What does appropriation mean in food culture? (link)

NPR crowd-sourced a list of the best SFF from the last ten years, and it’s a good-ass list. (link)

The Jeopardy! situation was some real fuckin bullshit and I want a recount, I want the recount to consist of everyone egging Mike Richards until he gets down on his knees and begs LeVar Burton to come back and host forever and then Mike Richards retires to, like, Chalmette. (link)

An interview with Silvia Moreno-Garcia, an author who writes a gorgeous, weird, fascinating range of SFF novels and has a new one out about Mexican revolutionaries. (link)

Contestants on the Bachelor franchise are, in fact, there to make friends. (link)

On misunderstanding Thoreau. (link)

I have never read not even one single word of John le Carre and I probably don’t agree with this writer’s final argument about George and Ann Smiley, but I still found this piece a hell of a good read. (link)

Mortgage approvals are systematically racist; which I know we all know, but here’s some more evidence about it. (link)

Welp, I was completely out on Y: The Last Man the series and then I started hearing about how hard the writing room worked to include trans voices and tell trans stories and now goddammit I guess they have lured me back in. (link)

“I simply enjoyed the fundamental separation of church and state.” How RPF and celebrity fandom has changed in the world of the vast internet. (link)

adrienne maree brown talks about the place of Black anger in speculative fiction and stories about Black grief. (link)

This deep dive on classic Black television is terrific, like everything Hannah Giorgis writes! (link)

Urban Meyer sucks. Here is a story of how the Ohio State football system failed a survivor of domestic violence (at the hands of one of their coaching staff). (link)

On editing fascist propaganda out of Wikipedia pages. (link)

It has been a very defeating week. If you have any good news, or anything that’s not news but is making you feel a little bit good, please drop it in the comments and make me smile. Have a wonderful weekend!

The post Montero! A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

I may become a slight broken record over the course of this review, but let me say up front: This is a damn good example of a Gothic novel, and I know from Gothic novels. The first real proper grown-up book I ever read was Jane Eyre, and I periodically do a buddy-reread of it and Rebecca and feel the most exquisite pleasure about it. Though Mexican Gothic is very much its own creature, it pays beautiful homages to the Gothic novel tradition, from the long winding roads to the manor house to the Mrs Danvers-like figure of Florence Doyle (Catalina’s aunt-in-law), who insists that Noemí adhere to her many rules: No smoking; no going into town without permission; no talking during dinner; the list goes on and on, and Noemí breaks all of them. Virgil, who’s by turns friendly and menacing, has an anxious cousin named Francis and a deeply unpleasant father called Howard, who wants to talk to Noemí about eugenics and the relative merits of European nations (pure, good, smart) and indigenous people (maybe hardier question mark).

The longer Noemí stays at High Place, the less she understands the place. She begins having deeply unsettling dreams, and minor hallucinations that the wallpaper in the house is moving, writhing. She starts sleepwalking again, though she hasn’t sleepwalked since she was a little girl. She even starts to experience sporadic, unwanted lust for Virgil, who acts flirty and inappropriate with her at times. Meanwhile Catalina, the reason for Noemí’s visit, seems to fluctuate wildly between moods. One moment she’s calm and acquiescent, insisting that there’s nothing for Noemí to worry about, and the next moment she’s panicked and begging to be taken away from High Place.

This book is soooooo creepy. I read a fair few creepy-house stories in search of the exact high that Mexican Gothic gave me. As I was reading it, I was simultaneously saying a tiny prayer to God to send us the blessing of a Gothic novel renaissance led by authors of color. Though Mexican Gothic is absolutely classic in many of its tropes, and feels deeply satisfying for that reason if you’re a fan of the genre, the ghosts that haunt it aren’t just those of the family dead, but of extractive imperialism as a whole. The Doyle family’s history of using and abusing cheap Mexican labor in their silver mines — now defunct — proves to be inextricably linked with their whole fucking spooky situation; as does, unsurprisingly, Howard and Virgil Doyle’s unseemly interest in Noemí qua native of Mexico.

Here follow two paragraphs of spoilers, followed by an unspoilery final paragraph:

The book’s climax is also near flawless in execution.¹ *Stefan voice* It has everything: Eye-stabbings, secret passageways, a confrontation with the Final Horror at the Heart of this House, and, of course, setting the whole fucking house on fire on your way out. Again, like, truly all the best tropes of the Gothic novel genre, wound together in a way that felt new, unexpected, and terrifying.

