Book Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Krispy got this book from the library on a whim because she'd heard good things about it and was vaguely interested.  As usual, I stole it from her.  The book was much less dramatic than the blurb implied and was full of connotations of abusive relationship justification and metaphoric rape that's not really rape because hey, she wanted it. 

Congratulations, Everneath, you are Alz's first F-grade book of 2012!  Congratulations again, you've received the lowest grade I've ever given a book so far!  And given that I've dished out several Fs in the past, that's an all-time low.  I hate this book so, so much.  As you all know, I read a lot of YA and dislike a lot of YA, but YA rarely offends me the way this book did.

Raging Alz.

This is going to be long.  Long and sordid.  But I want you to know exactly how this book deeply offended me with its overall badness and especially it's portrayal of (metaphoric) rape and victimhood.

~*~*~*~ 

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Pros: If you have low blood pressure, reading this will raise it.

Cons: Reading this will give you high blood pressure and possibly an aneurysm or a heart attack; the metaphoric rape; the so-called romance; the metaphoric rape; the so-called plot; the metaphoric rape.

Intellectual Rating: 0 out of 10 stars

Emotional Grade: F-

Book Blurb: (from Goodreads)  Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's...

Alz's Take: Let's try something a little different, shall we?  I know authors have nothing to do with their blurbs, but this one is a magnificent example of how subtly misleading blurbs can be.  The story it describes isn't the one I read.  Let's repost the blurb above and point out the differences.

Last spring [I thought it was winter, actually], Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans [sounds dramatic but they don't actually have to be despairing]. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her [which apparently she just knows since it's never once explained or mentioned how she knows she has six months or why she gets six months], six months for good-byes she can't find the words for [read: half a year of her angsting and ruining the lives of everyone around her because she's so self-centered and makes no progress on these supposed good-byes], six months to find redemption, if it exists. [It doesn't for her because she hasn't exactly done anything that requires, deserves, or needs redeeming. Yeah, she vanished suddenly without warning and quarreled with a couple of people, but this entire book convinced me that Nikki doesn't actually know the definition of redemption.]

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, [which means she spends these months avoiding him, lying to him, giving him the cold shoulder for his own good, deciding not to tell him that she is in fact going to have to leave permanently, etc.] the one person she loves more than anything [he's a hot football jock and that's it, so I have a hard time figuring out why she is so desperately in love with him, especially considering that he has a past history as a player and lacks the manners to even walk her to the door when he drives her home from a date]. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath [this is incorrect as he did not entice her to the Everneath; he metaphorically roofied and raped her for three days before dragging her there while she was figuratively drugged], has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen. ["Do whatever it takes" means just hang around for six months being a creepy stalker, alternately begging Nikki to come back and threatening her. Also, he's not a king and her coming back doesn't necessarily mean she will become queen, though what exactly this means and who/where/why/what it involves in the Everneath is never wholly explained.]

As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp [she spends SIX MONTHS being maudlin and making no progress whatsoever in anything she came back to do], she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate [she waits until the very last week before deciding maybe she ought to try to find a way out of her predicament] and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's... [This makes it sound like she's actually romantically attracted to Cole, and really she isn't, although this doesn't mean she's above flirting with him, using him, or wanting to be with him. The blurb also leaves out the fact that she has three choices: 1) try to cheat fate, 2) accept her doom wherein she must go to the Everneath's equivalent hell for some never-explained reason or 3) go with Cole to the Everneath instead of going to hell. Right from the beginning of the book she's determined NOT to go with Cole and stays firm in this decision for the entirety of the novel—and since she doesn't decide on #1 until the last week, that's essentially 90% of the book where Nikki morbidly accepts the fact that she's doomed to hell.]

It's no spoiler to tell you that you learn almost nothing about the Everneath except what's summarized in the blurb.  You never even see anything more of the Everneath than what you do in the prologue, which is a huge cavern with alcoves.  Oh, and there's apparently a queen and maybe some other people somewhere.  And the Tunnels, which are apparently a big scary deal that's so terrifying I nearly died of boredom.  The book banked on the fact that telling the reader repeatedly that the Tunnels are horrible will make them horrible, along with a two-second glimpse of a generic horror-movie scene.

What extremely little plot there is only comes into play in the last 80 pages or so, and that's when plot devices and extremely convenient help pops up left and right.  The erratic plot is further marred by poor editing because several times Nikki mentions how she has to do _____ and I was like WTF since she'd never even hinted at this decision/plot device/idea before.  This girl leaps to conclusions without bothering to tell the reader where she's leaping from, and these illogical plot jumps are never explained.

Nikki talks a lot about how she has a debt to the Tunnels/Everneath that must be repaid, but clearly Nikki doesn't know what the word debt means.  How exactly is she indebted to the Everneath?  

