Becca

Two Truths and a Lie won both the Hugo and Nebula for best novelette and it was well-deserved. It reads like both something totally new but the well-contained atmosphere and tight-writing make every piece of it feel like it's part of a fable or fairy tale we all know. I found it haunting.

This is a very 2020 book – about what happens when an external temporary disaster stops your daily routine, sets back your to-do list and forces you to reflect about your priorities. This is also a very Becky Chambers book – each main character belongs to a separate alien species and one that was not well-fleshed out in the previous books – each species is intricately developed in physiology, cultural norms around gender, living style, values, etc. And each character is carefully developed within that species.

Like Chambers' other works there isn't much plot there. Instead, the book really focuses on character development. Most of the book is spent on each character's own reflective practice and their pairwise relationship developments. Beyond that, the book is largely an exploration about family and parenting - why and how each character does or doesn't engage in different types of family relationships. Chambers wrote in interviews that she was strongly influenced by Le Guin and it shows here – very strong world building and a lot of contemplation about how speculative fiction to open a window into the choices we make in the real world without considering them.

Also, basically Come From Away, but with aliens and no music.

A few adorable snippets: a child's rock collection is all dressed up as a natural history museum; an entire conversation about how dumb humans are for eating cheese (there are no humans in this book, which I found a great choice that really allowed for larger cultural exploration), zillions of baked goods and a bath house so epic it needed foreshadowing

Absolutely adorable, beautifully illustrated and an instant children's classic.

I came into this book with high expectations. Let's face it - it has probably the best title of any memoir in approximately the history of the universe.Unfortunately, the rest of the book does not live up, particularly. Raskin's epistolary memoir mostly focuses on his scummy, womanizing ways and his desire to make up for them. Somehow, he finds the motivation to make reparations for past misdeeds by writing a series of monologues addressed to Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen. Why Ando is a question frequently asked but never answered. Similarly, the “fixed my love life” subtitle may be a little oversold: the book seems to be more “How My Imagined Version of the Inventor of Instant Noodles Set Me on the Path to Fixing My Love Life, But I'm Certainly Nowhere Close to Fixed Yet, Because as an Adult Closer to a Midlife Crisis than a Quarterlife One, I'm Counting a Six Month Relationship as a Success.” I mean, I'm just saying...Interspersed with that is a series of anecdotes about Momofuku Ando's life, which are fascinating, but conveyed in a rather dry tone. The best part of the book are Raskin's frequent trips to Japan and his perception and description of the Japanese culture. But honestly, Japan as a comedy of manners has been done before in both fiction and nonfiction before. (e.g. [b:If You Follow Me 6391014 If You Follow Me Malena Watrous http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1278442263s/6391014.jpg 6579433])

I'll be honest: I'm downright angry about this book. My anger started around page 38 and never abated. You see, Seanan McGuire values representation. She does not apparently value correctly representing people. When the protagonist complained that she had not developed breasts and was short, I assumed we were getting some Turner Syndrome representation – you know, a syndrome, that results in delayed puberty and short stature. When instead, McGuire declared her protagonist to have CAIS (complete androgen insensitivity) I was confused. It had been a while since I'd taken my general genetics boards but it took me only 30 seconds on google to confirm: girls with CAIS have normal breast development and normal height velocity with a normal age of maximum height velocity (growth spurt). I kept reading – maybe the protagonist had a secret gonadectomy to explain those features? Maybe the mother was confused? But no explanation was forthcoming and it dawned on me: I don't think McGuire actually ever spoke to anyone with CAIS. And the more I thought about that, the more it upset me: McGuire refers to Regan multiple times as being “intersex,” a term that many women in the CAIS community don't use to refer to themselves. I had originally felt okay with Regan reclaiming the term, but the more I thought about McGuire using it with apparently no community input the less good I felt about it. And I thought about how McGuire portrays herself as a champion of diversity and the harm caused by tokenism rather than true representation. This is not doing it right. Do better. Talk to people with disorders of sexual development and ask how they'd like to be portrayed. At the very least, do a five minute google search. (Failing all of that, I once again offer my services as a professional geneticist who will fact-check speculative fiction for the low cost of a free book.)

