sure this book succeeds in making waves. Starting with making every person I know read it. Get in line, folx.

APR - Monstress Vol. 1: Awakening

April review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Monstress Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu, 2016. [comic written or illustrated by a person of color category]

Monstress Vol 1: Awakening is so incredibly visual. Every panel was so intricate that I spent extra time just looking at the pages after I'd finished reading them. Monstress is set in an alternate matriarchal 1900s Asia, a world that seems as dark and twisty and intricate as the illustrations that bring it to life. 

I'm into rebellion stories lately, it seems. From the first, our main character is fighting. She is haughty when she has no reason to be, she bristles at her situation though she seems almost detached from it. She enters the story naked, on display and up for auction, but her narration is the first thing to read. Even then, things seem to be on her terms. We don't even get her name right away. That was one thing I really liked about Monstress Vol I was the fact that it didn't lay out everything at the start. In medias res, for serious... We are dropped in along Maika's quest, and little bits are only revealed through flashbacks or conversation, or the occasional "lecture" between parts by animal professors. It kept me reading, to try to put all the pieces together.

MAR - The Power

March review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: The Power by Naomi Alderman, 2017. [sci-fi novel with female protagonist by female author category]

The Power is suuuuuch an incredible story. Just. Wow. It was first brought to my attention by Buffering the Vampire Slayer, whose patrons started a book club to read and discuss this book about (not just) one girl in all the world. The basis of the story is that suddenly, girls all over are changed, have the power to channel electricity through their palms. What will happen? Will women take power and create a utopia? Or will there be a hellish role reversal and women will abuse their power in equally grotesque and inexcusable ways?

The story is told by focusing on a number of different women--and one dude. There is tough, street-savvy Roxy; politician Margot and her distant teenage daughter Jocelyn; orphaned and abused Allie; and smartphone-camera-toting Tunde, who is the external observer and only man who gets a perspective chapter. All these different types of women throughout the story have their own role to play in the coming revolution, which is what this text documents. Speaking of which! The book opens on a letter to a woman named Naomi, from a man who is ostensibly the "author" of this book about the rise of the matriarchy. This positions it in sort of a frame story, which lends itself to an entirely different kind of book. The sections are marked in a countdown, with titles like "Ten years to go" and "Can't be more than seven months left," offering a sense of foreboding with every passing section. The early chapters were positive, hopeful that the tide was turning, hopeful that the changes were for the better.

MAR - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

March review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, 2008. [Oprah Book Club Selection category]

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle was pitched to me as Hamlet in the Midwest. It was one of those books I recognized the cover of, had seen around for years, but had never picked up. Beware, the last paragraph of this discusses the ending of the book, so be on the lookout for spoilers. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski is about, of course, Edgar Sawtelle, a boy born mute (though there seems to be no reason for it) who speaks only in his own blend of sign. He is part of the Sawtelle family that has bred and trained dogs on their farm for years, and he is learning from his father the tricks of the trade. All that changes when his uncle shows up in their lives again and his father dies suddenly...Edgar ends up running away with a handful of his litter.

This book was beautiful. I am in awe of the way Wroblewski uses language, and his descriptions were just so beautiful. I appreciated the multiple perspectives you got throughout the different chapters of the book: in the post interview, he said that the original draft was all from Edgar's POV, but he is so glad he changed that, as the other thoughts give the story a richness and a darkness that most likely would not have been conveyed otherwise. Everything in this book felt deliberate, whether it was the specificity of the dog training descriptions or the ways in which the chapters were broken up. That deliberateness lent itself to the character of Edgar, who always had to be so cognizant of what he was doing or saying in a world that had trouble understanding him.

