‘GLOW’ shines

At first glance, Netflix original ‘GLOW’ looks like a fun dramady with flashy costumes. Look closer and you’ll see a deep dive into sexism in Hollywood, well-rounded female characters, and beautiful choreography and stunts. The show boasts a cast and crew heavy with women, and the 1980s setting provides a perfect backdrop for the ongoing drama in the lives of fourteen incredible female characters.

The Netflix original is a dramatization of the show of the same name, ‘GLOW’: Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. It follows Ruth Wilder, played by Alison Brie, an Omaha girl trying to make it big in L.A. Debbie Eagan, played by Betty Gilpin, her best friend turned enemy, joins the show as the star. With a history loaded with drama after Ruth sleeps with Debbie’s husband, their rivalry becomes the center-piece of the show.

This being said, they are hardly the only two to watch. The entire cast is filled with slightly insane, but extremely lovable characters. Sheila “The She-Wolf” played by Gayle Rankin became a fan favorite early on. Sheila wears wolf furs and an elaborate wig and makeup. “It’s not for you,” she says tearfully to Ruth in episode four, “it’s for me.” Arthie Premkumar (Sunita Mani) is an Indian pre-med student, struggling with her character identity as “Beirut the Mad-Bomber.” And this isn’t all she struggles with; when gay dancer Yolanda Rivas (Shakira Barrera) enters the scene, Arthie finds herself falling for her.

Tamme Dawson (Kia Stevens) plays “Welfare Queen” in the ring. Outside of the ring, Tamme is funny and quick-witted and happy to brag about her son on a full scholarship at Stanford. In the ring, her character is an offensive caricature of a lazy black woman. Season Two brought us a deeper look into her life as a working mother. “I’ve worked a lot of jobs,” she tells Debbie. She, like the other cast members, is happy in a job working with other women pushing themselves to be better. And while her son is quick to point out the offensive stereotypes running rampant in the ring, he is also impressed with Tamme’s strength and skills.

The whole show is packed with social commentary about the seriously effed-up world of the 1980s, but something that resonated this season was the impact of the Me Too movement. In the first season, director Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron) is accused of using GLOW as a casting couch when sleeping with Rhonda (Kate Nash). However, as Rhonda tells him while dressing in a huff “I wasn’t shagging you because I wanted something. I mean I wanted a horse, but that wasn’t why I was shagging you… I fancied you.” Rhonda has her own level of control in the relationship, though the power dynamics are still uncomfortable.

In a much different set of circumstances, Season Two shows Ruth being invited to a “dinner meeting” with the head of their network, Tom Grant (Paul Fitzgerald). It quickly becomes transparent that Grant has his eyes on something other than Ruth’s future. After an uncomfortable headlock, Ruth leaves, literally running from the scene when he ducks into another room. The camera focuses on Ruth, her face a mask holding back her disappointment, fear, and sadness.  Grant uses his power as a network executive to change their time slot after this. With his abuse of power and blatant sexism, he is painted clearly as the villain of the piece.

Chaos ensues after this. While adding to the drama that is piling up between Debbie and Ruth, the time slot change makes a positive impact on Sam. “Let’s let the weirdos loose,” he says. The rest of the season becomes playful. The result is the show within a show, episode 8 “The Good Twin.” It is weird, funny, and quite surreal.

The story is enough to pull in the audience, but add in fancy costumes, glitter, and the righteous 80s soundtrack and you’ve got a true spectacle. The icing on the cake is, of course, the wrestling. It’s less than tame, too, and the cast is proud to say that they do their own stunts. With little-to-no prior training, the girls went through an intensive training boot camp to get ready for the show. And they don’t hold back in the ring. Their performances continue to get better and better, leading to a final act with incredible gasp-out-loud moments.

So what is ‘Glow’? It is certainly one of Netflix’s many successes. Beyond that though, it is a story about being strong, about being a mother, sister, lover. In short, it is a story about women, by women for women.

