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April is the cruelest month: to bloggers who are struggling.

Stephanie10 Comments

Spring is a terrible time of year.

For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, we have this idea in our heads that spring is a time of warmth, of regrowth and beauty and sunlight. Unfortunately, reality refuses to comply with this and often offers us nothing but rain, wind, chilly temperatures, and gray skies that seem to drag on forever. Is it any wonder that so many of us struggle during this time of year?

I’ve seen quite a few bloggers who are having a difficult time right now, and my heart goes out to all of you. Whether it’s because of the weather and seasonal depression, difficulties with some aspect of your life or health, or something you can’t put words to, I see you. I hear you. I hate that you’re hurting. You’re important, I care about you, and I’m glad you’re a part of my world.

There aren’t any axioms or proverbs or clever one-liners I can share to change anything for anyone, but if this is a difficult time of year for you, you’re not alone. I’ve been there, I struggled massively through the spring for years when I was younger, and I understand the awfulness of it. I can’t tell you when it will end, but I can tell you that even when things feel terrible, I still care. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here, always.

If you’re feeling okay right now, check on your friends. It’s hard to ask for help and to admit when things aren’t as you’d like them to be, and sometimes a quick note or a gesture means the world. And for anyone who may need it, resources and help are out there:

Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

A list of international suicide hotlines.

If you’re struggling, you’re in my thoughts and my heart. Fight on, friends, one breath at a time.

historical fiction

Circling the Sun- Paula McLain

Stephanie4 Comments

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain is this month’s library book discussion group (meeting will be next Thursday; it’s early this month thanks to Easter, so I felt like I was scrambling to get this read). I read the little blurb in my library’s quarterly newsletter and learned the basics before checking out an ebook from my library’s website: it’s historical fiction set in Kenya, about a woman who was unconventional for her time. Probably not something that I would have picked up on my own, but that’s one of the reasons I decided to join this group. Always good to keep testing yourself and expanding your boundaries.


Circling the Sun portrays the life and times of Beryl Markham, a successful female horse trainer in an era where women didn’t do that, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, and, later in life, an author. She grew up with only her father, her mother having left Kenya for England with Beryl’s younger brother in tow, and spent most of her childhood with Kipii, a boy from the Kipsigis tribe who lived nearby. Her years of running wild, barely receiving any education whatsoever, molded her into a headstrong woman who struggled against each and every convention of the day.

When Beryl’s father’s farm fails, her choices are either to leave the land she loves behind, or marry an older neighbor she barely knows (she’s only sixteen at the time). Beryl can’t imagine living anywhere else, and thus begins her disastrous marriage to Jock Purves. It’s not long before she leaves him behind and works as a horse trainer for her father’s friend and former neighbor. While Beryl does find success with her horses, colonial Kenyan society has a difficult time accepting a woman who doesn’t fit into the conventional mold of a society wife and Beryl finds herself starting over again and again.

Interspersed through Beryl’s ill-fated long-term relationship to Frank and second marriage to Mansfield Markham (during which she gives birth to a son; according to the book, the father basically steals him from her on the threat of ruining her reputation permanently, but from what I’m reading online, the actual history may differ) is her friendship with Karen Blixen, the woman who would later become the well-known author Isak Dinesen. Both Beryl and Karen maintain long-term romantic entanglements with Denys Finch-Hatton; although Ms. McLain notes afterwards that there’s no historical evidence that the two women ever engaged in a confrontation over this, she does takes some liberty and invents one.

I’m not sure what to think about this book. This is the second book I’ve read this year that features white people in Africa, and I kind of feel like I need a deep, long read of #ownvoices books in order to wash off the stain of colonialism. I know that it’s history, but there’s only so much I can take of reading about people coming into a land that isn’t theirs and turning the native inhabitants into second-class citizens (if that). That’s not the fault of this book or the author and in no way reflects on this book as literature, but…oof.