On that note, I'd like to talk a little about Edgar's silence, and the other kinds of communication he adapts throughout his life. Edgar does not even enter the story as a primary focus for the first thirty pages: the prologue introduces a character who remains nameless (later it makes sense that this character is Claude, or maybe I missed some clues prior), the first chapter is about the man who built the barn and the house where the Sawtelles now live, and then Edgar's birth is not even witnessed. Instead, the focus stays with Almondine, the trusty dog, on the farm while Edgar's parents leave for the hospital and return days later with a small, silent creature. It becomes clear that Edgar is mute, though there is nothing wrong with his physiology that would incite such muteness, but alas. He just did not make sounds. His parents start teaching him sign early on, at the behest of a visiting stranger, and this evolves into their own special language. Edgar also can write notes, communicate in sign with the dogs, and utilize facial and body expression to get his point across. But the most heartbreaking thing, the most crucial moment of his life is defined by his inability to make a noise, to call for help when his father is dying. Silence becomes his curse and his companion when he ventures out away from the barn. It is a long time before he meets the man that turns him around and takes him home. It is a long time before the silence stops eating at him.

The ending was something I was unsure of after closing the book. The fire that tears apart the Sawtelles' barn, the way Edgar and his uncle Claude interact with it and each other, the tragedy of their relationship and the situation it has put them in at the end. I believe we are to assume that they both die in the fire, but on this particular point, the author is circumspect, which I think is important in terms of staying with the tone of the book. How did it make me feel that they both succumbed to the flames? Neither knew the honest truth of what the other had done, and they died trying to hide their secrets and prove their history, respectively. My heart ached after the end of this book, and that is not something one comes across every day.

#30/30 - 2018

#30/30 - 2018

monday morning planning
deep breaths and color coding
laying out the week
deep breaths and activity stickers
orange for work
purple for practice
a party hat for the day of my birth

at almost-27, I feel
the most organized I've ever felt
which is still not very,
but at least i have a place
to put down words
for posterity

#29/30 - 2018

#29/30 - 2018

road trips
on the way back home
are slightly less fun, especially
after the thirteenth hour.
the fifth cycle through the playlist,
the eighth cup of iced coffee.

mind rushes ahead of the tires
then slowly drudges back to
the present
the eternal, puerile question
Are We There Yet?

#28/30 - 2018

#28/30 - 2018

two games one day
push my body a little bit
farther
stretch my stamina a little bit
longer
one skate in front of the other

one win, one loss,
but the loss feels like a win when
they had to fight to take back every point
two-minute heroes,
all of us

#27/30 - 2018

#27/30 - 2018

Maybe trying to play 60 minutes

of my very best roller derby after only sleeping

4.75 hours in a borrowed bed

is not going to be as easy as anticipated. 

My mental fortitude,  though,

was noteworthy--

tired but not spiraling 

trying to remember to breathe 

And not black out  for a particularly wind knocking hit

#26/30 - 2018

#26/30 - 2018

On the open road down to South Carolina
First tournament of the year
The car eats up the miles
as we guzzle down the coffee
And point out the Nature all around.
Conversation  flows like the rivers we pass,
fording front/back seat deafness divide
bubbling up over topics like pasta shape hierarchy
and the proper pronunciation of adipocytes

#25/30 - 2018

#25/30 - 2018

statistically speaking
eventually
you should hit on a good one

Another day
Another bidding war
For a house we did not win
A seller we did not convince
And it is getting quite

Draining.

#24/30 - 2018

#24/30 - 2018

nothing's worse than
waking up too late
You'd  checked and checked
the alarms but technology
has failed you
 And now there is no time for
morning group strength

I guess I should be resting
recovery is important too
But picking up heavy things is just so cathartic

#23/30 - 2018

#23/30 - 2018

it's funny how your body adapts
to normalcy
skating on mondays
used to be my norm
but now my legs are confused,
heavy.
normally we run on this day
not roller skate
and the engine is hiccuping
trying to catch a gear

#22/30 - 2018

#22/30 - 2018

representation
why do these words and images
resonate
why do they
matter

because it is healthy to see
yourself
it is good to connect with
a larger-than-life you
to see evidence that
People Like You
are Here

thank you Sam
for photoshopping yourself onto Gabrielle's body
like so many of us have done before
in the comfort of our own rooms
not int the comfort of a silver screen bedroom
that
is a big fucking deal

