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What I read: June 2023

Late last summer, property management folks uprooted Deathless while installing a heatpump in my townhouse. They left him lying on the lawn. Without much hope, I trimmed his limbs and replanted him hours later, a meter from the heatpump. This spring I was excited to see buds, then leaves.

 LHC #213: "Deep Secret" by Diana Wynne Jones. I read the first chapter and was dubious, but then I got on a roll and it was a delight. Weirdly fat-phobic, not sure what to make of that. 

LHC #214: "It's complicated: the social lives of networked teens" by Danah Boyd. I started off kind of jaded. What, these kids are requesting a video camera from their school? How 2001! Somehow Deep Secret seemed more modern to me. it predates Covid, DJT and Tiktok, things I think have shaped current socials. But I persevered, and this book was really good. I incredibly relate with DB's perspective on youth. More people should read this book. 

But then, I love teenagers. So I would say that. 

"When women were dragons" by Kelly Barnhill. I got this for Christmas. I got three copies, so my sister took one, and she read it a couple of months ago. Half-way through, she was loving it. Then she got to the last quarter, and she said it kind of fell apart. Boy, was she right. About 100 pages from the end, I was worrying that I was going to get really angry because the dragons were coming back (spoiler, sorry) and they were going to have no comeuppance, but instead the dragons came back and it was a bit of a slog. Also, I kept hoping she'd go back to the knots, but she never did. 

LHC #215: "The secret to superhuman strength" by Alison Bechdel. Graphic anything feels like cheating, but if I was opposed to cheating I'd have come up with a rule about novellas. I felt pretty seen by this book. 

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