Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

This book was recommended to me by a lot of people whose taste I trust, and by happenstance it was the pick for my book club at work. So I was eager to read it, but I also knew this book was fairly divisive: a lot of people Are Obsessed with this book and just as many people hated it. To cut to the chase, I think "hate" is a harsh word, but I think I'm in the camp that didn't love it. Spoilery thoughts under the cut:

First there was a lot that I liked about it, and I would actually say I liked the first half more than the second half. When we're dealing with Bree's grieving process over her mother's death, the book is compellingly written and you can almost feel After-Bree simmering beneath the surface. The Root/Bloodcraft magic system was also both a fascinating example of world-building with specifically how the trauma of institutionalized slavery would have impacted magic users of that craft.

And then of course there was the irresistible premise, which is also what drew me and probably a lot of other Arthruian legend fans to pick up the book: a black girl in the South gets drawn into a secret society of sorcerer-warriors reincarnated as the spirits of the Knight of the Round Table to fight an ancient evil magic? Amazing. Ironically, by the end of the book, I felt the premise ended up being the biggest hamper on the story. The After-Bree storyline is resolved around the middle when Bree discovers the truth behind her mother's death and the story then gets mired down in the try-outs in what tends to be the filler story arcs of a typical shounen anime. I was much more interested in how Rootcraft magic worked than the Order, and was frustrated that we learn precious little about it after its introduction and spend the bulk of exposition on the Order and the Lines, which are honestly kind of self explanatory so the big build up to the conspiracy felt obvious. And maybe this was just a nit by the point I got through the bulk of the novel, but I felt like it was hard for me to suspend my disbelief enough to believe that all of the Arthurian knights decided to emigrate to the Southern US. Like, really? None of England's legendary nobles were landed enough in Europe that all of them wanted to try the New World? And specifically the South? Okaaaaay. I know that Deonn is planning on making this a series, so why didn't she have Bree, who was grieving and wanting to get away, go to England to study-abroad to encounter the Order and get then it would make sense to focus on their Arthurian history? Then the next book could be her coming home to learn about the mysterious Rootcraft. But it's not my story so there you go.

And it's not like I don't get what Deonn was trying to do. Making the Arthurian legends a metaphor for magical imperialism and conquest is actually a really, really fascinating idea. And as a Arthurian scholar in my book club pointed out, Arthurian legends have a history of appropriating local legends, taking Welsh folklore and forcing a Christian spin on them. And as someone else in my book club brought up, would it have been more interesting if Bree was from the Line of Morgaine instead of Arthur? Possibly. It would have been a great take to see Bree, as the outsider, to be Morgaine, ostracized because her magic is misunderstood instead of evil. But I feel Bree being Arthur was the whole reason Deonn wrote this so it should be given the chance to play out in the entire series. I just didn't have the buy-in I wanted to have, so in all honestly, I'm probably not continuing with this series.

The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table by Minda Harts

A career development book by the founder of The Memo, who in turn was inspired to develop her company by her own experiences in the modern American workplace. Chock-full of useful tips and practical reminders, it’s an accessible and fast paced guide to advancing your career so that you can hit an executive level. Some of it will probably already be things you know, but it’s always good to get a reminder on things that bear repeating (the mind does have a good way of filtering out stuff you’d rather not deal with, after all), such as the importance of speaking and engaging with strangers who are part of your industry, i.e. networking. The book also offers some good templates on how to cold email someone or keep in touch, since sometimes getting started is the hardest part. And it offers some helpful links to career development resources like recommended career coaches, conferences, and self assessment tests.

A couple of caveats: the goal of the book assumes you are aiming for the C-suite. I think a lot of the information is pretty applicable to most situations of advancement or even resolving some inter-personal conflicts that may arise at work, but something to keep in mind if your career goals are not in alignment with the goal of attaining an executive title. The book also says it was written for “women of color,” but a lot of the advice is tailored towards black and brown women. Again, I think anyone of any color can learn from this book, but some of the advice won’t necessarily resonate with everyone. Nonetheless, it’s a good entry point for a lot of people, and I wanted to make an entry on this blog for my own reference in case I needed to come back to it at some future point in my career development journey.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

This book was my pick for May’s AAPINH heritage month mostly by virtue of being the National Endowment for the Art’s pick for the Big Read (and was made available to me through my local library--support your local libraries!). It’s a touch hard to describe, though, because the entire thing is part metaphor, though I’ll attempt it under the cut.

