I first stumbled upon Julia Kaye’s work in 2017, through a Twitter hashtag game. Her art charmed me from the get-go, and I bounced with excitement to see Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition available at the local library. 

Super Late Bloomer is a short comic diary about Kaye’s early days of transition. After saying farewell to a long-term partner and moving back to her parents’ home, she begins the slow legal process of name-changes and gender markers and the slow physical process of changing the body. Gender euphoria and dysphoria aren’t a linear process: Kaye has bad days and good days. Agonies of doubt spread like weeds, and Kaye weeds them out. Ultimately, Kaye is becoming herself, after all. 

I found myself comparing Super Late Bloomer to Sabrina Symington’s First Year Out: A Transition Story a lot. While Symington’s work is more of an educational text, Kaye’s comics are a memoir. The two comics share the same topic, but I had different reactions to them. Though Super Late Bloomer did elicit some chuckles, it left me with a strange melancholy. I was struck by how much a trans person’s confidence can depend on others, especially in the fledgling days. Kaye decides to not judge this seeking of outside validation as a “good” or “bad” thing. Which is totally fair. For a cis person like me, it reiterated the need to be respectful and use pronouns correctly. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s day. 

The realization also made me more aware of my own gender. In the home, it’s a non-issue, a blip in the mind. Outside I’m hyper-aware that others see me as a woman and how much danger that puts me in. My wife and I rarely go out after sundown. 

Kaye’s openness about her journey is a gift to us all. It sparked a conversation in me, and trans readers need their mirrors, like all other gender minorities. If I spot the sequel, I’m grabbing it. 

My review of First Year Out: A Transition Story by Sabrina Symington can be found here: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e096fb64-c037-47a3-9234-031cc96cd166 

 Menopause: A Comic Treatment was an impulse borrow from the library. Partly out of joy: I was so happy I could go to the library again that my fingers got inordinately sticky. Partly out of desire for knowledge: menopause is something I need to know about and revel in! 

MK Czerwiec explains in her introduction that this comic collection about menopause was created because nobody had done one before. Any menopause comics she could find were about husbands complaining while their partners suffered. In 2020, it’s high time that older people with uteri got some laughs in and articulated their experience in the comic art form. Czerwiec’s mission reminded me of Ali Wong’s effect on stand-up comedy. Her Netflix specials “Baby Cobra” and “Hard Knock Wife” spring-boarded a new motherhood comedy subgenre, and her frank stories about her sexuality and genitalia brought the vagina on the level of the penis comedians keep talking about. 

And Czerwiec collects a damn good anthology. Gathering experienced and new voices, Czerwiec makes a point to include gender and racial minorities, people of different faiths, and varying disability and illness levels. A majority of the comics were what I was expecting—mourning over body changes and life stages; wondering if one is “less of a woman” without a period. The answer is no. And some people who have periods weren’t ever women. For someone like me going in pretty unresearched about menopause’s physical symptoms, they are thoroughly covered, with added commentary on the socio-political vectors. Some comics are more funny, like Carol Tyler’s “Invisible Lady” who embarks on a successful life of crime, or Czerwiec’s own “Burning Up” about burning off the give-a-shits. Others are more serious musings, like Ajuan Mance’s “Any Day Now,” which wonders how menopause can be such a non-milestone for those outside the hetero-normative sphere. Lynda Barry’s “Menopositive!” and Roberta Gregory’s “Bitchy Bitch in the End…for Now….” focus on how knowledge about menopause is talked around by families and mothers, instead of a direct conversation. “#crockpotrunner” by Ann M. Fox feels like an outlier, but it was a pleasant enough comic about listening to the capabilities and limits of the body. 

Bodies! We inhabit them. They change. It’s pain and joy. Overall, a very enjoyable, oft hilarious, oft serious collection. I’m adding Czerwiec’s other work to my TBR. 

 Here it is: the motherload for Beckett fans everywhere. When I started my journey through White Wolf Publishing, I was equal parts excited and intimidated by this massive tome. On the other side, I’m happy it happened and a little glad it’s over. 

