ellievsbear
@theartofmadeline
Janaina Medeiros
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d e v o n
Jules of Nature
Cosmic Funnies
Product Placement
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
roma★
art blog(derogatory)
Three Goblin Art
$LAYYYTER
Xuebing Du
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Kaledo Art
noise dept.
🪼
cherry valley forever
Love Begins
seen from Malaysia
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@cupofbooks
Hello goblins, ghouls and ghosts! This is a masterlist of my Vampire Fiction Review Series, other Halloween Reviews and Miscellaneous Videos in October!
A while ago, I made a masterlist of my October Specials for my blog, so I’m sharing! I’m also working on a master-masterlist of all my videos ever... so, um, be warned!
whizzbees:
Currently drinking: The best Butterbeer I have ever tasted.
I just made this and it’s absolutely delicious!
Long time no videos, BookTube! I wish I had some stellar review or artsy-shot tag to make it up to you, but alas, all I got is a hastily-filmed TBR video. Enjoy!
Hey, look! A video! With bad lighting! Do I deliver or do I deliver?
LGBT Readathon Info: http://daydreamersthoughts.co.uk/lgbt-readathon-announcement-25th-31st-may/
Faye at Daydreamer's Thoughts: http://daydreamersthoughts.co.uk
“…when I was young, there weren’t a lot of YA books about black girls. None of my beloved favorite books were written for, or even featured, young black girls. Or really, anyone of color.”
http://bookriot.com/2015/05/25/brown-girl-reading-ya-books-black-girls/
“you know that i’m falling in love with you, right?”
I was reading a VC post and I always think people over exaggerate about Louis being a pyromaniac But then I thought over it And throughout the books Louis sets like twelve fires holy shit…. Louis’ solution to everything is literally to set it on fire.
Is this also counting the fires in Prince Lestat? I don’t have to tag this question as ‘spoilers’ right because it’s not a spoiler that Louis starts fires it’s expected
arrives 15 minutes late to avenge with starbucks
a latte most vanilla
At the bookstore
heart: yes
bank account: no
Actually Asexual In Fiction 2.0
Open a can of 100% ace. No guessing, no maybes, only confirmed aces.
Goodreads List + 3 Free Reads
Quicksilver
Guardian of the Dead
Days of Blood & Starlight
The Heart of Aces
The Oathbound
Clariel
The Bone People
Accepting Me
Banner of the Damned
Wings of Destruction
Flesh and Fire
Fireland
The Tropic of Serpents
The Clinic
The Northern Clemency
Tales from Outer Lands
Thief of Souls
The Deed of Paksenarrion
Carrie Pilby
Coffee Cake
To Be or Not To Be
Bone Diggers
Heart’s Scar
Read Vitality
I'm kind of upset because I bought frenemy of the people by Nora Olsen and boyfriends with girlfriend by Alex Sanchez because I found them in one of your lists and it seems like they're both pretty much like "being bi isn't real"/"it's just a phase on the way to being gay" and it just makes me sad cuz I thought they would be more affirming but idk maybe boyfriends with girlfriends will get better but I finished frenemy of the people and the attitude didn't really change
I really don’t remember that as being in Frenemy of the People. The part I remember from Frenemy of the People was where Clarissa clearly puts up boundaries with Lexie from the very beginning that she will not tolerate her biphobic statements or ableistic slurs against her sister. Throughout the book Clarissa very clearly and repeatedly says that she is bi and that doesn’t change when she gets together with Lexie. I’m not sure how you interpreted that as her bisexuality being a phase. She doesn’t change orientations when she gets into a relationship with Lexie.
People can have very different experiances reading the same book (and I’m certainly not saying that you have to like any book that we like here) but I’m kind of wondering if we read the same book at all.
