This was a book that I picked up on a total whim at the library while grabbing another book. I had never heard of Darien or C.F. Iggulden before, but I thought I would give it a try. Sometimes that backfires; sometimes it results in some of the best reads of my year. In the case of this book, I would say it landed decidedly in the middle! What started as a dud gradually blooms into … a story of a kind. Darien is somewhat enigmatic, but I dig it.

The eponymous city of Darien is built upon the ruins of an empire long gone. It is a world where the affluent have magic and, of course, money, while the poor scrape by with what they can get. A plague has just ravaged the countryside and some of the poorer districts of the city, but the king and the ruling Twelve Families have survived untouched. The book follows a handful of characters from diverse backgrounds: a hunter with a knack for premonition; a retired swordmaster turned thiefmaster; a young woman who doesn’t believe in magic; and a thief with ambitions for a big score. Their fates converge on one of Darien’s most holy nights, and … shit goes down.

Iggulden has a distinctive writing style that is spare on dialogue in favour of description and narration. The first several chapters introduce our characters and what they want. Although these characters cross paths in the final act, I wouldn’t quite say that they “meet up.” What makes Darien most distinctive is this lack of a central, overarching plot. I suspect that will drive some readers mad while being enticing to others. In my case, I didn’t hate it—but I didn’t love it either.

This is a case where the worldbuilding and ideas grabbed me more than the story itself. Elias Post’s knack for “reaching” into the future—that’s cool. Nancy’s magic-dampening capability? That’s fascinating. Golems exist? Awesome. There’s a whole bunch of magic and myth and mystery here, but Iggulden doesn’t explore it very deeply—and you know, that’s his prerogative. There is a story here—perhaps more accurate to say a bunch of intersecting stories—all predicated upon one of the most essential questions: what do you want? Whether you want to keep your family safe, revenge for injustices visited upon your family, or riches untold … there’s a lot of character development that happens here, even if it tends to be on the page rather than between characters themselves. (A lot of the scenes are two-handers, allowing one of our protagonists to explain themselves to a supporting character.)

The final act is quite literally explosive and pretty good, and I like the ending overall. There’s some good setup for the sequel—but I don’t know if there’s enough here to get me interested in picking it up.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

This was the October selection for the Rad Roopa Book Club, a small, virtual gathering of educators founded by the very rad Roopa from Twitter! I suggested this book last year and was delighted to get to read it for book club. Fairest is a fair memoir. Meredith Talusan challenges us to dislike her, to judge her, to question her choices, and I really liked that.

Talusan was born in the Phillipines. Assigned male at birth, she has albinism, so her light skin marked her as different from the beginning. Talusan tells of her childhood, immigrating to the United States, and attending Harvard as (at the time) an out, gay man, passing as white. Eventually, after various attempts at relationships, Talusan makes the decision to transition. Along the way, she grapples with her racial identity, her relationship to her family members, and her obligations to her past.

I wanted to read this book because I want to read more memoirs by trans people whose experiences are quite different from mine. Talusan and I are both trans women, but she is a racialized immigrant to the US, and albino. While we both transitioned after finishing university, she spent her university days as a gay man, while I was (and remain) aromantic/asexual. So there’s a lot going on here that helped me see her experience of transition, contrast it with my own, and learn more about myself in the process.

Indeed, a lot of what Talusan says isn’t my experience of being trans—and that’s ok; we are not a monolith. But I really like how Talusan breaks down these questions. I like how she talks about facing the choice of transitioning—because being trans is not a choice, but transitioning is a choice, an action one undertakes. Talusan reflects on how she could have continued living as a gay man, married her longtime partner, and perhaps even be happy. I feel that, for I, too, probably could have continued being happy living as a man in my thirties—but something would have been off. And it’s for the same reason Talusan shares when she says, “Being a woman gave me access to an entire gamut of behaviours I never knew were inside me….” It isn’t about performing femininity in a stereotypical way but rather recognizing that presenting myself as a woman aligns my inner self with the actions and behaviors that are most comfortable for me. I didn’t want to be a man in a dress or a man who was “like one of the girls”; I wanted to be one of the girls—and now I am.

In other respects, as I said, it is more difficult to relate to Talusan and her transition, and that’s all right. Similarly, she’s also not the most likeable narrator. She has done things in her past that she regrets (or at least admits are regrettable) and dares us to judge her for it. I appreciate this candour in a memoir, where there is always the temptation to self-aggrandize. Talusan has not led an unimpeachable life, has hurt people and been hurt in return. Trans people are like anyone else—we are human, flawed, and deserve to show those flaws.

The ending of the memoir reminds me of My Real Children, by Jo Walton. Talusan reflects on what her life might have been had she made different choices. Her conclusion mirrors Walton’s work: we can never truly know how our other lives might have turned out, but it’s unlikely there is one, true, perfect life out there for us. It’s very hard to say whether we would have been happier, or more successful, or more content in another life, for it would have brought its own share of challenges and successes.

