Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake
Girl Made of Stars is a story that needs more attention than it’s gotten so far. Ashley Herring Blake uses the tropes of twin psychology and astrology/mythology to push the main topic of discussion, which is rape, particularly consent. Sexual orientation and gender identity are also present in the book but are addressed in ways that normalize these notions.
There is a lot to untangle here. Mara and Owen are twins in high school, and like many twins, have a deep emotional and mental connection to one another. They have always been there for each other, until now, when Owen is accused to raping his girlfriend, Hannah. Mara is torn between her love for her brother and her friendship with Hannah but is also aware of the way society silences women who come forward about sexual assault. Now, Mara has to pick a side. Due to secrets of her own, Mara does, and it sends her into a terrible spiral within the family, her circle of friends, and within herself.
Mara turns to her best friend and ex-girlfriend, Charlie, for support. There is tension between Mara and Charlie as they both seek relationships with other people (Mara being bisexual and Charlie being a lesbian and non-binary). However, with this nightmare of an event, Charlie tries to act as the comfort Mara needs while maintaining friendship status; Mara wants Charlie’s support but is upset when she sees Charlie with another girl. This tension is constant throughout the book, fueling Mara’s negative view of herself and dependency on Alex, Owen’s best friend, for romantic intimacy.
In the meantime, Hannah wants to hide, while Owen tells his side of the story, making everyone believe him. But no one ever believes the woman anyway, according to Mara and Hannah. The girls come together to comfort one another in their grief. Girl Made of Stars is about overcoming this self-silencing and being silenced. It’s about giving power to the victims of sexual assault and the trauma it leaves its victims. While society continues to point fingers at the victim, Blake suggests an urgency to show all sides of a story, even the ones that make us uncomfortable and are difficult to admit truth. This book is a must-read because it shows the necessity of coming forward and the process/aftermath of being a victim encouraged to become a survivor.
Find Girl Made of Stars here.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
Just what I need at the moment: to not give a single fuck but to do so subtly! After hearing the hype around Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, I knew I had to find out how to not give a fuck because my life is a clusterfuck. Though, Manson would consider me seeking and then reading this book as giving a lot of fucks about fuck giving, pulling me into what he calls the Feedback Loop from Hell, because my actions to seek self-help or guidance acknowledges and focuses on the fact that I am lacking in something and am eager to find it—a chill pill.
Manson’s self-help book is full of paradoxes, but once you think about what he’s saying, some of it actually makes sense, like how self-help books mainly emphasize what you lack. Like I said, the existence of this book is itself a paradox because it emphasizes how I care too much about too many things or that I care about the wrong things, my priorities not aligning with my values.
For many situations in which we find ourselves caring too much or in desperate need of escape, Manson uses the “backwards law,” coined by philosopher Alan Watts, which basically points out how we get the opposite result we desire or generate even more problems from doing what would logically, on the surface, make sense. With this law, Manson frankly explains how exactly our actions backfire on us and what we should do instead.
The main topics Manson covers are: the values and metrics (standards) by which we measure ourselves, taking responsibility for what happens in our lives even if what happens is not our fault (how we interpret and respond to events, and how we use our own victimhood), being comfortable in uncertainty and being wrong in order to seek answers in order to grow, seeing your failures and problems as mundane which would make them seem less overwhelming, seeing action as progress even if it results in failure, and accepting our mortality and ridding ourselves of entitlement / do-nothing victimhood in order to refocus our values and priorities to match our actions.
Manson’s The Subtle Art of Giving a Fuck is fun and funny and blunt. Give this book a read if you’re willing to try to understand a different way of thinking, the “backwards law,” so you may reconsider the way you act in various situations, during which you are confronted by questioning your values and standards. This isn’t the book that will tell you how to keep your life in order or how to fix everything in your life. This book will help you figure out what to give a fuck about.
Find The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck here.
