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Indistinguishable from Magic
In Indistinguishable from Magic, more than 60 essays by New York Times-bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland) are brought together in print for the first time, sharing Cat's observations and insights about fairy tales and myths, pop culture, gender and race issues, an amateur's life on planet Earth and much more. Join Cat as she studies the fantasy genre's inner clockwork to better comprehend its infatuation with medievalism (AKA "dragon bad, sword pretty"), considers the undervalued importance of the laundry machine to women's rights in locales as wide-ranging as Japan and the steampunk genre, and comes to understand that so much of shaping fantasy works is about making puppets seem real and sympathetic (otherwise, you're just playing with dolls).
Also featured: Cat takes a hard look at why she can't stop writing about Persephone, dwells upon the legacy of poets in Cleveland, and examines how stories teach us how to survive - if Gretel can kill the witch, Snow White can return from the dead, and Rapunzel can live in the desert, trust that you can too.
Also featured: Cat takes a hard look at why she can't stop writing about Persephone, dwells upon the legacy of poets in Cleveland, and examines how stories teach us how to survive - if Gretel can kill the witch, Snow White can return from the dead, and Rapunzel can live in the desert, trust that you can too.
244 pages, Paperback
First published May 5, 2014
4 people are currently reading
396 people want to read
About the author
Catherynne M. Valente
251Ìýbooks7,687ÌýfollowersCatherynne M. Valente was born on Cinco de Mayo, 1979 in Seattle, WA, but grew up in in the wheatgrass paradise of Northern California. She graduated from high school at age 15, going on to UC San Diego and Edinburgh University, receiving her B.A. in Classics with an emphasis in Ancient Greek Linguistics. She then drifted away from her M.A. program and into a long residence in the concrete and camphor wilds of Japan.
She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.
She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 24, 2015
As many have already pointed out, Indistinguishable from Magic has a buttload of typos. I assume they literally just C&P'd interesting essays from Cat's blog and journals and send them off to the printer tout de suite. If you follow her online at all and don't often re-read stuff, I wouldn't buy the book; I, however, dislike following authors online after a terrible spell with Laurell K. Hamilton ages ago, so almost all of these were brand new to me. Some are useful writing tips, others observations on tired cliches in literature. There are some great analyses of favorite characters and TV shows, and I absolutely adored "Say Yes" which is about wanting more characters, girls especially, who choose the adventure, who don't just accidentally end up in a magical land and spend the whole novel miserable, trying to get home.
A particular favorite is the essay "My Commitment to Sparkle Motion" which I have read aloud to many a friend and am in fact about to give an except from, because it's the best. Talking about how vampires have been sanitized of most of the worst traits that made being a vampire miserable, Valente goes on about how annoying and unnecessary it is to have vampire after vampire this same old mopey "afterlife sucks" whiner.
A particular favorite is the essay "My Commitment to Sparkle Motion" which I have read aloud to many a friend and am in fact about to give an except from, because it's the best. Talking about how vampires have been sanitized of most of the worst traits that made being a vampire miserable, Valente goes on about how annoying and unnecessary it is to have vampire after vampire this same old mopey "afterlife sucks" whiner.
Watching The Vampire Diaries, which is terrible, there's a scene where the receding hairline vampire high school guy mumbles and looks at his feet and then tells the boring high school girl that he's "not very good at small talk."
Well, you fucking well should be, shouldn't you? You're four hundred years old! You should be awesome at small talk! You should be like a social Olympic athlete! You should be all: sometimes I small talk a tree, just for fun! You should be able to walk into a room and own it like fucking David Bowie, my friend. What have you been doing all this time? Mumbling? That doesn't even work for mortal boys! I am done with you, vampire failure.
Vampires should be pretty much like mean girls, all the time, only amazing at it. Flawless. They've had time. Like when you put a penny in a bank account and a thousand years later you're rich. Social capital, it is the same. Those high school kids should never know what hit them because they are amateurs. Vampires should not be at the approximate social stage of a particularly awkward 14 year old with anxiety issues. They should be devils in blue dresses. This is the metaphor: the cool kids are all vampires, and they fuck with you because it's fun. Because they're demons and they like it. They keep going to high school over and over not to pick up some awkward 16 year old virgin, but because they can get away with shit in the maelstrom of high school that adults would never put up with. They are Chuck Bass. All of them. All the time.
