Women

Sister Outsider

2011, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon, Favorites, Feminism, From the Stacks Challenge, Non-Fiction, Women /

I decided to re-read Sister Outsider during the #Readathon and as part of my From the Stacks (by color) challenge for this year… there’s nobody better than Audre Lorde to get me riled up and pointing out the patriarchy at every turn. There’s also nobody better to read when you’re also reading Joan Walsh and Angry Black Lady… in fact, I’d recommend Joan Walsh spend some time reading Sister Outsider before she opens her mouth or puts her fingers to her keyboard again.

Hell. Maybe if we all read a Lorde essay every day for the rest of our lives, we might just be able to have these discussions and figure out how to work together.

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One book down #Readathon

2011, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon, Fiction, Women /

Well that took a long time, didn’t it? Heh. The Raven’s Bride, 356 pages, and pretty interesting to read about Virginia Poe when we tend to hear so little. I cannot imagine what it was like to live with Edgar Allan Poe – or maybe I can now that I’ve read The Raven’s Bride.

Also interesting, the controversy surrounding this book – as pointed out by someone on BlogHer.com.

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My Father’s Daughter

2011, Adoption Reading Challenge, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction, Women /

I think I reserved My Father’s Daughter because I saw someone talking about in the Adoption Books Challenge. It sounded interesting and I didn’t have any other adoption themed books on my list – so I grabbed it.

It was… interesting.

Told from the perspective of the adopted child as adult – most of the adoption books I read are about young children or about the birth parent or the adoptive parent, so this was something slightly different.

When I read books about children from war-torn or third world countries being adopted by Americans or Euorpeans, there’s almost always a tone of… privilege. By adopting this poor child, we’re giving her a better life. Which is true… except when it isn’t.

Hannah Pool is a good example of this. White American mother and English father adopt African orphan. Mother dies, father does a nice job (once he gets his bearings), Hannah grows up in England – gets a good University education. Has traveled all over the world. And yet… what child, no matter what the situation, wants to be adopted. What child, no matter the situation, wouldn’t wish for her birth family – the experience of growing up with that culture and heritage?   When she learns she wasn’t an orphan, her birth father was not dead, and that she has siblings and finally visits… she sees their poverty, hears about a sister lost in the war, understands that if she had not been taken to that orphanage, she’d have grown up there – been like her sister(s) – and part of her, a big part of her, wishes that had happened.

I get it.

No matter how wonderful an adopted child’s life and family are, there’s always something that makes them different from others. I understand.

I don’t even know if having a completely open adoption can completely resolve these kinds of feelings and issues for adopted children. But I also know that adoption can be a good thing and the alternatives – children growing up in homes where adults can’t properly care for them or in orphanages or multiple foster homes, those are situations where it’s obvious adoption is a good alternative. But still.

Lesson learned: Adoption isn’t the ultimate solution. It brings problems all its own.

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The Peach Keeper

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

I’m a Sarah Addison Allen fan so you won’t be surprised when I say that I loved The Peach Keeper!

I was prepared for the “magic”, or I thought I was… I’d been reading awhile without any obvious magic happening and just as I was starting to wonder if maybe this one wouldn’t have the same touch of magic – bam! There it was. And it was pretty terrific.

The magical elements were slightly different in this book, than in previous books – and that’s all I’m going to say about that, you’ll just have to read it to see what I mean.

Also, it was really nice to see Claire Waverly make a brief appearance. Like seeing an old friend. I’m surprised by how big of a feel good moment that was for me. Nice touch – and her appearance added just the right thing to the story at that moment.

Great book – give me another one!

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Sing You Home

2011, Adoption Reading Challenge, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Queer, Women /

Jodi Picoult makes me growl – but in a good way.

I knew two things about Sing You Home before I reserved it at the library. I knew it had a gay theme of some sort, because I saw a Mombian mention it, and I knew it would be a complete mess. Nobody can pack more tragedy into one novel than Jodi Picoult.

Turns out it was about gay stuff. And also death, infertility, religion, abortion, alcoholism and probably more stuff that I can’t even remember.

And the reason I keep reading Jodi Picoult is because she writes really great characters – great characters who have more than their fair share of problems.

By the time I’d read the first section of the book, I figured what was going to happen was… exactly what DID happen. And as the story progressed, I knew exactly what the next problem Zoe was going to have to deal with would be. And by the time that problem showed up, I knew what the next issue was going to be. Picoult is predictable, but it’s weird because it doesn’t make me want to stop reading. It makes me yell out loud a lot. And say things like OMG, out loud. (At which point TW looks up and says, “WHAT?!” and before I can say anything, she says, “Oh. You’re reading Picoult.” And then she goes about her business.) 

