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| 1419738666
| 9781419738661
| 3.55
| 556
| Jan 07, 2020
| Jan 07, 2020
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it was amazing
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5 stars because right book, right time. I went through a gradual yet intense friendship breakup over the latter half of 2019 and We Used to Be Friends
5 stars because right book, right time. I went through a gradual yet intense friendship breakup over the latter half of 2019 and We Used to Be Friends got me in all of my feels, like every single one of them. Amy Spalding’s novel follows James and Kat, childhood besties about to start their senior year of high school. They both have life stuff going on: James broke up with her boyfriend and her parents are separating, Kat is dating a girl for the first time and is adjusting to her dad looking for romantic love too, and both are applying to college and waiting to hear back. What I love about this book is that unlike in most stories, James’s and Kat’s other relationships take a backseat to their friendship, which acts as the center of this story. In sections that move both forward and backward in time, we see how their friendship falls apart over the course of a year, the care they both gave and then lost. I’m super emotional both because of my friendship breakup in late 2019 and because friendships have been both the most beautiful relationships in my life and my most devastating breakups, so I’m just gonna write this review in list form, what I loved and how it relates to my late 2019 friendship breakup. Yay for a book review that combines both a review of a book and 1) how friendship can mean so much to someone. At their friendship’s strongest, James and Kat were always there for each other, they texted each other every hour, they told each other everything and they understood one another even with just a look, a glance. There’s an energy to a close or best friendship that is so undervalued, when you find a close or best friend who you feel excited every time you talk or text with them, who you know will consistently have your back. Spalding captures this dynamic even in small phrases, like when James is texting Kat and she thinks to herself, “I realize as I see the three dots on her end how relieved I am that her impending response is almost immediate.” This dynamic reminded me of my of my friendship with the friend I broke up with during our first year of friendship a few years ago, when we would have these text conversations that flowed with energy and vibrancy and how much I enjoyed that. Even though I have another friend who I feel that way about now, I still miss and cherish the time I had with my ex-friend where we once had that same intensity of connection. 2) how the rules of friendship can be hard to figure out. Spalding shows this difficulty in a flashback scene of James meeting up with Kat and Quinn, Kat’s new girlfriend, at a diner. James thinks to herself “… it seems like Quinn is suddenly my best friend’s new best friend. Am I immature for how much dread that possibility fills me with? I know that a best friend isn’t the sort of relationship where you make explicit promises and set expectations, the way you do with a boyfriend.” I related so much to this thought process, because I experienced it too. When my ex-friend started dating her boyfriend, and even before she started dating him, she had a template to follow: find him on a dating app, date him, tell her friends about him, invite him to events with family, post about him on social media, get engaged to him, etc. Yet, for our friendship – a friendship in which I encouraged her to go to therapy for the first time, in which she supported me through my adjustment to graduate school – there was no template, no milestones to achieve. And even though we tried to set expectations, in the end they collapsed, especially in contrast to the resources our society invests in romance. Spalding shows, through James and Kat’s friendship, how friendships would benefit from more thorough communication, expectation-setting, and friendship therapy. 3) how romance is prioritized over friendship. Spalding’s portrayal of this twisted my gut so hard. She shows how, when Kat and Quinn started dating, how that shifted Kat and James’s friendship. It’s not like Kat never asked James to hang out or that she wasn’t there for James, and yet, their dynamic still shifted. I felt so grateful for how Spalding captures James’s disappointment, even the subtle things, like how Kat would want to hang out with Quinn more or obsess about Quinn more to the expense of Kat’s zest in her friendship with James. In the scene where James meets up with Kat and Quinn at the diner, she thinks to herself that “it’s like life sets up boyfriends to be the most important thing in a girl’s life.” While this thought process and the progression of Kat and Quinn’s relationship aligns with the idea of amatonormativity and the patriarchal prioritization of romance overall, I am glad that Spalding highlights how this devaluing of friendship can play out even in nuanced ways. Similar to what happened with me and my ex-friend, it’s not that she just ghosted me or only wanted to talk and hang out with her boyfriend. Yet, her prioritization of him had an effect, and I think we both lacked the language and/or the sheer tenacity to address it. 4) how sometimes things just don’t work out, and it hurts so freaking much, and you survive it. I appreciated how neither James nor Kat were abusive to one another necessarily, rather, a lot of small things built up over time and their friendship didn’t last. Kat could have been a better listener, James could have been more open with her feelings, both could have communicated in more nuanced and emotionally intelligent ways. One of the conversations they had at the end of the book – their last conversation – broke my heart, because it reminded me so much of heated conversations I got into with my ex-friend, when you’ve both been hurt and both of your hurt just spirals into something unsalvageable. And yet, Spalding shows, through the flashbacks of this story in particular, the genuine, deep love James and Kat shared with one another, that that love was real even if it did not last. All of these dynamics reminded me of my own friendship with this ex-friend. Maybe I could have been more understanding of who she was all along, maybe she could have been less defensive, maybe we both could have done things differently. And yet, at least for me, our friendship felt like, in the words of one of my current best friends Bri, a whole world – a world of connection and meaning and beauty incomparable to romantic love and its state-sanctioned popularity. I feel like we so often do not put enough effort into our friendships and a large part of that stems from the lack of media representations of deep, fulfilling friendships. Is We Used to Be Friends one of the most well-written books I’ve read? Honestly, I’m not sure I’d say so, as the prose is relatively straightforward and the characters’ lives feel a bit contained. In some ways I feel like if not for my own experiences with friendship and friendship breakups, I’d give the novel four stars. And yet, this book does such a tender and thoughtful job of portraying a close friendship and its disintegration that I’m confident it will resonate with others who’ve been through what I and others have been through, the breakup of a close or best friendship. After all, I think the best books are the ones that help us feel less alone and more connected in our suffering and our grief. This book accomplishes that in major ways for me, because even though I write about friendship on my blog all the time, it’s so meaningful to see an experience similar to mine portrayed in fiction. Thanks to Amy Spalding for her words and I’d love more books that center friendship in the future. ...more |
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none
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1
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Jan 18, 2020
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Jan 20, 2020
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Jan 18, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 0674976894
| 9780674976894
| 4.26
| 492
| Mar 01, 2019
| Mar 01, 2019
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it was amazing
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So happy to start off 2020 with this fantastic book. In The Privileged Poor, Anthony Abraham Jack shares the experiences of disadvantaged students
So happy to start off 2020 with this fantastic book. In The Privileged Poor, Anthony Abraham Jack shares the experiences of disadvantaged students attending an elite private university (referred to as “Renowned” throughout the book). He writes about the privileged poor, low-income students who had the privilege of attending private elite high schools prior to enrolling at Renowned, and the doubly disadvantaged, low-income students who did not attend prestigious preparatory schools before coming to Renowned. While the privileged poor have some advantages compared to the doubly disadvantaged in terms of understanding cultural norms like connecting to faculty, both of these types of students suffer from classist policies – like closing cafeterias over spring break – in relation to upper income students. Jack provides both individual and systemic-level solutions and strategies for advocacy which made reading this book all the more worthwhile, to learn about these students’ struggles and to have an avenue to prevent and address them. I most loved this book for the ways that Jack gave voice to the experiences of these disadvantaged students. I felt so sad and frustrated when he provided a quote from a Latino student who shared his experience cleaning a wealthy white student’s bathroom and how that reminded the student of watching his mom get berated by the child of a wealthy white employee. I have more expertise in psychological research than sociological research, though from my perspective, this book acts as an amazing example of the power of well-written qualitative research – it captures the participants’ unique lived experiences, these experiences are analyzed and described eloquently and intelligently, and the overarching narrative elicits empathy and (hopefully) action from readers. Bravo to Jack for naming class and addressing it head on, given that in our country socioeconomic status is something we are often so reticent to openly talk about. I also want to address a critique/idea I’ve read in reaction to this book. Some people say, well, if poor students are so turned off by flagrant displays of wealth at elite institutions, why don’t they just go somewhere else, like a state school or community college? I want to gently encourage all of us to practice some empathy, as well as to acknowledge there’s not a finite economy of compassion we can provide for the people around us. For example, I was accepted to an Ivy League university and instead chose to attend a medium-sized liberal arts college, because I knew I wanted an environment that felt more nurturing and intimate. At the same time, I don’t blame others who go to Ivy League universities for the adversities they face there. Ideally, they wouldn’t encounter microaggressions and discrimination and feelings of being unwelcome. Ideally they’d have a positive and warm experience, an experience that invites challenge and growth yes, and one that is filled with support too. You can call me an idealist or unrealistic for wanting that for all students but I don’t really care because I think everyone should be nurtured and treated well. I feel this way especially for poor students of color who are often taught from a young age that the path to success in this country includes a degree from a fancy institution. While that idea both has merit because of systemic issues and also is not always true, I feel it important to acknowledge how these students’ experiences can so sharply contrast with their expectations. We should strive to mitigate some of that disparity, especially as a country that is so obsessed with meritocracy and the myth of the American dream. Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox and just say I’m grateful for Jack for writing this book, especially as someone who’s highly considering a career in academia. I had the privilege of attending a pretty great public high school and then a relatively well-known liberal arts college for undergrad, and in both settings I had the privilege of connecting with warm, intelligent, supportive mentors. Reading this book motivates me to be that mentor for students from disadvantaged backgrounds as well as to engage in systems-level advocacy that will reduce barriers to inclusion and equity. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in higher education and/or social justice. ...more |
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none
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1
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Jan 03, 2020
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Jan 05, 2020
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Dec 30, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 0393337952
| 9780393337952
| 3.92
| 1,069
| Jan 01, 2000
| Sep 08, 2009
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it was amazing
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Hunger consists of one novella (titled “Hunger”) and five short stories. I have to say the title novella blew my mind; I felt so emotional about it I
Hunger consists of one novella (titled “Hunger”) and five short stories. I have to say the title novella blew my mind; I felt so emotional about it I literally wrote an entire blog post so I could process all my feelings. Lan Samantha Chang writes like a dream; instead of reading words on a page, I felt myself with these characters, the colors and scents and spaces of their homes, all the ways they love, lose, and lie to one another. I would give at least 10 stars to the title novella. Though “Hunger” comes out to just a little more than 100 pages, it packs a similar if not even more powerful punch than full-length novels. It follows a woman who marries a passionate, temperamental musician whose suffering seeps into and poisons the lives of their two daughters. Every word felt so necessary and meaningful yet effortlessly placed, every detail about each character felt organic to the characters’ development while keen about the human psyche. As an Asian American myself, I loved how Chang captured the raw emotional complexity that accompanies an immigrant parent’s desperate love for their child when their own self-worth has been compromised, as well as when children of immigrants push their parents away in rebellion or stay with them in solidarity for their solitude. Of the short stories, “The Eve of the Spirit Festival” came to closest to taking my breath away in the same way that “Hunger” did, followed by “The Unknowing.” Again, Chang’s writing is simply superb, and I feel amazed by her ability to write about fraught parent and child dynamics while capturing all the love and nuance accompanying the Chinese immigration and assimilation process. I feel so grateful for Chang because in the process of processing my feelings about the novella and stories within this collection, I reflected a lot on my parents and their own experiences. While I don’t want to go too into it in this review, I’m not really in touch with my parents, and while I feel good about that, Chang brought me a deeper empathy and understanding of the narrative of my own life as the son of immigrants, even though I’m Vietnamese and not Chinese. Through reading this novella and story collection, I saw my own life and my own choices more clearly, which I consider one of the greatest gifts of reading fiction. Recommended to fans of Celeste Ng and Min Jin Lee, though Chang’s stories center more on nuanced emotions and quiet interpersonal dynamics than a sense of adventure or exciting mystery. I skimmed some reviews and appreciated this review for noting that it does seem a bit stereotypical that so many of the children in this book go on to get PhDs from prestigious universities; thus, I’d also highly recommend Jenny Zhang’s iconic, subversive collection Sour Heart to accompany Hunger. Thank you also to Andrew for prompting me again to read Hunger, a book that consumed in the best possible way. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Nov 21, 2019
