1. People are thinking and talking about “feminine” covers
2. My cover is a great example of a “feminine” cover that works

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m a girl. My last book, WICKET SEASON was about a boy and featured a boy playing sports on the cover, so I definitely wasn’t been dealt a cover worthy of a cover flip. AUDACIOUS on the other hand, is a verse novel, about a girl. There is romance, but that’s not the whole focus of the book. There is also a pink dress. It’s a book that will appeal mostly to girls. That’s perfectly okay with me. That said, as far as a cover goes, really I could have easily ended up with either an almost kissing couple like this:

Or a cover that made the book look like a prom dress catalog. Nothing wrong with frock book covers, but let’s be honest, they’re getting a little ubiquitous.

Authors aren’t always satisfied with their covers. I think this is what drove the #coverflip meme, with sympathetic readers adding fuel to the fire. And I can see how some authors and reader could get frustrated. Because it really DOES seem like there are  three general cover styles used over and over for female authored/girl reader orientedYA books:

1. the vapid girl cover with optional soft focus which, while a mainstay of the contemporary genre also creeps into some genre books, in particular as foreign editions. See the German edition of CREWEL (about which author Gennifer Albin said “I don’t know who that girl is”) and a few foreign editions of HOW I LIVE NOW.
2. the kissing/almost kissing cover/embracing couple which you would think was reserved for romance books, but as evidenced by the cover I referred to last week, for Janne Teller’s NOTHING, is clearly bleeding into other genres
3. Finally the frock cover which seems to a a Jill-of-all-trades cover, turning up on everything from science fiction, dystopian, paranormal, romance and contemporary “issue” books. Interestingly, the most common iteration of this type of cover is photographic. As though there is no other way to represent a frock. Oh, and of course the cover models are almost always white, thin and beautiful.

Which brings me to my cover, and why I’m so excited about it. Apart from the romance, there are three major “McGuffins” in AUDACIOUS. I don’t want to spoil it but ALL three are represented on the cover. Obviously the pink dress is one. To learn the other two you will have to read it. But beyond the cover being accurately evocative of the book in terms of the content of the imagery, it is also accurate in terms of the tone and the protagonist. Holy crap, that REALLY looks like the way I imagined her!

And the artistry is so beautiful. And the protagonist of AUDACIOUS is an artist. And the colors! You guys, I LOVE IT! I won’t keep you waiting any longer. Here it is:

I mean, I’m just…I can’t even…I FREAKING LOVE this cover! It is so specifically  relevant to the story in so many ways. And black and pink are my daughter’s favorite colors! And speaking of my daughter, she’s decided to become a gender anarchist. So far, mostly what she does is move Hello Kitty t-shirts into the boy’s department in Target. But hopefully she’ll be insisting her male friends read AUDACIOUS, publicly and proudly, pink cover and all.

But #coverflip has become a talking point for some pretty serious issues. One criticism of #coverflip has been that it is inherently critical itself of anything “feminine”. In other words a girl on the cover equals a trashy book. Frankly that’s not a very sophisticated read on the #coverflip meme. It’s actually a very nuanced argument that the people who are discussing coverflip are trying to make. Perhaps we may not even understand that clearly ourselves.

But I’ve been thinking that since we are talking about a visual issue it might be best to try to parse out the argument visually. Each coverflip submission is of course a visual statement, but the whole argument hasn’t quite been put into visual terms that satisfy me. So I’m going to try.

I’m going to start with a Printz winning book, HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff. Like most successful books, this one has a number of covers, some are more “feminine” than others. But here’s the one most of us are familiar with:

It’s a great cover. Graphic, moody, artistic. It looks like the serious book that it is. There are a couple of variations on this cover. But there are also some that do something completely different.

These other covers are nodding to some pretty ubiquitous YA cover trends that can roughly be described as “Faceless girl with optional wafty hair”, and “soft focus girl with optional flowers/butterfly”. OK, so fine. Apart from the fact that these cover models all look high, it’s still a great book and how can we control what foreign publishers put on covers? Maybe it’s not such a big deal.

But here’s the thing. I really like the first cover and it kind of reminds me of another book and cover I really like, MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD, by  Francisco S. Stork. Also a very well-reviewed award winning book. And here’s the cover we’re most familiar with:

Same ideas – graphic, stark, evocative. It’s a little more literal than Rosoff’s cover but I still think it has the same artistic feel. So probably there are some covers where Marcelo is looking vague and soft-focused right? Let’s see. I’m looking. I’m looking.

Hmm. This is the closest I could find:

In fact almost ALL the foreign editions of Stork’s book use the original cover. It’s almost as if foreign rights publishers don’t know something like the below cover, I just designed would sell more books, especially to girls, whom we all know are particularly drawn to out of focus vaguely stoned looking heroes and heroines.

My coverflip: (Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

(as an aside: do you know how hard it is to find stock art with boys and men looking vague and useless? Go ahead and browse some stock sites. You’ll see what I mean)

The complaint that drove #coverflip yesterday and today is very real. It’s not just about girly books and girly covers. On the one hand it, like similarly amusing yet pertinent awareness campaigns aimed at comic books, is about the narrow range of images accepted as reflecting femininity. I’m speaking now of passive, softly focused girls with floating hair and fluffy dresses, and their ubiquity ONLY on books written and/or about girls and women. On the other hand the #coverflip campaign has also drawn attention to the fact that books authored by women often get incongruously “feminine” or “romantic” covers, even when the content within is not very feminine or “romantic”. Consider this Printz winner, NOTHING by Janne Teller, maybe the least romantic book I’ve ever read (and I’ve read 50 Shades of Grey).

Anyone would think this was a heartbreaking romance, like THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Oh hahahahaha. It’s not. It’s so VERY not. But apparently American publishers wanted people to think it was.

Maybe because this is such a deeply messed up and brilliantly twisted and disturbing book, it’s perhaps not surprising the wide range of covers NOTHING has had. Only the American paperback has this soft and romantic look. Make what you will of that. If you’re interested this cover is a much more accurate depiction of what happens in this demented book:

Look at the “feminine” cover. Then look at the other one. Then look at the feminine one again. Then imagine that the author was a man. Would this cover happen to M. T Anderson? I don’t think so.

For final proof at the below two covers, both award winning books:

At a glance, pretend you don’t know, and tell me which one was female authored. Right, it’s the soft blue colored one with the sky and the geese.

