(no subject)
Jul. 28th, 2007 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionWitchling - Yasmine Galenorn. More fluffy supernatural fiction; this felt slower & less thrilling than a lot of the stuff I read, tho'. It's a shame b/c the premise was promising: 3 half-Faerie, half-human sisters in the Seattle area working as agents for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency.
And I was intrigued to see that in the acknowledgments, Galenorn thanks her "spiritual guardians" who have Finnish names (including Tapio, the forest god). And she has a Finnish house spirit in the story; her name is Iris (shouldn't it have been Iiris?). She's described as a "Talon-haltija"--a house sprite or whatever--but I'm annoyed, b/c it ought not to have the hyphen in it; it should be "talonhaltija," yes? She also says "The Talon-haltija are" known for blah blah blah--okay, again, I understand that this is published in English, but I still cringed: it ought to be "talonhaltijaT." Also, Iris is described as baking stollen. I'm sorry, I can understand that probably most audiences here wouldn't know what pulla was, but a freakin' Finnish house fairy would not be baking STOLLEN. Could you not have just said "pastry"? Or "sweetbread"?
Anyway--something creepy was her treatment of a dark elf character; basically she took the whole "once you go black, you'll never go back" thing & applied it to dark elves (who are described as having black skin), & made it more of a magical thing (ie. they can sometimes enthrall their lovers): "Once you've been with a Svartan, there's no going back"; "His race was so intense that one night spent in the arms of a Svartan was all it took to crave another." They're also apparently notorious for ditching their lovers & are generally portrayed as even more sexually predatory than black men are stereotypically framed as being. She also took a kitsune character & had him use one of his powers to nearly induce an orgasm in the main character. Sigh. Racial "exoticness" tied to sex? Now where have we seen that before?
Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology - Edited by Barbara Smith. This was a fantastic anthology; lots of really strong, thoughtful, & moving pieces here. What's sad is how little has changed, in terms of the bigotry going on in progressive movements, since this book was first published, in 1983. So while I was simultaneously nodding my head in understanding & the feeling of validation I got (not that being a black woman is exactly the same as being any other woman of color, duh, but there were certain things I still could relate to), I was also cringing, b/c a lot of it could've been written last year. Or last week, even.
Nightwatch - Sergei Lukyanenko. Epic urban fantasy in Moscow: good & evil Others live in a state of uneasy truce. The Light Ones monitor the night as the Night Watch; the Dark Ones monitor the day as the Day Watch. But it's not as simple as saying good & evil, of course… moral gray areas abound! Yippee! This is the first book in a series, & I am excited to keep reading. I like the moral quandaries that Light Ones face, even if the details of their various plans were sometimes a bit unclear. Recommended by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rhipowered.
Divas Don't Yield - Sofia Quintero. In this "chica lit" novel, four very different Latina women road trip from their NYC college to San Francisco for a women's conference. Angst & drama ensue, naturally. This is a light read; it was fun to read a book w/four protagonists that are women of color.
An Unlikely Cat Lady: Feral Adventures in the Backyard Jungle - Nina Malkin. There was a lot I liked about this quick read; Malkin can write engagingly, & I appreciated her learning curve & her efforts to befriend, care for, & TNR (trap-neuter-return) the feral cats living in her backyard. However, @ times she came off like the well-meaning but sometimes clueless gentrifier that I suspect she is (buying a house in Sunset Park, Brooklyn). And sometimes her pop culture references just get too forced & pseudo-hip: I guess the peril of reading something written by a teen magazine writer? Also, she is really mean about this one feral cat that shows up that she thinks is ugly, diseased (@ one point the cat poops right near its food, something healthy cats would never do), & responsible for jinxing her. She inadvertently traps this cat, but decides to let him go (instead of taking him to be neutered) b/c she hates him. Augh!
Chicana Without Apology: The New Chicana Cultural Studies - Edén E. Torres. While this is specifically about Chicanas, there is a lot here that can be related to women of color in general. Torres talks about the resistance she's faced in the academy for, firstly, being who she is: a Chicana, working-class feminist, & secondly, for trying to teach in a Freire-ian manner & abandoning the pretense of academic objectivity. Some of her anecdotes about the disrespect she's received from colleagues & other students are hair-raising. There's also a chapter where she analyzes two movies that was less interesting; even when I've read or seen a piece in question, it's rare that close critical analysis of a text is riveting to me, never mind when I haven't seen it. Regardless, well worth reading.
