Late Reviews
No theme again, just ones I'm late on.
The Children's Blizzard, David Laskin
This is a pretty harsh read, just fyi.
The Children's Blizzard is the story of the great prairie blizzard of 1888, in which hundreds of people died, most of them children on their way home from school. Laskin sets up the story rather well, I thought, if somewhat tediously, with a couple of chapters on the social and geographical makeup of the prairie and the function and setup of the United States Signal Corps, the people responsible for weather forecasting. Then he gets into the blizzard itself, told in a particularly chilling (hah) series of chapters from the point of view of the people trapped out in it. Finally, he talks about the aftermath, the fates of various survivors, and the ultimate outcome for the Signal Corps.
The book can get rather dry sometimes, between the in-depth weather forecasting discussion and the long digressions into the biographies of some of the people involved. That said, the chapters actually about the blizzard are some of the most compelling nonfiction I've read all year. If you're interested in weather, this book will really engage you. If not, well, maybe skim that bit. And, as I said, it's a pretty harsh read. Most of the dead in the blizzard were young children on their way home from school after the first nice day all winter.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 2--fascists have slight problems. Deeply sympathetic immigrant characters.
Echoes in Death, JD Robb
This is, as far as I know, the most recent of the ...In Death series, following up on Apprentice and Brotherhood in Death and a whole lot better, IMO. There's still some sketchy shit going down, but it's a murder mystery concerning a serial rapist who's escalated to murder, but it's much less grody than Brotherhood, and it doesn't ask you to sympathize with the rapist. Which, good. Fuck that motherfucker.
Ahem. Eve and Roarke are on their way home from a party when a bloody, naked young woman stumbles out in front of their car. They take her to the hospital, where she is identified. A quick trip to her house later, they find her husband's body, and Eve's off on another investigation.
There's not a lot of continuity in this one, which is nice. Instead we get a lot of family bickering while they struggle to catch the killer; the same kind of procedural, in other words, that I regularly go to for happy brain places. That, plus the characters I've grown to love, plus Eve and Roarke who are at least entertaining (and a bit more Married in this one than they usually are), plus the cat, plus a nice little twist in the ending, made this an excellent installment in the series. Good times.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 4--fascists have major problems. Teetering on the edge of five, but Eve's world is pretty fascist to begin with. Aaaanyway we have a major female character recovering from severe abuse sympathizing with other victims of abuse, an irredeemable asshole committing crimes who is of course caught, multiple other female characters being awesome, and many of those being POC.
The BFG, Roald Dahl
This right here? This is my childhood, and that may explain quite a bit about me.
The BFG is pretty representative of Roald Dahl books, I think. It's incredibly weird, with made-up words all over the place (sometimes I think he wrote this book just because he'd made up all these weird synonyms and mixed-up sayings and wanted a place to use them), and the plot features a lot of bodily harm done or threatened to children. There's one (or two, depending on how you count the BFG) useful adult, and it's a child who saves the day (more or less) since the rest of the adults are idiots, malicious, or both.
Our hero, Sophie, is abducted from her bed in the middle of the night by a giant. Sophie is (quite reasonably, as it turns out) afraid he'll kill and eat her, but no, she has been kidnapped by the only vegetarian giant in existence, the BFG (Big Friendly Giant). There are, however, nine other giants who do kill and eat children every night. Once Sophie hears this, she determines to put a stop to it, with the help of the BFG and the Queen of England. It's silly and threatening in that very strange way only Roald Dahl can manage, and a great deal of fun to boot. Definitely recommended.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 3--fascists have problems. Little girl saves the world, how dare she. But she's white and British so that dilutes it somewhat.
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up The Marvel Universe, Ryan North and Erica Henderson
Y'all have been around here long enough to know that I love Squirrel Girl, right? Well, if you haven't, I love Squirrel Girl. This installment is a standalone graphic novel that may or may not actually link into the larger Marvel Universe, but I find I don't care either way, because it's literally what it says on the tin. In this book, Squirrel Girl beats up the Marvel Universe. Including Deadpool.
Okay, well, technically, it's her evil twin beating up the Marvel Universe, but whatever, it's Squirrel Girl, and her evil twin isn't really all that evil. Also Tony has a rather large part in it, most of which is him being either a science dork or in his underpants or both, and of course there are squirrels everywhere, and really Squirrel Girl is always a delight and if you're a fan you should pick this up immediately, because, again, Squirrel Girl beats up the entire Marvel Universe.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 4--fascists have major problems. It would be five but Squirrel Girl is white. Well, maybe it is a five? I mean, Allene's entire plan is basically to run a fascist government for the benefit of squirrels... but then again she's not entirely wrong or depicted as being entirely wrong so, yeah, four. Whatever, it's Squirrel Girl, she's a delight.
How They Choked, Georgia Bragg
First of all, this book has some really excellent illustrations by Kevin O'Malley, so if nothing else check those out.
How They Choked is one of those short tales from history collections aimed at children, with its theme being failures of the rich and famous. Now, being one of those collections aimed at children, it's not strictly accurate to history (or at least our best understanding of history). There were definitely times I read a bit and was like, "no... no, that's not right." Also, the selection of failures was... interesting? I mean, you have people like J Bruce Ismay and the Titanic, which, all right, though the Titanic's fate was a lot of little things adding up, but then you have people like Isaac Newton and Susan B Anthony, whose failures I'm still not sure I understood.
But it's entertaining enough, and if you've got a kid into history or schadenfreude they'll probably enjoy this. Plus, O'Malley's illustrations are great.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 3--fascists have problems. I think they'd have major problems since it's about white faves fucking up, but there's also women fucking up, and generally I think it would confuse them.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/421029.html. Please comment over there if possible.
