Archive
Friday Fun! (MIA Reading Challenge Update)
Hello my lovely readers! Since we have just one week left of April, I thought I’d provide an MIA Reading Challenge update! I’m so pleased with the enthusiasm for the challenge shown by the participants, particularly since this is its first year existing.
By far our most prolific participant so far is Karen. Her reads have covered everything from OCD to Antisocial Personality Disorder. So far she has read and reviewed (links to her reviews): Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, An Unquiet Mind, Cut, The Bell Jar, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark, Missing, House Rules, and I Don’t Want to Be Crazy. She’s only one book away from completing the highest level of the challenge. Go Karen!
Jules is keeping up a nice, steady pace so far, having read two books (links to her reviews): The Bell Jar (Depression) and Alias Grace (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Keep it up, Jules!
Jessica also has finished two books (links to her reviews): The Silver Linings Play Book (recovery from mental break-down) and The Madonnas of Leningrad (Alzheimer’s). Excellent pace for the level you signed up for, Jessica!
I’ve also completed two books that fit into the challenge description (links to my reviews): American Psycho (Antisocial Personality Disorder) and Hunger (Anorexia Nervosa).
Thank you everyone for your participation so far this year and for raising awareness on mental illnesses. We may be a small group so far, but hopefully each year will grow!
If you’ve read books for the challenge and I did not list you, please comment and let us all know! Unfortunately with the way my blog is, you commenting and telling me is the easiest way for me to keep up with what everyone has read.
It’s not too late to sign up for the challenge if you’re interested! Check out the MIA Reading Challenge page to find out more.
Happy weekends all!
Book Review: Glasshouse by Charles Stross
Summary:
Robin lives in the 27th century where your consciousness can be switched from body to body (and not just ortho-human ones) indefinitely. Frequent back-ups in an A-gate protect you from ever really dying. Of course, sometimes people go in to get some memories wiped. This is the closest thing to a chance at a new life. Robin wakes up in one of these facilities with a far more extensive memory wipe than usual. People are trying to kill him, and he finds himself signing up for a social experiment where the experimenters are attempting to recreate the second dark ages–the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. He thinks he’ll be safe here, but he might not be. Is he really at risk though or is he just messed up in the head?
Review:
This future where Earth no longer exists and a person is a person because of their consciousness and not their bodies is incredibly richly imagined. It is abundantly clear that Stross has a clearly laid out society in mind when writing. This is all taking place within a world within a certain timeline within a certain culture. That is what makes for the best scifi reading experience, and Stross pulls it off quite well.
The plot is endlessly surprising and nearly impossible to predict until the last few chapters. Of course any plot involving people who can change bodies with a complex civil war previously fought involving a computer virus that enters people’s consciousness via the A-gates would be complex. But don’t be deterred! It is really not difficult to follow, although you may have to stop to think about it a few times.
I also want to say kudos to Stross for writing such an incredibly GLBTQ friendly piece of scifi that isn’t necessarily about gender or sexuality. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the terms “cis-gendered and trans-gendered” used in a scifi book. In this future where people can pick whatever body they want, it’s natural for everyone to spend at least a few lifetimes as both a male and a female, although they all ultimately tend to choose one over the other. In fact, a plot-point for the book involves the researchers randomly placing someone who identifies predominantly as female in a male body and the resulting depression from that. Similarly, characters identify as mono or poly, meaning both monogamous and polyamorous sexualities are recognized as equally valid. It is an incredibly welcoming environment where people are encouraged to be themselves that only makes the experiment set during our own time period all the more jolting. I could see any queer person finding this story very relatable.
Unfortunately, the strong set-up kind of lost me toward the end. I’m still not quite sure exactly what I should have taken from the ending, but I felt that it didn’t live up to the incredibly high bar Stross set for himself early on. I’m still glad I read it as it was a very different, unique experience, but I do wish he’d spent a bit more time figuring out an ending worthy of the meat of the book.
Overall, I recommend this to scifi fans, and highly recommend it to GLBTQ readers and advocates.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Movie Review: Scream 4 (2011)
Summary:
Sidney has returned to Woodsborough to kick off her book tour–a book all about overcoming being a victim. Dewey is the sheriff and married to Gale. Naturally on the eve of the anniversary of the original ghostface murders, new murders start occurring, and the townsfolk are not blind to the intense metaness of the whole thing.
Review:
The two words that best describe this movie are: hilarious slash-fest. And it knows it too. The insider jokes, the characters’ comments about how meta the whole thing is, movies within movies within movies, and the internet being worked into the plot all work together to make for a deliciously self-aware series that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
I have to say, I yet again did not figure out who Ghostface was, which is a huge plus in a franchise that has had to reinvent a similar theme over and over again. The blood and gore was still at a shocking level. They definitely kicked it up to the next notch. Plus the editing and story keeps everything fast-paced. As my friend who saw it with me pointed out, she didn’t look at the clock once, and that’s rare in a movie nowadays.
