NOV - Infinite Jest

November review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, 2005. [assigned book you never finished]

My friends and I started reading Infinite Jest a few years ago, but our little book club petered out. It sat on my shelf for a long time, until this category! I do love the language, the way DFW plays with words, but it was difficult to get through, especially in the way I've been reading, snatches on my commute or drowsy in bed. That being said, I am glad I finished it.

How does one really summarize Infinite Jest? It is a postmodern encyclopedic novel, a behemoth of a text that I used as a headrest on more than one occasion. It has been described as "meta modernist" and "hysterical realist." It's set in a halfway house and a tennis academy, features junkies on both sides, told in a stream-of-consciousness similar to that popularized by Virginia Woolf, but very very clearly written and created by a man. There is an Infinite Jest wiki that was wildly helpful throughout my reading, because god knows the footnotes were just as cryptic as the book itself.

So much of this book is figuring out DFW's language/shorthand etc. He uses footnotes for wildly differing reasons, from defining the technical composition of drugs to parenthetical interviews to asides to fucking defining POV but there's nothing that is like "when I say demapped it means killed or suicide" like most normal footnotes. The truth (Truth) in this book is constructed, rather than reported (page 1048, footnote 269). The footnotes can be used as construction, in various ways: through asides (264), definitions (308), parentheticals (325), and research (304), among others.

A friend's review of IJ, immortalized

I am glad to have read this book, I am stubborn enough to have finished it, but I am equally glad that it is over. David Foster Wallace is a very talented and complicated man, to be sure, and a genius with wordplay, and he is truly worth studying.

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.

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 ~

#18/30 - 2017

A neologism is a made-up word
a placeholder for a feeling
as yet unchristened.
I used to make up words when I was a child,
but I can't remember them, now.
I like to think that I found what I was looking for,
needed a placeholder no longer,
I learned and filled in and rewrote
what before I had created and fever-dreamed and silver-tongued.
I hope that my instinct didn't die
it's just rusted, filmed-over, and geoded.

JAN - The Case for Books

January review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2017: The Case For Books by Robert Darnton, 2010. [nonfiction book about technology category]

Books about books! My favorite! A quick one, this, as I'm not entirely sure how to parse my thoughts, but I want to get this out before the month is done. Start the year off right, you know?

The Case For Books is about reading and writing, past present, and future.  I wanted this book to be excellent, in-depth, and comprehensive, but of course it was published 7 years ago, so it couldn't be that up-to-date. I enjoyed the cover of my edition, the juxtaposition of old bound book and new electronic reader. As an avid reader, this is a juxtaposition constantly close to my heart. 

Darnton wrote a number of essays and tied them together loosely based on the three topics, past, present, and future. starting with the future with an "update" prologue on the future. He has some attractive turns of phrase, and he most certainly knows a thing or two about books, especially the history of publishing and the book trade. That being said, I much preferred his focus on the old rather than the new. The sections on the future were primarily focused around the Google Book Search, and all of them seemed to relay the same information about GBS ad nauseam. I started to get bored with the minutiae. And that is unfortunate, because I do think the future of books and reading is an essential part of our forward propulsion as a society, but it is more than just the Google Book Search. I hope to read an updated opinion on the matter soon, just maaaybe not by Darnton.  

AUG - My Lady Jane

August review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2016: My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, 2016. [YA Historical Fiction category]

I have long been fascinated with the Tudor era in English history. I read all that I could about the wives of Henry VIII and as many other historical figures as I could find, but for whatever reason, Jane Grey never really surfaced. Maybe because her reign was so short--they call her the Nine-Day Queen--she hasn't been given much page time, but I was thrilled to find My Lady Jane, which is a historical retelling of her reign, with a little fantasy sprinkled in. The salient change in this universe is the existence of beings known as E∂ians (pronounced eth-y-un), or people who have the ability to shape-shift into an animal. Namely, King Henry VIII, who turned into a lion and ate a court jester once, provoking the phrase "don't eat the messenger," according to the storytellers. The premise of My Lady Jane is this: 16-year-old King Edward is dying and must find a successor, and he lands on his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who he decides will be married to Gifford Dudley, son of Edward's most trusted advisor. Gifford, often referred to as "G," is an E∂ian who becomes a horse whenever the sun crests the horizon, a change that he cannot help or control in any way. Jane does not want to be married, let alone be queen, so once Edward is declared dead (spoiler alert: in this version he actually is not dead!) she has a slight crisis. The book is divided into two parts, Part One, "in which we revise a bit of history," and Part Two, "in which we throw history out the window." Part Two expands upon the conspiracy to (poison and) overthrow Edward and details the E∂ian rebellion that helps Edward take back the throne.

