the last books of 2012
Jan. 26th, 2013 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarion... I like how three long plane journeys & the winter holiday break made me read as many books in about a week & a half as I managed in 4 months!
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism & the Scapegoating of Femininity - Julia Serano. Okay, my writeup is going to be lacking, b/c I tend to be slack/not v. good at writing up theory sorts of stuff anyway, & b/c I read most of this while on a long plane trip, so while I thought it worth reading, it's not like my retention or comprehension was necessarily the best, even for me!
This book is kind of a (US) Trans 101, & I think it works pretty well on that level, as far as I can tell -- I don't know how it would read to someone who came to it w/absolutely no prior knowledge, but I feel like it is pretty accessibly written. Also Serano is v. careful to define her terms, useful as they often have different meanings depending on what space they are being employed in. Her main thesis is that trans women are hated not for being trans, per se, but because of misogyny: men have status, & so trans women are reviled because no one can understand why they'd rather downgrade to womanhood instead, & b/c femininity is so hated. I think there is a lot of merit to this theory! I mean, hello, misogyny is rife in the US, certainly. IDK if it's sort of a be-all end-all theory, but then it's not really for me to say. I liked how Serano addressed the nature/nurture question by basically saying: and. I am not even going to try to explain that part, b/c I already tried to talk towrdnrd about it & just had a brain meltdown in which I ended up saying, "ahhhhh never mind, just go read it."
Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein. No spoilers -- & I do think this YA novel is one v. much worth going into without spoilers! In brief: it's about two young British women during WWII, one a pilot, one a spy. They are best friends. One gets captured by the Germans in France. (I don't think these are spoilers! They're all over the cover & plus it's obvious pretty quickly.)
A zillion people I know were reccing this book this year, & for once, something lived up to the hype. This novel will gut you (in part b/c -- & I still wouldn't call this a spoiler, & in any case the content warning is necessary: there are explicit references to torture). It's about friendship -- obviously -- deep, deep friendship, & the complicated things people do during war, what war does to people on all sides, what women are expected to put up with even from their allies, those moments of impossible choices that define your life forever & okay I could go on. But not really, partly b/c I'm trying to avoid spoilers, partly b/c I passed on my copy to my sister-in-law last month & so I can't flip through it. It also does some clever things w/narrative -- again, vague to avoid spoilers.
This is the driest, most lifeless post about this book ever, ha! Really, it is worth not being spoiled, & really, if this sounds like your thing at all, please do go read it.
Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism - Edited by Jessica Yee. I think the things talked about in this anthology, the ways in which academia is hostile to feminism -- but especially intersectional feminism -- are vital to consider. The book has a particular focus on how indigenous feminism is ignored & invalidated; other pieces discuss, eg. poverty, Islam, restrictive disempowering funding methods, sex work, & eating disorders.
Like any anthology, there are high points & low points; I feel a little weird talking about which I feel are which, because... it seems kind of contradictory to the spirit of the book somehow, especially to say, f'rex, that I thought some of the pieces were a bit rough. I don't think people need to communicate in a certain way to have their ideas respected, & I definitely have issues w/the kind of language-exclusivity that academia has going on. Anyway! This book is part of a conversation that needs to go on & on & on, & I hope it does.
Kitty Steals the Show - Carrie Vaughn. In this latest installment of the Kitty Norville books, Kitty goes off to London -- yes, an American werewolf in London, har har -- to be the keynote speaker at a conference about the paranormal. There is so much to enjoy here -- that the conference, of course, is a convenient excuse to bring back some old favorite characters that we haven't seen in a while, & also, there's something goofily charming about seeing Kitty as the American-with-a-degree-in-English freaking out as she plays tourist in London. Hey, that was me once, too. I also liked seeing Cormac, ex-convict, sometime bounty hunter (& cousin to Kitty's husband Ben), struggle w/Amelia, the spirit that somehow came to share his headspace while he was in prison: Amelia's English & hasn't been home in a hundred or more years, & of course since Cormac accompanies Kitty & Ben to London, there's some family business she has to take care of. The whole Amelia thing probably sounds really cheesy, even for a paranormal romance series, but I think it makes Cormac more interestingly complicated, so I'll roll w/it. The conference is violently protested by people who think that supernatural creatures are from the devil & should all be killed, blah blah -- anyway, the despair & confusion & terror of being faced w/hordes of people who fervently believe in your inferior status -- well, let us just say I think Vaughn got that right, & I can identify w/Kitty's bewilderment & sadness & fury.
