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challenging
informative
medium-paced
The title Heavyweight refers to the author's great grandfather, who was a boxer, but also to the heft of Brager's relationship with the Jewish holocaust. I know Solomon Brager from zine cultures and as an anti-Zionist Jew. Those two identities inform this graphic historiography, as does their PhD work in gender studies. I don't think I've ever read a smarter graphic book, and that includes the works of Alison Bechdel.
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don't encounter that many books about female anti-heroes, maybe because there's an arrogance to the anti-hero narrative that isn't as common in women and nonbinary authors. I didn't enjoy reading this book that much, but by the end I appreciated the uniqueness of likability of irredeemable characters in a dystopia.
Sonya Kantor (Jewish name--interesting in this current context of the evil nation state of Israel) is the title character. She's imprisoned for her part in a fallen Orwellian government known as the Delegation. Her now-deceased father was a leader in the regime, and she herself was the face of it, having posed for a propaganda poster captioned "What's right is right." Thanks to the intervention of her dead fiancé's brother Alexander, she is given a chance to right a wrong. The book is the story of that journey.
There are some good bits of writing like
Sonya Kantor (Jewish name--interesting in this current context of the evil nation state of Israel) is the title character. She's imprisoned for her part in a fallen Orwellian government known as the Delegation. Her now-deceased father was a leader in the regime, and she herself was the face of it, having posed for a propaganda poster captioned "What's right is right." Thanks to the intervention of her dead fiancé's brother Alexander, she is given a chance to right a wrong. The book is the story of that journey.
There are some good bits of writing like
All anyone wants in Building 2 is to grind time down like a molar.
Sonya is numb to her life as the youngest person in the house arrest style prison, the Aperture, but she still has some fight in her. She challenges Alexander
"It seems to me," she says, "that if your every choice is in defiance of a system, you are as much a servant of that system as someone who obeys it."
Deep!
Here, an underground agent is discussing a piece of cyborg tech called an Insight installed in everyone's eye and brain under the Delegation.
"The Insight wasn't some aberration or anomaly," he says. "It is the symptom of a disease that still infects our population--the desire to make everything easy, to sacrifice autonomy and privacy for convenience. That's what technology is, Ms. Kantor. A concession to laziness and the devaluing of human effort."
He goes on
"A device that you carry with you everywhere you go, a device that monitors and watches you, is no the same as one that sites in your house and plays music or dries your hair."
So not all technology is bad, but some decidedly is.
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
I loved Maines's voice in the first half of the book, but the second half felt forced. I appreciate so much that she shares that she had a ghostwriter, but it's wild to me that the second half of the book could be so contrived with professional help. I don't mean to hate on this book, and I really enjoyed the beginning. It left me a little soggy.
The author knew she was a girl and expressed her gender as soon as she was able to. Her utter certainty prevented her reluctant, conservative dad from denying her reality. It took him a minute, but he ended up being Nicole's biggest crusader. We don't hear as much about Nicole's monozygotic twin brother, other than apologies and gratitude. I think he's an actor, too? If you didn't know who Nicole was before looking up this book (I didn't), she's an actor who gained fame/notoriety as a superhero buddy to Supergirl on the eponymous TV show. I say "notoriety" because I don't know anything about the fandom, but Maines reports that it was dictatorial and unforgiving. People wanted a lot out of the first out trans superhero played by an out trans woman. They didn't always get what they wanted, and they were mean about it. The fans are probably unrealistic shits, but I think that's the kind of thing you need to complain about to other people in your position. Still, I appreciate the Maines's voice and activism. This book will probably go down better with people who know Maines's work. I read it because someone from Feminist Press has me on a list.
The author knew she was a girl and expressed her gender as soon as she was able to. Her utter certainty prevented her reluctant, conservative dad from denying her reality. It took him a minute, but he ended up being Nicole's biggest crusader. We don't hear as much about Nicole's monozygotic twin brother, other than apologies and gratitude. I think he's an actor, too? If you didn't know who Nicole was before looking up this book (I didn't), she's an actor who gained fame/notoriety as a superhero buddy to Supergirl on the eponymous TV show. I say "notoriety" because I don't know anything about the fandom, but Maines reports that it was dictatorial and unforgiving. People wanted a lot out of the first out trans superhero played by an out trans woman. They didn't always get what they wanted, and they were mean about it. The fans are probably unrealistic shits, but I think that's the kind of thing you need to complain about to other people in your position. Still, I appreciate the Maines's voice and activism. This book will probably go down better with people who know Maines's work. I read it because someone from Feminist Press has me on a list.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
In the intro to the edition I read, author Lois Lowry invokes Amy Carter (living at the White House at the time of the book's original publication), who influenced the character of Anastasia with her forthrightness. Anastasia is ten, and, at this point an only child. Her mother is an artist, and her father is a poet and Harvard professor. She keeps a diary that is a bullet journal forerunner, where she maintains lists of loves and hates, and other things. Over the course of the book, items move from one column to the other, as Anastasia experiments with things like pumpkin pie and getting a nice phone call from a former object of her hatred. Or maybe having to confront some things about herself, as when she learns her mother is pregnant.
"Dumb, dumb, dumb," she thought immediately. "I'm being dumb, again. I'm the only one in the whole world, for Pete's sake--the whole world including even my parents--who thinks that I'm important enough to be the only kid in my family."
