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Reading Wednesday
Dec. 16th, 2020 07:02 amJust finished: Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente. I loved this one. Loved it. I think everyone has read it now, though, so I won't say much more about it other than it brought me back to the joy I felt when reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy over and over as a kid and I cannot wait for the sequel.
On Being Yukiko, Jeff Chiba Stearns and Lillian Michiko Blakey. This is a kids' graphic novel about the joys and struggles of being multiracial, told by a girl whose great grandmother was a picture bride and survived the Japanese internment camps in WWII. It's very well done, with art by both Stearns and Blakey, and a story that manages to be accessible but not condescending to its young readership. I will confess that I found the two art styles a little jarring—while Stearns' is probably more appealing to young readers, Blakey's is just so beautiful that I wanted the whole thing to be in that style. They're working on a teacher resource so hopefully this will soon be in schools soon.
Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez. Oh boy oh boy. Let me start off by saying that her debut novel, Scarborough, was my favourite book the year it was released, and I was really anticipating this one. It's about a Very Canadian Dystopia, where fascist governments have taken power in both Canada and the US, and the pilot project for genocide is happening in Toronto. Kay, a Jamaican-Filipino drag queen, escapes and joins the underground resistance, accompanied by Bahadur, a non-binary refugee, Firuzeh, a social worker, Liv, a queer teacher turned resistance leader, and Beck, a former soldier.
About 3/4 of this book is incredibly brilliant. Like, "why am I bothering to write a dystopian novel set in Canada when this one exists and is better than anything I could ever write?" brilliant. I loved Kay as a protagonist, I sympathized with all of the characters, the flashbacks to his childhood, the tensions between his intersecting identities, the joy and specificity of his experiences in locations and scenes that I recognized—amazing. The details of the fascist takeover and how most white Canadians are sucked into going along with it? Uncomfortable, realistic, and visceral. The scene with Fanny and her dog made me bawl.
And then...the derailment happens. ( spoilers )
It's a little thing, but I also found the use of asterisks to donate non-binary characters really jarring. At this point in human history, it is not exactly a new thing to have a character with they/them pronouns. Each time one of these characters is introduced, it's indicated with an asterisk ("They* were standing over there") and I don't see the point of that, particularly for characters like Bahadur whose identity is critical to their plot line. It feels, um. What's the word? Performative.
Hernandez is far more talented an author than I will ever be, and her prose is spectacular, which means that these problems did not occur to me until after I finished the book and was pondering it. I'd still really recommend it. And it's possible that I'm just a squeamish bad white ally who is uncomfortable with checking her privilege. But it's also possible that an editor needed to tell the author no and did not, because they were dazzled by the story overall.
Currently reading: Nothing, I finished it late last night.
On Being Yukiko, Jeff Chiba Stearns and Lillian Michiko Blakey. This is a kids' graphic novel about the joys and struggles of being multiracial, told by a girl whose great grandmother was a picture bride and survived the Japanese internment camps in WWII. It's very well done, with art by both Stearns and Blakey, and a story that manages to be accessible but not condescending to its young readership. I will confess that I found the two art styles a little jarring—while Stearns' is probably more appealing to young readers, Blakey's is just so beautiful that I wanted the whole thing to be in that style. They're working on a teacher resource so hopefully this will soon be in schools soon.
Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez. Oh boy oh boy. Let me start off by saying that her debut novel, Scarborough, was my favourite book the year it was released, and I was really anticipating this one. It's about a Very Canadian Dystopia, where fascist governments have taken power in both Canada and the US, and the pilot project for genocide is happening in Toronto. Kay, a Jamaican-Filipino drag queen, escapes and joins the underground resistance, accompanied by Bahadur, a non-binary refugee, Firuzeh, a social worker, Liv, a queer teacher turned resistance leader, and Beck, a former soldier.
About 3/4 of this book is incredibly brilliant. Like, "why am I bothering to write a dystopian novel set in Canada when this one exists and is better than anything I could ever write?" brilliant. I loved Kay as a protagonist, I sympathized with all of the characters, the flashbacks to his childhood, the tensions between his intersecting identities, the joy and specificity of his experiences in locations and scenes that I recognized—amazing. The details of the fascist takeover and how most white Canadians are sucked into going along with it? Uncomfortable, realistic, and visceral. The scene with Fanny and her dog made me bawl.
And then...the derailment happens. ( spoilers )
It's a little thing, but I also found the use of asterisks to donate non-binary characters really jarring. At this point in human history, it is not exactly a new thing to have a character with they/them pronouns. Each time one of these characters is introduced, it's indicated with an asterisk ("They* were standing over there") and I don't see the point of that, particularly for characters like Bahadur whose identity is critical to their plot line. It feels, um. What's the word? Performative.
Hernandez is far more talented an author than I will ever be, and her prose is spectacular, which means that these problems did not occur to me until after I finished the book and was pondering it. I'd still really recommend it. And it's possible that I'm just a squeamish bad white ally who is uncomfortable with checking her privilege. But it's also possible that an editor needed to tell the author no and did not, because they were dazzled by the story overall.
Currently reading: Nothing, I finished it late last night.