#21/30 - 2018

#21/30 - 2018

today is a day
for cleaning out
"you haven't lived here for seven years,"
she says
"why is there still so much STUFF"

so i go through
organize journals from 2003 to 2010
read (and burn) letters written by
a fourteen-year-old with inconsequential wisdom
--she was not wise.
eloquent, yes, but the words did not matter

pictures from my childhood
hard copies
of hard bangs, backwards caps, pale blue dresses
i really am a spectrum

#20/30 - 2018

#20/30 - 2018

poems come out of
wonder
not out of
knowing
a lesson I relearn
every April
a scene sticks in my brain
a thought
a fragment
rarely planned
rarely outlined
just, formed.

#19/30 - 2018

#19/30 - 2018

not all days
are bookended by busrides
anymore
usually I get picked up
in a car after work
my person playing solitaire
until I emerge

today was bookended though
thursdays generally are
and it gives me a little extra space
to read

#18/30 - 2018

#18/30 - 2018

late to practice
stuck in the flow of writing
voice-to-text editing
in the car
on the way
after publishing
because it just wasn't finished yet
but
is it ever

FEB - So You Want To Talk About Race

February review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, 2018. [social sciences category]

This post is late. Obviously. It's been too long coming. I've been thinking a lot about how to write about this beautiful gem of a book, So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, and putting it off until I had the right way to phrase my thoughts. But I think that is exactly the reason I (and everyone) need to read this book and write about this book and talk about this book. I was keeping quiet so I didn't fuck up and say the wrong thing, instead of starting the conversation and trying to be open and vulnerable and able to be called on my shit. I should write about this even if I'm not sure where to start.

Bottom line. Everyone should read this book. Whether or not you think talking about race/thinking about the way we talk about race is important (spoiler alert, it fucking is), you need to fucking read it. Ijeoma Oluo’s prose is raw and unassuming. She examines her own story, her own privilege, all the while maintaining that it is hard and it is awkward but it is incredibly necessary to do so. Her chapter titles are all easily-digestible questions that get to the core of the things that make these discussions hard, like "what if I talk about race wrong" and "but what if I hate Al Sharpton." She lays out her stories, her connections, and then seamlessly moves into the grander scheme.

I, as a relatively privileged cis white woman, have been trying more and more to interrogate my privilege and how I interact with the world around me. Recently I've been getting really angry at work because there is a casually racist old man who says things that make me feel like a cartoon teapot with steam coming out of my ears. He is so biased and ill informed and just plain inappropriate that I find myself speechless, but I am trying to figure out how to engage. My partner recently asked why I never say anything to him, just fume at home,and I said that I didn't think it would make any difference. Hearing myself say that out loud was a shock and it put my whole thing into perspective. I have to say something. I have to practice what I preach, to be the change, and all those other cliches. I feel like this book was a good kick in the butt I need. Thank you, Ijeoma Oluo, for raising your voice and being so articulate and honest and just really all-around mind-blowing. Just, thank you, really. You're cool.

#17/30 - 2018

#17/30 - 2018

it is January 107th,
not mid-April.
road closed due to accidents
alerted after I left the houseasizing
too late to arrive on time
missed the gym and i am grumpy
fantasizing about lunchtime
with no endorphins
just rage at the white white winter

#16/30 - 2018

#16/30 - 2018

the best way to get ahead
is to start
the best way to start
is to close your eyes
shut everything out
pretend
that anxiety is not an issue

#15/30 - 2018

#15/30 - 2018

sundays
when the weather is confused
and everything is canceled
sundays are for lounging
put the laundry in, yes,
but don't fold it until tomorrow.
make a grocery list, of course,
but tuck it into next day's agenda.
tonight is for
takeout and tangles and warm, close, breath.

