Christmas and Yuletide!
Dec. 29th, 2012 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmic_llinSo, Christmas was nice, but it's even nicer to be home! I spent four nights at my dad's place in Wales with him and my brother, and mostly amused myself by rereading the entire Princess Diaries series. I only happened to pick one up because they were there and I didn't want to start anything big before the inevitable books for Christmas, but I got really sucked in.
And you know, as much as they're fairly lightweight in some ways, I do think they're really excellent books to give to teenage readers. The cast is diverse, not just racially but in terms of body type - the protagonist's two best friends are both fat and it's not a big deal - and gender presentation/identity and sexual orientation - there's a subtle-but-canon f/f pairing, an androgynous female character and a minor trans character who has character traits other than being trans and who is only misgendered once, by a character known for being offensive and stuck in the past. The main character and her friends are all geeks - she regularly compares her dad to Captain Picard, has lucky Star Wars underwear, writes Battlestar Galactica fic and watches Farscape marathons - but some of them are also cheerleaders, or readers of romance novels, or feminist activists.
Plus there's the fact that the first book in particular involves a character discovering she's a princess and getting a huge makeover, and the makeover part is basically irrelevant after that. Her 'princess lessons' are a recurring theme, but she tends to use her princessly skills and clout to highlight environmental and social issues, and to defend people who need it, even when it makes her own life more difficult.
Girls are taken seriously in these books. The character who is obsessed with boys and romance novels wants to be a thoracic surgeon - and nobody sees a problem with that. People who don't take the main character seriously - particularly in the later books - find themselves without a leg to stand on.
Anyway, um, yeah. It seems I have a lot of feelings about these books.
In other Christmas news,carawj gives the best presents! I got an awesome poster and t-shirt and many books and I feel like I'm just sitting in a pile of awesome stuff and I don't know what to play with first!
Also, Yuletide! I got two fics! Both of them really exciting! :D
First of all I got this one:
The Glass of Champagne - Sally Lockhart Mysteries, Becky/Adelaide
It's fun and sweet and the chemistry between them is perfect, as is the dialogue - like another commenter said, it could be a missing scene from the book! I've wanted something like this for so long and now that I have it I just want to wrap myself in it and read it forever and ever and ever!
Then this one for a treat:
She'll Fly True - Once Upon a Time (In Space), Aurora/Nastya
This is my new benchmark for PWP about people doing it with spaceships. It's super-hot as well as adorable. And I think you can read it even if you don't know the fandom (but if you don't, it's a fandom that's totally worth getting to know!) The first time I read it I was so excited I literally bounced and squeaked.
Hope everyone's having a good festive season!
And you know, as much as they're fairly lightweight in some ways, I do think they're really excellent books to give to teenage readers. The cast is diverse, not just racially but in terms of body type - the protagonist's two best friends are both fat and it's not a big deal - and gender presentation/identity and sexual orientation - there's a subtle-but-canon f/f pairing, an androgynous female character and a minor trans character who has character traits other than being trans and who is only misgendered once, by a character known for being offensive and stuck in the past. The main character and her friends are all geeks - she regularly compares her dad to Captain Picard, has lucky Star Wars underwear, writes Battlestar Galactica fic and watches Farscape marathons - but some of them are also cheerleaders, or readers of romance novels, or feminist activists.
Plus there's the fact that the first book in particular involves a character discovering she's a princess and getting a huge makeover, and the makeover part is basically irrelevant after that. Her 'princess lessons' are a recurring theme, but she tends to use her princessly skills and clout to highlight environmental and social issues, and to defend people who need it, even when it makes her own life more difficult.
Girls are taken seriously in these books. The character who is obsessed with boys and romance novels wants to be a thoracic surgeon - and nobody sees a problem with that. People who don't take the main character seriously - particularly in the later books - find themselves without a leg to stand on.
Anyway, um, yeah. It seems I have a lot of feelings about these books.
In other Christmas news,
carawj gives the best presents! I got an awesome poster and t-shirt and many books and I feel like I'm just sitting in a pile of awesome stuff and I don't know what to play with first! Also, Yuletide! I got two fics! Both of them really exciting! :D
First of all I got this one:
The Glass of Champagne - Sally Lockhart Mysteries, Becky/Adelaide
It's fun and sweet and the chemistry between them is perfect, as is the dialogue - like another commenter said, it could be a missing scene from the book! I've wanted something like this for so long and now that I have it I just want to wrap myself in it and read it forever and ever and ever!
Then this one for a treat:
She'll Fly True - Once Upon a Time (In Space), Aurora/Nastya
This is my new benchmark for PWP about people doing it with spaceships. It's super-hot as well as adorable. And I think you can read it even if you don't know the fandom (but if you don't, it's a fandom that's totally worth getting to know!) The first time I read it I was so excited I literally bounced and squeaked.
Hope everyone's having a good festive season!
