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tachyondecay
Another YA book from my 2009 days that I’ve taken forever to read. Well worth the wait, though: Cracked Up to Be is all it’s cracked up to be, in that it is a ripping good yarn about how high school is a messed up place. Courtney Summers manages to convey some of the issues that some teenagers face without trivializing them or wrapping them up in a neat little bow at the end. In so doing, she crafts YA that’s relevant, authentic, and powerful.
This is the story of Parker Fadley—an awkward name if ever I’ve heard one—who used to be “Perfect” Parker Fadley but is now just “Fadley,” a screw-up verging on not finishing senior year. Once cheerleader captain and most popular girl in school, something happened at the end of last year that caused Parker to slip away. She just wants to become invisible. As the story unfolds from her point of view, we watch her engage with different people—friends, ex-boyfriend, parents and counselors and teachers—trying to push them away like she pushes away the flashbacks that helpfully unpack the fateful night that changed everything forever.
Some of this sounds ominous and vague, and you, with your exposure to Very Special Episodes of nineties’ television, can be forgiven for thinking this seems like the plot of most YA books targeted at teenaged girls. Parker got raped or something, right, and that’s why she maybe-kinda-sorta tried to commit suicide, and now she’s just circling the drain?
Not really.
I’m not going to spoil the final reveal of what changed at the end of junior year. If you’re paying attention you’ll figure it out quickly enough. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter. What’s more interesting is the way in which Summers portrays the failure of the very systems we think are helping adolescents mature and deal with the stress of impending adulthood.
Take school counselors, for instance. Now, don’t get me wrong: I have great admiration for counselors. They have tough jobs. But Parker is flippant and dismissive of her counselor, and for good reason. Summers very accurately captures what I suspect is an all-too-common phenomenon in the interactions between “troubled teens” and authority figures, be they counselors or teachers or parents. In our busy lives, we try to make time for these children, try to listen to them, hear their problems, and advise them. But there are so many barriers in the way preventing us from being as helpful as we could be.
Let’s set aside, for the moment, the fact that most adults can barely remember what it’s like to be in high school, and that the challenges they faced are different from the challenges teenagers face now. (There is a curious lack of cell phones and bevy of DVD rental stores and payphones in this book, which make me wonder if it’s actually historical fiction set pre-2005ish, because these days kids would be all up in those texts. But Summers doesn’t seem to date anything, unless I missed it.) Grey is ineffectual because she isn’t someone that Parker can trust. Somewhere along the line, we made a mistake that caused Parker and other teenagers like her to feel that they need to clam up instead of open up. And that’s the problem. But because the system dictates that Grey is the one to whom Parker should spill her guts, we arrive at an impasse.
So it’s not just a matter of being “out of touch.” It’s fundamental mismatching and misallocation of resources to shore up what is probably broken from the beginning.
On the social level, Summers also shows us how Parker’s peers react to her changed attitude. I really enjoyed her depiction of the frenemy nature of Parker’s relationship with Becky, as well as the weird kind of wary friendship between Parker and Chris. The way these characters negotiate their lives, both in and out of school, strikes me as fairly realistic (at least, from what little I remember of being a teen at the advanced age of 25). For example:
Yeah, that sounds to me like something some people would do to get out of having to do an essay. I’m sure some of my students turned on the tears to manipulate me (with varying degrees of success) when I was a classroom teacher.
I love that Summers doesn’t belabour these points, though. Everything comes through naturally in Parker’s voice, so Summers doesn’t have to scream, “Teenagers these days are having lots of sex!” It’s all there, in the subtext—but for a young adult reading this book, it’s plain as day. It is their life.
I mean, I suppose I should mention at this point that I led a pretty charmed life in high school. My reluctance to engage in most social aspects of high school cushioned me from a lot of the issues Parker and her peers face here (sex, dating, alcohol, drugs, etc., just never came up for me). And despite being incredibly nerdy and giving off an intelligence vibe, somehow I was never a target for bullying (or if people did make fun of me, I was just oblivious to it). Hence, I had an extremely privileged time at high school. So I need to recognize that I’m an outlier, and that for most people, the high school experience is sucky to blandly neutral at best.
And there’s a lot of structural problems to the high school experience that contribute to this. These appear in Cracked Up to Be, I’m sure entirely intentionally on Summers’ part, but nonetheless as part of the background—Parker is not exactly a sociology major here, but she is clever enough to understand when the system is trying to play her.
I really enjoyed this flashback:
I love the idea that Parker falls down this rabbithole because she gets a rush from becoming perfectly drunk. This isn’t just a great example of peer pressure; it’s a stellar description of the stream-of-consciousness sensation of being subjected to peer pressure.
The ending doesn’t offer as much resolution as one might want from a story. But that just seems more realistic: there is no easy answer to any of this, Summers is saying. You can’t slap a bandaid on it and hope it goes away. And because Parker spends the majority of the book hiding the root cause of her self-loathing, she can’t get help until she finally becomes willing to take that step. So while Cracked Up to Be ends on a hopeful note, it’s also a sombre reminder that nothing is certain. There is no guarantee of a happy ending in Parker’s future.
(So maybe we should stop telling girls they can grow up to be princesses and act out a romantic comedy, hmm?)
I probably won’t ever forgive Courtney Summers for sacrificing Bailey on the altar of plot like that. Aside from that, we’re cool, and so is this book, and you should read it, and probably everything else Summers is writing like this. I’ll let you know for sure once I start doing that—hopefully in less than six years.
This is the story of Parker Fadley—an awkward name if ever I’ve heard one—who used to be “Perfect” Parker Fadley but is now just “Fadley,” a screw-up verging on not finishing senior year. Once cheerleader captain and most popular girl in school, something happened at the end of last year that caused Parker to slip away. She just wants to become invisible. As the story unfolds from her point of view, we watch her engage with different people—friends, ex-boyfriend, parents and counselors and teachers—trying to push them away like she pushes away the flashbacks that helpfully unpack the fateful night that changed everything forever.
Some of this sounds ominous and vague, and you, with your exposure to Very Special Episodes of nineties’ television, can be forgiven for thinking this seems like the plot of most YA books targeted at teenaged girls. Parker got raped or something, right, and that’s why she maybe-kinda-sorta tried to commit suicide, and now she’s just circling the drain?
Not really.
I’m not going to spoil the final reveal of what changed at the end of junior year. If you’re paying attention you’ll figure it out quickly enough. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter. What’s more interesting is the way in which Summers portrays the failure of the very systems we think are helping adolescents mature and deal with the stress of impending adulthood.
Take school counselors, for instance. Now, don’t get me wrong: I have great admiration for counselors. They have tough jobs. But Parker is flippant and dismissive of her counselor, and for good reason. Summers very accurately captures what I suspect is an all-too-common phenomenon in the interactions between “troubled teens” and authority figures, be they counselors or teachers or parents. In our busy lives, we try to make time for these children, try to listen to them, hear their problems, and advise them. But there are so many barriers in the way preventing us from being as helpful as we could be.
Let’s set aside, for the moment, the fact that most adults can barely remember what it’s like to be in high school, and that the challenges they faced are different from the challenges teenagers face now. (There is a curious lack of cell phones and bevy of DVD rental stores and payphones in this book, which make me wonder if it’s actually historical fiction set pre-2005ish, because these days kids would be all up in those texts. But Summers doesn’t seem to date anything, unless I missed it.) Grey is ineffectual because she isn’t someone that Parker can trust. Somewhere along the line, we made a mistake that caused Parker and other teenagers like her to feel that they need to clam up instead of open up. And that’s the problem. But because the system dictates that Grey is the one to whom Parker should spill her guts, we arrive at an impasse.
So it’s not just a matter of being “out of touch.” It’s fundamental mismatching and misallocation of resources to shore up what is probably broken from the beginning.
On the social level, Summers also shows us how Parker’s peers react to her changed attitude. I really enjoyed her depiction of the frenemy nature of Parker’s relationship with Becky, as well as the weird kind of wary friendship between Parker and Chris. The way these characters negotiate their lives, both in and out of school, strikes me as fairly realistic (at least, from what little I remember of being a teen at the advanced age of 25). For example:
I didn’t even reread the stupid story and the only memory I have of it isn’t entirely accurate, if I’m to believe Becky, which in this case I do. Still, I’m a fantastic liar in all other aspects of my life, so writing a thousand-word lie should be easy.
I can do it. I can do this.
As a freshman, I found “The Yellow Wallpaper” to be—
Fuck it, I’ll just cry.
Yeah, that sounds to me like something some people would do to get out of having to do an essay. I’m sure some of my students turned on the tears to manipulate me (with varying degrees of success) when I was a classroom teacher.
I love that Summers doesn’t belabour these points, though. Everything comes through naturally in Parker’s voice, so Summers doesn’t have to scream, “Teenagers these days are having lots of sex!” It’s all there, in the subtext—but for a young adult reading this book, it’s plain as day. It is their life.
I mean, I suppose I should mention at this point that I led a pretty charmed life in high school. My reluctance to engage in most social aspects of high school cushioned me from a lot of the issues Parker and her peers face here (sex, dating, alcohol, drugs, etc., just never came up for me). And despite being incredibly nerdy and giving off an intelligence vibe, somehow I was never a target for bullying (or if people did make fun of me, I was just oblivious to it). Hence, I had an extremely privileged time at high school. So I need to recognize that I’m an outlier, and that for most people, the high school experience is sucky to blandly neutral at best.
And there’s a lot of structural problems to the high school experience that contribute to this. These appear in Cracked Up to Be, I’m sure entirely intentionally on Summers’ part, but nonetheless as part of the background—Parker is not exactly a sociology major here, but she is clever enough to understand when the system is trying to play her.
I really enjoyed this flashback:
Chris drags me out to the pool and for the next hour all anyone can talk about is how Perfect Parker Fadley is actually drunk, and then they slap me on the back and they say “way to go” all admiringly, and next thing I know, someone’s pressing a red plastic cup into my hand. And because I start feeling that rush I usually feel when I’ve done something perfectly and everyone knows it, I drink whatever is in the red plastic cup.
And then I get props and another red plastic cup.
