Book Review: Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzer
I forget where I first read about this newish memoir, but I remember how totally freaking excited I was to put it on hold so that I could be one of the first to get it from the library. And so a few months later, the book finally came in, I read it, and I want more.
Aaron Hartzler grew up in a very, very, born again Christian family (like, they weren’t allowed to listed to Amy Grant, the Christian pop singer, because she allegedly drank alcohol sometimes, and they believed that The Rapture was imminent). Hartzler was a totally angelic child and helped his mom lead the bible club, played piano, was in Christian plays with the church, etc. On the outside, he was the perfect Born Again son. But there would be no memoir if the story was that simple.
Rapture Practice is the story of Hartzler’s growing consciousness as he got older that something didn’t quite fit for him with the religion. He wanted to listed to mainstream music. He realized that he didn’t want the Rapture to happen because he liked his life. He started partying in secret. He had very strong interests in and close friendships with other guys. He found that he had stopped believing a lot of what he learned at church.
critiques: I felt like the book ended abruptly: I want to read about what happened next. Something felt jarringly incomplete at the very end. The story didn’t end up going exactly the way that I wanted it to. I wish that his story included him doing things differently that the way he did them in real life. waaah, cry, whine.
Praise: A ton of information is packed into the mere 390 pages. As a writer, Hartzler knows what you want to read and what you care about– no space is wasted on the uninteresting. For a heathen like myself, it was really exciting to read about his family’s religion- it’s new ground for me. The path the book takes you on is interesting, the narrator is likable, the 1990’s references are fun to look back on, and I want to tell people all about it. Find a copy at your library here.
Book Review: Silhouette of a Sparrow
It’s the 1920’s and teenage Garnet is being groomed for proper comfortable wifehood. She has a steady boyfriend, a slew of lovely dresses, and a hope chest that is almost full of handmade things she has made for her future married home. She is uneasy about it all, possesses inklings that she would like her life to be more of her own.
She gets sent to stay with wealthy family members at a lakeside resort town during a summer (while her parents try to work through their own marital issues), and her world gets a bit bigger. . .
Saying more would probably give away too many little nuances of the plot. What I can say, however, is that it’s clear that a lot of research (both period and ornithological) went into this well-structured book. It is well-written, and the relatively slim volume reads rather quickly. The coming-of-age narrative and the queer narrative and the race and class narrative all flow together smoothly– this is not a single-issue story.
Find a Copy HERE
Book Review: A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel
This is going to be a strange review because it is a review of the graphic novel adaptation of a wildly popular book that I have never read.
I’ve never been able to get too into the fantasy, adventure, and science fiction genres. I’m not entirely sure why. But there’s something about reading written descriptions of fight scenes and travels and invented worlds that bores me… as much as video representations of the same thing. Ok, so I’m just picky.
But anyway, growing up, I was a voracious and desperate little reader. I’d plow through almost any book or newspaper that lay in my way. I was bored! My family owned the Madeline L’engle trilogy (Wrinkle in Time/Swiftly Tilting Planet/ Wind in the Door), and I saw them every day on the living room book shelf, but I was never able to get into them! All the business of tesseracts and people’s weird names just really turned me off for some reason. I felt a slight nagging pull every time I walked by them, like there was something wrong with me for not wanting to read them!
Forging forward a couple of decades, A Wrinkle in Time became my City’s One City One Book. As a librarian, I felt a responsibility to at least know what the story is about. A minute or two of investigation lead me to the graphic novel. Score!
The graphic novel is adapted and illustrated by Hope Larsen, who has also written other graphic novels that I’ve liked, such as Gray Horses and Chiggers. The illustrations are in black, blue, and white, and are understandable and likable. Larsen’s adaptation keeps the story going at a solid pace, and there was not a single moment where I felt like there was some kind of hole in the narrative. The ending to the story felt a little anti-climactic, but perhaps that is how the original is?Phew, at least I finally know the story. The pressure is gone!
The tome rings in at almost 400 pages, and is about the size of the original novel. It was clearly a labor of love, and I recommend it regardless of your stance on fantasy, adventure, and science fiction.
