Books

THE MEDEA COMPLEX (2015)

March 7, 2025

It’s Victorian era London and Anne Stanbury has sentenced to rehabilitation in an asylum for killing her son. Her lower-class husband, Edgar, deeply resents her for destroying his chance at assuming the Stanbury estate. Compounding matters, Edgar is drowning in debt while surrounded by in-laws and servants who hate his guts, not to mention being pestered by his alcoholic parasite of a father.

This is Rachel Florence Roberts’s debut novel THE MEDEA COMPLEX, and everyone is not as they seem. Was Anne gripped by a bout of madness, or was she right-of-mind when she killed her son? Does Edgar truly love Anne? What sort of duplicity are the in-laws and staff up to?

“You’re lying to yourself.”

THE MEDEA COMPLEX is a gripping page turner, propulsive but also reflective; it has sensational action, but also features an array of interior musings by the major players in the tale. Each character is intriguingly complex, and their motives and full back-stories unfurl through the pages, until you realize that each and every one of them are selfish assholes.

I love a book chock full of despicable folks, especially when they’re acting out of faulty reasoning.

While THE MEDEA COMPLEX was spurred into existence by Roberts’s postpartum depression, it was also inspired by the Victorian-era realities of inheritance and estates, barbaric grasp of psychiatry and mental illness — which included the belief that madness in women can be induced by reading — and cruelty of some ‘baby farms’

Baby farms in the Victorian era were a service where individuals took in children whose parents could not support, either because of finances, illegitimacy, or other reasons. While some farms were well-run, others were little more than profit centers and often resulting in exploiting the children or worse: allowing them to die due to starvation, or simply killing them.

As detailed in the author’s notes, Roberts emphasizes that — while a number of the characters are absolute fabrications — some are inspired by real-life scumbags, such prolific baby farmer/serial killer Amelia Dyer. *1

There’s nothing like drawing from the well of actual historical criminals to give your morally grey character a pitch-black veneer.

While the characters often act cruel and perform reprehensible acts, they are often the actions of necessity and of survival, especially the acts committed by women. One of the few well-meaning characters, Anne’s doctor — Dr. George Savage — is extraordinarily sexist, but in a blunt manner that was professionally accepted at the time. Roberts handled the reality of the situation by having Anne and others subvert his expectations in satisfying ways, ways that come to haunt him in the end.

Colorfully dour and unsavory, with characters sinking lower and lower with every page, immersed in a historically accurate and unsentimental rendering of Victorian London, MEDEA is delightfully cynical while not quite being nihilistic. It’s a taunt work of intrigue that confidently scrutinizes the effect of patriarchy on medical matters, on generational inheritance, of the fiscal and mental fallout of motherhood.

“After all, ranking is merely an accident of birth.”

  1. If you’re interested in reading about how lurid Victorian murders were and how they were portrayed and detailed by the media, I highly recommend Judith Flanders’s THE INVENTION OF MURDER (2011). It’s telling that baby farming is only allotted a handful of pages and not considered nearly as scandalous as other acts of the time!) ↩︎

FIVE LITTLE INDIANS (2020)

February 26, 2025

CONTENT WARNING

This post discusses trauma, including physical and sexual abuse.

I write a lot about media that tackles trauma because, well, artistic works have helped me realize and come to terms with a lot of my own trauma. It’s not a subject that you can easily broach with others and, often, something that is buried instead of confronted. The works that do reckon with trauma can be a provocation or a balm or both.

Michelle Good’s FIVE LITTLE INDIANS was certainly both for me.

FIVE LITTLE INDIANS scrutinizes five Indigenous youths who were forced into the same Canadian Indian residential school. If you’re unfamiliar with the practice, Canadian Indian residential school system was a program instituted by the Canadian government and overseen by church members. At the age of six, one is cut off from your parents and hauled off to a boarding school. You’re taught European and Christian ideals until you’re 16 years old. You’re then booted out, left to fend for yourself in an unforgiving world.

The intent was to indoctrinate and assimilate by whatever means deemed fit by their institutional headmasters. Instead it cut thousands off from their culture and heritage and ruined lives. This government-mandated cruelty lasted for over a century, well into the 1960s.

Good’s five Indians — Kenny, Maisie, Lucy, Howie and Clara — are have overlapping stints in the 1950s at the Mission School. All five of them are starved, humiliated, and suffer physical and sexual abuse from their overseers. Both Kenny and Howie manage to separately run away, whereas Maisie, Lucy and Clara serve all ten years.

