emmareads2020

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of My Heart

Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s Stonewall Award Winning novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a tender novel exploring the deep friendship between the two aforementioned titular characters. Aristotle Mendoza, nicknamed Ari, befriends Dante Quintana the summer he turns fifteen. Dante has all of the softness that Ari lacks, and all of the openness that Ari is missing from his secretive family. After a feat of heroism, Ari cements himself in Dante’s life, and in Dante’s heart. The novel explores the importance of close male friendships, and the importance of dismantling the idea of toxic masculinity through the freedom to be vulnerable. The novel also artfully navigates the age where children stop seeing their parents as the ultimate authority, and start seeing them as fallible human beings. We get to see both boys find themselves, and find their voices within their families, and within themselves. Sáenz beautifully explores themes of masculinity, sexuality, love, family secrets, and cultural acceptance throughout the novel.

Sáenz’s novel artfully explores what it means to explore one’s sexuality, in both heteronormative ways, and within the queer community. I myself was drawn to the way Ari and Dante both explore their own sexualities within both constructs, as well as the way the novel brilliantly avoids harmful tropes you normally see within media that contains queer characters. Specifically the emphasis on supportive parents, and parents who either have a healthy relationship with their children, or work towards having a healthy relationship with their children is incredibly refreshing to see within Young Adult Literature. The novel really is a positive powerhouse within Young Adult Literature, and within Queer Literature. 

I cannot rave about this novel enough. The relationship between the boys is so honest and real, and the character voices are so lifelike, that it drew me in instantly. My connection to Ari was so strong, and not just because we share the same birthday. (August 30th for anyone interested.) I am so used to reading literature meant for the Queer Community but not written by queer authors so seeing a gay author writing a gay story really made the story stronger. Ari’s voice was so strong throughout the novel that I picked up on his feelings for Dante long before he did, though I was in for the emotional ride with him. Like Ari, my family is often shut off from each other (though not the extent his is) and my mother is very religious, so when his mother showed her support for his Aunt Ophelia, who lived happily with her female lover, I got incredibly excited because the acceptance was everything I ever wanted for myself. I discovered my bisexuality in high school, so both boy’s exploration really brought me back to my own moments of discovery (though I was a lot more like Ari in that the realization hit me later, and I was much less confident in it than Dante was.) This book will always have a place in my heart and for that I have to give it 5 stars. Honestly it was perfection in written form.

[emmareads2020]

Week Seven

I would love to be able to say that the English major healed through writing but unfortunately that wasn’t my story. I always wished to be able to write for myself. I tried to keep a journal, or to use poetry or prose to tell my own story and heal that way, but it just never worked for me. I would always get too caught up in not liking my own writing to really be able to use it for cathartic purposes. Honestly escapism has always been my biggest coping method. I never said it was a healthy one. I slipped into fictional worlds through media and literature, and allowed characters to be my obsession, rather than focus on my own feelings. If you read THUG, Starr talks a lot about Tumblr, and I can’t lie and say that wasn’t a large part of my teenage years. I was dedicated to my blog and would spend days and hours on end. I used to talk to people from all over the world, some that I still talk to. I think it was easier talking to strangers on the internet about my problems then it was talking to  my own friends because I knew there wasn’t going to be any judgement, or at the very least, I wasn’t going to see it. 

I think to some degree I still fall into the escapism trap too often but, I’m trying to be better. I’ve been trying meditation lately. Though my form isn’t true meditation because I am trying to focus on my thoughts and emotions in silence, rather than focus on the silence and nothingness. I think it’s hard to find outlets in a world that is so focused on escapism and noise. It’s like it has to be a choice: four hours on tik tok, or shut yourself off from all media. It’s hard to have an in between and to know healthy choices to make, especially right now with everything going on.

This might get a little too personal and raw, but, oh well. That’s the beauty of an online class right? There was so much in this story that resonated with me, so much. To the point that I was sobbing when I finished the novel because it brought up so many things that I haven’t dealt with yet in my own life. The first moment I was really struck was the poem on page 130 simply titled “Fingers.” Yes, the masturbation poem. But hear me out. I grew up in a very conservative family, who are very religiously motivated. My mother was probably the least conservative out of all of them, having been married four times, lived with men outside of marriage, and was always very open and honest with me about sex. And yet for all that, I was to make up for her spiritual misdeeds in her eyes. It wasn’t to the same intensity as Xiomara’s mother, but I went to church every Sunday, went to youth group every Wednesday, and went to every youth event and youth camp the church offered. And at the time it didn’t feel forced. My small town was incredibly religious and that’s just what everyone did, the popular kids were all church kids, and everyone knew their families, which meant everyone knew my family. I carried the guilt of my mother. I had to be the perfect christian because I had to make up for where they saw her lacking. 

