Rated The Pisces 8/10
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Wants to read The Stolen: Two Short Stories
Rated Classical Philosophy 10/10
Edited 32d ago
Rated The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia 6/10
A good read, but not without its flaws. Stefaniak makes it clear that some people are born as legends, but I wish that had not come at the expense of some of the other characters.<br><br>(My full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2011/11/cailiffs-of-baghdad-georgia-by-mary.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Wants to read On Immunity: An Inoculation
Wants to read Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury
Rated Copycat: and a Litter of Other Cats 8/10
Oh, hey, look at me quoted in a blurb up there in the book's description. Yes, Copycat is indeed perfect for crazy cat people like me who also like puns. <br><br>My full review can be found at <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18528244-copycat">Persephone Magazine</a>.
Rated Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping 10/10
<div>I want to shove this into the hands of every writer and teacher of writing that I know. So much good stuff in here — inventive, smart ways of thinking about both craft and revision methods. I will be using a lot of this in my own work.</div>
Rated Want 5/10
<div>You know how I know this book is British? Income bracket is apparently a stat we need to know about these anonymous writers. The British class system: always lurking nearby.<br><br>Sorry to these women, but this was sometimes like listening to another person's dream. It doesn't take away from the meaning it has for the storyteller, but I'm kinda glazing over a bit. I skimmed some of the entries. There are a lot of "straight" women in this book who maybe need to have a harder think about their own desires. Also, I wish many of them would quit hating their bodies so much. And dump some of those dudes. At times, the fantasies felt too similar to each other, which is fine if that's what you like, variations on a theme, but as a collective reading experience, I didn't love it.<br><br>That said, just because I didn't love this doesn't mean it won't be revelatory to someone else. Fantasies are personal, of course, and this is definitely a book for the phrase "your mileage may vary."<br><br>Gillian Anderson's involvement is what made me pick up the book, and her introductions to each section do have some insights. Still, glad this was only a library book.</div>
Rated Torchwood: Serenity 8/10
Very much enjoyed this. I'm a sucker for "We have to go undercover as a couple and pretend to be normal" type stories. Also, John Barrowman seems better at this audio adventure than he was in the earlier ones I listened to. Less stilted. Maybe because he wasn't recording it separately? But Gareth David-Lloyd is always excellent in these stories. I need to eventually catch up on the rest of the Torchwood audio adventures.
Rated Gender Queer: A Memoir 9/10
<div>Finally read this excellent graphic novel that has been at the center of so much book censorship. The memoir very clearly demonstrates one person's struggles with gender dysphoria, the power of having representation, and a vocabulary to describe oneself. It's a shame, to put it mildly, that some people don't want young people to have that information and secure sense of self. I wouldn't 100% say this is a book for younger teenagers (ymmv; I'd have been fine with it), but 16+? Definitely a good book, especially for the young adults who NEED to see that being genderqueer and/or asexual is a perfectly fine and normal way to be. Seeing the support Kobabe's family provides is great.<br><br>Some NOT-young adults need this education too. It's as much a memoir as it is informational, and Kobabe's artwork is wonderful.<br><br>This was published in 2019, and alas, the Harry Potter and Neil Gaiman references certainly do NOT hold up, but that is not the fault of the author.</div><div><br></div>
Rated The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories 4/10
A resounding "This is fine, I guess."<br><br>Her speech/essay at the beginning of the book is more or less a very good commencement speech. You'd be pleased to have it at your graduation. As an "amazing" essay? It's nothing extraordinary, though the idea of "The Opposite of Loneliness" is very lovely.<br><br>Keegan has a preoccupation with mentioning people's weight (fat is rarely portrayed as positive), or pressing her/her characters' foreheads/faces against each other (AKA... a writer-tic that one might not notice until all the pieces are presented as a whole), and maybe I'm just too far away from college to be excited by someone who, as the introduction says, "writes like she's 20." The ideas of her being jealous of others, while completely natural, kind of made me laugh a bit because Oh okay, you who has an internship at The New Yorker, lived on Cape Cod, and otherwise had all these interesting opportunities in life, you're somehow lacking? Sure. Okay. Fine. <br><br>I'm sure Keegan was a lovely person, with a lot of potential to do amazing things down the line. Her story is indeed tragic, but I remember being more moved by the essay about her from a friend on Buzzfeed Books, when this came out.<br><br>So, this is book is fine, but like Keegan said herself, there's always a better thing.
Rated Doctor Who: The Wave of Destruction 7/10
<div>This was fine. The tone was very much like one of the just okay Classic serials of the era, but maybe different elements reminded me of too many other Doctor Who stories. 1960s London, weird signals transmitted through popular entertainment devices, etc. etc. Always enjoy hearing Romana II though, and K-9 gets some jokes in.</div>
Rated The Master and Margarita 10/10
Really enjoyed this and now sorta want a black cat named Behemoth.
Rated The Confessions of Dorian Gray: Frostbite 6/10
This was way more of a setup to a story than an actual story. I had hoped for a little more, but as a freebie, it's perfectly fine.
Rated Doctor Who: The Auntie Matter 8/10
<div>Fun one with the first Romana.</div>