I love the idea that Parker falls down this rabbithole because she gets a rush from becoming perfectly drunk. This isn’t just a great example of peer pressure; it’s a stellar description of the stream-of-consciousness sensation of being subjected to peer pressure.
The ending doesn’t offer as much resolution as one might want from a story. But that just seems more realistic: there is no easy answer to any of this, Summers is saying. You can’t slap a bandaid on it and hope it goes away. And because Parker spends the majority of the book hiding the root cause of her self-loathing, she can’t get help until she finally becomes willing to take that step. So while Cracked Up to Be ends on a hopeful note, it’s also a sombre reminder that nothing is certain. There is no guarantee of a happy ending in Parker’s future.
(So maybe we should stop telling girls they can grow up to be princesses and act out a romantic comedy, hmm?)
I probably won’t ever forgive Courtney Summers for sacrificing Bailey on the altar of plot like that. Aside from that, we’re cool, and so is this book, and you should read it, and probably everything else Summers is writing like this. I’ll let you know for sure once I start doing that—hopefully in less than six years.
Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life has been on my to-read list for a while (I blame Hannah Witton), but I finally bought it as a birthday present for a friend who shares my interest in these subjects. Emily Nagoski’s book is a comprehensive guide to how people with vulvas can become more comfortable and fulfilled in their sex lives. It’s a little bit science text, a little bit self-help, and a lot of interesting discussion of the ways in which our mental states affect our physical wellbeing.
Much of the book builds on research done by Erick Janssen and John Bancroft into a framework for sexual response involving two systems: the Sexual Excitement System, SES, your accelerator; and the Sexual Inhibition System, SIS, or your brake. This alone, as well as Nagoski’s related explication of the homologous nature of male and female sex organs, would make the book worth reading. The accelerator/brake framework offers a useful way of describing how external stimuli can work to turn one on or turn one off—these are not always direct inverses. Nagoski uses her experience as an academic and a sex therapist to translate the work of Janssen and Bancroft, as well as others, into understandable contexts for the rest of us. I really appreciate that, while the tone of this book is definitely one of therapy/self-help, it is relentlessly grounded in a scientific mindset and draws on the latest available information at the time. Nagoski refuses to fall back on reductive, binary stereotypes about how “men are like this” and “women are like that” when it comes to sex. She makes generalizations, of course—one must—while pointing out that the variation within a group is still greater than the variation between groups; i.e., we are all more the same than we are different.
Along the same lines, Nagoski’s overall thesis—that whatever your experience, whatever your body’s responses, whatever you crave or desire to get yourself off, it’s normal—is also laudable. Come As You Are is prescriptive only in the sense that it wants you to find what works best for you. This is not a book full of “quick and easy tips” as promised on the cover of Cosmopolitan. Indeed, Nagoski regularly reminds the reader that gains in this area are almost always the result of dedicated effort and time. She doesn’t guarantee mind-blowing orgasms—but she does guarantee you’ll come away from this book with a better understanding of how our sexual response works.
Now, this book doesn’t apply to me from a practical point of view for two reasons—I lack the right genitalia, and I’m asexual. But I don’t think that would disqualify someone as a potential reader. Really, people with vulvas should read this because it gives insight into their sex lives; people who might be into having sex with people with vulvas should read this to understand how to be more responsible, caring partners. Those of us who probably aren’t having sex with anyone can read this (if it’s not going to repulse you) to better understand this activity that everyone else seems fairly obsessed with.
I don’t like how Nagoski frames asexuality. She defines it in a endnote, and through later implicit comparisons, as a lack of sexual desire. That’s not true—asexual people may or may not desire sex and might masturbate or even have sex with a partner if they so choose. Indeed, an asexual person with a vulva would probably find this book quite instructive even if all they’re interested in is self-pleasure. Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction, an entire subject that Nagoski doesn’t really explore at all in this book. So, while the book overall tries to be agnostic about the partners of the subject, it doesn’t quite get the lived experience of asexuality right. Sigh.
That gripe aside, it’s difficult to fault Come As You Are for its organization, depth of content, or goals. This is definitely more of a “sipping” book than it is something you swallow all at once—I pushed myself to read it all at once, because I needed to send it to my friend, and it still took me more than a week. The density of information here just makes it difficult (at least in my opinion) to fly through the book while still absorbing. If anything, you’d probably want to keep this book as reference material, returning to a chapter each time you need to refresh yourself about a particular point Nagoski makes.
Overall, Come As You Are is a very thorough and compassionate look at a subject that is still not discussed seriously enough. (Even when we talk about female sexuality in most media, we often do it superficially or with an emphasis on pleasure rather than comfort and fulfillment. Female sexuality remains inextricably wrapped up in our patriarchal, heteronormative narratives about the roles different genders play in relationships and in sex.) This is the kind of book you want to grab to undo years of useless or non-existent sex education and to give you the permission to explore, if you want, what’s “normal” for you.
Much of the book builds on research done by Erick Janssen and John Bancroft into a framework for sexual response involving two systems: the Sexual Excitement System, SES, your accelerator; and the Sexual Inhibition System, SIS, or your brake. This alone, as well as Nagoski’s related explication of the homologous nature of male and female sex organs, would make the book worth reading. The accelerator/brake framework offers a useful way of describing how external stimuli can work to turn one on or turn one off—these are not always direct inverses. Nagoski uses her experience as an academic and a sex therapist to translate the work of Janssen and Bancroft, as well as others, into understandable contexts for the rest of us. I really appreciate that, while the tone of this book is definitely one of therapy/self-help, it is relentlessly grounded in a scientific mindset and draws on the latest available information at the time. Nagoski refuses to fall back on reductive, binary stereotypes about how “men are like this” and “women are like that” when it comes to sex. She makes generalizations, of course—one must—while pointing out that the variation within a group is still greater than the variation between groups; i.e., we are all more the same than we are different.
Along the same lines, Nagoski’s overall thesis—that whatever your experience, whatever your body’s responses, whatever you crave or desire to get yourself off, it’s normal—is also laudable. Come As You Are is prescriptive only in the sense that it wants you to find what works best for you. This is not a book full of “quick and easy tips” as promised on the cover of Cosmopolitan. Indeed, Nagoski regularly reminds the reader that gains in this area are almost always the result of dedicated effort and time. She doesn’t guarantee mind-blowing orgasms—but she does guarantee you’ll come away from this book with a better understanding of how our sexual response works.
Now, this book doesn’t apply to me from a practical point of view for two reasons—I lack the right genitalia, and I’m asexual. But I don’t think that would disqualify someone as a potential reader. Really, people with vulvas should read this because it gives insight into their sex lives; people who might be into having sex with people with vulvas should read this to understand how to be more responsible, caring partners. Those of us who probably aren’t having sex with anyone can read this (if it’s not going to repulse you) to better understand this activity that everyone else seems fairly obsessed with.
I don’t like how Nagoski frames asexuality. She defines it in a endnote, and through later implicit comparisons, as a lack of sexual desire. That’s not true—asexual people may or may not desire sex and might masturbate or even have sex with a partner if they so choose. Indeed, an asexual person with a vulva would probably find this book quite instructive even if all they’re interested in is self-pleasure. Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction, an entire subject that Nagoski doesn’t really explore at all in this book. So, while the book overall tries to be agnostic about the partners of the subject, it doesn’t quite get the lived experience of asexuality right. Sigh.
That gripe aside, it’s difficult to fault Come As You Are for its organization, depth of content, or goals. This is definitely more of a “sipping” book than it is something you swallow all at once—I pushed myself to read it all at once, because I needed to send it to my friend, and it still took me more than a week. The density of information here just makes it difficult (at least in my opinion) to fly through the book while still absorbing. If anything, you’d probably want to keep this book as reference material, returning to a chapter each time you need to refresh yourself about a particular point Nagoski makes.
Overall, Come As You Are is a very thorough and compassionate look at a subject that is still not discussed seriously enough. (Even when we talk about female sexuality in most media, we often do it superficially or with an emphasis on pleasure rather than comfort and fulfillment. Female sexuality remains inextricably wrapped up in our patriarchal, heteronormative narratives about the roles different genders play in relationships and in sex.) This is the kind of book you want to grab to undo years of useless or non-existent sex education and to give you the permission to explore, if you want, what’s “normal” for you.
Time travel stories are tricky. The best ones give me a headache but not too much of a headache. I guess it’s the literary equivalent of the adrenaline rush one gets from momentarily being upside down on a roller coaster (which is definitely not for me): I want my brain to hurt as I contemplate 4-, 11-, or 22-dimensional spacetime … but I don’t want to get so confused that I feel the author could basically just do anything. (This is why Doctor Who is often such a crapshoot depending on who is writing for it.) Fortunately, with The Quantum Garden, Derek Künsken returns with all of the magic from The Quantum Magician—and honestly, I think he outdoes himself this time!
I received a copy of this for free from NetGalley and Solaris.
Belisarius Arjona has succeeded in pulling off his biggest con yet. The results, however, are a little more dramatic than he might have wanted. He has precipitated a war between two large powers. He stole a pair of time gates. And as the book opens, he watches a warship from one of those powers exact retribution on him by destroying the home of his subspecies, Homo quantus. Now, if I were in his position, I would probably not deal with that loss very well. Belisarius has a … different idea. He has some wormholes that let him travel in time, so naturally … he just travels back in time two weeks and develops a gambit to save his people. It’s not quite that simple, of course, because it will also end up involving travelling forty years into the past, accidentally wiping out an entire species, shattering someone’s entire perception of themselves and their wife … need I go on?
I’d forgotten how much humour these books have. I dove back into this universe and immediately started enjoying it, although to be honest, it wasn’t until Stills showed up that I truly started laughing out loud:
I’d forgotten how Stills’ unapologetic vulgarity is an excellent chaser to the quantum mechanical technobabble from some of the other characters. The diversity of Künsken’s characterization remains top notch. Moreover, this particular exchange tickled me because it perfectly lampshades the absurd scope of some of Bel’s adventures without being too cutesy about it. It’s like how the main characters of Stargate SG-1 eventually start joking, around seasons 7 and 8, about how many times they’ve saved the planet: they’ve earned the ability to do that, both in the show and the show itself. The Quantum Garden is much the same. Some books will make a comment like this, and it will annoy me, because the book has done nothing to earn such grandiose comments. Künsken definitely has, with both the first book and now its sequel.
