Reviews

I suspect that The Tiger's Wife is a Great Book. I say "suspect" because despite the deft writing and skilled unfolding of the layered stories, I wasn't drawn in. I'm pretty sure it's not the book, it's me. My attention span isn't what it could be right now. Or TW might not be a Good book.

I'm counting this as read because I got through most of it. The premise is cool, and the first 100+ pages. It's about a bunch of partisans in Occupied Italy. Down with Mussolini and down with the Nazis! But, the rest of it is a little muddy. Juicy subject heading: World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--Fiction.

Gorokhova writes about growing up in 1960s and 70s Leningrad. I'd been curious about life in the USSR, and this memoir was exactly what I was looking for. She's a good writer, especially in her non-native but just as good English.

The Mercedes Thompson series may have joined the paranormal romance genre as Mercy joined with Alpha werewolf Adam Hauptman and took his name. Ugh. Really? I know there are lots of good reasons women take their husbands names, and I don't mean to diss them, but I just don't see this bad ass coyote shapeshifter auto mechanic having a drive to do so. Plus she's part American Indian, and aren't most tribes matrilineal?

Milo was in a funk, so ze made an abecedary zine about why ze loves zines and zine culture. I love it so much I'd make one myself, but that would be redundant and inferior because I'd pick most of the same things to go with each letter, and my graphics wouldn't be a thousandth as cute or a millionth as well laid-out.

Kylie has is an unidentified supernatural. Is she fae? Descended from the Gods? Why can she see ghosts? So at 16 she’s at a camp full of supes to figure out and perhaps come to embrace her paranormal identity. Along the way, she’s going to need to decide between the potentially rogue werewolf bad boy and the fairy, who is gifted with people able to manipulate and ease feelings in humans and animals.

Albert, in medical school while she was doing her ethnographic research with licensed prostitutes in Nevada, presents a good balance of nonfictiony background, history and data and the more interesting stuff--the women’s work and how they came to it.

I’ve read this young adult baseball book a million times and loved loved loved it, which is why I picked it up when I was stressed out and needing something easy and comforting to ease my monkey mind. I can’t say it was everything it had always been to me when I plucked it from my shelf this time around. It was as absorbing as ever, but I was more conscious this time through of how dated it is--and not just because Tunis uses the word “pickaninny” casually once to refer to the Dodger mascot. It was originally published in 1940--just seven years before Jackie Robinson broke into the majors. Weird, right?

I’m a contributor to this book, and so am not my usual cool and neutral self when it comes to reviewing it. (Who wants an impartial review anyway?) However, the truth is I didn’t love the book. Favorite contributions include Jessamyn West’s and Melissa Morrone's. And also mine, “Pinko Vs. Punk: a Generational Comparison of Alternative Press Publications and Zines.” After it was peer skewered by one of the editors, I felt pretty insecure about it, but reading it again, I’m pretty happy with it, even if it is a little intellectually lazy and probably too casual in tone.