And which one is set in juvenile detention? In fact they both are, despite the fact that the female model looks like she just came from a beauty salon and is out in the park watching the abovementioned geese. So for my final trick, I’m going to ask you in your mind, to flip these covers.

Interesting, right?

By contrast, girl readers are believed to be open to either boy or girl protagonists. But frankly I think it goes much deeper than this. Many books with male protagonists are still distinctly girl oriented – if they are romantic for example. The boy protagonist/narrators in these tend to be perfection personified “book boyfriends”. As much as I like these books for myself, they can hardly be described as “boy books”.

So below I’m going to suggest some boy protagonist books that, while being great recommendations for boy readers, also offer girl readers a more realistic insight into the complexities of boyish life. While some authors here are women, there are a few male authors too.

Young Adult readers:

HOLD ME CLOSER NECROMANCER by Lish McBride is just darn good genre fiction. It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s gruesome, it’s clever. This is a mixed narrator book, but very much about the fledgling necromancer Sam, and his feckless but entertaining friends. With its two tough female supporting leads, its dark humor and slightly clueless boys this is an antidote to all the soft and squishy urban paranormal out there.

A.S. King’s EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS is a complex story about a delightfully messed up boy and his weird way of dealing with things. So beautifully written without being flowery or soft focused, this is a genuine boy story that boys and girls will relate to.

So many YA boys are either perfect (often in a stalkery way) or just total jerks or wastes of space. Sutter in THE SPECTACULAR NOW by Tim Tharp is sort of all three. He’s lovely and a jerk, definitely a wastrel but ultimately gives more than he gets. I classify this as a boy book because Sutter is so darn COOL but I think girls will fall in love with him too.

For an insightful look into the mind of exceptional boys MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD by Francisco X Stork and THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME by Mark Haddon are highly recommended. Boys think differently from girls and autism in some ways is just a more extreme expression of this analytical thinking. These protagonists really get inside the autistic mind.

Janet Tashjian’s series THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LARRY also concerns an exceptional boy, though one without the social limitations of Autistic Spectrum Disorder. The hero of this, Josh, is a socially aware, technology savvy super-kid. And it all comes back to bite him in the ass. Such fun to watch him try to figure a way out of this and the two sequels. These are intelligent and funny books and completely unfluffy.

WILL GRAYSON WILL GRAYSON co-written by John Green and David Levithan is kind of a perfect boy book in many ways. The two protagonists, both called Will Grayson are funny, vulgar, horny, devoted, misguided, and reckless.  One is gay, one is straight. They meet by accident. They change each other’s lives. One of them uses the C word in the best (and most deserved) way EVER.  Girls reading this will adore them both.

Matthew Quick is fast becoming one of my favorite male authors. To date he hasn’t fallen into the teenage boy fantasy fulfillment that seems to plague so many young male authors (I’m looking at YOU, early John Irving). There are no mysterious, supernaturally beautiful yet tragic women/girls in his books, just regular messed up people. So his book BOY21 is a natural recommendation for this list. It’s quirky. It’s sad. It’s scary and funny. It also has a tough yet vulnerable and very real female love interest that girl readers will love.

Barry Lyga made the Girl Books for Boys list with GOTH GIRL RISING but that won’t stop him from making this list with BOY TOY. This is a powerfully affecting novel about the aftermath of sexual abuse on a teenage boy. The perpetrator is an attractive young woman. All kinds of things are pulled apart and put back together in this remarkable book. It’s VERY graphic though and best for older teens.

Finally, Neal Shusterman makes pretty much every list I’ve ever made and this one is no exception. So much of the recent dystopian trend relies on “kick-ass” heroines who spend inordinate amounts of time choosing dresses and mooning over one or two boys that Shusterman’s UNWIND is a welcome change. Connor, the protagonist has little time for fashion or romantic entanglements; he’s running for his life in one of the craziest dystopias I’ve ever read. The premise of this is literally killer. A must read.

Younger /middle grade readers

Harry Potter and Percy Jackson have proven to us that younger girls have no problem reading about boys and those two series should keep girl readers busy for a while. When they run out here are a few boyish books to keep them going.

John Flanagan’s series RANGER’S APPRENTICE is kind of a cross between Tamora Pierce for boys and Games of Thrones for young readers. Set in a familiar but fantastical world the books concern Halt, a grizzled ranger (kind of like a medieval Navy Seal) and his young apprentice, Will. There’s a lot of sword but very little sorcery in this series. The drama relies on political and personal conflict. Will matures as the series progress, but each book is self-contained and conclusive. Twelve books on, Flanagan has just begun a companion series set in the same world, THE BROTHERBAND CHRONICLES.

A similar but shorter series of three books, SEA OF TROLLS by Nancy Farmer concerns Jack, who is taken prisoner by Vikings before he can complete his training as a bard (a kind of magician). Unlike Ranger’s Apprentice, this series is rich with magic and magical creatures. But it’s also an epic adventure with many strong female characters added to the mix. This one is a winner for boys and girls.

Finally three verse novels: SHAKESPEARE BATS CLEAN-UP by Ron Koertge, and LOVE THAT DOG and HATE THAT CAT by Sharon Creech. These three books star great boy characters facing very real and poignant struggles that girls will relate to as strongly as boys.

Boy Books Girls SHOULD Read

My boy list included some books about sexual assault and exploitation that boys should read for an insight into this aspect of girl life. So if sexual assault and exploitation are particularly “girl” topics (about 90% of the victims are girls) then crime and incarceration are particularly “boy” topics (about 90-95% of incarcerated people are male). Ergo, girls might benefit from books offering an insight into this world. Here are a few suggestions:

There are two books called LOCKDOWN. One by Walter Dean Myers, is a realistic tale, and the other by Alexander Gordon Smith is part of a terrifying dystopian/sci fi series called ESCAPE FROM FURNACE. Will girls like these books? Who knows? They should read them though, for a little look at the fears that confront many young men.

For further reading, the Newbury winning HOLES by Louis Sachar is a lighter look at the same topic. BOOTCAMP by Todd Strasser is a very real and very terrifying exploration of private prisons for teens. WE WERE HERE by Matt De La Peña is a more psychological journey of someone consumed with guilt and TWISTED by Laurie Halse Anderson concerns the angst of the falsely accused.

One of the reasons we all evangelize about reading so much is because we all believe that reading affords an insight into people other than yourself – people whose lives, economic situation, physical or mental health, sexuality or culture might be different from what you know. So it’s important not to forget reading across the greatest divide – gender. Even though, at least when it comes to YA, the majority of readers might be girls, as writers we need not become complacent – writing only the things that we assume girls want and need to read.