The majority of the book is Nikki (Now), intercut with flashbacks of Nikki (Last Year); in the present she's full of angst and in the past she's a stereotypical starry-eyed teen dating the generic hot popular boy.  By the way, that's a very helpful thing the book does: it wants to make absolutely sure you know exactly when and where Nikki is, so space breaks are prefaced by italics telling you her location, followed by Nikki announcing where she is in the first sentence thereafter.  Just a few examples:

"Lunch.  Five and a half months left.

At lunchtime, my lunch sack and knitting needles in hand, I tried to weave my way through the crowded halls as fast as I could, searching for a quiet place to eat. (p.22)"

"Christmas Dance.  Three months before the Feed.

Jack took me to the Christmas Dance.  (p.56)"

"My bedroom.  Four months left.

'Time's flying for you, Nik.'  Cole was sitting in the darkest corner of my bedroom, his guitar lying silent beside him. (p.92)"

"My car.  The parking lot

We ended up back in the parking lot of the soup kitchen, sitting in my car and trying to make sense of everything. (p.258)"

Yes indeed, Everneath is a book that banks on everything but actual good storytelling to carry its story through.  But how can you have a good story without, you know, good story?

You can't.  Which is why Everneath is a failure.

Krispy and another friend got me a real stamp of this
for a graduation gift.

There's a deficit of explanation for other Everneathian things such as, for instance, why and how Nikki gets six months on the Surface after her Return before she's hauled to the Tunnels by the Shades unless she agrees to become a Forfeit again and let her abusive Everliving love interest Feed upon her (lots of capitalization in this book that I could have done without).  How does she know she has six months?  Who tells her this?  Why did they even bother to let her Return?  How did she Return, exactly?

Unless I missed it somewhere while reading—and please do correct me if I did miss it—we never find any of this out.  And since the entire book hinges on her inexplicable and apparently unusual Return, well, that's a pretty big-ass plot hole.

I'm not even getting into the whole I-don't-understand-how-Nikki-becomes-a-battery-in-the-Tunnels-do-the-Everlivings-not-have-electricity-or-something thing—which isn't solely me being sarcastic, by the way.  At one point Nikki explains that life is made up of electrical impulses and the Everliving steal that electricity to prolong their own lives, which somehow magically means draining people's emotions.  Which can take the form of swirly pink and purple clouds flying around overhead and whizzing over to Cole and his bandmates to breathe in while playing a gig.

Hot damn that's shockingly dramatic.
Original image source: The Wanted.

Oh yes, did I forget to mention that Cole is in fact the super hot guitarist of the band the Dead Elvises?  And that Jack is the star high school football player?  And both are super amazingly in love with Nikki for no good reason that I can determine?

Let me refer you back to a post from last year where I talk about boys in love triangles because Everneath is a prime textbook example.

Cole is the blond spicyhot edgy mysterious dangerous badboy.

Jack is the childhood best friend stick figure who suffers from lack of character, history, and motivation.  That's right, folks, Jack doesn't even rank as high as tofu.

Both ardently desire Nikki.  Since the whole reason Nikki came back was to see Jack and it was in fact Jack's face that kept her sane during her hundred years in the vagueness of the Everneath, I thought he'd get some character development.  But there's nothing.  He used to be a player (but has always been a good guy, really!) until he fell in Troo Luv with Nikki…and that's it.  They have a generic high school romance and there's nothing in their relationship to make me believe there's a soul-deep connection between them or were even really in love.

Now let's talk about our spicyhot love triangle guy, Cole.  He is an emotionally manipulative, physically threatening, obsessive abusive rapist stalker and somehow I just don't find that attractive.  He's like Edward Cullen but the big difference is that Bella never considered Edward a creepy manipulative stalker (even though she should have) whereas Nikki actually does feel menaced and threatened by Cole and…still smiles and flirts with him anyway.

It was even more disturbing since Cole's actions carry heavy overtones of rape.  Think I'm exaggerating?  The prologue is all about the immediate aftermath of the Feed in the Everneath, which involves her and Cole cocooned together and forcibly pressed body-to-body with their arms wrapped around each other and legs tangled together for a hundred years while he Feeds upon her emotions (which means sucking them out of her and literally removing her capacity to feel and reason) without her consent.  And at the end of the Feed, her first thoughts have to do with getting away from Cole/not staying with Cole/going home and finding Jack.

Unfortunately, the sexual overtones of the Feed as set by the prologue taint every other instance of Feeding in the book.  P. 283 brings up the century-long sexytimes again even more explicitly: "My traitorous arms and legs wanted to tangle with Cole's again.  That hundred years in the Everneath had molded us together, and our bodies had memorized how they were supposed to fit."

As for that metaphoric roofie-and-rape thing I mentioned in the blurb edit at the beginning—I won't be specific about the plot and events, but I will be about the rape-y details.  So be forewarned that it is POSSIBLY MINORLY SPOILERY ahead.  

