Sakura of DOOM

A young woman is captured as a spy in Nazi-occupied France. And there's stuff about female pilots in WWII.

This is one of those books you want to read while knowing the least possible amount about the content. If you do know more, it won't ruin the book, since I think the book will stand up well to multiple readings, but it is a spy narrative.

As a note, potential trigger warnings for oblique interrogation details, along with wartime violence.

For people who want to know more, this book has amazing female friendship (SO SLASHY), excellent characters, Nazis in WWII who are genuinely terrifying and prosaic at the same time, plots within plots, and given how in love I was with stories about the French Resistance in WWII, this would have been my absolute favoritest book EVAR EVAR EVAR if I had read it as a kid.

Not that it isn't a favorite now, but younger me probably would have made up stories and fic and enacted key scenes and made her friends play different parts and such.

( SPOILERS LIEK WHOA )

I don't really have a conclusion, since my main reaction is to flail and wave my hands and tell people to read it so I can talk about it with them. But this is definitely on the "best books I've read in 2012" list, and I knew it even though I finished it back in May.

Links:
(all links go to the day post to preserve spoiler cuts)
- skygiants' review
- musesfool's review
- rachelmanija's review (no spoilers in post or comments)

Assume spoilers in comments!

General overview for books 1-6 on race and gender and etc.

Can I just say that these book titles are terrible? I can't keep half of them apart. Also, assume spoilers in each cut for the book being discussed and for prior books in the series.

( Out of Control (2002) )

( Into the Night (2002) )

( Gone Too Far (2003) )

Into the Night and Gone Too Far are romance recs for doing some really interesting things with the tropes, despite the inclusion of things in there that I don't like.

Links:
- kate_nepveu's reviews of Out of Control, Into the Night and Gone Too Far

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.

Finally I read something that is not a romance! Oh brain, I missed you so!

The book opens with Frankie Landau-Banks' letter to the administration of the exclusive Alabaster Prep, admitting to being the brains behind various deeds of wreaking havoc. But the Frankie we're introduced to is a fairly normal girl, not someone who seems like a criminal mastermind, and the book is largely the story of how she gets to be that way.

Lockhart's narrative voice is a wonderful and snarky omniscient third person (first?), and it notes down things such as how Frankie's reaction to being excluded from the guys' world is different from the normal reactions most girls have—eschew it all together and have girls' nights out, go but then stay on the sidelines, or go to events and out-guy the guys. Frankie, on the other hand, wants to take over. And this captures most of my ambivalence about the book; I am very much one of the women who decides to have my own, majority-female version of an activity rather than battle with the guys, and although I understand Frankie's desire to rule over the guys, it's an understanding that's more intellectual than emotional for me.

This is coupled by the fact that Frankie's most important relationships in the book are with the guys—her ex, her boyfriend, and Alpha. Although she talks with both her sister and her roommate a lot, I felt they were much less central to the plot of the book and they were more confidantes, rather than the people Frankie was most influenced by. I also thought some of Frankie's attitude toward the girlfriends of the Order of the Basset Hound were rather similar to that of people who dislike female characters on shows.

( Spoilers )

All that said, I think this is an extremely thought-provoking book about activism and feminism. While I don't necessarily agree with Frankie's focus, the narration is such that I don't think I'm meant to. What I like best is how Frankie's quest costs her, how isolating it is, how even when she succeeds, she doesn't. It reminds me of the stories of people becoming more aware of social justice and how it often serves to alienate them from relationships, how all of a sudden the ground beneath your feet is more stable and completely upside down at the same time. It reminds me of how efforts toward social justice are so easily explained away by people so that even when you've tried to overturn the establishment, the establishment just swallows you right back up. And the way Frankie is casually dismissed and ignored and subtly told she's great as long as she needs her boyfriend and isn't better than him, all of that rings too, too true.

There's sadly very little about race in the book; Frankie is Jewish and although that's not the center of the book, it's also not forgotten. My main impression is that Alabaster is (unsurprisingly, given the name) very, very White. I'd like to think that Frankie outside Alabaster would be anti-racist as well, but sadly, I know too well how social justice on one axis doesn't always transfer to another. There's also quite a bit of class commentary in the book, given the exclusive prep school setting, and I especially love how Lockhart knows that the same action can be rebellion for one person and just a prank for another, depending on how much privilege they have and how much they have to lose.

