The Furious Gazelle

Literary as hell.

Author: The Furious Gazelle Editors (Page 16 of 55)

Book Review: What Makes Girls Sick and Tired

March 2, 2019 /

what makes girls sick and tired cover

Written by Lucile De Pesloüan; Illustrations by Genevieve Darling

Review by Tess Tabak

What Makes Girls Sick and Tired is a new picture book intended to introduce young adults to basic feminism. It’s essentially an illustrated list of challenges women and girls around the world face. The author, Lucile De Pesloüan, cuts straight to the heart of feminist issues: “Girls are sick and tired because women’s bodies are always an issue, whether they are covered by yards of fabric or completely revealed.”

 

While the issues discussed are for the most part real concerns, it’s hard to imagine an audience for this book. Almost none of the statements are backed up with any examples or evidence (a handful contain footnotes with sources). If you’re already familiar with basic feminism, this book offers nothing more than a list of things you likely already know, written in a fairly repetitive way (every sentence contains some permutation of “girls are sick and tired”). On the other hand if you haven’t been exposed to feminist ideology, the book doesn’t really offer enough on its own. A reader would have to be curious enough to look up other sources, at which point, why not just read a more thorough text to start with?

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“I Will Never Die,” a short story by Richard Charles Schaefer

February 22, 2019 /

Photo Credit: Brian Michael Barbeito

Charles couldn’t believe he had slept through dinner again; he was going to have to beg Phil or one of the Korean kids for ramen, and why should they give him anything? If the ladder had been in its hiding spot under the patio of the on-campus daycare, he could have gotten onto the roof of the gym and across it to the admin building to see if he could find anything to eat in the small kitchen there, but without the ladder he couldn’t get onto the roof, unless he had Andrew to boost him up. Andrew must have moved it while Charles was suspended, or else it got confiscated. That’s okay, they’d fished it out of a dumpster anyway; they found good stuff in the dumpster by the maintenance building all the time, but he sure wasn’t going to find dinner there. Continue reading

Book Review: The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders

February 11, 2019 /

Review by Tess Tabak

Although Charlie Jane Anders’ new book, The City in the Middle of the Night, is full of cool ideas, nothing gels enough to make it a standout read.

Several generations after humans have colonized a new planet, some people struggle to hold onto what little culture remains, while others question what value old Earth customs have to them in this new inhospitable place. Continue reading

“Sore Finger Road” by Adrienne Pilon

February 8, 2019 /

There’s not much in the hot desert that stretches from California into Arizona, save giant tumbleweeds, strangely anthropomorphic cacti with upstretched arms for branches, and a long, long highway that is interstate 10, replete with mirages and, every so often, a blip in the road for gas stations.  The last time I traveled down that highway the temperature was topping out at 121 degrees. It was July, but this was hot even for July. We– my husband, children, and nephew—had just crossed the border into Arizona, on our way to Sedona for the annual family vacation, when I saw a remarkable road sign.    I shouted out: “Did you see that? The sign for Sore Finger Road?”

     No one else in the car had seen it.  They didn’t believe me. Instead, they all laughed, and my husband looked over at me and said something about my vivid imagination and projecting and excess energy, because I couldn’t drive.   

    He was right, because on a road trip, I share the driving.  I’m a good driver, and I like to be in control. Hurtling down a highway at 80 miles per hour is much more appealing if I am the one doing the hurtling.  This time, though, I was confined to the passenger seat for eight hours with a bank of pillows to prop up my heavily bandaged left hand because, you see, I had one very, very sore finger.  

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Amanda Quaid’s New Film “Toys” Brings Life to Poetry

February 5, 2019 /

amanda quaid toys

Amanda Quaid’s new film, Toys, packs a powerful punch in just two minutes. Based on a poem by stage and screen actress Peggy Pope, it tells the story of a father who uses gendered toys to mold his daughter into something she’s not, and a girl who resists.

An actress and playwright herself, Quaid stepped outside of her comfort zone in directing this film. She’d never done any kind of animation before – this was her first foray into the world of stop motion. “There’s real freedom and curiosity that can come from just being a beginner at something and seeing it through and not making it a livelihood or not making it my main focus. … I’ve been really fixed my whole life on what I was pursuing.”

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Book Review: Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land

February 3, 2019 /

Review by E. Kirshe

Stephanie Land’s memoir about raising a child while trying to raise herself out of poverty should be required reading for anyone who has not struggled with poverty.

 

As Land recounts her move from homeless shelter to more permanent forms of housing- with an eye to becoming financially stable- she also moves through the houses she cleans, the physical and emotional exhaustion that brings, and how every moment of every day was about survival. Every piece of change is counted, every form of government assistance she can get to help keep her kid in school and food on the table is totaled and every moment of her time accounted for. If she wasn’t working she was taking online college courses, holding onto the idea that that would be the way out, or having real moments of family time with her daughter.

 

At times, the book seems a little impersonal for a memoir. There is a lot of focus on who her clients are based on their homes- the idea that she’s invisible- and a lot of reiterating that having the “American dream” home doesn’t mean happiness (though it does mean financial safety, after all, they can afford to not clean their home). Continue reading

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