subverting the text

Okay. I read some books in 2010. I read, er, way more fanfiction. I didn't track the fanfic really well, which means I actually have crappy records of what I read besides my recs (maybe I should list my favorite fanfic for the year? Hmm.) but Inception fandom is kind of like a dream, anyway...you remember bits and snatches, and that fuzzy feeling of AWESOME HIJINKS when you wake, but never the specifics...that's pretty much my entire Summer/Fall 2010, yep.

I need read some books, though! I even liked some of them. Countdown!

7. The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
Awesome sibling relationships! Sort-of-twist ending that you can figure out immediately! I will ignore the love triangle vibe to put this here. >.> (Friends, I really don't like love triangles, it's a fact, and that means 90% of YA has to be dead to me, I guess, until someone writes a book with poly characters.)

6. Flood by Stephen Baxter
Improbable science fiction with loads of telling and weird emotional hiccups in the narrative! Soap operaesque interpersonal relationships that make no sense! WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE, and yeah, you probably don't want to drink it. I wish I could explain why I love this book, it's like admitting you like a terrible disaster science fiction movie like 2012 (for the record, I did not like 2012). I just like to watch things fall apart, okay.

5. Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Awesome female friendships. More love triangles, but handled well enough I didn't want to gouge out my eyes. Girls interacting with girls without it being a competition or a cat fight. Interesting family dynamics and awesome sibling relationships! A really nice ending to the trilogy.

4. Fire by Kristin Cashore
Really intriguing premise with a main character that grabbed me more than the protag of Graceling. Relationship with lots of UST. *_* Nice parallels with Fire's life and being a woman in general. Less points for hard choices dealt with in a hand-wavey manner and token lesbianism and a force-connecting of the plots between books, but otherwise really interesting and lovely. Can I have Bitterblue now?

3. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Awesome worldbuilding: check. Realistic, not over the top villains: check. Main characters that become a team, and is not boy-saves-girl: check. Did I mention the worldbuilding? Because I really loved it to pieces and wanted more, which is a sign that the author is giving us just enough, ugh, Bacigalupi. Please write more YA and short stories, since I am still a little scared of Wind-Up Girl. THANKS.

2. Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey
Main character who is like me? Not perfect and a little grating and heavy set and AWESOME? I will take it. Realistic romance with creepy undertones? A+ Neat overturning of tired tropes with lots and lots of diversity? YES. Consequences for choices made? UGH I WAS AT ONCE LIKE YES! AND THEN NOOOOOOO MY HEART D: I loved all the worldbuilding in this book, like, this book seriously made me finish it and then go to google maps and wander around these cities with google street view (yes I am a creeper) and be awed with this part of the world I never knew existed, and all these myths we DEFINITELY didn't get to when I took Mythology. FYEEEEAH KAREN HEALEY, WHERE IS YOUR NEXT BOOK. *grabby hands*

1. Soulless by Gail Carriger
Maybe predictable, but no other book made me laugh so hard and cheer so loudly and had GAY VAMPIRES and SEXY WEREWOLVES and I can heard the screams of agony from people who were like, "but Elizabeth Peters!" but I've been there — I was there with Battle Royale and The Hunger Games (FFFFFFFF), after all, and my general outlook is that I loved this book so much, I am actually more likely to go read this other author now, which I might not have done before. I have become zen — I really enjoy when a new piece of literature opens the door to other pieces I missed. This also keeps my blood pressure down. *g* I am a fan of comedy that doesn't rely on humiliation to work, and this comedy did not, and so I pretty much knew when I closed this book it would be my favorite of the year.

My full reading list was here. It is, no lie pretty sad-looking, but it has none of the EPIC AMOUNTS OF FANFICTION I read on it, and there was just — so much fanfiction. It looks like I read nothing, but I would spend all my study breaks and such reading fanfic. Not catching up, I am still not caught up, JFC, but well, I have no complaints about my reading this year, is where I am going. I read tons and tons and tons, and so what if they weren't books.

I read seven male authors and 16 female authors if we're counting books. If we're counting fanfiction, well, my female author count is through the roof — over 50, definitely, and there's just no complaining about that.

I still really don't know where I am headed with book blogging. I've never liked to lock myself into a particular path with blogging, because I wil inevitably feel trapped and unhappy and feel guilty for posting explicit fanfic, or ridiculous rants, or pictures of Tom Hardy shirtless, and I don't like that feeling, so I am owning up now: if you follow me for book blogging reasons, you may be disappointed in 2011 *g*. I might pick it back up and might not; I want to, but who knows! One day and one book at a time. I'll leave the book blogging title to the professionals who don't get into fights with authors in their comments. *g*

• I wrote a guest post for GLBT Reading this week. It was super fun and Amanda was great to work with. I am very tempted to join the challenge now. Yet another reward for finishing school? I wrote Free to a Good Home: Slash Goggles and there are other great posts and lots of recommendations, since this is YA month. There are no recommendations for books in my post, it is all navel-gazing. What else is new?