The whole scene is Feed-related and the facts that we eventually find out are clear:

1. Nikki was emotionally distraught and hysterical at the time and Cole took advantage of her. 
2. She didn't know what she was getting herself into because Cole chose not to explain. 
3. While she "consented" the first (emotionally distraught) time, every time thereafter she told him to stop/changed her mind, he messed her up so that she was literally unable to protest. 
4. He was forcibly doing something deeply personal to her without her consent for three days.  (The exact quote is "a few days" which I take to mean at least three and possibly more.)  So, basically, he kept her locked up so he could rape her for days.
5. At the end of this time frame, he abducted her to the Everneath where he proceeded to metaphorically rape her for a hundred years.  Ah, young love.  Ah, YA romance.  Ah, another book I want to burn in a bonfire.

Despite all of this, Nikki still smiles at Cole and finds him attractive and can't bring herself to do anything about him.  Not, I suppose, that she can do much against an immortal stalker who pops up in her bedroom and can screw with people's emotions, but her thoughts toward him never contain any particular alarm, revulsion, anger, fear, etc.  Is he messing with her emotions every time he shows up?  Possibly, but she doesn't think about him any differently when he's not there.

Ultimately, Nikki tells herself that she asked for it and she wanted it, so it's okay.  That's right, peeps, the protagonist of this book is essentially a rape victim convincing herself that she really did want it as she carries on a twisted Stockholm-syndrome-ish relationship with her rapist.  She's in an abusive relationship and can't see it because she's convinced really, she wanted it, she was okay with it, really.

Yes, I am getting my use out of this doodle.

END SPOILERINESS.

So Jack has no personality or character, Cole is a stalker-rapist, both "love" Nikki, and all this leads me to Nikki and how much I hated her too, quite aside from what's discussed above.

This girl is one of the most selfish YA heroines I've read.  She blames everyone but herself for her angst and the entire book would not have happened if she had just waited 15 seconds in her Dark Angsty Past instead of leaping to melodramatic conclusions and then to melodramatic actions.

For a girl who came back to say her goodbyes and give everyone closure, all she did was screw up all her relationships because of bad or delayed decisions, angst over herself, and spend no time with her family.  She's a party animal at her own self-pity party and she ain't never leaving.

Half the time she was angsting over how awkward things are with Jack now, and the other half of the time she'd be angsting that she should leave him alone, except she couldn't make herself do that.  This is not a story of grief and closure and emotional struggle; it is a story of baseless angst for the sake of angst with no depth or thematic exploration.

That's this entire book in a nutshell.  Nikki dicks around and angsts instead of doing anything or making choices, and then when things blow up in her face, she blames someone else and runs away.  Now, this would be fine as long as we see Nikki's transformation as she learns the error of her ways and shoulders responsibility and changes.  But she doesn't grow at all, ever.  Even the end of the book is pretty much Nikki doing nothing/blaming others/running away/depending on others to clean up her messes.

I also hated her because at one point prior to the whole Everneath Feeding thing, while Jack was still her boyfriend and they were on great terms, she was hanging out with Cole all the time and letting him flirt with her and get a little handsy, but it was okay because he was just her friend.  Except she actually thinks for a moment what it would be like if Jack's ex-girlfriend were hanging all over him the same way Cole was hanging all over her, and she doesn't like it.  But she doesn't stop Cole or pull away from him or say anything; she just lets Cole inappropriately carry on.

Let's move on and talk mythology.   Aside from blatantly and repeatedly referencing the Hades/Persephone myth in Nikki's English class, the book makes a big deal about the Orpheus/Eurydice myth.  Nikki latches on to the latter and distorts it with interpretations that make no sense because I've never in my life come across a version of the myth as she paints it: Eurydice survived because of Orpheus's love for her!  And a couple of other things that Alz isn't going to specify here since it would be spoilery, but rest assured it makes no sense in the context of the myth!

Nikki, Eurydice died.  I don't think there's any version of the myth that exists where she lived.  And as for the other unspecified things, that didn't happen and that doesn't make sense.

Orpheus: Wait, you lived? Since when??
Eurydice: You sacrificed yourself for me???
Alz: NO AND NO.
This image may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose.

"Orpheus and Euridice" by George Frederic Watts from The Victorian Web.

I happen to love Greek mythology so this mutilation of it offended me because it was just so WTF.  She mangled the myth to fit her theory and it offended me even further because her theory turned out to be correct.  And since I already found 90% of the book offensive by this point, this just pushed me into a state of inarticulate a;sjfda;lsjf;aljsfsalfd.

There were actually a bunch of other things wrong with this book—plot devices (Magic bracelets!  Egyptian mythology for some reason!  Random inexplicable cults!  Dead mothers!), more plot holes, craptastic lack of worldbuilding, a Titanic-sized boatload of WTFery in the end, the ending itself which still makes me want to claw someone's eyes out, etc.—but this review is too long already and the rape thing, I just.  I can't.  WTF, Everneath.

