Queer Representation, Knights, and Shapeshifting: Book Review of Nimona

 

Nimona by N.D. Stevenson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In Nimona, by ND Stevenson, Nimona shows up at Lord Ballister Blackheart’s evil lair unexpected, claiming that she has been sent to be his new sidekick. Ballister at first dismisses the girl, uninterested in her offer, until he learns that she is a shapeshifter. And quite the shapeshifter indeed, as she can be a dragon, a cat, an old lady, whatever she chooses to be. She is also eager to attack The Syndicate and Sir Goldenloin, Ballister’s arch nemesis. Ballister’s backstory shows that he has been forced into villany and that Goldenloin is to blame. He does not wish to destroy human lives without regard, nor does he lack compassion for others. However, as Ballister soon discovers, Nimona does not play by the same rules as Ballister, nor does she live by the same principles.

The world that Nimona and Ballister live in has knights and magic, but also science and modern technology. The juxtaposition adds to the humor and play in the story. Swords and bio weapons in the same volume--yes, please.

Even as Nimona takes a wrong turn, it is clear that we should love this broken-hearted child. She may look and act like a dragon at times, but she is still a vulnerable child who acts out as a result of trauma. Trauma, trust, and power are important conversations in the book.

Would I teach Nimona? Yes. Nimona is darkly hilarious and the main character is charming as well as dangerous. Ballister, as de facto mentor, parent, and boss is also morally complicated. I love graphic novels, and I love that there is a queer plotline. Representation in literature is so important.

 

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Messing with Your Mind: Book Review of ReInception

 

ReInception by Sarena Straus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to StoryGraph and Sarena Straus for the review copy of ReInception by Sarena Straus, which I received with the expectation of a fair and honest review.

ReInception begins with Leandrea’s twentieth birthday, the age when she no longer needs her parents’ consent to modify herself through ReInception, a technique that alters the brain in order to change habits. Originally designed to help addicts rid themselves of the craving for substances, ReInception is now used for everything from snacking too much to altering criminals to avoid incarceration. For Leandrea’s birthday, she has chosen to go to a Prole bar--a place the lower class of society frequents, far different from the places she and her university pals inhabit--and then to a protest against ReInception.

When violence erupts at the protest, Leandrea’s life changes forever and she finds herself needing to decide if she will stay in her naive but relatively safe world or go in search of the truth.

Okay, I am going to be honest. I read a lot of books, for teaching, for pleasure, and for the purpose of reviewing ARCs. When I began reviewing books from Goodreads FirstReads (it is now Goodreads Giveaways), I thought, hey, free books. The way that Goodreads runs the program is that you enter a free raffle on their site, then winners’ names are drawn to receive physical or Kindle copies of the books that the publisher or author has offered. ReInception is the first book I have received from StoryGraph giveaways, a reading website and app that has some important differences from Goodreads, such as more clearly tracking pages read. Many of the books are ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) and many of them are quite good. Astoundingly good, in fact. However, many of them are clunkers. It is not in my nature not to finish a book--once I start, I am committed. There are very few books I have not finished--usually overdue library books I could not renew again. Now that I have more responsibilities--family, etc, etc, and less dispensable time, I find it more important to use my time where I can potentially have an impact. I hope that by reading and reviewing books, I will help other authors by getting the word out about their work.  (Yes, I know that I read a fair number of books that are not ARCs and are written by dead, famous authors who don’t need any help from me. As I said, I read books for other purposes, too.) This is all just to say, I am happy when books surprise me and appeal to my tastes. ReInception is one of those books that was even more enjoyable than I expected.  

Leandrea, the main character, does not come from the most affluent and influential family, but they belong to the upper class and have jobs as political liaisons. They have wisely chosen not to modify their daughter, but by not modifying her, they have effectively made her an outsider. She does, however, have communication implants, which are basically standard for the time, like having a smartphone is today. In part, the book seems to be discussing capitalism, the role of government in an individual’s ability to make their own decisions, and the influence of companies over human behavior and the government. Another discussion, which is in many ways more interesting, is the conversation about privilege. As we struggle in our own society to address the question of racial privilege, part of the question is about what role the privileged should play in righting the wrongs of inequality. Who should be able to make decisions? Who should lead the movement for change? Who, ultimately, should be in charge of the changes made to society and the government?

Would I teach this book? ReInception would be a good fit in a literature or creating writing class focused on science fiction. The novel follows several of the trends in science fiction: technology ruled world, government overreach, and a blurred line between corporations and the government. The female main character, which has become more common, and a learning of the truth that has been hidden from the rest of society are also common themes.

In considering the character of Leandrea, she is the typical outsider/individual who is driven out of society, though in this case, Leandrea seems more driven not towards the truth, but in concern for social equality. Her carelessness in some of her actions, as mentioned earlier, including her assumption that she would be welcomed at a Prole bar and not seen as a tourist, her romanticization of the freedom of the Prole class, and her assumptions about their lives make clear how problematic her interest is. That, and Straus’s incredible world building, are what make this book most stand out.

