Dangerous Jam

If you were to pre-order the hardcover and then get pregnant, it and the baby would arrive at about the same time. Check out the gorgeous cover, if you haven't already!

I am currently enrolled in an expensive graduate program at Antioch University, to get an MA in clinical psychology with a specialty in Trauma. I intend to become a psychotherapist specializing in survivors of trauma, such as child abuse, domestic violence, war, serious accidents or illness, secondary trauma (such as police, war reporters, even trauma therapists), and so forth.

This degree will enable me to help others, and have a satisfying career for myself. It may enable me to write books on the subject. While I am in school, I have been honing my skills and amusing you by diagnosing fictional characters.

If you would like to help support me in all or any of those endeavors, I have put up this "donate" button.

Note: This is a list of all novels which fit the criteria listed below. It does not express opinions on the quality, authenticity, or positivity of the portrayals of the characters in the books. Please use your own judgment in deciding which books you wish to read or buy.

I have not read all these books! My commentary on the ones I have read reflects my opinions on the books as literature. Title links go to Amazon, and some descriptions were taken from Amazon.

These were the criteria used to compile the list: 1) The book must be science fiction or fantasy or otherwise not realism, and must have been published, either originally or in reprint, as YA in the USA, 2) The character of color/non-white character must either be the protagonist, if it’s a book with a solo protagonist, or one of an ensemble, if it’s a book with multiple protagonists.

This is not an exhaustive list! It is still being added to, and will continue to be as new books come out. Please let me know if I missed something. Also see Stacy Whitman's list, which includes more middle-grade books (for younger children) than I did. (I’ve included a few MG books I thought were edging into YA territory – subjective, I know!)

I have not always specified the protagonist's race. In some cases, the book was suggested by someone else and I don't know; in others, the characters are described in ways which would be considered non-white on our world, but come from a world in which our racial categories don't apply. I have generally not specified the race of the authors, because this list focuses on characters. Also, in many cases, I don't know how the authors identify. This list is intended merely as a starting point. If you wish to have more information before reading a book, further research should turn it up.

( Click to read the list! )

I am writing to order for the monthly question meme. There are a few slots left, if anyone has anything else they'd like to know or think would be amusing to see me write about.

oyceter, unsurprisingly, asked about my best recent food discovery. That would be New Orleans cuisine! My parents and I visited New Orleans last month, and stayed in an apartment in the Marigny (rhymes with "marry me," more or less) where we could stroll and admire the cool little houses with lace-like trim, painted in bright colors.

But mostly, we ate. The food completely lived up to expectations. Everything we ate was good, even completely random little neighborhood restaurants. We were sadly unable to make reservations at Cochon, but it did become a running joke that were eating like cochons.

As everyone suggested, we had beignets at Cafe du Monde, with chicory coffee. I'm not sure I really tasted the chicory; it mostly tasted like strong, somewhat bitter coffee. Maybe the bitterness was the chicory? The beignets, little fried dough pillows, were nicely doughy on the inside, covered in an avalanche of powdered sugar. We also had beignets elsewhere, but I liked the Cafe du Monde ones the best.

I had several po boys, of which my favorite was the crawfish at, IIRC, Acme Oyster House. I was very impressed with the bread in general, which is a sort of French loaf, but very light and fluffy, with a crust almost the texture of a creme brulee top; it shatters when you bite into it. The crawfish were very lightly breaded and fried, not at all heavy or greasy, with some lettuce and exactly enough dressing (a spicy mayo) for flavor and moisture, without anything getting soggy.

Another great meal, though not specific to New Orleans - lots of restaurants in LA serve this type of Asian fusion food - was at the Three Muses, with live music and an amazingly good appetizer of pork belly on a scallion pancake.

However, my single favorite thing was the shrimp and tasso Henican appetizer at Commander's Palace.

Commander's Palace in general also lived up to my rather high expectations. It was in a gorgeous converted house dating back to the 1800s, which reminded me of an old riverboat. The service there was the best I have ever experienced in my life - one of the few times when I've ever enjoyed the service for its own sake. Let me put it this way: I was offered a black napkin because I was wearing a black dress. It was very old-school, but fun rather than stuffy. Our waitress was introduced as "Miss Margaret," which made me expect an old lady in lace. She was actually a young, enthusiastic foodie with opinions on the entire menu.

I had been vaguely expecting the food to be rich but more delicately flavored, I think because I associate restraint with formality. The flavors were actually very bold, which I prefer. The shrimp and tasso Henican consisted of perfectly cooked shrimp skewered on crispy ham, in a sweet-spicy-tangy-hot sauce that made me want to lick the plate. (The wine waiter helpfully produced a basket of bread for sopping purposes.) If I'd been in New Orleans by myself, I would have gone back the next day and just had the shrimp for lunch.

We also had a mini-serving of three soups, gumbo, turtle, and apple-squash. All were good, but the turtle was fantastic, served with a splash of sherry poured on tableside. It was thick and murky, distinctly reminiscent of the river from whence the turtle probably came, with strands of mysterious greens and shreds of meat, rich and complex and tangy. The famous bread pudding was also good, more of a souffle, very light, not overly sweet.

I left a little bummed at LA's lack of turtles, crawfish, po boys, and this style of cooking in general.

If you enjoy these stories or others, please do comment if you have anything to say. Perhaps because of reading on smartphones, commenting on stories is way, way down this year.

Reccing also seems way down, not to mention hard to find since it was taken off the yuletide com and moved to yuletide-recs. I am still seeing way, way more rec lists on individual LJs that are not crossposted anywhere, which is frustrating because the only way I can then find rec lists is by endlessly trawling through the friends list of the yuletide com. If you feel so moved, rec lists are nice and cross-posting them to yuletide-recs would make me happy.