- Sarah
I haven’t read Enemy of the People (but it’s on my wishlist and I’m sad to hear this), but personally Boyfriends with Girlfriends also didn’t work for me. I really, really, really wanted to like it, but just couldn’t. I had issues with the way some of the bisexuality was handle, especially since it does kinda set up this virgin (gay kid)/whore (bi kid) dynamic that I think is trying to deconstruct/critique the “promiscuous bisexual” trope but failed for me. I also didn’t like the portrayal of Kimiko’s family, which seemed to fall into a lot of Asian/Japanese stereotypes (though I am 100% white, so please let me know if my critique is off the mark here). Which is was sad, because Kimiko was actually my favorite. Your mileage may vary, but I felt like BWG was a book that had the best of intentions but ultimately the way it tried to grapple with biphobia didn’t work for me. Though I might have felt differently if I had read this book when I was actually a young adult. (BookTube review in this video for those curious: What I’ve Been Reading.)
A Follow-Up To: Booktube Stats and the Denial of Intersections
Yesterday it was brought to my attention that there were a few points in my post that needed clarification. While I tried to be as clear as possible, and even engage those concerned directly on Twitter, I feel I need to post this follow-up to address specific issues. My point was to bring awareness, not propose a one size fits all solution.
Stats are important.
Of course they are. I never said they weren’t. That, however, doesn’t mean these diversity graphs are not problematic. The goal of the previous post wasn’t to say “stats are bad,” it was to discuss how a two-identifier chart doesn’t leave room for nuance, or intersectionality.
For example, this 2013 Pew Research Study shows the reading habits of various demographics within the United States.
Studies like this one are important because they highlight that, while the publishing industry still pushes literature predominantly written by white writers, that isn’t necessarily reflective of the readership. And again, this study is by no means perfect, as it has only three ethnic and two gender identifiers. I’m using it to illustrate that this data can be a useful starting point. However, we’re in a different position. To my knowledge, Booktubers are not using their stats to publish studies. There are no strict procedures we have to follow, which allows for more freedom and less risk of exclusion.
If diversity is our goal, how do we hold ourselves accountable without stats?
How do you hold yourself accountable with anything else? That’s something you have to figure out; I can’t do that for you. I could say “well, you certainly could keep track privately.” But, that isn’t really a solution. It doesn’t confront the problem of denying intersections. With that being said, it seems that some want to continue using stats, but would also like to do a better job of it, so let me expand on this with my next point.
Alternatives/Improvements to Diversity Stats Graphs
Think about intersectionality and reexamine your stats. Add more categories. Be specific and inclusive. It’s the least you can do. We live in a world that continues to erase the voices of these marginalized groups and ignores their intersections. If you want to read diversely because you care to hear these voices, then acknowledge them.
People were made uncomfortable by my previous post. That’s okay! Discomfort goes hand and hand with improvement. If you want to make this community better, then you have to be willing to step outside of your comfort zone.
I hope this helps and if you have any questions, feel free to address me directly on Twitter.
“you can’t read that entire book in a day”
Booktube Stats and the Denial of Intersections
“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” –Toni Morrison
The tracking of one’s reading goals and trends throughout the year is very popular on #Booktube. There are an abundance of Reading Stats videos where one talks about whether or not they are on track with their bookish goals. There are graphs and charts galore. As a reader, I think it’s a great way to track how our reading changes throughout the months and years. However, there is one thing that continues to pop up in these videos that makes me cringe: The diversity graph.
It might look something like this:
Or, like this:
A while back, my friend and I were discussing this type of categorizing and she said something that really stuck with me, “You look at someone and you [think you] know their background or how they define themselves. White privilege allows for that.” I would add, so does cishetero privilege.
What is wrong with these graphs?
The term, “People of Color,” or POC, can be incredibly powerful when used in the right context and with full comprehension. However, when this term is used in communities that still center whiteness, it becomes just another way to point out the non-whites. So, for me, these types of graphs provide visual proof of the lack of understanding of the political, social, economic and racialized nuances of the term, “People of Color.”
How do I know this? Because of who is using the term, how they are using it, and where this all started: Booktube’s “Let’s Read Diversely” movement. (To be fair, that’s not its official title, but it feels appropriate.) With this “movement” came a group of people that, while still centering whiteness, wanted to read books that were more ethnically diverse. It then evolved to include books by/about LGBTQ+, women (usually white), and just about anything outside the reader’s comfort zone (genre, POV, etc.). This conversation on diversity took place among mostly white and cishetero booktubers. And when a person of color did talk about diversity they were either token-ized or erased.