October 2, 2014
Sometimes when people talk about an author's work being 'raw', it's as if they think words just appear on the page and there's no mediation whatsoever. That these words, ideas, thoughts had been flying across the savannah just minutes before the author brought them down with a flying leap to serve them up still warm for the reader. I'm not silly enough to think that - and even if I were, Catherynne Valente's excoriating essay against people who think authors are just the conduit for some muse ("she wrote it but...") would have made me rethink my position.
When I say that much of Valente's work, as presented in Indistinguishable from Magic (provided to Galactic Suburbia for review by Mad Norwegian Press) is raw I mean that she has not hidden her emotions, she has not hidden herself, from the world while writing these essays.
(One presumes. It could all be a very elaborate persona, with a very detailed background and crafted voice. Y'know, I wouldn't put that past her - she certainly has the mad writerly skillz to accomplish such a feat. And if that's the case, well, more power to her.)
The essays collected here are variously from Valente's blog, speeches, and a few other sources. They're arranged into categories: pop culture and genre; writing and publishing; gender, race, and storytelling; fairy tales, myth and the future; and "Life on Earth: An Amateur's Guide." And they showcase the brilliant variety of Valente's interests passions: Persephone and Doctor Who (... possibly not so much of an antithesis there...), fairy tales, equality in all manner of things, Jane Eyre (see, Tansy? she's on MY side), poetry, and Single Male Programmer Types managing to have sex (trust me, it's very a very funny essay).
The pop culture musings range between 2003 and 2011. Valente's writing is beguiling enough I actually read the entirety of the first essay, which is about Buffy and Angel, despite having watched maybe three episodes of the two shows combined. Her comments on what the show meant to 20-somethings nonetheless resonated - and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the collection. I'm also not a big Trek fan, and have watched very little DS9, but her musings on what the station would have been like with social media? Priceless. More seriously - no, it's all serious; more academically, her essay on why World War 2 and the Nazis keeps on popping up in comics and other fantastic culture is deeply insightful.
I read about half of the essays on writing and publishing; not being in the game myself means that I don't really have the emotional attachment to the issues necessary to connect with much of what she writes here. That said, the first essay - the one about writing actually being hard work - is a glorious piece of writing; her explanation of her love of the term metal makes me itch to use the word more; and her utter dismantling of the argument that 'traditional publishing is dead = a good thing' is brilliant.
Valente is wonderfully, evocatively, angry and sincere and honest and passionate and conciliatory and clinical in her essays about gender and race and why those things matter in storytelling. "The Story of Us" skewers very neatly the whole 'but why does it matter?' complaint - and matches nicely with Pam Noles' "Shame," which I read in a Tiptree Anthology. She gets dangerously personal in "Confessions of a Fat Girl" - dangerous to herself, I would guess, because of potential backlash (I really, really hope she didn't get any); dangerous to some readers because of how it might make some squirm at their reaction; dangerous to other readers because it might just call out their own troubles, and make them confront them.
All the essays up to this point have been easy to read - delightful to read. Some have shown Valente's academic training. With the essays on fairy tales and folklore, though, she gets her academia on. Katabasis in Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and The Nutcracker? Why fantasy keeps going back to the medieval ("Dragon Bad, Sword Pretty")? The purpose of Persephone, and her multiple faces? Oh yes.
Finally, the last set are more whimsical as a group - they don't really have a collective theme, aside from 'some thoughts on living in the world'. Her reflections on why people love apocalyptic literature are fascinating; her frustration at being of a generation told to live as well as their parents without the means to it revealing; and her reflections on Cleveland surprisingly moving. Her essay on her love of the anchorite idea just sings, as does her discussion of "Two Kinds of Love."
I read this not quite in a sitting, but with nothing else around it. It certainly works like that. It would also work beautifully as a collection to dip in and out of - none of the pieces are very long, after all. There is so much going for Valente's writing - for those who are writers, for those interested in fantasy and folklore, for those interested in the world in general. And even if you've been a faithful reader of Valente's blog, Rules for Anchorites, I would suggest this is still a great collection because reading these essays in this order, with essays from elsewhere to add depth and piquancy - it just works.
When I say that much of Valente's work, as presented in Indistinguishable from Magic (provided to Galactic Suburbia for review by Mad Norwegian Press) is raw I mean that she has not hidden her emotions, she has not hidden herself, from the world while writing these essays.