Here's some more stories I liked a lot:

No Unworthy Aim. J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. Hook should, perhaps, have died in England and awoken in Hell. Instead, he died in Neverland and awoke in the trenches of 1916 France.

A grown-up Wendy turns her maternal instincts to nursing, and meets Hook in Craiglockhart. Not actually grimdark, despite the premise. Unlike a lot of revisionist stories, it doesn't trash or eliminate the sweet (or, in this case, twee) elements of the original, but fuses them to the darker aspects imported from reality. It's a great concept, beautifully executed. I was wondering for a while if Peter Pan would make an appearance, but then I realized that he was there already: an entire generation of boys who will never grow up.

Fragile. Onmyouji (the movie.) I think all you need to know about the canon is that it's a fantasy Heian Japan, Abe no Seimei is a magician and the son of a kitsune, and Hiromasa is his perpetually befuddled sidekick with whom he has an extremely slashy relationship. Using a highly appropriate seasonal structure, this story runs them through an entire sequence of hurt-comfort tropes. It's id-tastic, sweet, funny, and generally delicious.

Folly to be Wise. Ben Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" series. You probably need to know the books to appreciate this story, but it's a perfect little casefic of Peter, Lesley, and Nightingale investigating a haunting.

Carrefour. A novellette-length sequel to Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, featuring the return of Anaesthesia, the rat-speaker girl. It's very funny, in the style of the book, and has great pace, lots of good character moments, and some cool worldbuilding.

Their Tragedy. Revolutionary Girl Utena. A strange, funny yet dark, metafictional story for a strange, funny yet dark, metafictional anime. It's the story of the shadow girls who function as the chorus. Requires canon knowledge.

Carry Your Men, and Their Dead Too. Justified. Three cops, one of them wounded, have been kidnapped and locked up with nearly nothing but a deck of cards; they start playing poker for very unusual stakes. I feel a little strange reccing this, since I'm not familiar with the canon and I'm sure half of it went over my head, but I started reading this and loved it despite being only vaguely familiar with the TV show via osmosis. If the show is anything like the story, it just jumped to the top of my to-watch list.

Good news: I finished my last paper!

Bad news: I have 0 words written on my Yuletide story!

Good news: I'm going to New Orleans tomorrow!

Bad news: By my calculations, that gives me exactly two days to write my Yuletide story. And that's assuming I don't have work waiting for me when I return, which would be a false assumption.

Sort of. I still have a paper and a half left to write. And I won't officially graduate (and so have to continue paying fees) for another six months, during which I have to attend one hour every other week of case discussion, due to the traineeship situation.

But in terms of classes, as of yesterday at 10:00 PM, I am officially DONE!

Kindle is having a huge book sale, with many tempting items at $1.99 - $2.99. This includes multiple books by specific authors, like Barbara Hambly, Elizabeth Wein, Octavia Butler, Virginia Hamilton, Kate Elliott, Jonathan Carroll, and Mary Renault.

A few obscure books I wanted to mention are...

The Winter Prince, by Elizabeth Wein, one of my two favorite King Arthur novels. (The other is The Once and Future King.) Wein's is short and intense, narrated by Medraut (Mordred). In this version, there is no Lancelot and Arthur has two legitimate children, a son and a daughter; this makes it read very differently from other versions.

Dragonsbane, by Barbara Hambly. Beautiful fantasy novel about a middle-aged woman who once slew a dragon, who gets called out of retirement. Great concept, great characterization. This is a stand-alone novel with a terrific ending. Many years later, Hambly wrote some sequels. DO NOT READ THEM.

The Darwath Series: The Time of the Dark, The Walls of Air, and The Armies of Daylight, by Barbara Hambly. Portal fantasy! Very good portal fantasy, with vivid characters, excellent martial arts sequences, and a heroine whose research skills, learned while she was getting a degree in medieval history, come surprisingly in handy. This trilogy is complete in itself. There are sequels but I don't really recommend them.

A number of Hambly's books are on sale today, and I rec them all with the caveat to avoid belated sequels to stand-alones and trilogies. I especially adore The Ladies of Mandrigyn (the sequels are OK but not as good) and The Silent Tower/The Silicon Mage (ditto).

The Velvet Room, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. A children's book in the "secret garden" mold, about a lonely girl who finds a secret room in a big house. Not fantasy, but definitely has a numinous feel. A number of her books are on sale today. I snapped up one I never even heard of before, Season of Ponies
, in which a girl gets a magical amulet which summons a herd of rainbow-colored ponies. All I can say is, my inner eleven-year-old is still alive and well and wants a herd of rainbow-colored ponies. Also a fire lizard.

Several good and obscure Jane Yolen books are on sale for $1.99. Cards of Grief is a poetic science fantasy novel about a planet whose art and culture revolves around grieving, seen partly through the perspective of its inhabitants and partly through the eyes of a perplexed space explorer. It's strange in a good way. Also Dragonfield: and Other Stories, short stories, mostly excellent.

Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (The Cecelia and Kate Novels) and sequels, charming epistolatory Regency romance with magic.

Wild Seed , by Octavia Butler. Stand-alone fantasy/sf set in Africa, my favorite (and least depressing) of her novels. Two immortal mutants match wits through the years, a woman shapeshifter and a man who jumps into a new body when his old one dies, killing his host whether he wants to or not.

A Passage of Stars (The Highroad Trilogy). Space opera by Kate Elliott, whose existence I somehow failed to know of before.

I have never read anything by Mary Renault, though I keep meaning to. If you could rec one or two of her books to me, which should it be and why?

This is the sequel to Malinda Lo’s Adaptation. The entire premise of Inheritance is a spoiler for Adaptation, so all I will say outside of the cut is that I enjoyed the sequel. Below the cut are huge spoilers for both books.

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Inheritance