Fresh Off the Boat - Melissa de la Cruz. V is a teenager recently moved to California from the Philippines. She's traumatized b/c she goes to a fancy private school & yet has to shop at the Salvation Army. And she's unpopular. Whereas back home, her family was rich, & she had tons of friends. Despite V's snobbery, I did enjoy this book. That might be in large part b/c I know so many Filipinos, including members of my family, who have similar stories in their background, including financial ruin/scandal that makes the family choose to leave. That said, I didn't think the book had anything really new or sharp to say about the teenage immigrant experience, but it was a pleasant change to read such a narrative from a Filipino viewpoint.oyceter's review is what piqued my interest on this one; it's here.
Keeping It Real - Justina Robson. In 2015, the Quantum Bomb blew up & suddenly all the different dimensions in the universe had access to each other: faeries, elves, humans, elementals, demons, etc. Lila Black is a spy who rightfully should've died when a mission to the elven world screwed up, but she got put back together & now is more than half metal. Which also makes her kind of kickass, given that w/a few flicks of switches she's a walking arsenal. Now she's assigned bodyguard duty to a v. unelflike elf; Zal is a rock star, among other things. As this summary might indicate, this book was shiny & fun, but more intelligent than some of the other fluffy stuff I've enjoyed lately. This was a rec fromrhipowered as well!
Time Management from the Inside Out - Julie Morgenstern. I picked this up on the recommendation ofascentintochaos. Overall, I thought it was useful, altho' the problem w/me & time management/organizing books is that I often admire them w/o implementing any of their tips. However, I actually went back a couple of chapters, when I was reading the book, so that I could make lists of goals & activities that would get me closer to them, as she recommended. I liked the reminder that, looking @ your to-do list, you should see that your tasks all further your life goals. I also liked the idea of keeping lists of things to do when you find yourself w/a spare 5 minutes, a spare 1/2 an hour, & a spare hour. I thought her idea of a Time Map seemed a bit too complicated & rigid, but I suppose for some folks it would work really well.
And I was intrigued to see that in the acknowledgments, Galenorn thanks her "spiritual guardians" who have Finnish names (including Tapio, the forest god). And she has a Finnish house spirit in the story; her name is Iris (shouldn't it have been Iiris?). She's described as a "Talon-haltija"--a house sprite or whatever--but I'm annoyed, b/c it ought not to have the hyphen in it; it should be "talonhaltija," yes? She also says "The Talon-haltija are" known for blah blah blah--okay, again, I understand that this is published in English, but I still cringed: it ought to be "talonhaltijaT." Also, Iris is described as baking stollen. I'm sorry, I can understand that probably most audiences here wouldn't know what pulla was, but a freakin' Finnish house fairy would not be baking STOLLEN. Could you not have just said "pastry"? Or "sweetbread"?
Anyway--something creepy was her treatment of a dark elf character; basically she took the whole "once you go black, you'll never go back" thing & applied it to dark elves (who are described as having black skin), & made it more of a magical thing (ie. they can sometimes enthrall their lovers): "Once you've been with a Svartan, there's no going back"; "His race was so intense that one night spent in the arms of a Svartan was all it took to crave another." They're also apparently notorious for ditching their lovers & are generally portrayed as even more sexually predatory than black men are stereotypically framed as being. She also took a kitsune character & had him use one of his powers to nearly induce an orgasm in the main character. Sigh. Racial "exoticness" tied to sex? Now where have we seen that before?
Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology - Edited by Barbara Smith. This was a fantastic anthology; lots of really strong, thoughtful, & moving pieces here. What's sad is how little has changed, in terms of the bigotry going on in progressive movements, since this book was first published, in 1983. So while I was simultaneously nodding my head in understanding & the feeling of validation I got (not that being a black woman is exactly the same as being any other woman of color, duh, but there were certain things I still could relate to), I was also cringing, b/c a lot of it could've been written last year. Or last week, even.
