Review: Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking by Catherine McCormack (#Ad)

I received this eProof for free from Icon Books via NetGalley for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Links with an asterisk (*) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking by Catherine McCormack

Published: 6th May 2021 | Publisher: Icon Books | Source: NetGalley
Catherine McCormack's Website

Art historian Catherine McCormack challenges how culture teaches us to see and value women, their bodies, and their lives.

Cultural archetypes have long been used to subjugate women, binding them within the restrictive roles of Venus, bride, wife, mother, and monster. These portrayals echo throughout the paintings and sculptures of western art―Titian, Botticelli, and Giambologna―and more contemporaneously in fashion photographs, ads, and across social media. By society empowering men to represent women, women imbibe a distorted vision of themselves and their bodies, coming up against notions of impossible beauty, idealized passivity and violence, and horrifying Medusas.

In this impassioned work, art historian Catherine McCormack evaluates the production and display of portrayals of women, exposing the underlying meanings, whether overt or symbolic. She counters them by turning to women artists like Berthe Morisot, Beyoncé, Suzanne Lacy, and Faith Ringgold. These women have been overturning confining depictions of identity, sexuality, race, and power to explore the breadth and multiplicity of women’s visions of their own lives. From The StoryGraph.

Purchase from Bookshop.org*
The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book discusses sexism, rape, racism, slavery, violence, violence against women, women in the moment of death/women's dead bodies, and their representation in art.

Continue reading Review: Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking by Catherine McCormack (#Ad)

My 2022 Reading Journal

One of my goals for 2022 was to create a reading journal to help better keep track of my challenges and reading. Previously, I would have a page set up on my blog for my reading challenges, a page set up for all the books I read in a year, and I would use my notes app on my phone while reading. However, I would always fall behind with updating my pages, and the notes app would just be used for keywords. I would always end up filling everything in later, having to go through my various app shelves to remind me what I had read over the last few weeks, and what challenges they fit. It just wasn't working. So when I saw someone on Instagram had blogged about their own reading journal, and saw the different ways they could be used, I was inspired. And I thought you might be interested to see what it looks like, and how I use it.

Continue reading My 2022 Reading Journal

Review: Girls of Fate and Fury by Natasha Ngan (#Ad)

I was received this eProof for free from Hodder& Stoughton via NetGalley for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Links with an asterisk (*) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Girls of Fate and Fury by Natasha Ngan

Published: 23rd November 2021 | Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton | Source: NetGalley
Natasha Ngan on Twitter

"Don't struggle, Lei-zhi. It's time to take you back to the Hidden Palace. You're going home." The final pages of Girls of Storm and Shadow brought a jaw-dropping conclusion that had the fates of Lei and Wren hanging in uncertainty. But one thing was certain - the Hidden Palace was the last place that Lei would ever consider home. The trauma and tragedy she suffered behind those opulent walls would plague her forever. She could not be trapped there with the sadistic king again, especially without Wren. The last Lei saw of the girl she loved, Wren was fighting an army of soldiers in a furious battle to the death. With the two girls torn apart and each in terrorizing peril, will they find each other again or have their destinies diverged forever? From The StoryGraph.

Purchase from Bookshop.org*
The StoryGraph | Goodreads


My other reviews of Girls of Paper and Fire Trilogy:
Girls of Paper and Fire | Girls of Storm and Shadow

WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features ableism, starving, drugging, violence against women, discussion of rape and sexual assault, torture, and war.

Continue reading Review: Girls of Fate and Fury by Natasha Ngan (#Ad)

Ad: Titles with an asterisk (*) were provided to me for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Links with a circumflex (^) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Most Anticipated Fantasy of 2022 - January to June

It's 2022! A brand new year that will bring us a hell of a lot of brand new books! So today I'm sharing some of my most anticipated 2022 fantasy novels - in which I'm including an horror and a dystopia, because they're sub-genres in my opinion - from January to June. There are others, but I think 27 are enough to be getting on with, don't you? So on with the books!