I will add in particular that Silvia Moreno-Garcia has a line on the exact creepiest thing for me. At first I thought she was just doing the “things are creepier if they’re moist” which I have been saying for years and continue to vigorously endorse — but no! It’s much scarier than that! THINGS ARE CREEPIER IF THEY’RE FUNGUS. A couple of authors in recent years have kicked up the horror of their premise by adding mushroom body horror, and with some experience under my belt I can now report that mushroom creepiness gets me every time. I do a real, proper, full-body shudder every time I think about it. Who gave horror writers permission to add mushroom invasion to their bag of tricks? It is deeply inimical to me, a coward. I shall never sleep again probably.

As with all of Moreno-Garcia’s books, Mexican Gothic is a fast, immersive read — I got through it in a single sitting, partly because it was due back at the library because there are like 96 holds on it, but mostly because it sucked me in as soon as Mrs Danvers Florence Doyle showed up, and I had to find out what was going to happen. This is easily my favorite Moreno-Garcia book to date, and I can already tell you it’s going to be one of my best reads of 2020.

The post Review: Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia appeared first on Reading the End.

A brief history of Mexican comics. (link)

Hafez divination helps to get Nilo Tabrizy through quarantine. (link)

Black fans are holding K-pop accountable for racism and appropriation. (link)

Clueless remains our best Jane Austen adaptation. (link)

The independent bookstore industry must grapple with its racism and complicity in white supremacy. (link)

True crime is going to have to change. It can’t just be about and for white people. (link)

Do you think you have a book idea? Here’s the first question you need to ask yourself (and where to go from there). (link)

“Sensitivity readers … are a piecemeal fix in an industry that continues to push minority voices to the margins.” (link)

A psychologist rates Brendan Leonard’s stress coping strategies. I felt extremely come-atted from the very first one, but there’s a strategy on his list about to-do lists that broke into my house and punched me in the face, and frankly how dare it. (link)

Alaya Dawn Johnson grappled with the racist history of noir in order to write a noir world that centers Black experiences. (link)

The new Netflix show Indian Matchmaking glosses over the hard facts of caste among Indian families. (link)

How should we cope with the constant moral shifts in the people we admire? (link)

Chefs shouldn’t rule like kings. Collaboration and support, not abuse and single vision, should govern restaurant kitchens. (link)

I hope you will be able to have some peace and quiet this weekend, or some non-scary excitement if that’s what you desire! Remember that everyone is struggling, so you are not alone and do not need to feel guilty for not being at the top of your game.

The post Something’s Gotta Give: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

One day, at the absolute end of her rope, Casiopea opens up a locked chest in her grandfather’s bedroom, and out comes the spirit of Han-Kame, the Mayan god of death. He needs to regain his throne from his usurping twin brother Vucub-Kame, and he needs Casiopea’s help. As they travel around Mexico searching for the missing pieces of Han-Kame, Casiopea’s life force is gradually drained, while Han-Kame gradually becomes more and more human and less and less god.

Gods of Jade and Shadow draws from the Popul Vuh, but I can report from my own experience that you don’t need to be familiar with it to enjoy the story. At its heart, it’s a road trip story and McGuffin hunt of the highest order, and a story about stories without getting too terribly precious about it. I loved following Casiopea and Han-Kame around Mexico on trains and in fast cars, as each of them learns about being a human in a wide and varied world. Han-Kame, of course, has always been a god, and Casiopea has always been a drudge, with a life that offered her very little scope for self-discovery. It’s brilliant to witness her world opening up.

Casiopea overall is just a terrific character. One of my favorite things about this book is that although it’s a fantasy novel, and although it’s set in The Past (Jazz Age!), Casiopea is never under sexual threat. Her physical safety grants her the space to be her own person, a stubborn and intelligent woman who looks up at the stars and dreams of freedom. Most particularly, she refuses to be cast in the role of a drudge — she may have to act the part, but she’ll never internalize it, and this is what drives her cousin Martin wild. Though she agrees to help Han-Kame (she doesn’t have much choice, since he’s draining her life force as long as he’s not a full god), there’s little she wants in return — just her freedom.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Martin is called upon by Han-Kame’s twin brother to stop Han-Kame and Casiopea from realizing their goal. As they travel across the country in search of the missing pieces of Han-Kame’s body (his eye, his ear, a necklace, and his index finger) that will make him fully a god, Martin is trained and aided by Vucub-Kame to stop them. He’s a whiny sack of shit who’s been shitty to Casiopea since she came into his home, but he’s been promised great rewards if he succeeds, and utter doom if he should fail. So like, he’s motivated. And Casiopea and Han-Kame, though they are growing closer as Han-Kame becomes more of a man and less of a god, weaken each day their spirits are linked.

