 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book recommended based on your favorite book.
The Gate to Women's Country, by Sheri S. Tepper. I'm sorry, but there's no way to discuss this book, and why it so completely didn't work for me, without spoilers. The Popsugar prompt was "a book recommended by an AI chatbot based on your favorite book." I'm not a fan of AI or chatbots, especially since they sometimes recommend books that don't exist. I think I stayed within the spirit of the prompt: I looked up my two favorite books (The Handmaid's Tale and Woman on the Edge of Time), and checked out Amazon's "You might also enjoy" recommendations. I sorta see the connection to this book; it's dystopian science fiction from the same era (1988), with a lot to say about gender politics. But it went in a very different direction. It's a few generations post-apocalypse, and most technology and knowledge have been lost. The women live in cities, running society and trying to recover lost knowledge. The men live in garrisons outside, raised as warriors to protect their cities. Twice a year, men and women meet in month-long carnivals of partying and sex. Sons are turned over to their fathers at age five. At fifteen, they're offered the opportunity to return and become "servitors" for the women. After 10 years of indoctrination in the honor and glory of warriors, few do. We meet Stavia at age 37, when her son rejects her in favor of the warriors. The plot moves back & forth between the present and the past, when 11-year-old Stevia gives forbidden books to a boy, Chernin. Chernin is under orders by his commander to manipulate her, because the men are sure the women have some "secret" that keeps them in control, and the men of Stavia's city hope to overthrow & enslave the women. The women do have a secret, known only to their ruling council: the "medical exams" all young women get before carnivals are actually to give them contraception. They also have post-carnival "medical exams" - where the women are secretly inseminated with sperm from the servitors. This is supposed to breed less violent men, in the hopes that men will eventually give up their warlike ways some generations later. Handing boys over for ten years of warrior indoctrination would seem to work against this. But even on its own terms, the plan makes no sense: we see multiple examples of servitors being violent when they deem it necessary for the greater good. The women, too, commit violence when they believe the men have gotten too dangerous - including manipulating the men into wars that will wipe out large numbers of fighters, including the women's own sons. There's a recurring theme of a performance of a play about Iphigenia: the Trojan War from women's point of view. Except, the women keep insisting it's a comedy. Trigger warnings for violence, rape, domestic violence, suicide, and whatever you call the violation when a woman is inseminated with the wrong man's sperm without her knowledge and consent.
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 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book including a married couple who don't live together.
Wide Is the Gate, by Upton Sinclair. This is the fourth book in Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd spy series. The earlier books show why Lanny became a socialist and anti-fascist. This one shows how he developed the skills that will turn him into a a presidential agent in the next book. It's 1936, and the Spanish Civil War is raging around him. Lanny pulls off two daring rescues, using his wit, connections, money, and powers of persuasion. Spoilers about the marriage situation: it was clear by the end of the previous book, Dragon's Teeth, that Lanny's marriage to Irma was doomed. Irma is an heiress who fell for Lanny because he was unimpressed by her wealth. Lanny told her he was a socialist, but 19-year-old Irma had no idea what that meant. Lanny assumed, incorrectly, that he could mold her to share his views. Irma has legitimate reasons for the divorce: Lanny repeatedly lies to her, puts himself in danger, and inadvertently endangers Irma when he brings her to Germany and later needs her help to rescue his friend Trudi, a member of the German underground. But Irma comes across as shallow and materialistic, with a side of, "I'm not anti-Semitic, but...." The second spouses for both characters were also introduced in the previous book. Irma finds the life she wants with a conservative British lord. Lanny marries Trudi, even though they will have to keep it secret and live apart to continue their undercover work. Lanny's method of wooing with Trudi, as with previous loves, is oddly cerebral. Throughout this series, Lanny dabbles in spiritualism. The seances always leave him only partially convinced, as the dead people who want to talk to him never seem to be the ones he wants to hear from, or the ones who could give him useful information. But there's also an incident when the spirit who appears is someone who just died that day, and neither Lanny nor the medium had any way to know about the death. Nazis and fascists are strangely credulous with Lanny. Goring is willing to believe Lanny has turned apolitical, and even enlists him as an informant - even though Lanny was previously tortured in a Nazi prison while unsuccessfully trying to save Freddi Robin. Freddi, a Jew, was a lifelong friend of Lanny's, and a family member by marriage. Somehow, Goring and other Nazis assume Lanny is willing to overlook this. The explanation offered is Nazi arrogance: they're so sure of their own superiority, they can't imagine Lanny doesn't share this view. That explanation seems insufficient, but as with the spiritualism, I find it's best to suspend disbelief and go with the story.  Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book whose title starts with "Y". You & Yours, by Naomi Shihab Nye. This poetry collection came out in 2005. While the first section, "You," addresses a variety of topics, the second half, "Yours," is mostly focused on the Iraq war. The poems are layered, but speak with ringing clarity. The book begins with "Cross That Line," a poem about radical musician Paul Robeson: What countries may we sing into? What lines should we all be crossing? What songs travel toward us from far away to deepen our days? "Lives of the Women Poets" is a found poem slyly compiled from biographical notes in a women's poetry anthology: Her most famous love conquest was George Bernard Shaw. Her poetry has been subject to a lot of criticism. Her content is not always to today's taste. Her work ought to appear immature, which it does not. Nye, who is Arab-American, speaks of "The Sweet Arab, the Generous Arab," because she fears no one else will. In "During a War," she contemplates a letter offering "best wishes to you& yours:" For a moment I can't fold it up again - where does "yours" end? Dark eyes pleading what could we have done differently? "Peace Pilgrim, You Are Still Walking" begins as a tribute to peace activist Mildred Norman Ryder, but closes with a universal plea: Oh peace. Dear peace. Don't give up on us. Don't leave us stranded, please.  Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about a cult.