Could it have been better? Yes. If the ending had been taken a different direction, it would have gone from better than expected to reawakens the franchise. Alas, they didn’t take that step. It, however, is still an awesome sequel, particularly when Hollywood isn’t exactly known for generating good ones.
I highly recommend it to fans of the Scream franchise. You won’t be disappointed. You may even be surprised.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: theater
Book Review: Soul Hunt by Margaret Ronald (Series, #3)
Summary:
Native Bostonian Evie Scolan is an adept bicycle courier and has her first real relationship in a while. Of course, her life isn’t quite that simple. First, she’s The Hound with an uncannily adept sense of smell that helps her find things. Plus her boyfriend is a werewolf. Then there’s the whole try to keep the magical Undercurrent in Boston under control so her beloved city doesn’t fall apart thing. Not to mention the death sentence given to her by yet another sector of the Undercurrent giving her only until Midwinter to pull everything together. Plus the Sox are sucking this season.
Review:
Yet again, I accidentally picked up a book that is partway through a series. I’ve noticed this is a lot easier to do when it’s an ebook than a print book, because the print book tends to have a giant “3” or something on the binding, whereas the ebook gives you zero clue that this is part of a series. Work on that, publishers. Due to this fact, I spent the solid first half of the book trying to figure out what the heck was going on in Evie’s world. Unlike paranormal romance that tends to offer up a quick recap of the important details, it would appear that urban fantasy isn’t so keen on that. Well, that and Ronald’s world she has created is incredibly complex and hard to understand fully part-way into a series.
That aside, however, how is it for an urban fantasy novel? Well, the fantasy element is strong and intensely connected to elements of urban living from good and bad neighborhoods to trolley tracks to old, abandoned buildings, to secret tunnels and ghosts. This has it all if you’re after some seriously steeped fantasy.
Further, as a Bostonian myself, I can tell you that Ronald gets the local slang and layout of the neighborhoods right. Personally, I think she’s a bit heavy-handed with the Red Sox love demonstrated by Evie. I don’t really think Evie would be thinking about the Sox season sucking when she’s currently facing death, but maybe I’m just not enough of a fanatic myself. Hah.
I think, perhaps, that why I couldn’t get into this partway through the way I could other series I started in the middle is that I don’t like Evie, and the mythos of the Undercurrent is way more confusing than it should be. I can’t think of very much that’s appealing or redeeming about Evie as a character, which is problematic when she’s the heroine. Similarly, she’s not beautifully broken or anything. She reads as just…..average. The fact that this is the case when she also has this weird supernatural nose is saying something. Make Evie evil! Make Evie kick-ass! Just don’t make her so dull that I have zero doubt that I wouldn’t give her a second glance if I happened to see her on the streets of Boston.
Similarly, the mythos of the Undercurrent seems to change to suit the author’s needs. Maybe I was missing plot twists from missing the earlier books, but it all just seems so much more complex than it needs to be. Plus, what exactly makes Evie repeatedly go up against demigods when her only supernatural talent is the nose thing? It just doesn’t make sense to me. That and the whole part dog thing is just….ew.
I came into this wanting to love it, as I do with any book set in my home of Boston. The fact is though, too much turned me off from it. It is a fairly well-written urban fantasy, though, and a nice change from the typical southern setting we see. I’d recommend it to urban fantasy fans looking for a change of scenery who don’t mind a rather ordinary heroine who’s basically part dog.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Previous Books in Series:
Spiral Hunt
Wild Hunt
Friday Fun! (What’s Important to Me)
Hello my lovely readers! I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking the last few months about what really matters to me. I guess you’d say what values I hold dear. I didn’t just stick with the ones I was raised with. I’ve done a lot of research and soul-searching to figure out what’s important to me. That’s what makes me stick so strongly to my guns on things I truly believe in. The more time that has passed since I’ve gotten back on my feet from the awfulness that was winter, the more I realize that what it all boils down to, for me, is that I haven’t lost hope in the world. I have hope that we can change the world. I have hope we can make it a better place. I have hope we can fix the trajectories of previous generations’ bad decisions. I have hope that the cycles of violence, grief, and pain can stop. We only have to want it. I firmly believe that Gandhi was right when he said “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” That is at the core of my belief system. I don’t have faith in a god or spirits to fix things. I don’t have faith in government to fix things. But I do have faith in myself. I have faith that I can change for the better. The cycles of violence and pain stop with me. That basic philosophy extends out into everything else I do, from my firm belief in vegetarianism (that is gradually moving toward veganism) to my commitment to someday adopt at least one child. And I just can’t be around negative people anymore. I can’t be close to people who are willing to just give up. Humanity didn’t struggle and evolve so much to just quit evolving. It’s just that maybe the next step of evolution has more to do with our minds and our behaviors than how our bodies work.
