258: Here And Now And Then

Synopsis

To save his daughter, he’ll go anywhere—and any-when…

Kin Stewart is an everyday family man: working in I.T., trying to keep the spark in his marriage, and struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, Miranda. But his current life is a far cry from his previous career as a time-traveling secret agent from 2142.

Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin has kept his past hidden from everyone around him, despite the increasing blackouts and memory loss affecting his time-traveler’s brain. Until one afternoon, his “rescue” team arrives—eighteen years too late.

Their mission: return Kin to 2142 where he’s only been gone weeks, not years, and where another family is waiting for him. A family he can’t remember.

Torn between two lives, Kin is desperate for a way to stay connected to both. But when his best efforts threaten to destroy the agency and even history itself, his daughter’s very existence is at risk. It’ll take one final trip across time to save Miranda—even if it means breaking all the rules of time travel in the process.

(I won this arc on goodreads from Mirabooks)

The Good

Started already with him being stranded for years

Part of me did feel emotions throughout this so that  is something

The Bad

my prediction from the prologue:  it was going to be mediocre my reader senses be tingling.

So not to replicate this book I am going to keep it simple these are the three main problems:

I- No depth and the characters are flat= this is the number one problem because  if the world was rounded all the rest of the problems would not exist/be so much of a deal. Also, for a story that is very much about family the characters and their relationships have to be written well.

II-Story is very tell (or summary as I described it in my goodreads updates) it was like being constantly above scenes instead of in the scenes.

III-Repetitive = repeats the same things over and over. There is really nothing to this story other than what is on the synopsis.

The Meh

Not enough shown of the 2142 world.  Overall, this story was okay so I do not have a lot to say.

(synopsis and cover image are from goodreads)

Link Up & Sync Up: Coffee Do Me A Favor & Into White

So without thinking about it I started the Korean drama, Coffee Do Me A Favor, around the time of Into White this is significant because they have a similar premise.

The difference between race vs weight, American vs Korean society are noted  but I went into this more focusing on how the trope of supernaturally changing appearance to societal standard is handled.

When It Was Good

A. Like how it dealt with the change better than Into White 🍵

• nameless god is used instead of known deity
• story takes change out of her hands so its less messy/absurd (at the beginning)
• did not (at first) directly pray to be skinny
• time limit of coffee allowed Seul Bi, main character, to be seen throughout drama (and get some laughs and some tension)

love interest obviously liked her before change unlike Into White….

Majority of the characters liked her before the change

B. The drama is more comedic and less serious. I like that there was an ease to it because it’s a fun/cute contemporary.

It had funny moments, cute moments, unique characters

When Things Were Bad

A. It is hard, I think, to not reinforce stereotypes/negative things when this change to skinny/white/more societal acceptable story basis is used. That is probably my biggest takeaway from these stories (also I have watched the Japanese drama Switched which I did not take notes on but it deals with a similar premise to this too)

B. Somewhere it seemed like the writer(s) had their hands on the wheel but at some point it went off

1. going from event to event without feeling like there is a story structure
2. I could see/feel moments when the story would subtlety reinforce fatphobia
3. Part of me feels like this drama was treated like a switched body/identity story for a large part of it. If they just tweaked a couple of plot points I think it could have been fixed for better.

Spoilers: Time to talk about specific plot points

Ways it goes against empowerment message

The way the drama framed it Seul Bi aspired to be a comic artist to be close to lead guy not for herself

Seul Bi seemed desperate for lead guy like she would have let go of herself to be with him

Why are we seeing less of our main character in her original body? At the beginning of the drama we got to see interaction with the lead guy and Seul Bi but over time we started seeing only Go Woon. We started seeing Seul Bi get zero romantic progression. Why is our main lead guy seemingly not worried about our lead woman at all?

acknowledge their pain- have to heal some pain be it fatphobia or racial that makes someone voluntarily cling to this premise.  They tried to deal with these issues in last two episodes instead of doing it as the story was going on.

