Category: In The Club

I love how the this book presents fairy tales as our (the United States, that is) foundational myths, because they really are, but I never seem them presented as such. It’s an important thing to note when speaking of constructs and norms within our society. Leduc looks at how fairy tales have positioned disabled bodies as other, and influenced our views of disability in everyday life. She also reimagines these stories from a modern-day disablist perspective, tying disability activism to more modern, magical stories.

Book club bonus: It’s interesting to think of how villainy in fairy tales has often been identified by physicality. This kind of logic has helped to perpetuate the idea that people who are deemed “attractive” are inherently good. What real life implications do you think this has had?

Chloé Cooper Jones has all the things, all the flowers. She’s a Pulitzer Prize finalist, has received a Whiting Creative Nonfiction grant, and is a philosophy professor, and with this memoir, she sheds light on what it’s been like to live with a rare congenital condition. The condition, sacral agenesis, affects how she walks and stands, which has resulted in often being dismissed outright or pitied. It’s also the reason she’s had to make “pain calculations” when planning her days, and why she learned early on to retreat into the neutral area of academia. Things change when she has a child, though. The spaces, both physical and mental, that she often thought were off limits to her are ones she now wants to reclaim. And, by traveling to things like Beyonce concerts and gardens in Rome, she sets out to take up the space she’s due, questioning our views of beauty along the way.

Book club bonus: Here’s another examination of beauty being a determiner of value, and how that beauty itself is determined. It’s often not about ability or skill, but physical appearance. Meanwhile, beauty standards can literally change with the wind. We’ve seen, within just one country, how vastly different beauty standards can be. I’ve even witnessed a few beauty standard changes within my short 30 years in this country alone. Discuss why and how societies have placed so much importance on something so flimsy.

Have to mention how Antrobus features a Ted Hughes poem titled “Deaf School” where he crosses out each line. Why? Because Hughes wrote things like “the deaf children were monkey nimble” and how they had “faces of little animals.” Antrobus actually won the 2018 Ted Hughes award (the irony) for poetry with this collection, in which he explores his identity as a d/Deaf person, a British Jamaican, and society’s failings where d/Deaf children are concerned.

Side note, but when I tried to look up the poem by Ted Hughes (Sylvia Plath’s husband for those unawares), I could only find stuff having to do with Antrobus, which was… interesting. The original poem is so gross to me, I can’t imagine how Hughes has a poetry award in his name, but here we are.

Book club bonus: I obviously feel some type of way about Hughes’ poem. Because he had the nerve to think those things, commit them to paper, and that it was accepted and he revered enough to have an award named after him. I think we should just sit and let it marinate how this view of disabled people was not only accepted, but celebrated in many ways (i.e. the award). How did this type of thinking manifest in their lives? What is its legacy?

First thing’s first, sis’ title is a whole mood. It’s no surprise that Brown was the originator of the #DisabledAndCute viral hashtag, and I’m not mad. Here, she explores her experiences growing up Black with cerebral palsy. Despite her immense confidence now, she explains how that wasn’t always the case. The title, even, refers to how her identical, able-bodied twin was always referred to as “the pretty one” in relation to her. With this collection, she aims to do away with distorted, able-bodied stereotypes, and give a peek into her life by looking at things like her love of pop culture and her romantic entanglements.

Book club bonus: It blows my mind how Brown’s identical twin sister was labelled “the pretty one.” Like, how? When they’re identical?? Discuss how the mere label of things, specifically being labeled as disabled, can completely color people’s perceptions of others. How has this affected disabled people?

You’ve probably heard about this book in recent years, but if you haven’t read it, then you may not know that the main character, like the author, has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Stella is good with algorithms but not so much with romance. She decides to fix her lack of experience by hiring a professional, escort Michael Phan, to help her, um, practice (heh). Practice, they do, but they also realize that their previously strictly dickly (lol) arrangement is starting to feel so right in other ways.

Book club bonus: Discuss society/mainstream media’s portrayal of the sexuality of disabled people. How is it handed generally?

Jessamyn is broke after graduating and decides to move back to Malaysia— a place she hasn’t been since she was small— to live with family and try to figure things out. At her aunt’s house, she tries to be sociable with her aunt’s friends and manage her expectations for what she wants for herself compared to familial expectations (like their expectation for her to be straight compared to her having an actual girlfriend). Welp, all that takes a back seat once her granny low key possess her. Turns out her grandmother was a medium when she was alive and the avatar for the Black Water Sister deity. Now she wants Jessamyn to get involved in a world of gods, ghosts, and gangsters to avenge the Sister’s honor. Mess only begins to describe it.

Twenty-two year old Winnie is working as an English teacher in Saigon and believes herself to be as unremarkable as beige wallpaper (literally! bless). She only hopes her ineptitude in all things, especially English, isn’t found out by her colleagues. Well, one day she suddenly goes missing, and from the circumstances of her disappearance unfurl the history of Vietnam. Kupersmith shows how Winnie is connected to another Vietnamese girl who went missing decades before through ghosts, ancestors, and colonialism. The story weaves in and out of the past and the present, connecting things like French expatriates, kids sent to boarding schools, zoos, colonial mansions, and tales of revenge.

Mr. and Mrs. Cho just started getting more business for their restaurant in Hawai’i and they’re feeling pretty well about things. Until a video of their son, who moved to South Korea to teach English, goes viral. In it, he tries to cross the Korean demilitarized zone into North Korea. Suspicion immediately falls on the Chos and their restaurant sales drop. What no one knows is that their son Jacob has been possessed by the ghost of his grandfather who now desperately wants to get back to the family he left behind. As Jacob is detained, his sister Grace slips more into her drug use, and the Chos don’t know what will become of their family or their business. As serious as all this sounds, I promise the book actually has a good dose of humor.

Disability activist Alice Wong has gathered a collection of contemporary, disabled writers with the aim to explore the experiences of disabled people outside of the lens of ableism. The collection includes everything from blog posts to manifestos, Congressional testimony to original essays that highlight the disabled experience in all its glory. Wong also includes more reading options in the form of nonfiction, podcasts, and poetry.

Book club bonus: There have been disabled people who talk about how people may doubt the validity of their disability because it’s not as easily seen. Discuss what this collection of essays says about that and compare to what people have written about having more visible disabilities.

“True biz” is a phrase in American Sign Language (ASL) that means “really; seriously; real-talk.” Its use as the title of Nović’s book is to show how ASL is not simply the equivalent of English for Deaf people, but its own language with its own phrases and idioms. Here, we follow the lives of Charlie, Austin, and February, who are all linked through River Valley School for the Deaf. Charlie is a transfer student who will be meeting other Deaf people for the first time; Austin does well at the school, but has new things to figure out when his sister is born hearing; and February is the headmistress who is trying to keep both the school and her marriage together.

Book club bonus: What surprised you about the residential Deaf school?

O’Connell actually stars in Queer As Folk and Special, and has a few things in common with the main character of Just by Looking At Him, Elliott, who is a TV writer, gay, and has cerebral palsy. Elliott is super-duper going through it, though. Behind his seemingly Instagram perfect life, he’s struggling with alcohol addiction, being unfaithful to his boyfriend, and issues with internalized ableism. There are quite a few laughs to be had as he tries to get his ish together.

Book club bonus: Discuss how the intersection of queerness and disability manifests in Elliott’s life.

Wang’s collection of autobiographical essays will take you on a journey. First, she details what it took to get diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and how those in the medical field even have disagreements concerning procedures surrounding diagnosing. She also shows how schizophrenia has shown up in her life, how she’s used her sense of style to present as high-functioning, and how illnesses like PTSD can compound symptoms. Her essays strike a nice balance of analytical with personal, no doubt in part due to her time as a researcher at Stanford. Make sure to also pick up [Don’t] Call Me Crazy, edited by our own Kelly Jensen, which Wang has contributed to.

Book club bonus: Discuss how medical professionals disagree on mental illness. What implications does this have for patients?

Iconic magician Violet Volk performed thee ultimate magic trick by actually disappearing mid act. And not being seen since. As the tenth anniversary of her disappearance nears, super fan Cameron Frank increases his efforts to secure an interview with Violet’s more responsible and non-magically oriented sister Sasha, who stayed out of the limelight as she raised her daughter. Even as Sasha would rather avoid the subject of her sister, who she still holds some resentment for, she starts experiencing sleepwalking episodes that are connected to Violet. Then there’s Quinn, Sasha’s daughter and Violet’s niece, who idolizes her aunt and wants to find out what happened to her for herself. When I tell you Violet has a grip on the gworls! Gone for 10 years, and people are still talking! Truly iconic.

