Reading While Depressed

It’s been a weird couple of weeks for me. School started up again at the end of August and it was like all of the progress I’ve been made all summer is gone. I went from reading an average of eight books a month to struggling to finish three, and all the blog posts I had great ideas for two months ago now have either run away or just won’t come out. Writing is like putting my brain into a blender.

At the end of last summer, I was officially diagnosed with chronic anxiety and depression with an extra dollop of seasonal depression, because why not just pile it on? Being “officially” diagnosed finally at 27 is a-whole-nother post I could write. Suffice it to say, chronic depression is something I’ve been struggling with my whole life. But recently I’ve been working with my therapist and my doctor to improve my quality of life (not to “get better” I’m never going to “get better.” That’s the definition of chronic). I thought I was in a good place. But of course with the coming of fall and the impending cold, the universe decided to smack me back down.

All of that is to say, this is the reason I haven’t been keeping up on blogging like I wanted to (though it is a mark of progress that I’m being gentle with myself and not giving up on it). But since nothing else seems to want to cooperate with me recently, I thought I might record what it’s like trying to read and write while having a symptom flare-up.

Having depression is like living is as if there’s a slight haze over the universe that makes everything just a little bit duller and a little bit harder. It’s a little uncanny valley because everything “seems” the same as it was when you weren’t symptomatic, and yet you barely get through mandatory tasks, you’re perpetually exhausted, and even the things you know you love don’t bring you the same joy. That, honestly, is probably the worst part. Talking with a friend, we both agreed that, not quite like missing a limb, but more like losing access to a part of yourself. You know its there, but you can't get to it. When I’m symptomatic, logically I know I love reading. I know I love to write. And yet nothing in the world can motivate me to pick up a novel, even a brand-new one I’ve just bought and was dying to read two days ago. And writing is as appealing as watching paint dry— which in all likelyhood is about how much will get done during any attempted writing session.

What I find the most frustrating is objectively knowing that all of this would be a piece of cake if I weren’t symptomatic because I’ve done it before. It’s comparatively easy when I’m not symptomatic, and in fact enjoyable. And now, with medication and regular therapy, most days I’m not symptomatic. So I make goals, like any reasonably-organized and responsible adult. And it’s fine for a few weeks. And then suddenly, inevitably, I’m symptomatic again and the goals that were easy just the day before are suddenly rolling a boulder up a hill hard. And yet it everything feels the same. I’m doing nothing different, and yet I can’t accomplish even a fraction of what I could before. Frustrating isn’t nearly a strong enough word.

I’ve been working on it though. I’ve been trying to be more gentle with myself. I’ve been trying to do just a little. I’ve been making decisions about what is absolutely necessary to get done and what can wait until I have enough spoons. That is one strangely positive side effect of depression and anxiety, which from what I’ve heard is generally applicable across disabilities: You get really good at finding creative solutions to do things you wouldn't normally be able to do with your disability. You become adaptable to the inflexible world around you.

It’s a process. I’m working on it, it’s just slower than I would like.

x

Four Fairy Tale Retellings

There’s a rich tradition of retelling tales, whether they’re fairy tales, folk tales, or myths. It’s probably one of my favorite tropes, which is why I’m delighted that it’s the “hot new thing” in contemporary fiction, both adult and YA. But for as much as it’s one of my favorites, it can be difficult for me to find ones that I love. For me, the most important part of a retelling is the reimagining. If you’re just going to take an old tale, why retell it if it’s just the same old story just in a different hat? It’s what can make or break a novel for me. Below are my favorites.

Best Folk Retelling: Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

If you like Leigh Bardugo or Naomi Novak’s Uprooted, Deathless will be right up your alley. Based on stories told to her by her husband’s grandmother, Valente retells the folk story of Koschei the Deathless, reinventing Koschei through the eyes of his bride, Marya Morevna, with a backdrop of 20th century Russia. Historic fiction twisted with magic, I love Deathless for the way it twists the tropes of both typical fiction—damsels and mundane girls thrown into magical settings—and Russian ones, not only that of Koschei, but also Baba Yaga, Vasalisa, and the tradition of bride stealing. Like good Slavic food, there’s a voluptuousness to this novel that made me devour it.