Fairest is an honest book that meditates upon race, gender, sexuality, privilege, and what it means to be honest with oneself and others. It isn’t revelatory in any big and explosive way. But it has a steady, inexorable beat to its story that will keep you reading and thinking about the ways our lives tug and pull at us in all sorts of directions.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Earlier this year I delighted in A Marvellous Light, by Freya Marske. She wove a finely balanced tale of murder, magic, and intrigue. I was so excited for the sequel and pleased when I received an eARC courtesy NetGalley and Tor. I knew the sequel was going to be good. I was not prepared for it to be this.

A Restless Truth follows Robin’s sister, Maud, on an ocean voyage from the United States back to the United Kingdom. A murder most foul catapults Maud from the role of companion into detective. Out of her depth, Maud nevertheless resolves to rout a murderer and retrieve the piece of the Last Contract that her companion had been protecting. Fortunately, she collects some allies, including Lord Hawthorn from the first book, and a new character/love interest in the form of Violet Debenham, intentionally described socialite-turned-performer. That’s right—after the m/m pairing of the first book, Marske gives us a f/f romance here.

As with the first book, the romance/sex scenes are far steamier/spicier than I tend to seek out in my non-erotic fiction. But I loved the development of Maud and Violet’s relationship every bit as much as I did Robin and Edwin’s. This one is different because Maud is only gradually realizing her sexuality. Violet’s consequent ambivalence—she isn’t sure she is the right person to be Maud’s first, to guide her through this—is sweet and tender. There’s so much discussion of consent, fights over things both silly and significant, and then make-up sex. I love a book that just has some joyously normalized queer romance even though romance is not in and of itself my genre.

Fortunately, A Restless Truth has a lot more to offer than romance. This book presents a mystery, but unlike the first book, it’s much closer to a locked-room mystery. We’re on a boat! In the middle of the Atlantic! So the killer can’t exactly go overboard at any moment, and while magic is a factor, everyone who knows this is also motivated to keep the rest of the boat unaware—to avoid “unbusheling” them, if you will. This gives Marske quite a lot of room to escalate the drama and tension gradually. What begins as a straightforward mystery with a side helping of romance blooms into a tense, explosive, seditious plot that has Maud and her allies making plans, breaking plans, and eventually just fighting for survival. Whether it’s exposition or a climactic confrontation, Marske’s writing is tight and so satisfying to read. I had a busy week, so I did end up putting this book down more than I wanted to, but I didn’t want to put it down!

Maud is a delightful protagonist, though I think Violet ultimately stole the show for me. The way that Marske balances contrasts their upbringing—Maud’s sheltered life, Violet’s more worldly experiences—is beautiful. There’s a scene two thirds of the way through the book where Violet considers opening up and sharing more of her concerns with Maud and ultimately doesn’t, and it’s that withholding, and Maud’s sense of understanding, that is so heartachingly good. Sometimes, no matter how whirlwind a romance is, you just aren’t ready to divulge your most intimate secrets yet.

The supporting characters have so much to offer as well. Marske has a talent for foreshadowing, for laying out the pieces on the board in such a way that you know they are all going to come together before the end of the book, but you can’t quite see the final layout. It’s very satisfying, watching these minor characters who were introduced in the first chapters show up here and there to help nudge the plot along without it feeling too contrived or heavy-handed. Because we’re on an ocean voyage, Marske has the ability to introduce a quirky but limited cast and then work with them to advance the story.

I also love how Marske continues to build this world, its magic, and the mystery around the Last Contract. I had no idea that this book would take us away from Robin and Edwin—and it is a sign of how much I am coming to appreciate Marske as a storyteller that I found myself relishing their absence. Now I’ve met so many other characters I’ve enjoyed, and I can’t wait to see what the third book brings!

A Restless Truth was not the book I was expecting as a sequel to A Marvellous Light—it was better. That’s no mean feat for a second novel. Also, because this book is very “contained”—both in setting and characters—you could dive into this one before you read A Marvellous Light as long as you don’t mind general spoilers for the first book. Nevertheless, I would recommend you read both.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and a hardcover from Disney Hyperion in return for a review! We also interviewed Lily Anderson for my Buffy rewatch podcast, Prophecy Girls, and I will update this review with a link to the episode when it’s out!

It’s 1999. In an alternative version of Sunnydale, the Mayor doesn’t ascend but rather blots out the sun and renames the town Demondale to attract, shall we say, a new type of resident. Jonathan and Andrew are in league with Warren—who is trying to ascend, when the surprise arrival of the Slayer makes that all go very wrong. The Slayer makes off with some magical artifacts and then invades the vengeance demons’ dimension, hopping dimensions and destroying hellish Sunnydales in an attempt to find her own. Meanwhile, Anya teams up with Jonathan, Andrew, Angelus, and others to find a way to stop the Slayer before she returns to Demondale to destroy their home.

