HBF
3.5!
The most effective and terrifying part of this book is how the “dystopia” feels less dystopian and more inevitable. The commentary on surveillance, patriarchy, the insurmountable pressures of motherhood, and the evils of the justice system were really spot on. Most of the characters were super compelling and I enjoyed the writing a lot.
Basically, I just felt like this book was too long. I struggle when the pacing of books is inconsistent and this is one of those instances. The length of the middle of the book overshadowed the compelling narrative aspects.
The word “gorgeous” seems to be thrown around somewhat casually in book reviews, but the occasion of finishing Lost & Found calls for its use.
This book is most of all gorgeous, but also charming, affecting, informative, varied, and a true testament to the power of vulnerability in writing.
Schulz has a knack for seamlessly interweaving the most personal of details with complex scientific facts and the history of Mt. Olympus. While this is exciting and interesting for the most part, it felt a bit overdone and as though its exemplifying the law of diminishing returns towards the end.
There were countless moments while I was reading this that I just had to stop and take a breath to fully engage with the text. I was moved by the at once complex and simple observations Schulz makes of the ebbs and flows of loss and love.
If I had to describe my favorite kind of novel it would be “unhinged narrator written at such a fast pace you feel like you're living in the chaos of their brain.” And baby baby baby Claire Vaye Watkins got the memo.
Loved this book so much. It's always brave to write an “unlikable” woman but to write an “unlikable” MOM is heroic and so refreshing.
The narrator is so wrapped up in her own head the plot oftentimes feels moot, my favorite. The writing is unreal and the blurred line between memoir, autofiction, and pure make believe is right up my alley.
Would have been a 5/5 if it weren't for the letter portions. Read this book and skip the letters if you're not feeling them — you don't miss much.
I truly loved the first thirty pages of this book. I was excited to be reading something that felt observant and fresh. But then it was essentially just the same thirty pages and attempts at quippy 20-something commentary over and over until the end.
Don't get me wrong, I looooove a book with no plot, but this book had plot but felt like it didn't? The writing was formulaic but almost like the author thought she was pulling a fast one on the readers and that we wouldn't notice.
No snark intended
Wow wow wow. This book makes me never want to read another book NOT by a poet ever again. Abdurraquib's language is at once so gentle and radical that I found myself underlining more often than not. What an incredible anthology packed with history, memoir, poetry, vulnerability, and affection. Cannot recommend highly enough.
A truly funny and equally aching book. Lockwood has mastered a style of writing that is both satirical and deeply affecting at once. The lightness and frivolity of part I made the tragedy of part II even more impactful. I loved it but a lot of that is probably heavily to blame on the fact that I have voluntarily and irreversibly poisoned my own brain so badly by spending hours of my precious life on twitter dot com!
If you are even 1% interested in learning more about the carceral state and pushing your imagination beyond the realms of the prison industrial complex, read this book!! It's an amazing, comprehensive, human-centered look at the way incarceration rules so much of the world beyond the walls of prison and the courts. Also, I found the audiobook version helpful in digesting the statistics and data.
I found a lot of this book really informative about the ways the legacy of slavery still permeates the lives of Black Americans daily. Many insights were also instructional for me as a white woman and white educator of Black children. But, at many points it felt as though the author was actually doubling down on the harmful beliefs of white supremacy while arguing against it.
“But I do not believe the acts of oppressors are my people's shame. For me, that my people became, created, and imagined from a position of unfreedom is a source of deep pride, not shame. I hope you learn that too. What better evidence of human beauty and resilience could there be?”
A beautiful, striking, loving, brutal letter from a Black mother to her Black sons on growing up and living in America.
“Better to imagine his friends happy than to see their unhappiness up close. And unhappy they certainly would be - that has been the lesson this when, hasn't it? The misery of other people, the persistence of unhappiness, is perhaps all that connects them. Only the prospect of greater unhappiness keeps them within the circumscribed world.”
This book is one that sits heavy and makes you wish you could close your eyes and read at the same time. It's a painfully realistic and raw look at loneliness in a crowded, friend-filled life and the pain that comes with trying to live authentically. Taylor's work makes you realize the hindrance that can sometimes come with being self-aware. Many moments are written with beautiful clarity and intent. The lacking scenes are those that are paced questionably. Overall, a deeply hollowing look at where a life without self-esteem can lead.
An absolute must-read. Kotlowitz's style of reporting is seamlessly narrative while maintaining integrity and allowing the subjects to keep their autonomy. I'll soon be engaging with the communities represented in this literature and I've never been more energized to take on such work with empathy. Regardless of one's line of work, geographic positioning, demographics, or interests, An American Summer is a captivating and necessary American anthology.
