From the Stacks Challenge

Home Girl

1 Comment / 2009, Books in Bed, From the Stacks Challenge, Non-Fiction, Women /

I received a free review copy of Home Girl ages, and ages, and ages ago. While we were still in Florida. TW read it while we were still in Florida which caused much discussion of payday loan stores and beeper stores and high end shoe stores in Chicago and its suburbs. I believe the reason we are not living on Dempster in Evanston is directly related to a payday loan store, a beeper store and this particular book.

So thanks for that, Judith Matloff. (I can’t decide if I mean that thank you seriously or sarcastically. I often wished we lived over there… but am also often very glad that we do not.)

But, since Judith Matloff and her husband are obviously INSANE, I don’t think she cares one way or another whether I blame her for my current living location. I mean really. She must be insane. I don’t think the level of her insanity really hit me until she brought her baby home (oops, spoiler – sorry) to the muchachos… in all of the time they were renovating and dealing with the business, she never seemed to have second thoughts about living there with this potential child she was daydreaming about. That’s the only part of this story that troubled me.

They left Russia because they wanted to have a family – where there was anesthesia and she wasn’t putting her life or her kids’ life in danger – yet throughout all of that madness, she doesn’t mention having second thoughts due to the possible danger to the child she hoped to have. She mentions it later, 200 pages or so later. Weird.

The rest of the book… loved it. I was thrilled to read it. And thank goodness I did read it… it helped me realize that no matter how cool and interesting and fun I might THINK buying a rundown house in a depressed area of Chicago might be… it is so, so, so not something I really am cut out for.

I do wonder what happened to Clarence and Miguel, though.

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From the Stacks Challenge – 2009

2 Comments / 2009, Books in Bed, From the Stacks Challenge /

Since last year’s FtSC was such a success, I think I’ll give it a try again this year. All through the day, I’ll be wandering through my bookshelves, selecting books I have not read – from every color of my book rainbow. My goal is 12 books this year.

Black:
Home Girl (1/10/9)
The Shape of Snakes (10/28/9)

White:
Eccentric Neighborhoods (11/9/9)

Red:
Four Sisters of Hofei (11/23/9)
A Family Christmas (11/25/9)

Orange:
Ellen in Bloom (11/4/9)

Brown:
Quickening (11/7/9)

Yellow:
Tathea (11/14/9)

Green:
Kabul Beauty School (8/1/9)
The Devil in the Junior League (2/15/9)

Blue:
Quaker Summer (7/16/9)

Purple:
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters (1/27/9)

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Chloe plus Olivia

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Classics, Favorites, Feminism, From the Stacks Challenge, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Queer, short stories, Women /

Thank freaking goodness I am very, very familiar with the work of women like Judy Grahn, Audre Lourde, Adrienne Rich etc etc etc. If I was not familiar with their work, I would still be reading Chloe plus Olivia well into the new year.

800 pages of lesbian lit. Aye yi yi. Text book style lesbian lit. Oy.

This was one hell of a lesbian anthology and if I had it to do all over again, I’d have read an author a day or skipped around a bit based on what my preference of the day might have been. Trying to read it straight through was not a fun experience and reading lesbian lit SHOULD be a fun experience.

By page 500, I was sick of lesbians… sick of masking… sick of the romantic friendship… sick of the man trapped in the womans body… I did not even want to think about the dangerous flowers or the amazons at that point. I just wanted it done. lol

There are some great writers in this anthology, some I’ve never read and a few I’ve never heard of. Great anthology, really. Just don’t try to read it straight through.

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On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon

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

For me, Kaye Gibbons is one of those authors I’m supposed to love… but don’t. As I picked up On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon I said… “I hope it’s better than Ellen Foster… or …whatever the short story was that was in The Awakening etc…”

It was but it was still a slow read, I still didn’t really care about any of the characters and I just kept thinking I’ve heard this story before.

Southern father, daughter likes to read, falls for northerner, everyone lives unhappily yet happily ever after… at least those who fought against slavery did, the rest of the folks just died. It was the civil war, after all.

I have finished it and I’m still waiting for a Kaye Gibbons book that I really love, not one that is just “good for me”.

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Wicked Witch & Curse

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Queer, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

Wicked Witch & Curse caused an awful lot of confusion. TW was confused because all she saw on the cover was “Wicked” and she couldn’t figure out why I was reading Wicked for my From the Stacks Challenge – surely I’d read that years ago… (and yes, I had – I was not reading THAT Wicked.)

Then, I got confused because it turns out Wicked Witch & Curse is actually two books, in one. I was only a little more than halfway through the book and hit the “Epilogue” – huh? After the “Epilogue”… the next book started. Aye yi yi.

What’s really confusing (and also troubling) is that the story didn’t end at the end of “Wicked Curse” – there’s got to be at least one more volume and now I’m left wondering if I care enough about the characters or stories to track it down… I’m not sure.

It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. And in the second “book”… the “familiar” incident was pretty troubling to me, which I find totally odd.

I might read more… but I probably won’t unless I just stumble upon another book.

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Women in their Beds

1 Comment / 2008, Books in Bed, Don't Read This, From the Stacks Challenge, short stories /

Please! No MORE Short Stories! I cannot take it anymore.

When I started Women in their Beds, TW said “Why are you reading THAT?” Ugh. My heart sunk. She had bought the book, after all. She’d read it, after all. Still, I had hope. We don’t always agree on books.

Ugh.

This is the problem with choosing books for a challenge based on something like “choosing some from every color”, lol. This is also what happens when you buy books simply because you like their titles or like their covers. This is also what happens when you buy a book, hate it and leave it on your shelf anyway.

I think that’s going to be my next “challenge” – get rid of the stuff we both really hated (except for that one book that I want to burn… I don’t want anyone to read it so I’m going to keep it here, hidden in the rainbow of books where I can keep an eye on it and make sure nobody else is harmed by reading it.)

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Beware the Kiss

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

At various points in Beware the Kiss I felt like maybe I’d already read the book. But, in the end… I don’t think I did. Maybe I’ve just read a lot of lesbian, witch, love cursed books?

The book indicates this is a trilogy but Amazon only seems to have two books in the series. I wonder if the author couldn’t quite swing the third? Is Raven still out there…

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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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