(I have other feelings about the book, but this really is the most important one.)

I am a big fan of murderbot in general, and this is really a classical expression of the form Martha Wells has honed to an art: a compelling mystery that also reveals the inner thoughts of Murderbot to itself and to us and causes it to grow as a person, er, bot, while also developing the relationships among Murderbot and the people it's come to care about. It's fun, it's got some depth to it in terms of personal development and exploration of the universe.The “but” here is that, unlike most murderbot fans, my favorite book in the series was [b:Network Effect 52381770 Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5) Martha Wells https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568667704l/52381770.SX50_SY75.jpg 63614271], the full length novel. I'm just not really a novella person and the return to novella format solidified that for me – it's a little shorter and a little shallower than my preference (and having it placed as a prequel to Network Effect also threw me).So Murderbot. It's great. More novels, please.

Yeah, I don't know. I've been struggling with what to say about this one because I've had such mixed feelings. Usually, I start with what I liked about a book, but I simply think that the problematic aspects of Kushiel's Dart are so problematic that they have to be discussed up front before the book can be analyzed in any depth.When this book was recommended to me it was just as an “epic fantasy that makes epic fantasies interesting again” so any trepidation I had coming in was that it was over 900 pages long, with a map inside the front cover followed by a list of characters with High Fantasy names longer than my arm – in short, the sort of fantasy that I haven't read in a decade. So to be confronted with the core plot of the One True Masochist was jarring. Good heavens people, don't fail to warn people about the BDSM. I see why it could happen – the back two-thirds are a completely different book – but there's 300 pages of a tonally very different book first. And the tone. So, I mean, I try to be a “your kink is not my kink and that's OK” sort of person. And, as one of my friends commented, it is kind of fascinating to get inside someone else's psychosexual identity, but it's not my kink, which made it, honestly, kind of boring. But also, beyond the kink, one has to deal with the really problematic pieces: bond slavery, grooming of children, children slaves, a relationship between a teenage bond slave cum foster child and his owner/guardian, classically conditioning children into masochism – I mean really problematic stuff that has all of its extreme implications glossed over in the book. And I'm really concerned about the glorification of submission and masochism in women and the way in which this is broadcast for public consumption, both in the book but also in the fantasy subcultures. It's not super consensual for bystanders and I think it sets up a gendered culture that can be borderline abusive to young women trying to fit in. I think it's not actually OK to not think about the real world implications of the culture that you're starting (I was really disturbed to see the fan tattoos on the author's website.)Finally, you're allowed to do an alternative history of Europe. Alt histories are fun and amazing. You're allowed to do such a transparent alt history that Scandinavia is actually named a Norse word, and Rome is named after a Roman empire. You're also allowed in fantasy to have highly stereotyped races; we side-eye it these days, but dwarves and elves and goblins are all still kosher. What you're not allowed to do is have a very transparent alt history AND stereotype races. Not OK to say that only alt-history Western Europeans and specifically the French are super blessed/pretty people and alt-history Scandinavians are all ugly and alt-history Romani are super stereotypical fortune tellers and alt-history Jews believe in Jesus. So why did I read a thousand pages of this? Because it actually is a gorgeous Epic fantasy. I found the initial setup of a religion that is to Christianity the way that Christianity is to Judaism fascinating. I really thought that the setting was a well-developed world with some unique implications (although the more I dwell on it, the more I think the mores of Terre d'Ange fit whatever Carey was into at the moment rather than being consistent.) But mostly, after the first super problematic one third, the entire premise was dropped and it became an actual epic story about someone who went from being kind of self-absorbed and shallow to deeply invested in the survival of a country and a lifestyle. I found Phedre's (and Joscelin's) personal development really intriguing and I thought that they were depicted well as sympathetic characters who still had a lot of room for growth over the course of the story, which is really unusual. The political intrigue was decently well-done, and I found the setting both big enough that the intrigue was convoluted, but small enough that I could follow what was happening. When the book was good, it reminded me of the [b:The Goblin Emperor 17910048 The Goblin Emperor Katherine Addison https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1373039517s/17910048.jpg 24241248]Ultimately what kept me in it was that I really liked Joscelin's character arc. It's really rare that a fantasy novel lets a character break a vow. Usually the fantasy convention is that vows are inviolate, it's one of the most fantastical elements of fantasy. And in traditional fantasy, characters that break vows are either irredeemable or their core story is a quest for redemption. On the other hand, Joscelin simply realized that the vows he took as a teen were naive. An exploration of how to be true to oneself and be a moral person while also loosening up on a black-and-white world view is something rare in fantasy and rare in literature in general, and that's a pity.

