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historyofjess's reviews
2011 reviews
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
I read this book as part of the D&I Book Club at work and it was not my first choice for this quarter's selection because it's just not the type of book that normally grabs me but I kept an open mind about it going in and...it still never really grabbed me. While of a Black woman passing in both a white and male-dominated world sounds interesting to me, it was really this particular world that never grabbed me. The glittering world of well-moneyed collectors of antique books (and sometimes artwork) is just somewhere I had no desire to visit and I was far less charmed by the men Belle rubbed elbows with than she was. This was especially true with both her love story with an art historian and he flirtation with her boss (J.P. Morgan, one in a long line of robber barons). Not only was the romance underbaked, these men were just awful.
There is an author's note at the end of the book that goes into detail about the various plot points in the book and how they are related to historical facts that are known about its protagonist and I couldn't help but wonder if the authors were so focused on being accurate in their portrayal that they didn't allow for any real depth on the page. There were so many characters in this novel and yet none of them ever felt fully realized to me. It felt like I was just hitting points on a chronological map. And it seemed like they were also so enamored with the woman they were writing about that they never really allowed her to be real person, which is an issues I have with a lot of fictionalized biographies.
There is an author's note at the end of the book that goes into detail about the various plot points in the book and how they are related to historical facts that are known about its protagonist and I couldn't help but wonder if the authors were so focused on being accurate in their portrayal that they didn't allow for any real depth on the page. There were so many characters in this novel and yet none of them ever felt fully realized to me. It felt like I was just hitting points on a chronological map. And it seemed like they were also so enamored with the woman they were writing about that they never really allowed her to be real person, which is an issues I have with a lot of fictionalized biographies.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Apart (of me), Part 1 by Andrew Chambliss, Joss Whedon, Cliff Richards, Scott Allie
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor, Janina Matthewson
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This was such a fun read. The book is presented as a piece of found literature (a memoir) with addendums and footnotes from the organization that found her writing and made the, as they say, controversial decision, to publish it. The narrator traces her life in an alternate history of the Earth beset by worldwide conflict in the early 20th century all the way through the building of a new society. But what could have been just an intricate world-building book is elevated by the book's structure, which becomes a battle of unreliable narrators.
The footnotes and interludes begin with a kind of passionless, historically-minded voice, but as they needle and pick at the author's recollections over the course of the book, they become more hostile and judgmental. And as we learn more about the story the author is telling and why she is telling it, the longer footnotes seem less insidious than the frequent use of brief, "edited for clarity" notes. It's a wild ride that I thoroughly enjoyed and I was excited to learn at the end that this was actually born from a podcast these authors created in this universe and I'm excited to dig into that, as well.
The footnotes and interludes begin with a kind of passionless, historically-minded voice, but as they needle and pick at the author's recollections over the course of the book, they become more hostile and judgmental. And as we learn more about the story the author is telling and why she is telling it, the longer footnotes seem less insidious than the frequent use of brief, "edited for clarity" notes. It's a wild ride that I thoroughly enjoyed and I was excited to learn at the end that this was actually born from a podcast these authors created in this universe and I'm excited to dig into that, as well.
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
While reading this, I kept thinking of Martin Starr's Silicon Valley talking about his obsession with "hard sci-fi." There is definitely a lot of science in this book. As a non-scientist, I can't speak to the veracity of any of it, especially because I zoned out during so many of those passages. It was like the songs in Tolkien books, but if they were mostly made of numbers. But my real issues with this book is the characters...or lack thereof. There are a lot of people in this book, but no fully realized characters. The author is clearly much more interested in the puzzle box of science that they have created and the people they have chosen to convey this were very much an afterthought. And that's just a flaw that I can never get past in a book. I don't care how detailed and meticulous your plotting is, if you can't give me characters to care about. Also...there's kind of a plot, but mostly it's just a mystery box set up for the future books in the series.
Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae
informative
3.25
I found this book to be a bit academically dry in a kind of "this happened and then this happened" kind of way. Still, it's packed with a lot of information about the part that white women have played in the creation of modern conservatism. The book doesn't actually make that case explicitly, but it's pretty hard to read about women trying to control textbooks and education and removing prayer in schools and the like and not draw a straight line to things like modern library book bans and other Christo-fascist elements of the right-wing.
Witchcraft Activism: A Toolkit for Magical Resistance (Includes Spells for Social Justice, Civil Rights, the Environment, and More) by David Salisbury
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
3.0
As with a lot of "how-to's" on witchcraft or activism, I expected this to be something that I would take some insights from and probably reject others...and I was correct. It's actually probably at it's best as a beginners guide to activism, with some witchy stuff thrown in.
I did get the sense that the author (a cis, gay, white man) has some very specific and limited experiences with activism (most of his example are environmental and on a fairly grassroots level — e.g., trying to get trees from being knocked down). In a section on defense, he casually mentions that if you're reading this book, you're probably not likely to need bodily defense...which is a hell of a thing to read while witnessing college kids get manhandled off campuses for protesting a genocide, but okay, dude.
Still, there's some fun thoughts and ideas for merging your own magical practices with activism, which is pretty neat.
I did get the sense that the author (a cis, gay, white man) has some very specific and limited experiences with activism (most of his example are environmental and on a fairly grassroots level — e.g., trying to get trees from being knocked down). In a section on defense, he casually mentions that if you're reading this book, you're probably not likely to need bodily defense...which is a hell of a thing to read while witnessing college kids get manhandled off campuses for protesting a genocide, but okay, dude.
Still, there's some fun thoughts and ideas for merging your own magical practices with activism, which is pretty neat.
Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises by Rebecca Solnit
informative
medium-paced
3.0
This is the second of Solnit's essay collections I've read and I just don't think she's for me. I just don't find her insights to be particularly revelatory. I'm sure these essays could be helpful to some folks, they just mostly felt like things I've already heard or read before (and the Trump-related stuff is definitely extremely well-trod territory). The one essay I found interesting was the story of a Latinx man that had been murdered by police in San Francisco, not because it had anything new to say about police violence, but because it was a story of police violence that I had not heard as much about before.
Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings by Valerie Trouet
informative
slow-paced
2.0
This seemed like it had the potential to be really fascinating, but, unfortunately, in reading this, I was left with the sensation of being cornered at a party by someone explaining to me the minutia of their field of study after a simple question like, "what's tree ring science?" Trouet has a tendency to explain absolutely everything when a more succinct set of facts will do and it made some of the more interesting information she had to convey watered down by the fact overload.
The Factory Witches of Lowell by C.S. Malerich
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
There are some really interesting ideas in here, but unfortunately, the author seems far more interested in the melding of magic and labor politics (which, I agree, is very cool) than on the characters. I really wanted to spend more time with the women at the center of this story and get to know them, instead of feeling like they were there to pivot the ideas of this world around.
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
I...don't totally understand this book. I'm confused as to why this story was told from the perspective of a distant and removed third party that was thrust into the world of a callous and man who leaves his family to become an artist, proceeding to leave all manner of human wreckage in his path until he dies blind in Tahiti. I can't say I really cared about the douche artist guy. I definitely didn't care about the guy that was just following him around, first because the guy's wife asked him to, then because he was just kind of fascinated. I don't know that there's a version of this story that I would care to read, but this is definitely not it.