Yea. It’s like that.

I don’t want to give away spoilers because I do want you to read this. I want you to know that even though I’ve never dealt with infertility, I think she did a nice job of telling the infertility portions of these stories.

I am queer and I think she did a tremendous job with Zoe and Vanessa. I don’t think I’d have changed anything – except giving them fewer issues and not having them choose to open THAT particular can of worms. Because duh – your ex husband NEVER reacts sanely. I do not care how great a guy he is. Or was.

And before I ruin the story for you. I’ll stop right there.

OH wait, one more interesting thing – the book includes a music CD (which I admit to not listening to yet) – that’s pretty interesting. Zoe is a music therapist and Picoult wrote the lyrics to the songs and a friend of hers wrote the music. You are invited to listen to a sing, after each section of the book, so you can hear Zoe through music as she goes through each of those sections. Really interesting addition to the book. I like the idea. It makes sense for Zoe.

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Some Sing, Some Cry

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

Another book that it took me a very long time to read, Some Sing, Some Cry. Chalk it up to a really rough work week, while I was sick – and it’s not the easiest book to read. It’s excellent but time moves swiftly in the book and I had a hard time letting go of one generation and giving myself up to the next. I also was a wee bit “homesick” when the storyline left Charleston – but that’s my own problem, I’m homesick all the time anyway.

I loved the characters. Loved the plot. Loved the music and the stories. Shange and Bayeza wrote it all beautifully.

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The Orchid Affair

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

I loved Lauren Willig’s Christmas book, The Mischief of the Mistletoe, that I was a little bit afraid to read The Orchid Affair. It came so soon after the awesome Turnip book that I thought it might not hold up. Hah. I loved it. I love Laura Grey. I think she might be one of my favorite spies. Certainly one of my top three. And once again, Willig has me moaning because I have to wait another year for the next book.

Also… I cannot believe Serena did that. Colin can be such a whiny baby but I don’t blame him for feeling ticked off and betrayed by his sister for THAT. I’d have kicked her ass.

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The Spooky Girl

2 Comments / 2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

The Spooky Girl  is another of those books I picked up from the shelf because the cover was interesting and so was the title. And it was a fun book, sad in places – as you’d expect from a book about a young woman who died before her time. It also contained a very important lesson for those of  us who live in the internet age… make sure you have important addresses and phone numbers of people who should be contacted in the event of your death somewhere besides your cell phone. Odds are high that if you get hit by a bus, your cell phone is not going to survive and your friends will never know what happened to you because your next of kin won’t be able to contact them to let them know. That would suck, wouldn’t it? Bad enough to get hit by a bus and have your cellphone destroyed (that makes me weepy just thinking about it) but to have your friends just assume you’ve skipped out on them. Tsk tsk.

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Confessions of a Prairie Bitch

2 Comments / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

Last year I thought about reading the Little House actors’ memoirs and then put it off when our library closed. Thankfully, Zandria posted her yearly reading list and nudged me into reserving them.

The first one,Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, came to us last week – TW read it first and laughed loud and hard all the way through it. I mean she really really laughed. And she wanted to talk about what she was laughing and I had to shush her strongly so she would not give it away.

When  I read it, I chuckled in a lot of places but I did not roll around on the bed laughing the way TW did. TW is weird. I would, however, love to see Alison Arngrim’s stand up show. That would be awesome.

If you loved Nellie or hated Nellie, you should read this. Heck, if you enjoyed watching Little House on the Prairie, you should read this. I’m worried that Melissa Gilbert’s book won’t stand up to Alison’s… I’ll let ya know next month.

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Death of an Ambitious Woman

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Mystery, Women /

How could I resist, with a title like Death of an Ambitious Woman? Particularly when the sub-title points out this is a mystery with a female detective. I will admit that I thought this was just the most recent in a series I’d never heard of and was kind of surprised to realize it’s a debut novel. I hope there are more. I kind of like the people of New Derby – even the bad people.

I also liked that while I knew who did it, I didn’t know exactly how. And I also didn’t know EXACTLY what was going on with the other suspects who were all guilty of lots of stuff. Nothing super surprising occurred but there were enough twists that I read the book straight through last night and never once thought about putting it down.

If you like mysteries – give this one a try.

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