I love books about platonic friendship. A lot. I think we don't talk about the value of friendship enough, and I read this while staying in a house with my college best friends, having gathered at no amount of financial, emotional and time investment to see our core friend group. So, this book should have been up my alley. But while Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman attempt to review the academic literature on friendship, this is a very superficial portion of the book. Most of the book is specifically about Aminatou and Ann's friendship in particular. I like that they wrote about being friends through difficult times and how to handle to dissolution of friendship, as well as focusing on how to maintain friendships via facing conflict and finding ritual, all of which are part of my core friendship values. But I just ...didn't like them. I have the sense that I'd like Sow or Friedman individually (and I have when I've heard them on podcasts) but their friendship based on alcohol and girly TV and fashion and being “low drama mamas” (I've found people who declare themselves low drama are (a) almost always not and (b) toxically conflict-averse) was something that made me want to run for the hills.

This is an adorable chosen family narrative. I found it a little saccharine at times – there's not really a central conflict, or even much of a point besides coming together as a set of misfits and fighting back against intolerance – but sometimes you need that in the world. I will say that at times it felt almost like issue-fic: the intolerance was a little on the nose and the solution was very pat (asking people nicely to not bully you; have the mayor on your side and the angry mob dissipating seems a quite simplistic to January of 2021). But it was incredibly cute: a wyvern who collects buttons! An edgy child Anti-Christ who just wants to be loved...and talk about philosophy! A queer, middle-aged romance! And they all become a family.

If the novellas were each a TV episode, Network Effect is the two-hour season finale. With a full-length novel, the plot has a little bit more room to breathe and develop. At times, the adventures with alien adversaries feel a little too drawn out, but mostly, this room is good to allow somewhat of an emotional arc for Murderbot's complex relationships with ART and Mensah's daughter to develop. The series has always leaned hard on the ideas of identity and how this interacts with hard-wiring, and the plot really let those themes shine.

Network Effect was also the book in which Wells' full setting comes into focus: the conflicts between the corporate ring and Mensah's independent planet, and the university that owns ART. What does a corporation really want and what can unchecked capitalism develop into as the governing system for a solar system?

Apparently I read this some time in 2023, and then forgot about it. Went to read my new copy, and it felt strangely familiar. Indeed, it's twin is sitting on the shelf in my bookcase. How very apt.

I love Sarah Gailey - the rawness; the way her characters transcend the rules for femininity even to the reader's discomfort. This was great, twisty, reflective and quick-paced. What does identity mean? How much are we shaped by who we are versus what happens to us?

First off, unlike most of the other reviewers, I've actually never read [b:Memoirs of a Geisha 930 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157749066s/930.jpg 1558965]. I picked this up because I've always been curious about geishas and I have a love of memoirs. I found Mineko's writing immediately engaging – I think her skill as a geisha really comes out in the way she writes. Her words are precise, but captivating and she really captures the emotional tone of a scene. Mineko's life is fascinating and otherworldly. She presents snippets of her life, leaving the reader to fill in details: a scene from her infancy, a scene from her toddlerhood, vignettes along the way to her being whisked into the secluded world of geisha-hood. The book toes the line between a description of specifically Mineko's life and exposition of the life of a geisha. Unfortunately, by compromising in to the middle ground, it does an adequate job to both sides, but is stellar on neither. I learned a lot of the terminology, economy and practical matters that go into being a geisha; however, while Mineko states several times that she has a passion about the lack of education that geishas get, this passion is not demonstrated at all in the book and the emotions that the geishas have are obscured. Similarly, Mineko's decision to retire as a geisha and become an art dealer happens over the course of a mere handful of pages and seems to have no basis in the rest of the book.Mineko also is very clearly a spoiled girl and woman, who is very used to being catered to. While she occasionally shows insight to that, there are also huge portions of the novel where she seems to have no insight, which left me wondering whether the injustices that she complains of were true, or figments of her unrealistic expectations.

