sarah HANNAH gómez
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I finally read the book that had been sitting on my shelf for ages, that I had suspected I would love but decided to avoid reading because apparently I don’t like being happy. I was an idiot to wait, because The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender (IB) by Leslye Walton is pretty fucking brilliant. Lush, lyrical language without being purpley in the slightest, a compelling story, and utterly perfect characters. A must-read, truly, and a book I hope will help the YA naysayers change their minds, since this book doesn’t really seem YA in the traditional sense and instead serves to further break down the idea that YA is anything (problematic, but also useful).
Senior year of high school in AP English, we read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (IB) , and everyone but me booed or made fun of the ending. SPOILER ALERT: Milkman flies away. Literally. Figuratively, yes, but literally, because that’s slave legend, and literally, because that’s what the book says, and literally, because that’s how magic realism works. And nobody could accept it, even though there’s no reason in the world, or in the world of the novel, to doubt its truth. But because to most people who read or watch television or movies, “magic” is a thing that has to be explained ad nauseum as part of worldbuilding, or at the very least “taught” or “learned” or “harnessed” over the course of a story. In stories like this, it just is , and that’s what matters. Continue reading →
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Like any girl who grew up in America, and like any girl who has an older sister she worships, my musical taste has changed, refined, and solidified as I’ve grown older. I had my middle school phase where I listened to anything that was on Top 40 radio, and there are still some things from the 1997-2003 time period that I will always love, defend, and unabashedly listen to, even if I know it’s absolutely terrible. And there are other things that are actually kind of underrated, like the fact that those manufactured pop groups like N Sync and Eden’s Crush were actually very well trained singers, just stuck in the bodies of fakely attractive people and forced to sing really terrible songs.
Anyway. My main genres when I was young were Motown, show tunes, jazz-pop standards, and pop-inflecting R&B. I could count on my sister getting me the latest Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child, or Alicia Keys CD for each birthday and Chrismukkah. I listened to them extensively, and to this day, even in the age of iPods and playlists and listening to single songs and not albums, if I hear a song off of one of these ladies’ albums I know exactly which song should come next in the track listing.
But then I transferred from the very urban middle school I went to to private school, and then I discovered lots of other music, both that satisfied my ear and that spoke to the major angst I had. Also, it helped that liking music that my classmates liked helped me to fit in, since so much of the way I acted seemed not to do that for me. Continue reading →
This is very exciting. At this very moment, I am sitting at my desk, writing.
That may not seem all that interesting, but let me paint a picture for you.
Generally, my desk is where my textbooks sit when I am not using them at my dining room table to read or write papers. It is also where magazines and journals that I have not yet had time to read live. So imagine a desk that has been cleared off, save for a faux vintage clock radio/iPod dock and various other regular desk implements. Also, the light in the hallway is on, but the bedroom light, in the room where I am writing, is off. I’ve always been kind of a vampire when it comes to light. My eyes are sensitive to my computer light, and overhead lights just add to that mess. So, hallway light plus liliko’i scented candle on the bookshelf and tealight in a recycled materials lantern on the desk is what I’ve got. Love it.
Diane Birch singing to me about fire escapes and Valentino. The delicious smell of wick burning and wax melting. Late night mood conducive to writing. Continue reading →
decolonizing writer representation – the agent challenge!
in which i ramble about the a+ diversity in quantico and crazy ex-girlfriend
january reading in review
a borrowed identity
when good books go underrecognized because they have “diversity”: a case study
« Jan
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