Totally radical.

The dark, dangerous, and desirable

Throughout all my time as a reader, I have found just a few writers that seem to have almost a mystical prowess; that grab their readers attention immediately, and hold them in a trance from the beginning to the end of their novels. Among these spell-casters, Holly Black stands out as one of the best.

I’ve raved over every Holly Black book I’ve ever picked up. I read ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’ as a teenager and was entranced. I read ‘Doll Bones’ for a class in college and loved every moment of it. And ‘The Coldest Girl in Coldtown’ is one of my favorite vampire novels of all time, and I read a lot of vampire novels.

Even with her prodigious repertoire of YA and children’s novels, nothing quite compares to her newest release, ‘The Cruel Prince’ a spellbinding tale of the unseen fairy realm.

The book centers on Jude, a mortal girl taken from her home at the age of seven when her parents are killed by a red-cap, Madoc. She and her twin sister, Taryn, along with her older sister, Vivienne, are taken from their mortal home and into the fairy realm. Vivienne is Madoc’s daughter, and, feeling a sense of obligation to his late wife, he raises Jude and Taryn as his own as well.

As ever, Black’s fairy world is less frolicking-through-the-meadow and much more dark and murderous. The everlasting fey of the Fairy Court are both beautiful and perilous. Black’s world is one where danger lurks around every corner, but the danger is enticing, enchanting. A beautiful river flows through the forest, but in the river lurks bloodthirsty kelpies. A golden fairy fruit will taste incredible to a mortal, and poison them at the same time. This dark and fantastical world pulls the reader directly into it, both enchanting and horrifying at the same time.

It is a story of a scrappy main character with a shifty moral code. Perhaps the best thing about her is her mortality. Jude is human, though she longs to be fey. Because she is human, though, she makes human choices, taking actions that surprise even herself. She is spurred on by her parents death and a desire to be in control of herself; The Folk can ‘glamour’ humans, or make them do their bidding. Her desires lead her to lie, cheat, and spy in the Fairy Court’s own version of Game of Thrones.

The rich tale of politics and betrayal gives this story a backdrop of intrigue. And while Princes fight for their place on the throne, Jude takes on problems of her own: her sisters secret suitor, her own fairy lover, and an enemy, Prince Cardan. Jude and Cardan have a chemistry of their own; much like the rest of the book, what is dark and dangerous is also desirable.

It is a spellbinding work, guaranteed to pull you directly into a perilous and exquisite world. Black is a compelling writer who, like the creatures she writes about, will truly hold you under her spell.

This Savage Reviewer

In the past, I have spoiled myself on subscription boxes of adorable, bookish merchandise. The company that I use is Owl Crate, a monthly, Young Adult subscription box. They send all sorts of fun merchandise and a YA novel.

The last book I received was ‘The Serpent King’, a book to which I gave very high praise.

This month, I was less enthused.

‘This Savage Song’ by Victoria Schwab was, for the most part, a frustrating read. The story was interesting, and, toward the end, even compelling. But I often read for style, and the style choices Schwab made were sloppy and made me often set the book aside, too frustrated to read any more.

The following is me nit-picking. If you want to hear what I liked about the book, you can skip ahead a paragraph.

PRONOUNS. They exist for a reason. When there are only two characters interacting through pretty much 80 percent of a book, and one of them is a boy and the other is a girl, you can use the words “he” and “she” and the reader will still know who you’re talking about. Schwab names Kate and August, the two main characters with every action they do, every thought that they think. I was so frustrated that I finally counted how many proper nouns I saw on one page. 8. Three paragraphs. 18 sentences. 8 Kates and Augusts. As I said, it is a nitpicky thing, but something that separates a good book from a mediocre book.

