#chain gang all stars

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: black science fiction

As february and black history month nears its end, if you're a reader let's not forget to read and appreciate books by black authors the rest of the year as well! If you're a sci-fi fan like me, perhaps this list can help find some good books to sink your teeth into.

Bleak dystopias, high tech space adventures, alien monsters, alternate dimensions, mash-ups of sci-fi and fantasy - this list features a little bit of everything for genre fiction fans!

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Something massive and alien crashes into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria. Three people, a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, find themselves at the center of this presence, attempting to shepherd an alien ambassador as chaos spreads in the city. A strange novel that mixes the supernatural with the alien, shifts between many different POVs, and gives a one of a kind look at a possible first contact.

Nubia: The Awakening (Nubia series) by Omar Epps & Clarence A. Hayes

Young adult. Three teens living in the slums of an enviromentally ravaged New York find that something powerful is awakening within them. They’re all children of refugees of Nubia, a utopian African island nation that sank as the climate worsened, and realize now that their parents have been hiding aspects of their heritage from them. But as they come into their own, someone seeks to use their abilities to his own ends, against their own people.

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

Novella. After having failed at establishing a new colony, starship Calypso fights to make it back to Earth. Acting captain Jacklyn Albright is already struggling against the threats of interstellar space and impending starvation when the ship throws her a new danger: something is hiding on the ship, picking off her crew one by one in bloody, gruesome ways. A quick, excellent read if you want some good Alien vibes.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Includes darker examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in world-building, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he’s exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Rosewater (The Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson

In Nigeria lies Rosewater, a city bordering on a strange, alien biodome. Its motives are unknown, but it’s having an undeniable effect on the surrounding life. Kaaro, former criminal and current psychic agent for the government, is one of the people changed by it. When other psychics like him begin getting killed, Kaaro must take it upon himself to find out the truth about the biodome and its intentions.

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

Young adult. A century ago, an astronomer discovered a possibly Earth-like planet. Now, a team of veteran astronauts and carefully chosen teenagers are preparing to embark on a twenty-three year trip to get there. But space is dangerous, and the team has no one to rely on but each other if - or when - something goes wrong. An introspective slowburn of a story, this focuses more on character work than action.

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

After the planet Sadira is left uninhabitable, its few survivors are forced to move to a new world. On Cygnus Beta, they work to rebuild their society alongside their distant relatives of the planet, while trying to preserve what remains of their culture. Focused less on hard science or action, The Best of All Possible Worlds is more about culture, romance and the ethics and practicalities of telepathy.

Mirage (Mirage duology) by Somaiya Daud

Young adult. Eighteen-year-old Amani lives on an isolated moon under the oppressive occupation of the Valthek empire. When Amani is abducted, she finds herself someplace wholly unexpected: the royal palace. As it turns out, she's nearly identical to the half-Valthek, and widely hated, princess Maram, who is in need of a body double. If Amani ever wants to make it back home or see her people freed from oppression, she will have to play her role as princess perfectly. While sci-fi, this one more has the vibe of a fantasy.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship’s leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed work force as they travel toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship’s sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

Where It Rains in Color by Denise Crittendon

The planet Swazembi is a utopia of color and beauty, the most beautiful of all its citizens being the Rare Indigo. Lileala was just named Rare Indigo, but her strict yet pampered life gets upended when her beautiful skin is struck by a mysterious sickness, leaving it covered in scars and scabs. Meanwhile, voices start to whisper in Lileala's mind, bringing to the surface a past long forgotten involving her entire society.

Eacaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus duology) by Nicky Drayden

Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one. It’s also sapphic!

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah*

In a near future America, inmates on death row or with life sentences in private prisons can choose to participate in death matches for entertainment. If they survive long enough - a rare case indeed - they regain their freedom. Among these prisoners are Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker, partners behind the scenes and close to the deadline of a possible release - if only they can survive for long enough. As the game continues to be stacked against them and protests mount outside, two women fight for love, freedom, and their own humanity. Chain-Gang All-Stars is bleak and unflinching as well as genuinely hopeful in its portrayal of a dark but all to real possible future.

