I read a lot of excellent books in September! From fairy tales to dragons to apocalypse to feminism, I read a little bit of everything, and most of it was a blast.
While still behind on my reading goal, I’m hopeful I can catch up by the end of the year. I read 7 books in September, which isn’t bad. I’ll need to up my game in October and November if I hope to catch up. Currently, I’ve read 70 books this year, and I’d like to reach 100. However, that would mean 10 a month until the end of the year. Not sure I can do that.
But hey, at least I’m reading some great books! Here are my September reviews:
Novels
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
Wow. Wow wow wow wow. I could just write ‘wow’ for this entire review.
Reasons I’m saying wow:
–badass lady wizard extraordinaire
–portrayal of trauma and the healing process that isn’t sexist
–lovely lovely prose
–all around beautiful
When the novel started, I thought I was in for something along the lines of Arthurian legend, and I think McKillip plays with that storyline trope. But it was engaging enough in the beginning that I wanted to keep reading even though I’d read similar enough fantasy before. But about halfway through something happens, which I’m not going to spoil, and I fell in love with the novel. I started highlighting large portions of the text. I read late into the night. I want and will read this again. I’ll also buy a copy so my daughter can read it.
It has similar themes to A Wizard of Earthsea
McKillip is one of those authors I discovered late in life, and I’m relishing the thought of reading her works slowly for the next decade, much like I plan to do with Ursula K. Le Guin.
Thanks to Tachyon Publications and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Girls Made of Snow and Glass
I loved this YA feminist retelling of “Snow White,” which subverts the trope that women must compete with one another.
“But then, what was the life of a queen compared to the legend people created for her after her death?”
Mina is a queen whose magician father crafted her a heart made of glass. Because of this, she believes she’s unable to love anyone. Yet that is her greatest desire.
Lynet is her step daughter, the exact image of her mother, the king’s first wife. But Lynet really wants to be like Mina, her step mother and the only mother she’s ever known, who sees Lynet as herself instead of as her mother.
Both struggle with how to make choices in a world largely defined by the men in their lives. How to choose what they want — as Nadia, a new court surgeon, tells Lynet. And Lynet is drawn to Nadia as well, who also sees Lynet as herself rather than as her mother. Or does she?
This is a novel about power struggles, agency, and finding love. Definitely one of the better Snow White retellings I’ve read.
It’s been a long time since I read it, but it reminds me of the essay “The Queen’s Looking Glass” published in The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
Sometimes I wish YA had ‘denser’ prose, and that was the case with this one as well, but it’s still a fantastic read. Anyone who enjoys fairytales and fantasy YA should check this out.
Thanks to Flatiron Books and Goodreads for hosting this giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
The Stone Sky
I can’t imagine the series ending in any other way, even though I didn’t ‘predict’ the ending.
My pregnant brain had difficulty engaging with this last book in Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy at first. My brain seems to be rejecting multiple pov narratives, so it was about halfway through before I finally ‘clicked’ with the novel. Which is unfortunate, because I feel like if I’d read this last year it probably would’ve blown me away. But I do plan on reading the entire trilogy at some point, back to back. I love Jemisin’s narrative style; I just didn’t have the energy to follow it!
But with its commentary on motherhood, love, and family, it made an interesting read for me.
I wish every fantasy series was so rich, nuanced, and challenging. If you haven’t read this series yet, it’s now finished, so there’s no better time to start it than now. It begins with The Fifth Season
The Dollmaker of Krakow
Reminiscent of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Hans Christian Andersen, The Dollmaker of Krakow depicts the horrors of the holocaust through the eyes of a doll, Karolina. But Karolina is no ordinary doll. Her own doll world has been ravaged by rats, and when she escapes with a toy soldier named Fritz, a wind ferries them to our world and into the hands of two human magicians.
Karolina’s magician is the dollmaker of krakow, a kind-hearted and shy war veteran who makes toys. With Karolina’s help, he breaks out of his introverted shell and makes friends with a violinist and his daughter. Both are Jewish. When the Germans invade Krakow, a dark magic descends on their lives, reminding Karolina of when the rats invaded her homeland.