Alz's Conclusion: I can see the appeal of Everneath if you don't think about it too hard, and probably if you love Twilight or Hush, Hush, you might want to check it out.  As it is, I need to find a pair of lead-lined gloves to pick this up for when I return it to Krispy since I don't want to touch it again.  Nikki Beckett deserves her eternity in hell for all the emotional disaster she visits upon the world through her angst, indecisiveness, and lack of growth.  Cole is a rapist, Nikki is okay with being raped, and Jack is slavishly devoted cardboard.  If I could time travel, I'd go back to when I was first picking this book up from Krispy, curbstomp myself in the face, and yell, "DON'T DO IT, ALZ!  The pain you feel now is nothing compared to what you will endure if you read that crime against literature!"

Book Review: Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

I probably shouldn't start off doing reviews with such a negative one, but this review is a form of catharsis that will hopefully help cleanse my mental palate.

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick

Pros: Pages can be used as kindling to start a fire.
Cons: The story, characters, and plot.

Rating: 0 out of 10 stars
Grade: F

Book Blurb: Nora should have known her life was far from perfect. Despite starting a relationship with her guardian angel, Patch (who, title aside, can be described anything but angelic), and surviving an attempt on her life, things are not looking up. Patch is starting to pull away and Nora can't figure out if it's for her best interest or if his interest has shifted to her arch-enemy Marcie Millar. Not to mention that Nora is haunted by images of her father and she becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to him that night he left for Portland and never came home.

The farther Nora delves into the mystery of her father's death, the more she comes to question if her Nephilim blood line has something to do with it as well as why she seems to be in danger more than the average girl. Since Patch isn't answering her questions and seems to be standing in her way, she has to start finding the answers on her own. Relying too heavily on the fact that she has a guardian angel puts Nora at risk again and again. But can she really count on Patch or is he hiding secrets darker than she can even imagine?

Alz's Take: Let's be clear: I read the first book, Hush, Hush, and didn't like it except as fodder for Krispy and me to make fun of. It suffered from a bland heroine, her irritating and stupid boy-crazy best friend, and one of those typical YA alpha-stalker I-love-you-for-no-reason love interests who happens to be a fallen angel named Patch.

So I picked up Crescendo with a philosophical mindset, expecting a book full of badly-written tripe but with some lol-this-is-so-bad moments.

What I got instead was a brain hemorrhage and cardiac arrest. This is one of the worst books I've ever read. I'm not exaggerating. And I've read a lot of bad books.

The short of it is that this book is a wallow of self-inflicted teenage angst featuring a heroine whose main motivation throughout the book is getting back at and hurting her boyfriend for reasons she sewed up out whole cloth and jealousy. Also, there's a mysteriously vague plot about a Nephilim blood society that seems of little threat or consequence because of how poorly-organized and clumsy they are, except that they are very threatening and full of consequences because the author says so. Curious? Want to know exactly what they do and how they're going to implement their nefarious plans, and what they have to do with the heroine? Congratulations! You won't find out any of that in Crescendo because it's almost entirely setup for the next book. Want the resolution and revelations that come at the end of a book? Congratulations again! You won't get any of that here either. Even granted that this is the middle book of a trilogy, Crescendo fails as a standalone; if you haven't read Hush, Hush, you won't really know (or care) what's going on, and the lack of any resolution or clear answers gives no sense of satisfaction upon reaching the absurd cliffhanger ending.

Click below to read an extensive diatribe of how and why this book fails on so many levels.



Nora Grey in the last book had barely any personality. In this book, she's pathologically insane and suffers from such a massive overdose of teenage angst I'm surprised she didn't vomit blood and collapse into spasms by chapter three. I'm willing to put up with teenage angst because this is, after all, book two of a YA romance, but Nora Grey is exclusively responsible for her own misery, for all that she blames it on Patch. Repeatedly. For whole pages at a time.

In the very first chapter, Nora tells Patch "I love you," but he doesn't immediately respond because he's distracted by something dangerous and hurries Nora away to safety before departing.

Nora then spends the rest of the book trapped in a maelstrom of tears and otherwise adrift on the boundless seas of self-pity because Patch didn't immediately gush his eternal undying love for her. One moment Nora loathes Patch and wants to tell him "screw you" for being a playboy and counting her as a conquest, and the next moment she's ablaze with desire for his sweet, sweet embrace and willing to forgive and forget everything. One moment she thinks it's for the best that they separated because she's protecting Patch, and the next she's spewing venom and vituperations because he hasn't called or texted her. She swings back and forth between these states literally between one page and the next.

Patch is hardly a presence in the book; mostly all he does is appear to save Nora's life and/or rescue her from danger, and her response is to rail at him that she doesn't need his help and why doesn't he love her and what's he doing with Marcie Millar. The ingratitude is, shall I say, palpable. Especially since she throws herself into incredibly dangerous situations in exceedingly sketchy places with extraordinarily threatening people with the mindset that she's going to get back at Patch for cheating on her and not loving her by putting herself in danger and forcing Patch to watch when she makes out with shady guys she's not really interested in. She tells herself that since Patch is her guardian angel, he'll be forced to protect her no matter what, and he deserves all the hurt because he led her on, while at the same time telling herself she's hurting him to drive him away for his own good even though it hurts her too. Huh?

