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| Hey kids, patriarchy! |
My daily routine was jostled a bit this month, resulting in less time to read. I did have a nice vacation toward the end of the month, for which I packed about 20 books and read 7 of them. (Whew! I almost ran out! It was a close one!) I’m currently 81 books into my 200-book goal for the year. Anyway, here’s what I got this month!
12.) Infinity Wars by Gerry Duggan: I’ve been trying to get into comics all year, and sometimes, just like sports or learning a new language, the best way to acclimate yourself to a new concept is to just immerse yourself in it whether you understand it or not. This was probably my least-favorite comic book I've read all year, but it can likely be attributed to me just not understanding what was going on. If it can be believed, this book had even more plot elements packed into it than the 800-page "Winter" (mentioned below.) I think I would have appreciated it more if I had read more of the storylines leading up to it. It was an event comic so I had no context. My favorite part was the origin story of Drax the Destroyer. Aside from that, I was so confused.
11.) Gillyflower by Diane Wald: This was an odd little novella about a woman, Nora, who gets to meet her celebrity crush, Hugh. This book has a lot to say about revering celebrities and the foundations of enduring love in a short amount of time, and it does it well. Since I like a good, pointy adventure, this isn't ranked as high as it could be, but I'd definitely recommend it.
10.) The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss: This is the second book in the Kingkiller Chronicles that started with “The Name of the Wind,” and I listened to it on audiobook. The aspects of these books that were good were really really good, but the bad stuff was insurmountably terrible. “The Wise Man’s Fear” continued Rothfuss’ unfortunate trend of objectifying women, #notallmen-ing rape victims, and other nonsense shenanigans. The good parts were mundane in the best way. Our lord and savior Kvothe the Bloodless/Arcane/Ladykiller continued his plodding adventures from the University to Severen to the Eld, the Fae, and finally to Ademre, where he learned some fancy warrior rituals. The slow pace was soothing, and I was able to power through the final 50 (yes, 50, mostly awful) chapters on a long drive from Florida to Pennsylvania.
9.) Winter by Marissa Meyer: This book was a lot. It was just a lot in the best and worst sense. It was the wrap-up to an intricate and well thought out series, but it was 800 pages long. Literally every loose end was left flapping in the breeze at the end of the third book, Cress, so everything needed to come together in the end while introducing an entirely new character and giving her a story arc of her own. The series as a whole was amazing. I might have missed a lot of the hype around this series when it first came out, but I feel like not enough people know about these books. Much like ice cream, I can’t resist fairy tale retellings. This was enjoyable, but long, and will try the patience of anyone.
8.) Ellie and the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior: This is a special book I received from Netgalley. If you like romantic stories from authors such as Nicholas Sparks, you will love this book, which features a flighty poet and a neurodivergent hero who makes sandwiches and is obsessed with creating unique Celtic harps. The narrative helps to foster deep connections between the reader and the characters. As a trigger warning, it does contain some domestic violence scenes, but it is overall a fairly pleasant read. Its expected release is May 2, 2019.
7.) Captain America by Ed Brubaker Omnibus, Vol. 1: I was told, after reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Captain America to read Ed Brubaker’s Captain America to understand how Captain America is written today: as sort of a pulpy, noir-style political thriller. This girthy tome included the Winter Soldier and a bit of the Civil War stories. It was only mildly disorienting and gave me a good sense of how Captain America and Bucky were written for the movies. More importantly, it included some interviews with the author in the back and I learned a lot about Brubaker’s military background and the works that inspired him to write Captain America in the way he did, which shaped Captain America for the modern day. Fascinating!
6.) The Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing: I tend to view stories in a very macro sense of what they mean and contribute to their genre. As a result, I tend to come up with some odd perspectives and gloss over details others readily absorb. With this, I was really impressed by the theme of dysfunctional father/son relationships viewed through the lens of horror. In the end, don't we all adopt our parents' worst tendencies? If this seems like a weird reading of a superhero comic book, it is. And this is how I read literally everything, so if you don’t like it, you’re on the wrong book blog!
5.) Giant Days, Vols. 2 and 3 by John Allison: I read Vol. 1 of Giant Days back in February, and picked up the second and third volumes from Kindle Unlimited. I’m finding myself growing increasingly attached to the three college friends, Susan, Esther and Daisy. The humor is well-timed, but there are plenty of heartwarming and compassionate moments as well. As an aside, stories like this are making it difficult to not read comics all the time. I feel like this month’s reading list was unintentionally saturated with comics. I’ll do better to read more books without pictures next month for the sake of my health and your sanity.
