Librarything Giveaway Review: Chronicle of a Last Summer

Author: Yasmine El Rashidi
Genre: Memoir
Pagecount: 232 (epub)
Warning: Death, References to torture, imprisonment, suicide
Rating: 4.5/5

"Chronicle of a Last Summer" records the impressions of the narrator during three pivotal summers in Egypt, 1984 when she is eight years old, 1998 and 2014. The prose captures the fundamental feelings and limits to her expression (especially at eight) without being painful to read. More importantly Rashidi expertly illustrates the interlaced emotional journey of the narrator as her opinions about what loyalty, country and home juxtaposed with a culture that values stability above most everything else.

I loved this book. The language was easy to read, but I think I'll be grappling with it's meaning for years to come. It's a beautiful look into a world I'd never seen before. I encourage you to check it out!

Review: The Handmaiden's Tale

Author: Margret Atwood
Genre: Distopian Future Fiction
Pages: 324
Warnings: Holy shit, so much.
Rating: 4.5/5

"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margret Atwood is set in a dystopian future where a fanatical religious organization has taken over the US government and enforce a restrictive hierarchy. The main character, Offred, is one of the few women left in the country who can successfully reproduce, so she's been forced into servitude. This novel is her fictional first-hand account.

There is so much I love about this novel, I have trouble picking a place to start. If there was a gun to my head, I would start with just how fucking scary this novel is. There is such horrific dehumanization of every woman in the world Offred lives in this world that I shudder to imagine something thinking about me (and my female ass) that way. We don't even know the main character's name: Offred is literally "Of Fred", Frederick being the head of her household. She has no humanity outside of being a keeper of his sperm. That is pretty damn scary, until you consider how everyone deals with this enormous decay in women's rights. They just go on. All of the characters are trying to just get through the day, and they do that by pretending all the horrible things being done to them and the people doing those things to pretend the all the horrible things being done to them by real people are just happening. Once you realize how easy it would be for people here and now to ignore on that scale, you start waking up in a cold sweat.

There's also something really amazing about Offred's narration style. Some authors find the first person perspective to be stifling, because the scope of one person is often to small to encompass the plot. Atwood doesn't fumble around trying to get Offred to listen in on the right conversations to find out what Old Man River is up to, she incorporates the supposed limitations of the 1st person narrative into her story. Only being able to see what Offred sees, we're trapped looking between the confines of her habit, and the claustrophobia a reader feels is not unlike her's. Every aspect of Offred's narrative, from her hesitant grasp on reality to the tiny window of the world she can see, is finely crafted to put the reader in her painful shoes. It's wonderful so see a story where there is not a wasted word.

I can't get enough of this book, and I expect you won't either. I won't lie to you and pretend it's an easy read, since the narrative style is intentionally a little frustrating. However this is one of those books where the feeling you get when everything Atwood has orchestrated comes together is well worth any discomfort you felt along the way. This book isn't just a good read, it's got a lot to consider about human nature at it's tasty center. And if that stirring endorsement doesn't encourage you, realize this is a realiatively short book, so dig in. 

Review and Recommendation: Delusions of Gender

Author: Cordelia Fine
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 338
Warnings: Eh
Rating: 5/5

I can not recommend this book highly enough. This was one of the coolest books I have ever read. I wish everyone would read it! There's a wealth of information how we think that I find fascinating. Some of the theories suggested are a bit scary, and some feel like a missing piece of a puzzle falling into place. Beyond the arresting subject matter, I appreciated Cordelia Fine's excellent writing style and the sense of purpose it gives her book. This book is personally appealing to me, but I believe everyone could take advantage of it's demand to see gender as a much more flexible concept than our parents led us to believe.

First and foremost, as I said above, awesome information. I spent no small amount of time after reading this book  actually following the footnotes to studies. I'm not going to pretend I read them all, but I was emboldened to critically consider the methods used to collect data in popularization, even those that Fine referenced. I am also more aware of those really irritating assumptions about an entire gender's mental capacity. I really hate those. If I heard someone say that all Asian people are worse at math than white people, I sure and heck wouldn't just accept that.

Fine's writing style was also just what I wanted. Her prose is witty, interesting and her conclusions are unabashed. All of her theories are backed up with a chain of evidence presented in reasonable journal articles, but she takes time to pepper her prose with anecdotal evidence. These asides keep "Delusions of Gender" from being a dry textbook and make the ideas Fine endorses (that ladies aren't inherently empathetic to everyone, stupid or more irrational than anyone else) more accessible. After all, we're not talking about ancient history or hypothetical people. This book posits theories about people right now, about culture as you know it.

So, if you're a feminist, or if you don't call yourself that but get frustrated when someone suggests women are "just bad at math" read this book. You'll love it. If you may have said women are just naturally bad at math, but when asked why realize your only answer is "because", check out this book. You might like it.