I don't think I've ever wanted to throw a book against the wall so badly, but I have more respect for walls than that; if this thing hadn't been a library book, I would've taken it outside and run it over with my car. I've read my fair share of bad books of my own volition, but my masochism was tested to the limits with Crescendo. Nora is infuriating, self-centered to egomaniacal extremes, and I hated her with such ferocity my blood pressure skyrocketed throughout the entire book.

Another thing that made me despise her was her utter lack of trust and faith in the people closest to her. Bad enough that she refuses to listen to anything Patch tries to tell her, but Nora also turns on her more or less blameless mother with such boomerang alacrity that I was rendered inarticulate with fury. Without spoilers, let us say that an enemy of Nora's tells her something briefly about her mom, and right off the bat Nora believes this person with no further questions or explanations. For the rest of the book she internally rages at her mother with a passion nearly equal to her Patch-angst and consciously decides she's going to have her little say (essentially spitting in her mother's face) and then walk away forever without giving her mom a chance to say anything. Drama queen and teenage angst are not the words for it. I had to keep a box of tissues handy to wipe away the foam of rage from my mouth.

Oh, and there was a plot in the book. There were some very leading hints and some very vague ones dropped here and there that mysterious things are going on, but contrived plot devices do not a plot make. Crescendo is 90% Nora Angst and 10% Plot (Twists).

The culmination of the plot all happens in the last several chapters of the book, and then it's one plot twist after another in such rapid succession I had trouble keeping facts straight and understanding why these twists were important, especially since at least one of the twists (which had its own totally unnecessary and implausible twist) was an overly complicated way for the author to make the whole plot of this book viable—without this twist to explain away things from the first book, this second book wouldn't make sense (not that it does anyway). Thanks to barely-there and poorly-rounded characters and how the entire book is one great violation of the Show-Don't-Tell narrative adage, the revelation of the villainous mastermind was neither shocking nor interesting, especially since his cardboard-cutout motivations and about-face personality change were bought wholesale from Generic Evil Villains Inc.

Thanks to the confusing tumult of the twist-laden last quarter of the book, there is very little sense of satisfaction or resolution (there's going to be a third book, after all, so you can't answer everything, though apparently Ms. Fitzpatrick thinks it's even better not to resolve anything at all), particularly as this book suffers from Twilight Syndrome: there's lead-up to a dramatic climactic end-fight that we don't get to see because the heroine falls unconscious, and by the time she wakes up, it's all over and we only get a secondhand glossed-over description of the action.

Then, just when everything seems like it's winding down to a disgustingly saccharine out-of-character-for-this-book happy-dappy ending, BAM! You thought those plot-twists were over, eh? Think again, sucker! Take another plot-twist right on the last page along with a cliffhanger life-or-death ending!

Alz's Conclusion: Reading Crescendo killed off significant portions of my brain. Go read The Hunger Games instead.

The Importance of Interstitial Histories

People that know me know that I'm a super laid-back person. I'm also a 9 in the Enneagram of Personality, which basically means I really, really dislike conflict. No, really. There are few things that get me riled up enough to compel me to discuss them outside of my closest friends and family. So you won't see a lot of posts like this about charged topics, and plus, that's not really the focus of this blog. Nonetheless, this is something I think is important.

Arizona has been a hot topic in the news of late largely because of its controversial new immigration law, SB 1070.

Not as well known is the bill the Arizona legislature passed soon after SB1070 became law. This other bill would ban ethnic studies programs from being taught in the state. Why? Apparently, ethnic studies programs "advocate separatism and racial preferences" and "are designed to promote ethnic chauvinism."*

(EDIT: Oh wait, HB2281 was just signed INTO LAW yesterday. This just gets better and better, doesn't it?)

There are many things I can say about those statements, but it will probably degenerate into sputtering noises, F-bombs, and general speechlessness. That's why I ranted about this first with my sister and let it all simmer for a few days before I blogged about it.** I want to present in a coherent and intelligent manner why ethnic studies is important and why both of those statements completely miss the point of ethnic studies.

History is essentially a story with many, many moving parts and perspectives, and obviously not all of it is going to be represented. That's fine and is indeed necessary to create a coherent and meaningful common past. History, with a capital H, is the most important people and events (the importance of which is itself subjective to one's location) strung together in chronological order. It's meant to give us a general understanding of who we were and where we came from, so that we can see who we might become and where we might go.

But History is written by the winners of conflicts and by those in power.

Think back to your grade school history classes and try to recall how much time was given to covering the experience of women and people of color in America. Ask yourself from whose point of view is the overarching narrative.

Ethnic Studies is about giving voice to and understanding the experience and histories of people of color. It is for this same reason that we have Women's Studies as well. These - what could be called 'niche' - studies exist to give representation to traditionally under-represented groups. These programs and courses aren't about superseding or replacing History as we know it. They are about complementing and supplementing our general knowledge. They are about providing a broader perspective, so that we can create a more complete picture of the American experience.