So this is Buffy, but not. Fans will recognize what’s happening here; newcomers to the franchise should probably start elsewhere. If you were looking for a straightforward story with Buffy as the protagonist and some bad guys lining up to be defeated, then you won’t find that here. But you will find a book packed to the brim with loving references, along with some very fun characterization of characters we adore.

Anderson makes a point of interrogating the motivations and emotions of Jonathan and Anya in particular. Jonathan is a really interesting supporting member of the Buffyverse. He starts as little more than an extra, the butt of jokes about his height and uncoolness. “Superstar,” of course, introduces the idea that Jonathan could be more. And then he joins up with Andrew and Warren in Season 6, and … well, the rest is history. In this book, Demondale Jonathan reflects on whether Warren was a good friend (he wasn’t) and whether he and Andrew should stay friends (they totally should). But it’s cool to see Anderson spending time on a character who didn’t get enough of it on the show.

Anya, on the other hand, receives a lot more development on the show—and this Anya is consistent with that personality, albeit different because she never gave up being a vengeance demon. Here, Anderson embellishes the lore on vengeance demons, emphasizing Anya’s opportunistic enjoyment of capitalism. It’s fun, and her voice really rings true in her chapters.

Other familiar faces grace us as the book goes on, and Anderson nails their voices too. From Angelus to Spike, Drusilla to Darla, it’s clear that Anderson understands how each of these characters thinks, speaks, moves, acts. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I don’t often enjoy tie-in novels, but this one was easy to follow and a joy to read.

As for Buffy herself: this is a young, inexperienced Buffy. She is tragic: lost, adrift across dimensions, unsure of where home even is. She is determined to get home at any cost, even if it means destroying … entire worlds. As we learn more about her predicament, we can sympathize, but it’s also hard to discount what she’s doing. Ultimately, I like how Anderson resolves this part of the plot.

In the end, Big Bad has two functions. The first is simply to be a fun romp through the Buffyverse. As I said earlier, there are so many references in this book to characters, episodes, villains, moments … in some hands it might have felt like too much, but Anderson somehow makes it all fit and feel right. The other function is to remind us, as the show itself always did, that evil is seldom one-dimensional and moustache-twirling (even when it lacks a soul). Evil is a complicated combination of factors, not just the absence of morality but morality twisted in service of selfish ends. This book reminds us that our heroes could be the Big Bad too.

Also, there’s no Xander. Because fuck Xander.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Apparently a classic, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang was a parabolic story for me. In the beginning, I was intrigued. As the story went on, Kate Wilhelm started to lose me. I was less and less interested in the flaccid lives of these clones. Yet towards the end, my interest was piqued once more, and I started to understand what Wilhelm was trying to do with this book. While I wouldn’t go so far as to declare this a must-read for all, I understand why it has become regarded as a classic, particularly when discussing clone stories.

Set twenty minutes into the future, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang follows the descendants of a small group of people living in the Appalachians. However, instead of reproducing sexually, this group cloned themselves. A couple of generations later, the clones are trying to solve the copy-of-a-copy problem that tends to crop up in these situations; they are loath to continue using sexual reproduction to offset the degradation of their genes. But there is something more serious happening: as teams of clones begin to venture out of their home valley in search of supplies and information about this post-apocalyptic world, there are worrisome signs that these clones might be less resilient than original humans were. One teenage boy, the illicit sexual offspring of a clone who got a taste of independent thought, offers the key to their survival—if they are willing to take it.

Initially, I wasn’t buying into the hype. The setup felt very trite and obvious: so the clones don’t consider themselves the same species as their human progenitors. Big deal. Seen it before, doesn’t end well. But I kept going, and I’m glad I did. Wilhelm won me over eventually with her careful depiction of an insular and conservative society that ends up too fragile and stagnant for its own good. While this is a predictable result of their nature, the way she gets us there makes for a meditative and fulfilling read.

With the shift in narrative focus to Mark later in the book, we finally get to see a foil to the clones’ sameness. However, his youthful naivety means that he is a very flawed (if sympathetic) hero. I want to cheer for him, yet I also recognized as I was reading why he alone could not sway the clones onto a different path.

Ultimately, while Wilhelm’s story is grounded in the events of the time in which she was writing, the theme feels timeless. This book reminded me a lot of Parable of the Sower, which is not at all about clones but is about the downfall of society. In both books, the fall is happening in the background. Whereas Butler was concerned with chronicling how humans connect and form community during such a fall, Wilhelm instead wanted to look at what we might do to survive. Butler’s book concentrates on the human cost of living after the collapse of civilization; Wilhelm’s is about the cost of living without our humanity.