The actresses acting wasn’t similar so lead guy falling in love with Seul Bi personality did not feel like it happened (also, can we get past this idea of love the person for their inside. On the surface this sounds good but is used in weird ways to basically reinsert beauty standards still.) (Liked Seul Bi actress better on personal note because I think she sold the comedic moments better)

Other Thoughts

At this point I just want both women (be it race or weight) to just have cute contemporaries without darkness. I don’t want either group to be represented only when things go wrong or to teach a lesson.

I think even further I have gotten away from realistic contemporary and stories with heavy topics because a lot of them are not handled well enough so I leave the experience feeling like I have to counteract all the negative reinforcement/negativity. What bothers me is I feel so many stories unconsciously reinforce things on the subject they are trying to be progressive with.

Also, I don’t want anymore stories that disappoint and make me mad.

Links

260: Into White Review

Library Checkout Reviews: The Belles

Coffee Do Me A Favor

Switched

(image from mydramalist)

 

260: Into White

Synopsis

When a black teenager prays to be white and her wish comes true, her journey of self-discovery takes shocking–and often hilarious–twists and turns in this debut that people are sure to talk about.

LaToya Williams lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and attends a mostly white high school. She’s so low on the social ladder that even the other black kids disrespect her. Only her older brother, Alex, believes in her. At least, until a higher power answers her only prayer–to be “anything but black.” And voila! She wakes up with blond hair, blue eyes, and lily white skin. And then the real fun begins . . .

Randi Pink’s debut dares to explore provocative territory. One thing’s for sure–people will talk about this book.

Review

 Of course my first blacklist book is a bad review, of course.

A. I will say first that there was good here but because of B-G…this was bad.

B. Absurdity- the first thing that hits you is the very absurdness of everything

C. Antiblackness- I get the point and purpose of the antiblackness but you gotta have a heavy fight to counteract all of that for this to be the black empowerment story its supposed to be.

D. Heavy handily- There was a lot (too much) about blackness, feminism, and more that should have been tabled so the few topics dealt with could have been developed more. Also, it was heavy-handed.

E. Poor editing- Who is the team behind this book? To put everything out there (and get this off my chest because this ain’t the first and won’t be the last rant about this) I feel like a bunch of white editors/production team couldn’t tell what to cut or how to talk about race adequately so they had the author out here bald. At this point I get the impression people think talking about any amount of race even if it is regurgitating negativity is progressive, it’s not.

F. Few interesting statements- there were few and very far between good moments which is why I feel a better editor could have pulled it out and shaped the book to be its best.

G. Poorly structured- again, not a bad writer but she needed someone to craft her work to its full potential

(the synopsis and cover image are from goodreads)

Library Checkout Reviews: The Poet X & Forest of Thousand Lanterns

The Poet X

by Elizabeth Acevedo

+almost cried a lot~ raw, tough moments

+sexual curvy brown teen girl

+ faith~ shows the negative side of  what certain religions have done (sexism) especially for black and brown girls (who are both seen as inherently more sexual from the jump than girls of other races)

+so many good poems

+narrator (Elizabeth Acevedo) brought story to life

+toxic masculinity but also still disappointment of not being protected

 

Forest of A Thousand Lanterns

by Julie C. Dao

(finally finished since this was my first finished book of 2018)

+Feminism commentary (beauty=power/value, ownership people have over girls)

+Xifeng~ is dimensional (good & bad)

+Mythology~the fantasy prevalent which is always a plus for me (if you are fantasy I want to see it), the fantasy felt well thought out (again, with the always but always looking for worlds that feel full and interesting to explore)

-I don’t feel that it was emphasized by people pushing the novel that it was court intrigue so I was annoyed by that when I read it (I don’t know if it is that big of a deal now)

It felt at times like court intrigue without intrigue and foe who is worthy to step toe to toe with main character

-There was some obviousness that I caught onto even though I missed most of the Snow White references

 

(images are from goodreads)