Month in Review: March

Ack! My blogging is getting less consistent as the year marches on! 28 posts in January, 19 in February, and this is only my 15th of the month. Bad blogger!

This was another tough month for me personally - my husband was out of town for the entire month and that interview I had back in February? Didn't get that job. Interviewed for another and missed it again. Waiting to hear back from Human Resources again about scheduling another interview in a different department, however. It's encouraging that this company seems to really like me, but I wish they would settle on a place to put me!

I have been reading a ton this month, as I mentioned in my Dirty Little Secrets review. However, a lot of those books I just wasn't enthusiastic about. I'm going to review them all, eventually, I just want to be able to break up the negative reviews with some positive ones as well.

I also just flat out gave up on my first book of the year. I usually persevere through even the worst books - I want to be fully informed when I go off on a rant about how terrible it was. This book wasn't even that bad, it just bored me, and as I currently have 29 books checked out from the library, I just don't have the time at this point to waste on a book that I can't dig up any feelings for, positive or negative.

Oh, and of those 29 books, only three of them are overdue! I wanted to return them yesterday, but I got to the library five minutes after it closed (it was only 6:05!) and they even lock up the outside drop boxes out here, so you can't drop off books after hours. Tomorrow I'm heading straight to the library after work to return those overdue books...and pick up several more that just came in. I really need to stop requesting books until I whittle down my already-checked-out pile!

In non-review posts this month, I gave my thoughts on Women's History Month and celebrated Ada Lovelace Day by reviewing a biography of Marie Curie. I finally got one of the preeminent books in the fallen angel paranormal romance trend and was seriously underwhelmed and have decided I need to call it quits on that particular trend. My favorite book by far this month was the previously mentioned Dirty Little Secrets, followed by Scarlett Fever (despite the less-than-stellar ending) and Marcelo in the Real World (where, again, I was way behind on picking up on the trend. But I'm still glad I got around to reading it).

Here's hoping my blogging schedule gets more consistent in April! We're finally getting the first signs of spring here in New York - which means I'm going to get to spend lunch time OUTSIDE in the park, where I can read or blog without my bosses looking over my shoulder (thank you, Madison Square Park wifi!)

Book Links - Awards & Privilege

It's the middle of a tedious workday, which means that while I don't have the time to dedicate a whole post for these links, I can give you a heads up about them!

2010 Lambda Literary Awards Finalists have been announced! The actual awards are on May 27th, but in the meantime check out the YA nominees.

Via Aarti of Booklust on Twitter: The Diagram Prize, which recognizes the year's oddest book title, is incredibly condescending towards traditionally feminine artforms this year. Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes is apparently "completely bonkers," even though if you actually look at what the book is about it is in fact a 100% accurate description of the book (it's written by mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina and uses crochet to illustrate a mathematical concept that is otherwise extremely hard to visualize).

The First Blog Carnival on Privilege went up today and includes a submission from me! I know a lot of my followers found me after a post on whitewashing or sexism or other social justice issue, so even though I think mine is the only book-related post, you should find something interesting there!

Review: Dirty Little Secrets by C.J. Omololu

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 1/11

I have a huge backlog of books that need to be reviewed, but I keep holding off because it seems like if I blogged them all now I'd have two week's worth of posts about books that I essentially didn't like. Or I liked a ton of the book...but then there was one GLARING THING that makes me unable to actually recommend a book. I certainly don't think I have to give positive reviews all the time, but I also don't want to be a total downer.

So I'm very happy to report that I loved Dirty Little Secrets, was totally unable to put it down, and finished it in just a couple of hours. Seriously, I started it on the train ride home today (at five) and finished by nine - and that includes breaks taken for dinner, websurfing, and talking to my husband.

Lucy's family has a secret. A giant, hulking, dirty secret. Her mom is a compulsive hoarder and has filled the house with piles of newspapers, old clothes, and just plain garbage. Lucy has lived like this for most of her life, and is now 16 and practically counting the days until she can escape from her mother's grip, like her two older siblings have already done.

After spending the night at her best friend's house (Lucy can never allow friends to visit her garbage-filled house), Lucy returns to find her mother dead in the hallway, her inhaler just out of reach and a six-foot pile of National Geographic magazines collapsed on top of her. Lucy spends the next 24 hours desperately trying to make the house presentable before calling for help; she can't stand the thought of her family becoming a freak show on TV with headlines like "Woman Dies Surrounded by Squalor." As she unearths forgotten shopping sprees and school projects she gives us glimpses into life with her slowly deteriorating mother and the heavy toll growing up with a hoarder has taken on Lucy's relationships with peers and her siblings. Lucy's refuge inside the house is increasingly invaded by suddenly nosy neighbors, her annoying older sister, and best friends who are dead set on setting her up with the cutest boy in school. The tension mounts hour by hour as cleaning years of debris seems increasingly hopeless, and Lucy feels her options for protecting her mother's secret are running out.