And yet, I was far from it. I had always had a sexually active mind (I blame it on growing up with episodes of Sex and the City and Law & Order: SVU always on our tv) and I felt an extreme guilt from it .And then my Junior year, after divorce number three, those thoughts and actions turned towards girls as well, and that shook my whole world. I tried to dive deeper into faith but the further I dove, the less answers I found, and the less I found I could talk to people in that community, which grew to me not wanting to talk to that community. I really don’t mean offense to anyone belonging to the church, but I really started figuring out, it wasn’t for me. I grew more confident in my sexuality and in my feminism, and grew away from my faith. The question I always came back to was the very same question she asks to end the poem: “To make myself feel this way // is a dirty thing, right? // Then why does it feel so good?” (Acevado, 131.) The more comfort I found in queer spaces, the more valid I felt in my bisexuality, the more guilt I felt towards a religion and church that would never accept me. My heart broke for her twin brother because I know what it’s like to hide that part of yourself. I wrested forever with that question of, how can it be a bad thing to live my truth and be happy? It’s why I left the church and the faith when I got to college. I didn’t have to keep living a life around people that I didn’t even want to be around anymore. Over the last five years my faith has changed in so many ways. I have a faith, yes, but not towards God or any one godlike figure. The universe connects us all, in a way that is deeper than human emotions, and it doesn’t make me apologize for feeling what I feel, or loving whom I love. Again, I really don’t mean any offense to anyone who does have a different faith, I welcome conversation and friendship with anyone of any faith as long as their a good person. This is just my story.

[emmareads2020]

Week Six

I chose to read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. THUG tells the story of sixteen year old Starr Carter after witnessing the death of her childhood friend Khalil after being pulled over by a police officer. The novel shows the differing reactions of the two worlds that Starr navigates between: that of her lower class predominantly black neighborhood, and her affluent predominantly white private school. Starr hides her involvement in Khalil’s murder initially, but eventually finds her voice to speak up for herself, Khalil, her family, and her community. The novel provides a rich conversation about the victims of police brutality, the realities of growing up in gang controlled areas, and the power that a voice can have in a movement and in a community.

THUG really provides the perfect lead in for some pretty important conversations for adults and teens alike. I think instantly this book brings up Black Lives Matter without explicitly saying anything about it until the last page. Despite being about the death of a black youth at the hands of a white officer, this novel explicitly talks about the ingrained and blatant racism that still runs throughout our society. I think one of the most powerful points is watching with Starr as the media deliberately paints Khalil as a drug dealer, to try and downplay his murder. But it also focuses on the systemic way that black people are given less opportunities in a cycle that leads to gang lifestyles. Khalil wasn’t a gang member, nor did he want to be selling drugs, he was doing it to pay off a debt for his mother who fell into a drug addiction early on. More so than the police brutality even, I was drawn to the gang depictions in the novel, specifically how the novel tells people’s stories, not gang stories. What I mean is it doesn’t just depict a gang as a negative thing that we associate it with. Yes, it doesn’t shy away from the gang violence, but it tells the stories of those in the gangs, and affected by gang lifestyle, and really allows you to see the individuals, not just the gang names. You always hear that youth are more susceptible to falling to gang lifestyles, and this novel talks about the reasons, and the dangers of that. I think there’s power in teenagers seeing this systemic racism, and being allowed to be angry, and encouraged even to be angry, but then still showing empathy to those who are victims to the system.

 These last few novels have really gotten me thinking about my own privilege as a white person, and as a white person who grew up comfortably. I’ve had to wrestle a lot with my own guilt. And then I’ve had to wrestle with the fact that even my own guilt shouldn’t be a part of it. I do not matter to this story. This is not my story, and feeling guilty is showing my privilege. This best I can do here is elevate the voices of those whose story it is. That is what I need to do with my privilege and position of power; elevate voices of color, and leave any ingrained white savior complex at the door, and long behind. Now that being said, I think it is imperative to show my support of these movements, and of people of color, because complete silence shows acceptance and compliance of the injustices in the world. Even if it’s just for myself, I need to show that I support Black Lives Matter because this isn’t just “a problem for the black community” as I saw someone write once. No. This is a systemic issue that is killing our neighbors and our fellow citizens. Anyway, that was a jumbled mess, but that’s the messiness around race that I’ve been grappling with.