Okay, what made me lol & roll my eyes simultaneously: so it turns out that, of course, vampires & werewolves in Europe don't get along too well (do they ever? I am tired of this, or at least that it so often seems to be handled in a v. rote boring sort of way). In the UK they have an uneasy truce, mostly agreeing to leave each other alone (it's not quite at the level of a mutual defense pact, but naturally Kitty's appearance is the catalyst for something that might change that...). On the Continent, however, things are even worse: in some places vampires keep werewolves subjugated in chains, etc. etc. It's not like werewolves & vampires in the US are best buds (far from it, though I appreciate Kitty's tentative, somewhat complicated alliances w/a few vampires), but basically Kitty is like, what is this Olde World backwards shit??? Which... oh, lol, Carrie Vaughn, did you really see what you did there? Kitty as the literal US American liberator of some oppressed werewolves from the Old Country? SRSLY.
Anyway! Stuff rolls on w/Big Timeless Supernatural War -- & I think this sort of thing is a plotline that can be v. boringly handled, it's v. cliched, but I like what Vaughn does w/it; it feels real & inevitable & it makes sense, & I like how it makes Kitty consider what, if any, role she wants to play, & why (in the past few books she's gone through this "what, I'm not a leader, I'm just a DJ, oh FINE, because this shit could kill the people I love" thing). Also people (well, okay, mostly vampires) don't take her seriously -- she is a werewolf, & not a physically intimidating one, etc. -- & repeatedly she ends up shocking the hell out of people by being a badass. & I don't mean in a brute strength way -- she isn't a huge person, her accomplishments pretty much never come from brawling -- but her big mouth, her bluntness, her nerve, her nosiness, & her compassion get her a lot farther than people expect. Basically all this stuff is catnip to my brain.
What I don't like, & haven't liked for a few books: the mentions of Kitty wanting babies. It makes sense that werewolves can't have babies, & I am sure there are lots of women in the world who would be upset about that. I just wish... can we not have books about women where babies don't come up inexorably? Siiigh.
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism & the Scapegoating of Femininity - Julia Serano. Okay, my writeup is going to be lacking, b/c I tend to be slack/not v. good at writing up theory sorts of stuff anyway, & b/c I read most of this while on a long plane trip, so while I thought it worth reading, it's not like my retention or comprehension was necessarily the best, even for me!
This book is kind of a (US) Trans 101, & I think it works pretty well on that level, as far as I can tell -- I don't know how it would read to someone who came to it w/absolutely no prior knowledge, but I feel like it is pretty accessibly written. Also Serano is v. careful to define her terms, useful as they often have different meanings depending on what space they are being employed in. Her main thesis is that trans women are hated not for being trans, per se, but because of misogyny: men have status, & so trans women are reviled because no one can understand why they'd rather downgrade to womanhood instead, & b/c femininity is so hated. I think there is a lot of merit to this theory! I mean, hello, misogyny is rife in the US, certainly. IDK if it's sort of a be-all end-all theory, but then it's not really for me to say. I liked how Serano addressed the nature/nurture question by basically saying: and. I am not even going to try to explain that part, b/c I already tried to talk to
wrdnrd about it & just had a brain meltdown in which I ended up saying, "ahhhhh never mind, just go read it."Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein. No spoilers -- & I do think this YA novel is one v. much worth going into without spoilers! In brief: it's about two young British women during WWII, one a pilot, one a spy. They are best friends. One gets captured by the Germans in France. (I don't think these are spoilers! They're all over the cover & plus it's obvious pretty quickly.)
A zillion people I know were reccing this book this year, & for once, something lived up to the hype. This novel will gut you (in part b/c -- & I still wouldn't call this a spoiler, & in any case the content warning is necessary: there are explicit references to torture). It's about friendship -- obviously -- deep, deep friendship, & the complicated things people do during war, what war does to people on all sides, what women are expected to put up with even from their allies, those moments of impossible choices that define your life forever & okay I could go on. But not really, partly b/c I'm trying to avoid spoilers, partly b/c I passed on my copy to my sister-in-law last month & so I can't flip through it. It also does some clever things w/narrative -- again, vague to avoid spoilers.
