Books 21-23
Cold Iron by Andy Diggle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Cold Iron in one way is your typical fae folk tale but in another is a bit different in that instead of our usual suspects of say Ireland or England it's set on the Isle of Man, using their folklore. Kay is a young woman working in a rather rough bar, dreaming of making it off the rural island to the bigger cities, hoping her music will take her there. Her boyfriend is pretty much a loser and her parents are gone. She's been raised by her grandmother who is one hundred percent invested in the idea that the fae folk are very real, insisting on Kay touching the iron horse shoe every time she goes in and out.
I like granny even though her main purpose is to inform the reader about Manx folklore as she lectures Kay, even including the fact the island takes its name from Manannán mac Lir, a god-hero who now resides inside the fae realm. Kay, naturally believes none of it until she nearly runs over a young girl one night. Mona is on the run from a Glashtyn.
Mona was given to the fae -and to The Widower, Manannán's title as names have power - by someone in exchange for his wish, nearly 200 years ago. Determined to keep Mona safe and out of faerie hands, Kay is unafraid to take the fight to them.
The story ends with a prose epilogue about ten years down the road which was an interesting edition.
I love these kinds of faerie tales, the reminder they were not considered nice and cute in the past (though hot fae folk stories are fun too) I thought the story was well done and well paced. I also very much like Brokenshire and Muller's art. The one detail that stood about about granny, the hands. Hands are hard in general but they managed to capture that weathered skin, atrophied muscled hands down to the knobby arthritic knuckles. That really pleased me.
View all my reviews
LOVE IS LOVE Poetry Anthology: In aid of Orlando's Pulse victims and survivors by Lily G. Blunt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I bought this years ago as all proceeds went to helping others in the aftermath of the Pulse shooting in Orlando (and then put it somewhere in my TBR where it got swallowed up until now.
As with any poetry anthology it's going to be a YMMV situation. Some poems will speak to you. Some won't. That's the thing with poetry it tends to hit differently than prose. There's no real need to tell you my favorites, just that there were several I loved. I'm glad I bought this, though I wish there had been no need for the anthology in the first place.
View all my reviews
K-pop Confidential by Stephan Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I probably should have rated it higher but it wasn't a book I enjoyed that much. That is no fault of the author. I didn't think this was badly written at all. It was the subject matter. To be fair, if not for the popsugar K-pop challenge, I would never have read this. I love music but these days I listen without watching (what a difference from my teen years) so the whole pop icon aesthetic is lost on me and I was never one to lose it over entertainers.
Candace Park, a Korean-American girl living in New Jersey has always wanted to be a singer. She was tiger mommed into the viola instead but with the encouragement of her two friends she auditions for S.A.Y. one of the biggest K-pop companies who produces one of Candace's fave's SKL and their front man One.J. Surprising no one but Candace she's selected as a trainee (and I think that might be one of my issues with the book, we know how this is all going to play out from the get go)
Candace and her mother go to Korea for her training and that's the rest of the book. It's part training, part cut your throat competition to find out which girls from the multiple teams will be part of S.A.Y.'s first all girl band. You don't find out til the last chapter.
And here come the warnings: fat phobia and forced unhealthy eating habits, colorism (you have to be dead white apparently), misogyny (the guys get away with far more than the girls), forced solitude (the idols must appear free to date for the fans) , mental trauma, physical trauma, bullying, gas lighting.
So it's a few hundred pages of watching young people being tormented. They're not allowed more than 4 hours sleep for weeks, insane, unhealthy food restrictions reinforced for the girls with a clear glass gender barrier in the hopes girls will eat next to nothing is boys are watching, being constantly bullied and gas lighted by adults.
At the end of this, my only thought was if any of this is even remotely close to the truth (and I would not be surprised) I couldn't in good conscience even listen to K-pop and contribute to this sort of treatment. The weird thing is I know other groups are similarly hard, like figure skating, ballet and a plethora of sports but somehow this is worse and I think it's because in my head it should be about the music. If you have a beautiful voice, you should be able to take a stage as an icon regardless of your size. Maybe because it reinforces unrealistic expectations of women that I was so bothered. I can't really say but all I know is I felt unhappy after reading this and would have respected it more if Candace had given them the finger and walked off.
View all my reviews