The Books I Read: November - December 2017

 
Eliza and her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

Eliza lives with a sitcom family of annoying siblings and health-nut parents who just "don't get it". They don't get computers, they don't get the Internet. They think the way to live life is out of doors, socializing face to face. And that's not the only place to find friends and success. Especially for severe introverts like Eliza.

Eliza is just a high schooler who writes a webcomic. A damn successful one. From the sound of it, it's on par with Penny Arcade and xkcd in terms of popularity, but more dramatic (and made in manga style with space-existential elements). But on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog, and Eliza's anonymity keeps her creative. Then she meets a new student, accidentally defending him against some bullies, and learns he's the premiere fan fiction writer for her comic.

This is a story about two people who find each other and bond through the thing they both like. It's like a John Green/Rainbow Rowell hybrid, which is high praise. I loved it. This is a great cozy romance for people with social anxiety. And a much needed contrast to "The Selection". In here, people are a little broken. They don't follow predictable stereotypes. They make bad decisions, decisions that hurt people, not Hallmark-movie pulled punches. I heartily recommend reading it.


Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn
(unfinished)

It took very little time for me to realize I did not want to continue this book. The killer was that all characters are douchebags or toadies right from the start. It's not a story about superheroes, it's more like the "assistant to a diva" you see in so many cookie-cutter films and shows. It's a trite way to provide conflict between females without any violence (or gravitas). And they're always the same--a beleaguered assistant, a jerkass boss, and the fiancee straight out of Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me".

The superhero doesn't even have real powers. She's a Black Widow-like gymnast, but only concerned about training and publicity. She's less concerned about the demon cupcakes she's fending off than getting good shots of it for Instagram.

Then the big conflict in the first act is that she gets a zit and how is she going to go to her party looking like that and what's her assistant going to do about it? I don't remember clogged pores playing a big role in the Dark Phoenix saga or Batman: Hush (although maybe that's why he had the bandages). I wanted a superhero story, not another "The Devil Wears Prada" knock-off.


Night Shift by Stephen King
(reread)

I couldn't sleep one night and this was the only thing around. I didn't feel like starting a whole new novel when I was about to get one from the library. Maybe it was because I'd finished Danse Macabre recently that I'd gotten a taste for the King. It's certainly better than "Just After Sunset".

Officially this is a re-read, but it had been so long ago, jumbled with other short stories from different collections, and totally out of order, that it felt fresh. I liked the majority of the stories and was able to skip the bad ones. But those weren't many (mostly the Salem's Lot tie-ins) Could be useful in a study of the short story, except that it's from 1960-1970s sensibilities, so I don't know how useful it is for learning how to break in now.


Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
(unfinished)

I love going into a book with no expectations, but it rarely happens. There's no almost no way you can look at a book without reading the summary. Thus you gain a little foreknowledge of its content (or at least what the marketing wants you to believe). So you already know the setup going in. But then you still have to get through the setup the novel provides. So really, you're waiting for the book to start while you already know how it starts. But I digress.

This book is not for me. I'm sure it's a great book, but it has content I care not one whit about. I first noticed when it was talking about the beauty of Europe and architecture and quaint little apartments and bistros and bars. Maybe I'm a fuddy duddy patriot who rarely gets past his own front door, let alone to another state for a vacation, but I have zero-to-no interest in architecture and antiques. Just because it's old doesn't mean it has value. It's clear the author doesn't think that way, and that's great for her. Every page reads like a love letter to old Europe, like it's some fairy tale land. But that's not for me.

The main character is an American girl studying art in Prague and I'm immediately reminded of Tithe by Holly Black (which I also didn't finish) and A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (which I regretfully did). I've seen this before too, and it smells of entitlement. I resent for those going into passion majors, like art history, because then they complain there's no jobs for them, when they should have taken classes in something that can translate to a paying job. And of course, the first plot point is boy troubles.