For Every One by Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynold’s For Every One is not a book of poetry or a novel in verse, like the thrilling page-turner, Long Way Down. For Every One is one poem in four parts addressed to dreamers, those who dream of doing something big or life changing or even something small that they haven’t tried before. The poem is about being brave and taking steps to become better than you were yesterday and not giving up if you didn’t make it as a millionaire by age twenty-five. The poem is about what “making it” even means and what’s on the other side of “making it,” how he—Jason Reynolds—has yet to “make it.” I know, right?
Reynolds writes, “I don’t know nothing about that. / I haven’t gone through it all / and come out on the other side.”
Easily read in one sitting, For Every One sounds like a graduation speech of truth. You may not reach all of your goals, for they may be loftier than you first thought, but “jump anyway.” This poem is a motivator, nothing you haven’t heard before if you graduated college or high school—hell, probably even middle school.
However, Reynolds’ free verse is as disembodied and free-flowing as he urges you to be. His experimentation with lyricism and form pop up every now and then, which made me Ooo and Ahh, but those moments were rare and I had to remember this poem isn’t supposed to be as tormenting and gripping as Long Way Down. His play on words and their meanings give it that graduation speech vibe, and he even calls the poem a “ramble” at the very end.
Now, whether or not this is a meaningful ramble rests on the shoulders of the reader. If you’re going through a big life change or you need a push to take the leap, then maybe you need to read this. Or have someone read it to you. Or have Jason Reynolds read it to you himself because I’d feel pretty damn motivated after that.
Find For Every One here.
Speak: the graphic novel by Laurie Halse Anderson and Emily Carroll
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a personal inspiration of mine, let alone a widely acknowledged canonical novel of modern times. And now, with the artistry of Emily Carroll, it has become a graphic novel. Carroll’s black-and-white drawings bring a rough and edgy atmosphere to the text, emphasizing the interiority during the scenes in which Melinda vividly recalls what happened to her the night of party. Carroll takes these moments and gracefully yet devastatingly depicts the horror in a way that is frightening but may not be as triggering for some readers as they would think, though anxiety still rattles the bones.
As a whole, Speak: the graphic novel reads much like how a movie adaption would be seen. The main character is much more melodramatic, but somehow we still lose much of Melinda’s interiority about the incident that shakes her to her core. The graphic novel seems to revolve so much around other subplots and Melinda’s external relationships that the main plot of the assault is buried. If I hadn’t read the original Speak, I may have forgotten the main point of the novel. First, there’s the new girl Heather, losing Melinda’s old friends, art class and drawing trees, Melinda’s poor grades, family dysfunction, in-school suspension, rules of the school and bullying, etc. There’s so much that distracts the reader from Melinda and her journey of recovery that is more focused in the original novel that is missed in the graphic novel.
My guess, as a reader and a part of the industry, is that the goal of Speak: the graphic novel is to grasp onto the gaining popularity of graphic novels at the current moment, capture the new generation of readers, and gear them toward reading the original Speak. I’m not against this method. I think this is a great way of repackaging a modern classic, but lovers of the original novel shouldn’t expect grand changes but enjoy the wonderful artwork by Emily Carroll.
This novel is still relevant today. Teachings of consent is still needed today. If you haven’t already gotten your hands on one of them, I highly recommend one or both of these books.
Find Speak: the graphic novel here.
Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele
Meg-John Barker’s Queer: A Graphic History is very properly named. With comic illustrations by Julia Scheele, Barker provides an overview of the history of queerness, citing many players involved in queer activism and queer theory. This book is best used as a reference book or a springboard to delve into the many, many avenues queerness has taken over the years. I especially think it’s a good book, in an academic sense, for an introduction to queer theory, or queerness, or gender/sexuality studies. Readers and students can learn a lot from specific pages and then launch into their own research from there. In addition, Barker provides a Resources section of her research as well as other resources that may be helpful. As for a cover-to-cover read, well, there’s a lot to take in.
