bluebyrd-bookreviews

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

Here is my small piece of advice/plea for for the future for y'all for today, and I may be lightly skirting an NDA to say it, so please listen:

If you can, buy physical books.

I work in publishing and I'm scared about what the election results are going to mean for the future of books by and about marginalized people, especially books for children. There are a lot of things you can do by trying to get involved locally, especially to mobilize against book bans and laws targeting libraries and schools. Voting with your wallet is still an extremely important tactic, because we're going to be hit with economic issues re: diverse books before we get hit with legal ones. But my immediate concern is what might happen with e-books.

It's already a known problem that if you "buy" a book on Kindle or another e-reader, that you're essentially renting it from that retailer, and if that retailer decides to remove that book, they can wipe it from your device. We also know that servers can be shut down. Content policies can change. It could get very difficult to find a copy of the files to pirate, much less to purchase.

But you can't delete a physical book from the world.

Physical books are about to become very important repositories. Collect them, if you can. Go to library sales. Go to thrift stores. Go to your local bookstore -- and bonus point here: independent bookstores are and will be great hubs for organizing in the coming days. Hell, I'd even encourage you to go through Amazon to send a message that these books are still financially viable. Lord knows the latter doesn't want to advertise them to you.

I know (I know) that physical books are expensive and getting more so. I know space is at a premium in a world where we're being pushed to live in smaller and smaller apartments with more and more roommates. But if there's a book that was important to you, and if it's a book you think a bigot wouldn't want to exist in the world, I urge you to get your hands on a physical copy of that book. If nothing else, to preserve it for the next generation.

ALL of us can be librarians. ALL of us can be archivists. ALL of us can work together to preserve marginalized voices, and to ensure that they are heard.

I love you. Keep fighting. We're in this together.

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

I think some people forget that some literature and some media is meant to be deeply uncomfortable and unsettling. It's meant to make you have a very visceral reaction to it. If you genuinely can't handle these stories then you are under no obligation to consume them but acting as if they have no purpose or as if people don't have a right to tell these stories, stories that often relate to the darkest or most disturbing parts of life, then you should do some introspection.

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

"we need less sanitized queer stories" yall keep saying fucking she-ra romanticizes abuse. you couldnt possibly handle less sanitized queer stories

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

one of the funniest things you can do is vagueblog about a book you hated and what you specifically found objectionable and inevitably someone will be like “op you should read [the very book you’re complaining about], it handles this soooo well” no lad it does not

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

Okay, but that moment in Return to Oz when the Nome King uses "There's no place like home" as a temptation/taunt and the moral of the MGM film is turned on its head by a figure trying to curtail a child's sense of identity and selfhood and (echoing Dr. Worley) make her "normal"...

...that moment when we see Dorothy reflecting with Fairuza Balk's extraordinarily expressive eyes...

...and then with no hesitation turning from him, swallowing, and with a face of plucky resolve moving forward into the cavern to save her friends anyway...

...saying, without words, "No, they matter. Oz matters. I matter," to the Nome King and the echo of Dr. Worley reflected in him...

...as the cave closes behind her and swallows the screen in blackness...

...is unironically one of the most powerful moments in cinematic history.

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

Lovely people of tumblr, if I may speak with my librarian hat* on for a moment:

If you are in the US, you may be aware that librarians are Going Through It because some malicious people believe in fascism and have decided to make that our problem. Whether you are in the US or not, there is something you can do to help your local librarians out:**

Say something nice to us.

You can post on social media and tag your library, you can find the library’s main phone number and call, you can go in person, you can send a card (we display cards in our break room)! I guarantee you that you will make the day of the person you talk to, we will immediately go tell all our colleagues how lovely you were, and you will help us live to love and fight another day.

*it is a fetching piece of millinery in purple silk

**I propose we make this an international group project. Whether your librarians are going through it or not, we all appreciate a kind word.

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

Just thought to myself "can't women have a bad time in fiction without rape being involved" which really shows you how much you're in the fucking trenches if you are both a horror fan and women fan

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

i find it so interesting how people act like "critically examining a piece of media" is the opposite of "enjoying that piece of media." rip to you but i actually find it really enjoyable and compelling to dissect and think through the art i engage with

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

publishing companies will be like ~ooh this is a hardcover oooh it's so durable that will be $35~ and then you see the actual book and it's like. "perfect"-bound with endbands glued on crooked and a completely plain paper cover under the dust jacket. my dudes this shit is a mass market paperback with delusions of grandeur

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

i’m the person who puts politics into art. every work of art (every movie, book, tv show, video game, etc) is created apolitically and then they hire me as a consultant to put politics in. and then i put in the politics, and then it is published with the politics in it. and everyone just has to suffer because it makes me money.

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

everything has political content. sorry. theres some guys who get really really angy when you say this but its true

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

directors using colorful or "impossible" lighting to convey mood and meaning and beauty my beloved. directors making night scenes impossible to see for the sake of realism my beloathed.

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

reading and watching “classic” books and films is such an interesting experience because, before you get into them, when you only know them by name and maybe the vaguest plot outline, they’re intimidating and stuffy and up on a pedestal, but then you finally take the leap and check them out and realize that almost every story that’s achieved such a legendary level of popularity did so because something in its emotional core reached out and grabbed a lot of people by the throat and you are NOT immune.

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

look i think a lot of booktok smut is silly and there's stuff to criticize for sure but oh my god i am so tired of reviewers who are Shocked and Traumatized by the fact that a smut book involves a kink they don't have or lines that sound weird. yeah its fucking porn. omgggg this erotic book for adult women features breeding kink? the love interest gets called daddy? should we get you a fainting couch? should we call the pope

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

"The magic system is never fully explained" yeah that's how life works. Imagine having a story set in modern day America and the characters have several pages of exposition on combustion engines and telecommunication networks before we get to the plot

[bluebyrd-bookreviews]

The author's blatant fetish. The one you picked this book up for. Because you also have that fetish.