Currently reading
Looking Backwards from 2000 to 1887
Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking
The Other Half Of The Sky
Dead Mountain: The True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
FUCKED: on being sexually dysfunctional in sex-positive queer scenes
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life
Deutschland Schwarz Weiß: Der alltägliche Rassismus
Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Natural Language Processing with Python
Kein Meer
Oida, ich hab da voll die ausführliche Review geschrieben, und dann war grad beim Abschicken das Internet weg. Also in kurz: Ja, es ist gut. Ich hab Laras Ausführungen über Entwachsen-Pardon Enthaaren, Denkmalschändungstechnik und Ritzwerkzeuge sehr genossen, Qualität.
Wie immer bei Büchern mit vielen kurzen Abschnitten und vielen Personen war ich gelegentlich verwirrt, um wen es grad geht.
Und wie immer bei Büchern mit kursiv gedruckten Vergangenheitsdingen fand ich es anstrengend, die zu lesen (wegen Kursiv? oder weil ich auch alte Bücher kaum lesen mag? wer weiß), in Kein Meer sind die aber immer in handhabbaren Happen und ja, gutes Buch, und das Ende hat auch bei halbkonzentriertem Kursivdrucklesen Sinn gemacht, kein "teste dein Detailwissen"-Ende (und dieses Ende! O__O), voll gut.
Meine Tassen im Schrank: Depressionen, Michelangelo und ich
Oh, das ist richtig cool. (Also, die Übersetzung ist awkward, dauernd werden maskuline Formen verwendet… aber sonst eben.) Hatte aus irgendeinem Grund nicht soo viel erwartet. Aber ja, mitreißend (wobei, die Medikamentenkapitel findet man wahrscheinlich spannender, wenn man damit selbst Erfahrung hat, so ist es ein bisschen "uuuuh… lange Liste Zeug…") und ziemlich sympathisch.
Sphere: Androgyny 01 - Fall 2015: thoughts, fashion, history, and reviews
This reads like a zine or a series of blog posts. Very short, not very in depth, on a few different subjects.Part of it is the first chapter of a planned book on androgynous appearance, it's just the introduction though, so not much on the actual subject… what I liked about that part though was that the author's view on androgyny seems very nuanced and like it would leave space for lots of different styles.
Other than that, there were some notes on nonbinary history that I was very happy about - queer history is so, so important, I can't even find words for it.
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
I… really don't know what to say. The beginning was fun and the end destroyed me emotionally - I enjoyed it a lot. The thoughts it sparked about perspective and inclusion in utopia, and the construction of utopian societies, were wonderful as welll. At the same time though, the way this disabled child is used to make a point didn't sit quite right with me.
Uncovering Ray
Wanted to read it because of the genderqueer main character, but gave up at 24%. The story wasn't interesting and the only thing that kept me reading was wanting to see if I like the way Ray's gender is portrayed. Well, I guess I'll never find out. So far it was only by guys harassing Ray for being trans, so, my hopes aren't that high anyway.Also, I read some reviews both here and on amazon and most of the fans of this book seem to have no sensitivity for trans & nonbinary issues at all & I was appalled by most of them.
One good thing though: I identify a lot with Ray, who is depressed (as many reviews pointed out "for no reason" - duh, guess what depression means), has few friends and apparently didn't succeed in life the way Ray's family hoped Ray would.
Water
It's a cute poly love story. With a lot of police violence and suicidal thoughts. In a fictional world with magic and… fictional racism. And, uh, it's cute.
Binti
This is really good. I'd love to read more set in this universe, maybe some more stories from Oomza Uni.
Pantomime
So I finally finished this book. The setting is great, and I like many of the characters. It's just. Micah, the protagonist, is intersex, genderfluid and bi. Now, I actually like the way Micah is portrayed as bi. But the other two?I didn't really notice the genderfluid part, because there was little information on how Micah sees Micah's own gender. From what's in the book, I only know that Micah didn't like the expectations put on girls, likes to dress more masculine and enjoys passing as a boy. But… okay. I guess I could live with not knowing the exact gender(s) of the protagonist.
