While Reading and Walking

You can always count on Charlie Jane Anders for a good read, and Promises Stronger Than Darkness, the third and final book in the Unstoppable YA series, doesn't disappoint. The space opera has come to a heart-pounding climax: can rogue princess Elza, artist and grudging leader Rachael, and Captain Thaoh—once Tina Mains—save the world from total annihilation as the Bereavement threatens to snuff out stars across the galaxy? Or will the terrifying villain (favorite all-time villains, he scares the shit out of me) Marrant and his fascist Compassion get to the Bereavement first, and use it to accomplish their genocidal ends?

I love this series. It's a book with a lot of space drama and trauma, but with a lot of queer joy. It's powerful to read a book where queerness is accepted and pronouns are automatic, because there's plenty of drama to go around, but none where that's concerned. I love Rachael's anxiety and the fact that she can still lead. I love the messages about being selfish where it matters, about protecting the ones we love, about finding ways around violence even in the most extreme of situations. The characters deal with trauma in realistic and painful ways. It's believable, rich, complex, fun, emotional, and cinematic, all at once. It's hard to let go of these characters and their accomplishments and their relationships, but I suppose I have to, at least for now.

If you haven't picked up this series yet, now is your chance to dive in all in one go, without having to deal with a long wait between books. Go do it! There's no better Pride Month read.

Content warnings for death, grief, trauma, body horror, anxiety/panic

It’s that time of year when poplar trees rain down allergies like snow! There are a couple streets in Hyde Park just blanketed in small drifts of white fluff, and it’s always a surreal sight.

Stacey Abrams, political activist and fiction author, spoke with journalist and author Jake Tapper at a Chicago Humanities Festival event last night. Are you more of an architect or a gardener when you write? Tapper asked her early on in the night. “I’m an architect who likes landscaping,” she said—she writes a synopsis, then an outline, then lays out a storyboard, “and then it all goes to hell.”

Abrams carves out time to write, because she loves it, and because she finds it necessary. While she doesn’t have much of a work-life balance, she’s very good at what she calls “work-life jenga.” She knows how many words she can write a day, and follows her plan carefully—she can write about a chapter a day. Right now, she has a children’s book, a teenage superhero novel, another Avery Keene book, and much more in the pipeline.

Abrams primarily writes romantic suspense—“I kill too many people to be straight romance.” Her newest release, Rogue Justice, is a political thriller, the second in the Avery Keene series. In it, Keene faces real-life issues, such as the danger of deep-fakes and the secret court that grants permissions to the government to wiretap Americans. “Everything in this book could technically happen,” said Tapper, “and I guess we’re lucky that when you had a quarter-life crisis, you didn’t decide to be a criminal mastermind.” But that was Abrams’ goal—she likes using her thrillers to send up flares, to expose vulnerabilities into things we should be paying attention to.

Abrams knows that what she’s been building, politically, is powerful. “I applied for a job twice and got rejected twice,” she said, “but the work of democracy was done both times.” She gets a lot of her drive from her civil rights activist parents, who always pushed her and her siblings. Abrams has a lot of hope in the work she’s doing to increase voter turnout, and persuade voters that their votes matter. She knows that democracy is hard work. While authoritarianism is easy, “democracy by its very nature requires that we sublimate ourselves to others.” We need do the work to do what is right: not just what would be good for us, but what is good for others as well.

When the Hibiscus Falls is a gorgeous set of short stories by M. Evelina Galang about the Filipino and Filipino American experience—from homecomings to escapes and new beginnings, from ancestors and elders to unruly grandchildren. The book deals a lot with rogue people and the way we encounter, recognize, and deal with our heritage.

In "Drowning," a misbehaved, rebellious older sister dies, and the youngest is left with the consequences. In "When the Hibiscus Falls," the protagonist's cousin Mayari has fled in the middle of the Covid pandemic, and Sol arrives in Miami in an attempt to bring her home. In "Fighting Filipina," a young girl grates under the rise of anti-Asian American hatred around her, and is desperate to protect her grandmother from its effects. There are so many kinds of stories in this collection, but Galang really hits on something powerful in how the young cannot escape their heritage, how the old are haunted by the traumas or scars of the past, and how the generations clash and come together and fall apart.

The scattering of Tagalog throughout and Galang's rich language bring the Philippines and the characters of all of her stories into vivid life and character. I enjoyed all of these tales, and I hope that people put this on hold at their local libraries before its June 13 release. This book is massively under-hyped given how excellent the stories here are!

Content warnings for sexual assault (implied & depicted), death, grief, trauma, hate crimes, xenophobia, racism, panic/anxiety.

There are so many states in which our gender non-conforming loved ones are actively unsafe right now. The campaigns are running on deeply incorrect misinformation. Young children are not getting surgery. Teens can only access hormone therapy or blockers after several psychological assessments. And importantly, acceptance and support for trans youth—which often involves simply support and a social transition—results in teens who are less likely to die from suicide. And studies show, repeatedly, that trans-ness is not a phase. Trans youth know who they are.