Best Use of Mythical Creatures: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Of all the beasties in Irish mythology, fae folk are what make most of the trouble in novels and stories, but honestly, I think kelpies are so much cooler. Fantastic water horses that’ll drag you underwater as soon as look at you, what could be cooler? Stiefvater—with her usual penchant for creating mischief for her characters—decides it’ll be fun if what if we raced with kelpies? Throw in a heaping spoonful of wit and sarcasm, a kickass heroine who’s just trying to keep her family together,  and a large dollop of “forbidden” romance and danger, and you get The Scorpio Races.  (Sorry, not sorry for all the food metaphors. I’m in the middle of reading a food memoir while writing this.)

Best Use of Fairytale/Folklore Style: The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson

I really need to stop reading reviews on Goodreads/Amazon from people I don’t know (mostly because other people are always wrong). When I looked at reviews for The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, there were a lot of mixed feelings and many negative ones about the way Wilson uses language, which was the hallmark of tSotW for me. Wilson’s lyricism and oratory voice made tSofW feel like a real folkstory, which made the novella stick out to me and was one of the many of its great aspects.    

Best Series: The Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliot

Though there are many series that play with this trope, I chose Kate Elliot’s Spiritwalker trilogy because of the way she blends in the mythos of her alternative history within the fabric of the world. I particularly like the way in which faith and location play an important role in how or rather what mythic creatures exist and how the “spirit realm” works. Plus two kickass heroines in Kat and her cousin Bea. What else could a fantasy nerd ask for?

Honorable Mentions: The Wind City by Wigmore Summer;  “With Roses in Their Hair” by Kayla Bashe;  The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater; The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin  

Beyond Diversity 101

SPOILERS FOR Now I Rise (Kiersten White),  Worldbreaker series (Kameron Hurley), The Obelisk Gate (N.K. Jemisin)

I feel that I talk often—and many gay readers who grew up before the advent of personal computers in your pocket— about how great it is that there is so much diversity in books now, particularly YA. That when we were teenagers growing up, the “gay” section was either erotica or memoirs or memoir-like stories about how miserable we should be, or would have been ten years prior. This varies depending on which minority we’re talking about (white gay teens and young men are easy to find. Women, older members of the community, or people of color, not so much.) I don’t think that anyone will argue anymore that we need diversity. That fight is all but won, and those that are still fighting with us are never going to change their minds.

But as we really dig into this discussion of diversity in fiction, I think we need to think critically about how we’re portraying diversity. These are stickier conversations, but they’re important to have. We need to have them, and we need to have them in public forums. We need to discuss and possibly argue about them. But, one would hope, that we come out the other side with a better understanding. Also important to note is that all of these conversations will not be the same. It’s a dangerous trap to fall into that there’s one solution that will bring diversity into the mainstream across the board. We all want the same thing: more representation, to see ourselves in the fiction and media we consume. But we are still all different communities, with different concerns and different priorities, even inside the community, there are schisms, and we need different, more nuanced solutions. We need to move beyond diversity 101.

(DISCLAIMER: I am part of the LGBT and coded-as-female community, so those are the ones I will frequently reference, and more generally the most-common lens through which I view the “diversity question.” )

One of the most exciting and terrifying things for me to stumble upon while reading is a gay character. Now, I read a lot of novels with LGBT and gender non-conforming characters, but I go out of my way to find them from authors and recommendation sources that I trust. When I’m surprised by one, my first feeling is usually excitement, followed quickly by dread. Try not to get attached to this one, I think. You don’t know what this author will do to them. Now sometimes everything turns out alright and even goes on to be amazing (case and point: Santa Olivia and Saints Astray by Jacqueline Carey), but I can never know for sure, and let me tell you, that is the not fun version of reading “on the edge of my seat.” Every time it happens, it feels like reading GoT all over again (and let’s not even talk about what a train wreck that book is in terms of representation. I didn’t believe Loras was gay until the HBO series came out because we never heard from Loras himself. I assumed that the “rumors” of Loras “liking little boys” were just rumors, because clearly the only gay people are pedophiles

