Feminism

Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power!

2018, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, Queer, Young Adult /

Shortly after we moved to Chicagoland, we discovered a small independent bookstore in the next town over and found ourselves visiting it every year, on Christmas Eve, to purchase books for all of the kids. Yay, Book Bin! When we moved back to Florida, we inadvertently stumbled upon an bookstore in Fleming Island and that’s become our yearly shopping spot – but we don’t necessarily shop on Christmas Eve. This year we went on Black Friday.

While we were browsing, TW stumbled over a couple of baskets of ARCs of books and found a couple that she was interested in. I was skeptical because you’re really not supposed to sell those AND there were no price tags on the books… turns out, you get to choose one free for every $50 you purchase. I won’t tell you how many we got free (4) but an ARC of Lumberjanes Unicorn Power was one of them.

Friendship to the max! Lots of fun music references (Blondie’s Bring On Me on accordion? Sleater Kinney? Yes, please.) Unicorns that are pretty but smell really yuk. There’s also a non-binary or trans person with they/them pronouns. Totally fun!

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Two Maggie Hope Books!

2018, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

Yep, I finished two Maggie Hope books this month. Back to back, even! (The Queen’s Accomplice and the Paris Spy.)

I ranted for a bit after the Queen’s Accomplice because it seemed like a bit of a wasted book. Did we really need that fake Jack the Ripper stuff? Also, I think it was titled poorly. In the past, the X’s _____ meant Maggie worked with or on behalf of the X. In this book, not so much really. Instead, Maggie took advantage of her relationship with the Queen to ask for favors. That’s not her being the Queen’s accomplice. That’s the Queen being HER accomplice. I didn’t hate the book, I just felt like it dragged on and the places where the storyline progressed could have been done more quickly and efficiently in other ways.

Having said that, the Paris Spy was nicely set up by the events that did happy in The Queen’s Accomplice. (Minus the fake Jack the Ripper stuff.) And I think this is one of my favorite Maggie Hope books in a long, long time. The cliffhanger is VERY CLIFFHANGERY and I need the next book ASAP. Sheesh.

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Young Jane Young

2018, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

Woot, we finished an audiobook! Right after we finished the last audiobook, which was MONTHS ago (or at the very least, weeks ago) I didn’t have another one waiting for us so I just grabbed something we hadn’t read that also looked like we wouldn’t hate it.

So, I ended up with Young Jane Young.

I didn’t hate it but didn’t love it. I liked parts of it quite a bit. I did not like the “choose your own adventure” section at the end. TW apparently didn’t enjoy the book at all.

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Alice Paul and the Fight for Women’s Rights

2018, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Feminism, Non-Fiction, Women, Young Adult /

OK I think Alice Paul and the Fight for Women’s Rights is the last non-fiction Cybil I’ll read this year. Probably. I’m kind of glad I finished on such a high note.

This was a pretty comprehensive history of Alice Paul’s life and work. It was a quick read but not a simple read. Well done, I highly recommend it to kids (or adults) who don’t know much about Alice Paul.

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Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation

2018, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Non-Fiction /

The first thing you have to know about Ink & Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation is that it’s an over-sized coffee table type of book. I knew that when I reserved it and I expected it to be mostly pictures with few words. Turns out, it’s more words than pictures (though there are amazing pictures on every page) and it’s not an easy book to read in bed or in a chair or on your couch in front of your coffee table (not that I have a coffee table because coffee tables are from the devil) but still… it’s not a book I could sit comfortably and read. That was frustrating. So, I set it on the bar in my kitchen and I read a page or two at a time, while I ate lunch or while I waited for dinner to be ready. This means it took MONTHS for me to read this book.

The next thing you should know is that it’s more of a history of Walt Disney’s animation with a focus on the women of Ink & Paint. So you learn a lot about men in animation and the men who worked at “Disney’s” as they seem to call it in the early, early days. (You also learn a good bit about Walt but not as much about Roy.) There were a TON of women working for Walt Disney in the early days of animation and the book includes a yearbook style section of all of the women who worked there. Pretty cool stuff, (and it’s Women’s History Month, so this is a great time for you to dive into this book.)