Parable of the Sower (Earthseed duology) by Octavia E. Butler*

In a bleak future, Lauren Olamina lives with her family in a gated community, one of few still safe places in a time of chaos. When her community falls, Lauren is forced on the run. As she makes her way toward possible safety, she picks up a following of other refugees, and sows the seeds of a new ideology which may one day be the saviour of mankind. Very bleak and scarily realistic, Parable of the Sower will make you both fear for mankind and regain your hope for humanity.

Binti (Binti trilogy) by Nnedi Okorafor

Young adult novella. Binti is the first of the Himba people to be accepted into the prestigious Oomza University, the finest place of higher learning in all the galaxy. But as she embarks on her interstellar journey, the unthinkable happens: her ship is attacked by the terrifying Meduse, an alien race at war with Oomza University.

War Girls (War Girls duology) by Tochi Onyebuchi

In an enviromentally fraught future, the Nigerian civil war has flared back up, utilizing cybernetics and mechs to enhance its soldiers. Two sisters, by bond if not by blood, are separated and end up on differing sides of the struggle. Brutal and dark, with themes of dehumanization of soldiers through cybernetics that turn them into weapons, and the effect and trauma this has on them.

The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds duology) by Micaiah Johnson

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s a catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying. As such she has a very special job in traveling to these worlds, hoping to keep her position long enough to gain citizenship in the walled-off Wiley City, away from the wastes where she grew up. But her job is dangerous, especially when she gets on the tracks of a secret that threatens the entire multiverse. Really cool worldbuilding and characters, also featuring a sapphic lead!

The Fifth Season (The Broken Eart trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin*

In a world regularly torn apart by natural disasters, a big one finally strikes and society as we know it falls, leaving people floundering to survive in a post apocalyptic world, its secrets and past to be slowly revealed. We get to follow a mother as she races through this world to find and save her missing daughter. While mostly fantasy in genre, this series does have some sci-fi flavor, and is genuinely some of the best books I've ever read, please read them.

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings*

In an alternate version of our present, the witch hunt never ended. Women are constantly watched and expected to marry young so their husbands can keep an eye on them. When she was fourteen, Josephine's mother disappeared, leveling suspicions at both mother and daughter of possible witchcraft. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, Jo, in trying to finally accept her missing mother as dead, decides to follow up on a set of seemingly nonsensical instructions left in her will. Features a bisexual lead!

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

South African-set scifi featuring gods ancient and new, robots finding sentience, dik-diks, and a gay teen with mind control abilities. An ancient goddess seeks to return to her true power no matter how many humans she has to sacrifice to get there. A little bit all over the place but very creative and fresh.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*

Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die.

The Blood Trials (The Blood Gifted duology) by N.E. Davenport

After Ikenna's grandfather is assasinated, she is convinced that only a member of the Praetorian guard, elite soldiers, could’ve killed him. Seeking to uncover his killer, Ikenna enrolls in a dangerous trial to join the Praetorians which only a quarter of applicants survive. For Ikenna, the stakes are even higher, as she's hiding forbidden blood magic which could cost her her life. Mix of fantasy and sci-fi. While I didn’t super vibe with this one, I suspect fans of action packed romantasy will enjoy it.

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

1960s classic. Rydra Wong is a space captain, linguist and poet who is set on learning to understand Babel-17, a language which is humanity's only clue at the enemy in an interstaller war. But Babel-17 is more than just a language, and studying it may change Rydra forever.

Pet (Pet duology) by Akwaeke Emezi

Young adult novella. Jam lives in a utopian future that has been freed of monsters and the systems which created and upheld them. But then she meets Pet, a dangerous creature claiming to be hunting a monster still among them, prepared to stop at nothing to find them. While I personally found the word-building in Pet lacking, it deftly handles dark subjects of what makes a human a monster.

Bonus AKA I haven’t read these yet but they seem really cool

Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes

Alternate history in which Africans colonized South America while vikings colonized the North. The vikings sell abducted Celts and Franks as slaves to the South, one of which is eleven-years-old Irish boy Aidan O'Dere, who was just bought by a Southern plantation owner.

