Monthly Archives: September 2016

Join me in the #DiverseRomanceBingo challenge.

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Those of you who read this blog on any sort of regular basis know I’m a sucker for challenges, doing several a year, most concurrently. So far this year alone, I’ve challenged myself to read a weeks worth of books with Omega in the title. Then, I felt obligated to do alphas too. I started the year with a broken wrist, so I challenged myself to read all my short stories and novellas. (They require shorter reviews, usually; less typing.) I’ve been adding on to the tail end of last year’s Annoying Closeup Guy challenge, as I’ve found I have more books with him on the cover now. And of course I’m doing the Goodreads challenge, which I pledged a shocking (even for me) 300 books this year. (I wanted to account for so many shorts, so I upped my goal. I expect to surpass it.) I say all that because I intend to add another challenge to the list and this one I think is more important than any of those.

A few weeks back, I went through the books I’d read so far this year, looking to see how diversified the authors were. I honestly went into this expecting to find that I read a fairly diverse group of authors and could feel confident in my position as alley and amplifier of minority voices. I was severely disappointed. I found that despite my good intentions and opinion of myself, nothing was being translated into actual action. The vast majority of the books I’d read were by cis-gendered, straight, white women. Have I done better than someone who isn’t paying attention? Probably, but not by much, and not by enough to feel smug about it. (Not that I should anyway.)

The simple fact of the matter is that any time I picked up a book without actively searching out and choosing a book by an author from a minority group, it was invariably by a white woman. And this was true for the characters in those books too. They were overwhelmingly able-bodied, white people. So, I committed myself to do better; to search out authors of color, authors who are trans or non-binary, or queer, or have a neurological difference, or aren’t American. Diverse characters is a natural by-product of that. And I’ve found a challenge to support this.

#DiverseRomaneBingo card

Let me introduce you to the #DiverseRomanceBingo card. I came across this in a group I’m a member of, though there has hence been a Goodreads group established for it. The challenge began yesterday, Sept 17th, and runs until the end of the year, with the goal being to complete as many squares as possible in that time. This requires reading a book that includes the descriptor in the box and reviewing it is strongly encouraged.

Some will be no problem. I read plenty of M/M books. But others will take some searching. I can’t think of a romance, off the top of my head, that qualifies as having a Desi main character or love interest. The Indian subcontinent just ins’t somewhere a lot of characters in books published in English come from. It will require effort on my part to find a book for that square and as I’d like this challenge to also support #OwnVoices (which is a square, but also a broader goal) I’m hoping to find a romance by a Desi author to boot.

But this brings us back to my earlier disappointment and the realization that truly supporting diversity in publishing takes more than happy thoughts. It takes effort and action. This is what makes the bingo card so appealing to me. It makes such action accessible and engage-able. Obviously, it’s not enough. But it creates a visible and accomplishable goal that moves the participant in the right direction.

I’ll be starting this afternoon with Karen Stivali‘s Moments in Time series. It’s my understanding that some of the main characters are Jewish and bi. Those are some of my boxes. The book is also written by a #OwnVoices author, but you’re only allowed to tick one box per book and I’m choosing this one for the bi MC box. And I will continue in just this manner until the end of the year, when I’ll write a wrap up post. We’ll see how successful I am. Intentionality is important. So, I’m hopeful. Plus, some friends and I got together and put together some ideas.

I invite anyone who is interested to download the card and join me. Drop a link to your own post and/or #DiverseRomanceBingo reviews and I’ll check them all out. I do want to add a final word of caution, however. This is something that has to be approached respectfully. As soon as it’s reduced to just a game or something done for the social justice cookie, we risk tokenizing, objectifying and even commodifying the individuals represented. No amount of amplifying the group can excuse injuring the individual. Having said that, let’s spread the word and thank those responsible for creating the card. (You know who you are.)

Graceling

Book Review of Graceling, by Kristin Cashore

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Graceling

I bought a copy of Graceling, by Kristin Cashore.

Description from Goodreads:
Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight – she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.

When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change.

She never expects to become Po’s friend.

She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace – or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away…

Review:
Well, that was a pleasant surprise. I went through a YA phase a couple years ago, but almost every YA book I’ve read since them has made me all sorts of ragey. This was an exception.

I thought Katsa was a marvelously strong female characters, but also able to be compassionate and kind. (Not just a man with tits, which is a very common misrepresentation of strong women in my experience.) In fact, learning this fact was one of her biggest challenges of the book.

