Book Review: Upside Down by N.R. Walker

This book was highly recommended by ace bookstagram, which is where I first heard about it. One ace bookstagrammer I follow said it's her comfort read and that she reads it dozens of times a year! I had high hopes for this one. Book summary:

Jordan O’Neill isn’t a fan of labels, considering he has a few. Gay, geek, a librarian, socially awkward, a nervous rambler, an introvert, an outsider. The last thing he needs is one more. But he when he realises adding the label ‘asexual’ might explain a lot, it turns his world upside down.

Hennessy Lang moved to Surry Hills after splitting with his boyfriend. His being asexual had seen the end of a lot of his romances, but he’s determined to stay true to himself. Leaving his North Shore support group behind, he starts his own in Surry Hills, where he meets first-time-attendee Jordan.

A little bewildered and scared, but completely adorable, Hennessy is struck by this guy who’s trying to find where he belongs. Maybe Hennessy can convince Jordan that his world hasn’t been turned upside down at all, but maybe it’s now—for the first time in his life—the right way up.

It was definitely the fact that Jordan is a librarian that cinched it for me. Ace rep AND a librarian? Insta-buy. Jordan's librarianship seems to consist mostly of shelving, helping patrons, and gossiping with his lesbian BFF Merry (who works with him). That seems fair. I liked that Jordan suggested Hennessy hold the ace support group meetings in the library's meeting room, as that is such a librarian thing to do. Jordan's claim that he needs to wear a grey suit & button-up shirt every day, forcing him to accessorize solely with scarves and shoes, seems less likely. Public librarians typically dress anywhere from casual to business-y. You probably won't see a librarian in jeans, but I highly doubt you'll see one in a full business suit. Australia (where this book is set) does not strike me as an overly formal place. Merry wears the colorful twee librarian aesthetic, obvi.

This book is, naturally, very heavy with ace rep. It's always affirming to read a book with asexual characters, but this one is almost too heavy, with whole paragraphs sounding like they've been pulled from AVEN or an encyclopedia. This could be a good introductory read for people who best consume concepts from stories, but as a seasoned ace from the Graduate School of Tumblr, I got kind of impatient with the Asexuality 101 and 102 explanations. Both Hennessy and Jordan have had relationships end because they were ace, and Jordan felt like he was broken because he didn't want to have sex. The pain behind those occurrences felt real and grounded the story. I wish I had a local ace support group; that would be sweet.

To me, the characterization is the weakest point. Neither character really seems real; they just seem like a combination of various tropes, attributes and roles. Hennessy (SUCH a dumb name) is basically a perfect guy: he's really good-looking, really smart, really nice, very moral and a good friend. He's the encyclopedia entry-spouter. His awful name and cool job are the only interesting things about him. He's pretty boring. Jordan is Adorkable To The Max. He rambles CONSTANTLY, like the stupidest stuff no one in their right mind would say out loud. He truly sounds unhinged and is constantly drowning in anxiety to an unhealthy degree. His brain goes immediately to the worst-case scenario for the smallest things. He's also constantly blurting out Samuel L. Jackson's favorite word, very loudly, in the most inappropriate times. Merry truly deserves a medal for putting up with him. It would be exhausting to be his friend, let alone his significant other. I grew tired of his spiels very quickly and found them embarrassing and annoying rather than funny or cute. Jordan is supposed to be 26, but he sounds and acts much younger, like a teen baby gay. It irritated me that I was supposed to find this anxiety-ridden mess funny.

Jordan and Hennessy's relationship is kind of cute. They ride the same bus and are cute together, and the other commuters get emotionally involved in their relationship and ship them and give advice, which is kind of funny. Their dates are cute, and I want to go to the restaurants they visited because the food sounds amazing. Hennessy is constantly having to reassure Jordan due to his anxiety and low self-esteem. I found the climax of the plot irritating because it involved Jordan's anxiety and thinking-the-worst-ness and a lack of communication. There's also a poly secondary plot with some of their friends. The writing in this book felt very fanfiction-y, kind of juvenile, romance-focused and gush-y. To be fair, I have read amazing writing in fanfiction before, better than some published books I've read (like this one). The book was published in 2019 but feels like it takes place in the early 2010s for some reason.

Overall, I mostly liked this book and am glad I read it. I wish I'd had/read this book when I was an older teen, as I think I would haven enjoyed it more and gotten more from it. Other people hyped it up so much for me that I expected more and was kind of disappointed.