Interestingly, as some of you may know, heists are my kryptonite as far as stories go … yet I actually preferred this book, which is less of a heist than the first one. It’s more straight-up espionage. But I think Künsken took everything that I liked about the first book and amplified it here, while having a tighter cast of characters and a less convoluted plot (and that is saying something, considering that we’re involving some knotty time travel here!).
The time travel logic, while definitely timey-wimey, makes sense if you unpack it. I can see the thoughtfulness on display, the way Künsken was careful to set everything up to avoid paradoxes while still maintaining a sense of suspense. That’s not easy to do.
Related to the time travel would be the Hortus quantus Bel encounters in the past, and their very unique mode of existence/propagation. Künsken demonstrates even more creativity than we encountered in the first book (which is saying something)—I love when authors push the boundaries of what we can conceive, when it comes to alien beings, and this species is quite something! It’s so easy for people to dismiss quantum mechanics as “weird,” simply because it is unintuitive owing to our three-dimensional bias. Yet if you push past that initial weirdness, you can explore and play with so many cool concepts and ideas. This is why I love reading posthuman SF like The Quantum Garden.
Most of the main characters experience some good growth. In particular, I like how Cassandra has more opportunities to shine and come into her own. She has more responsibilities, and it galvanizes her into being a more decisive actor. She holds her own with Stills as they battle the Scarecrow, and it’s a sight to see! As far as the Scarecrow goes, this is a small area in which The Quantum Garden disappoints. We learn a lot more about his origins, which is fine, but as an antagonist goes he’s fairly unimpressive in this book. I’m hoping that changes in the next one.
The story is exciting and entertaining all the way through: I literally only put this down to go to work after I started reading it on Tuesday morning, and I stayed up way too late trying to finish it that evening. It’s not for e everyone, but if this subgenre is what you enjoy, you are in for a treat. Künsken builds on what came before while setting up the tantalizing possibility of more stories, more adventures, more bright ideas. This is one of my top reads of 2019 for sure.
My reviews of The Quantum Evolution:
← The Quantum Magician
I received a copy of this for free from NetGalley and Solaris.
Belisarius Arjona has succeeded in pulling off his biggest con yet. The results, however, are a little more dramatic than he might have wanted. He has precipitated a war between two large powers. He stole a pair of time gates. And as the book opens, he watches a warship from one of those powers exact retribution on him by destroying the home of his subspecies, Homo quantus. Now, if I were in his position, I would probably not deal with that loss very well. Belisarius has a … different idea. He has some wormholes that let him travel in time, so naturally … he just travels back in time two weeks and develops a gambit to save his people. It’s not quite that simple, of course, because it will also end up involving travelling forty years into the past, accidentally wiping out an entire species, shattering someone’s entire perception of themselves and their wife … need I go on?
I’d forgotten how much humour these books have. I dove back into this universe and immediately started enjoying it, although to be honest, it wasn’t until Stills showed up that I truly started laughing out loud:
“Yup. And I need a pilot.”
“Good, I thought this was gonna be tempting or something. I’m already altruisted out, saving the Union. They got the best flying. Sorry.”
“I need a pilot to fly me through time,” Arjona said.
Malparido hìjeoputa. “Are you shitting me?”
“I never have,” Arjona said.
“For the love of…. Goddamn! Can’t you ever just rob a bank or something?”
I’d forgotten how Stills’ unapologetic vulgarity is an excellent chaser to the quantum mechanical technobabble from some of the other characters. The diversity of Künsken’s characterization remains top notch. Moreover, this particular exchange tickled me because it perfectly lampshades the absurd scope of some of Bel’s adventures without being too cutesy about it. It’s like how the main characters of Stargate SG-1 eventually start joking, around seasons 7 and 8, about how many times they’ve saved the planet: they’ve earned the ability to do that, both in the show and the show itself. The Quantum Garden is much the same. Some books will make a comment like this, and it will annoy me, because the book has done nothing to earn such grandiose comments. Künsken definitely has, with both the first book and now its sequel.
Interestingly, as some of you may know, heists are my kryptonite as far as stories go … yet I actually preferred this book, which is less of a heist than the first one. It’s more straight-up espionage. But I think Künsken took everything that I liked about the first book and amplified it here, while having a tighter cast of characters and a less convoluted plot (and that is saying something, considering that we’re involving some knotty time travel here!).
The time travel logic, while definitely timey-wimey, makes sense if you unpack it. I can see the thoughtfulness on display, the way Künsken was careful to set everything up to avoid paradoxes while still maintaining a sense of suspense. That’s not easy to do.
Related to the time travel would be the Hortus quantus Bel encounters in the past, and their very unique mode of existence/propagation. Künsken demonstrates even more creativity than we encountered in the first book (which is saying something)—I love when authors push the boundaries of what we can conceive, when it comes to alien beings, and this species is quite something! It’s so easy for people to dismiss quantum mechanics as “weird,” simply because it is unintuitive owing to our three-dimensional bias. Yet if you push past that initial weirdness, you can explore and play with so many cool concepts and ideas. This is why I love reading posthuman SF like The Quantum Garden.
Most of the main characters experience some good growth. In particular, I like how Cassandra has more opportunities to shine and come into her own. She has more responsibilities, and it galvanizes her into being a more decisive actor. She holds her own with Stills as they battle the Scarecrow, and it’s a sight to see! As far as the Scarecrow goes, this is a small area in which The Quantum Garden disappoints. We learn a lot more about his origins, which is fine, but as an antagonist goes he’s fairly unimpressive in this book. I’m hoping that changes in the next one.
The story is exciting and entertaining all the way through: I literally only put this down to go to work after I started reading it on Tuesday morning, and I stayed up way too late trying to finish it that evening. It’s not for e everyone, but if this subgenre is what you enjoy, you are in for a treat. Künsken builds on what came before while setting up the tantalizing possibility of more stories, more adventures, more bright ideas. This is one of my top reads of 2019 for sure.
My reviews of The Quantum Evolution:
← The Quantum Magician
Huge note: Since writing this review, I’ve actually come out as transgender! So, uh, enjoy all the parts here where I laughably reaffirm my cis-ness! I will revise this review at some point. (Note to future Kara: actually do that.)
I received this book as a gift from a friend who shares my interest in feminism. She found For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity somewhat revelatory. Like me, she had already begun thinking about masculinity (we had both watched The Mask You Live In). But she said that Liz Plank presented ideas in a way that helped her better understand this experience that is, as a cis woman, very different from her own. Obviously I’m approaching the book from a slightly different angle but with no less expectation or excitement. One of my current goals is to get better at leveraging my privilege when it comes to being a feminist and challenging patriarchy. As a cis man, I shouldn’t centre myself in discussions of misogyny and women’s oppression. So I’m exploring how I can learn more about the flip side—masculinity—and then how I can talk to other men about masculinity, how I can evangelize feminism to them, if you will, and so make the world better in that way.
Much of what Plank explores I’ve seen discussed elsewhere, of course. Yet she explains it so well. She covers a wide variety of issues that relate to masculinity and gender roles: how we’re supposed to behave, friendships, the types of work we should do, the pressure to be the “provider” in the relationship, etc. The friendship part was very important to me, and although I don’t date, the romantic/dating parts of the book were interesting too. Plank writes with a sense of playfulness and humour while also understanding that this is a serious topic with serious consequences—for example, she discusses the high rates of depression and suicide among men and how the stigma around mental health, combined with increased rates of loneliness in older, single men, contributes to this epidemic. She supports her writing with anecdotal interludes where individual men share their stories. She has also done a fair amount of research. For the Love of Men is a balanced meal of polemical, educational, and personal.
Early in the book Plank articulates how masculinity differs from femininity, in that the former must constantly be performed while the later is embodied: “masculinity is much more rigid and requires constant self-regulation…. Masculinity is procured through ritualized and often-public social behaviors.” This resonated for me. “Becoming a man” is a procedural rather than biological rite of passage, and if you don’t perform masculinity constantly in the right ways (being a “real man”) then you can have your “man card” taken away. Or at least, that’s what the patriarchy wants you to believe. The fact that performing masculinity often involves misogynist statements and actions is but one reason why redefining masculinity will benefit women, just as lifting women up from oppression will benefit men.
Like most men, I’d call my personal relationship with masculinity complex. I do not feel particularly “macho” in the sense of being overtly masculine. I never saw the benefit of engaging in the competitions among my male peers that establish dominance or credibility, and perhaps that is one of the reasons I ended up spending most of my time with women. Plank notes:
I recently had a discussion with my two closest friends, both women, about this idea of our relationships being biased in favour of a particular gender. Just as I seem to befriend primarily women, one of them explained that she has preferred to befriend men. At times our language flirted with gender essentialist notions—notions internalized as a result of our upbringing and the messages in our society . So reading this part of For the Love of Men was extremely helpful for me, because it helped me reframe what I’ve experienced. As an introvert who is more comfortable examining his internal life than existing in larger groups, the predilection for masculine bonding to occur within those larger groups explains why I often avoided it. It isn’t that I “naturally” gravitate towards women as my friends—it’s just that I tend to prefer the types of social situations where interactions with women predominate. (The other participant in the conversation made a great additional point: I am often in environments with more women than men. Growing up working at the art gallery, all of my close coworkers were women. In my current job, most of my colleagues are women. So this does skew one’s exposure and therefore opportunities to create friendships, I suppose.)
Being asexual, even before I understood that I was, has also informed my complicated relationship with being masculine. As Plank points out, masculinity encourages certain atmosphere of violence and competition (for women) in terms of the vocabulary, from “banging” to “scoring.” When so much of masculinity is heteronormative, how do I fill in the gap created by feeling no sexual attraction to anyone, of any gender? Regrettably she never mentions asexuality, but Plank explores how queer men experience masculinity in a variety of ways. Masculinity/heteronormativity is what influenced me, in high school, to make some half-hearted stabs at asking girls out. (Didn’t take.) I’m privileged in that it’s way more acceptable for me to be a bachelor than for women to be spinsters. Yet not being married doesn’t equate to not being expected to engage in sexual competition or to signal my sexual prowess.