I wanted to love this a lot. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend spoke to me in a way that's hard to explain: I didn't really identify with the main character, and it was a little too cringey for me, and a little to explicit for me, but it still kind of made me feel seen somehow. So I expected the same from this. And in so many ways it was just like Crazy Ex: good, but a little cringey and a little explicit and I didn't really identify, but somehow the magic wasn't there. Some of the essays got very close (especially the one at the end, where Rachel talks about shapewear & the upfronts). Some of the essays were even further. Overall, funny, but it didn't really come together into something bigger.

+Some of her affectation is challenging. I was hoping she'd be more real.
+She portrays herself as being completely unsure of herself and doomed in love, but she met her husband at 21 and was a writer for TV at 23. But realizing that a lot of the book was her own insecurity talking was charming?

Take a basic adolescent novel about fitting in, friendship and crushes and then make all of that real: if you don't have any friends, you will literally be eaten by monsters. If the golden boy reciprocates his crush on you, it will literally save your life. That's the premise of Deadly Education and it's kind of a fascinating one.

I think Novik's characters were well-developed, especially to explore the way that adolescence can feel so life-or-death. Sometimes school fantasy can feel twee, but I felt like Novik's monsters felt real, serious threats and this was done well.

Overall, I enjoyed the Interdependency trilogy, but I think this was the weakest of the three: about 100 pages are devoted to recapping the first two books. It also feels like the conclusion is a bit too neat and a bit too fantasy fulfillment – the billionaire ruler who's just in it for herself is shown up, the climate change crisis, err, disruption of the flow is able to be mitigated so that everyone is saved and this actually is a nice salve to 2020, but it's not as deep and challenging reading as I wanted. Everything is wrapped up so neatly that it feels almost like fanfic, although it was satisfying and fun reading.

A sweet, easily read children's book – it's almost as fun to read as the romp through historic mythology that the main characters take.

A wacky take on the classic Arabian nights genre this is Jones at her best – nothing is as it seems, and in the end there are several morals to be learned. However, the link between Castle in the Air and [b:Howl's Moving Castle 6294 Howl's Moving Castle Diana Wynne Jones http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165560187s/6294.jpg 2001] is tenuous at best, and at worst Castle in the Air is cheapened by the association, as the feel is extremely different and the characters from Howl seem shoehorned in.

China Mieville is the author when it comes to cities. I've found some of his other works tedious going because he puts so much love and adoration into his settings that he can't help but nudge the plot out of the way to show you his cool setting. Luckily, when it comes to The City & The City, Mieville had a brilliant idea: the detective novel provides a perfect frame for him to show off his city without it fighting for attention with his plot. Because there's a mystery to investigate, the details of the setting become critical to the plot, and can be properly showcased. Inspector Borlu is perfect for the job of tour guide – the archetypal detective, he neither truly inhabits his life, but clinically examines his surroundings, and his arms-length remove from the city sets up the theme nicely.Of course, where The City & The City shines is in the titular cities and there are (at least) three: Beszel: a prototypical Eastern European Olde Country; Ul Qoma: nouveau riche and glitzy; the combined physical reality that contains both, transposed on top of each other, not to mention Orciny – the mythical third city that lies in the interstitial space. The idea is just so cool. And then the more I thought about it, the more I reflect on life, and that, my friends, is what makes a good book into a great book. The central conceit is this: Ul Qoma and Beszel occupy the same space. I at first thought that this requires science fiction or fantasy, but Mieville employs neither here. Instead, he simply invents a political system where Ul Qoma and Beszel refuse to notice each other, even when physically located in the same place. They speak different languages, follow different rules and have different cultures. This was a stretch for me at first – more of a stretch than imagining a magical system, to be honest. But then I started thinking of real-life split cities, like Jerusalem, where adjoining spaces belong to different governing bodies, speak different languages and in general refuse to acknowledge each other (even though in the book this exact example is brought up and belittled). And then I started thinking more generally and more close to home: I live in a neighborhood that walks the fine line between diversity and gentrification. Could it not be said that there are the neighbors, whether I know them or not, that I acknowledge more – that, because I see similarity in the way they dress, talk and hold themselves, I am more likely to make small talk? When I talk about buying a house, there are blocks – right next to highly desirable blocks – where I would never live, because of the style of the houses and the presumed personalities of the neighbors (and the imaginary line dividing real people from the loathed undergrads.) And then I reflect on the recent political events and it's hard to argue that the same laws apply to everyone in the city, even in one physical location. So I spent a lot of time thinking about what these imaginary-but-real divisions in my life are, and what to do about them, since there is no all-powerful Breach in real life.This ability to write a book that is intriguing prima facie, but that has used speculative fiction to explore deeper truths about real life is the exact reason that I read speculative fiction. The back of my copy of the City and The City compares it to Orwell and Kafka, but honestly, I think it transcends that and can only be compared to the true master: [a:Ursula K. Le Guin 874602 Ursula K. Le Guin https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1244291425p2/874602.jpg]. And to say it holds up well in the comparison is a compliment of the highest order.

