Lady Business

The quote on the cover of Bone Gap should have been an immediate "YOU SHALL NOT PASS", because although it's a quote from E. Lockhart (a writer I love) it also invokes magical realism which almost always makes me nervous.

"Bone Gap marks Laura Ruby as one of fiction's most original voices. She is capable of moving you to tears, terrifying you on deep and dreamlike levels, and making your heart shout with happiness. This book is magic realism at its most magical."

Okay, but...magical realism. What is magical realism, anyway? Every time I think I know I realize I don't actually know. It's like another language. Unless you use it every day you lose it. How did I earn an English degree without properly learning all these different terms? Is it writing that's suggestive of magic? A book that uses magic in otherwise normal realities? A type of story that feels magical but isn't (I hear people call The Girls at the Kingfisher Club magical realism sometimes). The label people give something, as Ana suggests, when they don't want to stick a fantasy label on it and appeal to mainstream readers?

I've read Wikipedia now so I know my vote, but this is a personal decision everyone needs to make for themselves. GOOD LUCK.

It's such a tremendously well-done novel that I really wish it owned its anchor genre more. Making up my own literary terms to serve my needs and apply to books without permission: FIVE BONUS POINTS. People who loved Chime by Franny Billingsley will find similar ideas in this book (but with more bees, corn, and male perspectives). They'd also be a fascinating co-read together. ( There are no spoilers for the plot, but I do discuss the themes the book tackles. There are also puns, which I assume many people will want to avoid. I'm sorry. I love a good pun. )

I love space adventure. I love found families. When the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy dropped, it wasn't the fact it was a Marvel property that drew me in (like Iron Man and Captain America before it, I didn't even realize it was a thing), but the temptation of a story about a ragtag group of complicated individuals forming a team in space. Some of my favorite science fiction heavily features this trope: Stargate Atlantis (although I like the team dynamic better in SG-1), Firefly, The Expanse, hell, if we count one shots then there's a reason that Event Horizon, The Core, and Armageddon feature so high at the top of my list of SF films, and it isn't the rigorous science. When I found out that the script was written by Nicole Perlman, going into Guardians of the Galaxy I had high expectations for both the space adventure and the found families part. Those two elements delivered, even if space adventure and misogyhumor took precedence over found families in the end.



Plenty of other people have tackled the more sexist and nonsensical elements of the film that tossed them directly out the narrative airlock. It feels a little useless to add my voice to the pile, because the film is doing well (I'm glad it's doing well! please no more Transformers films! adapt something else!) and because it's doing well we could likely talk about these issues until we're blue in the face to unbothered shrugs from Marvel Studios. It's not that different from their constant shrugging over what the first female-led superhero film is going to be, maybe with an eye roll (none, ever, they're never doing one, not one, it's never going to happen, I am cynical and jaded and have no hope left). Whatever, it's my space adventure party, I'll cry if I want to. ( Read more... )

"There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark's Eve," Neeve said. "Either you’re his true love…or you killed him."

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore (source).

Seriously, screw this book, all its feelings, its twists that gutted me, and its characterizations that made me want to rip my heart out and chuck it across the room so I could just stop the misery. Fuck this book for having, apparently, three follow ups, the second of which only came out this September. My rage over the fact that I'll have to wait yet another year for more after The Dream Thieves is eclipsed only by my love of these characters as they find each other, discover one another's secrets, and begin to tie themselves together with friendship and magic. ( Read more... )