In the end, books should be for everyone

One book written for adults and one genre:

FIEND by Peter Stenson

I got this as an ARC at ALA in January, drawn to the wicked cool cover and to the dark and nasty synopsis. Meth, addiction, zombies. Where do I sign? In a sense this book didn’t disappoint. It was just as dark and nasty as the cover blurb promises. Maybe more so. This is very graphic and visceral. Lots of talk of bodily functions, decay, illness, vomiting and the daily reality of severe meth addiction drove me quickly through the pages. Then there were the zombies – which were the usual mindless flesh eating drones. And I guess we’re supposed to find the analogy between meth addiction and zombies to be a little overwrought.I certainly did. Chase is an interesting, conflicted character, struggling with what addiction has done to his moral life. But I found the zombies a bit distracting; I don’t think they were even necessary. And because they were mindless drones I wasn’t really all that interested in them. I think now that the world has Isaac Marion’s WARM BODIES, the mindless zombie is a bit five minutes ago. The crisis Chase faces in this could really have been anything – a hurricane, an alien invasion. It didn’t matter. And antagonists should matter.  I wasn’t expecting a HEA and I didn’t get one, but this book ended up leaving me a little cold. But maybe it’s coldness works for it. There’s nothing romantic about FIEND. This is one for fans of FIGHT CLUB and TRAINSPOTTING. Not for kids but recommended to boys 16 and up.

FIEND will be published July 9th.

One Middle Grade:

DEAR GEORGE CLOONEY, PLEASE MARRY MY MOM by Susin Nielson

I really loved Nielson’s most recent book, THE RELUCTANT JOURNAL OF HENRY K LARSON, so when I spotted this one at the library I snapped it up. It took me a few chapters to get into this, and a few more chapters to start liking the snarky protagonist, Violet. Nielson is very good at creating complex realistic yet still entertaining characters and stories. This one leaves several things unresolved. Several characters are slightly mysterious. Nothing really ties up neatly. And yet the story concludes in a very satisfying way. I would recommend this to older middle graders who want a witty reality based read.

One non fiction:

I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

One of my tweeps tweeted about this book and I immediately sought it out and devoured it in one sitting. What an amazing adventure, an amazing and heartbreaking love story, a devastating look at drug and alcohol addiction, and an insiders peek at the world of high art drag queens. This book has it all and then some. This was a 5/5 star read.

One collection of poems:

HEART TO HEART edited by Jan Greenburg

I read this collection at the beginning of the month and to be honest I don’t remember much about it, except that it has clearly taught me to review things a soon as I read them. This poetry collection thing is going to kill me.

One graphic novel:

#08 A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN (MY BOYFRIEND IS A MONSTER) by Trina Robbins, Nu Studio Xian (Illustrations)

I requested this from Netgalley. One thing I’m struggling with in regards to graphic novels is how to read them. If they come in Kindle format I can read them on the iPad, which is fine. But this one was a PDF and DRM protected. So I can only read it from Adobe Digital Editions. which only downloads to my black and white Kobo Touch. And the screen is too small to enjoy a graphic novel. So I have to read from my desktop computer. Which is fine if the graphic novel is short like this one, but…I wish I could figure out a solution to this.

Anyway, this was very cute in a very wholesome way. Points for the racial diversity. Points lost for the (almost) Rape Rescue Fantasy (WTF?). Points gained back for the counter stereotype biker gang. I don’t even know what to do about the points for the semi-sympathetic and oddly balanced treatment of an abusive spouse. The artwork was lovely, and Gabriel was a delightfully androgynous love interest that tweens will swoon over I’m sure. This book also gave me my first ever LOL moment in a graphic novel, in the moment after Gabriel reveals his true nature.

I don’t know why I found it so funny. Something about an angel being so teenage just cracked me up.

This is part of a series that I’m kind of ashamed to say I really like to check out. The book came out April 1st.

One pre-20th Century historical:

FAIL! I did not get to this one. Part of the problem is that historical books tend to be so HEAVY and I can’t do heavy all the time. Give me light historical. Someone please?

One verse novel:

THE DAY BEFORE by Lisa Schroeder

Another lovely novel in verse by Lisa Schroeder never goes astray. I really enjoyed the contained nature of this story and the backstories driving these characters. Were they a little too perfect? I think so, but Schroeder’s books are sort of antithetical to some of the dark and nasty YA that’s out there (which I also love, don’t get me wrong). A sweet story, very cleverly paced, romantic, light but a bit mysterious. It’s easy to see why Schroeder’s books are such a hit with young readers. This one went down like pink lemonade on a hot day.

Another month, another pile of books. Life goes on.

I do, however, want to talk about this picture:

As much as I love the sentiment of this exchange, there is something disturbing about the juxtaposition of these two images. Can you spot it? Let me help you. Count the women in the Syrian photograph. Take your time. I’ll wait.

Now count the women in the Boston photograph.

Before you complain that Syria is a war zone and that the women and children are probably inside where it’s safer, let me remind you that Boston has just been bombed. But more than that, let me share this photo, taken during the London Blitz, in World War II:

This is a very similar event – a photo taken for media and morale purposes, on a bombed out street, during a horrifying international conflict wherein people were dying. Notice anything? Count the women. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

There are at least four women visible in the photograph, including one at the center of it all, a woman we came to know in my lifetime as the Queen Mother. Notice her husband, the FREAKING KING, standing deferentially behind her. Notice the respect, reverence, protectiveness and love in the faces of the men around her (is it me or is the man in the overalls looking at her boobs?). Feel the power and influence pouring off this woman, who, with her daughters, the future Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, were key figures in maintaining the public morale and calm for which wartime Brits became famous.

I don’t think I need to spell it out. Possibly some of you will have somethings to say about this. Maybe my argument is flawed. I’m happy to discuss it. Just let me say this to Syria in particular, and to many other countries and cultures (who know who they are) in general:

If you want peace, step one is to emancipate your women. If you want prosperity and justice, step one is to educate your women. If you desire democracy, LOOK TO YOUR WOMEN. Next time you send us a photograph, please for the love of Allah, include some women in it. I know you meant well with the photograph for Boston. And I know that Americans need to understand that you are not all violent fanatics. But your photo offends me. If this is a representative of your culture, then your culture offends me. I know my culture is not perfect, but at least I have a role in improving it. The women in the Boston photo have a role in improving it.

