Book Review: Color Outside the Lines: Stories about Love / Edited by Sangu Mandanna

 

What a delightful surprise! I am NOT a romance reader, and while there were some luv stories in here, these were more than that - these were love stories. You don't see the difference? Luv stories are all romance, kissing, drooling all over each other and are gag-worthy as far as I am concerned. These stories, on the other hand, were about love. Many about romantic love, some about the start of relationships, some just about love between people.

What is even better? Each of these stories have some type of complexity: interracial, or LGBT, or forbidden relationships. Each of these stories was a little different than the others, but all of them were good. 

AND reading Color Outside the Lines is a way to sample a bunch of different authors. These are pages in which to walk in someone else's shoes and see how it feels to be someone very different than yourself. These are stories through which to learn more about yourself and others. These are stories to sip slowly - one at a time so you can digest each tale. This is honestly one of the best short stories collections I have read. I hope you might also enjoy it.

You will find this book on the shelves on Nashua South or you can find it in the Nashua Public Library catalog.

"I like how you look at me. There's a story in your eyes that I would give anything to hear."
 ~ Lori M. Lee in Starlight and Moonlight

Book Review: Four / Veronica Roth - AND literary parsley

Ten years ago I read Divergent, the first book in Roth's Divergent series. (Yes, I know it was 10 years ago, I have a reading log!) I enjoyed it and actually read Insurgent as well (though I never read the third book in the series - I don't typically read full series, I just like a taste.) 

Recently, I have read several books that are heavy reads - in information, in context, in content. Books that have heartbreaking elements, that contain abuse, that require VERY CLOSE READING and a lot of notes. This book was not that.  (Ok, there was a little abuse in Four, but it wasn't incredibly heavy.)

At the end of last week I started in on another book - nonfiction and full of information that I needed to digest in order to better understand the story. And for the first time ever, reading became too much. I was struggling to open the book, to continue to leaf through the pages.  I reached for my "to read" pile and picked up Four - a book that was recommended to me by a student, M. This is just what I needed. A palate cleanser, literary parsley. (Did you know that parsley refreshes your mouth so that you can enjoy the next flavor that your tongue encounters? It also freshens your breath.)

Four is a companion novel for the Divergent series. When I opened the book and started reading it took me back to a simpler time in my life - free from the scattered busyness that the COVID pandemic dumped upon us. The story was a simpler story than what I had been reading. Reading about these characters that I hadn't encountered for many years felt like going back to a book home. The story was still satisfying in that it gave me plenty to think about but it wasn't a struggle and exactly the right book for me in the right moment.

I hope you try the Divergent series, or even just the short stories in Four. It will make you think about caste, and labels in a new way. It might even make you consider that labels that you have affixed to yourself. But if it isn't the right book at the right time for you - go find something that fills your reading or learning needs. 

 

Book Reviews: I Know What I am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi / Sicilio AND Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough

Artemisia Gentileschi was an artist who lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s. 
And these two novels about her life offer some two very possibilities for her mental reality.

If you are going to read both, try the Sicilio book first. This is a graphic novel which is FULL of contextual detail. It shares the contextual and historical background for Artemisia and her art. This isn't an easy book to read in any any. There are a lot of characters in this book to keep track of, a lot of context that sets the stage for what she went through - it is DENSE with historical information. But beyond that - this book is full of betrayal, abuse, rape, dishonesty... AND persistence, feminism, overcoming. I loved this book because it provided the context to better understand the world Artemisia lived in. I loved this book because many of the messages are universal to humankind - bigger than a time and place in the world. 

Once you have finished the  Sicilio book, try the McCullough. After having build the context of Artemisia's life, this different mind-set perspective (offered in a novel in verse) will offer another possibility for Artemisia's viewpoint of her own life, and how she overcame the hurdles she encountered.

In any case, this is a book about art but also about feminism and about #MeToo. Note that there are a lot of triggers in this book: rape, lecherous men, and living with a shaky foundation. 

Enjoy these books, look up the art - check out Artemisia's art as well as that of her contemporaries. Enjoy and learn.