This book led to some very visceral reactions from me. I'm really glad I'd finished dinner before Lucy found the maggots in the living room (omg, is there anything more disgusting in the world than maggots? Even the word makes me shiver). And it's been awhile since a book made me say "Holy shit" aloud when I reached the climax. Lucy's story is complicated; as she struggles with how to make the house somewhat presentable, you have to ask just what is her motivation? Is she trying to protect her mother? Her family? Or just her reputation at school? Is she more concerned with whether Josh will like her after he knows of her home life than she was with her mother's well being? How justified are Lucy's feelings about her mother, considering the years of verbal and psychological abuse her mother subjected her to? And what made her mother treat her like crap - was it something to do with the illness that caused the hoarding, or would she have been abusive towards Lucy no matter what?

This is a compelling story, but by no means an easy one. Lucy has a lot of struggles, some serious and others frivolous. At first I was totally annoyed by the more frivolous distractions presented by Lucy's best friend and the cute boy, but this is a well crafted novel and eventually their inclusion serves an important point for Lucy's development. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a heavy family drama, even though most of the family is actually absent while the book is taking place.

Review: Clone Codes by Patricia C., Frederick and John McKissack

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 1/18

I've been waiting a couple of months for this one to come in, so as soon as I got it, it jumped pretty high up in the ol' to be read pile. It has a great concept with a lot of potential it just never quite lives up to.

It's 2170 and humanity has nearly perfected the science of cloning. Clones are officially classified as not human and are governed by a strict set of rules that further establish their place in the world. Leanna is 13 and firmly believes in the hierarchy that places humans as "Firsts" and clones as "Seconds" - until she learns her mother is an extremist and/or abolitionist (depending on your point of view) with the Liberty Bell movement, and is subsequently arrested for treason.

Leanna is forced to run in order to evade the government forces, though she doesn't understand why the government is so interested in her. She's just a regular girl, isn't she?

Luckily Leanna's mother had planned ahead in case she was caught and has set up an elaborate safety network to help hide Leanna from the government. Leanna is determined to do what's right, and do everything she can to save her mother in the process, while learning more than she probably ever wanted to know about history, equality, and what makes us human.

Like I said above, I really wanted to like this one - but I almost put it down 10 pages in because the Publisher's Weekly reviewer and I have vastly different definitions of "preachy." Even for a middle grade book, the narrative felt overly simplified and like the authors were talking down to their audience. And then there's The Message, which boils down to Slavery Is Bad. Is that really a lesson that needs to be hammered home in this way in the 21st century? Maybe if the parallel were to a more insidious form of slavery like sex trafficking or child labor, but the explicit parallel is to pre-American-Civil-War slavery (Leanna is a run away slave in a virtual simulation at the start of the book, and she mentions Harriet Tubman several times as she grows from thinking of clones as tools to clones as people).

I almost gave up again at the end, when it seemed the authors totally messed up the workings of the Supreme Court. I don't pretend to be a legal expert, but generally cases only reach the Supreme Court through an appeal, and they don't call in witnesses in criminal cases (Wikipedia seems to back me up here). I find it unlikely that if the number of justices didn't change in 160 years, they would change the fundamentals of the the court's operations. Also a lawyer cites the Dred Scott Decision as precedent for treating clones as property, and despite the whole dystopian-like world the McKissack's built up, I just didn't see how the country would go back to thinking that was a good court case. Why'd I keep on pressing through? Because it was a slow day on the subway and it was either read this or stare off into space. I'll take reading every time.

Science fiction for teens is a subject near and dear to my heart - I wrote my senior thesis in college on science fiction and young adult literature, using Uglies as my case study. Science fiction has always been my preferred literary/TV/film genre. So to see it manhandled like this was disappointing, because the story is fundamentally sound, and there's some great action and character building for Leanna. But the tone and over-emphasis of the message kind of killed it for me. Looking for some great SF for the middle grade reader in your life? Check out the Golden Duck awards, which recognize excellence in children's/middle grade/YA science fiction. They also have a Good Books page which wins bonus points with me for being filled with Animorphs books for grades 5-6. Leave your middle grade science fiction recommendations in the comments!