Roughly, it’s about Willis Wu, the child of immigrant parents, trying to gain a role as Kung Fu Guy -- the best role for Asian men available in Hollywood, in a cop procedural series called Black and White. For some reason, the show is perpetually filming at a restaurant-slash-movie-set the Golden Palace in the heart of Chinatown, which also functions as where most of the Asian extras work, either when it’s a restaurant or when it’s the backdrop of the show, and also where they live in the upper floors (as some kind of mixed use building).

The story deliberately blends what is fact with what is make-believe, even from the form of the text, which is written like a screenplay instead of the traditional prose. I’ve been telling my friend’s that if they’ve enjoyed House of Leaves, with the way it plays with the words on the page, then they will have an appreciation for Interior Chinatown, because it’s a unique and telling metaphor on how Willis--and the other residents of Chinatown--see their own racial identities as something made-up, a construct only fitting within these Hollywood-defined roles.

I really enjoyed the book. It was such a clever use of the form, and it felt like such a relevant message. It’s so strange how much of an Asian-American cultural identity is shaped by the media, by fiction, by letting it showcase to us what it means to be Asian. I’ve definitely felt some of that disconnect growing up and sometimes the irony doesn’t really strike home until it’s laid out. Was it kind of a depressing read? A little, though, and the resolution is a bit bittersweet, but it does read very quickly, somewhat in part due to the form of the book, so what it really utilizes the real estate what it has to make a pointed message.

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R. F. Kuang

This book has been getting a lot of traction on social media so I was interested to read it. Very briefly (and for my own recollection later), it centers around a boy from Canton, orphaned by the plague, who is summarily rescued just on the cusp of death that claimed his family and brought to England by Professor Lovell to be trained in the art of translation, with the goal of getting admission to Oxford’s prestigious translation school, nicknamed “Babel.” In this world, the industrial revolution occurs through the globalization of languages, using the connotative gaps in translation of words to proliferate magical effects through the medium of silver, which means non-English kids like the boy, self-named “Robin,” are valuable. But as Robin grows up and wrestles with the inherent colonialism of Babel, he struggles with his own morals that both privileges him and enslaves him. Possible spoilers under the cut.

There’s a lot going on from the just the title -- you can pick this book up and guess it’s probably not going to end happy. Kuang isn’t exactly hiding the ball on what her thesis is, and the story hammers it home pretty clearly: violence is necessary to disrupt and challenge inherently racist institutions. This is the conclusion that Robin spends the entire 500 page novel coming to; the rebels championing a non-violent solution are killed; Robin’s former cohort, a white woman named Letty, who ostensibly champions changing the system from within is so unforgivable by the end of the book that nothing she says sounds credible -- a bit like Glinda in Wicked, if Glinda didn’t have any character development; the other white woman character in the book only finds redemption through death. There isn’t any room for compromise in Kuang’s book, but it’s also important to remember that a reconciliation story is now what she’s setting out to tell here.

Babel is inherently an allegory to government institutions that benefit from foreign assets and knowledge, who thrive off the exploitation of people, but are offended by the notion of such foreign nation and its people’s own sovereignty. The briefest reviews of any period of history can show scenarios that are applicable. And because Kuang is so learned and so brilliant, and is a skilled linguist and writer, she can weave an incredibly compelling narrative that explains the philology that forms the basis of the unique magic system in this book, while also expounding on the socio-economic ramifications of both colonialism and also domestic rebellion. While I agree with a lot of assessments that the pace is slow, I never once felt bored, and I credit to her strength as a writer.

I suppose if I have any complaints, the first was the lack of resolution. Even Les Miserables, which I kept thinking of throughout the third act, showed us the final defeat, with the townsfolk sadly picking up the pieces. We don’t know the result of the great last stand by the translators’ rebellion, and it feels rather unsatisfying. It also felt unfair that we get introduced to Victoire in the epilogue of the 500 page book, especially given that takes place of a true resolution. Couldn’t she at least have heard news? 

The second is related to the lack of compromise, I suppose. Robin and his cohorts are motivated to take down racist institutions largely because of loyalty to the motherlands from which they were stolen, and most characters don’t have any ties to those countries in the present day of the narrative. Instead of focusing on acting because it’s the right thing to do, it’s the idea that people of color, and I say this as a person of color, owe something to the land of our ancestors. Which does not account for people who are bi-cultural. And that solid line of a person of color only allowed to belong to one bothered me, though I again had to remind myself that Babel wasn’t that kind of story. So it was mostly about fighting my inherent biases, too.