But the style is damn poetic. It uses similes I've never heard of. It's worth reading for the writing technique, even if the plot isn't especially compelling. It's worth sampling the first few chapters alone just to see the way Taylor writes. That alone can interest a reader. I kept going to see if there was maybe something else valuable.

Then the "Beauty & the Beast" stuff starts. The main girl is connected to the demon world in some way--her adopted dad and all his friends are demons, but he keeps a King Triton-esque wrap on her activities (the dad even looks like the Beast™). Then an angel soldier starts waging jihad on them, and he's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen... She can't stop thinking about him, has butterflies in her stomach... even though he unleashed the fire of God on everyone she knows. Someone here is in love with the idea of being in love, like Bella in Twilight. This star-crossed romance is also not my thing. I needed less attention on the relationshippy-ness and more on her family.

Now don't take this to mean I don't or can't read books intended for female audiences. I loved "Eleanor & Park" and "Ella Enchanted". I think the big stopping point was that this book lacked a character to identify with, which is totally not the book's fault. I'm a 36-year-old straight white male computer programmer with two kids and a mortgage. There's no cushion shaped for my butt in these pages. It could be fine for my daughter... when she turns sixteen.


Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate by Zoe Quinn

It's hard to read a book like this in a time like 2017, but it's necessary. Christ, how naive we were back then, when "ethics in journalism" was all we had to worry about from the alt-right. But I'm getting off track.

GamerGate was a phenomenon filled with false information, fake news, lies, damned lies, statistics, and damned lying statistics. But in 2014, we had no precedent for this kind of thing. This was the shining premiere of famed Men's Rights Activists Toby Fair and Actual Lee. But after the Kotaku posts and Reddit threads, there's a person at the end of the computer, and this is her story how a bunch of assholes made a her life miserable by publishing personal information and online harassment.

Only half the book is really the tale of GamerGate from Zoe Quinn's perspective. The other half is what can we do about it--what's wrong with the current state of online bullying and what the police and congress can't or don't do about it (meaning they're woefully behind the times). I would rather have a book on the whole GamerGate scenario, dissecting the truth and laying it out in narrative non-fiction. But I can't judge the book based on what I wanted, only what it is.

And I guess it depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for Zoe Quinn's side of the story, it's here. If you're looking for information on how you can further the cause of stopping online harassment and bullying, it's here. But the two tastes don't taste great together. It's not a memoir, it's more of an advocacy book. But it's all difficult to get through (because it's so disgusting to read about) and given everything that's happening in the world today, it's hard to give such things serious thought with nuclear war and white supremacy on the horizon.

Zoe Quinn's a surprisingly good writer for being an engineer/coder (but then again, so am I). I'd only recommend this book if you're at all interested in GamerGate (maybe you are, having been a front-of-the-caution-tape witness), but not if bigger political issues flip your cookie.


The Shamer's Signet by Lene Kaaberbøl

A little slumpier than the first, but I don't mind giving three heaping stars to it. It doesn't feel like much in the world has changed. It's not like great advancements in the personal life or life of the world change greatly in this book. No huge revelations, no new characters. Even the old characters aren't seen much or developed upon. In other words, this is not "The Empire Strikes Back". It more feels like an addendum or sequel, rather than the continued story of Shamers.

That being said it's still a good book. This time you get a POV of her older brother (technical note: the book switches back and forth between Dina and Davin and I had trouble discerning whose POV was which, until I noticed their names at the beginning of each chapter). He acts like a typical hothead-fighter, wanting-to-prove-his-warrior-mettle, like Wart from "Sword in the Stone" or Taran from "The Black Cauldron". But Dina's got the biggest story arc and you feel more for her.

There's more action and less world-building/plot development. I get the sense the author didn't plan for a series, unless she's setting up some real far-reaching dominoes. Still, I recommend it and will be reading more in the series. Plus it's fun to write that O with the slash through it.

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