Show me that you respect and include women in your culture, and I will show you a much brighter future. Go ahead. Show me. I’ll wait.

I mean, why do we even NEED such lists?

DO we even need “Books for Boys” list? By god, yes we do. And, in fact I don’t think we need books for girls lists nearly as much. While literary awards and prestigious reviews are still skewed towards male authors, when it comes to middle grade and young adult readership, we got this, ladies. The world needs “Books for Girls” lists about as much as we need “sports for boys” lists. I’m not against booklists for girls; I only wonder what is the premise behind such lists? Are these books girls in particular will enjoy? Books girls should read? The same goes for boys’ booklists. What are we saying about boys and girls with these lists?

One thing in particular that I have noticed about lists like this is that the boys lists are almost exclusively boy point of view and male authored (with The Hunger Games being a frequent exception) and the girls list are almost exclusively girl point of view and female authored.  Boy lists are heavy on genre while girl lists tend to have more contemporary offerings.

I’d like to mix it up a bit, by providing a few alternative lists. I’m going to start with a list of girl point of view books for boys.

For Young Adult readers

THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins is an obvious one. I’ve never met a boy who has read this and not loved it. The interesting thing about this book is that the protagonist, Katniss manages to be both ultra kick-ass and almost uncomfortably girly. There’s quite a lot of talk of dresses and best friends thrown in with the hunting and death. That said, this book hardly warrants inclusion because it’s already so widely read.

HATE LIST by Jennifer Brown, both female authored and girl point of view has many of the elements that are believed to NOT appeal to boys as much (romance, school politics, contemporary setting etc.) but the premise underlying HATE LIST is one that I think boys will strongly relate to.

BRUISED by Sarah Skilton, also female authored and girl point of view, but again, framed by a violent premise and containing themes of physical strength, fear, athleticism and aggression that boys may be drawn to.

LIAR by Justine Larbalestier is a tricky book, no matter how you look at it. A YA book with a girl on the cover is always a hard sell for boy readers for starters. That said, this is just so creepy, mysterious and in the end, darn right weird that I think it’s the kind of thing that boy readers might really dig.

UGLIES by Scott Westerfeld is another book/series that I feel is hurt by the rather feminine cover. Given that this is a book about a plain daredevil girl who goes on the run, riding a hover board and exploring rusty ruins, it really has all the ingredients for a book boys would love. If only the US publisher used the Russian covers! Check them out! But seriously, these UK covers are hot too.

Westerfeld’s MIDNIGHTERS series is another girl point of view series that boys might enjoy. The heroine, Jessica, gets chased by some kind of saber tooth tiger in the first book. What more could you ask for? But again, this is a series that could benefit from a less feminine cover.

BENEATH A METH MOON by Jacqueline Woodson. Most of the boys I have spoken to about reading seem to enjoy books wherein the life of the main character is extraordinarily hard. Privation seems to be a favorite theme. METH MOON definitely qualifies, as do a number of other addiction related books. METH MOON also has the advantage of a gender neutral cover.

GOTH GIRL RISING by Barry Lyga. Yes, this is a sequel and yes it has both a girl on the cover and “girl” in the title, both turn offs for boy readers, but perhaps drawing boys into this series with the first book, the boy point of view  THE ASTONISHING ADVENTURES OF FANBOY AND GOTH GIRL  might work. Regardless of how it’s achieved, this is a very unromantic look at a very hard to love character. But I think boys would love it.

EVERLOST by Neal Shusterman. No list for boy readers would be complete without a book or two by Neal Shusterman.  This one, like all Shusterman’s books, scary and suspenseful, is a dark portrait of the afterlife through the eyes of a car accident victim and her dead friends. What’s not to love?

HOW TO SAY GOODBYE IN ROBOT by Natalie Standiford. This one is a heartbreaker. It’s a great book and very boy friendly with its platonic couple, radio shows, robot related title, loners, weirdos – it has all the ingredients. The only problem is boy readers would not be caught dead reading such a pink book. Every edition of this book has the same nauseating Pepto Bismol shade of awful. In every other way this is my favorite type of cover.  I only wish the publishers would rethink the color scheme. Here’s a little inspiration for them:

TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN by John Marsden. This is a great and unputdownable series that is less widely known that it should be. Concerning a group of teens on the run from an unnamed invading army in Australia, not only does its female protagonist, Ellie, give new meaning to kick-ass, but also contains the survival/privation aspects that seem to appeal to boys in particular.

For younger readers

In general, younger boys are less likely to be turned off by girl point of view books. For this age group there are distinctly “girlish” books, almost all with girl protagonists, and relatively neutral ones, which can have either boy or girl protagonists. Here are a few girl protagonist books that might be particularly attractive to middle grade boys:

THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY by Adam Rex. This is funny and weird, and poignant. It’s a road trip book, a survival book, and alien book, a buddy book, and it has pictures! Overall a great book for boys with a junior kick-ass heroine to boot.

THE CITY OF EMBER by Jeanne DuPrau. Here’s another take on the privation that boys seem to enjoy so much, set in a perpetually dark and isolated city, which is running out of supplies and falling apart. Add a spunky young heroine and you have another winner for boy readers.

WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead. Boys will be drawn to the freaky quantum mystery of this book, as well as the universal themes of friendship and sacrifice.

A WRINKLE IN TIME, by Madeleine L’Engle. This is an oldie but a goody. Here’s a book that had its first decent cover fifty years after its first publication. That has got to be a record. But it’s a great adventure through space and time that boys will love.

Then there are “girl” books that boys SHOULD read. These are books that do an excellent job of revealing things little understood by boys about girls and womanhood, mostly having to do with sex. I know there are other books like this out there and I’d love to hear some more suggestions.

SPEAK, by Laurie Halse Anderson is an obvious one, for obvious and timely reasons. I haven’t included many dual point of view books on the list so far, but I would like to make an exception for another book on the topic of date rape, YOU AGAINST ME  by Jenny Downham. This is one of the few rape themed books that includes significant amounts of time spent on the perpetrator, although the male narrator is the victim’s brother.

I’ve struggled with the recent dystopian trend in that I haven’t found many books that posited the kind of sexual repression and control that would be likely (and that in fact exists in recent or current real life dystopias such as Afghanistan under the Taliban or North Korea). For this reason I would recommend to older boy readers THE HANDMAID’S TALE by Margaret Atwood as a book that gets into the mind of a young women whose sexual agency has been taken over by the state.