I didn't read a non-fiction book in nearly a year. This was not the right book to re-exercise that muscle. The Fires of Vesuvius is dense. Dr. Beard is a highly respected academic classicist and although here she tries to write to a lay audience, it is certainly an academic book (exhibit 1: that graphics are sorted into illustrations, figures and plates. Illustrations and figures are set into the text and numbered consecutively, but independently from each other. There are two sections of pages dedicated to plates. Each of these images which is referenced and cross-referenced from various places inside the book. Overall, there are over 200. You will spend much time searching for the right image.)

But despite the density, I did find the book a very interesting exploration about what life was like in Pompeii. I had no pre-existing knowledge: I had never taken a classics class, never been to Pompeii (or Italy) and my only real understanding of this time-period is from reading the talmud. In that context, also, it was fascinating to compare Roman culture with Talmudic culture (freeing slaves on a regular basis: universal! Having a set, primarily written canon for a religion: super abnormal!) There was also a lot to explore here about how Roman elections work, what people did for fun, and a lot, a lot of epistemology. How much can we trust the veracity graffiti and murals? What about when that conflicts with what seems likely to us?

I was kind of torn by this book. I had low expectations from the beginning – I was discomfited by the dialect, my northern-identity politicking-liberal arts sensitivities were a little appalled at a white woman writing this book and Skeeter read like an obvious self-insertion character.

That being said, I warmed up quickly. Stockett has clearly done a lot of research, in addition to having grown up in Mississippi with a maid. She is honest, at time brutally so, without taking a clear side. She depicts white people who do terrible things while being well-meaning, white people who have a lot of ingrained racism and are striving to be better and those who aren't. She has white characters who have grown up in poorer circumstances and are trying to fit in. She has African-American characters who pander to their white employers and those who hold their ground and those who have their own ingrained notions. My only complaint from a character development stand point is the completely villainous portrayal of Hilly – she's easy to hate in a novel that's supposed to be about realistic people in a toxic setting.

If I promised you a book about Ponzi schemes and ghosts and murder mysteries; about the little things that happen to us in a life that haunt us forever, you'd be psyched, right? You'd think: this book could not possibly be boring. And similarly: I see what St. John Mandel is doing here. I respect what she's trying to do. I love the idea of exploring the things that haunt us throughout our lives; the themes we cannot help but return to. I like the idea of personifying that with magical realism ghosts and graffiti that is disturbing out of proportion to the real world. There's a lot of potential here.

But it's SO boring. Unbelievably boring. Is it me? I can't tell. But all of these characters are so flat, I couldn't care about them at all. I found small snippets I liked: the themes, the descriptions of shipping. But these were buried within ~400 pages of mundane details about mundane characters. Dozens of pages about how tedious shopping is that nevertheless bore details of everything that Vincent bought. Interchangeable characters named Melissa, Miranda, Mirella, Monica and Marie that I had to keep referencing back to the dust jacket to see which one went with which substory.

