Titans Vol. 3: A Judas Among Us by Dan Abnett

My rating: 3/5 stars

This volume was..okay

Volume 2. left off with HIVE stealing Karen (Bumblebee’s) memories. In this volume, the Titans’ efforts to bring down HIVE to retrieve those memories, results in a discovery that something much bigger and dangerous than HIVE is coming.

As always, the teamwork and friendship between these guys is amazing. I thought the clue about who “judas” would be was pretty obvious, but the revelation was still pretty surprising but at the same time underwhelming?

“Don’t die anymore, okay” – Nightwing to Wally. HA. I’m still laughing. If you know, you know.

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

My rating: 4/5 stars

“Sometimes I wonder if people don’t want freedom as much as they want meaning.” 

Wow. This book was a. lot. I don’t know if anything I attempt to write would be coherent. I feel like Zadie Smith encompasses so many topics of conversation/ideas in this one story. I feel this story is complete and incomplete at the same time. I feel the interpretation of the characters in this book can vary wildly depending on who is reading it.

Speaking of varying interpretations, I found the POV of our narrator (who manages to remain nameless btw) very interesting. Our narrator, recounts her life experience as a POC from childhood to her present middle aged self. There are so many times where Smith does a wonderful job of depicting the complexity of existing as a poc in a society where you are considered a minority. It’s amazing seeing how difficult it can be to navigate coming to terms with your own skin colour – your perception of what it means, your perception of what you’re perceived as, your perception of what it automatically determines you can and cannot do in life. Navigating, the complexity in deciding how to react… (again it’s so hard for me to explain this coherently).

But essentially, through the primary women of colour in this book: our narrator, our narrators mom, our narrator’s closest childhood friend (Tracy) – you see the different ways they decide to live their lives. How there isn’t one right way to be a black woman and regardless of how you decide to be a black woman, the numerous way you can be criticized for it. Even by your own self, your own community.

For example, here’s a situation I found ironic:

“She was still asleep when Tracey left for school and not home when she got back She’d found some work finally, I think she was cleaning an office block somewhere, but my mother and the other mothers disapproved of her employment almost as much as they had disapproved of her unemployment. Before she has been a “bad influence”, now she was “never home”.”

Here our narrator is describing how her own mom is criticizing Tracey’s mom (a fellow black woman). I found this so ironic because Tracey’s mom is essentially being criticized for working too much and neglecting her daughter but our narrator’s mom does the exact same thing except she doesn’t realize she is neglecting her daughter because she somehow views herself on a higher pedestal because her own time is spent reading educational journals and dipping her feet into activism & local political issues.

At the end of the day, there are so many take aways from this book, I couldn’t possibly begin to dive into it all. But this truly was a compelling read!

Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks

My rating: 3/5 stars

Pretty much everything you’d expect from a Nicholas Sparks Story. A brief intense romance; threatened or ended by long distance; an eventual reunion & evidence of an unbreakable bond.

I don’t often read Nicholas Sparks’s books but I do enjoy the movie adaptations of his work. This one didn’t quite tug at my heartstrings but it was still a nice read nonetheless.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

My rating: 3/5 stars

The Bell Jar follows the story of a brilliant young woman named Esther trying to figure out her path in life. Plath does a phenomenal job of putting the reader right in Esther’s mind and we experience her deteriorating Mental Health along the way. Esther was also an unintentionally funny, peculiar and inquisitive character.

One thing I can say for certain is that Sylvia Plath was definitely ahead of her time. This is shown through Esther’s disdain for the patriarchy in general which is pretty evident throughout the whole book. For example, her take on marriage at the time:

“It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling about in my night-gown and curlers after he’d left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he’d expect a big dinner, and I’d spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted….

This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A’s.”

Overall, a fascinating read. I can see why it’s a classic but something about the pacing didn’t work for me.