Rejected Princesses by Jason Porath

Reviewed by Ambrea

“Well-behaved women seldom make history…and these women are far from well behaved,” writes Jason Porath in Rejected Princesses.  With these words, he kicks off a funny, fantastical and hilariously irreverent journey through history that highlights the accomplishments of women across the globe.  As Porath points out, “[The] list of historical women we learn about in school is lacking.  It’s safe, it’s censored, it’s short.”  His book, however, offers an alternative view that allows readers the chance to meet the most famous—and infamous—women of history, myth, folklore, and legend, and get to know a side of them we never knew.

First and foremost, I want to say that I loved this book.

Yes, loved.

If it’s not already apparent, I’m a bit of a history nerd and I love learning about quirky, unconventional history and feisty females who make their mark on said history—and Rejected Princesses was the best of both worlds.  It features women who are too rebellious, too dangerous and, sometimes, too deadly to make it into high school textbooks; in fact, many of the women—whether resigned to the darkest parts of history or lingering only at the edges of myth—aren’t often featured in any scholarly curriculum.  They’re forgotten, which I think is a great shame.

Luckily, Porath has created an amusing and articulate book that helps rectify this.  He begins with Khutulun, great-great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan.  When faced with matrimony, Khutulun agreed to marry the man who could defeat her in wresting.  If he won, he would win her hand in marriage; if she won, he would give her one hundred horses.  Spoiler alert:  she was undefeated.  And this is merely one story of many.

Porath’s book gets better from there, because it features a number of women—fighters and warriors, spies and astronomers, Vikings and pirates, rebels and freedom fighters—forgotten by history, but who are incredible, regardless.  I mean, I have an ongoing list of my favorites:

*Noor Inayat Khan (World War II spy)

*Julie d’Aubigny (opera singer/general troublemaker among the French elite)

*Annie Jump Cannon (astronomer—and she invented the classification system for stars that we still use today!)

*Iara (Brazilian mermaid/warrior myth)

*Mariya Oktyabrskaya (World War II tank operator)

*Olga of Kiev (Christian saint who supposedly destroyed an enemy village by setting it on fire with messenger pigeons)

*Ching Shih (Chinese pirate)

*Sybil Luddington (think the female equivalent of Paul Revere—only better)

*Alfhild (Viking princess)

*Mary Bowser (Civil War spy who pretended to be a servant in the Confederate White House—and very nearly burned it down)

*Nanny of the Maroons (protector and leader of escaped slaves, known as the Maroons, in Jamaica)

*Tomo Gozen (Japanese samurai)

*Marjana (saved Ali Baba in the “Forty Thieves” story—actually, she’s the hero of the story)

And, of course, I can’t forget the Night Witches from my list.

I am fascinated by World War II.  I’ve read several books about it, and I feel confident saying that I know my fair share about it.  I’m not an expert by any means, but I find myself constantly intrigued by the conflicts and social/political shifts that occurred in World War II.  It’s an era that had such wide-reaching effects that we can still see ripples today; more to the point, we can still talk to the people who endured it.  I may not enjoy violence, but I love hearing stories about it and I like piecing together my own knowledge of it, I like holding those stories.

And yet, somehow, I’ve never heard of the Night Witches.

Here’s just how incredible they were:

“The Night Witches mark one of the greatest underdog accomplishments in military history.  Handed a bunch of slow, flammable trainer planes that had been designed only to dust crops, an all-female group of untrained civilians became one of the most decorated divisions in the entire Soviet military.  Flying without armor, guns, sights, radio, cockpits, brakes, parachutes, or virtually any navigation machinery, they dropped bombs on the Germans every three minutes, like clockwork, every night for three years.”

Moreover, they would often cut their engines and glide over German military camps on the Eastern front, before kicking on their engines and dropping bombs.  They literally fell out of the sky, dropped bombs on German soldiers, and then did it again and again and again.  “They flew over 1,100 nights of combat, and each pilot flew over 800 missions.”

Holy cow.