The reasoning behind the Arizona law banning ethnic studies programs in schools is that ethnic studies "advocate separatism and racial preferences" and "ethnic solidarity instead of treatment of pupils as individuals." The Arizona State Superintendent for Public Instruction sums it up like this:

State Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne called passage in the state House a victory for the principle that education should unite, not divide students of differing backgrounds.

"Traditionally, the American public school system has brought together students from different backgrounds and taught them to be Americans and to treat each other as individuals, and not on the basis of their ethnic backgrounds," Horne said. "This is consistent with the fundamental American value that we are all individuals, not exemplars of whatever ethnic groups we were born into. Ethnic studies programs teach the opposite, and are designed to promote ethnic chauvinism."

My response to these statements is that yes, American education should unite students, teach them to consider themselves Americans, and teach them to treat each other as individuals/judge each other by character, but education should also educate. We DO NOT live in a post-racial world. We can, do, and should teach that everyone should be judged by the content of their character, but that still doesn't change the color of my skin and what some people might think about it. I'm not an exemplar of my ethnic group, but that doesn't stop people from making judgments about me based on my ethnicity.

To ignore that race and racism still exist, to pretend the struggles of minority groups didn't happen or to gloss over them is to marginalize those historical narratives. History is sometimes ugly, but the point is that we've struggled and continue to struggle to overcome the ugliness, to be better.

Ethnic Studies acknowledges race and discusses it in the context of how it shapes history and society. It takes a piece of the American societal puzzle (i.e. the experience of a specific ethnic group), examines it, and then puts it back into the larger puzzle. It is NOT about isolating/separating the piece. It highlights the piece and shows how it is part of the whole.

The new Arizona law allows for the continuance of courses for Native American pupils and English as second language classes. "It also does not prohibit the teaching of the Holocaust or other cases of genocide." I'm guessing teaching the whole Civil Rights Movement is still okay too. The thing is these specific historical events, integral to the dominant historical narrative, have a lot to do with specific ethnic groups. It seems a little disingenuous to say we can teach token bits of ethnic history, but we cannot allow any in-depth classes dedicated to any individual ethnic group and their history in America.

Of course, I'm not asking for History classes to integrate everything. Like I said, it would be impossible to teach (much less learn) it all in a coherent, meaningful way. History is a good, working summary of our past, and that's what it should be - a summary. BUT don't take away the opportunity for people to learn about other narratives, especially if those narratives speak to them and show them how they fit into the fabric of our diverse nation. You hear all the time from students in school, Why should I care about this? What does this have to do with me? Why is all this stuff important?

What if, maybe, all they need is an event or person or movement or story they can relate to?

For some of these students, ethnic studies might be a way to find that - to find an experience that more closely resembles their own, so that they can begin to see how they fit into and belong in History at large.

The United States is a diverse and multi-cultural, multi-ethnic nation. Is it so much to ask for the opportunity to learn about what makes it diverse? Is it wrong for me to want to learn about what the people who came before me went through and what they fought for to give me the rights and privileges I have today?

Ethnic Studies isn't about promoting resentment among ethnic groups or racial preference or separatism. It isn't about how one group struggled or suffered or achieved more than another. It isn't about supplanting the dominant American Historical narrative.

It's about showing that people of color struggled and triumphed and dreamed in America too, and that their experiences helped shape the nation we are today. It's about showing that minority groups DO have a place and role in American History. It's about HOW these groups FIT INTO that narrative, showing them that they're part of the making of this nation too, that their stories are also important.

If anything, Ethnic Studies is about showing us how we are all American, despite our various journeys to get here.


I hope that made sense. Thank you for reading.


P.S. "HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government."

The implication that Ethnic Studies promotes treason against the U.S. government seriously offends me. I'm American. Please don't make it seem like programs about American ethnic experience are somehow UN-American.

*All direct quotes can be found in the linked articles.
1. Arizona Legislature Passes Bill to Curb 'Chauvanism' in Ethnic Studies Programs from FoxNews.com
2. Arizona bill targeting ethnic studies signed into law from LATimes.com

**I heard about the bill last Friday and let myself absorb the news and calm down. Yesterday, when I came to finish this post, I found out about its becoming law. My cooling off period now seems a little pointless because I had to make A;KLLSKA;JFLI@#(*LS;AJF noises for a while before I could straighten my thoughts back in order.

Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. This designation was made in 1990 (it was just APA Week from 1979 until 1990) to recognize and celebrate the contributions made by people of Asian and Pacific Island heritage to the United States.

I already felt like this monthly observance didn't get as much press as some other observances/causes (e.g. I had to look it up; people I've mentioned it to were surprised), and with the recent shenanigans going on in Arizona, I felt more motivated to do my little feature on APA Heritage Month.

In climates like these, it is so very important to recognize the experiences and impact of the many different people and groups who helped make America the place it is and who will continue to influence her future.

So throughout the month, I will be posting about all manner of things related to the APA experience. Though, of course, it will be by no means comprehensive since I will be blogging about things from my perspective - topics that interest me, personal experiences, books I've read. If you are interested at all in APA topics, I encourage you to indulge your curiosity this month. Definitely check to see if there are any APA Month events going on in your area. I know my county library system has APA events and their hosting libraries listed on the county website.

Please join me this May in celebrating Asian and Pacific Islanders in the United States. For more info, check out the government's APA Heritage page!


P.S. And to spread some more love: yesterday, Elana Johnson put together a celebration of books over the blogosphere called Spreading the Awesome where authors and bloggers recommend books they adore. See the list of recommendations.

Lists of Things: Books III

As I am now officially on Winter Break, (even though I started writing this post when I still had a week of class left to go), I shall be embarking on a marvelous endeavor: to read the 34,209,234,589,234 books that have been lingering on my ever-growing to-read list for the past several years.

Of course, I say this every break (winter and spring and summer) and I haven't progressed very far. It's gotten worse since grad school, though, since sometimes I have to finish two novels a week and be in mental shape to intelligently discuss them or at least try to sound intelligent while discussing them (two different things, people, two different things), so skimming and skipping aren't such great ideas even when the books are excruciatingly obtuse, boring, or stupid.

What more usually happens is that I end up reading moderately crappy YA and/or romance novels as fed to me by Krispy, such as the Twilight series and, more recently, Hush, Hush.

So since Krispy made a list of books she wants to read (and wants me to read, yes yes, dear, I have Havemercy as one of the top three books I'm to read this time around), I shall follow up with a list of some of the books I have read this year.

1. Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick: Krispy brought this book to my attention because it looked like it was trying to be the next Twilight, only with fallen angels instead of vampires. (Plus it has fantastic cover art.) We didn't expect it to be very good—but we weren't expecting it to be as bad as it was, either. (Edit: I stand corrected. Krispy actually expected it to be good; I was the only one not expecting much. She has also reminded me that, despite my disappointment, I'm still interested in reading the upcoming sequel, Crescendo, in the miniscule hope it will get better.) It's a sad thing when a book doesn't live up to your already low expectations. The story suffered from the loathsomely annoying and criminally stupid main character's BFF, a "bad boy" love interest who was so bad that he…skipped school once in a while in order to play pool at a pool house (and at the bar, he drinks…7-Up), gratuitous use of…ellipses, a lack of sufficient fallen angel backstory, implausible and incredulity-inducing circumstances that were meant to be funny or dramatic but only ended came off as crudely forced and badly written, an overabundance of badly-done and not-funny clichés, sundry other writing problems, AND, most importantly, an extremely large plot hole. No spoilers here, but suffice to say that it made it so that pretty much the entire plot failed to make sense. Whoever was the editor for this book did a sucktastic job, sorry to say. The main thing I liked was the purported bad boy's name: Patch.

2- 5. The Deepgate Codex Series by Alan Campbell: A darkly atmospheric, amazingly-written series of books set in a beautifully developed and lavishly detailed fantasy world with its own mythology and cultures. The first book was the best, the second one was still good, and the third one was good but got a leeeeetle bit weird. Okay, a lot weird. But even though I still have mixed feelings about the third book (God of Clocks, and featured on Krispy's list), I salute the author for taking a risk and plunging ahead where he wanted. The series includes Scar Night, Iron Angel, and God of Clocks, and is apparently ongoing. There is also a prequel novella called Lye Street that was released as a limited edition hardcover and is now sold out, but for some reason my local library has a copy. An autographed copy. What the hell.

6. Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: I confess that I haven't actually finished reading this book yet. I started reading it, er, a long time ago—many months, in fact—on the recommendation of a friend. The reviews for this book are stellar and my friend also loved it, and I just could not finish reading it in one go, as I often do. I found the story to be very slow, with a lot of dramatic buildup that never sees surcease, and I had very little sympathy for the main character; at the point where I left off reading, some bad things had happened to him and I lacked any amount of sympathy or empathy for him because I felt like he'd had it coming. There were also a couple inexplicable plot contrivances that, rather than having a reasonable or even lame explanation, have no explanation at all. The world is beautifully crafted, and the writing style is nice and even occasionally lovely, although overall it is not amazing. The main problem seems to be that this book is mostly setup for the next book, and while there are amazing descriptions of how Kvothe has rescued princesses and killed angels and been kicked out of this super awesome school younger than most people are admitted—well, none of that happens in this book, apparently. I'm still interested enough to keep on reading and am determined to finish reading this book, but—we'll see when I get around to it.

7. The Penguin of Death by Edward Monkton: A picture book containing a poem about the penguin of death. One of the most amazing books ever written about penguins of death. Srsly.

