First Post!

 Hello everyone, and welcome to my reader blog! My reader profile can be found here, where I introduce myself, my reading habits, and some recent works I've read and recommend!

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Burnt Sugar Annotated

 My next annotation, Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi , is up now! This is a relationship fiction novel, following the inner thoughts and actions of the main character, Antara, while she processes the trauma put upon her by her difficult and sometimes abusive mother, Tara. Tara feels equally resentful and spiteful of Antara, whom she has had in her singular care ever since abandoning her own arranged marriage, escaping to live in an ashram, then become homeless and dependent on her estranged husband and in-laws.  If I was desperate for any respite after the difficult read of The Wasp Factory , I found none here. Unlike Factory, however, I was enthralled by this book. I can't say I enjoyed my time with it, the novel is miserable and trauma-dumpy and I wanted to find my loved ones and give them a hug, but the way the constant internal and external conflicts are equally traumatic, empathetic, brutally honest, and sometimes humorous, was very compelling. I feel equally compressed and cl...
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The Island of Sea Women Annotated

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Separating Urban Ficiton and LGBTQ+ Fiction

If I were in a position of choosing between separating Urban Fiction and Queer Fiction from the rest of the general fiction section of the collection, my first instinct would be to reject the idea. Especially if it was prompted by patrons feeling "uncomfortable" about having these works housed in the general adult collection. This pressure does feel as though it is coming from a place of prejudice and segregation.  Urban Fiction may commonly contain overtly explicit themes, but these themes are also commonly found in other parts of the general fiction collection. Sexuality is prevalent in romance and relationship fiction. Visceral violence is easily found in detective and war fiction. These other genres are not separated from the general collection due to these themes, nor the identity of their authors, so we are left to wonder what exactly it is about urban fiction specifically that makes these patrons uncomfortable. And yes, the works are indeed fiction and not indicative o...
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