These women are super women.  They were—and are—amazing, and I loved learning about them.  And I loved Rejected Princesses, because I had the opportunity to discover unexpected and incredible women who shaped history, who made unexpected appearances in popular stories and myths.  Admittedly, Porath’s book can be rather violent and unnerving (history wasn’t always pretty—and, let’s be honest, it hasn’t always been kind to women), but, overall, it’s an interesting and entertaining book.  Full of humor, colorful art, historical facts, legends and myths, and, of course, incredible women, it’s a great resource for those who wish to dabble in history or discover something new.

Note: March is Women's History Month.  Celebrate by reading about some amazing women!

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d by C. Alan Bradley

Reviewed by Jeanne

Flavia de Luce, the pre-teen enfant terrible of chemistry, is thrilled to be returning to home to England after an unhappy sojourn in Canada at Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy, but her dreams of a warm family welcome are shattered with the news that her father is hospitalized with pneumonia.  Visitors are limited, so Flavia goes to visit Cynthia, the vicar’s wife, by way of diversion.  She’s promptly sent to deliver a message to Mr. Sambridge, the local wood-carver.  When he fails to answer his door, Flavia—being Flavia—opens the door and discovers he’s been murdered.

And oh, how Flavia loves a good murder. . . .

The first thing she does, of course, is to carefully observe the scene, making all the deductions she possibly can about the crime, the victim, and clues as to the murderer.  One thing jumps out at her:  why would a grown man, a woodcarver with no apparent family, have a set of children’s books--multiple copies, in fact?

This is the eighth book in Bradley’s enjoyable Flavia de Luce novels, all of which revolve around the precocious Flavia who lives with her father and sisters at Buckshaw, the family’s badly neglected mansion.  Flavia is a force of nature:  headstrong, impulsive, brilliant, and analytical. She’s also a child, though she sees herself as an adult; for example, she views the police detective Inspector Hewitt as a colleague, though she sometimes thinks he’s a bit slow on the uptake.  Her older sisters see her as more than a bit of a pest, while her father tends to be remote, locking himself away in his rooms with his stamp collection. Her greatest confidant is Dogger, who served and suffered with her father during WW II, and who treats her with kindness and deference (think a less sarcastic and less stable Jeeves.) Flavia’s imagination also tends to run a bit wild, but she is tenacious when she’s on the trail of a murderer.

I confess I found the previous book in the series to be a bit of a slog.  I think it was having Flavia out of her element and missing the supporting cast of characters.  This book is, for me, a return to the somewhat tongue in cheek mysteries I so enjoyed.  In addition, I especially enjoyed the parts of the plot that had with do with the children’s books by Oliver Inchbald.  This is a fictitious series, but parts bear a passing resemblance to A.A. Milne’s works and life. In fact, it seemed to me that more (real) books than usual were referenced in this one, which delighted me.  I do love a good book reference.

This is a series which needs to be read in order; not only is Flavia growing up a bit in this one, but there are changes in the household along the way that have an impact on the characters, especially Flavia.  As with several of the other books, this one ends at an emotional moment, making the reader anxious to see how the next story will unfold.

Ambrea's 2017 Read Harder Challenge, part 1

So first up on my Read Harder Challenge, I tackled:

• Read a debut novel.
• Read an all-ages comic.
• Read a superhero comic with a female lead.

I started with a debut novel, Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster.  Although I originally intended to read A Man Called Ove, a debut novel by Fredrik Backman, I stumbled across Kiss of Steel purely by accident and discovered it was just what I needed to complete this challenge.  First book in the London Steampunk series, Kiss of Steel tells the story of an alternative Victorian age in which verwulfen (werewolves), vampires, automatons, humans, and more live side-by-side in a steam-fueled world.

Honoria Todd fled to the rookeries in a desperate attempt to escape the Echelon, the blue-blood (i.e. vampire) aristocracy of London who rule over the city with an iron fist.  But when Blade, de facto master of the rookeries, discovers her living at the fringes of his little kingdom, he becomes embroiled in a series of unexpected mysteries.  Soon, a vampire--a blue-blood who has crossed the Fade, who has completely succumbed to blood lust--is terrorizing the rookeries and it's up to Honoria and Blade to stop it--and the Echelon--before it's too late.

