North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell

"

When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience,
Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction.

In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fuses individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale creates one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature."

Margaret Hale, full of southern pride, finds herself suddenly placed in a northern industrial city. Having entertained a strong prejudice against the tradesmen, she views the northern mill owners to be similar uncouth men. Her pride and the misconceived notions mar her better judgment and she forms an instant dislike for Mr. Thornton. This dislike was mutual initially, but Mr. Thornton goes through gradual change; and although he dislikes her haughty ways, he slowly learns to appreciate her for her true qualities and falls in love. Margaret, though not as quickly as Mr. Thornton, too goes through this gradual change and learns to appreciate who he truly is.

Gaskell's ideas of use for these two characters is twofold. First, through these characters, one from the south and other from north, she shows us how the different views, beliefs, and misconceptions of the two ends were reconciled. The southerners saw the industrial northern cities as noisy, smoky, and full of uncouth people while the northerners saw the south as full of idle people who lacked action, depth and individuality. It was interesting to see how Gaskell expressed these clashing views of both ends through her main characters, and the final reconciliation of the two was more like a reconciliation of North and South (ehmmehm...title..ehm) where both sides come to understand and respect their different ways. Second is, of course, for the obvious reason of filling a love story. Gaskell has achieved these two-folds end brilliantly.

The broad scope of the novel, coupled with insightful depth and comment means that each reading of the book can offer something new. Read it as a straight forward (or not) love story, a fictional romantic biography. Then discover the class politics that run through the novel. Or perhaps the debate (as the title suggests) between the rapidly industrialising north and the more gentrified south. Or the sexual and gender politics that create a constant thematic pulse throughout the book... Or any other matter you choose to seek out from religion to the nature of authority and so on and so forth. 

I loved the writing style and all characters where brought to life with a subtly yet strong believability. I especially loved John Thornton's character. He was so strong yet conflicted and deeply emotional... the bloody handshake drama was almost to much for me. I also thought that his interactions with his mother were top notch. 

I have only two problems with this novel. Firstly, Gaskell's own heavily religious ideas come through strongly in the text at times, though luckily not pervading the entire novel. This can get occasionally frustrating for someone who isn't religious, however I understand that it was true to the times and doesn't detract for the overall wonderful book. 

My second issue is the last few ending chapters really slow down in pace and feel less character driven. We somehow pull-out of the emotional worlds of our two leads. There is less urgency and we just kind of wait around with Margaret for months as she grieves. This is a disappointment, especially as the pacing for the rest of the book was so excellent. 

Age Rating 14+. A man commits suicide, a slightly worrying strike, death. However all described in accordance to 19th centaury sensibility. 

Raybearer - Jordan Ifueko

"Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised
in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince’s Council of 11. If she’s picked, she’ll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won’t stand by and become someone’s pawn—but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself?"

I am conflicted about this book. Taking into account this is a debut novel I am really really impressed and I am looking forward to seeing more from this author as she grows. I really wanted to love it and part of me did. I loved the mixing of different cultures and the African setting. It is unique, individual, and I am thrilled by the explosion of POC fantasy books on the market. It’s just really great seeing new authors telling stories about their cultures. The book mixes cultures that took inspiration for Africa, France, Korea, China all mixing and merging was beautiful. It was also interesting to think about a world where the African continent was the most powerful and how would that make our own world look. 

It was also an interesting critic on colonialism and the dangers of unity rather than equality that never turned didactic. Ray bearer is a novel that understands empire’s tremendous and insidious power. That they can eat holes into the bulwarks of many cultures, destroying entire edifices, and it can be very, very convincing while it destroys them. I wondered again—for the thousandth time—if that is the truest death: being slowly rendered invisible. 

The actual writing style had some really lovely moments and I felt grounded in the story's setting and tone. 

I also enjoyed the asexual representation however it was blink and you'll miss it. I wish that was explored more.

However something was missing for me in the book as a whole. 

I wish there was an exploration of polyamory. I genuinely thought that was where this book was going to go from the opening scenes and the blurb and I was excited to see and explore that dynamic. However, it turns out that most of the characters split off very neatly into couples. I think this is unlikely. If you are all telepathically connected, have been together since childhood, and literally sleep in a puppy pile of the floor every night...well.

On that note I really wanted more interactions between the people in the Ray. We only know Sanjeet, Dayo and Kirah. I can't even remember the names of the rest of them. There is one sweet scene where the girls are having their hair braided...but that was it. I really felt that is undercut the emotional depth of the book. One of the main themes of the book is Tarisai finding her "found family" where she can be loved and excepted, but then we get no sweet family interactions, it was disappointing and a waste of potential. The other cultures aren't fleshed out enough either to ground the characters, some are literally boiled down to ohh Chinese name, farm rice. Right... just feels lazy. 

The main antagonist, "the lady" was unfortunately less then terrifying. It was hard to relate to Tarisai's fear of her.  It felt like the author was trying to get across she had the potential to be a good person, but through the evils of patriarchy she became evil. I mean...sure not being appreciated and abandoned can make us do terrible things but raping a man, abusing your daughter and trying to kill a child. Well, I think that's just you, not the patriarchy. Thus the Lady trying to garner sympathy honestly just sounded like a delusional user.

