Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

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Monthly Summaries - February and March

Ugh, I’m the worst at blogging. 

I also haven’t been reading that much, because I’m moving to Montreal on the 5th and I have these French exams to study for. Plus I felt like doing a whole lot of rereading, and I don’t count those on Goodreads or when I blog. 

February:

20. Charlie, Presumed Dead - Anne Heltzel

21. Right Behind You - Lisa Gardner

22. Spare and Found Parts - Sarah Maria Griffin *

23. The Loved Ones - Sonya Chung

24. A Separation - Katie Kitamura

25. The Chaos - Nalo Hopkinson

26. Enter Title Here - Rahul Kinakia

27. The Animators - Kayla Rae Whitaker *

28. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

29. I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism - Lee Maracle

30.  Girl at War - Sara Novic *

31. The Wolf Wilder - Katharine Rundell

Charlie, Presumed Dead was terrible. I wanted something trashy for night shift number six of six, but it was less "trashy" and more "actual garbage". There's almost no characterization; no one's motives are particularly believable; and it did not have an emotionally satisfying ending. I guess the author planned to write a sequel, but I didn't care enough about the characters to have any interest in a sequel. 

I hated The Loved Ones. And there’s a super creepy adult man/minor girl relationship in it that is not at all condemned by the narrative. Which is fucked up, given that she was pre-pubescent when they met and he helped her deal with her first period. I really don’t understand why this one came so highly recommended.

A Separation was incredibly dull. I don’t normally mind books that aren’t plot-driven, but this didn’t resonate emotionally and the prose is really spare, so it didn’t work for me on any level. I’m pretty sure the same three sites that recommended The Loved Ones recommended this.

Enter Title Here was just kind of poorly written. The book’s conceit (a teenage girl writing a “novel” about her life) got in its own way, the pacing was off, and Reshma’s unlikeable nature eventually went from unpleasant but interesting to just plain tedious.

I know it’s early, but The Animators might well end up being my favourite book of the year. Top three for sure. I don’t know if I can quite explain why I liked it so much, but I definitely recommend it.

Girl at War is another one that just worked for me. Recommend.

March:

32. The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (quite good, but not star-worthy for me personally. It’s a young adult novel and it felt too young for me)

33. The Sun Is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon (see above)

34. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (my least favourite Atwood)

35. St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves - Karen Russell (did not meet expectations)

36. One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter - Scaachi Koul

Yeah, March was a bad month for reading, though at least I enjoyed my rereads.

2017 HFC Bingo Challenge Progress:

LGBTQ+ author/characters - Everything We Left Behind

Unread book on my shelf - The Folded Earth

Written by a POC - On Beauty

Recommended by the HFC

Indigenous/Native author/characters - I Am Woman

Comfort read/guiltless pleasure - We Were On a Break

Debut novel - The Admissions

Book you’re prejudiced against

Book with disabled character - The Chaos 

Published in this year (2017) - Right Behind You

Graphic novel - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Blue cover - The Loved Ones

Local to you (setting or author) - Hag-Seed

Book for These Apocalyptic Times - The Hate U Give

Social justice inspiration

Set in a country you’d like to visit - Girl at War (I know, but Croatia is lovely now)

Everyone but me has read it - When Breath Becomes Air

Contributes to self-care

Put a bird on it (bird on the cover) - The One That Got Away by Bethany Chase (reread)

Second chances (book you gave up on)

Set during/including a holiday

Novella - The Middle Ground by Zoe Whittall (she’s usually great. This wasn’t)

Nobel winner/finalist - Sula 

Non-traditional format - Love Slave

Set in the future - Spare and Found Parts

Short stories (single author) - The Unfinished World

“Girl” in the title - The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

One-word title - Eileen

Booker winner -The Blind Assassin

History/micro-history

Book about sisters

Anthology

Pulitzer winner/finalist - Olive Kitteridge

Readers Gonna Read (free space) - Difficult Women

Readers Gonna Read (free space) - The Animators

Readers Gonna Read (free space)

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22. Spare and Found Parts - Sarah Maria Griffin *

I wasn’t originally planning to review this one or give it a star when I finished it early yesterday morning. When I found myself still thinking about it late last night, while halfway through another book that I didn’t want to think about at all, I changed my mind.

Is it perfect? Not even close. It’s a debut novel, and you can tell. It sometimes feels a little like it’s trying too hard to be literary - there are a few gorgeous turns of phrase but sometimes the effort shows too much and writing feels forced and unnatural. It’s a bit slow to start and slightly clumsy at the end. But somehow, despite its evident flaws, it still works.

