CW for mentions of child abuse What is it that sets Fantastic Four apart from other team books? Though the roster rotates slightly throughout the years as characters move in and out of each other’s lives, everybody knows the Fantastic Four will always be Susan Storm, Reed Richards, Johnny Storm & Ben Grimm. This consistency…
Trust, Trauma, and Family in Caela Carter’s Forever, or a Long Long Time
Forever, or a Long Long Time Caela Carter Harper Collins March 7, 2017 Disclaimer: A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Trauma does not define a person, but it can cause seemingly endless aftershocks. Flora and Julian, a sister and brother who spent a considerable amount of…
On Immigration and Motherhood: A Book Review of Lucky Boy
Lucky Boy Shanthi Sekaran G.P. Putnam’s Sons January 10, 2017 Lucky Boy is a lush and poignant tale about two different mothers who are in love with the same baby boy, Ignacio. Solimar Castro-Valdez, a young undocumented Mexican immigrant working as a maid/nanny in Berkeley, California, is the biological mother of Ignacio. Kavya Reddy is…
Movies That Moved Me In 2016
I’m not particularly interested in Best Of lists. After the third list it gets stale and instead of discussing art that moved us, the discourse instead seems to focus on who wrote the best list, what rank the obviously good things appeared in. So this year I asked our writers to tell me about the…
#TIFF16 Review: Lion Is an Unforgettable Adoption Story
Not many people know that I was actually kind of adopted twice. Once taken from India at the age of one, and again at the age of twelve by my mother. A lot of people when they first meet me ask me if I’m from India, and my answer is always, “No, well, not really…
Transfiguring Adoption: How Harry Potter Helped Me Survive My Experience in Care
Growing up I was an avid reader and often used books to escape my reality, a reality that included a mentally ill, abusive mother and an absent father. In grade two our teacher started reading a book about a young boy with shaggy hair and a scar in the shape of a lighting bolt and…