Find A Copy Here
Book Review: Adiós, Barbie : young women write about body image and identity
I picked up this anthology (published in 1998) a couple of years ago from a Friends of the Library book sale.
I finally got around to reading it (for me, 2013 is the year of FINALLY reading all those casually acquired books on my shelf!), and am not unhappy that I did. This is a solid feminist anthology of women’s writing about their own experiences with body image. It has an admirable number of pieces that actually deal with race (they don’t feel like “token” additions, as race-related pieces in feminist anthologies so often have a tendency to). Adios Barbie covers a lot of topics, including hair, fat, noses, dis/ability, gender roles, sexuality, and height, etc.
Adios Barbie is 15 years old, and it retains lots of its relevance. All the shit people have to deal with re: body image in our culture has not changed (sigh). Since its publication, many more similar anthologies have come out– but this one has the added benefit of getting to read articles that people wrote before they got more famous! It includes pieces by Carolyn Mackler before she became a very popular YA author, Amy Richards pre-Manifesta, Nomy Lamm pre-Transfused, and more.
Find A Copy HERE
Book Review: Zero by Tom Leveen
I got this one as an e-book from the library. It was one of those quick and desperate selections– I was out of books at home, needed something to read, and Zero was available.
It’s actually a pretty great multidimensional YA novel. Our protagonist Zero, a punk rock painter, has just graduated from high school and been accepted to the art college of her dreams. Great! Until her lack of technical painting skill prevents her from getting the scholarship that she would need to pay the tuition. And then everything kind of crumbles. She realizes that since she can’t pay the tuition she’ll be stuck in Arizona with her parents, attending community college in a place she can’t stand. Her mom is desperate and overbearing and her dad’s alcoholism is getting worse and something has gone really wrong with her relationship with her best friend Jenn.
What propels from this premise is a really nice sort of coming-of-age novel. Our hero Zero typically has something clever to say, which means that as a reader, you’re stuck on her. She possesses a realistic combination of inconsistent self-esteem and artistic brilliance that I felt was really well crafted. There are lots of Salvador Dali quotes, good descriptions of punk shows, and a great over-all essence of what that weird post-high school not quite a kid, not quite an adult time can be like.
Find a copy HERE
Book Review: Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway
This was the last book that I read in 2012 (I finished it on New Years Eve) and it was totally fun! It was a smooth, addictive, and fast read. Often a book loses things like depth or character development when it’s classified as “smooth,” ‘fast,” or “addictive”– but I don’t feel like this one did! The only shame is that it was over in 313 pages; I would like to read more about Audrey.
Plot: Teenage Audrey finally breaks up with her boring, self-absorbed boyfriend who’s in a small-time high school band. That night he writes a damning song about her called “Audrey, Wait!” which propels his band into Justin Bieber-like fame around the world. The media in turn becomes obsessed with Audrey (as she inspired the song), and her life really, really, really changes.
In addition to telling a good story, the book offers a sly critique on paparazzi, America’s obsession with fame, the evilness and fakeness of the music industry, and more. An added plus is that each chapter begins with an apt quote from a real rock song (many of which I know and like in real life). There are 41 chapters– this must have taken a lot of effort!
Perhaps this is a guilty pleasure without the guilt? Read it!
FIND A COPY HERE
Book Review: Unterzakhn by Leela Corman
Unterzakhn (which basically means “underwear” in Yiddish) transports us to New York’s Lower East Side in the early 2th century. We follow twin sisters Esther and Fanya through their child years, their teen years, and then their adult years.The sisters are close during childhood– but their passions lead them in very different (and for the era, contradictory) directions.
I don’t want to give away too many details, but you should totally check out this graphic novel. The art has depth, but is also approachable. The characters are decently fleshed out. The rich plot goes all over the place (in a good way), and touches on family history, death, abortion, brothels, hollywood, gender, love, and more. The story ends with a bit of a punch to the stomach, but nobody promised you a happy ending.