Beryl’s life is definitely intriguing, and I think in many ways she did the best with what she had. Both parents abandoned her at early ages, leaving her with few skills to support herself; poverty always loomed around the corner; the gossipy colonial society in which she lived was quick to turn on anyone who stepped even the slightest bit out of line. I found almost everything about the era and society in which she lived deeply unpleasant and suffocating, and it didn’t seem like any of the other women in the story fared much better than Beryl. Every woman had to make deep concessions and compromises in order to survive (maybe this is why 1920’s colonial Kenya looked disturbingly like a sex-obsessed 1970’s key party??? Seriously, I was NOT expected that and was…kind of weirded out, to be honest. Not in a sexual freedom kind of way- do your thing, man- but in a ‘DISEASES! DISEASES, PEOPLE!!!’ kind of way. If you read the wikipedia entry on Karen Blixen, it does talk about her contracting syphilis from her husband, which led to long-term problems), and seriously, the subtitle of this could be “Men Are Power-Hungry, Misogynistic Jerks.” The only decent male character in this story was, I think, Ruta (Beryl’s childhood friend Kipii, who took on a new name as he reached adulthood). Circling the Sun is well-written, but I think I’m just not a fan of reading about this particular era, and upper-crust colonials in general (even typing out that phrase, I’m wrinkling my nose. Ugh). In any case, this should make for some interesting discussions next week at the library.

How do you handle reading some of the more unsavory bits of history? I’ve got a stack of library books that will fulfill some of the Read Harder Challenge requirements, so I’m hoping those feel a little better than this.

Visit Paula McLain’s website here.

memoir

Accidental Jesus Freak: One Woman’s Journey From Fundamentalism to Freedom- Amber Lea Starfire

Stephanie2 Comments

Stories of leaving behind a religion or belief system, for whatever reason, have always fascinated me (more on that later), so when Amber Lea Starfire contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in reviewing Accidental Jesus Freak: One Woman’s Journey From Fundamentalism to Freedom, her memoir of moving beyond the 70’s version of hippie Christianity, I readily agreed, because that sounded right up my alley.

Amber Lea Starfire was born Linda Carr, and as she was Linda when the events of the story take place, that’s how she refers to herself throughout the book. Linda didn’t grow up in an especially religious household, only really encountering church through friends. As a 17 year-old junior college music major, she meets Eric, the long haired musician who would become her husband, and she falls head over heels. They marry young; it’s during the honeymoon (spent sleeping in their Suburban as they drive up the West Coast) that Eric reveals his status as a born-again Christian, asking Linda to join him ‘in Paradise,’ as he puts it. Saying yes shapes everything about Linda’s life for years to come.

What follows Linda’s honeymoon conversion is a life of harsh poverty, of moving from one mud-and-mold-filled, rat-infested hovel to the next, going without food for days at a time because God would provide (and thus no one in the commune where they live early on really needs a job). In one memorable scene, the members of their commune pray for three days straight for God to fill a vase with money. (Spoiler alert: the vase remains empty.) Interspersed with Linda’s (and sometimes Eric’s) hard work rehabbing barely livable shacks are details about Linda’s contentious relationship with her mother, who often helps the struggling couple, but whose aid comes with heavy strings attached.

There are good times: Linda and Eric continue with their music, forming different bands (including one dedicated to Irish music) and performing at church and in public. But their dedication to the charismatic churches they attend shape every aspect of their life together, including how their two sons are disciplined. There are multiple passages, laden with regret and sadness, about the strict physical discipline Linda visited upon the boys from an early age. This kind of discipline was expected by church elders and pushed by evangelical celebrities such as James Dobson (whom I’ve never liked), but Ms. Starfire painfully and honestly admits that not only would how she treated her sons be considered child abuse today, the way she punished them most likely contributed to some less-than-appealing components of their personalities as adults.

The beginning of the end starts when the family moves to Amsterdam to train as missionaries and Eric’s obstinacy nearly ruins it all; the family returns home with nothing to their name, having lost the money they earned from selling all their possessions in a fraud investment fund. Linda’s mother helps them get back on their feet, and through a different, gentler kind of pastoral counseling than she’d experienced in the past, Linda begins to find the answers she’d been seeking her entire life.

