JUST AS YOU ARE BY CAMILLE KELLOGG

Just As You Are by Camille Kellogg was described to me as “A queer Pride and Prejudice inspired enemies-to-lovers, featuring a queer magazine and it’s brooding, new investor.“

Well, let me tell you, my experience with this book could be described as enemies-to-lovers as well. Actually, welcome to the first enemies-to-lovers book review on thewriterwhoreads.com.

Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we?

September 4, 2023. Lucky for me, my birthday landed on labor day and I packed the day with all my favorite things: Thai food, leisurely strolls through boutique knickknack stores, expensive lattes, and a bookstore or two.

When we happened upon The Ripped Bodice, I practically ran in. The Ripped Bodice is an independent, woman and queer owned bookstore dedicated to romance novels. It’s pink. I walked in like I was home. It was crowded as hell; full of women and few uncomfortable looking straight boyfriends. Right as I felt a bit overwhelmed, my partner popped out of nowhere with a wrapped book.

I had always wanted to buy one of those “blind date with a book” things and leapt at this one. Pride and Prejudice, you say? Queer? Sold.

In classic Writer Who Reads fashion, I didn’t unwrap this book for a good month.

Then, when I finally unwrapped the book and read the first chapter, I threw it in a dusty corner never to be seen again. The first few chapters of this book really annoyed me. It was like someone handed a straight writer a list of stereotypical lesbian things and said, “don’t leave a single detail out.“

Maybe I felt personally attacked because I, too, am a queer in Brooklyn but do not own Doc Martens, have some type of shaved head, or own any suggestive gay t-shirts.

And, while I enjoyed the play on words with the Nether Fields magazine, every element of that office being named after some queer icon was annoying. It took me out of the story every time the “Kioyoko Kitchen (named after Hayley Kiyoko of course)” was mentioned.

Despite sounding like the hater that I am, I can see how this may delight other readers, which has forced me to self reflect. Why was this so irritating to me? Shouldn’t our queer culture – dress and references and language – be celebrated at every turn?

Yes, of course.

Sometimes, however, I find that the culture can hinder genuine self expression. We can’t all love Doc Martens and rainbows, and that’s okay.

Okay, here ends the enemies portion of this review. Let’s fall in love.

I’m moving soon and need to decide which books in my library will move with me. I also accepted that I have a mild (read: aggressive) social media addiction and quit cold turkey. I picked up Just As You Are again to kill two birds with one stone.

Without the cooking videos and wedding content of Instagram to distract me, I trudged through the first 100 pages of the book. I began to enjoy meeting the characters and making the connections to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Liz was Elizabeth Bennet

Daria was Fitzwilliam Darcy

Bailey was Charles Bingley

Jane was Jane Bennet

Then the story sucked me in a bit. Then a bit more. Then more.

By page 200, I was invested.

Our main characters hated each other so much, I read on to see if the author could convincingly make them fall in love. There was tension, there was drama, there was pining and secret sexual attraction.

Lust, betrayal, misunderstandings!

These were elements of the classic Pride and Prejudice that we all loved, except there was texting, instagram, and queers! How fun.

I especially loved the diversity of the characters, from race to gender. We get to see Liz work through her own fluctuating gender expression, struggling to find her own personal combination of masculine and feminine.

One of my favorite characters was Jane, of course. I always liked Jane in Pride and Prejudice. This modern Jane was very similarly quiet and reserved, but also a Black trans woman who was damn good at her job. I loved her.

By the end of the book, I couldn’t care less about our rough start. I read the last chapter in bed at 7:00am if that proves how invested I became.

Considering how overwhelmingly white the regency era inspiration for Just As You Are was, this novel could have gotten away with being a cis, white, lesbian book claiming to be groundbreaking. I appreciate Kellogg’s inclusion, believable plot, and complex characters.

Three and half stars.

P.S. I’m logging into Instagram to share this review. Come pull me out if I get sucked in.

THEN SHE WAS GONE BY LISA JEWELL

This book made me sick to my stomach.

I’m skipping my usual review introduction: Omg, I’m such a bad reader. I haven’t written a review in years. Blah blah blah.

No. I have to tell you about the physical reactions that flooded through my body with each and every page. Well, maybe not every page. Lisa Jewell’s 2017 novel, Then She Was Gone actually bored me at first. I found myself putting it down and finding excuses to read other books and do other tasks. Then it got good and everything that wasn’t Then She Was Gone was an inconvenience.