• owlmoose Video games as art: A round-up: a really interesting breakdown of the current (and past) debate about video games as art. Roger Ebert fanned the flames once more; I am really suspicious of his motives. In anyone else I would suspect douchebaggery, but this is Ebert, one of the most intelligent cultural critics writing today, so I am skeptical of the fact that he just happened to revisit this topic. I have been waiting for a Jay Smooth video take down (pined for it, actually), but KJ's collection of links and commentary is just as great.

• Color Online: Would We Forget?: My commentary would not be near as powerful as I found this quote to be:

Publishers Weekly's Top Ten of 2009, did not include any female authors. Here is PW's 100 Best Books of 2009 I only see two women of color authors on the list. The LA Times favorite fiction of 2009. This time there one woman of color author. NPR's Best Books of 2009. Someone please correct me if I am wrong but I only see four authors of color. NPR's best of list are complied by different people and broken up into categories. I find it ironic that no women of color authors made the Under -The Radar List.

• I found a list of Top 100 YA books, voted on by visitors. I think it's very interesting, although I am tired of these lists that count "series" as a book. Pick a book!

• Via, Angieville, look how many covers Sunshine has! They're all beautiful, but my favorite is still the US paperback.

• What Books Do You Wish Everyone Would Read?, hosted by Amy. Why are surveys like that SO HARD? Looking over it made me realize I am an SF/F girl and will be, forever and ever.

• Interview with John Green and David Levithan on the release of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I have read this book and am co-reviewing it with Nymeth as a reward for finishing school (a week and a half!). :D

Now, back to the final paper grindstone. >.>

1. My novel class is awesome. The professor is very "hip", very into joke-joke-ha-ha type of interaction until she blindsides you with like, serious critical analysis of whatever we happen to be discussing at the time. She's making us learn names of everyone in the class. When she said this, I was immediately suspicious and paid attention when she called roll, meaning today when she asked for a volunteer and one man's hand shot up, I was like, "FUCK!" because yes, he got to say his name, then the person after him has to say his name, then their name, and it just went on like that and I was towards the end, so my I had to repeat 15 names! It was not awesome, but thankfully since I paid attention the first two days to names, I was spared from screw ups. The guy next to me wrote all the names down in order; while I just wrote them down wherever. Ah, the good old school trick of notes.

2. Speaking of notes. Today I let a girl in Lit I borrow mine to catch up. I did this without thinking of the fact that my header for my Iliad notes started: The Iliad, or Achilles Throws a Temper Tantrum and All That's Missing is the Supermarket Aisle and a Box of Fruit Loops (Achilles/Patroclus OTP 4eva), and that elsewhere in my notes I had gone off on a feminist rant about women as objects and how in all these lit classes it's just a non issue and they never discuss it! IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MENZ. After that I also happened to write a side note about Agamemnon and Achilles and damn guys, just have hatesex already—I feel like telling Achilles it would save him the trouble, because then there could be orgies and he could share in all Agamemnon's riches and the fact the guy was greedy wouldn't be an issue.

Achilles needs anger management.

Anyway, so this girl didn't say anything when she returned my notes, but boy I bet she was confused as hell. Lesson: no one can ever borrow my notes again or else they're going to read the Greek literature slash I've written in the margins.

3. Lit I is interesting in the fact that all these people are young, young-young, young-the-world-revolves-around-me young. This snooty little freshman balked at the term "gods". He didn't want to use the word! My professor spluttered a little bit, reminded him it wasn't actually God, and the guy said, "that's the point, they shouldn't even get the word!" I was not very nice to this kid when I offered to help him check his Christian privilege, and he was not over glad of my entrance into the conversation, and I am now officially the Class Bully Who Hates Jesus. I mean, come on, it's Homer, the gods may be called gods but it's really just like an episode of that soap, Passions, which was REALLY BAD on a good day. I wish I had reminded him that technically, Zeus was the most powerful of the gods, but God didn't come down as a shower of gold to have sex with the ladies, or come down as a swan and impregnate Mary with a charmed baby that she would pop out as an egg. He just waved his hand, or maybe his appendage (I don't want to assume), you know, and things were done. At this point, the comparison between Zeus and God kind of falls apart, unless I missed that bit in the Old Testament where God comes down as a donkey or something, drugs the shit out of Mary and then makes sweet, sweet love all night long, and wow, now I have skeeved myself out.

I don't think it's too much to ask for the kids not to expect literature to cater to religious conventions that haven't even been created yet at the time what we're reading was thought to have been circulating. Or at least if they're thinking it not to share it. Maybe I ask for too much. laksjdlajsdasdasd;lamsd

4. It's official; I don't get Austen. However, I am totally intrigued and want to read The Mysteries of Udolpho.

5. I am rewarding myself with (mostly) keeping up with my readings by reading a library book over the weekend! Well, by "mostly" I mean that I've read the Iliad about four times now, and the most interesting parts is what we'll test over, so do I really need to do more than go through and highlight my favorite bits? HAVE RESPECT FOR THIS, HECTOR. *glee*

I am currently reading Flood by Stephen Baxter, and I made a list of the 2010 books that look shiny but I probably won't even get to, as my entire year is going to be filled with FFEX, work, school, avoiding FFXIII spoilers and then playing FFXIII.

( Books I Really Want To Read: A Partial 2010 Edition With Some Hangers-On )

I am sure there are more but I can't remember them now. *sob*