Not surprisingly, Accidental Jesus Freak reminded me a bit of This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost by Carolyn S. Briggs. Both take place in the 70’s (and onward) Jesus movement, both women struggle with turning themselves into the perfect submissive Christian wife, and if the two women had lived closer to each other, they definitely would have run in similar circles. Accidental Jesus Freak contains less theology, however; its focus lies more on the path Ms. Starfire’s life took because of her involvement with the man who became her husband and this particular faction of Christianity, rather than the daily, doctrinally-focused intricacies of a religiously-based life. It doesn’t suffer for that, but keep this in mind if you’re expecting to delve more fully into a memoir on spiritual matters.

This memoir is well-written, a cautionary tale of involving yourself to something you haven’t fully considered as being the right fit for you. I’d meant to get this review written yesterday, but our heat went out (super convenient on a day where the high was 39 degrees, with wind and rain!), and as it was only 58 degrees in the house during the day, I decided not to take my hands out from under my heated blanket to type and instead opted to consider this book a little longer. While Ms. Starfire’s memoir wasn’t deeply focused on theological issues, I still very much enjoyed it, and I’ve reached the conclusion that while I’m fascinated with religion, what appeals to me the most about memoirs like Ms. Starfire’s and Ms. Briggs’s is not solely the author leaving a religion- it’s making a leap from a place that doesn’t feel right into a place of greater authenticity, to a belief system or no belief system at all where one feels their truest self. Sometimes being honest with ourselves is the most difficult thing of all, and I very much enjoy reading the stories of authors who have learned to do this despite the obstacles they face. In that vein, Accidental Jesus Freak was absolutely a good read for me.

Huge thanks to Amber Lea Starfire for sending me a copy of Accidental Jesus Freak to read and review!

Visit Amber Lea Starfire’s website about writing here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

memoir

To Kiss the Blarney Stone- Kate Curry

Stephanie4 Comments

My son was born in 2002, right around the time when autism became better recognized. We had many friends whose children received a diagnosis somewhere along the spectrum, and through my reading about this condition and its symptoms, I was able to recognize the signs of sensory processing disorder in my son and acquire the appropriate therapy to help him manage the ways his body responded to certain stimuli. I’ve maintained an interest in reading about autism, its therapies, and means to manage the condition over the years, so when Kate Curry asked me to read and review To Kiss the Blarney Stone, her memoir of her son, his autism diagnosis, and how she worked to ensure he had every chance of success in life, I agreed.

Kate Curry’s story begins with her son Brenden’s adoption from Korea. Even early on, her instincts told her something was different about Brenden in the way he never responded to her voice or his name, and how he missed milestone after milestone, but since his doctors never seemed concerned, she focused on her joy in finally becoming a mother. It was only when Brenden’s little sister Emily began meeting all her milestones that Kate began to realize that Brenden needed further evaluation.

Originally misdiagnosed with ADHD, Brenden didn’t receive his autism diagnosis until age six, despite his speech, among other developmental skills, being profoundly delayed; even this diagnosis came solely because Ms. Curry pushed so hard for the evaluation in the first place. What followed ended up being a marathon-length obstacle course in the pursuit of obtaining appropriate services, therapies, accommodations, and modifications to ensure that Brenden could learn in ways that best suited his learning style. Far from being eager to help a struggling student succeed, the schools often fought against providing Brenden with even the simplest accommodations, necessitating an out-of-state move for the family to a school district better suited to students with autism. The struggle didn’t end there, though; Kate and her son had to fight every step of the way in order to make Brenden’s academic career a success.

