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13 search results for "challenged"

Review: Finna, Nino Cipri

Ava has organized her work schedule at Not!IKEA to avoid any contact with her ex, Jules, and she is therefore deeply resentful of being called in to sub on a day she was supposed to have off. Of course, she’s sharing a shift with Jules, and it’s awkward as fuck. To make matters worse, a customer’s grandmother goes missing in the depths of the store, and it becomes pretty obvious that she’s disappeared into a wormhole. As the two newest employees, Ava and Jules are tapped to go chasing through the multiverse together to find the missing woman. My favorite…

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PODCAST, Ep. 123 – Settings, More Hatening, and a Game about Houses

Somehow it is October, and though many months of the year have passed, we are ever more convinced that linear time is a collective hallucination. We hope that you are experiencing Autumn, and we welcome in the settingsiest time of year by chatting about our thoughts on book settings. (I am opposed to them, and Whiskey Jenny is in favor.) In this podcast, we welcome the marvelous Ashley Wells, whom we do love but whom I invited to the podcast to punish her for forcing me to read this goddamn Irish book. She made us a game!!! We haven’t had…

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Review: Golden Boy, Abigail Tarttelin

Well, first up, we just do not have enough books with intersex protagonists, and as always happens when representation is lacking, that puts an impossible amount of pressure on any single book. It’s hard to criticize a book like Abigail Tarttelin’s Golden Boy, even when I think criticisms are merited, because mainstream fiction rarely, rarely features intersex protagonists (and even rarelier do you find #ownvoices intersex fiction, so if y’all know any, get at me in the comments). So let me start by saying what I did like about this book. First of all, Tarttelin lets her protagonist, Max, feel…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.59: Fantastic Beasts, Night Manager, and Banned Books

Happy Wednesday, booklovers! We know you were psyched to hear about All the Birds in the Sky, but we’ve been unavoidably detained on that front. Instead, you get to hear our thoughts on two literary adaptations: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and the new miniseries The Night Manager. We also take some shots at book-banners1 by way of the ALA’s Frequently Challenged Books of 2015 list. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 59 Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend…

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The #HamAlong Never Liked the Quiet Before

At least, dear friends, the worst has happened. The #HamAlong has reached the second-saddest bit of the musical:1 Philip Hamilton dies in a duel which he fought to defend his father and in which his father urged him to delope. Anyway, not quite yet. We’ll get to that. The first thing that happens is that Hamilton supports the Alien and Sedition Acts, which Chernow tries to pretend is semi-okay even though it is blatantly not. And like — honestly? This section makes me feel rather patriotic. Like, the ways that America turned out well were very far from inevitable, if…

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The #HamAlong Is Never Gon’ Be President Now

Poor old George Washington! With his strongest and cleverest ally gone from the cabinet, this section of the readalong finds him struggling to find competent people to fill political posts, while the southern motherfucking democratic republicans roundly abuse him all over the press. He keeps writing pitiful letters to Hamilton to be like And in actually the nicest gesture I have so far encountered in this readalong, Washington sends Eliza and Alexander a supportive gift during the Reynolds Pamphlet hullabaloo, with a note that says this: I pray you to present my best wishes, in which Mrs. Washington joins me,…

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Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial, Kenji Yoshino

This is probably a good time to let y’all know that as a matter of principle I cannot support a book with double subtitles. I’m not about that life. The full title of this book is Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial: The Story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, and someone needed to cut back on at least 30% of that mess before they published this book. Having said that, Speak Now reminded me of everything I love about reading nonfiction and everything I love (and hate) about the American legal system. The author, Kenji Yoshino, carefully lays out the facts…

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Review: Falling into the Fire, Christine Montross

Note: I received a copy of Falling into the Fire from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. In her review of Falling into the Fire earlier this year, Victoria said “I begin to wonder whether there is an entry in the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) for readers like me, who find themselves fascinated by accounts of people struggling with the different illnesses it defines.” If there is, I surely have it, and I could not resist asking Penguin for a copy of this psychiatrist’s account of some of her most severely ill patients at…

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Review: Children of the Waters, Carleen Brice; or, A nearly unified theory of everything (that makes me enjoy a book)

Two things: One, I really really liked this book. Two, I love the Wish List feature on Overdrive. Overdrive is a flawed and buggy system that forces you to use a very buggy program to access its content (Adobe Digital Editions you are the worst), but it is awesome to be able to add things to my TBR pile with just a click and access them anywhere with an internet connection. I know this sounds slightly like I am doing a commercial for OverDrive, but I’m not. It is my genuine opinion. If OverDrive were paying me to say nice…

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Revisiting Harry Potter: Origins

I know I know. I should have posted a post last Friday too. I didn’t do it because it was my first week back and there were a lot of things going on including buying a TV table and setting up my TV and DVD player and the Roku Box Captain Hammer gave me for Christmas. And buying a new purse (this one here). And organizing a work book club meeting for Five Quarters of an Orange (about which more later). And anyway I am lawless and I cannot be contained by rules. So. (I am writing this in a…

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