Find A Copy Here
Book Review: Wonder Show by Hannah Rodgers Barnaby
It’s somewhere around the late-19th/early 20th century. A feisty girl’s father places her with a strict aunt when he leaves town to look for work. Girl waits for her father to return for years. He doesn’t. Aunt eventually tires and leaves girl at a home for wayward girls run by an evil proprietor. Terrible things happen there. Girl escapes and joins the circus. The girl is Portia Remini. It’s a good story: a familiar trope, but unique enough to keep my attention.
To me, Wonder Show felt like two books: pre-circus, and circus-and-beyond. Each “half” felt as if it was full of big ideas that that didn’t have time to get completely fleshed out. I say this because the supporting characters and circumstances, while all appointed with great depth and meaning– didn’t have a ton of description to them (e.g. on pages 18 and 19 we read a list of spunky/naughty things that Portia did while in the care of her aunt, but there are never any scenes or dialogue that further expose us to this aspect of Portia’s personality. The classic writing rule of “show, don’t tell” seems to have been ignored in this sort of way throughout the book). Maybe 274 pages just wasn’t long enough to make the story feel satisfying?I would love to see it fattened up into a 500-page odyssey.
Despite the fact that I would have liked more details, the author does do a really interesting job of constructing the story to keep it moving: There are multiple point-of-view shifts, there are (as mentioned above) handwritten lists, there are lovely vignettes that only last a page. Furthermore, many of the circus characters are based on real circus people from history, highlighting the admirable amount of research that must have gone into writing this book (this is detailed in the Authors note at the end).
It’s well-written and worth reading. If you’re into the circus, two other books I recommend are Geek Love and The Night Circus.
Find a copy of Wonder Show here
Book Review:: Drama High: Second Chance
The Drama High series kept on getting mentioned as one of the few contemporary book series’ out there about African American teenage girls. So I picked up Second Chance to see if it was something that that the teenagers at my library would be into (and, um, because I like YA fiction).
So yes, Second Chance is a recommendable book. In all honesty, I think that being a teenager would have enamored me to it more (the author does a great job of capturing that certain breed of awful anxiety that comes with relationships when you’re a teen– and it’s so nice to be free of that as a grown up– also, there’s a good deal of interpersonal friend drama that was more teen-style than I was into (but I’m not a teen)).
So the story is that Jayd is African American and lives in Compton and wakes up every morning to take the bus to a mostly-rich-and-white school in LA. She’s in AP classes and has a handful of African American classmates who are also from her part of the city. Amongst them are her 2 best friends, her sworn enemy, and the manipulative boy who she used to date. Jayd starts dating a rich white boy, and drama of course ensues. Unlike a lot of paperback teen novels in general, Jayd and her surrounding life gets a fair deal of dimension. Her grandma who she lives with works making potions and magic satchels (and it’s treated totally normally in the book). The school has some notoriously racist teachers, and Jayd tries to bring charges against one of them. Jayd also works on the weekends and has difficulty with her dad and his side of the family. She’s likable, typically says the right thing, and has a strong sense of self.
This is not the first book of the series, and I would recommend starting with book one, as I felt a little bit in the dark about some of the characters. On a similar note, it is definitely part of a series– so there is not a tidy conclusion.
Find a copy here
Book Review: Spit and Passion by Christy C Road
This graphic memoir is actually pretty great. If you’ve read Christy C Road’s other stuff or are familiar with her art, then you kind of already know what you’re getting into. Sorta. Except for that Spit and Passion tackles adolescence this time around. And it’s a good thing.
Framed by her discovery of the band Green Day, Spit chronicles Road’s journey toward identity. She really quite flawlessly nails down how fucking powerful music can be when you’re that certain age, and how music really IS, in a lot of ways, identity. She details stuff that I hadn’t really thought about in a long time, like how band members can become superheroes/narrative players in the adolescent mind, how obsessing over a band can be a great mask for queerness, how band members can be unknowingly wrangled in as templates for adolescent futures. It’s personal– but, you know– universal.
Find a copy here
Book Review: The Elementals by Francesca Lia Block
I’ve been reading FLB for probably 2/3 of my life now, and the magic is still there. She can still wrap a poem around anything, and the magical realism is still abundant and shimmery. There aren’t really lines between dreams and reality in her recent writing, and maybe that’s kind of the point.