One of the most enjoyable things about this book, I think, was the self-aware storytelling. The prologue sees the three authors establish themselves as the weavers of this tale, referring to themselves often and inserting sly commentary throughout the relation of the tale. A few notable examples are the nods to popular culture at the time, such as having G (who is a closet writer) muck up the composition of some famous Shakespeare lines and then slyly nodding to the conspiracy theory that he would actually become the man behind Shakespeare (p489). The cavalier way the Lady Janes (as the authors appellate themselves) deal with history and consistently acknowledge this attitude keeps the tone of the book light, and it helps the reader to have as much fun with it as the writers clearly are having.

Obviously Lady Jane is my favorite character in the book. She is presented as somewhat of a mystery, nose always buried in a book (sound familiar?) rather than engaging with the court around her. My favorite little detail, however, is her synonym habit. When she learns of her fiancé-to-be, that he is purportedly a ladies' man, she thinks,

"So. Her husband-to-be was a philanderer. A smooth operator. A debaucher. A rake. A frisker. (Jane became something of a walking thesaurus when she was upset, a side effect of too much reading.)" (p35)

Although I disagree on principle with the idea of "too much reading" (is there such a thing??), I really appreciated the commitment to Jane's synonyms throughout the book. Again, there were moments where she would acknowledge she was doing it and the narrators would essentially come in and say that it was ok, it was what made her Jane.

APR - The Professor and The Madman

April review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2015: The Professor and The Madman by Simon Winchester, 1998. [Microhistory category]

In college, I took a class called History of English, where the incredible Anne Curzan took us through the entire story of the English language, and I was first introduced to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). We were required to utilize the OED pretty much on a daily basis, which I had no problem with, except for the fact that I would often delve too deep and get focused on something else entirely and forget about my homework! (I have been trying to find a way to spin this obsessiveness into a positive for job search purposes: Initiative! Hunger for knowledge! Self-motivation!)

This book was chosen as an example of a microhistory, a study of a single thing or event in history, namely the Oxford English Dictionary. As such, I truly enjoyed the part of it as the definition of the lives behind an event. As a writer, I have always gravitated towards the stories rather than the cold facts, and this was no exception. The Professor and The Madman describes two men and the significant roles they played in the creation of the OED: James Murray was the Professor who spearheaded the actual compilation of the majority of the dictionary, and Dr. W. C. Minor is the madman who sent in thousands of slips with words and definitions and usage examples per Mr. Murray's request. The book does not start with either of their lives, for the creation of the OED was sparked much much earlier: it starts with an introduction to both men at the pivotal point in their lives, the point that made them each into who they were required to be for the dictionary's creation, and then begins again at the inception of the dictionary as an idea. I enjoyed the pace of the story: it felt very deliberate and comprehensive, two adjectives I am sure are often used to describe the OED itself.

Similarly, I noted how the definitions that set off each chapter almost act as identifiers of the subject or theme of the chapter. In addition, they serve as evidence of that which the microhistory is describing, the dictionary itself. They are tangible evidence of the staying fact of the OED as well as examples of its entries, and this lends a sort of fullness to the book that I don't believe there would be otherwise. Some entries, like that of "elephant" (chapter 5, page 101), are referred to in the text, with descriptions of the actual process of defining the word for the OED, but others serve  a more abstract purpose, such as the definition of "lunatic" in chapter 3, when Dr. Minor's manias are picked apart. It would be remiss not to include examples of what makes this subject great, and Winchester does a quality job of not only providing examples, but providing definitions that add to the texture of the story.

A final thought. My generation grew up with encyclopedias and reference guides and the internet, all these myriad ways of accessing reams of information with the click of a finger or the flick of a page. It is truly the information era, where everyone has access to as much or as little knowledge as they so desire. In this way, it is difficult to imagine a time when we did not have these things, which is precisely where and when this book is set. It is hard to think about the actual original creation or compiling of these behemoths of intelligence when we are so programmed to use them to find any information at all. It is wholly refreshing, however, to think back to such a time, and while Winchester makes a number of references to his present and his future, such as describing the total number of volumes of the OED at its completion or its conversion to a web-based dictionary, he also allows the reader to stay firmly established in the world, which is not something many nonfiction writers can do.

#30/30 - 2015

[Since my roller derby name is Sonnet Boom, I figured I should probably endeavor to write one myself for this 30/30. It's exciting! Here's some background info on the sonnet if anyone was wondering! I had a difficult time coming up with something entirely organic so I ended up rewriting Shakespeare's famous Sonnet 18 but trading the idea of his lover for the role of poetry in my life. I kept the first two and last two lines generally as they were in his sonnet, just with slight tweaks. I think it works?]

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art a worthy equal in my mind,
The gleam and freedom easy in your way--
I do declare the two alike in kind. 

Might I adopt a more familiar tone?
Since you and I are such a noted pair.
I've felt for you as long as I've had bone,
And known your heady presence in the air. 