This is a different kind of MG holocaust novel than say, Number the Stars
Thanks to Delacorte Books for Young Readers and Netgalley for providing me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Short Story Collections
Iraq + 100: The First Anthology of Science Fiction to Have Emerged from Iraq
In the introduction, editor Hassan Blasim explains that contemporary Iraqi literature typically sticks to realism and veers away from science fiction and fantasy. But he sees SFF as a way to imagine a different future, something he feels needs to happen more often. So he pitched the idea: what might your home city look like in the year 2103 — exactly 100 years after the disastrous American and British-led invasion of Iraq? And the 10 stories from these Iraqi authors are the ones he chose to compile into this collection.
If you’re interested in reading more about the philosophy behind this anthology, Tor has published several good articles that I recommend reading.
“History is a hostage, but it will bite through the gag you tie around its mouth, bite through and still be hear,” goes a slogan from “Operation Daniel.”
And in these stories history screams louder than the future. All but one or two of the stories are dystopias, depicting a government that dehumanizes, and often a populace that, even while recoiling from this dehumanization, learns to live with it. My favorite of these is the very first story, “Kahramana,” where a teen girl tries to flee Iraq after gouging out the eye of her fiance, who also happens to be the ruler.
But my other favorite story from the collection presents a future that has both frightening and hopeful aspects — “Baghdad Syndrome” by Zhraa Alhabody. In this story, an architect quickly descending into blindness and hallucinations due to ‘Baghdad Syndrome’ attempts to discover what the woman in his hallucinations wants, and to recreate the statue of Scheherazade. Really interesting and focused story.
My favorite SFF and dystopias create rich characters struggling within their community and society, and that’s why these two stood out as the strongest in the collection.
Some premises are more science-fictional than these, such as alien conquerors that harvest and eat people (Kuszib) and futurist, insect drugs (The Gardens of Babylon), but I preferred the ones with complex characterization over fantastical premises.
This collection is well worth reading, especially if you want to read diversely in SF (and you should want this), even though I only enjoyed a few of the stories. Some of them were so bizarre I had difficulty relating or determining what was going on, perhaps due to potential cultural and language barriers. But I would definitely enjoy reading more Iraqi SF, particularly from Anoud and Alhabody.
You can read my reviews for each story here. Thanks to Tor Books and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Nonfiction
We Should All Be Feminists
A short, powerful essay/speech. I must admit, I mainly read it now because it’s short, to try and catch up on my yearly reading goal. However, I bought the book originally because I knew it would be a powerful essay after listening to Adichie’s TED talk, and I’m glad I read it now, when so much deals with raising daughters. Here are some of my favorite quotes, but I recommend reading it for yourself:
“If we do something over and over again, it becomes normal. If we see the same thing over and over again, it becomes normal.”
“We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change. But I am also hopeful, because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to remake themselves for the better.”
“What struck me — with her and with many other female American friends I have — is how invested they are in being ‘liked’. … And that specific thing [likeability] does not include showing anger or being aggressive or disagreeing too loudly.”
“But by far the worst thing we do to males — by making them feel they have to be hard — is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.
And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males.”
“‘Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being?’ This type of question is a way of silencing a person’s specific experiences. Of course I am a human being, but there are particular things that happen to me in the world because I am a woman.”
“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.”
I highlighted more, but I’ll stop there! Obviously a must read. As a teacher, I kept thinking this would make a great essay for a Freshman Comp class, since she practices many of the same writing principles I teach.
Fairytale in the Ancient World
With this academic study, Anderson provides a comprehensive and at times exhausting examination of fairytale antecedents in ancient (mostly Western) mythology. It’s a thorough, well-researched study, with chapters focusing on specific fairy tales — like “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” and “Little Red Riding Hood” — as well as general categories of tales. If this sounds like something you need for research purposes, you should definitely pick it up. It lacks the engaging prose style of some other fairytale academics, like Jack D. Zipes or Marina Warner, but while I won’t be reading it cover-to-cover again, I’m keeping my copy in case I need it for research. It certainly seems like it opens up a lot of research potential for other academics to explore.
What good books have you read lately?