Kat C

I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé

October 17, 2018 Leave a Comment

6 hrs and 9 min | Simon & Schuster | Memoir/Essay Collection | 07/24/2018

This memoir caught my eye because well . . . how can you bypass a book with a subtitle like that? I wasn’t familiar with Arceneaux before, but he is a prolific pop culture writer who often writes about the intersection of being Black and gay.

I’ve been kind of meh on memoirs by millennials lately*, particularly the ones around identity, because they feel like they are written specifically for the gaze of White liberal progressives. But Arceneaux’s stories are messier and have a personal authenticity that I enjoyed.

My favorite essays were the ones he wrote about his relationship to Catholicism and the importance of R&B music in his life. At first, it seemed like Beyoncé’s name was put in the title just to get clicks but once you get to his essay about Beyoncé it fell into place.

Arceneaux reads the audiobook, and it didn’t 100% work for me. While it was great to hear his particular southern accent, his affect was flat and stilted at times.

I also just admire Arceneaux’s hustle to become the media personality he’s become. While he doesn’t address it directly, there is an ongoing thread in the background of his essays about the years of hard work he put into building his career.

Arceneaux offers something new to the gay/pop culture essayist genre and I’m sure there will be many more books from him in the future.

*This review of Morgan Jenkins’ This Will Be My Undoinghits on a few the issues I have with some of these millennial memoirs about identity

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas (Lady Sherlock #1)

October 8, 2018 Leave a Comment

Release Date: 10/08/16 | Historical Mystery | 323 Pages | Berkley Books

In this reimagining of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective Sherlock Holmes is the pseudonym of Charlotte Holmes, an overly practical and hyper-observant member of the gentry who doesn’t quite fit into society’s standards. She spends her time solving everyday mysteries via letters, but when scandal strikes and Charlotte’s life is turned upside down, she finds herself solving her biggest mystery yet–a murder.

This is a fun origin story and functions as a kickoff for the rest of the series. All of your favorite Sherlockian characters are present but are introduced in new and interesting ways that I don’t want to spoil. Thomas gets into the nitty-gritty of the kinds of hoops a Victorian woman would have to go through to get to do any kind of detective work. There is definitely a feminist thread throughout the series, particularly when you look at how the circumstances of the main mystery are changed from the original story.

This is my first foray into the mystery genre and hopefully not my last.

Can we talk about how Sherry Thomas is slaying everything?She writes award-winning historical romances, YA fantasy and mysteryall in English–which is her second language! There are lot of romance authors who write more than romance, but she seems to be the only one to have a name for herself in so many genres.

The Supervillain and Me by Danielle Banas

September 23, 2018 Leave a Comment

310 pages | Swoon Reads | Sci-Fi YA | 07/10/2018

Crime rates have skyrocketed in Abby Hamilton’s town of Morristown, but luckily their local superhero, Red Comet (who is also secretly Abby’s brother), is always around to save the day. Abby is content just being a theater kid and leaving the saving to her super-powered brother, but when a new super teen known as Iron Phantom starts causing trouble Abby finds herself tangled up with Morristown’s first supervillain–who may not be so villainous after all.

Does anyone remember the movie Sky High? This book gave me a lot of those same vibes as that movie. The Supervillain and Me supers aren’t the angsty complex heroes of Marvel and DC films. The teens in tights are kind of treated like boy bands with their adoring fans, public signings, merch and thriving fanfiction communities–which I guess is a good time to note that although this is a debut novel, Danielle Banas is a prominent Wattpad author.

Also fair warning, despite being from the Swoon Reads imprint there are a lot more super saves than super swoons.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

September 17, 2018 Leave a Comment

Release Date: 08/20/18 | Science Fiction | 9 hours 45 minutes | Saga Press

The aliens have arrived— and in order for humanity to prove itself as a sentient species worthy of being welcomed into the greater galaxy, they must compete in an intergalactic singing competition.

Luckily, Earth’s been given a leg up as the welcome committee has already chosen the musical group most likely to place; The long defunct and estranged glitterpunk glamrock band Decibel Jones and The Absolute Zeroes. Now, Decibel Jones (aka Danesh Jalo) and Oort St. Ultraviolet (aka Omar Caliskan ) two middle-aged, washed up former rockstars have to get the band back together, travel across the universe and give a performance that will prevent the total annihilation of all of humanity.

This.Books.Is.Bonkers.

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Drawing Conclusions : Are Cartoon M/M Covers a New Trend ?

August 22, 2018 Leave a Comment

Lately, I’ve noticed a mini-trend of m/m centered YA with illustrated character covers.

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Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King

August 13, 2018 Leave a Comment

Release Date: 09/26/17 | 25 hours 22 minutes | Simon & Schuster Audio

When a mysterious virus causes sleeping to grow impenetrable cocoons, the entire world goes up in chaos and the final battlefield for humanity will involve a whole cast of characters in the small Appalachia town of Dooling, Maine...oh wait, West Virginia. This one takes place in West Virginia.

I’d been eyeing this book for a while because the premise sounded intriguing and let me tell you, the King men know how to weave together a tale with a vast cast of characters. One of my complaints with the few King books I’ve read is how poorly many of the female characters were written and I was curious about how female characters would fare in a book about women. I mean look, do I think a story about toxic masculinity told through the lens of horror tropes should be written by a middle-aged white dude and his Dad? Maybe not, but they do an okay job. I would in no way call this a feminist book because despite all the feminist epigraphs this book opens with, most of the book comes down to a schlubby middle-aged white dude savin’ the day. I mean, you could actually take most of the women’s POV out of this and still leave the story intact.

Also, yes this book is problematic for the way it leans hard into the gender binary.

Now let me talk about the audiobook narrator, Marin Ireland. She absolutely brings this 25-hour audiobook to life. Yes, I said 25 hours and I’m glad I’ve started moving into 1.5 speed on audiobooks or I ever would have never finished this behemoth. This is one of those thick King (…and King) novels that has a cast list at the beginning and she managed to create a unique voice for each one of the Dooling townsfolk. I feel like this book could have easily gone array because of the West Virginia accents but she does it well. Although I kind of side-eye how only the lower class characters get the accents.

Also bonus, the audiobook has an interview with the King men at the end that was fun to listen to!

-mild spoilers-

This book is dedicated to Sandra Bland which feels a little tone deaf after reading this book because it has a scene at the very end where an innocent black female character is killed by a cop by mistake and we’re supposed to sympathize with the cop.