Month: December 2019

The Gremlin’s Library: Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

December 31st, 2019

This book wasn’t quite what I expected – I knew the basic premise, but not much else – but I really enjoyed it. It’s hard for me to say it was a fun read, because Girls of Paper and Fire deals with some extremely heavy topics. First and foremost of these is sexual assault, so a heads up that I’m going to talk about sexual assault, slavery and institutional oppression in this review.

Ngan’s series takes place in a world where there are three castes – Paper, Steel and Moon. Paper people are fully human, named that for their supposed fragility; Steel are a mix of human and demon; and Moon people are demons with animalistic features. The Moon caste rules with an iron grip, under the watchful eye of the Demon King, and Papers live with the fear that their village will be the next to be razed to the ground. Every year, the Demon King takes eight Paper girls to be his concubines – but the main character, Lei, has unusual golden eyes and is selected as the ninth.

Girls of Paper and Fire doesn’t quite read like YA, despite being classified as such; there are no miraculous escapes for the concubines, who eventually have to serve their role, and despite a hope spot for Lei she is also assaulted. They’re turned into commodities, their every move observed. Yet, in the midst of this suffocating role, Lei falls for another of the Paper Girls, and has to hide her growing feelings.

The treatment of sexual assault in this book is fantastic – it’s horrid and sudden, and there’s no attempted humanizing of the Demon King. Sometimes, villains are just villains. What really stuck with me, though, was the treatment of one of the other Paper Girls who is caught sleeping with somebody other than the Demon King. It rang a little too familiarly for comfort, and I imagine anybody who’s ever dated or been trapped with somebody who gets violently jealous felt the same way. It also made what otherwise would have been a rushed love story make perfect sense; Lei and Wren’s closeness is sped up in the face of such claustrophobic, abusive circumstances.

I think my main issues with Girls of Paper and Fire is the climax. The pacing for most of the book is excellent, but near the climax, things start to speed up and become hard to follow. it took me a few tries to figure out who was doing what, where, and when.

Girls of Paper and Fire is available at Chapters/Indigo and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, the sequel Girls of Storm and Shadow dropped on November 5th, and is available in all the same places.
The Gremlin’s Library: “Report on the Wren Queen’s Dementia” by Rhonda Eikamp

December 29th, 2019

“There were dispensations, of course, if the dream seemed impossible. The body might rebel, or the mind. A dream might be unimaginable. The only time I sought a dispensation was when my son’s bird told him to kill himself.”

-Rhonda Eikamp, “Report on the Wren Queen’s Dementia”, Lackingtons’ Issue 20: Birds

Oooooof. This story hits hard, and it hits well. It’s another story that dances along the line of magical realism, but the maternal anguish is front and center, as Malley tries to recover from the loss of her son and does everything she can to avert it. It reminds me a little, thematically, of [story from horror collection?] in how it uses a central bird metaphor to talk about mothers and children, but I think this one pulls it off better by far.

Particularly harrowing is the method of her son’s suicide – I won’t go into it here, but both that and a birth scene near the end almost nudge this story over to horror. It’s well balanced, though, with enough shock to be satisfying and enough emotion to linger.

TW for suicide, burning, abortion/pregnancy/birth, grief and character death.
Chaos Queer Cooking: Kimchi-Jjigae for Spoonies

December 24th, 2019
Hey folks, welcome back to Chaos Queer Cooking! So, context: I’ve been eating and making Korean food for a long time. My middle school was around the corner from a little Korean diner-slash-grocery, and everybody there was lovely to me when I wandered in with a mix of curiosity and confusion. It took me a few years to start (trying to) cook it; I didn’t get far, until I found out about Maangchi. With a lot of help from her recipes and videos, I started making stuff that was actually edible – and, as it turns out, much better for the stomach of somebody with a lactose intolerance. Funny that.

