Girl, Woman, Other. Chapter 2: Her Warring Thoughts

Chapter 2: Carole, Bummi, and LaTisha.

Fictional Carole's story caught me by surprise with its sort of duality—how it contained two things at war with each other in the same space— her privileged adult life with a pretty happy ending, loving mother and genuinely loving husband on one hand, and the violations she's endured, big and small, as an adult and as a child, and how hard she works to expunge thoughts that don't fit the life/ narrative she's built or simply don't serve her in it.

Like, for example, this section in which Carole is psyching herself up for an early morning meeting with a "new client based in Hong Kong whose net worth is multiple times the GDP of the world's poorest countries" but "can't help remembering all the little hurts":

---

   she can’t help thinking about the customs officers who pull her over when she’s jetting the world looking as brief-cased and be-suited as all the other business people sailing through customs – un-harassed

   oh to be one of the privileged of this world who take it for granted that it’s their right to surf the globe unhindered, unsuspected, respected

   damn, damn, damn, as the escalator goes up, up, up

   c’mon, delete all negative thoughts, Carole, release the past and look to the future with positivity and the lightness of a child unencumbered by emotional baggage

   life is an adventure to be embraced with an open mind and loving heart 

---

Also, that last sentence reminds me of another nice detail revealed just prior to this quote, that Carole's bookshelves are stacked with motivational books "ordered from America." She vows that the meeting will be "fan-bloody-tastic!" Just as the books say— "if you project a powerful person, you will attract respect." 

She's retrained her mind with these self-help books. Or she's trying to. But it seems like a constant fight to keep reality at bay. Carole's story isn't as dramatic as some of the others in Girl, Woman, Other, and she isn't always entirely sympathetic. But she seemed really human to me and not just because of her name. ;)

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Review: Girl, Woman, Other

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I truly loved it. I couldn't stop reading and stayed up late, then got up early to finish. The only challenge in writing a review is that my highlights aren't as useful as they usually are because I highlighted way too much (literally hundreds of paragraphs), seemingly almost everything because every line has meaning. For example, this passage on the indelible Amma:

Amma was shorter, with African hips and thighs perfect slave girl material one director told her when she walked into an audition for a play about Emancipation whereupon she walked right back out again

Girl, Woman, Other is many things: a brilliant social novel, heavy on well-observed, sharp societal commentary, but organically so, and never weighed down by it. Very specific in its characterizations and voice. A tapestry in verse. An engrossing, often witty, ensemble drama about Black British women of different backgrounds, sexuality, and social strata with some surprising formal anomalies like no periods and little capitalization. Those formal elements are partly responsible for creating Girl, Woman, Other's wonderful sense of lyricism. They also effectively mimic trains of thought and conversation. Eventually, though, they easily fade into the background.

One passage I loved in the first section, partly because it made me laugh, was when Yazz, the daughter of Amma, now a playwright/theatre director, and Roland, a professor/public intellectual, was mentally running through how she had won an argument with her Dad, taking him down a notch by questioning lofty position as "the country's first Professor of Modern Life." I enjoyed Yazz's loving intergenerational warfare with people who are used to being/thinking of themselves as the avant garde.

Dad didn’t reply
he wasn’t expecting this, the student outwitting the master (grasshopper rocks!)
I mean, how on earth can you be a Professor of Modern Life when your terms of reference are all male, and actually all-white (even when you’re not, she refrained from adding),

And I was moved by the interplay between Yazz and her uni friend Waris, who's from Somalia, which appears shortly after that, and the conversation with her white working class friend Courtney about relative privilege and context, which is an interesting counterpart to Yazz's triumph over Roland:

Yazz doesn’t know what to say, when did Court read Roxane Gay – who’s amaaaazing?
was this a student outwitting the master moment? #whitegirltrumpsblackgirl

Funny, poignant, ironic. Brilliant.

