Her Book Self

Contrary to what the name sounds like, "Boy Fiction" is not a cross between a librarian and Batman's sidekick.  It's the label that a NYT reviewer gave to the work of author George R.R. Martin - specifically A Game of Thrones (the book currently being translated into an HBO series of the same name.)  In all fairness to the article, the commentary was critiquing the HBO show for containing content that the reviewer did not appreciate (sexual content), but one paragraph of the article rather offended me:

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half. 

I should state that I have not seen the show - nor do I currently subscribe to HBO - but I have read (and loved) A Game of Thrones.  Martin's work is written for mature audiences and there are scenes of both sex and violence, which I imagine were translated to film with all the gratuitousness I would predict for a show with a TV-MA rating.  Had the story been sanitized for a lower rating, fans would likely protest.  The book is not written as a neat, tidy saga - it's rough, gritty, intense, passionate, violent, shocking, and bloody.  There are heroes and villains, lovers and killers with every character playing multiple roles and written in brilliant shades of gray.  That's how Martin wrote it.  That's the work that captured my attention and drew me into reading thousands of pages of sequels.

And yet, the review article seems to imply that HBO expanded the sex and romance solely to attract female viewers.  I'm both appalled and offended at the idea that the stereotype still exists that women don't - or won't - enjoy high fantasy and that this genre remains classified as "boy fiction".  As far as the book club analogy goes, I must admit that I've never even heard of Lorrie Moore (if anyone wants to recommend one of her works I'll gladly add it to my TBR list) and would definitely suggest the works of J.R.R. Tolkien to any group of readers I interact with.  Perhaps this is why, despite my bibliophilic proclivities,  I have never actually been invited to join a book club. 

But there are plenty of women who enjoy fantasy and other works of so-called "boy fiction".  I know lots of them; I read with them; I am one of them.  One of my current reading challenges is a reread of the Song of Ice and Fire books in anticipation of the July release of book five, A Dance with Dragons.  I read A Game of Thrones five years ago and I enjoyed it just as much the second time around when I finished it last month.  George R.R. Martin's popularity is not because he writes for a certain gender, it is because he writes good books.  He is a masterful storyteller, and the beauty of A Game of Thrones lies in his weaving together multiple genres.  The Song of Ice and Fire series is about family as much as politics, it is about battle as well as relationships, adventure as well as horror, mystery, fantasy, and romance.  Martin composes stories with characters that are realistic - they are fallible heroes, sympathetic villains, and even minor characters with subplots that capture the reader's attention.  They live and they die in tales that seem to be writing themselves.  The saga unfolds more as a history of some distant, ancient land - one that occasionally mirrors modern political themes - rather than just a made up realm of bedtime stories. 

So why is an epic story like this limited to the enjoyment of men?  Why should a well written love story be classified as for women?  I know statistics will show that the majority of fantasy readers are male, but perhaps more ladies would be inclined to explore the genre if that trend was not so publicly reinforced.  Good books are good books, and I don't believe they should be recommended to one gender over the other.  Readers should be encouraged to explore and expand their horizons rather than being pigeonholed into a certain type of book that is expected of them. When I was younger, I followed in the reading footsteps of my older sisters eagerly reaching for their R.L. Stine Fear Street series and L.J. Smith's Vampire Diaries, and though I enjoyed the thriller suspense and paranormal stories, I think I really began devouring books when my brother suggested I try out Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance Chronicles.  Though I liked mystery and suspenseful fiction, I loved fantasy; and when my cousin first lent me his copy of R.A. Salvatore's The Crystal Shard I knew I was hooked. 

My reading tastes expanded as I got older and I now find that there are few genres I don't love, but I know that I never would have become the passionate reader that I am had fantasy books been kept from me based on my gender.  To label such books as "boy fiction" seems a needless stereotype, and I would hate to have other young readers feel a stigma attached to works that could blossom their love of books.  What do others think about the gender-genre linkage?  Are these classifications helpful or hazardous to matching readers to books they'll enjoy?  Any other women like me that enjoy "boy fiction"?  Any men that enjoy stories generally aimed at women? 

