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Nov. 28th, 2010 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionHalf World - Hiromi Goto. Absolutely wonderful YA urban fantasy novel. Melanie Tamaki is growing up poor with a mother who's struggled to take care of herself, much less her daughter. When her mother disappears, Melanie is drawn into a mythical struggle—she goes into the titular Half World—for not only her mother's sake but the whole world's. Melanie isn't annoyingly lithe & elfin; she's awkward & angry & afraid & sometimes messes up. The story casually mentions the existence of queerness in a beautifully everyday way. Half World is vividly drawn & genuinely frightening. And the way the story deals with the issue of change, & redemption, is v. satisfying. One of the best reads this year, definitely.
Ash - Malinda Lo. Retelling of Cinderella, with a lesbian spin. The writing was beautiful, if a bit reserved--although that reserve makes sense, as Ash needs so much to watch what she says that a similar narrative tone is only fitting. I really liked that Lo explores the nature of desire in this book, & also for a while I wasn't quite sure where the sexual and romantic tension would go. Also, Ash is much more kickass than Cinderella ever was, of course.
Moxyland - Lauren Beukes. Cyberpunk tale set in South Africa. Unlikeable characters, slang trying really hard to be edgy, corporate/government greed & collaboration, technological have & have-nots. Yawn.
Returning My Sister's Face And Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice - Eugie Foster. This collection of short stories kind of left me cold; there were pretty bits, but the writing felt rough in places & the stories felt slightly repetitive after a while (not in the way where you explore the same themes from different angles, just... repetitive).
Liar - Justine Larbalestier. Micah is a compulsive liar; she'll tell you that much is true. And her boyfriend Zach has just died. Much of the rest of her narrative in this YA novel is up for debate. It's a fascinating & frustrating ride through until the end. I also was intrigued by Micah's thoughts on being in-between in many ways (racially, in terms of gender presentation, & something else I won't say for spoiler purposes...).
The Other Lands - David Anthony Durham. The second book in the Acacia series. Not nearly as compelling as the first one (well, as compelling as the first one after the first 200 pages in which I didn't care at all). There's some stuff about ruling, & of course more about how corrupt systems require corruption to keep running, & the price of power & the ruthlessness of maternal love. But overall, disappointing.
The Choir Boats - Daniel A. Rabuzzi. At first I thought this was a typical explorer colonialist fantasy romp. It still might be, but Rabuzzi injected just enough doubt for me to wonder if he might deconstruct the genre in book two of this series. Book one mostly revolves around mostly white British businessmen (yeah, men) who have interests in India (& one guy fell in love with an Indian woman there; their first encounter is described in such exotifying language I wanted to barf) but suddenly discover a secret world called Yount. Yount is mostly populated by brown people. Everyone from our world who encounters Yount (mostly white people) becomes obsessed with going there--they call it “longing for Yount.” Another colonialist fantasy, yawn. Especially because Yount is in trouble &--get this--only folks from our world, apparently, can save them!
As I said, there were tiny bits where I hoped Rabuzzi was doing something more complicated than regurgitating imperialist tropes, but to be honest I'm not sure I care enough to keep reading to find out.
The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture - Edited by Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno. I got this rather dubious-sounding book from the library because I needed a book in a hurry for long train journeys, & aside from interest in the topic (& morbid curiosity about how awful it might be) I thought the short chapters might lend themselves well to travel reading.
Anyway, I felt better about the book when I saw that the chapters were written by university students in Japan who were studying cross-cultural communication. I think probably any book of this sort can only give a broad overview (through no fault of the contributors), but at that I think it succeeded fairly well (of course I wouldn't know if things were horrifically inaccurate though). Each of the brief chapters covers a different concept (silence, social obligations, marriage, folk tales, etc.). Some of them overlap, & some of the stuff will not be new to anyone likely to read this book, but I don't think this detracts much. Now I'd really like to look for a similar book written by students in the US--to see what conventions of communication I still take for granted without realizing it.
Popco - Scarlett Thomas. Billionth-time reread. Still yay.
Ash - Malinda Lo. Retelling of Cinderella, with a lesbian spin. The writing was beautiful, if a bit reserved--although that reserve makes sense, as Ash needs so much to watch what she says that a similar narrative tone is only fitting. I really liked that Lo explores the nature of desire in this book, & also for a while I wasn't quite sure where the sexual and romantic tension would go. Also, Ash is much more kickass than Cinderella ever was, of course.
Moxyland - Lauren Beukes. Cyberpunk tale set in South Africa. Unlikeable characters, slang trying really hard to be edgy, corporate/government greed & collaboration, technological have & have-nots. Yawn.
Returning My Sister's Face And Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice - Eugie Foster. This collection of short stories kind of left me cold; there were pretty bits, but the writing felt rough in places & the stories felt slightly repetitive after a while (not in the way where you explore the same themes from different angles, just... repetitive).
Liar - Justine Larbalestier. Micah is a compulsive liar; she'll tell you that much is true. And her boyfriend Zach has just died. Much of the rest of her narrative in this YA novel is up for debate. It's a fascinating & frustrating ride through until the end. I also was intrigued by Micah's thoughts on being in-between in many ways (racially, in terms of gender presentation, & something else I won't say for spoiler purposes...).
The Other Lands - David Anthony Durham. The second book in the Acacia series. Not nearly as compelling as the first one (well, as compelling as the first one after the first 200 pages in which I didn't care at all). There's some stuff about ruling, & of course more about how corrupt systems require corruption to keep running, & the price of power & the ruthlessness of maternal love. But overall, disappointing.
The Choir Boats - Daniel A. Rabuzzi. At first I thought this was a typical explorer colonialist fantasy romp. It still might be, but Rabuzzi injected just enough doubt for me to wonder if he might deconstruct the genre in book two of this series. Book one mostly revolves around mostly white British businessmen (yeah, men) who have interests in India (& one guy fell in love with an Indian woman there; their first encounter is described in such exotifying language I wanted to barf) but suddenly discover a secret world called Yount. Yount is mostly populated by brown people. Everyone from our world who encounters Yount (mostly white people) becomes obsessed with going there--they call it “longing for Yount.” Another colonialist fantasy, yawn. Especially because Yount is in trouble &--get this--only folks from our world, apparently, can save them!
As I said, there were tiny bits where I hoped Rabuzzi was doing something more complicated than regurgitating imperialist tropes, but to be honest I'm not sure I care enough to keep reading to find out.
The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture - Edited by Roger J. Davies and Osamu Ikeno. I got this rather dubious-sounding book from the library because I needed a book in a hurry for long train journeys, & aside from interest in the topic (& morbid curiosity about how awful it might be) I thought the short chapters might lend themselves well to travel reading.
Anyway, I felt better about the book when I saw that the chapters were written by university students in Japan who were studying cross-cultural communication. I think probably any book of this sort can only give a broad overview (through no fault of the contributors), but at that I think it succeeded fairly well (of course I wouldn't know if things were horrifically inaccurate though). Each of the brief chapters covers a different concept (silence, social obligations, marriage, folk tales, etc.). Some of them overlap, & some of the stuff will not be new to anyone likely to read this book, but I don't think this detracts much. Now I'd really like to look for a similar book written by students in the US--to see what conventions of communication I still take for granted without realizing it.
Popco - Scarlett Thomas. Billionth-time reread. Still yay.