yourbookishbff's Reviews (650)

Based on the book's back cover blurb, I fully anticipated an erotic space adventure, and would have guessed Naomi Mitchison to have been her generation's Ruby Dixon. That is not at all what this story is, and the contrast between how it was positioned and described to readers to its actual thematic content still has me reeling. In Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Mitchison writes in first-person the fictional adventures of Mary, a communications specialist and space explorer. As readers, we see glimpses of her life through her other-worldly missions to faraway planets. We see her learning to communicate in a variety of mediums with alien communities, and we see flashes of her own personal memories and desires and dreams. 
While this story reflects on a number of questions familiar to science fiction readers - that of time warping and off-Earth travel and alien communication and human adaptability - most compelling are the questions it raises about reproductive freedom and motherhood. Mary, like all human women, is able to choose fathers of her children outside any expected long-term relationship or legal commitment. She weighs personal connection, appearance, availability and comfort and selects a number of partners during and in between her own independent missions. She feels fondness for them, as she does the children they share, but she is first and foremost Mary, a space explorer, and reproduction is a specific mission she undertakes when she chooses to, children becoming new members of a loosely defined crew with its own freedoms. At one pt, as she worries for her half-human/half-Martian daughter, Viola, she admits to the reader that such "motherly" worry is unnatural, as she respects her children as independent humans with rights to freedom of thought and expression and movement. For a woman in the 1960s - herself in an open marriage and a mother to seven children - to imagine, so boldly, a world in which women have complete agency in reproduction and child rearing, in which women feel no pressure to exhibit maternal "instincts" or to show maternal affection, in which women choose partners or don't choose partners, as they see fit, is remarkable. In her book Hatching: Experiments in Motherhood and Technology, Jenni Quilter, contrasts Mitchison's exploration of the future of reproduction with that of her contemporary Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. And now I can't stop imagining a different version of my life where Memoirs of a Spacewoman was on my high school syllabus instead of Brave New World. What would my conception of self have been in my earlier, impressionable years, had I encountered a mother envisioning new paths to motherhood? Had I encountered a woman unashamed to imagine an independent existence outside of parenting?
Absent in Mitchison's reflections are any meaningful reflections on race or class, and our willing suspension of disbelief in the effortless economy Mary enjoys is necessary. Aware of those shortcomings, though, this is a book I wish was more well-known, and I'm grateful to have finally stumbled upon it.

This is the first time I've sought out a first-person account of OCD since my own diagnosis, and there were so many moments in Adam's life that were painfully relatable. I enjoyed the first half, in particular, as it outlined how OCD is diagnosed and how it differs from other mental illnesses. Adam's narrative felt strongest to me when it was at its most personal - I found myself skimming when we strayed into historical context and general observation in the second half. This book has aged in the ten years since publication and missteps in a few areas that would have been more noticeable in today's publishing environment (mentions of autism are now out-of-date and will be particularly frustrating for those who have a greater understanding of - and respect for - neurodivergence, and a chapter that dramatically describes obsessive practices among indigenous people around the world was downright cringey). Ultimately, I won't actively recommend this book.

This has to be the least angsty romance I've read by Sherry Thomas (and I've read most of her backlist). It is almost evenly split between two storylines - the primary romance between a bastard heir and the outcast lady-turned-chef he falls in love with... and a secondary romance between his secretary and betrothed. While I initially enjoyed the hidden identity/mysterious past conflict at play for our female main character, I lost patience with the storyline around the midway point. There were so many obtuse delays in the reveal, and because the conflict never felt particularly high stakes, the end didn't justify the means. And my hopes were a bit dashed for our secondary characters, as early hints to their histories suggested we might have a unique pairing, and ultimately the reveals were disappointing for me and made their storyline fairly typical. That said, Sherry's writing never fails to impress me, so even when the story is a bit of a miss, I don't regret time spent in her worlds.