This is the story of a mother’s continuous uphill battle to help her child carve his own unique path in the world, told in the style of a friend chatting over coffee. While the writing lacks finesse and polish, and there are sections full of legal documents and technical jargon that may not interest the casual reader, Ms. Curry’s strength and determination, combined with Brenden’s hard work, are admirable, and this wouldn’t be a bad read for parents starting out on their journey with autism, specifically to inform themselves of the fight far too many parents must go through in order to access appropriate services. Throughout the story, Mr. Curry gives advice and names resources that Brenden used that might prove useful to other parents (if, after time, these resources become obsolete, a Google search may point the searcher down the path of updated resources); occasionally, Brenden’s voice appears, adding his memories and feelings about the part of his life that his mother had been describing, and his take on things provides a colorful addition.

It’s heartening to know that Brenden, who lacked the expressive speech necessary to describe his day at school to his mother until third grade, has since graduated from college. He didn’t have an easy road, and Ms. Curry fought so hard to make his success possible. While I did find that the book could have benefited from a more thorough editing in order to better refine the writing, To Kiss the Blarney Stone gives an interesting look at how hard a parent will battle to provide their child with what they need to flourish, and I’m so proud of Brenden and all that he’s accomplished. Well done, young man. 🙂

Thanks to Kate Curry for providing me with a copy of her book to read and review.

Follow Kate Curry on Twitter here.

fiction

River of Teeth- Sarah Gailey

Stephanie3 Comments

One of the tasks for Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge (I am just dead set on getting this thing squared away. I may mourn when I finish it) is to read an alternate history novel, which, to be honest, is a genre I’ve been lukewarm about in the past. I grabbed one at the library the last time I was there and knew by about the third page that this wasn’t the book for me, and none of the other suggestions were in, so I began prowling through lists on Goodreads, trying to figure out what I could read for this particular portion of the challenge. When River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey showed up on a list of alternate history novels, I knew I’d found my book. Liberty Hardy flipped out over this on an episode of the All the Books! podcast, and after hearing her read the blurb, I went, “…what???”

In case you’re under the impression that the United States government has ever made sense, we once seriously entertained the idea of importing hippos from Africa in order to breed them for meat in the Louisiana marshes, and if that doesn’t make you go WTF, I’m not sure what would. (The longer story by Jon Mooallem can be read here, and it’s incredible, but make sure you have a bit of time for it.) I’m assuming that when Sarah Gailey learned this bit of history back when it hit the mainstream, after getting over their incredulity that this ever seemed like a good idea to anyone, they went, “Imma write a book about how badly that could have turned out.”

River of Teeth is the story of what might have happened if the idea of hippo importation hadn’t fizzled out. The story opens with Winslow Houndstooth, who is gathering a team of scoundrels to help him with his definitely-not-a-caper-it’s-an-operation to avenge the burning of his hippo ranch and death of his hippos. On paper, they’ll be taking a year to rid Lake Harriet, a dammed off part of the Mississippi River, of feral hippos; the reality involves just a few days, explosives, money for everyone involved, and a horde of feral hippos being set free into the Gulf of Mexico. (Enjoy that beach vacation, everyone!) His band of scoundrels include a French lady pickpocket, a pregnant woman, a retired person (who takes the pronoun ‘they’, which made me happy to read!), and one man with feral hippo experience. They’re up against the most dangerous man in Louisiana, who makes his living off of the feral hippos in Lake Harriet…but the chicanery runs deep in this group. Someone’s been snitching, and the consequences will be deadly.

If you enjoy heist books and movies, you’ll enjoy River of Teeth; reading it felt like a cross between a heist movie and a western, where each character was only separated from the others in degrees of evil. Its over-the-top absurdity (people riding saddled hippos!) made it an utterly delightful read, even as it was clearly one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read. (Not THE weirdest one. I’m saving that one for a future post because it’s just. that. weird.) There’s a lot of violence in this book- several people, including a child, are eaten by hippos, and there are some fairly descriptive scenes involving knives and various body parts human and hippo, so consider yourself warned.

This is a weird and wonderful little book. There’s a follow-up, called Taste of Marrow, and if you’re lucky enough, your library or bookstore will stock American Hippo, a compilation of the two. Sadly, my library doesn’t have Taste of Marrow, and with everything I have to read right now, I probably won’t get around to ordering it via interlibrary loan for a bit, but I’m definitely curious as to how the whole thing ends up.