And so it is that Plank’s thesis, her calls for mindful masculinity, appeals to me. I wish she foregrounded this far more than she does. It’s so important, this need for us to explore and redefine masculinity to fit men of all types. As I’ve drifted away from what is stereotypically expected of me as a masculine person, it has caused me to question a lot. I do not experience gender dysphoria, but sometimes I experience an overall body dysphoria—I am not particularly enthralled with embodiment as a state—and often I’ve wished for the ability to experience the world as different genders. Yet gender expression is different from gender identity, and despite my ambivalence towards having a body in general, I’ve never felt comfortable taking on a label like genderqueer, genderfluid, or agender. I am not exceedingly masculine, yet I feel like a man. I know I’m a man, and even when I choose to wear nail polish that doesn’t make me any less male, just as when a woman chooses to wear pants and have short hair she isn’t any less female. I do feel constrained by gender roles and expectations, as Plank articulates in a way that echoes Laurie Penny’s discussion of the straitjacket of gender in Unspeakable Things.
If there’s one takeaway from this book, I would hope that it’s mindful masculinity should be descriptive of good men, not prescriptive. That is to say, if I am a man, then what I do is masculine by definition—it’s my masculinity as consequence of my maleness. Otherwise, if we define masculinity as the external metric, then when measuring ourselves against it we will inevitably fall short. Let’s focus on being good, and on doing good, and use that to define our masculinity.
People who still subscribe to gender essentialism will not like For the Love of Men. You’ll notice a preponderance of the reviews on Goodreads panning this book comes from people whose views are essentialist or biologically determinist in nature. Plank challenges these ideas consistently and ardently throughout this book, but this is not the place to start if those are your hang-ups (try Delusions of Gender, not that I expect facts to change your mind). It’s also worth noting that she has Done The Research, both in terms of referring to scholarly studies and interviewing men from a variety of cultures. She examines the intersections of masculinity with sexuality, with race, with class, with colonialism. In some cases she only scratches the surface, but that’s ok—this should not be the zenith of one’s masculinity reading but rather a base camp from which to scale the next peak.
It might seem discordant to read a book about masculinity by a woman. After all, I said at the beginning of my review that, as a man, I’m trying not to take up space writing about feminism. Yet Plank’s role as author here is appropriate. Plank has to confront her own internalized notions of masculinity. In doing so, she unpacks how women are socialized to police masculinity just as we all police feminine behaviour. This makes For the Love of Men an extremely valuable book for women as well as men, as the friend who gave this to me discovered. And at no point did I feel like Plank overstepped, like she made some sweeping generalization about all men or all types of masculinity. She is very careful to acknowledge the plethora of perspectives and experiences.
For the Love of Men is a very solid book. It is diligently crafted, each chapter meticulous in its sources, it structure, and its substance. You can read it all at once, as I did, or come back to individual chapters from time to time to examine the specific facets of masculinity they discuss. In any event, this is a book that will make you think about the gender roles in our society. It will give you the tools to challenge your internalized ideas about gender, and to think about how gender influences our society at large. Most importantly, it is compassionate. Anyone who thinks this is a book attacking men, as some reviews claim, is very deliberately Missing the Point. For the Love of Men is true to its title: this is a book about saving men—and by extension, the rest of us—from the tyranny of toxic masculinity and delivering them into the arms of a more compassionate, more mindful masculinity. If we can do that, the world will be better for everyone.
I received this book as a gift from a friend who shares my interest in feminism. She found For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity somewhat revelatory. Like me, she had already begun thinking about masculinity (we had both watched The Mask You Live In). But she said that Liz Plank presented ideas in a way that helped her better understand this experience that is, as a cis woman, very different from her own. Obviously I’m approaching the book from a slightly different angle but with no less expectation or excitement. One of my current goals is to get better at leveraging my privilege when it comes to being a feminist and challenging patriarchy. As a cis man, I shouldn’t centre myself in discussions of misogyny and women’s oppression. So I’m exploring how I can learn more about the flip side—masculinity—and then how I can talk to other men about masculinity, how I can evangelize feminism to them, if you will, and so make the world better in that way.
Much of what Plank explores I’ve seen discussed elsewhere, of course. Yet she explains it so well. She covers a wide variety of issues that relate to masculinity and gender roles: how we’re supposed to behave, friendships, the types of work we should do, the pressure to be the “provider” in the relationship, etc. The friendship part was very important to me, and although I don’t date, the romantic/dating parts of the book were interesting too. Plank writes with a sense of playfulness and humour while also understanding that this is a serious topic with serious consequences—for example, she discusses the high rates of depression and suicide among men and how the stigma around mental health, combined with increased rates of loneliness in older, single men, contributes to this epidemic. She supports her writing with anecdotal interludes where individual men share their stories. She has also done a fair amount of research. For the Love of Men is a balanced meal of polemical, educational, and personal.
Early in the book Plank articulates how masculinity differs from femininity, in that the former must constantly be performed while the later is embodied: “masculinity is much more rigid and requires constant self-regulation…. Masculinity is procured through ritualized and often-public social behaviors.” This resonated for me. “Becoming a man” is a procedural rather than biological rite of passage, and if you don’t perform masculinity constantly in the right ways (being a “real man”) then you can have your “man card” taken away. Or at least, that’s what the patriarchy wants you to believe. The fact that performing masculinity often involves misogynist statements and actions is but one reason why redefining masculinity will benefit women, just as lifting women up from oppression will benefit men.
Like most men, I’d call my personal relationship with masculinity complex. I do not feel particularly “macho” in the sense of being overtly masculine. I never saw the benefit of engaging in the competitions among my male peers that establish dominance or credibility, and perhaps that is one of the reasons I ended up spending most of my time with women. Plank notes:
While women tend to build activities around their friends, men approach friendship in a more transactional way, building friendships around activities…. While women prioritize smaller groups or one-on-one interactions with their friends, men tend to engage in larger all-male groups, which obviously makes intimate bonding less likely.
I recently had a discussion with my two closest friends, both women, about this idea of our relationships being biased in favour of a particular gender. Just as I seem to befriend primarily women, one of them explained that she has preferred to befriend men. At times our language flirted with gender essentialist notions—notions internalized as a result of our upbringing and the messages in our society . So reading this part of For the Love of Men was extremely helpful for me, because it helped me reframe what I’ve experienced. As an introvert who is more comfortable examining his internal life than existing in larger groups, the predilection for masculine bonding to occur within those larger groups explains why I often avoided it. It isn’t that I “naturally” gravitate towards women as my friends—it’s just that I tend to prefer the types of social situations where interactions with women predominate. (The other participant in the conversation made a great additional point: I am often in environments with more women than men. Growing up working at the art gallery, all of my close coworkers were women. In my current job, most of my colleagues are women. So this does skew one’s exposure and therefore opportunities to create friendships, I suppose.)
Being asexual, even before I understood that I was, has also informed my complicated relationship with being masculine. As Plank points out, masculinity encourages certain atmosphere of violence and competition (for women) in terms of the vocabulary, from “banging” to “scoring.” When so much of masculinity is heteronormative, how do I fill in the gap created by feeling no sexual attraction to anyone, of any gender? Regrettably she never mentions asexuality, but Plank explores how queer men experience masculinity in a variety of ways. Masculinity/heteronormativity is what influenced me, in high school, to make some half-hearted stabs at asking girls out. (Didn’t take.) I’m privileged in that it’s way more acceptable for me to be a bachelor than for women to be spinsters. Yet not being married doesn’t equate to not being expected to engage in sexual competition or to signal my sexual prowess.
And so it is that Plank’s thesis, her calls for mindful masculinity, appeals to me. I wish she foregrounded this far more than she does. It’s so important, this need for us to explore and redefine masculinity to fit men of all types. As I’ve drifted away from what is stereotypically expected of me as a masculine person, it has caused me to question a lot. I do not experience gender dysphoria, but sometimes I experience an overall body dysphoria—I am not particularly enthralled with embodiment as a state—and often I’ve wished for the ability to experience the world as different genders. Yet gender expression is different from gender identity, and despite my ambivalence towards having a body in general, I’ve never felt comfortable taking on a label like genderqueer, genderfluid, or agender. I am not exceedingly masculine, yet I feel like a man. I know I’m a man, and even when I choose to wear nail polish that doesn’t make me any less male, just as when a woman chooses to wear pants and have short hair she isn’t any less female. I do feel constrained by gender roles and expectations, as Plank articulates in a way that echoes Laurie Penny’s discussion of the straitjacket of gender in Unspeakable Things.
If there’s one takeaway from this book, I would hope that it’s mindful masculinity should be descriptive of good men, not prescriptive. That is to say, if I am a man, then what I do is masculine by definition—it’s my masculinity as consequence of my maleness. Otherwise, if we define masculinity as the external metric, then when measuring ourselves against it we will inevitably fall short. Let’s focus on being good, and on doing good, and use that to define our masculinity.
People who still subscribe to gender essentialism will not like For the Love of Men. You’ll notice a preponderance of the reviews on Goodreads panning this book comes from people whose views are essentialist or biologically determinist in nature. Plank challenges these ideas consistently and ardently throughout this book, but this is not the place to start if those are your hang-ups (try Delusions of Gender, not that I expect facts to change your mind). It’s also worth noting that she has Done The Research, both in terms of referring to scholarly studies and interviewing men from a variety of cultures. She examines the intersections of masculinity with sexuality, with race, with class, with colonialism. In some cases she only scratches the surface, but that’s ok—this should not be the zenith of one’s masculinity reading but rather a base camp from which to scale the next peak.
It might seem discordant to read a book about masculinity by a woman. After all, I said at the beginning of my review that, as a man, I’m trying not to take up space writing about feminism. Yet Plank’s role as author here is appropriate. Plank has to confront her own internalized notions of masculinity. In doing so, she unpacks how women are socialized to police masculinity just as we all police feminine behaviour. This makes For the Love of Men an extremely valuable book for women as well as men, as the friend who gave this to me discovered. And at no point did I feel like Plank overstepped, like she made some sweeping generalization about all men or all types of masculinity. She is very careful to acknowledge the plethora of perspectives and experiences.