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Nov 23, 2019
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Nov 13, 2019
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Paperback
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| 1433804638
| 9781433804632
| 4.34
| 62
| 2009
| Oct 28, 2009
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it was amazing
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One of the best therapy books I have ever read. As I develop as a therapist, I am starting to honor how much emphasis I place on interpersonal
One of the best therapy books I have ever read. As I develop as a therapist, I am starting to honor how much emphasis I place on interpersonal relationships and interpersonal psychotherapy theory in my work. At the same time, I recognize that a lot of past writing about interpersonal psychotherapy has promoted problematic ideals of ignored the importance of culture and social justice issues (e.g., Irvin Yalom’s work). I love Relational-Cultural Therapy because it both honors the power of relationships in our lives and our clients’ lives. Judith Jordan writes with great intelligence about how emphasizing the power of relationships defies traditionally Western and masculine values of independence and self-ambition. Here’s a couple of paragraphs that captures this (I know it’s a long passage to include in a review but I feel that it’s important info to disseminate): ”The illusion of separation and the celebration of autonomy are part of the denial or denigration of our basic need to participate in growth-fostering relationships. Western culture valorizes these disconnected individualistic qualities. In such a culture, people with privilege can falsely appear more self-sufficient, more mature, more worthy of the privilege. But evidence increasingly suggests that people need to contribute to the growth of others and experience others’ willingness to engage in mutually beneficial interactions. To address these needs effectively, therapists need to ask: How has psychology been complicit in building cultural values that embrace separation and independence? How have psychology and clinical practice been shaped by, but also created and sustained, a culture of disconnection? How has psychology helped to sustain a culture of privilege and prejudice? These questions themselves contribute to the possibility of achieving social justice and dispel the illusion of the objectivity and neutrality of any theoretical position. In addressing them, RCT acknowledges its value biases: the belief that the capacity to build good connection is an essential human skill; the belief that it is valuable, even essential, for our global well-being that human beings develop relational skills and honor our basic need for connection; the belief that people have an essential need to connect with others; the belief that if these core yearnings for connection are supported by the larger context and people learn how to relate in growth-fostering ways with one another, people will experience an increasing sense of well-being at a personal and collective level.” Relational-Cultural Therapy also does an excellent job of addressing the therapeutic relationship as a mechanism for change. It acknowledges the power that we have as therapists and how we should strive to use that power to create a safe, compassionate space so that clients can experience a healing and authentic relationship. Even in my early development as a therapist, I have seen practitioners and theories that assume that the therapist is always right, that any difficulty of the client to trust the therapist is an indication of the client’s neuroses, etc. This approach has always felt so demeaning and distancing to me. Relational-Cultural Therapy, instead of minimizing clients’ emotions or assuming therapists’ superiority, posits that therapists should open themselves up to their own shortcomings for the sake of facilitating a growth-fostering relationship with the client. I feel so much better about this approach as it more explicitly addresses power within the therapy dyad. A quote about how Relational-Cultural Therapy approaches the therapy relationship that I appreciated: ”Therapists must be careful not to force or push connection with clients, however. Instead, we should slowly, deliberately provide experiences of safe connection and of reworking empathic failures. Therapists must demonstrate to clients that the well-being of the relationship and the client is more important than certainty, being right, or maintaining our own self-images as ‘good, empathic therapists.’ Thus, we work actively with disconnections and relational failures. We apologize when we are wrong. We work with our own defensiveness when under attack, not assuming automatically that the entire problem is in the client (e.g., not turning to ‘projective identification’ to explain our own reactions in therapy). We are open to examining our own limitations, as well as the ways our own disconnections injure or affect others. Working with mutual empathy, the therapist allows clients to see their impact on her or him – that they matter to her or him.” I also like how Relational-Cultural Therapy explicitly recognizes how oppression contributes to difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Jordan names racism, heterosexism, and homophobia as factors that therapists must be cognizant of in how they affect clients’ capacity for connection as well as their overall wellbeing. While I have met many therapists and psychologists who do pay attention to how social injustice affects clients’ mental health, I have met many others who ignore this important point. Thus, I feel glad that Relational-Cultural Therapy seeks to understand how issues of oppression and privilege play out in clients’ lives and in the therapeutic relationship. While I appreciate this emphasis on social injustice and mental health, I feel that this theme is where the book could have benefited from more development as well. The book could have incorporated more specific ways that clients can navigate whether to trust therapists’ knowledge of social justice, as well as more case examples of power dynamics related to social identities playing out in therapy (e.g., if a therapist is working with a client with more privilege than the therapist). Still, I appreciated Jordan’s inclusion of this theme overall and would highly recommend this book to therapists and those interested in mental health who are looking for a very readable, relationally-oriented psychotherapy book that takes into account issues of power, privilege, and social justice. I will end this review with a quote related to therapists’ responsibility to address social injustice: ”Relational-Cultural Therapy holds that therapists, as self-defined change agents, have a responsibility to pursue questions about social change as well as personal change. Context is essential to an understanding of suffering and what is called pathology, and thus the need for change in the social milieus within which we function must be addressed. Therapists have a special responsibility to question the part that the larger culture plays in creating disconnections and other suffering that bring people to treatment. They also have a responsibility to facilitate the well-being of the greatest number of people possible.” ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Sep 28, 2019
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Oct 03, 2019
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Sep 28, 2019
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Paperback
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| 9780735223714
| 4.74
| 21,190
| Sep 24, 2019
| Sep 24, 2019
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it was amazing
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Stunning. An absolutely stunning memoir, one of the best I have ever read. In Know My Name, Chanel Miller reclaims her identity after the press
Stunning. An absolutely stunning memoir, one of the best I have ever read. In Know My Name, Chanel Miller reclaims her identity after the press described her as “unconscious intoxicated woman” in the aftermath of when rapist Brock Turner assaulted her. I remember feeling inspired, impressed, and in awe of Miller’s victim impact statement as Emily Doe when it came out in 2016. Miller brings that same level of strength and eloquence to this memoir. When I read my favorite memoirists, I get this feeling of familiarity, this sense of okay, I know who this person is, I can really see them. That’s how I felt throughout reading Know My Name. Miller takes back her power – after having been reduced to an unconscious victim – by writing beautifully and vulnerably about herself and her life, both before and after the assault. She includes so many heartwarming details that paint a picture of a woman who’s a loving sister, a witty artist and creator, as well as a person who has insecurities like all of us do. When I read details about her family, like how she caught her younger sister’s vomit in her hands to take care of her as a child or how she would listen to her dad sing along to music while cooking, I felt this immense sense of gratitude and closeness, like I wanted to thank her for making us remember that victims of trauma and assault are more than just what happened to them. Miller does a thorough job of detailing the impact of her trial itself, too, like how her sister had to continuously rearrange her school and work schedule because of court dates that kept getting delayed, and how Miller drained her bank account to cover expenses such as buying appropriate clothing for court. Miller’s writing itself is superb. The way she details the moments after she woke up in the hospital, how she describes her panic attacks and emotional outbursts in private and when she testified in court, her narration of the painstaking climb to heal and recover herself in a world with so many people who sought to discredit her – I felt like I was right there with her. Her prose is incisive and gets to the point without embellishment, and yet, she still captures the full emotional rollercoaster of her lived experience. I cried several times reading this memoir, both because of the anguish her rapist and the patriarchal legal system put her through, as well as because of how inspired and moved I felt by Miller’s self-awareness, her fortitude, and her courage in sharing her story. She’s put in hundreds and thousands of hours into processing this trauma and it shows in her insightfulness. I highlighted so many quotes from this book so it feels hard to choose just a couple to show in this review, but here’s one I loved, in which Miller describes her response after receiving kind letters from people who read her victim impact statement: "For the past year I had been raking through comments looking for signs of support. I dug through opinion pieces in local newspapers searching for someone to stand up for me. I locked myself in my car in parking lots crying into hotlines, convinced I was losing my mind. All year the loneliness had followed me, in the stairwell at work, in Philly, in the wooden witness stand, where I looked out at a near-empty audience. Yet all along there had been eyes watching me, rooting for me, from their own bedrooms, cars, stairwells, and apartments, all of us shielded inside our pain, our fear, our anonymity. I was surrounded by survivors, I was part of a we. They had never been tricked into seeing me as a minor character, a mute body; I was the leader on the front line fighting, with an entire infantry behind me. They had been waiting for me to find justice. This victory would be celebrated quietly in rooms in towns in states I had never been to. For so long, I’d imagined myself wandering across a dry, empty plain. This card was the puddle. The realization that just below the surface, more water led to streams to rivers to oceans. That this was only the beginning. I was not alone. They had found me.” Miller gets political in this memoir too, which is unsurprising given how intertwined her individual experience is to the political realities surrounding sexual assault and misogyny in the United States. She calls out the legal system for its awful treatment of survivors, she gently yet firmly describes Stanford’s complicity and refusal to take action on behalf of survivors, and she acknowledges her own Asian American identity that often got erased when the media described her as Emily Doe. Again, Miller’s skill as a memoirist shows, as she incorporates commentary about these broader systemic injustices while still sticking close to her truth and her own story. As the feminist rallying cry goes, the personal is political, and Miller writes with precision and power about how the political landscape surrounding sexual violence affected her, as well as how she herself altered the political landscape through her own perseverance and courage. Overall, I recommend this memoir to literally every human on this planet. Again, I cried several times, mostly in reaction to Miller’s profound pain, perseverance, and power. While Miller does not go into the details of her assault, some parts of this book may be triggering for those with similar trauma and assault-related experiences. Though I was not sexually assaulted, I found Miller’s voice and experiences a healing salve in my own journey with PTSD. I can only hope that this book goes down as a classic. Thank you to Chanel Miller for your voice and your courage. I’ll end the review with the last passage in the memoir, a testament to Miller’s beautiful heart: “I survived because I remained soft, because I listened, because I wrote. Because I huddled close to my truth, protected it like a tiny flame in a terrible storm. Hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing, when your body is reduced to openings. The journey will be longer than you imagined, trauma will find you again and again. Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s. I did it, I am here. Looking back, all the ones who doubted or hurt or nearly conquered me faded away, and I am the only one standing. So now, the time has come. I dust myself off, and go on.” ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Nov 07, 2019
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Nov 10, 2019
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Sep 04, 2019
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ebook
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| 1568585233
| 9781568585239
| 4.06
| 1,404
| Mar 07, 2017
| Mar 07, 2017
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it was amazing
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I loved this book and learned so much from it. Activist P.E. Moskowitz explores the gentrification of urban neighborhoods across the country with
I loved this book and learned so much from it. Activist P.E. Moskowitz explores the gentrification of urban neighborhoods across the country with chapters dedicated to New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, and New York. They write about the people of color, particularly black and Latinx folks who can no longer afford to live in cities and their displacement, as well as about the root causes of gentrification and what contributes to it. As someone with an embarrassingly limited knowledge of gentrification – I knew the basic premise of rich, white people flooding cities and displacing poor people, especially people of color – I felt like I learned so much from this book while still appreciating its accessible writing and smart flow between ideas and concepts. I learned so much about use and exchange values and how urban land is used to enhance wealth, how suburbanization and gentrification relate to disadvantage poor people and radical community-building (e.g., omg as someone who grew up in a suburb, I now see how isolating and awful they are, ugh), and how neoliberalism itself maintains gentrification. I won’t go into all of these ideas in this review, so check out Gabriella’s review if you want more depth as she writes about these topics with depth well. Here’s one quote I’ll pull that describes the definition of gentrification: “Gentrification, at its deepest level, is really about reorienting the purpose of cities away from being spaces that provide for the poor and middle classes and toward being spaces that generate capital for the rich. The trend isn’t limited to cities: for decades conservatives in the US government have been working to deregulate industry and defund our safety nets, to turn the United States from a welfare state based on the vision of John Maynard Keynes… into a neoliberal, corporate-friendly oligarchy concerned only with increasing the share of wealth owned by the upper class.” I appreciate this book even more because Moskowitz describes their emotional experience with gentrification and they provide tangible strategies to fight gentrification. I felt emotional reading their experience watching their own city of New York and the people they love within it fade away and get displaced by the rich. While describing this, they also acknowledged their own positionality as a white person and a gentrifier coming from a family of gentrifiers. Toward the end of the book they provide several strategies I found useful, such as fighting to raise the minimum wage, expanding and protecting public lands, regulating housing, and more. While I felt sad and defeated reading the descriptions of gentrification in this book, Moskowitz supplies us with strategies to fight this phenomenon that may elicit more feelings of empowerment, especially if we take action. Overall, highly recommended to those like me who had not known that much about gentrification. As Moskowitz writes about, I hope that housing justice and access become topics that are more heavily discussed in the political sphere and social justice spheres broadly. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jan 10, 2020