Review: Marie Curie by Janice Borzendowski

Today is Ada Lovelace Day! Who was Ada Lovelace? Well, she was the world's first computer programmer. In the 19th century. That's right, she was so awesome she figured out how to program a computer before computers actually existed.

I first learned about Ada Lovelace in Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters trilogy where she is an inspiration to one of the characters. I didn't learn about Ada Lovelace Day until it was too late for me to properly celebrate, but I marked my calendar and made sure I'd be ready this year!

The purpose of Ada Lovelace Day is to celebrate women in technology and science. Since this is a book blog, I figured it would be most fitting for me to look at biographies. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. I like to focus on two things here: recent books (in the last year or so) and young adult/middle grade titles. Searching my library for books on women in science or women in technology yielded almost nothing for MG/YA readers (everything was either picture books or long adult texts). So I had to dig into my limited knowledge of women in science/technology to find a biography on a specific woman - and it was still hard to find one that had been published in the last decade, let alone the last two years. I finally found this Marie Curie biography, from the Sterling Biographies series.

Before I read this, I certainly knew of Marie Curie - she's one of the few historical women that was studied outside of women's history month for me. I knew she lived in France (okay, I actually thought she was French - she was actually born in Poland) and discovered radiation (which really isn't true, either). So, actually, I apparently knew nothing of Marie Curie nee Maria Sklodowska.

Borzendowski's biography does an excellent job of introducing us non-science types to the basics of Curie's research (which didn't involve discovering radiation, but she did coin the term radioactivity) and includes helpful sidebars on defining concepts like "radiation" and "elements and compounds" as well as histories of Poland (when Curie was born, the country was controlled by Russia) and bits on women's rights at the time (Curie achieved lots of firsts - first woman to win a Nobel prize, first person to win one in two separate categories, first woman to graduate from the Sorbonne, etc. etc.). The extra information means this biography is useful outside of a science classroom, and can be easily understood by anyone.

Awhile ago, I saw this slideshow at Slate that looked at how presidents are presented in children's biographies and found that in the biographies meant for children, the presidents were all great people well before they took office. Curious, I wondered if the same thing might hold true in Borzendowski's book. Not having time to check out a stack of adult biographies of Curie from the library, I settled with her Wikipedia page. The only major difference I found was the Wiki claims that Curie definitely had an affair with Paul Langevin while he was married and after she was widowed. The biography says that Curie always denied the affair, which I suppose is true and doesn't actually conflict with what the Wiki says. On the other hand, Langevin's Wikipedia page merely says he "reportedly" had an affair with Curie - and, in an example of how Wikipedia can end up playing a little loose with the facts, all of the citations in the entire article are reportedly to back up that fact.

One thing I absolutely loved reading about is how the presentation of Curie's work has changed in the last century. I was aware that Curie had worked with her husband, though until I read this I didn't know how deep that relationship ran. When the Curies won half of the Nobel prize in physics in 1903, only Pierre Curie was allowed to give a lecture. That happened repeatedly in their relationship, where Marie wouldn't be allowed to present her own research. Luckily, Pierre was always sure to give her proper credit for her hard work and discoveries. In the last hundred years, however, I'd argue that Marie Curie is the better known scientist, while her husband is usually thought of as secondary.

While the feminist label is never directly applied to Marie Curie in Brozendowski's book, it's clear that she held feminist values close. She often worked as a teacher of female students, and when she had her own laboratories, many of her lab assistants were women. The world needs more women like Marie Curie even today, as the New York Times reported this week that there are still persistent biases against women in science and mathematics.

In the comments, please leave links to your Ada Lovelace Day posts, tell me about your favorite woman in science/technology, or just give me some pointers towards some great YA nonfiction on the subject!

Review: Spies of Mississippi by Rick Bowers

Found via: Betsy at Fuse #8

Spies of Mississippi would make a gripping spy novel. An insidious organization turning neighbor against neighbor, finding collaborators within target communities, and corruption at all levels of the government. But this isn't fiction - this is the true story of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Founded in 1956 by "moderate" governor J.P. Coleman (moderate because he wanted blacks and whites to remain segregated but he also wanted peace and quiet as opposed to wide-scale violence against black citizens), the agency was charged with maintaining segregation in Mississippi for almost two decades. The spies went by names like "Agent X" to preserve their anonymity, and involved everything from writing down the license plate numbers and finding the home addresses of freedom riders who came from the north, to convincing prominent members of the African-American community to turn on anti-segregation neighbors so the agency could threaten those who would work against segregation.