For the Love of Men is a very solid book. It is diligently crafted, each chapter meticulous in its sources, it structure, and its substance. You can read it all at once, as I did, or come back to individual chapters from time to time to examine the specific facets of masculinity they discuss. In any event, this is a book that will make you think about the gender roles in our society. It will give you the tools to challenge your internalized ideas about gender, and to think about how gender influences our society at large. Most importantly, it is compassionate. Anyone who thinks this is a book attacking men, as some reviews claim, is very deliberately Missing the Point. For the Love of Men is true to its title: this is a book about saving men—and by extension, the rest of us—from the tyranny of toxic masculinity and delivering them into the arms of a more compassionate, more mindful masculinity. If we can do that, the world will be better for everyone.
Yet again I feel like I steered myself wrong on NetGalley!! The Sound of Stars, courteously provided to me by Inkyard Press, didn’t win me over. What should have been a tale of survival and starcrossed love set in the aftermath of an alien invasion of Earth proved to be a somewhat boring adventure across open country full of exposition and underwhelming action. It’s not all bad—Alechia Dow does her best to give us a dynamic, multi-dimensional protagonist in Ellie, and I’d say she succeeds at that.
The Illori invade in the book equivalent of a Star Wars prologue scrawl, with the plot taking place after the Ilori have solidified their control. M0Rr1S is a “labmade” Ilori, which makes him a second-class citizen compared to the “true” Ilori, and he’s doing more than just questioning his loyalties to the Ilori empire. He teams up with Ellie, who is running an illegal library (the Ilori are not big on preserving human culture; they see humans more as … vessels). Together, the two of them head on a road trip across America so that Morris can sabotage the Ilori’s plans.
Some good stuff: representation. Ellie is Black, fat, and possibly pan/demisexual (I say “possibly” because Ellie says her friend has suggested she’s demi, so that isn’t Ellie confirming the label). Also, in general, Dow includes multiple non-binary characters and makes it a thing that the Ilori introduce themselves with their gender. (Pronouns would be more … useful, maybe? Gender doesn’t always imply pronoun.) Dow also tries to tackle the subtlety of classist and racist discrimination when living in upscale areas of New York. So I’d say that The Sound of Stars is very self-aware and definitely tries to engage with issues of social justice, and for that alone I wish I had liked the book more.
As far as the plot goes, though … it’s just dull. I don’t care that Morris is betraying the Ilori, because I barely care about why the Ilori are here at all. The interspersed interviews, etc., with The Starry-Eyed (Ellie’s favourite band) feel so out of place, despite the revelation at the end of the book. Characters get introduced in awkward ways, with a lot of exposition afterwards. And Ellie’s demi-ness aside, just the fact that she and Morris have to fall in love to make this a romantic plot doesn’t work for me.
I found myself actively avoiding this book when I should have been finishing it. I only kept reading because I feel bad about DNFing NetGalley books. The Sound of Stars didn’t work for me. It might for you. But for me, it just left me wanting so much more.
The Illori invade in the book equivalent of a Star Wars prologue scrawl, with the plot taking place after the Ilori have solidified their control. M0Rr1S is a “labmade” Ilori, which makes him a second-class citizen compared to the “true” Ilori, and he’s doing more than just questioning his loyalties to the Ilori empire. He teams up with Ellie, who is running an illegal library (the Ilori are not big on preserving human culture; they see humans more as … vessels). Together, the two of them head on a road trip across America so that Morris can sabotage the Ilori’s plans.
Some good stuff: representation. Ellie is Black, fat, and possibly pan/demisexual (I say “possibly” because Ellie says her friend has suggested she’s demi, so that isn’t Ellie confirming the label). Also, in general, Dow includes multiple non-binary characters and makes it a thing that the Ilori introduce themselves with their gender. (Pronouns would be more … useful, maybe? Gender doesn’t always imply pronoun.) Dow also tries to tackle the subtlety of classist and racist discrimination when living in upscale areas of New York. So I’d say that The Sound of Stars is very self-aware and definitely tries to engage with issues of social justice, and for that alone I wish I had liked the book more.
As far as the plot goes, though … it’s just dull. I don’t care that Morris is betraying the Ilori, because I barely care about why the Ilori are here at all. The interspersed interviews, etc., with The Starry-Eyed (Ellie’s favourite band) feel so out of place, despite the revelation at the end of the book. Characters get introduced in awkward ways, with a lot of exposition afterwards. And Ellie’s demi-ness aside, just the fact that she and Morris have to fall in love to make this a romantic plot doesn’t work for me.
I found myself actively avoiding this book when I should have been finishing it. I only kept reading because I feel bad about DNFing NetGalley books. The Sound of Stars didn’t work for me. It might for you. But for me, it just left me wanting so much more.
Relativity can be awful sometimes. You get in your spaceship, leave a planet, and you come back a few months later only to find that years have passed and your family is old or dead and all your plants died because YOU COULDN'T WATER THEM LIKE I ASKED, KEVIN?
Anyway, most science fiction stories use a trope, like faster-than-light travel, to avoid dealing with relativity. Not so R.W.W. Greene. In The Light Years, the time dilation effect is embraced as a principle plot device. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and Angry Robot in exchange for a review.
Adem Sadiq needs a wife. Well, he doesn’t need one. But his mother, captain of the Hajj, wants him to get one who is knowledgeable in the physics of an extinct culture, the United Americas. So he contracts with a couple who will have a child, and then when the Hajj returns to that planet in 20 or so years relative, the child will be old enough to marry him. It’s very creepy, and if it were a straight-up romance I might have to throw my Kindle across the room. Fortunately and unfortunately, The Light Years is more of a time-dilated thriller with a hint of odd-couple comedy thrown in, and I guess that’s ok.
My major issue with the book is that the main characters take so long to bake I felt like I’d aged 20 years. Adem has very few defining qualities for the first half of the book. We just kind of … exist alongside him. Eventually we learn he likes playing music and he has an overly-developed conscience. Yay for defining characteristics! Other than that, however, he’s just so bland. Hisako is a little better—we literally see her grow up from a baby to a young woman, so she kind of has to have character development—but the snapshot effect means we seldom see her grapple with issues on that micro level. And since, as I said before, the whole “I arranged for your creation” thing is extremely creepy, I’m glad the romance angle doesn’t actually land hard, because that would make things worse.
Similarly, the principal antagonist is very one-note in his moral development. We get it: he’s a profit-driven bad guy who doesn’t respect human rights, whereas Adem and most of his family are upstanding, moral people. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this dynamic, but like Adem himself, it’s just a little bland. The tension created by the structure of the Hajj’s shareholders isn’t sufficient by itself to keep me interested.
The Light Years is at its most interesting when Greene pulls back the curtain on the wider universe he’s designed and invites us to consider the side effects of relativistic inter-system travel. The cycle of political unrest on various planets and the social inequity is very fascinating. I dig the amount of thought Greene has put into this world, as well as the time taken to craft the story itself. However, the actual style in which the story gets told? Doesn’t work great for me.
Anyway, most science fiction stories use a trope, like faster-than-light travel, to avoid dealing with relativity. Not so R.W.W. Greene. In The Light Years, the time dilation effect is embraced as a principle plot device. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and Angry Robot in exchange for a review.
Adem Sadiq needs a wife. Well, he doesn’t need one. But his mother, captain of the Hajj, wants him to get one who is knowledgeable in the physics of an extinct culture, the United Americas. So he contracts with a couple who will have a child, and then when the Hajj returns to that planet in 20 or so years relative, the child will be old enough to marry him. It’s very creepy, and if it were a straight-up romance I might have to throw my Kindle across the room. Fortunately and unfortunately, The Light Years is more of a time-dilated thriller with a hint of odd-couple comedy thrown in, and I guess that’s ok.
My major issue with the book is that the main characters take so long to bake I felt like I’d aged 20 years. Adem has very few defining qualities for the first half of the book. We just kind of … exist alongside him. Eventually we learn he likes playing music and he has an overly-developed conscience. Yay for defining characteristics! Other than that, however, he’s just so bland. Hisako is a little better—we literally see her grow up from a baby to a young woman, so she kind of has to have character development—but the snapshot effect means we seldom see her grapple with issues on that micro level. And since, as I said before, the whole “I arranged for your creation” thing is extremely creepy, I’m glad the romance angle doesn’t actually land hard, because that would make things worse.
Similarly, the principal antagonist is very one-note in his moral development. We get it: he’s a profit-driven bad guy who doesn’t respect human rights, whereas Adem and most of his family are upstanding, moral people. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this dynamic, but like Adem himself, it’s just a little bland. The tension created by the structure of the Hajj’s shareholders isn’t sufficient by itself to keep me interested.
The Light Years is at its most interesting when Greene pulls back the curtain on the wider universe he’s designed and invites us to consider the side effects of relativistic inter-system travel. The cycle of political unrest on various planets and the social inequity is very fascinating. I dig the amount of thought Greene has put into this world, as well as the time taken to craft the story itself. However, the actual style in which the story gets told? Doesn’t work great for me.
I haven’t been doing a great job keeping up on writing book reviews for a few weeks, so this one is very overdue! But I received an eARC of Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin from Wednesday Books and NetGalley. Why am I not surprised that the publishers of Courtney Summers have given us another kickass girl-centred revenge plot? This time it’s loosely based on Macbeth, but even if you aren’t aware of or don’t care for the Shakespearean allusions, it’s still a captivating story of violence and revenge. For the first chapter or so, I was nervous I would end up hating it—Capin’s style is definitely distinctive here—but eventually I surrendered myself to the prose.
Content warnings for the book/discussion in this review: rape/sexual assault, violence/murder, scene that depicts transphobic bullying.
Elle and her friends crash a prep school party, and several of the popular boys at that school target Elle for rape. She responds to this by transforming into Jade, an avenging queen of a coven of witches—Mads, Summer, and Jenny—who together will bring down this group of boys in the bloodiest fashion possible. Jade transfers to the prep school and rises through the popularity ranks, courting an up-and-coming golden boy—Mack—and plotting murder.