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Jan 14, 2020
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Aug 22, 2019
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0896082210
| 9780896082212
| 4.37
| 5,664
| 1984
| Dec 01, 1984
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it was amazing
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Another iconic feminist text from bell hooks. I love that hooks’s writing always takes mainstream feminist thinking and elevates it. She encourages us
Another iconic feminist text from bell hooks. I love that hooks’s writing always takes mainstream feminist thinking and elevates it. She encourages us to deeply consider how racism and classism intersect with sexism to further marginalize women of color and poor women. She argues that we should conceptualize feminism as a radical, revolutionary movement as opposed to an individual lifestyle. Her writing, while intelligent and replete with critical analysis, remains accessible and close to the human lived experience. For example, here is a quote about how she interrogates why feminism is not just about equality with men, even though we often market it that way: ”Women in lower class and poor groups, particularly those who are non-white, would not have defined women’s liberation as women gaining social equality with men since they are continually reminded in their everyday lives that all women do not share a common social status. Concurrently, they know that many males in their social groups are exploited and oppressed. Knowing that men in their groups do not have social, political, and economic power, they would not deem it liberatory to share their social status… from the very onset of the women’s liberation movement, [women in lower class and poor groups, particularly those who are non-white] were suspicious of feminism precisely because they recognized the limitations inherent in its definition. They recognized the possibility that feminism defined as social equality with men might easily become a movement that would primarily affect the social standing of white women in middle and upper class groups while affecting only in a very marginal way the social status of working class and poor women.” I would highly recommend this text to everyone, especially those who are interested in feminism who hold dominant identities (e.g., white, middle to upper middle class, etc.) hooks’s writing challenged me to think about my own complicity, both as a man and as someone who comes from a higher socioeconomic status. When she wrote about how writing about feminism is often too secluded and filled with academic jargon to be understandable, accessible, or even helpful at all for poor women and women who have not had access to education, I was forced to confront my own privilege of attending somewhat elite schools and universities throughout my life and my own complicity in classism. Even in sections where I disagreed with her – I felt that she could have done a better job discussing how heteronormative lifestyles do in fact perpetuate patriarchy, for example the wedding industrial complex – I still appreciated her thought process and her passion. I will end this review by integrating a few passages from an early section of the book, about feminism and its more revolutionary roots: ”The willingness to see feminism as a lifestyle choice rather than a political commitment reflects the class nature of the movement. It is not surprising that the vast majority of women who equate feminism with alternative lifestyle are from middle class backgrounds, unmarried, college-educated, often students who are without many of the social and economic responsibilities that working class and poor women who are laborers, parents, homemakers, and wives confront daily… Often emphasis on identity and lifestyle is appealing because it creates a false sense that one is engaged in praxis. However, praxis within any political movement that aims to have a radical transformative impact on society cannot be solely focused on creating spaces wherein would-be-radicals experience safety and support. Feminist movement to end sexist oppression actively engages participants in revolutionary struggle. Struggle is rarely safe or pleasurable.” ...more |
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Jul 28, 2019
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Aug 2019
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Jun 02, 2019
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| 0374156026
| 9780374156022
| 3.93
| 27,401
| Apr 16, 2019
| Apr 16, 2019
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it was amazing
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A captivating courtroom drama that incorporates deep themes of family, immigration, and disability, Miracle Creek will speak to fans of Celeste Ng and
A captivating courtroom drama that incorporates deep themes of family, immigration, and disability, Miracle Creek will speak to fans of Celeste Ng and Jodi Picoult. The book begins with the explosion of an experimental medical treatment device called the Miracle Submarine, an explosion that leaves two people dead and several more injured. We follow the three-member Yoo family: Young and Pak who immigrated from Korea to ensure a better life for their daughter Mary, only to encounter devastation and loss after their move. We also track with Elizabeth, the single mom of an autistic child who dies in the explosion, and see into the hearts and minds of a group of mothers who wish the best for their children with mixed results. The case peels back layer after layer of these characters and their relationships, so that we can see how much they sacrifice and love and hurt one another beneath the secrets they keep, the secrets that come bubbling up to the surface in the courtroom. I most loved how Angie Kim both established such a thrilling pace of plot with Miracle Creek and a strong emotional core within her cast of characters. The way she ended each chapter, the slow-burn suspense of who lit the fire, and the overall quality of her writing all made me want to keep flipping pages, up until I finished the book in two days. With the thrilling speed of the plot, Kim still manages to slow down and let us savor the moments of emotional intensity and intimacy between these characters. I felt most connected to how she wrote about the Yoo family and how immigration affected them so much, how Young had to work all the time and sacrifice her relationship with her daughter, how Mary received racist taunts that made her want to travel back to Korea, how Pak’s lack of English-speaking ability emasculated him, and much more. The tenderness, conflict, and estrangement between Young and Mary served as the emotional backbone of this book for me, as their connection felt so nuanced and engaging and bound by cultural constraints. I also found the subplot about the group of mothers of autistic children important and well-written, in particular the parts when Kim showed the complexity of these mothers’ deep, all-consuming affection for their kids. Parent-child relationships span several emotional notes and Kim captures a lot of them in Miracle Creek. One small yet significant part of the book that bothered me: the way Kim wrote about the fetishization and exotification of Asian American women. I loved that she included the grossness of it and the character at hand’s emotional reaction to the racism she experiences. Yet, Kim’s commentary on the issue read very much like a “why is it that an attraction to Asian American women is perceived as fetishization, when people are attracted to blondes and that’s not a problem,” which I felt grossly over-simplified the issue. I wish Kim’s commentary on fetishization and exotification included how, due to the power of whiteness in white supremacy, people of color are othered (see bell hooks’ iconic book Black Looks ) so that a preference for blondes and a preference for Asians is indeed very different, as well as how so many people of color are socialized to idealize whiteness and are taught to want to date white people above fellow people of color. Because the book follows so many different topics (e.g., immigration, autism, family, etc.) Kim did not have space to go into every topic in-depth – like an awful sexual assault that occurs – which may leave some readers disappointed. Overall, though, one of the strongest thrillers I have ever read and one that, unlike many other thrillers, includes themes of diversity and race that strengthened the novel as a whole. I tipped between 4 and 5 stars for this and landed on 5, in large part because of Young Yoo’s growth and development as a character. One scene between her and Mary made me cry at the end of the book, in a great way. I cannot wait to read more people’s reactions to this novel as well as Kim’s future work. ...more |
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Jun 07, 2019
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Jun 09, 2019
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May 26, 2019
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| 1250312841
| 9781250312846
| 4.15
| 10,937
| May 07, 2019
| May 07, 2019
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it was amazing
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I turn 24 this Saturday and this book feels like the best early birthday present ever. I cried for five minutes in my office at work after I finished
I turn 24 this Saturday and this book feels like the best early birthday present ever. I cried for five minutes in my office at work after I finished it. The book's themes of toxic relationships and healthy ones, self-worth and what we seek when we lack it, and the painful wisdom of growing up all resonated with me to my very core. The gorgeous black, white, and pink illustrations helped immerse me in the story as well. Backing up, the story follows Freddy Riley, a high school student who's dating Laura Dean, the most popular girl in school. Laura Dean, with her confidence, charisma, and good looks, seems like Freddy's dream girl. The only issue with their relationship: Laura Dean may not treat Freddy all that well. With the help of her best friend Doodle, Freddy searches for guidance from Seek-Her, a mysterious medium, as well as Anna Vice, an advice columnist. But as Freddy's relationship with Laura Dean gets more intense in all the wrong ways, Freddy finds herself still going back to Laura Dean, even at the cost of her friendship with Doodle. Freddy will have to look both deep within herself as well as outside to those who can see her relationship with Laura Dean with more clarity, so she can choose what will work best for her heart and the hearts of those she cares about. I love how this graphic novel portrays love: unhealthy love, love that dissipates between friends, and love that reemerges when one puts in the effort. The story itself is super simple, no huge or intricate plot twists at all. Yet the earnest characterization and the high quality of the illustrations made the emotions evoked by Freddy's journey run so deep. I really felt like I felt everything Freddy felt: the desire for Laura Dean even when it hurt Freddy herself, the guilt Freddy experienced when she realized how she herself messed up, and the eventual victory of the story's ending. My heart feels so full of warmth when I think about how young people will have access to this book's excellent messages about toxic relationships and what it takes to act as a caring, considerate friend. I came across this book right when I needed to. Though it's a young-adult read, the themes and emotions are universal: the strength of longing and desire, the importance of communication in relationships, and what it takes to let go of people who stop you from loving yourself. As I approach 24, I'm still learning and reminding myself to focus my love and my heart on people who give to me as much as I give to them. With its queer representation, immense compassion, and deeply meaningful message, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me has skyrocketed to the top of my favorite 2019 reads. ...more |
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May 21, 2019
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May 22, 2019
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May 14, 2019
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| 4.32
| 3,520
| Jun 04, 2019
| Jun 04, 2019
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it was amazing
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Could YA books with queer characters of color be any more iconic? I loved Like a Love Story and I'm so happy it exists, alongside books like Benjamin
Could YA books with queer characters of color be any more iconic? I loved Like a Love Story and I'm so happy it exists, alongside books like Benjamin Alire Saenz's
Ari and Dante
and Kelly Loy Gilbert's
Picture Us in the Light
and more. What sets this novel apart from other similarly fantastic YA reads is its masterful portrayal of the 1980s AIDS epidemic and the activism of that era. The novel follows Reza, a closeted Iranian teen, Art, the out and proud guy Reza falls for, and Judy, Art's best friend who excels at fashion design. Toward the beginning of the book, Reza dates Judy to conceal his sexuality. When this arrangement unravels the three must deal with the fallout, of Reza's sexuality, of Art and Judy's friendship, and more. Abdi Nazemian tackles so much in Like a Love Story and grounds it all in history so well. The fear Reza experiences about contracting AIDS and dying, Art and Judy's uncle Stephen's activism with ACT UP, the characters' love for Madonna - Nazemian shows how the historical oppression of queer people affects his characters in intimate and powerful ways. He honors so many complex, important topics like coming out as a person of color, what happens when a friend betrays you, death and grief, and more. He writes in a palatable, straightforward way that still gives space for all the feelings that come with loss and love. The focus on love is what made this book shine the most. Until the last 80 or so pages I considered giving it four stars, as Art and Reza's relationship gave me insta-love vibes and did not feel as developed or compelling compared to the romances in Aristotle and Dante and Picture Us in the Light. But, the last 80 or so pages tied all of the novel's threads together to reveal its beautiful center: love of art, love of activism, love of love. I got pretty emotional reading Nazemian's author's note and felt so inspired by and happy for him, how he took his experience as a queer youth of color and transformed it into such amazing art. I know that we have a lot more to fight for to advance equality and justice for the LGBTIA+ community. And, right now, I'm giving my queer heart a little break, a little moment, so it can sing a happy song for this book's existence and all the love it entails. ...more |
