Up Up Up!

On the Come Up is the second book by Angie Thomas who wrote the amazing Hate U Give.  I loved HUG a LOT but I loved OTCU even more.  What a great, honest, original book.

Why?

I know there is no point in asking why we do horrible things to one another.  Human nature is prone to such horrors.  Ones that sicken us.  Horrors done to groups of people, horrors done to individuals.  The essays in Not That Bad:  Dispatches from Rape Culture show this to be true with each account.  It is edited by the incomparable Roxane Gay. 

I don't know how to comment on these stories.  Some of the writers say that they don't want to be called "brave" or a "survivor" and some don't want to hear that people are "sorry for what happened" but some do.  I want to respect that.  I want to just give to them as much respect as I can.  So all I can say is that I am very thankful for their words and willingness to share.  I simply want to offer to them all that is within me and that my heart and soul can give, as respectfully as I can.  I absolutely recommend this book.  

Good Stuff

Tomboy was a very good graphic novel.  I listened to it and read it.  And that seemed to work out really well! I wouldn't have wanted to do just one!  A very interesting and funny and well done graphic memoir.  Liz Prince is a pretty brilliant lady.  I can totally understand wanting to dress like a dude, I mean, they have it SO much easier!  (that's not why Prince didn't like "girlie" things, its just my personal feeling because I am lazy and I do hate spending so much time and money on nails and waxing and all of the rest--- but I do, slave to society!)  Anyway, very recommended.  And I think guys should read it, too.  And "girlie" girls and well, just all humans!

Gender Issues

The Underground Girls of Kabul:  In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan was one of those "no way" books, in that while I listened to it I found myself saying, "no way!"  a good many times.  And it got me thinking a lot and so I found myself having to go back and rewind and re-listen, but that was not because I found it uninteresting, on the contrary, it is a book that makes one think.  Here is the website for the book.  I read this book for the nonfiction book group that I am in and again it proved that just because one HAS to read something, it doesn't always mean it is terrible!  Very, very thought-provoking.

Symptomatic

I know two people who were born in the wrong bodies and have gender reassignment surgeries.  One was a man when I married him to his wife and now she and her wife are still, indeed married, for love for them is about hearts, not parts.  And both ladies are very happy.  So I am somewhat (a very little) informed about the struggles that go along with being transgendered.  I don't know much, or anything, really about being gender fluid, as Riley is in Symptoms of Being Human.  I am quite sure that gender fluidity has always been around, but there was no name for it.  And now people who are gender fluid can put a name to their feeling and share their feelings with others.  I hesitated when I wrote that last sentence.  I was going to put "suffering from" but then I thought, is it really "suffering?"  I don't know that answer, as I would think that some people "suffer" as a result of their gender fluidity and some people don't.  I, in no way, meant it to be disparaging.  It was just that in this book, Riley does seem to suffer.  Now, I don't know if that is because of Riley's concerns about society's treatment of him or her?  I mean, if the world were truly a loving place, then Riley wouldn't have to worry about whether or not today was a female day or a male day.  So I guess that the suffering comes from society's failure to love as Christ loves us.  So it isn't Riley's gender fluidity that is a "disease" or something from which Riley "suffers" it is because we refuse to love others.
Great book.  I learned a lot, too.

So I Never Knew..

that Iran has the highest number of gender confirmation surgeries in the world, next to Thailand.  I learned this in If You Could Be Mine.  It is told from the POV of a young Iranian girl who has been in love with her best friend since they were children.  Aside from the fact that her best friend is of a different social class, at least in the eyes of her friend's mother, who is very much a snob, and aside from the fact that many marriages are arranged, there is the other, really big fact that our main character is a girl and her best friend is also a girl. The main character, Sahar, is a smart kid, seventeen, studying her butt off, with hopes to become a doctor.  Her best friend, Nasrin is beautiful and carefree and her parents really hope for her to marry well and have lots of kids.

Nasrin gets engaged and still wants to love Sahar on the side, but Sahar won't do that.  She is desperate to be the one to marry Nasrin, so much so that she wants to have gender reassignment surgery.

In Iran, the government pays for at least half of the operation.  And since the Koran doesn't mention that an operation like this is a sin, it isn't a sin.  The transgendered person is seen as mentally  ill and the surgery is the cure.

Sara Farizan is an Iranian American and this is her first book.  I found it to be profoundly sad and real, yet hopeful. There is a lot to think about here.  I look forward to reading more from Farizan and  I would encourage folks to read this book, because I would love to discuss it.