We are over half-way through October and I’ve already read like a crap
ton, so I’m going to do a half-way point rewind. This is what I’ve read so far
this month.
This is the second book in the Agent of Hel trilogy. It is set in a
small town in Michigan. This little town, Pemkowet, has an active underworld,
which basically means that the town is full of magic, wonder, danger, vampires,
ghouls, and stuff, and the Norse goddess Hel lives in the underworld there. She
has recruited demon-spawn Daisy Johansson to be her liaison with the town, and
Daisy works with the police. In this book Daisy’s sort-of-boyfriend Sinclair,
is haunted by his family and his heritage in Jamaica. Daisy has to deal with
the bullshit his family comes up with and you know, being hell-spawn in modern
day America. It’s fun. It’s very cool, and Carey is good at building worlds.
Daisy is snarky and cool, and fun. The different mythologies work well
together. There’s some unnecessary slut-shaming, which annoyed me, because
there is also some very frank and honest discussion about sex, and Daisy’s
relationships, but when it comes to Bethany Cassopolis suddenly her choices are
wrong? It annoyed me. But overall the book is fun.
This is my third poetry collection of the year. Because why not. Poetry
is fun. I picked up this because I listen to the podcast “The Smartest Man in
the World” by Greg Proops, and he talks about Gil Scott-Heron a lot, so I
bought this. Gil Scott-Heron was an American Jazz and Soul poet from the 70s
and 80s. Some of his poems are set to music, so some of them read a lot like
songs. A lot of his poetry is politically focused on corrupt politicians, and
race. I think my favorite poem was The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which
is also his best-known composition. It was just so rhythmically beautiful and
it was so badass, and the sentence: “The revolution will not be televised” is
amazing. The collection was beautiful and tough and thought provoking. It’s
awesome.
This is a graphic novel about a young boy named Gus. He’s a hybrid, he’s
essentially a boy with deer antlers. He lives in a cabin with his dad.
Something awful has happened, presumably a nuclear accident of some sort,
everyone is sick, except hybrids like Gus. Gus’ dad has always told him to
never, ever, go out of the forest, and never talk to other people. Then his dad
dies and a man comes, finds him, and tells him he has to go somewhere else,
somewhere safe. And it’s weird, and creepy, and it’s so harsh, and it feels
cold and cruel, and it’s great. It’s so great.
This is a non-fiction book about Rape Culture, it’s in the title. Okay.
So Rape Culture is an expression that describes a cultural setting where rape
is pervasive and normalized due to how we view gender roles and sexuality. The
book is blunt and no nonsense. She talks about how rape is treated in society,
the focus is on western society, because otherwise it would be a massive
volume. (Although I would like to read a book about how rape is treated in
non-western society as well.) It looks on how fame and power makes it a lot
less likely you’ll be arrested or pilloried if you’ve raped someone, see Cosby.
It looks at how the discourse is usually focused on the victim and what they
should have done, and Kate Harding tries to focus on better ways to talk about
rape. How gender roles need to change and how we need to see rape as abhorrent
and rapists as abhorrent, instead of seeing “wild women” or women who drink and
have consensual sex, as abhorrent. Clearly a lot of people already think this
way, but there are people in positions of power, police, lawyers, news anchors,
who still think women are wrong, and deserved it. And she also looks at the
Internet as both a force for bad and good. It was great. There are awful things
described, and it made me sad, but it was amazing. Harding is so honest and
great. And the narrator was amazing.
Back to some epic fantasy. The Queen of the Tearling is about a young
woman named Kelsea Raleigh. She’s just turned 19, and she is the queen of the
Tearling. Her mother died a long time ago, but she has now come of age, so she
is brought back from her foster family, to take up the mantle of queen. The
kingdom, Tear, is a future, regressed version of earth. The people of America
and England crossed… something, some sort of ocean, and they arrived in Tear,
their new kingdom. So there are references to pop culture from our world, like
Harry Potter, and Shakespeare. And there is a God, the church of Christ. The
country is extremely corrupt, Kelsea’s mother was a very ineffective queen, and
basically sold off her people to avoid war with a neighboring kingdom. Kelsea
isn’t expected to survive long, her uncle, who has been regent, and her
countrymen are all planning to kill her, so that’s fun. I liked it. I thought
it was an okay fantasy novel. I like Kelsea as a protagonist, she’s very tough,
and very dynamic. She also feels very real. She’s described more than once as
not very attractive, and that she doesn’t come across very womanly. She
obviously has a lot of issues about this, because she’s constantly told she’s
homely. And she has some confidence issues. Which I found sort of nice. Which
sounds weird, but usually women in these books are described as beautiful, or
like they don’t care if they aren’t beautiful, and Kelsea seems more real and
normal about it. Also, they’ve announced a movie, with Emma Watson playing
Kelsea. And Emma Watson is many things, but unattractive she is not. I wish
movies didn’t always choose a beautiful woman, but someone who matched the
character in the book. It sounds bitter, but it changes her character if she’s
no longer homely. I liked it. The uh… there are very few black characters in
the book, and they’re treated… weirdly. They’re written like they’re very
exotic and fascinating, and it really annoyed me. It was very weird and
unpleasant. Also, they took a bunch of people to Cross to the Tear, but they
only brought white people? Or did the other black or people of color travel in
another ship which sunk? Because… what? But overall, it’s good.
