rachelmanija | A pair of brief nonfiction reviews. Both books could have been a feature article. (Reply)

Sweet Nothings, by Sarah Perry.

Ostensibly a book about candy, organized by color. Actually, each entry is an anecdote or set of musings about her life, often only very tangentially connected to the candy in question, plus a paragraph or so about the candy IF THAT. Very annoying bait-and-switch if you were hoping for a book that is actually about candy, and the essays aren't interesting enough to make up for it. The prose is accomplished, but the book as a whole feels a bit pretentious and airless. Too much grief and polyamory, not enough candy.

More Than a Doll: How Creating a Sports Doll Turned into a Fight to End Gender Stereotypes,by Jodi Bondi Norgaard.

An account of the author's creation of a sports-based doll and attempt to market it to toy companies; unsurprisingly, she encounters a ton of resistance to the idea of a doll for girls based on sports rather than on sex, mothering, or fashion. Mildly interesting but could have been a feature article.