Willow's Reviews & Thoughts

I'm somewhat ambivalent about Yumeiro Patissiere. While it's like watching Iron Cheft meets Boarding School Adventures plus Fairies with some (so far,) slow paced romance and is enjoyable that way. I wince every-time one of the girls calls the other fat, or a girl decides she needs to be on a diet. I hate that it's expected culture, apparently in both the US and Japan (and who knows where else these days) for weight concern to be a major thing among girls. Especially when these girls are drawn so damn THIN. And the one woman we see who is heavier, while married, nothing is sad about her weight or if baking treats and sweets contributed to it. So then it was 'untouchable' ? But not when it's (english sub says at least) 13 year olds? Though even given that highschoolers often get pushed down to middleschool, with college goers pushed down to highschool, it's still teenage girls with the self conscious worry about weight threading through their lives.

Another thing I'm disliking? After episode upon episode of the main character being treated, hmm, not quite as an equal because she doesn't have the training, but as a contemporary and fellow student and a teammate - I'm very wincy at the idea of some Italian fellow making bets about 'making her his gf' when winning a challenge. For that matter, I cringe a lot at one girl throwing herself over and over and over again at one boy - like a never ending tide. Despite the fact said boy doesn't like her, doesn't like to be touched by her and while I cannot remember him saying no outloud, the fact that I have to search my mind for that at all, brings up more and more the gender reversal scenario of 'She didn't say no, so she must have liked it'. **shudder**

It's also grring to realize the protagonist (female - the main character) seems to have no skills whatsoever in claiming her personal space or autonomy with said Italian. Damnit, I enjoy the show, but this learned helplessness thing... Her being open and honest and forgiving of when people cheat her - at least she gets called airheaded for it. But the inability to smack someone's hand away? I am aware of cultural differences involved and yet it is still so painfully, invasively annoying. I guess because it ends up reading like one of the bars trying to lock women in 'performance of proper femininity'.

But all that aside, binding friendships, people cooking, and faeries that aren't annoying - for 63 episodes!

PS: Yes, the laugh IS very. very. very. very. annoying. Also the American.

PPS: There is a moment that mentions accessibility that damn near won me over despite all that seemingly approved cultural stalking and molestation.

PPPS: To anyone else who may have watched this? Selfish man is SELFISH.

A few nights ago, (a week maybe), I finally got to watch, from beginning to end, the 2000 mini series - Arabian Nights. I had only ever seen parts here and there, with the end result of being intrigued. As the years have passed, I was further intrigued. I remembered Aladdin's story was Asian. It is not often someone retells it as an Asian (Chinese) tale, it is usually Persian or Turkish or Arabian. Just that alone excited me, when I finally got the dvd in my hands.

But note I did not immediately post full of WHEE. There are some things I dislike about it. Some are quasi minor irritations - like pop culture references. Others are casting decisions and how things played out. I believe the female lead is Israeli born. But many characters were white and from the UK; British, in one case Welsh - and thus all were in 'brown face'. The sets and crew and technicians and costumers were all from Turkey, however.

( Spoilers )

Was not intended for me.

It's the second book in a series but it's the one the library got to me first, so I picked it up yesterday. I thought, yarn, knitting, the supernatural and it's supposedly also 'cozy mystery'.

I reached page 2 of chapter 2 and that was pushing it. I utterly hated it. And I sat there at the bus stop and I started wondering about the whole 'black & brown children don't read' and I realized if I got as agitated, depressed, angry etc as a small child at so constantly not seeing myself in books or anything like my experience WITHOUT it being pain porn, poor porn, ghetto glam porn and the like? I probably would have ended up not being a reader. If books hold no promise, why spend time?

Anyway, the book lost me (pg 2, chpt 2) when the male pov said something along the lines of 'I never expected to fall for a tall skinny blonde'. At which point I started laughing right there in the bus stop, like someone who's a little unhinged. Cause statistically given all the supernatural mysteries and wanna be thrillers out there? I'd say his expectations should have been damn high. Heck, given what's on tv, it's actively PROMOTED that what a white man should want is a skinny tall blonde. So wtf is with the surprise? What? Cause she knits? That's oooh so subculture, exotic, avant garde, different?

But that was just the straw that broke the camel's back. The rest of the haypile was an entire chapter where this pov female character talks about how her ENTIRE TOWN thought she was hopeless because she was in her thirties, unmarried and without a child. And apparently in the first book, finding a man, or having some sexin' activates her magical powers. And I really couldn't stand that whole blatant 'life doesn't begin until Prince Charming Shows Up'. But it got worse, it was all this telling about magical love and yes, I suppose if one read the first book there might have been showing there. But there wasn't any showing here. There was a whole lot of lackluster lust - apparently if you say the word kinky and use blindfolds for any reasons, as a reader (female reader?) the underwear should already be moist.

The real weight of my displeasure came from the first chapter having the supposed protagonist with the point of view of now she'd caught the man, she wanted to trap him, overwhelm him, manipulate him into staying in her little town with her for a while longer. But she wasn't going to TALK to him about it. She was going to sex him, and make woo eyes, and try to let the environment and surroundings seduce him, but NOT talk to him. The entire town has a vested interest in this man, because of a position in the town he's currenly holding and could continue to hold if things work out right, if he decides he wants to stay - but SHE isn't TALKING TO HIM, because she doesn't want the bubble to pop and everything is so perfect the way it is.

How the hell is everything so PERFECT if you can't talk to the man, because then things might be RUINED. Perfect doesn't come with IMPENDING RUIN. It just doesn't.