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

Young adult dystopia. Ellie lives in a future where humanity is under the control of the alien Ilori. All art is forbidden, but Ellie keeps a secret library; when one of her books disappears, she fears discovery and execution. M0Rr1S, born in a lab and raised to be emotionless, finds her library, and though he should deliver her for execution, he finds himself obsessed with human music. Together the two embark on a roadtrip which may save humanity.

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Lelah lives in future Botswana, but despite money and fame she finds herself in an unhappy marriage, her body controlled via microchip by her husband. After burying the body of an accidental hit and run, Lelah's life gets worse when the ghost of her victim returns to enact bloody vengeance.

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith

Young adult. Fen de la Guerre, living in a quarantined Gulf Coast left devestated by storms and sickness, is forced on the run with a newborn after her tribe is attacked. Hoping to get the child to safety, Fen seeks to get to the other side of the wall, she teams up with a scientist from the outside the quarantine zone.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Space opera. Enitan just wants to live a quiet life in the aftermath of a failed war of conquest, but when her lover is killed and her sister kidnapped, she's forced to leave her plans behind to save her sister.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: The City We Became (Great Cities duology) by N.K. Jemisin, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole

#nella talks books #lagoon #nubia the awakening #the scourge between stars #xenogenesis #midnight robber #rosewater #do you dream of terra two? #the best of all possible worlds #mirage #an unkindness of ghosts #where it rains in color #escaping exodus #chain gang all stars #parable of the sower #binti #war girls #the space between worlds #the fifth season #the women could fly #the prey of gods #the summer prince #the blood trials #babel 17 #pet

[smokefalls]

I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

#Nana Kwame Adjei Brenyah #Chain Gang All Stars #quote #fiction #dystopian #queerlit #2024 reads

[read-alert]

This does come with the caveat that I can't quite remember if the characters in How to Find a Princess, Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, and Chain-Gang All-Stars identity specifically as lesbians or not, but they are all sapphic. Full titles under the cut!

EDIT: Apparently Alice Walker is a big proponent of a famous antisemitic conspiracy theorist, David Icke, so be aware of that when considering The Color Purple

Happy Lesbian Visibility Week! 📚📖🏳️‍🌈

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

#lesbian #lesbian reads #lesbian books #lesbian lit #queer books #queer reads #queer lit #lesbian visibility week #bookblr #hijab butch blues #in the dream house #how to find a princess #cantoras #the color purple #stone butch blues #funeral songs for dying girls #chain gang all stars

[whilereadingandwalking]

As always, my favorites of the year list was beset by last minute changes, doubts, and decisions, especially because this year I forced myself into a top 10!

Second photo is my honorable mentions...I literally already have regrets! Ask me anything about these top choices—I'm happy to share my reviews, thoughts, and more!

My Top Ten of 2023:

Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu tr. Seidensticker

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

Ace by Angela Chen

Babel by R.F. Kuang

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez tr. McDowell

Honorable mentions:

Now Go: On Grief and Studio Ghibli by Karl Thomas Smith

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami tr. Gabriel

The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang

White Cat, Black Dog: Stories by Kelly Link

The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

When the Hibiscus Falls by M. Evelina Galang

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

Bleed: Destroying Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care by Tracey Lindeman

Never a City So Real by Alex Kotlowitz

The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib

Sons of Darkness (Jan ’24) by Gourav Mohanty

The End of August by Yū Miri tr. Giles

(Unpictured): Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

(Unpictured): The Thick and the Lean by Chana Porter

#book stack #chain gang all stars #book recs #book recommendations #great books #favorite books #2023 wrap up

[fleshmonk]

Loretta Thurwar from Chain-Gang All-Stars

#chain-gang all-stars #chain gang all stars #loretta thurwar

[oddygaul]

Chain Gang All-Stars

Great book.

I sort of hope Chain Gang All-Stars is never adapted into a show or movie. It’s certainly possible that it could be done with proper deference to the tone and message of the book, but I think it’s far more likely that it would end up essentially being what Chain Gang is in the story itself - a hyper-violent spectacle that people tune into because they think it’s cool and action-packed. I think Chain Gang All-Stars is very successful at walking the tightrope line of drawing the reader into the story and letting them flirt with what it must feel like to be a viewer of the program, while presenting enough reminders of its grim reality to prevent you from being totally sucked in. While there were times during the LinkLyfe segments where I was drawn in the way a viewer absorbed in a reality show would be, the battles themselves never give in to ‘just’ being badass. They were tense, certainly, and I was on pins & needles reading them, worried about the characters, but there’s a certain utilitarian brutality to the writing in those sections that keeps them grounded. I’d be worried any adaptation would make everything too stylish and exciting, thoroughly missing the point*.