What do you mean you bought tickets to the sold-out Barbie movie that I’ve been dying to see? Don’t you know my book just got good?

Jokes aside, let’s talk about the plot. Without spoiling anything, the story centers around the disappearance of a glittering and popular teenage girl named Ellie. She’s blonde haired, well-mannered, and well-loved. She’s likable. Once Ellie vanishes, we stick close to her mother, Laurel, whose thoughts swirl around Ellie and nothing else…for years. She is a shell of her former self until she is awoken. Then things get even more mysterious and sinister and perplexing than I thought possible. Laurel turns into a detective while coming to terms with the neglect she’s shown to her other two children and husband over the years. Eventually, a few other characters’ voices come into play.

In writing this review, I’m realizing I can’t even tell you what made me want to heave without sharing spoilers. We’re gonna have to start a book club, y’all. But I will say that it wasn’t just blood and gore that had me heaving. It was the slow realizations of betrayal; the intimate kind. Everything was too close, too concentrated. A little nauseating microcosm in one London neighborhood.

It all felt real, too. I’ve heard bits of every part of this story in true crime documentaries and news articles. I hate it all. You should read it.

As this is the writer who reads blog, we should talk about the writing. I’m always in awe when a story is all over the place and still makes sense. How does that work, Lisa Jewell? How does that look in your head? We have multiple narrators who tell the story in various ways: present tense, past tense, letter writing, and some weirdly aggressive form of journal writing. I ate it up. It wasn’t just the plot that kept me turning the page, but the need to get back to my favorite character and/or out of a psychopath’s head.

Amidst all of that, Jewell gives us some great writing. I would call her writing style balanced. Easy to read, clear, and laced with some really beautiful lines. Like when Laurel has a moment of self-reflection:

She’s talking in lazy clichés, using words that don’t quite add up to the sum of her disquiet.

p136

Maybe I just really love the word disquiet. Or maybe I liked how Laurel always seemed to call herself out internally because I can relate. Speaking of Laurel’s mind, there’s this bit in chapter 23 after another character shares their feelings:

The pronouncement is both surprising and completely predictable. She can’t process it fast enough and there is a small but prominent silence.

p129

I love how succinct Jewell is here. In two short sentences she says so much about Laurel’s emotional state, her ideas about this character, and gives a peak into the aftermath. The silence will affect them both.

As I wrap up this review, I’m remembering a moment right before the book got can’t-put-it-down good. My partner’s sister saw my book on the counter and mentioned that she’d read it awhile ago. She said something liked, “I can’t really remember much about it but it was really good.” Now that I’ve finished and gone through six stages of nausea, I need to ask her how she’d managed to forget the plot.

This book will stay with me. I’ll probably have the occasional nightmare. If I have a teenage daughter, she may never be allowed outside alone. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll forget on purpose.

At any rate, I thoroughly enjoyed this read and Lisa Jewell’s ability to stir a world’s worth of feelings within me in 356 pages.

Four and half stars.

THE WRITER UPDATE: FOR OCTOBER

Wow. It’s been over 5 years since I’ve written one of these updates!

My poem, “For October” was published in the July-August issue of The Gay & Lesbian Review and I just got my hands on a copy! This is the first poem I’ve ever had published and the first time I’m seeing my work in print. You can buy a print or digital copy here if you’re so inclined.

There’s nothing like finding out your creative work is being published. It’s exciting, affirming, and thrilling. It’s also always a little (read: very) terrifying for me. This time feels even more terrifying because I’m wading into a new genre: poetry.

My poetry writing started in college when I was really into intertwining religious themes from my Catholic upbringing with my queer identity. I left the church but kept the mysticism. Eventually, I moved onto love poems. I’m one of those mushy stereotypical love poets. Even worse, I really catch my stride in poetry when I’m teetering on romantic desperation and longing. Break my heart, don’t give me the attention I want? At least I’ve got some good writing content out of it.

I wrote “For October” in 2018, submitted it to The G&LR in the summer of 2022, and received word it would be published a year later. It’s been a long journey. The momentary love-madness captured in “For October” has gone. The woman who inspired it is gone. The veneration and self-sacrifice is gone. Still, I’m comforted that a significant moment in my past can live somewhere in its full intensity.