The winner of one paperback copy of Vessel: The Advent by Tominda Adkins is...


On roadtrips and traveling, Nora had this to say:

Road trips in my family are usually pretty chaotic. My sister complains the whole time, my mom tries to make it a ton more exciting than it actually is, and my dad complains the whole time. But somehow, I usually have a ton of fun! We usually go via car, but sometimes we fly. My favorite destination we've been to was Niagara Falls, but we went during a record heatwave and it was above 100 degrees the entire week. Just our luck :]

Congratulations and hope you enjoy the book!  For Nora and all those who took advantage of the free download, feel free to stop back to my review and share your thoughts on Vessel when you finish it!  And thank you again to Tominda Adkins for sponsoring this giveaway!

 I've been digging into a lot of books for younger readers lately.  Though I frequently find as much depth and substance in YA books as I do in those written for mature readers, sometimes my reason for turning to tween shelves is that I just need something shorter.  And so a lightweight-finish-in-a-day-or-two book was exactly what I was looking for when I pulled Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves off my TBR shelf.  

Joey Harker is an average student who has never been praised for having a good sense of direction.  He boasts that he could get lost in his own house, so when a class assignment drops him in the middle of his town with the challenge to find his way back to school, trouble is sure to follow. 

But where Joey's orienteering skills falter, a hidden talent is uncovered.  Though he frequently gets lost in familiar places, Joey is a Walker - a unique individual with a talent for walking between parallel dimensions.  Joey soon finds himself in the Interworld, a strange world-between-worlds, surrounded by various versions of himself.  Some of the other realities are ruled by magic and others by science while still others exist with a balance between the two, yet all are threatened by HEX and Binary, two sinister forces out to destroy universes and those that Walk between them.

I admit that I was drawn to Interworld because Neil Gaiman co-authored it (with screen-writer Michael Reaves), and because the cover really caught my eye with its almost graphic novel type illustration.  I know these aren't the best reasons for purchasing a book (the almost free price may have been) but I ended up really enjoying this story.   There's a decent amount of science-y stuff thrown in - some physics to sound clever but nothing technical enough to be distracting - but also some thought-provoking situational philosophy.  Rather than skimming over character decisions quickly for the sake of advancing the story, choice and consequence are reflected upon and some of the conversations ended up adding to the intensity of the otherwise cliche battle between good and evil.  The fast-paced action-oriented plot make it a great introduction to science fiction for younger audiences; but Gaiman's signature wit and creative characters ensure that fans of his writing of any age will enjoy the novel.  I may have picked this one up simply for a lighter read but it was definitely a worthwhile choice!

Colin Singleton has a strange habit of falling for girls named Katherine and after nineteen failed relationships with girls of the same name, the now-grown child prodigy decides to determine why.  To rid him of his latest episode of heartbreak, his best friend Hassan brings Colin along on a post-graduation road trip, but Colin's mind is wrapped around a mathematical equation to predict the success of his future relationships - The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability - in an effort to end his streak of getting dumped. 


An Abundance of Katherines was the first book by John Green that I have read, and I was really impressed with the writing.  The dialog was witty and the plot was unique and clever.  Though I didn't find myself really relating to any of the main characters, I still found myself fully drawn into the story and quite captured by this novel.  Colin was a bizarre protagonist, but I ended up rather charmed by his quirkiness.  I also really enjoyed how seemingly unrelated details of the story ended up tied together.   I'll definitely be checking out more of John Green's work in the future! 

One of the joys that book blogging has brought me is the opportunity to reflect and discuss my reading with other people.  I find that as much as I enjoy reading, a book shared is a pleasure multiplied.  The downside to this is finding the balance between reading and discussing books.  I've realized that my book consumption has slightly diminished since I began blogging, but it's a trade-off with which I'm perfectly okay.  But I'd love to have other book bloggers and book lovers chime in - do ever have a hard time balancing time for reading with time to discuss your reading?  Does book blogging ever come between you and a great read?