Maangchi’s original recipe is here, and if you want to make kimchi stew the Right Way, check out hers first! Below is a recipe that I use, usually because of a shortage of ingredients or chronic pain flareups.
1. Get your stock boiling! Make sure that your stock cube/bouillon is fully dissolved, if you’re using that.
2. Add your chopped kimchi and kimchi brine, and let boil for a few minutes. (Also add daikon here, if you’re using it.)
3. Add gochujang and make sure the paste mixes in properly.
4. Add pineapple, salt, sugar, sesame oil and mushrooms.
5. If you’re using pork and/or tofu, fry them gently in a pan (enough to brown) and then tip into the stew between steps 3 and 4.
6. Leave on the stove until everything is cooked and kimchi is soft.
7. Serve over shirataki, rice noodles, rice or japchae!
This is a pretty bastardized recipe, but not making your own stock cuts down on preparation time a lot, and adding things like daikon, mushroom and pineapple can bulk out the stew a little more, especially if you’re short on kimchi. All of the seasoning amounts are variable; I often add much more sugar than this, and the original calls for chili pepper flakes as well as gochujang.

Extra note: This is a great way to use up kimchi that’s gotten a little strong/fermented for a while! The kimchi itself hasn’t gone bad, just sour, and the sugar and salt in the recipe help balance it out.

Spoonie notes: You can dump in the kimchi whole if you want to, you’ll just have bigger leaves to contend with. But that way, unless you’ve added extra ingredients, there’s basically no chopping required.

Again, make sure to check out Maangchi’s original recipe, which includes how to make anchovy stock from scratch!
The Gremlin’s Library: “House of the Camphor” by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh

December 22nd, 2019

“Madam Setsuko had been alone before she took in the children, alone except for the camphor tree at the heart of the house and the mynah bird that spoke with the voices of the dead. Her black dress was pressed with wealth and worn at the collar with loss. Its lace cuffs had a thread loose for every brother burnt in the fire-bombing, her elbows were creased with their wives and children, and her skirts were dusted down with the vanishing of her parents. Black beads glittered at her throat and ears. Not real, of course – pawned for the children.”

-Mina Ikemoto Ghosh, “House of the Camphor”, Lackingtons’ Issue 20: Birds

Any story with mynah birds and three-legged crows is going to be dark, and that’s before we get to the dolls nailed to the dying tree. Ghosh’s story is a haunting one about wartime hunger and how grief leads people into dark paths. It’s half fable, half horror story, interspersed with bits of poetry and dripping with a deep-rooted trauma that both roots the story to the ground and makes it just a little off.

This is one of those stories that would not be the same in the hands of somebody not #ownvoices; Ghosh’s bio mentions her talking to her grandmother about the war, and while I’m not as familiar with Japanese folklore as I’d like to be, I think the three-legged crow is a very specific symbol. (As for the camphor tree and mynah bird, I can’t say, but mynah birds are CREEPY.)

TW for child death, body horror (I Am Dead Serious, don’t read this if you hate body horror), implied child trafficking
“you’re only human”

December 19th, 2019

you will never be
the monster in the mirror
it’s just made of glass

you will never be
the beast under the bedsheets
the bad dreams that stay

you can be more than
a collection of scar tissue
an unending reaction
collateral damage
an unburied body.

it takes time to notice how
you’ve shrugged weight off your shoulders
pound by kilo by pound
it rolls and melts away

you will never be
as sharp as the knife that made you
jagged as the teeth that bit you
as cruel as the fingers that tore you
to pieces in the shape of a mask

none of us are perfect, so
carry your imperfections with pride
these are the scars from your battle hardwon
rather than marks of the things that you’ve done
your body and mind and your memory is yours
so keep them well
and don’t be afraid.

you will never be
the criminal that you fear
you will never be
the shadow that cast over
you will never be
the predator that hunted
you will never be
the action or its echo

you can be more than
the fear that you’ll be like them.
the fear’s what makes you human –

and I am human, too.

Month: December 2019

The Gremlin’s Library: Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

The Gremlin’s Library: “Report on the Wren Queen’s Dementia” by Rhonda Eikamp

Chaos Queer Cooking: Kimchi-Jjigae for Spoonies

The Gremlin’s Library: “House of the Camphor” by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh

“you’re only human”