In conclusion: very thoughtful and layered, and it does so while being extremely funny as well. Recommended.

I reread these in anticipation of A Conspiracy of Kings coming out in a week or so.

Usual pimpage: For people who haven't read this series, don't read the summaries of the books! The latter ones are spoilery for the previous ones, and this is a series that is very fun to read unspoiled. It has court intrigue, politics, awesome characters, and a romance I love.

( Spoilers for the series to date! )

I have been binging on romance novels ever since school got difficult, and thankfully, I managed to glom onto Mary Balogh, whom I haven't read before and has an extensive backlist I can dig into. I've previously picked up her books before, but was unimpressed by the prose and dialogue, which tends to be fairly expository rather than lively. Balogh also tends to do giant series in which all the other protagonists show up, usually with lots of children.

However, she also writes non-alpha heroes and focuses a lot on the heroines, and for that, I will suffer through a lot of sequelitis. Plus, because I love many of her characters so much, I am less annoyed to see them show up happy (although the Bedwyns still grate on my nerves a bit). Balogh's heroes tend to be quiet and honor-bound, and even the rakes I've encountered have not been very rakish. They also usually fall in love, rather than lust, with the heroines, and I very much like that many of her books are about the heroines deciding if they will be able to live with the heroes, even if they are both in love. Her heroines also tend to get quiet angst and character development, as opposed to existing solely to nurse the hero through his angst, which I also approve of. I wish there would be a few more commoner heroes and titled heroines, as opposed to vice versa, but as I said, I will forgive a lot for romances that read like actual romances and make me believe the hero and the heroine are genuinely in love and will remain so.

( At Last Comes Love )

( A Precious Jewel )

( Simply Magic )

( Slightly Dangerous )

( Slightly Tempted )

( A Summer to Remember )

So what Balogh books do you guys rec, and which ones should I stay away from?

(review courtesy of an ARC from a friend, details on how to get it below)

Jace Witherspoon has just been kicked out of the house for daring to hit his abusive father, and he lands on the doorstep of his brother Christian, who got out years ago and never looked back. Christian's not too happy to have his past in his present again, and the two of them have a lot to work through, especially since their mother is still with their father.

Warning: given the subject matter, there are some scenes in the book that may be extremely triggery in terms of emotional mindfucks and physical abuse.

This is a YA book about domestic violence and child abuse that goes way beyond problem novel; it reminded me a lot of Fruits Basket in how Avasthi looks at how the consequences of abuse and the way silence can be a prison. Nothing is easy. Jace is resentful that his brother was able to cut him and his mother off, Christian almost cannot bear to talk about the past he left behind, Jace is afraid of being around the girl he's attracted to for fear he'll turn into his father, Christian is afraid the new information about his past will hurt his relationship to his current girlfriend. And through it all, Jace still loves his father despite the abuse, and although he is trying his best to get his mother out of the situation, he also resents her for not protecting him.

The book's center is the relationship between the brothers, but I loved the female characters as well. The boys are white, but Jace's girlfriend Mirriam is Asian, and I was trying to figure out if Dakota is Native or Latina (she is described as having blue-black hair, they're in New Mexico, and at one point she feeds Jace fry bread). There's also Jace's ex-girlfriend Lauren; Caitlyn, a stereotypical slutty cheerleader who is less stereotypical than she seems; and of course, Jace and Christian's mother. In a book like this, they could very easily become props for the boys' emotional development, but I think Avasthi manages to avoid that. Sometimes Mirriam felt a little too much like a healer character for me—she's a teacher and a social worker—but I very much liked how she had her own relationship with Jace independent of Christian, albeit not uninfluenced by him.

