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End o' Summer Reading
Sep. 26th, 2009 11:38 am-3000 MPH in Every Direction - Nick Mamatas, essays and short fiction. I liked the essays better. The stories were good too-- future fiction in particular, Mamatas does well with capturing how people, boring old everyday people would behave in societies with advanced tech. The essays have a strong POV - his- but it's never overbearing or preachy. There are opinions and solutions, but they get presented in ways that make me think.
-Kiss This - Gina Arnold, overview of Punk music. Lame and offensive. When discussing the rise of rap, Ms. Arnold says "Black is finally beautiful". The whole book is her pushing her "punk" credentials (pssst. if you have to tell someone, you aren't) and dividing everything into Punk or Not Punk categories. Her idea of punk is very white, over-educated, comfortably middle-class and prone to attending Lollapolooza.
-Writer's Notebook- - Various, meta writing craft. Some essays got stodgy and academic, and the one about the physical space writing takes up on a page sounded a lot like drunken conversations I had at Perkins while my friends and I tried to be deep and wise artists. I liked it, don't get me wrong but sometimes it strayed into murky theory when the idea was better served by tangible expressions. The book was the worthwhile read for the first two essays: Dorothy Allison's on Place, and Steve Almond's (I think) sex writing.
-Miss High Heels - Anonymous, pr0n. Bleh. This is the kind of porn I dislike the most: a main character so caught up in getting his own fantasies catered to that he never once lifts a finger to satisfy anyone else. Chapter after chapter of this guy getting his rocks off by not-so-forced crossed dressing and weak punishments, and never ever a single instance of giving pleasure back.
- Breath & Bone -- Carol Berg, fantasy. I loved this. The first chapter disappointed me because, as a sequel that picks up where the first book left off, I was very much looking forward to Val's new life as the indentured servant of the Evil Bastard Prince Osriel. Instead of lurid subtext and woe, it turns out Osriel is really a good guy with good intentions. I wanted lurid! But, the story soon provided even better villains, and the good guys didn't like each other, everyone was screwing everyone else over, and the magic was belivable. The ending felt rushed and a bit too pat. Someone needs to teach awesome fantasy writers to quit writing huge epics so that they're not so sick and tired of the story by the time they get to writing the endings.
- Wolf at the Dinner Table-- Augusten Burroughs, memoir. This felt very scraping the bottom of barrel-y. It doesn't necessarily contradict his previous stuff, and I realize that he upplayed or downplayed certain aspects of his life to aid the other stories, but it felt very contradictory to read about him being as gosh-gee little boy who wanted to play catch outside with his dad when his first few books over-characterized him as fussy and faux-elegant.
Oddly, my strongest reaction about this book happened while I was reading reviews on it at Amazon after I had finished it. Someone had accused Augusten of playing the victim, and stated that as long as he wasn't being tortured and had a roof over his head and food on his plate, that he wasn't being abused. BULLSHIT.
BULLSHIT.
One of the things that really, really messed me up as a kid was the truly fucking idiotic idea that abuse involves outlandish torture. Made-for-TV movies and Readers Digest articles were always showcasing the electric cords and the bathtub drownings. When you're a kid, and that's what TV is telling you is abuse, suddenly drunk-ass mom shoving you down the stairs or dad showing you a bullet with your name written on it doesn't compare. Which can only mean one thing: you really are a rotten kid who drives your parents who would be otherwise be caring (look how nicely they treat the neighbor kids) to oh-no-not-abusive at all acts. Bullshit.
- Rouge Pulp - Dorothy Barresi, poetry. Okay when she wrote about personal stuff and wasn't needlessly using $5 words. Boring when she tried to go for deep. Strippers pay an emotional price for what they do? Gosh, I didn't realize that. Vietnam was a tough war? Gosh, I didn't realize that.
-Kiss This - Gina Arnold, overview of Punk music. Lame and offensive. When discussing the rise of rap, Ms. Arnold says "Black is finally beautiful". The whole book is her pushing her "punk" credentials (pssst. if you have to tell someone, you aren't) and dividing everything into Punk or Not Punk categories. Her idea of punk is very white, over-educated, comfortably middle-class and prone to attending Lollapolooza.
-Writer's Notebook- - Various, meta writing craft. Some essays got stodgy and academic, and the one about the physical space writing takes up on a page sounded a lot like drunken conversations I had at Perkins while my friends and I tried to be deep and wise artists. I liked it, don't get me wrong but sometimes it strayed into murky theory when the idea was better served by tangible expressions. The book was the worthwhile read for the first two essays: Dorothy Allison's on Place, and Steve Almond's (I think) sex writing.
-Miss High Heels - Anonymous, pr0n. Bleh. This is the kind of porn I dislike the most: a main character so caught up in getting his own fantasies catered to that he never once lifts a finger to satisfy anyone else. Chapter after chapter of this guy getting his rocks off by not-so-forced crossed dressing and weak punishments, and never ever a single instance of giving pleasure back.
- Breath & Bone -- Carol Berg, fantasy. I loved this. The first chapter disappointed me because, as a sequel that picks up where the first book left off, I was very much looking forward to Val's new life as the indentured servant of the Evil Bastard Prince Osriel. Instead of lurid subtext and woe, it turns out Osriel is really a good guy with good intentions. I wanted lurid! But, the story soon provided even better villains, and the good guys didn't like each other, everyone was screwing everyone else over, and the magic was belivable. The ending felt rushed and a bit too pat. Someone needs to teach awesome fantasy writers to quit writing huge epics so that they're not so sick and tired of the story by the time they get to writing the endings.
- Wolf at the Dinner Table-- Augusten Burroughs, memoir. This felt very scraping the bottom of barrel-y. It doesn't necessarily contradict his previous stuff, and I realize that he upplayed or downplayed certain aspects of his life to aid the other stories, but it felt very contradictory to read about him being as gosh-gee little boy who wanted to play catch outside with his dad when his first few books over-characterized him as fussy and faux-elegant.
Oddly, my strongest reaction about this book happened while I was reading reviews on it at Amazon after I had finished it. Someone had accused Augusten of playing the victim, and stated that as long as he wasn't being tortured and had a roof over his head and food on his plate, that he wasn't being abused. BULLSHIT.
BULLSHIT.
One of the things that really, really messed me up as a kid was the truly fucking idiotic idea that abuse involves outlandish torture. Made-for-TV movies and Readers Digest articles were always showcasing the electric cords and the bathtub drownings. When you're a kid, and that's what TV is telling you is abuse, suddenly drunk-ass mom shoving you down the stairs or dad showing you a bullet with your name written on it doesn't compare. Which can only mean one thing: you really are a rotten kid who drives your parents who would be otherwise be caring (look how nicely they treat the neighbor kids) to oh-no-not-abusive at all acts. Bullshit.
- Rouge Pulp - Dorothy Barresi, poetry. Okay when she wrote about personal stuff and wasn't needlessly using $5 words. Boring when she tried to go for deep. Strippers pay an emotional price for what they do? Gosh, I didn't realize that. Vietnam was a tough war? Gosh, I didn't realize that.