Just wanting to defend our most vulnerable populations should be plenty: but it’s worth noting that the passing of laws that codify the ability of the government to police and punish certain kinds of bodies is something that everyone, cis people included, should be extremely concerned about. This issue is intimately connected to the control of reproductive rights and freedoms, and violation of bodily autonomy and privacy. It is also intimately connected to the policing of Black and brown bodies that takes place across the US every day. Every step forward in limiting trans and gender non-conforming rights is a step forward for those battles as well, setting legal precedents and frameworks.

They are tackling trans and gender non-conforming youth because it is easy to appeal to parents and their fear that their children are being corrupted by a world they’re scared of. A world where gender does not give inherent worth, where gender and sex are flexible, is a world in which certain kinds of people no longer have power. The queer community scares them, but the trans issue puts a crack in that community, as TERFs and transphobes reveal themselves. People in power thrive on disunity. The best way to counter them is by doggedly standing by all of our queer siblings, by educating ourselves and others on the facts, and by being prepared to protest and step in where necessary (I highly recommend taking bystander training for situations like this). Take a concrete step forward this Pride Month to support our trans and gender non-conforming community.

Breathe deep and drink your water! It’s summer season.

“Day off in Kyoto / I got bored at the temple / Looked around at the 7-Eleven

The band took the speed train / Went to the arcade / I wanted to go but I didn't”

—this song by Phoebe Bridgers is way more relatable now that we’ve been to Kyoto and realize how deeply important 7/11 is to Japanese daily life

Keep your sunglasses close and your books closer—as far as I’m concerned, summer starts today! Bye bye orange coat—see you in the fall!

Pain and Prejudice: A Call to Arms for Women and Their Bodies by Gabrielle Jackson is an excellent addition to my health feminism and bias in medicine shelves.

She does an excellent job of laying out why there are no incentives for treating or researching chronic pain, and how the healthcare system must adjust; she also makes a good case for why this change should come from the government and their funding. She breaks down well how the system is not set up for something like chronic pain, and highlights the issues of 'heartsink' patients, the pressure on doctors to cure and have all the answers rather than mitigate or investigate, and how a higher life expectancy does not necessarily mean a better life quality.

I've reviewed many of these books and so I want to highlight specifics that Jackson brings to the table that I did not find in other books. These include a breakdown of Chronic Overlapping Pain Conditions (COPCs), descriptions of each of the primary ones and how they intersect, and a focus on chronic pain conditions overall throughout the book. She has a especially excellent breakdown of how the lack of knowledge of female biology overall results in hysteria narratives, an enforced need for women to go to the doctor more often for basic prescriptions due to an inherent distrust or policing, and how overall misogyny and sexism ties in with our inability to believe women about their pain. I appreciated how Jackson paired her discussion of a lack of education in female biology and chronic pain with an in-depth education about those things for women who might need it.

I also appreciated her quoting and acknowledging Maya Dusenbery. I've found that many books recently quietly use her research or issues she brought to the forefront but bypass her specifically, and so I really appreciated how much she was highlighted for her analysis of this issue.

Overall, Jackson's book is a tremendous success and call-to-action about the bias in medicine against women, the failures of the health-care system to treat or consider chronic pain conditions, and what can be changed. Her own endometriosis story influences much of her writing, and it adds a particular indignation throughout that is tremendously satisfying and convincing.

Content warnings for sexual assault, compulsory sexuality, misogyny, medical trauma.

Reading on trains is one of the best ways to read.

Recently I looked back at my reads and realized I had just read 17 books in translation in a row! How far we've come from the littler me who made a resolution to read more books in translation just a few years back.

I’ve always had a deep love for my local Barnes & Noble. But when it relocated and adopted the “new Barnes & Noble” layout and approach, I wasn’t sure if I’d feel the same way. Ultimately, I feel that now Barnes and Noble is putting on the costume of a local indie bookstore, but their inner mechanics are still all big-box chain corporation. Read my full take over at Book Riot.

I recently signed up to start getting a massage once a month. I've always seen massages as a form of luxury, something you only do on vacations. But with my fibromyalgia, which is all about the body holding misplaced pain and tension, the massage I had in Argentina literally made me feel so much better, and I started wondering why I wasn't doing it more. Instead of retail therapy, what if I invested in a monthly massage?

Yesterday I went to my first one, and when I left, I could feel myself in my body. But for the first time in a long time, it wasn't a bad thing. I had forgotten what it felt like to be aware that I occupied my body, aware of my body, in a way that wasn't negative. Since my pericarditis diagnosis, my body has most often been something that I either am actively battling or doing things in spite of. It has been a source of frustration, tension, pain, stiffness. But after the massage, I could feel my body, and I felt like we were working together.

