Zach

There were a handful of stories which were worth the time, but not NEARLY enough.

A primary note, since this seems to be a common misconception in the reviews– this isn't a biography of Wu Zhao/Wu Zetian. It's a monograph on her political uses of legends, religious cults and mythological beings to support and abet her careers as Empress and Emperor.

The book was at time a difficult read. There was some dense information, especially for a lay person whose knowledge of Wu Zhao is limited mainly to Chinese period dramas and a handful of books on general Chinese history. I picked it up because I have an abiding interest in political uses of religion, as well as the politics of female politicians.

That said, the information was laid out in a way that was enjoyable and made the thesis easy to follow. Rothschild is clearly passionate about the subject and has both a soft spot for and clear-eyed perspective on Wu Zhao and her life. This was a pleasure to read.

I picked this one up with glee because I love Ortberg's writing. The short stories were as tense and dense as I was expecting, but some of the choices– especially where the adaptation is based on fusion with other, more different stories– didn't quite work for me.

Some stories were made stronger by the fusion (I cannot shake the feeling of dread left by “Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend, Mr Toad”), but others never quite solidified into a coherent narrative (“The Thankless Child”, “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors”), leaving me with fleeting emotional sensations but no strong impact. Still, Ortberg was plainly at his best when re-considering of the foundations of the original work, and digging out the horrific elements displayed within. Both “The Rabbit” (based on The Velveteen Rabbit) and “The Daughter Cells” (based on The Little Mermaid) are deadly inspired.

Hurricane Fever is a sharp thriller set in the near future, where the seas have risen and extreme weather patterns batter the Caribbean all summer. It was a quick read, fast paced and enjoyable with a definitely unique sensibility. An ex-Caribbean Intelligence officer gets caught back up in biotech espionage when an old comrade sends him a posthumous message asking to be avenged. There are boats, there are hurricanes, there are many many people of color (what with it being set in the Caribbean and all). To me it was a great antidote to the “white guy beats up all the brown bad guys” airport thrillers I've read over the years. I've been hearing for a while that Tobias Buckell was an author to be reckoned with, and now I understand why.

I mean, I read these on his blog, back when he first started blogging about them. But Fred's insights are just as entertaining and informative now as they were back then.

Are you tired of retellings of classic stories yet? Yes? Me too. Alias Hook wants to be a story about shedding childish things and moving out of the fantasy of Neverland as an adult woman steps foot in Neverland and hook begins to realize there's more to life than a futile war. It was an okay book and I know people who will like it, but for me it replicated a lot of the problems that the original Peter Pan has in terms of the sexist treatment of the female characters (where even Stella, the character who was supposed to be the co-star was really just there to move Hook along in the story). And all the women were mothers or mothering archetypes (or “Wendys”, but “Wendys are always “mothers” to the boys according to this book) which gave it a really frustratingly binarist/cissexist tone. And that doesn't touch the totally unironic Magical Savage thing– Alias Hook replicated the racist treatment of the Native Americans instead of actually considering the implications of an entire aboriginal tribe out of time and space. Still, there is something to be said for a love story about Hook finally growing the fuck up, so for someone who doesn't get deeply frustrated by stagnant roles for women and people of color, it's not a BAD book. It's just not great either.

This had been hanging out on my “reading” list for a year and a half. No idea why, but I think my Kindle died and then I got distracted and started reading other things, so I actually re-started it in early June.I think I first encountered La Llorona when I was a pre-teen, in [b:Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype 241823 Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype Clarissa Pinkola Estés https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1433638820s/241823.jpg 981745], and have had an on-and-off love affair with her since.This is an enjoyable and pleasantly un-jargony book, although it might be a little overwhelming if you're new to Chican@ studies or the legend of La Llorona. Pèrez has a workman-like prose and the folklore studies and anthropological analyses are readily understandable from a layman's perspective. I started out highlighting in my copy stories and studies that I hadn't yet read, and let me tell you, this book is a treasure trove if you want to dive into Chican@ authors and poets, both about this topic and in general.

Like most short story anthologies, a bit uneven, but much more good than bad.