All five of them, one way at one time or another, find their way to the slums of Downtown Eastern Vancouver and into each other’s lives, bound together by what they endured at the Mission.

While FIVE LITTLE INDIANS is specifically about the trauma inflicted by colonizers and how it was specifically enacted to bulldoze cultures, the ways the characters confront or cope or ignore their trauma are easy to identify with.

For example, take this exchange between Kenny and Lucy as they discuss reparations the government is preparing to make:

“They call us survivors.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think I survived. Do you?”

“I just don’t know. I’m so tired, Lucy.”

Kenny later states:

“Sometimes I think I did die, I’m just still walking around.”

Reading the two of them reflecting on the label of ‘survivor’ rattled me, as I’ve had the same exchange with my therapist when they have labeled as a ‘survivor’. The only difference? I stated that all I did was ‘continue to exist’. They responded:

“That’s surviving. A lot of people who have been through the same did not…”

That’s undeniably true, especially in FIVE LITTLE INDIANS, as all five of them have been affected by those who did not survive what the Mission had wrought. All five feel like they’ve survived nothing, that there’s no glory or satisfaction in having made it to another day.

Empathizing with the thoughts and sentiments expressed in FIVE LITTLE INDIANS is why I write about works that focus on lesser-discussed topics such as abuse and traumatic experiences. These topics that are rarely discussed outside of physical and mental health offices and are assumed to be verboten and off-limits, even to those closest to you. It may make others uncomfortable, it may make them view you differently, or you simply might feel that it’s unworthy of sharing.

All of the above are touched on in FIVE LITTLE INDIANS, as they don’t have any kind of template or guide to help them process what they’ve lived through. Similarly, the Canadian government is also struggling with addressing the abuse these people endured. Mostly, it’s financial reparations, but also through acknowledgement that these acts occurred and that these acts were acts of cruelty and abuse and physically and mentally devastated so many.

It’s this recognition, not just in the past by those who have lived it, those who have inflicted it, those who were complicit in it, and Good for weaving this tale to bring attention not just to the acts, but the acts and the fallout, that is so important.

The power of words, of phrasing, of articulating, of airing these matters — both personal and sociopolitical — can help to heal, even if it hurts at first. Some may say it can bring closure. Frankly, I don’t believe that; for many reasons I know I’ll never have closure for the acts done to me, despite finally confronting it. It’ll always be there; so much of who I am, how I interact — or fail to interact — is entangled with that history that … there is no hope for closure, but that isn’t the point — that isn’t the endgame — of acknowledgement and recognition of abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

This may come across as rudimentary or obvious but reading stories like these, fiction centered around fact — be it historical events or simply lived experience woven into a tale — can elicit awareness in a number of a ways, from those who have experienced it, those who can empathize, those who can sympathize, those who can relate, and those who were previously oblivious.

FIVE LITTLE INDIANS works on all of the levels while also unfurling an engrossing multi-generational arc of nuanced characters. It might be a book you can read for some insight on the crimes of the past, or it might be something that’ll open your eyes to events others may have endured, or it might trigger you, or it might make you feel slightly less alone in the world, it may help someone talk to you or to talk to others about trauma, or maybe it’ll do all of the above as it did for me.

FIVE LITTLE INDIANS is available through Bookshop. Support indie bookstores!

TALES OF THE CITY (1978-)

January 27, 2025

Armistead Maupin’s series TALES OF THE CITY — which started off as a series of reads in the -San Francisco Chronicle- — is an array of a queer found family to be jealous of. The first collection, aptly named TALES OF THE CITY, follows the antics of naive, very straight 25-year-old midwesterner Mary Ann as she moves to San Francisco.

Mary Ann takes up residence at 28 Barbary Lane, a quaint apartment building overseen by kindly weed-aficionado Anna Madrigal. Living under Ms. Madrigal’s roof is Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, a gay man with commitment issues, free spirit Mona Ramsey, and others who help to weave Mary Ann into the fabric of San Francisco.

As you might have surmised from the title and significant cast of characters, TALES OF THE CITY is extremely Dickensian, even down to adopting some of Dickens’ predilection for the outrageous. Maupin doesn’t go as far as incorporating spontaneous human combustion into the works, but the residents of 28 Barbary Lane often do find themselves in outlandish melodramas fit for a soap opera. (It’s telling that the extreme primetime TV soap MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN is mentioned in the first fifteen pages.)

Yes, the sensational and lurid elements of TALES OF THE CITY are effectively titillating and propulsive, it’s the sense of time, place, and relationships that hooked me: Mary Ann grows more and more comfortable with counter-culture — queer or otherwise —; Mouse’s mood shifts as he longs for a substantial and fulfilling relationship, but instead fills his days with club nights and numerous hook-ups; Ms. Madrigal’s back-story and how she juggles it as well as the needs of all around her. They’re all heartfelt tales, all deeply rooted in San Francisco at the times Maupin was penning the installments for the paper: mid-70s for TALES OF THE CITY, late 70s for MORE TALES OF THE CITY, and early 80s for FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY.

As the TALES OF THE CITY books are being published to this day — although only the first five were previously published in weekly newspaper installments — it remains a fascinating document of cultural shifts, generational schisms, mores, moods, urban changes, and perceptions of societal, sexual, and gender norms. Not to mention reading about the San Francisco imagines it to be — artsy, extremely left, very weird — instead of the dudetechbro nightmare it’s become.

An aside: I’ve only read TALES OF THE CITY, MORE TALES OF THE CITY and FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY. It’s one of those series that I’m trying to slowly dole out, as its emphasis on ever-shifting culture. However, you can certainly feel the specter of AIDS looming over FURTHER TALES, ensuring that I need to emotionally gird myself for BABYCAKES, the fourth volume.

The series was wildly popular for years, was turned into a TV adaptation in the 90s which was resurrected by Netflix for a mini-series, and is one of BBC’s Top 100 Most Inspiring Novels.

However, like how MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN burned so bright in the mid 70s and is almost entirely forgotten today, it wasn’t until recently that I discovered the series. I’m certain that’s partially because some the situations and perspective and language is dated, but that’s a feature — not a bug. As we as society are rather cyclical, it’d be wise to not let the series collect cultural dust.

Lastly? Now more than ever, we need to hear liberating and enlightening and life-saving finding your own family can be, that you can find safety and security and form lifelong bonds with others.

28 Barbary Lane is fictional, but 28 Barbary Lanes exist all over. I’m currently living in my own 28 Barbary Lane, in a queer and weird slice of Chicago that I wouldn’t trade for the world. If you still haven’t found your 28 Barbary Lane, well, let Armistead Maupin pen you a map.

THE 7 1/2 DEATHS OF EVELYN HARDCASTLE (2018)

January 21, 2025

I seek out works for the motives, the fallout, the folks on the periphery and the secrets they keep; I want a story about human nature that scrutinizes what makes people tick. I don’t want a puzzle box piece, one that neglects humanity and emotion in favor of intricately mapped out timelines of character placement and machinations.

On paper, intricately mapped out timelines of character placement and machinations is -exactly- what Stuart Turton’s novel THE 7 1/2 DEATHS OF EVELYN HARDCASTLE comprises. The novel’s protagonist, Aiden Bisop, has eight days and eight bodily hosts to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle on the day of her birthday party. Each day sees Aiden inhabit a new body on the same party day. Each day he has to scrawl out the timing and positioning of everyone so he can maximize what he witness, and what information he can wring from someone.

Yes, on paper it sounds like a big ol’ puzzle box of a text.

In execution? Well, it’s still a big ol’ puzzle box of a text, but the puzzle is just a framework to examine human nature and drives, the ability to adapt and change, and questions who and what influences others.

It also dives into which minor remarks can snowball and change one’s perspective. Keeping with that theme, I will refrain from detailing any more about 7 1/2 DEATHS than what is mentioned above and simply state that it is more than it may seem.

THE GIRLS IN 3-B (1959)

December 6, 2024

CONTENT WARNING

This post contains mentions of sexual abuse.

Valerie Taylor’s THE GIRLS IN 3-B can be summed up as ‘a 50s Chicago lesbian pulp novel’ but it’s more than that. Its focus is on three young women — Annice, Annice’s best friend Pat, and Barby — who are leaving high school and their small Iowa town to venture to Chicago seeking employment and romance; to make their own way in the urban world.

What they want is different for each, and what they do find is not exactly what they want.

Annice is a restless college poet with a part-time job looking for interesting, off-beat intellectuals, while Barby and Pat are seeking gainful employment while enjoying life in the big city.

The three of them settle together in an apartment, a place in the slums one that Barby discovered, one that she ineffectively tried to talk the others out of renting.

