Review: Fashioning Teenagers

Fashioning Teenagers by Kelley Massoni

When I was what is technically considered a teenage girl, I was far too busy reading fanfiction, scheming to get my hands on Velvet Goldmine, and being a femmephobic little terror to even realize what mainstream teenage culture was. In my understanding, it was something to do with Saved By the Bell, which I couldn’t watch without my mother darkly muttering about how it gave my brother unrealistic expectations of high school. It’s both a blessing and a curse: I never felt like I was chained to a script, but mostly because I had no idea that the script existed. Thus, I was pretty blind to Seventeen magazine until I read an article that cited this book, which pointed out both Seventeen’s age and its origin story as a women’s service magazine. I had to investigate.

The Literary Horizon: American Sweethearts

American Sweethearts: Teenage Girls in Twentieth-Century Popular Culture by Ilana Nash

Review: The Art of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Art of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull

Of my various stupid human tricks (lactose intolerance, short hamstrings, that thing where I can bend my thumb behind my hand…), I’m usually most fond of my browsing sense. An urge to get up and go browse somewhere usually means that there’s gold in them there hills (hills being, of course, thrift stores, libraries, and, occasionally, curbs), and I often return with, say, a copy of The Cake Doctor or a Wonder Woman t-shirt from my adventures. Such an urge gripped me while at the library for the Jessica Hagy event, and, afterwards, I meandered upstairs to find a copy of The Art of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, one of my long-shot books to read, just lying there in the new books. Oh yeah.

Review: We Killed

We Killed by Yael Kohen

I was disappointed with Bridesmaids. When I finally watched after hearing all the hype about how this was the film that proved female comedies could work, I was underwhelmed. It’s still an important milestone in that it proved to both studios and a wide audience that women could carry a Judd Apatow comedy, but I wished it had been proven with a earthshakingly hilarious film instead of this. But perhaps I should be more disappointed in a culture that had to have it proved that women could be funny (and in a way anointed by Apatow). I mean, I’m part of an all-lady MST3K-style comedy troupe that brings me to tears every Thursday night. As Yael Kohen says in the introduction to this book, “Women have always been funny. It’s just that every success is called an exception and every failure an example of the rule” (5).

The Literary Horizon: Voodoo Histories

Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch

Review: My Ideal Bookshelf

My Ideal Bookshelf by Jane Mount and Thessaly La Force

Every bibliophile knows the surreptitious joy of peeking at other people’s well-curated bookshelves. (Curation is important: haphazard piles of dusty books make me sad, unless I’m a potential buyer.) The books that are so important to you they stay with you move after move, culling after culling… those are the ones you can count the rings on your soul with. This is exactly what artist Jane Mount was tapping into when she started the Ideal Bookshelf Project in 2007, painting people’s idealized bookshelves. The spectacularly named Thessaly La Force joined forces with her and added interviews to Mount’s pieces, resulting in My Ideal Bookshelf.

The Literary Horizon: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman

Review: Bitchfest

Bitchfest edited by Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler

I don’t remember the moment I became a feminist. Presumably, it occurred around the point my mother determined that I would not be raised in the Catholic Church and didn’t come up with an alternative, so I would have been negative a few months old. Of course, being an itty bitty ace feminist didn’t stop me from being alarmingly femmephobic throughout my adolescence, but I like to think that my feminism is in a constant state of evolution. Even so, my formerly impervious pop culture bubble didn’t particularly allow me access to magazines like Bitch or Bust, but there’s no time like the present to catch up, especially when they just go ahead and publish a greatest hits collection. Merci!

The Literary Horizon: Gasping for Airtime

Gasping for Airtime by Jay Mohr

Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles — Art & Design

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles — Art & Design by Daniel Falconer

Is that not one of the most unwieldy titles I’ve had to format for the blog or what? As a fantasy fan reared on video games, I consider myself fairly immune to convoluted titling, but this, I think, takes the cake, with two subsections. Yeesh. Anyway, the book itself. Despite my sighs over The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Jackson’s Middle-Earth remains a large part of my internal landscape, so I was touched to my core when my awesome friend Natalya presented me with this amazing gift for Christmas. (Also: Natalya totally needs to get a blog, so all the world may come marvel at her amazing insights into film.)