Take a photo of a barcode or cover
maco's reviews
72 reviews
The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
5.0
Wow. So many times, reading this book, I was struck by how positively horrid the life of a well-brought-up lady in high society was back then. Particularly if she had the audacity to think! From the lips of the girls in the school "ladies can't be detectives, we haven't the constitution." The narrator makes it very clear that women are prizes to be won, like a fine piece of art--and their thoughts and feelings matter about as much as a piece of art's too.
The entire book is plot-twists, deception, trust...all muddled up. The ending is unguessable, and I can't decide if it quite counts as a happy ending or not. Though many characters escape high society's constraints, I'm not altogether sure that any of them really gets what they ultimately want.
The entire book is plot-twists, deception, trust...all muddled up. The ending is unguessable, and I can't decide if it quite counts as a happy ending or not. Though many characters escape high society's constraints, I'm not altogether sure that any of them really gets what they ultimately want.
Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation--and Positive Strategies for Change by Sara Laschever, Linda Babcock
5.0
Read it. Definitely read it. I handed my copy off to another woman I know within 12 hours of finishing reading it, because you absolutely must read it. If you're a woman, you work with women, you manage women, you are managed by a woman, you have a wife, or you have a daughter: READ IT!
The statistics and research are very interesting and demonstrate the high impact of how we're socialised from a young age and how that can limit or expand successes throughout our lives. Throughout, there is advice on how to mitigate or undo some of the damage socialisation has done. There's also a bit on how women's negotiation styles can actually work better than men's--if the other person has the same style.
The statistics and research are very interesting and demonstrate the high impact of how we're socialised from a young age and how that can limit or expand successes throughout our lives. Throughout, there is advice on how to mitigate or undo some of the damage socialisation has done. There's also a bit on how women's negotiation styles can actually work better than men's--if the other person has the same style.
Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce
Another mystery threatens everything, and of course Beka's the Dog to sniff it out. With fewer friends to help her out through most of it, this time though. Very impressive!
Also:
Wow, a mainstream book that has queer characters who just kinda happen to be queer. It's not a book that advertises this fact or sits in the LGTBQ-interest part of the bookstore. They're just regular characters, like real life. There's a gay police chief and his transgender lover.
Also:
Wow, a mainstream book that has queer characters who just kinda happen to be queer. It's not a book that advertises this fact or sits in the LGTBQ-interest part of the bookstore. They're just regular characters, like real life. There's a gay police chief and his transgender lover.
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy
4.0
Nice analysis of what has confused me for a long time: the idea that succumbing to objectification is somehow "empowering" for the modern woman.
The chapter on gender variance, bois, and transmen is a bit disappointing, though. She seems to discount the idea that there could be transmen who *really are trans*, not just women who hate that they're female and want to switch to the dominant team for the perks.
The chapter on gender variance, bois, and transmen is a bit disappointing, though. She seems to discount the idea that there could be transmen who *really are trans*, not just women who hate that they're female and want to switch to the dominant team for the perks.
The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose
5.0
Kevin Roose, raised in a liberal Quaker (for those unfamiliar, liberal Quakers are culturally similar to Unitarian Universalists) household, set out on a "study domestic" to Liberty University, to experience American evangelical Christian culture. He hoped to humanize these people who were, to him, a stereotype or a caricature. By the end of the semester, he's found (as Quakers say) "that of God" in not just his fellow students but even in Jerry Falwell.