Who wouldn’t be? I mean, come on. Saddled hippos, people!!!

Check out Sarah Gailey’s website here.

Follow them on Twitter here.

mythology and folklore

Norse Mythology- Neil Gaiman

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During my freshman year of high school, we did a unit on mythology (Greek and Roman, of course). It was three months’ worth of nothing but gods and goddesses and Zeus having children with anything that moved. By the end of it, we were all so full up on Greek mythology, we were practically screaming. It did give me a good basis in those myths, though, enough to swear during my last pregnancy that if I were to have any more children, she would spring fully formed from her father’s head, à la Athena. It wasn’t until I was in my early 20’s that I realized that other cultures and civilizations had their own mythologies as well (seriously not sure how I missed this or how we’d never covered other cultures’ myths in school), and I began reading this GIGANTIC book of Norse myths to my son. We never finished, and I found the stories really complicated and hard to grasp, so when Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge suggested Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology as a selection for their ‘book of mythology or folklore‘ task, I decided I wanted to give those myths another try.

Norse Mythology relays the tales of the Scandinavian gods and goddesses- Odin, Thor, Freya, Loki, etc- in a completely readable, accessible, and easy-to-understand fashion. It starts with a chapter that briefly describes each of the main gods and goddesses (and there’s a glossary in the back which includes more minor characters, along with items and places, in case you forget who’s who or what’s what). Gaiman retells the Norse creation myth, gives a brief description of the nine Norse worlds, then launches into the stories that chronicle the adventures and antics of the gods.

It’s been a while since I’ve read any mythology, but I feel like the Norse myths are a bit more violent than the Greek and Roman ones I remember reading in school. Sure, Zeus had his thunderbolt, but Thor’s hammer is in constant use, and he occasionally wipes out entire hordes of giants. Parents are murdered and are avenged by their children. There’s a LOT of death in these stories and some seriously creepy imagery, especially that of the Naglfar, which is a ship built from the untrimmed finger- and toenails of the dead. (Um, ew?) It kind of makes sense if you think about it; these stories come from people who lived in a land of extreme extremes: constant snow and freezing temperatures, days of nothing but darkness or nothing but sunlight, volcanoes. It’s a land of fire and ice, and their myths reflect that.

I really enjoyed some of these stories. ‘The Mead of Poets’ tells of where poetry comes from, and the end of that chapter, which divulges the difference in origin of good and bad poetry, made me laugh. Every chapter offers something new and interesting, and Gaiman writes these retellings in a way that I actually felt able to get a mental grasp on these myths (unlike the last book I read to my son, which left me more confused than anything). I felt deep sympathy for Freya, whose cohorts were always eager to marry her off in order to get something they wanted- she was NOT having any of that. Girl, I feel you. And I can’t say I like Loki any more than I did in the past; mostly, I just wonder why Thor didn’t hammer him pretty much immediately, because why why WHY would you put up with that???

Norse Mythology is a book that, unprompted, I might’ve looked at and thought, “Ooh, I should read that,” and then never got around to actually reading it, so I’m glad my hand was forced by the reading challenge. It would be a great companion read if you’re taking a class that focuses on these myths, as the retellings are the best I’ve read yet.

Do you enjoy mythology and folklore? What kind do you enjoy reading about? Or did you have a hideous experience with it in school and have vowed never again?

Visit Neil Gaiman’s website.

Follow him on Twitter.

Uncategorized

WWW Wednesday April 3, 2019

Stephanie7 Comments

ARGH! It’s WWW Wednesday and I forgot earlier.

That sometimes happens when your day starts at 3:42 am. *yawn* My back was hurting too much to sleep. That happens…far too often, unfortunately, but such is life.

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam from Taking on a World of Words.

The three W’s are as follows:

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Let’s get this show on the road!


What are you currently reading?