As the pages progress, we read about how the women are changed by their independence, altered by the urban environment, thrust into financial worry and navigating rocky interpersonal waters.

With these new responsibilities and encounters, the girls in 3-B quickly become estranged, rarely knowing where the others are, or why they’re doing whatever they’re doing. It’s a familiar story, although somewhat rare that the detachment occurs when all are under the same roof.

Part of the issue is that all three have secrets: Annice rarely attends classes or work so she can fuck around with her pretentious dirtbag asshole of a don’t-call-me-a-boyfriend-boyfriend. Pat has a severe crush on her engaged boss and has given up her brusque tomboy style and demeanor in favor of severe diets and costly fashions. And Barby?

After having been molested as a youth by the town bank’s vice-president, Barby’s now being sexually abused by the building’s caretaker. When she finally extricates herself from that, one of her older, refined coworkers — Ilene Gordon, whom other shopgirls whisper about — takes Barby to a lavish lunch, away from prying eyes. Barby is enamored and, later in the day, finds that Ilene has tucked a copy of Radclyffe Hall’s classic lesbian novel THE WELL OF LONELINESS away for her.

Matters escalate in well-worn ways. Annice gets in trouble. Pat struggles with desire and choices. And Barby? Barby finds a new world with Ilene.

“Yes,” Ilene Gordon said, “that’s the hardest part of growing up, waiting for someone else to show you your own possibilities. So often the right person doesn’t come along.”

If you’ve read the above and thought, ‘Oh, great, Barby has to deal with yet another predator’. Or you read Barby’s history of sexual abuse — which are even worse than I’ve detailed — then you as THE GIRLS IN 3-B leaning on the ‘sexual abuse made her gay’ trope. That wouldn’t be unusual. A lot of lesbian pulp works of the time routinely adhered to a Hayes Code-ish sort of unspoken regulations which punished ‘aberrant’ behavior, which meant turning an instigating person into a villain or monster and by the end of the work, the protagonist would be back in a heteronormative relationship.

That’s not the case with THE GIRLS IN 3-B. What you fear for Barby, how her queerness might be treated, how she might be taken advantage, how things might fall apart, how we as readers may have to endure a disingenuous ending to her tale, does not occur. Barby finds safety, even though their relationship means hiding their true nature.

THE GIRLS IN 3-B, while its main appeal is with the urban lesbian courtship, doesn’t skimp on Annice or Pat’s story. Annice is arguably the leading character — the novel opens with Annice, and Annice’s interests as a writer and intellectual and unconventional endeavors and experiences round her character out more than Pat. However, all three have engrossing arcs, ones that see them begin to find their footing in the world as young adults, no longer girls.

It’s an evergreen tale. The three of them naively navigate the world and encounter many of the same trials, tribulations, and pitfalls anyone would today. Apart from a handful of terms here and there, some of which have not aged well at all, it’s a story that could have been penned and embraced by youths today.

If, like myself, you pick up the The Feminist Press’ Femmes Fatale edition of THE GIRLS IN 3-B, make sure to read Lisa Walker’s afterword. Walker details the fascinating life of Valerie Taylor, as well as provides a crash course in the history lesbian pulp fiction, and the unfortunate state of its preservation. It’s vastly informative and instructive on what to seek out next, and what to hope might be resurrected in the reverent way The Feminist Press have with THE GIRLS IN 3-B.

KITTENTITS (2024)

August 21, 2024

How to guarantee that I will pre-order and voraciously consume your novel:

  • Name your novel KITTENTITS because I love a title that has no shame.
  • Have a hot pink cover because I love hot pink.
  • Have a hot pink cover with a cute kitten on it because I love cats.
  • Have a hot pink cover with a cute kitten on it and shiny silver starry eyes because shiny silver covers remind me of the first comic book I bought.
  • Have GONE GIRL’s Gillian Flynn tweet about your book because I love Gillian Flynn.
  • Have Gillian Flynn’s imprint publish your novel because I will read anything that she helps will into the world.
  • Have a significant portion of your novel takes place in Chicago.
  • Have your novel center around inventively filthy-mouthed dirtbags because I am a filthy-mouthed dirtbag and can use the company.
  • Have your novel center around filthy-mouthed dirtbags who are young aimless fuckups who make all of the wrong choices because it will remind me of my youthful indiscretions.
  • Have your story be intensely internal, peppered with loss and trauma and fucked up circumstances that slowly unfurl into an absurdly comical and fantastical and horrific tale that leaves you questioning what you just read while also savoring its twists and deft prose.