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Jun 16, 2019
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Jun 20, 2019
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May 12, 2019
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| 0061284920
| 9780061284922
| 3.89
| 5,904
| Mar 06, 2018
| Mar 06, 2018
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it was amazing
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A sparse novel that tore through my heart in the best way possible, Speak No Evil feels like a grittier, darker version of The Hate U Give and a more
A sparse novel that tore through my heart in the best way possible, Speak No Evil feels like a grittier, darker version of The Hate U Give and a more modern, intersectional queer coming of age story than Call Me By Your Name. At first I felt distanced from our protagonist Niru, a gay Nigerian Harvard-bound high school senior who has only disclosed his sexuality to his best friend Meredith. But as the book went on the emotions elicited by the narrative - Niru's pain and longing and shame - won me over. Uzodinma Iweala covers a lot of painful ground with Niru's identity, whether his conservative parents try to force the gay out of him or his classmates joke and microagress him about the size of his genitalia. We need more books like Speak No Evil with characters like Niru, who embody multiple underrepresented identities and give voice to the hurt that emerges from when racism, homophobia, and more collide. Iweala's writing in scenes of high emotional intensity elevated this to a five star novel for me. A scene early on in the novel when Niru's father finds out about Niru's sexuality and attacks Niru made my heart race - the description of Niru's father's hands choking him and Niru trying to talk to his father through his tears got me all wound up. Iweala captures rich emotions in quite a few scenes throughout the book, like when Niru experiences his first gay kiss and the sparks fly. I felt so impressed by how Iweala captured longing and physical craving within Niru and with Niru and his flame. While some critics describe this novel as less polished than Iweala's other work, the book's lack of pretense and its rawness made it even more moving for me, in particular given our protagonist's young age. Overall, an important novel that I hope will go more noticed, both in the queer community and in communities of color. Not gonna lie, I put off reading this and kinda wanted to dislike it because the author reminds me of my most recent crush |
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Jun 05, 2019
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Jun 07, 2019
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Apr 29, 2019
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| 0896084337
| 9780896084339
| 4.31
| 1,804
| May 01, 1992
| Jul 01, 1999
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it was amazing
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Another iconic bell hooks book, this one about how American pop culture marginalizes, exploits, and stereotypes Black people across literature, music,
Another iconic bell hooks book, this one about how American pop culture marginalizes, exploits, and stereotypes Black people across literature, music, and film. I love how hooks delivers sharp insight after sharp insight about race and representation without trying to make her writing palatable to white audiences. She delves deep into how white women often appropriate Black culture, how toxic masculinity within black communities perpetuates homophobia, misogyny, and racism, the shared oppression of Native Americans and black individuals, and other pressing topics. One quote I appreciated about racial solidarity and how white people can participate in it: “Anti-racist work that tries to get [white] individuals to see themselves as ‘victimized’ by racism in the hopes that this will act as an intervention is a misguided strategy. And indeed we must be willing to acknowledge that individuals of great privilege who are in no way victimized are capable, via their political choices, of working on behalf of the oppressed. Such solidarity does not need to be rooted in shared experience. It can be based on one’s political and ethical understanding of racism and one’s rejection of domination. Therefore we can see the necessity for the kind of education for critical consciousness that can enable those with power and privilege rooted in structures of domination to divest without having to see themselves as victims. Such thinking does not have to negate collective awareness that a culture of domination does seek to fundamentally distort and pervert the psyches of all citizens or that this perversion is wounding.” hooks plows past any notion of colorblindness to interrogate why we must consider race, in particular the terror of whiteness. As someone wrote in the used copy of this book I own, for people of color, especially black people, “your color matters because it is your identity, and you must defend it and explore it.” Through her trenchant analysis of race and representation – an analysis that still applies to contemporary society though the book came out 20 years ago or so – hooks provides us a path to understand and resist how white supremacy elevates whiteness at the cost of all others. While I found hooks’ reading of the Anita Hill case to be a bit too hostile and blaming toward Hill and some of her analyses discursive, I still learned a lot from reading this collection and would recommend it to anyone who cares about social justice. I feel that this book has inspired and will continue to inspire nuanced, powerful conversations and actions about body image, race, and racism in the United States. I will end this review with another quote I loved, this one about the reality of racism even as people try to deny it: ”It is telling of our history that enables political self-recovery. In contemporary society, white and black people alike believe that racism no longer exists. This erasure, however mythic, diffuses the representation of whiteness as terror in the black imagination. It allows for assimilation and forgetfulness. The eagerness with which contemporary society does away with racism, replacing this recognition with evocations of pluralism and diversity that further mask reality, is a response to the terror. It has also become a way to perpetuate the terror by providing a cover, a hiding place. Black people still feel the terror, still associate it with whiteness, but are rarely able to articulate the varied ways we are terrorized because it is easy to silence by accusations of reverse racism or by suggesting that black folks who talk about the ways we are terrorized by whites are merely evoking victimization to demand special treatment.” ...more |
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Jun 02, 2019
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Jun 05, 2019
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Mar 23, 2019
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Paperback
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| 1566894913
| 9781566894913
| 4.31
| 1,357
| Nov 07, 2017
| Nov 14, 2017
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it was amazing
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An intelligent, darkly humorous, and irreverent memoir about growing up as a queer mixed-race Chicana. I always find it difficult for books to make me
An intelligent, darkly humorous, and irreverent memoir about growing up as a queer mixed-race Chicana. I always find it difficult for books to make me laugh but I laughed out loud several times reading Mean. Myriam Gurba’s distinct voice reflects both her ability to form sharp observations about the people and situations around her as well as her capacity to know herself, so that she can elicit laughter even when discussing topics like sexual assault, eating disorders, and racism. In sixty-one short, fast-moving chapters, Gurba details the emotions of growing up as a girl of color, her burgeoning love of art and her developing feminist consciousness. She imbues her coming of age narrative with brilliant, piercing social justice-related observations, like how she had to apologize when white girls acted racist toward her and her friends, or how a doctor did not believe her sister had anorexia because the doctor had racist ideas that Mexican people could not get anorexia, or the objectification and brutalization of the Mexican American female body by boys and men. By the end of the memoir I wanted just a little more introspection, a little more clarity about the importance of meanness and her healing process. At the same time, I loved how Gurba wrote directly about preserving her dignity and setting clear boundaries around how much she wanted to disclose about her life. Overall, a fantastic memoir that details Gurba’s trauma, her wit, and how she wields her voice and her art to make sense of all that has happened to her. I also wanted to share some brief quotes I found super funny, lol. On when she told a boy he had to climb a high obstacle to join her club as a kid: ”I hoped Steve would injure himself and die so that I wouldn’t have to let him into my club. That had been my strategy. To give his sex an insurmountable initiation. Like the literacy tests given to black folks in the American South before the Voting Rights Act passed. I was an early on-set feminist.” On the stereotypes she encountered as a young person of color: ”By eighth grade, being called a ho was water off of my wet back. I was a paradoxical ho, though, a bookworm ho with a fading Mexican complexion. Young people of color are supposed to enjoy looting and eating trans fats, not sustained silent reading, but I found a way to reconcile my assigned stereotype with my passions. I microwaved nachos and ate them while reading Jackie Collins paperbacks I stole from my mother – trans fats, looting, and literature.” On encountering a white girl when Gurba and father tried to find parking on college move-in day: ”The white girl looked at something beyond us, at something we couldn’t see. Maybe the white privilege fairy. She was steadfast in her colonization.” ...more |
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1
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Jun 21, 2019
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Jun 23, 2019
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Mar 22, 2019
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Paperback
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| 1640091815
| 9781640091818
| 4.19
| 530
| May 07, 2019
| May 07, 2019
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it was amazing
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An essential book for destroying the patriarchy and creating better men for us all. In The Man They Wanted Me to Be, Jared Yates Sexton writes about
An essential book for destroying the patriarchy and creating better men for us all. In The Man They Wanted Me to Be, Jared Yates Sexton writes about his and his family's experience of toxic masculinity, the research showing toxic masculinity's negative health and relational consequences, and how toxic masculinity contributes to Trump and the rise of the alt-right. I loved how Sexton shares his personal story with us, how he started out as a soft, sensitive child and hardened after experiencing abuse and problematic masculine role models, outside of his mother and grandfather. Through his sharing in this book, Sexton emulates how more men, especially white men, should act: confronting our trauma with self-compassion while owning up to the ways we perpetuate misogyny and other forms of oppression. I appreciated how he wrote about going to therapy and the courage it takes to seek help. Sexton also does a splendid job incorporating research about masculinity throughout this book. He does so in a way that adds context and builds to the narrative instead of distracting from it. He writes about how boys are socialized to repress emotions instead of anger, to devalue anything that is perceived as "feminine," and to enact aggression and violence to prove their masculinity. As exemplified by his father's story, Sexton links this socialization to how men often do not seek help for their health issues later on in life, leading to their earlier deaths compared to women. Throughout The Man They Wanted Me to Be, Sexton also makes clear men's culpability in carrying out mass shootings and other acts of devastating violence. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to everyone, especially men and to those interested in masculinity and feminism. This book feels like an important addition to the iconic The Will to Change by bell hooks. Indeed, we do need more men, especially white men, owning up to our complicity in toxic masculinity and showing how we can change it for the better. I will note that I wish Sexton had touched on how hegemonic white male masculinity often traps men of color, queer men, men at the intersection of those identities and more, etc. in its lethal grasp. I also wish Sexton had qualified his idea in the last section of the book that the answer to these issues includes showing men love. While I agree with the importance of showing men love, those harmed by men (e.g., femmes, women of color) should not have to bear the burden of making men better, a point to which I think Sexton agrees. Still, a fantastic read I hope people will pick up in 2019 and beyond. ...more |
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May 03, 2019
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May 05, 2019
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Mar 15, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 1551527383
| 9781551527383
| 4.68
| 428
| Oct 30, 2018
| Oct 30, 2018
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it was amazing
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One of the most mind-expanding and heart-opening books I have ever read. In Care Work, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha delves deep into the realities
One of the most mind-expanding and heart-opening books I have ever read. In Care Work, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha delves deep into the realities and politics of disability justice, a movement that centers sick and disabled queer and trans Black and brown people. She writes about so many important topics, including the importance of accessibility and how we should strive beyond accessibility too, the ways that we should honor and celebrate femme labor and pain as opposed to devaluing it, and questioning the survivor-industrial complex that states that survivors of abuse or trauma have to present a certain way to receive respect and dignity. She writes with openness and intelligence and invites readers into her world, which made Care Work such a compelling read. I learned a lot about my own ableism and ableist assumptions through this book. Care Work has motivated me to challenge myself and other able-bodied and neurotypical folks on how to dismantle ableist practices and institutions, so that we can expand our compassion and empathy beyond ableist models. The essay about the survivor-industrial complex really resonated with me too. As a survivor of trauma and abuse, I often feel like I have to present myself a certain way – put together, intelligent-sounding, etc. – to minimize my painful life experiences and how they continue to affect me, even if they affect me less than they used to. This book has helped me to see how my individual struggle in that regard is linked to broader systems of ableism and capitalist ideology. Yes, I’m a trauma and abuse survivor and I still have bad moments and days and I’m still iconic and I don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Overall, would highly recommend this book to everyone. For fellow able-bodied and neurotypical people it’ll most likely challenge you, in a way that you should be challenged and that you’ll grow from. I’ve already put another of Piepzna-Samarasinha’s books on my soon to be read shelf. ...more |
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Jan 21, 2020
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Jan 26, 2020
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Feb 20, 2019
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Paperback
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| 1631495631
| 9781631495632
| 3.85
| 3,847
