REVIEW: GIRLS MADE OF SNOW AND GLASS

I’ve been mulling on how to review Girls Made of Snow and Glass for a week.

There have been a lot of efforts over the years to revision Snow White. Add dwarves, subtract dwarves. Make Snow White evil. Give Regina The Queen backstory. The Nightmares and Fairytales comic version has the Queen literally steal Snow’s heart, and Snow becomes a monster who comes to steal it back (then she frolics off into the forest with the animals). Chris Colfer’s Land of Stories portrays the Queen as a tragic figure, a princess who was never saved. Manipulated by the Enchantress to do her will, Evly uses her ruthlessness and determination to try to save the love of her life (and screw anyone who gets in her way). She ends up trapped herself, and Snow ends up sharing her stepmother’s story to the other queens, because there’s nothing else that can be done for her, and understanding is all Snow can give to Evly now.

In Girls Made of Snow and Glass, Melissa Bashardoust does what some fairytale revisionists have tried before: focus on the relationship between Snow and The Queen. However, rather than adding a little development of their relationship to an overall love story about being rescued by a prince, Bashardoust sets the love between Snow (Here, Lynet) and The Queen (Mina) center stage. Following in importance are the relationships with their fathers, and Lynet’s relationship with her love interest, Nadia.

BOOK REVIEWS: Juliet Takes a Breath

Juliet Takes a Breath

by Gabby Rivera

Kitty sits above ebook. Cover features the back of a girl's head,
shaved into an undercut that says, Juliet Takes a Breathe

I’ve been looking forward to this one for some time. The idea of a coming-of-age story for a Puerto Rican babydyke going on a quest to discover herself is pretty amazing. It’s also something that seems like a no-brainer, given how many coming out stories exist. But what sets Juliet Takes a Breath apart from a lot of those stories is that JTaB doesn’t follow the general beats of that story. It isn’t focused on Juliet finding her true love (although she does get to have some romance on the side of her exploration). It’s about her finding how to be herself and about finding her community.

Folded in with this search for community is the complication of whiteness within a marginalized community. Juliet sets out to find herself by becoming an intern for Harlowe Brisbane, author of Raging Flower (a book that comes off as the lovechild of Inga Muscio’s CUNT and lesbian separatist texts of the 70s). Juliet’s feelings are in upheaval because while she looks up to Harlowe and is learning from her, Harlowe’s whiteness and self-centeredness are a stumbling block that hurt Juliet so deeply that they threaten to really damage her sense of self and her future as an amazing writer.

Since the book is set in 2003, the reader is in for the beautiful but bizarre world of the early 2000s. Juliet treats us to some wonderful descriptions of her first encounters with the people in Portland. I took a pause as this part was developing, because it seemed a bit over the top, but when she moves into the feminist/LGBT communities, everything seems to click and feel real.

Granted, much of this is only speculation for me, but I remember what it was like in the early 2000s with the menstrual life force, fairies, sisterhood type of second wave feminism resonates. There was a lot of development of third wave feminism in the 90s, and Juliet encounters much of this through queer people of color, but I feel like some of the popular texts coming out at the time totally ignored this and focused on a more visceral violence against women and their experiences with their genitals.

Honestly, it was a weird time, and Juliet reacts exactly as she should. It’s relatable how she feels like an outsider, and everything feels like a test to see if she’s gay enough, has enough gay cred. Her growth is the narrative core, and I think that it’s significant that much of her greatest development comes through interaction with other women of color. Harlowe’s relationship with her is important, but Harlowe is very flawed, and Juliet really has to decide whether to keep that connection or not.

Rivera’s style feels familiar and occasionally poetic. Juliet is a keen observer of her world, but not one that describes things endlessly. Her words in prose drive us along, even though she isn’t always able to speak her mind. A few gems:

It was late and I was tired; I couldn’t even process the extent of her hippiness. 

It looked like the Salvation Army of bookstores, and who doesn’t love a little dig through salvation? (Re: Powell’s) 

Phen had the kind of beauty that boys with attitude and slim bones get away with. They’re the type of boys that men like Alan Ginsberg fell in love with and bled out poetry for. 

I was both uncomfortable and so proud; I’ve always loved my breasts. I’ve loved them for the way they defied gravity: full, brown, perfect. They held court over my soft belly, another part I was always aware of, another section of thickness that announced itself by daring to exist. 

Libraries are safe but also exciting. Libraries are where nerds like me go to refuel.

I could practically feel Harlowe doing a dance of menstrual joy. 