Launched as Kickstarter campaign back in June 2016, Beckett’s Jyhad Diary is an adventure supplement for Vampire: the Masquerade – Corebook, 20th Anniversary Edition. It updates the meta-plot to 2005. Each chapter begins with an epistolary novella chronicling Beckett’s latest adventure, and afterwards the book provides possible scenarios for Storytellers to run. With a whopping thirty chapters, no Kindred is left behind—if you have a favorite legacy character, they’re here. Discounting the Arctic poles, no continent is left behind, as Beckett globe-trots with an ease untouched by 2000s gas prices. This man gets around—in more ways than one. I have a friend who calls the diary “Beckett’s Little Black Book” and they’re not kidding. I’m delighted. 

If you’ve read or played anything else from White Wolf, you know what the major drawbacks are going to be: lots of racism, sinophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. I mean, read the title. Shockingly less misogyny in this one, but that’s probably thanks to the female writers. Some chapters were a slog to get through, like the one set in the USA’s Southern States. Take care of yourself while reading. 

My other complaint is down to organization. The overarching plot of the Diary (nominally) is Beckett’s quest for The Book of the Grave-War. The first six chapters follow this thread clearly, as Beckett is yanked around by Elders and rumor. But then it just…drops. Two or three chapters will follow a separate arc, like “Beckett goes to LA” or “Sabbat drama” or “returning Hazimel’s contact lens,” but not much lines up nicely. As someone interested in playing through the Diary with a traveling Noddist coterie, it’s going to take a lot of creativity and effort to link these stories together. I tried by continent, artifact, or chronology, and the results were unsatisfying each time. 

In addition, the authors make some plain fumbles that could happen to anyone trying to write White Wolf lore, because the lore is sooooo loosey-goosey. For example, “The Anarch Freefall” chapter tries to be ambiguous enough to take place before or after the Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines video game, but that leaves the reader at loose ends as to why Jeremy MacNeil, Salvador Garcia, and the New Promise Mandarinate are still kicking. “A Brief History of Beckett” is an honest mess. It raises more questions than it answers, and the provided plot hooks ignore those questions. Somehow Emma Blake fakes her death again. I’m expected to believe Beckett did nothing while a Giovanni tortured her soul for twenty-five years, and the Diary fails to explain why the Giovanni stopped. Beckett writes an online article conflating Kindred with Freud’s psycho-sexual stages, when that theory’s been disproven six ways to Sunday by now. Beckett did something for the Inner Council, and they framed him as betraying Aristotle? Hello??? Why bring these events up if they’re not story hooks? 

The discontinuity’s effect on Beckett’s character isn’t complimentary: he comes off scatter-brained, cold, and disorganized. Sure, there’s an element of seizing opportunities as presented, or, in Hesha’s case, dropping everything to rescue a beloved from the Fire Court. But it stretched my understanding of the character that Beckett left off trying to find/save/protect Carna to visit Russia on a whim, or attend an art gallery opening. Like. Dude. Are you trying to find your ex-girlfriend or not. 

The lack of continuity can partly be chalked up to the fact that the Diary isn’t a series of novellas, but a collection of player hooks for a tabletop rpg. Storytellers are encouraged multiple times to take what they want and leave the rest. Major plot points lack resolution. There’s a hazy, dream-like quality to the writing at points, and Beckett is continuously kidnapped, drugged, and invaded mentally, physically, and spiritually. There’s nothing too graphic on page, but, uh, some encounters could be interpreted as rape. But the point of Beckett’s incapacitation is so the Storyteller can decide what really happened. Players can decide how the World of Darkness shakes out. 

And there’s just so much to shake. Beckett touches many an unlife and many a plot. The White Wolf wiki was beside me as I read, because Beckett will drop a buzzword without preamble and send me on thirty-minute rabbit hole research chase. It was a lot of fun, to discover so much, and I was excited about potential fanfic or chronicle ideas much more than I was frustrated. Beckett’s interactions with the Nod Squad are heart-wrenching, hilarious, and adorable in turn. Queer elements become queer canon, as Beckett becomes the Bride of Dracula and is named Hazimel’s consort and falls for Serenna the White and slices through centuries long sexual tension with Sascha Vykos. And more! Which I won’t name here because it’s a long list, haha. Rest assured that #BisexualBeckett is canon. 