Until the next one.

x

Podcast 009.2: Victor Séjour

In this episode, we take an inquisitive peek into the multilayered work of Creole playwright Victor Sejour—a dramatist who wielded satire like a weapon against 19th-century social prejudices and used real life tragedy to instigate audience introspection.
We analyze one of his plays as part of our Morality theme, and tear into meaty issues like codified racism, the many facets of motherhood and self-identification.
Please join us as we try to read a little more, write a little better, and explore the human condition—together!

Listen on ITunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, or right here on the blog. Comments and ratings are appreciated on all platforms!

Reading:

The Fortune Teller

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Twitter @twwreads
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Podcast 007.1: Mary P Burrill

 

In this episode, we look into the compelling world view and craftmanship of playwright Mamie Burrill—a woman who used the art of drama to incite powerful social and moral debates during the early twentieth-century.

We analyze one of her plays as part of our “Femininity” theme and discuss timely topics like reproductive rights, cultural expectations of womanhood and classism.

Please join us as we try to read a little more, write a little better, and explore the human condition—together.

Listen on ITunes, Stitcher, Castbox, or right here. Comments and ratings are appreciated on all platforms!

Reading: They That Sit In Darkness

Resources:
A Representative Tragedy of African American Women, B.N. Wakchaure
Aphrodite’s Daughters, Maureen Honey

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Podcast 005.2: Alan L Hart

In this episode, we review the trailblazing life and work of Alan L. Hart, M.D., a man whose quiet determination and fortitude sparked a slow-moving change in American social attitudes. We analyze one of his short stories as part of our “Rebirth” theme, and hash over resonant issues like gender identity, self-acceptance and liberty.

Please join us as we try to read a little more, write a little better and explore the human condition–together.

Listen on ITunes, Stitcher, Castbox, or right here. Comments and ratings are appreciated on all platforms!

Reading: An Idyll Of A Country Childhood

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Twitter @twwreads
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The Writer Update: Kid

I fought with myself about this one.

This entire blog is about the writer who reads, not the writer who writes. If I wanted to post about writing I would have to make a Writer Who Writes blog.

I had that “intelligent” thought and kept my writerly updates to myself and my 200 or so Facebook friends for months. Then, one day—today, ten minutes ago—I decided, as the Writer Who reads who hasn’t read a whole book in months, that nobody needs two blogs (read: no one has time) and that, really, I needed to post something on this blog before it gets stashed under a Vine compilation, tucked behind a meme, swallowed by the rest of the internet, and forgotten altogether.

Now lets get to the juice.

Back in March I got word that my flash fiction piece “Kid” was going to be published in the Crack the Spine online journal. It would also be considered for print later in the year. I bounced around (embarrassingly excited) until it was published in April. I think a lot of my excitement was actually shock, a why the hell are they publishing this and not that kind of feeling.

I can’t count how many rejections I’ve gotten for my ultra time-consuming short stories and novels that have been edited, rewritten, edited, and prayed over (joking…maybe). Yet this little two page story that I wrote on a whim—in less than an hour—beat out the others?

I know what you’re thinking: Shut up and be happy. So I’m going to shut up and, I promise, I’m happy.

 

Read “Kid” here.

Expect a book review soon.

Be happy too.

 

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

My next review starts in a Denver airport, or maybe it was Houston—it doesn’t matter.  I was alone in an airport bookstore clutching onto a box of flu medicine, a water bottle and the ability to stand, and I decided I needed a book. Though I was returning to Seattle (after a luxurious holiday back home) with no job and a heap of bills, I bypassed the self-help books and gravitated straight to a glowing black-and-white cover where a little girl belonging to another time, stood eerily.

Peculiar

A slight shadow beneath her feet caught my attention. The girl was levitating.

“That’ll be $14.68, hun,” the sweet lady in the Denver/Houston airport said. And thus began my desperate, hungry, stuffy-headed experience with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

Ransom Riggs is the author of this dark twist of fiction, and he’s gotten some rather extraordinary recognition for the novel, which was released by Quirk Books in 2011. Peculiar Children (yes, it’s a nickname) made the #1 New York Times Bestseller List, was called the next Harry Potter by CNN, and was referred to as “Tim Burton-esque” by USA today.

I believe that’s enough praise for Mr. Riggs.

Excuse me, my jealousy is showing.

