The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood

Genre: Fiction

Rating:   ★  ★ ★  ★  ★      

Published: 1995

Publisher: Bantam Books

Pages: 528

YO, so I'm actually really exciting to be writing a review for this book since I was SO PUMPED to read it (and had been looking for it for a few months) and no one else I know has read it. I read The Handmaid's Tale* by Margaret Atwood my freshman year (of college), and immediately went on the hunt for this puppy afterwards. Atwood has a reputation as a feminist author, and I would say that I agree with that title. Whereas The Handmaid's Tale is a more dystopic novel (taking place in the fundamentalist Christian state of Gilead), The Robber Bride is a more intimate and modern story that takes place in Canada in the very early 1990s (I'm dating it around 1990, maaaaaybe 1991). 

The Robber Bride focuses on a small group of friends — Tony, Charis and Roz — whose lives have become intwined since college thanks to the bewitching and devastating Zenia. Zenia stole their men, undermined their careers, and effectively threatened their Way Of Life before disappearing into thin air. The last the trio had heard of her was her death, and after attending her funeral, considered to be a ghastly warning from the past. Tony, Charis and Roz have since begun a slow healing process, trying to move on from the damage that Zenia has caused. But one day, while the three women are out for lunch, who should walk into the restaurant but Zenia — very much alive. What does she want? Why has she come back? And what does she have in store for Tony, Charis and Roz?

The Robber Bride is over five hundred pages long, and I flew threw it. The book is divided into different section, with Tony, Charis and Roz serving as "perspective" narrators for each section. While The Robber Bride detailed Zenia's relationship with the three women, it also detailed the life experiences of Tony, Charis, and Roz, and touched on issues such as mental illness, sexual abuse, divorce, death, and money and class. Personally, I think that Atwood did a fantastic job at juggling the three women's perspectives. While each character's perspective chapter was openly characterized by one of the three women, Atwood maintained her style overall. (I feel like that was a bad explanation, so let me try again: Atwood asserts the characteristic differences of the three women throughout their respective chapters while maintaining a specific writing style throughout. Some very, very tricky writing, I think.)

The Robber Bride continuously reflections on issues relating to gender and power relations in the modern (or post-modern?) era. While Tony, Charis and Roz each lead lives that (I feel) they want to lead (Tony as an academic, Charis as a free spirit, Roz as a businesswoman), they are each constrained by gender roles and expectations. Tony is frustrated that, as a woman, her work relating to military history is taken less seriously. Charis is often at odds with her daughter, a strict by-the-book individual. Roz constantly juggles the difficulties of being a mother, being an executive, and being a "good feminist." 

Zenia, however, does not seem to reflect on such identity politics or issues. Zenia is portrayed by Atwood as a third sex; someone who is able to easily navigate male and female world and roles. Unlike the three women, Zenia isn't boxed in by social expectations, and doesn't seem to be at odds with her gender. Zenia is also, however, not at the beck and call of her sexual appetite as often as the men in The Robber Bride are. It is because of her "third role" that she is presented as a terrifying question and an unpredictable actor to Tony, Charis, and Roz. The Robber Bride doesn't deal very much with topics like gender fluidity and queer identification (and it also only touches upon homosexuality), but does discuss and elaborate upon the choices that women are often forced to make regarding their families, careers, and love lives. 

I'd absolutely recommend The Robber Bride; I thought that it was a super engaging and engrossing read, and that the book's heft ceased to be intimidating once I got into the swing of things. Tony, Charis and Roz are women whose strengths and weaknesses (and vanities) differ greatly from one woman to the next. I enjoyed reading about their relationships with each other as much as I enjoyed speculating on what Zenia was planning.

*The Handmaid's Tale was spooky and thought-provoking and presented a situation I thought to be absolutely terrifying: zero bodily autonomy. (Unfortunately I don't have a review for it; just take my word for it, it's fantastic.)