*To say nothing of any potential dilution of the politics to appeal to a wider audience.

— “All other sport was just a metaphor for this.” —

Chain Gang All-Stars is incredibly good at giving every single character a depth and fullness, even ‘antagonists’, so that even the characters who infuriate us, we understand to a degree. The book doesn't justify evil deeds - there’s no excusing Wil’s dumb ass self - but it shows how easy it is for someone to placate themselves, to keep themselves on a surface level and not dig too deep into their own morality, to convince themselves that they’ve done what they could and that all those who have wrong done to them deserve what they get. The fluid perspective switches it accomplishes this with are fascinating, too. We get chapters dedicated to different characters, of course, be it our leads, our deuteragonists, and plenty of one-off side stories - standard stuff. But Adjei-Brenyah also rapidly switches between multiple perspectives within the same page, hell, the same paragraph at times, which gives us insight into a much wider breadth of viewpoints than we normally would.

By getting to see into the inner thoughts of quite a few Links, we get to see how, while their individual experiences are different, their imprisonment has broken them all in tragically similar ways. From Bishop to Sunset to Thurwar to Staxxx, we see a consistent, crippling lack of self-worth. The A-Hamm chain is unique in preaching a vision of solidarity, accepting one’s past mistakes, and focusing on how they’ve grown and changed as people. Despite this, at their core, none of them can truly find it in themselves to be forgiven, because Chain Gang grinds their lack of perceived value into them unceasingly - ultimately resulting in what is essentially suicide. The carceral system does not allow for or encourage rehabilitation, only suffering and self-hatred.

I thought it was a compelling decision to make the majority of the imprisoned characters we follow legitimate violent offenders. A lot of the abolitionist / prison-critical literature I’ve read often focuses on, or at least begins with, incarceration that is plainly, nakedly unjust, like long-serving non-violent offenders and mandatory minimum sentencing. Conversations about the treatment of murderers, rapists, etc., are naturally more fraught - it’s harder to get someone to imagine an entirely different system, rather than just adjustments to the current system.

Chain Gang All-Stars does not shy away from it one bit. We get self-reflection from multiple different Links, both those who regret what they’ve done and those who don’t; we get conflicted thoughts from family members who recognize that their lives have been fundamentally changed by the imprisonment of their kin, but are still ambivalent about forgiveness; and we get, of course, the fearmongering and appeals to pathos used by government and the media to try and stop any ideas of abolition from even beginning to take root in the minds of the public. The book understands that there’s no easy answers, and instead brings all of these perspectives to the reader, demanding they grapple with the issues themselves.

It does, however, make clear the absurdity of pretending that taking someone whose life has been indelibly touched by violence and putting them into a system that encourages and requires additional violence, by the state, by their peers, is somehow rehabilitation. It’s brought to an extreme in the novel, of course - Thurwar’s overriding instinct that every problem can potentially be solved by violence due to the constant killing she’s done is more reminiscent of a soldier returning to peacetime than anything else - but the message stands.

Some of the most powerful parallels shine through as-is, though. Even when you put aside the horror the Links are put through on a daily basis and the rampant normalization of state-sanctioned violence, the base lack of freedom and personal autonomy is what breaks people. Both during Chain Gang and our looks at other prisons, the regimented days, planned schedule, and inability to spend time or talk with the people they care about are basic human rights that are removed from prisoners every day. Hendrix’s silent prison (an idea I was horrified to find has been enacted before) shows this in one extreme - after being robbed of something as simple as his own voice for so long, Hendrix is willing to risk everything just to be able to reclaim that part of himself. Most heartbreakingly, the morning of the final doubles match, Thurwar’s only desire is to stay in bed longer with Staxxx. Leisure time with your loved ones, one of the most basic luxuries a person ought to have, seen as an unobtainable prize. Don’t need a dystopian near-future novel to see that happening.