One’s enjoyment of this book will depend greatly, as I intimated above, on how one feels about the prose style. Capin’s description and dialogue are lyrical in a way that probably is a nod to the story’s dramatic origins. Narration itself is sparse, exposition even more so. Although nominally told from Jade’s point of view, the only real glimpses into her mind we are allowed involve her thoughts on her revenge plot. We learn remarkably little about Jade as a person, because for the duration we’re entangled with her, she is a creature consumed by her need for revenge. Other exposition is delivered almost like an afterthought.
Honestly, though? In any other book I probably would have ripped this choice apart. I love novels because I love straightforward prose. That might make me boring, but it’s a subjective aesthetic! So take this for the high praise coming from me that it is when I say Capin makes this style work for me. Similarly, I reserve the label “cinematic” for very few books, because I don’t visualize when I read. Foul is Fair is undeniably cinematic. The pacing and expository style make me think of those movies where you start off having no idea what the hell is going on, but there’s a lot of flashy and glittery costumes and perfect white teeth and teens drinking, and eventually you grasp the plot. Again, I don’t normally enjoy those movies, but something tells me I could enjoy that kind of movie if it were Foul is Fair.
This really is a horror story, when you get right down to it. It’s a horror story where we’re on the side of the monster. It’s so interesting, because almost certainly that wasn’t Shakespeare’s intent when he wrote Macbeth, yet Capin has managed to take that kernel of an idea and turn it into this sympathetic murder plot, and I really like it! Morality is really ancillary here to Jade’s need to punish the boys for what they did. She doesn’t just kill them: she nefariously manipulates another person into doing the work for her in brutal and fantastic fashion. And it’s very hard to look away—yet I kept finding myself taking breaks because I was just so exhausted by the intensity!
Also, given my newly out status, it behoves me to mention: trans character! I appreciate how Capin almost casually drops in the fact that Mads is trans without making too big of a deal. There is a flashback that depicts some bullying Mads experiences after coming out in middle school, which I assume is meant to demonstrate Jade’s fierce and violent loyalty to her coven. However, I really do like that Capin doesn’t reveal Mads’ deadname even though Jade certainly knows it—there is no reason for Jade to share that with us. She just says “Mads’ deadname” wherever necessary, and it works very well.
I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I will say that Foul is Fair maintains its pace and adrenaline throughout the book. I was not disappointed.
Content warnings for the book/discussion in this review: rape/sexual assault, violence/murder, scene that depicts transphobic bullying.
Elle and her friends crash a prep school party, and several of the popular boys at that school target Elle for rape. She responds to this by transforming into Jade, an avenging queen of a coven of witches—Mads, Summer, and Jenny—who together will bring down this group of boys in the bloodiest fashion possible. Jade transfers to the prep school and rises through the popularity ranks, courting an up-and-coming golden boy—Mack—and plotting murder.
One’s enjoyment of this book will depend greatly, as I intimated above, on how one feels about the prose style. Capin’s description and dialogue are lyrical in a way that probably is a nod to the story’s dramatic origins. Narration itself is sparse, exposition even more so. Although nominally told from Jade’s point of view, the only real glimpses into her mind we are allowed involve her thoughts on her revenge plot. We learn remarkably little about Jade as a person, because for the duration we’re entangled with her, she is a creature consumed by her need for revenge. Other exposition is delivered almost like an afterthought.
Honestly, though? In any other book I probably would have ripped this choice apart. I love novels because I love straightforward prose. That might make me boring, but it’s a subjective aesthetic! So take this for the high praise coming from me that it is when I say Capin makes this style work for me. Similarly, I reserve the label “cinematic” for very few books, because I don’t visualize when I read. Foul is Fair is undeniably cinematic. The pacing and expository style make me think of those movies where you start off having no idea what the hell is going on, but there’s a lot of flashy and glittery costumes and perfect white teeth and teens drinking, and eventually you grasp the plot. Again, I don’t normally enjoy those movies, but something tells me I could enjoy that kind of movie if it were Foul is Fair.
This really is a horror story, when you get right down to it. It’s a horror story where we’re on the side of the monster. It’s so interesting, because almost certainly that wasn’t Shakespeare’s intent when he wrote Macbeth, yet Capin has managed to take that kernel of an idea and turn it into this sympathetic murder plot, and I really like it! Morality is really ancillary here to Jade’s need to punish the boys for what they did. She doesn’t just kill them: she nefariously manipulates another person into doing the work for her in brutal and fantastic fashion. And it’s very hard to look away—yet I kept finding myself taking breaks because I was just so exhausted by the intensity!
Also, given my newly out status, it behoves me to mention: trans character! I appreciate how Capin almost casually drops in the fact that Mads is trans without making too big of a deal. There is a flashback that depicts some bullying Mads experiences after coming out in middle school, which I assume is meant to demonstrate Jade’s fierce and violent loyalty to her coven. However, I really do like that Capin doesn’t reveal Mads’ deadname even though Jade certainly knows it—there is no reason for Jade to share that with us. She just says “Mads’ deadname” wherever necessary, and it works very well.
I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I will say that Foul is Fair maintains its pace and adrenaline throughout the book. I was not disappointed.
My boss, fittingly, gave me Bossypants! She gave it to me in June after I broke my elbow, and I promptly put it on my shelf and did not read it, like I do with most books. But now is the time! The time to read Tina Fey’s comedic memoir.
Let’s start with the obvious: Fey is a comedy genius. That isn’t in question. She is funny. This book is funny. If you like her other work, you’ll like this book.
The first half, which discusses her early life, didn’t do a lot for me. But once Fey begins discussing her work in comedy, particularly on Saturday Night Live, I was very interested. See, I love it when people use humour for a serious purpose. And as much as Fey is obviously trying to entertain us, there is definitely a more serious thesis. With Bossypants, Fey pulls back the curtain and explains some of her thinking and choices behind her various career decisions. This is valuable stuff for … pretty much any audience, but especially I expect for young women, and in particular, young women looking to break into comedy or entertainment.
I never really watched much SNL. However, I remember when Fey came back to the show to portray Sarah Palin. So the chapters where she discusses her ambivalence about that moment were so fascinating. She explains how she second-guessed herself, how she was worried about the attention and backlash (particularly for her family), and how she questioned whether it was the right move in terms of the type of political commentary she wanted to do. Political commentary is difficult enough to do at the best of times. To do it in that climate, as a woman, is particularly challenging.
Fey goes on in a similar vein about balancing career and family life (something men, of course, never seem to need to deliberate or discuss!). Even having a child doesn’t stop her from continuing 30 Rock, because, as she notes, other people’s jobs depend on the show. Similarly, she expresses how one of her goals as a successful woman in the industry is to open the door to more young, up-and-coming women who could be the next generation of actors, directors, showrunners, etc. Fey expresses all this with humour and humility and no small amount of sarcasm.
For a book called Bossypants, I think I was expecting something more about management and about being a woman in a position of authority. (Certainly in my newfound status of womanhood, such sage advice might have been even more welcome!) Fey does reflect, somewhat, on her management style versus those of the men (and occasional woman, like Amy Poehler) around her. Nevertheless, this book is more memoir than management seminar, and if you can surrender that expectation like I did, you’ll enjoy this a lot more.
Let’s start with the obvious: Fey is a comedy genius. That isn’t in question. She is funny. This book is funny. If you like her other work, you’ll like this book.
The first half, which discusses her early life, didn’t do a lot for me. But once Fey begins discussing her work in comedy, particularly on Saturday Night Live, I was very interested. See, I love it when people use humour for a serious purpose. And as much as Fey is obviously trying to entertain us, there is definitely a more serious thesis. With Bossypants, Fey pulls back the curtain and explains some of her thinking and choices behind her various career decisions. This is valuable stuff for … pretty much any audience, but especially I expect for young women, and in particular, young women looking to break into comedy or entertainment.
I never really watched much SNL. However, I remember when Fey came back to the show to portray Sarah Palin. So the chapters where she discusses her ambivalence about that moment were so fascinating. She explains how she second-guessed herself, how she was worried about the attention and backlash (particularly for her family), and how she questioned whether it was the right move in terms of the type of political commentary she wanted to do. Political commentary is difficult enough to do at the best of times. To do it in that climate, as a woman, is particularly challenging.
Fey goes on in a similar vein about balancing career and family life (something men, of course, never seem to need to deliberate or discuss!). Even having a child doesn’t stop her from continuing 30 Rock, because, as she notes, other people’s jobs depend on the show. Similarly, she expresses how one of her goals as a successful woman in the industry is to open the door to more young, up-and-coming women who could be the next generation of actors, directors, showrunners, etc. Fey expresses all this with humour and humility and no small amount of sarcasm.
For a book called Bossypants, I think I was expecting something more about management and about being a woman in a position of authority. (Certainly in my newfound status of womanhood, such sage advice might have been even more welcome!) Fey does reflect, somewhat, on her management style versus those of the men (and occasional woman, like Amy Poehler) around her. Nevertheless, this book is more memoir than management seminar, and if you can surrender that expectation like I did, you’ll enjoy this a lot more.
My enjoyment of post-apocalyptic, dystopian fiction is waning heavily these days. In particular, I’ve never been a fan of The Road–style stories of survival of small groups. So The Marrow Thieves was fighting an uphill battle, yet Cherie Dimaline manages to make me appreciate the intensity of the experience.
Frenchie is a 15-year-old Indigenous (Anishnaabe, I think?) boy who, after losing his immediate family, falls in with another group of Indigenous survivors on the run. In this near-future narrative (about sixty years out, I think), Dimaline recapitulates the horrors of colonialism and residential schools through a new lens: no one except Indigenous people can dream. So, non-Indigenous people have set up new “schools,” and bands of Recruiters roam the countryside looking for Indigenous fugitives they can capture to harvest the bone marrow in which dreaming resides. Rather than focusing on the wider issues of th world, however, Dimaline confines herself mostly to the personal stories of Frenchie and his companions, tracing how each of them came to by where they are now, punctuated by the events of life on the road.