The Chaperone, by Laura Moriarty

Genre: (Historical) Fiction

Rating:  ★ ★ ★      

Published: 2012

Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover

Pages: 384

The Chaperone grabbed my attention for a pretty shallow reason, and it is that it is set (at least somewhat) in Wichita, Kansas. Now, I'm not from Wichita, but I do enjoy Kansas lit every now and then that a) is not The Wizard of Oz, or b) is not In Cold Blood. You would think that those are pretty easy qualifiers, but alas — the supply of Kansas books is dreadfully thin. What do I have to do to read about my home state?

The Chaperone details the story of one Cora Carlisle, a well-to-do lady in 1920s Wichita who volunteers as a chaperone for the young, wanna be dancer/actress, Louise Brooks. Louise has been awarded a space in the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing for a month-long training camp, and — being a young woman — obviously needs someone to look out for her "wellbeing" (read: to make sure she doesn't drink and have sex). Cora is motivated to accompany Louise not out of a sense of moral righteousness (although she does give some morally upright speeches to Louise, who promptly brushes them off), but for her own personal reasons. 

Fun fact: Louise Brooks is actually a real person — something I didn't know before reading this book. After her time with the Denishawn School of Dancing, Louise became a silent movie film star, although her career did fade over time. But despite Louise's celebrity, I wouldn't say that she overpowered Cora's personal narrative.

The real Louise Brooks. Via. 

The Kansas Theater in Wichita, KS. Circa 1922. Via.

Identity is a central theme to The Chaperone; who do you think you are, who do others think you are, what do you think others think of you... Moriarty shows in The Chaperone how exhausting the constant scrutiny of being a young (and older) woman is. Throughout the book, both Cora and Louise undergo some sort of identity crisis, although at different points. Cora's search for identity spans more or less the entire book, whereas Louise's crisis is more acute in the last third of the book. Although both characters pursue their interests and desires differently, although it is clear that Cora is obviously shaped (some would say "liberated) by her short time with Louise. 

The Chaperone spans decades and covers a huge variety of historical events — orphan trains, the women's suffrage movement, Prohibition, The Depression, World War II... It's a huge undertaking, and obviously required a huge amount of research on the part of Moriarty. 

The Chaperone is a pretty fast and easy read. That aside, it does delve into darker subjects, and Moriarty isn't one to shy away from character confrontation. So while I wouldn't say that The Chaperone was particularly challenging, and it didn't upset or enthrall me like The Mayor of Castro Street (for example), it did spark my interest in several historical events (like orphan trains and the women's suffrage movement), and certainly gave me some "food for thought" regarding America in the early twentieth century and the fairly dramatic social changes going on then. 

For all of those of you who're interested in reading The Chaperone, I'd recommend pairing it with a nice ragtime playlist and your best suffragette hat. (And maybe some white wine, if you're feeling particularly rebellious.)

Kindle Reads: Doomed Queens, by Kris Waldherr

Via.

Genre: Biography, Non-Fiction

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ 

Published: 2008

Publisher: Three Rivers Press

Pages: 176

Fun facts about me: I considered being a history major in college before deciding that I actually hated all of the history classes I had taken and was waaaay more interested in examining political mechanisms of historical events. (I'm looking at you, twentieth century anarchists.) But despite that, I love reading history books and learning more about dead people and past events (a quick way to my heart: buy The Rise of the Third Reich for me, plz), so when I saw Doomed Queens mentioned on a blog I really like, I decided to get it for my Kindle before I left for my semester abroad.

In Doomed Queens, Kris Waldherr basically sits you down in a coffee shop (or bar), and over drinks talks to you about powerful women throughout history who met their ends in...less than pleasant ways. Doomed Queens is basically the equivalent of having a late night talk with one of your best friends about "that girl" who was a little too fab or too crazy for this world, and what happened to her ("Like, can you believe she was caught trying to overthrow her husband?"). Also: there are chapter quizzes that ask us, "What have we learned?"