To get to the base of it, this book is an experience. From the dark patterned pages that introduce each new chapter to the photographs laced throughout, supplementing the story—but not supporting it—this book is a gold mine. No, literally, I felt like I was digging for gold. With the dusty confusion of reality trying to ground me, and the shimmering draw of fictitious peculiarities attempting to pull me into a delicious new world. Every bit of gold, every detail, was vital to the story;  oddities didn’t exist in the novel merely to supplement the chilling mood. And for that, I was grateful for each one.

Something I wondered continuously while reading, however, was if this book was meant to be Young Adult. Our focal character, sixteen-year-old Jacob, is an interesting kid who has a good deal of graphic, traumatizing encounters, but is he interesting enough to keep my adult attention? From a first-person perspective? I asked myself this as I swallowed the first half of Peculiar Children  waiting for my flight. Then I realized that I had swallowed the first half of the book. Then I stopped asking dumb questions. Then I kept reading. I suspect that the key to forming a successful young adult character who is able to capture the attention of most readers, independent of age, is to display growth. In 352 pages, Riggs not only achieves this, but does it believably. Each new scene or experience has an impact on Jacob, sometimes stunting him, and other times forcing him into adulthood. Coming of age, you say? I think it’s a little more than that.

However, for the sake of brevity I’ll move on to the speck of things that I didn’t quite enjoy:

  • The parents. I’m not sure if Jacob’s suffocating and concerned, but not-quite-there parents are unfairly pulling at the corner of a distant memory of mine, but I wanted more or less of them.
  • I understand the flood of details that needed to be poured into the reader’s head, and I enjoyed the majority of them. At times, though, I felt that a couple of key conversations existed more for the reader rather than Jacob, our vessel into the unknown.
  •  I expected an open ended close to the story. I wanted to hungrily scour the internet for the next installment’s release date and mark my calendar but, while I know the series is only beginning, I somehow feel content with the ending. C’mon Riggs, be a tease once in awhile!

Despite these small irks, I recommend Ransom Riggs’ first novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, to everyone over a certain age. But I urge those who enjoy an escape, goosebumps, photographs, kind-a-sorta historical fiction, and mystery to go get a copy immediately. Like, now. Also, quit your job, catch a cold, book a flight, and get stuck over-night in Denver—it makes the read that much more thrilling!

Thanks for the scares and near heart-attacks, Riggs. 3.5 stars.

P.S. Coincidentally, Hollow City, the second installment of this series was released today, 14 Jan 2014. Now isn’t that creepy. I guess I better go buy it….

My Spy: Memoir of a CIA Wife by Bina Cady Kiyonaga

I’ve read some rather lukewarm reviews of this autobiography and I don’t understand them.

 My Spy

I like tall people. I like Action. I like spy stories. I like travel. I like hard lives lived easy. I like real women who get things done; who occasionally cry. I like interracial couples. I like family and reality.

Therefore, I like My Spy: Memoir of a CIA Wife, the true story of Bina Cady Kiyonaga who has known, lived, and felt all those things I’ve listed above.

My Spy was a solid Amazon wish list maybe that accidentally wound up in my shopping cart. Two days later, an inattentive essential oil purchase plopped a surprise, book-shaped package on my front porch. And what a great surprise it was.

For the next three days it was My Spy and I making our own private “Read More” campaign montage. Reading in bed, Reading in the bathtub, Reading beneath a tree. Reading is Fun!

Lately I have been trying to pinpoint a character that I have absolutely adored in the novels that I’ve read. And not just adored because they are pure-hearted, but because they are perfect even in their flaws.

The only character to come to mind at first was Katniss Everdeen and that’s only because she reminds me of myself.  My family has taken to calling me Kait-niss, if you want proof. So, shout out to me! (And you, Ange.)

All Hunger Games aside, I’ve never liked someone on the page as much as I have Bina Cady Kiyonaga. You know why? Because this woman is honest, and at points, painfully so. Since reading Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography (well, as much as I could stand) I have learned not to trust a person’s own biased account of their life, but I trust Bina. She expresses thoughts, experiences, and some insecurities that even your best friend might hesitate to share. I realized this when she explained the complications that befell upon her and her husband, Joe, after the first few days of marriage and a quite unspectacular wedding night. Ehem.

Most of all, I love this autobiography because I like Bad-asses.

Who marries a fine, tall Japanese-American soldier who later becomes a CIA agent? Oh, well, this fabulous Baltimore-born, Irish-American Catholic girl who doesn’t give an eff about 1947-era racism.