(One presumes. It could all be a very elaborate persona, with a very detailed background and crafted voice. Y'know, I wouldn't put that past her - she certainly has the mad writerly skillz to accomplish such a feat. And if that's the case, well, more power to her.)
The essays collected here are variously from Valente's blog, speeches, and a few other sources. They're arranged into categories: pop culture and genre; writing and publishing; gender, race, and storytelling; fairy tales, myth and the future; and "Life on Earth: An Amateur's Guide." And they showcase the brilliant variety of Valente's interests passions: Persephone and Doctor Who (... possibly not so much of an antithesis there...), fairy tales, equality in all manner of things, Jane Eyre (see, Tansy? she's on MY side), poetry, and Single Male Programmer Types managing to have sex (trust me, it's very a very funny essay).
The pop culture musings range between 2003 and 2011. Valente's writing is beguiling enough I actually read the entirety of the first essay, which is about Buffy and Angel, despite having watched maybe three episodes of the two shows combined. Her comments on what the show meant to 20-somethings nonetheless resonated - and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the collection. I'm also not a big Trek fan, and have watched very little DS9, but her musings on what the station would have been like with social media? Priceless. More seriously - no, it's all serious; more academically, her essay on why World War 2 and the Nazis keeps on popping up in comics and other fantastic culture is deeply insightful.
I read about half of the essays on writing and publishing; not being in the game myself means that I don't really have the emotional attachment to the issues necessary to connect with much of what she writes here. That said, the first essay - the one about writing actually being hard work - is a glorious piece of writing; her explanation of her love of the term metal makes me itch to use the word more; and her utter dismantling of the argument that 'traditional publishing is dead = a good thing' is brilliant.
Valente is wonderfully, evocatively, angry and sincere and honest and passionate and conciliatory and clinical in her essays about gender and race and why those things matter in storytelling. "The Story of Us" skewers very neatly the whole 'but why does it matter?' complaint - and matches nicely with Pam Noles' "Shame," which I read in a Tiptree Anthology. She gets dangerously personal in "Confessions of a Fat Girl" - dangerous to herself, I would guess, because of potential backlash (I really, really hope she didn't get any); dangerous to some readers because of how it might make some squirm at their reaction; dangerous to other readers because it might just call out their own troubles, and make them confront them.
All the essays up to this point have been easy to read - delightful to read. Some have shown Valente's academic training. With the essays on fairy tales and folklore, though, she gets her academia on. Katabasis in Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and The Nutcracker? Why fantasy keeps going back to the medieval ("Dragon Bad, Sword Pretty")? The purpose of Persephone, and her multiple faces? Oh yes.
Finally, the last set are more whimsical as a group - they don't really have a collective theme, aside from 'some thoughts on living in the world'. Her reflections on why people love apocalyptic literature are fascinating; her frustration at being of a generation told to live as well as their parents without the means to it revealing; and her reflections on Cleveland surprisingly moving. Her essay on her love of the anchorite idea just sings, as does her discussion of "Two Kinds of Love."
I read this not quite in a sitting, but with nothing else around it. It certainly works like that. It would also work beautifully as a collection to dip in and out of - none of the pieces are very long, after all. There is so much going for Valente's writing - for those who are writers, for those interested in fantasy and folklore, for those interested in the world in general. And even if you've been a faithful reader of Valente's blog, Rules for Anchorites, I would suggest this is still a great collection because reading these essays in this order, with essays from elsewhere to add depth and piquancy - it just works.
April 21, 2015
I probably should have just read these off of her blog, but I really don't like knowing too much about authors' personal lives... And I don't want to wade through a dozen posts about day-to-day activities to get to the posts about their work or ideas.
I really liked these essays. Some were just amusing and others gave quite a bit of insight into her views on various Sci-Fi/Fantasy topics...
It really deserves 4 stars for the content, but I'm docking a star for the numerous typos. You'd think the 3 editors credited in the end notes could have cleaned these essays up a bit more!
I really liked these essays. Some were just amusing and others gave quite a bit of insight into her views on various Sci-Fi/Fantasy topics...
It really deserves 4 stars for the content, but I'm docking a star for the numerous typos. You'd think the 3 editors credited in the end notes could have cleaned these essays up a bit more!
August 24, 2016
DNF 29%. I picked this up about six months ago and wasn't enjoying it, so I put it down. I don't want to pick it back up again. I read the first section of essays and I found them way too complainy. It wasn't fun to read. It also made me look at the other books I have by Valente on my shelves and questions wanting to read them, too, unfortunately.