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Review: The Art of Theft

The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am a huge fan of the Lady Sherlock series. The way that Sherry Thomas weaves together an emotionally affecting and socially realistic mystery with solidly feminist sensibilities and social commentary is impressive and gratifying. With the first book especially, I felt the kind of well-being I get from books that feed my political and literary/aesthetic sensibilities at the same time. This, I keep thinking, is what political art and entertainment should feel like. Organic. Not didactic, but powerful. Showing, not just telling, but bold.

So I’ve loved this series for several reasons, but especially:
* The deft conceptualization of Lady Sherlock: Charlotte Holmes is a great character because she is challenging in a way that’s true to Sherlock Holmes, but appropriately adapted for the character’s different social position as a young gentlewoman, someone raised in privilege but wholly without power and so desperate for it she's willing to ruin herself to get it. Thomas does a great job of reinterpreting what it would mean to be someone like Sherlock, a genius, but also a woman in a sexist society, how one would have to navigate that differently than any other version of the Sherlock Holmes character. She reminds me a bit of the lead character in The Kiss Quotient —an analytical genius who is socially awkward, though not necessarily on the spectrum and living at a time before anyone ever heard of autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. But she does still have relatable desires even if she doesn’t need companionship in the same way as someone more neurologically typical.
* Charlotte’s relationship with Lord Ingram.
* The complexity of the female characters overall, especially Olivia who suffers from terrible social anxiety but is a talented writer and Mrs. Watson, a former actress/former mistress.
* Olivia’s relationship and potential career as a novelist and Sherlock Holmes documentarian.
* Both sisters’ relationships with Mrs. Watson, who’s also on the periphery of respectable society.

That said, on book three, The Hollow of Fear, I realized that I was starting to lose some steam as reader as stasis set in with regard to character development and relationship growth. With each book, the mysteries grow more grand and complex, while the characters barely change at all. The Art of a Theft is the fourth installment and that feeling has only strengthened. This time the mystery is very high stakes; it centers on a black mail scheme involving an international crime syndicate and a power struggle between India and British Colonial power. Meanwhile, our main characters are barely advancing at all. It seems like they’re wading through molasses and I’m stuck with them.

A reviewer on Goodreads remarked that the repeated references to Charlotte's dieting and restricted eating made her cringe. I can understand that, especially in light of her atypical personality and disregard for social convention, the way her size is referenced seems overdone. There is a practical component as Charlotte has noted, however, to her concerns about eating and appearance. She isn’t a wealthy woman; she doesn’t have the budget for a new wardrobe so exceeding a certain size would be a problem, and being considered conventionally attractive is an asset as she recognizes. But the refrain is a bit more prominent than I’d expect.

I find myself getting impatient with several aspects of the series as it unfolds: Charlotte’s self-deprecating mentions of approaching "maximum tolerable chins" is one. Her sister Olivia’s constant anxiety about anything new or different is another with little self-examination is another. Frankly she's making me nervous. Most concerning, the relationship between Charlotte and Lord Ingram is really kind of a mess, and not in an intriguing way.

Compared to book three, in the Art of Theft, the relationship between Charlotte and Lord Ingram may even be in retreat. The situation doesn't seem promising in relation to a happy ever after, but I'm not sure I’m still fully invested in that. Charlotte strikes me as someone who might truly not have conventional HEA type romantic desires if there was space to explore that. I’m not sure what her romantic and sexual identity might be to put it in modern terms. I’d like to hear more about what Charlotte secretly yearns for in her relationship with Ingram, what she misses living a celibate/single life, rather than just reading about what she doesn’t want from him when he engages the topic. It’s a very reactive situation for a dynamic woman.

Collectively, for me these elements symbolize a broader issue. Of course human beings are like this. They get stuck. They repeat the same frustrating behaviors day after day after year. But I’m having trouble discerning which attitudes and behaviors are learned, reflecting social pressure, and which stem from the individuals' true desires. How do I root for them when I don’t know what they actually want?

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Review: Accidentally Engaged

Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have a confession. I love food and romance but I don’t necessarily love foodie romance. Accidentally Engaged, however, was a joy to read. Some of the beats will feel really familiar— in particular the unwanted arranged or facilitated marriage that becomes a steamy love match— but it’s well executed and there are some unique details. Nadim and Reena fit for many reasons, not the least of which is their shared tensions and passions, the need to balance familial loyalty and rebellion, and their passionate love of food.