Spare and Found Parts is the sort of book I think I’d enjoy more on a reread, but I think it’s a very good sign that I’m already thinking about that reread and looking forward to whatever Griffin writes in a few years.

I’m sort of intrigued by the approach to disability in Spare and Found Parts - nearly everyone in Black Water City (future Dublin) is somehow disabled, but they have excellent prosthetics that are stronger and more effective than their biological limbs and which they’ve made beautiful. At least one character expresses that her missing eye is just a part of her and doesn’t need correcting. In some ways, it’s a good portrayal of what could happen when disability is normalized and properly accommodated. But at the same time, this is a society that puts a huge importance on being “useful”; people who look “whole” enough to leave for the Pasture often do and people who are too sick to be useful go to the Pale; and people are far less accepting of the protagonist Nell’s unique situation (a clockwork heart that ticks noisily) than they are of the common, and enhanced, prosthetics. 

I think it’s good on other forms of inclusion, though. There’s a minor character whose gender Nell can’t determine by looking at them, and they/them pronouns are used for this character. A major character has two mothers, and this is completely unremarkable. And (this is mildly spoilery, so feel free to skip to the next paragraph) you could very easily read Nell as asexual and panromantic, though neither term is used.

While it’s not nearly as satisfying as getting a story that’s explicitly about queer people, I’m always relieved to see us represented in the background of stories set in the future. It’s nice to know that the author sees a place for us in future worlds and our existence isn’t viewed as deviant. 

Technically, Spare and Found Parts is YA, but I think it straddles the line between YA and adult fiction. Griffin says she writes about “monsters, growing up, and everything those two things have in common”. And yeah, that makes it sound like YA, but it doesn’t condescend to young readers at all and could still appeal to adult readers.

tl; dr: It’s not amazing, but it did stick with me. 

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Monthly Summary: January

1. On Beauty - Zadie Smith *

2. Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood *

3. We Were On a Break - Lindsey Kelk

4. Love Slave - Jennifer Spiegel

5. Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh

6. Words On the Move: Why English Won’t - and Can’t - Sit Still - John McWhorter

7. The Unfinished World: And Other Stories - Amber Sparks

8. Small Admissions - Amy Poeppel *

9. Refund - Karen E Bender

10. The Reactive - Masande Ntshanga

11. The Folded Earth - Anuradha Roy

12. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible and Why We Don’t Know About Them - Bart D. Ehrman (subtitle slightly misleading)

13. The Girl Who Was Saturday Night - Heather O’Neill *

14. The People of Forever Are Not Afraid - Shani Boianjiu

15. Laughing All the Way to the Mosque - Zarqa Nawaz

16. When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi

17. What We Left Behind - Robin Talley

18. Difficult Women - Roxane Gay

19. Everything You Want Me to Be - Mindy Mejia

On Beauty was probably my favourite book from this month - not least because I got to text excitedly with @cryptohomorocker about it. Talking books with Elliott is the best. 

Hag-Seed had some great lines, and I saw Margaret Atwood do a reading from it and she was marvelous. Adding “heard Margaret Atwood rap” to my list of life experiences was a delight. 

Small Admissions was a lot of fun and I’ll definitely read Poeppel again. 

Heather O’Neill can really craft a simile. The Girl Who Was Saturday Night was quirky and interesting and beautifully written.

Everything You Want Me to Be was not amazing, but I didn’t see the twist at the end coming so I have to give it points for that.

2017 HFC Bingo Challenge Progress:

LGBTQ+ author/characters - Everything We Left Behind

Unread book on my shelf - The Folded Earth

Written by a POC - On Beauty

Recommended by the HFC

Indigenous/Native author/characters

Comfort read/guiltless pleasure - We Were On a Break

Debut novel - The Admissions

Book you’re prejudiced against

Book with disabled character

Published in this year (2017)

Graphic novel - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Blue cover

Local to you (setting or author) - Hag-Seed

Book for These Apocalyptic Times

Social justice inspiration

Set in a country you’d like to visit

Everyone but me has read it - When Breath Becomes Air

Contributes to self-care

Put a bird on it (bird on the cover)

Second chances (book you gave up on)

Set during/including a holiday

Novella - The Middle Ground by Zoe Whittall (she’s usually great. This wasn’t)

Nobel winner/finalist

Non-traditional format - Love Slave

Set in the future

Short stories (single author) - The Unfinished World

“Girl” in the title - The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

One-word title - Eileen

Booker winner

History/micro-history

Book about sisters

Anthology

Pulitzer winner/finalist

Readers Gonna Read (free space) - Difficult Women

Readers Gonna Read (free space)

Readers Gonna Read (free space)

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2017 stuff.

