by Jason Reynolds, Ibram X. Kendi
★★★½
Category archives: read
Rosewater
(The Wormwood Trilogy #1)
by Tade Thompson
It’s a shame that nearly all the authors who are paid homage are long dead white men. And having one character describe the protagonist as sexist isn’t enough. Why is alien telepathy more envisionable than gender equity in 2066?
Still Thompson has created an … Read more
A Song for a New Day
by Sarah Pinsker
Luce is a Mary Sue of a musician and the book doesn’t let up on the cheese factor, but its earnestness and apposite themes (a wide net is cast with terrorist bombings plus a pox-like epidemic leading to anti-congregation laws) make it well-aligned for lockdown reading.
Conversations with Octavia Butler
by Octavia E. Butler, Conseula Francis (Editor)
The interviewers are on the whole unimaginative so there is a lot of repetition.
Octavia remains inspirational as a feminist hermit visionary!
Pourin’ Down Rain: A Black Woman Claims Her Place in the Canadian West
by Cheryl Foggo
★★★★½
Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call
by Arthur Manuel
★★★★
Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes
by Jessica Pan
I’m largely resistant to labels, self-mythologising, and platitudes of self-help, but these aspects were balanced out with a respect for embracing uncertainty and Jessica’s comic tone.
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language
by Amanda Montell
There is a lot of repetition of the linguist’s mantra describe don’t prescribe. Chapter eight includes a wincing mess about how we have rebellious sexist insults because our mothers were our first examples of authority figures who restricted our freedoms.
Interior Chinatown
by Charles Yu
★★★
The Whale Rider
by Witi Ihimaera
★★★
No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America
by Darnell L. Moore
★★★★
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
by Nadia Murad
★★★★
Danses de Guerre
by Sherman Alexie
★★★½
The Seep
by Chana Porter
★★★
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
by Cathy Park Hong
★★★
Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid
★★★★
Whose Story Is This? Old Conflicts, New Chapters
by Rebecca Solnit
Her metaphors seem to take on the teetering logic of numerology. “Voter Suppression Begins at Home” brought up something I never thought about before though.
Straight Outta Crawley: Memoirs of a Distinctly Average Human Being
by Romesh Ranganathan
The mystique is obliterated. I was disappointed by his shallow, regurgitating defence at the end of chapter nine; punching down subverts nothing. I am however heavily into self-deprecation and anecdotes of social inoperativeness (plus laid-back veganism) so this book had the highest laugh rate out of any comic … Read more
Before I Was a Critic I Was a Human Being
by Amy Fung
★★★
Storm of Locusts
(The Sixth World #2)
by Rebecca Roanhorse
I like dystopian fiction but less a showdown of good versus evil even if the lines are blurred. Rebecca’s style is breezy though.