October 17, 2021
Entweder ist die erste Hälfte dieser Essay-(bzw. eigentlich Blogartikel)Sammlung stärker oder ich war nach 50% einfach etwas ermüdet, aber während ich Valentes Meinungen und Ideen am Anfang vor allem witzig, clever und treffend fand und es mich glücklich gemacht hat, wie sie Fantasyliteratur mit Leib und Seele liebt und verteidigt, sind mir ihre Standpunkte in der zweiten Hälfte immer öfter sauer aufgestoßen. Manche fand ich nicht mehr zeitgemäß (Asexualität wird z.B. scheinbar nie in Betracht gezogen) und unglücklich ausgedrückt, einfach zu sehr in bestimmten Kategorien denkend und dann sehr forsch ihre Meinung vertretend. Es sind natürlich persönliche Essays, die sehr gut ein Bild ihres Charakters zeichnen, aber manchmal hätte ich mir weniger Rigorosität gewünscht.
Die Machart des Buches lässt ein wenig zu wünschen übrig. Schön finde ich die Unterteilung der Essays in verschiedene Kategorien, schwach ist allerdings, dass es nicht mal eine Kurbiografie über die Autorin gibt und beinahe jede Seite Tippfehler hat (und das bei drei Lektor*innen).
[3.5 Sterne]
Die Machart des Buches lässt ein wenig zu wünschen übrig. Schön finde ich die Unterteilung der Essays in verschiedene Kategorien, schwach ist allerdings, dass es nicht mal eine Kurbiografie über die Autorin gibt und beinahe jede Seite Tippfehler hat (und das bei drei Lektor*innen).
[3.5 Sterne]
April 5, 2022
Enough insightful/hilarious/perfect essays to retain the 5 stars, despite the occasional repetition. I just cheerfully skimmed through a few in the middle.
May 11, 2016
Minus one star for the numerous typos - I am sorry but when several of the entries rhapsodize about the wonders of editors and publishers and the value they bring to the book community, there has to consequences for someone obviously not doing that job. Otherwise, the essays are insightful, fascinating, clever, passionate, opinionated, and so much more. I read this in less than a day but would recommend taking it slower, giving yourself a chance to savor the words, dissect the arguments and piece it back together in your own mindspace - let yourself contemplate what you yourself actually think of what she is saying. Because there is a lot to think about. This book actually does a good job selling her vision and voice, it definitely reflects the author behind the books I have read by her and makes me want to pick up the rest. The world is definitely a better place for having Valente creating her own personal brand of literary magic and I personally, am glad she has chosen to be a writer.
November 16, 2022
This was an excellent read.
I love Cat, I love their work, & I love his essays.
I’ve been a Patreon supporter of xer’s for over a year now, and one of the absolute delights is reading Cat’s essays each month. I recently finished reading all the backlog of essays and wanted more. So, when I stumbled upon this collection of earlier essays of Cat’s I jumped on it.
And let me tell you, I was not disappointed! “Indistinguishable From Magic� was such a delight.
Rather than binging this one (as I am want to do) I’ve been picking it up and reading a few essays at a time, stretching the magic. It was great while it lasted but, alas, all things must come to an end. I guess the next step is digging up their livejournal archive� (most of the essays here are from Cat’s livejournal “Rules For Anchorites�).
If you’re a fan of Cat I’d absolutely recommend checking out “Indistinguishable From Magic�. Even if you haven’t read any of their works I’d recommend it as a bouncing off point. Very accessible & interesting.
I love Cat, I love their work, & I love his essays.
I’ve been a Patreon supporter of xer’s for over a year now, and one of the absolute delights is reading Cat’s essays each month. I recently finished reading all the backlog of essays and wanted more. So, when I stumbled upon this collection of earlier essays of Cat’s I jumped on it.
And let me tell you, I was not disappointed! “Indistinguishable From Magic� was such a delight.
Rather than binging this one (as I am want to do) I’ve been picking it up and reading a few essays at a time, stretching the magic. It was great while it lasted but, alas, all things must come to an end. I guess the next step is digging up their livejournal archive� (most of the essays here are from Cat’s livejournal “Rules For Anchorites�).
If you’re a fan of Cat I’d absolutely recommend checking out “Indistinguishable From Magic�. Even if you haven’t read any of their works I’d recommend it as a bouncing off point. Very accessible & interesting.