See? Nothing to it. If you need more help, read Holly Wilson’s KITTENTITS because there’s far more of interest in her debut work than I have listed here.

THE HOUSEKEEPERS (2023)

August 14, 2024

We’re in the twilight of summer, which means it’s the perfect season for an enthralling, propulsive historical heist novel, such as Alex May’s clever first novel THE HOUSEKEEPERS.

It’s London 1905 and one ‘Mrs. King’ is wrapping up her service in an opulent Park Lane estate. Her final task? ‘Double-checking’ the details regarding an extravagant ball for Miss de Vries, the daughter of the recently deceased, new money, head of the house, one ‘Mr. de Vries’. Once Mrs. King exits through Park Lane’s doorway, she enlists an eclectic number of folks from her past on a mission: to steal each and every book, blanket, trunk, couch. To leave nothing — absolutely nothing — behind.

The reasons for this endeavor are known to Mrs. King and Mrs. King alone, and the ramshackle group of misfit women infiltrate the manor, scheduling their heist to coincide with the distraction of the poshly attended gala.

As always with heists, motives are questioned, steadfast trusts grow fragile, plans go sideways, and matters escalate in the most engrossing of ways.

THE HOUSEKEEPERS is a comfortably self-assured caper, one that deftly leans on the upstairs/downstairs dynamics of both the manor and the changing world outside to heighten the tropes of the heist genre. Top it off with fine attention to detail regarding the idiosyncrasies and well-woven character work of the thieving ensemble and you have all the marks of a thrilling afternoon read.

HARLEY QUINN: REDEMPTION (2024)

June 17, 2024

Spoiler Alert

This post contains spoilers for HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING and HARLEY QUINN: RAVENOUS.

HARLEY QUINN: REDEMPTION is the final novel in Rachael Allen’s DC Icons Harley Quinn trilogy, wrapping up Harley’s arc from Harleen Quinzel — a curious and brazen student of science — to Harley Quinn — a brilliantly anarchic and transformed student of both science and law-breaking and violence, all for her perceived notion of aiding others.

REDEMPTION kicks off with Harley on summer vacation at Ivy’s parents overly spacious home. Harley’s single-mindedly trying to cobble together an intimacy solution to prevent Ivy’s lips from killing Harley upon contact. Is it going well?

No, it is not going well. Failure upon failure.

On top of that frustration, her prior Reckoning partners have abandoned her and she’s getting daily creepy stalker missives from an unknown person, each note accompanied by a heavily altered doll.

Harley, with Ivy by her side, piece together that the sender of these disturbing packages is abducting youths and young women from the streets and the dolls Harley receives? Each are small facsimiles of how he sculpts each victim or, as he — often referred to as The Dollmaker — sees it, transforming them and bringing them to a higher aesthetic and physical plane by bending, warping, appending and removing facets of their body.

(For those familiar with Batman lore, yes, there have been a number of iterations on The Dollmaker, although none who match the very specific kind of self-perceived physical abuse that he enacts.)

The Dollmaker is partnered up with the Mad Hatter — a mainstay of Batman’s lineup of villains — who requests that The Dollmaker occasionally shape one of the abducted into an ‘Alice’ and hand them off to him. Unfortunately, often The Dollmaker’s Alices don’t always match Hatter’s tea party expectations, resulting in the need for a new Alice.

To keep their victims placated, The Dollmaker and Hatter utilize an improved iteration over the inferior mind-altering chips they handed off to Scarecrow in REDEMPTION. These chips last longer and allows for them to mentally mould their victims to their whims and desires, which essentially means making them subservient and as happy with their new twisted and weaponized bodies as possible.

Harley becomes ever-increasingly embroiled in The Dollmaker and Hatter’s activities and that’s when REDEMPTION pivots to something far darker than explored in the prior two novels. Bodies are chipped and ground away and turned into something both inhuman and super-human, the latter for the benefit of crime bosses and governments who want some additional protection. Or just a novelty to show off at galas.

Even for this trilogy, The Dollmaker’s ‘artistic endeavors’ are cruelly outlandish and upsetting, although it ultimately works against him in ways that I will not spoil, in ways that underscore the trilogy’s overall message of women turning the tables on the abuse that men inflict.