And this book could be a good book, I think. The central conflict is compelling, the characters complicated and interesting.  It is set in an apocalyptic future where acts of violence create literal monsters: the Malchai, who eat blood, the Corsai, literal shadows with teeth that rip their victims apart, and the Sunai, the most mysterious of monsters, who steal souls with a song. Kate Harker is the daughter of a Mafia King Pin, whose mobsters are literal monsters. August is a Sunai who just wants to be a normal person.

Sounds great, right? As I said, it is compelling. I fought through annoying style choices and found my way to the meat of the story. It examines good and evil in an interesting way, looks at what it is to be human. And begs the question: are humans the real monsters?

But for 250 pages, I had to muddle through chapter by chapter, getting more and more frustrated by the mediocre writing, nearly throwing my book in anguish when Schwab hid our two main characters in a restaurant kitchen and said August rammed “some sort of kitchen tool through the door handles,” to keep out the Malchai. Has the author never been in a kitchen? She couldn’t say ladle? Or whisk? Or spatula?

It is little things like this that grow more and more off-putting in YA novels. The story is there, but the style isn’t. It has been the case with more and more of the new YA books I pick up: ‘A Study in Charlotte,’ ‘The Lunar Chronicles’ ‘The Haunting of Sunshine Girl.’

When I read a book, I want the whole package, story and style. Although I have heard good things about Schwab’s other books, I will not be picking up another.

Why I re-read Harry Potter (again)

I remember being curled on the couch when I was 16 with the third Harry Potter book (my favorite until the seventh book came out, usurping it’s position.) I was laughing about something. My dad, sitting in the living room with me, said “you’ve read that book a million times, and it still makes you giggle.”

I don’t think I actually read them a million times, although I lost count. By the end of my high school career, it was a lot of times. I know I had read the first one at least ten times, and the rest a few times less.

After the seventh book came out, I tried to re-read it, but found that it was an enormous struggle. I love that book, but the emotional roller-coaster ride is enough to leave one dizzy. I would read bits and pieces after it came out, but I never faced the whole thing again.

As my college years went on, I left my Harry Potter books pristine and untouched in the box they came in.As an English major, there were a lot of other readings that came first. Ocassionally, before a movie release, I would revisit points of the books. And I have a talent for being able to quote obscure bits of Potter knowledge and find the exact chapter and page referencing said knowledge in under two minutes (yes, I have actually asked people to time me).

 

But it has been nine years, almost an entire decade, since I read the entire series.

If you’re like me, you know that nine years is too long of a time to wait to re-visit your favorite fictional place. At the beginning of April, as I approached the birthday that marks a quarter of a century, I found that I was yearning to start from the beginning and tear my way through them, the way I used to nine years ago.

It was as a fufilling experience as it ever was. Sure enough, I laughed out loud, I cried real tears, and several times I spoke out loud to the characters on the page (I am a very interactive reader.)

Now, I’m at a strange time in my life. When you start reaching adult ages, you have to start doing more and more adult things. I’m starting to re-evaluate my life, trying to think of ways I might better myself, forming vague plans for my future, working. And in my adult years, I needed to go somewhere that consistently makes me happy. A place where the characters are like friends.

When I was in London, my friend and I went to see the Harry Potter set, and it was an incredible experience. If you haven’t been there, spoilers ahead. The last room holds the scale model that was used to film Hogwarts. It’s huge and beautiful and a truly magical experience which I highly recommend. As we circled it, I remember tearing up. There was one word that kept coming to mind.

Just as Harry would say, Hogwarts is home. And sometimes we all just need to go home.

A special Thank You

I want to take some time today to talk about a very special person in my life who has influenced me in so many ways.

I am so lucky to have gotten the Mom that I did. My nature loving, flower-child mother raised me to be the person I am today.

One thing that I am particularly grateful to her for is my love of the written word.

My mother would read to my sister and I every night, from the time we were in our cribs, until I was well into my pre-teen years. She would bring us to the book fairs and let us take home a new book we would read together. It was my grandmother who first put a Harry Potter book in my hands, but it is my mother’s voice that brought so many of my favorite characters to life. She was the one who discovered A Series of Unfortunate Events. She opened up the Wardrobe door to Narnia for us, and flew us across the universe with A Wrinkle in Time.