So, Ariel’s super-close best friend disappeared a year ago on a class trip to Berkeley (she lives in LA). Ariel’s mother has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She is out-of-place and awkward. It’s time to head off to college at Berkeley (where she was supposed to go with her missing best friend).
Distraught, Ariel starts looking for her missing friend when she arrives in Berkeley. She passes out flyers, asks around, gets ridiculed for her persistence. She’s breaking down, on the edge of crazy, unable to find peace in the present because of this. She meets a trio of older people, grad students who have a large house off campus. They suck her in, and she is intoxicated with them and the magic, but still floundering. Additionally, there are other surrounding characters who engage in both terrorizing and trying to save her.
When reading this book it’s hard to determine between metaphor and actuality, and that might be the point because it’s pretty much about where she’s at mentally– furthermore, there’s a constant current of magic and drugs and memory which is both destabilizing and essential. If you take this book literally, you’re going to have a problem. If you just let it wash over you, things will be better.
My one problem (and it might be cruel to place it at this part of the review): The Ending. I don’t know whether the author wanted it or the publisher wanted it or maybe there just wasn’t time to write something better. Maybe just skip the last chapter or two. They’re not terribly necessary.
Find a copy here
Book Review: Coal to Diamonds by Beth Ditto/Michelle Tea
So I was pretty excited for this biography to come out, and I was lucky to be at the top of the waiting list at my library. I snatched it off the holds shelf and read it in a day! Coal To Diamonds is co-written by Beth Ditto (a really powerful singer and performer) and Michelle Tea (a fairly brilliant writer)- two stars in the queer pop culture world.
Structurally, it’s a fairly typical famous person biography. Written in first person, it begins in Ditto’s childhood, travels through her coming of age as a queer punk singer, and sort of ends in the present as a successful performer (in the UK, at least– the US mainstream hasn’t really “gotten” The Gossip yet– though I think i heard one of the songs in the teen section at a Nordstrom store once).
Despite the convergence of two personalities who I totally like into a single book (omg, dreamboat combo), I feel lukewarm about it. The pacing was kind of uneven (childhood gets a LOT of weight, whereas interesting elements of adulthood are totally skimmed over), and it lacked a certain poetry and poignancy– two things that Tea is very capable of. The final product makes me feel like the 2 collaborators were far from BFF status by the time the book was done. It felt like a business deal being grudgingly fulfilled by two somewhat unwilling parties. I feel bad saying that! Because honestly, it’s not a bad book at all. You should read it if you’re a feminist or queer or like music or like being inspired. I just feel like it could have been more.
find a copy here
Book review: In a Witch’s Wardrobe by Juliet Blackwell
I’ve never been a mystery person. But when I found out that one of my friends who I really respect is an avid mystery reader– I had to give the genre a shot. I got excited when a book list lead me to In a Witch’s Wardrobe— which combines a number of things that I like: Vintage clothing, San Francisco, Fashion, and a witchy theme.
I can’t really say much without giving away the story, but basically San Francisco Bay Area witches are getting sick and killed. Our protagonist Lily Ivory (also a witch) takes it upon herself to try and solve the mystery of what’s going on. Blackwell’s attention to detail surrounding the case is impressive, and the book moves quickly. The story is nestled amongst nice descriptions of the vintage clothing that is sold in Lily’s shop. It made me want to forgo my regular responsibilities and just read. There are loose ends– but I think the book is part of a series, so it makes sense.
The author has some really solid attention to detail, which I suppose is logical for a mystery novel. Lily’s character could stand a little more dimension (I was hungry for a little more personal information)- but it’s not that big of a deal. It wasn’t the book of the year– but it wouldn’t be bad for a plane ride or lazy afternoon either.
Find a copy here
Book Review: The Diviners by Libba Bray
The only problem with The Diviners is that the tome is so damn big that it’s a pain to carry around. And I wanted to carry it around. Everywhere. I guess there’s one more problem, too: I have to wait patiently for the forthcoming parts 2 and 3 of the trilogy.