This is not a long book, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. If you’re expecting Dimaline to provide a lot of backstory, to explore why a lot of humanity has lost the ability to dream, etc., then you will be disappointed. The Marrow Thieves provides a slice-of-life look at a specific moment in time in this possible future—it is someone’s dream of what could be, one might say. Would I love to learn more about the world and the origins of its reorganization? Sure. But it’s immaterial to the story itself, for this is the story of colonization repackaged and retold, part allegory and part prediction.
To use Indigenous people in the way depicted herein is not all that strange or differnt from how Indigenous peoples have been used by Europeans for centuries. Slavery, economic exploitation, sterilization, residential schools … so many forms of genocide, all of which come down to the need for power and control. Even now, Canada exploits Indigenous bodies and stolen land for the sake of jobs, for the sake of oil. So while we may not have the means to extract dreams via bone marrow today, if we did and it was the only way of regaining dreaming, would we? Absolutely, no question about it.
Dimaline inextricably links dreaming to language in ways I don’t want to examine too closely to avoid spoilers. Nevertheless, this is an important dimension of the book, considering how close to extirpation many Indigenous languages have come. It’s a big deal in The Marrow Thieves that Minerva speaks “the Language,” as Frenchie calls it; he is chagrined and envious and wishes he could speak it himself. In this book, dreaming in the Language exists a level above even speaking the Language out loud. While language may or may not shape our reality, it seems likely it shapes our dreams. Thus, Dimaline asks us to consider how the languages we speak shape the realities we create in the worlds of our dreams.
There is the usual post-apocalyptic survival stuff here. A fair amount of violence, especially violence against women. I can’t say I enjoyed the romantic subplot, with a very hasty love triangle between Frenchie, a girl, and another boy. (Though I will happily report that the book is far from heteronormative! I’m probably mean for saying this, but I found the reunion at th end, as sanguine as it was, to be a bit conrived for my tastes.) As far as narrators go, Frenchie is ok: his youth invites an exuberance that, even when tempered with the experiences he has so far endured, is a far cry from the weariness of an older person in this milieu. However, his excitability is also a little much at times. Dimaline asks us to watch him grow and age as he must shoulder more burdens of leadership and hard decisions, yet in the brief time we know him, that growth doesn’t seem as evident as it could be.
The Marrow Thieves is intense and powerful in many ways. It’s far from perfect, but it has an enjoyable structure and cadence to it, with distinctive characters and a thoughtful story. I would recommend it in the same way I recommend the similarly post-apocalyptic Moon of the Crusted Snow: a novel worth reading and worth enjoying, even though I perhaps didn’t enjoy it quite as much as you could.
Frenchie is a 15-year-old Indigenous (Anishnaabe, I think?) boy who, after losing his immediate family, falls in with another group of Indigenous survivors on the run. In this near-future narrative (about sixty years out, I think), Dimaline recapitulates the horrors of colonialism and residential schools through a new lens: no one except Indigenous people can dream. So, non-Indigenous people have set up new “schools,” and bands of Recruiters roam the countryside looking for Indigenous fugitives they can capture to harvest the bone marrow in which dreaming resides. Rather than focusing on the wider issues of th world, however, Dimaline confines herself mostly to the personal stories of Frenchie and his companions, tracing how each of them came to by where they are now, punctuated by the events of life on the road.
This is not a long book, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. If you’re expecting Dimaline to provide a lot of backstory, to explore why a lot of humanity has lost the ability to dream, etc., then you will be disappointed. The Marrow Thieves provides a slice-of-life look at a specific moment in time in this possible future—it is someone’s dream of what could be, one might say. Would I love to learn more about the world and the origins of its reorganization? Sure. But it’s immaterial to the story itself, for this is the story of colonization repackaged and retold, part allegory and part prediction.
To use Indigenous people in the way depicted herein is not all that strange or differnt from how Indigenous peoples have been used by Europeans for centuries. Slavery, economic exploitation, sterilization, residential schools … so many forms of genocide, all of which come down to the need for power and control. Even now, Canada exploits Indigenous bodies and stolen land for the sake of jobs, for the sake of oil. So while we may not have the means to extract dreams via bone marrow today, if we did and it was the only way of regaining dreaming, would we? Absolutely, no question about it.
Dimaline inextricably links dreaming to language in ways I don’t want to examine too closely to avoid spoilers. Nevertheless, this is an important dimension of the book, considering how close to extirpation many Indigenous languages have come. It’s a big deal in The Marrow Thieves that Minerva speaks “the Language,” as Frenchie calls it; he is chagrined and envious and wishes he could speak it himself. In this book, dreaming in the Language exists a level above even speaking the Language out loud. While language may or may not shape our reality, it seems likely it shapes our dreams. Thus, Dimaline asks us to consider how the languages we speak shape the realities we create in the worlds of our dreams.
There is the usual post-apocalyptic survival stuff here. A fair amount of violence, especially violence against women. I can’t say I enjoyed the romantic subplot, with a very hasty love triangle between Frenchie, a girl, and another boy. (Though I will happily report that the book is far from heteronormative! I’m probably mean for saying this, but I found the reunion at th end, as sanguine as it was, to be a bit conrived for my tastes.) As far as narrators go, Frenchie is ok: his youth invites an exuberance that, even when tempered with the experiences he has so far endured, is a far cry from the weariness of an older person in this milieu. However, his excitability is also a little much at times. Dimaline asks us to watch him grow and age as he must shoulder more burdens of leadership and hard decisions, yet in the brief time we know him, that growth doesn’t seem as evident as it could be.
The Marrow Thieves is intense and powerful in many ways. It’s far from perfect, but it has an enjoyable structure and cadence to it, with distinctive characters and a thoughtful story. I would recommend it in the same way I recommend the similarly post-apocalyptic Moon of the Crusted Snow: a novel worth reading and worth enjoying, even though I perhaps didn’t enjoy it quite as much as you could.
So I guess this is my coming out review? I actually have a blog post for that, but of course, some of my transition experiences thus far will be interspersed throughout this review.
Hello, world. I’m Kara now. (That’s pronounced Car-uh.) I’m a trans woman. My pronouns are she/her.
To My Trans Sisters seemed like a perfect book to read and then review on the day I came out online. It’s a collection of letters from trans women to trans women—so, if you had asked me back when I read For the Love of Men, I wouldn’t have considered myself the target audience. Now I most definitely am! Oh, how time makes fools of us all. Charlie Craggs has engaged a very diverse set of voices, which is commendable. These women are from all sorts of places—UK and US, predominantly, but there are other voices here too. They are a variety of ages and have followed many career trajectories (strangely high proportion of military or ex-military women though!). This is the anthology’s principal strength: it accepts and highlights that there is no such thing as a monolithic trans(feminine) experience. As someone who is coming to womanhood towards her middle age, I find that extremely reassuring and helpful.
The letters in this collection are varied yet also similar. Many are written in the form of a letter to one’s younger self, dispensing wisdom the author wish she had known then. Some are written to the hypothetical trans reader. Others are poems, or extremely short tidbits of ideas. As with any collection of this size, the quality of the writing is extremely varied. Not every letter is going to be a hit; indeed, it’s possible most letters won’t be a hit. I found myself agreeing with some, disagreeing with others, and even agreeing/disagreeing within the same letter! And that’s pretty neat.
I basically was looking for two things with this book. The first was confirmation/validation of my personal trans journey. The second was advice or wisdom from women looking back after years, decades even, of being out as transgender and their perspective, which is of course so different from mine as a trans woman in her first year of this whole process. I am a baby!
I really liked Laura Jane Grace’s admonition to “Live as fully as you can, always without apology” (10). That’s definitely a motto I’ve always followed my whole life and is likely why I’ve so abruptly and publicly decided to come out: it’s how I operate. I cannot compartmentalize. I decided it was time to acknowledge I’m trans; I started telling the people most important to me; and then I laid the ground work to come out to everyone else. Today I came out to my colleagues at work; on Monday, when my new classes start, I will come out to my students.
Similar to the above motto, Andrea James says, “transition can liberate you from fear. As much as we might hope and dream and plan, transition is ultimately a leap of faith, an act of courage” (117). I like this. It acknowledges the immensity of this journey while congratulating us and celebrating us for who we truly are: courageous. You know, a lot of my friends have commented, as part of their reaction when I told them, that I’m brave. And I see it. But I’m also super privileged: I’m white, able-bodied, have secure employment and housing … I have a lot of privilege that many trans women don’t have when they consider coming out (and hence, why some never do). So I’m not sure I’m courageous so much as savvy! Nevertheless, I won’t lie. This is a huge thing, and I feel brave for admitting this to myself, firstly, and then for deciding to make it a reality.
Jen Richards also gave me a poignant reminder that “Being trans does not make you special, it just makes you trans.” By this she means that, if one fixates and obsesses over one’s transness at the expense of cultivating other hobbies, interests, and relationships, then of course one’s trans journey will be more daunting. I find this very important to keep in mind. This is all so new to me, so fresh, and I feel an incredible euphoria—after all, I’ve just reframed my entire existence in a way that makes me more comfortable! Yet, at the end of the day … yeah, I’m trans, but I’m so many other things. I’m a best friend. I’m a teacher. I’m a knitter. I’m a reader. Being trans is as much a part of me now as any other aspect of my identity, but it doesn’t make me special. It’s my unique combination of all these attributes that makes me special. Obviously, for a little while, I’m going to be obsessed with my transness. This is a huge adjustment and learning curve! But eventually, I’ll heed Richards’ words and settle down.
I also really identified with Martine Rose’s perspective on acknowledging one’s trans identity:
This perspective coincides much more with mine than some of the more stereotypical narratives about being “born in the wrong body” or “always knowing” one is trans (which are great if they apply to you, but they don’t apply to me). I’m still sorting through my past, re-evaluating my actions in hindsight, uncovering things that might be indications earlier of how I felt. It was just so nice to hear another trans woman express this sentiment.
Then Rose goes and ruins it by adding, in her conclusion, “please don’t lose your femininity (if you are M>F) after you have had the op. I see so many who used to enjoy ‘dressing up’ as attractive women before but seem to lose interest after the op.” Ugh. Who cares what you wear?? Clothes do not make the woman; makeup does not make the woman. I’m going to dress exactly as feminine or masculine as I want regardless of the status of my genitals, and in every single outfit, I’m still going to be a cute girl. And I’m really sorry that Rose doesn’t have the freedom to see the world that way.
Because Charlie Craggs, the editor, closes out the anthology with her letter, and I also really agree with this point:
YES. SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE TRANS WOMEN AT THE BACK. That’s exactly how I felt during the sleepless night I had my epiphany. Like, yeah, new glasses and a new hairstyle and new clothes are going to help. Hormones might help one day. But none of that stuff matters as much as this enormous sense of rightness that I felt in the days that followed. As I talked to my friends and family, as I tried out my new name, I kept experiencing that euphoria rather than the dysphoria that so many of us face. I loved it.
There were definitely some viewpoints I didn’t appreciate. For instance, Amazon Eve says, “If this isn’t something that manifested in you from a when [sic] you were little, it’s probably not legitimate.”
What the actual fuck.
The only thing worse than doubt and shaming is doubt and shaming coming from within the house. I went out and checked Eve’s Twitter feed after this, and I probably shouldn’t have. I didn’t even have to read past the first line of her bio: “Intersectionality is nothing more than a loser matrix for terminal self-pity.”
Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. Every. Single. Tweet. Is problematic. Oh my.
This kind of toxicity within the trans community (within any community) is awful, and I don’t want it around. And, honestly, it’s making it harder for me to recommend To My Trans Sisters wholeheartedly to … well, my trans sisters. It’s one thing to welcome diverse and even contradictory views in an anthology like this. Nevertheless, it is still very important when creating an anthology directed at marginalized people that one considers the overall ethos one wants to foster. An anthology can be open and still have minimum standards, and I don’t think people like Amazon Eve meet those standards.
(Also, the actual editing? Not great. There are typos and grammatical errors, and it doesn’t seem like Craggs or any other people who copy-edited the book took the time to work with the various contributors.)
I wish I could unreservedly recommend this book to my trans sisters. I don’t know. I liked elements of this book, certain letters and certain people and certain sentiments. I disagreed civilly with others and less civilly with a few. It’s worth mentioning that, for all I sought validation from older trans women in this book, I went into it with an extremely firm and confident grasp on my newfound identity—that is, I was easily able to shake off the doubt or dismissiveness I felt from people like Eve. So consider that too.
You know what would be great? If we had more of these books. Because then we could pick and choose which trans-focused, trans-targeted books we read! (Yes, I know there are others out there, and maybe I will even get to them soon—but we need more, more, more!) Until then … like many other collections of writing by marginalized people, To My Trans Sisters is uneven, enjoyable, questionable, and all right.
But I … I am much more than all right.
Hello, world. I’m Kara now. (That’s pronounced Car-uh.) I’m a trans woman. My pronouns are she/her.
To My Trans Sisters seemed like a perfect book to read and then review on the day I came out online. It’s a collection of letters from trans women to trans women—so, if you had asked me back when I read For the Love of Men, I wouldn’t have considered myself the target audience. Now I most definitely am! Oh, how time makes fools of us all. Charlie Craggs has engaged a very diverse set of voices, which is commendable. These women are from all sorts of places—UK and US, predominantly, but there are other voices here too. They are a variety of ages and have followed many career trajectories (strangely high proportion of military or ex-military women though!). This is the anthology’s principal strength: it accepts and highlights that there is no such thing as a monolithic trans(feminine) experience. As someone who is coming to womanhood towards her middle age, I find that extremely reassuring and helpful.
The letters in this collection are varied yet also similar. Many are written in the form of a letter to one’s younger self, dispensing wisdom the author wish she had known then. Some are written to the hypothetical trans reader. Others are poems, or extremely short tidbits of ideas. As with any collection of this size, the quality of the writing is extremely varied. Not every letter is going to be a hit; indeed, it’s possible most letters won’t be a hit. I found myself agreeing with some, disagreeing with others, and even agreeing/disagreeing within the same letter! And that’s pretty neat.
I basically was looking for two things with this book. The first was confirmation/validation of my personal trans journey. The second was advice or wisdom from women looking back after years, decades even, of being out as transgender and their perspective, which is of course so different from mine as a trans woman in her first year of this whole process. I am a baby!
I really liked Laura Jane Grace’s admonition to “Live as fully as you can, always without apology” (10). That’s definitely a motto I’ve always followed my whole life and is likely why I’ve so abruptly and publicly decided to come out: it’s how I operate. I cannot compartmentalize. I decided it was time to acknowledge I’m trans; I started telling the people most important to me; and then I laid the ground work to come out to everyone else. Today I came out to my colleagues at work; on Monday, when my new classes start, I will come out to my students.
Similar to the above motto, Andrea James says, “transition can liberate you from fear. As much as we might hope and dream and plan, transition is ultimately a leap of faith, an act of courage” (117). I like this. It acknowledges the immensity of this journey while congratulating us and celebrating us for who we truly are: courageous. You know, a lot of my friends have commented, as part of their reaction when I told them, that I’m brave. And I see it. But I’m also super privileged: I’m white, able-bodied, have secure employment and housing … I have a lot of privilege that many trans women don’t have when they consider coming out (and hence, why some never do). So I’m not sure I’m courageous so much as savvy! Nevertheless, I won’t lie. This is a huge thing, and I feel brave for admitting this to myself, firstly, and then for deciding to make it a reality.
Jen Richards also gave me a poignant reminder that “Being trans does not make you special, it just makes you trans.” By this she means that, if one fixates and obsesses over one’s transness at the expense of cultivating other hobbies, interests, and relationships, then of course one’s trans journey will be more daunting. I find this very important to keep in mind. This is all so new to me, so fresh, and I feel an incredible euphoria—after all, I’ve just reframed my entire existence in a way that makes me more comfortable! Yet, at the end of the day … yeah, I’m trans, but I’m so many other things. I’m a best friend. I’m a teacher. I’m a knitter. I’m a reader. Being trans is as much a part of me now as any other aspect of my identity, but it doesn’t make me special. It’s my unique combination of all these attributes that makes me special. Obviously, for a little while, I’m going to be obsessed with my transness. This is a huge adjustment and learning curve! But eventually, I’ll heed Richards’ words and settle down.
I also really identified with Martine Rose’s perspective on acknowledging one’s trans identity:
From a very young age I have always had the wish that I had been born female and this wish only go stronger with time. But I have not felt this wish arose out of the way I was born; I just felt intensely jealous of females for their freedom to wear beautiful clothes, make-up, etc., and I thought that being a painfully shy person, life would have been so much easier for me if I were female in a world that still largely expected men to take the lead in those early days.
This perspective coincides much more with mine than some of the more stereotypical narratives about being “born in the wrong body” or “always knowing” one is trans (which are great if they apply to you, but they don’t apply to me). I’m still sorting through my past, re-evaluating my actions in hindsight, uncovering things that might be indications earlier of how I felt. It was just so nice to hear another trans woman express this sentiment.
Then Rose goes and ruins it by adding, in her conclusion, “please don’t lose your femininity (if you are M>F) after you have had the op. I see so many who used to enjoy ‘dressing up’ as attractive women before but seem to lose interest after the op.” Ugh. Who cares what you wear?? Clothes do not make the woman; makeup does not make the woman. I’m going to dress exactly as feminine or masculine as I want regardless of the status of my genitals, and in every single outfit, I’m still going to be a cute girl. And I’m really sorry that Rose doesn’t have the freedom to see the world that way.
Because Charlie Craggs, the editor, closes out the anthology with her letter, and I also really agree with this point:
… but without even poppin’ a single ’mone, without any surgery or laser, without eve presenting as female, my perception of myself totally changed because I finally accepted myself.
YES. SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE TRANS WOMEN AT THE BACK. That’s exactly how I felt during the sleepless night I had my epiphany. Like, yeah, new glasses and a new hairstyle and new clothes are going to help. Hormones might help one day. But none of that stuff matters as much as this enormous sense of rightness that I felt in the days that followed. As I talked to my friends and family, as I tried out my new name, I kept experiencing that euphoria rather than the dysphoria that so many of us face. I loved it.
There were definitely some viewpoints I didn’t appreciate. For instance, Amazon Eve says, “If this isn’t something that manifested in you from a when [sic] you were little, it’s probably not legitimate.”
What the actual fuck.
The only thing worse than doubt and shaming is doubt and shaming coming from within the house. I went out and checked Eve’s Twitter feed after this, and I probably shouldn’t have. I didn’t even have to read past the first line of her bio: “Intersectionality is nothing more than a loser matrix for terminal self-pity.”
Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. Every. Single. Tweet. Is problematic. Oh my.
This kind of toxicity within the trans community (within any community) is awful, and I don’t want it around. And, honestly, it’s making it harder for me to recommend To My Trans Sisters wholeheartedly to … well, my trans sisters. It’s one thing to welcome diverse and even contradictory views in an anthology like this. Nevertheless, it is still very important when creating an anthology directed at marginalized people that one considers the overall ethos one wants to foster. An anthology can be open and still have minimum standards, and I don’t think people like Amazon Eve meet those standards.
(Also, the actual editing? Not great. There are typos and grammatical errors, and it doesn’t seem like Craggs or any other people who copy-edited the book took the time to work with the various contributors.)
I wish I could unreservedly recommend this book to my trans sisters. I don’t know. I liked elements of this book, certain letters and certain people and certain sentiments. I disagreed civilly with others and less civilly with a few. It’s worth mentioning that, for all I sought validation from older trans women in this book, I went into it with an extremely firm and confident grasp on my newfound identity—that is, I was easily able to shake off the doubt or dismissiveness I felt from people like Eve. So consider that too.
You know what would be great? If we had more of these books. Because then we could pick and choose which trans-focused, trans-targeted books we read! (Yes, I know there are others out there, and maybe I will even get to them soon—but we need more, more, more!) Until then … like many other collections of writing by marginalized people, To My Trans Sisters is uneven, enjoyable, questionable, and all right.
But I … I am much more than all right.