It wasn’t just my passion for reading that she helped me cultivate. When I wrote my first poem in the third grade, I was so excited. It was such a rush. People read it and said that it was good and I should keep working on it. My mom brought me to the store and bought me half a dozen tiny notebooks that I could keep with me and jot poems in.

I’ve long since given up poetry, but as I grew older, the notebooks grew larger, and I was constantly writing stories; I would play with my sister and imagine new lives for us, then write our imaginary adventures later. I filled blank notebooks with childhood stories, and all the while, my Mother supported me. From the time I was eleven, she has been saying the I should write a book. It is because of her support that I write.

I can never give her enough thanks for the support and influence she’s given me, making me the person I am today. Every day I see more of her in myself, and I am so grateful for that. Because if I grow up to be like my Mom, then I’ve grown up to be a really amazing person.

Happy Mother’s day to all those mothers reading this, and a special Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom. I love you, you are amazing.

What’s up with Horcruxes?

I have been thinking about horcruxes.

Imagine, for a moment, that you were in Voldemort’s shoes. Imagine that you ripped your soul apart at sixteen, stuffed it into an inaminate object, and then went about your life.

Now imagine what you were like a sixteen. I imagine that many people feel the way I do: that as years the years have passed, I have changed. A person grows and learns as they get older. When I think of sixteen year old me, I see a totally different person.

Let’s imagine a world where the manifestation of Voldemort’s soul had succeeded in Chamber of Secrets. Would that piece of Voldemort’s soul, the broody, smooth-talking head boy, be the one who comes back? What would happen to the older Voldemort who lived on the back of Quirrel’s head and built himself a new body? Does he simply become dormant? Or does he continue trying to make himself a body? Could there have been two Voldemorts running around?

All of this has been running around in my head like wildfire for the past couple of days. But I feel like the most important things is: How would that manifestation of Voldemort even know who he was? He would only know about his own actions second-hand. Would he try to repeat those actions?

I think that the answer is probably yes.

But all this would explain why horcruxes were a sort of forbidden magic. The dark magic no one wants to touch. We are not meant to leave mementos of ourselves as we were: we are meant to grow.

It is the age-old question; is immortality worth the price?

The immortality question is a biggie. It’s been asked over and over. There is a reason there have been a bajillion vampire books written. And there’s a reason that The Picture of Dorian Gray and Frankenstein are classics. When people seek to achieve that which wasn’t meant for them, they suffer consequences.

The reason that Harry conquers in the final battle is because he does not fear death.  Now, we all fear death a little, but Voldemort’s fear of it was too great. By leaving pieces of himself behind, he ruined himself; he couldn’t learn and grow the way his adversary could. He always feared death, from the time he was a sixteen-year-old to the day his own curse re-bounded (for the second time). His ultimate demise was his own doing.

I’ve been thinking about all of this for a few days now. And that’s one of the reasons I love the series. There are so many intricate little details that make us wonder. Rowling spun a tale that started out as nothing more than a children’s story, and yet today, almost two decades after The Sorcerer’s Stone was released, I’m left pondering the consequences of immortality. Harry Potter is no mere children’s series. It is a classic.

Changing Destiny

There are a few books that I’ve come across in my time that I’ve clutched to my chest, tears running down my face, and felt  a brief moment where I know I’ll never find anything that will quite compare.

“The Serpent King” by Jeff Zentner is one of them.

Wow, this book was incredible. Zentner tells the story of three teens; Dill, a singer and songwriter with a dark past; Travis, a literally enormous boy who is a total softy as well as a fantasy nerd, and has his own family secrets; and Lydia, an up-and-coming fashion blogger with big dreams.