I’ve read 88 books this year (2012) prior to The Diviners. It’s easily one of the top 5 most exciting and captivating and well-researched and multidimensional ones so far. It’s reminiscent of Bray’s Gemma Doyle Trilogy, but different too.
So you get thrown into the 1920’s and there’s our main character Evie, who’s got a flirty-smart flapper girl thing going on and is around 17. And then there’s Memphis, an African American teen boy who lives in Harlem and runs numbers for bets. There’s Jericho who’s Evie’s Uncle’s assistant, and Sam who robs Evie at the train station but later becomes a sort of ally- And they all have paranormal abilities. But not in a cheesy way. And so there’s a killer ravaging New York, and prohibition’s going on so there are speakeasies and night clubs and police raids… And all these details are hardly even a fraction of the story… Furhermore, it’s a Libba Bray book, so you can be certain that it includes a bunch of smart commentary on gender and race and sexuality.
a+
find a copy here
Book Review: Seasons Change by Jennifer A Lightburn
Book Review: Seasons Change by Jennifer A Lightburn
I found this book on an LGBT reading list, and I was pleased to find that my library had it! It is the story of what happens to Annette after she leaves a really messed up abusive relationship with her ex, Montel, and starts to get on with her life. The narrative itself has multiple layers: there’s a court custody battle, a back story about the local homophobic police department, a new same-sex relationship with an old friend, friendship, family drama, deceit, private investigators, and more.
This book is addictive reading– Lightburn really knows how to immerse a reader into a character’s entire world. It’s self-published and you can tell that it was really an effort of love. There are a couple of minor misspelling/editing issues– but they are not big enough to disrupt the story or crack the author’s credibility. The book came to a slightly abrupt end and left me wanting a part 2!
Find a copy here. If you’re a Kindle person, it’s only $2 on amazon!
Book review: Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love, & Fashion
Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love, & Fashion
I really like feminist anthologies. This one was not an exception! Hot & Heavy contains a bunch of essays by a broad spectrum of people, who have a wide variety of takes on fatness in life as a girl/woman. The essays are a grand tie-dye of personal, political, sexy, academic, fun, and powerful. Though each essay does center on the theme of fatness, each expresses different angles and takes on it– so there’s not a narrow central agenda.
Paralleling how I feel about all anthologies that I read, I found some pieces to be stronger or more captivating than others– but none were bad reading (and who’s to say that you or someone else won’t love those particular pieces?). Also, the anthology is well balanced and assembled– nothing feels out of place.
Recommended for anyone with a body.
find a copy here
Book Review: BETA by Rachel Cohn
Realistically, I will probably love Rachel Cohn’s books no matter what, because her writing was one of the lures that initially built up my strong and hard faith in YA literature. It was the frank talk about teen sexuality in the Shrimp and Gingerbread series as well as Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist with David Levithan(as well as the quirky and believable voices, and the nonchalant presence of actual gay characters).
BETA takes a leap away from Cohn’s typical trope of quirky-smart modern girl meeting life head-on in a big city– and takes place in a pretty much post-apocalyptic future. Elysia is a Beta, a laboratory-born clone designed to serve a wealthy family as the perfect daughter. She has no emotions, opinions, or sense of taste, and there is a chip implanted under her skin to track her location at all times. This is the life that she wakes up into at age 16. Within a short time, however, things start to change quite radically.
Beta is well-written and super engaging. I read it in less than 24 hours. The post-apocalypse world in which the characters live is pretty convincing, and lightly touches on some social commentary about our current times, but not as much as other futuristic teen novels such as the Hunger Games or Uglies. My only critique of BETA is that the pacing is sometimes kind of weird. The timeline and markers of Elysia’s eh, awakening– seem to all happen faster than I wanted them to. But maybe that’s how the story goes 😉
Find a copy here
Book Review: Third Girl From The Left
Third Girl From the Left – By Martha Southgate
This book was pretty great! In the 24-hour span that I read it, I found myself continually shunning actual responsibilities in favor of settling in with the book.