Despite deepad's comments, I was originally wary that the book was about two white guys, but after reading the book, I think the author made the right choice. Making them POC gets a little too close to all the POC problem novels I've read, and it would feel too much like all the media stories about POC broken families. Also, because the book does a lot of questioning of masculinity and abuse, having the guys and their father as POC could have read as "dangerous, scary, and/or misogynistic POC guy."

ETA (this paragraph): Also! I forgot to say that the one thing I did find missing because the family was "normative" was an acknowledgment of the way the legal system and the system of shelters don't work and are frequently dangerous for trans people, PWD, lower-class people, gay and lesbian people, POC, etc. I was thinking specifically of Andrea Smith's discussion of overturning the "shelter" idea in Conquest and the essays on South Asian women's grassroots movements against domestic violence and looking for a different kind of solution in Dragon Ladies.

Mostly I want to give this to guys for the way it examines masculinity. There was this interesting thing in which I was completely invested in Jace's journey and sympathized with his anger issues and his violence, and yet, when it came to him as a romantic lead, I could totally see why a woman would be afraid of him. Because I was. And the tension in my own head between wanting to forgive him and say it's okay versus being afraid and also saying, "No, never okay," the way it so echoed the way abusers get forgiven, was fascinating and a bit chilling.

( Spoilers flail and squee )

And finally, the book is about silence and giving voice to things, on the way abuse takes place behind closed doors, how it's perpetuated when you don't talk about it, when you make polite little lies, when you've told so many lies that you no longer know what's healthy, so much that your very body reacts differently.

Highly recommended.

---

I got this book from deepad, who's friends with the author. The book's publication date is 2010, but Deepa's currently trying to get word around the blogosphere:

I'm going to send my ARC out into the wild, into the world of book bloggers. There are only two conditions -

1. You have a month to read it, after which you must pass it on.
2. You must, if you read it, blog about it. (Which means at least two paragraphs, in fairness to reviewing standards.)

If you're interested in reading, comment on her post and let her know! I have already been trying to sic this on several people, muhahaha.

I think this book grew out of Anderson's thesis work about Native women, and in it, she explores the ways Native women's identities have been constructed pre-colonization, how colonization destroyed many of Native women's roles and enforced white patriarchy, and how Native women are reclaiming their identities.

In the introduction, Anderson introduces the idea of the subjective reader and writer. You would think this wouldn't be so revolutionary, but grad school classes on sociology seem to indicate otherwise! Going with this, Anderson introduces herself as a light-skinned Cree/Mé woman who grew up without much contact with Native communities and notes how this affects her as an author and as a researcher. She also asks readers of the book to examine their own motives for reading the book. Are they Native women looking for support or affirmation? Are they non-Native people looking to learn about "Native culture"? Are they white feminist? Etc.

My own personal reading context is as a Chinese woman who knows very little about Native cultures looking for more information on Native feminism (there is probably also a better term for this I do not know) after reading Andrea Smith's Conquest and reading blogs and posts from Native women online. I'm also looking for alternatives to "mainstream" feminism, not to adopt, but to have a better feel for where I'm ignorant.

As I had expected, there were times when it was hard for me to read this book because I had to stomp on the part of my brain that was like, "But! Excluding women from blahdiblah means blahdiblah! Clearly delineated male and female roles means blah!" It helped that Anderson herself was also working through her own understanding of past traditions and how to adopt them to today, on what things have changed and should stay changed and on what things have changed and should be reverted.

As an example: I saw her explanations of keeping women on their period outside of drum circles and sweat lodges as a veiled "I roll my eyes at the white women who keep wanting to join the sweat lodge or drum circle and protest their exclusion while having no idea what it actually means." Anderson's explanation is that women on their period already have a great deal of power, and not as a negative thing. But she also notes that in the present day, keeping menstruating women out of a specific activity can be done in a misogynist fashion not in the spirit of tradition and adds that the menstruating women should have their own area to retreat to, that they should not be ignored or ostracized. It looks like a fairly complicated situation trying to balance imported misogyny and return to tradition and how notions of tradition change over time, and I bet it is not a situation where it is helpful for white feminists to barge in and say, "This is what is feminist."

