nmcannon's reviews
1301 reviews

While Last Night at the Telegraph Club has been touted across the Internet, what made me pick it up was our fridge magnet. Our favorite book delivery service, Rainbow Crate, made a (v adorable) fridge magnet of Lily and Kath. I needed to understand the adorableness. Also, yanno, I’ve been meaning to read Malinda Lo, the lesbian YA icon herself.

In 1954 San Francisco, life isn’t easy. Less easy if you’re a Chinese American high schooler on the cusp of the adult world, with its Red and Lavender Scares, xenophobia, white supremacy, and patriarchy. Even-less-easy-than-that if you’re a lesbian. In other words, Lily’s really going through it. She burns to know, to understand; to grow up. And it seems like her classmate Kath is asking the same questions.

I love this book. On a craft level, the sentences flowed like clear water, word after word after word. The characters were vibrant and nuanced. I literally wiggled with excitement about the historical details, because they were such a perfect cross-section of my historical studies and my family stories of growing up in the ‘50s. The plot engaged me, and the character and thematic work brought disparate elements together like they were meant to be. While Lo meant Last Night at the Telegraph Club to be a standalone, I would 100% read a sequel about Lily and Kath as adults.

Do I recommend Last Night at the Telegraph Club? HELL YEAH I DO. Lo is lauded as an award-winning wordsmith for good reason. Treat yourself to Lily’s journey.

River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko by Yosano Akiko

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inspiring fast-paced

4.0

River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko is my second time reading a collection of her poetry. After reading the biography/academic study Embracing the Firebird, I was raring for more.

Matsui Keiko-san and Hamill Sam-san craft a very straightforward poetry collection. The introduction is quite brief, and I’m glad I saved this volume for after I’d found my footing with Akiko-san’s work and life. The funniest part of the introduction was the compliment of how spiritual Akiko-san’s work can be. Usually this descriptor conjures images of devotion, grace, and praise. For Akiko-san, it’s multiple poems about how, in her opinion, Buddhism sucks, hahahahaha.

In addition to select tanka from the Midaregami, River of Stars includes Akiko-san’s more longform poetry. The iconic “Thou Shalt Not Die, Brother!” is as epic as advertised in the Bungo Stray Dogs anime. Other longer works were more odd and less feminist. Her described utopia sounds good…until she mentions censorship. In another, she urges women to be their husband’s equal, to work, and have a job. The poem insists that the only things getting in the way of these goals are inclination, and bemoans that women limit themselves to motherly/wifely roles and “frivolous” things. The irony tasted metallic when the next poem lamented how hard it was to be the sole wage-earner in a household. Patriarchy is awful. These poems were a reminder that Akiko-san is a fallible human like the rest of us.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection and continuing my journey with Akiko-san and her poetry. The library has no more books on her, sadly, so I’ll have to keep an eye out elsewhere.

Embracing the Firebird: Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry by Janine Beichman

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informative inspiring slow-paced

5.0

After delighting in the English translation of Midaregami, I wanted to learn even more about Akiko-san’s life and poetry. Embracing the Firebird was a natural next choice, and, turns out, a good one.

Embracing the Firebird is part biography and part bibliography of the first third of poet Akiko-san’s life, from birth to her publication of Midaregami. Beichman’s intended audience seems to be academics and students, but her accessible, dynamic prose and truly beautiful translation work make this book a really awesome resource for anyone interested in Akiko-san. I honestly wish I’d read this first before Midaregami’s other English translation. Beichman’s accounting is comprehensive, engaging, and sometimes funny. Shucking off her shroud, Akiko-san changed from an obscured figure to a stubborn, horny spitfire poet with a sharp tongue and sharper mind to match. In my other deep dives on early twentieth century Japanese writers, I’ve been frustrated how researchers study the writer in isolation. Like, they think artists are lonely creatures, uninfluenced by their family, friends, and communities. Beichman happily and doggedly researches Akiko-san’s family, teachers, and literary colleagues. Especially fascinating was how Beichman contrasted the poetry’s initial critical reception to today’s modern thought about Akiko-san’s work.

A marvelous chunk of the book dedicates itself to translation and poetic analysis of Midaregami’s tanka. Overall, I loved and agreed with Biechman’s analysis. She tracked Akiko-san’s influences from plays, movies, books, trips, museum exhibits, and popular culture, which added color and texture to the biographical context. A couple thesis statements I disagreed with, and, surprise, surprise, they regarded queer subtext. As I explained in my review of A Girl with Tangled Hair (the English translation of Midaregami), Akiko-san is an important figure in queer Japanese history, but a controversial one. Despite an intense relationship with fellow poetess Yamakawa Tomiko-san, Akiko-san never publicly identified as queer. Yet queer readers–especially sapphic and polyamorous readers–find a mirror in her poems. It’s a thorny topic. For a few tanka, it seemed like Biechman bent over backwards to explain around the more obvious queer reading. For example, one explanation involved Akiko-san maybe seeing this one painting, in this one specific exhibit, and slightly misinterpreting it in a very peculiar manner. To me, the poem was about how fun it is to eat a lady out.

Embracing the Firebird covers the entire tapestry of Akiko-san’s young life. I read it to learn, for the sake of learning. By the end, my brain was alight, hungry for more facts about Akiko-san and her poetry. I hope Biechman goes on to write the next two books on Akiko’s middle and later life. Someone get this academic some funding STAT!

My review of the English translation, A Girl with Tangled Hair: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/8398a227-0d3a-47ed-925c-ff068424e3c5

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

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adventurous emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Though my book club usually focuses on sapphic stories, we took a short achillian break to read Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell. I’m not as big a fan of science fiction as my partner or friends, but I enjoyed Maxwell’s different take on the space empire genre.

Prince Kiem leads a life of extravagance and luxury, because it’s his birthright and it’s the one thing he’s good at. When his father the Emperor reminds him of the concept of responsibility and demands Kiem marry a prince from a vassal state, Kiem agrees, because what else is a prince to do. What he expects to be a purely platonic political marriage gets more complicated by a murder and Count Jainan’s courteous integrity and quiet kindness. The pair navigate truly heinous schedules and byzantine politics to find one another and thrive.

I immensely enjoyed the exploration of the role of diplomacy in an empire. In a genre often intertwined with military fiction, the nuances of talking problems out and balancing the needs of nations are a more unusual narrative milieu. The diplomatic and social sphere focus also created an interesting quirk that Kiem and Jainan don’t have much time together for a significant portion of the book. Their schedules snarl and tangle something bad. To tide the reader over, Maxwell shows off their individual characters and allows the reader to realize how compatible the two men are. As soon as they have downtime, they will hash stuff out and be together. The early separation strengthens the thematic messaging that the men can survive as individuals on their own–even do meaningful work for their communities–but together they thrive and serve better.

As you might guess from the two love interests not talking or seeing each other for 50+ pages, the love plot takes a backseat to the mystery and world-building. The Remenants introduce interesting Cthonic connective tissue to the overarching series. The mystery kept me guessing, and the connection to Jainan’s past was an extra carrot. At one point, Maxwell indulged in a fanfiction trope, which makes me wonder if Winter’s Orbit started on Archive of Our Own. Probably? Maybe as original fiction?

If you like imperial murder mysteries in space with high Charisma and Intelligence characters, if you want a break from the space military shoot-em-up’s, I recommend Winter’s Orbit.

I Want to be a Wall, Vol. 1 by Honami Shirono

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emotional lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Old-Fashioned Cupcake by 佐岸左岸, Sagan Sagan

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hopeful slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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nmcannon's reviews 1301 reviews

nmcannon's reviews
1301 reviews