Well, my slump is still lasting but so far I've read 4 things since I last updated you.
The first was Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger. This is an indigenous story of a young girl who can raise ghosts and owns a ghost dog. She finds out her cousin was murdered and tries to solve the mystery with the help of other supernatural beings. This was really engaging and I read it very quickly. I gave it 4 stars and am keen to pick up other books of hers in the future.
Then my library hold of the graphic memoir Times I Knew I Was Gay by Eleanor Crews came in. This is a simply drawn story about the author realizing she was a lesbian and the multiple times she had to come to that realization. It was enjoyable but I felt it didn't offer any real insight or depth of story and the art was nothing special. I gave it 3 stars.
After that I read a copy of The New York Times Review magazine for the Read Harder Challenge. This had multiple essays in it about culture, books, politics, social justice, and art. I enjoyed a few but many were a slog to get through. I gave it 2 stars.
Lastly, I finished The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline. It was a sad historical fiction about women who were sentenced to "transport" and exiled in Australia as a result of their crime. However, many of these women were guilty of being poor, being different, or being weak. There was also a separate thread of an Aboriginal girl who was taken from her family and the English family who tried to turn her from "savage" to "civilized young woman." These stories were later entwined. Overall, a heartbreaking story but with hope and resiliency. I gave it 4 stars.
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