Much as I love a road trip (I really, really love a road trip), Gods of Jade and Shadow wouldn’t have worked without Moreno-Garcia’s brilliant evocation of Jazz Age Mexico. Everywhere Casiopea goes, she sees new things: flappers with bobbed hair, high-ceilinged hotels with room service, and flower shops with witches inside. Despite being on record as hating places (down with places!), I was all about this setting. It’s particularly good viewed through Casiopea’s eyes because — I don’t know how to say this exactly! — her wants are so modest. She wants soft sheets and a comfortable bed; she wants to see the world and be larger than herself. For her it’s not a question of gold and jewels, but a question of expansiveness: her adventure with Han-Kame is dangerous, yes, but it offers her a chance to live in the world, instead of being hidden away from it forever.

All in all, a gorgeous historical fantasy about gods, death, mercy, and freedom. Highly recommended.

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“I am beginning to wonder if it isn’t blackness that Dolezal doesn’t understand, but whiteness”: Ijeoma Iluo interviews Rachel Dolezal.

The Guardian carried a really fascinating article about separating the artist from the art (and finding ways to acknowledge both artistic brilliance and personal turpitude).

Hysteria, Hillary Clinton, and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a sobering read.

Okay I guess I am a credulous lambkin but this Tampa Bay Times article about farmers’ market produce not really being from local farms blew my mind.

Racebending vs. whitewashing (and another reminder why I love Geeks of Color).

Emily Asher-Perrin on being the uneasy girl in horror movies who nobody believes.

I grabbed Deepak Unnikrishnan’s book on a whim at the library last Saturday, and shortly thereafter I discovered this excellent New Yorker article about him and his book about foreign workers in the UAE.

Welp this remark about what fanfic is for is searingly accurate.

I’m furious at 13 Reasons Why, and this post and this post are two (YES I’M DOING THIS) reasons why. My brother-in-law, who teaches high schoolers, reports that all his students are watching and loving it, and I want to protect all those babies from this harmful nonsense. Ugh.

“Write the things that are weird about your culture, for an audience that isn’t like you”: Six authors of color discuss what they are told when submitting speculative fiction stories to agents and publishers.

I quietly enjoy David Foster Wallace’s essays while feeling very confident that I would loathe his fiction and probably end up wanting to beat him over the head with a tennis racket, so this article on men recommending David Foster Wallace until the heat death of the sun really resonated with me. This Sarah McCarry response includes an excellent anecdote.

Why are you still reading this! Go read that Rachel Dolezal piece!

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Any case, Certain Dark Things is a vampire story set in Mexico City by a Mexican-Canadian writer. In this world, there exist ten known species of vampires, of which we encounter three. The vampire girl Atl and her Doberman Cualli¹ are on the run from the Necros vampires who killed her mother and sister. She doesn’t intend to enlist the aid of a street kid called Domingo, at least not for more than one drink, and she certainly doesn’t intend for him to get tangled up with the cops and gangsters and vampires who are chasing her.

Okay, first up, Certain Dark Things is hella violent. There is a non-zero amount of tooth-ripping and face-shoot-offing. If you are a person who cannot handle tooth-ripping face-shoot-offing (which in retrospect I may be that kind of person but it’s too late to learn that lesson now), I may need to direct you to a less gory vampire story. The main vampire searched for Atl is a gross misogynist who fantasizes about doing violent sex things to Atl, which is also not the most fun to read. He does not, however, do any violent sex things to her in practice.

However, if faces getting shot off and silver shards being dug out of bloody human flesh by an unqualified veterinarian are not deal-breakers for you, there’s gold in these here hills. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s world-building is superb, a take on vampires and vampire rivalries that I’ve never seen before. Her Mexico City has long been a haven from vampires, which is why cop Ana Aguirre transferred there, and she’ll go so far as to ally herself with one of the city’s gangs if it means keeping Atl and other vampires from finding a place for themselves in the city. Meanwhile, Atl tells Domingo about her people’s descent from Aztecs and muses over the possibility of living in Brazil, where the native vampires glow in the dark. I was willing to live with some flesh-tearing in order to keep discovering new pockets of this fantasy world.

And now, a question: Which is scarier, vampires with wings who can fly, or vampires who glow in the dark? Or vampires who can shapeshift?

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