I liked seeing a common gender trope turned on its head, as it’s usually the tortured hero, instead of a heroine. The few other times I have encountered this, it’s been accompanied by an inference that she struggles with her own violence because she’s female and a man wouldn’t be so bothered, because he’s strong enough to handle it. Making her reluctance to kill a gendered fault, not a moral dilemma. I never felt that here, even as Katsa fought to move past being little more than a brute. It was personal growth, not personal weakness.

We had male/female platonic friendships. We had supportive female/female friendships. (It passes the Bechdel test.) We had a same sex couple. We had a male romantic partner that was empathic, expressive and liked pretty things. We had a romantic pairing that was presented as valid, even when it didn’t end in wedding bells and baby bonnets. We had men willing to accept a woman as their leader and be more skilled than themselves, without feeling humiliated. So much to appreciate.

I did think Katsa’s dislike of dresses and hair and such pretty things compromised the authors attempt to make her both strong and female. Why can’t she be a strong fighter and like female things? It’s like she can be female and strong, but not feminine and strong. She can remain a woman, but she has to give up the trappings of her gender before she can be convincingly strong and valiant? (This is one of the few man-with-tits strong female character traps I noticed Cashore falling into.)

This and some of Katsa’s obliviousness and ‘specialness’ felt a cliched. As was the use of sexual deviance to make the villain especially evil. This is plot device that has been used so often that it’s lost all effectiveness for me. I see it and think, well, the author just grabbed a pre-formed baddie for this one, didn’t she? Sexual deviance is frequently used in books to telegraph that a man is not just a bad man (a bad man might just be violent), but a very bad man and if he targets children a very, very bad man. No depth or exploration of character needed, because these actions are already conveniently placed on the continuum of evil for reader connivance. Plus, I didn’t really think it matched the tone of the res of the book.

Lastly, I thought there was a notable change of pace between the first and the second half of the book and Katsa was a little too resilient, accomplishing things that really should have killed her, even with her Grace. But all and all, I enjoyed this book.

What I’m drinking: A sample of Gwy-u Latte, given to me by the proprietor of Traveling Tea, when I last visited. I’d mentioned that I enjoyed chicory and she thought I might enjoy Gwy-u Latte tea. I did, very much. It’s a “green guayusa herbal honeybush rooibos blend.”

Bob Stevenson

Book Review of Bob Stevenson, by Richard Wiley

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Bob Stevenson

I won a paperback ARC of Richard Wiley‘s Bob Stevenson through Goodreads:

Description from Goodreads:
Dr. Ruby Okada meets a charming man with a Scottish accent in the elevator of her psychiatric hospital. Unaware that he is an escaping patient, she falls under his spell, and her life and his are changed forever by the time they get to the street.

Who is the mysterious man? Is he Archie B. Billingsly, suffering from dissociative identity disorder and subject to brilliant flights of fancy and bizarre, violent fits? Or is he the reincarnation of Robert Louis Stevenson, back to haunt New York as Long John Silver and Mr. Edward Hyde? Her career compromised, Ruby soon learns that her future and that of her unborn child depend on finding the key to his identity. 

Review:
I’m approaching my 300th book of the year (It’s Sept.) and I bet I haven’t given a dozen books five stars. But Bob Stevenson deserves it. Heck, I’d probably give it five stars for Gerard alone, who has to be the cutest, most genuine character I’ve read in a while. He was a true pleasure to read and I adored the way people accepted him into their lives and loved him too.

But the rest of the characters were of interest as well. Ruby, who finds herself in a baffling and embarrassing situation. Archie/Bob who is fighting his own demons. Dr. Utterson and Bette, who provide the necessary sidekicks, along with Dad and the nun. All engaging in their own way. Granted, you never get to know them deeply, but they fulfill their role succinctly.

The writing is marvelous. I laughed repeatedly at the dry humor. The fact that you’re never wholly sure where the surreal stops and the actual paranormal might pick up kept me biting my nails. Lastly, I was thrilled to see non-white main characters and people successfully functioning with disabilities. All in all, a real winner for me.

What I’m drinking: My husband makes amazing coffee. He uses an aeropress and puts a dollop of heavy whipping cream in it. Yeah, heaven. I read Bob Stevenson while one on the go, and Hubs sent me off with the ambrosia of life.