Tagged with female

"The one good thing about being shut in a coal-hole is that it prompts reflection." So yeah, Jeanette Winterson had a rough childhood, but somehow managed to keep her optimism and sense of humor. Why Be Happy reminds me of Are You My Mother?, but without comics and run through a Joan Didion filter.

I was stoked to pick this up at the library after waiting several weeks for it and after having read the short story that launched the Alpha and Omega series. I bet you know where I'm going with this. Cry Wolf was a disappointment. It did a lot more telling than showing and was overly impressed with the Omega wolf magic of radiating calm. I've found Briggs to be a creative and intelligent writer, but this one felt like her apprentice wrote it based on Briggs' outline and characters.

Twenty five Muslim women, most of them pretty observant, many of them converts, share their love stories. To a heathen like me the mystery of these women's lives isn't Islam; it's their devotion to it. Maybe I was expecting some secular Muslim contributions, but that was probably dumb. Anyway, the women's tales are heartfelt and straightforward. Surprises include the two chapters written by lesbians and the matter-of-fact and reasonable sounding appeal of polygyny.

I've long been a List fan, but I don't think I've ever gotten around to reviewing it before. Ramsey's perzine is in the form of lists: her own, found, and contributed. In #13, subtitled "Moving On," she applies her oblique storytelling to her break-up with her long-term boyfriend. The lists reveal her vulnerability, and that she is lonely but not beaten, also committed to veganism and straightedge, but not preachy about it. The lists aren't the full story, with a talented artist like Ramsey. There are lots of full-page drawings to illustrate the various lists.