The Cocoa Book Club Call For Bibliophiles - Part II!

Photo by Lulu

Well, bunnies, the Cocoa Book Club presses on! As of tomorrow, the super-secret club is in its fifth month and incredible readers like yourself have made it an astoundingly super success. The only problem? We're running out of volunteers to be book clubbers! The list has slowly dwindled down, slipping from a pretty thick list to just a few names, so that means that once again I need your help!

For those of you who have just dropped in and don't know what all of this fuss is about, The Cocoa Book Club is a guest-driven segment where others share fantastic books that may not be super well-known but are definitely thrilling enough to be categorized as must-reads. Every month a different reader or blogger or other mysterious guest picks a book for the club and writes up a guest article on it, introducing it in all it's fabulousness to the world, and by the end of the year we've got a neat little list of fabulous cult books for all to read. 

Now I know you're asking yourself, how do I become a super-secret book clubber? (Okay, so maybe you're not asking yourself that - but you should be!) Becoming a book-clubber is super-simple - there's no criteria to fill or paperwork to fill out - you simply need to enjoy reading and want to share your hidden gems with the world. All you have to do is comment with your e-mail address or shoot me an e-mail yourself! (And if you're a blogger, please also include a link to your blog!) I'll get back to you as soon as possible with more information and we'll set up a date for you to post straight away!

I need your help, lovelies, and can't do this without you! So go to your bookshelf, pick up your favorite book, and send me those e-mails! Ready? Set? Read!

Always,
Penelope ♥

Cocoa Book Club Book of the Month: Freak Show

Hello, book clubbers! It's time for yet another installment into the epic saga of the Cocoa Book Club. Regrettably, due to an e-mailing mix-up we won't be having a formal pick and review for this month, but the good news is that the absolutely lovely Miss Rie of Leaving Shangri-L.A. has offered one of her reviews from LSLA up to tide us over in the meantime.

The book she chose? A quirky little thing called Freak Show by James St. James. Those of you who were around for the 1980's New York City club scene (or who at least are familiar with the film Party Monster) will probably recognize his name - for James St. James was the celebutante mentor of infamous club-kid-turned-murder Michael Alig. While St. James' first novel, Disco Bloodbath, did focus solely on this event and everything that lead up to it, Freak Show is a horse of an entirely different color, although I leave Miss Rie to explain the rest.

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Where have I been for the past few months? Where haven't I been is a better question, but there are too many answers to that one--"Budapest," "Salamanca," and "Bluestockings NYC" come to mind. Where I have been is a much easier question to answer, and that would be Library School. Yes, like many greater book bloggers before me, I'm on the path to be a custodian of the cultural record, a grande dame of the general public's right to truth, knowledge, and the best damned Story Hour and Macaroni Picture Workshop in the NYPL.

Here are a few facts about your blogmistress: I live in Outer Borough of NYC, I go to East Coast Library School and love it more than I can stand, and when I'm not reading, I'm teaching myself how to watercolor and play Tori Amos songs on the keyboard. My favorite Outer Borough hangout is the Everything Goes Book Cafe, and if it were possible to marry The Strand, I probably would.

I've also invited my professors to view my oeuvre online; hello professors!

Now, down to business. Today, I have a review of a heartwarming tale about the coming of age of a teenage drag queen, Freak Show by James St. James.

(Goodbye, professors!)

Billy Bloom has accepted his fabulousness. The population of his reform-school-cum-prep-academy is not so keen on letting an all-singing-all-dancing fully costumed review of one flounce confidently through their hallowed halls. The abuse Billy endures is brutal, and culminates in a month-long stay in the hospital after a savage beating. His savior? The untouchable school quarterback, simple but kind-hearted Flip (who, need I mention, Billy is over-the-moon-and-heels-over-head in love with):

Since the day he carried my limp and lifeless body into the emergency room here at Plantation General Hospital, he's been by my side...He's been talking to me nonstop, he says, telling me stories, details about his life and his plans, anything at all, hoping that maybe the sound of his voice would guide me back.
And now his prayers have been answered.

Well! How about THAT!
Of course, I'm WILDLY jealous of myself for spending SO MUCH TIME with him and hearing his stories and GETTING TO KNOW HIM like that. I wish I'D been there. I wish he would tell ME stories. It's not fair!
COMA BILLY HAS ALL THE LUCK!

Upon his triumphant return (wearing flowing white and bestowing blessings on all who did wrong by him), Billy decides to use his new untouchable status for good. How? By running for Homecoming Queen, of course. The opposition, Lynette Franz, has all the wholesome charm of a cupcake laced with arsenic, but Billy perseveres, winning the vote of his school's underground society and sparking a media war. I won't breathe a word about the end, but it's fitting and lovely.

Billy Bloom posesses the most unique voice I've read in young adult literature; if you can't abide capslock speak, you'd best turn back now. He is raunchy and witty and passionate, but with a heartbroken undercurrent sparked by the death of his relationship with his bon vivant mother. One of the only criticisms I have about this book is that this particular thread was not explored in a deeper manner, and it would have been great to see closure to that storyline. However, what is here is so surreal and wonderful. The story particularly picks up when Billy's best friend, Blah Blah Blah (I shan't give away her real name) joins him in a bloodless revolt against the status quo. While she suggests tae kwon do classes and The Art of War, he offers to design a boomerang tiara and hypno-belt-buckle with a compact full of knockout powder.

The art of fashion and makeup is Billy's driving passion:

Suddenly, I was tired of my mewling, tired of feeling powerless, and tired of being traumatized. I burst out of the cupboard and took over my place at the makeup table. Ah! The healing power of creation.