| Jun 04, 2019
| Jun 04, 2019
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it was amazing
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Such a powerful, well-written novel about Patsy, a woman who leaves Jamaica and her daughter behind to pursue an independent life in America, only to
Such a powerful, well-written novel about Patsy, a woman who leaves Jamaica and her daughter behind to pursue an independent life in America, only to encounter a fractured version of the American dream full of challenges. I loved this book because the characters feel so complex and human and Nicole Dennis-Benn writes their emotions with such rawness and vibrancy. For example, Patsy leaves her daughter behind in large part because she had her daughter before she felt ready for motherhood. Dennis-Benn describes the negative effects this abandonment has on Tru, holding Patsy accountable for her actions, while also displaying Patsy’s own suffering and desire for freedom in a way that humanizes her and made me root for her. This complexity of character extends to others in the novel as well, ranging from Roy, a problematic yet ultimately present father for Tru, to Tru herself, a young woman curious about her mother while also fighting to break free from the strict gender roles in her Jamaican town. Patsy’s fierce leaning toward independence, Tru’s angst and feelings of loneliness, Roy’s persistent love for Tru, all resonated with me and imbued Patsy with so much heart. I most appreciated Patsy and Tru’s resilience and growth over time in the face of so many life obstacles, though of course it should not be their responsibility to be resilient when the barriers the systemic forms of oppression they face – sexism, racism, etc. – are what need to be dismantled. I also appreciated the diversity and political themes in Patsy. A book that so thoughtfully and honestly captures the immigrant experience, its trials and tribulations, is quite fitting in 2019. I wrote down so many little yet meaningful moments and themes to bring up in my feminist book club, including when Patsy has to work as a nanny for a white woman who is writing about Jamaica (i.e., cultural appropriation/exploitation), to the pressure for undocumented women to marry men so they could secure their status in America, to the stigma against mental health and capitalism’s complete disregard for mental wellbeing. While the novel is a little long in parts, I’d still thoroughly recommend it, including to fans of books like Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, and Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. ...more |
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Jul 22, 2019
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Jul 24, 2019
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Feb 09, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 1632868806
| 9781632868800
| 3.91
| 328
| Feb 05, 2019
| Feb 05, 2019
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it was amazing
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In some ways I feel like I have waited for this essay collection all my life. In Hard to Love, Briallen Hopper rejects the rigid dichotomy so often
In some ways I feel like I have waited for this essay collection all my life. In Hard to Love, Briallen Hopper rejects the rigid dichotomy so often enforced in society: marry your romantic partner and live happily ever after, or grow old and die alone. Hopper trail blazes a courageous newer path, where she finds connection and love with her close friends. She also celebrates other underappreciated forms of love, like love of writing and art and love between siblings. I so appreciated how Hopper shows the messiness of these relationships, like the turmoil she experienced with her friend Cathy when she moved in with her, or how her bond with her brother grew distant in part because of their differing religious and political beliefs. Above all, Hopper's writing flows with intelligence and a willingness to unpack assumptions. Her compassion for herself, her friends, and her family shine clear. One quote about chosen family that made my heart grow warm: "What I love about found family is that it can accommodate all the love and meals and holidays and hospital visits of any other family - all the true confessions and late-night conversations and child chaos and quotidian mess and hugs and endearments and quantity time; and yet it is often kinder than original family, and more miraculous, because it is a gift given when you are old enough to appreciate it, a commitment continuously made when you know what that commitment costs and means. A family found in adulthood can never attain the involuntary intimacy of the siblings who have known you since birth, and squabbled with you in bathrooms and at breakfast tables from time immemorial. But sometimes, perhaps for this reason, a found family can know and love you for who you are - not for who you once were, or who you never were." I feel like I have waited for these essays all my life because I write about the glorification of romance and my love for my friends on my blog all the freaking time. Just last week I texted one of my close friends A that I wish I saw examples of women and femmes who basked in their singleness and close friends, because I often only see people enmeshed in romantic relationships or single people desperate to escape singlehood. Through herself in Hard to Love, Hopper offers that example of a woman finding love with her friends and her writing. Two of the essays toward the start of the collection, "Lean On" and "On Spinsters," blew me away with the depth of their insight. "Lean On" acts as a radical defense of relying on others, especially outside of romantic relationships, in a society that encourages self-reliance and detachment. "On Spinsters" serves as an ode to single women and those throughout history who have built loving relationships outside the government-sanctioned institution of marriage. These two essays worked their way into my heart and into the list of top essays I have ever read with ease. A short paragraph from On Spinsters that wowed me (one of many): "I cling to the word 'spinster' in the second decade of the twenty-first century because it serves as a challenge to the way our society still conflates coupledom with love, maturity, and citizenship, while seeing unmarried people as - to quote Justice Kennedy - 'condemned to live in loneliness.' And, to borrow a phrase from second-wave historian Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, I cling to the word because it links me with my spinster sisters throughout history in a shared 'female world of love and ritual.' I cling to it and hold it close because, to riff on a refrain from Hilton Als, it's the spinsters who made me." Hopper covers so much amazing ground in terms of writing that centers friendship and other forms of non-romantic intimacy. She writes about how she and a group of friends formed a care team for their friend who got diagnosed with cancer and did not have a partner to rely on. She shares, with great vulnerability and sincerity, about her search for sperm so she can have a child without a traditional romance in tow. She analyzes a show she loves, Cheers unpacking its dynamics of romance and friendship and what works and does not work within a feminist framework. These essays showcase Hopper's versatility as a writer. They highlight how writers have so much ground to cover outside of romance, a radical notion for women and femmes in particular. I would recommend these essays to absolutely everyone, especially those who also want to nurture love in friendship and in other non-romantic forms. The collection is perhaps not perfect - I felt that some of the essays toward the end (e.g., "The Stars") could have benefited from a firmer thematic connection to the other essays. I also wish Hopper had done more to unpack her white, cis privilege in her essay on the Women's March, as she did a fabulous job of doing so in her essay "The Foundling Museum." Still, I cherished this collection so much and am grateful for the feminist ideas and genuine love it contributes to the literary canon. An excellent essay collection that I hope helps others appreciate and cultivate their own many types of love. ...more |
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Mar 22, 2019
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Mar 24, 2019
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Feb 05, 2019
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| 163206183X
| 9781632061836
| 4.39
| 471
| Apr 02, 2019
| Apr 09, 2019
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it was amazing
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Grace Talusan’s memoir The Body Papers is stunning in its self-awareness, honesty, and unassuming beauty. She writes about moving from the Philippines
Grace Talusan’s memoir The Body Papers is stunning in its self-awareness, honesty, and unassuming beauty. She writes about moving from the Philippines to the United states as a child, experiencing sexual abuse from her grandfather, and navigating cancer later on in life. These topics are often dark and difficult to read about yet Talusan conveys her life in a way that shows she has thoroughly processed every challenge, while still having the emotional openness to let us readers into her struggle and her fight for survival. Throughout The Body Papers, too, is deep love, the Talusan’s love for her nieces and nephews, her love for her father, and her love for her family’s ancestral home. She writes in such a straightforward way, no frills, yet the book feels full of compassion and vulnerability. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in memoir, or the experiences of women, people of color, and immigrants. Talusan captures so many different experiences and emotions with complexity and nuance, ranging from the way her extended family shielded an abuser from harm to the range of feelings she encountered upon eventually not having a child of her own. Throughout The Body Papers Talusan weaves in the theme of how racism and trauma can devastate the body. At the same time, she describes the body – her body’s – resilience in the face of massive loss. She’s blessed us by putting forth that resilience in memoir form with The Body Papers. Thank you Grace Talusan and I hope her words find those who need them most. ...more |
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Aug 19, 2019
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Aug 23, 2019
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Jan 26, 2019
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| 1786633604
| 9781786633606
| 4.70
| 709
| Jun 26, 2018
| Jun 26, 2018
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it was amazing
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Radical, lucid, a masterpiece of feminist nonfiction I would recommend to everyone. In Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights, sex
Radical, lucid, a masterpiece of feminist nonfiction I would recommend to everyone. In Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights, sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith create an incisive, brilliant manifesto for why we need to decriminalize sex work right now. From the beginning of this book, they make their agenda clear: to advocate for sex workers’ rights, not to glorify sex work as some “empowering” deed or to describe it as a horrific act that people should strive to ban. Rather, in practical, intelligent terms, they describe how our current capitalist system has made sex work an unfortunate necessity for the most marginalized in our society and what we can do to improve these sex workers’ conditions. Here is a quote that captures these Juno Mac and Molly Smiths’ sharp thinking and clear writing, about how sex work stems more from poverty than a lack of criminalization: ”If criminalization was the key factor in the size of a country’s sex industry, the US would have a tiny sex industry. As chapter 5 details, in many states, penalties for purchasing sex far exceed those in Scandinavia – and of course sex workers themselves, along with managers, landlords, taxi drivers, and colleagues, can all be swept into prosecution. Yet the US has a huge sex industry. That’s because the key determinant is not criminal law but poverty and people’s access to resources. When a country has no social safety net, or when the social safety next excludes some, people struggling to avoid homelessness or to pay for healthcare might well sell sex in order to get housing or medication. People who are undocumented struggle to enter the mainstream labour market or to assert any labour rights. In these contexts, some people sell sex – often under conditions that are, to a greater or lesser degree, exploitative or abusive. But the solution isn’t to criminalize commercial sex; if it was, the US would have zero trafficking. Instead, it is to ensure that people have access to the resources that they need, including the right to safe migration and the right for migrants to work and assert labour rights without fearing deportation.” Juno Mac and Molly Smith analyze every model of regulating sex work – criminalizing the seller, criminalizing the buyer, government legalization and regulations, full decriminalization, etc. – with great thoughtfulness and care both to sex workers’ lived experiences as well to their surrounding economic context. I most loved how they incorporated intersectionality into their work. They name their privilege and they speak multiple times to how the criminalization of sex work affects the most marginalized sex workers, like sex workers of color (specifically black sex workers), trans sex workers, and migrant sex workers. Their chapter on border policing and how it intersects with trafficking and sex work blew my mind, I felt so impressed and inspired by the depth of their analysis and the connections they drew. Juno Mac and Molly Smith call out liberal feminists and carceral feminists for advocating for solutions that, while at times perhaps good-intentioned, only serve to reinforce the degradation and devaluing of sex workers instead of actually providing them with the safety and resources they need to make a living wage and take care of themselves and their loved ones. Here is another paragraph, a brief one in which they name their own privilege, which I wish more writers and people would do: ”The authors of this book could certainly not be described as representative of all people selling sex. Both of us are cisgender and white, born and raised in the global north, working in a country where the sex work we do is less crimalised, with middle-class educations and the access to power and capital that brings. It is not by accident that opportunities to speak on television, publish articles, and be appointed to salaried activist positions come to us or people like us. Just as in any radical movement, a select few activists often receive unfair credit for doing the same work that more marginalized sex workers, who cannot risk being public in their activism, are doing alongside them.” Such a thoroughly well-researched, important, and well-written book. There is so much we as a broad society do not know about sex work and there is no one better to learn from than sex workers themselves. Thank you to Juno Mac and Molly Smith for writing Revolting Prostitutes. I am still so impressed by this book, in particular the quality of the authors’ writing and their excellent economic analysis. Again, highly recommended to all. ...more |
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Aug 07, 2019
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Aug 10, 2019
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Dec 13, 2018
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| 1935639838
| 9781935639831
| 3.94
| 1,292
| Jun 16, 2014
| Jul 15, 2014
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really liked it
