From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty: Review and Signing Experience

On October 12, I had the pleasure of finally meeting my favorite mortician, Caitlin Doughty. It was a signing for her second published work, From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death hosted by distinguished D.C. bookstore Politics and Prose. The same humor and charisma that makes Doughty’s “Ask a Mortician” YouTube series so successful lends itself well to writing and book promotion, delighting her audience and readers. When I first covered Doughty in an interview and book review in 2014, I called her a death geek to highlight her relevance to our site. Now it’s increasingly clear that no stretch of the imagination is needed to show that the good death movement and feminist movement are intertwined.

Book Review: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Powerful and timely, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas well deserves its long-held spot at the top of the New York Times Young Adult Bestseller list. If you read only one book this year, it ought to be this one. Thomas masterfully combines social justice and talented story-telling in this novel about teenage Starr Carter who witnesses her best friend being shot to death by the police. Not only does the novel examine major problems that affect people of color like police brutality, but it also explores smaller, more insidious ones like microaggressions and cultural appropriation. Every character is so multi-faceted and believable, you will find yourself caring deeply about them and what they are going through.

Book Review: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

If you are a feminist and haven’t been reading Adichie, it’s time to head to the library. Between her writings, TED Talks, and being featured in a Beyoncé song, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is steadily becoming a household name in the international feminist scene. After reading her novel Americanah for book club, I decided to check out some of her works that deal more directly with her ideas on feminism. Today I will review her most recent publication: the epistolary essay Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, originally written as a letter to her friend with advice on how to raise a feminist daughter.

Book Review: Labyrinth Lost–a Story of Latina Magic

Sometimes, as a teenager, you wish your family would just disappear. But what happens when you have the magic to actually make that happen? Sixteen-year-old Alejandra Mortiz finds out in Zoraida Córdova’s Labyrinth Lost, Book #1 of the Brooklyn Brujas series. Alex dreads the Deathday ceremony that will awaken her powers, but when she tries to banish her magic, she banishes her family instead. Drawing from Latin American myth and culture and blending them with common tropes of the genre, Córdova creates a unique fantasy world for Alex to explore as she explores her own heritage. And despite what the back cover would have you believe, this isn’t your typical boy-girl romance. This is a book primarily about women and the relationships between them, be they familial, antagonistic, or romantic.

Never Too Late – Picking up Harry Potter as an Adult

When I started dating my current boyfriend, he decided it was time to finally pick up Harry Potter, if only for the sake of our relationship. Otherwise, how could he hope to communicate with a girlfriend who speaks in 50 percent Harry Potter quotes? Ever wondered what your impression of the books would be if you picked them up in your mid-twenties, two decades after they came out? Wondering if it’s worth your time to jump on the bandwagon now if you missed the boat so many years ago? Let’s ask him and find out!

Interactive Fiction: Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls Ebook Review

Treasure hunting. Code breaking. Doodles and audio clips. If your reading experience doesn’t include these elements, then I guess you haven’t picked up Emilie Autumn’s new ebook edition of The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. While the detective skills may seem more fitting for a mystery novel, TAFWVG is actually part-autobiography, part-historical fantasy about being institutionalized for mental illness in the Victorian era and today. Emilie Autumn continues her dedication to a personalized relationship with her fans by developing this new level of interactive fiction.

Book Review: Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith A.K.A. J.K. Rowling

I’m a little late to the game but finally got around to reading The Cuckoo’s Calling, the first installment of J.K. Rowling’s detective mystery series published under her pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. The novel follows detective Cormoran Strike and his temp secretary Robin Ellacott as they investigate the suspicious suicide of supermodel Lula Landry. One of the major themes of the book is exploring different experiences of being black in England, engaging in race relations with a nuance often lacking in the Harry Potter universe. Rowling also steps up her disability representation by featuring a protagonist with a prosthetic leg but at the same time seems to make backward progress in her portrayal of women.

Book Review: Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke

The Ruby in the Smoke, Book One of Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart series, never gained the same fame as The Golden Compass and the rest of Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, perhaps for good reason. It’s a cute story but doesn’t have quite the magical draw of epic world-building that bolsters his other works. From a feminist perspective, I appreciated the feisty female protagonist who demonstrates math skills and business acumen, but on an intersectional level, the book fails. The novel is meant to be a treatise against opium and the role England played in encouraging the opium industry, but it is rife with simplistic or downright racist depictions of Asians and the East.

Diversity Among Shadowhunters: Cassandra Clare’s Lady Midnight

If you’re looking for a good YA series with bisexual, Hispanic, or autistic representation, it might be time to hop on the Dark Artifices train, as the second book was just released last Tuesday, May 23. From the author who brought us our first Jewish vampire and an immensely powerful gay warlock comes a new spin-off series from her original The Mortal Instruments world. Today I will review Lady Midnight (Book 1 of The Dark Artifices) by Cassandra Clare, particularly focusing on the minority characters Mark, Christina, and Ty.

Best Worlds and Settings in Modern Sci-fi/Fantasy

Recently, I’ve been reading Literary Wonderlands: A Journey through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created by Laura Miller. It outlines literary works with the best world-building across history, from early myths to modern sci-fi/fantasy franchises. Inspired by this, I’d like to share with you some of the books with the most immersive settings I’ve ever read, books that had me walking their worlds long after I closed the pages. (I skipped the obvious ones like Harry Potter, which were of course featured in Literary Wonderlands.)