thebacklistborrower's Reviews (570)

I find the story of the Chicago Jane Collective so fascinating and inspiring. When Roe v Wade was overturned, I jumped on my library’s website and found the first book that seemed related. I honestly didn’t know what this book was about until I got it in!

The story follows Marthe, a Newfoundland woman in her thirties living a typical Millennial life in Montreal, who desperately wants to be part of something bigger than her. A cause to consume her, a responsibility. Trying to find this cause, she goes to a birth doula training class, only to find it too twee and clean, far from the darkness, dirtiness, and urgency that she was seeking. But while there, she meets an older woman who had been part of a Jane collective on Newfoundland. She (“Jane”) fires Marthe up with the possibility of returning home, and restoring Jane on the island. Apprenticing the skills that these other women knew and taking them to the remote outports, where women may not have access to more traditional services. 

This book was interesting. Parts felt slow and lacking in consistent momentum, but I also feel like that was done intentionally. One does not just *start* a movement. It is all fits and spurts, and that came across in the book well. The older woman is rather unlikable, and the relationship doesn’t feel healthy at times. But the team reincarnated in Newfoundland is full of wonderful women (and men are basically absent from the book). One interesting pattern I found was as a millennial in Montreal, children were also absent, but once she got to Newfoundland, they seemed to be everywhere. 

I think I found this book a good read, and it is on a lot of long and short lists to recognize that. Reading it intentionally, the pacing and characters work very well in the grand context of the story, bringing the reader into the frustration felt by Marthe when the grand plans faltered or slowed, but also the excitement when “Jane” talks big about grand plans for them. We are along for the ride - for better or poorer.

 

 After seeing Out North on my feed a handful of times, I reserved it at the library -- it sounded fascinating, and was pink and full of pictures to boot! Published by the ArQuives and Figure.1 Publishing, it covers the queer history of Canada, from the very early days to the 2020s. Divided into eras, each section discusses the various ways 2SLGBTQ+ people engaged in activism and came together to support each other. 

Of course, there is too much history to sum up in a single book. Out North focusses on activism and kinship, specifically activist groups, clubs and other gay establishments, performing troupes, protests, publications, and more, with plenty of visual materials pulled from the ArQuives and a few other archives throughout Canada. Prefacing each section was a summary of the era, including societal impressions, legal changes, and the major social movements. I think what I found most valuable was the reminder that despite the legal and social progress made, it was not linear but ebbed and flowed over the decades. 

However, one gap that I’d seen others reference in my feed was that the book does not thoroughly discuss where the community had failed to come together in kinship. In most cases, the creation of organizations for marginalized groups, like trans, women, Black and Indigenous queer groups are mentioned as counters to the predominantly white hetero male narrative of most queer organizations, but the extent to which they were marginalized is not thoroughly detailed. The bulk of the detail on this topic  is in the afterword. 

So in summary, I think this is a really good book to read if you’re looking for a summary of a history of Canadian LGBTQ+ history, particularly the amount of effort that went into building community in the face of violence and discrimintion. However, read critically and be aware of the history missing from the pages. 

This is a book that took me months to read because Libby *said* I had one day left but then took it from me. With HALF AN HOUR LEFT. (I’m not bitter, really lol). Anyways, this is NOT a book you want to put on hold part way through for months, so really I ended up listening to the last quarter of the book twice. 

I almost DNF’d this book (seems to be a trend, I did the same with Gideon), because it is just so weird to start out with. You feel like you picked up the wrong book, compared with GIdeon, and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t tell if I’d just WILDLY misremembered something, or misunderstood the book all together. But instead of dropping it, I googled what other people thought, and found an NPR article titled “ Whatever You're Expecting, 'Harrow The Ninth' Is Not That Kind Of Book“ that saved Harrow the Ninth for me. It validated my feelings when the author wrote: “I loved Gideon. Loved everything about it. It was just so much of a book — so strange, so full, so lush, so double-bats*** crazy and so unerringly cool — that I didn't think anything could top it. And Harrow the Ninth, second in the series, doesn't. Because it is not that kind of book.” But then continues to sell the book anyways. If you loved Gideon, don’t expect to love Harrow-- right away at least. Its such a different beast (literally?). 