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4.5 stars A masterful memoir from Lacy Johnson about her kidnapping and rape at the hands of her ex-boyfriend. Every word felt so perfect and necessary 4.5 stars A masterful memoir from Lacy Johnson about her kidnapping and rape at the hands of her ex-boyfriend. Every word felt so perfect and necessary and yet the writing also felt effortless. Johnson captures the terror and horror of her assault. But she focuses The Other Side on what came before and after, what led to this grotesque event and how her trauma has affected her afterward. I felt stunned by the precision of Johnson's prose and the powerful way she conveys emotion in writing that verges on clinical, yet pulsates with whole-hearted humanity. When I read The Other Side, I thought of the James Baldwin quote: "The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat." Thank you, Lacy Johnson, for sharing your story, with such vulnerability and strength - and for showing us what becoming a threat, one filled with pain and with love, looks like. Recommended to fans of the true crime genre, to feminists, and to those who enjoyed Roxane Gay's An Untamed State . I also loved this interview with Johnson about her memoir, especially when she reflects on how people who are traumatized are not necessarily broken, rather, we have to learn how to retell our stories. I'm so excited to read her new essay collection The Reckonings. ...more |
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Dec 08, 2018
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Dec 13, 2018
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Dec 03, 2018
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| 1484726022
| 9781484726020
| 4.15
| 2,463
| Apr 10, 2018
| Apr 10, 2018
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it was amazing
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This is the best young-adult book I have read since Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe , and I loved Picture Us in the Light
This is the best young-adult book I have read since
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
, and I loved Picture Us in the Light even more than Ari and Dante. I cried for several minutes after reading the last page; I felt like my heart had been overrun by emotion in the best way. This is the book I wish I could give to my younger gay, Asian American self and the book I will promote with all of my heart until the day I die. Picture Us in the Light has everything I could ever want in a novel: queer representation, Asian American representation, complex characters full of love and suffering, nuanced portrayals of friendship, family, mental health, and so much more. The story follows Danny Cheng, a high school senior who just got accepted with a full scholarship to RISD, the art college of his dreams. Life looks good for Danny after his acceptance, yet he finds it hard to impossible to imagine a life without his best friend Harry Wong by his side. Harry and Danny are closer than close, and their lives are brought even closer by a tragedy that rocked their high school a year ago. Now, Danny can't help but wonder if Harry really loves his girlfriend, Regina Chan. On top of all of this, Danny begins to learn the truth behind his parents' past. He experiences a series of realizations that will make him question everything he has ever known about his parents, his family's safety, and his own sense of belonging - to anyone, to himself. Reading Picture Us in the Light felt like having my dream book delivered straight into my hands, followed by its characters taking residence in my heart and never leaving. The novel has an almost entirely Asian American cast, with three-dimensional portrayals that avoid stereotypes and felt painfully accurate to myself, my family, and my friends. The book has extremely nuanced representations of issues related to race and to mental health, such that it felt like Kelly Loy Gilbert always prioritized her characters' hearts and emotions over any type of plot twist just for the shock factor. Picture Us in the Light has a sensitive male protagonist who makes mistakes and yet is so lovable and human and uses art to understand the world and his trauma. If you want a simple gay love story, like a "do Danny and Harry get together in the end" kinda deal, you are not going to get that with Picture Us in the Light, because the novel is so much more than that. This passage in which Danny reflects on his parents serves as one of the many I took note of, due to its emotional honesty: "My worst fear about my family was that maybe I would never be enough to make up for what they'd lost, that I wasn't supposed to be the one who'd lived, and that they'd wind up broken in a way I couldn't put back together. Maybe they'd break apart from each other entirely. I felt that possibility heavy on my chest every morning when I woke up. By then I could see a future where my family never stopped being a grayer, paler, more trembling version of ourselves, and by then I couldn't shake the possibility that maybe my fate, all our fates, had been sealed before I was even born when my sister died. It wasn't hard to see how our future could get swallowed by the past." About 100 pages into the book, I already felt like it read like a combination of the poetic prose in Aristotle and Dante intertwined with the breathtaking characterization in Celeste Ng's novels Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere . Danny, Harry, Regina, Sandra, Danny's parents, etc. all felt so three-dimensional and vivid and real. Gilbert has an astonishing gift for using specific scenes and even the smallest phrases to complicate her characters and add detail to their lived experiences, such as how she wrote about Harry's privilege within the Asian community or the abuse and lostness Sandra felt underneath her anger and lashing out. Gilbert fully appreciates the sophistication of her audience; instead of giving us a simple gay love story, she gifts us with a novel about how we hurt and heal one another, the guilt that comes from unvoiced yet implicit expectations, the search for belonging and the fulfillment of longing, and much more. She packs so much emotional, heavy content into this story yet it never over-extends itself. Somehow, despite their suffering, these characters feel filled with lightness, as if Gilbert's deep care for them just shines through into the novel's pages. A passage toward the end of the book that I loved: "The people who matter to you the most - you aren't always going to occupy the same space in their lives, I guess. Maybe that's what I always loved most about art, that it was a way of multiplying myself so I could feel like I was always a part of more than I really was... Maybe that still means something, however small. And maybe life is when you gather all the things you can hold on to and carry with you, and cross your fingers it'll be enough." I started this review thinking to myself, "ok, how the f*ck can I convince as many of my wonderful Goodreads friends and followers to read this book as possible?" I wish I could concisely include everything Gilbert does right in Picture Us in the Light, because again, she just does so much right, especially with Asian American generational, community, and interpersonal dynamics. I hope she gives us a sequel from Regina's perspective, because there remains so much to unpack from this splendid side character. I will also admit my little gay heart did swoon a bit thanks to Danny and Harry's relationship. I'm not sure how to convince you all to read this book, so I'll just say thank you to Kelly Loy Gilbert, for creating a work of art that made me, as an Asian American man and a gay man, feel completely seen. ...more |
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1
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Nov 23, 2018
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Nov 24, 2018
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Nov 07, 2018
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Hardcover
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| 1620974363
| 9781620974360
| 4.47
| 4,913
| Jan 08, 2019
| Jan 08, 2019
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it was amazing
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Without a doubt the best book I have read in 2019 thus far, Thick: And Other Essays is thick with wit, intelligence, and an assured self-awareness.
Without a doubt the best book I have read in 2019 thus far, Thick: And Other Essays is thick with wit, intelligence, and an assured self-awareness. Tressie McMillan Cottom addresses many topics within the realm of black womanhood, including beauty standards and whiteness, ethnic differences within the black community, socioeconomic class and assimilating into capitalism, and more. I loved how she always took her analysis one step further, like in her essay about beauty, how she refutes the neoliberal idea that we are all beautiful, and she instead asserts that we should question why we value beauty and who profits from determining what we consider beautiful. She applies this insight to an expanse of subjects, including how black women do not get positions at high prestige publications, in which she analyzes David Brooks's Twitter follows to highlight how few people in positions of power listen to black women. Recommended to everyone and also fans of Roxane Gay, Brittney Cooper, and Rebecca Solnit. McMillan Cottom has a distinct voice, and she integrates her personal life with her societal analysis in powerful ways in this collection. The heartbreaking content she reveals in "Dying to be Competent" literally made me pause and take a breath because of the skill and poignancy in which she intertwines her personal loss with greater stereotypes and discrimination against black women. I look forward to reading more of her work, and I hope you all give this book a read. ...more |
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Jan 21, 2019
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Jan 28, 2019
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Sep 17, 2018
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Hardcover
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| 0735235937
| 9780735235939
| 4.28
| 3,545
| Aug 28, 2018
| Aug 28, 2018
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it was amazing
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A vulnerable, powerful examination of gender and masculinity from trans artist Vivek Shraya. I’m Afraid of Men reminded me of We Should All Be
A vulnerable, powerful examination of gender and masculinity from trans artist Vivek Shraya. I’m Afraid of Men reminded me of
We Should All Be Feminists
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as Shraya uses her personal experiences of sexism and harassment to build a case for why we need to redefine and rebuild masculinity as well as gender overall. She shares her lived experience as a trans person of color with courage and incision, both the pain she has felt at the hands of men and misogynistic women and how she wants us all to move forward to create a better world. A short paragraph in which she reflects on what she wishes she had learned growing up as a boy: "When I was learning to be a man, I wish that instead of the coaching I received to take up space, I had been taught to be respectful of space. To be ever conscious of and ever grateful to those whose sacred land I inhabit. To be mindful of the space and bodies of others, especially feminine bodies. To never presume that I am permitted to touch the body of another, no matter how queer the space. To give up or create space when I am afforded more than others." Though this book falls on the shorter side, Shraya shares many insights that I wish more people thought of. She discusses how our expectations for men are way too low, how the idea of a “good man” prevents us from positively reinforcing specific behaviors men should practice more, and how the gender binary makes us all feel afraid. I’m Afraid of Men has both intellectual and emotional honesty. As someone who has also felt afraid of men throughout his life because of how they have hurt me, I appreciated Shraya’s personal disclosures a lot and they made me feel connected and less alone, despite the differences in our social identities. Recommended to anyone who wants a succinct yet compelling exploration of gender, as well as for people who have a difficulty trusting men. I’ll end this review with another earnest passage toward the end of the book: "I wonder what my life might have been like if my so-called feminine tendencies, such as being sensitive, or my interests, such as wearing my mother's clothing, or even my body had not been gendered or designated as either feminine or masculine at all. Despite the ways in which my gender felt enforced, I sometimes miss elements of my masculine past, like the thickness of my beard or the once impressive width of my biceps. Maybe this missing is actually mourning in disguise, for having to surrender aspects of my appearance I worked hard to achieve. Or maybe I'm mourning a life that I still don't get to fully live because it's one I continue to have to defend and authenticate. What if I didn't have to give up any characteristics, especially ones I like, to outwardly prove I am a girl? What if living my truth now didn't immediately render everything that came before, namely my manhood, a lie?" ...more |
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Dec 25, 2018
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Dec 26, 2018
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Sep 13, 2018
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Hardcover
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| 1501181807
| 9781501181801
| 4.42
| 7,843
| Oct 02, 2018
| Oct 02, 2018
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it was amazing
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An excellent book about the power of women's anger and its potential to improve the political sphere. Rebecca Traister writes about how women's anger
An excellent book about the power of women's anger and its potential to improve the political sphere. Rebecca Traister writes about how women's anger has been characterized as hysterical, too destructive, and outright unhelpful. She unearths the sexism underlying these characterizations and argues that women have every right to feel angry given the oppression they have experienced, and their anger has, throughout history, helped launch movements and revolutions that have changed the world for the better. A quote that captures her view on women's anger: "We must train ourselves to even be able to see and hear anger from women and understand it not only as rational, but as politically weighty. It is, in fact, an anger on behalf of the nation's suppressed majority and therefore especially frightening and combustible because of the treat it poses to the minority. We are primed to hear the anger of men as stirring, downright American, as our national lullaby, and primed to hear the sound of women demanding freedom as the screech of nails on our national chalkboard. That's because women's freedom would in fact circumscribe white male dominion." I loved two aspects of Good and Mad the most: Traister's ability to integrate multiple sources of information as well as the attention she pays to how white women have often undermined feminism due to their passive and/or active racism. Similar to her amazing book All the Single Ladies , Traister analyzes the stigmatization and strength of women's anger using research studies, interviews, historical facts, and more. Her prose comes across as energetic and exciting, even with all the dense information she incorporates, which speaks to her skill as a nonfiction writer. Furthermore, she spends several sections of the book interrogating how white women have contributed to white supremacist patriarchy by supporting white men, white women, and whiteness overall over women of color, specifically black women. Traister gives due credit to black women - writing in-depth about Maxine Waters, Michelle Obama, Barbara Lee, and more - who have consistently led the charge for equality and justice even in the face of gendered racism. As someone who firmly believes in the power of anger to fight oppression, I appreciated this book so much. I do wish that Traister had incorporated the voices of queer women more as well as a more targeted critique of capitalism, especially in the section about women feeling angry toward the men in their personal lives. This section felt the least developed to me. Looking toward queer women who have helped push her analysis beyond heterosexual relationships and heteronormativity. Even a couple of paragraphs critiquing capitalism could have strengthened her interrogation of women's economic dependence on men. Of course, more perspectives from other women of color in addition to black women would have been nice, but I can see why she focused on the disenfranchisement and activism of black women specifically. Overall, a great read I would recommend to those interested in feminism, politics, and psychology. Good and Mad may not offer loads of new information to those already well-versed in women's studies and the history of women's rights, but Traister still assembles a compelling, affirming argument in favor of women's anger. For more splendid books on this topic, check out Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde and Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper. ...more |