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: June 14-15
From: Book Shop dot org
Status: keep for now

Cover notes: This cover seems really late 2000s/early 2010s to me, with the dots and the partial faces and the zany font (which I do like). I think this cover is subtle enough, for those who are wary of reading gay books in public. The back cover does have the blurb though. I like how the asexual flag is on the top arrow of the  N of the title.

Trigger warnings for this book: acephobia, anxiety, panic attacks (I think),  homophobia mentions, character estranged from birth family, house break-in and theft mention, sex mentions, an interaction can be read as polyphobic, high on chemical fumes mentions, drunk amorous couple mention

Book Review: Ash by Malinda Lo

Spoilers throughout, since I'm incapable of talking about a book without saying them

Malinda Lo's books have at least tangentially been on my radar for a while because she writes a lot of fairytale retellings, and those are my favorites. I've never read anything by her, though, as I don't read a lot of YA these days (well, much less than I used to in my twenties). I got this one from Book Outlet, unsurprisingly. Book summary:

In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Their friendship, as delicate as a new bloom, reawakens Ash's capacity for love—and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing and empowering, Ash beautifully unfolds the connections between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

Everyone is familiar with the sadness of the Cinderella story: Cinderella's father is dead, or isn't around to defend/protect her from her wicked stepmother and stepsisters; said steps treat her cruelly and force her to be a servant; they don't let her go to the ball. But Ash is soaked with grief from beginning (we open on Ash's mother's funeral) to almost the end. Grief and a desire to escape is the constant throughout the story. An explanation is given for the stepmother forcing Ash to be a servant: Ash's father saddled the family with his debt when he died. The numbness from grief and depression explains why she stays and doesn't fight back. Ash does feel grief about her father's death, but it's more about losing the last bit of childhood safety and security that she had. If her grief for her father's death is a lake, her grief for her mother's death is the ocean.

The plot with Sidhean is interesting. You may have gathered from the name that the country this book is set in is based heavily on, or is a version of, medieval/renaissance Ireland (Ash's actual name is Aisling, pronounced ASH-ling). The fairies of this book and its stories are the dangerous, alluring fairies of Irish (and other) folklore. They spirit unsuspecting or enthralled humans away, steal babies and leave changelings, time in fairyland is different than time in the human world, and they are said to be found in the deep forest. Ash returns to the forest again and again for this reason. Her life is so miserable that she'd prefer to be taken by the fairies, and wonders if they took her mother. Ash's dynamic with Sidhean, who of course is gorgeous, alluring, and kind of creepy in his unhumaness, is very standard YA/sometimes adult fantasy romance. She is attracted to him, literally; she is drawn to him like a pin to a magnet. She continually asks him when he will take her away. She is SPOILER the one human Sidhean has ever fallen in love with, due to a curse. That Ash ends up with the huntress Kaisa instead is truly the funniest form of straightbating I've ever seen. I knew it was going to happen, but the way their dynamic is written made me question it, as the straight pairing really feels inevitable. END SPOILER

The dynamic with Kaisa is interesting. She's the King's Huntress, which is such a kickass title and job to have. Their relationship is a really slow-burn one, in contrast to the instant attraction to Sidhean. At first they just seem like friends. While Sidhean represents the deep, dangerous, and dark part of the forest, Kaisa is the normal, light-filled, nature part of the forest. Ash has been cooped up in the house and walked constantly in the dark of the forest, hoping to be taken, but Kaisa brings light into her life, offering her kindness and friendship to Ash. Kaisa teaches Ash to ride a horse. Ash goes to the royal hunt and the ball to see her. It may seem to most readers that less time and effort is spent on developing or depicting the relationship between Ash and Kaisa, that it lacks the spark that Ash and Sidhean have, but it's important that love is shown as not the flash of attraction, but as a quiet, steady thing you build together over time. 