Time to get away from the American/British magical detective, oh THANK THE LORD. I wanted more, I want a sequel. Man, do I love this book. Finally, someone using non-Western mythology and supernatural creatures, plus queer protagonists, plus set in a city that isn't New York, London, Chicago or San Francisco, plus an author who ALSO doesn't live in Britain or America, PLUS amazing prose.

It is all wrapped up in a little ball with a ribbon JUST FOR ME. Hooray! This is one of those books that I buy copies of to give to my friends.

I can't judge people disliking the book because they dislike the author, because I tend not to bother reading books by people I dislike. But I do have to roll my eyes at the people posting one-star reviews just because they dislike the author outside of this. (TBF, in the current controversy over this author, most of the people raging against Sriduangkaew were on my Not To Read Because They're Racist As Hell list before this blow-up, so I find the whole situation fairly ironic.)

A solid 3.5 star book. It's one of the few New York-based paranormal stories I've seen with a cast that actually reflects the ethnic makeup of the city, a bonus for which I can forgive some weakness in the denouement. I would have liked more in-depth world building and solid characterization, but this was some frothy fun.

The sequel to Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots, Seanan's stories are... well, they're Seanan's stories. Full of young women who can do anything. It's entertaining, but had the same problem as the first book in the series. Because she wrote these as independent short stories on her blog whenever someone donated enough money they don't read like they've been edited well. The plot and characters are fascinating, but the pacing is off, and there are a lot of weird tangents and assumptions that make it clear she's playing to an audience rather than working on writing the story as cohesively as possible. I also had to stop for a month and facepalm repeatedly to get over the constant thread of “Santa Claus is real and every culture has an old man winter spirit who is Good and Kind and Rewards Good Children” because it got on my nerves. That said, as all Seanan Mcguire books are, it was a fun romp, with enough tearjerker angst to give it a bit of a bite.

A semiautobiographical book by and about a princess coming out of the tail end of India's princely system. It's mainly supposed to be about ayurvedic and natural health tips, and those abound, but I was mostly reading it for the fascinating insights into the community of women within the zenana, and a first-person look at the Indian community as it came out of the colonial era. The author more than once notes that this book is a little disorganized, but I'm okay with that. I wasn't reading it for the recipes (interesting as they were), so much as the the folklore and and historical aspects. It was beautifully written, eliciting strong emotions and sense sensations, as well as contrasting and rebutting Eurocentric beauty ideals and sociopolitical ideas. It was an illuminating look into the tail-end of an era, and the writer was so wonderfully friendly that I wish I could meet her and ask her questions.

A book of retold fairy tales by well-known young adult authors (including Jackson Pierce, Malinda Lo, Julie Kagawa, and Tessa Gratton). Honestly, there are only s many ways you can retell fairytales, but enough of them were engaging and fun to make it a worthwhile read: “Figment”, a retelling of Puss in Boots, fore-fronted the necessity for humans to make their own way, sometimes to the detriment of their fairytale helpers. Malinda Lo's “The Twelfth Girl”, a retelling of the Twleve Dancing Princesses casts one princess in the role of the hero/soldier and tasks her with breaking the spell. “Beauty and The Chad” is about as ridiculous as it sounds, but was a fun story, starry the Beast as a frat boy pulled into a fairytale world without permission.

Most short story collections have a tendency to be a bit uneven, and this one is no different (“Before The Rose Bloomed” by Ellen Hopkins and “The Pink” by Amanda Hocking both stood out as less than stellar submissions), but on the whole it's was a solid offering and most of the authors did well by the book.

As much as I love this series, I have to dock it points for rampant colorism— I'm sorry, one of the few brown-skinned women in this book is compared to a CAMEL, and Lee's preference for blond and pale skinned heroes and heroines becomes very uncomfortable when you remember how heavily inspired the series is by Persian and Middle Eastern aesthetics. Also, the book barely passes the Bechdel test and,,, would it kill her to have a FEW magical women who aren't either evil or dead?

Aside from that, it is tightly plotted with Tanith Lee's usual deft hand with gorgeously gothic description, so it still evened out for a generally enjoyable reading experience.