Sometimes a book makes you laugh.  Sometimes a book makes you cry.  But sometimes a book just leaves you speechless.  It's no surprise that these types of books are the ones I most want to tell the world about but also those with which I have the hardest time finding words to communicate their impact.  It could be that "impacting" might be the best description for a book I read a few weeks but still find myself reflecting on.  I'm always impressed by books that can haunt me in this manner and Still Alice by Lisa Genova was definitely one such work.

Alice Howland is a fifty-year-old psychology professor at Harvard who begins having problems with her memory.  The episodes range from forgetting words to mild disorientation but the diagnosis of Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease comes as a devastating blow to her active and successful professional and family life.  From her husband's refusal to accept the truth to her children fearing for their own futures and her coworkers uncertainty of how to deal with her illness a range of characters in Alice's life convey the difficulties of seeing a loved one cope with dementia but it is the narration of the story - told through Alice's eyes - that make this book so stunning.

Up close and personal in the face of Alzheimer's Disease Lisa Genova's writing doesn't shy away from her protagonist's raw feelings.  Alice deals with fear, frustration, embarrassment, and anger while narrating the story in such a way that the reader is painfully aware of her failing memory.  Each chapter is marked as a month and as the pages turn the young professor loses more and more of her self, struggling with the fact that she is - as the title suggests - Still Alice. 

Genova's book is by no means a "feel-good story" or a "comfort read".  I have a hard time recommending books to others when I know how challenging the subject matter can be, but Still Alice is what I would call an important book.  It might not be a book that people will want to read, but is a book that people should read.  The novel paints a portrait of the heartbreaking reality of life with Early Onset Alzheimer's and this is a book of understanding and empathy for anyone dealing with the disease directly or anyone with a loved one with dementia.  

I know I heard a lot about this book before I finally picked it up - more accurately before a bus-riding friend placed it in my hands with the command "Read this!" (thanks Sue!) - and if anyone else is on the fence about diving into Still Alice, don't hesitate, just read it.  Yes, the subject matter is difficult; yes, it will likely tug at the heartstrings and tear ducts; but it will also lend readers admiration for the bravery of Alzheimer's patients, multiple perspectives on coping with disease, and a new appreciation for the fragility of life in general. My words can't do this book justice, you really will just have to read it for yourself. 

Seattle couple Sarah and David finally admit that their marriage is on the rocks, and counseling seems to be the option to save their rocky relationship.  However, when their therapist tries to eat them, they realize that keeping each other alive in the midst of a zombie apocalypse might be the common goal they needed to rekindle their love for each other. 

Married with Zombies by Jesse Petersen was a great book that took a humorous spin in blending zombie horror into a story about a young couple trying to make their marriage succeed.  A straight up zombie story or relationship novel would have been easy to pass by, but in combining the two - and poking fun and the stereotypes in each - Petersen weaves a unique and amusing tale.  David and Sarah were well-drawn characters and came across as very real people.  They're an everyday man and wife armed with knowledge from a heap of Hollywood slasher films that happen to do an above average job at battling the undead. 

One of my favorite parts of this novel was the chapter headings.  Each one combined cliche relationship adages with tips for surviving zombie attacks.  A few examples were, "Balance the workload in your relationship.  No one person should be responsible for killing all the zombies," and "Put the small stuff into perspective.  It's better to be wrong and alive than right but eating brains."   This offbeat humor might not appeal to everyone, but for those that are amused, Married with Zombies is definitely a fun book to read!