). I recently finished Now I Rise (by Kiersten White) and was only 30% in when that dread set in. As soon as Radu and his wife “flee” to Constantinople, TK has to leave her partner, and it becomes clear that Radu and TK have feelings for each other, I was afraid all three of them were going to die. It felt like waiting for the inevitable. Even though in the end, none of them died (extra spoilers: though Radu admits to being a spy and breaks TK’s heart, which: just stab me in the heart why don’t you, White??) it’s still an uncomfortable feeling waiting for the ax to fall for 70% of a book. It is not a pleasant way to read. And it happens so often— and ends badly in face of all that trepidation often— that as a reader I’m trained to expect the worst as soon as a LGBT character walks on the scene. That should not be the norm. I should not have to worry about every single gay character in a novel. It’s exhausting. And real life is exhausting enough as it is.

ASIDE: I’m not sure I would argue that Now I Rise should have ended or been handled any other way. White ended up handling it with, what I would consider, the appropriate balance of care and craft. Regardless, it still illustrates my point. I got lucky in that White can now be added to the “tentative trust” list. But my trepidation still existed. I still felt it, even if it didn’t move from trepidation to fury and despair. It’s the potential that’s important.)  

Sometimes when I argue this point or when similar arguments arise, a common counter argument is that we’re arguing that all minorities should have “happy endings” and that’s “unrealistic.”  

First off, let’s get a few minor quibbles out of the way: (1) It’s fiction. In this post alone, I’m mention a duology about a scientifically mutated wolf-hybrid half-breed turned secret-agent/bodyguard; a retelling of the myth of Vlad the Impaler reimagined if Vlad was a woman; an end-of-the-world portal fantasy with an alternate dimension trying to take over a neighbor dimension; and another end-of-the-world fantasy with a slave-class of people who are basically earthbenders. I know I mainly talk about fantasy novels, because that’s what I typically like to read, but the same for realistic fiction as well. Arguing that it’s realistic for (any and only) LGBT and other minority characters to suffer on the merits of their identity is disingenuous. (2) See, Chocolate Raisins as Major Characters Metaphor. This post is arguing against whitewashing poc in movies, but the basic concept still applies to other diversity arguments. If we never again produced another film, tv show, or novel that buried its gays at the same rate we publish content with straight happy endings (which we don’t do even including unhappy endings), it would take years to achieve the saturation and variety we see in “normal” media.

These points aside, I still wouldn’t argue that you can’t give a character an unhappy ending. When I was an undergrad, a fiction professor I had (who deserved way more respect than I gave her at the time) told us that it wasn’t that we couldn’t kill our characters at the end of the story, but that we had to earn the character’s death.  What she was warning us against wasn’t that killing characters was bad, but killing characters because we were lazy writers was bad. Kameron Hurley also talks about this idea in her essay, “Taking Responsibility for Writing Problematic Stories.”

Sometimes it so happens the character who has to die is the gay guy. The problem is when he’s the only gay guy in the book. The problem is when you read a lot of books and the only gay guy in the book is the one who dies in every book...I understand that my work--and every other writer’s work— isn’t read in a vacuum. We have to interrogate what we’re doing and understand how it’ll be read in the wider context of things. And as much of a gut punch as it was for me to be reminded that seeing yet another gay male character thrown under the bus in service to someone else’s story hurt people, it doesn’t hurt me as much as the person who actually read it for the third, fourth, fifth time and threw it across the room because, goddammit, why the fuck does the gay guy always die?