Still on the theme of sexual control I would recommend two verse novels: MY BOOK OF LIFE BY ANGEL by Martine Leavitt, and SOLD by Patricia McCormick.

Finally, another verse novel, though one with many points of view, OCTOBER MOURNING: A SONG FOR MATTHEW SHEPARD by Lesléa Newman. There are so many reasons I would love teen boys to read this book but perhaps the most important are the poems included that are from the point of view of the perpetrators of this hideous crime. Perpetrator point of view is one that is rarely included in books for young readers. Since the majority of juvenile crime is committed by boys and young men…well, you do the math.

This is a good start. I’d love to hear any suggestions. Next week I’ll compile a list of “boy” books for girl readers, focusing on boy point of view, male authored and “boyish” themed books. I’d love any suggestions for that list too.

One book written for adults:

THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK by Matthew Quick

I love love LOVE Matthew Quick’s YA books so I’m not at all surprised how delighted I was with THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK. On the surface this book was in danger with me. It has some of my literary pet peeves. I know this is weird because I have openly declared my love of broken boys, but normally I’m not a huge fan of broken men (literary or real life). But protagonist Pat Peoples is hard to dislike, for me at least, in part because he actually seems very young. Readers seem to interpret Pat as being mentally ill, and maybe if Matt reads this he can give his thoughts, but I saw Pat as brain injured. I think there are many clues pointing to this not least of which is that his friend Danny, who he met in hospital, clearly is. Well, for me there’s a big difference between brain injured and mentally ill, maybe not that much literally speaking, but narratively speaking. I don’t want to speculate too much on this but for me I think the idea that Pat was brain injured made this story feel new. A lot of literary and mainstream fiction uses mental illness as a device, so much so that it sometimes becomes a deus ex machina in weaker narratives, not so much to solve the conflict, but to create it. By contrast, Pat’s mental state was not the source of the overarching conflict in this complex book, it was something that needed to be handled while the conflict was settle. It complicated things, complicated the puzzle of Pat’s life but wasn’t the whole of it. The other thing that often trips me up in books for adults (I’m less troubled by it in YA and MG books) is a heavy sports motif.  Football figures prominently in this novel, but there is very little description of actual play so that helps me because I get bored with that very quickly. But the other thing I sometimes struggle with is when sports are awkwardly manhandled into some kind of metaphor for struggle or growth or whatever. That can be really pretentious. This book doesn’t fall into that trap. In fact it’s lack of pretension is probably why I loved it. Pat’s narration (perhaps because of his brain injury) is very straightforward. There is no awkward and self-conscious literary prose. The voice is very believable for who he is, particularly given the state of his brain. One comment, and I can’t really call this a complaint, but since I needed this book and couldn’t wait, I had to buy it at a bookstore and all they had was the movie tie-in edition. I HATE MOVIE-TIE INS!! Jennifer Lawrence’s name is a big as the author’s on the cover! She didn’t write this book! She was probably in high school while Quick was writing it!  So irritating. You’ll note I use the paperback cover in this post. Apart from that I really loved this book and am so glad I read it before seeing the movie, which I also want to see. As I said, 5/5 stars, my first for this year.

One Middle Grade:

CUL, DE SAC KIDS by Alison Acheson

I might be kind of a cheat to call this book middle grade, because it’s really more akin to a very early chapter book. It’s very short (I read it in about 30 minutes) and peppered with black and white illustrations so it’s obviously aimed at a pretty young audience. The author Alison Acheson (who was my prof at UBC) autographed my copy to my daughter who is 8. She read it once and then picked it up and read it again that’s a good sign. There are a few things to recommend this book. One, it’s one of the few kids books I’ve read that deals with the introduction of the step-father into a family in positive way. Many books have well established stepfathers (both good and bad) but often when a new man is coming into a child’s life the story presents it as negative, at least from the child’s point of view. The kids in this story seem genuinely pretty happy with their new dad, so that was kind of nice. Oddly enough, because this is a book for very young readers, I kind of felt like the stepfather’s story was the most interesting. It’s almost like I could read a companion novel written from his point of view, as a childless man joining a family with two kids and being “schooled” by his new neighbors on how to be a good dad. What do you think Alison? I also thought the street hockey and the other outdoor activities that the kids get up to were really great. Overall, this is a quiet but thoughtful book for less sophisticated readers that I think would make great classroom material.

One non fiction:

HOOKED: When Addiction Hits Home by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes

HOOKED is a good demonstration of why non writers shouldn’t write books. While the subject matter (young people dealing with an addicted family member) is interesting and important, the way the stories are told in this is so pedestrian that it takes away from the impact. It’s clear that the people featured in this book wrote their own chapters with only minimal editing ny Shantz-Hilkes. I’m not expecting poetry; an unpretentious voice is appropriate for this material. But I would have liked to be a bit more drawn into each story. They were awkwardly expressed, almost cold and clinical. I think this was a missed opportunity to create a really readable collection on this issue. As it is, it reads almost like a case study textbook. Since this is a book designed for teens a little more thought on how it was put together would have improved it.

One collection of poems:

THE MESSENGER by Stephanie Pippin

Someone please just shoot me now. Nothing against Ms. Pippen but I didn’t relate to a single poem in this collection. I don’t think I understood or saw the point of them at all. Am I just stupid? Should I just give up right now? I don’t think I can face another nine books like this. And this one I read after giving up on two other collections! For god’s sake I’m supposed to be a poet myself. What’s wrong with me? I shall persevere and hope that next month’s poetic offering is more my cup of tea. I don’t have high hopes though.

One “genre” :

HOLD ME CLOSER NECROMANCER by Lish McBride

I met Lish McBride in January at ALA in Seattle. We bonded over our mutual despair over literary fiction and the use of “pants” as an expletive. This month when I realized I was down a genre novel with only less than a week to go, I grabbed this one and plowed through it in two days. SO MUCH FUN. I had a real kind of Douglas Adams feeling as I read this. Not Hitchhiker’s Guide so much as THE LONG DARK TEATIME OF THE SOUL with it’s complicated and sublimely silly plot. McBride’s book is not quite so silly, but it’s at least as complicated and has many of the same rather surreal elements. It’s gorgeously written without being self-consciously clever and the post high school characters are all delightfully directionless. This is what “New Adult” should be if there must be such a thing, rather than a parade of horny girls in college dorms. It’s scary, sexy and clever. The multiple points of view (a mixture of 1st person and 3rd person) and male protagonist lift this “urban paranormal” out of a rather saturated field and into something with more literary worth and more staying power. I’m looking forward to more in this series.

