March Reading and Reviews by Maia KobabeI post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goo

March Reading and Reviews by Maia KobabeI post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Full reviews below the cut.  Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles read by Cornell Collins Like many WWI vets, Will Darling struggles to find any kind of employment in England after he gets back from the war. In desperation he writes to a long estranged uncle and reconnects to him just before the man’s death. Will inherits a used bookstore which harbors a dangerous secret. The recipe for a weapon even more deadly than gas is hidden somewhere among the 40,000 books and many boxes of papers his uncle left behind– or so Will must assume, when he begins to receive threatening visits from both the War Office and also a violent anarchist organization. Seemingly by chance, a charming man named Kim Secretan shows up at just the right moment to offer Will his friendship, his help, and maybe more. There’s an undeniable sexual attraction between them from the start, but Kim is full of his own secrets, and before long Will isn’t sure if he’s an ally or an enemy. This is a pulp romance with a satisfying amount of twists and turns. There were a few times in which I think Will fell into slightly obvious traps or showed less agency than he could have; but the high-tension ending gave him time to shine, and show off his own bravery and skill. I’ve been meaning to start this series forever and I’m pleased I finally made time for the audiobook. I definitely plan to keep reading the series! The Secret Garden on 81st Street by Ivy Noelle Weir and Amber Padilla A really delightful retelling of “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, but set in the modern day. The 1993 movie was one of my absolute favorites as a child, and this book hits all of the important emotional notes. I really liked the adaption of Colin’s illness into anxiety, and the conversations about how Colin and Mary process their respective grief differently. Martha and Dickon are as cheerful and supportive as always, and Mary and Dickon’s friendship feels genuine. The secret garden is as beautiful and healing on a rooftop in New York as in the English countryside. Love Beyond the Body, Space and Time: An Indigenous LGBTQ Sci-Fi anthology edited by Hope Nicholson This is a very short anthology, just 120 pages, which I think flew under the radar when it came out in 2016. It contains short stories from some very well known Indigenous authors, including Cherie Dimaline (The Marrow Thieves, Empire of Wild), Daniel Heath Justice (Why Indigenous Literatures Matter), and Darcie Little Badger (Elatsoe, A Snake Falls to Earth) among others. For me, the stand out was Darcie Little Badger’s story about a Lipan Apache veterinarian on a spaceship to Mars, who has to be woken out of stasis sleep because of an emergency, and builds a friendship (or something more) with the Diné pilot. But all of the stories are very good, and I hope people still continue to find this collection even thought the indie publisher has now folded. Property of the Rebel Librarian by Allison Varnes June, a 12 year old bookworm, brings home a book with the word “witch” in the title and her very strict parents freak out, confiscate it and all other books in her room, and the bring up the issue to the principle of her middle school. June got the book from the middle school library, and very shortly the librarian is suspended and nearly all books have been removed from the shelves to be reviewed by a panel. Teachers are told they cannot assign any reading outside of the approved curriculum, and students are threatened with detention if they are caught with an unassigned book. June loves book too much to roll over- she starts lending books to fellow students out of an empty locker, dubbing herself ‘The Rebel Librarian’. This is a quick and easy read, which I would have enjoyed a lot at age 12.However, I checked it out because I am a trans author of a book which had been facing a series of bans and challenges all around the country. The patterns that I am seeing in the current wave of book challenges is this: books with queer themes, books on the history of racism, books by POC authors, and books about sexual health, sex ed, and abortion are the books being hit the hardest. None of those topics ever come up in Property of the Rebel Librarian, and June’s parents don’t seem to have any particular political or religious stand point- their only motivation is an intense, manic desire to control their child for her “safety”. Making the book bans in this middle grade novel more explicitly about queer books, trans books, books by POC authors etc would have made this narrative much more political- and possible made the book itself more vulnerable to the exact kind of book challenges that it talks about! I can see why the author chose to tell a simpler, smaller story. But I do think a lot of depth was lost to me, an adult reader, by making the logic behind the bans apolitical and rather tame. The Magical Language of Others by E. J. Koh, read by the author The author and narrator, Eun Ji, was born in the US to Korean parents. When she was 15 and her brother 18, her parents decided to move back to Korea for a temporary job which was only meant to last three years. They left Eun Ji behind in California with her brother. Instead of three years, her parents were gone for seven years and Eun Ji struggled with anger, isolation, and loneliness through her teenage years. This pain sent her searching for family stories: of her grandmother Kumiko who survived WWII and the Jeju Island Massacre; of her grandmother Jun who survived years of her husband’s infidelities until she died seemingly of a broken heart. Of her own mother, orphaned early, and her decisions to be present for siblings rather than her children. Eun Ji moved through identities– a student, a traveler, a dancer, a poet– and through languages– Korean, English and Japanese– trying to find her place in the world and a way to forgive her parents for leaving her. There’s a lot of pain in this story, but the ultimate message seems to be that the only way to move past it is to face it and name it. You Can’t Say That! Thirteen Authors of Banned Books Talk about Freedom, Censorship, and the Power of Words edited by Leonard S Marcus An excellent series of interviews with authors who have faced book bans and challenges in the past. In the current surge of book