Pretentiousness: Why it Matters
Book
What is pretentiousness? Why do we despise it? And more controversially: why is it vital to a...
Americana: The Kinks, the Road and the Perfect Riff
Book
As a boy in post-War England, legendary Kinks singer/songwriter Ray Davies fell in love with America...
You Play the Girl
6.0
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We all know who The Girl is. She holds The Hero's hand as he runs through the Pyramids, chasing...
Queer, There, and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World
Sarah Prager and Zoe More O’Ferrall
Book
This first-ever LGBTQ history book of its kind for young adults will appeal to fans of fun,...
LGBTQ Reference
Salsiology: Afro-Cuban Music and the Evolution of Salsa in New York City
Book
Boggs presents a readable, even exciting, history of Salsa, showing how Afro-Cuban music was...
David McK (3425 KP) rated Ready Player One in Books
Sep 19, 2021
Have also seen the movie mentioned below. It was just OK; not great.
<original 2016 review>
Prior to reading this, I'd heard good things about it, and was aware that - like seemingly nearly all of the current Young Adult Dystopian novels - there was a movie for it in the pipeline, by none other than Spielberg himself.
Set in the near-future, I found this to be like a cross between the Bruce Willis movie Surrogates (in that nearly everybody seems to live their life vicariously through other means), The Matrix (cyber reality) and maybe even a bit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the MacGuffin that gets the plot rolling). it probably helps that - unlike the characters - I actually *was* a kid in the 80s, and so get plenty of the various pop-culture references made.
Plenty, but not all - this, remember, is set in America, so leans more towards the American or Japanese spectrum of popular culture than European.
The Cereal Killer Cafe Cookbook
Gary Keery and Alan Keery
Book
The Cereal Killer Cafe Cookbook is the perfect gift for any cereal lover, bringing the brilliance of...
Suswatibasu (1701 KP) rated Bad Feminist in Books
Nov 23, 2017
Her essays on the intersection of feminism with misogynistic pop culture was incredibly on point, exploring E.L. James' infamous BDSM novel Fifty Shades of Grey, as well as other popular novels such as Twilight. She briefly mentions rape culture and how all of the above feeds into this notion.
Similarly her discussion on how race is portrayed in major Hollywood motion pictures is accurately disturbing - showing how African Americans are used in plots as a way to prop up white protagonists (The Help, Django Unchained).
Some of her other chapters seemed disconnected as if they were put in the book because there was no other place for it. This appears in the chapter on Scrabble. (Playing Scrabble doesn't make you a bad feminist).
There were a lot of haphazard thoughts that didn't quite thread together with the rest of the book ie. abortion rights, and male politicians' views on body autonomy. Gay was pretty adamant on her views on this, which appeared to showcase her opinion that she truly is a feminist.
The underlying message was that you may have flaws by enjoying aspects of pop culture, but as long as you are aware of how important it is that women receive equal rights, you can be any kind of feminist. But the book does feel as if she's trying to prove it to herself and to the world which seems rather unnecessary. We believe you Roxane.
Psychedelic Bubble Gum: Boyce & Hart, the Monkees, and Turning Mayhem into Miracles
Bobby Hart, Glenn Ballantyne and Micky Dolenz
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From the man who wrote the music that outsold the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in 1967-1968, ....
A Moon's Mystic Journey
10.0
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She's on the run for her life. All she wanted to do was prove her high school bullies wrong by...