Nightwatch - Sergei Lukyanenko. Epic urban fantasy in Moscow: good & evil Others live in a state of uneasy truce. The Light Ones monitor the night as the Night Watch; the Dark Ones monitor the day as the Day Watch. But it's not as simple as saying good & evil, of course… moral gray areas abound! Yippee! This is the first book in a series, & I am excited to keep reading. I like the moral quandaries that Light Ones face, even if the details of their various plans were sometimes a bit unclear. Recommended by
rhipowered. Divas Don't Yield - Sofia Quintero. In this "chica lit" novel, four very different Latina women road trip from their NYC college to San Francisco for a women's conference. Angst & drama ensue, naturally. This is a light read; it was fun to read a book w/four protagonists that are women of color.
An Unlikely Cat Lady: Feral Adventures in the Backyard Jungle - Nina Malkin. There was a lot I liked about this quick read; Malkin can write engagingly, & I appreciated her learning curve & her efforts to befriend, care for, & TNR (trap-neuter-return) the feral cats living in her backyard. However, @ times she came off like the well-meaning but sometimes clueless gentrifier that I suspect she is (buying a house in Sunset Park, Brooklyn). And sometimes her pop culture references just get too forced & pseudo-hip: I guess the peril of reading something written by a teen magazine writer? Also, she is really mean about this one feral cat that shows up that she thinks is ugly, diseased (@ one point the cat poops right near its food, something healthy cats would never do), & responsible for jinxing her. She inadvertently traps this cat, but decides to let him go (instead of taking him to be neutered) b/c she hates him. Augh!
Chicana Without Apology: The New Chicana Cultural Studies - Edén E. Torres. While this is specifically about Chicanas, there is a lot here that can be related to women of color in general. Torres talks about the resistance she's faced in the academy for, firstly, being who she is: a Chicana, working-class feminist, & secondly, for trying to teach in a Freire-ian manner & abandoning the pretense of academic objectivity. Some of her anecdotes about the disrespect she's received from colleagues & other students are hair-raising. There's also a chapter where she analyzes two movies that was less interesting; even when I've read or seen a piece in question, it's rare that close critical analysis of a text is riveting to me, never mind when I haven't seen it. Regardless, well worth reading.
Fresh Off the Boat - Melissa de la Cruz. V is a teenager recently moved to California from the Philippines. She's traumatized b/c she goes to a fancy private school & yet has to shop at the Salvation Army. And she's unpopular. Whereas back home, her family was rich, & she had tons of friends. Despite V's snobbery, I did enjoy this book. That might be in large part b/c I know so many Filipinos, including members of my family, who have similar stories in their background, including financial ruin/scandal that makes the family choose to leave. That said, I didn't think the book had anything really new or sharp to say about the teenage immigrant experience, but it was a pleasant change to read such a narrative from a Filipino viewpoint.
oyceter's review is what piqued my interest on this one; it's here. Keeping It Real - Justina Robson. In 2015, the Quantum Bomb blew up & suddenly all the different dimensions in the universe had access to each other: faeries, elves, humans, elementals, demons, etc. Lila Black is a spy who rightfully should've died when a mission to the elven world screwed up, but she got put back together & now is more than half metal. Which also makes her kind of kickass, given that w/a few flicks of switches she's a walking arsenal. Now she's assigned bodyguard duty to a v. unelflike elf; Zal is a rock star, among other things. As this summary might indicate, this book was shiny & fun, but more intelligent than some of the other fluffy stuff I've enjoyed lately. This was a rec from
rhipowered as well! Time Management from the Inside Out - Julie Morgenstern. I picked this up on the recommendation of
ascentintochaos. Overall, I thought it was useful, altho' the problem w/me & time management/organizing books is that I often admire them w/o implementing any of their tips. However, I actually went back a couple of chapters, when I was reading the book, so that I could make lists of goals & activities that would get me closer to them, as she recommended. I liked the reminder that, looking @ your to-do list, you should see that your tasks all further your life goals. I also liked the idea of keeping lists of things to do when you find yourself w/a spare 5 minutes, a spare 1/2 an hour, & a spare hour. I thought her idea of a Time Map seemed a bit too complicated & rigid, but I suppose for some folks it would work really well.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-29 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-07 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-07 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-29 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-07 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-29 12:10 pm (UTC)I should read the Night Watch as well. I've heard good things about it and its sequels. Apparently there are movies, too? I really need to start reading this journal with a pen in hand, marking down all the interesting books you introduce :)
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Date: 2007-08-07 11:03 pm (UTC)I might watch the Night Watch movie too--I think our library has it, presumably w/subtitles? I just got the 2nd book, Day Watch, from the library today. :)