As almost everyone knows that this point, the bible went through a fairly intense series of parings down and editings into the book that we use today (which is slightly different depending on your religion and/or denomination). Hoffman's book is a fun bit of pop history, giving a surprisingly decent overview of the history of the Judean province area during the time periods that the Bible, as we know it, was compiled and some in-depth discussion of three specific books that were left out of the Bible but were probably well-known during the time period. I wish that he'd given a broader discussion of some of the other books we know were left out, but the specific discussion about the philosophies proposed in the apocryphal texts and the questions that they raise about the transition period as Judaism turned into two different religions (Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity) isn't bad. I'd probably use this as an introduction text to more in-depth works on “lost” scriptures and the pre-Rabbinic Judaism/Christian period.

Every 5-10 minutes I stopped to ask myself if this author has ever spoken to a thirteen year old girl in his life.

I really should have given up, but it was so awful I couldn't bear to.

I started this book because it was billed as a GLBT book. Instead it was a mostly non-romance adventure/politics story about the God of War getting maneuvered into a bad situation and getting out of it by possessing a female soldier (who is not in a lesbian relationship with the lesbian cop character, more's the pity). There some really interesting political interplay, but it's mostly character study about War, Camilla (the soldier) and a young schizophrenic man who is possessed by Eris/Discord. The ending was fairly predictable, but the characters were engaging and I find myself looking forward to the sequel.

Too dang British and a little too full of himself for my taste– there was way too much colonialist “when I was out in Africa”, too little of a narrative through-line. But entertaining enough in its way.

This is, surprisingly, not a novelization of the WEBTOON, but an entirely different version of the story. I presume HYBE gave the ghostwriters a basic spec and then let them do their own thing.
What remains the same: 

•   &TEAM is split into three (or four) main groups

1.  Khan/K is an orphan and the last remaining lycanthrope. He lives at the Grey Inn with his adopted parent(s).
2. The other I-Land guys (Tahel/Taki, Najak/Nicholas, Enzy/EJ) are orphans adopted by Giri, an older werewolf whose brother sold out the werewolf clans. They rent rooms at the Grey Inn and become entangled with Khan's school life.
3. Luka/Maki and Louis/Yuma are twins trained as paladins, who are hunting Giri out of suspicion that he helped his brother sell out the werewolves.
4. Mahan/Fuma, Camill/Jo, and Ruslan/Harua are abducted werewolves used by vampires as both test subjects for experiments with their blood and mind-controlled soldiers.

• The three Red Hood sisters, Serah (the leader), Gillian and Lara. They do get some more characterization, but not by much.
• Khan's bully, Khrock, and the basic “bully whose dad is the town's main landlord” plot line 

Literal sobbing

CW: date rape, manipulation, gaslighting

The absolute glee with which Kengkla goes about messing with Techno really makes this book. Either you're along for the whole disastrous ride, or you're probably going to throw the book against the wall. Kla isn't a good person and Techno is, and that's what's fun about it. The novel doesn't shy away from its kinks, although drunken sex and mild gaslighting aren't to everyone's tastes.

The pacing can be a little hinky at times— you spend the first two thirds of the book waiting for the other shoe to drop on Kengkla's head. Drawing it out that long got frustrating, when I would have preferred to get a more expanded version of Kla's confessions.

I wish they'd gotten an editor to do a pass for English grammar tho

I've read a few too many superhero novels in the past couple of months for this to be anything more than middling for me. The pacing was too condensed for the story it was trying to tell, and the characters are never really explored in enough depth to make me actually care much about them. It feels like it's trying to be V.E. Schwab's “Vicious” for a younger set, but the petty teenage dramas take precedence over the government/global thriller without giving much insight into the protagonist or the antagonists. It's a decent story, but it would probably have been better as a two or three-part series, because as it is, it gives short shrift to both the internal and external drama.

I managed to find a library in WASHINGTON that had an ebook copy of this anthology I could borrow. Was it worth the legwork? Yep.

I continue to be heartbroken that the publisher went out of business earlier this year. Just goes to show– get good books before they disappear forever.

Like, maybe 1.5 stars for history, and quarter star for prose, but BOY does this guy have axes to grind