Maybe America just swallowed all of us, including our histories, and spat out whatever it wanted us to remember in the form of something flashy, cinematic, and full of catchy songs. And the rest of us, without that firsthand knowledge of civil unrest and political acts of disobedience, just inhaled what they gave us.

I will say that I felt the first few chapters were a little slow compared to the rest. The story isn’t uninteresting at all; it just takes a bit of time to get into Juliet’s headspace, and that might well be me as a reader. Partially because I’m white, and partially because I’m not a fan of first person in general. But I literally read the latter half in the course of one night. Could not sleep until I’d finished it. JTaB hooks you that hard once you’ve gotten into it.

I would recommend this book all around. If you are a fan of contemporary YA lit, then you will enjoy it, even though the romance is minimal and Juliet is technically in college. If you liked The Hate U Give, you should like this book. If you are in the LGBT community and a young woman of color, this book is so important. If you’re just a flawed white woman, you still need to read this book and experience Juliet’s story.

The worst part of the book honestly is that it ends, dammit. And there’s not another by Gabby Rivera yet, although I’ve followed her on Goodreads, and apparently we may get some sci fi from her. (Bonus: the way Octavia Butler is dropped in so lovingly.) She also writes the new Marvel title for America Chavez, meaning that when I clear my to-read pile a bit, I have more reading from Rivera.

(For those who are not in love with the word QUEER, it’s used quite frequently to describe identity and community.)

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

COMIC REVIEWS: Joyride Vol 1

Joyride

In the near future, humankind has finally found life in the universe! And we are TERRIFIED. In response, the government creates a dome called SafeSky to protect us from extraterrestrial life and have used this fear as an excuse to create a fascist, controlled society. As you do. Or as humans do, anyway. Shock Doctrine engage! Power up the giant gun on the moon!

Characters/Plot 8/10

The characters of Joyride are relatable namely because they are familiar types without being stereotypes. Namely, in another title, Dewydd would probably be the lead, haplessly following his manic pixie dreamgirl Uma into the great beyond. Instead, within the first volume, all three leads have Goals, Motivation, and Background that make their actions reasonable, if not always wise or expected.

For some it might be hard to relate to Uma’s enthusiastic (to the point of irrationality) embrace of flinging herself into space, intent on never coming back. But when you find out what’s happened to her, it all makes sense. Dewydd is in fact following Uma because he loves her (this is barely a spoiler), but this is complicated by the fact that her character isn’t there to teach him anything, and she has romantic inclinations of her own.

Catrin starts as your standard security guard getting swept up in the hero’s madcap adventures, but turns out to be a whole lot more. She’s also Uma’s enemies to friends to potential love, and it’s done in a slow way that I wholeheartedly approve of.

I have to admit that I’m strongly in favor of slow burns over insta-love, no matter the genre, but especially for LGB characters, everything tends to happen at once, because the writers often lose interest after sweeps to knock one of them off. Boo. In Joyride vol 1, we’re still eeking toward friendship.

The side characters are also worth paying attention to, especially the robot/ship’s pilot/Uma’s text buddy and the alien wanderer they pick up at their first stop who is constantly nonplussed or horrified by the antics of the humans he’s fallen in with.

If I had a criticism to make, it’s that the emotional resolution of the final chapter comes pretty quickly. But I’m willing to excuse it since the story is otherwise well-paced and Uma tends to be mercurial in nature. It feels believable that she would shift her feelings very quickly from one state to another.

Art 7/10

I grade comic art on a few specific criteria: Can I tell what’s happening? (Clear lines, distinguishable action, etc.) Are the characters identifiable with recognizable facial expressions? And are there moments to elevate the sequential drawing to art?

Joyride gets high points on clarity of action and emotive characters. The designs for the aliens are neat, too, and it was interesting without being too cutesy, gross, or ridiculous. The panels are well laid out and the artist does an excellent job of directing they eye through the course of action, even when there are floating panels or smaller panels layered on top of a larger scene.

The comic misses out on higher Art points, but that isn’t an aim of this volume, and there are some very well composed scenes of our teens looking up at a huge field of stars and the entire Protex scene with Uma and Catrin has a lot of meaning pressed into a few pages.

Also, space dance party.