It’s not all body horror and torture, however. As Harley often does, she imparts herself on friends new and old, and builds and rebuilds a found family and support network. Harles and Ives go to pride! King Shark wears a shark costume! Fun is had and cotton candy is consumed!

If anything, Harley is too exuberant and bubbly. (I didn’t know such a thing was possible.) She banters around the term ‘love language’ quite a bit. She is exponentially more elated at the slightest bit of physical or emotional shiny she comes across than the prior two novels. While Harley is always a bit much, here her gushing and wide-eyed wonder at the world occasionally comes across as a titch too much, even for her. I kept waiting for someone to ask if she’d take it down a notch — even a resigned ‘Harrrrleey’ utterance from Ivy — but no dice.

Allen dedicates REDEMPTION “To everyone who loves Harley Quinn and sees a piece of themselves in her.”

It’s clear, even from the beginning of the trilogy, that Allen knows how Harley has resonated with so many, even to those like myself that don’t exactly fit the Harley mould. Allen also deftly excises the more fraught, subservient and coercive facets of what normally constitutes Harley’s history, making her even more of an inspirational figure without sandpapering over Harley’s impetuous and occasional blinkered flaws.

As I mentioned in my write-up of RECKONING — the beginning of the trilogy — there are many different Harleys. Allen’s Harley can be inspiration. Her Harley is a tale of a lower-class misfit who has lived through and endured a lot of lows and abuse in her life. Despite that, Harley is smart and is determined to be herself, to push herself further and help people in need when she can, of aiding those taken advantage of, of those who are abused, of exacting vengeance on those who abuse their power and mentally or physically tear others down.

This trilogy is part of the DC Icons series, a young adult imprint of Penguin Books. Each work examines popular DC characters when they were teens. That’s… seemingly all that exists of the DC Icons mission statement. It’s questionable whether it exists as an entryway to comic book for teens who eschew the funny pages which, given the wide financial disparity between how much the movies gross and how low actual DC comic books sell, might not be the worst idea. Especially since some of them are New York Times bestsellers.

It also helps that Harley’s mercurial, impetuous, extremely emotional nature mirrors life as a teen, and because the world is harsh and people are cruel, and it is hard to go through life without putting yourself in danger and Harley is all about reckoning with these dangers.

(Worth noting is Allen’s series isn’t even the only YA Harley work out there, as there’s also Mariko Tamaki’s HARLEY QUINN: BREAKING GLASS which examines a different youthful life for Harleen.)

For those whose first encounter with Harley are these books — I know, that’s highly unlikely but bear with me — I can’t help but wonder the rude awakening one might have upon reading some of the earlier solo works, Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti iconic run, or newer flights-of-fancy such as HARLEY QUINN: BLACK & WHITE & RED, the multiverse tales of Harleys, or even going way back to the source BATMAN: THE ANIMATED episodes as well as MAD LOVE.

I can’t help but think it’d be a rude awakening to go from the very queer, very scholastically and scientifically minded Harley, someone who has a staunch sense of morality, someone who is very, very queer, to then see her constantly shackled and emotionally abused and toyed with by the Joker; to experience a Harley with an extremely cavalier disposition towards maiming and murder and mayhem and meta-commentary, not to mention often serving as eye candy in the worst ways that comics can be.

Oddly, HARLEY QUINN: THE ANIMATED SERIES comes closest to the young Harley & Company portrayed in Allen’s trilogy, and while swearing and sexual content are absent from those novels, every minute of Harley’s animated work is crammed full of heart-warming filth.

All of my question and speculations are besides the point. I will set those aside and simply state that REDEMPTION is propulsive, thrilling, heartfelt, inventively unsettling, and perfectly brings the arc from Harleen to Harley, from orphan to having a found family, of growing and learning while leaning into her strengths and being aware of her weaknesses.

Regardless of whether it’s your first Harley-go-round or hundredth, Allen succinctly weaves the totality of Harleen and Harley’s experiences and growth — even if they don’t match with what one may have previously read — this Harley is one to aspire to.

HARLEY QUINN – RAVENOUS (2023)

June 10, 2024

Spoiler Warning

Please note that this post contains spoilers for the first book in this series, HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING.

Where Rachael Allen’s HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING (RECKONING from here on out) deals with Harleen’s gap year of science and super-villain study, Allen’s HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING — the second of three in the DC Icons young adult Harley Quinn series of novels — sees Harleen attempting to settle into life as a freshman at Gotham University or, as colloquially referred to, Gotham U.

