I reviewed Bitch Planet Book 1 for CBR8, right before the 2016 election, and at the time, I wondered how a dystopia such as DeConnick imagines could come about — a patriarchy where submissive women are placed on a pedestal and “non-compliance” makes one a criminal. A year later it is easier to see how that might happen. On a daily basis we bear witness to the many ways women and minorities can so easily be stripped of their rights and criminalized. In Book 2, […]
I capture “I Capture the Castle”
…for a certain kind of reader — mostly women, mostly bookish — it is perfect. Once you read it, you fall in love with it, and from then on you’re part of a secret club, self-selecting and wildly enthusiastic. I picked up Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle based on this piece from Vox, quoted above, but I am sorry to say that, while I mostly enjoyed the novel, I am not part of the secret club. Set in the 1930s, I Capture the Castle features a […]
That’s just cold
Here I am, and here’s another cozy. But the break made a difference. Or maybe this is just better than the last few I read.
There’s more than one way to be human
A year ago at this time, in the wake of our devastating presidential election, I reviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me and James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, two treatises on racism and oppression in America. As I read N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy, it occurred to me that her novels present a perfect fictional account of the same topic. These Hugo-Award-winning stories take place in a world where racial difference leads to oppression, exploitation, and genocide. As a result of this […]