Two women and a robot dance

Narrative Themes:

Important themes:

Bio-fam Loyalty vs Found Family

Security vs Freedom

Human Expectations vs Alternative Alien Logics

I won’t go into details on these at the end of this volume because it would involve spoilers and I need to see the full arcs to accurately judge. What I will say at this moment is that the fact that these themes are present is a plus for the title. You could easily just have a group of teens run off and have adventures with no deeper connection for any of the characters. I appreciate what’s started here, particularly the dystopian elements, as dystopia literature has been a research interest of mine and I’ve taught dystopia lit. Love it.

You can’t do dystopian Earth without making the human connections and addressing the issues of violence and conflicted loyalties and values, but the story doesn’t get too bogged down in philosophizing either.

TL;DR

Overall, I’m going with a definite recommendation. I picked this volume up as a free review copy for Netgalley, simply based on the LGBT label, but if I’m honest, I would be interested in the story regardless based on the dystopian and sci fi content.

The fact that other reviews keep going on about SPACE GIRLFRIENDS doesn’t hurt. I’ve already secured the second volume, and I’ll be preordering the third.

Vamp Reviews: Fledgling

Pictured: Fledgling by a bottle of Poison Girl, with dark purple flowers.
My love for Octavia Butler is deep and all consuming. I’m closing in on reading her entire oeuvre as soon as I nail down the Patternmaster series. She has stories about gene trading aliens, pregnant men, the destruction of America under a demagogic leader, among other thought experiments. She does with sci fi what should be done with sci fi: Explore social phenomenon and test the boundaries of human social expectations.


Fledgling (2005) is no different in this regard. It isn’t my favorite book of hers by any means (that award goes to Parable of the Talents), but it’s just so darn interesting that I’ve returned to it many times. The story follows a young vampire named Shori, who wakes in agonizing pain, nearly burned to death, and blinded, in a cave. As she heals and makes her way out into the world, she has to solve the murder of her family and try to navigate a society she has no memory of in order to get justice or her people.


Fledgling was supposed to be Butler’s “fun” vampire novel, and t was the book she wrote just before she died. (Too soon!) In spite of that, the novel continues to explore the concept of power in hierarchical societies, as well as biological interdependence through a completely original imagining of how vampires and their humans may interact. While some of this novel’s prose isn’t as polished as Butler’s other novels, the conceptual development is more than worth the read.

Uneducating Queer

Confessions of an Uneducated Queer
by Lauren Zuniga (trigger warnings)

"Everything I learned about being queer, I learned from poets.

Poets are cheaper than college."

Zuniga starts by talking about not understanding Judith Butler and mispronouncing Foucault at a party... It took me about seven years to really understand Judith Butler while I was reading her. I read Gender Trouble at least three times, and it wasn't until I'd spent a lot of time reading the French theorists that Butler is basing her work off of that I came back to GT and amazingly, shockingly, alarmingly, GOT IT. I pretty thrilled when I turned in a summary of Butler and got high praise for having such a good grasp on what Butler was saying, and being able to condense it so well. What a rainbow feather in my cap! Oh, I got the ideas long before because you can't hang around gender studies without absorbing the general idea, and even better, the trans theorists who critique her do a better job of breaking her down.

(FYI, Butler's early works are so difficult because 1) They were meant to be that way. Theorists sometimes torture language that way to help disassociate from meaning, and 2) She was working through these concepts as she was writing them. And as a teacher of writing, I'll tell you, that's when your prose falls apart. Read Butler's more current work and it's a lot more easy to parse.)

(Here, have a link of Judith Butler as explained by cats.)

But honestly, academic queerness isn't the only way to be queer. Queer studies exist to break down culture and concepts and study them. It's not supposed to be a way of shaming people. And as Zuniga points out here, it's not the only way to learn about queerness. The community is the best way, and reading is another way, both memoirs and fiction. Listening to other people.

My first experiences with LGBTQ characters: Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald Mage series.  

A series. About wizards. With talking horses. And gay people.

(Yay!)

Through multiple moves, and selling of my stuff to pay car repair bills and medical bills, and my ceiling literally caving in with water, I still have that damn book. I didn't come out until I was 19, and I couldn't conceptualize it really until then. I lived in a very small town growing up. That town still doesn't have a single Starbucks. It was a big deal when we got a Walmart. For a while, every time I thought about it, I pushed the identity aside. It didn't seem to fit. I couldn't wrap my head around that and me.

There were no gay characters on television, aside from evil lesbians on DS9. The only reason I was exposed to LGBTQ characters, the only reason I saw someone representing it as normal, even as a trait that heroes might have, was because of books. 

And I was a voracious reader.

It's so important. Our communities, and our literature. Our creations. We teach and change through the common channels, the ones that don't have pre-requisites.