Note: I received an ebook copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration. Around page 150 of Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel, A Little Life, which follows four friends from their college years into their fifties, I wrote the following in my notes: I am more excited about Hanya Yanagihara and her work and her career than I have been about any author in a really long time. Around page 200 I wrote this: Is Jude’s suffering perhaps a tad overwrought? It is starting to seem like everything bad happens to him forever. Maybe we should spend some time…
28 CommentsCategory: Favored authors
Review: Faith + Feminism, edited by B. Diane Lipsett and Phyllis Trible
Published 30 Jan 2015
by
Gin Jenny
I read more academic nonfiction than I tell y’all about. If you happen to be in my conversational line of fire as I am reading a thing, you will hear about it (sorry, family! sorry, friends! but not sorry enough to stop!), but the blog usually does not. Except sometimes my utterly favorite feminist scholar has a new collection of essays and I can’t resist asking the publisher for it, and then you get to hear about it after all. You lucky ducks. So, disclosure: I received this book from the publisher for review consideration. One time I read Phyllis…
7 CommentsDeep Secret, Diana Wynne Jones
Published 10 Dec 2014
by
Gin Jenny
Note: I received this — and here comes some important information, so pay attention — NEWLY REISSUED EDITION OF DEEP SECRET from the publisher for review consideration. I led with the most important information, but I’ll mention it again, just in case: The speculative fiction publisher Tor has put Deep Secret back in print for the first time in years! And for the first time in even longer, we have an American edition of this book that doesn’t take out all the swear words! Huzzah! If you are one of the (gloriously many!) people who has asked me what Diana…
14 CommentsReview: Blue and Gold, K. J. Parker
Published 24 Oct 2014
by
Gin Jenny
Some vicious alchemy of hormones, depression, and running backs hitting people smaller and weaker than they are played havoc with my mood in September. If I were a color in September I’d have been blue; if I were a Tarot card, six of swords; if I were an internet meme, Sad Keanu. As I write this post, I am back up to like, gold, eight of pentacles, and videos of animals who have formed unlikely cross-species friendships. And you know who (partly) cheered me up? My girl (maybe?) K. J. Parker! If you do not know, K. J. Parker is…
11 CommentsBlue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater
Published 20 Oct 2014
by
Gin Jenny
Note: I received an electronic copy of Blue Lily Lily Blue from the publisher for review consideration. Second note: Of necessity, I’ll be talking about some of the events of the first two books in this series. If you haven’t read those yet, the short version of this review is that Blue Lily Lily Blue is an excellent third installment in an excellent series. But you probably shouldn’t read on unless you want to be spoiled for the first two. Spoilers for Blue Lily Lily Blue occur only in the bottom, bullet-pointed section, and I’ve marked it that way. ETA…
23 CommentsThe Paying Guests, Sarah Waters
Published 29 Sep 2014
by
Gin Jenny
Note: A copy of The Paying Guests was made available to me by the publisher for review consideration. YOU GUYS. The Paying Guests is so great! Sarah Waters hasn’t released a new book since 2009, and The Paying Guests was worth every day of the wait. It is about an upper-class woman called Frances who is living in reduced circumstances in interwar London. To keep themselves afloat, Frances and her mother have decided to take in lodgers (paying guests): A married couple, Len and Lilian Barber, who belong to “the clerk class”. Events unfold from there. Frances is such a good…
13 CommentsReview: We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Published 22 Sep 2014
by
Gin Jenny
As you would expect, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is wonderful when she talks about feminism. And why not? She’s wonderful when she talks about everything else. In this essay, an adaptation of the TED talk sampled by Beyonce in “Flawless,” she argues that the necessity for feminism is in everything we do, in the air we breathe. To be a feminist doesn’t mean to hate men, or society — it means to hope for better from men and from women and from society, and to act in ways that promote that ideal of being better. Many of the anecdotes Adichie tells…
25 CommentsThe story of the time I met Neil Gaiman and he said something extremely lovely to me
Published 1 Sep 2014
by
Gin Jenny
I have been reading to Social Sister for more than eighteen years now — off more than on, since we went to college, just as a function of our never being in the same place for very long, but still: Eighteen years. A whole person who can vote. She got brainwashed early into thinking this was a good form of entertainment, and I enjoy it because there is nothing quite like seeing someone else experience a book you love in real time. Anyway, we just finished reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which I was reading for…
Continue readingThe story of the time I met Neil Gaiman and he said something extremely lovely to me
39 Comments Review: We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory
Published 18 Aug 2014
by
Gin Jenny
Note: I received a digital galley of We Are All Completely Fine from the publisher for review consideration. DARYL GREGORY AUTHOR DISCOVERY YEAR CONTINUES. Not only has Daryl Gregory produced another fine piece of science fiction — this one a novella — but I have at last discovered why I love his books so much. It’s cause his wife is a psychologist! (He thanks her in the acknowledgements.) No wonder Gregory wrote about crazy people so brilliantly in Afterparty. No wonder he is always writing about confronting impossible, insane situations with the only available tools (science, therapy) and knowing all…
19 CommentsReview: Sinner, Maggie Stiefvater
Published 11 Aug 2014
by
Gin Jenny
Note: I received an electronic copy of Sinner from the publisher, through NetGalley, for review consideration. Coming down from a book hangover after reading The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves was tricky. As of this writing, I think I am mostly okay; I just need to really figure out what my next read is going to be. Alternating Maggie Stiefvater books with unreviewable academic texts is probably not a sustainable direction for the blog (though very fun for me). Anyway, part of my hangover recovery process was binge-reading The Lesser Works, i.e., Shiver, Linger, and Forever, which are about…
19 Comments