Our hero, a self-proclaimed "gender obscurist" (I love that term!), makes himself over with fierce Kali-inspired warpaint, bubbling wigs, and Spanish-moss draped gowns. You've never read fashion so over-the-top, except maybe in Simon Doonan's work and of course, Ms. Block's own. Billy's use of the healing power of art and transformative qualities of costuming (not always beautiful, mind you--he dresses as Dead Zelda Fitzgerald for an oral report, with strategic use of Grape Nuts and burned finery) brings to mind a line from "Fashion Quest:"

Call me superficial. But when my soul is fully expressed by my body, she can leave her dark room, sing her stories out loud and fearlessly dance.

There is something here in Freak Show that I've rarely seen before in queer teen lit. Despite the horrors that surround Billy, he never internalizes the horrendous things said about him. He realizes that the people out to hurt him are ignorant, cruel, or both, and his place in life is to speak for those who don't possess his bravery, or must keep silent to preserve their own lives.
Another rare theme is that of gender fluidity; sexuality in the Oughties cannot be easily labeled and categorized, and many young queer people are experimenting with all the shades and tones of gender identity. I loved seeing that explored in an exciting, positive manner in Freak Show.

Freak Show is a marvelous revenge-of-the-geek story, smart and sophisticated enough for the adult freak, but lively and snarky enough for its teen audience. I cannot recommend it enough for its fantastic narration, wicked wardrobe, and beautiful message.

You are a drag queen! It's your nature! You provoke. You expose. You arouse and inspire.
You open wounds and push buttons and rattle cages.
You unleash demons. You do! You do! You waken slumbering tigers. You know you do!
It's the path you've chosen. The life you desire.

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Freak Show is available for purchase on Amazon.com, and I highly suggest hopping over to Rie's original post, Gender Is A Choice, Not A Life Sentence, which can be read here.

As usual, if you've got a spectacular, inspirational, or just plain wicked cool book in mind and would like to volunteer to be a Super Secret Book Clubber, send me an e-mail with your name, e-mail address, and blog (if applicable) and I'll get in contact with you ASAP! In the meantime, keep reading, lovelies!

Always,
Penelope ♥

Cocoa Book Club Book of the Month: The Little Prince

Hello, hello again, all you glorious book clubbers! It's that time again for another super-sweet novel to be chosen for the Cocoa Book Club's Book of the Month! This month, our pick comes from a reader and blogger of her own - a superhero of a girl who goes only by My Stifled Laughter. Hmmm...mysterious, huh? 

Her pick for this month? It's a darling children's book called Le Petit Prince (or The Little Prince in English) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - a harrowing novella filled with drama and romance that I think only she can fully explain.

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On the little prince's planet, he loved a rose and sheltered her and gave her water and such. He left to "find himself" and comes to Earth and sees a large bed of roses, who look the same as his lovely rose.

"You're lovely, but you're empty... One couldn't die for you. of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she is the one I watered. Since she's the one I put under the glass. Since she's the one I sheltered behind a screen. She's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose."

The book is a children's book, but not to be scorned - it is magical, thought-provoking, exciting at times, melancholy at others, questioning of the ways people nowadays live their lives and what love means to different people. Orginially written in French, the book translates literally and figuratively to the world - all concepts are understood by the reader, no matter if they're French, American, Austrailian, or Anarctican. The idea that children enjoy life and the world more than adults is there.

One of my personal favorite concepts of the book is the author's explanation of love. (As in the quote before.) For instance, if you saw my boyfriend walking in the street, he would look the same as every other boy in the world to you. But to me, that boy is many afternoons spent together, emotional times, anniversaries, and love. People are special to you because of the time you spend on them, and that's what makes them so precious - once they're gone, they are lost - you cannot replicate a friend.

The book is translated into "Le Petit Prince" but to those who have not the French skills, the English version is just as good! And after you have read it, answer this... Has the sheep eaten the flower yet?

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Both the English and French versions can be purchased on Amazon and it's also available for preview on Google Books - I highly recommend that you give it a read because it sounds like an absolutely spellbinding book!

Now if you've got a spectacular, inspirational, or just plain wicked cool book in mind and would like to volunteer to be a Super Secret Book Clubber, send me an e-mail with your name, e-mail address, and blog (if applicable) and I'll get in contact with you ASAP! In the meantime, make like LeVar Burton and keep reading!

Always,

Penelope ♥

The Cocoa Book Club Call For Bibliophiles

Photo by Jinna

Good morning, bunnies! We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for a bit of an announcement! After careful consideration, I've decided to start a new little segment here on Cocoa called the Cocoa Book Club - and I need your help! 

Basically, every month a different reader or blogger or other mysterious guest will pick a book for the club and write up a guest article on it, introducing it in all it's fabulousness to the world. While no one has to run out and buy the book right away, reading it the exact month that it's posted - you will not be tested on it afterwards! - the idea is that this will be a great place to share fantastic books that readers think others absolutely have to read.

So here's where you come in - because I'd like this to be completely reader-driven, I need volunteers to pick books for the upcoming months and write mini-articles on them! There's no criteria to fill or paperwork to fill out, you simply need to enjoy reading and want to share your hidden gems with the world. So, if you'd like to volunteer to be a super secret book clubber for any of the following months, please comment with your e-mail address or shoot me an e-mail yourself! (And if you're a blogger, please also include a link to your blog!) I'll get back to you as soon as possible with more information and we'll set up a date for you to post.

Eep! I can't wait to hear from you, lovelies! Ready? Set? Get readin'!

Always,

Penelope ♥