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Jan 10, 2019
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Jan 14, 2019
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Aug 14, 2018
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ebook
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| 4.49
| 19,265
| Jun 26, 2018
| Jun 26, 2018
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it was amazing
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An excellent, powerful book I would recommend to all white people. It scares me a bit to write that because I imagine some white people may take
An excellent, powerful book I would recommend to all white people. It scares me a bit to write that because I imagine some white people may take offense to that statement (an emotional reaction Robin DiAngelo discusses in the book), and at the same time I stand by it. I will write a little about this book’s high quality, though I want to start with a personal story that may help explain why this book means a lot to me. Around a year ago, I called a white woman colleague out on a behavior of hers that involved racism and colonization. Before I did so, I tried very hard to make sure that I delivered my concern in a gentle and affirming way. I put in extra effort to validate her as a person and I acted even nicer than perhaps I should have felt obligated to. This white woman asked me to meet in person after I emailed her my concern, and because I had trusted her, I agreed to this meeting. In this meeting, this white woman displayed the exact set of behaviors DiAngelo describes in this book – white fragility. She said that she felt offended and hurt that I would accuse her of behaving in a colonizing/racist way. She said that no one in her life had ever or would ever call her out on this behavior. She said that I acted “aggressively” and that I should have “trusted” her more instead of blaming her. I want to reiterate that throughout this in-person meeting, I tried again and again to placate her with gentle reassurances while standing my ground. Still, she said that she felt hurt and centered her feelings over mine. After this meeting, I felt devastated. I walked to my office, shut the door, and practiced a lot of deep breathing to calm down. I felt so misunderstood and tone-policed – I had just tried to offer this white woman gentle feedback on a problematic behavior, and she acted as if I had attacked her. Luckily, I was able to reach out to my friends (both people of color and white friends) who validated my experience and I read a ton of articles on tone-policing to understand that other people of color, especially black women, undergo the same discriminatory behavior. I share this experience for the specific purpose of highlighting why I feel so grateful for Robin DiAngelo. Due to this incident and others, there are times where I feel fearful of sharing my true self and my authentic reactions around white people, because a lot of white people practice tone policing and white fragility. DiAngelo names these behaviors and explains how they hurt people of color. She breaks down the common ways white people collude in white supremacy, the problematic nature of the good/bad binary in relation to racism, and common racial triggers for white people. Here is a quote I appreciated about why white fragility acts as a form of bullying: ”White fragility functions as a form of bullying; I am going to make it so miserable for you to confront me – no matter how diplomatically you try to do so – that you will simply back off, give up, and never raise the issue again. White fragility keeps people of color in line and ‘in their place.’ In this way, it is a powerful form of white racial control. Social power is not fixed; it is constantly challenged and needs to be maintained. We might think of the triggers of white fragility discussed in chapter 7 as challenges to white power and control, and of white fragility as the means to end the challenge and maintain that power and control.” I know that I should not applaud DiAngelo for doing the work that all white people should do, and again, I feel grateful to know that there are white people who will do the work of racial justice. Allies matter. For better or worse, white people listen to fellow white people more than they listen to people of color when it comes to racism, so we need white allies to show up to help dismantle white supremacy. Reading this book validated the experiences I have undergone as a person of color and helped reassure me that while there are a lot of white people who will hurt me, like the white woman in the incident described above, there are others, hopefully, who will use their privilege to fight for people of color. Here is another quote about how emotions are political and related to issues of social justice: ”Many of us see emotions as naturally occurring. But emotions are political in two key ways. First, our emotions are shaped by our biases and beliefs, our cultural frameworks. For example, if I believe – consciously or unconsciously – that it is normal and appropriate for men to express anger but not women, I will have very different emotional responses to men’s and women’s expressions of anger. I might see a man who expresses anger as competent and in charge and may feel respect for him, while I see a woman who expresses anger as childish and out of control and may feel contempt for her. If I believe that only bad people are racist, I will feel hurt, offended, and shamed when an unaware racist assumption of mine is pointed out. If I instead believe that having racist assumptions is inevitable (but possible to change), I will feel gratitude when an unaware racist assumption is pointed out; now I am aware of and can change that assumption. In this way, emotions are not natural; they are the result of the frameworks we are using to make sense of social relations. And of course, social relations are political. Our emotions are also political because they are often externalized; our emotions drive behaviors that impact other people.” Again, highly recommended to all white people and also people of color interested in this topic. DiAngelo’s writing is clear, straightforward, and intelligent. She analyzes the issue of white fragility with great depth while providing tangible actions white people can take to address this issue. I hope white people who read this book will utilize its lessons and apply them to their own lives, whether or not anyone else watches. I hope that my fellow people of color know that you are not alone in experiencing white fragility and its painful repercussions. ...more |
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1
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Oct 13, 2019
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Oct 18, 2019
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Jul 27, 2018
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||||
| Ma, Ling
*
| 0374261598
| 9780374261597
| 3.87
| 23,330
| Aug 14, 2018
| Aug 14, 2018
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it was amazing
|
4.5 stars This book stopped me right in my tracks - literally. I read it in the span of five hours; I could not put it down. In Severance, Ling Ma 4.5 stars This book stopped me right in my tracks - literally. I read it in the span of five hours; I could not put it down. In Severance, Ling Ma shares the story of Candace Chen, a self-described millennial worker drone who spends much of her life sequestered in a Manhattan office tower. With both of her parents recently deceased and no other family or close friends, she has little else to do, aside from going to work and watching movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. Candace thus feels little emotion when the Shen Fever hits, a plague that renders people into non-violent zombie versions of themselves, doomed to repeat the same rote tasks over and over until they become fully unconscious. The story flashes between Candace's life before the Shen Fever hits, as well as after, when she travels with a group of survivors led by a power-hungry, authoritarian man named Bob. Ling Ma creates an excellent atmosphere in Severance. While reading, I felt claustrophobic, trapped, and hooked into the story all at the same time - similar to how a lot of millennials feel within late-stage capitalism. The flashbacks and flashforwards worked well here, as they served to deepen Candace's character and backstory while also propelling the narrative forward. Within this tight, gripping plot, Ma inserts commentary about the deadening, devastating effects of capitalism that strikes a skillful balance between serious and satirical. Every element of this story - the zombie apocalypse, Candace's coming-of-age, the dive into corporate life - all came together in a dark, entrancing, and unputdownable way. I have to say my heart broke when Ma wrote about Candace's immigrant parents and how their assimilation to the United States involved the absorption of capitalism. The way she wrote about Candace's father's relationship with work and her mother's relationship with material goods felt so true to my own immigrant family's experience in this country. Taking this aspect of the novel together with a reveal about Candace that happens pretty early in the story, I appreciated how Ma weaves in understated yet powerful insights about race, gender, and exploitation of foreign labor throughout the book. A quirky, cynical, yet important read that has made me think a lot about what matters most in my life (hint: it's leaning toward my close friends and mentees/students, not my work). The style of this book reminded me of Weike Wang's Chemistry and Gabe Habash's Stephen Florida , with some Station Eleven vibes too. Highly recommended to those critical of society's emphasis on work who also want a unique, well-written story. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Sep 08, 2018
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Sep 09, 2018
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Jul 17, 2018
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||
| 1501163132
| 9781501163135
| 3.92
| 3,147
| Jul 10, 2018
| Jul 10, 2018
|
it was amazing
|
I love this courageous, gentle, thoughtful memoir. Glynnis MacNicol writes about her 40th year, in which she finds herself without a romantic partner
I love this courageous, gentle, thoughtful memoir. Glynnis MacNicol writes about her 40th year, in which she finds herself without a romantic partner or kids. Determined to avoid the stories and stereotypes so often told about single, childless women (e.g., objects of pity, selfish and spoiled creatures, invisible humans), she sets out to create a new, more empowered narrative. She embarks on a journey of self-discovery and connecting with others that entails family illness and struggle, travels to foreign countries and encounters with men, and embracing old friendships filled with support and shared history. Within this year, MacNicol has numerous insights about love, loneliness, meaning in life, and more, all while recognizing that taking ownership of her choices and her destiny brings about a radical fulfillment outside the confines of a conventional life. As someone who has worried about not finding a husband while also enjoying his life without a boyfriend or potential husband, I related so much to MacNicol's memoir. I appreciate her strength and thoughtfulness in No One Tells You This. She details her process of coming to cherish her independence and her deep relationship with herself as a single woman without kids, while also honoring how she has sometimes wished for a husband and/or kids to fill the voids of loneliness. She approaches various relevant topics with perceptiveness and warmth, including how we extol the virtues of kids and romance on social media and leave out the negatives, the immense pleasure and depth of friendship despite its precariousness, the joy of mobility as an untethered person, her privilege as a white woman, and more. I feel like MacNicol put her whole heart into this book and it shows, through her personal epiphanies as well as the quiet, more ordinary moments she shares, like driving her sister's kids to school. A quote about friendship I loved, as she reflects on one of her closest friends getting married. "I wasn't envious of Mauri. If anything, I was envious of our past lives together, and I was mourning a life I was losing. The resentment, I'd realized, was rooted in the fact that I never had any control over this upending of my life. It had never occurred to me that I was allowed to do anything but silently accept it. The fact that no one acknowledged that I had anything to be upset about made it all that much worse. It was hard work to root yourself so deeply in life that you could still love people and rely on them, knowing at any point they could make decisions that would leave you scrambling to find solid ground again. This was the better or worse of friendship, undeclared. What I wanted was for there to exist some way for me to say 'I'm happy and sad and not jealous' all at the same time, and also 'This is a loss and is still beautiful.' Maybe that was the wedding toast. 'We are really the ones giving you way. And it's hard. And I will miss our life. And I am still so happy for your happiness. And so proud of you.'" MacNicol does a fantastic job integrating her journey toward contentment in independence with her caretaking of her mother who is dying from Parkinson's and Dementia. In the hands of a less skilled writer, these two seemingly disparate life threads may have joined together in an awkward, or at worst, insensitive way. But MacNicol honors the legacy of her mother's life with beautiful prose while still commenting on how she herself wants and has created a different life. She further dispels stereotypes of single, childless women by showing how deeply and lovingly she cared for her mother toward her life's end, which reminded me of my own grandmother's passing and made my heart hurt in the best possible way. MacNicol's vulnerability and quiet yet compelling portrayal of raw emotion, ranging from grief to loneliness to confidence and self-fulfillment, all contributed to this my five-star rating of this memoir. I want to share one more quote, about not having kids and living in the moment: "I also knew without a doubt that the joy of my life was rooted in my ability to move when I wanted and how. I valued that ability to be in motion more than anything. I could hear the arguments in my head, the return of the magazine voices: 'You're going to regret this in ten years.' 'You don't know what you're missing.' Of course, I might regret it. I knew that. there were an endless number of things about my life I might end up regretting. Some I already did. But it seemed to me that going through life making decisions on what I might possibly feel in a future that may or may not come about was a bad way to live. I wasn't going to have a baby as an insurance policy against some future remorse I couldn't yet imagine. I had more respect for myself than that. The truth was, no one knows what they're missing in the end. You can only live your own life, and do your best with the outcome when you roll the dice." Overall, a wonderful memoir I would recommend to anyone who has ever questioned the fullness of their life, or who has decided to live a life outside of society's traditional paths. While I feel that MacNicol could have gone a little deeper with some of the feminist (or even somewhat queer) ideas in the memoir, like further interrogating how society pressures women and feminine people to marry and have kids, I can see why she chose to keep the book closer to her own experience. No One Tells You This affirms the importance of self-determination in creating a life worth living. Thanks to MacNicol, I feel once again so excited to take ownership of my life, no man or child necessary. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jul 31, 2018