#14/30 - 2018

#14/30 - 2018

Who knew
it would be this hard
to find plain brown suspenders
two hours
and only one single section
of one single store
had any selection
of note

#13/30 - 2018

#13/30 - 2018

helped a customer on the phone today
felt knowledgeable and
useful
like my anxiety was on lunch break

#12/30 - 2018

#12/30 - 2018


How to Build A Successful Brand
you need a story
a personality
it's Not Just About Sales Anymore

you need vision, foresight
what does your Brand want to BE

#11/30 - 2018

#11/30 - 2018

found
bent and forgotten piece of
label maker tape
in a cracked corner of the concrete floor.
It reads:
DIS / LOCATION

I don't know what possesses me
to pick it up
keep it in my pocket
as if ignoring the fact that the universe
gave me a broken sign

#10/30 - 2018

#10/30 - 2018

nothing quite like
reading in bed
after a long day of socializing
librocubicularist
there's a word for everything
it is good
to put a name to something

#9/30 - 2018

#9/30 - 2018

{one of my favorite prompts, Spam Poetry}

Re: Proposal
he must be stopped (urgent)
Save $50 on pest control that WORKS
Borrow from a trusted resource

it's funny but it's really not funny
don't ignore this

see transcript for details
good riddance

#8/30 - 2018

#8/30 - 2018

stuck behind
a wall of no-words
writing comes harder
to me now,
trying to fit it
inbetween my comings and my
goings

#7/30 - 2018

#7/30 - 2018

Listen--
the crowd is deafening
in this tiny globe of a room
deafening in support of
someone else
retask that raucous noise
rewrite it to be for you
and listen

but how can I listen
if there's nothing to hear
from you

#6/30 - 2018

#6/30 - 2018

Some homes rise above the rest
come see why!
charming little house
attention to detail
flows seamlessly to the main
I can see us there
coffee in hand
sun filled living space
open concept addition with skylights, bamboo floor and windows galore.
make it
ours

#5/30 - 2018

#5/30 - 2018

indecision pangs
skipping meals in favor of sprees
accidentally

#4/30 - 2018

#4/30 - 2018: Science Words
[prompt found here, article found here]

Exploring to better understand
information

Abstract
around 40% of a
global burden
a growing body of evidence and/or resistance
In the present.
We
reviewed the relationship, the different
namely, esophageal
The cancer of accessory, such as
There is an emergent interest
in order to understand the
the establishment

KEYWORD: resistance;

#3/30 - 2018

#3/30 - 2018: Damaged Goods 
[prompt inspired by an Anis Mojgani line, "Make a list of the parts of your body that don’t work anymore. That list is a poem.”]

Most of my body

is damaged goods.

It still works fine 

enough,

but the sheen has certainly worn off.

The oil is low

(and the brand is hard to find),

the hinges are overworked and they

sigh quietly when asked to move

too quick. 

Full-contact

Full-impact

takes a toll

I number the adjustments lovingly

an injury index

a table of bodily malcontents

#2/30 - 2018

I had a dream that
is just on the tips of my memory
waking up with a wisp of it that cleared
with the air moved by a blink.

#1/30 - 2018

Afternoon naps

are your staple now.

Lucky me to able to drop in

for a snooze

just like the old days.

Though I am more your size now

and your stubble has gone to salt, 

the slant of sun is the same,

the weight of the cat a little more,

and your wide hand spread over mine, 

comforting,

Dad.

FEB - Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

February review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie, 1985. [female protagonist over the age of 60 category]

Agatha Christie truly is a gem. Miss Marple has established herself in the general consciousness, so much so that I felt like I already knew her when starting this collection, even though I'd never read her stories before. I am a big fan of strong lady characters, and I was excited to see how this one was structured, why she has established herself in the pantheon of greats. The Chicago Sun-Times quote on the front of my copy refers to Miss Marple as "One of the greatest female sleuths of all time!"

The first story, "The Tuesday Night Club," introduces the conceit of the first few stories. Miss Marple is not the first character introduced: her nephew is the first mentioned, as is his background as a writer, so his description is weighty. Her appearance is described, her now-quintessential black lace mittens and her knitting, and she is referred to often as "benignant." We come to always see Miss Marple like this, from the outside, almost as an afterthought. She is often brought back into the story after spacing out or getting distracted. She is very self-deprecating, always talking about how she couldn't possibly presume to know the answer, but she had a very similar story from her village... I thought it very intriguing and rather "of the times" to paint her as such an unassuming simple woman.