I actually enjoyed reading Kiss of Steel.  It wasn't quite what I expected, but I wouldn't say that's a bad thing.  Granted, it was a bit explicit, hyper-violent, and incredibly grisly; however, McMaster's debut novel was a mixture of action, romance, science-fiction and paranormal fantasy that I found thrilling.  Overall, while I did like Kiss of Steel, I do think it could have been better.  I would have loved to have delved deeper into the alternative history and discovered more about the people--and creatures--that inhabited this world.

Next, I read Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur:  BFF (Volume 1) by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder, which was a fun and amusing comic featuring Lunella and, of course, the indomitable Devil Dinosaur.  First in the series, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur:  BFF is a great comic from kids of all ages--and it's simultaneously amusing for adults.

It starts out with Lunella, who is 9-years-old and quite unlike other girls her age.  She's an unexpectedly talented inventor and she's also an Inhuman--and the Terrigen Mist that's creeping through the city, the amorphous haze that will activate her Inhuman DNA, terrifies her.  Desperate to keep her Inhuman DNA dormant, Lunella sets out to discover alien technology that will help her stop the Terrigen Mist and keep herself human.  That is, if Devil Dinosaur, who was transported to the future with the same alien technology, doesn't destroy everything first.

I loved reading Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.  I admit, I was a little hesitant to read it at first.  I'd seen single issues in the local comic book store and, for some reason, I couldn't imagine myself reading them--and then I discovered the collected volume at the library.  I immediately fell in love.  Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is a lot of fun to read.  Although it takes place in the Marvel Universe, readers don't really need a whole lot of background about the Kree and the Inhumans and the Terrigen Mist to enjoy the story.  It has a dynamic, intelligent character, and it's a crazy, fun adventure that will lead you across time and the city of New York.

Last, I checked out Wonder Woman:  Blood (Volume 1) by Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang, and Tony Akins.  I have long been a fan of comic books.  I love Batman and Superman and even Aquaman, and I've found a recent favorite in Squirrel Girl, Daredevil, and Hawkeye; however, I've not read much of Wonder Woman.  She's an interesting character to be sure, but I've just never found myself compelled to read about her until now.

In Wonder Woman: Blood, first in the New 52 series, Wonder Woman finds herself caught in the middle of a battle for supremacy between the Greek gods of myth.  Diana has long abstained from the more complicated dealings between these capricious gods, but Zeus has gone missing--and Hera is on the war path to destroy the child he left behind.  Now, the remaining gods, including Apollo, Hades, and Poseidon, are in a war for the king of gods' throne, while Hera cuts a bloody swath across Paradise Island to rectify the injustices done to her.

Let me say, I like Greek mythology.  I've always been intrigued by it and I've gone out of my way to discover more about it than what I learned in school, but I wasn't really impressed with their appearance in Wonder Woman.  Honestly, I wasn't really all that impressed with the story in genera.  I was a little disappointed, especially since I went into this comic with such high expectations.  I'm a fan of powerful, self-sufficient women, and I love the idea of Wonder Woman, who is a warrior first and foremost; however, I'm not so sure I like her in practice.

It's difficult to describe, but let me put it this way:  I like Batman, because he is human and he is deeply flawed.  I like Superman, because he is an alien who grew up in Kansas and he is good to the best of his ability.  Likewise, I like Aquaman, because he is half-human/half-Atlantean and he struggles daily with his dueling identities.  And all these characters have one thing in common:  they were raised, in my opinion, in a recognizable place and way.  Diana, on the other hand, was raised on Paradise Island with a different set of beliefs and a completely different set of rules, which makes it difficult to relate to her on a personal level.  More to the point, it made Wonder Woman:  Blood (Volume 1) less than enjoyable to read.