8. A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami: Uh, I had to read this one for class. It was interesting. It was first-person narration featuring a nameless protagonist who is threatened by some yakuza-esque organization's number-two man and is forced to go running across Japan in pursuit of a magical sheep from Mongolia or wherever that can possess people and make them immortal and also wants to take over the world. This makes it sound more exciting and thrilling than it actually was, because it wasn't really a pulse-pounding adventure or pulse-pounding at all. Apparently the book was also about fascism, although I was not aware of this until my professor announced it in class; although bemusing, he supported this announcement with explanations and citations from the book, so I bought his interpretation. Did I enjoy reading it? Well, it was okay and interesting enough, but not anything I would've picked up on my own and not something I'd really want to spend time rereading either.

9. Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami: The sequel to the book above, although it was published five or six years later and the author wrote a book or two in between. Can be read as a standalone work, though reading it after the first book makes it make more sense. Despite the whole magical sheep thing in the first one, I found the second book to be more puzzling and kind of random, although this could be because I read this one first (also for class). The ending was a little unsatisfying because there were about a hundred dangling loose ends and a lot of weirdass surrealistic WTF-ery going on and no real immediate resolution. I mean, sure there was resolution—the protagonist finds himself and understands Deep and Meaningful things!—but it's that kind of, hmm, "literary" and "intellectual" resolution where you have to interpret things and draw your own connections in order to find any of it at all. Again, it was an interesting book, but once again, not something I'd read on my own or want a copy of. (Except I had to buy my copy since no libraries nearby had one.)

10. Modeling in Wax for Jewelry and Sculpture by Lawrence Kallenberg: I feel like such a jewelry nerd. I actually sat down to have a leisurely skimming read-through of this—skimming the parts that I already knew or wasn't as interested in, and more closely reading those sections pertinent to my interests. Between this and what I've gleaned from research online and from other books, I feel fairly well-informed about the basics of carving wax and would like to try it some time over break. I don't have the facilities to do casting myself (not yet—but someday…) but there are casting houses and services available to do all that stuff. Even if you're not interested in the actual nitty-gritty, this book is still great to peruse because of the 5 or so color inserts of finished jewelry, including the fancy silver-and-gold unicorn featured on the cover.

11. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner: The same friend who leant me Name of the Wind leant me this one too. This YA fantasy was highly acclaimed and she really loved it, but I was less than impressed. I found the pacing to be incredibly slow—they set out on a journey at the beginning of the book, but due to plot contrivances and the limitations of first-person narrative, you don't even find out where they're going or why they're going there until 3/4 of the way into the book. The preceding 3/4 is basically them walking or riding along the way and getting tidbits of the world and mythology—which was very well-crafted, beautifully Greek-influenced, and enjoyable—up to a point. I guess I'm impatient. Also, I didn't really like the narrator that much. Also, there's a point where first-person trickery comes into play wherein the narrator is perfectly aware of something very important but the reader doesn't find out about this obvious thing until the end of the book, which I found to be unsurprising and unimpressive.

Why does it sound like I'm bagging on all the books my dear friend gives to me? I LOVE most of the books she tosses my way. In fact, to do her justice, I'll just list a few here, regardless of whether or not I've read them this year:

12. Beauty by Robin McKinley: Another YA fantasy and another angle on the whole Beauty and the Beast tale, this book is brimming with lush description, luxuriant detail, and a practical, down-to-earth narrator who finds herself frequently at odds with her surroundings. Beauty's attitude coupled with McKinley's attention to detail and the flow of the story made it quite an enjoyable read. I like a lot of Robin McKinley's books and Beauty is one of my favorites.

13. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card: One of the most classic science fiction novels evarrr, and simply astonishing. Pacing, character, plot, worldview, politics, psychology—this book exceeds in everything. What is it? It's the story of a boy named Ender and how he deals with being trained to—never mind. I can't do the story justice in a simple summary. Suffice to know that it is a story that will tug upon your emotions and grip you until you stay up all night reading and your eyeballs are bleeding from not blinking. Or at least that's what happened to me.

14. Enchantment by Orson Scott Card: Another marvelous book by Orson Scott Card that takes on Russian fairytales (including, of course, Baba Yaga) and connects the past and the present in the way that only a master storyteller can. Time travel in a fairytale? Why, yes. Yes, please, thank you. Explanations for how certain details came about in fairytales, such as Baba Yaga's chicken-legged house? Why, yes. Yes, thank you, please. Humor and emotion and an engrossing tale? GIVE IT HERE.

Okay, I'd better stop there because my friend has loaned me so many great books and if I don't stop now I'll go on forever. So here are a few books that I recommend, a few that are meh, and a few that I didn't personally like so much even though they had potential. I must note that with The Thief, at least, I did finish it, and even went on to read the sequel and have the (borrowed) third book sitting on my shelf awaiting my attention. The sequel picked up a bit, but I still had Issues of Implausibility with it. But still! Interesting enough that I wanted to find out what happened. And hope that it will get better.