Mutmainah > Recent Status Updates

Glad to have been brought back here. Right book, right time I guess.

Trying to force place specific reading memories. Hence this as the choice on a train on Christmas eve.

The tone of this is just so bittersweet. Back to my pairing exercise, this really could work as a companion to ‘Sam’

Been trying to pair the books I’ve read this year. This could be a companion read to The Group, Coleman Hill, or any Tayari Jones book (fitting given the intro). High honours.

Really love the insights about the utter dependence children have on the adults around them (parents in particular). So many witty one liners:

"Tasha, your mother I have been playing with matches and your whole life is on fire"

and "You have heard of an epidemic of disappearing black fathers but you know you'll never be as lucky.

The whole thing feels slightly 'leaving like a father, running like water" coded

Tayari Jones is a master of her craft, she has such an ear for dialogue.

I’d forgotten that the perspective shift was coming. The depiction of the mundanity of the horrors of the occupation (the repetitiveness, the detachment) is really well done.

Those two epigraphs (from Brown Girl Dreaming and My Name is Lucy Barton) really set the tone perfectly

I love love love this. The prose is sharp and emotionally affecting. Each character has such a distinct narrative voice and it’s inventive without feeling directionless

a few thoughts:

- genuinely some of the most insufferable characters i've ever read
- the transition from hating each other to being each other's confidantes was sharp
- i hate when you can tell just how terminally online an author is. It soaks through everything, including a copious amount of Taylor references
- I get the feeling this started as fanfic and was repurposed
- She really can write angst

“All of Aunt Emily’s words, all her papers, the telegrams and petitions, are like scratchings in the barnyard, the evidence of much activity, scaly claws hard at work. But what good they do, I do not know—those little black typewritten words—rain words, cloud droppings ... The words are not made flesh. Trains do not carry us home. Ships do not return again. All my prayers disappear into space”

it might just be the audiobook narration but I do think this could have benefited from a little ruthless editing. It’s starting to feel a touch repetitive. Hopefully the last half pulls it together.

Love when the title makes sense all of a sudden

So far all the elements I appreciate in non fiction are there. Early discussions of methodology, clear thesis. lots of signposting, and discussions of the author’s/ researcher’s positionality.