Happy April Fool's Day!  For those unfamiliar with the "holiday" or at least the American take on it, April 1st is referred to as April Fool's Day and is generally considered a day for people to play lighthearted jokes or pranks on others.  Though some people will use the day for malicious endeavors, I've always enjoyed it as a time for silliness and make it a point to try to fool people - if even for a brief moment.  Sometimes it can be something as silly as declaring, "It's snowing outside!" to see how many recently risen sleepyheads will rush to the window in search of late winter flurries.  Other times I've pretended to lose something important - "I lost my keys!" in a panicked voice before pulling them out of my purse.  My family has always found laughs in funny little "Gotcha!" moments and I will even admit that it's just as fun when the joke is on me!

But the name "April Fool's Day" also got me thinking about the word "fool" as a noun rather than a verb, and I've been reflecting on how often the character of a fool comes up in fairy tales.  The first one that comes to my mind is Jack of Jack and the Beanstalk fame.  The young boy who sells his cow for magic beans is an obvious answer of a gullible character despite the fact that the beans he buys truly are magic.    There are also plenty of examples of fairy tale heroes and heroines playing the trickster and the fool is their rival in the story.  Examples of this are the Anansi stories of folk lore and Uncle Remus' Brer Rabbit tales (many of which were inspired by the spider god).

The story I want to bring up this week though is one that I encountered for the first time in high school.  As a teenager, I probably considered myself too old for fairy tales, but as I was learning Spanish, one of my instructors frequently gave us folk tales from Latin America to read - often featuring a character named Juan Bobo.  (I know folk tales and fairy tales aren't quite the same thing, but I guess this could be considered me fooling all of those who thought this would be a true fairy tale post.)  The name Juan Bobo roughly translates to Dumb John and the stories of his adventures are mostly silly tales with shenanigans involving misinterpreted instructions.  At first I thought this concept was somewhat unjust in making fun of someone with a mental disability, but culturally, these stories are not intended to poke fun at those with actual mental problems, rather just run-of-the-mill lack of common sense.   An apt comparison would be the practice of telling "blond jokes" - few people believe that individuals with blond hair are less intelligent that others, the group just serves as a target for the joke telling platform. 

I had a difficult time finding an online version of any of the Juan Bobo stories (especially translated to English) but one I was able to find - that I remember reading in high school - is La Puerca de Juan Bobo, or Juan Bobo's Pig.  In this story, Juan Bobo is told by his mother to wash their pig before selling it in the market.  The mother instructs him to make the pig "look as beautiful as [he] can."  To most people this would just involve washing the mud off the animal, but to Juan Bobo it goes much further.

"Juan Bobo went to his mother's closet and got out her red taffeta skirt with the elastic waist band, and he slipped that around the pig's waist...He borrowed a blouse and a bright red wig, and he fit those onto the pig.  He outlined the pig's eyes as best he could with black eyeliner and a touch of blue eyeshadow; he put bright red lipstick on the pig's lips; and he got two pairs of his mother's high-heeled pumps and strapped those onto her trotters.

"Now the pig looked really beautiful to Juan Bobo!"

Of course, Juan Bobo runs into trouble on the way to the market when the pig decides it would much rather wear mud than makeup and heels.  There's not much of a moral to the story outside of the fact that animals will follow their instincts and it is futile to try to make them what they are not; but the true purpose of this and most of the Juan Bobo stories are laughter and silliness.  It is the image of a pig dressed up in fancy clothes, a wig, and high heels that gives the tale entertainment value and the phrase "como la puerca de Juan Bobo" (like Juan Bobo's pig) is still used to describe someone who overdoes makeup and accessories to a ridiculous degree.  (As far as I'm aware, though this is an insult, it's not a vulgar one.)

So what do you think about fool's in fairy tales and folk lore?  Do you have a favorite story of a trickster or foolish hero?


This story is part of my 2011 Fairy Tale Challenge (4 of 12) which began as Fairy Tale Fridays originally hosted by Tif of Tif Talks Books.  Feel free to share your thoughts on Juan Bobo's Pig in the comments below or leave a link to your own Fairy Tale Friday post and let me know what tale you're talking about this week!  I'm also eager for suggestions so if you have a favorite story (classic or retold) to share I'm always on the lookout for stories that are new to me!