A Secret Sisterhood

author: Emily Midorikawa

A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf is a book by two women who are writers and friends. These women, Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney, set out to highlight some of the friendships between other women writers, and show how women have sustained each other’s personal and creative lives.

The concept of the book is better than its execution. In the case of Jane Austen’s friendship with a governess and playwright named Anne Sharp, there isn’t much information to go on. Even though each author only gets a few chapters, the Jane Austen chapters consist of a lot of speculation and filler. It’s fascinating, but could be shorter. I enjoyed the chapter about Charlotte Brontë, Ellen Nussey, and Mary Taylor, because Mary Taylor was such a dynamic figure that she gives that section of the book a great deal of energy.

I have to admit that I skimmed the sections about George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe, as well as Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. In both cases I was fascinated by how prickly people navigated disagreements (sometimes well and sometimes very badly). However, I had a hard time getting invested. Presumably the reason I enjoyed the Bronte chapter was at least in part because it had more substance than the Austen chapter and I was already emotionally invested in the subject, whereas I don’t have a strong emotional interest in Woolf or Eliot. Ultimately, this book needed less filler and a more brisk pace to sustain my interest.

– Carrie S

Nonfiction

Castle Waiting: Volume 1

author: Linda Medley

Castle Waiting is an adorable, feminist comic that is currently collected in two volumes. I read about this comic book series in The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen by Hope Nicholson and sure enough, it’s entrancing.

Castle Waiting is the story of what happens in Sleeping Beauty’s castle after the princess awakens and leaves the castle. The castle becomes a safe haven for many – including a pregnant woman named Lady Jain who is fleeing from an abusive husband.

The edition I read was the 2002 Volume One edition, which has black and white art. Volume One is very short on plot. Lady Jain does some travelling and gets to the Castle and everyone hangs out. The exciting component of the book is the choice of characters. Few stories are told in which pregnant women are the heroines. The other inhabitants of the castle include the fairies that protected Sleeping Beauty, Simple Simon, and Doctor Fell, the plague doctor.

I wanted more plot, but I enjoyed reading about the daily activities of the Castle’s inhabitants. I especially loved how they accept one another. For instance, while everyone accepts Simon’s limitations, they never patronize him. Doctor Fell’s obsession with the plague is a trait that everyone is used to. Castle Waiting truly seems like a refuge for anyone who needs one, including characters that are often left out of the limelight.

– Carrie S

Graphic Novel

It Ended Badly

author: Jennifer Wright

If you’re looking for some light history, and something to read with your wine while consoling yourself that your most recent breakup wasn’t that bad, this is your book.

From Nero and Poppaea (…there is too much, I cannot sum up, but he killed a whole bunch of people in the aftermath), Lucrezia Borgia and Giovanni Sforza (in order to prevent an annulment, he needed to prove that his dick worked publicly. He declined), to Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth Taylor, this book goes through 13 messy break ups and describes precisely how messed up each was.

Best part: even though Elizabeth Taylor stole Debbie Reynold’s husband, they started out as best friends and ended as best friends. I firmly believe they’re in heaven, drinking a lot and making fun of Eddie Fisher and embarrassing Carrie (in between Liz’s fights and make-up sex with Richard Burton, always and forever, amen).

Also included: Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas, Henry VIII and the queens he had beheaded, and the absolute fucking worst of the worst, Norman Goddamn Mailer.  (Spoiler: he stabbed his ex-wife at a party, and went on to have a lauded career while she declined into poverty. The patriarchy is trash.)

If you are still in the place in your break up where it is the worst thing that ever happened, and you still need to wallow,  you may not be ready for this book yet. This for the next stage of healing, when you need to go “well, at least no one burned Rome to the ground in the course of this breakup.” And some of these stories end well- Liz Taylor and Debbie Reynolds may not have had the smoothest friendship, but in the end, it was ovaries before brovaries. Enjoy!

– Redheadedgirl

Nonfiction