That leads us into the real issue with these graphs: the denial of intersections.
For example, you read a book and see that the writer is a black woman. You decide she fits into the category of “POC.” However, what else do you know about her? Is she non-binary, queer, biracial, trans? These are intersections, and for many people one intersection cannot be placed higher than another because they all are equally important to that person’s identity.
And reducing someone’s identity to the label that you find most important is harmful and often triggering.
“For me, personally and politically, there’s NO separating my woman-ness, my black-ness, my trans-ness from my me-ness.” –Janet Mock
You are ignoring and denying their intersectionality, defining them without their input, and centering whiteness and cisheterosexuality at the expense of these POC and LGBTQ+ people.
With specificity comes empowerment.
To be able to identify myself as a cis queer black woman is incredibly empowering. And to have someone reduce my identity to just “person of color” for the sake of haste (FOR A GRAPH) is not okay. This is why the understanding and acknowledgment of intersectionality is important.
Although one might argue that this is all harmless fun and isn’t meant to be about something deeper than just tracking goals, that person would be wrong. You can’t argue that “reading diversely” and representation matter when you are doing something that is counter to those ideas. If diversity and representation do matter, then so does respecting how a person identifies. And it isn’t for you to decide what is harmful to someone else. By the very definition of a microaggression, these reductive categorizations can seem relatively innocent when viewed individually. And, like other microaggressions, they are often dismissed by those who perpetrate them. However, their pervasive and cumulative quality means they cannot be ignored.
The harmful nature of the graphs becomes even more apparent when compared with these creators’ graphs of their genre trends. There may be twenty categories representing all different types of books, but individual identities get boiled down to a mere two. Can a graph featuring two identifiers really represent all the diversity that exists in literature?
If you care about people of color, whether they be the writers you read or the viewers of your channel, then you will think about why you feel the need to track and graph them. If you care about the LGBTQ+ community, you will think about your use of only two gender identifiers. The graph is representative of more than just a way to measure how your reading differs over time. It is yet another way in which white, liberal guilt manifests itself. It is the feel good-ery that comes with reading more POC and/or LGBTQ+ writers than your fellow white cishet friends. It is the reduction of art and someone else’s hard work to a moment of humble brags. It is boiling down someone’s identity to the color of their skin or your perception of their gender and sexuality.
So, does a graph seem worth it?
This was in no way meant to attack anyone who might have made a stats video, I just wanted people to be more aware of these things. I hope the world is entering an age where these discussions are not only occurring more often but are thought to be necessary.
READ THIS! Danielle wrote a fantastic piece on reading goals and intersectionality. This is such a great read and so important to the conversations happening in the BookTube community, the larger book blogging community and with the weneeddiversebooks campaign! It definitely has me rethinking some of the ways I talk about my reading goals as a BookTuber (and just a reader).
ladies who should be part of the mcu tbh get on this
laverne cox as she-hulk stephanie beatriz as spider-woman afshan azad as ms. marvel arden cho as hawkeye gina rodriguez as america chavez gwendoline christie as thor
(credit GettyImages for actor shots)
Well done, internet.
Are you still making videos? No pressure, I'm just curious.
I’m not making videos currently but I hope to get back to it at some point this year. My filming space and schedule make it difficult to film videos. Having an active channel is incredibly time-consuming (like, you don’t even know, unless you have a channel, then you probably do know) and I have too many things I’m juggling right now. I will be back though! My channel is not dead, just lethargic/under a sleeping curse/possibly undead but not dead-dead. In the meantime, you can always talk to me on Twitter. I’m active there (probably a little too active).
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go up to the counter, hoping to order venti café lattes. The barista, whose nametag only reads, “The Bard,” gives them talls and tells them to drink their coffee quickly and leave the store. The two friends begin drinking just as The Bard’s shift ends. The new...
YESSSSS
