Kestnbaum, Ellyn - Culture on Ice: Figure Skating and Cultural Meaning

This is one of the major academic works on culture and figure skating in the US (at least, that I know of), and probably one of the first published on the subject. As such, Kestnbaum includes an introduction to the history of figure skating, and although she is not a competitive figure skater, she's been a fan of the sport and can skate a bit herself.

I read this back in March of 2010, inspired by the Vancouver Olympics, so insert the usual caveats here about my memory.

I have been watching competitive figure skating since around 2005, so basically everything I've seen and everything Kestnbaum writes about do not overlap at all, from the way the scoring system changed around 2004 to the top teams and athletes. That said, I watch recreationally, so it was nice to have a brief history of the sport—I did not even know why it was called "figure" skating!—along with a write up of all the different jumps, difficulty levels, what judges look for, and etc.

Kestnbaum then moves on to a cultural critique and reading of figure skating, from complaints of how young the female skaters in particular are to feminist critiques, readings of masculinity in the sport, and compulsive heterosexuality. The final chapter is about fannishness.

Kestnbaum acknowledges the problems of increasingly younger girls and women skating, particularly after the new age rules post-Tara-Lipinski, though she also notes that the shorter, thinner, and less curvy bodies of adolescent figure skaters are more suited toward jumping than that of older women. I don't know enough about skating to say anything about this, but Kestnbaum doesn't go far enough for me; the jumps and many of the ways the sport is judged comes from a time when men were the main athletes, and while I don't know enough to say that this influences all the rules, I also think about gatekeepers and who gets to set the standards. I had a similar problem with her look at masculinity in the sport and compulsive heterosexuality in pairs and ice dance; I agree with a lot of her critique, but I frequently felt she didn't go far enough. While she does read an ambiguous sexuality of many of the male figure skaters and notes the female gaze, my vague memories right now feel like she elided a lot of LGBTQ issues.

She also talks around issues of nationality, race, and ethnicity, and I really wish she had a chapter on that, particularly after Domnina and Shabalin's appropriation of Aboriginal Australian culture. There's also the fact that figure skating is a winter sport, and neatly excludes many Central American, South American, South East Asian, and African nations; I don't think it's a coincidence that figure skating is predominantly White and East Asian. Although there have been more non-East-Asian POC in figure skating from assorted European and North American countries, the number is still tiny. I have similar problems with the way the world competitions are framed as nations battling against each other, how skaters' routines frequently culturally appropriate, the predominance of European classical music, and the usual way different nations' comparative economic positions influence how well their skaters do.

It's not a bad book, and about up to par with most of the cultural critiques centered around sex and gender that I've read (mainly in the realm of manga), but I wanted much more. Still, I found it a useful read as a jumping-off point, and it probably serves best as an introduction.

Brockway, Connie - The Golden Season and Skinny Dipping

(Possibly a lot of book spam to come in the futile attempt to get my 2010 write ups out of the way.)

Skinny Dipping (2008)

Mimi Olson is forty, and she's never had a responsibility in her life, and she'd like to keep it that way. Joe Tierney is at the opposite end of the responsibility spectrum. There is a meet cute, but ultimately, this is less a romance and more fiction about Mimi coming to terms with the family retreat she's always loved, her responsibilities or lack thereof, and other stuff.

This is Brockway's second contemporary, and I'm glad she's returned to historicals. Points for Mimi's age, older women being sexually active, and the book being centered around Mimi instead of Joe. That said, it's a contemporary! Brockway I think left historicals for a while because she was writing heroines who were pushing the boundaries, and I wish she had pushed even more in her contemporaries. Alas, this one reads as fairly standard chick lit, with funny animals, an all-White cast (or nearly), and brief glimpses of the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Not terrible, but nothing memorable. Read Jennifer Crusie instead.

The Golden Season (2010)

Lady Lydia Eastlake is popular, bright, and famous for her extravagance, but her wealth is quickly running out. Captain Ned Lockton's erstwhile relatives have spent the Lockton wealth, and he's looking for a wealthy bride. Unfortunately for the both of them, they each decide to hide their financial status, and so they start courting, thinking that the other will save them from financial disaster.

The characters remind me a great deal of Brockway's The Bridal Season, which is still one of my favorites of hers. Lydia is flighty and Ned is that rarest of things: a romance hero who isn't possessive, rakish, or an asshat, but is polite and reserved and nice. Alas, they don't come to life as well as Letty and Elliot did for me, although I did like the similar relationship tension of Lydia wanting to overcome Ned's reticence and break his control. Unfortunately, the set up is such that I wanted the two to sit down and stop lying, and although I don't quite remember what happened with the secondary characters, I do remember that I didn't like it.

Knight, Deidre - Butterfly Tattoo

Michael Warner is still grieving for his partner, killed in a car crash, but their daughter Andie is as well, and Michael can't seem to reach her. Meanwhile, he meets Rebecca O'Neill, a former celebrity scarred by a stalker fan's attack, and Rebecca's growing relationship with Andie has the two seeing each other more.

This is a contemporary that I feel is actually set in a world I live in: Michael is bisexual and dealing with his attraction to a woman after many years loving a man; Rebecca is still coping with the aftermath of the attack that scarred her; they have families and friends and jobs, and nothing in the relationship comes easy.

I have qualms about Michael being attracted to Rebecca after his romance with his partner Alex. I very much like that there's a bi hero and that the author and book give a lot of weight to his questions about his own sexuality. Bonus points for not playing into the promiscuous bisexual trope. However, because the romance genre is so heterosexist, I continue to feel uneasy. That said, I've very glad Knight doesn't demonize Alex at all, and part of why the book is so good is because Michael's grief and his difficulty moving on is so real.

I am usually anti cute kids in romance, but I love the friendship between Rebecca and Andie, particularly as Rebecca bonds with Andie over her scars from the stalker attack and Andie's scars from the car accident. I thought Knight was very good at portraying how the attack had affected Rebecca's life: she still has some problems breathing, there's pain, and the scars aren't romance pretty.

This is a very touching and atypical romance about two very hurt people finding each other and healing, and I almost never felt as though the angst was shoehorned in for angst's sake. Instead, the characters all feel very real, and I love how all the changes in the relationship are fueled by character and not the usual romance hijinks.