Book club bonus: What do you think of the more surreal elements of the story? Do you feel they boosted or held back the mystery at the book’s core?

Sweet like plantain, hot like pepper. They taste the best when together…

Bars! If you’re a person of culture, you may recognize the good sis Bolu as the person who shot her shot with Michael B. Jordan. For this, I will always stan her, but Honey & Spice gives even more stanning material. It follows Kiki Banjo, the hostess of popular student radio show Brown Sugar. Quick-witted and even quicker to read down a wasteman (which is just British for “f-boy”), Kiki hopes to keep her fellow Whitehall University students from wasting time with men who are only interested in situationships and other f-boy trappings. Her reputation takes a bit of a nosedive when she’s seen kissing a guy she publicly denounced as a wasteman on her show. To save face, they start fake dating and learn that they may be ready for more than they thought.

This lyrical and funny romance is Babalola’s debut novel, but make sure to also check out her collection of stories, Love in Color.

Book club bonus: What did you think of Kiki and Malakai’s relationship? Would you want to experience something similar? Why or why not?

Look at that cover! I’ve been excited about this sequel since I read Dead Dead Girls last year (which I don’t think you need to have read already if you want to pick this one up). Here, 27-year old Louise Lloyd returns to the world of amateur sleuthing in 1920s Harlem. After having helped catch the Girl Killer last year, she now manages her friend’s nightclub the Dove. When one of the girls she was kidnapped with years ago steps back into her life, it spells disaster. The morning after Louise and the girl reconnect, the girl is found dead and Louise’s girlfriend Rosa Maria is covered in her blood. Louise needs to make quick work of the mystery of who killed Nora before it’s too late for Rosa Maria.

Book club bonus: Even though I know the era wasn’t a walk in the park for a lot of people, especially people with marginalized identities, reading about the ’20s can be really fun sometimes. Discuss some of the elements, good and bad, of the time that you were surprised by.

There is a long history of people in the medical field not taking women seriously. Leghorn experienced this firsthand after finally being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. But the diagnosis only came after a long period of being gaslit into thinking she was imagining her symptoms. Here, she examines the intersection of women, illness, and the field of medicine— which has largely been controlled by men. The history of how women and their illnesses have been treated by medicine goes all the way from the wandering wombs of Ancient Greece to the sterilization that was forced on Black women in the American South.

Book club bonus: Women have worked as midwives all over the world and in different cultures for a long time. As medicine became more standardized, though, it seems as if the profession decreased. Discuss this. Why do you think that happened and do you think women would be better served if there were more midwives, or would patriarchal views still be upheld?

In this book, Snorton details the rich history of Black transpeople, especially how they have been cut out of the narrative of trans and queer history. By using the narratives of enslaved people seeking freedom, Afro-modernist literature, journalism, and other sources, Snorton shows just how much race has determined how topics like queerness and gender have been represented.

Book club bonus: Discuss why you think heteronormativity and race are so strongly linked.

Through this memoir by world renowned artist Ai Weiwei, we’re shown how some of the major forces in China shaped it the last 100 years. He tells the story of his father, Ai Qing, who was a poet and formerly close to Mao Zedong. Once he fell out of favor, he and his family — including a young Ai Weiwei— were exiled to Little Siberia where he was sentenced to hard labor. Once Weiwei returns to China after having studied art in America, his art becomes known all over the world, as does his work as a human rights activist. By telling the story of his and his father’s lives— and their struggles to express themselves as artists while contending with totalitarianism— he tells the story of China.

Book club bonus: Discuss the parallels between Ai Weiwei and his father. They both had things in common, but vastly different outcomes. What do you think was the turning point for either one?

This is inspired by the Chinese legend of the moon goddess, which, if you haven’t noticed already, is totally my jam. Xingyin has grown up on the moon, hidden away from the Celestial Emperor because of her mother being exiled. When her magic flares, she’s no longer hidden and she has to leave her mother, and her home, behind. She’s forced to make her way towards the mystical Celestial Kingdom alone and afraid. Once she disguises her identity, she’s able to learn magic and archery with the emperor’s son and uses her new found skills to go on a quest, with all the romantic spice and mythological creatures, to save her mother.

