Coronavirus: The Year of Our Plague #26

 Oh, boy!

This is because of the Republicans. The Republicans are intimidating voters and putting up fake voter ballot boxes. They are the fascist party.

Books of 2020- Installment #18

86. The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Wow! This book was dark! I mean good but wow! It went a million places I did not anticipate! So the basic premise of the story is that someone has developed the ability to travel between Earths. And of course there are a million different ways a story with that premise could go. Then there's a level of this story that is really interesting which is for a very important reason, the people who can travel between worlds tend to be the very poor which means this work while important gets marginalized and viewed as somewhat inferior. This was deeply interesting to me and helped me through some of the darker elements because it seems really important to think about but it is 2020 and this is a dystopian novel which wow 2020 doesn't need more dystopian elements!!

87. Ayesha at Last by Uzuma Jalaluddin and read by Roshni Shukla

This book is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice which is not for me. There is a lovely little romance between Ayesha and another character. But the racist white woman got on my nervous.

88. Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse and read by Kinsale Hueston

Okay, so I love Rebecca Roanhorse and expected to enjoy this children's book. But I was not expecting to looooove this book!! I don't particularly read children's books so I just didn't think it would hit me so hard! It's an awesome adventure story. A trio of kids have to save some people and it's delightful! I don't go in for hero's journey stories particularly but what I would say I don't like about them is mostly absent from this one. Not completely (I don't think you can write a hero's journey and not have the hero be special in some way...) but this is a team effort and thinking about things and understanding people is really important in this story, so I loved it!

89. Braised Pork by An Yu and read by Vera Chock 

This was a book that seems like it'll be one thing but turns out to be another, which is pretty interesting. At the beginning it seems like it'll be the story of a woman grappling with the death of her husband and possibly a journey of self-discovery. It certainly has elements of that but then it evolves into something else. I say all that because it didn't engage me initially and it wasn't until it evolved that I was interested in. Food for thought if it doesn't initially grab you.

90. The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

Okay, so I love T. Kingfisher's writing and loved The Twisted Ones. I was so excited to read this one, and actually was really surprised to learn that these are her only horror books. I have a quibble with the book, but overall it was fantastic. It creeped me out and I can't get it out of my head. 

I've read 90 books and 71 were by woman, 15 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 9 1/2 were translations. My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #17

81. A Killing Frost by Seanan McGuire

The last October Daye book? Really? Say it isn't so!!! That's my review!

82. The Idiot by Elif Batuman and read by Elif Batuman 

This book is so fascinating to me. Our narrator is a freshman at Harvard and it's very much a first year in college (though some of her classes don't seem like freshman courses!!) which is interesting. But she studies linguistics and she teaches ESL in Boston and Hungary and man! I loved these parts!! 

83. Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland and read by Inés del Castillo

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this book but it's awesome!! It's a YA sci-fi set in Arizona and it's a fantastic read! It has ICE and aliens and love and high school and cacti! It's a fun read with lots of heart.

84. Bewitched by Darynda Jones

Book 2!! So happy! Darynda books make me happy! Darynda books set in Salem, Mass with ghosts, shapeshifters, magic, and a black cat named Ink! I'm there!! I'm thrilled for book three and sad for book three because that apparently will be the end of this series! Sigh!

85. Miss Meteor by Tehlor Kay Mejia & Anna-Marie McLemore and read by Kyla Garcia & Almarie Guerra

So first, I don't know how this happened but this is what happened. This is a fun YA sci-fi set in Arizona. It's got aliens, love, high school, cacti, and corn hole. So while it's a good book I had some whiplash listening to this book on the heels of listening to Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything, especially since I didn't mention that the protagonists in both books are Mexican American teens. So they're both great and might very well scratch your YA sci-fi itch! Or if you're like me, you can never get enough sci-fi, especially sci-fi with awesome female protagonists!

I've read 85 books and 61 were by woman, 15 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 9 1/2 were translations. My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #16

76. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

I'm an infrequent reader of horror and it took me a long time to read my first Stephen Graham Jones book, but boy I loved Mapping the Interior and I decided to read this one. It was great! Amazing! But way more horror than Mapping the Interior, which means I learned (again!) that I "close my eyes" when it gets to the really gory stuff and ignore it, which can be considered a bit problematic considering important plot points are based on these events! But, but! I think this book is amazing! What happens when a group of friends violate a group and a cultural tradition? This book examines that. And I loved it! So fascinating! And the relationships between the friends, their families, and their surroundings (both society and nature)! Loved it!! Even though I "closed my eyes"!

77. Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, translated by Chi-Young Kim, and read by Mark Bramhall, Samantha Quan, Janet Song, and Bruce Turk

This book is very much an examination of the role of a mother in a family and how they took her for granted and the rude awakening they all go through in the wake of her disappearance. The knowledge that they didn't really know her and that they just brushed past her without really seeing her value.

78. Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana , translated by Megan McDowell, and read by Tanya Eby

This short story collection is a ride with a range of stories from literary to horror to supernatural. Since it is a translation, it allows you a glimpse into a world that might not be familiar to you.

79. The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite and read by Morag Sims 

This is a "sequel" to The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics but in that way of romance series where it picks up with a minor character from the book. It didn't grab me quite the way Lady's Guide did, but I did enjoy it and loved the bees and the fact the women were older (though I don't think that cover indicates that!!). It's still about women being empowered and finding their way through a patriarchal world and succeeding! So that's awesome!

80. The Mythic Dream edited by Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe

This is an awesome collection of myths reimagined by some incredible authors. Highly recommend it!

I've read 80 books and 61 were by woman, 15 were by men, 3 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 9 1/2 were translations. My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

October of the Year of Our Plague

As I sit in my California home, a fire that burned for seven weeks is officially extinguished, but I can't tell because a new fire started a couple of days ago and that smoke is now the smoke that pollutes and kills. It's October and the high is expected to be 100, so you can tell the fall is finally here.

The man that is in the White House, that gets to call himself president, contracted coronavirus after engaging in risky behavior for months, albeit not nearly as dangerous as he expected from the rest of us. He willingly told/tells people it was a nothing problem and he actively encouraged/encourages white supremacists to hurt people, to be ready to take to the streets when (God- please be when!!) or if he doesn't win. This election that is a month and a day away. Will we break into civil war again? I don't know. I am actually afraid that we will. He certainly fans the flames of hate and encourages people to hurt others, whether it is chants of lock her up, grab her by the pussy, or don't wear masks. 

But shockingly he is not really the biggest problem in my opinion. The Republicans in Congress who don't exercise their checks-and-balances power, that jump on the chance to block President Obama's nomination to the Supreme Court, but rush to push someone into the Supreme Court on the heels of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death. They won't pass a relief bill for those of us suffering in this pandemic but want to destroy health care options for those who aren't protected by wealth or jobs. They will jump on the chance to hurt us, to put someone into a lifelong position that they believe will erode rights.

So here I am in a state that is literally on fire and a country that is figuratively (and literally) on fire reading about a woman in the 1800s who advocated for better treatment of the indigenous people of this country. She threw herself into trying to improve the lives of others, of people different from her. 

In 1881 Helen Jackson sent her book A Century of Dishonor, which documented federal atrocities committed against the indigenous people of the US, with this quote from Benjamin Franklin on it, "Look upon your hands: they are stained with the blood of your relations."

Here I am thinking about Congress and I think, "Look upon your hands: they are stained with the blood of your relations."
 

"Look upon your hands: they are stained with the blood of your relations."

Books of 2020- Installment #15

71. The Summer of Kim Novak by Hakan Nesser and translated by Sashia Vogel

I had heard this was an amazing story and while I can't remember what they said, it intrigued me and I put it on hold at the library. This book is a bit old (aka pre-#metoo movement) and written by an older-than-me man, which quite frankly is not what I'm super interested in reading anymore. Still, I read it, and it was fine if a little misogynistic... until it wasn't. There was this moment in the book when I went, "Oh, this isn't what I thought it was." And that's cool! The misogyny is still there (and I'm absolutely sure the author would bristle at that description so take that with a grain of salt) and certain elements that I found a bit ho-hum remained but it was definitely interesting and I was surprised by a difference between Swedish law and American law, namely that they have a statute of limitations on murder! Blew my mind!

72. Storm Front by Jim Butcher and read by James Marsters 

So I read Peace Talks earlier this year and that gave me a hankering for more Harry Dresden, so back to the beginning but this time with the dulcet voice of James Marsters whispering in my ear! I can't say Storm Front is my all time favorite Harry book, but I feel like that's awesome because it means the series has only gotten better and better!!!