I loved the little flashes of queerness in this book. It is of course very queer to feel as if one doesn't belong, to long for escape, and to be hated or abandoned by one's family, sadly. Read this article for a queer mini-analysis of Cinderella. The first time Ash feels seen after her parents' deaths and enslavement is when the huntress before Kaisa visits the manor Ash's stepfamily are guests at and smiles at and talks to her, telling her a fairytale and maybe winks at her? Ash feels alive and is a bit disappointed when the huntress leaves without looking at her again. Kaisa tells her a fairytale about a huntress and fairy queen falling in love (!) to gauge if Ash is queer. When at her stepmother's relative's house, the other servants convince her to sneak off with them to a bonfire costume party and give her a (boy's) page uniform to wear. Ash is struck at how transformed she is in male clothing, and she likes what she sees in the mirror. At the bonfire, she sees two women laughing and kissing. There is no homophobia in this universe, although heteronormativity exists. The prince still needs to marry a princess, and when Ash sees him, she wonders why her stepsisters would ever find him handsome (lol). I think today's teens would get too impatient with the lack of overt queerness (besides KAisha), as this book was published ten years ago. This was one of the first mainstream lesbian YA books, and one of the first with a happy ending. There is something healing about reading a lesbian/queer fairytale retelling, as fairytales are told to children from a young age, and are part of the indoctrination into heteronormativity. 

 My only quibble is that there is no comeuppance for the stepmother and bitchy stepsister (in keeping with other adaptations, one stepsister is nice-ish). I didn't want birds to peck their eyes out, but for Ash to stand up to them and tell them exactly how she felt about them treating her like that would have been nice. She just leaves without saying anything. Anyway, I really liked this book and am glad I bought and read it. Lo's writing is just lovely and brings to mind Robin McKinley and Patricia M. Wrede. 

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: June 7-8
From: Book Outlet
Status: keep

Cover notes: A typical example of the YA fairytale retelling from the 2000s. The girl (who appears to be Asian, like Lo, even though Ash/Aisling is probably Irish) is posed in a way that recalls Ash lying down on her mother's grave. She was wearing clothes over the corset & petticoats, though.

Trigger warnings for this book:  child abuse, (step)parental abuse, child enslavement, domestic slavery, physical abuse of child/teen, child and young adult locked in cellar, controlling and isolation of child/teen/young adult, immortal adult fairy man could be seen as grooming young human teen girl, death, grief, girl threatened with homelessness, it is implied that girl will be raped if she is homeless, adult viciously cuts girl's hair off as punishment, kidnapping mentions, animal death, hunting, blood, gore, magic/enchantment, magical curses

Rest of May books - children's books

Continuing my Narnia reread, I read The Horse and His Boy, which is one of the most unique books of the series. Two enslaved Talking Horses and their runaway child charges escape from Calormen (Arabian Nights land) to go to Narnia, braving the bustling capital city, royal entanglements, and mysterious lions. All the other books are set in Narnia and partially in England, so the change is refreshing. We see the story through the eyes of Shasta, a Northern (white) boy who decides to run away with Bree (Talking Horse) when his adoptive father decides to sell him to Bree's master. I would have liked to equally hear the story from Aravis, the Calormene noble girl escaping an arranged marriage with her Talking Horse Hwin. But of course the whole point of this book is that brown people can't be trusted, except for One Good Brown Person. Fascinating setting, even if the males in this story act stupidly. The kids stumble onto conspiracies which are interesting and dangerous. I liked this book despite the racism, and I liked Aravis' classism being pointed out and comeuppance given. 4.5 stars, permanent collection. Trigger warning: racism, racist stereotypes and caricatures, misogyny, slavery, war, child soldiers, children with weapons, physical violence, child abuse mentions, children hit by adults, a slave is whipped, a lion claws a child, sexism, classism, entitlement, child marriage, arranged marriage

Next was Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré by Anika Aldamuy Denise and illustrated by Paola Escobar, which I bought from Book Outlet. This is a picture book biography of Puerto Rican librarian Pura Belpré, who brought Spanish stories and bilingual storytelling to the latine children who attended the New York Public Library. The American Library Association has a Pura Belpré award for excellent latine children's books, such as this one (note the silver medal). This is a beautiful semi-bilingual book with bright, lovely illustrations, and I enjoyed reading it. My mom, who was born in New York and grew up in the sixties and seventies, was delighted to learn about Belpré. I really look up to Belpré, as a latina librarian. Representation is so important, and I laud those who paved the way. 4.5 stars, keeping.

Book Review: The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

I think I bought this one from the thrift store. I've been into Sherlock Holmes since I was a kid, plus I liked the academia angle of this Sherlockian mystery. Back of book summary:

Hurtling from present day New York to Victorian London, The Sherlockian weaves the history of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into an inspired and entertaining double mystery that proves to be anything but "elementary."