Anderson structures the book in three parts: examining the past, looking at the present, and envisioning the future. She goes through the general gender equity in many Native societies pre-colonization and talks about exceptions and norms, which was very helpful for me, because I have zero background in this. She also covers what happened once white colonization began and what that did to many Native societies, particularly the use of white patriarchy as a tool of colonization, which was more familiar to me. Although some of the book talks about Anderson's own journey, she has also talked to quite a few other Native women (mostly Canadian) about their own experiences.

I'm not doing the book justice; I found it thought-provoking and challenging. I value it for making me continue to rethink what I normally conceptualize as "feminist" and for offering a non-white feminism, especially one that emphasizes community child-raising, family, and the overall community.



I also posted a list of all the Native authors in the bibliography if people are interested.

Nobody Owens' family was killed was he was an infant, and to protect him from the killer, the denizens of the local graveyard adopt him, give him the Freedom of the Graveyard, and raise him. Bod learns important things like Fading and inflicting Night Terrors, he is protected by the mysterious Silas, and he grows into a rather odd, pale boy.

Gaiman says he modeled this after The Jungle Book; having never read it, I don't have much comment. The book itself is relatively episodic, detailing Bod's encounters with assorted graveyard denizens and with those outside of the graveyard. It concludes with Bod finally encountering the killer and venturing outside the graveyard (I don't think this is a spoiler, given that the book is a bildungsroman), and that is when we discover that all the episodic pieces are not so episodic after all.

I haven't read Gaiman for a while, largely for fear that a favorite author would become a former favorite author thanks to my own politics becoming more defined over the years. Graveyard Book wouldn't win the Tiptree or the Carl Brandon awards, but it also isn't offensive, which is really all I ask for sometimes. My standards have been so beaten down by all types of fail that currently, I just don't want to be slapped in the face.

I do wish the women in the book were more active; I liked all of them, especially Liza and Mrs. Lupesco, but I did feel as though they were more side characters when compared to Bod, Silas, and the man Jack. And, as usual, I wish there were more POC. I want a kind of book like this for kids of color, full of spookiness, drawing upon older genres and ghost stories.

I'm really impressed with how Gaiman manages to integrate the timeless graveyard with the modern world; ther's a mention of cell phones and computers, but it never feels jarring (as opposed to McKillip's Solstice Wood, frex).

All in all, this is a wonderfully spooky, mythic-feeling story, and I left feeling as though I had read an old classic rather than a book published last year. It feels ineffably large and has stayed with me for days.

*looks at date*

Er. Better late than never?

Once again, I read fewer books this year. On the other hand, only two books less than last year, so I think that is not bad, considering that I started grad school and all! And I managed to blog every book I read, with the exception of rereads.

The biggest change for me in 2008 was starting the 50books_poc challenge; namely, to read 50 books by POC in a year. I had originally done it from IBARW to IBARW (August 2007 to August 2008), but it's nice to know that I met it for the calendar year of 2008 as well. If anyone's interested about why, I wrote up why I count and how the challenge affected me during IBARW 3. Next year, my goal is to increase the percentage of books by POC so that it's over 50% of all the books I read, total. I'm still trying to make it enough of a habit that I won't have to count, and it's rather embarrassing to see the huge jump in numbers once I started making an effort. The gap between 13 books by POC versus 64 is enormous and indicative of my own aversive racism; it didn't actually take that much effort to find those 51 additional books (although a large part of that is thanks to my local libraries, and aversive racism plays its own role in book selection in libraries as well).

It is nice to see that I do not have to worry much about the percentage of women I'm reading.

As always, feel free to ask about anything here.

• ( Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian )



• ( M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Pox Party )



• ( Atul Gawande, Complications and Better )



• ( Justina Chen Headley, Girl Overboard )



• ( Maggie Helwig, Where She Was Standing )



• ( Angela Johnson, The First Part Last )



• ( David Mas Masumoto, Epitaph for a Peach )



• ( Andrea Smith, Conquest )



• ( Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales )



• ( Elizabeth E. Wein, The Mark of Solomon )

( Also recommended )

Total read: 129 (6 rereads)
51 by women of color, 64 by POC, 104 by women

( Complete list of books read in 2008 )