Becca
Annie Bot is one of those books that makes me, against my better judgment, strongly desire to return to academia so I can teach a Gender Studies class where it is one of the readings. It also falls into my “I'm so scared of a man in this I don't fully enjoy consuming this piece of media,” camp, accompanied by Nate Jacobs in Euphoria. Why is he so scary? Why are men so scary?
Annie is a highly sophisticated android, a Stella whose primary function is having sex with her owner Doug. This is glossed over with the euphemistic label “cuddlebunny.” Other Stellas serve as maids or nannies, though there is overlap between the categories.
This book provokes questions about humanity. What makes a human? What turns a something into a someone?
An organic vessel teeming with organs and blood, requiring food and water to survive? What about having independent aspirations and preferences? Passing a certain threshold of self-awareness? Feelings, strong ones, including empathy? A base need for autonomy and independence? Deep, warranted resentment for the inherent violence of being owned by someone else?
Some may think there are simple answers to these questions, or that comparing any robots to humans is offensive, naïve, or both. Playing God or becoming sympathetic to machines are dangerous slippery slopes.
Still, as Annie progresses, the water is muddied. Just how sentient and free-thinking must a robot be before consent is relevant? If you are literally programmed to please your owner, does that include lying to spare his feelings?Annie finds herself caught in a central bind, warring with whether to share that Roland had sex with her. This demonstrated so perfectly how women are not believed. We speak up and are dismissed or villainized. We withhold the truth because we know this, have experienced it. We shoulder this weight, then maybe say something long after the fact, when we cannot bear to not. Only then, not speaking up immediately is disqualifying. Why now? Why are you trying to ruin someone's life? He has a wife, a child, a family, a career, whatever it is. He has made something of himself and you are trying to erode that by telling others who he really is.It is not simply disbelief. You are never seen as more duplicitous than during your most vulnerable and truthful admissions. Your credibility is never more undermined than when you are finally saying what actually happened. Women are just dramatic. They are irrational. They have unrealistic standards. They need to calm down. They lie. That's not what really happened. Meanwhile, their partners are idolized. They are being ungrateful. They are so lucky. Many other girls, er, I mean, women, would gladly take their place in a heartbeat. Which Annie does not even have!The main issue I had was the author's choice to cast Annie as an equal and willing participant with Roland. That knocks it a full star down for me, to be honest. I kept waiting for it to be different, for realization to dawn. I think in order to keep us in the dark about Annie's inevitable escape, far too much time and effort was spent trying to lull the reader into a false sense of complacency, with little time left for Annie to come into her own. This was a big disappointment for me. A real letdown, if I'm honest. I think it undercut Annie's motivations in a crucial way.
For fans of [b:Klara and the Sun|54120408|Klara and the Sun|Kazuo Ishiguro|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603206535l/54120408.SY75.jpg|84460796], [b:Stepford Wives|52350|The Stepford Wives|Ira Levin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1554371721l/52350.SY75.jpg|1534281], Ex Machina, and [b:Ella Enchanted|24337|Ella Enchanted (Ella Enchanted, #1)|Gail Carson Levine|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1410727190l/24337.SY75.jpg|2485462]. If you are interested in emerging technologies, relationship dynamics, and fiction about free will and freedom, I think you would enjoy Annie Bot.
By the time he's done, you might understand why a seventy-seven-year-old guy from a tiny island in the Taiwan Strait who's been in a foreign country two-thirds of his life can nail a song, note perfect, about wanting to go home.
Interior Chinatown constantly teeters between heartwrenching and hilarious. It uses a unique format to parse out what it means to be pigeonholed, to dream only within the confines of the discrimination you face. How it feels to be ignored until or unless you are the victim of a hate crime.
The screenplay approach reminds me (though just a little bit) of the pieced together feel of an epistolary novel. It is a little more surreal and abstract, but is deeply real and intensely felt. It is an absolute trip, an entertaining whirlwind masterpiece. It is a new favorite of mine. I felt like I was reading at 2x speed, I could not get it into my brain fast enough.
I have not quite read anything like it, but it did call to mind [b:Fierce Femmes|32279708|Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars|Kai Cheng Thom|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1480517872l/32279708.SY75.jpg|52903547] and Scott Pilgrim at different points.
Don't you see? We bought you when you were broken. Even though you were in pieces, you were worth saving.
A very sweet, lively story about how much effort we put towards not facing or remembering the hard aspects of life. Olivetti and Ernest are both compelling and hilarious narrators, patching together their respective memories to make sense of a sudden loss.
I got very caught up in this. I relate intensely to the unsuccessful misery we put ourselves through to feel like we have any control over what happens to us.
Olivetti is a great kids' book about grief and vulnerability. It is emphatic about the courage it takes to love each other in a fleeting world, and especially the courage it takes to recapture nostalgia and hope after that world has been rocked (pun intended). It kind of meant a lot to me? I kind of want to own it and have it? I also want to own a typewriter for some reason? The cover is also gorgeous?