I wish I could say that neither book felt relevant now—but they both do. As I noted in my review of Parable of the Sower at the start of this year, Butler feels prescient in the worst possible way. While Wilhelm is not quite the same, she does capture, I think, the dangers of expecting technology to get us out of difficult social situations. This parable is meant more the techbros who follow people like Elon Musk, who wax poetic about longtermism and the idea that we can all upload ourselves to a utopian cloud hosted in a Dyson sphere. We won’t clone our way out of the fall of civilization—but I can easily imagine some blockchain-fuelled scam artist trying to convince people on Twitter that’s the solution.

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang did not wow me, didn’t floor me, but that is often the way of the classics for me. I can recognize its value and its power, and I am very glad that I read it.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Where do I start? Do I lament sheepishly how I’ve slept on bell hooks my entire adult life, and it is only now, at thirty-three, now that she has passed, that I’ve made time to read even one of her books? Do I confess that this was a revelation, that it was exactly the book I needed here and now? This review will be purely encomium, for that is what I feel about All About Love: New Visions. I loved it, every word.

A great deal of what hooks writes about certainly pertains to romantic love, yet from the very beginning she makes it clear that she is writing about all kinds of love. As I have shared in many of my previous reviews, I am asexual and aromantic. I have no desire to have or intention of having a partner in the traditional, romantic sense of the word. Yet my platonic relationships are still incredibly important to me—if not more important, consequently—and are loving. So to hear this noted feminist writer who didn’t identify as asexual or aromantic come right out of the gate and frame love in such a diverse and inclusive way? Wow. Powerful.

Now, I don’t want to erase what came before. Indeed, something I loved about All About Love is the way that hooks consistently cites her sources. She frequently dropped the name of a book title that I knew I should look up. She is not the first person to write about love this way, nor will she be the last, and her careful acknowledgement of those who came before her reminds us not to read a writer in a vacuum. She is responding to these texts and ideas, building upon them, or considering them and then rebutting them.

As you might expect, hooks approaches frameworks of love from a feminist lens. She is rightfully critical of books like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus—yet she is also perhaps more tolerant, or at least more understanding, of them than I have been, for she has lived longer and loved more than I have so far. This is one of the endearing teachings of All About Love: our society shapes our conception of what love can be and our perception of how we can give or receive it. That was why a book by another Black woman, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality, was so important to me. Sherronda J. Brown’s scholarship around asexuality dovetails with what bell hooks shares in these essays: when we get wrapped up in privileging romantic and sexual love above other types of love, we end up leaving ourselves open to toxic situations and less capable of receiving love from others who would give it to us.

So many parts of this book demanded that I record them for posterity. In her second essay, “Justice,” hooks talks about how we love our children and notes

 

going on to connect this to ideas of corporal punishment being unjust. But it made me think of how the rising tide of anti-trans sentiments in the States (and here in Canada) is metamorphosing into a “parents’ rights” movement of sorts, claiming that what’s happening here is an oppression of parents by the state. This framing makes me deeply uncomfortable, not only for its intersections with the transphobia that is materially threatening both my liberty and my existence, but also because it ignores, as hooks points out, the rights of the child. I am not a parent, and I know I don’t fully understand the emotions a parent will experience as they watch their children grow, mature, endure hardships, etc. But I do know that there is something very unhealthy with the way many parents discuss their children as if they are possessions or extensions of their own person. And this is what hooks is trying to teach us.

 In math, we have the concept of something being finite yet unbounded (such as the surface of a sphere—finite area, but no boundary) or infinite yet bounded (such as the set of all real numbers between 0 and 1). Love is the latter. We are capable of infinite expressions and depths of love, yet boundaries are necessary for love to flourish. When we lack boundaries—when we see love as something we are owed or something we are duty-bound to give, we twist love. (There’s probably a “Tainted Love” pun very close by but I don’t have the heart to make it.)

Later, in her essay on “Values,” hooks remark on the importance of living by our values. She uses the example of domestic violence:

 

Can I just … give bell hooks a standing ovation right here in my review? Yes, so much this.

Again, relating it to current events and my own values and fight for social justice … I see this all the time when people talk about trans issues. A lot of cis people are very happy to say that they support “the LGBTQ+” community or or say things like, “Trans women are women.” Cool. But what are you actually doing about it? Are you lobbying for gender-neutral bathrooms? Are you standing up to the transphobes running for our school board? Are you challenging the gender binary and cissexism as it manifests at your workplace, your school, your social club? The above passage is hooks’s succinct way of reminding us that there is a gulf between allyship and complicity.

Though this book is deeply personal and vulnerable, it is also with every paragraph political and polemical. Taking aim at patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy, hooks demonstrates to me why she is such a revered figure in the arena of social justice. I get it now. I mean, I didn’t doubt, given the little snippets I had read here and there, the thoughts attributed back to her that others have shared … but it’s something else entirely to mainline it. On that note, it took me over a week to read this book (which is a long time for me for such a short book). I was savouring it. I was also aware that I needed time to process each essay. This is very rare for me; even for a collection, I typically read it through in a few short sittings. But I could tell hooks needed my time, needed me to let each essay unpack itself in my mind.