I have ideas upon ideas, and I’ve finished Beckett’s diary. Despite some major drawbacks, it’s a buzzing, fascinating read. I heartily recommend it to Vampire: the Masquerade fans after they have some video games, books, and/or chronicles under their belt. You know, after you’ve had that initial bite, and you’re ready to slowly nibble a bloody feast. 

 We’re here! The finale! 

Binti’s back and ready to freaking solve some shit. Picking up immediately after Home, Binti returns to the Himba people distraught and devastated. Radical violence calls for radical love, and Binti draws on her people—all her people—to solve the Meduse-Khoush conflict once and for all. 

I don’t want to say more because any more feels like a spoiler. This startling series comes to a startling end. Perfect 5 out of 5 stars. Okorafor’s themes of travel/change, brinksmanship, violence, harmony, and love take center stage and are shown off beautifully. On the speculative end of things, there were even more callbacks to Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler, but even having read those stories, the plot kept twisting in unexpected directions. Every word is deliberate and lovingly crafted. I’m really looking forward to Akata Witch and seeing Okorafor flex her more fantastical muscles, because she about blew sci-fi out of the water. 

 Lucky duck I am, I could download the Binti: Home audiobook immediately after finishing the first novella. Binti felt like one of those stories that could be continued or not—Okorafor left readers in a comfortable middle ground where most is resolved, but some threads could unspool further. I’m so glad we’re receiving more! 

A year has passed since the Binti established peace between the Meduse and Khoush, and it’s been a year since Binti and her Meduse friend Okwu enrolled at Oomza Uni. While her studies are rewarding and therapy has provided much needed healing, Binti longs for home, her family, and their traditions. Okwu proposes something radical: that he accompany Binti home as an inter-galactic peace mission. A good idea in theory. Reality is much more difficult to navigate. Binti and Okwu encounter prejudice at every turn. 

Binti: Home is a much more human, earthbound story. Not to say the novella lacks science fiction—the relationship between Okwu and Binti reminded me of a lot of Lilith and the Oankali in Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood. No, it’s that the bulk of the novella focuses on humans. Binti’s harmonizing skills are put to the test not by Meduse, but her own family. Her siblings, aunties, cousins, and parents all struggle to understand a fraction of what happened to her. A pity since this is when Binti needs their support the most. I got flashbacks to returning home from my first semester at college. Binti’s experiences have expanded her world-view so much that suddenly her hometown feels small and limiting. Spice in some Khoush-Meduse brinksmanship and Binti: Home is a gut-clenching read. 

Okorafor’s art shines once again through these pages. Complex issues are brought down from pie-in-the-sky theoretical to solid people and tangible interactions. I felt like I was being given stones to mull over. There’s conversations and musings on anger: how it can be a weapon to split people apart or pop the bubbles of limitations we put on ourselves and others. Binti repeats how she wants to go “home,” but she’s forced to realize that there’s no going back to how things were. Okorafor seems pre-occupied with change and travel—physical, emotional, and spiritual. How fraught travel is; the danger and degradation experienced if one moves among strangers; how irrevocable the change. Again, for such a small page count, Okorafor fits in so much. Onto Binti: the Night Masquerade. 

 Binti was an impulse borrow from the library. Like speculative fiction fans the world over, I know Nnedi Okorafor is a master at the craft, a true magician with her words, and her ability is never more apparent than in this small novella. 

Far in the future, Binti is a genius “harmonizer” among the Himba people. In other words, she has a talent for bringing nature, numbers, and people into harmony. Though the Himba people are highly talented engineers, they rarely interact with the neighboring Khoush people, and they’re thought to be “savages” on the outskirts of society (while somehow also producing the planet’s most advanced tech—listen, prejudice doesn’t make sense). It’s absolutely unheard of for a young Himba woman to travel in space or attend the prestigious Oomza University. Yet Binti does both. Things seem to be going well right up until the alien Meduse begin ritualistically slaughtering everyone on the ship, except for her. 

Okorafor does so much in such a little page count. The world-building is top-notch, especially with the aliens and technology. Neil Gaiman wasn’t kidding when he said readers will fall in love with Binti—I love her too. She carries and draws strength from Himba culture, and Himba culture, in turn, saves her. She’s wise and knowledge, but also incredibly young and fragile, and Okorafor doesn’t shy away from that. I’m lucky I found this series so late, because I can immediately continue reading Binti’s adventures. 