[emmareads2020]

Week Four

One thing that really stands out to me in Sepetys’ argument for historical fiction is the personal connections it gives us not only to historical events, but to a larger global learning as well. I think, as Sepetys talked about, history gets depersonalized, and that can make it hard to relate to it as an academic field. I think we need historical fictions to give us a concrete story to hold on to. It gives readers a connection that they didn’t have before. On a global scale this helps with perspective also. Reading a personal story can help you connect to a new mindset as well. I think you particularly see this within Zusak’s novel, which makes human even the hardest historical event in history. In short, it makes human even the Nazis. And I don’t mean to say that you sympathize with every Nazi character, because the true Nazis in the story are vile and disugusting, but it shows the sheer fear tactics that the Nazi party thrived on. Even a character as kind hearted as Hans, who shows compassion and mercy, needs to join out of fear of ostracization, or worse from his country. 

I think in another way historical fiction has a way of making atrocities palatable. I had the hardest time reading about the Holocaust when I was younger, as I think we all did, because of the sheer level of guilt I felt. And I think it’s important to recognize my own level of privilege in being able to feel that guilt. But The Book Thief especially helped me cut through that guilt to focus on learning what I needed to learn. Having characters I could cling to helped me stay focused on the story at hand, as well as kept me grounded in the overwhelming atrocities

Please everyone bear with me as I am likely to get political during the next section. The quote I chose to represent my truth is on page 174, spoken by Death, and goes as follows:

“I’ve seen so many young men over the years who think they’re running at other men. They are not. They’re running at me.”

Confession: This read of Zusak’s novel was my second read through, and I still have the sticky tabs in it from the first time I read it for a class. This was a line that I had flagged the first read through, and I was blown away with it this time as well. I think if this novel tells any message, it talks about the unforeseen casualties of war. I am a pacifist, and anti-war by nature. I don’t want to get into a whole thing about the “necessity” of war, or the politics of it, that’s not what I’m commenting on here. I can talk about that at a later time. I want to talk about this headspace though. The idea is always that soldiers are fighting soldiers, but really, that isn’t the end of the story. My uncle was active duty in the Iraq war for years, and the stories don’t stop with the soldiers. As we see in Zusak’s novel, whole towns of innocent people are taken down in the name of war, children who could’ve done great things are lost. The impact of my uncle fighting was felt by the entire family, and the impact if he had died would’ve been felt by more. And what is it all for? At the end of the day, you’re still facing death. Sitting here writing this I thought about erasing it all because I know it’s controversial, but it’s my honest answer to this. It doesn’t become about glory or honor when you’re dead. They’re running at death, and who else is going to suffer because of it?

I know this got really political and I’m sorry but, it’s my truth. Please know again, my intention is not to offend or chastise, but only to explain where my head space is at. 

[emmareads2020]

Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein by Lita Judge tells the heart-wrenching story of Mary Shelley’s life, and her journey in creating her infamous novel. Mary is no stranger to tragedy, and Lita Judge crafts her story through her poetic words, and her striking visuals. The visual novel takes readers on a ride with Mary, sharing her story and her emotions with whoever opens the novel. 

For this close reading I am choosing to focus on the spread pages 104 and 105. Contextually, the scene is after Mary’s return home and after she falls in love with Percy Shelley. Her father has found out and forbade the couple from seeing each other. This spread is the first place that we see Percy Shelley’s unhealthy mental state. 

“He waits outside the shop for Father to leave, then bursts through the door, runs upstairs gripping a bottle of opium, and sings to his knees, sobbing, Swallow it all! He holds a pistol to his head. Then I will shoot myself so we will never be parted,” (Judge 104.) 

Shelley is ready to initiate a suicide pact because he can’t be kept apart from Mary. This also reinforces Percy Shelley as a tragic romantic figure, because it references back to Romeo and Juliet, and their tragic ending. As his mental state deteriorates because of the circumstances, his romanticism increases. He becomes the tragic figure that needs taking care of, which we see in Mary’s embrace, both through the visual of her embracing him, but also through the text, “I hold his trembling body, and I vow not to break my promise,” (104.) The images on the spread serve to uphold this idea because on the left page, we see Shelley holding the pistol to his head, but the image is shrouded in darkness. He appears as a large figure, looming in the corner over the calming and sweet scene next to it. He may be calmed in the next image, but there is always that darkness looming over them. This also serves to act as a foreshadowing for both Shelley’s upcoming depression, as well as their deteriorating relationship.

One of the things I love most about this page is the juxtaposition between this title of the poem, and the images, and then between the images themselves. The title “HELPLESS” both describes Mary and Percy, but in much different ways. They are helpless in being together, Percy is helpless to his depression, and Mary is helpless in helping him, and in their situation. But are they? The visuals tell a different story. Despite holding a pistol to his temple in a  moment of desperation, Percy looks in complete control in the image on the left. If Mary agreed to his pack, he would’ve been the hero in the moment, the one to come up with the solution. He has her completely at his mercy at that moment. Then on the next page, that power shifts. Mary becomes the one with the answers, the comfort needed to take away his darkness with the promise of a future together. The text also doesn’t show helplessness. It shows desperation, yes, but there is an action within that desperation, one that is strong enough that it pushes them out of helplessness and into a state of helping themselves.

