Review: “An abundance of Katherines” by John Green.

Títle: “An abundance of Katherines”

Author: John Green

Book: Autoconclusive

Editorial: Penguin Books Ltd

Year: 2012

Pages: 213 (Softcover)

ISBN-13: 9780141346090

PVP: 8 € (Softcover) (Amazon)

Mark: 5/10

ABSTRACT

Katherine V thought boys were gross

Katherine X just wanted to be friends

Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail

K-19 broke his heart

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.

Review: 'Feminist Fight Club' by Jessica Bennett

 Title: Feminist Fight Club: A survival manual for a sexist workplace

Writer: Jessica Bennett

Publisher: Penguin

Year: 2017

Pages: 295

IBSN-13: 9780241244845

Price: 11.75€ (paperback Amazon)

Mark: 7/10

SYNOPSIS

This is a call to arms.

Are you aged zero to infinity? Finished with the sexist status quo? Ready to kick ass and take names?

Welcome to the Feminist Fight Club. You have lifetime membership.

Feminist Fight Club provides an arsenal of weapons for surviving in an unequal world. You will learn how to fight micro-aggressions, correct unconscious bias, deal with male colleagues who can't stop 'manterrupting' or 'bro-propriating' your ideas - and how to lean in without falling the f*ck over.

Every woman needs this book - and they needed it yesterday.

This is not a drill.

Review: 'The unwomanly face of war' by Svetlana Alexievich

Title: The unwomanly face of war

Writer: Svetlana Alexievich

Publisher: Penguin

Year: 2017

Pages: 384

IBSN-13: 9780141983523

Price: 14.81€ (Paperback)

Mark: 10/10

SYNOPSIS

The long-awaited translation of the classic oral history of Soviet women's experiences in the Second World War - from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

"Why, having stood up for and held their own place in a once absolutely male world, have women not stood up for their history? Their words and feelings? A whole world is hidden from us. Their war remains unknown... I want to write the history of that war. A women's history."

In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich set out to write her first book, The Unwomanly Face of War, when she realized that she grew up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War but whose stories were absent from official narratives. Travelling thousands of miles, she spent years interviewing hundreds of Soviet women - captains, tank drivers, snipers, pilots, nurses and doctors - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As it brings to light their most harrowing memories, this symphony of voices reveals a different side of war, a new range of feelings, smells and colours.

After completing the manuscript in 1983, Alexievich was not allowed to publish it because it went against the state-sanctioned history of the war. With the dawn of Perestroika, a heavily censored edition came out in 1985 and it became a huge bestseller in the Soviet Union - the first in five books that have established her as the conscience of the twentieth century.

Review: 'The Ice Palace' by Tarjei Vesaas

Title: The ice palace

Author: Tarjei Vesaas

Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

Year: 2018

Pages: 139

IBSN-13: 978-0241321218

Price: 9.4€ (Paperback Amazon)

Mark: 10/10

SYNOPSIS

'She was close to the edge now: the ice laid its hand upon her'

The schoolchildren call it the Ice Palace: a frozen waterfall in the Norwegian fjords transformed into a fantastic structure of translucent walls, sparkling towers and secret chambers. It fascinates two young girls, lonely Unn and lively Siss, who strike up an intense friendship. When Unn decides to explore the Ice Palace alone and doesn't return, Siss must try to cope with the loss of her friend without succumbing to a frozen world of her own making.

Review: 'Against children' by Lina Meruane

Title: Contra los hijos (Against Children)

Writer: Lina Meruane

Publishing: Literatura Random House

Year: 2018

Pages: 192

IBSN-13: 978-8439734062

Price: 8.45€ (Amazon)

Mark: 9/10

SYNOPSIS

Rough and impious and full of humour, Against children questions the cultural speeches that promote the pre-eminence of the son and takes him to a despotic spot in the 21st century. It is a revisited and extended version of the one published in 2014, this essay is an agitator warning against the return of a conservative model that plans to take women back to the domestic confinement.

A maleficent angel that go across our consciences with impunity: it is the messenger of procreation. In this diatribe, Lina Meruane analyzes the return of that “angel” that, protected by the ecologist rhetoric, make imperious callings to the extension of the breastfeeding, the intensive raising and a never-ending list of prescriptions. From her controversial analysis about one of the topics more decisive and worst discussed of our time derives observations about the rules of the contemporary couple, the workplace discrimination of women and the current education system.

Reseña: "Contra los hijos" de Lina Meruane

Título: Contra los hijos

Autora: Lina Meruane

Editorial: Literatura Random House

Año: 2018

Páginas: 192

IBSN-13: 978-8439734062

P.V.P.: 8.45€ (Amazon)

Nota: 9/10

SINOPSIS

Rudo e impío, y cargado de humor, Contra los hijos cuestiona los discursos culturales que promueven la preeminencia del hijo y lo llevan a ocupar un lugar despótico en el siglo XXI. Versión revisada y ampliada del publicado en 2014, este ensayo es una provocadora advertencia contra el retorno de un modelo conservador que pretende devolver a las mujeres al encierro doméstico.