Namaste, yo.
Book Review: The Group by Mary McCarthy
Summary:
A collection of women graduate from Vassar in the 1930s. Their friendship is known collectively as “The Group,” and their distinctive Vassar education has given them a distinctly liberal view on the world. How this changes with time as they repeatedly encounter societal expectations and relationship problems are told through a series of vignettes that focus in on moments in their lives over the seven years after graduation.
Review:
I am so glad that Nymeth’s review made me add this to my wishlist. This piece of historical fiction told entirely through women’s lives looks at women’s issues in an oft-ignored time period–1930s America. Particular issues that impact these women’s lives and dreams include birth control, gender norms, violence against women, and social justice.
Moving smoothly through the seven years but changing perspectives by spending a chapter or two on each woman in turn, we get a glimpse of their lives. For instance, early in the book we see Kay’s life in detail, but later we only catch glimpses of it through her friends’ eyes. This lends a greater sense of depth and mystery to these women’s lives. What happened to change them? How drastic of an impact did certain events have on their lives? Are they truly happy now? Much like real life, the reader can only speculate based on the limited information she has.
The style of looking at women’s issues in history through the lives of multiple women lends a depth to the story that would not be there if it was told in the traditional manner of focusing in on one single woman. The, essentially, cluster-fuck of circumstances, expectations, and personality that come together to create the different lives they end up leading is endlessly fascinating to study and ponder.
This book humanizes women’s issues in the 1930s and brings them to light in an engrossing manner. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a love of historic fiction or an interest in women’s issues.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Book Review: Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe and Healthy, Non-Toxic Cleaning by Jeffrey Hollender
Summary:
An introduction to the green concept of natural cleaning, this book gives an overview of why chemical cleaners are bad for people and the environment. Summaries of the scientific evidence are followed by introductory advice on all-natural cleaning and keeping your home as unpolluted as possible.
Review:
Although the concept of cleaners polluting the home seems at first glance like a non-issue, the scientific evidence presented in this book clearly demonstrates that it is an issue. For example:
“Ordinary household products such as cleansers, cosmetics, and paints are now the Los Angeles region’s second-leading source of air pollution, after auto tailpipe emissions, air quality officials say.” Location 182
Ok, but we don’t want to live in dirty squalor, right? The book goes on to clearly point out various natural, safe cleaners that work just as well as regular cleaners, although perhaps requiring a bit more elbow grease.
Although at first I was concerned that the fact that the book was written by the founder of the Seventh Generation cleaning company would lead it to bias or to essentially be an ad for their products, neither was the case. Where products are listed, natural cleaning competitors are included. Further, instructions are given on cleaning your house with products as cheap as vinegar and hydrogen peroxide.
Be cautioned, though, that this is definitely an introductory book. It reads more as a pamphlet to get you headed in the right direction than as a change your entire life guide. As such, I recommend it to those who’ve never considered the benefits of cleaning with natural products before.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Friday Fun! (Netflix)
Hello my lovely readers! Sorry for the slow week on the blog. Normally if I’m caught up in a few longer books at a time, I’d grace your presence with movie reviews, but *shocker* I haven’t really been watching anything lately. In fact, I’m watching tv and movies so infrequently that I’m having this mental debate about whether or not to suspend my Netflix subscription. There once was a time when I only very rarely watched a movie, and generally I would do so in the theater or borrow a dvd from a friend. I think I’m shifting back to that persona. There’s just so much else to do! Even playing a videogame is preferable, because, let’s be honest, with my xbox I can either play an active kinect game or play on live with friends.
I’ve become so much more active now that I’m getting back to who I really am that honestly by the time I get home, I would rather spend a couple of hours making myself an amazing dinner or make something quick then snuggle up in bed with a book and my cat. I know that might sound pathetic, but I don’t even get home until late most nights due to plans with friends or going to the gym or heck, just wanting to be outside. I like it that I get home and am exhausted. I like feeling at the end of the day like I’ve done something with myself. I like that it doesn’t take me hours and hours to fall asleep.
So what’s the point of having Netflix? I like watching instantly, but honestly, most of the time I watch things on hulu or mtv. I’ve had the same disc from Netflix since the beginning of February. The more I think about it, the more it seems like an unnecessary expense. Yet whenever I go to suspend it I think *wait*, but what if there’s a movie or a documentary or a tv show I really want to see and Netflix is my only choice? What then?!