That level of care and thoughtfulness for each essay is reflected in her skill as a writer too. Something that jumped out at me, almost from the beginning? Her diction. Her sentence structure. She has a propensity simple sentences and often short sentences. Even her longer sentences, however, tend not to be complex (in the grammatical sense). The result is prose that feels deceptively simple until you actually start parsing it for meaning. I could learn a lot from her style. As you have noticed, my sentences are often as meandering and weighed down by thoughts as the brain behind them!

All of this is to say … wow. I need to buy a copy of this book. (I borrowed this copy from my bestie.) I need to buy the other two books in her trilogy on love. I need to read the rest that she wrote—not to consume her, as I know white people often do with Black writers, but to appreciate her. To love her, the mark she left on our world, by being brave enough to write to us. She does here, with her simple sentences, more than I’ve managed to do in nearly two thousand book reviews. Unparalleled.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

The downside of a book about a delicious pastry is that it made me want to eat pastry! Nancy Mauro is a dangerous temptress with The Sugar Thief. Set primarily in Mauro’s and my hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario, this novel is a mystery wrapped in the warmth of family and iced with the frosting of betrayal and recrimination. It asks us what happens when people go to any lengths to establish the life for themselves that they think they deserve.

Sabine is a YouTuber renowned for her baking channel, and she is about to get a Netflix show. She returns to her hometown of Thunder Bay to visit her family—but what should have been a celebration of her father’s achievements in life turn into mourning his sudden death. He bequeaths to Sabine the secret recipe of the Persian. Sabine wants no part of her father’s small-town bakery, but when she pulls on one thread of her family history, the entire tapestry of her past starts to unravel. Soon she discovers that she has to keep going, keep digging, to find out who she is, where the Persian actually came from, and what her father has been hiding her entire life.

The Persian is a real thing. It was a ubiquitous part of my childhood, growing up here in Thunder Bay: schools would have “Persian days” where we would bring in a loonie (or eventually, a toonie—that’s a two-dollar coin) for the sweet treat. To be honest, I’ve never enjoyed Persians all that much—too sweet—and their uniqueness seems overhyped. But I like how Mauro, whose family here in Thunder Bay produces the Persian, seized on this as an idea for a novel. I really love it when authors return to their roots, so to speak, in such an authentic and grounded way.

Indeed, that’s what this novel is all about. Sabine’s reluctant return to Thunder Bay triggers a cascade of emotions. Her father was emotionally distant for her entire life, and now he’s gone. She arrived in Canada at four years old, uncertain, and he never did make her feel all that welcome or wanted. So Sabine wrestles with the stories that other family members tell her about her father.

Mauro employs some interesting narrative structures. The chapters mostly alternate between the perspective of Sabine or Wanda, her producer. Here and there we get chapters set in Italy or in Thunder Bay’s past that follow people like Sabine’s uncle. Although the narration itself is third person limited, there’s still some unreliable narration at work. Sabine and Wanda, despite being peers, have aims that are sometimes at cross-purposes. (Interestingly, we don’t get much in the way of perspective from Paul, the camera operator.) The flashback chapters are meant to be what happened based on the version of events told to Sabine by someone else, such as her aunt or uncle. So who’s to say what really happened?

Sabine is a textbook unlikeable protagonist. Wanda starts off as much more sympathetic although I suspect that by the end most readers will not like her either. These two women actually have a lot in common: both belong to immigrant families (Sabine herself is technically an immigrant as well). Both have parents who came to this country in relative poverty, though Sabine’s family has become fairly successful whereas Wanda’s is still struggling a great deal—commentary both on the differences in opportunity in Thunder Bay versus Toronto as well as the differences in discrimination of Italian immigrants versus Filipino ones.

Sabine and Wanda are both very motivated by money. Wanda is supporting her parents—and money just seems to slip through their fingers. Sabine is chasing a big Netflix deal for a few reasons; she has a secret that she doesn’t want getting out, and she also has an expensive lifestyle in an expensive city. Throughout the story, money talks.

Mauro keeps the pacing tight and keeps you guessing about where the book is going next. My main criticism is simply that the ending wraps things up a little too neatly and too quickly. There are a couple of twists that feel very trite. But the second half of the book does not live up to the anticipation stoked by the first half.

There’s also a certain element of style and satire at work here that might be off-putting for some readers. It’s most obvious when dealing with Colette, Sabine’s agent, or with the producers from Netflix. They’re caricatures, slightly buffoonish in their one-dimensional portrayal. I’m largely convinced this is done on purpose, hence the way I’ve labelled it as satire. Despite being a mystery, The Sugar Thief actually has a lot more in common with a comedy, almost a farce even. It’s less hard-boiled, more deep fried.