But such is not my comparison to make,
So I will just say this: you are my breath,
There's a thirst in me your words do slake;
I think I'll breathe as such until my death.

So long as I can breathe and I can see,
So long live you, and you give life to me.


[Oh man, it would've been cool to do Sonnet 14, as 14 is my derby number....oh well. Planning for next year!]

#25/30 - 2015

[True life experience: last weekend at the clinic I defaced an incorrectly spelled sign. "Your" does not mean "You're," people.]

Sometimes I have an uncontrollable tic,
Obsessive Correction Disorder
and it manifests itself
in graffiti on grammatically erroneous signage
smile, your on camera, it gloated.
My on camera what?
The ever-present pen in my pocket is an extension of my mania
my tool for reshaping the universe

MAR - Graceling

March review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2015: Graceling by Kristin Cashore, 2008. [YA Adventure category]

Graceling by Kristin Cashore was recommended to me by my brother years ago, as I recall. Because my bookshelves are getting very full and my pockets a little emptier, I have made it a goal to endeavor to use only books that I've purchased already for this challenge in an attempt to read through my eternally growing To Be Read list. Graceling is my YA adventure book for the year, beating out others like Insurgent because I thought it was standalone, but upon further inspection I have found that it is not. (Discussion of why many genres are chock full of series stretched to the bone is for another time and place, however.) This book follows Katsa of the Middluns, Graced with killing and forced to be a thug for her uncle the king. It describes Katsa's subversive endeavor, known as The Council, that is slowly spreading across the Seven Kingdoms in opposition to some of the mercilessness and horror enacted by the kings across the land. We follow Katsa as she rescues a member of Lienid royalty and later befriends the Lienid's grandson, who is also Graced and understands (to a degree) what it is like to see the world differently and be seen differently by the world. Friendship like this is something Katsa never considered for her life, so total is her self deprecation and loathing, and through her relationship with Po (whose real name is Greening Grandemalion, but we'll get to that weirdness later), she learns more about herself, her powers, and her world than she ever thought possible.

Without going into too much detail, the inciting action of the story is when Katsa realizes she has more control over her destiny than she thought, and she separates herself from her king uncle, setting off on a quest with Po to find a truth hidden far away. This truth turns out to be something that Katsa cannot defend herself from, an entirely novel concept to her as she is wholly used to being invincible and in total control of her faculties, due to her Grace, and it is possibly this realization of human weakness that opens her up to the humanity she thought was quashed by her Grace, by the monster she thought her grace had made her into. By admitting that she was not capable of protecting herself under the influence of this truth, Katsa learns to allow herself to rely on other people, and even open herself up to maybe loving someone. This story is one of capability and how one copes with something (or someone) that robs one of their capability, and how to deal with it, grow, and move on. It is a story that grows to understand happiness not as something alien and unreachable and strictly qualified, but something that is amorphous and moldable to each individual's worldview, something that each individual deserves a chance at. Katsa comes into her own over the course of this book, and the text itself often attempts to address larger issues through the foil of its fantasy framework, which I will discuss further.

A number of reviews I glanced at of this book condemned it as a vapid, bullheaded attempt to capitalized on YA adventure and coming of age novels, and while some of the reviews made some salient points, I would not go so far as to condemn this book entirely. Sure, Graceling is a simplistic book, almost fluff in its readability, one that has jarring naming conventions and less-than-realistic portrayals of 10-year-old dialogue, but as I mentioned, it does attempt to address some bigger issues, which is impressive for an author's debut in such a fraught genre. Cashore attempts to bring up prejudice, gossip, societal conventions, femininity, and numerous other themes in terms of the world she has built here, and many of them are well-thought out and intentioned, if not entirely mature or high-flown in their execution. For example (IMPORTANT NOTE: SPOILERS FOLLOW), toward the middle of the novel it is revealed that King Leck of Monsea may in fact be Graced himself, with what amounts to a gossip Grace, or the ability to control what people think of him and how they act toward him simply through the power of his own words. The interesting thing about this, I thought, is that the Grace retains its strength once the words leave Leck's immediate conversational purview: things that are said about him, however far away, carry this heady manipulation, as long as it is an idea or a story that he originally spread. This differs from many mind-control powers that I have come across throughout my reading in this way, and I was heavily intrigued by the direct parallel I saw with the idea of influential but misinformed gossip. Something as intangible as a person's words and influence completely decimate the unilateral capability that Katsa is built upon, reinforcing the idea that words have a weight that can disarm as well as any fighting move, and many cannot be countered once given their own life.

