Paige's Lit Blog 🔥

Sketch One: My cell rings for the third time in an hour. The caller ID is from my father, but I know it’s my mother calling because of the argument I just had with her 10 minutes ago. Despite the fact that we’ve had this same conversation at least ten times this month, I know she will not yield. It’s just in her nature. Putting down my tablet pen for a second, I answer the phone, put it on speaker, and get back to the commission I have due tomorrow. Through the conversation we have had a million times over, I tell her I’m doing ok alone out here. She doesn’t know how much of a struggle it is to keep power and a decent internet connection coming out this way without folding to Them. She doesn’t know about the twenty emails and five phone calls I get daily from them trying to convince me to let Them frack on my land because “the world” needs the fuel. She doesn’t know about the fact that I haven't been able to drive for the past two months because They’ve blocked my driveway until

     When I went into The Gospel of Loki, I was extremely excited by the forward. I’ve read and listened to my fair share of myths and legends through everything from video games to podcasts, so the prospect of having a catalogue of Norse myths through the eyes of Loki sounded extremely entertaining. The gravitas seeping through every word of the foreword made me super excited to see these classic tales, told from the “right” perspective. Yet, as I read, I became less and less entranced by Joanne Harris’s writing. I guess maybe I was expecting something more unique, but when I realized that the book was just going to be Norse myths I’ve heard before almost verbatim with the occasional snark, I lost interest pretty fast. There are some really interesting themes and motifs about how winners are the ones who write the stories and how outsiders will, by nature, never be fully accepted by the majority and were interesting to explore. Loki’s personality was another big factor for my declinin

  Reaction to the Text This is the first story that I read that dealt with aliens that were not in some way humanoid. T’Gatoi and her kind felt like a very fun species to write and worldbuild from, and I am kind of astonished how much Butler conveyed to the reader in such a short story. Not only was she able to show the reader a snapshot into this world, she made it read natural, too. Writing exposition is hard to feel natural in a story without having some plot contrivance to make a character oblivious to the world they live in, therefore needing the exposition. Being a short story, I didn’t expect it to be so tight, yet it felt like it neither overstayed its welcome nor ended too abruptly. I really need to read more of Octavia Butler’s work in the future.  Connections to the Story It was kind of difficult to connect fully to anything in the text, but I definitely did feel for the main character Gan. I am also currently in a stage of my life where I’m close enough to my “coming of

     An Unkindness of Ghosts was kind of a weird one for me. On one hand, I loved Aster as a character. She’s the type of person I would have never thought would be such a compelling protagonist. Her relationships with Griselle, Theo, and Mesuline felt extremely natural, more than anything I’ve really read before. The way that Rivers Solomon talks about and handles gender in both Aster and Theo feels like the exact opposite of my last read, Left Hand of Darkness. The way that Aster explains herself as an amalgamation of man, woman, and witch feels more natural and real than a strictly scientific look at gender. Rivers uses they/them pronouns in their bio, so I know that they way gender is handled is from an insider’s perspective. The world of Matilda feels like the cross between the Handmaid’s Tale and Wall-E in a very convincing way, and the way race is approached is rooted in first hand experiences and study. Really, this should be at the top rankings of books I have read for this cl

     I was kicking myself for not reading Earthsea the week that we could. I had heard great things about Ursula K Le Guinn’s writing and representation and really should have started there. So, to make up for it, I read The Left Hand of Darkness. Honestly, I did not know what I was expecting. A race of nonbinary winter hobbits who go into heat was definitely not on my list. Despite that, I thought that the examination of a world without gender norms was fascinating and a little bit hilarious. I tend not to be too vocal about my sexual and gender orientation because of various social taboos, but I think that my interpretation as both asexual and gender-questioning is relevant.      The planet of Winter feels closer to a utopia than any other setting I have experienced. As a result of the Gethenians having their cycle of kemmer, the constant measuring up and scrutinizing that comes with having a sexual drive is basically non-existent. I have known that I have been asexual basically righ

     Out of all the spheres of fantasy, sci-fi was nothing I was ever interested in. The cold and metallic suave of what sci-fi media I did know felt impersonal, that the only exciting things would be exploration and war. Those aspects have never been something that I wanted to experience. I don’t think either are avoidable in the medium, but Ninefox Gamble made them feel at least palatable. From what I can tell, the world that Yoon Ha Lee creates is a fascinating balance between the science of classic sci-fi and the magics of classic fantasy to make something engaging and enigmatic.      I never thought about how people living in space so long would have no need to stick to earth measures of time, but the way the calendar plays a keystone role in the magitech-like computers system is genuinely eye-opening. The fact that the minutes, days, and holidays can be coded into an operating system based on both computing and human belief is the most interesting piece of worldbuilding I have e