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50books_pocSo...apparently at some point I forgot to crosspost any reviews!
Title: Off Colour
Author: Jackie Kay
Number of Pages: 64 pages
My Rating: 2/5
I love Jackie Kay's novel and short stories, so I figured I'd give her poetry a try even though I am not a fan of poetry in general. This was a bad idea! It turns out I am still not a fan, even if it's an author I really love. :( I just don't really get poetry at all. But if you like poetry, you might like it! A lot of the same themes that show up in her prose (being black, being a lesbian, being Scottish) are present here, too.
Title: Everything Asian
Author: Sung J. Woo
Number of Pages: 328 pages
My Rating: 5/5
When he was seven, Dae Joon's father left Korea for America, leaving Dae Joon, his mom, and his older sister In Sook behind. Now he is twelve and they are finally joining their father in New Jersey, where he owns a shop that sells "everything Asian". It should be a joyful reunion, but it's just awkward, especially since Dae Joon doesn't even remember his father.
I really enjoyed this. The POV alternates one chapter in Dae Joon's POV, one in the POV of one of the other characters, who each get one chapter that expands on whatever happened in Dae Joon's previous chapter. It was an interesting way to do things and I thought it worked well.
Title: Scott Pilgrim
Author: Bryan Lee O'Malley
Number of Pages: ~200 pages per volume
My Rating: 5/5
I had heard people mention Scott Pilgrim before, especially recently, what with the final volume just released and the movie coming up, but I had always assumed it was a superhero comic, for some reason, so I wasn't really interested. But then at some point I realised it wasn't, and decided to give it a shot and omg it is the best thing ever! Now I'm so eager to see the movie next month!
So the basic story. Scott Pilgrim is a slacker in his early '20s. He has a band and a seventeen-year-old girlfriend and shares a bed with his gay best friend (who also pretty much supports him, seeing as Scott doesn't have a job) in their one-room apartment. Then one day he starts to notice a girl he's never met before appearing in his dreams. He does finally meet her at a party, and it turns out she's a delivery person for Amazon.ca and uses "subspace" to make her deliveries. Oh, and subspace happens to run right through Scott's head, thus her appearance in his dreams. They start going out, but she tells him he'll have to defeat her six or seven evil exes.
As you can guess from the subspace thing and the defeating the evil exes, this is not a totally realistic story. It's got a lot of wacky elements and a very video game/manga feel to it, and that's done in a way that felt very organic to the story.
The characters are great. I love Knives Chau, Scott's seventeen-year-old (ex-)girlfriend, who ends up becoming part of their group even after he dumps her. I love Scott himself, stupid and useless and utterly ridiculous as he is (yet somehow in a totally charming way). I especially love Wallace Wells, Scott's gay best friend. (Who I always thought was Asian for some reason, but is played by Kieran Culkin in the movie. I don't know why I thought that, maybe because he has black hair and the white characters seem to all have light hair, idk.) I love Kim and Julie and Stephen Stills and Ramona and all the minor characters. Oh, and of the villains, I especially loved Todd and his veganism. XD
I have to say, I think the last volume was the least well done. Everything with Gideon just didn't really come together that well. (Speaking of Gideon, though, I'm super excited that he is going to be played by Jason Schwartzman! ♥) But overall I really loved the whole series and am so, so sad that I have read it and now it's over. D: I want more!
Title: Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
Author: Andrea Smith
Number of Pages: 245 pages
My Rating: 5/5
In this book, Smith examines how colonialism is tied to sexual violence and how that lense can be used to examine what has been done and is still being done to Native Americans, especially Native American women. This covers not just what we generally think of as sexual violence, but also cultural appropriation, environmental damage, and population control. It's a really excellent book and while it wasn't written in a casual manner, I found the language pretty easy to follow most of the time.
Title: Rainbow Boys, Rainbow High, and Rainbow Road
Author: Alex Sanchez
Number of Pages: ~250 pages each
My Rating: 3.5/5
This trilogy focuses on three boys, Nelson, Kyle, and Jason, following them through their last year of high school and the summer after. Alex Sanchez is really not a great writer. His prose is often clunky and cliched and the characters sound more like someone's idea of how Kids Today talk rather than real kids. But his stories are still engaging and I hope he keeps churning out books about queer kids for years to come because it's really a genre that needs to be bigger.
I wish there wasn't so much casual, unchallenged misogyny and I was uncomfortable with the repeated use of the word tranny when the boys met a trans girl (I think it's entirely plausible that they would use it, but I wish there had been someone to say it's not okay) and it would be nice if there were people other than whites and latinos in his books, overall they're enjoyable. And very quick reads.