All in all, an interesting portrayal of women, especially the juxtaposition between Miss Marple and Miss Jane Helier, for example. (Both called Jane, I might add! Fun little coincidences.) Jane Helier is described as a relatively stupid, gorgeous actress. In "The Affair at the Bungalow," Miss Helier is telling a story to the group and she often has trouble getting going:

"It's very difficult," she said plaintively, "to say just what you want. One gets things mixed up and tells the wrong things first." (p180)

She is played off as this stupid, vapid woman, when in actuality she concocted one of these plans (spoiler alert!). Christie never plays them off of each other, saying one is better than the other: Miss Marple helps Jane Helier, whispers to her when she thinks Miss Helier is a bit off track on her concoction, but doesn't out her in front of the men of the group. These women back each other up, something I think is important to remember in such divisive times.

JAN - The Princess Diarist

January review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher, 2016. [celebrity memoir category]

The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher's rediscovery of her journals from the set of the first Star Wars film, and it is breathtaking. Bookended by her own retrospective explanations, her journal pages are just vague enough to be universal, but understandable within the context she has painted. There is a vulnerability and a raw quality to her memories that is a side of Carrie Fisher was have never seen, and having that parallelled with the sardonic honesty of her later years is particularly intriguing. I greedily devoured her words, letting myself drop into her mind and feel what she felt, see how she saw. It was fun to peek inside the nascent beginnings of Leia, but it was so much more interesting to read Carrie talk about those beginnings in terms of the rest of her life.

I, like many thousands of girls my age, was in awe of Princess Leia. I loved Princess Leia for all the things she represented in the original Star Wars trilogy: she was the badass princess who didn’t need rescuing, she was the only woman in pretty much the whole shebang, she was loud and funny and she got shit done. She was my solid entry into the world of science fiction and I will always be grateful to her for that. Since then, she has grown as I have, and when she reentered the world of Star Wars as General Organa, I was absolutely thrilled. Leia put in the work and fought her way up from being the empty, underestimated princess of the first films. Carrie was not satisfied with her being the sister or the lover: she infused Leia with simmering starpower that exploded in the hearts and minds of girls everywhere, and Leia became one for the ages.

When she passed, I read article after article about her; I watched her interviews and added her books to my TBR pile. I remember when Wishful Drinking came out, I remember being slightly saddened to learn that Carrie Fisher sort of regretted Star Wars and that she had some problems with addiction--I was seventeen and still in the heady days of not interrogating something that makes me uncomfortable, something that Carrie has since taught me to do. I didn't read Wishful Drinking (but it's on my list now), and I let Carrie Fisher fade back out of the forefront of my mind for a while longer. I don't remember exactly how she came back, but I remember all of a sudden being stirred by her writing and her honesty, and Leia opened up so much more to me.

visit https://www.hayleygilmore.com/work/

Sure, Princess Leia taught me a lot, but I think Carrie Fisher taught me more. Her frankness about her personal problems and mental health issues taught me to be ok casually mentioning my medication or my anxiety. Her flagrant disregard for societal standards helped me to realize how great a woman's body is when she loves it, and that nobody else's opinion matters. When the real world started to get shitty with Doomsday *ahem* I mean Election 2016, an image began to circulate of Leia in her white dress with a gun, saying "A Woman's Place is in the Resistance." I love it, but I don't think that single image goes far enough. I want a triptych: I want Princess Leia in her white dress; I want Undercover Leia in her stolen bounty hunter suit; and I want General Organa in her vest and circle braid. This woman has shown me so many different ways of how I can be, and I want to keep honoring her the only way I know how: by continuing to Be.

Thank you, Princess Leia. Thank you, General Organa. But most of all, thank you Space Mom, for all that you've given me. Hope you're having a grand old time hexing people like Harvey Weinstein up in Heaven.

