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Banned Book Week

Sonia Lal10 Comments

Banned Books Week starts today and goes on until October 1, 2011.

I decided I should honor it by reading one. There are probably some in my TBR list anyway and I won’t have to break my rule of no more books until the TBR list is in single digits.

I started by looking up lists of banned books and discovered the American Library Association (ALA) has some excellent lists. They keep track of this stuff.

For 2010 the top banned/challenged books are:

  1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
    Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
  2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
    Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
  3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
    Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit
  4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
    Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit
  5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
    Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
  6. Lush, by Natasha Friend
    Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
  7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
    Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
  8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
    Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint
  9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
    Reasons:  homosexuality and sexually explicit
  10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
    Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence

I’ve not read Revolutionary Voices or And Tango Makes Three, but they were banned/challenged because of homosexuality. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I mean, there was a recent furor over agents rejecting books because of gay characters. In this day and age, when people are still trying ban/challenge books because of  homosexuality, it’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

I’ve only read three of these books: Brave New World, The Hunger Games and Twilight.

I can kind of understand of Brave New World and The Hunger Games. I don’t agree with it, but I can kind of understand it. A little. Brave New World’s use of science is pretty scary, not that it’s cited as a reason, but I imagine that’s why someone would ban/challenge it. The Hunger Games are pretty violent, but it fits the book and I am not sure I agree it’s “unsuited to age group”.

But Twilight? Seriously? What’s there to object to in Twilight? I don’t like Twilight, mind, but what about the religious viewpoint and violence? It’s not even that violent. And the religious viewpoint thing is pretty out there. I don’t get it. I really don’t get it. Maybe someone can explain it to me?

Also, for this past decade, from 2000-2009, the top banned/challenged book is the Harry Potter series. I look at that and laugh. It makes less sense than objecting to Twilight (which at least has vampires. Even if they are sparkly.) Harry Potter has the classic fantasy quest thing going on, some of the best world building around, great characters. How can anyone object to it?

Also, I still haven’t decided on a banned book to read, but 1984 appears on the ALA’s list of banned and challenged classics. Should be good.

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Book Review · fantasy · reading

Book Review: Twilight’s Dawn

Sonia Lal1 Comment

Twilight’s Dawn is the latest in the black jewels series. Twilight’s Dawn is not stand alone,  but I don’t think it was supposed to be. It is an anthology and it has four stories: Winsol Gifts, Shades of Honor, Family and The High Lord’s Daughter. Fair warning, there are lots of spoilers.

They are all good, but Shades of Honor is probably my favorite. For one thing, it answers the question raised in another Black Jewels book: what did Falonar do? Well, it turns out Falonar is a perfect ass. He’s not totally without honor (if he was, Janelle would’ve known) but he has a very different interpretation of honor from Lucivar. I think Lucivar should have killed him, but the death Daemon gave him is probably better. Lucivar would’ve given him a cleaner death. Second, I really loved Rainier here. He enters a new phase of his life. I, personally, would love to see a whole novel about him. Third, I liked the glimpse into Eyrien society.

The High Lord’s Daughter probably caused the most furor in the blog-sphere. I don’t get it. I really don’t get why people are upset. Jaenelle dies. But she was always going to die. And she was going to die before her first century, because (1) she is from the short-lived races and (2) the short-lived races die before their 100th birthday. That was stated from the first, and Anne Bishop is too good a writer to finagle a way around her own words.

Another reason a lot of people got upset is that Surreal married Daemon. This surprised me, but I went with it. Okay, so she’s not the great love of Daemon’s life, but Jaenelle is dead and he deserves better than to be alone. Surreal deserves better than to be alone, too, and most men are wary of being with her forever and ever (because is a mixture of long and short lived races, and she said no man wants that for his children).

The best thing about this story is their daughter, Jaenelle Saetien, and the fact that she is also dreams made flesh.

Plus, the black jewels books are not romances and I can’t say I ever really expected a happy ever after for the characters.

Winsol Gifts is a sweet story, but a little disappointing. Best part is when Daemon realizes Tersa is both his and Lucivar’s mother. It is worth reading for that alone. But the ending is disappointing because it seems incomplete. I mean, Daemon gets a present from his father and can’t open it because it is locked and he doesn’t have the key. I really want to know: what present did Daemon get? It’s driving me crazy.

Family is good, too. Mostly because Jaenelle goes back to being a Queen.

A lot of people think this is the last book in the series, but I disagree. There are decades between Family and The High Lord’s Daughter. There have to be lots of stories in that time period. And there is Rainer. He lives and dies and that story hasn’t been told, either. Besides, as important as Jaenelle as to this series, there are other characters (The Invisible Ring doesn’t include Jaenelle at all!) Ms. Bishop can write stories about any of them.

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