Such discussion of words brings me to my next point of interest for Graceling. I mentioned the naming conventions earlier, particularly in reference to the Prince Po, or Greening Grandemalion, because that is one of the most ridiculous names I've ever come across and I've read A LOT of YA fantasy. There is a king named Thigpen, reading which I can only ever picture Pig Pen from the movie Out Cold, so that's sort of ridiculous too. But not all the naming conventions I noted were ridiculous. King Ror of Lienid is loud. The names of the Seven Kingdoms are interesting in that they are very directionally-based (Nander is the northernmost, Estill is to the East, Wester is to the west, Sunder is south, Middluns is in the middle), except for the two outlying ones that care little for the drama of the other five and which play more of a role in the story (Lienid, which is an island to the southwest of the mainland, and Monsea which is attached to the mainland on the southeast border of Sunder and Estill). A huge part of world building for tales such as these relies on organic naming conventions, and I believe Cashore stumbles a little with this, as many times the evocations brought about by a name for me weren't necessarily connotations or other bits that would fill out and develop the word and its place in the world, but rather arrest my disbelief and take me away from the story Cashore is so earnestly trying to weave.

Finally, I'd like to touch on the feminism of the book. Most obviously, this book is an adventure with a Strong Female Character (and a physically strong one at that), but it also allows her to be strong in her imperfections. Katsa is constantly re-discovering and re-analyzing things she thought she knew, about herself and about the world, particularly in her attempt to reconcile her love for Po and her abhorrence of marriage, of her discovery of a possible gray area in which she could find an answer to the question "Could she be his lover and still belong to herself?" (page 234). Not that I'm saying that a SFC must be a rebel or unconventional in order to fit the bill, but rather that she must be allowed to think about these things for herself without judgement from author or story. I have read countless essays picking apart these ideas, from an essay on Trinity Syndrome by Tasha Robinson to an essay on the conflation of "strong" and "perfect" characters by Tom Gauld, and I'm currently reading a book called "How To Be A Heroine" by Samantha Ellis that actually discusses these ideas in terms of the literary heroines the author had growing up. As a woman writer, I feel that these are subjects that I am constantly re-evaluating in my head both as a consumer and as a producer of content, and I appreciate the way that Graceling has contributed to the dialogue.