So as long as you’re clear on what to expect, I think there is a lot of potential for enjoyment in this book. I, of course, have a soft spot for it because of its setting. But it’s precisely because of such vulnerability that I’m relieved to report it’s actually good! Just don’t expect it to be more than it is. And next time you’re in Thunder Bay, try a Persian. They aren’t amazing, but they’re ours.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Sometimes, you just want to get out and fight monsters. But bureaucracy! That’s the situation Zoey Prescott faces in Memories, Lies, and Other Binds by Katy Foraker. This urban fantasy twist on vampire-hunting and immortality mashes up time-worn tropes with a dose of family drama and unexamined angst. It’s a fun ride! However,

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review.

Zoey Prescott stopped aging in her twenties. That was in the eighteenth century. Since then she has been an employee of the Research Institute of Demonic Entities and Rarities (RIDER), a private corporation bent on researching the supernatural and protecting the mortal world. Zoey has risen to head a department in RIDER, but her status as a quasi-immortal bars her from rising much further, and RIDER’s bureaucracy means she isn’t allowed to leave headquarters. When Theo, one of the most infamous extant vampires—and Zoey’s brother—surfaces, however, Zoey inveigles the brass for permission to join the field team sent to capture him. Of course, that just launches her into a conspiracy that upends everything she thought she knew about the world.

This book is clearly a labour of love from a writer who knows these genres and wants nothing more than to build on top of what has come before. First, there are little nods and tips of the hat to previous franchises—much of the vampire lore will feel very familiar to fellow Buffy fans, and at one point Zoey mentions a group of vampires in the Pacific Northwest whose skin sparkles in the sun (she thinks they are actually faeries). Foraker pulls off these homages and callbacks, making them fun without being too intrusive. A lot of urban fantasy writers feel the need to change up the lore and mythos for supernatural beings—Twilight being an example of that—and there is a good argument for doing so, but this book is an example of why there isn’t anything wrong with sticking to the classics.

Foraker also pulls off a tricky bit of characterization in Zoey, our viewpoint protagonist. Zoey’s willfullness and stubbornness are an appropriate response to the way she has been cosseted and infantilized by her own organization. Yet it is challenging to write a protagonist whose special power (in this case, a lack of aging) is entirely passive. In these situations, the protagonist often seems to lack agency, which generally makes for a less satisfying story. Zoey might not pack as much oomph as her comrades, but one thing she has is a lot of courage and an agenda of her own when it comes to Theo. This kicks off what is probably the best part of the book.

Memories, Lies, and Other Binds is at its best when it questions how supernatural powers affect one’s ability to participate in the mortal world. This happens over and over, from Zoey’s old flame Augustine to Charlotte’s desire for a “normal college experience.” RIDER’s entire existence is predicated on the idea that the supernatural has to be managed—they run private nature retreats for werewolves when it’s that time of the month—in a way that does not disrupt the flow of ordinary, mortal lives. Foraker explores all of this mostly on the individual level, with some hints there and there (like with the werewolves) at structural inequity as well. Throughout the book, we are encouraged to move from viewing RIDER as a benevolent force to a much more morally grey one.

Alas, that brings me to what didn’t work for me about the book, and it’s a pretty big one: the plot. I just feel like we had a little bit of a bait-and-switch situation; the first part of the book sets us up to see Zoey’s lack of aging as this big mystery that needs to be solved. But as we get deeper into the conflict with Theo and learn more about the villains behind the scenes (that’s all I can really say without spoiling it), events occur that basically obviate the mystery of Zoey. I don’t like it. However, this is an example of a criticism where the author and I happen to disagree about the story that should be told here rather than something that is objectively wrong with the book. So I’ve tried to set aside this preference and look at the rest of the story and ask myself, “do I like what happens from there?”

Yes and no. I really like Zoey’s attempt to process and understand what’s happening to her. Foraker has a talent for description in her prose and puts it to good use here. Her relationships are also irrevocably altered, and I appreciate the nuance at work here and the way that Zoey herself is going through a fair amount of trauma (and trauma bonding).

The antagonists, on the other hand, are just kind of boring. A little mustache-twirling for my taste. I was hoping for something deeper or certainly something juicier, and for a consequent conflict that really required more exertion on the part of the protagonists to resolve. Everything gets wrapped up nice and neat, little bow on top, with the door left just open enough for a sequel.

So where does that leave us? Well, I would read a sequel. Despite my reservations about the plotting, I enjoyed reading this book, which is usually the criterion that matters most to me. Memories, Lies, and Other Binds reminds me a lot of The SPI Files, by Lisa Shearin, and hits that same sweet spot of fun characters, some good dialogue, and interesting fantasy set pieces. This book is not a revelation, not an earth-shattering entry into the genre. Nevertheless, Foraker has managed to create something that is comfortable without feeling cliché, and I think that in and of itself is a pretty good accomplishment.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Once more, Holly Bourne has done the nearly impossible: she has made me feel sympathy for the plight of white straight cis women.