One graphic novel:

PUNK ROCK JESUS by Sean Murphy

I mean, PUNK ROCK JESUS! How could I pass this one up. This is actually a collection of  what was five short serialized graphic novels published last year. It’s being published in this omnibus edition on April 9th. I scored a eARC from Edelweiss and boy I’m glad I did. This is one of the few times when I’ve received a eBook to review where I actually have plans to buy the print book when it comes out. I’m not a huge consumer of graphic novels, and I had to read this one off a computer screen, which is never ideal but I just loved this. So subversive, so beautiful, PUNK ROCK JESUS somehow manages to be an indictment of both the media and Christianity, capitalism and science. In fact it shits all over everyone who isn’t a teenage punk rocker, which, while being a sentiment I once shared, as a semi-responsible adult now usually irritates me. But it made perfect sense in this story. The artwork was phenomenal – very graphic and intense, though not being an expert in this form I can’t really compare it to much. I want to read this again. I want to hold it in my hand. I think I’ll give two or three copies as Christmas presents. PUNK ROCK JESUS, people! Why didn’t I think of this?

One pre-20th Century historical:

DAVID by Mary Hoffman

I’ve always had a thing for Michaelangelo’s David and once toyed with the idea of writing something about him myself. So when I saw this on the shelf at the library I picked it up knowing nothing about it. Well I was delighted. This is another book that would do well by being included on lists of “New Adult”. Gabriel, the protagonist and narrator is eighteen years old and trying to make his way in the world away from his family for the first time. The fact that he is the (fictional) milk-brother of the famous sculptor, and the model of the famous sculpture only adds to his NA hero charm. And charming he is. He charms the bloomers of several women in this fast paced and intriguing story of Renaissance Italian society and politics. The historical details in this blend seamlessly with a quite contemporary feeling narrative about political and family alliances, ambition, deception and the temptations that inevitably face beautiful young men on their own for the first time. Gabriel is a complex character, and flawed, but he’s easy to love. 4/5 stars.

One verse novel:

PURPLE DAZE by Sherry Shahan

I appreciate what Shahan tried to do with this book, but in the end I felt that there were just too many voices vying for attention. I find this is a problem with a lot of verse novels that attempt multiple protagonists. While this is a form that lends itself to experimentation, and certainly some verse novels with multiple protagonists work extremely well (many of Ellen Hopkins’s books for example), PURPLE DAZE struggles to express a coherent narrative, instead spending a lot of energy and time creating the moment (the late sixties). I was left with a very unresolved feeling at the end of this. Not in the good way that sometimes happens, wherein questions are left in your head to ponder at the end of a book. Rather I felt that this book ended before it really took off. At the end I knew a lot about the period, about the war and the protests etc, but very little about the characters and their motivations. And I had no sense of where any of them were headed. Some lovely verse in this and interesting historical detail but a bit disappointing overall.

I’ve learned some reading lessons this month. I’ve learned that a lot of adult romance literature is absolute shit. I’ve learned that  a lot of poetry is unreadable gobbledygook. I’ve just learned how to spell “gobbledygook”. See you next month.

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Publishing mergers are in the wind a lot these days.

It’s not so much that I think one entity, possibly Amazon, wants to rule the entire universe, it’s that merging and acquiring has become somehow fashionable. Mergers and Acquisitions are the new vampires, the new dystopias, the new New Adults. They’re trendy. I don’t think it will be long before individual authors will cotton onto this trend creating literary hybrids never before imagined. Here are some suggestions:

In a hostile takeover, Cassandra Clare will acquire  John Green. All of John Green’s beautiful eloquent and/or dead teenagers will be tattooed and put to work killing demons, which will severely impede their opportunities to wax poetical about books they read and thoughts they had while gazing at the stars. Many fans will cry. Others will laugh. No one will be prepared to say either way whether this is a good thing.

Neil Gaiman will merge with Doctor Who. Not the production company behind Doctor Who, nor the actor who plays Doctor Who, the ACTUAL Doctor Who. No one will notice.

E. L James will become a majority shareholder of Stephanie Meyer. Stephanie Meyer will react by selling her remaining shares to George R. R. Martin and taking the black, becoming the first female (and the first Mormon) member of the Night’s Watch.

ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS and ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD will merge into a new and terrifying book called ANNA DRESSED IN FRENCH AND KISSED IN BLOOD. It will be the number one most challenged book of that year for sheer inscrutability.

Cory Doctorow will acquire Gideons International and proceed to place copies of LITTLE BROTHER in hotel rooms around the world. The changeover will be greeted with universal approval.

THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING will merge with MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL  and EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX (BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK) creating the longest book title in the history of publishing as well as a new and mostly unmarketable genre.

There will be cross platform merging too:

Christianity will merge with Bernie Botts Every Flavour Beans in a last ditch effort to make itself relevant to a younger generation.

Self-published eBooks will merge with self-promoting eHarmony profiles. No one will notice.

Manga will merge with Magnum, creating a chocolaty animated ice-cream fetishistic adventures that you eat from back to front.

Steam Punk will merge with Daft punk. It will be utterly awesome.

Cosplay will merge with Coldplay. People will say “I’m just surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”

Pope Francis will merge with the estate of Dick Francis and pen crime novels set in the Vatican, putting Dan Brown out of a job.

Dan Brown will acquire the Republic of Cyprus.

Amazon will acquire NASA, the Republican Party, Tom Cruise, the last samples of the smallpox virus, Jupiter, the Antarctic, Frank’s Hot Sauce, Las Vegas, your belief in the fundamental goodness of the human spirit, Wayne Gretsky, socialized medicine, Camp David, Grumpy Cat and that fluff everyone’s dryers before finally Walmart takes away their credit card and makes them clean their room.

Walmart will acquire God only to open the box and find that it’s empty. Richard Dawkins will snigger into his tea. God will send Richard Dawkins either an empty box or a box with a cat in it, just to mess with him.

Life will go on, as predicted.

I might just have to stop looking at the internet for a few weeks because every time I turn around someone else is decrying one of the most precious and valued human emotions: sympathy. My sympathy for Steubenville’s Jane Doe is a given for anyone who knows me (or reads this blog). I know not all people sympathize with her; and their lack of sympathy is based mostly on the belief that she somehow “deserved it” for getting drunk or being “a slut” or whatever. Bullshit. No one deserves to get raped, right?