This has been on my TBR for a hot minute and I’m so ready for it to wreck my life. Like, I know that this story will suck me in and have me in a vice grip after I’ve finished reading, and I’m here for that.

Book club bonus: Certain kinds of stories seem to get retold throughout human history, even by cultures that seemingly had no contact with each other. Discuss which stories the heroine’s journey reminded you of.

Holly Black has an extensive catalogue of dark YA fantasy, and this is her debut adult novel. In this world, people’s shadows hold a lot of weight. They hold the parts of yourself you want to keep hidden, but they can also be manipulated by others, causing your feelings and memories to be altered. The kind of magic this requires comes at a cost, though. Charlie Hall, a low level scammer, is working at a bar while trying to keep her nose out of dangerous shadow magic. When someone from her past reappears, her efforts go in vain, and she’s thrust into the chaotic world of dark magic, secrets, and murder where her survival isn’t guaranteed.

Book club bonus: Shadow work, where you work with your unconscious mind to uncover parts of yourself you keep hidden, is considered vital in some spiritual practices. Discuss this book’s shadow-based magic system, looking at it from a more spiritual and psychological/mental health perspective.

This was only included in the Goodreads list and not the B&N one, but I wanted to add it here since I have already mentioned other books in the B&N list.

Violeta del Valle is born on a stormy day in 1920 and goes on to live 100 years. This novel follows her journey through life as her and her family contend with the effects of the Great War and the Spanish flu, only to be hit with the Great Depression right after. Violeta recounts a life as full of tragedy and heartbreak as it is joy and passion in a letter she writes to a loved one.

Book club bonus: If you’ve read 100 Years of Solitude, how would you compare the two novels?

So Ben Cook just graduated from college with an English degree and can’t find a job in his field. My friends and I have had many a conversation about the condition of needing five years experience for an entry-level job *sobs in Millenial*. Turns out he should have just looked to his last name (ha!) because he finds a help wanted sign outside a restaurant and gets the job. Naturally, there’s a chef there who’s fine–fine and it’s got Ben even rethinking his career path! I mean… say you’re down bad without saying you’re down bad. This graphic novel is cute enough to make me momentarily forget how much I hated working in restaurants, which is quite the feat.

Kris and D’Vaughn are on a reality show that gives them six weeks to plan their wedding. The only problem is that their relationship is fake and they have to be convincing enough in their affections that family and friends don’t guess what’s going on. If any of them do, neither of the ladies will get the $100,000 reward. It seems like it’ll be easy money since they have natural chemistry, but then the priorities change and it starts to feel like the reality show is getting in the way of real feelings.

Here’s another reality show one! It seems like they are pretty much perfect settings for romance tropes. Here, Dev does his best to make fairy tales come true as the producer of the reality show Ever After. The romantic scripts he writes for the show’s contestants are so good that the show’s popularity has grown since he came on. Too bad his actual love life is in shambles. Meanwhile, tech star Charlie has suffered a blow to his image and seeks to mend it by being on the show. His already terrible dating awkwardness is only exacerbated on camera, and he struggles to connect with the 20 women he’s been matched with. That’s when Dev steps in, but the two find out they have more chemistry than the contestants.

Sara and Emilie both come from dysfunctional families and have both been running away from something. Sara from her home at 16 after someone close to her mysteriously died. Emilie, on the other hand, has been eschewing her Creole heritage in order to pass for white. Both also find themselves in popular L.A. restaurant Yerba Buena where they experience an intense and immediate chemistry. To fully realize whatever feelings could be there, though, they must first reckon with their pasts and heal their trauma.

Book club bonus: It can be easy to establish unhealthy patterns and get trapped in them, effectively making them a part of everyday life. In what surprising ways were Emilie and Sara’s lives influenced by their familial trauma?

This collection of stories celebrates queerness in all its fun, funny, dark, and complex glory. Amongst these stories is one about how a lesbian comic artist and her girlfriend decide to have a baby and get a few surprises along the way. Another follows a trans teen who has a big following on YouTube for sharing his views on things affecting queer people. Conklin’s writing is nuanced and tender enough to cover heavy topics like child abuse and s*xual assault without making the collection too trauma-centered.

