recently-ish read books (mostly YA/MG)
By "recently-ish" I mean "I actually read most of these in the January-March range and kept thinking I'd give them proper writeups, but didn't."
"Hunger Games Trilogy" by Suzanne Collins: I've tried getting into these books several times over the last few years but kept failing due to my difficulty reading first person present tense. Unsurprisingly, I liked them once once I got past that, though I think they fall apart in some ways. (Largely due to a forced-focus on a romantic triangle that Collins obviously has no interet in, and having contain the story into a trilogy instead of making it a longer series.) The books have pretty much been talked to death everywhere, so I'll just comment that the parts that interested me the most were the portrayal of PTSD and the different ways characters dealt with it, and the use and manipulation ofthe media by various parties, particularly when Katniss (and others, but mostly Katniss) turn it into a weapon, and how Katniss creates a false public persona to stay alive.
Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones: Boy being hunted by mysterious magic critters seeks refuge with his grandmother's friend, finds his absentminded professor grandson instead. HIJINKS. Not DWJ's best, but I liked it a lot. But then, I think I like DWJ best when she's doing (err, "did") odd little makeshift families and "another world next door" types of plots and this is both of those with lots of eccentric locals running around. There isn't really much in it that wasn't in DWJ books that came before it, but it was pretty solid.
Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones: Boy stuck with unpleasant relatives during school break (David) meets another boy (Luke) who claims David freed him from prison, then people show up claiming Luke stole something and trying to reimprison him. Gameso f wit ensure regarding what happens to Luke, who claims to be innocent of this particular wrongdoing. Pretty fun. Who everyone is and what was stolen seemed obvious pretty early on, but it's probably a bit less obvious when the source material isn't getting continuous offhand mentions like it is now.
"Fallen" series by Lauren Kate: Sometimes-entertaining, sometimes-aggravating emo gothic ya about fallen angels, reincarnation, and blind romantic love being the most important thing in the universe. The first 2 books were pretty fun but the last two were rather trying (and there's a novella in the middle that's about half-and-half) and relied entirely on 2 things: 1. romantic love is the most amazing perfect thing ever and nothing else is a fraction as important and who cares about getting to know someone or if they're a bad/good person if you loved their previous incarnation, and 2. NO ONE TELLING THE HEROINE ANYTHING. *hem* Because if they had, it would have been over. SIGH. Dull main love interest and interesting enough heroine, but the supporting are considerably more interesting and entertaining. In the end, while it's a bit unfair and oversimplifying things, my main thought was "I liked this better when it was by Kaori Yuki and called Angel Sanctuary. But really, for emo gothic YA authors who have clearly read too much Kaori Yuki (if one can read too much Kaori Yuki) I much prefer Cassandra Clare.
White as Snow by Tanith Lee: An adaptation of Snow White that combines it with the myth of Demeter and Persephone. It may sound a bit odd combining one story in which a mother goes to extreme lengths to kill her daughter with another in which a mother goes to extreme lengths to rescue her daughter after she's abducted, but it works. This is the only novel-length print version of Snow White I've encountered that directly addresses both the weight of objectification of the male gaze and living within it, as well as the necrophilia and rape culture present within Snow White (before it got prettied up) and it handles all the topics pretty well and interestingly. Lee's prose andthe way she regularly transitions between versions of both myths might be offputting for some, but I liked them.
A Golden Web by Barbara Quick: A fairly lightweight YA novel about Allesandra Giliani, the world's first (known, and without any research, I suspect "world" means "Europe") female anatomist, who lived in the 14th century. Well as lightweight as you can be when your subject died before she was 20. Quick spends a bit too much time of Giliani's early life (with an unfortunate focus on The Mean Stepmother, who...is mean apparently for conflict, as Alessandra is explicitly the ONLY stepchild she has problems with) and not enough on the actual science part. That said, despite following a lot of "one special girl" conventions, it's still pretty enjoyable, and noteworthy for the relatively obscure subject matter.
Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales by Valerie Paradiz: Non-fiction book about Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's process of collecting fairy tales for what was initially an academic project. The reviews I read emphasized the fact that the tales were oral folktales primarily passed down by women of the rural and lower classes, and implied an emphasis on that, but it's more a biography of the Grimm's eith a heavier focus on the period of time they were collecting tales. (I actually suspect Pradiz wanted to write a biography of their sister, Charlotte Grimm, but was shot down.) She tries to draw allegories between the tales and the individual women who provided them, but while some work, most are a bit (or more) of a stretch, and she doesn't really dig into the stories in a way that worked for me. Still, it's a very interesting book and worth checking out, even if it wasn't quite the book I went in expecting.
