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You are here: Home / Archives for book chat

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Top Ten Books for Readers Who Like Teenagers Effing Up The Patriarchy

10th March 2015 By Julianne 5 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a pick-your-own-topic: ‘Books for Readers Who Like ______’. I wasn’t planning to take part, but then Ming suggested that ‘Books for Readers Who Like Teenagers Effing Up The Patriarchy’ as an idea. I loved it, and told her so, and after a little bit of discussion we agreed to make this a collab. I’m going to list five books below, and once you’ve read this post you can pop on over to Rare Medium Well Done for the rest of the list.

So without any further ado:

Top Five Books for Readers Who Like Teenagers Effing Up The Patriarchy

My feminist badge collection from my teenage years

1. The Gemma Doyle Trilogy, by Libba Bray – Victorian girls with powers not only have to save the world, but also have to work out how to improve their own lives, which is possibly more difficult, living in the era that they do and being supposed to go straight from finishing school to marriage/drudgery.

2. Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, by Kirsten Miller – a gang of delinquent Girl Scouts, led by the mysterious mastermind Kiki Strike, explore a hidden city below New York. At the end of every chapter there are useful lists, such as ‘How To Take Advantage of Being a Girl’ and ‘How To Kick Some Butt’.

3. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart – Frankie finds out that her boyfriend is in a secret all-male society at their school. He won’t even admit that it exists. Bored by this lying and shameless sexism, she decides to infiltrate it. Fun ensues.

4. The Forestwife Trilogy, by Theresa Tomlinson – Medieval teenager Mary de Holt doesn’t fancy getting married off to some old guy, so she runs off into the forest with her wet nurse Agnes, where they help heal the sick and rescue people from the patriarchy. Along the way she changes her name to Marian, learns archery, and spends a bit of romantic time with a dude called Robert who wears a hood. Also there are AWESOME NUNS.

5. Valiant, by Holly Black – this is more incidental patriarchy-effing but Val a) learns how to fight with a really cool sword and b) has to use these skills to save her love interest. Goodbye stereotypical fairy tale!

Now, please leave a comment and recommend me some of your own favourite books about teenagers who, when confronted with tedious stereotypes and boringly gender-conventional lives, refuse to put up with it. Or people in general!

Filed Under: Recommendation Lists Tagged With: book chat, feminism, Top Ten Tuesday

Finish It Feb 2015

16th February 2015 By Julianne Leave a Comment

It’s February, which means it’s time to put the TBR Double Dog Dare on hold and #FinishItFeb instead!

I loved being part of #FinishItFeb last year, even though it took me a couple more months to finish the Gemma Doyle trilogy than I’d intended.

This year, I’m aiming reasonably high, and I want to finish three books from my ‘currently reading’ list, and one series.

The Series

I hadn’t ever really considered reading Artemis Fowl until I became a Christmas temp at Waterstone’s Bromley, and a couple of my colleagues (one in particular), enthused about it so much that I couldn’t resist.

I’ve read the first two, and I really, really loved them. But somehow I never got around to reading the rest. I am planning to re-read the first two and then I will be continuing merrily on with this fantastic series.

The Three Books:

I have started reading The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp’s guide to creativity, at least once before but lacked the determination to finish it. You see, it’s one of those books with exercises. I am often halted by exercises. I started it again in January, and I really want to continue it as it’s one of those lifechanging, really useful kind of guide books. I just have to get around to doing this particular exercise, and then I can move on…

I read most of The Bookshop Book last year and then stopped after interviewing the author. I don’t want it to end! But I should finish it, so that I can put the dustjacket back on it, take it off my desk and find it a nice home on a shelf.

I don’t know why I never finished reading Haunted by History: Poetry by Joan Anim-Addo, who taught on my undergrad degree programme. It’s a poetry book. It’s not very long. And I don’t have to review it – I generally don’t review poetry, though I might mention it in a vlog. If I finish it!

I talked about my #FinishItFeb plans in my last vlog, which you can see below:

Are you taking part in #FinishItFeb? Have you read any of these books?

Filed Under: Challenges Tagged With: #finishitfeb, Artemis Fowl, book chat, reading challenges

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Hi! I'm Julianne and this is my book blog. Click my picture to read more about me.

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