JAN - She Came By The Book

January review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: She Came By The Book (An Emma Victor Mystery) by Mary Wings, 1996. [mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ author category]

Any story that opens with "As a lesbian," is going to be a good story. And so begins She Came By The Book, a mystery written by Mary Wings that I picked up when an LGBTQ+ Center was having a library sale. I had never heard of Mary Wings before, but apparently she's a pretty established queer mystery fiction writer, so I'm excited to have a new author to look for.

This book was a lot of fun. Sure, it was a little dated, but it was pretty visceral and descriptive: I've only visited San Francisco once, last year for a few hours before my flight back home, but I felt like I could gather the feel of the place with Wings' words. She Came By The Book is set in San Francisco and follows Emma Victor, a sort of jack-of-all-trades PI who has her foot pretty solidly in the gay scene and community's elite. She is entrusted with the care of the remaining papers of deceased State Representative and Gay Icon Harold Blooming, whom she worked for before he died. She is assaulted shortly after she receives this assignment, and shortly after a woman is poisoned at the gala at which she is meant to present the papers for posterity. She digs into the politics of the SF gay scene at the time, which was interesting but slightly tired and cliched in terms of it falling on a lot of stereotypes. Like I said, this is not to say that it wasn't a fun read, but it was not the most thrilling mystery nor the most eye-opening commentaries.

2018, Read HarderER

I'm gonna go for Book Riot's Read Harder again in 2018! I really enjoyed upping the volume last year, and I found some themes I want to try to continue to focus on for my decisions this year. So here we go again!

2018 Categories:

1. A book published posthumously
2. A book of true crime
3. A classic of genre fiction (i.e. mystery, sci fi/fantasy, romance)
4. A comic written and drawn by the same person
5. A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa)
6. A book about nature
7. A western
8. A comic written or drawn by a person of color
9. A book of colonial or postcolonial literature
10. A romance novel by or about a person of color
11. A children’s classic published before 1980
12. A celebrity memoir
13. An Oprah Book Club selection
14. A book of social science
15. A one-sitting book
16. The first book in a new-to-you YA or middle grade series
17. A sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author
18. A comic that isn’t published by Marvel, DC, or Image
19. A book of genre fiction in translation
20. A book with a cover you hate
21. A mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ author
22. An essay anthology
23. A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60
24. An assigned book you hated (or never finished)

Recap 2017: 5 Years of Challenges

Whew! This is my fifth year of self-assigned reading, guys. It was my first year doing Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge, since the Eclectic Reader Challenge I had been doing before had not posted anything by the time I wanted to start organizing last December! It was a big step up, reading and writing about two books a month instead of one, and honestly the lines between months have bled as I have been busy and have also allowed myself to read and do other things for fun. Thus, this 2017 year recap is late, as were December's reviews. But! Better late than never, I always say. And plus, this is for me, and I can make up the rules! 2017 was a great year for me, personally. (The world, not so much...) It was the first full calendar year I spent with my now-fiance (!!!), we moved in together, I lifted some heavy things, I played some roller derby, I read and received a lot of good books. I think this year was far more eclectic of a year in terms of books, simply because of the number of categories I was given. I appreciated the specificity of some of the categories, as well as the broad, simple nature of others. This year in reading featured a lot of female- and woman- driven books, as per usual, but I also read a number of books centering stories of people of color, something I look to continue to do in the years to come. I read some more gay books, increased my bookshelf in that category, and it has been just all around pretty great. So, here we go, to recap twenty-four whole books that I read for this challenge in the year two thousand and seventeen!

Derby Life by Margot "Em Dash" Atwell
January - book about sports
The first thing I wanted to try to do this year was to read books that I already owned, if they fit the category. I donated to the Kickstarter for this book years ago, but it has sat on my derby reference shelf since then. I really enjoyed getting a new and different perspective on the sport I hold so dear, especially now that I am competing at such a wildly different level than when I started, three short years ago.