 Like many others, I first heard of Hidden Figures through the movie adaptation, and immediately got stars in my eyes from Taraji P. Henson’s, Octavia Spencer’s, and Janelle Monáe’s stellar performances. I tracked down a copy of the book at my local bookstore and ended up, oddly enough, listening to the audiobook from the library because I lent a family member my physical copy. 

This book was an education. Starting in the USA’s total war society of the 1940s, Shetterly guides the reader and tracks Black women’s mathematical and engineering contributions through the end of the 1960s and the moon landing. The effect is an eye-opening saga of how race affected the American job landscape in this section of the twentieth century. During WWII, the air was a battlefield all its own, and those with the best planes won more often. All the white men went to war, and there simply weren’t enough mathematicians at home to crunch the numbers and design the best planes. White women were brought in, and the Air Force still needed more workers. At the same time, all over the country, Black woman mathematicians were primed for graduate work but found themselves barred from post-grad education by racism—so they applied to Langley and JPL and got the job because even the most stubborn racist couldn’t say no to such ridiculously over-qualified applicants. These women were paid juuuuuust enough to bring Black families into the middle class. Soon the Black community recognized “computer” as a highly valuable, respectable position, which led more Black women and men to the STEM fields. As the century advanced, these women, and the husbands who followed, broke down segregation by sheer force of will and merit. Racism has never made sense, and these logical wonders pointed out the inconsistencies until white people were forced to yield. 

Hidden Figures had a lot of revelations, but the Cold War section stuck with me. Shetterly brought home the point that racism is a distraction that holds back a country and its ideals. All the energy being put towards segregation, racism, and anti-Blackness could be directed towards spreading democracy and justice. During the Cold War, the United States went to enormous (and harmful) lengths to spread its brand of democracy. Shetterly describes visits from African diplomats and how these visits were meant to encourage the envoys to bring USA democracy to their new nations. However, these visits backfired—the diplomats were horrified at how the people who looked like them were treated. When the diplomats returned to their home nations, they carried their tales of micro-aggressions, segregation, and racial violence, and nobody wanted anything more to do with the United States. The fact that racism is pointless and keeps a nation from its full potential isn’t news to me, by any means. Yet I haven’t seen it conveyed on such an international scale before Shetterly’s work. 

The other big point of Shetterly’s that will haunt me is about historians. Shetterly notes that historians often either play down the contributions of Black women or they make a Black woman stand alone. It’s total erasure—or erasure of everyone except one remarkable individual. Historians only discuss Katherine Johnson, or Dorothy Vaughan, or Mary Jackson—but make no mention of the communities who supported them, or their Black women co-workers and subordinates. Though Shetterly did pick a few trend-setting or record-breaking individuals to follow closely, from the beginning she notes that there was always more, and even close to the book’s publication she was digging up more names and histories. 

Shetterly’s writing style is engaging, and the topic engrossing. Hidden Figures isn’t a novel or a biography, but more coverage of a historical phenomenon, so do come prepared for a lot of names and dates. Overall, Shetterly’s work is up there with David McCullough’s The Greater Journey for me. Can’t wait to see what she researches next. 

 After loving In the Vanishers’ Palace, I pretty much immediately picked up Fireheart Tiger and tucked in. 

In magical pre-colonial Vietnam, Thanh is a princess and diplomat haunted. She’s haunted by how her mother the Empress sold her to faraway Ephteria (not-France France) with nary a tear; haunted by how she had to save herself from a great fire that devasted the Ephteria royal palace; and haunted by heartache when parents forcibly split her from crown princess Eldris. Lost and adrift in her mother’s imperial court, Thanh feels she may have finally found her footing when an Ephteria envoy arrives, and she gears up to diplomatically protect her country from these invaders. But any hope is dashed when Eldris arrives with said envoy, and the hauntings from days past burn brighter than ever. 