Recap 2014: A Second Year of Eclectic Reading

It's hard to believe I've finished another year of this challenge. That means I've been out of college for two years. This year, 2014, has been stellar for me. In January, I started my new job as a technical writer for an immigration law firm where I still work. In March, I tried and fell in love with roller derby, and I am now an alternate for the B team in our league (hoping to be full B Team member by February!). In August I moved in with my best friend in admittedly the smallest of living spaces and most dubious of neighborhoods so far, but it's still lovely. In November I finally completed NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), writing over 50,000 words in 30 days, a feat that I am still supremely proud of, even though the story is nowhere near over. A few weeks ago (I know, I know, not 2015, but still!) I went snowboarding with my amazing boyfriend and actually started to get good, throwing my body into new things and moves possibly more intensely because of all that I have learned in derby (I am no longer afraid of falling. Except for off ski lifts. Those things are intoxicating and terrifying all at the same time). Needless to say I've felt pretty good all throughout this year. And that goodness has been augmented by the books I've read this year. Obviously I read more than just these twelve books, but these were the ones I picked for this particular endeavor, and if I tried to write about every single book I read, I don't think I'd get anything done or ever leave my desk! So here goes, a wrap-up of 2014 in books. Enjoy!
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
January - gothic fiction
I kicked off January in much the same way I did last year: with a book that was the source material for a movie I'd already seen. Prior to this, I hadn't really "read" much horror, other than some Stephen King (which I loved, obviously), and I was always intrigued by how I would react to something scary on the page versus on the screen. Turns out there were still parts where I had to turn the lights on and remind myself that I wasn't being haunted in an old ramshackle house by a suicidal mother ghost whose kid had drowned. It was interesting to have to think about, to be able to go back in my mind and in the text to figure things out if I needed to or wanted to. With Woman, I started to reevaluate my attitude toward horror, becoming more comfortable with it as something that I hold dear. I never thought I would say such a thing: my tastes used to be very unilateral, cut-and-dry, I like everything EXCEPT FOR horror, which is really quite prejudiced of me!
American Supernatural Tales edited by S.T. Joshi
February - anthology
In February, I continued this trend. My friend bought me this beautiful tome for secret santa that Christmas, and it seemed fitting, as again, I felt like I hadn't read much horror prior to these books. I fell in love with more writers. I loved the educational portion of it, the history of the genre that was laid out in the curation of the stories, as well as the author biographical sketches introducing each selection. I loved finding threads that connected stories other than the horror/supernatural moniker, I loved finding new voices to listen to and be prodded by.
Traveling With Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor
March - travel
I read this book for a number of reasons. I enjoy this author, I love these places, the cover intrigued me, and I shared it with my mom after. The duality of the story, the mother and daughter each having a turn at describing most of the same events, also drew me in. My mother and my relationship has been changing constantly over the years, and I think we're in a very good place now, but even so this book made me look at our relationship thus far under different terms, under a different lens. Our family recently went to Israel together, and I wish I'd been able to visit some of the places the women described. This book reignited in me that old desire to travel and write and take pictures of the world.
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
April - cozy mystery
Of course I was interested in the new J.K. Rowling endeavor when I heard about it; I wanted to see what her writing was like outside of the film of magical boarding school and incredible Latinate vernacular building. I must say, I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the "slice of life" feel of this book. A bunch of mysteries cropped up throughout, but it was more about the people, what they do in response to those mysteries. I really enjoyed all the different perspectives encapsulated here, something that was never really addressed with Harry Potter, the eponymous boy wizard carrying most of the outlook. A study in politics, it was.
Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia Macneal
May - war/military fiction
Speaking of politics! I found a way to make war/military fiction really work for me. I feel like so much attention is already paid to the war itself and the death and destruction involved, and it was great to take a different angle. The secretary who wants to be a codebreaker, the girl power of it all, was wonderful. It was also a nice behind-the-scenes, all the precision and composition and PR that it takes to fight a war.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
June - award-winning
I had heard about this one a bunch, I knew the cover design, but when I read about HeLa cells at work, I was sucked in. What really struck a chord in me is the story behind the history, behind the facts. I've always been a big fan of that, I wanted to be a historical fiction or even just history writer for a long time. Skloot beautifully wove hard facts with personal experience and humanizing anecdotes to create a story that I couldn't put down, made all the more visceral by its reality. This book was written in 2010, so there was also an element of "the road so far" in my reading, a desire to continue the search, to see where the writer and the foundation were now. Science isn't really something I read about all too often of my own accord (unless I find some really cool research at work, as is evidenced by the HeLa connection), and this was an interesting way to bring it to the table without putting me off.
The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi
July - true crime
I've read (a little) true crime before, but this was the first that was still as-yet unsolved by the end of the book. The part of me that loves puzzles and logic and whodunits thoroughly enjoyed this story, but the cut of reality gave it an edge that I wasn't sure I could handle for long periods of time. Especially with the ages of the victims and the circumstances of the killings. This was another book that changed how I look at/think about endings, because the mystery of the Monster of Florence is still just that, a mystery. The epilogue allows Preston to distance himself from the events of the book, letting his final discussions be colored more by emotion rather than his investigative tendencies.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde and Girl Reading by Katie Ward
August - alternate history
I couldn't decide between these two books, but I think they worked well in tandem. I absolutely love Jane Eyre, and I adored the use of actual paintings as inspiration for stories. Like I did with the Degas book last year, I was constantly looking up the paintings to see how they made me feel, what they made me think of. I also re-read bits of Jane Eyre just for the occasion. They are very different sort of books: EA of a younger stripe and more fantastical, while GR was more aloof and philosophical. They each imagine in a different way, and I liked the way they portrayed the reader and her relationship to the text. I also appreciated the postmodern/meta idea of me, a girl, reading the book called Girl Reading. I chuckled more than a few times thinking about that one. GR reminded me of an idea I've had for a (short?) story that I could pick up again with a few tips from Katie Ward...
Whip It by Shauna Cross
September - romantic comedy
ROLLER DERBY! Need I really say any more? I guess I will. This was a fun book. It had a lot of the essence of the sport, the heart, although it didn't spend too long on the game itself. I could definitely see myself falling in love with the idea of derby much earlier if I'd read this: there's so much emotion and dedication and empowerment and creativity and hilarity and determination all rolled into this book and this sport, and I cannot imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't found it when I did.
Harvest by Tess Gerritsen
October - medical thriller
I don't think I'd really read anything like this before, and it really helped me get into the "eclectic" part of the challenge. This was one of the most difficult subjects to pick a book for, mostly because medical thriller is awash with series and continuations and I just sort of wanted a standalone thing. Funnily enough, this book fit in again with the thinking about endings, and with the strong investigative ladies that have cropped up in other books I've picked for myself this year. I think I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
Yes Please by Amy Poehler
November - Published in 2014
Amy Poehler is one of my favorite ladies. She's hilarious, she's talented, she's forward-thinking, Smart Girls at the Party is one of the coolest things I think that has come around lately, and I'm just generally in awe of her as a human being. The chance to read this book felt like a little sit-down with Amy, and it was refreshing and interesting and funny. She has an absolutely wonderful voice and her stories range from drugs to comedy to growing up to writing, to all sorts of things.
Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley
December - graphic novel
Bryan Lee O'Malley wrote another graphic novel! I loved it, and I also loved the Scott Pilgrim reference he worked in on page 135. Seconds had a lot going for it, and it was a relatively easy read, but I still had to sometimes go back a few pages and re-read portions to really get myself into every possible nook and cranny of the story. It is a coming-of-age story for someone who already thinks they've come of age, very appropriate for me at this time in my life.
This wrap-up is coming in late (again) this year because I did not have my act together enough in December to finish my November post (because I didn't have my act together in November, either) and my December post and a 2014 retrospect...I didn't have it in me. Or maybe I did, but there was so much else going on that I couldn't take the time to dig it out. I realized, over the course of writing out these blurbs, that a lot of the books I've chosen this year made me think a lot about endings. Or rather, reevaluate the idea of an ending, as most of the ones that really made me think were the ones that had unresolved endings or just brought us up to speed. I feel like I could wax poetic about how nothing really ends, does it, everything just sort of leads into the next beginning, but I'm not sure I want to be as heavy-handed as all that. Mostly because I don't feel like I'm at an "ending" moment in my life; rather, I feel like I'm just past the honeymoon stage in a lot of things, and I'm ramping up to something new and exciting in almost every aspect. The obsession with endings, with conclusions and "moral of the story"s and everything wrapped up in a tidy bow by the time you reach the back cover, seems to be a very short-sighted and static way of viewing things. I'm trying to be more open, more fluid, and the books that I chose this year seemed to reflect that subconsciously.
Going back and reading my 2013 wrap-up, I'm struck by my last paragraph. I still feel as if this is a bit of a struggle for me, and I think it would help to be reminded of these resolutions periodically, rather than just looking back the same time next year. A lot of new things are going to be happening to me this year, and again I want to be able to give myself space to adapt to them and to rise to them, without allowing myself to shrink away or hide behind established opinions or empty words. I've thought a lot about endings this year, and I think 2015 should be more about beginnings, more about the transition between the two and the fact that sometimes change should just be looked at as change, rather than something beginning while something else is ending. In 2015, I'm going to aim to be more adaptable. To let my defenses down, to have conversations and read books that maybe make me a little bit uncomfortable but will ultimately be good for me. So here is to my third year of reading eclectically!