Well, this “review everything I read for a year” blog thing didn’t quite work out, did it? 

I may still do a pared-down version in the new year, though - I’ll just review the exceptionally good or bad ones and do the monthly summaries. 

I’m setting myself a smaller challenge for 2017 - just 100 books this year, since I’m still hoping to move in 2017 and that’ll cut pretty severely into my reading time if it happens. Plus last year’s various challenges (the 180-book goal, reading/rereading the entire Discworld series, and completing the HFC reader bingo) often kept me from rereading beloved favourites when I felt like reading them. A reading challenge should force you to stretch yourself and seek out new authors and perspectives, but it shouldn’t take away the fun of reading. Not being able to reread much definitely cuts into the fun.

I am doing the third annual HFC bingo, though I have no intention of going out of my way to finish first. A mad scramble in December will do just fine if necessary. This year’s categories are:

LGBTQ+ author/characters

Unread book on my shelf

Written by a POC

Recommended by the HFC

Indigenous/Native author/characters

Comfort read/guiltless pleasure

Debut novel

Book you're prejudiced against

Book with disabled character

Published in this year (2017)

Graphic novel

Blue cover

Local to you (setting or author)

Book for These Apocalyptic Times

Social justice inspiration

Set in a country you'd like to visit

Everyone but me has read it

Contributes to self-care

Put a bird on it (bird on the cover)

Second chances (book you gave up on)

Set during/including a holiday

Novella

Nobel winner/finalist

Non-traditional format

Set in the future

Short stories (single author)

"Girl" in the title

One-word title

Booker winner

History/micro-history

Book about sisters

Anthology

Pulitzer winner/finalist

Readers Gonna Read (free space)

Readers Gonna Read (free space)

Readers Gonna Read (free space)

Feel free to join in on that challenge if you like! 

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Monthly summaries - October, November, December

October:

177. What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman

178. To the Power of Three - Laura Lippman

179. Here Comes the Sun - Nicole Dennis-Benn

180. Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour - Kate Fox

181. Today Will Be Different - Maria Semple

182. The Blue Line - Ingrid Betancourt

183. The Girls in the Garden - Lisa Jewell

184. The Boy is Back - Meg Cabot

185. An Unrestored Woman - Shobha Rao

Here Comes the Sun was a difficult read emotionally but probably worthwhile? I can’t say I enjoyed it, though. The Boy is Back was a delight, but Meg Cabot pretty much always is.

November:

186. Thud! - Terry Pratchett

187. Another Brooklyn - Jacqueline Woodson

188. Making Money - Terry Pratchett

189. Nicotine - Nell Zink

190. The Wangs vs. the World - Jade Chang

191. Britt-Marie Was Here - Fredrik Bachman

192. Snuff - Terry Pratchett

193. The Age of Miracles - Karen Walker Thompson

Nicotine did not compare to Mislaid, though Goodreads ratings would suggest otherwise. I would strongly recommend avoiding it if you’re asexual (or just bothered by the following situation: a character describing himself as asexual when actually he does experience sexual attraction, women basically sexually assaulting him because they don’t believe he’s asexual, and then the character being “cured” when women don’t actually care that his genitals are on the small side). I thoroughly enjoyed The Wangs vs. the World, and I tore through The Age of Miracles. More could have been done with the latter, but it was intriguing and an easy read.

December: 

194. The Mothers - Brit Bennett

195. Swing Time - Zadie Smith

196. Somewhere Out There - Amy Hatvany

197. Talking As Fast As I Can - Lauren Graham

198. You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine - Alexandra Kleeman

199. Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett

200. Scrappy Little Nobody - Anna Kendrick

201. Eric - Terry Pratchett

202. Who Will Catch Us As We Fall - Iman Verjee

203. The Expatriates - Janice Y.K. Lee

204. Raising Steam - Terry Pratchett

205. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents - Terry Pratchett

206. Re Jane - Patricia Park

207. The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett

208. The Shepherd’s Crown - Terry Pratchett

The Mothers, Swing Time, and Re Jane were all good but not amazing. Highly capable authors writing about things that just weren’t hugely interesting to me personally, I think. Re Jane was my favourite of the three. Talking As Fast As I Can was disappointingly shallow - Graham is a very private person and as such probably shouldn’t have bothered with a memoir, least of all when working on several other projects at the same time. You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine was probably December’s standout book (aside from The Shepherd’s Crown) - creepy and incredibly visceral and probably way too smart for me.

