Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’m Not Buying Anything Pink

Posted in Awareness, Pop Culture, Self Reflection, Uncategorized by

October is breast cancer awareness month.

I read this Vox article two years ago about pinkwashing and it stuck with me since. I noticed that there was suddenly pink and pink ribbon merchandise EVERYWHERE.

I noticed the same thing during Pride. Rainbows as far as the eye can see.

This October I want to take more conscious action. I have two goals: (1) to make a donation to a local group working to help BIPOC access breast cancer treatment and (2) to educate myself better on what breast cancer actually is, how it works, and the challenges patients face.

I just purchased a copy of Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Diaries. A new Penguin Classics edition was just released. I read Lorde’s Sister Outsider earlier this year and it changed my life. I expect nothing less from The Cancer Diaries. I hope reading this book will keep me focused on the actual people. People with breast cancer who are jumping through the three ring circus that is American healthcare to get treatment and live. I do not want to focus my attention or money on corporations who think “breast cancer pink” is the new way to sell everything.

*Updated* #24in48 Hour 12 Check-In

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The Readathon is going strong. We are 12 hours in. 

I got one hour of reading in this morning before life (read: mother and siblings) got started. I made some progress on Midnight Taxi Tango by Daniel Jose Older. It is completely creepy in the best way. Also, full of badass heroines, beyond the one on the cover, and lots of diversity. 

Cover of Midnight Taxi Tango

Reading Midnight Taxi Tango in bed

 
I’m now out and about running errands, but in managed to slip away for 15 and finish two issues of my favorite comic Lumberjanes.  

cover of Issue 10 of Lumberjanes

Issue 10 of Lumberjanes


You can find my reading in my little nook with book stack and snacks nearby. 

  
Carry on readathoners! 36 more hours to go.

 

Early 2016 Reading Preview

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I am five days in 2016 and have already finished two fantastic novels: Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta and Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy.  I’ve already been so sad that I cry into a book and so frustrated that I’ve thrown a book.

In preparation for a jam-packed reading year, I’ve gathered a few books from early 2016 that I am anticipating very highly.

This COVER! Midnight Taxi Tango (TODAY! Jan. 5) is the second Bone Street Rumba novel. The first, Half-Resurrection Blues, was one of my favorite books of 2015. I was never interested urban fantasy until I heard Daniel Jose Older on the Reading Lives podcast. He was brilliant, so I decided to try his book. I’ve since read his YA novel, Shadowshaper, also excellent. I’ve been counting down to today since February 2015. I will be tearing into this one over the weekend.

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl (Feb. 26) is one of Bustle’s most anticipated fiction books of 2016.  It feels like a natural follow-up to Dumplin’. Thank you Chicago Public Library for the motivation of non-renewable due dates! I want to continue with reading books with body-positive themes. 13 Ways… is a collection of connected short stories about Lizzie and her experiences with weight, body image, and self-worth.

A Steep and Thorny Way (Mar. 8) was recommended to me by Goodreads after I finished Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman. I realized I like Westerns. A Steep and Thorny Way was written just for me it seems. Hanalee is a mixed race woman living with her mother and step-father in 1920s Oregon. Shenanigans ensue which cause Hanalee to consult her dead father, a “haint” a.k.a. ghost that roams the streets at night. I am so fudrucking excited about this book.

It’s gonna be a phenomenal reading year (quarter)!