I haven’t read Neil Gaiman since reading Coraline with my son back in like 2007 or 2008, and I haven’t read any mythology since…freshman year of high school? (So. much. reading. from Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton.) I’ve always wanted to learn more about Norse mythology, and Gaiman’s retellings are making it far more accessible than anything I’ve tried before.


What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey is up next and I’m SO excited about reading this!!!! Check out the premise of this book:

In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source. This is true.

Other true things about hippos: they are savage, they are fast, and their jaws can snap a man in two.

This was a terrible plan.

Contained within this volume is an 1890s America that might have been: a bayou overrun by feral hippos and mercenary hippo wranglers from around the globe. It is the story of Winslow Houndstooth and his crew. It is the story of their fortunes. It is the story of his revenge.

Is that not completely nuts?!?!?? I heard about this on a back episode of All the Books a few weeks ago and was floored (plus it counts as an alternative history for Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge, so YAY!). I can’t WAIT to read this!!!

What are you reading this week???

Uncategorized

Blogger Recognition Award

Stephanie8 Comments

Hurray! I was nominated for the Blogger Recognition Award by the awesome Surina over at Book Reviews by the Bloggisters. Thank you so much, Surina! Her blog is gorgeous and always has awesome reviews and advice for bloggers (beware, though, your TBR will explode in the best kind of way after visiting her!). Give her a follow, because she’s fabulous!

I saw she had included me in her list of nominees on Saturday and couldn’t get to this until just now (and as it is, I had to break up writing this post into several parts because LIFE and all these people that live with me needing stuff like rides to school and work and for someone to do the grocery shopping. Seriously, don’t they understand that there are BOOKS TO READ???). Here’s the rules of this award:

Rules:

  • Thank the blogger that nominated you.
  • Write a post to show your award.
  • Give a brief story of how your blog started.
  • Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
  • Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
  • Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

*HOW IT ALL BEGAN*

Years ago, I had another book blog and loved it, but once I went back to school, taking classes, keeping up with housework and family stuff, trying to tackle my own writing, AND reading and blogging about it? Yeah, it all got to be too much, and I ended up shutting the blog down.

So, flash back to a little over two years ago. Picture me, staring at my Goodreads Want-to-Read list in utter horror, because it had 332 books on it (the vast majority nonfiction), some of which had been sitting there for…um…over ten years? I sat there, wtf’ing at myself and realizing that those books weren’t doing me any good if I wasn’t actually reading them, and thus began the journey to read that list down. I read almost 200 books off of it, then cleaned a bunch off that were out of date or that I didn’t actually want to read anymore, and somewhere along the way, towards the end of those 200 books, I thought, “I’ve read some seriously amazing stuff these past two years…Why don’t I start blogging about it again?” And after a few months of blogging over at Blogger, I switched to WordPress, and voila! Here I am.

*ADVICE TO NEW BLOGGERS*

Oh jeez. I’m still pretty new, so I might not have any business giving people advice, but first off, read what you enjoy. I have a serious love for nonfiction, so I blog a lot about that and I can’t ever see that changing. But be open to new genres and new ideas about what to read as well. I’ve already read a few books solely because other bloggers have raved about them, and I’ve added probably twenty or so novels to my TBR list (which I’ll read after I tackle these challenges I’m working on. I’ll NEVER let my TBR list get to 332 books ever again…unless all you book bloggers keep blogging about amazing books, and then it might!).

And secondly, get involved with the book blogging community here and on Twitter! There are so many fabulous book bloggers out there and they’re great people. They share advice about blogging (which has helped me SO much), opinions on books, their lives and hearts and souls…I’m so grateful to have found all of you, because it’s really added a lot of joy to my days!

