A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Library Copy

Right out the gate, I loved this book. I'm a little surprised at myself - I didn't expect to like it this much. Without beating around the bush, I'm going to throw down these words to describe it: gratuitous, shojo, shirtless tough-guys. I hope it never reaches Twilight or Hunger Games level of fame, because that opens it up for as much ridicule. (Women just can't have nice things, now can we?) Not that it matters: hate on, haters. I really loved it - I don't want to think too deeply as to why, it was just pure fun and thrill.

I still tend to shy away from a lot of YA novels, even if I enjoy them more than the usual fiction because I don't like to put a lot of faith in books with amazing covers. Okay, we've all done it. We'll see a stunning cover that really strikes our fancy, buy it immediately, and when we're halfway through with reading it... ugh. Plot holes, cliches, grating & whiny dialog. We learn that the publishers totally just Febrezed the book by giving it a nice cover to disguise how crappy the content is. Once bitten, twice shy I say. So now I wait until I see that it's worth the effort. I know. That's, like, the opposite of what a book reviewer's job is. But hear me out - this time I just went after the pretty book, caution to the wind, so that I could let you know wither or not it's worth your time.
Gentle readers, it is very much worth your time. Okay, it was sexy and edgy. I didn't expect to really like that. But golly gee, did I ever! I guess my tastes are changing.

A Court of Thorns and Roses is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Early on, this seems obvious, but somewhere in there it becomes entirely it's own thing. Feyre is a poor daughter of a once wealthy merchant. She shoulders the burden of caring for the family, and they don't do much to show their appreciation for it. One very bitter winter's day, while hunting in the forest for food before her family starves to death, she kills a wolf without realizing that it was a fairy in disguise. As punishment, she is taken from her family to live with a High Fae named Tamlin.
There's a bit of a slow start, but honest to Gosh, this isn't a simple re-telling of Beauty in the Beast (my favorite fairy tell and one that I can have told to me in as many variations as possible) because by the end it developed into it's own thing and I didn't even recognize it anymore. That alone is reason to recommend it. The end doesn't even resemble it's beginning and that is a rare sign of a great book.
I was totally into it almost the whole time. I think Maas has the go ahead from the publishers for 2 more books (which seems excessive, but hey - that's good news for her!) The 2nd book drops next May, and honestly? The wait will kill me.

Some Comics I made while reading this book

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

UGH!! This perfect book! Why did I wait so long to read you, perfect book? Beautiful book? Hilarious book? I know why - it's because by now I've already read everything by Rainbow Rowell (until Carry On hits shelves in a few weeks) and, though we all know I love reading, I especially love Rainbow Rowell. I'm one of those people who likes to save good things for the right time. I don't eat a chocolate bar all at once - it will survive a week. I can have some self-control like that.
But back to Attachments - it may be my favorite Rowell novel since Fangirl (which I originally read as a library copy, but have since sprung for my own special edition copy and will sometimes take down to reread). It may have something to do with the time and place I am in emotionally. Or, maybe it's because it's a really good romantic comedy that is actually both romantic and comedic. Something (a douchey friend once told me) is as rare as a unicorn and some people assume don't exist. Oh, it exists. The very first page had me cackling - the relationship between Jennifer and Beth are so like me and my work friend (of course, I'm the Beth here). And Lincoln... sweet cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure... awh, Lincoln. You know? I have to give it up to Rowell. She knows how to make normal people lusciously attractive - her romances are not built upon make-believe and fantasy. Attraction isn't about what everyone else sees as sexy, but what you as an individual sees. All of her novels are about that. All of her heroines are Plus Sized (in my head, anyway) and they are all beautiful and vibrant and human-sized. Her heroes tend to be average Joes, sometimes hayseeds, sometimes a little smelly with cow-licks, but always gentlemen. Neither of them present unrealistic expectations for either gender. Except, perhaps, that they always fall for those little quirks and nuances that go unnoticed or discussed by friends, family, and acquaintances. The way, I believe, attraction really works. In other words, it's not about what other people see, but what you see in a person.

In Attachments, Lincoln takes a new job on the night-shift of a local newspaper (this in in 1999, but apart from the pop culture references, there's nothing romanticized about it). His job is to monitor e-mails by reading them - it's not a secret, it's company policy. The e-mails sent between Beth & Jennifer, however, are entertaining and Lincoln decides not to turn them in. Especially now that he finds himself falling for Beth. But how does a gentle giant, awkward turtle like Lincoln breach the subject to Beth? A woman he's never officially met?

It's reminiscent of You've Got Mail, my favorite movie of all time. I highly, hugely recommend it. I see that pitiful 3.97 rating on GoodReads and completely rebuke it. I'm stingy with my stars, but I definitely gave it 5. My other two Rainbow Rowell Reviews are here: Eleanor & Park   Landline

Men Explain Things To Me - a book of feminist essays by Rebecca Solnit

Kindle Monthly Deal

This book found it's way on to my Amazon wishlist and sat around there until one day I decided to take a peep at the Kindle Monthly deals (expecting to find a lot of junk I wouldn't be interested in). I certainly was not expecting to find something I was very interested in reading and made a point of paying a few visits to the library in order to find. I believe for the remainder of the month you may be able to download the ebook for $3 - and I would encourage it!
I started this book on the tail end of a vacation, which doesn't mean that it set a positive mood. Yes ma'am, this book is a bummer, but it gave me a lot of introspection to do, and the issues it's covered still niggles me.

This is a collection of essays Solnit wrote over the course of the last 5 or so years, all focused on "subtle" modern feminist issues. Mansplaining being the foremost one - but generally the little things that men don't have to deal with and so have no idea are issues that exist but women deal with regularly and are expected to just buckle down and accept. Some of them seem harmless (like men condescendingly explaining things that you may actually have more expertise in) but they tend to be a symptom of a larger, far more menacing issue. Most importantly, rape. It is 2015 and I should not have to discuss in great detail on my book review blog that rape or sexual abuse is such a problem. When a woman gets raped, there's a high chance that it will be ignored by a lot of people, including the people who are supposed to help and protect her, and this is in America. It's really disheartening!
The lengths women will go to avoid something that men don't even consider are astounding. For a personal example, I have never gone out without at least one friend present. I don't mean shopping for sundries, I mean I've never been to the downtown area in the city where I live after 5pm without a companion. Either another girl or my gay guy friend who would be described as a "bear" in the gay community. Men would typically never, ever think twice about leaving their apartment around dusk and stroll through a "bad" neighborhood to get a burger or see a movie. As a woman I would have to make arrangements with someone, or if that didn't go through, stay locked and safe in my room. Because of the risk of getting raped, mugged, or murdered, even if it's statistically unlikely, I've been conditioned to believe that it's going to happen to me if I don't take precautions. Now why is that?Because regardless of what you may think, the fact is that the playing field for genders (not just in 3rd world countries, mind you) is totally unbalanced.
It was really enlightening. If I hadn't bought it on my kindle, I'd share my copy with all my friends on the school yard until when I got it back it would be tattered and care-worn. This is an important book to read for this generation of feminists!

Fox 8: A Story by George Saunders

Kindle Single 99c

Hi! I crawled away from 2013 and 2014 without ever having read anything by George Saunders! Crazy, right? (I own Pastoralia, but it's sitting on my shelf until I work my way towards reading it. So, eventually!) So how did I stumble upon this short story? Sometimes Amazon knows me better than I know myself. I'm not sure what in my buying history tipped them off that I might like this, but much like the time it randomly started suggesting full-sized rubber mermaid tails, Amazon just gets me.
Fox 8 is marketed as an Amazon Single, which essentially means it's a short story Saunders chose to leave out of his collection books, and make a little spending money on the side with. It's written as letter by a fox who learns English, or "Yuman," by listening to bed time stories from outside a window. The spelling and grammar is atrocious, as expected from a fox with no formal education, and hilariously reminiscent of Pro Birds Rights, maybe a little LOL Cat. It might give some readers a headache, but I thought it was completely charming.
Fox 8, as our little "fox lee" friend is known among peers, lives in a den that is being torn apart when Yumans begin construction of a mall. We watch as the community of foxes starve and struggle against the change. Fox 8, the resident day-dreamer, has an idea to retrieve food for his friends from the mall's food court, but his plan ends badly - very badly. Basically, Fox 8 learns that "Yumans" aren't so "cul" afterall, and he goes on a journey that takes him to a new den.

I love short stories because they are so efficient. What I mean is, they can get so much done in so little time - introduce us to interesting characters and scenarios, and leave us without spoiling the magic. But short stories tend to be... really dark and edgy; Post-modern, or in my words "trying too hard." (Miranda July, take note.) But Fox 8 was such a friendly and happy short story! Very optimistic, even when it had a chance to be bitter, possibly slam it over our heads how much humans suck a couple of times. So Fox 8 learns to be less trusting, but it doesn't make him caustic. Life goes on, there's still good left in the world. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised since the story is ever so slightly childish - if you're one of those horrible people who think stories about animals should be left for children. If so, you might be a pompous ass. But if you have a heart, you should read this little story.

