PagesOfEmma
☀️🌸🐝 🍃Moss Girlie™ 🌿Botanist and cat lady🐈⬛ 📚Climate fiction, nature non-fic & sff 🙋♀️She/her, UK. Find me on IG @pages_of_emma
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PagesOfEmma commented on PagesOfEmma's update
PagesOfEmma commented on PagesOfEmma's review of When There Are Wolves Again
It's 2070. Sitting around a Beltane fire, two women share the stories of their lives. Lucy was a ten-year-old in 2020, sent to live with her grandparents over lockdown, where she discovered what it means to love and care for the environment. Hester was in her 30s in Chernobyl, making a film about the vets who care for the wild dogs that roam the area. Both women go on to lead lives that revolve around and change the future of the environment in the UK.
I LOVED this book. If you are after climate fiction with a hopeful note, this one is for you. Now, don't take that as me saying this book is filled with sunshine and happiness, because it's not. It very much shows us the disastrous realities of a changing climate. Unbearable heat that causes birds to drop dead from trees, lack of water, barren farmlands and flooding. It's all here, and it's written in such a way that it caused me to feel real fear in my body, because we all know that it could be just around the corner.
The hope in this book comes from our characters, Lucy and Hester. Lucy's interest in the environment is nurtured by her grandparents until she becomes part of an activist movement to 'recommon' private land. Hester goes on to create films that show people working to preserve our environment. From each woman, threads unspool, connecting other people and movements, creating a whole community striving to fix the world.
Nothing is easily achieved here, and I love that Swift doesn't shy away from showing how difficult it is to effect real change. Political groups, protestors on all sides, legal systems and even our own families all throw up barriers and hurdles. This is the reality that we are facing today, but through this book, we do get some hope that it can be done. If we are prepared to work for it, everyone has the capacity to change, if only we would work together and with the environment.
This is definitely my book of the year, and I highly recommend picking up a copy. Huge thank you to @arcadia_books for sending a copy my way.
1PagesOfEmma finished a book
A Trade of Blood
Robert Jackson Bennett
0PagesOfEmma commented on PagesOfEmma's update
PagesOfEmma commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
When my son was five, he asked if we could make up our own holidays like Christmas and Easter. I said we could and as a result, I chose to dedicate a day to reading each year.
I chose August 30th as it's the birth date of Mary Shelley (who authored my favourite story) and so every year since we have celebrated Mary Shelley Day by gifting books to each other and spending the day reading.
I was just browsing book catalogues, looking for books to gift my children and partner, and it made me wonder if other people also had book-based holidays that they celebrated.
If you do have a book-based holiday or tradition, I'd love to hear about it!
19PagesOfEmma commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
Inspired by @Lixxie222's earlier post: What was the last book you bought, and why did you buy it?*
*(for example - a pretty cover, the plot sounded cool, it was recommended, you loved it and wanted your own copy, you were treating yourself, etc etc.)
The last book I bought was The Names by Florence Knapp because it was a 5 star book that I couldn't stop thinking about and I wanted my own copy. I was at a bookstore where I had store credit so I figured why not (and I was able to get a used copy too so it was a bit cheaper!)
111PagesOfEmma started reading...
A Trade of Blood
Robert Jackson Bennett
2PagesOfEmma finished a book
Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
0PagesOfEmma commented on a post
I haven't finished this book yet, but at 20% in I decided to cave and buy the ebook to go along with my library audiobook copy, because I was already pausing and repeating the audiobook to write down quotes like the one below! Obviously, I don't technically know if this is true yet, but it feels like Burke is doing an excellent job of setting up the themes of the book AND Natalie's characterization so early on in the book! I would love to hear what y'all think!
Quote in full *"A flawless Christian woman. The manic pixie American dream girl of this nation's deepest, darkest fantasies. The mother every woman wanted to be, and the wife every man wanted to come home to. Like a nun in a porno, it didn't make sense, but also, by God: it worked.
