Feminism

Looking for Alaska

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Printz Award Challenge, Young Adult /

It finally happened. I have finally joined the John Green fan club. Not the real one (if there is such a thing) the metaphorically speaking one. I’ll never gush about him or even blog about him as often as sassymonkey does but every time she does it, I’ll be nodding my head. That’s the kind of John Green fan club I’ve joined. I’m going to nod my head a lot. And anytime someone wants a YA recommendation I will say “anything John Green has written”. The man is a YA genius.

Looking for Alaska was the book that put me over the edge and pushed me into joining the John Green fan club. Until then, I could admit that I liked some of his books and LOVED others (Abundance of Catherines anyone?) but I just wasn’t ready to declare him genius.

I’m ready now.

The man is a genius.

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Cinnamon Gardens

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Queer, Women /

It took me far too long to read Cinnamon Gardens – too many distractions in my world on top of it not being a page turner. It’s not bad, the characters are pretty darn interesting, it just wasn’t compelling.

I like the dual storylines – the older man, the young girl – I didn’t expect to like the jump back and forth but I did. And, I liked the ending for both of them.

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Rosemary and Juliet

2 Comments / 2008, Books in Bed, Feminism, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Queer, Women, Young Adult /

I should have known what I was getting into with a book called Rosemary and Juliet but I didn’t pay enough attention. Ah well, I’m a fan of YA and I don’t mind a YA problem book from time to time, either.

Regardless of what the title might lead you to believe this book is about – it isn’t that at all. It’s a basic YA lesbian problem book with more problems than most YA straight problem books.

Two kids die and neither were our star crossed lovers. (oops I guess that’s a spoiler, sorry.)
Electric shock therapy was tossed in there for good measure.
And of course, the predictable unhappy ending because in the end teens are required to do what their parents tell them to do – even if their parents are idiots.

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Hood

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Queer, Women /

When I started reading Hood I felt like I’d read it before but quickly realized that all of Emma Donoghue’s books feel that way to me. Her characters seem familiar, like I’ve read more of their stories in some other book. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or if it means she’s recycling characters and I should be annoyed.

I lean toward not being annoyed but that might be due to my willingness to give authors who write good lesbian fiction a break – there are so few good lesbian fiction writers, Donoghue is one of them.

Seems sort of kharmic or something that I finished Hood on the day Del Martin died, doesn’t it?

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Wonder Woman!

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Comics & Graphic Novels, Favorites, Feminism /

I have wanted to read Jodi Picoult’s Wonder Woman for ages but kept forgetting to reserve it at the library. Something reminded me awhile back, I did it, and I finally made time to read it.

Loved it.

I wasn’t a huge Wonder Woman fan as a kid, I liked her but I really preferred the villains or a bit of Fantastic Four. Jodi Picoult might have just made me a Wonder Woman fan for life. What did her mother say??????? And who wrote the comic after Jodi’s? I need to find out – right now!

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Cry Wolf

2008, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Queer, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

Don’t bother clicking over to the amazon page for Cry Wolf, unless you’re planning on buying it. There’s nothing there that would lead you to want to check this thing out. Thank goodness for people like Liz who blog about really obscure lesbian utopias (or dystopias, as the case may be.)

She posts stuff like this all of the time:

– classroom scene, with Curie’s speech about Blue
– Mutants!
– Global climate change
– the bitter, lonely inner thoughts of Curie
– Sexual tension of Curie (and everyone, but especially and her best pupil Sophie)
– The festival with the cult dancers and the orgy in the river. Don’t miss the sexy hermaphrodite sex scenes. Here there be “fringe”. Tentacles?
– Telepathy!
– Curie begins to tell a mythical version of the past to Sophie.
– Curie’s mother was one of the women of Greenham Common

And when she posts stuff like this about obscure novels I immediately head to my library’s interlibrary loan page and try to have the masterpiece sent to me. Thank goodness Cry Wolf arrived.

Awesome. And I won’t say anything more because Liz has it all covered. Loved it and loved the Scheherazade stories of the women.

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Libraries today, tsk tsk

1 Comment / 2008, Feminism, Fiction, Queer, Women /

We ran over to the library one day last week to pick up an ILL that was waiting and while I stood in line at the desk, TW popped over to the “New Arrivals” shelves. She popped right back over when it was my turn in line and dropped a book on the desk for check out.

Lois Lenz: Lesbian Secretary

Ha. Our library may not have any of the Willig books and we might have to ILL stuff like The Edge Chronicles but they sure do have lesbian pulp fiction.

And it was amusing in the way all lesbian pulp fiction is amusing. When poor Lois realizes the girls in her boarding house aren’t communists or white slavers and they’re “just Lesbian Career Girls”… well, that’s the sort of thing everyone should read a few times in their lives.

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The Lady, the Chef, and the Courtesan

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Women /

I do believe we purchased The Lady, the Chef, and the Courtesan a few years (four years ago? five? goodness time flies) when we were in Denver… let’s see, that would have been February of 2004? Maybe I don’t know. Anyway, it’s an autographed copy and the author lives in Denver so I’m guessing we bought it at The Tattered Cover.

Thanks to my “From the Stacks” challenge, I finally found the time to read it and I’m glad. Too bad it took me so darn long to get to it. The book… surprisingly good. I’m tempted to describe it as Latin American chick lit but it’s more than that, or better than that, or something.

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