What I've been reading: Books No. 3-4

Book No. 3 was "To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care" by Cris Beam.  I don't normally refer to nonfiction books as page-turners, but this one really was. Beam goes deep into the lives of foster kids and foster families, following some of them for 4 or 5 years, and their stories are full of twists and turns. Some start off horribly and go better than you expect. Some seem hopeful but crash and burn. She divides the book into 3 sections: Catch, Hold, Release. The first section is about how kids end up in foster care. The second section is about what happens there, and the third is about how kids age out of the system. The book is, to put it plainly, pretty depressing. She identifies problems and also looks into solutions, but the solutions to the problems aren't always clear. More money would help, but then people worry people would only foster for money and not out of kindness. Changing the way we fund programs could either help case workers focus more on the families who need it, or it could create an incentive for them to provide the bare minimum and keep the difference. It's a messy situation, entangled with questions of poverty and race, since the thing that gets many kids into the foster care system is basically the criminalization of being a low-income parent. Beam is queer and brings that perspective to the book, which I appreciated.  This book is worth a read if you care about poverty, social justice, or the roots of crime.

Book No. 4 was "The Jazz" by Melissa Scott. I'd read her cyberpunk classic "Trouble and Her Friends" several years ago and had always meant to read more by Scott, who is known for including queer characters in her books. "The Jazz" is set in a world where disinformation and misinformation runs rampant on the web and in real life, and people make an art form out of it. Entertainment studios are hugely powerful and have their own police forces. The story begins with Keyz, a kid who aspires to "make jazz" but hacks a studio's proprietary program to help him write it. He gets in trouble and reaches out to Tin Lizzy, a former criminal who has gone straight and creates background scenarios for other people's jazz. They go on the run from the studio's detective and try to find help as they travel across a near-future America. One minor dislike in this book is that, while Tin Lizzy is developed as a character, many others aren't well-developed, particularly Keyz. You get a little background on him early, but then he's just a generic, sulky teenager for most of the rest of the book. One thing I LOVED is that people in power are constantly dismissing women, the working class, the old and the disabled as being unable to fight back or accomplish anything, and the novel is FULL of queer women, older women, and working class folks who are outwitting those in power and helping other poor and oppressed people to get a leg up. Loved it. Will read more by Scott.


1. The Two Towers [fiction]- JRR Tolkien (unabridged audiobook)
2. The Argonautika [epic poetry/fiction]- Apollonios Rhodios, transl. Peter Green