This is the driest, most lifeless post about this book ever, ha! Really, it is worth not being spoiled, & really, if this sounds like your thing at all, please do go read it.
Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism - Edited by Jessica Yee. I think the things talked about in this anthology, the ways in which academia is hostile to feminism -- but especially intersectional feminism -- are vital to consider. The book has a particular focus on how indigenous feminism is ignored & invalidated; other pieces discuss, eg. poverty, Islam, restrictive disempowering funding methods, sex work, & eating disorders.
Like any anthology, there are high points & low points; I feel a little weird talking about which I feel are which, because... it seems kind of contradictory to the spirit of the book somehow, especially to say, f'rex, that I thought some of the pieces were a bit rough. I don't think people need to communicate in a certain way to have their ideas respected, & I definitely have issues w/the kind of language-exclusivity that academia has going on. Anyway! This book is part of a conversation that needs to go on & on & on, & I hope it does.
Kitty Steals the Show - Carrie Vaughn. In this latest installment of the Kitty Norville books, Kitty goes off to London -- yes, an American werewolf in London, har har -- to be the keynote speaker at a conference about the paranormal. There is so much to enjoy here -- that the conference, of course, is a convenient excuse to bring back some old favorite characters that we haven't seen in a while, & also, there's something goofily charming about seeing Kitty as the American-with-a-degree-in-English freaking out as she plays tourist in London. Hey, that was me once, too. I also liked seeing Cormac, ex-convict, sometime bounty hunter (& cousin to Kitty's husband Ben), struggle w/Amelia, the spirit that somehow came to share his headspace while he was in prison: Amelia's English & hasn't been home in a hundred or more years, & of course since Cormac accompanies Kitty & Ben to London, there's some family business she has to take care of. The whole Amelia thing probably sounds really cheesy, even for a paranormal romance series, but I think it makes Cormac more interestingly complicated, so I'll roll w/it. The conference is violently protested by people who think that supernatural creatures are from the devil & should all be killed, blah blah -- anyway, the despair & confusion & terror of being faced w/hordes of people who fervently believe in your inferior status -- well, let us just say I think Vaughn got that right, & I can identify w/Kitty's bewilderment & sadness & fury.
Okay, what made me lol & roll my eyes simultaneously: so it turns out that, of course, vampires & werewolves in Europe don't get along too well (do they ever? I am tired of this, or at least that it so often seems to be handled in a v. rote boring sort of way). In the UK they have an uneasy truce, mostly agreeing to leave each other alone (it's not quite at the level of a mutual defense pact, but naturally Kitty's appearance is the catalyst for something that might change that...). On the Continent, however, things are even worse: in some places vampires keep werewolves subjugated in chains, etc. etc. It's not like werewolves & vampires in the US are best buds (far from it, though I appreciate Kitty's tentative, somewhat complicated alliances w/a few vampires), but basically Kitty is like, what is this Olde World backwards shit??? Which... oh, lol, Carrie Vaughn, did you really see what you did there? Kitty as the literal US American liberator of some oppressed werewolves from the Old Country? SRSLY.
Anyway! Stuff rolls on w/Big Timeless Supernatural War -- & I think this sort of thing is a plotline that can be v. boringly handled, it's v. cliched, but I like what Vaughn does w/it; it feels real & inevitable & it makes sense, & I like how it makes Kitty consider what, if any, role she wants to play, & why (in the past few books she's gone through this "what, I'm not a leader, I'm just a DJ, oh FINE, because this shit could kill the people I love" thing). Also people (well, okay, mostly vampires) don't take her seriously -- she is a werewolf, & not a physically intimidating one, etc. -- & repeatedly she ends up shocking the hell out of people by being a badass. & I don't mean in a brute strength way -- she isn't a huge person, her accomplishments pretty much never come from brawling -- but her big mouth, her bluntness, her nerve, her nosiness, & her compassion get her a lot farther than people expect. Basically all this stuff is catnip to my brain.
What I don't like, & haven't liked for a few books: the mentions of Kitty wanting babies. It makes sense that werewolves can't have babies, & I am sure there are lots of women in the world who would be upset about that. I just wish... can we not have books about women where babies don't come up inexorably? Siiigh.