October 3, 2017
I quite enjoyed these essays. I had started reading the collection thinking it would be a good way to solve my insomnia (this is not an insult; finding something to read that's engrossing enough to make my brain STFU for a while that also does not drive me to KEEP reading is really hard) but I once again fell victim to Valente's wonderful voice and had a hard time putting the collection down. I keep wanting to read more, even though there's no plot to a book of essays. The essay near the end addressed to SMPTs is hilarious and oh, god, so spot on. Some of these I want to photocopy and mail to people I know. Some of them I want to blow up so that the letters are as tall as I am and post them in my office break room so that everyone will read them.
I'm not a huge non-fiction reader so it really says something that I read this entire collection in less than 24 hours and had to force myself to put it down to get some sleep in the middle there.
I'm not a huge non-fiction reader so it really says something that I read this entire collection in less than 24 hours and had to force myself to put it down to get some sleep in the middle there.
May 1, 2023
I loved reading Cat's essays, I felt like I got to know my favorite author a little better. I agree with her opinions and trust her wisdom. She has made me feel a lot better about a lot of things and made me more comfortable with Science Fiction and possibilities I have found scary in the past. She explicitly reminded me that the human soul is pretty much indestructable and we can survive anything with love and find beauty in any situation and turn things around and make them better. She has made me a braver, stronger, happier person.
October 13, 2017
Excellent content, as her blog usually is. Minus one star for not fixing blog-related typos before printing.
March 16, 2017
This is the sort of book that really puts you in the author's head. I have occasionally regretted finding out more about the authors of my favourite books (I haven't reread Ender's Game since I found out that Orson Scott Card was a raging pile of horse pucky.) However, I loved playing around in Catherynne Valente's mind!
July 4, 2022
At this point I would read a phone book if Catherynne Valente wrote it. She's one of my all-time favorite authors, and I've come to enjoy reading her non-fiction (mostly via her social media accounts) as well as her fiction. "Indistinguishable From Magic" is a collection of essays, a genre I almost never read... but it's by Cat, so why not? And I'm so glad I did, for she has some fascinating and gripping insights on everything from Doctor Who to portal fantasy to feminism to how self-publishing is affecting the writing industry to everything in between.
This book is divided into four sections, each containing essays previously published on various websites or blogs -- pop culture, writing, fantasy and science fiction as genres, and life in general. She discusses the pathetic state of sci-fi poetry, how the vampire genre is stuck in its brooding mindset despite eliminating every possible drawback to becoming a vampire, how classic stories such as Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz are allegories for Persephone's journey to the underworld, how many of the tasks women traditionally did at home in the past have been outsourced to companies, and far more. And she's at turns funny, angry, insightful, and shocking in her observations, and isn't afraid to take a shot at some of the sacred cows of literature in the process.
Catherynne strikes me as the type of person who'd be a ton of fun to get to know in person, and I enjoy her opinions and non-fiction analyses just as much as her fiction. "Indistinguishable From Magic" is a must-read for her hardcore fans, but it's also illuminating for anyone who's an aspiring writer, a fantasy/sci-fi fan, or a literature buff.
This book is divided into four sections, each containing essays previously published on various websites or blogs -- pop culture, writing, fantasy and science fiction as genres, and life in general. She discusses the pathetic state of sci-fi poetry, how the vampire genre is stuck in its brooding mindset despite eliminating every possible drawback to becoming a vampire, how classic stories such as Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz are allegories for Persephone's journey to the underworld, how many of the tasks women traditionally did at home in the past have been outsourced to companies, and far more. And she's at turns funny, angry, insightful, and shocking in her observations, and isn't afraid to take a shot at some of the sacred cows of literature in the process.
Catherynne strikes me as the type of person who'd be a ton of fun to get to know in person, and I enjoy her opinions and non-fiction analyses just as much as her fiction. "Indistinguishable From Magic" is a must-read for her hardcore fans, but it's also illuminating for anyone who's an aspiring writer, a fantasy/sci-fi fan, or a literature buff.
July 10, 2014
3.5 stars really, for two reasons that really amount to one.
The essays themselves vary from the exceptionally good to the simple but important insight into the mind of the author as a writer, or a fan, or a person. It is an enormous job to wade through a long-lived blog, especially from a prolific author as Valente, to select a limited number of items that not only stand up by themselves, but together also offer a solid representation of her complete work both in theme and depth.