 Fern is thirty-one at the beginning of Girl Friends (published as When We Were Friends in North America, but I didn’t realize it was being published here simultaneously and pre-ordered a UK copy instead). Her best friend from adolescence, Jessica, suddenly re-enters her life. But Jessica used to be a hot mess, as they say, and still might be, and Fern is ambivalent about rekindling this friendship. After a tumultuous adolescence including self-harm and suicide ideation (trigger warnings for scenes with these in the book), Fern is finally on a better path, writing about mental health for a digital publication and training to become a counsellor. She even has a boyfriend she loves and who will probably propose to her any day now—right? He’s going to propose to her, right? RIGHT?

Seriously, though, I don’t know what kind of magic Bourne puts into her books, but they feel so incredibly relatable despite the fact that I came to my womanhood only recently, have no romantic or sexual interest in men, and generally have eschewed or not had the opportunity to participate in a lot of the conventional activities that white women of the age and class of Bourne’s heroines tend to do. I don’t really think I am the target audience for this book, and yet it has won me over. That’s just how good she is.

I think partly it’s just the ease with which Bourne includes little examples here and there that, I imagine, resonate for much of her target audience. To give myself credit, many of my friends are straight cis women, and so I have a lot of experience empathizing with this group. I’ve been a shoulder many a time. So Bourne has this way of leaning into tropes, playing them straight when it helps establish character and scene (as we see at the beginning with Fern’s encounter with a youthful influencer) and averting or subverting them in the most dramatic moments (as we see at the climax of the story). Some of the best parts of this novel are the quietest, the most unremarkable, depicting everyday stuff that a lot of women will smile and nod along to, whether it’s Fern’s body image issues or her anxiety and insecurity in her relationship with her boyfriend, Ben.

Honestly, Fern is kind of an unlikeable—albeit not unsympathetic—character. For much of the book, I was cringing a little as I read her thoughts (and I had her pegged as an unreliable narrator from the start). I don’t think we are supposed to like Fern unconditionally, because it’s kind of the point: Bourne is illustrating that Fern’s hang-ups over Jessica, over Ben not proposing, over needing to be completely secure and in control of her entire life, are normal but not desirable. Fern is an extremely flawed main character, and she makes a lot of mistakes. But the book never judges her for this. Never encourages us to think less of her. So even though I felt uncomfortable at times as I watched Fern spiral, I knew this was happening for a reason.

I loved the alternating chapters. First, I’m a sucker for how these encourage you to keep reading so that you can get back to the time period you just left. Second, younger Fern is even more fucked up than older Fern in so many ways—but again, she’s also a very normal teenage girl in many ways. There’s one scene in particular where Bourne describes how she’s trying to pose attractively while suntanning near an attractive boy, and it made me think about what must be going through many straight teenage girls’ minds in those moments. The calculation. The emotional devastation that can be wrought with a single look. As with her depiction of older Fern, Bourne makes us conscious here that younger Fern’s actions aren’t good but never encourages us to judge her for that.

For a book that is, in many ways, an indictment of patriarchy on the development of women’s psyches, Girl Friends has an admirably diverse cast of male characters. Most of the men in this book are indeed terrible, but they are terrible in different ways. And some of the men aren’t terrible at all, or at least, we don’t see that side of them. Sometimes, the differences of opinion between Fern and a male character, like Ben, are less about patriarchy and more about coming from different backgrounds and experiences—Ben tries hard to be a good man and a good partner to Fern, but he didn’t experience life as a teenage girl in a small English town. Despite sharing a knowledge base in psychology, the two of them don’t always see eye-to-eye because their insecurities and fears are drawn from different places. That’s really interesting to me, the dynamic between them. Something similar happens between Fern and her best friend, Heather, who is a lesbian and much more strident about her feminism. Heather is not a better feminist than Fern simply for being more direct about it, but she also isn’t a worse one.

Girl Friends is a messy book in this way. Bourne reminds us that all of us, no matter where we come from, are struggling with our imperfection. We cannot be the perfect feminist, the perfect counsellor, the perfect girlfriend, or the perfect girl friend. We are, all of us, prone to making mistakes. We are also incapable of remembering our pasts objectively. The central question of this novel—should Fern allow Jessica back into her heart—is simple, poignant, yet so tough to resolve precisely because we can’t trust what Fern remembers—and neither can Fern. And it’s the answering of that question as the novel slides from climax to conclusion where Girl Friends finally won my heart.

Although Fern’s relationship with Ben is front-and-centre for much of the story, this is not a romantic comedy. The most important love in this book is a love between women, a platonic love, a love that pauses and then resumes across decades and distance. And as an asexual, aromantic woman, I am so here for that. Bourne says in her acknowledgements that this book started as a celebration of female friendship but, for various reasons, transformed into a book about dealing with trauma, and I get it. But I appreciate how, deep down in its bones, this story still celebrates the fact that women can love each other as fiercely and deeply as friends as they could if they were romantically attracted to each other. Perhaps the truth of that is only obvious in how they can hurt each other as much as one can be hurt by a lover.