Un ángel maléfico recorre impune nuestras conciencias: es el mensajero de la procreación. En esta diatriba Lina Meruane examina el retorno de este «ángel» que, amparado en la retórica ecologista, hace imperiosos llamados a la prolongación de la lactancia, la crianza intensiva y una infinita lista de prescripciones.

De su polémico análisis sobre uno de los temas más determinantes y peor discutidos de nuestro tiempo se derivan observaciones sobre el estatuto de la pareja contemporánea, la discriminación laboral de las mujeres y los actuales sistemas educativos.

Reseña: "La teoría King Kong" de Virginie Despentes

Título: Teoría King Kong

Autora: Virginie Despentes

Editorial: Literatura Random House

Año: 2018

Páginas: 176

IBSN-13: 9788439733850

PVP: 13.9€

Nota: 8/10

SINOPSIS

Teoría King Konges uno de los grandes libros de referencia del feminismo y de la teoría de género, un incisivo ensayo en el que Despentes comparte su propia experiencia para hablarnos sin tapujos ni concesiones sobre la prostitución, la violación, la represión del deseo, la maternidad y la pornografía, y para contribuir al derrumbe de los cimientos patriarcales de la sociedad actual.

«Escribo desde la fealdad, y para las feas, las viejas, las camioneras, las frígidas, las mal folladas, las infollables, todas las excluidas del gran mercado de la buena chica, pero también para los hombres que no tienen ganas de proteger, para los que querrían hacerlo, pero no saben cómo, los que no son ambiciosos, ni competitivos, ni la tienen grande. Porque el ideal de la mujer blanca, seductora, que nos ponen delante de los ojos es posible incluso que no exista.»

Review: 'Good me bad me' by Ali Land

Title: Good me bad me

Writer: Ali Land

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 338

Year: 2017

IBSN-13: 978-1250087645

Price: 9.11€ (Paperback in Amazon)

Mark: 10/10

SYNOPSIS

Milly's mother is a serial killer. Though Milly loves her mother, the only way to make her stop is to turn her in to the police. Milly is given a fresh start: a new identity, a home with an affluent foster family, and a spot at an exclusive private school.

But Milly has secrets, and life at her new home becomes complicated. As her mother's trial looms, with Milly as the star witness, Milly starts to wonder how much of her is nature, how much of her is nurture, and whether she is doomed to turn out like her mother after all.

When tensions rise, and Milly feels trapped by her shiny new life, she has to decide: Will she be good? Or is she bad? She is, after all, her mother's daughter.

Reseña: "El cuento de la criada" de Margaret Atwood

Título: "El cuento de la criada"

Autora: Margaret Atwood

Editorial: Vintage Classics (Penguin)

Páginas: 479

Año: 1985

IBSN-13: 9781784871444

PVP: 18.05 (Amazon)

Nota: 10/10

SIPNOSIS

Amparándose en la coartada del terrorismo islámico, unos políticos teócratas se hacen con el poder y, como primera medida, suprimen la libertad de prensa y los derechos de las mujeres. Esta trama, inquietante y oscura, que bien podría encontrarse en cualquier obra actual, pertenece en realidad a esta novela escrita por Margaret Atwood a principios de los ochenta, en la que la afamada autora canadiense anticipó con llamativa premonición una amenaza latente en el mundo de hoy.

En la República de Gilead, el cuerpo de Defred sólo sirve para procrear, tal como imponen las férreas normas establecidas por la dictadura puritana que domina el país. Si Defred se rebela —o si, aceptando colaborar a regañadientes, no es capaz de concebir— le espera la muerte en ejecución pública o el destierro a unas Colonias en las que sucumbirá a la polución de los residuos tóxicos. Así, el régimen controla con mano de hierro hasta los más ínfimos detalles de la vida de las mujeres: su alimentación, su indumentaria, incluso su actividad sexual. Pero nadie, ni siquiera un gobierno despótico parapetado tras el supuesto mandato de un dios todopoderoso, puede gobernar el pensamiento de una persona. Y mucho menos su deseo.

Los peligros inherentes a mezclar religión y política; el empeño de todo poder absoluto en someter a las mujeres como paso conducente a sojuzgar a toda la población; la fuerza incontenible del deseo como elemento transgresor: son tan sólo una muestra de los temas que aborda este relato desgarrador, aderezado con el sutil sarcasmo que constituye la seña de identidad de Margaret Atwood. Una escritora universal que, con el paso del tiempo, no deja de asombrarnos con la lucidez de sus ideas y la potencia de su prosa.