A lot of the reviews mention that the comparison to Howl’s Moving Castle drew them in, and they ultimately were disappointed. I feel like the marketing department goofed once again. Fireheart Tiger is like Howl’s Moving Castle (the Studio Ghibli movie or Diana Wynne Jones’ book) in that it’s a fantasy setting with a fire elemental character and a woman who comes into her power. That’s it. Fireheart Tiger has a love story in it, but it’s not a part of the romance genre. I dunno, it reads more like a sapphic Tortall court intrigue novella than Sophie-and-Howl-Vietnam-AU. 

 I just…I really liked this story. Thanh is an excellent protagonist in her own right, and in the rights of how different she is from the typical fantasy politics heroine. Polite, thoughtful, and anxious, Thanh nevertheless tackles obstacles with the tools at her disposal. Her triumph is ever so sweet. The world-building was also stellar. After wrapping my head around the non-Euclidean geometry of In the Vanishers’ Palace, the simple colonialization metaphor with the Epherians felt comfortable. It’s a rare delight for a story to explore a toxic relationship that happens to be queer, and Thanh’s promise to explore her new relationship was like champagne right to the brain. Loved it. 

Pick up Fireheart Tiger!! 

The Handmaid's Tale is obviously a masterpiece. Every word, sentence, event, and interaction has been so carefully chosen to create an aurora borealis of emotions in my heart. And though there are some waves of pretty light, overall the book is dark with sadness.

Discussing the intersection of female sexuality and totalitarianism, this book is as important to read as other dystopian classics like 1984 and Brave New World. It gives the reader a lot to think about, and Atwood wants us to think and keep thinking and questioning. As far as diversity, transgender and lesbian characters appear (to tragic effect) and at least one canonically brown character exists, but it's unclear what the general treatment of non-whites is. If I were to express any criticism, it's that I was hoping for more details about how race functions in Gilead's society. 

More personally, this book just...made my heart ache. I was so angry that humanity would do this to one another. However, yes, it will make you sad, but it will also keep you warned and alert. Atwood depicts a horrible future, but it's also fuel to the feminist fight and reminds me how important that fight is. 

 WOW.

 This....saga. I can’t even-- 

Well, okay then.

Background: I was talking to the Invisible Ninja Cat because that’s what I do with my life and she mentioned this book, The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. The Ninja was extolling its medieval virtues of cathedral-ness and rooting for the characters, which was a minorly confusing experience since I had no idea who they were at that point. To alleviate my confusion, she offered to lend me the book, but I checked my home bookshelf and discovered my dad had bought it years ago as a Christmas prezzie. AND SO IT BEGAN. 

Now, this book is a 973 pages. NINE-HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE MO’FO' AWESOME PAGES with me alternatively cooing at ALL THE CUTE BABIES/wriggling with JOY and me SCREAMING until my mental voice was HOARSE because honestly, WOULD THIS CHARACTER JUST DIE ALREADY. 

Wow, aren’t you guys glad I’m not a professional book reviewer? But seriously: it’s a good, long read. Mr. Follett’s epic chronicles the building and events around the building of Kingsbridge Cathedral, a story that spans from 1123 to 1174, weaving in historical events with Follett’s fictional characters’ lives and dramas. For anyone who’s even remotely into medieval history or how to build your very own cathedral, I would definitely check it out. Mr. Follett is a meticulous writer, his eye for detail suggesting a frightening amount of research went into this book. These details do their job too, really bringing you into the twelfth century world, how it must have been like to live there, breathe that air, and feel that sunshine. You feel like you could easily enter the story and at some moments you powerfully want to do so, either to kill that damned William Hamleigh, slap Alfred Builder in his big oxen-like face or help Aliena and Richard in their wool trade business and stand in Jack’s finished cathedral and bathe in the light of the new, stained glass windows. If you have Anglophilia, you’re definitely going to get those English *feels* that make you want to screw your budget and buy that plane ticket. Or force your little brother to hurry up and make you that time machine because, damn Follett, I want to be there.
 

There’s drama at every turn, new obstacles constantly getting in the way, and the heroes and villains cleverly getting around them. There’s always at least two things going on with any given page and the novel is quite divided up, switching between third person limited viewpoints of its principal characters. It keeps the reading fresh and interesting and your favoritism of one character over the other comes out when you find yourself skimming over the bits narrated by the ones who dislike (William Hamleigh *cough**cough*).

