Book 18: Monstress Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Looking back at my reading history, it’s clear that I’ve always been partial to horror and epic fantasy. In elementary school, I devoured Goosebumps books, until I discovered Harry Potter. In middle school, I fell in love with Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness series and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I’ve read quite a bit of Stephen King’s work, and if you haven’t read The Dark Tower, drop everything you’re doing right now and go pick up The Gunslinger at the library.

For years, I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. The books and the movies—though I read the books before I ever saw the movies. Other than Legolas (because archers), Eowyn was my favorite character. It mostly had to do with the fact that she was one of the few female characters who had a major role in the narrative and she was a warrior and she fucking killed the Witch-king of Angmar.

Yeah. Eowyn and Alanna were personal heroes of mine.

Epic fantasy doesn’t always include female protagonists, but when it does, I am there for it.

So it’s no wonder I love Monstress.

Book 15: Snotgirl Vol. 1: Green Hair Don’t Care by Bryan Lee O’Malley and Leslie Hung

Probably everyone has an internet persona, to a certain extent. Because of online disinhibition, we feel free to construct ourselves differently than we would offline—for better or worse. We construct our “self” in real life, too, but it seems more intentional online. You can formulate a persona and delete or add things to change your image. You can create a new account and distance yourself from the old one and rebrand entirely, the way corporations do. It may be a bit harder now, since the internet is a lot less anonymous than it used to be and people bring receipts, but it’s still possible.

There’s still a lot of research to be done on how the internet affects our psychology. A lot of articles say the internet—or more specifically, the social internet—is making us more anxious, though that could be a chicken-and-egg situation.^[1]

One would think that being able to be whoever we want, to construct a perfect version of ourselves that we can be proud of, on the internet would make us feel good.

The jury’s out on that.

Book 12: Motor Crush Vol. 1 by Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart, and Babs Tarr

Marvel’s Agent Carter (2015–2016) gave me feels. It was short-lived and flawed, but the first season felt like everything I ever wanted. Agent Peggy Carter, a character from Captain America, is badass. She has weapons in her makeup kit. She beats a guy’s ass while a radio program plays with a woman saying, “Captain America, what would I ever do without you?” The show is full of lampshading^[1] and little inside jokes for women, much the way Ghostbusters (2016) and Wonder Woman (2017) are. These movies feel like they are about real women, and they show that women can be action stars without being sex objects.

Of course, women can do anything. But there’s a special kind of feeling you get seeing yourself in an action star, or a NASA mathematician, or a lawyer, or a Jedi, or a Ghostbuster, or a world leader, or a tech genius.

Diverse representation, in media and in positions of power, isn’t the end of the fight for equality, but it matters. There are numerous studies about how whether we see ourselves represented in media (and how we are represented) affects our self-esteem. It can change how we see ourselves and our possibilities. It can change our unconscious biases. This is why We Need Diverse Books exists. This is why it’s so important that so many women of color and LGBTQIA+ people (and hella intersections of those identities) are running for office this year.^[2]

Representation matters. It matters to all those kids in Black Panther cosplay. It matters to the women who came out of Wonder Woman screenings feeling like they could take on the world. It matters to the people who saw Hidden Figures and Black Panther and who are now being encouraged to pursue careers in STEM fields.

And it matters to readers of Motor Crush.