"Hunger Games Trilogy" by Suzanne Collins: I've tried getting into these books several times over the last few years but kept failing due to my difficulty reading first person present tense. Unsurprisingly, I liked them once once I got past that, though I think they fall apart in some ways. (Largely due to a forced-focus on a romantic triangle that Collins obviously has no interet in, and having contain the story into a trilogy instead of making it a longer series.) The books have pretty much been talked to death everywhere, so I'll just comment that the parts that interested me the most were the portrayal of PTSD and the different ways characters dealt with it, and the use and manipulation ofthe media by various parties, particularly when Katniss (and others, but mostly Katniss) turn it into a weapon, and how Katniss creates a false public persona to stay alive.
Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones: Boy being hunted by mysterious magic critters seeks refuge with his grandmother's friend, finds his absentminded professor grandson instead. HIJINKS. Not DWJ's best, but I liked it a lot. But then, I think I like DWJ best when she's doing (err, "did") odd little makeshift families and "another world next door" types of plots and this is both of those with lots of eccentric locals running around. There isn't really much in it that wasn't in DWJ books that came before it, but it was pretty solid.
Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones: Boy stuck with unpleasant relatives during school break (David) meets another boy (Luke) who claims David freed him from prison, then people show up claiming Luke stole something and trying to reimprison him. Gameso f wit ensure regarding what happens to Luke, who claims to be innocent of this particular wrongdoing. Pretty fun. Who everyone is and what was stolen seemed obvious pretty early on, but it's probably a bit less obvious when the source material isn't getting continuous offhand mentions like it is now.
"Fallen" series by Lauren Kate: Sometimes-entertaining, sometimes-aggravating emo gothic ya about fallen angels, reincarnation, and blind romantic love being the most important thing in the universe. The first 2 books were pretty fun but the last two were rather trying (and there's a novella in the middle that's about half-and-half) and relied entirely on 2 things: 1. romantic love is the most amazing perfect thing ever and nothing else is a fraction as important and who cares about getting to know someone or if they're a bad/good person if you loved their previous incarnation, and 2. NO ONE TELLING THE HEROINE ANYTHING. *hem* Because if they had, it would have been over. SIGH. Dull main love interest and interesting enough heroine, but the supporting are considerably more interesting and entertaining. In the end, while it's a bit unfair and oversimplifying things, my main thought was "I liked this better when it was by Kaori Yuki and called Angel Sanctuary. But really, for emo gothic YA authors who have clearly read too much Kaori Yuki (if one can read too much Kaori Yuki) I much prefer Cassandra Clare.
White as Snow by Tanith Lee: An adaptation of Snow White that combines it with the myth of Demeter and Persephone. It may sound a bit odd combining one story in which a mother goes to extreme lengths to kill her daughter with another in which a mother goes to extreme lengths to rescue her daughter after she's abducted, but it works. This is the only novel-length print version of Snow White I've encountered that directly addresses both the weight of objectification of the male gaze and living within it, as well as the necrophilia and rape culture present within Snow White (before it got prettied up) and it handles all the topics pretty well and interestingly. Lee's prose andthe way she regularly transitions between versions of both myths might be offputting for some, but I liked them.
A Golden Web by Barbara Quick: A fairly lightweight YA novel about Allesandra Giliani, the world's first (known, and without any research, I suspect "world" means "Europe") female anatomist, who lived in the 14th century. Well as lightweight as you can be when your subject died before she was 20. Quick spends a bit too much time of Giliani's early life (with an unfortunate focus on The Mean Stepmother, who...is mean apparently for conflict, as Alessandra is explicitly the ONLY stepchild she has problems with) and not enough on the actual science part. That said, despite following a lot of "one special girl" conventions, it's still pretty enjoyable, and noteworthy for the relatively obscure subject matter.
Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales by Valerie Paradiz: Non-fiction book about Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's process of collecting fairy tales for what was initially an academic project. The reviews I read emphasized the fact that the tales were oral folktales primarily passed down by women of the rural and lower classes, and implied an emphasis on that, but it's more a biography of the Grimm's eith a heavier focus on the period of time they were collecting tales. (I actually suspect Pradiz wanted to write a biography of their sister, Charlotte Grimm, but was shot down.) She tries to draw allegories between the tales and the individual women who provided them, but while some work, most are a bit (or more) of a stretch, and she doesn't really dig into the stories in a way that worked for me. Still, it's a very interesting book and worth checking out, even if it wasn't quite the book I went in expecting.