I hate that I live in a time and a place when people are imprisoned without having committed a crime. I hate knowing that people who have spent their I hate that I live in a time and a place when people are imprisoned without having committed a crime. I hate knowing that people who have spent their entire lives in refugee camps, more than twenty years are now trapped in a worse limbo because some ill-informed bigot has assumed the power and decreed that 26 years of vetting isn't enough. Apparently some people need reminding that everyone in the Americas is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants. Some people are still refusing to accept people desperately trying to escape from countries where their own leaders are hunting them down to kill. Some people have learned nothing from the murder of six million Jews, that they can ignore desperate people trying to keep their remaining families alive in the face of religious bigotry. Maybe the next generation will be less stupid and cruel....more
Short form: this book is awesome and every home and classroom should have a copy.
Long form: This was a whim. I just picked it up because it had a fu Short form: this book is awesome and every home and classroom should have a copy.
Long form: This was a whim. I just picked it up because it had a fun cover and title, but once I started reading it I couldn’t bear to put it down. The introduction is amusing, the art is spot on, and the stories are delightful. Well, many of them have violence and heinous cruelty, or just plain gore, but Porath forewarns the reader with some very specific codes. And when he’s writing about the evil that is lynching he doesn’t shrink from sharing the horror. But also, whenever there is a specific named villain in the piece, he comes up with some amusing expletives. Somehow he manages to hit a sweet spot between maintaining a light tone and historical accuracy, and he manages to do it in both the text and the art. Even when he gives these women enormous Disney eyes he makes sure to get the period details right: you know he isn’t mocking these women, he’s taking them seriously but not striving for an imagined objectivity. And then there are art notes on many of the illustrations, which explain details one might miss and their significance. Dude has found his calling and I hope he sells beaucoup books and can continue to devote his time and energy to the project. I love this like I haven’t loved any history since Lies My Teacher Told Me.
It only just hit me that the reason I loved this book so much was that I really needed to read about kick-ass women who got shit done and had fun and/or really improved their world.
Cabot successfully translates her YA heroine into a twentysomething involved in politics, celebrity, TMZ, stalkers, a weird family, and plenty more. ICabot successfully translates her YA heroine into a twentysomething involved in politics, celebrity, TMZ, stalkers, a weird family, and plenty more. I loved it. My 16-year-old, who had left off reading the Princess Diaries around volume 7 or 8, loved it. Really, just a tremendously fun book but particularly in the lasting friendships Mia has maintained, it has a steely backbone.
I'm always going on about the way Pratchett has worked within the conventions of genre (in his case, fantasy) and crafted novels that are not only funny, but are deeply kind, with a warm glow of secular humanism. Cabot is performing the same trick within the conventions of modern chick lit. “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?” A good writer can make a reader laugh at the foibles of others, but a great writer is one who can also allow us to empathize. The most helpful writers even show us ways in which we can act on that empathy to become better humans. Thus endeth the lesson.
Cromwell's New Model Army attempts to eradicate the Irish in 1649, and young Emer sees atrocities. She's then taken to Connaught with her uncle's famiCromwell's New Model Army attempts to eradicate the Irish in 1649, and young Emer sees atrocities. She's then taken to Connaught with her uncle's family where she slowly starves for years, before being sold off at 14 to a wealthy "husband". She sets sail for the Caribbean and gradually, by degrees over years, becomes a pirate.
And also, at her death, she's cursed with the dust of a hundred dogs to be reincarnated as a dog one hundred times.
And after that she is reincarnated as a human in contemporary Pennsylvania, the youngest of five children, early identified as a genius and the hope of a family sliding into destitution.
It's an odd story, but the pieces fit together beautifully. The memory of what Emer endured, and the violence she perfected, gives the modern Saffron extra reserves to call upon, as well as a clear view of the world. Her brother is an addict who will steal and sell anything to feed his habit. It's no good angsting about it, just hide anything important and carry on.
Good choice for anyone who suffers from stabbiness in the presence of others.
Alexandre Dumas father, Alex Dumas, was a perfect fictional hero: strong, brave, tall, graceful, personally charming, skilled in all forms of fightingAlexandre Dumas father, Alex Dumas, was a perfect fictional hero: strong, brave, tall, graceful, personally charming, skilled in all forms of fighting, principled, honest, faithful, etc. He was also one hell of a general. Unfortunately, he was a black man at a time when Napoleon, and the French Republic, decided that slavery was profitable, and maybe that equal rights thing wasn't a good idea after all.
Engrossing as history, and as a narrative. I never knew anything about the French Revolution, and nothing about Napoleon, and next to nothing about revolution in the Caribbean. So, I learned a little history and enjoyed the swashbuckling aspect as well. And the swashbuckling is great. General Dumas was crazy brave and badass.
When faced with an historic horror, most of us immediately think "How could they?" It is inconceivable that good people would stand by and do nothing When faced with an historic horror, most of us immediately think "How could they?" It is inconceivable that good people would stand by and do nothing in the face of genocide or chattel slavery. Some things seem so obviously wrong. But of course people are always doing horrible things while other people try to stop them, or stand by, frozen into inaction by all the other people who are also not doing anything, or don't even notice the wrongness so deeply embedded in their society.
Thus, the enslavement of millions of people. There's really nothing about it that isn't horrific: kidnapping, owning people, rape as a means of production. Kowal tackles this one head on, sending the Vincents out to deal with his family's sugar cane plantation in Antigua. She does an excellent job of looking at if from different angles to solve their problems. And although it's fantasy, there's no pretending like a little magic can fix all this.
Altogether a really interesting way to take Jane Austen and run with it. This particular series has the historical period down, and manages a gentle touch when addressing all the ugliness Austen eschewed. And a big plus, there is some humor and Jane does get some witty comments in, but it isn't just snappy comebacks.
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