It’s not that all LGBT or minority characters have to live or can’t have bad or problematic traits. There’s many examples of stories that are good, yet the gay character is the villain or dies. Off the top of my head, I think of The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin, the Star Wars: Aftermath series by Chuck Wendig. Even Kameron Hurley’s Worldbreaker series has a bunch of dead or seriously maimed or flawed LGBT and minority characters. And I don’t see that series getting any rosier in the last novel of the trilogy. But that’s just the thing. There are many diverse characters in these series, and the ones that die, “earn” their deaths that has nothing to do with their sexuality. They’re not just so much fodder in the pop culture machine that is the “tragically gay.”

So, in part, it’s a numbers game. If there is only one LGBT character, as a work, it’s running a higher-risk of getting thrown across the room. All of my hopes get pinned on that one character. That one character becomes my surrogate, the surrogate of all gay readers. And if something happens to that character, it feels like a physical blow. Of course the gay guy dies. Of course I die. When you have multiple LGBT or minority characters, the risk is lower. I can see myself in multiple characters. I have multiple stories. I have multiple possible futures. Which is much more reflective of our real reality. If you only have one LGBT main character--sans all context of gay culture— or only one LGBT couple, that’s a problem all on its own and does not reflect our reality.

Books to Make it to Game of Thrones Final Season

We have to wait forever for the next season of GoT. It's almost as bad as waiting for a seequel release! Until the final season though, this list of books will tide you over with badass ladies based on your fav GoT ladies.


Sansa Stark 
Feyre from Court of Thorns and Roses series
Harper Price from The Rebel Bell series
Cress from The Lunar Chronicles

Arya Stark  
Pyrre Lakatur from Skullsworn 
Loup Garron from Santa Olivia 
Lila Bard from Shades of Magic series
Joyeaux Charmand from Hunter
Cat Barahal from Spiritwalker series
(you can tell who my favorite is)

Daenerys Targaryen
Lada Dragwyla from And I Darken and Now I Rise

Margaery Tyrell
Pilar Ecchevarria from Saints Astray
Bee from Spiritwalker series

Brienne of Tarth
Helene from A Torch Against the Night 
Sabriel from Sabriel 
Alanna from Song of the Lioness series

Catelyn Stark 
Essun from The Broken Earth series

Cersei Lannister
Lavana from The Lunar Chronicles

Ygritta
The Immortals series

REVIEW: Of Fire and Stars

Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst  (2016-Balzer and Bray)
Pages: 386
Genres: Fantasy/SciFi, YA
Sub-Genres: High Fantasy, LGBT Romance
Triggers: death, classism (and associated violence)

Of Fire and Stars seems to have been an either “I loved it!” or “I hated it!” book with very little in between, though I’m seeing a pattern in the complaints, and honestly what I’m hearing about—world building, immature/poorly developed characters, and stupid adults are the highest on the list—I didn’t really see, or at least weren’t so bad that they were a deal breaker for me. Were there things that I could quibble with, yes—in particular <SPOILERS>  I thought Nils death was totally unnecessary, though one could argue it was in Kriantz’s character to kill him </SPOILERS>. Also, the magic-hating, especially as it was connected to Zumorda, didn’t indicate LGBT+ issues to me, but moreso smacked of Islamophobia, which did leave me feeling kind of skeeved out, but the narrative made it clear that it didn't condone it.

For me, all the positives made up for the small bumps. Part of the reason I really liked the “slow burn” of it was that Coulthurst took the time to show them falling in love, show them changing their opinions of one another, and all the twisting emotions that go along with loving someone, and not knowing if they love you back. It made the romance feel very genuine to me. I also actually liked the plot. I felt though it was a pretty typical fantasy plot arch (and, let’s be real, there are only so many plots), the twists in the murder mystery were well-placed and that I was surprised just enough upon their reveal that I was okay with their “obviousness” after the fact.

The biggest complaint I’m seeing is world-building, which seems to be boiling down to “I didn’t get it. It didn’t get explained to my satisfaction.” On the one hand, it is a legitimate complaint; it’s the nature of the first-person story Coulhurst decided to write that she can only do so much “building” in character, since to them, it’s all inherent. But on the other, I had no problem with the world building, except in small places where it felt somewhat strange, only to be revealed later that it was supposed to feel weird because the source was unreliable (i.e. “magic works this way” when clearly, no one in Mynaria has a clue how magic really works.) I actually wish that more world building in fantasy didn’t make sense in this way, ala our world really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And that’s how I felt Coulthurst’s “weak” world building came off, as part of the mystery that Denna and Mare were trying to unravel.