YallWest 23 haul

you came here for ravka. i came here for you. you're my flag, alina. you're my nation, not this swamp.

shadow & bone, season 2, episode 4

also watching shadow and bone and...freddy carter would make a pretty good levi ackerman, wouldn’t he?

shadow and bone: s2 ep 3 like calls to like

jesper falls in love with wylan playing the piano hold me

hawkeye: the saga of barton and bishop by matt fraction & david aja

I don’t do so well collecting individual issues, so I waited for the paperback omnibus to get released. It’s a great character study arc for both Clint and Kate, and I love the art stylings of Aja. The tone is very melancholy, but since Clint’s (and Kate’s, to a lesser extent) brand, other than being a master marksman, is being a human disaster, it was fitting. One thing that did strike me as being somewhat strange was how little, despite how often, the Avengers appear in his life. It was especially noticeable since the few times they do appear, there’s hints of the closeness of the team beyond just being coworkers.

Overall an okay read, but especially interesting reading it alongside the current Nightwing (Infinite Frontier) arc, since thematically it’s similar but more optimistic.

Stuntboy, In the Meantime by Jason Reynolds & Raul the Third

A picture book that’s almost a graphic novel, written by renown prose author Jason Reynolds and illustrated by Raul the Third, the story focuses on Portico Reeves who lives with his parents and cat named A Different Name Every Day and his grandma in the apartment complex where almost all the story takes place. Portico has a best friend, Zola, and an arch-nemesis, Herbert Singletary the Worst, and recurring anxiety he calls “the Frets.” But most of all, Portico has a secret identity--he’s also Stuntboy, the superhero of the complex that does stunts that often put him in harm’s way to save his friends and neighbors.

If that last sentence gave you pause, it should. It’s implied, though not stated, that Portico is on the spectrum, and Stuntboy is his way of coping with the things that cause him anxiety in the world, inspired by his and Zola’s favorite TV show, Super Space Warriors. The brother-sister team of SSW are beings of special powers charged with protecting the sun from the Irators, but like Portico’s parents, are often distracted from their mission by their inability to get along or compromise, cause Explosions of Great Magnitude in the cosmos. The stresses in Portico’s life, often things he doesn’t understand fully, also cause him The Frets, and his need to take action to remedy the situation often comes across as harmful to himself.

It’s a beautifully presented book with prose-like text and cartoon-style drawings that present both realistic drama of Portico’s family and neighbors as filtered through the lens of a child that seems both whimsical and believable.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

Admittedly, I picked this one up for pretty shallow reasons: 1) the cover is so, so pretty, and 2) from the description, it was inspired by a traditional Korean folktale, and Korean-based fantasy is still somewhat rare in the US book market, so I wanted to support. Spoilers under the cut.

I didn’t actually realize how loosely inspired the story was. The story starts when Mina takes Shim Cheong’s place as the sacrifice so that Cheong and Mina’s brother can be together. But towards the end of the book, you find that the original Korean folktale of Shim Cheong actually exists in-universe. Throughout the story, the protagonist Mina tells the Sea God three traditional Korean fairytales, one of them being the story of Shim Cheong, so it turns into a retroactive “name’s the same” recognition instead of an actual retelling of the legend of Shim Cheong. As a Korean-American reader, it was really fun seeing the references to traditional Korean culture, including the stories of Hong-bu & Nol-bu and the heavenly maiden tale. And I liked the lyrical, beautiful feel of the atmosphere.

I found a lot of potential in the story, but I don’t think it quite got to what I wanted. I think I would have liked to see a more tangible effect the various folktales had on resolving the plot of this book.  I think one of the problems with achieving that was the relative abruptness of the events in the story. The characters would suddenly pivot from one event to another without a true reason or payoff for doing so, almost like these were vignettes instead of a cohesive story. That being said, I’m always glad to see my culture represented in western markets since I’ve been so starved for it growing up, and I hope the beautiful aesthetics of the story makes more people interested in reading the original tales that inspired it.

The Sandman episode 7-10

So ultimately I didn’t enjoy what I call the “serial killer” arc as much as the “getting the tools back” arc, but you know what I did love?

Boyd Holbrook was a very sexy and charismatic Corinthian and I could see why all his potential victims were just throwing themselves at him.

Desire. Boy howdy Mason Alexander Park is some inspired casting. The way they act, look, sound -- couldn’t be truer to the comics.

I also liked the more overt humanization of all the characters. Not just Morpheus, though my heart grew three sizes every time my little emo-tsundere boy gave his little half smile and awkwardly tried to apologize, but also Fiddler’s Green, John Dee, and even The Corinthian. Gave them all more motivations and tied it more coherently to a developing arc of a season. Loved it.

