![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Reading Wednesday
Jun. 5th, 2024 06:51 amJust finished: Those Who Run in the Sky by Aviaq Johnston. Good for its audience, although surprisingly gory for its audience. It's not just the animal death, which I think is inevitable given the setting but likely upsetting to urban/suburban kids. It's gory beyond that. I respect the author a great deal for it. But I felt like it was uneven—weird pacing, dropped narrative threads, that kind of thing. Still, I will forgive a lot for a qalipulik, which is one of my all-time favourite monsters.
Welcome to Boy.net by Lyda Morehouse. Loved this one. It managed to be both hella fun and pew pew pew but also heartfelt and politically relevant. It does The Thing where the sci-fi conceit is a metaphor but also the metaphor doesn't take the place of the real-world thing (to wit: cybernetic augments are both a metaphor for transness and a literal thing in the book, and also the character is trans in a non-metaphorical way), which is pretty much my favourite thing in genre fiction. I adored the characters, particularly Oz because I love me an unreliable trickster. I immediately hopped on Discord to recommend it to a bunch of people who need it now, and I'm doing so here as well (and on GR, but let's be honest—no one gets their recs from GR).
Currently reading: Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. This holds the distinction of the only book I have ever read that has a content warning and actually needs that content warning. It also, about two thirds in, directly advises the reader to take a fucking break and not read it for a bit because some grosser stuff is about to happen. Friends, I listened, briefly, and then dove right back in because I'm a sick fuck. Then I had nightmares, obviously. I do it to myself. This is very much in the genre of trans body horror, look at this gross thing, don't you want to look at it a bit more???? I am actually physically revolted reading this and I can't put it down.
Bonus for the main character doing a kind of job that I used to do, which is sorting through the internet to find the worst things. It's a job you can only do for a brief period of time.
Anyway, the whole thing is really upsetting, and you should read it if you like to be upset. It makes Through the Valley of the Nest Of Spiders look vanilla.
Welcome to Boy.net by Lyda Morehouse. Loved this one. It managed to be both hella fun and pew pew pew but also heartfelt and politically relevant. It does The Thing where the sci-fi conceit is a metaphor but also the metaphor doesn't take the place of the real-world thing (to wit: cybernetic augments are both a metaphor for transness and a literal thing in the book, and also the character is trans in a non-metaphorical way), which is pretty much my favourite thing in genre fiction. I adored the characters, particularly Oz because I love me an unreliable trickster. I immediately hopped on Discord to recommend it to a bunch of people who need it now, and I'm doing so here as well (and on GR, but let's be honest—no one gets their recs from GR).
Currently reading: Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. This holds the distinction of the only book I have ever read that has a content warning and actually needs that content warning. It also, about two thirds in, directly advises the reader to take a fucking break and not read it for a bit because some grosser stuff is about to happen. Friends, I listened, briefly, and then dove right back in because I'm a sick fuck. Then I had nightmares, obviously. I do it to myself. This is very much in the genre of trans body horror, look at this gross thing, don't you want to look at it a bit more???? I am actually physically revolted reading this and I can't put it down.
Bonus for the main character doing a kind of job that I used to do, which is sorting through the internet to find the worst things. It's a job you can only do for a brief period of time.
Anyway, the whole thing is really upsetting, and you should read it if you like to be upset. It makes Through the Valley of the Nest Of Spiders look vanilla.
Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance by Jesse Wente. Jesse Wente is cool AF and this is his memoir about growing up in Toronto with a white father and an Anishinaabe mother, about the media, anti-Indigenous racism, and the impossibility of reconciliation. I just started reading it but it's excellent so far.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Everything is full of sperm, except for the pockets of the captain's pantaloons, which are not full of sperm. Do we believe Ishmael about this? I am not sure. The dying whale chapter is quietly devastating.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Everything is full of sperm, except for the pockets of the captain's pantaloons, which are not full of sperm. Do we believe Ishmael about this? I am not sure. The dying whale chapter is quietly devastating.