So should you read Harrow if you liked Gideon? Yes, absolutely. If you're like me and thought Gideon rather enjoyable but not super enthralling, I’d probably still say yes, but wait until its convenient. That’s what I’ll be doing with the upcoming third book, Nona the Ninth. Overall it was a weird, dark, depressing book, but still ultimately an enjoyable one with one heck of a cliffhanger. 

 

This book follows the real person George Ticknor, heading out to his friend and (real) american historian William Prescott’s party in Boston in the early 1900s, and is completely in Ticknor’s head. If you have social anxiety, this book might feel too close to home as he wonders whether Precott even likes him, if he’s being invited out of pity, if his pie will be welcome, if he will know anybody, if we will make a favourable impression or be an awkward loner, if his suit will smell from the rain, if the pie will be accepted only out of pity, if he will be *too* late for the party (if only he’d left earlier!) or maybe he shouldn’t have left at all, is it too late to go home, he probably won’t really be missed…. (iykyk).

Amongst those thoughts is Ticknor reflecting on his friendship with Prescott, and the jealousy he has for Prescott’s success. Ticknor feels like a failure, and reflects on all the what-ifs that could have made him successful, even blaming Prescott’s success on societal pity of his visual impairment. It is a fascinating read because Ticknor is so unreliable. I couldn’t parse out whether his relationship with Prescott is toxic, and Prescott himself has curated Ticknor’s social unease and personal lack of faith, or whether Ticknor is just shy and lacks confidence. I couldn’t tell whether Ticknor was at all successful or a complete failure, whether he was truly awkward and unlikable or just thought he was. Of course, with all things in our own heads, do we ever really understand objective reality and our place in it (without therapy)?

This is a slow, painfully introspective book. Heti was particularly interesting as she pulled from real sources, including Florence Nightingale, throughout her book to inform the relationship between Ticknor and Prescott and their histories together. For a first introduction, I really enjoyed this book (beyond the constant cringing from secondhand anxiety) and am really excited to read more from her.

 

CW: unwanted pregnancy

I like reading books that connect to current events and life, as they help me with processing. So after Roe v Wade, I thought a book about a woman pregnant with her fourth thinking complicated thoughts about family and her place in society would be a good read. I was only a few pages in when she notes that her pregnancy was due to a failed Lippes Loop (an IUD used in the 60s-80s), and she’d looked at terminating, but it was still illegal (“what would a backstreet abortionist do with a Loop?”). 

The book spans over a single night, starting after her children have gone to bed. Her husband is a journalist in Kathmandu, and Minn is mostly alone with her thoughts, except the odd visitor and when the afterparty of The Honeyman Festival shows up. Minn was a lover of the Director Honeyman, when she was younger and living in Europe, even acting in some of the films. Through the evening, she reminisces on her experiences of being young and liberated, living in Paris and Italy, in contrast to her current life: pregnant mother of three renting a massive run-down house in downtown Toronto with cockroaches, subletting the attic rooms to young hippies. 

 

Not having any children, I’d love to get thoughts from a parent on this book, but to me she felt so real. She pees (reprimanding herself -- ladies say “tinkle”) frequently through the book . She loves her children but wants to escape motherhood. She’s not sure about this fourth -- taking up so much space both mentally and physically. There is no escaping her lot, but she is also not resigned. When cops show up at 2AM looking for one of her sublets, she asks for a warrant. When they enter without one, she literally beats the shit out of one of the cops until they leave. I thought the character of Minn was amazing, and spending a night with her, even in her dark thoughts, was interesting, and entertaining. She’s funny and wry, but also painfully on point. A great book for anybody who likes feminist reads.

Also be warned: the book does use derogatory language to refer to mentally disabled people.
 