AUG - The Eyre Affair / Girl Reading

August review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2014: The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde, 2001 OR Girl Reading by Katie Ward, 2011. [Alternate History category]

This is the face of indecision

Although alternate history is one of my favorite things to read, I am going to be honest and say that I didn't quite know what to do for this month. Every time I thought I found something, I would over-think it and cross it off, and kept coming back to a Bobby Pendragon book I read when I was younger that dealt with the Hindenburg zeppelin crash (titled The Never War for all those interested....GOD, Pendragon was a great series...) and kept stalling. But I had two books, one was sort of on the list, another was one I bought a while back and sort of turned into something that might fit as I went along. The former was The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, and the latter was Girl Reading by Katie Ward. But once I finished both books, I stalled out again, trying to pick which one to write about. Until I had a brilliant idea to JUST NOT CHOOSE. So here we go, two book reviews for the price of one, because I am an indecisive little bibliophile. So I will go through them both real quick before getting into the crux of my conundrum.

First up, we have The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair is set in an alternate version of Britain in the 1980s, where literature has its own division in the police force and Dodos can be genetically reanimated as pets. Enter Thursday Next, the heroine of the story who appears to have a whole series of adventures, as I discovered once I prodded a little deeper. She is your typical hardened ex-military policewoman, cynical and mysterious about her past, which conveniently turns up in the form of the government's newest arch-nemesis Acheron Hades, or Thursday's college professor. Events ensue that leave Thursday, still cynical but now physically broken as well, in the hospital, where she is visited by an apparition which appears to be herself in a flamboyant sportscar, just showing up in the middle of the hospital room with no form of introduction. Basically the first 50 pages happen very fast in order to get Thursday to go back home, ostensibly to escape the drama that just ends up finding her and trapping her aunt in a Byron poem (yes, literally in a Byron poem--that's another point; you can go into literature using Thursday's uncle Mycroft's device, which is obviously stolen for nefarious and blackmailing purposes, but I'll get to more of that later). Thursday is quickly swept up in the small-town LiteraTec force, continuing the search for Hades that intensifies when he gets himself into the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and steals Jane just as she was about to save Rochester from the fire in his bedroom. Thursday and her new partner get Jane back to the story, but Thursday ends up having to stay in the story herself to make sure Hades doesn't cause any more mischief. Before I move on, I should point out that in this universe, Jane Eyre ends with Jane conceding to the ridiculous St. John Rivers ("that slimy and pathetic excuse for a vertebrate," pouts Rochester) and going with him to Africa because THAT is a plausible turn of events. The point is that in Thursday's world, a lot of people (including Thursday) are kinda pissed about the ending. Which will come into play. ....At the end.

