Friday Miscellany: Link Soup

[naomi_jay]

In lieu of actual contant because I am tired, here's some interesting/fun/self-promo stuff I've found this week.

First up, Bastard Books reviews DEMONISED. I really enjoy Bastard's reviews as they always give me something to think about. But I really, really enjoy this review because he says:

"The book is quite twisted, has plenty of disturbing scenes, some that I'm sure won't sit well with more sensitive readers. Some are just plain gross."

"Just plain gross" may go on my business cards from now on.

Over at seanan_mcguire's livejournal, I found a couple of interesting articles; one on rape culture in YA, looking particularly at Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, a book I've been toying with buying for some time now. Now I've read the article, I think it would make me pretty furious, so I'm sticking with James Ellroy for now (because all that racism and sexism is much more tolerable coming from a man...Oh wait...)

The other article is about the recent trend of dead girls on YA book covers (or as I'd been thinking of it "girls in inappropriate dresses in the woods," because really? That's what you wear to go hiking?). There's a lot of subtext to unpack here and I'm not up for it right now, but suffice to say, the glamorisation of death is a big topic and you can pull in a lot of Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet for starters), and even classics from the Romantic era (when romance meant "adventure and fantasy" rather than "relationships" in literary terms), like Wuthering Heights and Tess of the D'urbervilles. Incidentally, Kit Whitfield has a great article on how people misremember Wuthering Heights here. 

And now something fun (for me,anyway). Despite being a massive AFI fangirl, I had managed to remain ignorant of Davey and Jade's side project, Blaqk Audio. How? Why? I don't know. But now I've discovered them and fallen wildly in love with Davey's voice all over again. So this is my weekend soundtrack. Enjoy!

Comments

[out-totheblack.livejournal.com]

Huh. Very interesting.

"Just plain gross" No one would ever forget you ;)

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Now I have to top that with the next in the series!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for the link on the trend of dead girls on YA covers.

I'll trade you this massive author meltdown. It's...something.

ETA: helps if I HTML right *headdesk*

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just...wow. And the comment thread...