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Books inhaled
Jul. 5th, 2023 10:13 amYaqui Delgado Wants To Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina
A very serious YA novel about bullying: a nerdy light-skinned Cuban-American girl is forced to change schools, and the titular Yaqui takes against her. Piddy goes through several months of psychological torture, culminating in a physical attack that winds up on YouTube.
Honestly, this felt more like older MG/young YA than the older YA it was marketed as -- despite having some fairly graphic sexual content. I absolutely inhaled it, but found it unsatisfying, especially the "if you tell the school administration you are being bullied, they will do everything in their power to protect you" conclusion.
The Arms of Nemesis by Steven Saylor
The second in Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series. Gordianus the Finder is dispatched to investigate the murder of a wealthy Roman's client; meanwhile, a guy called Spartacus is leading a wee bit of a slave rebellion. This was a much breezier read than the first book, and kind of suffered for it -- the emotional climax, to me, is Gordianus realising he is no longer comfortable with the institution of slavery, freeing his slave/lover and marrying her. (Their relationship is as consensual as is possible under the circumstances and in a culture where "consent" isn't really a concept for anyone except men, but also we never get Bethesda's POV, so who knows?) All that happens between chapters, effectively off-screen, which was annoying.
Having said all that, this was still a good read, and I'm inclined to keep going with the series.
I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai
Literary mystery in which a successful podcaster -- think Karina Longworth of You Must Remember This, but with kids and a husband who is more problematic than Rian Johnson -- returns to her old boarding school to teach a two-week course. In 1995, her roommate was murdered; now one of her students wants to make a true crime podcast, arguing that the Black man convicted of the crime was innocent. This leads the podcaster to revisit her memories and realise that her roommate was having an "affair" with their music teacher -- who probably killed her. Meanwhile, her husband is being cancelled on Twitter for having had an affair with a 21-year-old when he was 36.
There is a LOT happening in this book. Maybe too much? Maybe just enough? Makkai covers a lot of ground, from race and class to power differences in relationships to the ethics of the true crime media industry, and it's all surrounded by the white noise of violence against women. It's hard to tell with an ebook, but I think this must be quite a thick volume -- I kept thinking, "Oh, this is the fifty percent mark," and finding I had barely made a dent. I very much enjoyed it, but then, boarding schools + true crime podcasts is kind of my jam. The heroine is incredibly messy in a way I liked, despite the fact that -- with her married lover, Twitter rants and complete disrespect for the sequestration of witnesses, I think she's not meant to be likeable.
A very serious YA novel about bullying: a nerdy light-skinned Cuban-American girl is forced to change schools, and the titular Yaqui takes against her. Piddy goes through several months of psychological torture, culminating in a physical attack that winds up on YouTube.
Honestly, this felt more like older MG/young YA than the older YA it was marketed as -- despite having some fairly graphic sexual content. I absolutely inhaled it, but found it unsatisfying, especially the "if you tell the school administration you are being bullied, they will do everything in their power to protect you" conclusion.
The Arms of Nemesis by Steven Saylor
The second in Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa series. Gordianus the Finder is dispatched to investigate the murder of a wealthy Roman's client; meanwhile, a guy called Spartacus is leading a wee bit of a slave rebellion. This was a much breezier read than the first book, and kind of suffered for it -- the emotional climax, to me, is Gordianus realising he is no longer comfortable with the institution of slavery, freeing his slave/lover and marrying her. (Their relationship is as consensual as is possible under the circumstances and in a culture where "consent" isn't really a concept for anyone except men, but also we never get Bethesda's POV, so who knows?) All that happens between chapters, effectively off-screen, which was annoying.
Having said all that, this was still a good read, and I'm inclined to keep going with the series.
I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai
Literary mystery in which a successful podcaster -- think Karina Longworth of You Must Remember This, but with kids and a husband who is more problematic than Rian Johnson -- returns to her old boarding school to teach a two-week course. In 1995, her roommate was murdered; now one of her students wants to make a true crime podcast, arguing that the Black man convicted of the crime was innocent. This leads the podcaster to revisit her memories and realise that her roommate was having an "affair" with their music teacher -- who probably killed her. Meanwhile, her husband is being cancelled on Twitter for having had an affair with a 21-year-old when he was 36.
There is a LOT happening in this book. Maybe too much? Maybe just enough? Makkai covers a lot of ground, from race and class to power differences in relationships to the ethics of the true crime media industry, and it's all surrounded by the white noise of violence against women. It's hard to tell with an ebook, but I think this must be quite a thick volume -- I kept thinking, "Oh, this is the fifty percent mark," and finding I had barely made a dent. I very much enjoyed it, but then, boarding schools + true crime podcasts is kind of my jam. The heroine is incredibly messy in a way I liked, despite the fact that -- with her married lover, Twitter rants and complete disrespect for the sequestration of witnesses, I think she's not meant to be likeable.