First, Barker defines the word queer and its use as different parts of speech, including a noun, verb, and adjective. What’s important here is how scholars and people queer an idea, or turn an idea around, twisting it into something different or strange or something one hasn’t thought of before, which can bring about change and positive thinking.
Barker then breaks down the differences between identity politics and queer theory; gender, sex, and sexuality; nature and nurture; and sex and gender. Most important here is the shift in the notion that the meaning of sexuality went from one of behavior to one of identity based on attractions and sexual preferences. To cover these topics, Barker along with Scheele provide a detailed yet concise overview of queer theory and activism (the gay rights movements similarities to black feminism and the struggles of multi-marginalized peoples) as well as key figures and thinkers in conversation with one another.
To make these ideas more accessible to the reader, Barker and Scheele put these ideas in cartoons and pop culture references. Barker claims queer theory is known to be hard for most people to understand and is full of multiple binaries to diffuse the idea of binaries, thus making itself contradictory and making it inaccessible to the common person, which is why it has not been as widely recognized as other fields of study. Barker concludes with the hope that this book makes the introduction to queer theory and queerness a bit easier to grasp, which it can when taken in small doses, like a reference book. Whether or not this book is successful is in how the reader uses the book and their explorations from there.
Find Queer: A Graphic History here.
Burro Hills by Juila Lynn Rubin with Interview!
Burro Hills by Julia Lynn Rubin is a ferociously wild ride, one that will leave you with whiplash but also wanting more! With an eccentric cast of characters, there is never a dull moment in this town. From high school gossip to household dramas to drug trafficking, we follow an unexpected group and are given small breaths of reprieve throughout the novel. In this way, it almost feels like the reader is on this high with the characters, mimicking the bursts of adrenaline.
The story follows Jack, who sticks with his pot-smoking crew and his other best friend Jess. However, the new kid, Connor, rattles the status quo of the group, tearing Jack’s attention away from his friends. Connor seems to know exactly who he is: a kid who gets into trouble—oh, and he’s bisexual. On the other hand, Jack absolutely doesn’t know who he is. By spending time with Connor, Jack opens up and reveals to himself who he really is.
However, what about his old friends? They don’t forgive him for ditching them. And in a town riddled with homophobia, crime, and vengeance, there is no safe space for Jack—not even in his own home, where his dad is a drunk and his mother has a problem Jack cannot understand.
The following is an interview with author Julia Lynn Rubin:
CL: Congratulations on an amazing debut novel! Each character has so much depth, and they all jump off the page as realistic people. What made you write about a group of teen boys?
Julia Lynn Rubin, photo via www.julialynnrubin.com
JLR: Thank you so much! That is such high praise and I’m so flattered! I think I’ve always been fascinated by teen boys and why they say what they do, act how they act. It wasn’t a conscious decision when I first started the novel, but as I kept writing, it evolved into this deep-dive exploration of toxic masculinity. I had a lot of fun with their dialogue and characterizations and making them as “awful” as possible on the surface, while examining how sensitive and confused they are underneath all that exterior bullshit. Basically, in different circumstances, these boys wouldn’t be “bad.”
CL: This was a very interesting read for me since I know you personally. So I want to know which character you think you align with the most and why.
JLR: It’s definitely Jack. He’s the most autobiographical character to me, emotionally at least. I remember my dad read an early draft of the book back when it was a dual point-of-view between Jack and Jess, and he said: “You’re not Jess. You’re Jack.” That stuck with me, and helped inform my decision to make him the sole POV character when my agent and I were revising. He’s sensitive, anxious, thoughtful, observant, and a little too wrapped up in his own interiority to the point that he sometimes misses the obvious and misreads the situation. His cognitive distortions are all too familiar to me.
CL: You really put these characters through the wringer. People say to make your characters go through hell, to make the worst possible things happen to them in order to incite drama and conflict, and you do exactly that. Was there ever a moment in which you or your editor thought there was too much going on that the story would be found unbelievable? Did you have to pull back?
