Her Majesty's Royal Coven

Finished March 8

Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

This is the first book in a series by the same title, and is set around a group of women that took their adolescent oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven (HMRC), a longstanding institution, first started by Queen Elizabeth I, at the same time. All of the girls had some early schooling in the magical arts by Elle's grandmother, Annie, who is an oracle. Since then they have gone their separate ways, but still retain some friendships. 

There was a civil war in recent years that has hit many of them hard, and caused two of them to lose their partners. This is a wound for many that hasn't yet healed. 

Helena, the wealthiest of the girls, is now the High Priestess of the coven. Elle, a healing witch, is living a life as a normal housewife, with her partner unaware of her abilities. Niamh, who has multiple abilities, is working as a country vet, still mourning the loss of her partner. Leonie, the only black one of the group, has started her own more inclusive and intersectional coven called Diaspora in which she welcomes witches from all cultural backgrounds as well as lesbians and transgender witches. 

This book begins with a couple of young people. One of them, Elle's daughter Holly, is showing signs of magical abilities, and Elle asks Niamh for help in introducing the whole idea of witches to her, as well as giving her some training. The other is a young man, Theo, who seems to have extraordinary abilities and caused damage to the school he was attending. Helena has retrieved him and imprisoned him, and he is in great distress. She asks Niamh to come and help, even though Niamh is no longer part of the HMRC.

It is obvious from the beginning that Helena is the most traditional and staid of the group, as well as being the one who likes the power she wields. I enjoyed getting to know the way that this imagined world worked, with witches in general more powerful than warlocks, and them having separate administrative structures while still with the witches as the ultimate decision-makers. 

We also learn the mythology of their creation and the creatures, demons, that they, as representatives of Gaia, are supposed to hold the world against. There are different kinds of witches, with certain attributes and some, with more power, who have combined skills. 

I was quite enjoying this book and seeing how the different women lived, but few of them were complex characters, with none of the younger characters in the book having a real voice, despite their importance to the plot. 

I did get frustrated with some of the characters, and with some of the later plot elements, particularly with the note on which the book ended. I realize that it was likely structured this way to encourage the reader to continue with the following book in the series, but it didn't sit well with me. 

X + Y

Finished December 31

X + Y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng

I was looking for a book to help meet a reading challenge and came across this book which got me thinking about many things in different ways. The author is a mathematician and an artist. She teaches mathematics at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. In her career, and in other aspects of her life, she has encountered sexism and racism. She has thought a lot about this and how often gender issues are substituted for behaviour issues. She outlines how our society favours more aggressive, competitive, individualistic behaviour, and about how that behaviour has come to be seen as masculine. 

She has come up with new descriptors for this issue around behaviour that take the gender out of the discussion, eliminating one red herring to change. She describes two behaviour types as ingressive and congressive, where ingressive is the current valued type of behaviour that values competition, winners, contests, and individual success. The other type of behaviour, congressive, values understanding, sharing, working together, collaboration, and societal success. She makes a great argument for this new set of descriptors and how using them and thinking of them more in the behavioural sense and not tying them to gender norms can overcome not only gender bias, but also other biases in our society that favour the status quo. 

I found myself easily understanding her descriptions of category theory mathematics (I was a math major in my first year of university) and seeing how it applies to this idea of behavioural categories. She advocates gradual change, using congressive approaches and responses to replace ingressive or passive ones, and finding a way forward that will benefit not only society as a whole, but individuals more broadly as well. 

This is a fascinating book that needs to be read by more people and have them seriously consider her suggestions. 

Fed Up

Finished July 3
Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward by Gemma Hartley

This is a book that will speak to many, if not all, women. In most cultures, it is the woman who does the emotional labour in a relationship, who keeps things up, who organizes things, who makes sure that things get done. It is the mental load of this tasks, noticing what needs doing, what connects to what (if your son has soccer tomorrow, you need to ensure his uniform is clean and ready, dinner is organized to be quick to be done before game time, and any transportation is planned). It isn't just about putting things on the calendar. It's about seeing the connections between things, between people, between tasks, and noting the minutiae in the big picture.
This can be draining, even more than the physical tasks that accompany it are. Gemma looked at this in her own life, and in the lives of many others, doing a lot of research as she wrote this book. Her husband Rob was a man who wanted to do better, but didn't understand emotional labour, and didn't know how to engage more. (Notice that I didn't say "how to help"). They eventually worked out how to share emotional labour more in their relationship, not only because it improved life for both of them, but also to avoid having this dynamic pass on to the next generation.
When Gemma realized that she had to change her own approach and attitude big time, it was an aha moment. They had to figure it out together. If she really wanted this change, and she did, they had to work it out as a team, not as a leader and a helper. She notes that keeping things in balance is an ongoing challenge, but that they both look forward to figuring it out together.
This was an eye-opening and inspiring look at the issue of emotional labour, and offers real solutions to recognizing the value of this work and finding more fulfillment. Highly recommended.