Category Archives: books

When I was in grade 6, my homeroom teacher read the class a book that I think set me on the path of dystopian fiction fascination that persists to this day. The book was The Girl Who Owned a City, written by O.T. Nelson, and I have such vivid recollections of the story and the characters that I don’t even have to go to the Wikipedia page to give you the full synopsis, honestly. I won’t bore you with all the details (there are a lot, and I remember them ALL) and you can look it up if you like, but the basic premise is that a virus comes along killing everyone over the age of 12 – twelve! – and the kids are left to survive on their own.

In the story, Lisa, the main character is such a smart, badass girl, and I think the reason I continue to love this book so much is that I was around the same age as Lisa when Miss Budge read it to our class, and, at the time, I totally identified with her. I too had a little brother! I for sure was as smart as her! I could save my friends/the world too! Let a virus kill all the adults! I GOT this.

Except…I really don’t. As much as I am an excellent person to have around in a crisis, I would probably be the worst person to have around during some sort of global pandemic. Supplies? Well, um let’s hit the sushi bar at Fortinos, I guess? Looting? Hell yes, head to Sephora and get allllll the lipsticks! I mean really. I am not a survivalist AT ALL.

So I think this is why I love me some dystopian fiction, especially the kind written by and starring smart, badass women. Women who KNOW that you need water filtration stuff to survive. Women who understand First Aid and what to take from an outdoorsy kind of store so that you don’t die in the first three days. And it just so happens that I read two excellent examples just recently.

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison* follows the story of The Midwife, who manages to survive a deadly plague that kills most of the women and children of the world, and makes pregnancy and childbirth highly dangerous for both the woman and her baby. As a result, women are highly prized commodities, and you can imagine how that goes with men in charge. She journals her experiences as she travels often alone, occasionally with others, making camp and finding places to live and to offer her nursing/midwifery skills, attempting to keep herself and other women as safe as possible. The entire novel is fantastic, the characters are diverse and extremely well drawn, and I devoured the book within a couple of days. 10/10 for exciting survival skills tactics, I think this is one book I should probably keep on hand for the coming apocalypse so I can use it as a guide. What would The Midwife do?

Future Home of the Living God by Lousie Erdrich* has a different take on the end of the world, but Erdrich’s apocalypse is somehow creepier. In this story, evolution is reversing, and there is nothing science can do to stop it. 26-year old Cedar Songmaker is pregnant and on the run from the government – or whatever it’s called now – that is imprisoning pregnant women, often turned in by neighbours or family members. As is the case in times of crisis, little is known and what is known can’t always be trusted.

Erdrich has created a terrifying world, and like a lot of end-of-the-world fiction, it doesn’t even seem too far-fetched. Such is the state of our own world while we watch species vanish from the planet, while rights – reproductive and other – are being stripped (from women especially) and while resources continue to be depleted without a second thought from those in power.

It’s doubtful that these novels were written and intended to be survivalist manuals, but there you have it! As much as I am drawn into the story and the characters and their plight, there is a part of me that will always be excited for the “trip to the sporting goods store” scene in any apocalyptic fiction. Stocking up on weapons, (I can actually clean, load, and fire a rifle, so maybe I’m not so useless after all?) sleeping bags, water purification tablets and all that will always hold a special place in my heart, thanks to Miss Budge and her excellent choice of novel for our grade 6 class, nearly 40 years ago. She must have known what was coming.

*Meg Elison’s book was on Roxane Gay’s Tumblr as one of the best books she read last year, and Louise Erdrich’s was highlighted by Kate Harding in an article she wrote for Electric Literature. Your favourite authors can be great sources for book recommendations and what to read next!

Obviously, it had to happen. I had to compile a list of my favourite books from this year. This wasn’t my best reading year, I’ll admit that right from the start. And by best I mean most books read. Quality-wise it was a pretty great reading year, but by midnight, I will likely have 37 books under my belt, just short of my goal of 40. But it’s ok! Because what I lacked in reading, I made up for in actual writing, and I am feeling pretty good about that.

I’m dividing my top books into three areas: Goodreads 5-star books, Honourable mentions – mostly 4-stars, and faves from the gritLIT Festival. I feel this is the only fair way to do it. So. Here we go.

Top Books from 2017: 5-Stars, baby

1. Hunger by Roxane Gay. I will read anything this woman writes, and I know I am not alone in that. This book was incredible. Everyone should read it.
2. Brother by David Chariandy. Another stunner, and how it got left off the Giller Prize shortlist I will never know.
3. The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble. I wrote a rather incoherent review of that book here, and I stand by my incoherence, but it is a hell of a book.
4. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. This book made a lot of “best of” lists by people I follow, and that makes me really happy because it is so heartbreakingly excellent and gorgeously written. It remains with me pretty much daily, and I suspect it will for months to come.
5. The Break by Katherena Vermette. Also beautiful, also heartwrenching. Also one I tell everyone I meet that they should read.

Honourable Mentions: 4-Stars (mostly)

1. The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill extracted all of the emotions from me for nearly 300 pages and left me flayed and sobbing on the bus at the end, and that is my kind of book, friends.
2. History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund. This was a slow burn for sure. Sparse and mysterious, and a real page-turner.
3. Bearskin Diary by Carol Daniels. Blunt and raw, Daniels tells a powerful story of one victim of the Sixties Scoop, and her lifelong struggle of belonging.
4. Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali. Also a story of belonging, this time through the eyes of a Muslim teen as she navigates faith, life, love and high school. This is a terrible sentence that makes the book sound light and fluffy, but trust me, it’s excellent. Really well-written and Ali gives great depth to these subjects and to her characters.
5. The Prisoner and the Chaplain by Michelle Berry. Kind of a mystery, kind of a thriller, an intense and gripping story of a murderer in his final 12 hours on death row.

Faves from gritLIT Festival: Books I loved from authors I got to meet/hear read.

1. Even This Page is White by Vivek Shraya. Definitely a highlight from the festival weekend. Shraya’s reading/performance was incredible and her book is outstanding.
2. Heyday by Marnie Woodrow. An understated gem of a novel with themes of love and loss that I think more people need to know about.
3. Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety by Ann Y.K. Choi. This novel might fool you into thinking it’s a light, coming-of-age story, but that just scratches the surface, honestly. Such a lovely, multilayered book.
4. Mitzi Bytes by Kerry Clare also gives you the initial impression that it’s a fun, sort-of-mystery – and it is, but Clare digs deeper into themes of women’s friendships, and the self we reveal – or don’t reveal – to the world.
5. I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid. Holy shit this book. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read before, and one of those novels that when you read the last page you immediately want to start over again to see where if you can figure out what the hell is starting to happen. At least that was my experience. A really intense thriller.

So there it is, 15 books that meant a lot to me this year. Lots of fiction, for sure. I seem to alternate between fiction years and non-fiction years, and for a lot of reasons, this was a true fiction year for me.

And I noticed that in many of the books I read this year, including some that aren’t listed here, the theme of belonging, of fitting in, and finding your place and your space in the world came up nearly constantly. I mean nearly every book on my lists here has the main character trying to find his or her (mostly her) place in the world, for better or for worse. Coincidence? Maybe. Perhaps it was just that kind of year. Or perhaps that’s what good fiction shows us; characters looking to fit in, to find who they are and what they want. Like most of us, I guess.

Happy New Year! Here’s hoping 2018 is not an actual trash fire like this year was. Say it with me: Less Trash, More Fire. Because we all could use a little more fire.

After a bit of a reading drought (this is going to seem funny shortly, drought) I recently read Margaret Drabble’s excellent The Dark Flood Rises. The title makes it sound a bit like a disaster novel. It isn’t. What it is, is a nearly perfectly crafted novel, a perfectly told story, and when I finished it, I had planned to write a nice tidy review of it here on my blog. So I made some notes. What follows are the notes I quickly jotted down. I had originally planned to go back to them, to clean them up, to flesh them out, to make them, you know, readable. But rereading them tonight, I have decided to leave them as is. So here you go:

Margaret Drabble has written one hell of a book.

This is a treatise on ageing, on family, on the rise of the so-called grey tsunami (a tidal wave, more water) and the what on earth are we going to do with all these old people. On life and love and friendships and facing down your own mortality, as well as the mortality of others. The treatment of the elderly. Where will we be when death takes us, how will we go, surely not in a car wreck, but more pleasantly in bed. After a fall. Who is to know.

Themes of age, themes of water. So much water. An incredible cast of seemingly unrelated yet rather related characters living in varying degrees of opulence, with eccentricities, with faith or not, with intellect or not.

Every story is tragic, yet hopeful. Everyone is longing for something, trying to recapture something. Drabble’s characters are full and rich and intriguing. They are everyone.

Idk does this make you want to read this book?

But sometimes raw is better. I stared at these words for an hour or so, and I couldn’t rearrange them into anything else, honestly. The bottom line is that Margaret Drabble really has written one hell of a book. It’s pretty much all you need to know.

If you would like more information – or, you know, actual information – about this book, get at me. I will probably just demand that you read it.