It is realistic fiction and tells the story of three generations of African-American women in Tulsa, LA, and New York. Though each of the women are quite different, they are tied together by a love of/connection to film (it’s really not as cheesy as I just made it sound, in any way). Through the course of the novel we read about relationships, playboy bunnies, the Tulsa race riots, film school, affairs, the early Blaxploitation film era, and more. It’s super engaging and well written!
My one critique (structurally speaking) is that one of the women’s stories had much more put into it than the others’, but this actually worked for me because I liked that character the best.
Find a copy here
Book Review: Bottomless Bellybutton by Dash Shaw
This graphic novel is one of the best books that I’ve read this year (I’ve read 81 so far).
Weighing in at over 3 pounds and consisting of over 700 pages, I’m still thinking about it even though I’m already onto reading something new. It’s mostly about relationships within a family. As the cover states, it’s not a kids’ book– it’ll be better understood by people who are old enough to have experienced heartbreak and seeing your parents get older and stuff.
The three adult children of the Looney family (and their kids/partners) are called out to visit their parents’ seaside home. Without warning, their parents announce that they are getting a divorce after 40 years of marriage. In the following pages, we see how each of them deal with it– as well as what happens to them for the week or so that they are there.
This book is really an amazing work. There’s lots of poignancy and mystery and edged-at emotion. It’s ridiculously compelling. Also, I don’t have a lot of experience describing comics– but Shaw has a really interesting style. The drawings are cartoony– but also really detailed; he does this neat thing of adding words to the images, which I at first thought was due to uncertainty about whether the reader could tell what was going on in the picture, but now i’m thinking that it adds weight to the circumstances covered.
read it.
find it here.
Book Review: Another Life Altogether by Elaine Beale
1970’s England. An unstable mentally ill mother and a distant father. Mundane surroundings and a desire to one day escape to London. “Faking it” to be “in with the popular kids. Shunning the unpopular kids even though they’re a lot like you. Figuring out you’re queer. Writing secret (and unsent) love letters to a forbidden crush. Deciphering a way to stand up for yourself– and others. 13 year old Jesse Bennet has a lot to deal with– and Another Life Altogether is a coming of age story that explains how she does.
The story line’s kind of ok (honestly, I found the trajectory of it to be pretty predictable, and the ending unbelievable)– but the writing itself is pretty great. While you’re reading the book and waiting to finally be surprised, there are lots of really great descriptions of Jesse’s surroundings (the clothing!), as well as allusions to key historical moments from the time. Beale does a really realistic job of crafting Jesse’s slow ascent into awareness of her sexuality too. There’s also a solid exposition of how fucked up gender roles can be, that is both maddening and fascinating.
Find it here
Book review: The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga
I’d seen this book around, but had always had something more urgent to read at hand. Not in a bad way, just in that way that it so often is with books.
So I was finally in a situation where I had a lot of free time, an e-reader, and a connection to Overdrive, the service that my library uses to access e-books. I browsed the YA selections, pressed the download button, and started to read.
So it’s a loner-comes-out-of-his-shell narrative. Our protagonist Fanboy (who’s the subject of bullying at school and a shitty family at home) meets Goth girl Kyra (basically a manic pixie dream girl who isn’t given enough dimension, in my opinion) who pretty much befriends him out of nowhere and widens his world, sort of. Over the course of the book he learns to respect his art, stands up for himself in a pretty sassy way, and kind of makes things better with his family. Kyra, on the other hand, gets crazier and crazier, though this novel doesn’t dwell on that (I just learned that there is a sequel— maybe Kyra gets whole?).
The book ends on a note that seems to be unsatisfying and incomplete. Sure, everything’s starting to look up for Fanboy– but it’s hard to feel too happy for him when you never even learned his real name.
So I was disappointed with certain elements of the book– but it’s still worth reading. Fanboy’s observations about the messed up adults in his life are spot-on and took me back to my own teen years. Also, if you’re a comics person, there’s some comic-related stuff that you’ll like.
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga
Find a copy here.
glitter and dirt-- scraps and dessert 