This is the second book by this author. He’s my sister’s brother-in-law,
well, he’s her boyfriend’s brother, but sort of. Anyway, it’s sort of a
dystopian novel. It’s… really hard to explain. It’s about this couple, Oskar
and Alma, who are old and who live in their old, dirty, grimy, neglected house
in a sort of wasteland where the only open shop is a nearby gas station. And
there are people coming in cars and getting their neighbors. Oskar seems to
have dementia or Alzheimer and Alma looks after him, but since she’s also old
she’s not really fit to. The book also tells the story of their courtship from
when Alma was a teen, I’m guessing 16-17, and Oskar was a bit older, maybe
early twenties. It’s not clear who is coming for them, or what happened to make
this place so desolate. It’s so dark, and horrific, and sort of disgusting.
It’s very honest and frank, and it’s uncomfortable. And just. I liked it.
This is an ongoing graphic novel series about two planets who are at war
with each other, and two people from opposite sides who fall in love, get
married and have a baby. Then they’re hunted around the galaxy. Fun. In this
volume, a prince with a TV-head and Marko, one of the hunted couple, are trying
to find their families. There are new characters introduced and there’s fun
stuff and people trying to collect dragon sperm, because why the fuck not? It’s
just a beautiful comic, and I like the plot lines. I like the characters, and I
love the art. It’s incredible.
This is the last volume in the J. Michael Straczynski run of the Thor
comics. Loki’s plans come to fruition and he gets into a nice friendship with
Doctor Doom, so that’s nice. I really like the art. They’ve switched artist,
but it didn’t make a huge difference. It was fine. The art is still great. I
really liked the conclusion to the story. I like Loki’s weird plot, he’s always
bringing a sense of fun to his psychotic ideas. So I want to keep going with
Thor eventually.
Autumn Bones by Jacqueline
Carey
This is my third poetry collection of the year. Because why not. Poetry
is fun. I picked up this because I listen to the podcast “The Smartest Man in
the World” by Greg Proops, and he talks about Gil Scott-Heron a lot, so I
bought this. Gil Scott-Heron was an American Jazz and Soul poet from the 70s
and 80s. Some of his poems are set to music, so some of them read a lot like
songs. A lot of his poetry is politically focused on corrupt politicians, and
race. I think my favorite poem was The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which
is also his best-known composition. It was just so rhythmically beautiful and
it was so badass, and the sentence: “The revolution will not be televised” is
amazing. The collection was beautiful and tough and thought provoking. It’s
awesome.
Sweet Tooth: Out of the Deep Woods by Jeff Lemire
Asking for it: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do About it by Kate Harding, narrated by
Erin Bennett
The Queen of the Tearling
by Erika Johansen 
This is the second book by this author. He’s my sister’s brother-in-law,
well, he’s her boyfriend’s brother, but sort of. Anyway, it’s sort of a
dystopian novel. It’s… really hard to explain. It’s about this couple, Oskar
and Alma, who are old and who live in their old, dirty, grimy, neglected house
in a sort of wasteland where the only open shop is a nearby gas station. And
there are people coming in cars and getting their neighbors. Oskar seems to
have dementia or Alzheimer and Alma looks after him, but since she’s also old
she’s not really fit to. The book also tells the story of their courtship from
when Alma was a teen, I’m guessing 16-17, and Oskar was a bit older, maybe
early twenties. It’s not clear who is coming for them, or what happened to make
this place so desolate. It’s so dark, and horrific, and sort of disgusting.
It’s very honest and frank, and it’s uncomfortable. And just. I liked it. 
Saga, volume 5 by Brian K.
Vaughan and Fiona Staples
This is the last volume in the J. Michael Straczynski run of the Thor
comics. Loki’s plans come to fruition and he gets into a nice friendship with
Doctor Doom, so that’s nice. I really like the art. They’ve switched artist,
but it didn’t make a huge difference. It was fine. The art is still great. I
really liked the conclusion to the story. I like Loki’s weird plot, he’s always
bringing a sense of fun to his psychotic ideas. So I want to keep going with
Thor eventually.