I’ll Take That To Go

Well, here we are, staring back down the barrel of 2023 and… well, yup, that was for sure a year. Again.

But you’re here for the reading report, so lets get to it.

Books read/listened to: 128

First book finished: Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen

Last book finished: The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

Books Reviewed (including the ones below): 80-ish

And now, for your escape from your family or “I really don’t want to do that laundry” or “please distract me, if I eat one more cookie, I’m going to explode pleasure,” my last reviews of 2023:

Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)

It turns out, butts (the gluteus maximus part) are really important from not only an evolutionary perspective but also from sociological and ethnological ones and, most importantly, when examined via the lens of critical race theory. No, I am not kidding. And yes, while there is a lot of humor and side-eyeing in Radke’s extensive study, there is also a lot careful, sensitive, and important work done with the author never losing sight of the fact that, while she is a member of the callipygian club, she isn’t a member of the group most affected by rich, white, male demographic that has always determined the sort of butt that is fashionable (small and white) and the sort to receive their most lustful imaginings (large and black). Radke discusses how this stereotype has been perpetuated, the odd phenomenon of periodic appropriation, and how women themselves can change the way they feel about their bodies as a whole and their butts in particular.

I listened to this one and the reader is as excellent as the research and the writing.

Rainbow! Vol. 1 by Gloom and Sunny (Scholastic Graphix, 3/5/24)

Another webtoon (this one from Tapas) collection (and I already mention to y’all how much I’m digging these), Rainbow! follows teenager Boo Meadows as she moves through her days at school and at work, spending the vast majority of them in a wonderful fantasy land. While her distraction sometimes lands her in trouble in reality, Boo figures it’s worth it; her reality doesn’t hold all that much appeal. At least, not until a new friend appears.

So. parents. This is one I’m going to recommend you take a look at before handing it off to your kids. It’s recommended for 12 and up and I think that’s reasonable but it definitely deals with some difficult subjects including parental addiction, dissociation, and some pretty heated arguments between parents and kids. That said, I did give it to my 11 after I was done with it.

Our kids are smart. They get it and most of them have experienced a lot more than we know about: friends who are dealing with homelessness, food insecurity, parents caught up in the legal system… Far more than we’d like are in those situations themselves. It’s important for them to understand that not everyone has the same kind of support structure. It’s also important for them to understand what they can and can’t do in terms of providing help to their friends when those friends need it; my 11 wants to fix the whole world and they get so upset when they realize they can’t. In Boo’s friend Mimi, though, I think they’ll gain a really solid understanding of what their role as another kid is, what the boundaries of that role are, and when to come to adults.

Your kids may not be ready to see this drama play out though, and that’s okay. Or, you may want to talk to them about it before they read Rainbow! Awesome. Get in there. You’re up.

The Lesser Known Monsters Trilogy by Rory Michaelson (Self Published)

Okay, so. Book one, see above. Book Two: The Bone Gate. Book Three: The Torn Earth.

Crack. Pure crack. Gay, urban fantasy, monster-fucking crack. I was looking at all of my NetGalley arcs and they all seemed so literary and it’s the week of Christmas which means publishing is closed and Rory popped up on my Tik Tok and I remembered I had the first book from Kindle Unlimited and I was all, hey, gay, urban fantasy, monster-fucking crack. And I finished book one and immediately started book two and then I finished book 2 and immediately started book three.

I dig an author who is not afraid to kill his darlings by firing squad and maybe bring them back, maybe not depending on whether or not Mercury is in Gatorade or whatever. The world(s) is interesting; the magic follows my favorite, “I don’t have to explain this to you, it’s magic, motherfucker,” protocol; and literally every character ends up being a chaos goblin especially if they don’t mean to. Also, did I mention the monster-fucking? Think about how much fun that would be to read sitting on the sofa while your family is doing whatever whatever Christmas activity across the room (listen, listen, I was reading the incense burner dream from MZDS during a family activity recently and it was taking all of my energy not to laugh so hard I fell off the couch).

Anyway, crack, K bye.

The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan (Viking, 1/9)

Let it never be said that I am a one trick pony because this is the most lyrical, literary, gorgeous books I’ve read all year and now I have book hangover. The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years was not at all what I was expecting - a sort of timeline hopping parallel story - but instead a haunted house mystery that was neither but also both, a tale of what happens when everyone, all of a story’s characters, including a house and a haunting, are holding their breath and then let it out, all at once, and it’s too much for any of them to bear.

Every time I picked this story up, I felt suspended in time. I wouldn’t really care to keep track of how much I read or how much time had gone by. I’d lose my window to do other tasks or be late thinking, “Just one more chapter, okay one more, one more,” and then it would be two hours later. It’s been a long time since a book put that sort of spell on me. I don’t often read books more than once, but I know I’ll read this one again. It’s one of those books I wish I could go back and read for the first time again as well, because it was such a singular experience.

If you got book money for the holidays, I definitely recommend using some of it on The Djinn Waits A Hundred Years.

Or any of the other books here, for that matter. One of the reasons I figured it might be an opportune moment to bang out a last review blog for the year.

See y’all in 2024.

— Shiri