The Case for Books by Robert Darnton 
January - nonfiction book about technology
Books are great! I love books! E-readers give me access to so many books for so much cheaper! But I miss books! This is the age-old debate (well, Technology Age-old, haha) for book lovers, and it was one that I found very interesting. Darnton focused on Google and book digitization, but the essays were written seven years ago, and I would love to see what kind of research has been done since then.

Texts From Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg
February - book about books
Did I mention that I love books? This category was super hard, so I fell back on a book I'd been gifted and a concept that I was just so tickled by. What if classic characters could text? A fantastic thought experiment that Mallory Ortberg executed perfectly. I found myself snorting with laughter on the bus many a time during my read.



When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago

February - book about immigration or by an immigrant
When I Was Puerto Rican is one of those books that I've seen on Best-Of lists since I was in high school but it never fit in with my reading schedule. This year it feels particularly poignant in retrospect, what with the devastation in Puerto Rico that still has not been addressed adequately by our government. The scenes in which the author discusses governmental aid during the election season was particularly difficult for me to read in today's context.

Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf
March - collection of short stories written by a woman
Oh look, another chance to read some Virginia Woolf. I am slowly making my way through her entire oeuvre, and this collection of short stories reminded me why I fell in love with her to begin with. It is her early stuff, pre-Mrs. Dalloway, and you can see her playing with her soon-to-be characteristic style in various corners of the book. There's also a fantastic patriarchy-smashing satirical entry called "A Society" that everyone must read, stat.


The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

March - book that has been banned frequently
Well of Loneliness is often hailed as the beginning of lesbian fiction. It is a novel that is often referred to also as a thinly-veiled autobiography of Hall herself, and it is an interesting slice of naming and identity politics in that era. I think that I would more readily classify it as a genderqueer classic, rather than a lesbian one, and it was interesting to see arguably the beginning of the kill your darlings trope. And by interesting, I mean infuriating.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King
April - fantasy novel
It seems that 2017 was also a year to get around to reading things I've meant to for years but haven't. I was finally prompted to read The Gunslinger because the movie adaptation with Idris Elba was coming out, and a friend of mine swears by the series. I was very intrigued, and I read the second book, but there were places where I just really shook my head at Stephen King.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
April - travel memoir
Where to be happy is an interesting concept for a travel memoir, and the methodical way in which Eric Weiner goes about researching and/or proving his hypotheses is incredibly appealing to a logical creature such as myself. It basically just solidified my desire to visit Iceland.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
May - book you've read before
I think this is the fourth time I've read Handmaid's Tale? The last was during the Romney bid for presidency, but this time was quantifiably scarier. The Hulu series did an incredible job of expanding Atwood's universe and adjusting things for 2017--although not many things, because it is unfortunately just as relevant now. (I will say that the fact that Elizabeth Moss is a Scientologist is highly problematic for me in terms of the brand of this show. But that's for another time.)

Cursed Pirate Girl by Jeremy A. Bastian
May - all ages comic
It is hard to find a stand-alone comic these days, and I did not succeed here either. Turns out this is Volume I! But in any case, I enjoyed this pen-and-ink comic with its intricate page layouts and fantastical characters. I am a sucker for pirate stories, especially lady pirate stories, so this was right up my alley.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme
June - book set >5000 mi from your location
Again, a book that has been on my shelf for like 5 years. It was recommended to me in college by a crush, who was as in love with words as I am, and this book did not disappoint. It was thrilling to read the way Hulme engages with not only the English of the book, but the Maori phrases that are peppered into the narratives.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
June - YA by an LGBTQ+ author
This made my little gay heart swell. I appreciated the lack of a "eureka!" moment, as that is not how I came to my sexuality either, and to see it dealt with so naturally on the page was empowering. I got my copy of this book for free at Ferndale Pride this past summer, exemplifying a good queer community.

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
July - published between 1900 and 1950
Another read prompted by the upcoming release of a film! Kenneth Branagh is Hercule Poirot in the newest film version of Agatha Christie's classic, and while I haven't seen it yet, I am looking forward to watching him act around a glorious mustache. I like reading mystery novels and only allowing half of my brain to try to figure out the whodunit, allowing the other half to just sort of revel in the reveal, so to speak.

Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice
July - debut novel
The original angsty vampire novel! Granted, Anne Rice is a much better writer than Stephanie Meyer, but the angst is strong with this one. I saw the movie so long ago, and I think I was most struck by tiny Kirsten Dunst, so that was the most gripping part of the novel for me. Also demon children are just terrifying altogether, so there's that.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
August - book where all points of view are people of color
I stretched the category a little for this one, since Mo had bought it to read and I wanted to take advantage of that,  but I'm very glad I did. I think reading it in conjunction with seeing the film adaptation really was what made it fit this category.

Hell Hath No Fury by Rosalind Miles and Robin Cross
August - book about war
Again, could've been so good, but I wanted it to be at least 200 pages longer so they could go into more detail about some of the people discussed. I understand that that's not what this particular book was about, it was trying to be more of a reference guide, but on the bright side, now I have a whole list of women I want to go and research.

Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
September - book where a character of color goes on a spiritual journey
Janet Mock is a personal hero of mine. I really enjoyed reading about her inner thoughts as she was becoming who she really is, and the deftness with which she dealt with her situation was poetic and inspiring. I am looking forward to reading more of her work as I continue on my journey to be a woke human being.

Patsy Walker AKA Hellcat! #1: Hooked on a Feline by Kate Leth and Brittney Williams
September - superhero comic with a female lead
I loved Kate Leth's reimagining of Hellcat! Let's be real, I love pretty much everything about Kate Leth. So it was fun to see her venture into the superhero world and leave her signature fun and irreverent stamp on it. Plus she came up with the One Stop Crop Top Shop that has haunted my dreams ever since!

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
October - classic by an author of color
I grew up having "Phenomenal Woman" read to me by my mother. I've been raised on Maya Angelou. I've read parts of this book, I think, but never had the opportunity to sit down and read it in its entirety. It still feels so very relevant, especially in 2017, and that both made my heart swell and hurt.

A Knight To Remember by Bridget Essex
October - LGBTQ+ romance novel
This was a ridiculous romance novel but we finished it. It could've been so good but I was constantly taken out of it by the author's outlandish descriptions and obsession with certain key phrases. It sort of made me want to write a romance novel, you know, to do it better. But I love reading LGBTQ+ stories, so that made my little queer heart warm.


The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel
November - book set in Central/South America, written by a Central/South American author
DNF. Did. Not. Finish. The first 20 pages made me uncomfortable and they were trying too hard and I just couldn't even with it. I have brought the first 20 pages back out at parties to read how ridiculous it is, though.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
November - book set <100 mi from your location
I loved this book. I've been meaning to read it for a long while now, and I'm grateful when challenges allow me to check one of those books off my list. What can I say about Middlesex that hasn't already been said? It is an amazing work of literature, both in terms of style and form. The decisions Eugenides made with time and structure add weight to the story and to the narrator, and I couldn't put it down.

Look There by Agi Mishol, translated by Lisa Katz
December - collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love
I've had a lot of feelings about Israel lately, and reading this collection was no exception. I was reminded of the beauty of Israel and also its hardship, and how it has shaped the people in my life. I missed my brother when I read these poems, and I texted him to make sure he know that I was thinking about him.

Fruit Mansion by Sam Herschel Wein
December - book published by a micropress
My cool friend Sam wrote a chapbook and I had the honor of buying it and reading it and putting it on my shelf. His raw honesty and power came through in every line of every poem, and I am thrilled to know him.

And there you have it! That is my 2017 in books, for the most part. I am proud to have only hit one dud in this challenge, as I was really stretching myself. I wish I had more time to read, but I think I'm doing pretty well as is! I hope you enjoyed this, imaginary reader, and I maybe gave you some TBRs of your own!

~ My 2016 recap ~ 

~ My 2015 recap ~ 

~ My 2014 recap ~ 

~ My 2013 recap ~