Speaking of Hendrix Young, the voice Adjei-Brenyah uses for his sections was absolutely beautiful and oozing with character and I loved it. The way he speaks is simultaneously poetic yet so pragmatic - there’s an idiosyncratic turn of phrase in nearly every paragraph, and his love for the world and its beauty is never eclipsed by his cynicism and the horrible things happening around him. His sections were handily my favorites, despite the looming dramatic irony that overshadows them all.

— “I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this.” —

As a literary device, the interspersing of worldbuilding notes and Actual Fucked-Up Prison Facts was a genius touch. By priming your brain to expect something more fantastical, the more grounded notes become something of a sucker punch. The first few are all in-universe lore explanations - they’re not entirely necessary, you could’ve pretty much got the gist through context, but the thorough explanation written almost as an ad read pulls you into the mentality of this world… so then, when it drops, say, the net worth and founding members of the Corrections Corporation of America and you get the inkling that this tidbit feels a little too specific to be made up, the lines between the book’s world and our own start to blur.

In addition to the unique cognitive dissonance it invokes, I think it’s a pretty effective strategy to convince or teach a reader who perhaps hasn’t done as much digging about the nightmare that is the American prison-industrial complex. Especially given that the main conceit of the book is a little outlandish, it’s very easy for me to imagine such a reader enjoying the story for its plot, but deflecting or doubting the themes with the classic “Oh, but this is an exaggeration - it would never happen like this! It would never be that sadistic”. In some way, the footnotes feel like the author directly responding with a “Yes, it would, and in fact has already happened this way previously”.

I do wish the footnotes stayed as dense throughout the entire book as they were at the start. In the beginning, they come hard and fast, blending the real and the fictional, keeping the reader on their toes. About a third of the way through, though, they slow to a trickle, becoming a rarity. Adjei-Brenyah keeps experimenting with what the footnotes can convey (“Don’t look down. Help me.” was particularly chilling), but the infrequency starts to make them feel like an afterthought.

— “Just jump.” —

The closer I got to the end of Chain Gang All-Stars, as fewer and fewer pages remained, I was increasingly desperate for something to break. Even as the story continued towards the inevitable, even as it showed me there could be no other way for things to go, I hoped for something else. Anything but what happened.

And yet… the ending gives this book’s message a lot of its power. It’s not a story where things always work out and the good guys always win - it’s a reflection of real problems, and those real problems don’t have such a simple solution. Chain Gang All-Stars is about people living in an unfair world, working within a cruel, unjust, system, and still finding the strength and conviction to believe that there can be positive change. It’s about knowing that progress can be slow, and that the system can feel daunting, and feeling powerless to enact change, and still imagining and pushing for the world to be better anyway. And somehow, that it faces that hopelessness head-on makes it more uplifting than a safer story with an easier ending.

#will's media thoughts / virtual brain repository #books #chain gang all stars #just for the sake of the journal i'll add #that reading this after rewatching the hunger games #only lowered my esteem of them even further lol

[lottieurl]

listen. i need everyone to go read chain-gang all-stars so here's the link to the goodreads if you have no idea what's it about and here are some free of spoilers screenshots i took while reading if you need more convincing:

okay now go read it THE TAG IS FUCKING EMPTY

#all my other screenshots i was sending to sophie as i read have lots of spoilers but those still just. augh. #the middle will devastate you when you get to it. #chain gang all stars #book tag

[caribeandthebooks]

Caribe's New Works by Black Authors TBR - Part 1

Category: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction & Science Fiction

#legendborn #tracy deonn #book tumblr #booklr #bookblr #books #book blog #book recs #book recommendations #tbr jar #tbr list #the blood trials #n.e. davenport #children of blood and bone #tomi adeyemi #delicious monters #liselle sambury #chain gang all stars #nana kwame adjei brenyah #we deserve monuments #jas hammonds

[noahhawthorneauthor]

It was a mellow month for reading, but they were all good books. Here's some of my priority reads for February.