Title: Off Colour
Author: Jackie Kay
Number of Pages: 64 pages
My Rating: 2/5
I love Jackie Kay's novel and short stories, so I figured I'd give her poetry a try even though I am not a fan of poetry in general. This was a bad idea! It turns out I am still not a fan, even if it's an author I really love. :( I just don't really get poetry at all. But if you like poetry, you might like it! A lot of the same themes that show up in her prose (being black, being a lesbian, being Scottish) are present here, too.
Title: Everything Asian
Author: Sung J. Woo
Number of Pages: 328 pages
My Rating: 5/5
When he was seven, Dae Joon's father left Korea for America, leaving Dae Joon, his mom, and his older sister In Sook behind. Now he is twelve and they are finally joining their father in New Jersey, where he owns a shop that sells "everything Asian". It should be a joyful reunion, but it's just awkward, especially since Dae Joon doesn't even remember his father.
I really enjoyed this. The POV alternates one chapter in Dae Joon's POV, one in the POV of one of the other characters, who each get one chapter that expands on whatever happened in Dae Joon's previous chapter. It was an interesting way to do things and I thought it worked well.
Title: Scott Pilgrim
Author: Bryan Lee O'Malley
Number of Pages: ~200 pages per volume
My Rating: 5/5
I had heard people mention Scott Pilgrim before, especially recently, what with the final volume just released and the movie coming up, but I had always assumed it was a superhero comic, for some reason, so I wasn't really interested. But then at some point I realised it wasn't, and decided to give it a shot and omg it is the best thing ever! Now I'm so eager to see the movie next month!
So the basic story. Scott Pilgrim is a slacker in his early '20s. He has a band and a seventeen-year-old girlfriend and shares a bed with his gay best friend (who also pretty much supports him, seeing as Scott doesn't have a job) in their one-room apartment. Then one day he starts to notice a girl he's never met before appearing in his dreams. He does finally meet her at a party, and it turns out she's a delivery person for Amazon.ca and uses "subspace" to make her deliveries. Oh, and subspace happens to run right through Scott's head, thus her appearance in his dreams. They start going out, but she tells him he'll have to defeat her six or seven evil exes.
As you can guess from the subspace thing and the defeating the evil exes, this is not a totally realistic story. It's got a lot of wacky elements and a very video game/manga feel to it, and that's done in a way that felt very organic to the story.
The characters are great. I love Knives Chau, Scott's seventeen-year-old (ex-)girlfriend, who ends up becoming part of their group even after he dumps her. I love Scott himself, stupid and useless and utterly ridiculous as he is (yet somehow in a totally charming way). I especially love Wallace Wells, Scott's gay best friend. (Who I always thought was Asian for some reason, but is played by Kieran Culkin in the movie. I don't know why I thought that, maybe because he has black hair and the white characters seem to all have light hair, idk.) I love Kim and Julie and Stephen Stills and Ramona and all the minor characters. Oh, and of the villains, I especially loved Todd and his veganism. XD
I have to say, I think the last volume was the least well done. Everything with Gideon just didn't really come together that well. (Speaking of Gideon, though, I'm super excited that he is going to be played by Jason Schwartzman! ♥) But overall I really loved the whole series and am so, so sad that I have read it and now it's over. D: I want more!
Title: Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
Author: Andrea Smith
Number of Pages: 245 pages
My Rating: 5/5
In this book, Smith examines how colonialism is tied to sexual violence and how that lense can be used to examine what has been done and is still being done to Native Americans, especially Native American women. This covers not just what we generally think of as sexual violence, but also cultural appropriation, environmental damage, and population control. It's a really excellent book and while it wasn't written in a casual manner, I found the language pretty easy to follow most of the time.
Title: Rainbow Boys, Rainbow High, and Rainbow Road
Author: Alex Sanchez
Number of Pages: ~250 pages each
My Rating: 3.5/5
This trilogy focuses on three boys, Nelson, Kyle, and Jason, following them through their last year of high school and the summer after. Alex Sanchez is really not a great writer. His prose is often clunky and cliched and the characters sound more like someone's idea of how Kids Today talk rather than real kids. But his stories are still engaging and I hope he keeps churning out books about queer kids for years to come because it's really a genre that needs to be bigger.
I wish there wasn't so much casual, unchallenged misogyny and I was uncomfortable with the repeated use of the word tranny when the boys met a trans girl (I think it's entirely plausible that they would use it, but I wish there had been someone to say it's not okay) and it would be nice if there were people other than whites and latinos in his books, overall they're enjoyable. And very quick reads.
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