Waldherr tackles more than 400 years of queens (and regicide) in this book, from Athaliah (from Biblical times) to Princess Di. Because of the huge scope of this book, and its relatively short length, it's basically impossible to get a totally comprehensive history of all of the people mentioned in it. While I did appreciate how there were a lot of queens presented and written about in Doomed Queens, I sometimes felt a little frustrated when I felt like their section was super short, or that their section could have gone more in-depth. But, I mean, some queens just weren't going to have a lot of background sources available (I'm looking at you Athaliah). Waldherr crafts a narrative and history within Doomed Queens that tries to make the most out of the (sometimes minimal) resources available to her.

I also had a few annoyances with the Kindle version of this ebook. Mostly, that I felt like the various graphics that were included in the text were either blurred or not formatted well. I pulled up the Kindle app on my computer to try to get a better glimpse of one of the illustrations in the book, but it wasn't much of an improvement. These technological glimpses sometimes annoyed me, but luckily the narrative wasn't really affected by it.

 

Some nifty illustrations (drawn by Waldherr). Via. Via.

While I'm not sure if I would reread Doomed Queens, I did appreciate how Waldherr introduced me to a lot of new historical figures that I can potentially research in the future. I would recommend this book to anyone jonesing for a quick, informative read or anyone who is interested in learning more about past female leaders or past royal families.

The House of Hades, by Rick Riordan (Heroes of Olympus #4)

Via.

Genre: Fiction, YA

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Published: 2013

Publisher: Hyperion Books

Pages: 583

Okay, so I know that I'm like a year late to the House of Hades party (and that The Blood of Olympus just came out), but I told myself that I was going to catch up with my reviews, and anyway I can't help it if I forget to read my books sometimes. (Plus, it was totally spoiled for me on at least two counts, so forgive me if I wasn't super desperate to learn major plot development.)

The House of Hades is the fourth book in Rick Riordan's "Heroes of Olympus" series (the follow-up to the "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" series), and immediately follows the events of the previous book, The Mark of Athena. Annabeth and Percy are in Tartarus, fighting their way towards the Doors of Death (along with every other monster and titan they've basically ever faced). The rest of the crew (Leo, Nico, Piper, Hazel, Frank, and Jason) is on the lookout for the House of Hades, where they expect to close the (aforementioned) Doors of Death. Basically, drama llamas abound as the eight demigods continue on their quest to prevent the giants from raising the awakening Gaea.

I really enjoyed this book, although I do wish that there had been additional characters that had received their own "point of view" chapters (I'm looking at you, Nico and Reyna...). I think that sometimes the action in this book came and went in bursts — which was alternately refreshing and irksome. I think I really appreciated hearing more about the Roman and Greek gods and goddesses, and also really enjoyed glimpses of Camp Half Blood, as well as (my gurl) Reyna. I do expect there to be more of Reyna (and Nico!) in Blood of Olympus, so I'll just have to wait a little while longer...!

I also liked how House of Hades explored Percy and Annabeth's relationship. Percy/Annabeth is obviously R. Riordan's main ship, but it was nice (in my opinion) for the author to explore his reasoning for the couple's coupledom while examining Percy and Annabeth's thoughts about the other. I feel like in a series like Heroes of Olympus (and Percy Jackson & the Olympians) where there are characters with a history that spans several books, it's really useful to sometimes stop and take a breather and question characters' motives and opinions. 

I would definitely recommend House of Hades to those familiar with the series, or anyone who is  interested at all in Greek or Roman mythology. (Honestly, the mythology aspect is probably what interests me most in the Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus series.) I look forward to reading the next one when I get back home for break, and will hopefully have my fill of Reyna and Nico then. 

The Mayor of Castro Street, by Randy Shilts

Unfortunately, I'm still playing catch-up with my reviews. Stay with me, kids.

Genre: Biography, Non-Fiction

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Published: 1982

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Pages: 348

Last year, I read Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On , which is his account of the early years of AIDS public policy and scientific research. DESPITE it being a little over 600 pages (of small, frequently scientific print), I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to put it on my "favorites" list on the basis that it was infuriating, informative, heartbreaking, and then some. After reading it, I decided that I wanted to check out his other books, so I picked up The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.

