The Sunday Post #408

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The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. It’s hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

The Sunday Post 

On The Blog Recently

• Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books I Want To Read
• Quarter Year Reading Check In
• Let's Build A Nonfiction Reading List Tag
• Teenage Favorite Stephen King Books
• Tier Ranking My Year In Nonfiction

In My Reading Life

Last week, I read Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. I really liked this novel. It's bold.

It's about two young authors, Juniper Haywood and Athena Liu. Athena is extremely successful, and Juniper is . . . not. After Athena dies unexpectedly, Juniper steals her friend's unfinished book and publishes it as her own. The stolen book is about Chinese laborers during WWI. Athena is Chinese. Juniper is not. The publishing industry gives Juniper an ethically ambiguous rebranding to make the book seem authentic.

Then Book Twitter gets involved, and Juniper's secrets are exposed for all the internet to see.

(I guess Twitter is called X now. I don't care. Twitter is the only thing I'll deadname.)

I like this book because it feels risky. I don't think it has mass appeal. It was written for a very specific target audience. It's for the rabid book fans who participated in discussions on Twitter between 2015 and 2020. Were you on Twitter during that time? I was! There was a new publishing-related scandal every day. If you couldn't keep up with the scandals, and you accidentally said something wrong, you'd get a public shaming. It was a wild time to be a book blogger.

There's tension in Yellowface, but there's very little action. Most of the novel is Juniper and Book Twitter reacting to each other's behavior. Everybody is annoying and awful. It really captures the publishing/Twitter vibe at the time.

I enjoyed this book because it took a lot of bravery to write. The themes are controversial. The characters are all terrible humans. No lessons are learned at the end. I'm giving it five stars for the sheer audacity.

In The Rest Of My Life

What's been happening?

1. If you celebrated, I hope you had an epic Halloween! Brooklyn was a Pokémon.

2. It's Nonfiction November. Every Monday this month, I'll be posting about nonfiction books. If you need nonfiction content for your blog, feel free to answer the questions in my nonfiction tag.

3. My other website, About The Horses In The Room, is getting a makeover. I apologize if you subscribe to that one via email and got a billion emails about new posts. That was me breaking everything. The makeover should be finished in the next 10ish days.

4. Speaking of makeovers, I'd like to give this site a makeover, but I have zero ideas. Do you follow any blogs that are aesthetically pleasing? Share links with me because I need inspiration.

5. US midterm elections. If you're exhausted by the subject, please skip this part. I won't be offended. I'm exhausted too.

Let's talk election results. I live in Lauren Boebert's district on the Colorado plains. It's an extremely Republican area, so I assumed she'd win reelection, even though she's an embarrassment. Seriously, there are chimpanzees at the zoo who behave better in public than Lauren Boebert. I'm writing this on Saturday morning, and right now, Boebert's race is too close to call. She's losing by 3,000 votes. There are still 14,000 votes left to count. There's a very real possibility that she'll lose. Then I won't have to cringe at her anymore.

I'm also happy that Victor Marx lost the race for Colorado governor. The people in my neighborhood love that guy, but he only got 33% of the state's vote. You should Google Victor Marx. He's basically a real-life South Park character.

I was excited to hear that Sam Forstag was elected in Montana. He's a former federal wildland firefighter. He seems to understand the immense pressure that backcountry first responders have been experiencing over the last few years. Hopefully he has ideas for how to help.

Do you think the tariffs will go away next year? Is that a possibility? I'm confused about tariffs. I prefer to get all my non-essential items from small businesses. The majority of my clothes and household doodads come from independent artists or small companies that I found online. A few of my favorite artists are in Canada. Right now, there's a 50% (I think?) tariff on Canadian imports, which means the small companies are either refusing to ship products to the US, or they're charging US customers 50% more for their products. I can't afford to pay 50% more. Also, I'm lazy. I don't need a new hoodie or a custom-framed art print badly enough to find a US company that makes similar products. I'll just live without the products.

So . . . I guess I don't understand who tariffs are helping. Why do we have them? Can they go away in January?

Watch me be confused about more stuff

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Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other. See you around the blogosphere!