User Profile

Taylor Drew

mollymay5000@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 months ago

A Canadian (she/they) Japanese to English translator based in Tokyo. Previously a speaker of English and French, now a speaker of English and Japanese.

Portfolio & Blog → taylordrew.me/ Manga Tracking → anilist.co/user/mollymay5000/

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Taylor Drew's books

2025 Reading Goal

51% complete! Taylor Drew has read 27 of 52 books.

reviewed Nipponia Nippon by Kazushige Abe

Kazushige Abe, Kerim Yasar: Nipponia Nippon (2023, Steerforth Press) 2 stars

Isolated in his Tokyo apartment, 17-year-old Haruo spends all his time online, researching the plight …

Incel: A Novel

2 stars

I don't know what this book was trying to achieve, but it definitely didn't achieve it for me. I spend enough time experiencing the consequences of the incel movement(?) in daily life that I really don't have time for it in my fiction.

I just really can't see what this book was trying to achieve in the format that it's in. A pretty disappointing read honestly and further evidence that the synopsis reading for the books in this series don't have very good expectations setting mechanisms in place.

Michelle Min Sterling: Camp Zero (Hardcover, Atria Books) 3 stars

In remote northern Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is break­ing ground …

Climate fiction with sex workers

4 stars

The title is basically how I described this book to a friend and I think it gives a pretty accurate impression of what the book is like--a criticism of our power structures and how the rich (largely men) move freely through society without facing any meaningful consequences for their actions.

The story is told through three different perspectives, which adds a lot of depth to the narrative because each perspective is told from a very different sphere of society.

Well there were aspects of the narrative that could have been more fleshed out and some people may find a certain aspects or actions of the story to be hypocritical, it's my opinion that this hypocrisy and seeming lack of depth is intentional. I think it adds a lot of value and intrigue to the narrative and asks readers to draw their own conclusions. You're supposed to think and not just …

Michelle Min Sterling: Camp Zero (Hardcover, Atria Books) 3 stars

In remote northern Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is break­ing ground …

I didn't expect this book to be told in several perspectives (and have so many layers because of that) and I'm honestly loving it. I have no idea what's going to happen next. It's getting hard to put down 👀

reviewed Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, #6)

Seanan McGuire: Across the Green Grass Fields (2021, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

A young girl discovers a portal to a land filled with centaurs and unicorns in …

A lot of horse girls

5 stars

I was a bit worried to be interested to a completely new character again without the support of the characters I already know, but I shouldn't have been worried at all. This book was quick and clever and just so sensitively done. It always is, but it felt more noticeable in this story, which starts off with some commonplace childhood bullying and just as commonplace issues surrounding puberty and what it is supposedly required to be a boy or girl. And while I'm certainly no horse girl, I have a lot of respect for just how well that identity fit into the hoof-filled setting.

It's always a pleasure to see how the kids learn to make decisions and process the consequences of their actions. I hope we get to see Regan again in later books!

古川 弘子: 翻訳をジェンダーする (Paperback, Japanese language, 筑摩書房) 4 stars

翻訳小説は「女らしい」文末詞の割合が高い

翻訳小説の女性達は原文以上に「女らしい」言葉で訳されている。翻訳と社会と私達の密接な関係を読みとき、社会に抗する翻訳、フェミニスト翻訳の可能性を探る。

Interesting ideas, but messy execution

4 stars

When I saw the title and description of this book, I was extremely excited to be able to think about translation and gender in a Japanese context. While I translate from Japanese to English nearly exclusively, there's still a lot to learn from translators and linguists who specialize in English to Japanese translation.

The author actually brings up a lot of important points about how translation can introduce new words permanently into a language and how translation choices can impact the understanding readers may have of a character's gender. Well this second part isn't exactly new news since translation obviously impacts how information is presented due to varying language and cultural restraints, it was interesting to see it from an exclusively gender-based perspective. It was also extremely shocking to see just how feminized female characters are in books translated into Japanese.

The problem with the book though is that after …

古川 弘子: 翻訳をジェンダーする (Paperback, Japanese language, 筑摩書房) 4 stars

翻訳小説は「女らしい」文末詞の割合が高い

翻訳小説の女性達は原文以上に「女らしい」言葉で訳されている。翻訳と社会と私達の密接な関係を読みとき、社会に抗する翻訳、フェミニスト翻訳の可能性を探る。

I have somewhat lost the plot on what the author is trying to do with this book now that I only have about 1/4 of it left 😅

Kai Harris: What the Fireflies Knew (2022, Penguin Publishing Group) 4 stars

An ode to Black girlhood and adolescence as seen through KB's eyes, What the Fireflies …

Reading about someone just like you

4 stars

This book languished on my TBR for a long time as most books do, but I'm so glad I finally had the opportunity to read it. I don't read a lot of stories focused on younger kids anymore, but this book really pulled me back to my own childhood reading--and in some ways my actual childhood experiences too.

KB is such a spitfire of a kid and I loved being in her head as she tried to navigate growing older and her relationships with other people. I couldn't help but smile as she tried to figure things out for herself. And most of all, it brought me great joy to know another book for young Black girls is out there. Our world is a better place when everyone can be represented in media and feel seen and the way this is handled in the book is stunning.

I did find …

古川 弘子: 翻訳をジェンダーする (Paperback, Japanese language, 筑摩書房) 4 stars

翻訳小説は「女らしい」文末詞の割合が高い

翻訳小説の女性達は原文以上に「女らしい」言葉で訳されている。翻訳と社会と私達の密接な関係を読みとき、社会に抗する翻訳、フェミニスト翻訳の可能性を探る。

I'm learning a lot of interesting things from this book, but I do wish it were a little less binary. The man versus woman framing really stands out given the title of the book and it feels kind of like a lost opportunity in a sense.