I originally wanted this review to coincide with a few events: Milk's birthday, the issuing of a Harvey Milk stamp , and the release of HBO's The Normal Heart (which is more about AIDS than it is about Harvey Milk). Unfortunately, this review is quite a few months overdue. (Talking about my good intentions is just as good as actually following through, yeah?)

(I guess I'd also like to give a quick disclaimer before this review to say that I identify as straight, and so I might fail to convey some important information in this review.)

The Mayor of Castro Street is a comprehensive biography of Harvey Milk, who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California when he won a position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. The book begins with his childhood in Long Island and follows him throughout his adulthood in New York City, Texas, his time in the Navy, and his eventual move to the Castro District in San Francisco. 

As Shilts details these personal details, he also assesses the social and cultural events that caused the Castro to emerge as a gay neighborhood. Shilts also spends time detailing San Franciscan politics (as well as "gay" politics) prior to Harvey's arrival, including the activist José Sarria (who was the first only gay candidate for public office in the United States), as well as gay political organizations such as the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club.

I found The Mayor of Castro Street to be as inspiring and interesting as it was heartbreaking and infuriating. While the book does focus on the "gay" movement, "gay" in this instance refers to (almost exclusively) as "male," since (asides from Anne Kronenberg, a political aide of Harvey) lesbians receive little mention in this book. Transgender individuals also receive little to no mention. This...lack of political representation made me wonder if the change that Harvey inspired would be been possible if he were lesbian, transgender, or an LGBT+ person of color.

From left to right: Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Dan White. White was convicted of the manslaughter, as opposed to murder, of Milk and Moscone. White served only five years of a seven year sentence.  Via .

The Mayor of Castro Street is at times an infuriating recollection of local, state-wide, and national politics of the 1960s and 1970s. Gay politics then relied almost exclusively on straight, liberal allies. Harvey, Shilts, notes, was regarded as radical by many members of the "old guard" gay political community because he argued that gays should seize power for themselves and not rely on handouts or favors from said "allies." 

I found that it complemented Shilts's And the Band Played On very nicely, as Band discussed the effect that Harvey had nationwide on gay politics and attitudes. I also noticed parallels between Shilts's discussion of gentrification in San Francisco during the 1970s and now.

I do not think Shilts tried to pull many (or any) punches when it came to describing Harvey, and so I would like to think that Mayor enabled me to develop a more complex view of Harvey Milk.

In The Mayor of Castro Street, Shilts has crafts a work that is as suspenseful as it is detailed. Shilts slowly sets the state, introducing characters, their motivations, and their eventual fates. His subtlety is devastating. (I say "devastating" because it feels like a sucker punch to the gut — I had a lot of "oh my god, of course" moments while reading this book.) 

I think The Mayor of Castro Street absolutely deserves a five star rating. This book made ​​me think about my own (straight, cis white) privilege, how that privilege has carried into the current/modern era (especially regarding political representation), and how "radicalism" can be as benign as saying that marginalized peoples and communities should represent themselves in government. It made ​​me consider how much progress we have made ​​(as a society, as well as legally) in the LGBT+ civil rights movement. This book both enthralled me and upset me while providing me with a rich history of San Francisco and the LGBT+ civil rights movement. I would absolutely recommend this book for anyone interested in American history, LGBT+ issues, or civil rights.

Interested in learning more? See Before / After Stonewall , The  Castro , and  The Times of Harvey Milk .

Not My Father's Son: A Memoir, by Alan Cumming

Basically the only decent picture I could get of the book. Via .

Genre: Memoir

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★

Published: 2014

Publisher: It Books

Pages: 288

Many like my age (I'm sure), the first time I saw Alan Cumming on the big screen (or any screen, tbh), It Was the first Spy Kids  movie. He played the villian-turn-good guy (spoilers?), Floop, a reclusive toymaker / TV star who lived in a crazy, Gaudi-esque mansion on a remote island. Was he weird? Yes. Was he sympathetic? Oh, totally. Have I seen anything else he's been in since That? No, not really.  (Just kidding. I saw him in the Emma movie too.) 