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Aug 04, 2018
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Jun 26, 2018
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1250105714
| 9781250105714
| 4.16
| 46,141
| Sep 04, 2018
| Sep 04, 2018
|
it was amazing
|
Whew. I loved this thrilling, heartbreaking novel about a young woman who hits the road to avenge her little sister's death. Sadie, our protagonist,
Whew. I loved this thrilling, heartbreaking novel about a young woman who hits the road to avenge her little sister's death. Sadie, our protagonist, grew up in an isolated small town with an absent mother who had a slew of questionable boyfriends. Sadie would have grown up alone if not for how she raised her younger sister Maddie, as if Maddie had been Sadie's own child. But when Maddie is found dead, Sadie sets out to bring the killer to justice, even if that means throwing her own safety aside in the process. Sadie's journey is followed by West McCray, a radio personality who starts a podcast to track Sadie down and try and figure out her whereabouts - before it's too late. So much about this book just worked. Sadie, to start, is a phenomenal character: relentless, broken, loving, tenacious, and so complicatedly human in her desire to avenge her sister. Everything about Sadie is complex in all the right ways - how she copes with her grief and trauma, her relationship with her sister and mother, and her will to keep going even in the face of self-destruction. Above all, Sadie is dynamic and does not give up, and she herself acts as the most compelling part of this piercing book. Embedded within Sadie is a thorough meditation on violence against women, its causes and consequences, and what it takes to stop the cycle of assault when many women and girls do not even have a voice, or a choice. Courtney Summers also pulls off the podcast aspect of this novel with excellence. What could have been a cheap, gimmicky narrative device instead serves as a well-written mechanism that propels the plot forward while layering the drama and suspense. I most appreciated how Summers does not make West McCray Sadie's savior, though the book may seem set up that way. He recognizes his own male privilege and problematic perspective. Meanwhile, Sadie is fierce enough to execute her mission on her own, consequences be damned. Overall, another striking novel from Courtney Summers, whose books always deliver nuanced and raw portrayals of young women. She's such a talented writer and I cannot wait to read her next book. Content warning for Sadie, by the way: violence, abandonment, and not super graphic but still recognizable passages related to child sexual abuse. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Oct 27, 2018
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Nov 02, 2018
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Jun 02, 2018
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 054437343X
| 9780544373433
| 3.56
| 18,236
| May 26, 2015
| May 26, 2015
|
it was amazing
|
This book captured the glorious feminist spirit I wanted The Power to have but did not. In Dietland we follow 300-pound Plum Kettle, a fat woman who
This book captured the glorious feminist spirit I wanted
The Power
to have but did not. In Dietland we follow 300-pound Plum Kettle, a fat woman who does her best to go unnoticed. All her life, people have judged, excluded, and harassed her because of her weight. So while she works her day job answering fan mail for a teen girls' magazine, she waits for the day of her weight-loss surgery, so she can finally begin her new and improved life as a thin person. Plum's plans get sidetracked, though, when she falls into an underground community of women who value empowerment and supporting one another. These women encourage Plum to confront her past and her beliefs about her weight. At the same time, a lethal guerrilla group called "Jennifer" has started to terrorize men who have mistreated women. This group's actions soon collide with Plum's life in shocking ways. I loved Plum's character growth throughout Dietland. As someone who had an eating disorder several years ago, I understand the difficult and oftentimes agonizing process of learning to love your body. Thus, I really appreciated Sarai Walker's portrayal of Plum and how she starts out so entrenched in diet culture and self-loathing. Walker shows how all throughout her life, Plum received scorn because of how she looked, how she dared to take up space in a society teaches women to shrink themselves - so how could she cherish her body in such a fatphobic society? Yet, she learns to treat herself with kindness and to fight for what she believes in with the help of the Calliope House, a group of women who live life on their own terms and support one another while fighting the patriarchy. I cheered for the Calliope House throughout the book, as it symbolized the empowerment and healing that can come from a feminist collective. This group of women contained so much compassion and hope and filled a void in Plum's life. Given the strength and generosity of the women in the Calliope House, including Plum, I feel obligated to address the issue of "unlikability." As Plum learns to love her body, she also learns to recognize all the awful ways that men and society objectify and hurt women. Plum gets angry. And as Audre Lorde writes in "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism"", anger is a valid and necessary reaction to oppression. I feel grateful that Walker writes anger as a healthful, motivating force that emboldens Plum and the women in the Calliope House to assert themselves and create a better world for girls and women. To be blunt: if you find Plum off-putting or "unlikable" or if you preferred her more meek, self-hating side from the novel's beginning, you may want to examine what society has taught you about acceptable women's behavior, as well as tone-policing in general. I also adored the inclusion of the "Jennifer" guerrilla group. On a stylistic level, these chapters added suspense and tension that intertwined well with Plum's plot which focused more on her self-discovery. More so, they raised thought-provoking and important questions about sexism, rape culture, and using violence within activism. Walker clearly has a background in women's studies - and I liked how so many of her characters do too - as she incorporates intelligent, fiery scenes that address violence against women, the ways corporations profit from women's bodies, and more. Another blunt point: if your immediate reaction is to judge the book for how it displays women hurting men who have hurt them, I would encourage you to think about how society normalizes violence against women so that we rarely question it, yet many of us feel shocked when women act up to defend themselves or prevent more harm. Overall, a fantastic novel that integrates the punchiness of Fight Club with the feminism of Margaret Atwood's novels. The themes in Dietland reminded me of Hunger by Roxane Gay and Appetites by Caroline Knapp, two nonfiction books close to my heart. As you can discern from its low star rating, this is a controversial story people have very mixed reactions to. It is often uncomfortable, uncouth, and relentless in its take down of fatphobia and rape culture - which is precisely why I give it five stars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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1
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Jul 07, 2018
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Jul 08, 2018
|
Mar 12, 2018
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1524760781
| 9781524760786
| 4.47
| 56,624
| Feb 09, 2017
| Aug 22, 2017
|
it was amazing
|
4.5 stars I have to say, I am a little hurt by some of the Goodreads reviews of this beautiful, heartbreaking novel. Yes, this is an epic coming-of-age 4.5 stars I have to say, I am a little hurt by some of the Goodreads reviews of this beautiful, heartbreaking novel. Yes, this is an epic coming-of-age story, but it is also a stunning, sorrowful meditation on how homophobia and discrimination affect gay people's lives, as well as the resilience of gay people in the face of hatred and bigotry. As a gay man, I would argue that minimizing the importance of Cyril's sexuality erases an essential part of his character, a part of him that prompted prejudice from so many characters in the book and also a lot of empathy from me and I imagine other queer readers. Books like these remind me of how grateful I should feel for the gay writers, artists, and humans who came before me - like Cyril - who have made my life so much easier than theirs. The Heart's Invisible Furies follows Cyril Avery, who is not a real Avery according to his adoptive parents, Charles and Maude, from his birth to old age. We see him discover his homosexuality in his youth, the development of his friendship with the confident and glamorous Julian Woodbead, and his lifelong travels both externally to different countries and internally within himself. The novel progresses in line with Ireland's devastating, homophobic history as well as the international suffering and fight for rights of gay individuals, including the AIDS crisis in 1980s New York City. Amidst all of this, we see Cyril grow from a timid, awkward boy to the type of man he may have never envisioned himself to be. I will echo everyone else and say that this book had an "unputdownable" quality, reminding me of masterpieces like A Little Life and Pachinko . This 600-page novel flew by, and I attribute that to John Boyne's immense skill with writing, especially in terms of dialogue and character development. Characters engaged in super long conversations and I never got bored because Boyne captured both sly humor and real feeling in how his characters spoke to one another. Every character, including the side ones, felt so distinct and memorable and painfully human, with their prejudices and tender moments and imperfections. Boyne connected past and future and present so well in this book with hints of foreshadowing and a tightly-sequenced plot. I love how he captured so much raw human emotion through Cyril: desire, joy, loss, wonder, and much more. So many scenes and revelations made me scream under my breath and whisper "omg" nonstop, though one scene in particular ((view spoiler)[Julian's death and his last conversation with Cyril literally made my heart feel like it broke into 20 pieces, which is amazing given how I disliked Julian and how unhealthy their friendship was (hide spoiler)]) struck me as one of the most well-written, emotionally devastating moments in literature of all time. I must reiterate how Boyne shows the severe effects of homophobia, as well as sexism, on the characters in this book and their relationships. I felt so much empathy for Cyril and the shame he experienced around his sexuality, as well as the suffering he went through as a result of concealing his sexuality from those he cared about. If Cyril had been straight, his life would have been so much easier, and that makes me feel so sad and so angry. The way Boyne linked other people's homophobia (e.g., their rejections of gay people, their murders of gay people) to Cyril's internal pain felt both genius and agonizing. Through the longitudinal nature of this book's plot, Boyne provides hope that change can happen if we work hard for it, even if that change will not erase the suffering that has already happened. The strength and compassion of the gay characters in this book stand out as one of its most riveting highlights. I debated between five and four stars for this book because of two main criticisms. First, I felt that Cyril was an extremely passive character, such that a lot of events happened to him as opposed to because of him. However, I forgive this critique because I still felt so much love for him and his circumstances, and loving some entails loving their annoying parts too. Second, a lot of the key plot points in the book centered on romantic relationships and marriages, which felt tiresome and repetitive. I wish that some of these sections had been spent developing Cyril's character (similar to how Hanya Yanagihara did that with Jude in A Little Life). Still, a stunning, fantastic novel through and through. The writing, the characters, and the social commentary all made my heart soar and shatter in equal measure. This book made me reflect on how my own mother told me that I was sick in the head and a monster because of my sexuality, and I so appreciate Boyne and his writing of Cyril for helping me remember that we as gay people go through so much hardship and yet somehow keep on living, surviving, and sometimes even thriving anyway. In many ways, this book is like life itself: full of pain, sweetness, regret, revelations, and finally, hope, that we can make choices that lead to a better future for those we love and care about, especially those who are on the receiving end of society's bigotry and prejudices. ...more |
Notes are private!
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none
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2
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Mar 31, 2018
not set
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Apr 05, 2018
not set
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Mar 06, 2018
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Hardcover
|
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my rating |
|
|
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| 3.55
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 20, 2020
|
Jan 18, 2020
| |||||
|
| 4.26
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 05, 2020
|
Dec 30, 2019
| |||||
|
| 3.92
|
it was amazing
|
Nov 23, 2019
|
Nov 13, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.34
|
it was amazing
|
Oct 03, 2019
|
Sep 28, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.74
|
it was amazing
|
Nov 10, 2019
|
Sep 04, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.06
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 14, 2020
|
Aug 22, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.37
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 2019
|
Jun 02, 2019
| |||||
|
| 3.93
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 09, 2019
|
May 26, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.15
|
it was amazing
|
May 22, 2019
|
May 14, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.32
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 20, 2019
|
May 12, 2019
| |||||
|
| 3.89
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 07, 2019
|
Apr 29, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.31
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 05, 2019
|
Mar 23, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.31
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 23, 2019
|
Mar 22, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.19
|
it was amazing
|
May 05, 2019
|
Mar 15, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.68
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 26, 2020
|
Feb 20, 2019
| |||||
|
| 3.85
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 24, 2019
|
Feb 09, 2019
| |||||
|
| 3.91
|
it was amazing
|
Mar 24, 2019
|
Feb 05, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.39
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 23, 2019
|
Jan 26, 2019
| |||||
|
| 4.70
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 10, 2019
|
Dec 13, 2018
| |||||
|
| 3.94
|
really liked it
|
Dec 13, 2018
|
Dec 03, 2018
| |||||
|
| 4.15
|
it was amazing
|
Nov 24, 2018
|
Nov 07, 2018
| |||||
|
| 4.47
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 28, 2019
|
Sep 17, 2018
| |||||
|
| 4.28
|
it was amazing
|
Dec 26, 2018
|
Sep 13, 2018
| |||||
|
| 4.42
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 14, 2019
|
Aug 14, 2018
| |||||
|
| 4.49
|
it was amazing
|
Oct 18, 2019
|
Jul 27, 2018
| |||||
|
| Ma, Ling
*
| 3.87
|
it was amazing
|
Sep 09, 2018
|
Jul 17, 2018
| ||||
|
| 3.92
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 04, 2018
|
Jun 26, 2018
| |||||
|
| 4.16
|
it was amazing
|
Nov 02, 2018
|
Jun 02, 2018
| |||||
|
| 3.56
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 08, 2018
|
Mar 12, 2018
| |||||
|
| 4.47
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 05, 2018
not set
|
Mar 06, 2018
|
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