JLR: I remember revising and thinking, “I feel so bad for what I’m doing to these characters.” I even said that to my editor at one point. There are a handful of scenes and moments I kept second-guessing, wondering if I should put them in a YA novel since they’re so damn disturbing (though I know teens can totally handle it). But it’s true, you really have to up the stakes, especially in a character-driven story. And these characters are teenagers, so everything feels very life and death to them, very immediate and all-consuming. I actually had a few major scenes that I ended up either cutting or completely rewriting because they didn’t feel as believable in retrospect. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the whole final scene with Toby’s family was originally much different and maybe a little unrealistic and unsatisfying. I also spent a lot of time with my editor fleshing out Jack’s parents and making them feel like fully realized people, less like caricatures. But I never really pulled back, no.
CL: Now, I know you from The New School in New York City and we both also spent time in Pittsburgh, PA. From where did come up with the setting of Burro Hills? Is it based on anywhere in particular?
JLR: Yes! Small world. Actually, growing up on the East Coast made the decision to set the book in Southern California all the more tantalizing. I’ve always been fascinated with the West Coast and the climate and culture of Southern California. In high school I wanted to go to film school and move to L.A. and become a director. I visited with my mom to check out colleges and I was totally enamored. That’s probably where that setting originated, that and the way Janet Fitch describes it in White Oleander, a novel I’ve re-read many, many times. But I created a fake town so I wouldn’t offend anyone! The setting is also based on my perception of urban sprawl and dying towns and nowhere places; the beauty in the ugliness of America.
CL: In this book, there are themes of sexuality, friendship, broken families, drug use, coming of age, and so much more. What would you most like your readers to get from reading this book?
JLR: I think the great thing about books is that each reader takes away what they need to and sees what they want to see. I love that about art. I know everyone is going to have a different experience reading my book, but I really hope those who read it – teens especially – come away with a sense of being seen, and heard. And hope.
CL: Can you reveal what’s coming up next for you?
JLR: I’m currently on submission with my second YA novel (which I wrote at The New School), so fingers crossed that one lands somewhere!! I also have another YA in the works that was my MFA thesis, and an idea for a fourth. So basically I’m going to keep promoting my debut and writing and hoping and praying.
CL: Thank you so much, Julia, for answering these questions! I can’t wait to see what you do from here.
JLR: Thank you so much for having me! These were excellent questions.
Find Burro Hills here.
Follow Julia Lynn Rubin on Twitter!
Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed
Samira Ahmed’s debut novel Love, Hate and Other Filters channels the cultural struggles of an Indian-Muslim-American girl, who just wants to be her own person. Maya Aziz feels most comfortable behind a camcorder, filming her life in its quiet monotony. Except now that she is about to graduate high school, her life is anything but monotonous. First, her mother is bent on finding a suitable young man for her to marry. Then there’s Maya’s secret acceptance to NYU Film School. And lastly, there’s Phil, the jock Maya has been crushing on for years, and he’s finally noticing her.
“I don’t want to hide anything, and I don’t want something… expected. I want to go to film school and be the first Indian American to win an Oscar, and then I can meet the One and fall in big, heart-bursting love, and we’ll travel the world, my camera ready to capture out adventures,” says Maya.
However, this nightmare of a maze turns even more horrid once a terrorist attack thought to be committed by a Muslim instigates attacks on Maya and her family. The stakes are raised even higher, and tensions between Maya and her parents and the rest of Maya’s peers are about to burst.
Ahmed shines a light on a specific culture from the perspective of an insider. This is not a White narrative for activism; this is a personal story based on the very real conflict between America and the Muslim community. Ahmed doesn’t hold back when expressing the fears of a community that has been a major target since 9/11. This is what we need: book with strong narratives written by strong voices that can personally speak to minority experiences.
Find Love, Hate, and Other Filters here.