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Review: Better Than People

Better Than People by Roan Parrish
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When animal loving Jack breaks his leg and can no longer take his pets for the exercise they need, Simon, a man who craves four legged companionship, comes to the rescue. Soon they discover they have more in common than their love of pets. Simon and Jack are just the sweetest, softest and most heart warming pair you could spend an evening with, but both have real issues to work out. Simon has debilitating social anxiety, and Jack is an artist who no longer creates art and is having trouble sleeping in the wake of a work partner’s betrayal. But these two get along like a house on fire almost from the start. Together they work through some of their heaviest baggage, though the narrative makes clear that it's not a matter of trying to "fix" anyone. They love each other completely not in spite of any perceived faults, and they mourn each others' pain without trying to change who they are. There’s angst in the story, but overall there was fairly little stress for me in reading it, because these people are very good to each other, and they have loved ones who are good to them as well. The writing is emotional and evocative and beautifully done. This was exactly the steamy and emotional comfort read I craved.

One of my favorite scenes comes near the end. IT'S A SPOILER:
“Are you crying?” Simon said, instantly attentive. “What’s wrong?”
Jack shook his head.
“I’m so fucking in love with you.” He wiped his cheeks. “So when do you think you might wanna—”
“Now. I live here now.” He turned around the room, addressing the animals. “Pack! I live here now!”

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Review: The Cowboy Says I Do

The Cowboy Says I Do by Dylann Crush
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had the distinct pleasure of reviewing The Cowboy Says I do, Come Home to Deep River, and Paradise Cove for BookPage: https://bookpage.com/features/25476-s...

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Review: A Cowboy to Remember

A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rebekah Weatherspoon kicks off her new Black cowboy series with an inventive new take on the Sleeping beauty myth. A Cowboy to Remember blends small town romance, modern fairy tale, and second chance romance. The beauty in this case is Evie, a famous reality TV princess, her prince is a Black rancher from Charming, California, and of course, the witch is a ruthless and resentful reality show competitor. That all tracks. When Evie loses her memory after a terrible fall that is far from accidential, she returns to her chldhood home to recover, and childhood lovers fall for each other all over again.

I liked these characters, their family and friends, and their relationship a lot. The connection is honest and open, and I love the way these two people communicate with each other. The one issue I have is with the way Evie’s memory or lack of memory gets used as a wedge in her relationship with Zach. I’m generally a big fan of second chance romance when the circumstances that separated the lovers are beyond their control. In this case, though, it’s complicated. There is a lot of external interference and pressure, but Prince Charming also commits a whole host of errors.. Because Evie doesn’t remember anything from her past for the vast majority of the book, they don’t really get time to grapple with those past differences. So the relationship they forge is lovely and open and honest, but then it gets discounted and blown apart towards the end.

To me that structure was frustrating. It’s not the amnesia storyline that is the problem. It’s the execution of it— the almost completely all or nothing nature of the memory loss until a switch is flipped—that prevents them from working through what went wrong. Evie’s memory ultimately becomes a a device for delivering this one really dark moment when she finally has to reckon with the past

That issue aside, consider me thoroughly charmed. The bench of chararcter is deep, and this 21st century, media-savvy sleeping beauty retelling is a great foundation for a series. I’m really looking forward to the next one.
3.5 to 4 stars.

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Review: It Had to Be You

It Had to Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Love in the Time of Slick Willy, the Juice and the Donald.
This one was quite a throwback. Since this summer I've been making a conscious effort to better understand the genre I've been so engrossed by recently by reading some of the best known books in the romance canon, and It Had to Be You came highly recommended. It's one of Eloisa James's favorite books and appears on many best of all time lists. But reading It Had to Be You was an unsettling, frustrating experience for me. This pioneering, popular and well-received sports romance was published in 1994, the year of Nicole Brown-Simpson’s death, and former football superstar O.J. Simpson’s ill-fated low speed chase/attempt to evade arrest for killing her. It was also the second year of the Clinton presidency, two years before Monica Lewinsky burst into public consciousness, and, perhaps most important, just a few years after “Backlash” told of a powerful postfeminist reactionary political wave sweeping across America. That’s all to say it was a heady time, right on the cusp of some sort of transition in gender and racial politics.

So I should have been prepared for what a contemporary romance set in the testosterone heavy world of the NFL might look like in that time. It shouldn’t have been a huge surprise that the sexual politics made my head spin. And yet it still threw me for a bit— the gender dynamics aren’t pretty. Neither progressive nor fully reactionary, just deeply unsettling. It was an unsettling time. For all that’s wrong with 2019, this book made me incredibly happy that it’s not 1994 and that I could leave that world by closing the book. When I think about reading It Had to Be You I'm reminded of that terrible, scornful, old-school, Victorian set down— that someone is no better than they should be, meaning they're lacking but that's to be expected because of who they are or where they come from. This novel made me think its gender politics were awful and yet possibly realistic for the time, in other words, no better than they should be. The gender dynamics between the characters are too muddled and confused to be truly enlightening or thought-provoking, but they are unsettling. So maybe that's as it ought to be. Intentional or not, it was a terribly unsatisfying and muddled time for women. It Had to Be You certainly reflects that.

The heroine, Phoebe Somerville, is an heiress, a buxom “bimbo”, secretly celibate sex-bomb, and a kind and intelligent woman who craves the love she never had growing up. She’s also a rape survivor, who’s suffering from a great deal of trauma and tries to use her body and her sexuality as armor and as a tool of manipulation in every aspect of her life even as she feels ashamed of her body and uncomfortable and insecure about her sexuality.

When Phoebe inherits (with conditions of course) an NFL team from her horribly abusive, recently deceased father, she amps up the overt, outrageous sexuality and downplays her intelligence as she enters a new workplace dominated by men. She thinks she’s adapting to the way the world sees her and using her body and looks to her advantage, and it appears that we are supposed to understand that this is a workable strategy, but it’s also clear throughout that this strategy causes her great pain. It makes her hate herself and puts her continually at odds with her employees, other businesspeople, and her potential love interest who is also a colleague.

Is Phoebe's false sexual flamboyance and bravado a source of strength, shame, or success? Or all three? More to the point, why is this her only professional strategem? Phoebe’s choices are cringe-inducing. I found it very hard to keep reading at times. But then I questioned myself. Am I slut shaming this heroine, am I being prudish? Possibly. But I *really* don’t think so.

So the question remains: Why are bare cleavage and the sexual manipulation of men the predominant way that Phoebe uses her talents in business dealings until the very end? While she’s at it why does she not on her own at least learn something about the industry independently rather than solely relying on her burgeoning relationships with the men in her organization? And, above all, if it’s a smart strategy why is it such a continual source of pain? The workplace plot lines strained my belief in the character and the narrative as a whole.

In contrast, the love story and Phoebe’s reawakening after sexual trauma are handled incredibly well. The connection between Phoebe and Dan and how their physical relationship progresses is believable, specific, not at all cliched. Their relationship hinges on consent and trust as much as chemistry, and Phillips handles it beautifully.

It is hard to write a novel that is both sexy and gritty about social reality in that particular historical moment while avoiding being particularly political or preachy. That's a hard needle to thread with the social forces, hard choices, and traps women faced in a still hostile working world in the wake of the women’s movement. Phoebe is trying to succeed in, not just survive, an unjust situation and system. That is inherently political. It Had to Be You seems to want to be on the side of gender equality but in a not idealistic, not too orthodox, not too feminist way.

But the problem with the way Phoebe's written transcends gender politics. It's more fundamental than that. People say and do disrespectful, humiliating things to Phoebe; Phoebe says and does humiliating things to herself. And that lasts pretty much throughout the book in terms of her professional persona even though she grows in her personal life. Self-objectification and playing dumb are her favorite business strategies. And that's the contradiction I couldn't quite believe. Quirks and imperfection are human. Phoebe is human and therefore an imperfect heroine. Plus, all women struggle with self definition in a world that values and condemns female sexuality, but I'm unconvinced that she would choose to be imperfect in this particularly sexually exploitative, self-sabotaging way for this long in her professional life. I don’t buy that it would have gotten her the positive results she’d need to want to stick to that strategy for well over a decade. These choices make the book no better than it should be.

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Review: Nobody's Baby But Mine

Nobody's Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is the second novel that I’ve read by contemporary romance legend Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and I’m finding it even harder to tolerate than the last. The first book in the series was frustrating because it felt twisted and unrealistic in how it depicted/distorted sexism in the workplace. This book might be worse. It portrays offenses against bodily autonomy and consent in a flippant ways— as though it's bad form but nothing one should hold a real grudge over. It enrages me not because it's “politically incorrect,” which appears to be Susan Elizabeth’s brand—she even uses the term in the text, and the story centers on a baby-hungry career woman who manipulates a celebrity athlete into impregnating her (how edgy). That’s bad enough, but the real issue is that she heaps abuse on this man. Making her a heroine after that manages to be aggressively anti-feminist (a woman wanting to have a baby on her own is portrayed as crazy, misguided and selfish).

Jane, the putative heroine of sorts, is a socially awkward physicist and former child scientific prodigy with a ticking biological clock, Cal the hero/victim an aging NFL quarterback. She decides to have a baby with him by any means necessary, consent be damned. The central premise, a woman chooses a man to father her child based on his perceived lack of intelligence is ridiculously condescending. Jane, condescends to her lover. The book condescends to its readers and women who've apparently lost their way in the modern world.

The way Jane goes about it also makes the sexual acts themselves into abuse. Jane coerces Cal while he repeatedly rebuffs her advances. And when he tries to engage her in the act so that it’s more mutual and enjoyable, she rebuffs him, making the sex humiliating for him. Even though that’s not her aim, that is clearly the effect. It doesn’t matter that she is just protecting herself. She’s using him as a tool and that is the definition of exploitation. This could be a negative case study in moral philosophy.

This made me think about a moral reasoning class I took as an undergraduate. What stood out most was Kant's concept of the categorical imperative.

Kant's formulation of humanity, the second section of the Categorical Imperative, states that as an end in itself humans are required never to treat others merely as a means to an end, but always, additionally, as ends in themselves.

This entire premise is that Jane uses Cal Bonner as a means to an end, which is bad enough, but even as she is doing that she does nothing to minimize the harm she inflicts on him. That’s why this drives me crazy. She says she’s driven to do this by wanting a baby so badly, and the fact that the baby needs to have genes that run counter to her own for its own good, so that the child won’t suffer the outsider status and social isolation she did. No matter how faulty that logic is at least it’s genuine. But she could still have tried to find someone to participate in this of their own free will.

Making matters far worse, it wouldn’t cost her anything but her own neuroses to treat Cal as a full human being during the process. And that, the sexual humiliation and insult she heaps on Cal during their two initial encounters plus the harm she does him by making him feel he’s potentially doing harm to her during the acts, that’s gratuitous. This is not a trivial harm. And yet somehow she’s still ultimately painted as a cute and quirky heroine.

This is not cute. Forced reproduction isn't funny. In another novel, this would be the key act that defines the villain (see Long Shot for one example).

The fact that I really haven't seen any critique of the forced procreation and sexual humiliation in this book compounds my disturbance with this book. As a feminist (and as a human being), my concern about someone being denied bodily autonomy is not something I take on and throw off at will depending on the identity of the victim.

The bottom line? Nobody’s Baby But Mine makes Jane into a heroine, abuser and the object of scorn at the same time. Why take a social phenomenon— career woman wants to have a baby on her own— and distort is this far from reality in this ugly a way? Is it just because that makes for good conflict and conflict means drama, equals compelling storytelling? Or is there an attempt to discredit the social phenomenon? Or do they just not see it that way? Does women doing grotesque things to men really not seem grotesque to Phillips and her fans?

Other issue: Casual racism. Not a fan!
When she learns Cal isn't the dim bulb she assumed he was just because he's an athlete, Jane worried their child will be freakishly smart and not fit in like she did growing up. Her solution: She’s going to move to a "primitive" part of Africa to keep her child away from people. Seriously:

She couldn’t let that happen. She’d die before she’d permit her child to suffer as she’d suffered. She’d move away! She’d take the baby to Africa, some remote and primitive part of the continent. She’d educate the child herself so that her precious little one would never know the cruelty of other children.

Because of course there are no people who count in "remote and primitive" Africa. That's it. I'm done here.

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Review: Heart and Hand

Heart and Hand by Rebel Carter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Heart and Hand by Rebel Carter is a lot of fun and a little confounding. It's a quick read, kind of crazy interracial romance set in the old West twenty years after the civil war. Rather than straight historical romance I'd say we need a more specific subcategory to appreciate this book. It's not quite alt-history as it doesn't delve into alternate events so call it historical fantasy maybe. Not fantasy in the sense of things that defy the laws of nature but rather the story is grounded in a social reality that strongly defies the American history we know.

First, our feisty heroine Julie is a light brown-skinned biracial New York socialite/heiress descended from the blissfully happy marriage of American aristocracy and Spanish royalty on one side and enslaved people on the other. There are hints of friction about that but not much. Her racial background is generally (though not entirely-- it's confusing at times) inconsequential to her social standing in this version of New York society:

By all accounts, Julie and Julian were happy, well-respected, and considered the cream of society by the social pages. It was hard for them not to be with their striking looks: all tawny skin, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and curly dark hair.

Nonetheless, Julie yearns for freedom and independence. In her brother’s words:

You’re a few heads removed from the Spanish throne. How much more free should you like to be, Julie Anne?”

So Julie has her debut in New York society but decides it's not for her and instead becomes a mail order bride to two men in Montana (Forrest and Will). No one back home knows about the polyamory part, but given her family’s exalted social stature, her move west is a really big deal nonetheless:

Her departure had been an absolute circus. New Yorkers of all walks of life, employ, and station eagerly speculated as to why the Baptiste heiress had chosen to trade a life of luxury and comfort for the frontier.

This only underscores the alt-historical unrealty of the narrative. Again, Julie’s race doesn’t play into it. This is like a Vanderbilt eloping to Wyoming with a rancher.

The three get married in a lawful wedding attended and supported by the whole town, and Julie takes both her husbands' last names. Racism is just really not a thing at work there in Montana as well. The key issue is that Julie has two hubbies. And honestly almost everyone is alright with that too.

The anachronisms don't end there, but the surprising thing for me was I really didn't care. The characters are compelling and incredibly sweet. Will and Forrest have distinctive personalities and relationships with Julie and a lovely bond with each other. Even the grumpy one, Will, is a cinnamon roll at heart. I like the way they love her. And there's just enough internal tension and angst over the unusual nature of the triad within the relationship to make it interesting.

Realism aside, there are other elements though that could have been stronger. Julie's work as a teacher and relationship with her students is a little sketchy/shaky despite the enthusiasm she expresses about it at the start— it’s one of the reasons she wanted this life so that seems like an oversight or shortcut. More importantly, one thing I'd say for writers if you're going to make people fall in love through letters, show your work! We readers love a good epistolary romance. And the letters are what sells it—I want to see the relationship develop and what made them fall in love long distance. There's just a single instance of that here. I wanted more.

The biggest issue though is Julie’s romantic rival for one of the men. It definitely enhances the drama and difficulty for the newly marrieds, but there are aspects of the characterization that are troubling in a problematic rather than juicy way.

Overall, despite or more likely because it’s divorced from reality, Heart and Hand is a very surprising, very fun read if you're open to it. It worked for me. I have rarely wanted to talk about a book I consider a light read as much as I wanted to talk about this one.

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