Now for the negative note: the book is riddled with typos, and the graphic design is basic even for an essay collection.
Since most of the material in this book is available for free offline (only 3 articles do not come from her blog or a guest post) this collection is mostly retreading on old ground if you've been following Cat online for a while, and for 15$ I would have at least expected a little more editorial work to polish it all up.
The essays themselves vary from the exceptionally good to the simple but important insight into the mind of the author as a writer, or a fan, or a person. It is an enormous job to wade through a long-lived blog, especially from a prolific author as Valente, to select a limited number of items that not only stand up by themselves, but together also offer a solid representation of her complete work both in theme and depth.
Now for the negative note: the book is riddled with typos, and the graphic design is basic even for an essay collection.
Since most of the material in this book is available for free offline (only 3 articles do not come from her blog or a guest post) this collection is mostly retreading on old ground if you've been following Cat online for a while, and for 15$ I would have at least expected a little more editorial work to polish it all up.
February 19, 2015
An awesome collection of essays and blog postings. Perhaps I find it most-so because it flatters my own viewpoint on many subjects, and because her use of language is appealing and something I do/would like to mimic.
The proofing of the text leaves something to be desired, but that's a minor annoyance, something we're used to when reading online, which is the source of almost all of the pieces included here. I do, though, wish they'd been cleaned up better for publication.
I first heard of Valente a few years ago when io0.com was suggesting her novel Palimpsest (which is is just such a great word, I immediately wanted to read the book!), and I think I probably checked it off, here on goodreads, but for some reason I've not gotten around to reading her fiction.
I shall rectify that very soon.
The proofing of the text leaves something to be desired, but that's a minor annoyance, something we're used to when reading online, which is the source of almost all of the pieces included here. I do, though, wish they'd been cleaned up better for publication.
I first heard of Valente a few years ago when io0.com was suggesting her novel Palimpsest (which is is just such a great word, I immediately wanted to read the book!), and I think I probably checked it off, here on goodreads, but for some reason I've not gotten around to reading her fiction.
I shall rectify that very soon.
Read
November 6, 2023If I could pick any writer to be a personal friend I would pick Cat Valente. This collection of short essays has me curling up with a cup of tea and laughing at the observations Cat can so acerbically spill out onto the pages and into my imagination. She ruminates on a wide swath of subjects from pop culture (Dr. Who, Lost, Buffy), writing/writers (workshops, tropes, poetry, and what it is like to write a sex scene), and gender (which I have yet to get to).
Right now all I can say is that I am enjoying this collection immensely and I feel like she is the voice that I would want to aspire to be if I ever deigned to pick up a pen/pencil/tablet/whatever to write. I am not a writer, nor am I trying to be, but man, if I was she would be the role model I would look up to.
September 2, 2014
This book is a collection of essays from Catherine Valente. I hadn't read any of Valente's work before picking this up, I just had a curiosity of her writing based on a lot of good reviews from other authors who's work I like.
This book did not disappoint. Valente is an excellent writer. My only knocks on the book speak more to me than her. When she broke down Wizard of OZ, the Nutcracker, and Alice in Wonderland, I got lost in some of her references. This essay and a few other like them slowed down the book overall for me, but that is mostly my brain desperately trying to keep up.
This book has Good writing, Entertaining essays, and honesty that is always nice to see.
This book did not disappoint. Valente is an excellent writer. My only knocks on the book speak more to me than her. When she broke down Wizard of OZ, the Nutcracker, and Alice in Wonderland, I got lost in some of her references. This essay and a few other like them slowed down the book overall for me, but that is mostly my brain desperately trying to keep up.
This book has Good writing, Entertaining essays, and honesty that is always nice to see.
October 5, 2021
It's been a while since blogposts made me cry
This is a collection of Valente's blog posts, the middle section is largely specific to publishing but even those I still found very touching here and there.
This is a collection of Valente's blog posts, the middle section is largely specific to publishing but even those I still found very touching here and there.
Currently reading
August 3, 2014Finding this to be a book I pick up, read an essay, pontificate over it a while, and then return to start the cycle anew; it's unusual for me to do that.
March 6, 2015
I love the way Cat rights and that she always has something to say. I didn't understand every essay, but I didn't need to. An excellent collection.
April 22, 2016
I am not the greatest nonfiction reader, but there are some authors work that I just adore, Cat Valente is one of them.
July 27, 2015
An insightful, wise and moving book about why we read, why we write, why we need stories.
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