@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialJust finished Weirdo by Tony Weaver Jr. Jes and Cin Wibowo. It's a good graphic novel semi-memoir about bullying and depression. I suspect it won't be true to the experiences of people with chronic depression (In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee is another graphic novel memoir I read recently that does involve chronic depression).
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@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialFinished Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed last night. It's gripping, sad, and fierce all at the same time. Explores themes of racism, Islamophobia, white supremacist terrorism, and police malcompetence in an extremely timely manner. It's a good book, which I'm extra happy about since I also liked Ahmed's This Book Won't Burn, so now I have another author whose work I'll be reading through.
Including Sabaa Tahir, Sabina Khan, and Adiba Jaigirdar, I've been reading a ton of great YA books by south Asian muslim authors recently, all discovered via the "grab something off the YA shelf by a probably-not-white author" method that has yet to fail me. Turns out the racism in publishing that puts a higher bar in front of authors of color at least makes it easy to find good books in one way >:(
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@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialI've never written a novel or any other intensely-plotted work of fiction, but anyone who has read or watched it played a lot of stories can probably also recognize that some authors just aren't good at endings. They're great at setting things in motion, at keeping the twists and turns coming, at the soap opera style of drama. But they just don't have the craft necessary to tie things together into a satisfying conclusion. I imagine it's much harder than the process of getting things going out keeping them moving, since you both have to wind down all the various threads you've spun up and balance satisfaction with believability.
I just finished Girl Gone Viral by Arvin Ahmadi, and it has a bad ending. The beginning is fine, the middle has plenty of drama to keep you wanting to see what happens, but the ending is murky, unsatisfying, and manages neither veracity nor satisfaction (even discounting the biggest next step that might reasonably have been left there to make room for a sequel).
Given the other issues with the book, from poor politics, to inauthentic characters, to a techno-optimism that feels as bitter in this moment as it is far from the mark in its predictions, I can't recommended it, despite having read through to the end.
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@bobmueller@mastodon.world
@paulusm@scholar.socialEnjoyed "We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer in this month's Clarkesworld
A cyborg, self-replicating probes, family and friendship
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@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialJust read Fat Girls Dance by Cathleen Meredith, yet another semi-random venture into the currently-popular novels section of my library, rather than my recent YA staples. It's excellent. Fascinating and well-written just as fiction, but also empowering and perspective-upgrading (and I'm a married white cis man who is only beer-belly fat, plus already well into #BodyPositive thinking).
It bridges really well with Mama by Nikkya Hargrove, and with Does My Body Offend You by Mayra Cuevas and Marie Marquardt, both of which I went through recently. Yet another home fucking run for #OwnVoices, which felt extra good to read after Dream State was so disappointing. It really digs into and helps the reader explore body positivity just like Does My Body Offend You does with feminism.
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@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialJust finished "To a Darker Shore" by Leanne Schwartz. It's a blend of fantasy (a genre I enjoyed a lot when younger but which I now feel is hit-or-miss depending on the politics of the author) and romance (a genre I'm currently a bit obsessed with) and I enjoyed it very much. The element of an #OwnVoices autistic perspective was interesting, and the mythology was pretty cool. Even though I felt as though monstrousness could have been explored from an even better angle, the complexity in this book was comfortable, and it to my mind successfully-enough avoided the veneer of racism that runs through the mainstream fantasy tradition.
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@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialJust finished "Statistically Speaking" by Debbie Johnson. It's coincidentally the second book dealing with adoption that I've just finished, though I suspect in both cases not #OwnVoices, which I also suspect matters somewhat. I was well-absorbed and enjoyed it immensely, but was left again with the reservation that I'm sure it may reflect only that small facet of real life which is pleasing and/or tolerable to a wide audience, and may thus in its own way make things more difficult for those whose realities it does not reflect. I find myself very glad to have also recently read Mama by Nikkya Hargrove, which is autobiographical and which as a result of having more real-world complexity drives its similar point about found family home with more force, to me (to be fair, Johnson's work has a decent amount of real life complexity, for a novel).
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