The Future, by Naomi Alderman. This novel isn't strictly about a cult, but it is significant to the plot that one of the characters grew up in a survivalist cult, and we get some of the lessons she took from that. The story is about three mega-rich CEOs whose personalities and companies bear a suspicious resemblance to well-known ones in the real world. They all have bunkers and/or private islands in case of the collapse of civilization, and a cutting-edge app that tells them when it's time to go, before the rest of the world catches on. The app goes off, they head for safety, and things definitely don't go according to plan. Interwoven with this plot is a love story between Martha (the cult survivor, and assistant to one of the CEOs) and Lai Zhen, who reports on survivalist technologies and movements. Like Martha, Zhen has a trauma from her childhood that shapes how she deals with crisis. Now, somehow, Zhen finds herself on the island with the CEOs. The twist at the end wasn't a total surprise, but it was set up well, and decidedly satisfying. As in Alderman's book The Power, the title for this one carries several levels of meaning. Martha and Zhen note that the future is what keeps people going, no matter what the past was. The CEOs rely on an app that predicts the future. But as the story shows repeatedly, there's only one way to truly know the future: to create it yourself.  Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about a food truck.
Going Bicoastal, by Dahlia Adler. The book isn't strictly about the taco truck, but it does play a significant role in one of the two plotlines. And I've definitely been in the mood for tacos lately. This book is a young adult rom-com using the "sliding doors" trope: the story can go one of two ways, depending on a decision at the beginning. If 17-year-old Natalya decides to spend the summer in Los Angeles with her estranged mother, she'll find a career direction using her drawing skills, and romance with Adam, an aspiring chef who works on his brother's food truck, Bros Over Tacos. If she stays in New York with her father instead, she'll find a different career direction using her drawing skills, and romance with Elly, an aspiring music journalist. (In addition to being bicoastal, Natalya's also bisexual.) To help the reader keep the alternating chapters straight, Natalya goes by "Tal" with her NYC friends and "Nat" with her LA ones. Because it's more like two novellas than a novel, there isn't a lot of room for conflict. Natalya's relationship with her mother gets better (though not unrealistically perfect) in both storylines. Aside from a brief bad first impression of Adam, it's mostly happy times. New friendships and love come easily, and the romances both become sexual (though not explicit) pretty quickly and with very little self-doubt or awkwardness. The clear theme throughout is one of endless possibility. At 17, Natalya doesn't have to have her whole future figured out. There are many ways to find your happily-ever-after ending, and every door that Natalya closes means another one opens.  Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about an unlikely friendship.