Things certainly got tied up a little too nicely at the end, and I would have preferred a more ambiguous ending. But also I wanted everyone to be okay and they were and sometimes that is nice as well.
For fans of [b:This Adventure Ends|27779275|This Adventure Ends|Emma Mills|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1455111092l/27779275.SX50.jpg|46885088], [b:The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street|33413919|The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street (The Vanderbeekers, #1)|Karina Yan Glaser|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1486845798l/33413919.SY75.jpg|48265702], and [b:When You Reach Me|5310515|When You Reach Me|Rebecca Stead|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1441759322l/5310515.SY75.jpg|6608018].
A scary middle grade read about an older sister whose birthday is also her deadline to save the entire town from being consumed by an evil force especially focused on her baby sister. You know, kid stuff.
Calista Wynn is kind of like Rudolph in that “deviation from the norm will be punished unless it is exploitable” meme. People are creeped out by her, as if associating with her and her family will taint their normalcy and wellbeing. But in desperate moments, they readily turn to her to find answers. And when they do, the Wynns are there.
The poor communication trope gets to me, and this book has plenty of it. However, I find it a little more excusable here because I think Calista is mirroring the adults in her life.
When we are trying to survive the throes of grief, sometimes we ask things of ourselves and each other that are not fair or sustainable. We keep the most obvious truths bottled up, because of how much it hurts to share them, to unleash that floodgate. We scramble for any sense of control in a world that has proven we have none by what it has already taken.
It makes sense to try to protect loved ones from what's really going on and how we feel, if we think it might hurt them. Calista sees how her father, aunt, and grandmother do not share everything with her mom. She uses this to guide how much she lets her mom in, not realizing you can hurt feelings by NOT sharing hard things, too.
I do wish the book itself had spent maybe 15 more pages reckoning with how much was being asked of Calista and how challenging their home life was. Have Aunt Freya move in, have Thomas' mom and Calista's mom become friends who lean on each other, something. Talk more overtly about how many times Calista was explicitly told she was not allowed to be weak or the center of attention. On top of the natural responsibilities that come with being the oldest, there was a lot of parentification happening. The focus and pacing sometimes felt off, in ways that had us skirt or gloss over some of the most important messages the story could have conveyed.
Some of the exposition felt unrealistic, as well. For example, the principal sharing news of a missing child in great detail to an entire class while a cop stood silently next to him.. Highly in favor of any kids book sharing, “don't talk to cops” messaging, but this abruptly petered out. I also pictured Aunt Freya as Christine McConnell, despite myself.
In all, I would recommend this to fans of [b:The Clackity|59365597|The Clackity (Blight Harbor)|Lora Senf|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1654100019l/59365597.SX50.jpg|93536958], A Series of Unfortunate Events, [b:Small Spaces|36959639|Small Spaces (Small Spaces, #1)|Katherine Arden|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1539180297l/36959639.SY75.jpg|56656020], [b:The Benefits of Being an Octopus|35890044|The Benefits of Being an Octopus|Ann Braden|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1522849548l/35890044.SX50.jpg|57406781], and the Nevermoor series (specifically book #2).
Also, I can't wait until the next time I burn myself to try the “dishcloth wet with cold water drizzled with honey” trick. I'm not saying I'm going to purposefully burn myself. Just, whenever it happens next.
“Making something accessible is a loving way of making sure we all belong.”
A Canadian picture book about movement and accessibility. I learned about the StopGap Community Ramp project and Carmen Papalia's artistry in the notes at the back, and I really liked the block quote at the beginning.
If I'm being honest, the words before and after the book resonated most with me. Though colorful, inclusive, and full of lots of great tidbits and details. I wanted more narrative focus in the text itself. It felt a little scattered, which made it harder for me to grasp a central message or theme.
I think trying to merge physical movements with political movements is ambitious and interesting, but did not quite land for me. It might be a me issue, though! Still a lovely and important book.
“I cannot mourn for what I have not known.”
Now this is the kind of ennui I can get behind. Enough with the stories about male professors listlessly weighing whether to cheat on their wife. No, give me meandering dystopias about women who somehow (but perhaps also inevitably?) find resolve in themselves to continue to exist in a world separate from the community and hope we all take for granted.
Here, our nameless narrator lives in an underground bunker, behind bars. This makes it difficult to have any grasp on seasons or time of day. She cohabitates with 39 other women, but is a few decades younger than everyone else. Men guard the bunker, but do not speak to the women. The women have no privacy and are not permitted to touch one another.
You may be wondering, what is going on? The forty women have the same question. One day, they are suddenly, miraculously, granted an opportunity to find out. The narrator takes it and drags the other 39 along with her. They escape in disbelief.