Girl Reading, on the other hand, is a bit of a horse of a different color. And like the horse of a different color, it changes its color a number of times during its run: Girl Reading is a novel of vignettes that have a common, self-explanatory theme that is, yes, the title of the book. It is a series of stories written by Katie Ward all centering on the female engaged in acts of literacy (that phrase is used toward the end, I think, and I just love it). There are seven chapters, seven images, seven artists, seven women and girls engaged in reading. These images that become the kernel of a story range in time and style from a Renaissance painter to one of the first photographs to a modern-day Flickr-type snapshot. Some, like "Annunciation" by Simon Martini, are actual paintings that one can Google for reference, while others are not so concrete, as they exist more in an idealistic state, as is the case of the final chapter. As these chapters move in a slow meander through history, through art form and subject and perspective, the reader herself is drawn in, imagining. I have often done this myself, looking at a painting and trying to put flesh behind the canvas, telling myself stories about a frozen figure, forever immortalized in a singular act. (Side note: as such, I was always intrigued by Harry Potter and the moving paintings, the ones who could leave their frames and tell you how they felt and what was happening...too bad I was only 8 when Rowling thought those up, and now no one will ever be able to do that originally again >,< ). Not only does this text examine the different mediums of expression for these acts of literacy, but it calls into question the different mediums themselves, moving along a sort of predetermined path laid out by the curator of this adventure, Katie Ward. Each chapter is a world unto its own, weaving an entirely standalone world around each image, the dialogue seamlessly worked into the chapter without quotes as if the entirety of the interaction is one big observation that you are on the receiving end of. This book is a lot less simplistic in terms of its summary, but I feel like it lends itself a little bit better to comparisons and digging in.

When I was trying to choose between the two books initially, I tried to think of both of them in terms of the idea of an "alternate history." I mulled over in my head how they both deal with the idea, what I liked about each of them, trying to figure out what I would write about for each one if it were to make the cut. Eyre took a story that we know and love (Jane Eyre) and changed it to begin with. But by the end of the book, the story is as we remember it, and it is partially due to the "ruinous" hand of intervention by Thursday and Hades--it was Thursday who called outside of Jane's window, the voice that spurred her to go back to Thornfield Hall to find Rochester, blind but not bereft, waiting for her. Was it meant to change all along? Surely, we have all experienced being changed by a book, but in this case, it is the reader who is doing the changing. Can "alternate history" start out different and then end up looking much like what we are used to? Are these existential questions of destiny and timelines that are far too arcane for such a humble book blog? The Eyre Affair dealt with the past in a way that was fun and light-fingered, even giving Time its own division of the police force, Thursday's father popping in and out to ask questions about history to make sure time was "coming out right," as it were. It's true that this was one of my lighter reads of the year, but I'll be damned if it didn't get me all tangled in mindful mires. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Girl Reading went into the future for the final vignette, creating a final picture that seemingly traced a thread back through all the other vignettes that made them seem more of a cohesive whole. The last chapter describes a new virtual reality program that is equipped with images and settings that turn out to be those that we have spent the last few hundred pages traversing on our own. Ward too brings up questions of art and artifice, of meaning and design in the creation of the woman-program that holds these experiences, Sibyl. Her name holds echoes of prophecy, but she holds images of retrospect, a comparison with the human experience if I ever saw one. Both texts question the fundamentals of their existence with equal candor, albeit unequal gravitas--you can't take a book too seriously when one of it's major villains is named Jack Schitt, now can you?--but I feel as if I learned something from both authors, and isn't that the point of this whole challenge?

SEPT - The Bone Season

September review for the Eclectic Reader's Book Challenge 2013: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, 2013. [Dystopia category]

It's a rare moment when I buy hardcover full-price. Shiny, intriguing covers help.

Wiling away the hours in our newest hip bookstore last month, I was trying desperately to find a book that would fit my dystopia category. I went through classics lists on the internet, debated H.G. Wells and Isaac Asimov, but ultimately went outside to sit on the curb, anxious and tomeless, redoubling my internet efforts on my tiny phone screen. On a whim, I had picked up the IndiePicks! newsletter for the month as I was leaving Literati, and I thumbed through it looking for catchwords that might possibly mean "containing post-apocalyptic oppressive society." The stark blue cover of The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon struck me, even in thumbnail form, and as I read through the blurb I became more and more excited about it. Luckily, I hadn't gone but four steps from Literati, so I turned around and walked back inside and on whim, bought a $26-hardcover-new-realease from a 22-year-old British author and walked back out. (There aren't words to explain how rarely I do such a thing. I suffer from a double dose of inherited Jewish stinginess and buyer's anxiety, so such a splurge really spoke to me.) Immediately I sat down and started to read in the sun, hoping for anything to make my soul thrum with excitement again. It had been a while.