But sympathy for Jane Doe does not preclude sympathy for her rapists. One of the most disgusting things I have read from this sentencing was someone mocking these boys for being scared that they will be raped in prison (depending on where they are incarcerated there is a very good chance they will be). Wait a minute; did we not just say that NO ONE deserves to get raped? Are we making exceptions to that rule now? How far do those exceptions go? For example, let say you are one of the 1,500 women currently incarcerated in the USA for a sex crime (almost 100% of which offended against minors). If the two Steubenville rapists had attacked you instead would that have been okay? Let’s say you are one of the 700 or so juvenile females arrested every year for sex offences. Do you deserve to be raped? What about the many hundreds of children under ten who are arrested each year for sex crimes? Would it be okay to rape you?

Read my fucking lips: NO ONE DESERVES TO GET RAPED.

I don’t excuse rapists from their penance and punishment (and treatment, one would hope). But nor do I exclude them from the human race. EVERYONE is deserving of sympathy, no matter what. Not everyone is capable of offering that sympathy. I doubt for example Jane Doe could muster any up for her attackers, nor do I expect her to (though I hope someone tells her she should try to eventually forgive them, for her own sake). And I’m sure she might not understand my sympathy for them. But unfortunately she doesn’t get to decide how I feel. Because if we let victims decide how perpetrators are treated we would be executing people every day, even in Canada. And I’m not okay with that.

I want my heart’s capacity for forgiveness to be infinite. If there is a human soul I sincerely hope even Hitler’s soul is at peace. I know that might disgust some people, but I like it that way. And as for feeling sympathy for boys who murder rather than rape teenage girls, read a little about 17 year-old Jake Evans, who murdered his sister and mother for no apparent reason, and get back to me. Then read about Katy Hutchison and Ryan Aldridge and try not to cry. Then read one of the many cases of girls and women who kill their newborn babies and tell me sympathy for murderers is not socially acceptable.

There is more I could say on this. Much more. I could talk about the Schadenfreude that motivated both the Steubenville assault and the collective gloating over the convicted tearfully watching their lives go down the toilet. This Schadenfreude permeates our culture like a deadly cancer of the soul. If we’re not watching Honey Boo Boo make fools of her whole family, or snickering about the fall of Lindsay Lohan, we’re sharing “drunk yoga” pictures on Facebook. Many of us have a twinge of guilt about these. So thank god for teenage rapists; they are people we can Schadenfreude with gleeful impunity. Because they deserve it. And yes I just verbed Schadenfreude. Sue me.

I could say more, about what it means to be a registered sex offender, about juvenile sex offenders having the lowest recidivism rates of almost any crime, about how young black men are transformed, and not in a good way, by incarceration. I could talk about how throwing these two boys into the volcano will not appease the rape culture gods in any way, how our gratification at this sentence is a dangerous illusion and how this will keep happening despite locking teenage offenders away. I could talk about how they might have been part of the solution, but now they will never be part of anything ever again.

And I could talk about how the idea that rape “ruins” women’s lives or is “a life sentence” or a violation “in the worst way” is actually an offshoot of the very thing we are trying to conquer, which is the belief that women are only as valuable as the soundness of their hymen. Feminism has mutated this ancient belief, but still left many women with the impression that they must guard their sexual self-determination with their lives, and that failure to do so will lead to ruination and despair. I could talk about the many millions of supposedly “ruined” rape survivors who are successful journalists and authors, politicians, mothers, artists, executives, teachers, doctors and soldiers. I could talk about how being told that my life is “ruined” is deeply offensive and misogynist. Drugs ruin lives. Being paralyzed by a drunk driver is a “life sentence”. And the worst possible violation is not the forcible insertion of a penis or other object into the vagina but the forcible insertion of a bullet into the brain of your child. The second worst is when the bullet is inserted into YOUR brain. And I could remind you that the gun lobby’s official comment on rape is that “women should carry guns.”

I could talk about all kinds of things, but instead I prefer to let America’s favorite philosophers do the talking.

Many people who are married in churches have the Bible verses “Love is patient, Love is kind…” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7) read during the ceremony. It may interest you to know that the classical English translation of these verses, from the King James Bible concerns CHARITY not love. According to the verse, charity “Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” It goes on to say of faith, hope and charity “The greatest of these is charity”.

The chapter begins by pointing out that if I “have not charity, I am nothing.” Charity would have saved that poor girl from her ordeal. Charity could save us all.

Here’s another one we could all have a little think about:  ”Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth ” (Proverbs 24:17–18)

Oh yeah, and “He among you who is without sin, let him first cast a stone” (John 8:7)

I could go on, but I grow tired of schooling a Christian nation on the nature of Christianity. I really do.

Rant over.

There are so many ways people of faith can fall into hypocritical patterns. Consider the new pope, Francis I. As a Jesuit and one presumes, an admirer of Saint Francis, Pope Francis has been lauded for his humble lifestyle, his personal humble lifestyle. And yet he has just been hired as the CEO of one of the richest organizations on Earth. Will he liquidate the assets of the church and distribute them amongst the poor as the Bible instructs (Matthew 19:21)? I somehow doubt it.

Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

But the thing that’s making me ragey today is the cross denominational idea of “modesty”. Modesty is problematic to me because its antonym “immodesty” has become synonymous with “slutty” (ie. advertising sexual availability) and applied almost exclusively to women and girls of reproductive age. This is further complicated by the confusion between a clothing or a behavior being “revealing” and “slutty”. Case in point, breastfeeding, occasionally revealing, but maybe one of the least slutty things a woman can do. Nevertheless because of the above mentioned idiocy and confusion, some pundits now consider breastfeeding in public as “immodest”. In other words, in their warped brain, a woman breastfeeding an infant – which if she’s doing it as enthusiastically as our foremothers did means she is at that moment likely infertile – to said pundits is an advertisement of sexual availability. Yeah, because what a sleep deprived woman with aching tits really wants is sex with gaping strangers. Right?

Not so much.