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines, anticipating the detective's next adventure, only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning-crowds sported black armbands in grief-and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.

Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had "murdered" Holmes in "The Final Problem," he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found.... Or has it?

When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he's about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world's leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold-using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories-who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.

Sounds right up my alley, right? First off, a quibble about the title. As the main character explains, Sherlockians are from a school of thought that Sherlock Holmes was real and really wrote the books (similar to the Sherlockian game, I guess), while the Doyleans were more normal about it and did see Arthur Conan Doyle as the author of the books. According to The Sherlockian, the groups were opposed to each other, nearly rivals. The dead guy made looking for Conan Doyle's lost diary his life's goal, which suggests he was not a Sherlockian but a Doylean. The main guy didn't seem like much of a Sherlockian either, but then he wasn't purely academic. Clearly the title is chosen more for its appeal, as more people know who Sherlock Holmes is than Arthur Conan Doyle.

This book has two plots: we follow Harold in the present day as he tries to solve the dead scholar's murder and find the lost diary, and in the second we follow Conan Doyle himself as he deals with the aftermath of "killing off" Sherlock Holmes (people wore mourning bands because they were so sad, and some angry ones physically attacked ACD in the street, lol) and tries to solve some serial murders. This part actually felt weaker than the "modern" part, which is saying something. ACD and Bram Stoker (they were BFFs IRL) are kickass sleuths! At one point they crossdress to get into a suffragette meeting, lolwut. The modern stuff was also rather suspend-your-disbelief-y (Harold really wore his deerstalker cap around EVERYWHERE? And no one ever bullied him for it?). I did like how the book made it clear that murder is horrible and sad; sometimes murder mysteries gloss over that. 

There's an obligatory female character (I want to say her name is Sophie or something?) who's all chipper and nice and normal and I braced myself for their inevitable falling in love and getting into a relationship together and it. didn't happen? The reason she kept hanging out with him to solve the murder made sense (it wasn't because she thought he was cute but because she was being paid to), and while Harold does feel comfortable around her (which he never does with anyone because he's so anti-social), they grow to like each other as friends I think, not as romantic prospects. So that part was somewhat refreshing to read. Also she was quick-thinking and kind of badass. In the 1900s part of the book, it's young women who are getting serial-murdered, and they're found naked, so :/ There are suffragettes, which is cool, although ACD was sexist to them (at one point IRL they mailed him a pipe bomb, lol [he wasn't hurt]). ACD really was such a dick, though, wasn't he? Having Sherlock Holmes be his most famous creation when he hated him is so hilarious. It's what he deserves.

I'm writing about my thoughts on the ending here, highlight to read: So obviously he finds the diary but it's so sad 'cause the dead scholar really killed himself thinking it was burned when it wasn't so he threw his life away for nothing. Plus that guy was smarter than Harold and he didn't figure it out? Plus then he's so sad after reading about the serial murders and ACD killing the incel serial killer guy and his sister accidentally that Harold lets the girl throw the book into Reichenbach Falls??? Like I don't care how sad a culturally valuable item makes me, or if it changes things or the author's reputation; I am absolutely not going to destroy it, or let anyone else destroy it. My archivist brain is cringing just thinking about it. Also, they really threw the diary down Reichenback Falls. Like Sherlock Holmes. Wow. Also, the serial-murdered women are suffragette best friends, two of whom are lesbians in love. The first two were wooed by and eloped with the same young man so he could rape and kill them, just because he was so violently misogynistic and hated suffragettes. These young women were best friends, and they didn't even talk to each other about who they were courting? That makes no sense. Women talk to each other, and these girls were really close.

Anyway, if you're a true Sherlock Holmes scholar/academic/fan this may annoy you, but it was an enjoyable way to pass a four-hour reference shift. I'm not sorry I read it, but as you can see, I don't even remember the characters' names. Check it out from the library if it sounds interesting to you. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: May 23
From: Savers thrift store
Status: give away

Cover notes: I really like the use of the classic pipe turned on its side with a blood splatter to make a question mark. I also like the old paper-esque background. Such good cover design.

Trigger warnings for this book: murder, rape, misogynistic violence and murder, blood, gore, suicide, shooting deaths, wound and corpse descriptions, serial killer, homophobia, lesbophobia, sexism, bomb mentions, terrorism mentions, archival items misuse and destruction