I had set out a reading challenge for myself this year to read a book by someone with my name. Turns out that's kind of hard. The T(h)eresas I found typically write romance, so romance it is. My friend had told me that Teresa Medeiros was a good writer. And she is... but in the swirl of sexual harassment/sexual assault/sexual misconduct that is prominent in so many conversations I found the depiction of sexual attraction in this novel problematic at best. It also made me unable to "rewrite" the parts of Joplin's Ghost that I disliked un-ignorable. Reading books by women with such romanticized notions of sexual contact without consent disturbs me and reinforces the notion the we are products of our environments and that we have work hard to not be blind to the damage it does and to not perpetuate it. Challenging times...
97. The Dorenstein Icon by Janet Louise Roberts
I saw this book in Palm Springs and had to get it for my friend. Then my husband had the crazy idea I should read it out loud for her. Well, I tried, I really did... The best laid plans of mice and men... So... this is a crazy book. The woman is abducted by a man, falls in love with said man who drugs her and marries her while drugged. He then "consummates" their marriage while she is drugged. She vacillates between loving him and fearing him. He constantly tosses out gems like, "You belong to me." She also can't decide if she loves him or if he's hypnotized her into thinking she loves him. And yet... and yet... though no time passes between her being drugged and terrorized and questioning her sanity, she decides it's a wonderful marriage despite having been kept a prisoner, drugged, forced into marriage and loses her virginity under the influence. Such a treat! A great primer on how not to get consent!
98. Murder on a Midsummer Night by Kerry Greenwood
This is book 17 of the Phryne Fisher murder mysteries. After all the strange romances I've read recently and Thanksgiving madness I just went through, I felt a need for some of Phryne's cool. Turns out it was a perfect antidote but she was oddly out of sorts for great swaths of the book as well. Amazing how her mood matched mine...
99. Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan
This is an amazing short book. It's clearly inspired by HP Lovecraft. but for me it was a great X-Files-esque book. It also reminded me of the podcast Steal the Stars.
100. Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown
I found this book for a buck in town at a record store (yeah, a record store). It was supposed to be hilarious and I could use a good laugh. It was an interesting read. Not my fav and didn't make me laugh. But what would aliens be like? Could we understand them even if there wasn't a language barrier? These are questions asked by this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment