And they lived happily ever after...?

I have some mixed feelings about Malinda Lo's Ash, the Cinderella-esque book I read this week.  I'm trying to convince myself that just because I don't like a book doesn't mean that it's not a good book.  I think perhaps if I were a 12 year old lesbian with an extreme interest in fairies and fairy lore, this book would be a must read.  But I'm not.

Ash is the story of Ash (go figure), an orphaned girl who is seduced by the fairy king and tempted to join his world, when she falls in love with a mortal woman, Kaisa, the king's huntress.  The story is loosely based on the Cinderella fairy tale.  And I do mean loosely, the major parallel being that both of Ash's parents have passed away leaving her to be raised by her stepmother who treats her as a servant.  I have two real qualms with this book, the first being the extraneous amount of original fairy tales that Lo has included.  The characters in this book are constantly sharing stories with each other about the fairy kingdom and different mortals who have been affected by it.  Again, if I was really interested in fairies maybe I would feel differently, but as it is I felt like all of these stories were unrelated and instead of adding to the richness of the story, I felt they just distracted from it.  My second qualm was with the book's ending.  Lo spends a decent amount of time building up the book's major conflict and I felt the way it was resolved at the end was a cop-out.

All of this being said, I think it is AWESOME that there exists some lesbian fiction for young adults.  I know that this book does not stand alone in this genre but I do think Lo has gone somewhere no one else has, drawing together both lesbian fiction and fantasy.  Though I mentioned this is not something that really strikes my fancy, I will bet money on the fact that many a young lesbian would indeed be very interested in the fairy/fantasy world that Lo has created here. 

Quick Facts
Pages: 272
Most quotable passage: "Ash felt her entire body move toward her, as if every aspect of her being was reorienting itself to this woman, and they could not be close enough."
Sexiness Factor (1-10): 2- It's for pre-teens!
Buy It or Borrow It: Unless you are that 12 year old fantasy lover I've been referring to, borrow it.

I'm hoping to review Lo's second book Huntress soonish while this one is still fresh in my mind!

An Oldie but a Goodie

So I decided to start this thing off with a "timeless classic".  I just recently finished reading The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall.  I was a bit apprehensive about reading this book because I've never really been a fan of reading the classics.  But before I was ten pages in I knew this was not going to be the gruesome task I feared. 

Hall's book tells the story of Stephen Gordon, an English socialite at the turn of the twentieth century.  We watch Stephen grow up, fall in love and have her heart broken.  But more importantly we are with her as she ultimately discovers herself.  There is something incredibly realistic about Stephen's coming out to herself, to her mother and to the world at large.  I guess one would expect this realness since the book is loosely based on Hall's own life. 

There were some parts towards the beginning of the book that I found to be a little slow moving.  Apparently Stephen's first love in life is the house and grounds where she grew up.  Hall uses up just a few too many pages depicting the estate and Stephen's passion for it for my liking.  There were a few times in the first 100 pages or so that I found myself wishing we would just get to the lesbian parts already!  But once Stephen starts to come of age and come to terms with herself things picked up.

I do have to say that I was not a huge fan of the way the book ended.  Without giving away too many details here I will say that I understand why what happened "had" to happen, but that doesn't mean I liked it.  I was actually quite disappointed.  But overall I genuinely enjoyed this book and I do think it should be a must read for every literary lesbian.

Quick Facts
Pages: 441
Most quotable passage: "If our love is a sin, then Heaven must be full of such tender and selfless sinning as ours."
Sexiness factor (1-10): 5- Kissing and cuddling is as far as it goes.
Buy It or Borrow It: It's a staple and a great addition to any lesbian book collection.  Buy it.

The Beginning

I love books.  And I love ladies. And I love ladies who love books.  And books about ladies who love ladies.  Are you confused yet?  I've set a personal goal for myself to read every piece of lesbian literature that has been published.  I know this is a huge endeavor but it's one I'm willing to take on and I have been making quite a bit of progress in recent months.  But what brings me to the world of blogging is my incessant need to share every lesbian book I read, whether I love it, hate it or am unaffected.  I'm starting to get the feeling that my girlfriend, though remaining ever attentive, is starting to grow tired of listening to me ramble about my endless literary discoveries.  So I decided to try my hand at blogging.  Here I can spew out all of my feelings, opinions, inspirations and qualms and my lady can go about her business un-harassed.  And as an extra added bonus perhaps some unsuspecting lesbians will stumble upon this blog and benefit from my findings.