Book club bonus: The blurb of this book mentions how Conklin includes an “experience that’s not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities.” So much of human experience lies on a spectrum and many of us understand how nuanced and complex we can be. Why then, do you think we still tend to view things as either/or? Why don’t we look more at these liminal identities?

I mentioned this in the other newsletter I write, but wanted to mention this one here as well. I mean, the cover alone lives in my head. It pays no rent, no utilities, no nothing! In the book, Luli Wei is a Chinese American girl coming up during the golden age of Hollywood looking to make it big. When faced with the limited kinds of roles offered to Asian women, she’s the kind of girl who’s rather play a monster than a stereotype. And a monster she plays. Thing is, as she learns more about the darkness that goes on behind the scenes, she may end up more than just playing a monster to become successful. Vo casts her usual spell of dreamy prose and subtle magic in this historical novel.

Book club bonus: Do the ends justify the means? Do you think Luli’s actions were justified or even understandable when everything was said and done?

This is described as “part butch memoir, part ekphrastic travel diary,” so right off the bat, we can see it’s spicy in all the right ways. With this debut essay collection, poet and educator Gutiérrez reckons with physical space and how it influences, and is influenced, by art and love. Displacement across Mexico and the Southwestern region of the U.S. is mapped, just as Gutiérrez shows the etched stories across their own body. This reminds me a bit of Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz.

Book club bonus: As someone who grew up in the U.S., I feel like physical space isn’t something that gets tied to the things Gutiérrez ties it to. It’s interesting because so much of our culture is actually space-based— like property lines, state lines, gerrymandering, etc. What do you think of the role that space plays in different aspects of our lives and why do you think we don’t talk about it much?

A man wakes up with poor memory, a bottle of painkillers, and little else. If I said this didn’t sound like he had gotten up from a really good nap, I’d be lying.

Well, it’s 2010 and much of the surrounding area where he is has been abandoned. He focuses on learning to survive, even as he struggles to remember his own name. One day a kid named Clay shows up, decidedly different from what you’d expect a kid to look in an apocalyptic California. He’s clean, for one, and it’s clear that he’s well taken care of. It also soon becomes clear, though, that Clay is not going to be too forthcoming with information. Slowly, the narrator explores his surroundings— finding odd things like a number of totems and a paper Christmas tree— and gets clues from Clay that help him piece together his memory. Things begin to make more sense, but there are also memories he would have rather stayed forgotten. The pace of this book is slower, but steady, and it’s more character than action driven.

The movements for civil rights in America have been marred by respectability politics, which this book hopes to correct. It restores queer women’s position within the suffrage movement, showing how they were not only present, but also key players in helping women attain equal rights. What the movement achieved owes so much to the most marginalized amongst its ranks.

Vincent has been living it up in Paris. She strolls its streets as she wants, teaches at the modern art museum, and has a fab group of friends. It’s not all (half-blown) roses, though. She’s there because her husband recently published a book spilling all their marital tea, even confessing to a child he had and abandoned as a teenager. Her time in Paris is meant to be a get-it-together moment, and she’s fallen into a nice little routine. It gets interrupted, though, by young musician Loup, and how enamored with her he becomes. As Cillian, her husband, sends frequent apology letters, the attraction between Loup and her grows. She’ll eventually have to decide what her Paris stay will mean for her as far as the rest of her life is concerned.

The stories here can be extremely odd or endearing— or both! They follow the lives of Cambodian Americans, some of whom were born in the U.S., and some who have brought memories of the Khmer Rouge genocide with them. The refugees of Afterparties adapt to new lives in California while their children try to forge their own identities, contending with sexuality, race, and community along the way.

Women and queer people fight for agency, belonging, and love in a world full of hoodoo, body-stealing witches, and Amish vampires. The magic here gets real, and the dangerous women who wield it get even realer. The first story, for example, is about a girl in Kentucky who has no family and has to murder men with hoodoo because of the witch who threatens to take her soul. Sis is… going through a lot. Liu’s writing is lush and this collection, which ends with a novella, feels like an update on the original Grimm’s fairy tales.

This collection was written and edited by an award-winning team of female and nonbinary Chinese writers and has stories that haven’t been translated to English before. These science fiction and fantasy stories celebrate China’s rich culture while still looking to the future. There’s a restaurant at the end of the universe, a woman and her admirer who travel on the backs of giant fish so spring can bloom, and immortality that gets cultivated in the high mountains.