Cinderella is Dead

author: Kalynn Bayron

There was much excitement among the Bitches when Cinderella is Dead was announced, due to its exciting cover and concept, and the promise of a queer heroine of color. Alas, the book is virtually unreadable due to sloppy writing and a whiny, self-absorbed heroine.

The concept is great. 200 years after Cinderella met her prince, Cinderella is dead and every year all the young women in the kingdom go to a ball (not optional) at which they are chosen to be brides by the men in the kingdom. If they fail to be chosen at three balls, they are “forfeit” and condemned to a life of service. Many disappear.

Sophia, the narrator and protagonist, is in love with her friend Erin and has no interest in marrying. However, Erin refuses to run away with her, and Sophia is forced to flee alone. She meets Constance, a freedom fighter, in the woods and vows to fight the patriarchy.

I tried to read this, I really did, but at the 50% mark I gave up. Sophia is self-centered and myopic and becomes more so, not less so, as she wins the adoration of Constance. Sophia maintains that her family does not care about her, despite the fact that it’s obvious that they do care about her and are afraid of her fate and their own should she disobey the king. Constance praises Sophia for being able to see that something is wrong in the kingdom, despite the fact that it’s quite clear that EVERYONE thinks there’s something wrong in the kingdom.

When an innocent is executed because of Sophia’s actions, Sophia is gobsmacked, even though any idiot could see it coming. Sohpia acts with a total disregard for the safety of her friends, family, and community. It’s not that she faces hard choices and acts for the greater good – it’s that she doesn’t even realize that she’s making hard choices that will result in collateral damage.

As far as romance goes, Erin is supposed to be the love of Sophia’s life but Sophia is making googly eyes at Constance not a day after saying goodbye to Erin forever. Take Katniss from Hunger Games, and strip that character of all common sense, empathy, and concern about the consequences of her actions on her village and loved ones, and you get Sophia. I was so disappointed.

– Carrie S

LGBTQIA, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult

Girl on Film

author: Cecil Castellucci

Girl on Film is a graphic novel memoir by Cecil Castellucci, the author of, among other things, Boy Proof, The P.L.A.I.N. Janes, and Shade, The Changing Girl, all of which I enthusiastically recommend. In this memoir, Castellucci documents her obsession with becoming a movie director, a goal she developed at a young age and pursued through her years at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (the high school in the movie and TV show Fame) and for many years after graduation. It also documents her frustration with the technical aspects of filmmaking, and her transition into life as a musician, a novelist, and a comic book writer and artist.

One of the most interesting aspects of Girl on Film is that interwoven with a straightforward memoir are discussions the author had with her father, a scientist who studies memory. These discussions of how memories are formed and retrieved, and how the change and how our interpretations of them change, give shape and depth to the story.

It’s lucky that those meditations on memory exist, because while Castellucci’s story is full of passion and excitement, it falls into a trap of relentless name-dropping that feels shallow. It also ends just as things are getting most interesting, with her moving to L.A. and exploring different careers in the arts. After a promising start, the book gets a little too superficial and rushed toward the end.

I do recommend this book to people who feel passionate about artistic lives (their own and others’). In particular, Castellucci’s passion for art in all forms illuminates every page of the book, which is truly a gift. I hope she writes a second memoir about her life as a novelist and a comic book creator. It’s sure to be equally enthusiastic.

– Carrie S

Memoir, Graphic Novel, Nonfiction

Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Womanhood

author: Trixie Mattel

If you love Ru Paul’s Drag Race like I do, then you might have fallen in love with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova. Trixie, with her deep love for Dolly Parton and Barbie, and Katya, who is ultra-flexible and deeply honest about recovering from addiction, have to be two of the most popular drag queens to have graduated from RPDR. If, like me, you’re a bit of a superfan, you might have also watched their show UNHhhh and Trixie’s documentary Moving Parts. If that’s the case, and you loved both and want more, then come sit with me because this book is for you.

In three sections (Beauty and Style, Homemaking, and Relationships) the duo deliver short, punchy chapters covering everything about being a woman today. And the two would be the first to point out how delicious it is that men dressing as women are telling women how to be themselves. They revel in their satirical, tongue-in-cheek humour, all delivered with a surprising amount of heart.

And while they’re dropping truth bombs and f-bombs, you will probably howl with laughter just like I did.

The book is full of witty repartee such as…

“Everything you’ve done, we’ve done with fuller lashes.”

And…

“Think of interior design as putting your house in drag.”

And also…

“The skin is your largest organ (unless you are my second boyfriend – Matthew – woof!).”

A great treatise on the intricacies of life, this is not. Did it give me hours of laughter? Yes, definitely. They are subverting the self-help genre in the same way that drag (in all its varied forms) subverts genres of its own. Trixie and Katya live and thrive in their subversive, ironic space and as a reader I was carried along, laughing my way through it all.

Touchingly, in the chapters on relationships and self-love there are some beautiful poignant moments when the tongue is removed from the cheek and a heartfelt, sincere Katya and Trixie describe the difficulties of loving yourself or getting over a breakup.

Because I cannot even pretend to be capable of objectivity when it comes to these two, I must give this book an equally heartfelt SQUEE. Their sincerity, wit, humour and complete lack of respect for any/all rules is liberating. It made me smile and it made me happy and I read it cover to cover in a matter of hours. I went without breakfast to finish it, that’s how invested I was in it. To read this book was to feel free to be entirely myself, at least for a bit.

– Lara

Humor, LGBTQIA, Nonfiction