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Challenge completed: Discworld read/reread

Just finished The Shepherd’s Crown this morning, and oh, my heart. I cried so much. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and a fitting end to the series. 

I hadn’t really mourned Terry Pratchett’s passing - as long as there were still new Discworld books to read, there was still Terry, somehow. Now I’m really feeling his loss.

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Challenge completed:

Kate Fox’s Watching the English was my 180th book (it took me forever to read, but not because it wasn’t enjoyable - I just had a lot of library books to get through first).

I feel like I ought to feel some sort of sense of accomplishment, but I don’t particularly. Maybe when I also finish the Discworld challenge?

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Monthly Summary: September

169. The Unseen World - Liz Moore

170. After Birth - Elisa Albert *

171. Monsters: A Love Story - Liz Kay

172. After I'm Gone - Laura Lippman

173. Where Am I Now? - Mara Wilson

174. The Conjoined - Jen Sookfong Lee

175. The Gilded Years - Karin Tanabe

176. The Wonder - Emma Donoghue

After Birth was really great. Deliciously acerbic and smart. And it was surprisingly enjoyable to read a book from the point of view of a feminist who admittedly hates other women. I have almost no interest in childbirth or motherhood, and I didn’t like Albert’s The Book of Dahlia, but I loved this.

Do not read Monsters: A Love Story by Liz Kay. Or, I mean, you can, if you love unpleasant protagonists and a vile attitude toward rape. But I wouldn’t recommend it.

Progress towards goals:

Not much! I didn’t expect to finish the 180 book challenge this month, although I have to admit I thought I’d read more than I did. 

180 books: 8 books. Now at 176/180. 

Discworld read/reread:  0 books.  Still at 33/41.

2016 HFC Reader Bingo:  CHALLENGE COMPLETED.

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Well, this was garbage:

I reviewed Monsters: A Love Story by Liz Kay over on Goodreads. This is just a note to say not to read it if you’re not into a “difficult” woman and a rapist being considered equally monstrous.

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Monthly Summary: August

147. The Regulars - Georgia Clark

148. Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World - Aja Raden

149. Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett

150. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

151. Head in the Cloud: Why Knowing Things Still Matters When Facts Are So Easy to Look Up - William Poundstone

152. Results May Vary - Bethany Chase

153. Going Postal - Terry Pratchett *

154. Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past - Peter A. Levine, PhD

155. All About Love: New Visions - bell hooks

156. Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett *

157. A Hat Full of Sky - Terry Pratchett *

158. The Vegetarian - Han Kang

159. Wintersmith - Terry Pratchett *

160. Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity - Steve Silberman

161. The Telling - Zoe Zolbrod

162. When Watched - Leopoldine Core *

163. I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett *

164. An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Anuradha Roy

165. Behold the Dreamers - Imbolo Mbue *

166. The Best Kind of People - Zoe Whittall *

167. In the Language of Miracles - Rajia Hassib

Notable unreviewed books of the month:

The Tiffany Aching series (Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I Shall Wear Midnight) by Terry Pratchett: So good. They’re marketed as YA, and the first book definitely is more geared toward younger readers, but after that there’s very little difference between a Tiffany Aching novel and one of the lighter Discworld novels for adults. Obviously, this is not a slight against the lighter Discworld novels - rather, I like that Terry Pratchett didn’t condescend to younger readers.

Tiffany is much like I imagine the young Granny Weatherwax was, and the Feegles are easier to understand and therefore much more enjoyable than when I first encountered them. 

These were delightful, with some laugh-out-loud moments. Well worth the read, even if you don’t typically enjoy YA.

All About Love: New Visions - bell hooks: I’d never read hooks before - I’d seen her quoted a million times, and I’d liked what she’d had to say, but I hadn’t bought or borrowed any of her books.

I chose the wrong one to start with. 

What was up with the chapter on angels? Or the distinctly unfeminist critique of Monica Lewinsky? Not good. Not good at all.

Where should I have started with hooks? I’m not exactly eager to read her again right now, but I feel like I should give her another chance.