The Children's Blizzard, David Laskin
This is a pretty harsh read, just fyi.
The Children's Blizzard is the story of the great prairie blizzard of 1888, in which hundreds of people died, most of them children on their way home from school. Laskin sets up the story rather well, I thought, if somewhat tediously, with a couple of chapters on the social and geographical makeup of the prairie and the function and setup of the United States Signal Corps, the people responsible for weather forecasting. Then he gets into the blizzard itself, told in a particularly chilling (hah) series of chapters from the point of view of the people trapped out in it. Finally, he talks about the aftermath, the fates of various survivors, and the ultimate outcome for the Signal Corps.
The book can get rather dry sometimes, between the in-depth weather forecasting discussion and the long digressions into the biographies of some of the people involved. That said, the chapters actually about the blizzard are some of the most compelling nonfiction I've read all year. If you're interested in weather, this book will really engage you. If not, well, maybe skim that bit. And, as I said, it's a pretty harsh read. Most of the dead in the blizzard were young children on their way home from school after the first nice day all winter.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 2--fascists have slight problems. Deeply sympathetic immigrant characters.
Echoes in Death, JD Robb
This is, as far as I know, the most recent of the ...In Death series, following up on Apprentice and Brotherhood in Death and a whole lot better, IMO. There's still some sketchy shit going down, but it's a murder mystery concerning a serial rapist who's escalated to murder, but it's much less grody than Brotherhood, and it doesn't ask you to sympathize with the rapist. Which, good. Fuck that motherfucker.
Ahem. Eve and Roarke are on their way home from a party when a bloody, naked young woman stumbles out in front of their car. They take her to the hospital, where she is identified. A quick trip to her house later, they find her husband's body, and Eve's off on another investigation.
There's not a lot of continuity in this one, which is nice. Instead we get a lot of family bickering while they struggle to catch the killer; the same kind of procedural, in other words, that I regularly go to for happy brain places. That, plus the characters I've grown to love, plus Eve and Roarke who are at least entertaining (and a bit more Married in this one than they usually are), plus the cat, plus a nice little twist in the ending, made this an excellent installment in the series. Good times.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 4--fascists have major problems. Teetering on the edge of five, but Eve's world is pretty fascist to begin with. Aaaanyway we have a major female character recovering from severe abuse sympathizing with other victims of abuse, an irredeemable asshole committing crimes who is of course caught, multiple other female characters being awesome, and many of those being POC.
The BFG, Roald Dahl
This right here? This is my childhood, and that may explain quite a bit about me.
The BFG is pretty representative of Roald Dahl books, I think. It's incredibly weird, with made-up words all over the place (sometimes I think he wrote this book just because he'd made up all these weird synonyms and mixed-up sayings and wanted a place to use them), and the plot features a lot of bodily harm done or threatened to children. There's one (or two, depending on how you count the BFG) useful adult, and it's a child who saves the day (more or less) since the rest of the adults are idiots, malicious, or both.
Our hero, Sophie, is abducted from her bed in the middle of the night by a giant. Sophie is (quite reasonably, as it turns out) afraid he'll kill and eat her, but no, she has been kidnapped by the only vegetarian giant in existence, the BFG (Big Friendly Giant). There are, however, nine other giants who do kill and eat children every night. Once Sophie hears this, she determines to put a stop to it, with the help of the BFG and the Queen of England. It's silly and threatening in that very strange way only Roald Dahl can manage, and a great deal of fun to boot. Definitely recommended.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 3--fascists have problems. Little girl saves the world, how dare she. But she's white and British so that dilutes it somewhat.
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up The Marvel Universe, Ryan North and Erica Henderson
Y'all have been around here long enough to know that I love Squirrel Girl, right? Well, if you haven't, I love Squirrel Girl. This installment is a standalone graphic novel that may or may not actually link into the larger Marvel Universe, but I find I don't care either way, because it's literally what it says on the tin. In this book, Squirrel Girl beats up the Marvel Universe. Including Deadpool.
Okay, well, technically, it's her evil twin beating up the Marvel Universe, but whatever, it's Squirrel Girl, and her evil twin isn't really all that evil. Also Tony has a rather large part in it, most of which is him being either a science dork or in his underpants or both, and of course there are squirrels everywhere, and really Squirrel Girl is always a delight and if you're a fan you should pick this up immediately, because, again, Squirrel Girl beats up the entire Marvel Universe.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 4--fascists have major problems. It would be five but Squirrel Girl is white. Well, maybe it is a five? I mean, Allene's entire plan is basically to run a fascist government for the benefit of squirrels... but then again she's not entirely wrong or depicted as being entirely wrong so, yeah, four. Whatever, it's Squirrel Girl, she's a delight.
How They Choked, Georgia Bragg
First of all, this book has some really excellent illustrations by Kevin O'Malley, so if nothing else check those out.
How They Choked is one of those short tales from history collections aimed at children, with its theme being failures of the rich and famous. Now, being one of those collections aimed at children, it's not strictly accurate to history (or at least our best understanding of history). There were definitely times I read a bit and was like, "no... no, that's not right." Also, the selection of failures was... interesting? I mean, you have people like J Bruce Ismay and the Titanic, which, all right, though the Titanic's fate was a lot of little things adding up, but then you have people like Isaac Newton and Susan B Anthony, whose failures I'm still not sure I understood.
But it's entertaining enough, and if you've got a kid into history or schadenfreude they'll probably enjoy this. Plus, O'Malley's illustrations are great.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 3--fascists have problems. I think they'd have major problems since it's about white faves fucking up, but there's also women fucking up, and generally I think it would confuse them.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/421029.html. Please comment over there if possible.