The plot was all over the place. I was hooked the first third. It was gripping and made sense and was full of life. Then it slumped for the second third. It felt like a chore to keep reading at points and I had to take a break from it, which I almost never do. I felt like the author brushed over meaningful events that would have been interesting to explore, and focused on things that weren’t very interesting. Furthermore, throughout the story it felt like certain events just conveniently happened in order to drive the plot forward.

 The entire Redemptor arch felt very tacked on and just didn't seem to sit well with the rest of the book, it was introduced to late and had no grounding. The climax(es?) were meh. Things finally started to pick up again in the final third of the book, and I was back into it. There were a few interesting twists and a good climax that seemed to occur a little early in the book .... but then there were like 50 more pages of confusion ... and another climax that I was not expecting at all. It set the book up to continue the series, but it was just so jumbled and really left me uninterested in the direction of the series. 

I think overall this book would have been much better if it had slowed down with the plot, taken time to flesh out the characters, dynamics and world building more. Give us small personal moments with the other people in the Ray. Show us why they all love Tarisai, show us why she loves them. Display the characters different cultures and how they interact with each other. This could have been a large scale, epic, sweeping novel spanning continents with rich and lush cultures.

Age Rating 15+. Nothing untoward, some vague allusions to sex. However the rape that the Lady performs, while off page still isn't appropriate for younger audiences. 

A Slap in the Face: Why Insults Hurt , And Why they Shouldn't - William B Irvine

"Insults are part of the fabric of daily life. But why do we insult
each other? Why do insults cause us such pain? Can we do anything to prevent or lessen this pain? Most importantly, how can we overcome our inclination to insult others?

In A Slap in the Face, William Irvine undertakes a wide-ranging investigation of insults, their history, the role they play in social relationships, and the science behind them.  Irvine considers the role insults play in our society: they can be used to cement relations, as when a woman playfully teases her husband, or to enforce a social hierarchy, as when a boss publicly berates an employee. He goes on to investigate the many ways society has tried to deal with insults-by adopting codes of politeness, for example, and outlawing hate speech-but concludes that the best way to deal with insults is to immunize ourselves against them: We need to transform ourselves in the manner recommended by Stoic philosophers. We should, more precisely, become insult pacifists, trying hard not to insult others and laughing off their attempts to insult us."

A very light hearted and humorous take on the meaning of insults as seen through the prism of the authors love of Stoic philosophy. Irvine  manages to succinctly make a case for getting off the social hierarchy treadmill. As he says, "People place great value on other people's opinions of them. Insults hurt so much because they are reminders that our social standing is not as high as we would like it to be." But what if we don't care about our social standing? What if we realize that social standing is an artificial construct? If we have chosen, and are confident, in the right values, insults can't harm us. Don't try to control things over which we have little or no control, such as other people's opinions of us. Spend time, instead, on choosing to do good and virtuous things. 

I found the latter parts of the book, which discuss responses to insults, much more interesting that the first part of the book, which categorizes the types of insults. I understand that, as a philosopher, it's important for him to cover all the bases, but I found the early section to be dry, bordering on irritatingly repetitive. The entire book is certainly not a deep dive, but is a good "pop-philosophy" book. An okay-ish introduction to the very amazing world of Stoic Philosophy and will hopefully get readers interested in further reading.

Age rating 14+ Understandable for a younger audience with occasionally mature content used as examples for the horror insults can wreak. 

Tithe (#1) - Holly Black

"Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she
travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms - a struggle that could very well mean her death."

Yes, Yes I know. Another Holly Black. I am just a sucker for her description of Fae. So first of all, on the good side… the fairies . The way Holly Black draws her fairy worlds and fairy characters is genuinely so imaginative, gorgeous, and… creepy. Every time I dive into one of her books, I find myself both terrified and enamoured with her fairy world. Holly Black always knocks the fairy stories out the park. Tithe is a raw, dark faerie tale in keeping with Black's usual style. While not suitable for younger readers (lots of swearing, torture and violence, and mature themes), I loved its take on the darker side of faerie. Black's understanding and vision for Fairies is excellent and is exactly how I imagine them.  It also deals with faerie themes like Changelings and the knowing of one's True Name very well. 

Roiben had a lot of potential. The idea of being trapped in a different court, sent there by your beloved Queen where she knows you will be humiliated and tortured, but can do nothing about the terrible things you are made to do because they have your true name and have to do everything they say. I mean how absolutely horrific. However he did need to be fleshed out more as he did feel a little one dimensional at times. 

Kaye, though, is a bit of a blah main character. I found that she was one of those early YA protagonists who’s written just generic enough that she’s easy to make into a self insert, but at the cost of an engaging motivation or quirky personality. Cool outfits do not a character make. I think this book really suffered from being so short, and I mean it is really really short. The characters don't have time to be developed, and neither does the romance that is probably one of the worst Insta-loves I have ever come across. I just don't see how these two characters could fall for each other - especially in such short amount of time. Kaye saw Roiben once and fell instantaneously in love with his ... hair?  I mean, they know each other for 4 days max, have nothing in common, never really have a heart to heart talk to make us understand what attracts them to each other. 

It dallied with some themes but didn’t stick with them in any meaningful way. I find Black’s work tends to do this often. I’ve never read something by her that had anything to it. It’s all aesthetic for aesthetics’ sake, which is fine but undeniably tiring after a while. A quick, light read with plenty of beautiful descriptions. 

Age Rating 16+ Surprisingly high rating, drugs, sex with dubious consent, domestic abuse, swearing, minor's having sex, torture and humiliation. Other than that,
though completely fine.