Put Your Paws Up
Gaga's dead dance, Grimm fairytales, and dark romantasy
There’s nothing like a Lady Gaga concert. The vibes are high. The costumes are immaculate. Gaga repeatedly tells you to “put your paws up.” I’m still doing it weeks later. I keep telling my dog to do it. I told my husband to do it for a few days until he got absolutely sick of me.
Lady Gaga’s fantastical community of fans descended upon Chicago, and I loved the way wearing one of her shirts was enough to spark conversations between strangers on the street or across tables at a restaurant. After seeing her show I understand how people spend all their money attending concerts. (Don’t even get me started on Ticketmaster’s monopoly and horrible resale policies that drive up ticket prices to obscene amounts.)
Our girls’ trip to see Gaga included orchestrated outfits for the concert, and my friend generously loaned me a piece of chain body jewelry so I could be on theme. What I brought to the sartorial table was my 6” platform black boots. I bought these boots last winter with no plan on where to wear them but a deep feeling of wanting them in my repetoire. So when it came time to pack for our trip, I kept asking myself, “Which boots would Lady Gaga wear?” I knew the platform boots were meant to be.
I like to think it was fate—a past me planning for future me without a conscious knowing of what was to come. Where else was I meant to wear these boots other than a Lady Gaga concert?
These are the exact boots I wore. I can only find them on eBay. Here are similar options worthy of dancing to Lady Gaga.
I don’t have a picture of me wearing them because a man took our group picture. He cut us off at the knees, but that’s okay. The blisters that formed after dancing in them for three hours serve as a reminder even though I don’t have photographic proof.
As I waddled the streets of Chicago after the show with bubbled blisters on the bottom of my feet and in between my toes, I found myself thinking about Ariel, the mythical character in the original story of The Little Mermaid, and what she had to endure. (We took vodka shots from a street vendor before the show, so don’t judge my weird drunken thought process.)
If you’ve read the original fairytale by the Grimm Brothers, it’s a bit more grisly than the Disney versions. She pays a bigger price than just losing her voice to live on land with her prince, which was already a horrible enough punishment. The footnotes on the sea witch’s curse dictate that “at every step it will feel as if you were treading on a sharp-edged knife, so sharp that your feet will seem to be bleeding” for the entirety that she’s on land.
Is all that worth it for Prince Eric, a man who’s not really paying attention? I think not. But is it worth it for Lady Gaga? Definitely.
Warrior Princess Assassin by Brigid Kemmerer
After coming down from the high of the trip and taking two days to rehydrate, I looked at the book stack on my floor and thought, “Which book would Lady Gaga choose?” The only answer was the dark fantasy romance book.
My first Gaga concert would be followed by my first romantasy book. I know I’m late to the game—the genre has exploded in the past few years, mainly thanks to BookTok. It’s also helping keep the publishing industry afloat.
Warrior Princess Assassin is about three individual characters as the title alludes to, not a princess who’s also a warrior and an assassin. The warrior has a ruthless reputation from his fire-wielding powers and time on the battlefield. The princess knows that she needs to form an alliance with the warrior’s kingdom, but she’s hesitant to marry the man with the ruthless reputation. The assassin is employed for his deadly skills but maintains a soft spot for his childhood best friend, the princess.
But when the assassin is hired to kill the princess and the warrior, how does each character decide what they’re willing to do for love? Given the fact that there are three characters listed in the title, I probably should’ve guessed where this book was going.
This book put the “slow” in slow burn. After the initial escape from the castle took up a decent portion of the book, I realized how slowly this storyline was going to develop. I was invested in where the story was going, but it didn’t go as far as I was hoping it would. When the action (in all senses of the word) was heating up toward the end of the book, I knew we were in for a cliffhanger—I only had a few chapters left, the plot was just reaching its high point of conflict, and so many major problems were still unsolved.
My biggest annoyance when reading any book is when the characters are doing so much internal debating about how they feel. The hemming and hawing gets repetitive quickly. I become annoyed when this happens more and more throughout a book. This book bordered on the edge of it. The internal debates were frequent but thankfully brief.
This genre is dark! I’m not sure how people read exclusively romantasy/dark fantasy. There was torture, slavery, imprisonment, violence, abuse, war, famine. It’s not the best genre for reducing anxiety when you read before bed.
To continue with the genre, I think I’ll try to find books that focus more on world building, magical powers, and external plot progression instead of torturing one of the main characters. If you have any romantasy recommendations, please send them to me!
Other Things I’m Reading
A $15 million lawsuit to prevent Lucky Loser from being published was recently thrown out of court.
Amy Griffin wrote a book about recovering repressed memories of trauma with the help of MDMA therapy. Here’s where it gets murky: Her and her husband are invested in a psychedelic therapy company for this same drug that’s seeking FDA approval, she’s a billionaire with many famous friends who could promote her book through their powerhouse book clubs (Oprah, Reese, Jenna), and there’s a woman from her hometown with a story of trauma similar to the one in the book who’s since had to hire legal representation.
Meta used up to 7.5 million pirated books to train its AI systems, and authors are fighting back.
Books I Added to My TBR List
In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall: If you haven’t already learned the story of how Jane Goodall redefined the meaning of the word “man,” you have to hear it directly from her.
The Convenience Store by the Sea by Sonoko Machida: The quirky and heartfelt stories of the patrons of Tenderness, a convenience store in a quaint seaside town in Japan
Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor: An art restorer investigates the life and career of a forgotten black artist, leading to answers about what it means to be a black artist living in the beauty and mess of life itself
Last week I read Slanting Towards the Sea. Next week I’m reading Murder at an Irish Wedding.
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