For the first time in a long time, I realized, I was investing in my body in a way that wasn't just symptom mitigation but proactive pampering. And I was rewarded with a glimpse of what it was once like to occupy a body that was just there, part of me, working alongside of me, instead of preoccupied with its own battles. I'm proud of myself for taking this step, and also just very hopeful that this alongside medication can do real work against my fibromyalgia.

I carried The Book of Tokyo, edited by Michael Emmerich, Jim Hinks, and Masashi Matsuie, with me all the way to Japan. I took this photo of the book in the midst of the infamous Shibuya crossing, but never actually got to the book while I was still on international soil, for which I'm honestly a little grateful. While a couple of the stories in here were good, the vast majority didn't quite do it for me.

I lay this firmly at the feet of the editors, because I've read enough Japanese short fiction to know that there are hundreds of incredible stories about and set in Tokyo. I enjoyed "A House for Two" by Mitsuyo Kakuta, translated by Hart Larrabee, about a young woman enjoying a life that others don't seem to understand, living with her mother and avoiding marriage. I also enjoyed "Vortex" by Osamu Hashimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda, a story about motherhood.

The issue is not necessarily that I didn't enjoy the majority of the stories in this collection, but that I started seeing some recurring themes that really stand out when there are only 10 stories in a collection. Three stories about young women who are sex-crazed or unexpectedly "wild" and bold about sex. Two more about manic pixie dream women who become mysteriously obsessed or attracted to the protagonist. If these were a smaller part of the selection they wouldn't have stood out—one of the stories is by Banana Yoshimoto, who I generally like very much, for example—but together, I started getting critical of the editing choices. If the idea of the book is to paint a picture of Tokyo through stories, I think this book overall, with small exceptions, gives us a very narrow picture into a very masculine point-of-view.

Content warnings for violence, kidnapping, emotional abuse, sexual assault.

When best friends Gottmik and Gigi Gorgeous get together, they “spiral.” They can’t help but brainstorm their next move. That creative energy resulted in The T Guide: Our Trans Experiences and a Celebration of Gender Expression―Man, Woman, Nonbinary, and Beyond, a book about their experiences, Gottmik (aka Kade Gottlieb) as a trans man and Gigi Gorgeous as a trans woman.

“This book,” Gigi Gorgeous emphasizes, “is all about safety.” She and Gottmik are able to share their journeys and their cautionary tales, as well as basic information that’s difficult to find elsewhere about transitioning, surgery, and much more. The book is a refuge and a source for youth and for parents and other allies. It also features a long list of contributors, from Sasha Colby to ALOK to their own parents, which helps bring in a wide range of experiences. “It opened my brain up,” Gottmik admitted, reading some of the stories of other contributors.

The two authors hope that the book can help fight the flood of misinformation currently out there. They opened up about how hard it was to get their ID and gender markers changed—Gottmik said it took them six months to get a psychiatrist appointment to even start the process to get hormones. “My medical transition has saved my life,” Gottmik said, and while it isn’t necessary for all trans people to do, it’s important for allies and trans people to know the facts so they can transition safely and have the support they deserve. 

Gottmik, Gigi Gorgeous, and host Aurora Sexton encouraged allies, including ones within the queer community (which has plenty of transphobia) to educate themselves so that trans people can protect their own energy and not always be the ones forced to speak up in an increasingly dangerous world for gender non-conforming and trans people. After the Chicago Humanities Festival event, the two stars spent a generous amount of their time talking to and taking photos with attendees while signing books.

“We’re going to keep fighting,” Gottmik writes in the new book. “We’re going to keep normalizing the trans experience. So, everyone’s going to have to get into it or get lost.”

Photos 1 and 3 courtesy of DT Kindler.

Some days it’s just about deep breaths.

In Vitro: On Longing and Transformation by Isabel Zapata, translated by Robin Myers, is a poetic, rich meditation on the painful and difficult process of IVF and pregnancy. She evokes ghosts and secrecy, the stunning sexism of the medical system, pain physical and mental, and much more in her journey to have a child. She highlights all the strangeness of the process of eggs, hormones, development, and of the yearning to become a mother, of labor, of the sense of self, of anxiety. It's a really gorgeous short read about a deep topic that packs a ton of depth in fewer than 150 pages. Highly recommended.

Content warnings for misogyny, medical trauma and dismissal, miscarriage.

Fairytales, bright and dark, written and told, embellished and bare, I love them all. Did you know I studied fairy tales in college? Some of my favorite courses, and I found some of my favorite analysts through those classes. Even if they were at 9 a.m. and I was always in desperate need of coffee!

Happy Friday! I'm going to celebrate the weekend by trying to read as many books as possible...

My take-a-selfie-every-day goal actually is eroding at my need to feel perfect in photos. Not much, but a little bit. It has helped, and that’s all I really wanted, is to encourage myself to see and appreciate myself on days where I’m butt-tired and in pajamas, not just the days I’m dressed up and feeling cute.