Ghost
This is how you write about your crisis of faith or about faith in general without coming across as preachy and ostentatious.
I'm not going to give a star rating because I don't give star ratings to memoirs but I would absolutely recommend this book if you're interested in the intersection of religious trauma and mental illness.
I have to say that I really vibe with Nettel's storytelling style. This story is generally not something I would have expected to enjoy based on the themes but I found myself just turning pages and going along for the ride. The characters were pretty relatable, and they came across as fully formed individuals.
There's a lot of potentially sensitive topics in there (still births, difficulties conceiving, abortion, child neglect, domestic abuse, ableism). I don't think these are treated without sensitivity but if you're sensitive to that stuff do approach with caution.
I'm a little conflicted about this one, if I had read the blurb before reading it I might have realized that I wasn't exactly the right audience but I saw a messed up tooth on the cover and yeah I can't resist that stuff.
The part where Laura was a teenager seemed a little messy and repetitive and I'm not sure if it was done intentionally to convey the immaturity of the character or if it needed another round of edits.
On the plus side it was a quick read.
This one was really solid. I was into it from beginning to end, the characters were interesting, the pacing and the imagery were great. Once I started it, I could not put it down, I left my clothes to wrinkle in the dryer, my orchids to an extra-long soak and my tea to go cold because I was too invested to stop. Is there stuff I could nit-pick at? Yes, there is. Do I care to? No, I had a great time with this weird little book (I just saw that it's apparently a 368 pages long book but it honestly felt no where near that long), and I want to bask in that glorious feeling.
Indigenous speculative fiction is where it's at for me, so I don't think anyone is going to be surprised that I loved this book. Some of the stories were deeply chilling, some were hopeful, some were mournful all were really solid.
I read the French edition of this book and cannot speak for the quality of the English translation in the Exile Editions version.
I didn't really know what this book was about when I picked it up, all I knew is that it came up in a lot of lists during the trans rights readathon so I added it to my TBR.
There's a lot that I really liked about this book, like the fact that it started with a bang and generally got moving pretty quickly. The foreshadowing of things was done really nicely, and the imagery was fantastic. Mars was a phenomenal character too. What I didn't care for was the parents aspect which just didn't land for me and was just sort of eh ok.
3.25 rounded down.
I think this book did a pretty good job of showing what it purported to show which is that the love affair some elements of the right have with authoritarian leaders and antidemocratic sentiments is not new and has been present in one form or another for a long time. It's written in a rather approachable and compelling manner, but it is name heavy so get ready to take note if like me you're terrible with names.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. It certainly had entertaining moments and for personal reasons I found Bina's anger with Eddy particularly funny. It gave me some [b: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead 51648276 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565725457l/51648276.SX50_SY75.jpg 8099373] vibes but the ending wasn't as satisfying.3.5 rounded up.
Normally bleak is a plus for me but here it was the kind of bleak that depressed me even though part of me felt it was a needed one.
I'm also sort of conflicted about the part of the book that Focused on Giselle, on the one hand I thought it was way too long but on the other hand I'm not exactly sure how it could have been made shorter without losing some if its point.
It took me a minute to build the momentum to finish this book, not because it was bad or unimportant, quite the opposite, see the thing is that Alareer's essay was heartbreakingly important when he was still alive, now that he's gone it highlights a loss that's simply beyond comprehension.
Putting a star rating on such a book would feel crass so I won't.
It seems very in to dunk on the fat acceptance/body positivity movement at the moment, I guess with the return of all things early 2000s the fat hatred was bound to come back in force, and I needed a break from the constant barrage of “you're delusional if you think people should treat fatties like human beings” that has been my online experience lately so I reached for this book.
Hagen was easy for me to agree with as I find her views are generally aligned with mine (as in you don't have to find fat people attractive you just have to treat them with the same dignity and respect you expect to be treated with) so it was more of a comfort read than anything for me. She doesn't claim the body positive movement either so if you're not here for getting told to just love your body this one might be up your alley.
Some of the stories in this collection were pretty solid. However the collection format really highlighted the fact that there wasn't a lot of characterization to the stories and that most of them had the same tone and vibes so at the end of the day most of them just sort of blended together.
There's a story about a man who's adopted dog just had to be euthanized because of cancer and it was a peculiar form of horrific for me to read it the day after being told that my adopted cat has cancer and most likely only weeks to live, straight in the feelings!
3.5 rounded up.