The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman* (4th January, Hot Key Books)

Four siblings. A country in ruin. One quest to save them all.

Vira is desperate to get out of her mother's shadow and establish her legacy as a revered queen of Ashoka. But with the country's only quarry running out of magic - a precious resource that has kept Ashoka safe from conflict - she can barely protect her citizens from the looming threat of war. And if her enemies discover this, they'll stop at nothing to seize the last of the magic.

Vira's only hope is to find a mysterious object of legend: the Ivory Key, rumoured to unlock a new source of magic. But in order to infiltrate enemy territory and retrieve it, she must reunite with her siblings, torn apart by broken relationships and the different paths their lives have taken. Each of them has something to gain from finding the Ivory Key - and even more to lose if they fail. Ronak plans to sell it to the highest bidder in exchange for escape from his impending political and unwanted marriage. Kaleb, falsely accused of assassinating the former maharani, needs it to clear his name. And Riya, the runaway sibling who cut all family ties, wants the Key to prove her loyalty to the rebels who took her in.

They must work together to survive the treacherous journey. But with each sibling harbouring secrets and their own conflicting agendas, the very thing that brought them together could tear apart their family - and their world - for good.

First in a duology from an incredible new talent, this Indian-inspired fantasy debut is epic, fierce and magnetically addictive, taking you on a thrilling journey where magic, a prized resource, is the only thing between peace and war. From Goodreads.

Bookshop^ | Goodreads

Continue reading Most Anticipated Fantasy of 2022 - January to June

Ad: Titles with an asterisk (*) were provided to me for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Looking Back Over 2021, Looking Forward to 2022

Happy New Year! It's now 2022 and time to look forward to this new year's reading, and the bookish goals for the year - or at least the things we hope to achieve.

But before I dive in to 2022, I'd like to take a very brief look at some of my favourite books read in 2021.

Favourite Books of 2021

I didn't have the best reading year in 2021. There were times when I just didn't read a huge amount, either due to not feeling it or not enjoying the book I was reading. And to be honest, there weren't a huge amount of books I really loved. So instead of my normal break down of my fave books in various genres/categories, I'm just listing the few that I really, really enjoyed last year. All images link to my reviews, except fot the last, as I've not reviewed it yet.

Continue reading Looking Back Over 2021, Looking Forward to 2022

Fairy Tale Retellings 2022 Reading Challenge

Welcome to the Fairy Tale Retellings 2022 Reading Challenge! As regular readers will know, I love a fairy tale retelling, and I generally try to read them throughout the year, and track what I've read. However, I didn't do very well last year, reading just two, and want to put more effort into picking up these kinds of stories I love in 2022. Inspired by some other reading challenges I've seen recently, I've decided to create my own!

As a mood reader, I'm not the kind of person who sees reading challenges as actual challenges, books I must read, but more of a tick box exercise where I can be more aware of what I'm reading. The challenges I generally take part tend to be more "read X amount of Z books," which isn't really any different than tracking what I read. But as I didn't do so well with reading fairy tale retellings last year, this year I've decided not only for this challenge to be actually be a challenge I try to achieve, but to also set prompts make it more fun, and have me reaching for some different stories. And thought others might be interested, too.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Hope Father Christmas Brings Me This Year

Links with an asterisk (*) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings Me This Year

Happy Yule! Today is the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, and a celebration of the return of the light, as from this day forward, the days will get longer as the sun returns.

Not only is today Yule, but also Top Ten Tuesday - and a super cool one at that! For today's TTT, Jana is giving us the opportunity to share our Amazon wish lists, and for those taking part to grant bookish wishes of those who leave a link - if they would like to. As one of the ways to celebrate Yule is gift giving, I absolutely had to take part! So first off, here are the ten books I hope Father Christmas will bring me this year.

Continue reading Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Hope Father Christmas Brings Me This Year