I think I’m at a stand-still of indecision for the moment. :-P
Book Review: Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor (Series, #1)
Summary:
Magpie Windwitch has spent most of her life traveling the world with her parents fighting to save the faerie magic and rid the world of demons and devils mannies accidentally loose from their bottle prisons. Now chasing after a surprisingly powerful demon has brought her and her crew of crow guardians back to her birthplace of Dreamdark, a faerie land no mannie can enter. Here she encounters more members of her generation of faeries, including Poppy who can speak to plants and Talon who possesses an extraordinary knitting talent. Soon Magpie will discover not only secrets about the world, but about herself as well.
Review:
I’ve been working at reading from the bottom of my print TBR pile, and I really do wish I could remember what led me to pick up this book. Faeries and fantasy are generally not my thing, but clearly something caught my eye about this story, and rightly so, for I found myself swept into the tale and really quite enjoying it.
Taylor has created a fun heroine with all the usual traits of a chosen one in fantasy. Blessed by those more powerful, something special about her, has a few flaws such as a strong will, yadda yadda. One thing that really sticks out though is that she’s a girl. The chosen champion is a girl, and so was the most famous prior champion. Nice to see that difference! Plus, seeing a guy fall for a girl because she’s exciting, adventurous, and strong-willed is always fun to see depicted for a change. I truly enjoyed Magpie and Talon, and to me they are the ones who held the story together.
The faerie world is richly imagined without crossing over into being overly romanticized or sexualized like so many faerie stories are wont to do currently. The entire setting reminds me of the books about the adventures of animals in the woods that we humans just can’t see that I used to so enjoy reading as a child. It’s just that in this case in addition to the animals, there are faeries.
The author was inspired by her own drawings, and they pepper throughout the book. They are truly beautiful drawings, and I found myself stopping reading entirely just to get lost in them. Don’t read this one on the tiny screen of an iPod.
The mystery itself is logical within the setting, although it honestly seemed a bit trite and commonplace among fantasy. I was hoping for something a bit more unique. Must every fantasy story be about saving the whole world? Additionally, there were a few side-plots that seemed totally unnecessary, particularly once all was revealed at the end of the book.
On the other hand, the more progressive aspects of the story-telling excuse these short-comings in my mind. Taylor gently expresses a necessary respect for all living creatures, as well as non-gendered expectations and inter-racial relationships. I confidently recommend this to those seeking a fantasy story for middle-grade or YA readers with these positive elements.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Friday Fun! (The Gym and Body Image)
Hello my lovely readers and a happy April Fool’s Day to you! There’ll be no tricks on my blog, but if you want to have some fun, be sure to check out ThinkGeek‘s home page today. :-)
In any case, today I want to talk to ya’ll about body image and the gym, because I think it’s something that keeps a lot of folks out of the gym when it shouldn’t. When I joined the gym one of the things I was the most nervous about was exercising, changing, showering, sauna-ing (is that a word? It should be) around other people who might be judging me. Yes, I have fairly good body image, but I’m still a person and struggle with it periodically. I mean really, who doesn’t? Beyond not wanting to have men hogging the weights and hitting on me, I also joined a women only gym purely because I wanted to be in the company of other women who hopefully wouldn’t be judgmental pricks like certain girls in highschool tend to be. But I was just like “Fuck it. I won’t let the possibility of some women being bitches to me keep me from being healthy,” so I joined. And you know what? It has been the best body image experience of my life, and no, that is not just because I’m getting more confidence in my body’s abilities.
I have not once heard a single woman say a single derogatory thing about another woman in my gym. Not once. The women are astoundingly kind. The women are universally thoughtful of each other and profusely kind at sharing equipment and amenities. I have never once heard a personal trainer say the f-word (fat). I have never seen a trainer yelling at a woman. I have never seen a class instructor without a smile on her face. I’ve only heard trainers and instructors encouraging women, telling them, “Society tells you you can’t do this because you’re a woman, but I’m telling you that your body is amazing, and you can.”
But it goes beyond that. I see women of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, races in the locker room, and you know what? That has just totally opened my eyes to the fact that the Hollywood ideal, society’s mantra of what a woman *should* look like just simply does not reflect reality. And I find every woman I encounter in the locker room and sauna beautiful in her own unique way. And I got to thinking, if I find them beautiful, if they’re here doing their thing with their body, then why should I ever diss my own body or get down on it or not embrace it? My body is amazing. It can do seriously amazing things. I can bench press weights. I can hold the dancer’s pose. I can run. I can do chin-ups. I can almost touch my forehead to the floor. Plus, my body can nurture life or not, as I see fit. My body can do all these things and is simultaneously uniquely mine, and that is what makes it so awesome.
Support my work with a tip or browse my shop for curated book club guides, how to guides, cross-stitch patterns, and more!
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 