Last, but not least, you should know that this is a really interesting book. If you’re like me and you don’t really know a whole lot about how animation used to work, then this is a great crash course. It may also make you want to look at a zillion old Disney shorts and commercials and maybe watch all of the Disney full-length movies in the order in which they were released (up to the move to computer animation.)

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The Gender War

2018, Books in Bed, Feminism, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I feel like The Gender War lagged a bit, in places. Lots of not much happening and then a lot happening and then back to the lull and then BOOM. I was glad to see the boys playing a bigger role in the resistance/war. I could do without the whole “marriage” thing between Vigo/Violet but whatever.

I think I’ll be able to read all of the rest of the series back to back, that will be good. I’d like to just blast through it in March and be done.

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Two Books in the Gender Secret Series

2018, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, Young Adult /

OK books 2 & 3…kind of blended together because I read them back to back in less than three days.

In Book 2, Violet and Viggo reconnected in The Green and came upon Ms. Dale and some Matrus bad guys (gals?) … and they found another egg. And Violet found her brother. And some bad things happened. Also, new characters were introduced. Thinking about it like this, a lot happened. There was a lot of running and fighting and fear and stuff. Very fast-paced.

Book 3 was much slower. Viggo was unconscious for many, many chapters and there were a lot of interpersonal relationship types of things and just going about our day discussing issues rather than doing anything about them. And then, BAM – the last couple of chapters kind of exploded all over the place. The twist at the end was an interesting twist. I wondered if that was what would happen when Ms. Dale was confused about Desmond’s behavior and loyalties.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Book 4 (and 5 and 6.)

(PS. I’m getting a little tired of the Matrus vs Patrus, misandry vs misogyny stuff, lol.)

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The Gender Game

2018, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

Almost a year ago (?) I spotted a couple of interesting books on the new arrivals shelf at the library but I quickly realized they were books two and three of a series and I hate starting a series on anything other than the first book. So, I wandered back to the shelves looking for the first book, only to discover a whole bunch of books in the series but not the first one. So I took a photo of one of the covers and went home to reserve the first book.

Time passed and I wasn’t really moving up on the reserve list. More time passed and I started moving slowly up the list. Finally, it was ready to pick up — except I was out of town and I couldn’t get to the library in time to pick it up, so it went back to the stacks and I lost my hold.

I re-did the hold and was careful to always pause my holds when I went out of town after that and FINALLY The Gender Game arrived last week! Woot!

I enjoyed it but good grief, why is it so hard to get this book from the library? Also, why didn’t I realize I could have just grabbed the Kindle version for free and moved on to the other books that are much easier to get at the library? (Not that TW would have read it, because she hates e-books but this is about me, not her.)

Anyway Matrus and Patrus – post-apocalyptic fiction. I’ll read the next book and see how it goes from there.

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Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope

2018, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Non-Fiction, Women /

Nope, we didn’t march yesterday but I did stumble across the Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope book just sitting on the shelf at the library, so I checked it out and flipped through it last night.

It’s primarily photos from the last year’s Women’s March with the occasional quote from women sprinkled through.

I enjoyed looking back at last year’s signs while thinking about this year’s… same shit, different year. Keep resisting, keep fighting, keep marching.

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Three YA! Yes, THREE!

2017, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Young Adult /

Considering I read a whopping five books total in August, September is off to an amazing start! Three books down (all YA) and it’s 8amish on 9/4! How awesome is that? (And, today’s a holiday so I should be able to get some more reading in — even though we need to run into a city of some sort where there is a Lowes… anyway, back to the books…)

I read the next two books in the Stranje House series. (Refuge for Masterminds and Exile for Dreamers.) Both were just as good as the first one. Now, how long will it be before we get the next two books in the series?

After that, I read The One Memory of Flora Banks was difficult. I think it’s the mom part of me that read this and just shuddered all the way through it. I kept trying to figure out how I would parent a child who had no short-term memory. (I also wonder how kids feel about this story. I might have to go track down some kid reviews to find out.)

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