James, by Percival Everett. This was billed as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim, the escaped slave. It's quite a bit more subversive than that, in a brilliant way. The first third of the book follows the plot of Huckleberry Finn: James flees to avoid being sold, and stumbles into Huck, who's running away from home. In Huckleberry Finn, they bond over being outsiders and runaways. In this book, it's a lot more complicated, and James only gradually trusts Huck with the truth about himself. They travel down the river, and fall in with a couple of traveling con men. The con men seize James and sell him the first chance they get. The second section diverges into what happened to James while he and Huck were separated. He's put to work at a dangerous sawmill, where accidental mutilations are treated as a fact of life. Later, he winds up in a minstrel troupe. There's a sort of Victor/Victoria vibe to this part: a Black man secretly pretending to be a White man overtly pretending to be a Black man. James doesn't know what to make of the minstrels. Their whole act is mocking Black people, yet they treat him like just another one of the guys - until he tries to leave. James and Huck are reunited in a riverboat accident. James has to choose between saving Huck or another friend, which serves as a warning that the final section of the book is about to take a much darker turn. All through the book, Everett shows the routine violence of slavery. Near the end, there's an excruciating scene where James witnesses an enslaved woman being raped by a White overseer, and knows he can't come out of hiding to save her. He's well aware that this has happened to his wife, and will happen to his daughter if it hasn't already. When James later takes violent revenge, he's nothing like the gentle, pious soul that we saw through Huck's eyes in Huckleberry Finn. In real life, of course, violence by enslaved people was rare because it guaranteed horrific punishment. So when wish-fulfillment scenes like this show up in James and other books by Black authors (Drapetomania, for instance), it's viscerally satisfying. A recurring theme is James needing to speak for himself, in his own voice. There's a wickedly funny scene near the beginning where James and his family speak grammatical English among themselves, but teach the children to speak in an exaggerated dialect, and they explain the rules for speaking with White people. (For instance, if "Mistress" is throwing water on a grease fire, they must suggest getting sand instead, while letting it appear to be her idea.) Later James gets hold of a pencil, and wants to write his thoughts in a notebook, even if he's not sure of what to say. The "Negro songs" performed by the minstrels are written by their White leader, and James finds them incomprehensible. And Huck is left behind at the end, because despite their friendship, this isn't his story - it's about James, and the man he chose to become.  Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book under 250 pages.
How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith, by Mariann Edgar Budde. This book caught my attention after the author, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, became a target for Trump's wrath for admonishing him about compassion, including toward immigrants and refugees. She previously rebuked him for using her church as a prop so he could hold a bible upside down while tear-gassing protesters. The book is written from a progressive Christian point of view, and quotes the bible liberally, but is clearly meant to be inclusive. For instance, she quotes Ta-nehisi Coates on how his atheism informs his activism. For Coates, resistance to injustice has to be its own reward, because resistance is rarely successful in one person's lifetime. The lessons are unsurprising: take risks, own your mistakes, be persistent. But the examples are well-chosen, whether from famous activists, people in her own life, or her own experiences such as dealing with chronic pain. Even when discussing an obvious choice like Martin Luther King Jr., she chooses an unexpected example - how even his own colleagues disagreed with him about the Poor People's Campaign, but he did the courageous thing anyway.  Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book with a left-handed character.
The Countess Conspiracy, by Courtney Milan. This is a friends-to-lovers historical romance. Sebastian and his cousins were nicknamed "The Brothers Sinister" in school, because they were all left-handed. Sebastian is notorious for being a romantic rake, a religious skeptic, and a scientist who studies naughty things like plant and animal reproduction. He has a decent grasp of the science, but the discoveries he's published aren't really his. They were made by his best friend Violet, a widowed countess who can't get her work published under her own name. As is often true in Milan's books, Violet has a painful secret that makes her reluctant to start a romantic relationship. Sebastian is gentle and truly loving with her, recognizing when Violet isn't ready for sex, even when she's all but throwing herself at him. The author's note at the end is illuminating: the book was inspired by real-life women scholars and scientists who mostly had to settle for being thanked in the acknowledgements when their work was published by a husband or another man. This being a romance, Violet naturally gets a happier ending.  Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about space tourism.
Vacation on Planet Glor: A Mix-Your-Own Darklingverse Jam, by L. A. Guettler. "Choose your own adventure" books were popular when I was a kid, before the rise of video games as the way to make yourself the protagonist in the story. This one is not for kids, though: at least one story path leads to an inter-species orgy. The book is very funny, profane, and full of truly twisted twists. As the protagonist, "you" are a nerdy tourist on your first vacation in years. Your hotel sucks, crooks and cops alike prey on tourists, and a simple trip to the Natural History Museum turns out to be not so simple. Depending on the choices you make, you may wind up dead, arrested, kidnaped, or stuck in a time loop. Some of the endings are unexpected variations on "happily ever after." This book is set in the same universe as Red Darkling and Bonkpocalypse, and there are assorted cameos from characters from the Darklingverse. It works as a stand-alone, though. The only thing it needed was more page time for my favorite character: Bonk, the glitchy robot cat. 5 great humorous thoughts on writing - and one of them was mine!
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