Then, Micah is intersex. I'm not intersex and apparently Laura Lam isn't, either. I tried to find a review by an intersex person, but I didn't find any, so idk, I thought many things might be weird and I'll just share two of my thoughts.
- I thought it was totally not okay how Micah's body was used as a plot point. Honsestly, there was foreshadowing about it more than once! Foreshadowing about a person's body just seems so wrong. Micah being intersex was not simply relevant to the plot, at times it seemed like it was all there was to the plot.
- The mythology and adoption storylines could be othering. Like, "Yes, there are those people, but… only with unknown origins and magic from long lost times and everyone else is ~normal~". I always think this is mediocre writing for nonbinary characters, and it might be similar for intersex. (And Micah is both.)
I'll leave these links by OOI Australia on being an ally to intersex people, and Actually Intersex about non-intersex people writing intersex characters.
And then there's the racism that was used to design the different parts of this world, and the elf-like super white magical people. And the cruel sex workers just appearing for one scene robbing people and threatening to kill them??!
One thing that I really liked though was the market stall that sells binders just like that, because somewhere in this world it's normal to wear for people with breasts :D
Then again, idk, maybe I'm just weak, but I think binding 24/7 would be way more painful than what the author lets Micah feel and omg I definitely couldn't do it, but Micah does acrobatics while binding with bandages and it's fine.
Biester 2 - Sodom & Gomorrha
Und auch bei diesem Band: Genauso viel sympathisches wie unsympathisches, genauso viele cool angesprochene Probleme wie Sachen, die ich problematisch finde. Schon lesenswert, aber halt nicht mit einem "das kann ich total ohne gedankliche Kritikmaschinerie genießen"-Anspruch.
I Think I Am in Friend-Love with You
asdfgh, it's very short and very very cute!! <3<br/>So, it's about friend-love. Which is very similar to what I have called a friend crush in the past, and what other aromantic people call a squish.
It's not exactly the same for me. I generally wouldn't think it's weird to hold my friend's hand or to cuddle them. Last time I had a friend crush, I didn't even feel the need to spend a lot of time with that wonderful person, just to see them once in a while, at all (because yes, not seeing them would have broken my friend heart into a million pieces).
But, you know what? I think this is the perfect description of what those things can feel like. There are so many types of friendship, and I guess most people have more than one kind of friends, so friend love can come with different desires around it. (Like, some people would also want sex with their friendship. Some wouldn't want the tumblr reblogging thing. Idk.)
Still, I could really relate, and I think this is going to be my go-to explanation of friend crushes. I just hope it feels as powerful to people who don't understand them? Meh, probably not, but.
Biester
Ein 15 Jahre alter Bi-Comic! Der Zeichenstil gefält mir leider nicht so sehr. Vieles ist aber sooo relatable oder aus Bi-Perspektive einfach witzig. Leider gehts die ganze Zeit um "Männer und Frauen", da konnte ich weder mich noch mein Bi-Sein so recht drin sehen. Sonst… es sind halt sehr kurze Comics, bei manchen wusste ich danach nicht so recht, ob ich die jetzt gut fand. (Gingen überproportional viele auf Lesben los oder hab ich mir das nur eingebildet? Ich hoffe letzteres.)
The Wicked + The Divine, Vol. 1: The Faust Act
Well, it's literally perfect in all of the ways. It's just, I… didn't really relate to the characters? At all? It's all cool to read, but yeah, I didn't relate to the protagonist, or to any god except Sakhmet obviously. So, this is really good, but I don't know if I'm going to read the next volume.
Little Shop Of Hamsters
Actually liked most of it! But it's a bit boring in between and I think the hamster scenes should have been more absurd, cute and creepy, those descriptions seemed a bit rushed tbh
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1: Squirrel Power
It's SO GOOD. I love it. Squirrel girl! *eats nuts and kicks butts*Also, everything else. Her roommate Nancy is perfect. And and and. I loved like 99% of everything.
Bitch Planet, Vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine
The art and the characters are great, but I couldn't quite get into the story. I wasn't in the mood for detailed views of a fictional version of patriarchy. Idk.