When Watched: Stories - Leopoldine Core: I don’t know how to explain why I liked this book so much. I think it was mostly the humanity of the characters - it’s not always easy to really connect to characters in short stories or to feel like they’re whole people. Core’s characters feel whole and feel real. Plus, I always like to read about lesbians and other queer characters, which When Watched has in abundance. 

I also enjoyed the prose, which seemed effortless. Not artless or careless, but not forced or put on or pretentious. 

Worth trying, if you like short stories at all.

Behold the Dreamers - Imbolo Mbue: For a debut novel, this was really impressive. It’s imperfect, but I tore through it and I’m really looking forward to what Mbue does next. If you’re interested in the immigrant experience, it’s definitely worth a read. 

The Best Kind of People - Zoe Whittall: I had several other things I was supposed to be doing yesterday. I didn’t do any of them, because I wanted to finish The Best Kind of People. It deals with rape culture, so content warnings for that, but it does so sensitively. Whittall grows in leaps and bounds with every book - I liked Bottle Rocket Hearts and have reread Holding Still for as Long as Possible about six times, but The Best Kind of People is polished in a way that Whittall’s other novels aren’t. 

Progress towards goals:

180 books: 21 books. Now at 167/180. Ordinarily I could expect to finish the challenge next month, but I have a lot of plans in September so it’ll likely be October instead.

Discworld read/reread:  6 books.  Now at 33/41. 

2016 HFC Reader Bingo:  CHALLENGE COMPLETED.

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Monthly Summary: July

125. Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett

126. Exit, Pursued by a Bear - E. K. Johnston

127. The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language - Mark Forsyth *

128. First Comes Love - Emily Giffin

129. The Perfect Neighbors - Sarah Pekkanen

130. Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women's Lives - Autumn Whitefield-Madrano

131. So Much Pretty - Cara Hoffman

132. Night Watch - Terry Pratchett *

133. Vinegar Girl - Anne Tyler

134. Invincible Summer - Alice Adams

135. Then and Always - Dani Atkins

136. Night at the Fiestas - Kirstin Valdez Quade

137. Jonathan Unleashed - Meg Rosoff

138. Break in Case of Emergency - Jessica Winter

139. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma - Bessel Van der Kolk, M.D *

140. The Hopefuls - Jennifer Close

141. Rich and Pretty - Rumaan Alam

142. Losing It - Emma Rathbone

143. Truly Madly Guilty - Liane Moriarty 

144. Gemini - Sonya Mukherjee *

145. Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi *

146. The Border of Paradise - Esme Weijun Wang 

Notable unreviewed books of the month: 

The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth: I think you have to be a very specific kind of nerd to enjoy this, but I am exactly that kind of nerd. I found it both interesting and funny.

The Perfect Neighbors by Sarah Pekkanen: This year, Pekkanen did Liane Moriarty better than Moriarty herself did. I don’t love that it felt like Pekkanen was aping Moriarty (and I’ve read a lot of Pekkanen - The Perfect Neighbors isn’t her usual style), but taken without the context of Pekkanen’s other works or any of Liane Moriarty’s, this was actually quite good.

Then and Always by Dani Atkins - Not appallingly bad, not amusingly bad. Just bad. Do not read.

Jonathan Unleashed by Meg Rosoff: At first I found this to be utterly delightful and was sure it was going to be one of my favourite books of the year. Then it fell apart. Then it said a couple of mildly transphobic things. It came back around by the end, and ultimately I liked it, but it definitely did not end up being one of my favourites.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van der Kolk, M.D: This was so good. Really helpful to my understanding of trauma. My only real complaint is that I found some sections to be far too short. The language is so easy to comprehend that I feel like more detail could have been included without being overwhelming. Strongly recommend.

Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam: This one has gotten a lot of buzz, but it’s really not that good. I can forgive a book for being short on plot if it’s got fascinating characters or amazing prose, but this book has neither. Honestly, I think it’s only garnering praise because a male author managed not to do a terrible job of writing women.

If you want a book about complicated female friendship, read Paulina and Fran instead. 

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty: Not my favourite of her books! I didn’t connect with the characters like I did in The Hypnotist’s Love Story; I didn’t enjoy the mystery the way I did in The Husband’s Secret or Big Little Lies. It wasn’t as sharply funny as Big Little Lies, either. The jumping back and forth in time wasn’t as effective as it usually is - I just felt manipulated. Truly Madly Guilty was a mediocre book from an author I usually think is excellent.

Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee:  I enjoyed this a lot more than I really expected to, considering that I haven't been liking YA much this year and considering that it's a debut novel. But Gemini was compelling and remarkably sensitive. It echoed the message in Alice Domurat Dreger's One of Us - that people with atypical anatomies don't necessarily want or need their anatomies "corrected" in order to have good and fulfilling lives. That conjoined twins can be happy to be conjoined. It was maybe a little too gentle and idealistic for me personally. But for an actual young adult, someone who isn't yet ready for One of Us or just looking for a good story? It's a great choice.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: So great. I almost never enjoy family sagas, but I loved this. It’s powerful and clear and incredibly impressive for a debut novelist.

My only complaint is that I wanted more. I could have done with more time spent on many of the characters, especially in the later years of the story. 

This book deserves every bit of the praise it’s been getting. Put it on your to-read list.

Progress towards goals:

180 books: 22 books. Now at 146/180.

Discworld read/reread:  2 books.  27/41. Not making great progress on this challenge!

2016 HFC Reader Bingo:  CHALLENGE COMPLETED.

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126. Exit, Pursued by a Bear - E.K. Johnston

Challenge: 180 books. Length: 243 pages.

Content warning: rape, abortion.

Cover: 

Smarter people say:  “Johnston’s clever—but never precious—update of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale is unflinching but not at all graphic in its treatment of sexual violence and abortion and likewise honestly confronts the wider repercussions of rape culture and victim-blaming, particularly in small towns. Hermione’s is one type of sexual-assault and trauma-survival story: she enjoys all the advantages of being popular and middle-class, and she gets the help she needs so she can continue to enjoy that life. This doesn’t make Hermione’s journey easy; her victories are earned. An author’s note follows, explaining that Hermione's experience is a best-case scenario, providing links for both U.S. and Canadian resources, and offering encouragement to readers not so lucky as Hermione.

Middle and high school readers will pass this powerful, engaging story around and around. Adults should be ready to join in the discussion that follows.” - Kirkus reviews, here: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ek-johnston/exit-pursued-by-a-bear/

I say: Chapters was pushing this one (probably in part because the author is Canadian), and I am all for the idea of Shakespearean retellings with cheerleaders, so I picked it up.

The connection to The Winter’s Tale is actually pretty tenuous - the names are similar but the plot, not so much. I don’t mind that, though. 

What I do mind is Johnston’s portrayal of what happens after a rape. Most of it was, as Johnston said, a best-case scenario, and that’s fine. I think the idea of providing a model for how to support someone after a rape is wonderful, and for the most part I actually think Johnston did a great job. But there were some pretty grievous missteps, too.

Johnston had the rape kit done while the protagonist was still unconscious. Narratively, I get why she chose that - if the survivor was conscious, the process would have to be described and maybe that’s a little too much for a young adult novel. But that’s not how rape kits work. You get to choose whether or not to have one done. You get to refuse any part of the process that you’re uncomfortable with, and they’ll only do the parts you consent to. You get to decide whether or not it goes to the police and you have up to six months to make that decision. Hermione didn’t get any of those choices, and I feel like teen survivors need to know that those choices are available to them and that medical professionals should not be doing anything to their bodies without their consent. I think accuracy about the process is vitally important if you’re going to portray it at all, and I think this was an irresponsible decision on Johnston’s part.

I also didn’t appreciate when the character who is supposed to be a model of how to best support survivors said “You listen to me...you are doing this, and you know it is the right thing to do...”. Because no, that is not how you best support survivors. You best support survivors by giving them choices and letting them make the right choice for themselves. You best support survivors by not rushing them into decisions they’re unsure of. You empower them and let them choose for themselves because they need to know that they still get to do that.

Otherwise, the writing was solid and very sensitive. Had Johnston explained in her author’s note that she took some liberties with the process, I’d be fine with this book. More than fine - I would be strongly recommending it. 

