It’s time again to write about romance novels! To my eternal sorrow, I always read fewer romance novels than I want to read, because they are much easier to get as ebooks, but I much prefer reading physical books. So if I check out five physical library books and five library ebooks, I will prioritize the five physical books and forget about the five ebooks. This is especially a problem if I want to read independent or self-published romances (which I do), which often don’t exist as print books at all. It’s a problem for which I have not yet…
1 CommentAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
In a lovely moment of reading serendipity, I happened to pick up Akwaeke Emezi’s memoir, Dear Senthuran, in the same week that I was working my way through Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred. Emezi is an award-winning writer of literary fiction and young adult literature, with three books under their belt and more to come. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an astrophysicist who’s come to public prominence in part through her accessible science writing for popular outlets like Slate and Bitch magazine. I started these two books thinking that they would be worlds…
Leave a CommentWELP, I can exclusively report that this is a whole bunch of nonsense. Jane Austen wrote 90% of an excellent book and then 10% absolute shenanigans. Fifteen years have passed since I first read Mansfield Park, and the update is that my opinion of it is unchanged. It rules! It’s great! The Crawfords are very fucking fun, and Henry Crawford’s heel turn feels completely frustrating and unearned, and the only shift in my opinion is that I feel even sorrier for Fanny than I remember feeling, and I hate Edmund even more than I remember hating Edmund. But let’s put…
Leave a CommentHappy Friday! I’ve got some excellent links about the new HBO series The Underground Railroad, plus some thoughts on *jazz hands* trauma. Cause I am who I am, fundamentally! Barry Jenkins worked hard to avoid sensationalizing and exploiting Black trauma in his adaptation of The Underground Railroad, but the material was difficult nonetheless. A therapist was on set at all times to protect and help the cast and crew. (link) Always read an Alex Brown review! They’re at Tor this week reviewing Barry Jenkins’s new TV adaptation of The Underground Railroad, which handles Black trauma with care and thoughtfulness. (link)…
1 CommentThe time has come for absolutely everybody to badger Fanny. It like… feels pretty uncomfortable for poor little Fanny to be at the mercy of all her relatives (especially the men), and for every single one of those people to be like “I know you don’t love Henry Crawford or even feel sympathy for him or share any of his values but might you not marry him anyway?” She is but a poor relation doing her best! Why must she constantly justify her lack of romantic interest in Henry Crawford to others?? God damn! This whole section features a lot…
Leave a CommentWelp, the time has come. Henry Crawford has showed back up, and he is fucking around, and he is finding out. The time has come for Henry Crawford to be an all-the-way fuckboy, and if my memory is correct, he is going to then substantially reform because he legit falls for Fanny, and then Jane Austen’s going to be like “Henry Crawford seems nice AND fun? Can’t have that!” and narratively ruin him. But let’s see how matters unfold. Not to keep beating a dead horse, but Mansfield Book continues to rule. I am having the best time reading it,…
Leave a CommentRemember last week, when I dedicated several hours of my time to the important research question “Was Jane Austen making an anal sex joke?” That same energy has not carried forward into week two. I do not understand what’s so morally insupportable about putting on a little play with some neighborhood friends, even a slightly saucy play, and Fanny and Edmund are so annoying about it that I can’t be bothered researching it to find out. Fanny does not think the Bertrams and the Crawfords should put on a play; Edmund does not think the Bertrams and the Crawfords should…
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