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: Howl's Moving Castle

The Cocoa Book Club is back yet again with another fantastic read to offer! The second pick for the CBC and our Super Secret Book Clubber for this month just so happens to be a reader who graciously volunteered for the job. Picking our book this month, Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, is Ashley!

"One book that I always read time and time again," she says, "is Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s a wonderful tale full of magic, romance, adventure, and even seven league boots! What I like most is that Sophie, the main character, is just a regular girl who thinks she’s nothing special and well, maybe even a little bit boring. She’s the oldest girl in her family and makes hats for a living, which she enjoys, but she wonders what else is out there for her. Her tale begins when a visit from the Witch of the Waste leaves her as an old woman..."

For those of you who are a bit curious, there was a movie version made by the incredible Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki a few years back. I've yet to see it personally, but according to Ashley "...it’s a wonderful retelling, but I think you should watch it after you read the book."

You can read all of her thoughts on this spellbinding book at her blog, Bookworm Lola, and it can be purchased through Amazon (or just previewed on Google Books!)

Thank you so much, Ashley, and we can't wait to read it!

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!

Always,

Penelope ♥

Cocoa Book Club Book of the Month: A Charm of Powerful Trouble

The tiny introduction I've given the Cocoa Book Club has appeared to stir up quite a bit of interest around here, so I just want to take the time to say thank you so everyone who has proclaimed their enthusiasm - and especially thank you to those lovely ladies who have volunteered to be official Book Clubbers! The book for August has been decided and Cocoa's favorite blogger just so happened to be the one to choose...

So without further ado, our super-secret Book Clubber for the month of August is...Miss Rie of Leaving Shangri-L.A.! A dedicated bibliophile and an even better friend, Rie is a stunningly talented miss who dabbles in all things literary - from reviewing whimsical children's books to composing her very own column on the BUST blog. She's absolutely incredible so if you haven't already checked out Leaving Shangri-L.A., her sweet & sparkling blog chronicling all manner of literary thrills, I urge you to head over right now!

And now, lovely ladies, the very first book of the oh-so-sweet Cocoa Book Club...A Charm of Powerful Trouble by Joanne Horniman.

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I'm a chick with simple tastes--at least when it comes to my books. I love beautiful imagery, strong characters, family secrets, small adventures, literary references, and a satisfying conclusion that leaves you sorry to leave the story behind, but blissed out at having known them for even several hundred pages. Joanne Horniman's A Charm of Powerful Trouble is a book that has slipped quietly from the notice of bibliophiles, and I am sorry for it, as it is an exquisite novel in short stories about the relationships between family and lovers. Laura Zambelli could be describing the book itself when she talks of her home in the rainforest:

A forest is so intricate it takes intimacy to know how to look at the maze of plants entwined like serpents: twisted, coiled, sinuous, insinuating. A rainforest is artful and curled and wild. It is the wildness I love most of all. It takes time to know it and love it, to see properly what it is.

Loosely based on the poem Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, A Charm of Powerful Trouble echoes the poem's sensuality, feminist leanings, and expression of the power of love between sisters. Sister Lizzie is bright and beautiful, with a long golden braid and curvy body, flaunting a gold ring in her navel and insouciant way of playing the guitar. Sister Laura is small and dark, but quietly celebrates the beauty of her growing womanhood and her ramshackle home outside Mullumbimby, Australia. Throughout the novel, relationships unfold and echo each other in a circular, dreamy narrative of love and loss. Their artist mother and filmmaker father find their relationship crumbling when Stella, the mother's beautiful best friend, most in with her mysterious daughter Paris. But once upon a time in the mother Emma's history, Stella was the quiet, witchy little girl of the bohemian yet glamorous neighbor who wore miniskirts and tended chickens. Lizzie and Laura are each other's safe haven in their tumultuous if loving family, like Emma's wilder older sister Beth was once her inspiration. Storylines twist through each piece like the snakes that inhabit their rainforest home as the women love tempestuously, lose everything, but come around to themselves when they realize that it is their own inner strength and self-love and passion for living that completes them. Joanne Horniman's writing is evocative and breathless, with images of women eating flowers, sisters who find a universe in a drop of water, bowerbirds with nests made from tarot cards and a goblinish market where mice sell fairy wings and foxes listen to poetry.

Here is an excerpt from "Kiss the Sky," narrated by Laura:

The summer when I was seventeen I was so full of undifferentiated sensuality that the world was a great glowing golden fruit around me. I didn't long for love and nor did I need it, yet I saw love everywhere without even looking for it...Everywhere I looked, I saw people delighting in each other. But I needed no one. I was myself, complete. At night the summer air breathed onto my face with such promises of bliss that I slept in a deep swoon. I was caressed by the morning sunlight and seduced by the long afternoon shadows, and I lapped it all up in such a daze of sensation that I couldn't tell where the world ended and I began. I was so much in love with simply being alive that I could have kissed the sky.

One last note: this book wins my Happy Sapphist award. Without denying the pain that can accompany coming into a queer identity, it is a relief to read a book that explores the beauty of a lesbian relationship without strife or negativity. Laura does struggle with feelings she doesn't have the words to put a name to, but after years of searching finds love with a woman as deep and loving as herself. ( And she's a librarian to boot ♥!) I cannot express how important it was to read a novel like this, one that assured me that there would be happiness, too. 

In the bookshop at Mullumbimby I crouched on the floor, dipping into book. I had a belief that one day I come across something--in a book, anywhere--that would finally allow the world to make sense, and I was forever alive and alert for it.

I found mine--in A Charm of Powerful Trouble. Happy reading!

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Interested? A Charm of Powerful Trouble can be previewed on Google Book Search and purchased on Amazon. I can't wait to hear what you lovelies think of this incredible sounding book, and thanks again to the marvelous Rie for the write-up!

Always,

Penelope ♥