So we have 'life doesn't begin until the man' and 'important things are happening but we won't discuss it - he should just know' and then there was the fetishizing. And ok, I admit it is novel that someone's getting all rubber knees over a human male, but fetishizing is STILL fetishizing; his human warmth, his mortal blood... geeze. And it gets creepier when she's thinking about his normal mortal family who have normal mortal expectations for him, and how if he stays with her, he won't have any of that.

I'm not certain how he won't have happiness they could appreciate for him just because he moves from a big city to a small town. After all they don't know anything about the supernatural or what dangers he might face. But moving away from family is this huge traumatic thing? In America? When in this case his family isn't more than a 4-6 hour drive, 1 hour plane ride away? Really? So that's creating a problem that doesn't really exist for sake of drama. And I just...

Eh.

That's too much for me to have to accept AND nothing but white people.

I'd be happier if there hadn't been invasion of the non-scary vampires in YA. Cause sticking to YA for the past year has meant crisper storytelling and less reliance on blanket tropes.

"x is like the Imelda Marcos of dresses"

This, plus a non First Nations individual clutching her medicine bundle, vs protection pouch, satchel, whatever. I can't make myself continue to read. I realize that others can push aside such things; the daily micro aggressions. But life is too short. I'd rather read stuff that doesn't hurt and offend me - support writers doing it right.

On the plus side (maybe), I'm just skipping right along through the possibilities. Though I'm getting nearer to avoiding white writers all together.

PS: Given that the gimmick in this mystery is vintage clothes and I was glazing over descriptions of clothing pieces, colour, fit and other fashion hoo has - I was already giving it a chance.

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

Not a good book. Not a good book at all.

As I said in my private journal, I have a finely tuned hair trigger against the minimization of trauma. When G.W.Bush was telling the country after 9/11 to go on as if nothing had happened, I got incredibly pissed off. It took therapy to help me realize why. And yet I took three or four attempts at this book, unable to understand why I just couldn't sink into it.

The writing of itself is not pedantic. This is ok prose. And the setting and premise while somewhat cliche hinted at new possibilities of storytelling. So it took me a while to realize why I wasn't biting.

( Spoilers here )

I watched this series on Veoh and fell in absolute love. And I have to laugh at myself because originally somewhere around the 4th or 5th episode I caught a hard sudden dislike because the non-active protagonist (male/Souta) was doing some very cliche things.

I was watching in a very young state of mind and got frustrated that it seemed as if the audience was being talked down to. After all how many times does someone have to be told that the people around them are there to protect them but DON'T go rushing into danger? How old does someone have to be to get that concept?

About two episodes later I realized that two things had confused me. The main one was that the male character had very much been given a "female" role. And I usually accept that particular stupidity in female characters; running into trouble without any plan or power to really help. It was very enlightening to realize that while it annoys me in female characters I've an easier time accepting the impulse because women and girls are supposed to care so much that it blots out rational thought.

But leading into that was the realization that that the character himself didn't realize everything that was going on around him even if I as a viewer did. It seemed obvious to me, but I was never an ordinary 10-13yr old. Looking at his actions as confusion, determination and friend loyalty as appropriate to his age helped smooth out the only true rough patch I ended up having. And I was glad that I was so intrigued by the storyline and world building that I kept watching.

Like I said I watched the fan translation online. The dvds don't seem available via Amazon. I'm unsure if this is a wait and see thing or what. But I know when I can afford it, it'll be in my top three must buy series. Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty kick some serious tail in this and the music is really wonderful.

PS: The second best thing about this series was knowing the fairy-tales and legends so knowing and understanding the characters at a deeper level.

These are the old Stravagana by Mary Hoffman book covers.

   

You can see The New Stravaganza Covers at the link. I sincerely don't like them. Putting faces on the covers takes away my ability to shape the world she describes to my own satisfaction. Moreover I feel like something magical is quite, quite lost.

The old covers spoke of Italy but not Italy. They helped me fall in love with Talia, a world of secrets and intrigues and magic and heroes and heroines.

I have no doubt the new covers are meant to capitalize on the Twilight Movie and the hope that young teen readers will see these covers and be drawn to another world about teenagers and magical happenings. But now I regret not having had the money to buy the books with the old covers when I had a chance.

I don't want to see white faces on the covers. I don't want the protagonists' looks spelled out plainly by photography. The world building in these books is a fine craftsmanship. It builds upon Italian history and geography. I learned about real aspects of Italy even as I became engrossed in the plot of this other Italy, the magical Talia.

The faces on the covers are far too modern. They take away from the secondary characters who help make the books what they are.

I'm going to refresh my memory and then come back and write up reviews for the first three books in the series.

I believe a friend, ephemera.livejournal.com, had read and liked this novel. I so far have not. I've borrowed the audio version, as I've discovered that books I want to read but which I may be currently unable to read (but still able to comprehend) are best via audio. I listened to chapter 1 and I think if I'd been reading it I'd have stopped before the chapter even finished.

The pace is horrible. It's the end of the chapter and all I know is that there's a Wizard with secrets who practices magic and a bunch of stuffy others who only deal with theory and out of those stuffed pots two who have hunted the sneaky wizard down. That's it. I don't know how magic is viewed by the populace. I don't know how it contributed to the growth of the Empire. I don't have a clue why people stopped using it, or if it happened all at once or not.

I understand what happened to magic is part of the mystery of the book and yet I'm not bloody well intrigued at all. The book's just page after page of We're Quirkily Old School British But About Magic, Don't You Love Our Gentleman's Club. And the my reply is a resounding no.

In my eyes it's a very watery (thrice used tea bag) version of The Bartimaeus Trilogy.

[originally posted in my Posterous on June 30th]