erm Well it’s June somehow. May kind of sucked for many, many reasons, but a comparatively tiny reason for May sucking for me personally is that I only read five books. That puts me behind again, if I’m reading ten books per month. Oh well.
DISNEY PRINCESS #1 by Amy Mebberson
I finally got around to this, and somehow I didn’t read the second one too in order to try and catch up on my 100. Anyway, it’s as delightful as you’d expect, but I still prefer Mebberson’s Pocket Princess series because I like when all the girls hang out. Still, it was worth it. Likely #2 will be in June.
Flush by Virginia Woolf
I bought this book by mistake during my student days and I’ve always meant to get around to reading it. And. Well. It was OK. It’s basically Virginia Woolf being somewhat sincere and mostly hilarious by writing a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s dog. It’s also got a bit of racism in it, so, exactly what I was expecting, really. Woolf is still my favourite modernist writer but that’s not saying much. Times were tough back then. And they had stupid opinions about dogs, as if they didn’t have enough stupid opinions back then about humans to fill the stupid opinion quota that human society apparently has, for reasons unknown. I do recommend Mrs. Dalloway, though. Highly.
Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin
Here’s a work of nonfiction in which young trans people tell their stories about being trans and how it has impacted their lives so far. It’s fascinating and often kind of infuriating. The number of different types of adults in different types of positions of authority over these kids that get in the way by being stubbornly ignorant is unsurprising and awful. But that’s just one small element that I highlight – their stories shine through and it’s really, really good.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
I finally got around to this one, too. It’s good. So far I like it better than the show version. Someone called it The Hunger Games for grownups and I think that’s a good description. It’s quite a bit more political than The Hunger Games as well, although like pretty much every dystopia it doesn’t touch racial politics at all. Not one bit. But maybe that’s sort of OK, since Atwood is white. It’s important to note, though, because if Gilead was real you’d better believe racism would factor in.
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
I like L.M. Montgomery’s descriptions of the Canadian wilderness – good in Anne of Green Gables but I really liked it in Emily of New Moon. I thought I’d try out one of her books for adults, and the nature stuff in here is typically my cup of tea. The actual story is that a 29-year-old unmarried woman who gets harassed by her entire family all the time finds out that she’s dying, so she makes some significant life changes, as she has nothing to lose, and scandalizes her entire stupid family. Sometimes it was pretty funny, and other times it got a little tiring, but overall it was nice escapist stuff. The romance was all right. Better than The Handmaid’s Tale, anyway (har har). Also it ends exactly like you think it will but that’s kind of necessary, for the type of book it is, so no big deal.
All right, now to read 15 books at least for June. Doable.