#noahs book recs #queer books #indie books #poetry books #all out #squire #forest for the trees #queer there and everywhere #gay and lesbian poetry #exploration fawcett #legendborn #this poison heart #chain gang all stars #full metal indigiqueer #son of the storms #blood orange #poetry #fantasy books

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

Chain-Gang All-Stars

a brutal sci-fi set in a near-future America where incarcerated people fight to the death in televised death matches, and are turned into spectacles for entertainment by the privatised prison industry

primarily follows two queer Black women in the same Chain as they near the highest possible rank, promising possible freedom

but also follows various other characters, activists, and fans of the sport with omniscient narration, and footnotes with real stats about prison & discrimination

#Chain-Gang All-Stars #chain gang all stars #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #damn this is brutal. also it made me tear up in the first chapter... #and christ it just ends like that ok #I did kind of want more from the end but also understand there is not going to be a perfect ending that ties things up. that’s the point #it does quick switching POVs well #and I loved all the glimpses into different characters - maybe if not listening to the audiobook that might be hard to follow? #sapphic books

[thecoolertails]

wow chain gang all-stars really just ends like that. i knew it was going to happen but it's the abruptness and the lack of follow up or closure that really gets me. the thing you knew would happen happens and then it's over and you're left with it so the feeling has to just sit there and fester. many of adjei-brenyahs short stories from friday black ended in a similar fashion so i don't know why id expect differently, because really what else is there to say. i feel hollow and angry and mournful and something else i don't have a word for. 10/10 amazing book instant favorite. i need to stare at a wall for 5 hours.

#nana kwame adjei-brenyah has had such a strong debut as an author. both his published works are just. wow #he's already produced some of the strongest speculative fiction i've ever come across #cant wait to see more from him #my posts #chain gang all stars

[smokefalls]

In a sick world, healthy is strange. So yeah, you’re broken some.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

#Nana Kwame Adjei Brenyah #Chain Gang All Stars #quote #fiction #dystopian #queerlit #2024 reads

[heptarchate]

"I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it's this."

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

#read this book #books #chain-gang all-stars #quotes #chain gang all stars

[emmersreads]

My Top 5 Best Books of 2023

Scrolling through bookstagram's endless reels of folks bemoaning the state of readerly types - new publications are disposable crap, everyone else is reading too much, etc - it might seem like 2023 was a terrible year for books. But, of all my longlists, this one was the longest, and the one I had the most trouble cutting down to only six. I read 119 books in 2023 (you can read my round-up of my five worst here), and here are my five favourites. Every single one of these books deserves to top your tbr for 2024.

Read the post on my blog!

Honourable Mention: Yellowface - R. F. Kuang

R.F. Kuang has figured out how to use irony and its a good look on her. Kuang’s political messaging is great — I particularly enjoyed her depiction of the publishing industry’s white fragility as deeply stupid — but we already knew that. I would expect nothing less from the author of Babel. The think that elevates Yellowface in particular is Kuang’s self-awareness in depicting Athena, the Asian writer whose novel the protagonist steals, as a talented literary wunderkind, but also as frustrating and not necessarily innocent in the problem of who is allow to tell ethically-loaded stories. I’m definitely looking forwards to her next project.

Fifth Place: Small Worlds - Caleb Azumah Nelson

This is the diverse romance novel you’ve been looking for. This is the inspiring hopepunk novel you’ve been looking for. This is the insightful and emotional coming-of-age novel you’ve been looking for. Small Worlds is all the more comforting and heart-warming because it is primarily about persistence and joy in the face of crushing personal failure and devastating systemic violence. Caleb Azumh Nelson’s motif of relationships in which both partners must break up in order to become the kind of people who can be in a long-term relationship with each other is a kind of romance arc I unexpectedly love. This entry in particular gets extra credit for its incredibly good audiobook adaptation. The audiobook is narrated by the author, whose southeast London accent and obvious emotional connection to novel make it the ideal way to read.