This, for me, was a perfect conclusion to Dunmore's League of Extraordinary Women. Through the first three books in the series, Catriona has been an observer, with limited on-page dialogue and limited roles in action, and now, with her inner monologue finally available to us, we can understand why. Dunmore writes Catriona with such respect and tenderness, highlighting - but never simplifying or caricaturing - her neurodivergence, shedding light on her childhood trauma and granting us a view into her past loves and heartbreaks. The plot moves methodically through Catriona's ghosts, helping her to find peace and self-confidence, while also moving her directly into the orbit of a person who can truly see her, someone who will make her feel known. Elias, a man caught between mountain and sea, the Levant and the West, a life of business and a life pursuing reparation, is a person who immediately recognizes the fear and flight woven into Catriona. For as much as Catriona provides him a place to rest, he does the same for her, and he insists on her honesty - with herself and with him - at every turn, propelling her own self-discovery and healing. 
Dunmore has moved through new facets of the suffragette movement and feminist politics in each installment, but this is the first where she has directly addressed British (and more broadly European) colonialism and imperialism. Elias is Lebanese and a Maronite Catholic, and his perspective consistently challenges our suffragettes to recognize and condemn the violence of British imperialism around the world. Dunmore deftly weaves commentary on international conflict into dialogue, and in a few expertly done conversations, shows the limits of white feminism within the suffragette movement as our women must work harder to be true accomplices to Elias. 
And the epilogue. I won't ever be able to reread it - I cried all the way through. I'm honestly left emotionally reeling from the depth and vulnerability of this series conclusion, and I'm so grateful to Dunmore for bringing readers on this journey with Annabelle, Lucie, Hattie and Catriona. 

When the reality of gentrification is a horror story, it makes a compelling premise for a thriller. Cole weaves together a story that should feel impossibly evil and calculated, but every time the reader is tempted to think so, she points again to history - it happened here, and here, and here. I enjoyed the dual POV, and Cole's use of Theo's narrative helps to highlight the advantages white people - even in abject poverty - have over Black people and other people of color. Sydney's narrative, meanwhile, is the haunting reminder that the abuse of - and gaslighting of - Black women is far from fiction. My only challenge in this was the pacing in the first half - I struggled to stay invested - and some dialogue that felt flat toward the end and lessened the emotional impact. 

This was a cozy and heart-warming sapphic Christmas novella. A childhood-friends-to-lovers meets fake dating set-up, with some added small-town adventures. I was initially anxious about the premise for fake dating, but was glad Clara was honest at the right moment and that this continued to be a low-conflict story throughout. Features bi-awakening and a top-tier epilogue.

This was a delightfully sex-positive love story between a pleasure-house madame and a sheltered duke. I really appreciated Davidson's exploration of sexual shame in Bennett's storyline, and the ways in which Delilah helps him to gain confidence through self-acceptance. Bennett's sister and brother-in-law make fantastic side characters, and their appearances in the final scenes were laugh-out-loud funny. I thoroughly enjoyed this Christmas-time novella!

Yellowface is wry social commentary meets laugh-out-loud satire meets genuine horror with a psychotic break thrown in for good measure. I loved it. For bookish folks who enjoy sardonic commentary on the publishing industry, this is a book to be inhaled - all the little sly digs at various media personalities, authors and other public figures made every page feel like a new reveal. I particularly loved the use of an unreliable first-person narrator and the complexity in how both June and Athena are fleshed out for the reader. Kuang resists easy stereotypes (except where they're impossible to avoid, because white women certainly aren't unpredictable) and constantly rides the edge between just right and too far, making even the most absurd moments feel believable. If you love a slow descent into madness that excoriates book publishing, white feminism and Western media more broadly, Yellowface is an excellent read. 

For all of those who've read Against the Loveless World, by Susan Abulhawa, this is a must-read. A Party for Thaera is a collection of first-person accounts compiled through a creative writer's workshop with Palestinian women prisoners, and it gives voice to their experiences before, during and after imprisonment. Some recount memories, others dreams, others reflections on time lost or found. Trapped in a system that does not require conviction - or even a charge - to hold them indefinitely, these women share their frustrations and their hard-won joys, and provide a small glimpse into the lives of the thousands of women prisoners held in Israeli prisons for various political/resistance charges through the last several decades.