4.) Thor: God of Thunder, Vol 3: The Accursed and Thor: God of Thunder, Vol. 4: The Last Days of Midgard by Jason Aaron: I was told to read this to get the origin story of Malekith, the big bad in this series as well as in “Thor: Goddess of Thunder.” Everything makes sense now! And I’m really annoyed at how Malekith was portrayed in the “Thor: The Dark World” movie now that I know how truly sinister and awful Malekith can be in the comics. He’s so gross and horrible!
3.) Bitch Planet, Vol. 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick: I picked up this fun read from Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse in Philadelphia while I was on vacation. It’s a feminist story, by one of the authors who wrote Captain Marvel, about how a bunch of “noncompliant” women are shipped off to a prison on the Auxiliary Compliance Outpost, colloquially called “Bitch Planet” by the old white men who have vested interests in it. The women are imprisoned for dumb things like “disrespect” and “being a bad mother” but the imprisonment really boils down to the noncompliant women not living their lives solely to please men. One of the imprisoned women, who was a professional athlete in her former life, is encouraged to start a team to play Megaton, a violent sport akin to rugby or American football. Most of the story made me really angry, but there were plenty of really funny parts, too. If you like “Orange Is The New Black” or “Handmaid’s Tale,” you’ll probably enjoy this. My favorite part was the humorous ads at the end of every issue that advertised everything from Agreenex, a pill to make women agreeable, to posters for the comic book itself. The little banner headline above the ads said, “Hey kids, patriarchy!” and it made me laugh every time.
2.) We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia: At the same time I was reading “Bitch Planet,” I was listening to this story on Audible. It was a delicious pairing. In this book’s particular dystopian society, each rich man weds two women: a primera, whose primary objectives are to be a partner and “equal” to her husband, making decisions for the good of the household and carrying out her husband’s vision in society, and a segunda, who is responsible for bearing children and being emotional. The Medio School for Girls splits women into these two categories and trains them to be perfect wives. When two women, Dani and Carmen, marry a despotic tyrant, they do everything they can to undermine him, including participating in political espionage! This story had a lot to say about loyalty, misogyny, oppression, consent and immigration. I would highly recommend it.
1.) Thor, Vol. 1: Goddess of Thunder and Thor, Vol. 2: Who Holds The Hammer? by Jason Aaron: I have a hard time describing just how much I loved this. This version of "Thor" was so awesome, it killed me. I am dead now, and writing this blog post from beyond the grave. Here's what I liked:
- It SMASHED THE PATRIARCHY: Odinson and Odin both flopped around and whined a lot, and it was pretty great. At one point, the woman who had taken on the mantle of Thor told Odinson (formerly Thor) that he should stop worrying about what makes her worthy to wield Mjolnir (the hammer,) and instead work on his own worthiness. Eventually he gathers together a bunch of badass lady superheroes to help Thor vanquish a monster that Odin and his brother, Cul, conjure up to reclaim Mjolnir. Seeing that kind of male allyship from Odinson after a long struggle with his biases hit me with all of the feelings.
- It had ALL OF THE GIRL POWER: The Goddess of Thunder just had a different thought process and approach to her powers. She felt like she was worthy of her powers, but not entitled to them, and that was really cool to see. Thor normally has a little more swagger and braggadocio, but the down-to-earth version was SO COOL. When Thor encounters Absorbing Man and Titania, there was a lot more talk and mutual respect between women, and Titania eventually surrenders, knocking Absorbing Man out with his own weapon. It's scenes like these that draw into sharp relief how ridiculous a male Thor can be sometimes. There’s so much more to say about “Goddess of Thunder,” but I want to keep these descriptions short. I loved these volumes so much I read them twice.
UNRANKED
"The Shapeshifter" by Claudia Navone
PREVIOUSLY UNRANKED (but now I can talk about it)
I did a sponsored book review for City Book Review for a book called "Radical Revolution: The Fight for Animal Liberation" It was a 500-page scholarly work on the animal liberation movement, that argued animals ought to be given equal rights as people. It had a very forceful and abrasive tone, and I hated tone-policing someone else's deeply held beliefs. I am no longer vegan or vegetarian, but I was at some points in my life, and I'll still make vegan and vegetarian food and opt to eat vegan or vegetarian when I go out to eat sometimes. I found that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar (a cruel non-vegan metaphor for attracting non-vegans) when trying to make people understand how you feel. A vegan cookbook containing a delicious recipe for vegan peanut butter cups will make people be a lot more sympathetic to your cause than a 500-page rant about how animals are people too. I saw and understood the argument. I don't think it's changing any minds.