My name is Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
In the silences between Sassafras's near-human groans of pleasure (sometimes I joked online that my husband had a bovine mistress, ha ha!), I could just hear the distant chicken coop chatter, that meditative bock bock bock bock bock that served as the white noise machine of our farm. I loved our chickens. They were as domesticated as dogs, as harmless as toddlers. Sometimes I went out to the coop just to sit with them. I liked to stroke their silky necks, let them peck soft at the feed in my cupped palms.
We'd be killing them soon. In the darkness, my mouth watered. I'd been yearning, lately, for fresh bone broth. Once you've made it from scratch, the store-bought kind tastes rancid."*
Paragraph one thoughts I'm obsessed with how she is describing herself - her self-awareness is almost unsettling for a few reasons, but what sticks out to me most is she sees herself in "tropes" or constructs. She knows her target audience so well that she only sees herself in that branding. Manic pixie American dream girl is such a fantastic mash up. Manic pix dream girl is a male fantasy object term, but then she combines it with American dream. chef's kiss
The nun in a porno line is equally fantastic to me - smashing the sacred and profane and then rounding it out with "by God: it worked". Her brand sells purity and wholeness, but she she is fueled by attention and hunger, but she does seem to have genuine faith too.
Paragraph two thoughts The is vs was aspect is already fascinating, but look back at the blurb "My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.* Idk what this means, but I wanna find out!!
The being alive phrase also feels telling - it's not that she is perfect at living, she's perfect at being alive and it's in the past tense... like Natalie is a zombie/the living dead.
Final paragraphs thoughts Literally in her own thoughts she is writing "captions" to her "audience" with the bovine mistress and ha ha! comment in the parentheses - she cannot separate herself from her brand! She is just waking up in this scene and literally she snaps into the brand even when no one is watching, while being self-aware enough to KNOW she is a brand/made up for tropes or constructs. In a way, it almost makes me feel like she is trapped in the body of her brand, but the Natalie she knew doesn't exist anymore (circling back to the is vs. was line/zombie concept above). It's so delicious to meeee!
"that meditative bock bock bock bock bock that served as the white noise machine of our farm" One - the comedy of this is great, but even in her own thoughts she can't help but turn to a modern "luxury" product. So many people say they want to "escape to a farm" to feel truly free from the capitalistic hell hole that is the US, but she is showing us that it's not the escape people think/maybe even what she thought. Also, she didn't do this, but I'm kind of imagining all of this as if she was writing a really long caption and I could 100000% see her linking an affiliate link to a high end white noise machine to this "post" hahaha
How she describes the chickens is fascinating, it feels very intimate, feminine and also maternal to me: "silky necks" "soft pecks" "cupped palms" "domesticated as dogs" "harmless as toddlers" but starts the next paragraph with "We'd be killing them soon. In the darkness, my mouth water."
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? These paragraphs are genius!! Her love and intimacy is smashed together with her literal hunger AGAIN (circling back to the nun in a porno line). It reads on a surface level like a contradiction, but I don't think it is. I think she can't separate the two, she feels like a tradwife influencer shell of a human, her love and intimacy is now part of her hunger. And her hunger feels almost symbiotic or cyclical to me: she is hungry for fame, attention, public adoration, and money, but who she is/was as an actual person, the loving maternal figure, only exists now as something to be consumed by the public. Notice she said she loved our chickens - anything she loves is now a commodity/something for the public and her to consume. Idk if this makes sense, I can't figure how to explain what I mean, but hopefully y'all get what I mean.
I. Am. Obsessed!!! Please share your thoughts because I am dying to talk with people about this book!
15PagesOfEmma commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
When my son was five, he asked if we could make up our own holidays like Christmas and Easter. I said we could and as a result, I chose to dedicate a day to reading each year.
I chose August 30th as it's the birth date of Mary Shelley (who authored my favourite story) and so every year since we have celebrated Mary Shelley Day by gifting books to each other and spending the day reading.
I was just browsing book catalogues, looking for books to gift my children and partner, and it made me wonder if other people also had book-based holidays that they celebrated.
If you do have a book-based holiday or tradition, I'd love to hear about it!
19PagesOfEmma commented on PagesOfEmma's update
PagesOfEmma started reading...
Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
7PagesOfEmma started reading...
Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
7PagesOfEmma commented on a post
PagesOfEmma commented on PagesOfEmma's review of Beauty of the Beasts: Rethinking Nature's Least Loved Animals
In this book we look at creatures that often carry the label of pest, disgusting, and/or dangerous. The cover itself is adorned with a rather beautiful illustration of a wasp, one of the animals I hear the most complaints about here in the UK, specially in the summer.
I, like many nature lovers, often find myself thinking about, or reacting to, some of these creatures in negative ways. Over the years I have taught myself to rethink this mindset and (for the most part) I no longer run away from spiders, and generally let the wasps investigate my table. However, I am not the general public and many people would rather eradicate certain species than learn anything about them. This book is an attempt to change that, and a good one too!
Through the pages we look at creatures like sharks, rats, vultures and various insects. The way information is presented about them is excellent. Nothing is too technical, and while the information presented is backed up with (referenced) science, Wimpenny makes sure that anyone can understand it.
I liked how we reframed these species through examining their natural behaviours and the reasons for them. We learn that they are capable of so many things that we believe only humans could do. Rats, for example, love to play, to be tickled and actually have fun. We also look at how each one is an important part of their own habitat. Everything in nature has a place and a reason, and our attempt to remove them from the wild has had consequences that we can clearly see.
Overall this was a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable read. I really hope that people pick it up, because it will definitely start to change your mind about some of the creatures we are taught to hate. Thank you so much to Bloomsbury Outdoors for sending a copy my way!
4PagesOfEmma wrote a review...
In this book we look at creatures that often carry the label of pest, disgusting, and/or dangerous. The cover itself is adorned with a rather beautiful illustration of a wasp, one of the animals I hear the most complaints about here in the UK, specially in the summer.
I, like many nature lovers, often find myself thinking about, or reacting to, some of these creatures in negative ways. Over the years I have taught myself to rethink this mindset and (for the most part) I no longer run away from spiders, and generally let the wasps investigate my table. However, I am not the general public and many people would rather eradicate certain species than learn anything about them. This book is an attempt to change that, and a good one too!
Through the pages we look at creatures like sharks, rats, vultures and various insects. The way information is presented about them is excellent. Nothing is too technical, and while the information presented is backed up with (referenced) science, Wimpenny makes sure that anyone can understand it.
I liked how we reframed these species through examining their natural behaviours and the reasons for them. We learn that they are capable of so many things that we believe only humans could do. Rats, for example, love to play, to be tickled and actually have fun. We also look at how each one is an important part of their own habitat. Everything in nature has a place and a reason, and our attempt to remove them from the wild has had consequences that we can clearly see.
Overall this was a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable read. I really hope that people pick it up, because it will definitely start to change your mind about some of the creatures we are taught to hate. Thank you so much to Bloomsbury Outdoors for sending a copy my way!
4PagesOfEmma commented on PagesOfEmma's review of Hum
Climate change has ravaged the world. Sometimes the outside air is so bad you cannot leave your house. Greenery is a thing reserved for the richest people, packaged and sold as a luxury holiday. Capitalism is everything here. You can't escape adverts and marketing, your personal data is used to sell you things, phones are permanently attached to kids' wrists, and AI robots have taken all the jobs. This is the world in which May is trying to raise her family.
Some climate fiction is scary because it is so extreme. Some climate fiction is scary because it feels so incredibly real in the here and now. This book falls into the latter category. The world presented to us in Hum feels just a step away from where we are in 2026. It was not at all difficult to imagine May's reality, and that, I think, makes for a truly unsettling read.
May has lost her job to an AI, and as a result, her family struggles to make ends meet. She opts to undergo facial surgery for cash, an experiment to see whether subtle changes can bypass facial recognition. This one, seemingly small decision is the catalyst for a string of events that spirals more and more out of her control.
I enjoyed this book for its exploration of themes surrounding AI, technology use, consumer culture and family. Interestingly, I did not get very attached to the characters, but I think that might be thanks to the way it is written, and I do think it is purposeful. The world here is one of constant surveillance and marketing. It's inescapable, and it almost dissolves people of their individuality. We are definitely observers in this story, much like the faceless bureaucracy.
Overall, a perceptive and unsettling read that feels far too close to home.
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