The other big complaint I saw was “immature” or poorly-developed characters. And again, I can see where they’re coming from, but really only in terms of the minor characters, and even then, most of them have hints of depth that we weren’t privy to due to POV. There’s a big difference between “underdeveloped” and “static,” which is what I think many of these characters were. Not every character has to change, or be likeable, or have some sort of redeeming arch. The only one I might see an argument for as “underdeveloped” is King Aturnicus, but even so to me he was believably bull-headed and oblivious, like a certain American politician (or politicians) I know.

Which leads me to the other big complaint, which is “all the adults are stupid.” If the most recent American election cycle has taught me anything, it’s that politics really are that stupid. At some point, I know I had the naive belief that politics and the government are trying to help me and mine and based on logic and what is proven true, but the more I engage with politics, the less I believe that’s the case, and the more I find that decisions are driven by money and bias and what people think is true. I actually thought Coulhurst did a really good job of portraying a bigoted political system and the frustrations that come along with having to “play the political game,” especially when Mare was trying to fight for something she really believed in (finding her uncle’s killer).

This ties in with another common complaint I saw, which was the characters were immature, particularly Mare. Now, maybe it’s because I’m a world-weary late twenty-something-year-old who can still remember being a teenager, but I look back on my teenage years as a mess of immature embarrassment. Teenagers, even kinda-almost-adult eighteen-year-olds, are immature. Especially when they’re treated like children. Notice how Mare is particularly obstinate and immature with all of those who don’t understand her, don’t think she’s doing anything worthwhile, and just write her and all of her opinions off as “the bluster of  the obnoxious tomboy princess”? She’s not immature with Nils, and after Denna earns her respect, Denna. She’s not immature with Lord Kriantz either. Because even though she’s blunt and says exactly what she’s thinking (mostly),  he doesn’t treat her like a child. Everyone else does, and she acts accordingly. What Coulhurst is doing here is actually really clever. She didn’t write a story about “gay issues” while still capturing some of the big issues we face growing up, and even after we’re “grown up.” There’s a tendency for those outside “the family” to look down at our issues and our goals, our community-building, as immature. There’s a distinct feeling of being talked down to when engaging with and talking about our goals in terms of lgbt+ community and solidarity with the wider community and our ideas about what we need. Coulhurst takes the alienation and the infantilization many of  us in the community feel—both as teenagers who are told “we’re just going through a phase” and as adults—and makes it universal, making our frustration palpable outside of the community.

Frankly, I’ve seen hetero fantasy books with these same flaws or worse that everyone adores (looking right at you, Sarah J.) that don’t nearly get the flack that Of Fire and Stars is getting. Now, a friend of mine mentioned that some of the mixed reviews may be contributed to Of Fite and Stars being an OwlCrate book and a book like this—that is a genre book—is getting push back from people who don’t usually read fantasy. But tbqh, I don’t think Of Fire and Stars would be getting ragged on nearly this hard if it were a straight hetero-romance. We always have to be better, faster, and smarter than “normal” to get the same recognition. And that’s what really is pissing me off. This book, or a book like this would have meant so much to me as a teen grappling with sexuality and gender roles. Putting aside the fact that there were very few LGBT books (let alone LGBT YA) at all or I didn’t have access to them, what I did have fell into either two categories: lonely solitary gay (who probably died by the end or admitted their crush on another MC and got violently rebuffed); or sassy gay best friend. There were gay romances/erotica, but they were always about men, which is not inherently bad—I devoured them too, whatever I could get my hands on—but that’s where the rub lies. It was only stories about (usually white, cisgender) gay men. The scene has changed some now, with more representation, the advent of better online socialization, and the diversereads movement, but let's not pretend that its anywhere near equal or that we don't deserve more and better representation.