With her mother dying when Harleen was young, her father murdered due to some poor withdrawals from mobster loan sharks, Harleen is officially an orphan. Her ex has took the fall for The Reckoning’s antics, and due to Harleen wanting to focus on studies instead of blowing shit up, the other two members have turned their backs to her.

While Harleen has a free-ride scholarship thanks to the paper scrutinizing the Joker and elevated levels of trauma-induced modifications to the Super-Villain gene, she still has to worry about financial matters like non-food hall sustenance and sorority dues while still juggling classes and labs.

Those with any prior knowledge of Batman lore, especially regarding one Dr. Crane and Talia ah Ghul. Talia is delightfully integrated, especially given how Harley comes to see her as a mentor. Those who aware of these characters will quickly recognize where the novel is going, but watching Harleen piece matters together and pick her bat up again is just as thrilling as if you have no knowledge of Gotham villains.

Again, if you’re even vaguely familiar with Batman’s motley number of popular villains, you’ll quickly suss out that RAVENOUS centers around Scarecrow, and part of the plot includes ‘chipping’ victims to make them more pliant.

If you are a fan of Harleen’s gymnastic skills — especially the beam and bars — Allen doubles down on Harleen’s agility and how she utilizes them in the wild.

For those looking for some Harlivy, well, the seed of their romance is planted here — sorry, not sorry — as Harleen and Pamela Isley become fast-friends and they divulge some of their deepest secrets.

While, yes, yet again the Joker makes an appearance, he’s mostly backgrounded apart from one moment, but Allen dodges the bulk of his canonical abuse and coercion.

The following could potentially be construed as a slight spoiler for RAVENOUS, so only expand it if you have fear no spoilers.

Spoiler

RECKONING does tackle the metamorphosis of Harleen from Harley via the same Joker chemical bath, however it does differ in that Harleen takes the plunge outside of the realm of the Joker and falls of her own volition. (Also see: HARLEY QUINN: THE ANIMATED SERIES – ‘Being Harley Quinn’.)

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As usual, Allen’s prose is crisp and clean and propulsive, peppered with her wide scientific knowledge. While there were a handful of visual design elements in RECKONING, RAVENOUS features even more forms, clipboards, diagrams and handwritten elements which may sound dry but vividly heighten the work. RAVENOUS also temporally jumps around a bit more, and chapters are centered more along the lines of Harleen/Harley traversing Gotham U, Arkham Asylum and Arkham Acres; Gotham in general, clarifying matters.

If you have any interest in Harley Quinn you should read RECKONING, however! RAVENOUS does an exceptional job of succinctly weaving in the events of RECKONING so — if you just want to jump into the DC Icons and see how they handle Harleen’s future as Harley — you can do so with ease.

Like with RECKONING, while this is technically a young adult book, it is an electrifying read, one that I burned through in a day and a half. I’m a tad hesitant to see where REDEMPTION — the third and final novel in Allen’s Harley Quinn trilogy — goes, but I do feel confident that with Rachael Allen? I’m in good hands.

“I choose me.”

HARLEY QUINN – RECKONING (2022)

June 3, 2024

CONTENT WARNING

The following discusses abuse, coercion and trauma.

There are so many Harleys.

So many.

Not just in the comics. Novels. Film. TV.

This is only a sampling of Harleys: BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES Harley! (Obviously, the first Harley!) Cathy Yan’s BIRDS OF PREY Harley! Kelly Thompson’s BIRDS OF PREY Harley! Old Lady Harley! A whole buncha terrible videogame Harleys! Even more animated Harleys! That fucking awful Harley in David Ayer’s SUICIDE SQUAD that only worked because of Margot Fuckin’ Robbie! James Gunn’s THE SUICIDE SQUAD Harley! GOTHAM CITY SIRENS Harley! Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti’s Harley! DC Rebirth Harley! All of the MAD LOVE Harleys! The young Harleen in BREAKING GLASS! The current Tini Howard Harley! The Harleen/Harley in this trilogy of books!

So many Harleys!

As I’ve repeatedly said? I will never, ever shut up about Harley Fuckin’ Quinn.

Harleen Quinzell and Harley Quinn represent so much and so many terrible outcomes. The coercion. The abuse. The trauma. Not just by the Joker, but often by her parents and others.