censorship, it was helpful to remember that waves of book challenges arise up every few years, and authors and librarians continue to face them and in the majority of cases, the books are returned to the shelves. The editor, Leonard S Marcus, is a skillful and well-researched interviewer who draws out stories of the authors own childhoods, their inspirations, and what actions they decided to take when their works were challenged. These actions varied greatly: some authors wrote letters of support for every community facing a challenge and traveled and spoke widely. Others chose to do nothing, deciding that the defending of books was not the business of a writer of books. RL Stein in particular states “Early on, I learned that the number one rule is: never defend yourself. I was taught that lesson by a media coach when I was getting ready for an interview with the Today show.” Angie Thomas best summarized the feelings I have been having as I see Gender Queer banned and challenged: “When you ban a book, what you are essentially doing is telling the kids who see themselves in that book that their story makes you uncomfortable. That they make you uncomfortable… you’re saying I don’t want to know more about you. I don’t want to know you. That is the message that censorship sends.”Across a Field of Starlight by Blue Delliquanti Lu is a happy, cheerful child of the Field Commune, a utopian community of scientists and artists who travel around the edges of the universe to avoid the massive conflict in the center- a war between the Ever-Blossoming Empire and the Firebreak rebels. Lu encounters Fassen, a war orphan, on a neutral planet on the wreck of a cruiser, helps them summon a rebel ship, and gives them a communication device which allows them to stay in touch. As young adults, Lu conducts solo scientific surveys, while Fassen trains as a soldier in the rebel army. The second meeting of their life occurs when Fassen flees with stolen technology, and brings the war right to Lu’s doorstep. This is a rich, diverse, and extremely queer sci-fi story which I’ve been highly anticipating! In an interview, I heard the author call this the story of “a long distance friendship between a kid from a Star Trek world and a kid from a Star Wars world” and that summary does capture some of the book’s flavor. I loved the extreme contrast of the two societies, and how clearly they shape the choices each teen makes, and the things they are capable of imagining. The art is gorgeous, full of beautiful and thoughtful colors, and the characters and ships are all grounded in solid design up satisfyingly unique. Definitely recommend. The Greatest Thing by Sarah Winifred Searle Winifred is a talented artist, a lover of comics and fantasy, who struggles with loneliness, low-self esteem, a borderline eating disorder, insomnia, and depression. Her two closest friends both left her high school at the end of the previous year, and she starts sophomore year with a sense of dread. Luckily, a friend she had drifted apart from in middle school takes Winifred under her wing, and she also makes two new friends in her creative independent study class. Rich, rebellious April is always ready to pull people into her orbit and her projects; quiet, queer Oscar is her willing sidekick. Together, the three begin working on a fairytale zine series in which Winifred finds a powerful outlet for the emotions she feels unable to share. But her secrets begin to separate her from her friends, who in turn don’t share the real depths of their own struggles. This is a soft, slow, gentle story of a queer fat artist slowly coming out of her shell and into the power of her own creative voice. I really enjoyed the nuanced portrayals of friendships, and watching Winifred grow. Some of the information at the start of the book was revealed in a slightly awkward order, which made the first 1/3 a bit choppy; however, the story settled down by the middle and finished strong. Dead Collections by Isaac FellmanWelcome to the book I will be shouting about all year!! I read this book in two days and I loved it! The main character, Sol Katz, is trans, and Jewish, and works in archives. He also happens to be a vampire. In this book, vampirism is like a chronic illness, and indeed, Sol didn’t become a vampire via a bite but via a medial intervention when he was dying of tetanus. Throughout the story he has to regularly visit a blood clinic to get transfusions, and it is as underfunded and grim as any part of the US healthcare system. Sol is also a fan; he was an active member of the fandom for a 90s sci-fi TV show called Feet of Clay, a kind of X-Files/Star Trek/Twilight Zone mix. When the lesbian showrunner of Feet of Clay passes away her widow donates all of her papers to the historical society where Sol works. He is very excited get to read drafts of an unfinished novel included among them. He also has an immediate spark of attraction with the widow and they develop a deeply trans and queer relationship that is so satisfying. It hits so hard. And also… the papers might be haunted? I don’t want to say anything else about the plot because this is quite a short book actually, with TV scripts, email threads, and text messages mixed in with the prose making it read even faster. I can’t recommend it more highly. Everyone go read it!These Are Love(d) Letters by Ames Hawkins A literary exploration which mixes nonfiction and memoir surrounding the theme of love letters. The author’s parents met, fell in love, and then courted through a series of letters all in one whirlwind summer of 1966. Years later- after her parents divorced, after her father came out as gay, and contracted HIV- the author’s mother passed on the series of 20 letters from 1966. The author, who also grew up to be queer and an artist, weaves in memories, quotes, and research to build a story of a relationship beginning and ending, of her father’s illness and eventual death, and his creative and destructive impulses. Many other famous love letters are discussed including those written by Emily Dickenson, Radclyffe Hall, Janet Flanner, Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. The book itself is full of collage elements and interesting use of handwriting and ephemera in the design. It made me want to re-read Nigel Nicholson’s Portrait of a Marriage, another book written by the child of queer artists (Vita Sackville-West’s son) and also catch up on my correspondence. -- source link
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