Speaking of character favoritism, it’s a bit Game of Thrones-esque, with the reader able to choose the character that holds their greatest loyalty, or is their special favorite. Delightfully, the line between protagonist and antagonist is blurred somewhat, as some of the “good” characters do other things that anger the other “good” characters (Prior Phillip versus Ellen, Jack, & Aliena, for example). It isn’t made instantly made manifest who the villains are either and even then they have their semi-redemptive moments. Mr. Follett works hard to have his gray characters and the effect is stunning, giving the reader a lovely and savory view of humanity. I feel the characters and the cathedral are really at the heart of this story and Mr. Follett equally loves cuddling and thwarting them, a trait that is devious and marvelous in any writer.

Despite it’s obvious brilliance, Pillars does have its drawbacks. The main one, I think, is that Mr. Follett is used to being a thriller writer. He is actually a really awesome thriller writer; in fact, the Invisible Ninja Cat is already discussing the wonderfullness that makes up Hornet Flight. But the downside of thrillers, I think, are a lot of the conflict comes externally. In other words, there’s much more emphasis on an external enemy i.e. another character’s nefarious plot instead of an internal conflict with super intense character development or psychology, the character overcoming something within. Thrillers are fast-paced, so there’s not a whole lot of time for that.

The effect this phenomenon has on Pillars is a frustrating one. The reader can practically feel the characters burning with want, feel their anguish and anger and longing and frustration and tears, but these obstacles keep popping up that get in the way. The characters, the environment, or historical events keep having brainchild after brainchild to get in the way of building this gorgeous cathedral: it makes you want to grasp them by the shoulders and shake them until their eyeballs rattle. This is especially true when you can figure out how the chess pieces are going to end up at the conclusion of the latest crisis. It’s the most problematic in the first Part of the story. It doesn’t take a dedicated Sherlockian to figure out that Tom Builder is going to be master builder for the Cathedral, that Phillip will be prior, or Ellen can’t hack the monks. Part 1 ends really nicely though, with a beautiful song and Ellen being a badass (you’ll understand by the end of the prologue that Ellen is basically the resident badass of the book), and it goes a long way to cooling the reader’s frazzled nerves. The middle is much better, containing multiple cheerful and devastating plot twists, but as the story winds down and the reader realizes that it’s only a matter of paragraphs before the cathedral is finished, the frustrated feeling returns.

And really at some point I was saying, “here’s an idea: take your money, hire an assassin, and just have him killed, okay? Because there are easier ways to do this and everybody would throw you a ticker tape parade if you had this person killed.”

The other effect of being a thriller writer that constitutes my one other chicken bone to pick with Mr. Follett’s historical masterpiece is the lack of character development. The characters alter subtly, some growing from childhood to adulthood or gaining humility, but none of these changes are cataclysmic. Everyone basically stays as they were when they were introduced. The reader’s view on them may change and the characters are complicated to begin with, but there were just some areas I wanted explored or dealt with. Alfred, for instance, is introduced as a malicious bully and stays a malicious bully. There’s no reason given for him being so, he just is, his maliciousness actually growing as the book goes on. This growth interests me a lot: who marries their brother’s girl out of pure spite? Especially in this time period when marriage was rather permanent. Why would someone never take interest in any potential wife? There’s a suggestion that he’s impotent, but to never have a romantic interest in anyone suggests a deeper character conflict, which Mr. Follett doesn’t really address. I can speculate, surely: all three of Tom Builder’s biological children aren’t very interested in sex, hinting at some sort of asexuality. Does this have something to do with Alfred being a total jerkface to Jack or is it unrelated? Maybe Alfred’s a closet psychopath or sociopath, who just hates society. I honestly don't know.

So besides hungering for some grande scheme of internal conflict in a character and not wanting so many magically-appearing obstacles to getting the cathedral built, I really did enjoy this book. There’s a sequel out already called World Without End, which the Invisible Ninja Cat and I have already adopted as our pseudo-book child with joint custody privileges included. Mr. Follett’s attention to detail and distinct voice will help me on my thesis (more on that later) and his drama and characters won’t be forgotten anytime soon. I don’t know, guys: this book makes you want to walk into a cathedral, take a deep breath, and absorb all the dedication to beauty and God it took to build it.