But that’s not hypocrisy so much as it is just stupid. To point out the hypocrisy of “modesty” I’m going to give three concrete examples from three prominent religious groups:  fundamentalist Christians, orthodox Jews and conservative Muslims. But first let’s clarify the definition of modest. Here it is, from Merriam-Webster:

1: freedom from conceit or vanity

2: propriety in dress, speech, or conduct

You’ll notice the definition is not specific about the covering of nudity. The reference to dress specifies “propriety” which itself refers to “that which is socially acceptable”. Social acceptability is a complex concept, particularly as it relates to dress, as it often varies within a given culture depending on the circumstances. A bikini is socially acceptable at the beach, for example, but not at church. I’d like to make clear that I fully support different cultures and individuals setting their own standards for appropriate dress, as long as they don’t enforce them with violence and/or draconian laws, and that they respect the standards of other cultures.

But let’s focus on the first part of the definition, because that’s the place that hypocrisy comes into play. Modesty, as decreed by the some Christian, Jewish and Muslim sects, is actually derived mostly from this very different definition.  The Christian Bible has much to say about modesty, but few verses concern the covering of body parts. The general gist of the Biblical view of modestly could be summed up thus:  ”Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5-6).

Islam is renowned for its views on modesty, in particular the requirement for women and girls to cover their bodies. While the Koran, like the Bible, says many things about modestly, again, most of those are not specific about dress and body parts. Once again, the general principal may be summed up thus:  “Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them” (Surah 24 : 30).

Finally, Judaism, in some of its forms advocates modesty, and there are many expressions of traditional Jewish dress.  While there are many specific edicts with regards to which parts should be covered under what circumstances, the Talmudic basis for Jewish dress is summed up in the concept of “tzniut” which requires modesty in both dress and behavior. The principal guiding point of tzniut in regard to dress is that a Jew should not dress in a way that attracts attention.

The Christian “God opposes the proud”. Both Muslim men and women are instructed to “Lower their gaze”.  Jews are beseeched to “be humble” and “not draw attention”. And this is where it all falls apart for me. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not one who believes that a person who claims to be a member of a given religious group must follow all the edicts of that group. In fact, of obvious reasons, I love seeing Muslims drink alcohol, Jews eat bacon and Christians fornicate (well, I don’t actually want to WATCH this last, but you know what I mean). And I don’t even mind if they, despite these transgressions, still identify with their faith. The one thing that I take from all religions and try to keep in my heart is the idea of human imperfection. This is a tenet of my own spiritual framework too, after all. Evolution is not a journey upwards or towards any final goal; it is just a journey for its own sake.

What I object to is people who claim to be following an edict of their religion when in fact they are not. And this is where “modesty” loses me. For Christians, FYI, in no way is it modest to have a TLC reality series about your family of nineteen children. In no way is it modest to run for president. And sending your children out into the world in peculiar 19^th century attire is not modest. It screams “Look at me! I’m a better Christian that you!” – the very apex of pride. It says “maybe my outward appearance is not as beautiful as yours, but my soul is pure and righteous and you should feel shame in my presence”. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m an atheist and even I know that this judgment is for God and God alone to make.

The hijab works in the same way. Worn in the Islamic world, it is nothing more than a custom and in some Islamic societies wherein all women wear the same simple covering and appear as anonymous black ghosts, I’ll concede, this is humble. This is modest. I’m not saying I agree with it (I would feel a lot better if men also dressed this way) but at least this is true modesty. However in blended societies, the Hijab serves to identify women as Muslimahs. Many Muslim women say they wear the hijab because they are “proud to be Muslims”. They refer to the hijab as “the Islamic flag”. Huh? How is jingoistic pride modest?  Again this public identification is about making sure people know that “I am one of the enlightened and you are not.” Not humble. Not modest. Obnoxious.

But more to the point, many women who wear the Hijab do so in a way that contradicts modesty in the extreme. Sure their ankles and wrists are covered – covered in Gucci watches and Chanel boots. Consider this book in which “you are sure to find new ideas and inspiration for designing a fashionable yet elegant hijab that fits your individual style”.  Consider the tumblr Bombhijabis. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE all these looks. And I because I don’t like to put all my goods on display all the time I would love to wear a lot of this (minus the head scarves. I don’t like to cover my head). But it’s not modest. Just having a blog for the purpose of showing how fashionable you are is the height of immodesty. At least the Amish don’t do that. Look, wear hijab. Fly the flag of Islam. Be proud. But don’t tell you are modest, because you’re not.

Finally Judaism. I think I’ve made my point with regards to the immodesty of women’s “fashion” when discussing Muslim “modesty”. This is no less true for Orthodox Jewish women. There are again dozens of blogs suggesting ways of being “modest”, meeting the requirements of Orthodox Jewish dress, while still looking fabulous. My argument is that fabulousity is not modest. But here’s the other side of the coin and it goes back to what I said about Muslim women wearing hijab in non-muslim societies as well fundamentalist Christian sects and how they sometimes dress. Very detailed traditional religious dress is not modest because it advertises to both followers and the outside world that the wearer is an adherent and therefore somehow superior. This is true not only of Judasim either, but let’s start with these fabulous fellows:

They look as pleased as punch don’t they, and proud to be Jews. And why not? I have nothing against them being proud of their Judaism. But pride is anathema to modesty. Remember “the principal guiding point of tzniut in regard to dress is that a Jew should not dress in a way that attracts attention”. Fail, orthodox Jewish guys. Fail.

And this kind of fail is not exclusively Jewish. Christian nuns, cardinals, bishops and priests dress in a way specifically to draw attention to themselves and self-identify as spiritually superior to ordinary people. Jesus did not dress this way. According to the story he was an ordinary carpenter. In fact, despite the fact that he was notorious in Jerusalem at the time of his death, the Romans had to pay his friend Judas to point him out, because they didn’t know what he looked like.

I had some friends who lived across the lane. My daughter played with their twin girls. I had known them for years before one day the mom said her daughters needed to get changed because grandma was taking them to Mosque. This was the first I had heard of their religious affiliation. THAT’S modest. I have known many Jews who quietly practice their traditions and others who tell me they’re Jewish within minutes of meeting me. And then there are Christians who come to my door waving cheesy brochures in my face.  My MOM is a Christian. Sure, she shows her ankles, sometimes even her knees. Sure she has exposed her cleavage in the past.  She almost never covers her head. But she’s one of the most modest people I know. So modest that despite the fact that she loves books and is a good writer, she has never had an aspiration to write a book (unlike all FOUR of her daughters and her late husband). She certainly doesn’t blog. She barely Facebooks.

THAT’s modesty, people. Think about it. And if you claim modesty for your faith, anything else is hypocrisy.

Rant over.