73. Crudrat by Gail Carriger and read by Jay Daniel Sawyer and a full cast

I love The 5th Gender and when I stumbled on this audiobook set in the same universe, I had to check it out. It's only available as an audio and the cast is great. Did I like it like I did The 5th Gender? No, they are doing radically different things and are not meant to be like each other. For one this is geared towards a multi-generational audience and that is not true for The 5th Gender!! And it's telling the story of the poor and not the rich. That made it quite interesting if not what I was looking for.

74. Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline and read by Michelle St. John

OMG! Wonderful!! Love this world- maybe not the danger of the rougarou but the characters and their lives and loves. And I don't think I can overstate how awesome it was listening to Michelle St. John narrate this book!! Awesome!! I 100% want to dive into more Cherie Dimaline books because oh, boy! Awesome!!! A woman, Joan, fell in love with an incredible man, Victor, and something disrupts their lives, sending Joan on a journey to get her love and life back. Loved it!!

75. The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Lady Astronaut series continues! I love this alternative history series. Yeah, sure it's apocalyptic but the problem-solving in it is so delightful!! Love it and love the combating of the misogyny and racism in this book. Add in that she wrote this before our year of the plague and she has a polio outbreak- wow! Fascinating! And you know one of the things I have found so challenging about our plague is that it seems like no one (in the general public) understands viruses and no one with the understanding is getting a good platform to explain them to people. This outbreak was a reinforcement of that for me. viruses don't leave your body and how they impact one person is NOT how they impact everyone! What a virus does to your body in week one isn't the same was what it does to your body later on. Acting like a fever is all you have to worry about is ridiculous!!!

I've read 75 books and 58 were by woman, 14 were by men, 2 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 8 1/2 were translations. My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.

Books of 2020- Installment #14

66. Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

This book was very melancholy and took awhile for me to get into. Hello, Pandemic! I would say it was interesting look into the psyche of a pregnant high schooler- well, the summer after high school.

67. More than Maybe by Erin Hahn

This was right up my alley! A fun high school romance with lots of great music thrown in! 

68. Again, Again by E. Lockhart

This high school romance (what's up with three in a row?!?!?!?! That doesn't sound like me at all!!!) was billed as a multiverse romance and I guess so. But it didn't work for me. At all. There were things I found interesting but overall, it felt more like the author's rough drafts to me. Like she couldn't quite bear to let those options go even though they weren't what she ultimately settled on for her characters. That said though I looooooooooooooooved the art discussions throughout the book and that was fantastic. Sign me up for more that that!

69. Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

The book was on my TBR since I learned of it right before its release and for various reasons I didn't get it until now. It was so weird and relatable all at the same time. The narrator's voice feels so real that I feel like the author had this experience and just wrote it down as a fiction because that's the only way people would buy it. Otherwise they would say, "Dude! What were you smoking?" And I am sure that's ass-backwards but my point is it was vivid!!!! I felt like I was there in that modular home watching it unfold in front of me, the smell of the cigarettes wafting around me. The jingle of the fancy dancer echoing in my brain!! Wow!

70. Drowned Country by Emily Tesh

This is a continuation of the Greenhollow Series. Silver in the Wood was amazing and I was so excited to read this. I had deleted the ending in my mind and so was a little surprised by what was happening at the beginning of this story. It's a funny experience when you realize you altered a book to be more of what you wanted! 

I've read 70 books and 55 were by woman, 12 were by men, 2 were anthologies by both women and men, 1 was by a nonbinary author, and 7 1/2 were translations. My year of reading lots of women and at least 12 translations is going well in that I've read mostly female authors, but the world is going through a pandemic and state sanctioned murders in the form of police brutality with a horrible man still at the helm and supported by horrible men in the Congress. In short this year has been really rough. What will this global health crisis leave us with? What changes will we make, not only in terms of the huge inequities of our health system where people of color and the poor (which let's face it- the system works really hard to ensure that people of color, especially black people, are poor) are more than extremely disadvantaged, but also all the other ways in which our society, our systems, actively damage people of color? Only time will tell. But I hope it is a greater sense of community, a need to care for one and another and support each other, not just people with the same colored skin as ourselves, not just people with the same sized wallet as ours. My naive? hope is all of this isolation leaves us wanting to lift each other up and not hold others down.