The three explore the dangerous territory of high school together, but the reader is given peeks of their lives when they are alone. Dill’s father, a signs minister who handled snakes and drank poison with his congregation, was imprisoned for child pornography.
He carries the name Dillard Early, the same as his father’s and father’s father, and throughout the book, he wonders if perhaps the name itself is a curse; if he maybe carries on more than just the name.

Travis, six-foot-six and 280 pound teddy bear, lives in the fictional world of a series of books called Bloodfall. It is a welcome escape from a verbally and often physically abusive father. Throughout the book, Travis finds his moments of bravery and learns to stand up for himself and the people he love, like Dill and Lydia, and, especially, his mother.

Lydia meanwhile, carves out a persona for herself online. She is a starkly independent and driven young woman, an excellent heroine for the story. However, she is not perfect. Her blog is an edited and fictional version of her life, where she never mentions her two best friends and yearns for the big city life. This causes problems between her and Dill, who loathes to think of his world without Lydia in it.

The book takes a tragic twist that makes them face their oncoming future, which, after a brief period of darkness, looks brighter and more beautiful by the end of the book.

This book is about being brave, about growing up, and about changing your own destiny. Zentner is a spectacular writer, weaving poetry into his prose. He describes the most beautiful moments, and the most heart-wrenching moments in incredible detail.

When I finish a book and feel changed, I know it was worth it. This book was a spectacular read. I hope others read it and feel the same.

An Insufficient Interpretation

I have to get something off my chest: I am sick of over-hyped books.

Recently I read “Cinder,” which I’d heard such incredible things about, and found it to be nothing more than okay.

This month, I felt inclined to check out “Dorothy Must Die” by Danielle Paige. This book has been all over my Instagram feed like a quickly spreading virus. I loved the cover, and thought the synopsis sounded interesting.

Here’s the truth buried beneath the eye-capturing font and pulse pounding synopsis: “Dorothy Must Die” is cliche and completely uninteresting. The story focuses on Amy Gumm, a rebel without a cause, and not the good kind. She literally has no cause other than the one she is dragged into by the wicked witches of Oz. She hates her mom, then feels guilty about hating her mom, and this becomes a never-ending cycle of “who is the antagonist here?” She is pushed along her journey, rather than having any drive of her own.

Then, of course, there is the ever-present hetero romance. She has heart eyes for every boy she meets, despite having much bigger problems. Romance is a common complaint from me when it comes to YA novels. When done right, I do enjoy a good love story. But a girl fawning over a guy for no reason other than that he is hot… frankly, it makes me gag a little.

I love Oz, and I especially enjoy Gregory Macguire’s re-imagining of Oz. In Macguire’s Oz, the line between good and wicked is blurry. Rather than trying to explore gray areas and the blurry line, Paige simply makes the good guys the bad guys. She takes beloved childhood characters and turns them into horrifying caricatures. The Wicked are the good guys, the good guys are wicked.

Perhaps it’s unfair of me to compare a modern classic to Paige’s novel for teens, but I almost felt cheated as I read this book. I felt like a story I loved had been violated by poor writing.

I haven’t even finished Dorothy Must Die, and I don’t know that I will. Every time I pick it up it makes me groan.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. It’s a good looking book, certainly, but it’s not worth the money, or the trouble.

A modern mystery

I love stories. I read voraciously, and binge watch Netflix. Few people know that I also have a weak spot for podcasts.

Radio dramas have made a comeback in recent years in the form of podcasts; the very popular Welcome To Night Vale started in 2012 and has gained popularity ever since. Those following WTNV are bound to, like me, branch out to other podcasts. I have listened to a variety of podcasts, and gotten very addicted to several ongoing stories.

Today, though, I’m here to talk about a specific podcast. Tanis.