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Monthly Summary - June

106. Deep Diversity: Overcoming Us vs. Them - Shakil Choudhury

107. The Price of Salt/Carol - Patricia Highsmith as Claire Morgan

108. One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal - Alice Domurat Dreger

109. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat - Bee Wilson

110. Pretty - Jillian Lauren

111. One True Loves - Taylor Jenkins Reid

112. We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Cover Girl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement - Andi Zeisler *

113. Not Working - Lisa Owens

114. Stone Mattress - Margaret Atwood

115. Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster - Svetlana Alexievich *

116. A Safe Girl to Love - Casey Plett

117. A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness

118. How to Get a (Love) Life - Rosie Blake

119. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

120. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War - Mary Roach *

121. Edinburgh - Alexander Chee

122. The Girls - Emma Cline

123. Black Apple - Joan Crate

124. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle - Lillian Faderman

This month was Pride month and a month in which a major tragedy befell the LGBTQ+ community. It was also National Aboriginal History month here in Canada. I fell behind on the Discworld read/reread partly because I felt it was important to read books by LGBTQ+ authors (Patricia Highsmith, Casey Plett, Patrick Ness, Alexander Chee, Lillian Faderman) and Aboriginal authors (just Joan Crate, unfortunately) during this month.

I didn’t review everything I read, and I didn’t give out a lot of stars this month. I feel like I should talk a little about a few of the books I didn’t review, though:

- There’s been a lot of buzz around The Girls. I thought it was good but not one of the best books I’ve read this year. I definitely wouldn’t discourage anyone who was interested in it from reading it; I just didn’t think it was exceptional.

- Edinburgh actually was kind of amazing, I think, but completely fell apart for me in the last few chapters, so I couldn’t give it a star. It also dealt with childhood sexual assault and suicide, so trigger warnings there. It’s not graphic about the CSA, but that is a major plot point and it comes up a lot.

- Black Apple was a really good read about the residential schools in Canada. It wasn’t quite my thing because I don’t tend to love books where the point-of-view character is a child for most of the novel, but if you have any interest in residential schools or aboriginal issues in general, I think it’s a worthwhile read.

- I felt like the writing in A Safe Girl to Love wasn’t anything super special...except for the fact that A Safe Girl to Love is a collection of short stories by a trans woman writing authentically about the experiences of trans women. I feel like I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anyone looking for “a great book”, but I would recommend it to anyone looking for “a well-written book about trans women”, y’know?

- The Gay Revolution is quite dry - to the point where it took me nearly two weeks to finish it because I kept getting bored or sleepy when I tried to read it. It also occasionally rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed to treat transgender people as an afterthought and sometimes made me think Faderman is a bit behind the times.  Intersex people and asexual people aren’t mentioned at all - the focus is almost entirely on gay and lesbian people, with a few bisexual people thrown in. Plus, as a Canadian, it wasn’t as relevant to me as it would be to readers in the US (sadly, it seems like there’s no equivalent Canadian book).

Also, in the interest of historical accuracy, uncensored anti-gay slurs are used and so is the uncensored N-word, so please be aware of that.

We complain a lot that young people don’t know their queer history, and it’s a legitimate problem. The Gay Revolution is pretty thorough, so points for that, but I still don’t know that I’d want to recommend it as a solution to the “no one knows their queer history” problem.

So yeah, that’s my June reading.

Progress towards goals:

180 books: 19 books. Now at 124/180

Discworld read/reread:  0 books.  Still at 25/41. Oops.

2016 HFC Reader Bingo:  2 books. CHALLENGE COMPLETED.

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120. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War - Mary Roach

Challenge: 180 books. Length: 276 pages, if you don’t count the acknowledgements and notes.

Cover:

Pretty “meh” on this cover, but nonfiction doesn’t need a great cover like fiction does.

Favourite lines: “ * I went on the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System to find you a figure for the number of burns caused each year by pantyhose. Alas, NEISS doesn’t break clothing injuries down by specific garment. I skimmed “thermal burns, daywear” until I ran out of patience, somewhere around the thirty-seven-year-old man who tried to iron his pants while wearing them.”

“Camo print became so popular that eventually Navy personnel began clamoring for it. To the embarrassment of many, the current Navy working uniform is a blue camouflage print. Unsure whether perhaps I was missing the point, I asked a Navy commander about the rationale. He looked down at his trousers and sighed. ‘That’s so no one can see you if you fall overboard.’”

Also, Chapter 13, “Up and Under” particularly interested me because it was largely about sleep deprivation and working while tired. And mentioned that, by weight, a submarine carries more paperwork than people. Which does not surprise me at all.

Smarter people say:  “Funny but not glib, nosy but not prurient, Roach is the consummate tour guide...

There is a lot of excellent information here that only Roach seems able to find and deliver. She starts with an account of the chicken gun, a cannon with a 60ft barrel that fires literal chickens at fighter planes to test the potential that they will be damaged by errant birds during a flight. Of course, as Roach points out, chickens aren’t fliers. The bird’s impact, Roach tells you, is less like that of a duck or goose and more “like a flung grocery item”.

