AHH THAT TO BE CONTINUED

I am loving this story and the cast of characters, plus the art is awesome! I definitely recommend this one.

Loved! This action zips along in this story, seamlessly developing the characters and world while never losing my attention. The richly imagined setting of this story is frequently featured in de Bodard’s writing, and is so exciting to my brain. I want to dive immediately into more of this universe, with it’s interesting tech and her conception of humanity’s relationship to space. Short but fully satisfying, this story is a treat to read and leaves me wanting more in the best way. Highly recommend.

Absolutely phenomenal. An instant favorite short story collection, this book is a powerful introduction to the brilliant Nafissa Thompson-Spires. It showcases her intelligence in how each story is crafted with attention given to the structure, and equally her creativity in the choice of interesting premises. Her stories accomplish so much and seem to me to provoke thought about exactly what she intends, which I think is such an important feat for a short story writer. Her stories never ended abruptly, and each story satisfied even when leaving me wanting for more. These stories and their characters are going to be bouncing around in my head for a long time, and for that I’m so grateful.

Definitely less of a visceral experience than I was expecting, but I really like the premise of this graphic novel.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson is a captivating and moving look at the heartbreaking injustice throughout the American justice system. Stevenson lovingly tells the story of Walter McMillan, a man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death, and their work to appeal this racist egregious miscarriage of justice. Stevenson doesn’t stop his criticism of the justice system with its impact on wrongful convicted individuals, further arguing against our treatment of people who actually have committed crimes but who are far too often being punished with disproportionately harsh sentences. He brings to light our failure to treat mercifully our most vulnerable populations, focusing especially on children, disabled people, people of color, immigrants and the poor. I learned so much and was deeply impacted by this book, and I highly recommend this flawless book to everyone.

The World Only Spins Forward is brilliantly structured, walking through the creation and chronologizing the production history of Angels in America, and spliced through with interludes which dive deep on each of the characters in the cast. The oral history style means that the book is made up entirely of quotes from the over 200 people who were interviewed in the course of creating this narrative. Oftentimes the writing flows as if all the quoted individuals are in a room together having a big conversation and relating their story together, although from what I understand the interviews were mostly if not entirely one on one. I can’t even imagine how much work went into parsing out from hundreds of interviews a single coherent arc made up of the thoughts of so many disparate individuals. It is really quite impressive. ⁣⁣
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Personally, I found I didn’t always maintain a great sense of who was talking. The quoted speakers are introduced with their full name and association with the play, but in subsequent quotes are introduced with only their last name. I generally immediately forgot who someone was unless they were a very important often repeated figure, which is not the fault of the writers. One thing I didn’t like was a number of times a shorter segment was inserted that ran along the bottom of many pages, I wish those had been after the chapters in which they appeared instead of requiring the reader to choose when to skip down and skip back up to read the side by side narratives. Those sections were some of my favorites however, touching on themes such as how Angels in America was part of people’s coming out processes, production history in schools, and how the play shaped the next generation of writers and directors. I was also a huge fan of the interlude sections which went in depth on each of the characters and featured discussions from most or all of the actors who played that part throughout its production history. Like Angels itself, this book is sometimes hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking, a gorgeous piece of work I'm so glad to have experienced.

As a gamer girl myself, I was super excited to read this anthology, but unfortunately I found most of the comics to be too brief and was ultimately underwhelmed. Some of the stronger stories for me focused on the issues of sexism in various gaming communities, calling out problems and noting recent improvements where they exist. A lot of the lighter stories suffer from the old adage that it’s never really that fun to listen to someone else recount in detail the exploits of their D&D campaign :b

You get what you pay for with the title, an excellent essay collection about rape in many facets. Abdulali was gang raped at 17 in India, and counter to the prevailing attitude she and her family never bought into the idea that she should be ashamed at a loss of her own honor as a result. She went on to write dissertations about rape, and work in rape crisis counselling. 30 years after it was published, her New York Times op-ed about her rape went viral following the high-profile rape and murder of another girl in India. Thrust unintentionally back into the spotlight of writing and talking about rape, Abdulali offers a graceful and nuanced view on rape culture and the survivor’s experience from her many years of thinking and research on the topic. This book is so insightful and much of what she discusses made a deep impact on me. Highly recommend.

Impossible to put down. This book is written for a young adult audience, which I absolutely love because it introduces a ton of important topics to teens, but also leads to the writing feeling over-simplistic at times. There are also these poem chapters that felt like a strange departure of tone and didn’t fit for me.

Goodness Toni Morrison!