H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald

Library e-book

This book, arrrgh! *grasps chest* Thiiis Boook!! Easily my favorite book I've read so far this year. I didn't read it because it's a New York Times bestseller (what's that?) or a winner of multiple literary awards (sounds neat-o, but I don't care). I, in all earnestness, read it because I recognized that the illustration on the cover was some sort of relief print (either lino-cut or woodcut - I was a printmaking student in college). All of those honors heaped upon this book was a complete waste on me. But more importantly, I wanted to read it because I love books on natural science and I did recognize that this book was gaining popularity in the literary crowd. I love natural science, but I've never visited a popular bookstore or library where their natural sciences were well trodden. It's unusual for this sort of thing to really shoot up on the best seller's list. Even though I would have been interested in this book no matter what, I think my interest in reading it was heightened just a tad more.

I was not anticipating this book to be a sum of what it actually was - it was more than a little book about hawks. I suppose that's why it's more widely loved - if it were just about hawks it wouldn't be so popular. H is for Hawk is a memoir about Helen Macdonald dealing with the death of her father. Ever since childhood, she's been obsessed with falcons, hawks, and other birds of prey. She'd even convinced her parents to take her to a falconry hunt. Now as an adult, he's an adjunct history professor, but overcoming her father's death has sent her back to her childhood obsession with hawks to where she has decided to train a goshawk. Goshawks, she'd been warned, are incredibly difficult to train. But maybe this is just the challenge she needs to keep her from wallowing.
During any particular stage of grief, most of us are recommended to read Eat, Pray, Love to help with the coping. (I know it was overwhelmingly prescribed to me.) While Elizabeth's wisdom is very helpful in Eat, Pray, Love, how many of us would actually be able to globe trot the way that she did following a divorce? Maybe some of us can, but I can promise that a huge percentage of the readers who made her book a best seller couldn't have. We were forced to live vicariously through her, though many of us were moved nonetheless. While certainly for various reasons most of us couldn't and wouldn't be able to train a hawk in response to loss or heart break, somehow it feels (to me, at least) more accessible. In her fits of mania, I recognized myself. Though we've grieved over different kinds of loss, grief is still the same.
So, this book is about ecology, dealing with grief, a little about a woman falconer, and a brief biography on the author T.H. White who not only wrote The Once and Future King, but wrote a masterpiece of a book called The Goshawk - very influential in Helen's training of her goshawk.

This book moved me deeply and may be the best thing I've read so far this year. Not only is it beautifully written, but I get it, I get it. I get wanting to hide from humanity and retreating (almost dangerously far) into a more wild world just a step apart from the one we live in now. I get it. For that reason alone, I can recommend this book highly, but I don't know if everyone will feel what she's saying. That felt so deeply personal, it's like she read my diary from 3 years ago, plagiarized my sketch books from across the Atlantic ocean, it's like she was "killing me softly." But I know she didn't, because even though everyone deals with their grief differently, it's still the same thing.

Seconds, anyone?

Comic fans everywhere are excited to see Bryan Lee O'Malley's newest graphic novel, Seconds, to be released. Well, some comic fans. It's not everyone's cup of tea. I'm one of those - Scott Pilgrim, the major title that O'Malley is well known for - is a series I pointedly disliked. I liked the cute, quirky art and character designs. I got exhausted pretty quickly with the constant pop-culture references, though. And then there's Scott Pilgrim, the titular character himself - I couldn't stand him. I get that the major appeal to this series is that readers associated with him, but God, why would you want to? Scott Pilgrim is pretty horrible. I understand that if you stuck around for longer than the first volume, the way that I didn't, he undergoes a character development. But this is a good example of one of those times when I just couldn't waste my time waiting for it to happen. I'm not going to consume precious time and money waiting for an annoying character to finally become likable after 5 volumes or whatever. I'm sorry, I'll sit that one out, thanks though.
Granted, I am the Pope of "You Should Read The Book Instead of Watching The Movie, Because If You're Only Going To Do One, Reading is Better." But this is one of those times when I saw the movie instead. My friends sort of threw that back into my face (you know, "well, you should have read the books instead." But if you lean in close you can hear me whisper, "Shut up, I do what I want.")   It didn't make me love Scott Pilgrim any more, but I got a crash course on the series. I also didn't read Lost at Sea, though it seemed like a better choice for me. On the other hand, there's still that problem with characters being really bratty, shallow, and annoying.

It's about that time that I admit that this isn't a review for Seconds. I haven't read it yet, but I've read the premise and I think I wouldn't mind it. It seems marginally more mature and interesting. (I mean "mature" as in "grown up," btw) I've stated my feelings on O'Malley's works, but if any of you have read this book and would still recommend it to me (or not!), please leave a comment! Maybe this will be the book that will change my mind.