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Happily Ever After--It's Kind of Complex (Book Review of Happily: A Personal History with Fairy Tales by Sabrina Orah Mark)

 

Happily: A Personal History-with Fairy Tales by Sabrina Orah Mark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Random House Book Club and Goodreads Giveaways for the review copy of Happily: A Personal History—with Fairy Tales by Sabrina Orah Mark, which I received in exchange for a fair and honest review.

In Happily, Mark uses fairytales to discuss personal experiences and public concerns. She considers characters and retellings, gender roles, and the lessons the stories are meant to teach.

While Mark uses fairytales to discuss many different topics, the subject she returns to the most often is family. Her mother enters as a voice on the telephone, her children have the wisdom of youth, her husband as the intonation of support and affection. However, Mark also discusses her struggles as a third wife and stepmother. Knowing that your beloved has had lives before you is always a haint in the background, but ex partners and children make for much noisier ghosts, especially when their history is more complicated than your own.

Happily, for all the difficult and weighty topics it discusses, is not overly heavy, in part because the book chapters are so short. Each chapter is an essay that’s scarcely a breath.

The essays make use of a lot of tactics that poetry uses: allusions, layering of stories, repetition, and bringing together disparate pieces. Her essays are beautiful collages.

Would I teach Happily? Yes. The essays are excellent instruction of what essays can do and how they can disrupt a typical narrative structure.

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Where Are We Going with This? Book Review of The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

 

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, we are given an insight into what being a grunt in Vietnam looked like. We learn stories of death and horror and desensitization and survival. We learn how it felt to kill and how it felt to be wounded. We learn how the men supported each other and sometimes failed each other.

The title story of The Things They Carried is widely taught and anthologized, and for good reason. In “The Things They Carried,” the driving force behind the story is the anaphoric phrase, “the things they carried” followed by the literal and figurative things that the soldiers schlepped with them as they traveled through Vietnam. The story is poetic and lyrical, in large part because of the repeated phrase, but also because of the attention to rhythm and detail. For example, the story begins with First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, who is leading the men, and who is carrying letters from a young woman as well as her pictures. The bigger weight is his love and desire for her, which is unrequited.

The opening story begins the juxtaposition of men who are not emotionally prepared for the violence, hatred, and indifference of war. None seem to be career military, just men who were drafted and heeded the call. They are united by their fear of death, their desire to live, and their methods of staying sane.

The stories in the book are all clearly linked, and more than once, a story is followed by a metafiction account of what was changed to make it a story and why. The narrator does not figure as a character in the opening story, but as the book continues, his status as character grows and wanes, but his importance as author to the stories certainly grows. He is the one who remembers for all of those young men, who extends their mortality by writing about them, and who alters the stories to make them into stories and to create justice, explore emotions, and to just give the experiences meaning. Has the truth been altered? Yes. Has the Truth been altered? O’Brien takes pains to help us think not.

The stories are dark and terrible, as you would assume. They are uncomfortable to read. But the book is just as much about writing as it is about war.

Would I teach this book? Short answer, yes. Longer answer, if reading the entire book of short stories, it seems more appropriate for a higher level literature course in which the students could appreciate the technical beauty and sophistication of the stories. As stated previously, the book is as much a collection of short stories as it is a discussion of writing and the process of transforming life into art.

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I Love You to a Black Hole and Back: Book Review of Under Alien Skies

 

Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe by Philip Plait
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to W. W. Norton and GoodReads Giveaways, from whom I received an ARC of Dr. Philip Plait’s Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe in exchange for a fair and honest review.

In Under Alien Skies, Plait takes us across the universe, exploring our solar system, galaxy, and beyond. He helps the reader imagine being a tourist in many different places--from the moon to a dwarf star to a black hole. Each adventure has corresponding evidence and history of how we know what we know. There is much to learn from this book, especially for someone like me, who has not learned about space since middle school. I didn’t have astronomy in high school or college, so that is the case for me.

In the second person sections which describe the different trips throughout the universe, Plait creates the experience of being on a spaceship and describing both the sensations and what you might see. There is a captain, of course, and moments when everyone on board is viewing together. There is some discussion of the travel it takes to get there, and admissions from the author when things would have been fudged to make the impossible (as we know it) possible.

The majority of the book, however, is dedicated to science, discussing the composition of planets and stars, the effect of gravity in different places, the possibility of humans traveling to or living in different places. The tone is chatty and the language is not complicated, though it introduces the reader to a lot of vocabulary. This book is clearly written for the common person, and not someone who knows a whole lot about space. There is a lot of information, and if you are looking for a good science writing book, here it is.

Would I teach this book? Well--probably not. I can see that this is a good book. That’s obvious. But it was a little too dense to be entertaining to me. It took me a while to read and I found it to be--well--not to my taste. So, while there might be a lot in the book for my students to learn, it would not be enjoyable for me. And I cannot say that a lot of the information stuck with me. I found my mind drifting in several places. So. while I might recommend this to others who enjoy science writing, especially astronomy, I would not assign it for my class.

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Fantasy Island: Book Review of Relics of Youth

 

Relics of Youth: Volume 1 by Chad Rebmann
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you, Fort Vancouver Regional Library, for sending the bookmobile out to the rural school where I teach and enabling me to check out Relics of Youth by Matt Nicholas, Chad Rebmann, Skylar Patridge, and Vladimir Popov.