A close friend accused St. John Mandel of being too pretentious to be willing to write speculative fiction. Once seen it couldn't be unseen: this is overwritten, too shy to lean into its interesting themes. It does not arrive at ghosts, nor Ponzi schemes, nor the ocean, for over 200 pages, instead leaning into day-in-the-life written to the teeth. It felt interchangeable with hundreds of other books trying and failing to be The Modern American Novel

A relatively succinct, yet comprehensive history of lesbian women in America, which also touches on feminism, civil rights and relations between the gay and lesbian communities. As far as I am aware this is the most comprehensive work on lesbian history available. Faderman did extensive research and the book is rife with footnotes and comprised predominately of interviews conducted for this book.

Faderman is upfront about her biases, although her disbelief in “congenitalism” may make modern readers uncomfortable. She does seem to view the 80's as a terminal point in lesbian history, and it would be interesting to see her characterize the 90's and 00's.

This book was fascinating read. Gregory in very plain language explains her childhood, from the point of view of a child. Others have criticized that the ways in which Gregory's parents have abused her are not made explicitly clear by the book, but what makes Sickened such a powerful memoir is that it is written from Gregory's point of view, and therefore all along the reader is left equally in the dark as Gregory herself as to what is actually wrong with her, versus what is inflicted upon her by her parents. Gregory's slow realization that she is, indeed being abused is both the turning point and the most poignant part of the book.

The bookest of the Wayward Children so far, this follows Jack and Jill in the aftermath of Jack killing Jill in the first book (and Jill getting better...) McGuire clearly loves Jack and Jill the most out of all of her characters, and it shows here: the characters are more developed and more nuanced than any of the others by this, their third appearance. (Unrelatedly, do boys ever get to be protagonists for McGuire? Kade and Christopher also put in their third appearances and still are flimsy setting material.) Taking a diverse cast into the monotone, horrific setting that is the Moors provides some dark humor and also some depth to what otherwise starts to feel bland in its darkness.

I liked that we actually got a narrative arc and I finally felt like I had a full story, both plot-wise and emotionally, of Jack and Jill. This was the first novella that actually felt satisfying. On the flip side, I don't actually enjoy Jack, Jill or the moors, so ups and downs. (I know, right? I don't actually like the sardonic female scientist character? Oh yeah, because she's a monster.) But overall, as a canon, the books are stronger than they are individually.

This is a sweet little book that is mostly about Sasha Sagan's life and gratitude to her parents, Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan. It is clearly inspired by their work: writing clearly and spaciously about how the marvels of science and the rational world can invoke a sense of awe and spirituality and exploring a non-supernatural intention for religion and connection.

It was interesting to me that for a book about atheism, it is also a profoundly Jewish book. When Sasha talks about the atheists that found meaning in awe in the scientific world being people like her father, Einstein and Feynman, it's not a coincidence that these are all Jewish atheists. To riff on a classic Jewish joke: the G-d they don't believe in is specifically the Jewish G-d. This is important because so many atheists in America are culturally Christian and talk about atheism in a way that is specifically about rejecting Christianity. For Jews, participation in ritual life is not predicated on belief, and the blending of ritual and spirituality with atheism is simpler. This is clear when Sagan talks about her atheistic approaches to Shabbat, Passover and other Jewish traditions.

A trainee came to my office in tears a few years ago, to ask how to move forward in a world where we are constantly caring for sick and sometimes dying children. The only thing I could tell him was that religion was the technology that humanity had invented and refined over millenia to deal with hardship and that using this technology did not require any belief, just a willingness to trust that feeling part of something larger, finding rituals that take us out of the day-to-day and being in community. Sasha Sagan paints a way to do this in a world where many people have religious trauma, and/or do not hold supernatural beliefs, reverse engineering the technology to include: textures of time that relate to the seasons/days of the week/times of day, moments for rest and recuperation, moments for self-denial and empathy for those with less abundance, moments for joy and grief and awareness of being alive and this being a temporary state.

It is more of a reflective piece than a practical piece, but I enjoyed it and will come back to it.