Who lived all over the globe, raising five children, and always whole-heartedly working on her marriage? Bina. Bina Cady Kionaga. Keep up, y’all.

I give this novel five stars because of the—what seems like—legitimate honesty within. This woman was not perfect, her family was not perfect, money wasn’t always plentiful, and every thought expressed in the book was not always positive. Yet, somehow, I still aspire to be a woman as strong and alive as Bina.

As a writer, I admit that My Spy wasn’t a vivid work of literary genius, and I’m glad. The book was written conversationally, candidly—and that made the story of the Kiyonaga family that much more enthralling.

Final confession. After days of reading this book non-stop, I put it down a few pages shy of the end…for two years. It didn’t slip my mind. My Spy sat on my dresser, daring me to suck it up and finish. But Joe had become ill and Bina’s language hinted that the outcome would not be pleasant. Death is inevitable for us all, yes, but I couldn’t bear to read her pain. That is what makes this book spectacular: me fearfully staring down the pink cover of My Spy for 730 days.

Thank you for sharing your story, Bina Cady Kiyonaga. Five stars.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

*I will try not to include any spoilers in any of my reviews, now until the end of time. Amen. 

In the About Me section you heard me describe my “struggle” with books. I admitted that I am picky and maybe even a bit strange. Well, I lied. I didn’t lie. I under-exaggerated. Stay with me here, I promise that we’ll get to the truth eventually.

I am not a freak, but my tastes in books are freakish.

The supernatural is really big nowadays after that young adult, anti-feminist little series that shall not be named, blew up. I am very wary of the supernatural and have gotten into many arguments with a handful of creative writers who have critiqued my own work. They call my stories supernatural and I get offensive. Then we dance along this supernatural, fantasy, dystopian line until we get tired, have a beer, and rest our feet.

In the end, I like oddities. I like strange occurrences that could actually happen. I like time travel and absurdly corrupt governments (on paper). And I love the quiet stories with main characters who fill the concrete world with lofty ideas and intentional hallucinations.

Mr. Fox

Hey, talking about intentional hallucinations and how much I like them, let’s talk about Mr. Fox since that’s what we’re really here for. Mr. Fox, which is written by Helen Oyeyemi was on the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books list in 2011 and I’m sort of surprised that I hadn’t happened across it until late 2012. The book is about Mr. Fox, a writer with a wife, Daphne, and a Muse Mary Foxe.

Mr. Fox has pressure coming from all directions with a difficult marriage, a cheeky muse, and the inability to stop killing off all of his female characters. All these pressures eventually intersect, creating a disturbing yet refreshing story.

What I really want to talk about is Oyeyemi’s writing. It’s one of those books that you read slowly for a few reasons. One, there are jumps between reality, make-believe conversations between Mr. Fox and Mary, and the fantastic short-short stories tucked in between where Fox is working through the whole killing heroines issue. Two, well, the writing is marvelous. How Oyeyemi avoided confusing me once was a miracle. How she maintained countless voices in such a small space is awing. Her dialogue is quick and witty and supports her unnatural ability to allow a scene to be sexy, disconcerting, tense, and sweet all at once.

There are many poems, short stories, and novels out there that are just weird for the sake of being weird. They throw out curse words and make characters lick things just for the shock value. Perhaps what is most impressive about Mr. Fox is that Oyeyemi very clearly began this novel with a story in mind and the weirdness just followed naturally.

I know I trash-talked it before but this story does get somewhat supernatural, especially where things like death are concerned. Again, I appreciate this for two reasons. Firstly, the supernatural aspects come within Mr. Fox’s writing. Meaning the story is still grounded; we have not left reality. Second, who am I to say that people don’t waltz in their tombs after death? I can assure you that I have never spent the night in a mausoleum…yet.

Finally, to reveal why this book caught my attention: I have a muse. A completely made-up, call-me-crazy muse. While I don’t fondle my muse or have loud and mentally scarring conversations with it, yes, I have a muse. We run through dialogue in my head. We make words sound genuine and interesting (I think). We explore different stories and, okay, I sometimes wish my muse were real.

Don’t look at me like that.

Anyway, I give Mr. Fox four stars for originality and excellent writing. The cover art is rather impressive too. If you’ve read the book, I hope you found my review unbearably accurate. If you haven’t read the book, what are you doing just sitting there? Go. Buy it. And support a small, local bookstore if you can.

Up Next: This Is Not Chick Lit by Various Authors

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