Tanis is produced by Pacific Northwest Stories, and is the convoluted journey of Nic Silver, PNWS producer. Nic is obsessed with a mystery: the mystery of Tanis. Tanis is set up as a sort of place with a foggy history. A place, or thing, that moves around and influences the area it’s in. As Nic brings himself and his listeners closer to finding Tanis, he sprinkles in horrific stories of serial killers, deadly hotels, and people who went insane. He posits that the sometimes bloody history of the Pacific Northwest was influenced by Tanis.

However, there is the idea that those “worthy” of Tanis can reap it’s rewards. Nicholas Flamel comes into the story at one point, and Nic hypothesizes that Tanis is a sort of fountain of youth.

As Nic tries to unravel the mystery of Tanis, his new-found partner in crime, Meerkatnip (a fake name, obviously; no other name is revealed throughout the story besides MK), tries to unravel internet mysteries. Usually a whiz with computers, she becomes frustrated by ghosts (people who don’t exist online) and a numerical sequence.

His search for Tanis brings Nic into government conspiracies, and leads him to a brainwashing cult. He is threatened and drugged, and yet, admirably, he continues his search for answers. He is driven on by the idea of one last mystery in the world.

Early on, Alex Reagan, host of The Black Tapes Podcast (another podcast I am hopelessly addicted to) begins reading journal entries, presumably written by someone on their way to Tanis. There is an element of cosmic horror to the entire podcast, but the horrors really come to life in these journal entries. The narrator loses track of who they are, and sees horrible things, including trees that bleed, impenetrable darkness during the day, and something they refer to as “the blur,” a sort of force that makes them forget who they are and where they are. These narrations, underscored by slow, dissonant chords, are undoubtedly one of the best parts of the show, especially for someone who loves their horror.

The season finale, uploaded last Wednesday, was as exciting and creepy as I’d come to expect from this fantastic podcast. Nic and his producers gave us listeners a wild, mind-bending plot-twist and set up the story for what will assuredly be a fantastic second season. Now comes the frustrating part of listening to a podcast: the waiting.

If you don’t think podcasts are your thing, it’s time to re-think. Try Tanis out, I guarantee you will be hooked.

Just another YA novel

The phrase “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” is total baloney. It’s not a secret that I love books. And I don’t just love them for the words inside. I find books aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, I am bound to pick up a book based on its cover. I like a nice font, pretty colors, loud patterns.

I’ve been steeped, lately, in the bookstagram community, a place where I see photo after photo of beautiful books. I have been particularly drawn, lately, to the Lunar chronicles, which were recommended to me years back.

I finally talked myself into reading ‘Cinder,’ the first book in the series after several people told me that I’d love it. In fact, I did have an affair with this popular YA novel, but I will say that “love” is not a word I would use in our relationship.

All things said, I can see why the series is popular. The story was certainly entertaining. It is easy to read, which makes it difficult to put down.

However, it was also difficult to get into. I wasn’t grabbed by it, or compelled. I saw the inevitable love story immediately (which, granted, I knew about going in), and I was unimpressed with the vague, futuristic world that had been created.

Going forward, I began to enjoy the characters more. I found myself sympathetic toward Prince Charming (a.k.a. Kai), and more supportive of Cinder’s stubborn will. Cinder, a cyborg servant in her step-mother’s home, plans to escape her life. Meanwhile, people are dying of a futuristic plague and she is somehow immune.  Even the mad scientist, a doctor named Erland who experiments on her, becomes almost endearing.

It is easy to get caught up in the story as it takes a few sudden, heart-wrenching turns. And the story really gets going when the Evil Queen (a.k.a. Queen Levana) enters the picture. She is the Queen of a race that has evolved on the moon. They are advanced to the point where they can control other people’s minds, and the vain queen uses her power to control an entire society too scared of her to rebel.

It is all around a good idea and a solid story. But it was also predictable. At one point, I noted “If this book surprises me, then I am going to be very surprised.”

Despite the beautiful cover, I wasn’t especially wowed by this book. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good YA read and a pretty cover. But I will, by no means, be recommending ‘Cinder’ as strongly as it was recommended to me.