At first glance The Bone Season seems to be a typical sci-fi concept, the story of a singular individual built into an oppressive world whose skills make it dangerous for her to be there at all. (One girl in all the world, anyone?) Add some clairvoyance and a little bit of 1984 cross-bred with V For Vendetta and you've pretty much got The Bone Season. Paige Mahoney is a teenage clairvoyant living in 2059 London, a city that is now taken over by the terrifyingly closed-minded Scion (haha clairvoyance pun...sorry guys). Paige is a special kind of clairvoyant called a dreamwalker which essentially allows her spirit to leave her body to interact with the aether around her and even the minds of other people. This rare talent makes her a hot commodity in the rebel underground where she is employed by a rather pompous clairvoyant named Jaxon Hall. Her talent is untrained, though, and when forced into a corner Paige accidentally uses her power and kills two underguards, making her even more Most Wanted than usual. Her attempts to fly under the radar fail and she is captured and taken to what is essentially a concentration camp for her kind, called Sheol 1, built in the ruins of what used to be Oxford, and it is ruled by alien creatures called the Rephaim. Paige, being a special someone, is taken under the command of Warden, the blood consort and one who rarely consorts with humans. Isolated and confused, Paige has to learn to either adapt to this crushing new lifestyle or own her abilities enough to break herself and her newfound friends of the compound, all the while being tormented with gossip of faceless monsters, the Emim, who prowl just outside Sheol 1, snacking on a human limb here and some Rephaim blood there. Most of the story takes place within Sheol 1 and follows Paige's day-to-day traversal of her new life. Though the phraseology at times seemed a little too quaint and the final battle came rather quickly after so many pages of painstakingly detailed mind-jaunts, the novel as a whole was more than satisfying to me, due largely to the snarky female protagonist.

Paige is strong and bullheaded and ultimately very flawed, but her imperfections possibly make it easier for the reader to take her story as something to be heeded. The budding interest between Paige and her captor is interesting but also takes a backseat: it is not the point of the whole frame, as it would be in Twilight or some such work. Some critics have disparaged Paige as too self-absorbed and inconsiderate of others, obsessed with her gift but unwilling to push her limits, but I think the very fact that she has all these problems allow her to be a real human being, not a one-track-mind cyborg (*ahem* Bella) who can do nothing except chase a horribly toxic relationship with a horribly unavailable and dangerous individual. Our Paige is young and she messes up (a lot). She gets angry at Warden (not that he doesn't entirely deserve it) and gets into fights and spins out of control as she flails against the huge dystopian force that is Scion London.

Trying to find a book to read for dystopia was really interesting because it brought up a lot of questions and observations about the genre. Originally, I thought about doing Ender's Game for this month's category, but when I read the internet's thoughts on the matter, it seemed as if Ender was widely not considered dystopic because it takes place during the end of the world as the characters know it, rather than after. I feel that this is an unfairly specific restriction on dystopia because one could argue that it is never really the end of THE world but rather the end of A world. In this respect, I think Ender's Game could've worked nicely but I'm glad I chose The Bone Season because there's something about near-future radical regime shift stories that speaks to me lately. The Bone Season is at its core about exclusion. Parallels can be drawn to Holocaust tropes ("a humane means of removing clairvoyants from ordinary society" p402) or anti-gay propaganda (the pamphlet Jaxon writes is called On The Merits of Unnaturalness) or even vampire stories (at one point Warden drinks Paige's blood to restore him after he rebelliously gets his ass shredded by an Emim, not to mention that the Rephaim sleep during the day). But Shannon does not pedestal any of these threads, does not allow any singular one to become a watchword for her story. In this way, as well, I think it is derivative and silly to compare her to "the next J.K. Rowling." Allow her to be her own phenomenon, should her work deserve it. I myself am looking forward to seeing that it does.

Charts! I love charts!

The Bone Season is being hailed as everything from the next J.K. Rowling to the next Stephanie Meyer, and the reader reviews are just as varied. I truly enjoyed this book, thought it was new and full and a good first start. There were of course some failings, it being Shannon's first time out of the gate and all, but I don't think any of the comparisons both critics and publishers are making are fair to her--or anyone's--nascent talent. Being compared to such publishing powerhouses could automatically stunt Shannon's growth under all the pressure such completely different stories unfairly place upon her. To me, there were many things that were inspiring about this book, first and foremost that Samantha Shannon is 22 and published, an beacon of hope to me as an aspiring 22 year old writer who still only writes on her lunch break at the coffee shop. Her main character is a strong young woman who claws her way out of the world that was forced upon her. And her imagination is to die for. Being a lover of words, I was so excited to have a glossary in the back and a hierarchy of (vaguely defined) types of clairvoyants in the front. While many critics raked Shannon across the coals for "info-dumping" and unintelligible language, my heart leapt at the challenge of understanding not only this new world but the way it describes itself. I have been looking for a new world to jump into lately, and I think Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season just might do the trick.