Honestly Dream’s confrontation of Desire in the Threshold was my fave part of this arc, because it clearly established the lines between the elder Endless from the younger Endless, and I love watching their dysfunctional relationship, because it makes it so much apparent when there’s affection. I can’t wait for Dream to interact with Destiny and Destruction.

The Sandman episodes 5-6

Okay, so I’m glad I watched these two together because I knew I was going to need “The Sound of Her Wings” after “24/7″ as a kind of balm. Even though I agree with some other criticisms I’ve seen that 24/7 was toned down quite a bit from the book, which I agree with generally, it was still hard to watch, even in the quieter moments where these six individuals are just struggling to make it to the next moment. And it was still bloody and I am very squeamish, so I don��t think I could’ve taken a straight-up adaptation. John Dee was interesting, because he wasn’t nearly as depraved as he was in the book. He had a lot of sympathetic moments and motivations, like letting Rosemary live because he sees she’s truly a good person (and even giving her the Amulet of Protection).

But I did need the soothing gentleness of SOHW. Like a lot of people, Death is my favorite of the Endless. And despite the entire episode being about death and tragic, it was also soothing and bright and lighthearted. Just like seeing Death interact with Dream. I loved their sibling relationship, and they were so siblings, with her teasing and coddling and scolding. It’s obvious she makes such an effort with him, to bring him out of his comfort zone and enjoy the things of life, and is so patient with him, and he in turn seems to appreciate it even if he can’t bring himself to let go. It was a really nice segue into why, when she’s so matter of fact about her job, Hob Gadling was allowed to be an exception. In the comics it seemed like a whim. But here, it seems like she’s really doing it as a deliberate choice. Because she wants Dream to learn. Because she wants Dream to open himself up. Because she wants Dream to make friends.

So yeah, I loved Kirby as Death. She managed to take a role I was going to obviously scrutinize with such aplomb and the right mix of caring and carefree where I didn’t even like Kat Denning’s portrayal, despite liking Kat as an actress. And 80s Hob was fantastic.

The Sandman episodes 1-4

So I’ve seen through “A Hope in Hell,” and thus far I’ve really liked this adaptation. It’s definitely higher production values than some other DC productions, particularly the Berlanti shows, but yet it feels practical in ways that make sense.

Take, for instance, Morpheus’ appearance. At first I was fixated on how human he looked, with his hair that’s not the big birds’ nest but ordinary unkemptness, his stylish but wearable coat, and especially his normal eye appearance. But it did increase the impact when Morpheus’ Dream eyes finally appear at the end of the episode, and I figured that’s probably why they chose to go this route. It was fantastic. I do miss James McAvoy’s almost ethereal timbre, though. Tom Sturridge’s interpretation reminds me of RPattz’ Bruce Wayne, but this doesn’t feel wrong, either.

Cain, Abel, and Lucienne were really great. They chose to remove Abel’s stuttering for something that feels more natural to convey the timidity of his nature, and Cain isn’t nearly as villain!hammy. Vivienne Acheampong has a very striking look that makes it hard to take your eyes off of her (kind of like Anya Taylor-Joy?) and you could believe that she’s part of The Dreaming.

Episode 5 was really fantastic. Despite being the B story, the John Dee subplot was compelling and so full of tension because of how they set up the dynamic with John and Rosemary that I almost was impatient to skip over the Hell sequences, which were beautiful and morbid but slow, until we got to the battle of wits between Lucifer and Morpheus. I love, love how the implications of the battle became physical. I also liked Lucifer, but if anything my complaint was that Lucifer seemed almost too sympathetic and not intimidating enough? But maybe that was also the point.

I know I’m purposely dragging my feet on watching the next episode because the chapter it was based on is easily one of the most brutal things I’ve ever read and I’m not sure if I’m ready to see that on screen. But of course, I must.

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

A mix of gothic horror and And Then There Were None, the backdrop of the novel takes place at Seaglass, an isolated cottage off the coast of England on a tiny island accessible once a day during low tide when pedestrians can cross by sandbar, or otherwise by boat for the skilled and brave. It’s the home of Beatrice Darker, reclusive children’s book author and matriarch of the Darker family by virtue of being the sole breadwinner. The novel opens with Daisy, her two older sisters, her parents, and her niece all gathering one Halloween to celebrate their Nana’s 80th birthday, which was famously foretold would be Nana’s last. And that’s when the trouble begins.

Overall, it was a fun, twisty mystery novel with perhaps not as much suspenseful buildup as ATTWN: a kind of beach-read version of ATTWN.