Whenever I found a powerful female character that I identified with—she was strong, fierce, didn’t follow stupid rules that kept her locked in place, wanted to learn to fight, do magic, go on adventures, or whatever the case may be—she was always eventually shoehorned into a romance with Mr. Wonderful that I thought I could never have (also hello teenage internalized bi-phobia). And some of those romances were classics and greatly written, but what it taught me was that I couldn’t be the woman I wanted and get the girl in the end. And, in fact, it didn’t have any other alternatives for me. I did not see myself in my reading growing up, and I saw my younger self in Mare, and I what I wouldn’t give to be able to hand Of Fire and Stars to 13-year-old me, who was having a God-awful rough time of it and had no idea why she was “not like the other girls,” or why being "different" than the other girls in the way that I was, was such a terrible thing. It would have told her that, maybe, there was a happy ending at the end of all this heartbreak. 

REVIEW: Updraft

Updraft – Fran Wilde (2015 Tor Books)

Pages: 384

Genres: Fantasy/Sci-Fi; YA

Sub-Genres: steampunk

Triggers: death, graphic depictions of violence

Updraft by Fran Wilde has a lot of good things going for it. I enjoyed the coming-of-age plot, despite its predictability. In fact, the predictability may have been a bonus since it made it easier to keep all the world-building straight. If anything, Wilde is a master world-builder. From flight etiquette to the secret rituals of the singers, everything had nuance without bogging down the reader or making the main character’s voice feel inauthentic. Wilde was particularly adept at implying depth outside of the Kirit’s POV, dropping little tidbits without distracting the reader from Kirit’s story.

The other aspect of Updraft that I really liked was the subtle and organic way in which Kirit’s opinions changed, in particular because it changed in relation to the position of power Kirit held at the time. <SPOILERS> Before joining the Singers, Kirit is afraid of them—not in the least because of their power to distribute bone chips that mark members of society as “law breakers,” the punishment for having too many can be death by falling from the sky. She resents them for their power to “play God.” After she’s initiated, however, she starts to believe that perhaps they were right all along. The singers hold this power, but it is also a burden to them. They are tasked with “remembering the true songs” and part of their song is we do what is best for the city, though it causes us great pain. </SPOILERS> Wilde discusses power throughout the book, calling it by its name, which I appreciated. It’s rare for an author, let alone the MC, to interrogate the structure and inherent biases of their society. Kirit is constantly questioning, always asking why things are the way they are and who decided them, which is what inevitably gets her in trouble with “the powers that be.”  What I particularly like about this dynamic is how it models the way in which questioning or outside perspectives can challenge the generally accepted order of things. Though her opinions are by no means perfect; Kirit does fall under the lull of perhaps the singers are meant to have this power, which is a dangerous mindset to have, especially when that power includes—essentially—throwing people off cliffs. But, Kirit is foiled by her best friend, Nat, who tends to call her on her shit—and from what I’ve seen of the sequel—continues to do so.

That being said, I did have qualms with Wilde’s depiction of disability, using the tired trope of people with mental and physical disabilities or those not able to work being “useless” and “unwanted” members of society. Of all her world-building, that part felt the weakest and had the least nuance, though there were hints of it being developed in the future. But even so, to cast disabled people into this role compounds the already prevalent idea of the “uselessness” of disabled people and has real and serious consequences for them. And though I would like to give Wilde the benefit of the doubt in that her intention was to criticize this social bias, the result was far too subtle.

Overall, I liked Updraft. It was a fast-paced but nuanced read that was responding to and grappling with issues we’re facing as a society, especially a society that considers ourselves “civilized” and “sophisticated,” yet we still can’t seem to grasp the idea that all people deserve human dignity.

Liked this? Read this!

Cold Magic Series – Kate Elliot

Song of the Lioness/ Protector of the Small Series – Tamora Pierce

Sabriel  (Abhoreson Series) – Garth Nix