Also? She represents the folks who are smart but went wayward. She represents the anger against abusers. She represents folks trying to repair themselves. She represents pushing through and attempting to be a better person, even though she — and you — will often fuck up along the way.

She means so much to so many because while most comic book characters are power fantasies? She has no super-powers. She is someone who is muscling through all of her issues and is fucking pissed off and so goddamn strong and trying to make the best of her life.

This is exactly why I empathize with her, a fictional character in a wildly stupid comic book universe.

This is also why so many others love Harley. She’s multi-faceted; she’s had so many iterations — hell, I even wrote a four-issue series about her encountering all versions of herself! (I shelved it because after I wrote it? The monthly Harley Quinn comic did a multi-verse Harley arc. It’s not even close to what I penned; mine was brutally emotional and probably unpublishable but whatever.)

The moment I saw the ‘Being Harley Quinn’ episode of HARLEY QUINN: THE ANIMATED SERIES? Where she realized she leapt into the acid of her own volition? That she did so to please ‘Mistah J’? That she told herself for years that she was pushed by him? That it was her origin story? That shook me to my core. (I also identify way too much with Harley disassociating, which also sucks!)

I am not proud of that! But it did!

That’s my Harley. I’ve lived through versions of all of that. (And yes, plural.) I hated it. I have never really understood why I accepted all of the abuse and bullshit but Harley didn’t either and she found a way through via a support network, and I am trying to do the same.

While there are many Harleys, these are the fundamentals:

1) She has ADHD.

2) She is extraordinarily physical and loves to throw herself around.

3) She is extremely smart.

4) Being smart didn’t prevent her from being coerced and transformed from Harleen Quinzel to Harley Quinn.

5) She is queer as fuck.

6) She is a product of trauma.

7) She managed to work through her trauma.

8) She is a survivor. 1

9) She is extremely gregarious.

10) She has a flair for argyle patterns.

I am not Harley. I am not fun like Harley. I have a lot of issues, but ADHD? Nope. Also? Not gregarious! I’m a fucking introvert!

Everything else? It tracks, although I’m still working out my trauma issues and I am not sure that I am as smart as she is.

Item #2 to me is paramount. Yeah, Jason Todd was an acrobat and all, so that dovetails with all of this shit, but you know what? I fucking loved gym. I was game for any and everything. I loved tumbling; I loved the pommel horse; I loved the beam.

But what I really loved?

The fucking uneven bars.

I have said — probably to a sickening amount — that I love to throw myself around.

Well, you can’t throw yourself around more than on the uneven bars.

I love that Rachael Allen’s Harley Quinn novel RECKONING — technically a young adult novel, but I found pleasing despite not being a young adult — puts a pin in Harley as being a beam person because? The way she throws her way around? The way Rachael Allen pens her? It’s the same sort of feeling, that sort of balance and elation and abandon and self-confidence.

Fuck. I’m telling this all wrong.

RECKONING is about Harleen, not Harley. Harleen is eighteen years old and in her gap year and enrolled in an advanced STEM college course and not acid-bathed. (It is worth noting that Rachael Allen’s day job? A scientist. She knows her shit.)

Harleen is surrounded by abuse, and as she is want to do, wants to absolutely rectify matters and go to town on them, along with a few friends who also want to dole out some punishment and light terrorism. The name of their vigilante crew? The Reckoning.

Also? Harleen falls in love — albeit not with Pamela Isley. It’s a very succinct, clearly penned thrill-ride that goes down easy without being pandering. It also fleshes out Harleen, whose pre-Harley life is often ignored or simply glossed over!

I will note that the Joker does make an appearance, and Harleen immediately feels a magnetism towards him which… yeah, but still sucks.

Also? It features a cover by the so very awesome Jen Bartel!

Sidebar: If you haven’t seen the collegiate women vigilante canceled-too-soon TV series SWEET/VICIOUS? Read RECKONING and watch SWEET/VICIOUS in tandem and get back to me.

Joker aside, it is a great read and a terrific set-up for the next two books filling out the trilogy. If you are a Harleen/Harley fan, it is a necessary read.

You can purchase HARLEY QUINN: RECKONING via Bookshop.org!

Notes

1 I do not like the term ‘survivor’, despite having it ascribed to me more than a few times. In my opinion? You’re never a survivor. You simply persist to live. I do not feel like I’ve survived jack-fucking-shit. Like Harley? I feel like I’ve died several times over. Hell, I should have. Nonetheless, I’m still here motherfuckers.