Spoilery thoughts under the cut:

The set up is very similar to ATTWN, but the book actually reminded me more closely of Knives Out. At the center of the book and the main driver of conflict is the dysfunction junction that is the Darker family. We’re told right off the bat that the entire family isn’t really well off and that they’re all dependent on Nana for financial support. And then we’re also told that the parents are more self absorbed with themselves and each other (even when divorced) than with their children. And the three daughters have all the rivalry that kids who are obviously favored with innate gifts (like talent or beauty) or parental favoritism have. So when Nana leaves her fortune to Daisy’s niece Trixie, everyone has a motive for murder. And when the next body turns up, everyone is likely a suspect.

I didn’t think there was as much tension as ATTWN because the main, present day narrative gets broken up by vignettes of the past as told through home movies that illustrate how dysfunctional the family was. Even the characters forget to be tense that there might be a killer on the loose because they want to watch these movies, and Rose inexplicably forgets her gun while trapped in the house with a killer. But what can you do?

By the time Daisy’s father is killed, I had a couple theories floating around as to who the killer would be, and I was partially right. As the story unfolds, we see that each member of the Darker family is capable of incredible viciousness, including Nana, who, with Daisy as the narrator, seemed to initially be a good person. But even in reading her will, she reveals herself to be cruel almost unnecessarily. And even Daisy, who by benefit of being the POV character, seemed to be the most capable of feeling, was shown to have instances of really vicious bursts of revenge against her sisters. And even Trixie, who all the characters constantly tell us is good and kind, which even she herself says, reveals herself to be the most monstrous of them all.

There was no way not to suspect Trixie and Nana. I hadn’t thought of them together, though the motive was what I thought it was. But it was almost chilling how much Trixie didn’t care that she murdered her entire family for the sake of a ghost of an aunt she never met. Also didn’t predict Daisy’s death until about halfway through the novel, when it was obvious no one had directly interacted with her, but the three threads coming together was pretty original.

Like ATTWN, I don’t know if Rose, the last one to die and directly by Trixie’s hand, was really the most “guilty” and thus the most deserving of the last death. Rose’s main crime is devoting herself too much to her vet practice at the cost of pushing away her own family, and for standing by and watching Lily and Connor kill Daisy. But even Nana admits that Rose might’ve had the right of the former considering how dysfunctional they were. And is failing to stop something really more guilty than actually plotting and carrying out the act of violence? Vera in ATTWN was also the most “guilty” of the bunch by ostensibly being guilty of not saving the child in her care from drowning in time (it’s a little ambiguous if she actually did it or if the guilt of it was warping her mind by the end of the novel), but it always rubbed me the wrong way because Judge Redgrave writes about how as a woman, she was extra guilty because this was childcare and thus a violation of her womanly instincts. The judgment against Rose felt similarly unnecessarily harsh. /rant.

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

I had obviously heard about this book, but don’t think I went into it with any expectations on how it would go. I just had pretty much absorbed it like the pop culture phenomena it was. It’s been out long enough that I don’t think I’m spoiling anything, but here’s a cut nonetheless.

Maybe because of that, but my opinion of the book changed pretty gradually the more I read it. First off, I didn’t like any of the characters at the outset. None of the characters are immediately likeable; in fact, some of them are pretty detestable. But around the halfway mark of the novel, I found that my opinions on the characters had settled into a pretty firm strata: I had soften considerably towards Tristan and Libby; Tristan because he seems to be the only one with feelings, and Libby because her flaws (like her insecurities) were so relatable to my own. From start to finish, Nico and Reina stayed at the same level -- neither my faves nor The Worst, in a way they were almost forgettable (Reina by design, Nico’s gregariousness notwithstanding). Parisa and Callum remained detestable - but with a sharper focus as to why by the end. Their god complexes just made them so insufferable.

Despite not immediately being engaged by any of the characters, I realized what propelled me through the story was the strength of the writing. I don’t mean just in terms of world building or description, though I was naturally drawn to the idea of a group of talented, adult magicians (or meidans) who were already in faculty of their powers but were nerdy enough to continue their education and make entering the Library of Alexandria their ultimate goal. I mean that the prose was really subtle and deft. Blake ends up conveying a lot--or at least just dropping enough that the imagination could supply the rest--in just one line. I found myself going back over the lines to make sure I didn’t miss any details, and otherwise puzzling over the line which seemed so fraught with meanings that I wasn’t yet privy to. It was compelling--I had to keep reading. And by the time the plot reveals itself, then there were other reasons to keep going.

Overall it was a really fun experience, and I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel that was announced.

Very very overdue photo of this year’s Yallwest haul