Londonstani by Gautam Malkani

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Title: Londonstani
Author: Gautam Malkani
Number of Pages: 343 pages
My Rating: 4/5

Jas used to be a geek, but now he has new friends and he's desperate to fit in, rejecting mainstream white British culture in favor of all things Indian and gangsta-rap-related.

Reading this reminded me a lot of reading Trainspotting, not just because they're both written entirely in slang and dialect, though that was the first thing that pinged me as similar. Renton's decision not to "choose life" is very similar to Jas and co's attitude. They've all failed their A levels and would rather get rich stealing phones and spend the money on fancy clothes and stuff than be "productive members of society".

I enjoyed this a lot, though I was unfortuntely spoiled for the ending due to the fact that at one point when I flipped to the back to see how many pages there were, I accidentally saw a very spoilery bit.

It's hard to talk about the book without talking about the spoiler, so I'll just say it's really enjoyable and I liked it a lot. And as for spoilery stuff (highlight to read), I thought it was great, but at the same time I feel like it was trying a little too hard. There are some bits I find it pretty unbelievable that no one would say "dude, you're white" or at least look at him funny. Overall Jas just seems to be lying by omission and never mentioning to the reader that he's white, so I don't think I'm supposed to think he lied about people's reactions or how conversations went, idk.

The author has some Q&A stuff on his website where talks about the spoiler as well as his reasons for some other stuff, and one of the things he says is (highlight to read) that he wanted to write a book for people who don't normally read, which is why Sanjay was such an over-the-top villain. The Sanjay plotline was probably the main thing that kept me from giving it a five, especially his long "I'm am the villain, here let me stand here for five minutes and give you a monologue on my evil plans" speech and the fact that the whole thing with him and Jas's dad's shop just felt really contrived. So I'm not sure how I feel about people writing books for people who don't normally read, since chances are people who do read a lot are actually going to be the ones reading.

Mooch from BookMooch

#22-25: Hirsi Ali, Gilbert (ed), Chan, Obama

[sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com]

Quick-version reviews:

#22 - Infidel: My Life by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Hirsi Ali grew up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya. Her experiences of Islam cross a spectrum from her (mostly-absent) father's approach, which in some ways allowed interpretation and debate but in other ways was highly traditional, through to devotion to the calls for the renewal of Islam by the Muslim Brotherhood. She's now become in/famous for her calls to consider ways in which Islam may be problematic.

#23 - The Dreaming, Vol 1-3 by Queenie Chan
Although manga is enough of a departure from my regular type of reading that I feel justified in posting it here, I couldn't count the three volumes as separate books. Only the third volume took more than an afternoon/evening to read. In the end, I can't recommend this book, because of what I (ymmv) see as a very problematic treatment of Indigenous Australian cultures and traditions. More info at my LJ.

#24 - Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry, edited by Kevin Gilbert.
Published in 1988 as a "Bicentennial" year protest, this collection is full of anger, and I found most of it very hard to cope with. I did persevere through to the end though, and I'm glad I did, as Gilbert's own poetry is last in the collection, and despite the fact that his introductions both to other poets and himself had angered and alienated me, I found that some of his poems were *beautiful*, and that they portrayed their anger in a way that allowed me to process it, rather than just putting up a wall. Note: many readers of this comm may find my review difficult or potentially offensive, particularly on "tone argument" grounds.

#25 - The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
I started reading this before the election, but only just finished it, for the simple reason that I own it, and thus it wasn't subject to library due dates. It is a great book, and I'll have to boost Dreams from my Father further up my To Read list.

#16 - Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

[chipmunk-planet.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of people have reviewed this already so I won't go into the story.

I liked Parable of the Sower tremendously, this one not as well, mainly because it was so disturbing and dark. ( cut for spoiler )

Overall, I'm glad I read it. I'm going to have to find some of her other books; I like her voice a lot.

The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

The House on Mango Street is a series of vignettes told by Esperanza, a twelve-year-old Latina girl whose family has just moved into a house in a halfway shady neighborhood. Each vignette takes a chapter, and each chapter is very short, two to three pages with pretty big printing. The structure sounds choppy, but it builds to a surprisingly satisfying whole: characters recur and the vignettes connect back to each other like a series of ribbons knotted together.

I liked it a lot. Not only were the story and the structure interesting, but Esperanza has an excellent voice: believably childish but also clearly growing up. One of my favorite vignettes was a story about a family party. Esperanza had a nice new dress but her mother forgot to get shoes to match, so she sits, miserable, her feet hidden under her chair, refusing to dance because this was not how things were supposed to be.

I iked the scene both because it was so spot on – I did things exactly like that as a child – and because it was presented so empathetically: the understanding that yes, the wrong shoes are that big a deal when you’re twelve, and no smug superiority about silly kids freaking out about small silly things.

So I liked the book very much. I would recommend it to people who like books about children that aren’t necessarily children’s books; people who like books with odd, interesting, elliptical story-telling methods; and, in the Spanish translation, to anyone who reads Spanish semi-fluently and wants to practice.

Free? by Rita Williams-Garcia, Ibtisam Barakat, Malorie Blackman, Meja Mwanji, Jamila Gavin

[anitabuchan.livejournal.com]

I've spent the last few days at the Hay book festival, and this is one of the books I got there (and went to the connected panel). 'Free?' is a collection of poems and short stories by children's writers, each one inspired one of the articles from the Declaration of Human Rights. The ones by POC authors are below.

( After the Hurricane by Rita Williams-Garcia, inspired by article 13. )

( Uncle Meena by Ibtisam Baraket, inspired by article 18. )

( Searching for a Two-Way Street by Malorie Blackman, inspired by article 19. )

( Jojo Leans to Dance by Meja Mwanji, inspired by article 21. )

( Wherever I Lay Down My Head by Jamila Gavin, inspired by article 22. )

Overall, I loved this and would recommend it to anyone, child or adult. Aside from the authors above it has stories from Michael Morpurgo, Eoin Colfer, David Almond, Patrica McCormick, Roddy Doyle, Theresa Breslin, Ursula Dubosarky, Sarah Mussi, and Margaret Mahy. Almost all feature CoC. Also, it's published by Amnesty International, so by buying it you'll benefit them.