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Category: 3 Stars

Two Feminists Read a Romance Novel: The Heiress Effect, Courtney Milan

Last month, my adjunct sister Kate and I both read The Heiress Effect and discussed it back and forth via email in many paragraphs, with an eye to posting a joint review on the blog based on what we both said about it. I have always been jealous of Teresa and Proper Jenny and their joint reviews, so I am constantly trying to get people in my life to do joint reviews with me. And haHA! I finally conned Kate into doing this. The Heiress Effect (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is about a woman called Jane who is…

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Review: Pride of Baghdad, Brian K. Vaughan & Niko Henrichon

The beginning: Comics are so short when they’re a single volume! This format feels a little silly for such a short comic. But never mind. I like this format and I’m sticking with it unless you beg me to stop. Once upon a time in Pride of Baghdad (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), there are four lions (three adults and a cub) living in a zoo in Baghdad, and the zoo gets blown up by American bombs. The lions, who have lived in captivity most (or all) of their lives, must learn to fend for themselves in a war-torn Iraq. The end…

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Review: The Night Flower, Sarah Stovell

Way long ago (well, in 2010), I read Sarah Stovell’s first novel Mothernight. Although I thought it went a teensy bit overboard on the misfortune, I thought Stovell’s writing was absolutely gorgeous, and I wanted to read some of her sentences fifteen times. So when the publisher of her second book (at last!), Night Flower, emailed to ask if I wanted to participate in a blog tour, I jumped at the chance (of course). The beginning: Ah Sarah Stovell. The way she won my heart in the first place was the way she wrote about time in Mothernight. She begins…

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Review: Unfinished Desires, Gail Godwin

The beginning: Oddly gripping from the get-go! In Unfinished Desires (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), Old, blind Mother Ravenal, long-time headmistress at Mount St. Gabriel’s school, is asked by some adoring students to record her memories of her years as a nun, teacher, and headmistress. In alternating chapters are her very Catholic musings on the school’s history and principles, and the story of the high school class of ’55, whose behavior caused her to take a leave (enforced leave???) of absence. The important figures in the class are brash, clever, impetuous Tildy; her former partner-in-crime, Maud; and the new girl, quiet…

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The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith i.e. STEALTH JK Rowling

There are days where I feel like I am drowning beneath a tremendous pile of exciting books. Do you ever have those days? I did on the day my library emailed me to say my hold had come in on The Cuckoo’s Calling. (Advantage, incidentally, Louisiana. I would have been like the 150th person on the hold list for the New York ebook copies. My home library got me a copy within twenty-four hours. I’m just saying.) The Cuckoo’s Calling came in, I started reading Patrick Ness’s forthcoming book More than This, and I got approved for three AMAZING (-sounding) nonfiction…

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Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O’Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell and Kate Morton are inextricably linked in my mind. I am not sure whether it’s because they’re truly similar — with olden-times Britain and modern-day family members finding out secrets — or because they’re very faintly similar and I encountered them at the same time in my life. Weigh in if you have an opinion! And now on to Maggie O’Farrell’s brand new book. Instructions for a Heatwave (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is less suspenseful than the previous books by Maggie O’Farrell that I’ve read (or else I am maybe remembering her previous books all wrong). Gretta Riordan’s…

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The Pill, Bernard Asbell; or, MARGARET SANGER WAS DOING IT WITH HAVELOCK ELLIS

Verdict: I like learning new information. (This is the verdict on, like, most history books I ever read.) Here’s a news flash that is COMPLETELY SHOCKING to me but everyone else I spoke to about it was mostly unmoved. (Alice responded with the appropriate level of enthusiasm.) Margaret Sanger was totally doing it with Havelock Ellis. That is not a good piece of trivia to explain to someone. It’s one of those trivia where you have to already be separately familiar with the two parties involved. Margaret Sanger: Founder of Planned Parenthood, one of my absolute favorite organizations. She thought some…

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The Sunne in Splendour, Sharon Kay Penman

And now, the Plantagenets and the Wars of the Roses. Can someone British please tell me how British schoolchildren feel about learning the Wars of the Roses? Because I can see it two ways. On one hand, I can imagine it would be a great relief to get out of the thicket of battles and mess and dethronings and usurpations and arguing that went on all through the fifteenth century. On the other hand, I love political scheming and the Wars of the Roses are all schemes all the time. The Sunne in Splendour (Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) is about…

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Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor

I’ve read a few articles recently about diversity in fantasy, the main point of which is, There is diversity in fantasy, and if you don’t see it then you’re not paying attention. One name that came up repeatedly — and I remembered it from Aarti’s A More Diverse Universe blog tour last year — was Nnedi Okorafor. So I was pleased to spot the beautiful hardcover edition of Who Fears Death on the bookshelf of a coworker, and he was kind enough to lend it to me even though he has no idea whether I treat books well. (I do.)…

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Review: In Great Waters, Kit Whitfield

Here is the premise of In Great Waters. It’s a hell of a premise so be prepared. In an alternate version of our world, mermaids and humans live side by side, connected by alliances like regular nations and by the existence of hybrids (bastards) who are half-mermaid and half-human. Such creatures have bifurcated tails and human reproductive organs; they can walk on land and hold their breath for as long as fifteen minutes. They are also, by tradition, the rulers of Europe. In the sixteenth (I think) century, a hybrid child called Henry, cast up on land by his mother,…

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