In Relics of Youth, Nat Rodriguez has gathered five other teenagers to journey together and find the island that has mysteriously appeared as a tattoo on all of them. There is the rich boy, the former child star, the goody-two-shoes, the tight-laced boy who’s about to join the military, the boy going through chemo, and Nat, who is an orphaned misfit. Not all the teens are so excited about the trip, as they are quite skeptical. The rich boy, Garrett, is taking them all out on his massive yacht and almost immediately there are squabbles. Once on the island, they discover that they have been followed by villains, and in order to stay alive, they must stick together--especially after strange things start to happen. The crew needs to solve the mystery of the island that summoned them before their pursuers can take them down.

Relics of Youth sets itself up as a current day story based on myths. The main characters are clearly stereotypes and it is just as clear that the six will pair off into three couples, though to my taste, I would have preferred less obvious coupling . It feels almost as though the comic was dreaming itself as a movie. A little more subtlety all the way around would have done the plot wonders.

It seemed that the volume was set up to be the beginning of a series, but I could not find any additional volumes, and this one came out in 2020. It may have been another endeavor that crumbled due to Covid or perhaps this volume did not sell enough to follow up. In any case, though I was a bit underwhelmed by the first volume, I was interested in reading a second volume--though if the library did not have it, I doubt that I would have purchased it.

Would I teach this book? I doubt it. Relics of Youth seems recursive of Runaways and Teen Titans. If I were teaching a graphic novel class, I would be more likely to teach one of those series than Relics of Youth, as these characters did not grab me as much and it seems nearly unfathomable that their parents would be okay with their teenaged children traveling without them or another chaperone. There’s fantasy and then there’s fantasy.

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Grief in the Age of Smartphones: Book Review of Help! I'm Alive

 

Help! I'm Alive by Gurjinder Basran
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you to ECW and GoodReads for providing the ARC of Help! I’m Alive by Gurjinder Basran, which I received with the expectation of a fair and honest review. Please note: this book and the review include discussions of suicide and self-harm.

As the book begins, Ash is scrolling through his phone, disgusted by the response to his childhood best friend’s suicide. Jay and Ash had not been tight for some time, so in addition to his grief, he feels guilty. The social media viral response to the death--which was posted and later removed--is one of gossipy shock.

Ash’s mother, Pavan, is horrified by Jay’s death, and it brings into clarity the disconnect between herself and Ash and also between her and Ash’s older brother, Anik. She has been a classic lawnmower parent, going before them to clear the path of anything that could be harmful. By removing any struggle, she has created an entirely different struggle for her sons.

Anik, though an adult, has been cloistered in the family’s basement, too wrought with anxiety and depression to leave. A musical prodigy as a child, Anik is now unsure of what to do with his life, the purpose of life in general, what the point of it all is, and has become unable to move under his trepidation.

The final point-of-view we dip into in Help! I’m Alive is Jay’s girlfriend in all but name. Although they never officially declared themselves a couple, Winona was the closest to Jay at the time of his death and feels sucked hollow by guilt, leaving behind only a bitterness that threatens to give a nasty freezer burn to anyone who attempts to get closer. Beneath all of Winona’s pain is the death of her mother, which came long before Jay, and from which she has been unable to heal.

In telling the four different stories, Basran examines not just grief, but also the omnipresence of social media and screens in our lives; how they have changed everything from dating to friendship to how we get the news. Each character gives a reflection and insight into the problematic nature of our online selves. Help! I'm Alive is still about coping with grief and the tsunami of harm caused by suicide, but it is also a commentary on the current ills of our society.

Would I teach this book? Probably not. The internal thoughts and voices of the characters seem much too similar, all of them sounding adolescent in nature and having strikingly similar thoughts about social media. It would have been good to see more difference in the characters' internal monologues. Pavan, especially, seems immature for a grown woman. Ash, Anik, and Winona do not seem out of place, but Pavan, especially for her backstory and the strength it would have taken to overcome it, does not echo that life experience.

The discussion of social media, while timely and in need of examination, does not go as deeply or with as much variation between the characters as would shed new insight to what many of us already notice. Beyond a general disdain mixed with dependence on our phones, the characters do not get much beyond the problematic nature of our relationship to them. In addition, the book uses the suicide as a catalyst to get the characters moving rather than focusing on the internal turmoil caused by the suicide. While this is not necessarily a fault of the book, it complicates teaching a work with such heavy subject matter. Discussion of suicide and self-harm is absolutely necessary, but it should be discussed in the classroom setting in a way that does not bely the gravity and ultimate damage it causes to family, friends, and community.

As an educator and reader, I appreciate that Pavan, as an Indo-Canadian, notes differences in culture and experience, including her mother-in-law’s inability to pronounce her name correctly, without the book being about the conflict of being in two cultures. It would have been nice to see the same treatment of a trans character, who, while being an actual character and not a flat stereotype, still most of her story is about transphobia.

So, while the book has many merits, I would probably not choose to teach it.

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