*TAG OTHER BLOGGERS*

Don’t feel obligated to do this if you don’t want to or don’t have time, just know that I think you and your blog are awesome! Go check them out. 🙂

1. Susan @ Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books

2. Breathe to Read

3. Stacey @ Unruly Reader

4. Heather @ Based on a True Story

5. Kristin @ Always With a Book

6. Rita @ Bookish Rita

7. Kat @ Books Kat Likes

8. Carrie @ Cat on the Bookshelf

9. Amber @ Du Livre

10. Blair @ Feed the Crime

11. Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction

12. Sam @ Fictionally Sam

13. Katherine @ I Wish I Lived In a Library

14. Chasity @ Ity Reads Books

15. Christine @ Lady Gets Lit

I hope you all have a fabulously book-filled day! Thanks for stopping by, and if you got this far, enjoy this random picture of a baby goat that I took this past summer.

graphic novel

Flocks- L. Nichols

StephanieLeave a comment

I’m back with another pick from Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge! For the comic by a LGBTQIA creator, I chose Flocks by L. Nichols, a transgender man, engineer, father, and artist. I’m trying to think back if I’ve ever read anything by an author that I knew was transgender, and I can’t think of anything (so I’m glad to have finally remedied that and will hopefully do better in the future). I’ve read multiple books featuring transgender characters, however; Julie Anne Peters’ Luna was the first and really opened my eyes to what being transgender is back in the mid-2000’s, and Kirstin Cronn-Mills continued my education in 2014 with Beautiful Music for Ugly Children. I’m happy to add a trans voice to my reading list.

Flocks is a memoir in graphic novel format about Mr. Nichols’s childhood growing up in a Christian family in Louisiana. By age eight or nine, he was fervently praying for God to change him, because his community had already taught him that he deserved to burn in hell forever, and I absolutely lost it by about the fifth page. This message is hammered home over and over throughout Mr. Nichols’s youth, and despite his fervent prayers, his constant attendance at church and acts of service toward others, he’s still the same person he was born, and because of this message, he never feels good enough.

It’s not just his sexuality; being intellectually gifted doesn’t help Mr. Nichols fit in, either. It’s not until he attends a gifted camp and then spends his final two years of high school at a school for kids talented in math and science that he begins to find his tribe and hears for the first time that he’s okay and that he matters. And although there’s still plenty of adjustments to make, his time at MIT is when things truly begin to fall into place and his identity as a man solidifies.

Above all, this is a message of hope, and a warning of all the harm that words and absolutes can cause. Mr. Nichols’s journey is a painful one, one that ultimately concludes in relief and happiness; not all transgender people are as fortunate. The murder rate for people who identify as transgender is horrific (2018 was the worst year on record); the suicide and attempted suicide rate is abysmal as well. Mr. Nichols was able to rise above the pain caused by those who demanded he change all through his childhood; he’s become far more than many people ever even attempt. What if we stopped demanding change and instead just appreciated people for who they are? What could everyone accomplish with all that extra energy not spent hurting? Think of all the ways humanity could benefit. I think it’s beyond time for this to happen.

Flocks is another book that’s easy to read, but not at all an easy read, and I hope it falls into the hands of the people who could stand to learn a little more about compassion and how their stances and ideals hurt the people behind the labels. I enjoy graphic novels, but I never seem to get around to reading them without being prompted by an outside source, so I’m glad Book Riot motivated me to read this.

Check out L. Nichols’s Tumblr here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Janesville: An American Story- Amy Goldstein

Stephanie1 Comment

What happens when the majority of the jobs in your community are provided by or based around one company…and that company pulls out? This is the question Amy Goldstein answers in Janesville: An American Story, my pick for Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge: a business book. The answers aren’t pretty.

During the Great Recession, the worst of the worst came to Janesville, Wisconsin: the General Motors plant, around which the majority of the town’s economy had long been based, announced it was shutting down. The job losses began immediately and continued until the building was entirely empty, and, like a terrible line of dominoes, other companies in the area that worked alongside or supplied General Motors closed their doors as well. Thousands of people, many whom had never worked for another company, were suddenly left without an income.