My partner said I’d like this book so I read it and I sure did (does this mean he has to read a fiction book recommended by me now?). This is an adventure book about the author’s trip across Canada’s far north by canoe. The catch? He does most of the trip UPriver to be as far north as possible while he traversed the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut from west to east. Starting in Dawson City, near the Alaskan border, he sets off on foot down the Dempster Highway until getting to Eagle Plains, just north of the Arctic Circle, where he meets up with his canoe and gear, and jumps in the Klondike and starts paddling, poling (like a Venetian Gondolier), and even sailing his canoe up river. From there, he fights the currents of rivers as big as the Mackenzie (with the second biggest drainage in North America, after the Mississippi), and as small as creeks barely the size of his canoe, going all the way to the north end of the Hudson Bay. 

This book was exciting and interesting. I listened to the audiobook and it was funny and well-read by the author. I couldn’t believe the things he said and did (including turning down a night at a luxury private resort owned by an airline magnate, despite not seeing civilization for weeks!). He started in June, and it was so interesting hearing what weather and seasons are like in the land of the Midnight sun. He often would start off canoeing in the middle of the night if it meant the weather was better, because there wasn’t any issue seeing the water or where he was going! And despite starting so early, he was still stuck in the ice by the time he got to Great Bear Lake, which was not quite done breaking up, but no sooner did he clear the ice before he was worried about the start of winter. It's shocking how quick the weather turned.

If you’re looking for a fun adventure read, I’d definitely recommend Beyond the Trees. Its fascinating, funny, and has some beautiful photos and descriptions of the nature he saw in areas where he was hundreds (thousands?) of kilometers from civilization. Great read for summers at the beach or lakeside cabin!

I grabbed this book and was very excited by the blurbs and flaps. Science-fiction, love stories, short stories, and well awarded, it sounded just up my alley. This book is comprised of two connected short stories bookending a novella. 

I loved the short stories “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way to You”. They are the journal entries and messages between an engaged man and woman as they repeatedly miss each other through time. As they get delayed or re-routed they jump back on another lightspeed ship to jump ahead a few hundred or thousand years in weeks of earth time, waiting for the other, but over and over and over again. Witnessing natural disasters, the end of humans on earth, and the restoration of the planet, they frog-hop over each other through time. I loved these stories as they were creative and emotional, and something I’ve never read before. In the notes, the author tells how the man’s side, “I’m Waiting for You”, was actually written to be marriage vows, and I love that.

But for the novella, the “Prophet of Corruption”. I definitely didn’t get it. Its a story about a group of higher beings, all divided from one common being, who invented earth to learn life lessons and pass time. Each being who invents a new philosophy for living (like wealth accumulation, hedonism, poverty, etc), is called a Prophet and builds a school and educates other beings in that philosophy. They can craft their lives on earth to learn new lessons and try new philosophies, and when they die and return, learn from those lives. However, as all life and all beings are sourced from a common being, as soon as one starts to see themselves as unique or individual, they are deemed “corrupt” and quarantined before being re-absorbed into another being (are you following me? lol). We follow one being who is struggling with corruption and the corruption of others as they try to fix this higher place (I think). Generally though, the whole novella was lost on me. I didn’t get the plot, I wasn’t sure what was happening or why, or what the message or story was for. If you know, please tell me!

So generally I think this book was a little disappointing. I’ll probably do some reading about the Prophet of Corruption to better understand it but I don’t know if it will drastically change my mind to the story. If you can read the short stories, I’d recommend them! 

In 2019 I first picked up Sputnik’s Children as a Canada Reads longlisted book. With alternate Earth timeline/multiverses, an unreliable (and not super likable) MC, and a thrilling plotline, I devoured it. Sister’s Sputnik is a sequel, but also its own story. 