Oh, Anastasia! This is how it is for kids in certain kinds of families. Or maybe all? You're lead to believe you're the most important person in the world, and it's kind of a shock when you learn that you're not. She may not be the most important kid in the world, but she is a distinct children's book heroine.
challenging
funny
fast-paced
You know what you're getting into when you read the first epigraph quote is from Fanon
My body was given back to me sprawled out, distorted, recolored, clad in mourning on that white winter day.
Inside Your Black Friend becomes "Your Blk Fren." Passmore has lost his lost his patience, and he's barely getting started. He's counting on white guilt to get his needs met, and maybe transgress when he wants to. And you know what? Fair, because his white friend will do-gooderly sell him out without thinking twice about it--not maliciously. White people don't think about the implications of their actions because they don't have to. This leads to a page of mostly text, voicing what the narrator would say if he weren't concerned doing so would make him appear too angry.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Part of Your World is an enjoyable, addictive read that left me wanting more Abby Jimenez, but didn't leave me with the strongest memory of the content. The impossible lovers are a city doctor and a country woodworker/innkeeper/mayor. They both have strong family obligations that keep them in their respective lives, two hours apart. And yet they yearn for one another!
The doctor, Alexis, is nine years older than the country boy, Daniel. She's also ten years younger than her recent ex, Neil, her hospital's chief of surgery, and her father's favorite child, lolsob. Ali and her twin brother Derek are expected to keep up their family's legacy of power-doctoring (surgeoning, really). Ali is an ER doctor. Derek is a renowned plastic surgeon, but has defected to Cambodia to Do Good (and Marry a Rock Star). leaving Alexis responsible for the entirety of the Montgomery family reputation.
Meanwhile, Daniel's family has been may or Wakan for the same 125 years, but Wakan is more deserving of his attention than Alexis's asshole dad is of hers. How will they make it work???
Alexis's BFF:
The doctor, Alexis, is nine years older than the country boy, Daniel. She's also ten years younger than her recent ex, Neil, her hospital's chief of surgery, and her father's favorite child, lolsob. Ali and her twin brother Derek are expected to keep up their family's legacy of power-doctoring (surgeoning, really). Ali is an ER doctor. Derek is a renowned plastic surgeon, but has defected to Cambodia to Do Good (and Marry a Rock Star). leaving Alexis responsible for the entirety of the Montgomery family reputation.
Meanwhile, Daniel's family has been may or Wakan for the same 125 years, but Wakan is more deserving of his attention than Alexis's asshole dad is of hers. How will they make it work???
Alexis's BFF:
"Well, just remember not to name his penis. Once you name it, you get attached."
lol
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
In late 19th century Atlanta, Chinese people kind of don't exist. It's a colored (Black) and white world. Jo Kuan and her guardian Old Gin squat in a basement below a newspaper office because Chinese...can't rent or own? Was that really the law? Where on Earth where they supposed to live? Maybe in Augusta instead of Atlanta, or maybe they needed to be confined to work dorms.
perhaps when you live in a basement, you get use to a low ceiling
Jo has learned to have low expectations, but she can't help her high hopes. She's got a talent for millinery. There's kind of an excess of hat observations in the book, but Jo is a nerd, and not just about felt, knots, and brims.
"Phlegmy?"
"Yes. Now that's a word that doesn't care what anyone thinks. All those letters trying to prop up the 'leg' in the middle."
^ Is from a discussion with the upstairs newspaperman.
I try to drum up my old dislike for her, but it is like sucking on a bone that has lost its flavor.
One must forgive the trespasses of the sad white women who torment one. Jo is Caroline's lady's made, and Caroline is Jo's affliction:
Heaving and moaning, Caroline spends her grief by the dollar, until her purse empties and she’s down to nickel hiccups and penny whimpers.
It's a nifty historical romance that left me wanting more Stacey Lee.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
dark
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
I was taken by the title, but the text doesn't have the same urgency. I mean, the MC is vengeful and bitchy, but kind of without the in-your-face panache of the title. The mystery is so much of a surprise that it's kind of unbelievable, and the ghost universe doesn't make a ton of sense.
Also, the pdf of this digital ARC is a drag. In the NetGalley reader, I couldn't even change it to white on black. That worked in Bluefire Reader, but I couldn't change the print size. My near vision is weak so I had to change the size back to regular every time I wanted to turn the page.
Also, the pdf of this digital ARC is a drag. In the NetGalley reader, I couldn't even change it to white on black. That worked in Bluefire Reader, but I couldn't change the print size. My near vision is weak so I had to change the size back to regular every time I wanted to turn the page.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse
challenging
informative
medium-paced
For non-book records, review text and ratings are hidden. Only mood, pace, and content warnings are visible.
funny
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
Billy Porter is an outstanding narrator, and he is incredibly generous with his memoir of adversity and triumphs. The racism and homophobia that formed him are as heartbreaking as the talent and drive he used to make an incredible life for himself are astonishing.
I marked the pace as slow, more because the book is long than because it unfolds in a pokey way. I hope the book adds to his emotional and financial security because trauma is the gift that never stops giving.
I marked the pace as slow, more because the book is long than because it unfolds in a pokey way. I hope the book adds to his emotional and financial security because trauma is the gift that never stops giving.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Homophobia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault