frau sally benz

Beachcombers

payal — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Sometimes there is so much heavy reading material to get through, that what you really need is a short, light, fun book, and Beachcombers is just that. The novel centers on three sisters and their father and what they learn about themselves and each other in that time.

Their mother died when they were young and the oldest sister, Abbie, took some of the burden of raising her younger sisters because her father was dealing with his grief. Now adults, the youngest sister, Lily, is the only one who still lives with her father in Nantucket. The middle sister, Emma, moves back home after being dumped and losing her job because of the bad economy. Abbie has returned to help console her sister and spend time with her family. Meanwhile, their father has rented a room to Marina, a woman who is dealing with a break-up of her own.

As the summer starts, the family is scattered as each member deals with their own lives. As the summer progresses, they start to come together as they face falling in love and letting go of their mother, whose death still affects them.

What I loved most about this book is how much the reader gets to know each woman in the story. Though written in the third person, each chapter focuses on one of the sisters or on Marina. We get to know their insecurities, what they’re really thinking, and how they really feel about one another. Most importantly, we get to see how the past continues to affect them and how they reconcile that with the promise of their future.

The thing that surprised me about this book was how it was able to bring up issues of grief, mental health, depression, suicide, etc. while remaining a light read. I suppose most people would classify this as chick lit, so in some respects, you know what you’re getting when you start reading it. And yet it kept me interested on a deeper level than I expected when I picked it up.

Of course, most of it was very predictable, but I was impressed by how much I enjoyed reading it in spite of that. If you completely hate anything that might fall near the realm of chick lit, then I suppose it’s best to stay away. But if you’re open to having some fluff accompany interesting women characters and discussions about mental health, then it’s definitely worth checking out Beachcombers.

Written by: frau sally benz, November 15th 2010

The Hole in the Wall

payal — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Lisa Rowe Fraustino

Milkweed Editions

I don’t generally read a lot of children’s literature, but I’m glad I stepped outside my normal routine and read The Hole in the Wall. Sebby and his sister Barbie live in a town that is practically deserted after Stanley Odum starts buying up the land to mine it. Their parents are constantly fighting, their older brother ran off a while back, and they’re pretty much opposites even though they’re twins. Barbie is smart and hardworking, while Sebby spends most of his time daydreaming. When a strange substance starts affecting the family’s chickens, Sebby and Barbie find out that it has some interesting (read: magical) qualities.

It’s all very fantastical and you can’t really take it seriously, but it is children’s lit after all, so that’s to be expected. It also isn’t the most well written book I’ve ever read, but it was good enough to have me interested and invested in the characters within a few chapters.

Even though Sebby is the main character, it’s Barbie who I instantly loved. She has a bit of a bossy, know-it-all attitude, similar to Hermione in the Harry Potter series, but it’s more endearing than it is annoying. You also get the sense that she respects her twin brother, despite her attitude and his carefree ways. Their relationship is at the core of the story, so it’s hard not to get attached to them at least a little.

Another thing I really liked was how their mother handles her relationship with their father. At first, it seems that she is putting up with at a lot for no apparent reason, and I was disappointed at how straightforward it seemed. But as the book goes on, her character is developed more fully. Her strength and the reasons behind her decisions starts to become clearer, and she went from being my least favorite to most favorite character by the end.

The ending was a bit disappointing in that it felt somewhat incomplete, but I can honestly say that if all children’s lit is this delightful, I’ll probably be picking up another one in no time at all.

Written by: frau sally benz, November 14th 2010

Broken Glass Park

caitlin — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Alina Bronsky

Europa Editions

Broken Glass Park is the tough story of a young girl whose upbringing and current life situation is hard, to say the least. After a former abusive boyfriend murders her mother, Sascha has to take care of her younger siblings with the help of a guardian she doesn’t particularly respect. From her point of view, we’re taken through her grieving, her distrust and hatred of men, her failing schoolwork, and her experience as an immigrant. There is a lot going on in this novel, and sometimes I did wish that it would focus a bit more. Then again, this is also what made it such a fascinating read.

Sascha finds herself in strange situations, and many would probably categorize her as self-destructive. She befriends a newspaper editor who feels bad enough about her mother’s death that he offers to help in any way he can. Suddenly, she’s staying with him and his son, and caught up in her own weird love triangle.

Even though this serves as the main plot, there are other things that happen to her throughout that are also strange and somewhat unbelievable. I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say that some of these are created by her rather than things that simply happen around her. In that way, I understand why some people feel that her character is unsympathetic, but I think they don’t fully appreciate how deeply she is affected by everything going on around her that she doesn’t have control over.

The story is surprisingly violent, and there is one scene in particular where it almost feels gratuitous. But the violence works because it is authentic and symbolizes the turmoil that Sascha is going through. In some ways, the story reminded me a bit of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium series. It is not nearly as violent and doesn't tell the same story, but the female protagonist in both struggles with issues of trust, violence against women, and being an outcast. In that sense, I came away from Broken Glass Park with the same feeling of sympathy and empowerment that I felt after reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

The story may not be completely original, but it still captivated me and held my attention so closely that I read it in a day. As is often the sign of how much I enjoy a book, my biggest complaint was that it was too short. Just as I was hoping that Sascha’s life would take a turn for the better and that she would reclaim it for herself, the book was over. I can only hope that the author revisits this girl’s story so that I can get wrapped up in it all over again.

Written by: frau sally benz, September 28th 2010

The Romantics

caitlin — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Galt Niederhoffer

Paramount

Walking in to watch The Romantics, I feared it might be a movie that relies on star power to get by. Valentine’s Day is what came to mind, and even though the level of celebrity of the stars of The Romantics isn’t exactly the same (Katie Holmes and Anna Paquin aren’t quite Julia Roberts and Jessica Alba), I was nonetheless worried. As it turns out, I didn’t have much to worry about on that front, though I still struggled a bit with this movie.

The Romantics is about a group of college friends who got this nickname because of, in the words of Katie Holmes’ character, their “incestuous” dating history. At the center of this group are Laura (Katie Holmes) and Lila (Anna Paquin), who were roommates and best friends. The group has reunited for Lila’s wedding, with Laura as her maid of honor. The problem is that Lila is marrying the one man Laura loves, Tom (Josh Duhamel). Everyone – the Romantics, Lila’s family, and even Lila herself – knows that Laura’s still in love with Tom.

I want to start by saying that the main thing I didn’t like about this movie is the sense that it is trying too hard. The characters are completely unlikable, references to their days as undergrads seem forced, and the ending is somewhat unsatisfying. Any of these things on their own would simply make this a different kind of movie, but all of them together gave me the impression that the film is trying to be different, which I don’t generally like. As I thought about the film moments, even hours, after, I was disappointed.

But for some reason, I got over it. When I looked back on the film the next day, I realized that it didn’t matter if it tries too hard, because it's still very refreshing.

The characters are unlikable, but they’re also familiar. I may not be best friends with the girl who's with a guy she knows doesn’t want to be with her, but I’ve certainly known that girl. I also know the couple that just can’t make it work, no matter how much they seem right for each other.

And while my friends and I don’t constantly start sentences with, “Remember that English paper junior year,” we do randomly bring up our all-nighters or the class that kicked all of our butts. It isn’t farfetched to think that if we all got together and were reminiscing, these memories would come to us much more quickly.

So maybe the film is trying too hard, but the fact is that I still really enjoyed it. The acting was great, and the main characters had very good chemistry as an ensemble. There were some uncomfortable moments, some sad moments, and some really funny moments. Then there was the music, which I completely loved and was carefully weaved through the film to help tell the story.

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised and looked back at The Romantics as a good story told by the right people in just the right way.

Written by: frau sally benz, September 26th 2010

Starting from Scratch: A Novel with Recipes

admin — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Susan Gilbert-Collins

Touchstone

In Starting from Scratch, Olivia Tschetter successfully defended her doctoral dissertation and lost her mother all in one day. The youngest of four siblings, Olivia moves back home to be with her father, to run away from her responsibilities at school, and to grieve. Her connection to her mother, who was an incredible cook, is food. At first, she uses food as a way to shove her pain aside, but it eventually becomes one of the ways she gets past her grief.

This is the simplest way to describe a book that is both straightforward and layered at the same time, particularly when revealing those layers would give away all the best parts. Let me just say that it’s easy to enjoy this book on a superficial level—it’s well-written, the characters are easy to relate to, and it’s a quick read—but there are also moments that can be appreciated more deeply. For example, when Olivia unexpectedly starts with an old friend of her mother’s, Winnie, she stumbles into a minefield of sorts as Winnie reveals secrets Olivia’s family has kept from her. It turns out that Winnie is estranged from her own daughter, and the parallels between the way Olivia is suffering and the way Winnie and her own daughter deal with their own issues are quite compelling. It all reminds the reader that life-changing moments are universal, and that even if we deal with things in our own way, we don’t have to deal with them alone.

Another thing I must point out (again, without giving too much away) is the way this novel pulls off having both food and abuse as its subject matter. It sounds completely absurd, yet Starting from Scratch does it in a beautifully poignant way.

Food is almost like this family’s own language; it’s the way they communicate with each other, for better or worse. As Olivia works to finish the cooking newsletter her mother was working on when she died, the reader is taken through Olivia’s mourning and her reaction to the secrets she’s learned from Winnie. Meanwhile, the way women and their families deal with abuse is at the very heart of this story. Surprisingly, one thing does not take away from the other or make the abuse seem trivial. In short, Starting from Scratch is a pleasant surprise. I found myself laughing out loud at some parts, and weeping at others. The story sucks you in and it’s over all too soon. By the end, I felt like I was a part of this family, and I wanted desperately to find out what happens to all of them beyond the point at which the story ends.

Written by: frau sally benz, August 22nd 2010

The Passage

admin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Justin Cronin

Ballantine Books

Trying to explain The Passage is like explaining Lost or the Harry Potter series to an outsider. You end up having to sum it up in the simplest terms: Lost is about people stuck on a really weird island, Harry Potter is about a boy defeating evil wizards, and The Passage is about a little girl trying to save the world. Since this is a review, I’ll go a bit deeper than that, but it might sound ridiculous, so bear with me.

The Passage starts with a military experiment gone wrong. This experiment created beings that resemble vampires (don’t go out during the day, don’t age, feed on humans, etc.), and they have escaped. There’s a little girl, Amy, who was also a subject in the experiment, but who fared better than the others because she retained some of her humanity. The creatures are killing most of the U.S. population, and a man helps Amy escape. We jump forward a hundred years to a small settlement of survivors still trying to protect themselves against these creatures. It’s up to them and Amy to save what’s left of the country, perhaps the world.

No pat description can really do this book justice. The first part could have been a novel all on its own, and it probably would have been one of my favorites if it ended there. But as I kept reading, the storyline, character development, suspense, and surprises made the book unforgettable. Beyond that, there was the strength of the female characters, the significance of race—or lack thereof—in a society that believes they’re the last humans left, and the contemplation of how we pass down our history and what it means to future generations. All of this took me away from any traditional idea of sci-fi, fantasy, or trendy vampire lit to a look at what our culture is and what it could be.

I’ve read through negative reviews of this book, and while I can understand where others are coming from, I don’t agree. The biggest complaint I’ve read is that the book ends abruptly. That’s because this is the first book of three, and there’s more of this story to tell. Even then, The Passage easily stands alone because the first journey is complete by the end.

Another complaint is that while the first part of the book is beautifully written, it stumbles a bit after that. I agree that the first part is written much better than the rest, but it’s something I didn’t worry about as I let myself get into the story rather than focusing on the writing. After a hundred pages or so (a drop in the bucket for a book over 700 pages long), the story and the suspense carried me through to the end.

The best way I can sell this book is to admit that I could not put it down. Even when the story started to slow, even when I found myself awake at three o'clock in the morning with my fiancé groaning that I wasn’t asleep, even when I should have been eating food rather than words during my lunch break, I kept reading. It was hard to leave that world, even for a few hours. I finished all 700+ pages of The Passage in a week, and my only regret is not savoring it more.

I hope you aren’t intimidated by the page count, and I hope you’re not put off by the negative reviews, because this may end up being one of the best books you’ve read in a long time.

Written by: frau sally benz, August 14th 2010

No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by Nancy A. Hewitt

Rutgers University Press

As an undergraduate, my major was Women’s Studies, so I’ve read my fair share of feminist texts over the last several years. It’s hard to find one that offers a new perspective or, at least, a perspective different enough to satisfy both the expert and the novice. That said, I think No Permanent Waves does a good job of it by covering the fundamentals—women’s history, and issues of race, class, and sexuality—as well as topics like hip-hop feminism, religion, and sex work, which don’t generally make it to academic anthologies.

For example, the New York City tenant movement is something that I have very little knowledge of. This topic is something I encountered briefly in a couple of history courses and the occasional segment on television programs about New York City history. Certainly the role of women in this movement was even further from my mind, at least until I read the chapter by Roberta S. Gold about intergenerational feminism in the tenant movement. Although the piece centers on the tenant movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it does include some historical background information and lays a strong enough foundation to serve as context for New York City’s landscape in the 1980s and 1990s. I found it one of the most interesting chapters in the book, and one I didn’t expect in a feminist anthology.

Another thing I particularly enjoyed about the book is that, while it’s clear No Permanent Waves is more of an academic text than something like, say, Sisterhood, Interrupted, Full Frontal Feminism, or even Manifesta, the language is still very accessible. It’s possible that my reading of it is skewed because I’m used to academic texts that are dry, analytical, and dense, but I found that none of these words would accurately describe No Permanent Waves. Instead, most of the pieces in this book are easy to understand and follow, even as they delve into identity politics, intergenerational issues, women’s history, and so forth.

My one criticism of the book is that the chapters don’t flow very well. The book is divided into three sections: "Reframing Narratives/Reclaiming Histories," "Coming Together/Pulling Apart," and "Rethinking Agendas/Relocating Activism." While these titles generally reflect the pieces included in that section, they’re also very vague, and therefore, end up with a few pieces that could easily fit into a different section or that don’t adequately fit into any section. Part of feminism is the idea of rejecting labels and it’s difficult to categorize things that touch on so many cultures, philosophies, and moments in time, but it still seems a bit disjointed to go from reading about church women in the nineteenth century to President Kennedy’s Commission on Women.

I have to admit this is a small criticism about a great collection of writings. I learned much more from this work than I expected to, and enjoyed reading through No Permanent Waves more than any general feminist anthology I have read in some time. I could easily see this as the first volume in future anthologies, each looking at the role of women and feminists in various other movements and critical moments in time throughout history.

Written by: frau sally benz, May 11th 2010

Captivity

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Deborah Noyes

Unbridled Books

Captivity is a historical novel based on the true story of the Fox sisters, who claimed they could communicate with the dead. Able to convince a group of people of their abilities, they garnered a following that would grow to become a religious movement known as American Spiritualism, or simply Spiritualism. The three Fox sisters relied on raps to communicate with the dead, having the spirits count off the letters, words, and numbers they were trying to say.

Deborah Noyes uses the history of the Fox sisters and then builds on it with the story of Clara Gill. Clara has suffered the death of a loved one and while she is skeptical at the ability of the Fox sisters, she begins to embrace the possibility of reconnecting with the spirit of the love she lost. The novel switches back and forth between Clara’s narrative and that of the Fox sisters—particularly Maggie who, in the novel, works for some time at Clara’s house.

One of the things I liked best about this book is the fact the way each chapter shifts between the women’s points of view. I’m a big fan of nontraditional narratives because I feel it keeps the momentum going and keeps the reader interested. Even more to my liking, Clara’s story jumps a bit through time. In the first few Clara-centric chapters, for instance, you learn that she has suffered some sort of loss that has left her reclusive from even her father, the only family she has left. What you don’t immediately learn is how she got this way. As her narrative unfolds, the reader it taken back about ten years to explain her past, but it takes several chapters to get to the full story. People who prefer traditional narratives will likely get very frustrated that it takes so long to understand what’s going on.

Because communicating with spirits is already a seemingly fictional topic, it was hard to separate fiction from the alleged reality, and it certainly sparked some interest in me to learn more about the Fox sisters and Spiritualism. Within minutes of finishing the book, I was online, searching for Spiritualism and the history of the Fox sisters. From the little I could find out, it certainly seems that Noyes spent quite some time researching for this novel.

In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter what’s fact and what’s fiction. The novel is written in the third-person, but Noyes still describes what people are thinking and feeling enough for the reader to become invested in the characters. On top of that, she was able to pull me into the story and believe everything she’s presenting as complete truth. It’s rare that a novel can do that with as much ease as this one.

Written by: frau sally benz, May 11th 2010

Songs for a Sinking Ship

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By April Smith and the Great Picture Show

Little Roscoe

Not many people have heard of April Smith, but I’ve become quite the enthusiastic fan. Her music combines elements of pop and rock, but her voice has more of a jazz quality that gives the end result a great mix and unique style. I loved her previous album, loveletterbombs, and I saw Smith perform live a couple of times, so when I heard she was raising money for a new album through Kickstarter, I signed right up to contribute. But then she posted the track listing for Songs for a Sinking Ship, and I already knew half the songs. Needless to say, I felt a bit let down. Sure, some were from her live EP, and I expected them to show up again, but one went as far back as her 2005 album!

I kept an open mind and eagerly hit play when I finally got my copy. Halfway through the album I was already swallowing all of my doubtful words. From the first song, “Movie Loves a Screen” (my favorite of the new tracks), the energy and style wakes you up and makes you pay attention. She sustains this throughout the album, even on the slower tracks that draw you in with her emotional words. The pleasant surprise was that tracks I already knew were mostly different, better versions of what I’ve heard before. By the time I got to the last track, I was sorry the album was finished and immediately started listening to it all over again.

What really impressed me was the song “The One That Got Away.” This ballad from loveletterbombs was one of the songs that made me a fan in the first place. The song has gotten a complete makeover for this album, and now I can’t decide which version is my favorite. The tempo is sped up, the minimal instrumentation is replaced with a carnival feel, and what once sounded like a brokenhearted plea now sounds like an embrace of her circumstances. I have complete confidence that if she re-released a new version of loveletterbombs, I’d pre-order that too.

For people who aren’t already fans, it’s hard to listen to April Smith without finding a song that piques your interest and makes you curious to hear more. But even somebody who already owns her other albums won’t feel let down by spending the money to get this one. This is one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time, and I can hardly wait for the next one.

Written by: frau sally benz, March 30th 2010

The Last River Child

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Lori Ann Bloomfield

Second Story Press

The Last River Child is the story of a town caught up in a legend: they believe there are children possessed by the spirit of the river meant to bring misfortune to everything around them. Everyone is taught to stay away from the river, but a young girl named Peg feels drawn to the river and refuses to believe the story. She becomes an outcast and whenever something goes wrong in the town, it’s blamed on her.

The book begins with the story of Rose, Peg’s mother, who grows up alienated from her family and peers. Her story is told in a few chapters, and then continues with Peg’s own childhood. Her life is full of strange coincidences and unfortunate occurrences, including a meteor hitting the town on the day of her baptism and her mother’s death on the day World War I is declared. The town is affected by the war in all the ways you might expect, but in that time, Peg finds friendship in a boy from a neighboring town and by becoming pen pals with her sister’s husband.

While the story itself is an interesting one, what makes this book compelling are the relationships between the characters. Peg’s mother, Rose, has a bad relationship with her family and is also an outcast in the town she grew up in. As soon as she gets the chance, she takes matters into her own hands, moves away and marries a man with whom she develops a close relationship. When they have children, their relationship becomes strained. Peg’s father resents her and her sister, Sarah, and I couldn’t help but sympathize with him later in the novel as he becomes more aware of his treatment of his daughters and wife.

I can’t discuss the relationships in this book without touching on Peg’s relationship with Sarah. Because of her label as a "river child," Peg grows up spending most of her time by herself because her sister Sarah values her friendships more than the relationship with Peg. They grow up alongside each other, but not really together. When circumstances force them to spend several months alone together, their relationship is put to the test. It’s strengthened at first, but then expectedly splinters.

The one criticism I have of this otherwise great book is the lack of relationships between women. Rose resented her mother, Peg and Sarah aren’t close, Sarah’s more interested in her desire to be with her best friend’s brother than in strengthening the relationship with her best friend, and the only meaningful relationships Peg forms are with men. I was admittedly quite happy to see Peg become friends with anybody by that point in the novel, but it would have been nice to have one healthy relationship between women somewhere in the book.

Despite this, I really did enjoy The Last River Child. It was satisfying to see Peg gain more confidence and take control of her life, just as Rose had done so many years earlier. While the book lacked strong relationships between women, it certainly didn’t lack strong female characters.

Written by: frau sally benz, March 29th 2010

Moregasm: Babeland’s Guide to Mind-Blowing Sex

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Claire Cavanah, Rachel Venning

Avery Books

If you’re looking for a book about anything and everything related to sex, look no further than Moregasm. It starts with the basics—getting to know the lay of the land on a woman’s body. It moves on to a thorough discussion of orgasms, masturbation, and toys; a chapter on men; an exploration of what can turn you on; a how-to on sex with the hand or mouth; penis-in-vagina intercourse; safe sex practices; and a question and answer section. Each chapter also has its own Q&A more specifically related to the topic of that chapter.

With its bright colors, pictures and diagrams on almost every page, and clear language, it’s informative, and also very easy—even fun!—to read. It assumes you know nothing and gives general information that’s easy to follow, but it also has some suggestions for how to spice things up and take things to the next level if you’re no longer a novice.

One of the best sections of this book is the chapter entitled “Love Thyself,” and discusses orgasms, masturbation, and sex toys. It’s not exactly a surprise that this chapter has the most information, seeing as how the book is Babeland’s guide to sex and Babeland is all about sex toys and self-love. Another chapter choc-full of information was “Getting Off: By Hand, By Mouth.” These chapters were my favorites because they had great information with detailed diagrams, but the book has a little something for almost everyone, whether you’re looking to try BDSM or anal sex, or just getting started with a vibrator.

I will say that this book probably doesn’t have a lot for you if you’re a sex expert. It can bring you back to basics, but if you’ve been there, done that with everything sex-related, it won’t offer much in the way of new information. Overall, though, it’s informative and engaging. This is definitely a book I’ll recommend to my friends and keep handy so I can refer to it periodically.

Written by: frau sally benz, March 18th 2010

Finding Gloria: Nos/otras

admin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Edited by Noemi Martinez

In the spirit of Gloria Anzaldúa, Finding Gloria: Nos/otras is an independent zine featuring the words and art of various contributors. Anzaldúa was a writer, poet, and artist whose work focused mostly on her identities as a woman, Chicana, lesbian, and feminist. The title of the zine comes from Anzaldúa’s work. Some of the contributors work directly in projects honoring her, and many of the pieces cite Anzaldúa or use her style of writing.

As Noemi “Hermana, Resist” Martinez explains on the very first page, this is a zine for those trying to create a space for themselves – a space that might be affected by the dominant culture, but that tries to break free from that dominant culture as much as possible. The basis of this is the term Nos/otras, created by Anzaldúa herself, is nos (Spanish for we) and otras (the Spanish word for other). Anzaldúa combined them to show that it’s impossible to view ourselves as separate from the other, or the other as separate from ourselves.

With these concepts in mind, the work included in this zine takes on a fresh perspective. The very first image you see (which happens to be one of my favorites in the zine) is the work of Celeste de Luna, and it is that of two women standing on opposite sides of a river. The women appear to be similar in age and each is a mother with children, who are also close in age, yet their differences shine through in their appearance, particularly in their clothing and the way they carry themselves. They have things in common, yet they remain divided.

As a big fan of Anzaldúa’s work, it meant a lot to me to see her legacy live on in the works of these other women. The contributors are obviously inspired by her and continue to build on her work with their own poems, collages, drawings, and other creative works. It has been a few years since I got my hands on a homemade zine, and this style lends itself well to the content within its pages. Sometimes the page numbers or other text were cut off, and some of the images were hard to make out because of the resolution of the print, but I think the energy and emotion is still captured.

Written by: frau sally benz, February 26th 2010

The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Edited by AnaLouise Keating

Duke University Press

I should probably start by saying that I absolutely love Gloria Anzaldúa. She was a writer whose work focused mostly on her identities as a woman, Chicana, lesbian, feminist, etc.—identities she insisted could not be separated from one another. She is probably best known for co-editing This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color and for her book Borderlands/La Frontera, The New Mestiza.

Anzaldúa’s work engages me in a unique way, so I was equal parts ecstatic and apprehensive to start The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader. There are so many ways this could go—there could be too much new or obscure material, too much old material, too much academia, etc. Luckily for me, the book provides just the right balance and showcases Anzaldúa in a way that made me love her even more.

The book is divided into four sections: early writings, middle writings, images, and later writings. The divisions are based mostly on chronology, but there are also certain themes that are more prevalent in one section than another. Every section starts with a quote from Anzaldúa’s works and each piece has a short introduction. The introductions were very useful because they often provided the context of where it fit into Anzaldúa’s writing, listed some of the themes in the piece, and sometimes suggested what other works to read in order to explore the themes in that piece.

What I liked most about this book is that the editor, AnaLouise Keating, does a great job of including a bit of everything in almost every way. There are poems, fictional stories, autobiographical pieces, drawings, transcripts of talks and email exchanges, and so forth. In terms of content, there are at least a couple of pieces for all of the issues important to Anzaldúa: feminism, culture, queer studies, and disability. For example, the book contains an interview about spirituality and sexuality, a piece about her preference for the term “dyke” instead of “lesbian,” several pieces about culture and identity, a poem about the process of writing, an email exchange about disability, and the list goes on. It gives a great introduction to people who have never before read Anzaldúa’s work, but even die-hard fans will like the book because it includes a good amount of unpublished material.

I enjoyed almost everything included in this book, but I did earmark a few that stood out to me. There were a few pieces about how Anzaldúa started writing and the methods she uses for writing that I liked a lot. Similarly, a piece on creativity was one of my favorites, in which she explores the rational mind, imagination, her sensitivity to the world around her, and how all of that comes together when doing something like writing. There was also a very funny story about a woman so saddened by her husband’s death that he comes back as a ghost, at which point she realizes just how sick of him she really was.

One thing that I might have changed is the placement of the images. It was great to include them and a couple of the drawings make my list of favorite pieces in the book, but I think putting them all together in between other chapters seemed awkward. For me, it was reminiscent of a biography with photos in the middle. Perhaps spreading them throughout the chapters might have been better and more in tune with Anzaldúa’s own style of switching through mediums within the same work. But I have to admit that this is probably just nitpicking to find flaws in an otherwise incredible book.

Written by: frau sally benz, February 9th 2010

Tell Me Something True

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Leila Cobo

Grand Central Publishing

Tell Me Something True is about a young woman, Gabriella, who spends a summer visiting family in Colombia and what she learns about her mother, Helena, upon discovering her diary. Helena died when Gabriella was only a baby, so the image Gabriella has of her mother is broken when she is confronted by the secrets her mother kept. Meanwhile, she is dealing with her own life and the complications that arise as she develops a relationship with the son of a drug lord.

After reading the first few chapters, I thought I was going to hate it because it seemed too predictable. But as I kept reading, I felt myself drawn in by the lives of these two women and ended up really liking the book. Despite its predictability (which I found problematic throughout the entire book), it was the development of the characters that I enjoyed. I felt there was a lot about both Gabriella and Helena that I could relate to. As a Latina growing up in the U.S., I struggled with fitting in, balancing independence and obedience, managing expectations, visiting family abroad, etc., and I think a lot of that was captured very well in this book. Of course, these struggles aren’t exclusive to Latinas, and I think there is something for everyone to connect with as they read.

The structure of the novel is one of the things I liked most about it. Each chapter switches back and forth between Gabriella’s experiences in the present, written in the third person, and entries from Helena’s diary, written in the first person. Because the diary entries are moving forward in time (for the most part, anyway), there is an anticipation that comes with each entry as the reader waits to know the whole story. I like novels that jump through time and shift narrators, so in some ways I was the ideal reader. Those who find such narratives frustrating might have a hard time connecting to the story.

Based on the reviews I’ve read, another complaint people have about this book is that they don’t like the ending. There isn’t much I can say without giving it away, but I will say that in many ways the ending made me connect with Gabriella’s character even more. In my opinion, it was a more realistic ending rather than the typical storybook ending. There are also some questions left unanswered about other characters, so there isn’t the sense of closure that people expect. Personally, I don’t mind not knowing, but I can certainly see why others would feel let down by the ending.

So if you like books with traditional narratives and happy endings, you probably shouldn’t pick this one up. But if those things aren’t particularly important to you, this book might be a pleasant surprise, even with its predictability. At its core, this novel is a coming of age story with a couple of twists. It’s also about relationships – the ones that fall apart unexpectedly, and the ones that strengthen under unlikely circumstances.

Written by: frau sally benz, January 24th 2010

Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America

admin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Edited by Jane S. Jaquette

Duke University Press

The feminist experience of women in Latin America is not one that is often written about or discussed. Many discussions about politics in Latin America leave feminism out, as discussions of feminism in general are often limited to the U.S. and Europe. Perhaps it is for this reason that I immediately warmed to Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America, but it was the content and style that kept me reading.

This book is meant to analyze and compare the structure of feminist movements in Latin American countries that have become democratic in recent history. The book is broken down into three sections: Feminism and the State, Legal Strategies and Democratic Institutions, and International and Cross-Border Activism. In these sections, each chapter is written by women with firsthand experience and/or academic expertise in the feminist or women’s movement in a particular country or region. The book begins and ends with a chapter by the book’s editor, Jane Jaquette, who pulls the pieces together to give a sense of the bigger picture.

What I liked most about Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America, particularly when compared to others I’ve read about the topic, is that it’s easy for the reader to tell that the women who wrote each chapter are experts in what they’re writing about. Some of them even slip in firsthand reactions to the events they mention, which gives the reader reassurance that this isn’t just the usual “outside looking in” account of history. For example, when Gioconda Espina discusses the possibility of creating new alliances in Venezuela with other organizations, she is giving a glimpse into her actual experience working with these other groups, which provides a greater level of authenticity.

It was also great to see the focus on what the future might bring. The fact is that this is a very recent history; indeed, a lot of the countries highlighted in this book were in the middle of major changes when the chapters were written, leaving the picture still incomplete. Because of that, it was good to have the writers try to piece the puzzle together.

The book is not perfect, however. I found that the focus on countries with more recent shifts to democracy such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela made for a narrow view of Latin America. With the vast number of countries, it’s disappointing to only see the book focus on a handful. Brazil and Argentina, for instance, had a chapter dedicated to each country and then another comparing the two, meaning that three out of ten chapters focused only on two countries. It would be interesting to examine the feminist movements in other Latin American countries, particularly those in the Caribbean and Central America.

I can see Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America being used as a text in college courses about global feminism, Latin America, or emerging democracies around the world. It is an academic text at its core and not meant for light beach reading unless you have a particular interest in this subject matter, as I admittedly do. That said, the book was surprisingly easy to read and digest, and not at all the boring academic text I expected.

I would be happy to check out another attempt by Jaquette, perhaps providing a follow-up to the countries she has already covered and expanding to other Latin American countries in flux. I am confident she would provide a volume of work as captivating as this, if not more so.

Written by: frau sally benz, December 19th 2009