Janesville is the story of the city and county’s struggle to rebuild after their community is economically devastated. This isn’t a happy, optimistic, everyone-bands-together-and-sings-happy-songs kind of story (although there are those in the book who would have you think that). This is a book about choosing the least terrible option out of solely terrible options; of teenagers working three jobs while still attending high school; of people going without medical care for pneumonia because there’s literally no other choice; of families being turned away from the food pantry because the pantry can’t keep up with the community’s need. There’s a trigger warning for suicide in this book; there are no graphic details, but one of the people profiled by Ms. Goldstein, one who had what seemed like a fairly promising future after losing her job, ends her own life, so keep that in mind if that’s not a subject you’re comfortable reading about.

I’m going to get a little real here. A lot of this book made me angry, for many different reasons, and when the book opened with a profile of former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, I nearly put it down right then, because I don’t have much good to say about him (Janesville is his hometown, so it’s right that his reaction to this crisis is covered in this book, but he still turns my stomach). When industry shut down in Janesville, the town split into two factions, those who lost their jobs and the wealthier people who still had jobs and had little contact with those who didn’t. The wealthier people (including Paul Ryan) did a fantastic job of burying their heads in the sand and making up their own version of Janesville’s current reality, constantly talking about how all everyone needed was to be optimistic, that Janesville was recovering nicely and was a fantastic place to live. They completely ignored the suffering of families going hungry because the food pantry could only serve the first forty people there (and only if they hadn’t been there in a month), of the growing population of homeless children (some accompanied by parents, some not. Adult shelters wouldn’t accept unaccompanied teenagers; the county’s foster care system wouldn’t accept a child over 15), of the free medical clinic’s budget being cut and being able to see fewer and fewer people when the need was only increasing. Paul Ryan, at one point, waxes poetic about how Janesville doesn’t need to rely on outside sources for help, they take care of their own, and it’s unclear whether he’s willfully ignorant or entirely unaware and robustly tone deaf in regards the families who are suffering in silence because there’s no help available for them.

After the massive job losses began causing so much pain, hatred toward teachers (who, incidentally, were on the front line dealing with hungry, homeless students and struggling to find resources to help them) began to grow, to the point where some educators began avoiding public places like grocery stores until late at night, because they were being confronted by angry people accusing them of leeching off the system. Their main crime was having a steady job (and not an easy one at that), but in marched Scott Walker as Wisconsin governor, slashing the education budget, and Janesville experienced their first teacher layoff. Nothing says “We value education and are looking forward to having an educated population to care for us when we’re older!” like cutting AP classes and increasing class sizes, amirite? (And speaking of education, the people who went back to school and retrained in a different field actually ended up worse off than the people who didn’t, so scratch that myth off the list.)

I knew some of what Wisconsin went through under Scott Walker, but I wasn’t aware of all that Janesville had suffered (and is still suffering), despite it being only a short drive away for me (although I wasn’t in the area when all this was happening; the recession affected us as well and we spent five years living and working out of state, away from family). This is a frustrating, tragic story to read, but it shines a lot of light on the America of the past ten years, including the dwindling wages (a large amount of jobs that came back to Janesville only paid $15/16 per hour, and we wonder why so many Americans can’t afford a home…), the economy that still continues to struggle, and the stark divide between the haves and the trying-desperately-to-have-anything.

This probably isn’t a book I would have picked up on my own, but I’m glad I did, despite the frustration I felt in reading it. If it’s that frustrating for me to just read about, the stress of being a teenager and working three jobs to help support your family and still attending high school, or working a four-hour drive away from home and only seeing your children on weekends because that’s the only job you can get (and your family is still struggling financially) is beyond measure, and their stories deserve to be heard. The struggling families of Janesville and all around the country (and world!) deserve far better than we’ve given them. We’re all in this together, but we’ve failed these people who are struggling through no fault of their own.

I dislike saying that a work of nonfiction reads like a novel, because I think that often discounts the ability of nonfiction to be engaging in its own right, but so much of this book is as gripping as any fictional story. Unfortunately, every last word of it is painfully true. Janesville will forever change how I think and feel when I hear of major corporations closing their doors, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to listen to such a story on the news without reflecting on the hardship it will cause the families and communities affected.

Visit Amy Goldstein’s website here.

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