The Left Hand of Darkness

Since I read this one back in February (appropriate, as the east coast was under a foot of snow all through February, and this book takes place on a frigid planet), I originally grouped it with several other books from late winter/early spring. As I started writing it, though, I realized that my thoughts on it couldn't be condensed into 250 words, and the post needed to include at least one Keanu Reeves meme. So, uh, here it is. The post, not the Keanu Reeves meme. It's a couple paragraphs down.

I like my sci-fi like I like my coffee: in abundance. Sometimes I like it dark and rich, sometimes I like it full of foamy sweet stuff. This was the former. Ursula K. Le Guin, a pioneer for female sci-fi writers, is one of my literary heroes; I have always sort-of thought of her as the Gloria Steinem of nerdy feminists, always willing to make us question conventions of the sci-fi and fantasy genres and our society at large (who says fantasy heroes have to be broadsword-wielding, Viking-white medieval dudes? Not Ursula K. Le Guin).

The Left Hand of Darkness drew me in with the social implications of its world building: it is set on Winter, a world populated by humans who are without a fixed gender. They are androgynous 90% of the time, and are only "male" or "female" (as we understand gender) during the peak of their mating cycle. Even more interesting: they don't always assume the same gender during a cycle. Sometimes, you're the female, sometimes, they're the male - it is entirely possible for any given person to carry their first child and father their second. This is how I reacted to that concept:

Winter is not perfect - there are still wars, marginalized groups, corrupt governments, and all of the other depressing things that mar even the most seemingly utopian societies. What there aren't, though, are strict gender roles - because Winter does not divide people into women and men. They're just humans. Everybody has to take care of children. Everybody has to learn to defend their families. Everybody should know how to cook. Everybody has to help build a house. Nobody feels the need to put rubber testicles on their pickup's trailer hitch to demonstrate their masculinity (oh, how I wish Truck Nutz was a made-up thing).

Our narrator is Genly Ai, an envoy from Earth whose permanent maleness freaks the people of Winter out. As he learns about Winter's culture, he slowly but surely falls into a kind of love with Estraven, an androgynous native of Winter who also ends up a hunted political exile. Part of me wishes they would have fallen into a full-blown romance; it would have been interesting to see which gender Estraven would have assumed in taking Ai as a lover - that would have opened up a whole other can of worms, which I would have happily sorted through. As is, though, the speculation of what could have happened is almost as much fun.

The Left Hand of Darkness, interestingly, is both timeless AND obviously a product of its time: it has early women's lib movement written all over it. Part of me wishes Le Guin would write a sequel that focuses on Winter's outliers - the marginalized populace who don't conform to the norms of Winter's sexual pattern. I mentioned before that it would have been interesting to note the outcome of a romance between Ai and Estraven, although that would have redirected the focus from gender roles to sexuality. That being said, the gender roles that this book challenges are still (sadly) incredibly relevant, and I relished viewing them through the Winter citizen's lens.

Pride and Prejudice, Longbourn

So... here I am, trying to catch up with my 50 books. Luckily for me, it is summer vacation, and I can do just that. Until I am caught up, however, I'll be condensing reviews into several books per post, at least until I finish Diana Gabaldon's Outlander, which is a brick (but a fun brick so far).

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) - Before I get into this review, full disclosure time: I have picked up P&P several times, I own at least two really pretty copies of it, and before now, had never read it. This was how my inner dialogue usually went: I could read Pride and Prejudice... eh, I've seen the BBC miniseries AND the Keira-Knightly movie..that's enough for me to sound smart about it in conversations, right?
I know, I know, worst librarian/English major ever.
The second embarrassing thing is that I read Longbourn first (reviewed below), which is what inspired me to finally read P&P. I listened to the audiobook on my commute, narrated by the effortlessly graceful actress Lindsay Duncan, and found myself transported into a world of green gardens with wrought-iron gates and porcelain teacups with hand-painted roses. It was nice to get lost in Darcy and Elizabeth's (often hilariously) genteel anguish, knowing the happy ending was always in sight. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though the Colin-Firth's-clingy-shirt-in-the-pond scene doesn't happen in the novel. C'est la vie.

Longbourn (Jo Baker) - Upstairs, Downstairs was a British soap opera from the 70's that was Downton Abbey before Downton Abbey was Downton Abbey. That is to say, it was a show that chronicled the lives and loves of the rich folks in an English manor (upstairs) AND their oft unseen servants (downstairs). Longbourn does something similar, only it tells us the stories of the heretofore invisible servants in Pride and Prejudice, with the drama of P&P unfolding upstairs. The book was utterly transporting, with gorgeous prose and impeccable research into daily life of the Regency-Era landed gentry (I was kind of swoon-y through the whole book, even if there were descriptions of cleaning out the privy). What made Longbourn set my little literary-nerd heart aflutter, though, was when the upstairs drama, unfolding in the background, would intersect with the downstairs drama. The well-known upstairs characters of P&P would have surprisingly deep and direct ties to the downstairs characters in Longbourn, and every time a new revelation would unfold, I would end up looking like one of those YouTube compilation videos of people reacting to twists on Game of Thrones. My consensus? The book was like a flourless chocolate cake: you want to devour the whole thing in three bites, but you also want to savor it, slowly, enjoying every morsel. My copy better get used to its relatively pristine condition now, because it's going to end up one of those well-loved trade paperbacks with lines down the spine and dog-eared pages.

Catching Up: The Throne of Glass Series, by Sarah J. Maas

So. Since I waited until March to start blogging, I am BEHIND. So, here is post 1 of my mad catch-up dash, originally posted on Goodreads for Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass series.*

*Okay, so I know the asterisk is supposed to go at the bottom, but I felt like this explanation couldn't wait because then I would feel dishonest. Of the three books currently published in the series, I read one of them in 2014. Egads, gasp, shock, keel over, done. Anyway, this review counts as two books. 

This series, altogether, gets an average of 3 1/2 stars from me, when all things considered, it should have gotten one or two. I listened to the audiobooks on my morning commute for the last month, and laughed out loud more than once when humor was not intended or appropriate. But... I couldn't stop listening/reading. And then I read the sequel. And then I read the other sequel. And now, I find myself Twitter-stalking the author for tidbits about book four.

Let's get the negative out of the way first, yes?

Not going for it (and these are complaints about the whole series):
1. Ridiculously derivative: this book is "Lady Eragon Traverses Middle Earth and Westeros to Bring Down the Capitol." More than once, I caught myself rolling my eyes so intensely I was afraid they would get stuck facing the back of my skull.
2. Celaena: Mary Sue. With ridiculous fantasy spelling: Maerie Ssu. Her major flaw is that she self-flagellates for stuff that (mostly) wasn't her fault. COME. ON.
3. The dudes: really, they're kind of interchangeable. Generic "broody-tortured-hot-dudes."
4. The villain: I like to call him President Sauron Snowdemort -- your basic megalomaniac sociopath (but not in a fun Sherlock kind of way).  He's so two-dimensional he might as well be a despicable paper-doll, rubbing his eeeeeevil hands together and crooning, "NO, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE!"

Going for it:
1. Brilliantly paced. No matter how silly or melodramatic or predictable I think the books are, I keep reading because I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.
2. The witches, not really featured until book three, ARE SO AWESOME. The whole series should be about the witches, and how they use their mighty dragon (uh, wyvern) army to take what is theirs with fire and blood (or, ah, iron teeth and claws).
3. After I have already complained about how predictable it can be, every now and again, the plot can be genuinely surprising.
4. I'm a high school librarian. I am forever searching for more books that a.) at least make an effort at character diversity**, b.) have strong heroines who don't necessarily swoon because someone's "hair fell in his eyes," c.) are high-interest, low-reading level, which means they are accessible to all my readers. This book meets all three criteria, and on principle, I don't generally give such books bad reviews.

**Emphasis here on "at least makes an effort;" this book totally has tokens. There's a token person of color, a token gay couple, etc...but they are present, and when you work in a small, relatively homogeneous community, every little bit counts. 

The 50-Book Challenge

My Goodreads challenge for 2015 is to read 50 books.

This has drawn mixed reactions from folks: from some, I get: "Holy cow! Fifty books! How will you find the time to do it?" From others, I get, "Pshaw. Fifty books? I read seventy-five over Christmas break."

English degree aside, I am not one of those people who can zip through two hundred pages in two hours. I never have been.

I like to absorb every word, and, perhaps because I aspire to be writer myself and know how writers often agonize over every word, I cannot bring myself to skip anything when I read.

Also, I'm a public-school educator AND in grad school, a combination which is not always conducive to ample time for pleasure reading.

So, my Goodreads challenge goal for 2015? Fifty books: a stretch, but doable. I guarantee you at least fifteen of those will be consumed over my two-month summer vacation.

There. Mission: Obligatory Introduction accomplished.