[emmareads2020]

Week Two Post

I chose to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, or rather reread, as my novel this week. This is a book that has meant so much to me since I was a teenager myself. This was my fourth time reading it, and means just as much to me this time, as it has in the past. It’s because of the strong connection I feel to it that I have a hard time even thinking about anyone trying to censor or stop the reading of it. I understand the worry for some parents and educators; it’s a hard book to talk about. The novel deals with really heavy themes and topics, from teenagers smoking and drinking, to an abuse of marijuana, abortion, numerous counts of sexual assault, violence, and scenes of severe depression that can be severely triggering for some students. Whereas I don’t advocate for censorship in any capacity, I can understand not teaching this book because of those reasons. I think these themes are bound to be potentially triggering to some students, and I think in those situations, there should be alternative texts presented. 

That being said, I think a lot of the time this text isn’t taught in schools because teachers don’t know how to present or talk about these topics. I think the power in this story lies in the heavy topics, topics that affect teenagers every day, but a lot of grown up are hesitant to talk about things like sexual assault with teenagers because they feel they need to preserve some “childhood innocence.” Unfortunately in sheltering teenagers, you risk either no preparing them for the real world, or even worse, isolating teens who may have experienced trauma in their past. You invalidate these experiences by refusing to acknowledge them. This book served as a place for me to understand that others feel the same intense feelings that I did, and that others had been through similar traumas. I also just worry that people will miss out on the powerful statement that the book makes about how it is okay to be a misfit. I was always an outcast in my teenage years, and I think to an extent every teenager feels like a misfit or an outcast, but this book really holds up the misfits and outcasts, and empowers you to be who you are unapologetically. But at the same time it teaches that you should ask for help, and that asking for help helps your relationship with your allies grow stronger.

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Week One Post

Young Adult literature has always played a big role in my life and my reading career. I read many young readers when I was in elementary, from the Magic Treehouse series, to Geronimo Stilton and the American Girl books. My transition into YA was pretty seamless, moving into Judy Blume stories in later elementary, and I was hooked from there. I read Twilight and Harry Potter starting in fifth grade, and definitely went down the paranormal romance rabbit hole. My step-mom is an educator and a voracious reader herself, and she always had another book to put into my hand. In my later years I still rapidly consume YA when I can. I tend to read more resilience and realistic based literature now, but the love for paranormal romance still creeps in occasionally. As a teenager YAL helped me a lot because it felt like having a friend who was validating my feelings, and experiencing things that I had either experienced, or in ways that I could relate to. Reading YAL now connects me back to my past self, but also serves as a humble reminder of just what all teenagers are dealing with, and how big their emotions are. It keeps me grounded, and keeps me as an advocate for teenage voices. I am currently reading Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On and I’m just as sucked in now, as I would’ve been if I had read it at 16.

I think I definitely have a bias. I’m a very big advocate for YAL, often at the expense of other “classical/canonical” texts, especially when it comes to teaching. I think the canon texts have their place, but students want books they can connect to, and as a future teacher, I want my students to connect to texts so they connect to reading. This is a big fight because a lot of older educators that I know advocate against YAL in favor of the canon, and I take a pretty opposite view. I think YAL is essential in a classroom setting. I will say one of the negative biases I still carry is a negative view on paranormal romance. Yes, above I did say that was my main genre, and as such, I definitely fell into the aftermath of such. I was the one who was posting about hating Twilight as I secretly read it under my covers. I think sometimes I still carry some of that shame with certain tropes and genres within both YAL and adult literature. 

The article I chose to read was talking about a specific controversy with YA author Sarah Dessen and a student at Northern State University. The university had a program, like Western’s, where all Freshman are given a book and encouraged to read it, as the “common book” of the year. The student, who was on a council that decides what books are chosen, criticized the inclusion of Dessen’s novel, saying that it was a novel written for “teenage girls,” and basically that it’s not meant for a larger message or audience. Dessen took to twitter, and with the support of other YA authors (Angie Thomas included) called out the student, leading to these authors cyber bulling this girl. Eventually the student explained that there were other novels she had chosen that she felt better reflected a larger range and topics, and that the quote was taken out of context, and most of the authors took to twitter and apologized. But this led me thinking a lot about the “place” of YAL. I think there is still such a heavy stigma around YAL. The idea that they are “silly novels written for teenagers” is still out there, and YAL isn’t taken as seriously as other literary fields, which is a real shame. Link below.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/famous-authors-drag-student-in-ya-twitter-controversy.html