Fourth Place: Breasts and Eggs - Mieko Kawakami

After a couple of truly miserable memoirs this year I declared that I simply did not want to hear writers talk about motherhood. I spoke too soon because then I read this. Breasts and Eggs is in incredible reflection on being a woman that has something to offer if you love being a woman, if you hate it, or if you feel ambivalent about it. I don’t like children and can’t imagine ever wanting one — to the point that I find the endless angsting about the conflict between writing and motherhood faintly nauseating — but I found that this was the first book about being a mother that had something interesting to say even for people who never want to be mothers. Kawakami’s novel-in-translation has (for the anglophone reader) a sense of strangeness both in form and content. The book’s approach to gender and family is often intimately familiar, but just as often introduces a perspective that is deeply strange to a western reader, provoking us to think about our own assumptions about the importance of family. I particularly liked the scene in which protagonist Natsu visits a bath house and encounters a woman in a relationship with a trans man in the female section of the bath. Natsu struggles through a long thought process of whether she ought to be offended or not. Would she be similarly offended if she encountered cis lesbian PDA?

Third Place: Penance - Eliza Clark

For me, Penance was intensely personal, like looking back on my own teenagerhood. I also grew up as a deeply strange child, something that was immediately recognized by the other children. That feeling of somehow being a different species from other kids, not doing anything right and not understanding how it is wrong, is something that this novel absolutely nails. That might be a strange association for a true crime story about a horrible schoolgirl murder. This is the dramatic extension of what could happen to five people who were once very lonely little girls, and I think reading too much into the ‘how could they do something like this?’ of it all is missing the forest for the trees and playing into the true crime gaze that the book criticizes. Clark is interested both in true crime that dehumanizes its subject matter, and true crime the aspires to humanize and platform them. Is it any more ethical to demand access to someone’s life out of love?

Second Place: He Who Drowned the World - Shelley Parker-Chan

Shelley Parker-Chan’s The Radiant Emperor duology is the best queer fantasy series out there. Period. He Who Drowned the World takes its engagement with gender and sexuality to another level. At least for me, there is something much more meaningful and impactful to the theme of gender as something performed in spite of difficulties, distrust, and lack of acknowledgement. Parker-Chan understands that gender is often unpleasant or even hateful. This isn’t a book for a brave new utopia where every bra fits on the first try, it’s for the present, where the wrong bra gives you a fibrous lump. If She Who Became the Sun was Zhu embracing her gender, the sequel is about Ouyang’s often deeply upsetting ability to accept his. His hatred of any femininity, first and foremost his own, isn’t an easy read, but I found there was something incredibly resonant in it to my own ambivalent feelings towards femininity. No one else depicts self-hatred this well.

First Place: Chain-Gang All-Stars - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

As soon as I finished Chain-Gang All-Stars I knew it would be my book of the year. I read a lot of great books but this blew every single one of them out the water. It is Gladiator by way of The Shawshank Redemption by way of professional wrestling. It’s the scifi sequel to The New Jim Crow and Ava DuVernay’s 13th. It’s the best love story of the year. Chain-Gang All-Stars is an exploration of the humanity of inmates, who, in this world, are objectified both due to their involvement in the criminal justice system (as in ours) and from the gaze of sports and reality entertainment. It’s hard to decide which aspect of this book is most technically impressive. I usually don’t like when a political novel tries to comment on too many different issues, but this book deftly balances deep and effective discussions on a huge range of topics. I especially appreciated its engagement with an inmates’ personal feelings of guilt and culpability within a carceral system that doesn’t care at all about remediating the harm they have caused. This deft political messaging is combined with an insightful depiction of the ambivalent success of professional athletes, multidimensional characters, and a touching romance. My favourite part of the book was how effectively it traps the reader. I understand and agree with all the condemnations of the exploitation inherent to entertainment in watching primarily BIPOC athletes destroy their health (this is about wrestling but also boxing and American football), but I still found myself thinking about just how incredible this book would be as a TV series. The use of complicity as a theme is unparalleled.

#bookblr #books #best books of 2023 #best books of the year #read in 2023 #book blogging #yellowface #rf kuang #small worlds #caleb azumah nelson #breasts and eggs #mieko kawakami #penance #eliza clark #he who drowned the world #shelley parker chan #the radiant emperor duology #chain gang all stars #nana kwame adjei brenyah

[mood2you]

The Teacher - Mentor Guide

Tarot October BPC October 27

#chain gang all stars #books #tarotoctoberbpc #but with backstabbing literally

[bumpyfrog]

literally me tho

#chain gang all stars