This past spring, It Books reached out to book bloggers interested in reading and reviewing Cumming's memoir, Not My Father's Son. Interested in learning more about Cumming, I kind of blindly requested a copy. I would say that I'm generally pretty clueless about celebrities' personal lives, and haven't really read celebrity memoirs / autobiographies before (The sole exception being Is Everyone Hanging Out ​​Without Me?  by Mindy Kaling).   I kind of forgot about it, actually, until one day when I got a copy in the mail! (Surprise packages are AWESOME, and doubly so when they're books.)

In Not My Father's Son, Alan Cumming discusses and details the years of abuse he endured at the hands of his father, spanning from his childhood and lasting into his adult life. As Cumming grows up and begins to question his father as well as the reasons for his father's abuse, Cumming also starts to differentiate himself from his father's person and develops an interest in acting.

Cumming's voice caries through the narrative easily, and I was almost surprised at how quickly I fell into the pages of this book. Cumming gives, I think, a very full and detailed account of his childhood as well as more recent events pertaining to the taping of "his" episode on the show Who Do You Think You Are? Because I found Cumming's tone to be conversational, I wasn't entirely surprised when he would digress from the subject at hand (his father, his identity, etc.) in order to talk about his hair, Eurovision, and his fear of losing his Masterpiece! job at PBS to Patti Smith. 

I found Not My Father's Son to be a very engaging book. Cumming's style is at times self-depreciating, but is also very raw and open. He is very open about his life, and rarely (if ever) shies away from "uncomfortable" subjects. I would personally recommend this book depending on whether or not you have an interest in "celebrity" books or are interested in learning more about Alan Cumming. Not My Father's Son has piqued my interest in reading more "celebrity" books and memoirs. By the end of the book, I found myself with a new appreciation for his work. I look forward to his next project(s).

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #2), by Douglas Adams

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: ★★★★

Published: 1980

Publisher: Pocket Books

Pages: 250

I was first introduced to Douglas Adams's series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, last summer. I read the first book, loved it, bought the rest of the series, and promptly forgot to pick it up again until last week.

Considering I read the last book almost a year ago, I experienced little difficulty getting back into the plot or characters. There were, of course, details I had forgotten — like Zaphod's third arm — but I was grateful to slide back into was Adams's terrific sense of humor and style of writing. However, I would add that I definitely recommend reading the first book (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) before picking this one up because there is a very important subplot that Restaurant spends little to no time recapping. Good news, I would say that this book and the previous one are excellent series installations in the respect that they do not end on an obnoxiously terrible cliffhanger. (I'm looking at you Rick Riordan, Suzanne Collins.)

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe picks up where The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy left off, with ex-Galactic President Zaphod, depressive robot Marvin, Betelgeusian hitchhiker Ford Prefect, and Earthlings Arthur Dent and Tricia McMillan ("Trillian") bound for space exploration on the precisely Improbable Heart of Gold spaceship.

A lot happens: time travel, rock concerts, tax evasion, and The End of the Universe, for starters. Adams reflects on the Universe (its infinite size and horrific end, to be specific), the nature of civilization (namely, what happens when a bunch of midlevel nitwits are in charge of establishing a society and "culture"), and continues to ask just what the deal with the number forty-two is.

I found this book to be immensely enjoyable. Adams's humor is a treat; his absurdity (or is it improbability?) is at the top of its game. The book's lighthearted attitude doesn't stray away from asking the serious questions (chiefly, the meaning of life, questions of civilization, etc.), which I think just adds to the "trilogy's" depth and insight. The last bit of the book was definitely more somber (or at least introspective) in tone, but I enjoyed it. I appreciated the character development that I witnessed between Arthur and Ford over the course of the book (most notably the last chapters), and am interested in seeing how they continue to change in the series's next installment (Life, the Universe, and Everything). While my first impression of this book wasn't "It changed my life! Give it five stars!" I could see my opinion changing in the near future.

If you're even remotely interested in checking out The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (based on this or any other review), I would urge you to immediately pick it up, along with the other books to the series.

When you're finished, I'll see you at Milliways.