Two of my auto-buy authors, Holly Bourne and Courtney Summers, have released novels with girl in the title this season, and both novels examine how girls and women get messed up by our society. I’m fine with this trend in my reading! The power of story to illuminate, excavate, exonerate, and when necessary, eviscerate, elements from our past … it’s exhilarating and intoxicating, especially in the hands of writers as talented as Bourne and Summers both are. These stories make me think and feel. Where my experiences of being a woman overlap, there’s a tenderness. Where my experiences of being a woman are different, there’s empathy. And in the liminal spaces, there’s curiosity and connection.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Shout out to CBC Radio’s Spark for their episode on protecting our intimate data, which interviewed Danielle Keats Citron. That’s how I learned about The Fight for Privacy just ahead of its release date and managed to snag an eARC courtesy of NetGalley and W.W. Norton Company.

This book is primarily US-focused, which probably shouldn’t be surprising. That being said, Citron references South Korean examples quite a bit, along with a smattering of other countries, particularly Europe. That’s one of the big takeaways from this book: the fight for privacy is global, because the internet is global; however, American laws and regulations have an outsize effect. Many websites that host things like nonconsensual porn do so in the United States because of things like the Communications Decency Act’s protection from liability. Similarly, Citron explores how some corporations like Facebook and Google end up operating with one regime for their American customers and another for their European customers (who are protected under the GDPR by stricter privacy laws).

Citron first establishes what constitutes intimate privacy and why American law is so woefully inadequate at protecting it. She outlines who is most vulnerable to violations of intimate privacy (three guesses—yep, marginalized people, especially women, and especially racialized women!). Finally, she sets forth specific and attainable solutions in both law and the corporate world. She is able to do this because she knows what she’s talking about—Citron has literally written the book on online abuse, along with this book, and co-founded initiatives dedicated to fighting back against intimate privacy violations. She speaks with the expertise of a law professor yet is able to explain everything to the reader in plain English—no mean feat!

I’m not really one to advocate for incremental change—more and more, I feel like burning the whole system down and starting over, and when politicians instead seem to compromise their radical ideals in favour of working within a system or status quo, I am often disappointed. Nevertheless, Citron makes some really good arguments here for the value of incremental change within the existing legal and regulatory frameworks that corporations use to manage our personal data. In one chapter, she describes sitting down with Kamala Harris and her team back when Harris was the Attorney General of California. As Citron describes working with the now–Vice President, I suddenly understood how people like Harris can go into politics in the hopes of making a real difference. It’s almost enough to make me optimistic again!

Anyway, my point is that The Fight for Privacy walks a fine line. Citron is pragmatic: you aren’t going to throw away your phone and go live off the grid, and that is literally the only way to avoid allowing companies to collect your personal data. Citron is also not radical: according to her, the solution is not to dismantle capitalism per se, not to replace these corporations with a different type of entity, but simply to offer them market-based and political incentives to be better. I’m skeptical of that approach, of course, but I can see where she’s coming from. This is not a revolutionary book, but it is a very practical one, and I think there is real need for that.

At times, however, I found myself wondering who needs this book—its target audience wanders a little. I thought about my dad, who is a lawyer and might enjoy this book, though I wondered if it would be technical enough for him. As I mentioned earlier, it’s accessible enough for a layperson, but at times it does get bogged down in discussions of regulatory technicalities. On the other hand, people involved in regulating tech companies would probably want something a little more focused. In trying to be too many things, The Fight for Privacy ends up feeling scattered and unfocused. If I could change one thing, it would be to cut down on the exhaustive examples Citron offers up in chapter after chapter. A little more editing, a little less rock and roll.

This book is also, I need to be frank, somewhat disheartening. To be fair, Citron does end on a note of hope by describing successes she has witnessed in recent years. Unfortunately, her exhaustive documentation of the not-so-successful situations left me feeling very discouraged as I read. It is so challenging to navigate our digital world, because so much of our interaction with corporations and governments and the corresponding exchange of data exists beyond our direct control. These issues came up in my English class a few weeks ago, and we talked about how hard it is to understand or have any concept of how companies are using our data.

The issue feels, at times, insurmountable. But I will give The Fight for Privacy this: if it is not clear in its audience, it is certainly clear in its purpose. It is a manifesto, a clarion call for stronger privacy protections, data use transparency, and a civil right to privacy. Citron’s presentation is level-headed, thoughtful, measured—she has worked hard to come to the table with actual proposals, backed by her years of experience. I was disheartened by this book and buoyed at the same time! Do these feelings cancel each other out? I’m not sure. All I really know is that if, like me, you are concerned about how corporations and governments are using the increasingly complex web of data available to be harvested from each and every one of us … you would probably get something out of reading this book.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.