This sort of absurdity is the kind of thing Roach always finds pleasing, instructive about the strange ways in which humans solve problems. Other oddities Roach comes across include: the rules about buttons on military uniforms are 22 pages long. Silk underwear is the best kind of underwear to have on if you’re wounded; it’s strong, and won’t end up embedded in your flesh... Maggots, like puppies, will stand on their heads to get at food – in their case dead tissue – if necessary.” - Michelle Dean, here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/13/grunt-mary-roach-review-military-science

I say: I love Mary Roach (well, most of the time: Gulp went through the digestive process and even Mary Roach can’t make me want to read about the end stages of that process in great detail). Her writing is like Terry Pratchett’s, if Pratchett had devoted himself to meticulously researched science writing instead of to fantasy.

I normally go out of my way to avoid reading about war and the military. I work closely with the Navy and with people who’ve retired from various branches of the military, and that’s more than enough for me. For that reason, I’d been planning to skip this book, but I found out that it’s not, as Roach herself says, “about the science of military armaments...” or “...about battling insurgents”. It’s about designing uniforms, hearing loss, doctors helping amputees, sleep deprived submariners, diarrhea research, shark repellent, coping with extreme heat, and so on. Much more interesting to me, and much easier to read about.

Grunt is smart; funny; fascinating. Starred.

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119. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

Challenges: 180 books, HFC reader bingo (everyone but you has read it). Length: 448 pages.

Okay, to be perfectly honest, I did not get this book at all. Not even a little bit. And every time the family named another character Aureliano I wanted to scream. TOO MANY FUCKING AURELIANOS.

But! It was my last book for the HFC challenge, so I figured it was worth noting.

Done!

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So it would seem that 100+ book reviews are about as many book reviews as I really feel like doing. I’m a couple of books behind again and can’t motivate myself to review them.

I think I might switch to monthly list posts and just reviewing the exceptional stuff - anything that gets a star or that’s appallingly and hilariously bad.

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115: Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster - Svetlana Alexievich

Challenge: 180 books. Length: 236 pages.

Cover: 

Favourite lines:  "There's a note on the door: 'Dear kind person, Please don't look for valuables here. We never had any. Use whatever you want, but don't trash the place. We'll be back.' I saw signs on other houses in different colors - 'Dear house, forgive us!' People said goodbye to their homes like they were people...And then in a child's handwriting: 'Don't kill our Zhulka. She's a good cat.' [Closes his eyes.]"

"We came home. I took off all the clothes that I'd worn there and threw them down the trash chute. I gave my cap to my little son. He really wanted it. And he wore it all the time. Two years later they gave him a diagnosis: a tumor in his brain...You can write the rest of this yourself. I don't want to talk anymore."

Smarter people say: “Alexievich is a Belarussian journalist, and it was Belarus that received 70 per cent of the fallout of iodine, caesium, strontium and plutonium radionuclides. It lost 485 villages, and today one in every five Belarussians - 2.1 million - still lives on contaminated land. President Lukashenko's government continues to refuse to acknowledge Chernobyl's impact. When the plant exploded and the wind nudged a radioactive cloud over the whole country, the director of Belarus's Institute for Nuclear Energy, Vasily Nesterenko, rushed to Party offices in Minsk, begging officials to initiate iodine distribution - the city had 700kg of iodine concentrate in store in case of a Cold War attack. He describes "a conspiracy of ignorance and obedience". Little has changed. Then, secretaries were instructed to refuse him admission. They let him in when he held his dosimeter to their thyroid glands and it chattered. He was sacked. Recently, in 1999, Nesterenko's colleague, the clinical scientist Prof Yuri Bandazhevsky, was arrested for publicising the effects of caesium-137, particularly on the human foetus. Prof Bandazhevsky is now dying in jail. (The writers' organisation English PEN has just obtained a copy of Prof Bandazhevsky's banned research, for which it is seeking a publisher.) 

Alexievich's book, which should be a melancholy experience, is both more and less than that. Her technique is a powerful mixture of eloquence and wordlessness, describing incompetence, heroism and grief: from the monologues of her interviewees she creates a history that the reader, at whatever distance from the events, can actually touch.” - Julian Evans, here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/svetlana-alexievich-nobel-winner-voice-from-chernobyl-review/

I say: This was just heartbreaking. A worthy read, even if sometimes I felt like the voices were blurring together. I understand why it won the Nobel Prize. 

Starred.