Once again following our reluctantly heroic, occasionally unlikable, unreliable narrator, Debbie Reynolds Biondi, as well as a new character, Unicorn Girl . Together, they travel the 2,052 multiverses as “The Sisters Sputnik” telling stories to eager listeners. In a world referred to as “Cozy Time”, they retell the story of an alternate timeline of a racist, backwards, Toronto filled with AI and their human acolytes, and how, when Debbie stole a print book from the library for research, she unwittingly unleashed a literally viral ideology espoused by the book. The book, which wistfully looks back on the 1950s as the epitome of Western life, transports anybody who comes into contact with it into a timeless shadow universe where the book is reality and people are sent back to *when* they came (that is, the time and place their ancestors first left their home) via a wormhole in a perverse inversion of the Statue of Liberty. And, as the super hero of her own life, it is up to Debbie, assisted by Unicorn Girl, to save the world as she knows it. 

Parts of this book are certainly dark. Post-pandemic, with long shadows of nationalism, suspicion of “outsiders”, and discrimination rampant, the book felt a little too realistic at times. Particularly the reflection by Unicorn Girl that society seems to be “moving backwards” through time (read only a day before the Roe V Wade ruling). But the premise and the story is engaging and ultimately hopeful. Full of time-travel and multiverses, the story starts tangled (Sinatra is dating the queen?!) and only by reading on do the assorted threads straighten out and start to match our own recollection of history. Once I got in and immersed fully in the story, I couldn’t put the book down. 

Sold to me by @dessayo, I was barely 50 pages in before googling “is social horror a thing?” Yes: Get Out! and Parasite are all recent social horror, taking real social issues and recontextualizing them as terrifying rather than disturbing, to inspire fear over anger or apathy.

Red Pill follows an unnamed narrator with unrealized mental health issues who is excited to take on a writer's residency in Germany, away from his wife and very young daughter. Upon arriving, he instead finds it stifling. Based on utopian ideals, he is subjected to an open concept, hyper-modern workspace, forced interaction with other fellows, and is surveilled to ensure he meets the institute’s objectives. Unable to work, he becomes a recluse in his room and becomes obsessed with a hyper-violent police drama called Blue Lives. After meeting the director by chance, he becomes convinced that the director is trying to “red pill” his viewers, and that the narrator is destined to stop him and counter his nihilistic, misogynist worldview from spreading. 

The reader is taken on a wild ride following the narrator. Sometimes it was unclear if he was experiencing reality or not, but also, as a neutral third party, I saw his own contradictions. While suggested to be a POC, self-identified as progressive, and acting in opposition to the Blue Lives director, the narrator still had many toxic masculine traits that impacted his mental health and relationship with people close to him. For all we know, another man just like him may have bought into the story of Blue Lives, not become fatally obsessed with countering it.  

I can’t speak much of the ending without giving it away. But for a book that ends in the very early morning on the day after the 2016 election, it is not a completely dark ending. The narrator experiences growth, and we are left with just a single starlight of hope in an otherwise exceptionally dark book. But for how things have gone since I finished the book earlier this month, a starlight is perhaps all we need to keep moving forward.

 

 I’m going to keep this book review to a mini as I’ll be frank: this book has made me realize romance is not my thing. And I’ll add to that by saying it is not the book, and obviously no hate to people who like this book, but I’ve tried too many romance now to keep trying.

Red, White & Royal Blue is about the dashing, part-hispanice (i.e. tall dark and handsome) first son of the United States who, in an enemies-to-lovers arc, falls in love with the blonde-haired, blue-eyed prince of England. It was super cute, and the dialogue was pretty good. I was listening to the audiobook and the voice actor did a great job of differentiating the characters. 

I think my favourite part in this book is something I realized partway through: young male joy. Its like, not something I can pick out of any other book I’ve read? It made me realize that all the 15-30 men I’ve read in books are all brooding, emotionless, serious guys, as if they aren’t allowed to be anything but dark and broody (which, thanks to toxic masculinity might be the truth, tbh). And that is fine, but I absolutely loved the representation of joy and love and playfulness between Alex and Henry. It made me so happy. 

Anyways, you don’t need me to tell you to read this book, as I think I might be the last person in Bookstagram to read it. But if it sounds up your alley, it probably is. It isn’t a universal Bookstagram darling for no reason.