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What Am I Reading For Black Future Month?
Not unexpectedly, this month my feeds are full of book tags, TBRs, reading advices that celebrate Black History Month. Now, while I have a year-round interest for diverse author, shouldn’t I take the chance to add even more books to my reading list? After all, I small for a reason – that is to say to keep on adding stuff. So let’s see what we have here…
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Dawn – by Octavia E. Butler
Here I am, finally catching up with some seminal work I hadn’t read yet – and for no good reason, because we’re not talking about some supposeddly ingenious and actually quite offputting masterpiece, we’re talking about themes and styles that are absolutely my thing. So, better late than never, they say.
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Ninth House – by Leigh Bardugo
After realising that long-awaited Hell Bent, second book of the Alex Stern series, had now been published, I decided to re-read (or re-listen) the first volume before diving into its continuation. I remember enjoying Ninth House the first time I read it, even though with some reservations, and going back to its horrifically magical Yale proved to be an intense but captivating journey.
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To Be Taught, If Fortunate – by Becky Chambers
I thought I knew what to expect from Becky Chambers: a futuristic setting, lots of cosy slice of life scenes, a very natural representation of queer characters, but most importantly an endless supply of hope and optimism. Her books are generally what I call “comfort reads”, in the best possible sense. Does this novella match the same description? Yes and no – let’s see why.
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Unwieldy Creatures – by Addie Tsai
There are premises that are inherently going to sell me a book they’re based on. For instance, if I hear about a queer, multiracial retelling of Frankenstein, with futuristic science, emotionally troubled characters, and multilingual references on the top of it, of course I am going to read it, it’s an unavoidable consequence if I’ve ever seen one. Does it mean I am automatically going to love the book? That’s something worth discussing more in depth.
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New Year’s Resolutions; or, I Often Give Myself Very Good Advice
New Year’s day sounds like a good time to make plans, and to update you all on my TBR for 2023.
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The Deep – by Rivers Solomon
After the beautiful and harrowing experience that was reading An Unkindness Of Ghosts, I was determined to read everything by Rivers Solomon, sooner or later. So when The Deep was selected as a subject by one of the online discussion groups I occasionally hang out with, I decided that the time had come.
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Moon Witch, Spider King – by Marlon James
Moon Witch, Spider King is the second book of the same Dark Star series to witch Black Leopard, Red Wolf belongs. It is not, however, a direct continuation on the same plot, but a different perspective on the same world, and partly on the same events. Not unlike the previous novel, it is definitely a peculiar read, that relentlessly plays with the player’s discomfort.
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She Who Became The Sun – by Shelley Parker-Chan
She Who Became The Sun is one of those books that come surrounded by an aura of strange, ill-fitting expectations: advertised as “Mulan meets the Song of Achilles”, greatly hyped by the same content creators that generally promote YA fantasy novels, it is actually a not really that romantic, not even so magical retelling of the rise to power of the first Ming Emperor. Even though I was aware that the blurb was somehow misleading, I still approached it expecting something lighter and cacthier than the novel was actually ever meant to be.
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Ancillary Mercy – by Ann Leckie
After reading Ancillary Sword, I thought I had found a pattern in the Imperial Radch trilogy – so if the first book had built the world in broad strokes, and the second one had got a more focused scope, I expected the final volume to go back to large-scale conflicts and wrap up all themes and plots in an epic conclusion. It turns out I was wrong. While Ancillary Mercy does develop some themes that had been foreshadowed from the very beginning, it does so in a less expected way; in the end not everything is tied up as I had imagined, but the novel feels like a satisfying conclusion anyway. Perhaps even more so.
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