The chapters are short, with each one focusing on a small part of the agency's history and strategy. The format works well, as the short chapters give each part of the story a narrow focus. However, because of that narrow focus, there are some details that are lost. Bowers never gives us much biographical information on anyone, giving us just enough to get the gist and move on. While this is okay for the most part, I would really have loved to know more about the African-Americans who worked with the commission. It's easy to see, if not totally understand, why a white person would be eager to join in a pro-segregation crusade, but what would make a victim of segregation laws join forces with those who sought to continue those laws? Was it fear of retribution? A longstanding philosophy that agreed the races should remain separate?

But that's just a minor nitpick in what is otherwise a fascinating book. I knew that in the 1960s the FBI had a rather extensive domestic spying program targeting Vietnam protesters and the like (a fact which is noted in the final chapter, which gives a brief paragraph or two on what became of the major players after the downfall of the Commission), but had absolutely no idea one state had taken it upon itself to create a wide-ranging, publicly funded, spy agency. This is a slim book, which means that while it doesn't get into every detail I might have liked, it's easy to pick up and read in an afternoon - and trust me, you're not going to want to put this one down.


Thanks to Books Together for hosting Nonfiction Monday!

Review: Heist Society by Ally Carter

Found via: Liz B. at Teacozy

Kat Bishop comes from a family of thieves. Her father expects her to continue in the family business, but Kat wants out. So she puts all of her skills to work in order to gain entry to a prestigious boarding school where she can have a nice, normal life.

Until her father gets in trouble, and it's up to Kat to save him.

Kat's father is the only suspect in an elaborate art heist, that has all the earmarks of previous heists he's committed. He has the perfect alibi: if he was doing a small job in Paris that night, how could he have done a big job in Italy? But the Italian billionaire whose paintings were stolen is convinced Kat's dad is guilty, and coerces Kat to convince her father to return them.

Kat believes her father's alibi, but also knows he's in incredible danger unless she can get those paintings back. She has two weeks to figure out where the paintings are hidden, and, if necessary, figure out how to steal them back.

Of course, no heist like this could be pulled off by one person. Kat pulls together a group of young criminals, including several childhood friends who grew up in the con business; her friend Hale, who's been practically adopted into the family; her often-obnoxious cousin Gabrielle; and Nick, the new guy who got Kat's attention by picking her pocket (at the same time that she picked his). As the clock keeps ticking, the pressure keeps mounting as Kat and her team try to pull off what may be the greatest heist in history.

First, I need to get this out of the way: this is a slickly designed book. Check out the cover:


It's big and bold and while I don't think the model quite looks like Kat (she's described often as being hopelessly unfashionable) it captures the mood of the book well. The smirk makes the model look a little cheeky, which is definitely a way to describe Kat. If the movie gets made, the poster's already done, just replace the model here with the actor and you've got a slick poster. It's also so refreshingly different from the covers of Carter's Gallagher Girls series (see the covers of all of Carter's books here), which all chop the face off of the models, which is a trend I just can't stand. Also the book keeps a clear countdown so we know exactly how many days Kat has left to pull off her heist, and where she's at now, as she crisscrosses Europe in her search for the paintings. The countdown pages are filled with old-looking maps and every time I came to one I got the theme from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? stuck in my head.



However, slick design doesn't make up for the fact that this book hit one of my major pet peeves: seeming to go out of its way to fail the Bechdel Test.

Heist Society has exactly two female characters who get more than a page of screen time: Kat and Gabrielle. There's also a female Interpol agent who is in charge of tracking Kat's father, but we hardly see her, and certainly don't see her talking to Kat or Gabrielle. There are no women in Kat's extended thief family (her mother died years ago for no reason other than to make another character sympathetic towards Kat). No women work in museums or are art historians, or even serve hot chocolate in the Alps. When Kat and Gabrielle talk, they're usually being bitchy to each other (I never figured out if there was an actual reason for this animosity), and often being passive aggressive about a boy.

The point where I got absolutely furious about this, however, is when Kat and Gabrielle go to confront the man who's blackmailing Kat and her father. Gabrielle accompanies Kat as "the muscle" so this guy can't just kidnap Kat or whatever. Gabrielle doesn't say a word for the entire scene. It's all about Kat. What the hell was the point of sending Gabrielle along? It was epically disappointing.

The ending clearly sets this up to be the first in a series (though it's not a ridiculous cliffhanger - the story is 99% self contained, with one major element to be picked up as a plot point in another book), and I might even pick up the second one, but I can't guarantee I'll finish it if the gender disparity continues the way this one did.