I can see why this book may not be for everyone, especially if you are used to fast-paced thrillers leading up to shocking twists. But I find something so oddly comforting about depressing, oppressively quiet science fiction. How the biggest mysteries slide into total monotony. Why do I like it so much?!
Anyway. If you like [b:Station Eleven|20170404|Station Eleven|Emily St. John Mandel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680459872l/20170404.SX50.jpg|28098716], [b:The Wall|59468837|The Wall|Marlen Haushofer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639132182l/59468837.SY75.jpg|573687], or [b:The High House|58438623|The High House|Jessie Greengrass|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1639315106l/58438623.SY75.jpg|86405057], you will likely enjoy this. Maybe also [b:Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind|60754889|Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind|Molly McGhee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1682359454l/60754889.SY75.jpg|95796035] or [b:Convenience Store Woman|36739755|Convenience Store Woman|Sayaka Murata|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680105376l/36739755.SX50.jpg|51852264].
Maybe a weird place to start with Naomi Klein, but she does say in Doppelganger that each of her books have been distinct. Here Naomi Klein examines others' conflating her with Naomi Wolf, once a Rhodes scholar who wrote The Beauty Myth, now Steve Bannon's eager-to-please lap dog.
Klein expands this analysis to look at recent pernicious conspiracy theories, which have proliferated to the point that at times it feels we are living in alternate realities to our neighbors and loved ones, who feel similarly disconnected with and unsettled by us.
She names these areas a mirror world or shadow lands. She contends that common fears spiral into patch jobs over unpleasant pasts we are leery to reckon with. We whitewash and sidestep our history. Some actively lobby to expunge it from curricula.
We acknowledge deep inequities not by lifting up and protecting all children, but by fighting for our own children to succeed despite it all, at the expense of everyone else. This scarcity mindset quickly turns to eugenics and fascism, though many with these beliefs do not identify with those terms.
Klein has written an immense book with some immense claims, some of which I found more compelling than others. First of all, when I say immense I mean it. This book could have lost 100 pages and read better. I say, while writing a ridiculously long Goodreads review. Still, she reads the audiobook and I found her narration comforting, even (especially?) when what she was saying was grim.
I liked what Klein shared about how echo chambers hinder our object permanence. When certain pundits are deplatformed from the arenas we have exposure to, that doesn't mean they disappear from relevance. Some cultivate strong, dedicated audiences via outlets we have no overlap with. It's like when I went to DSW recently and realized people still go to department stores, even if I don't. It's just like that.
Klein also gives a scathing takedown of Wolf's failed attempts to be arrested for ignoring COVID safety measures. Wolf's decision to name her daughter after Rosa Parks, paired with invoking imagery of lunch counter sit-ins, is repugnant. She personally harasses a Black-owned restaurant, and invites her live audience to review bomb them. She wields her power recklessly, selfishly, and with little regard for the history she is co-opting, largely to curry favor with political hacks astroturfing coordinated efforts to purge that same history from textbooks.
Perhaps the biggest claims are about how the Nazi regime drew inspiration from the USA settler colonizers' treatment of Indigenous and enslaved and/or segregated Black Americans. I would like to read and watch more about this, but I am comfortable saying Klein is correct insofar as it being disingenuous to position WWII as a simple story of Good vs. (aberrative, unique, conquered) Evil.
What let me down most was the conclusion. I think there were some good twists and punchy lines, and I agree that mutual aid and collective action are antidotes to our fears and uncertainty. There is hope and strength to be had in seeing the power we hold when we come together. I also agree about building purposefully inclusive structures, and dedicating our energy into the success of everyone, instead of us above and instead of others.
However, like, how? Say more on that? It felt like a lot of fluff without enough actionable examples and ideas. Don't talk to me about how bad it is for 500 pages then be like “we must take action” and then the book is over. I agree but elaborate on that instead of talking to me more about Philip Roth.
It was unexpectedly wonderful to read this alongside [b:Against Technoableism|77265030|Against Technoableism Rethinking Who Needs Improvement|Ashley Shew|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1676125743l/77265030.SY75.jpg|102480407]. I liked how both books integrated examples from fictional texts and social media posts and blogs. These forms of media are not always taken as seriously, but important ideas circulate there, especially in the 21st Century.
In all, I think this was a fascinating, expansive, and timely read. I am interested to read Klein's other works. I also bought a seam ripper to take the logos off all my stuff, and it is oddly thrilling. Highly recommend that, even if you don't pick this up.
A fantastic short nonfiction book with a fantastic cover stuffed with useful, accessible information. I feel like this book worked its way inside me and pushed on all these assumptions and biases I did not realize I had from the inside out. Shew gives a frank primer on disability, including common harmful tropes, the medical vs. social model, cross-disability communities, and historic examples of how disabled people have been and are currently targeted as “drains on the system.” I grew up watching Extreme Home Makeover, and distinctly remember a reveal where everyone cried watching a wheelchair-using family member walk again using some new-fangled technology. Much like every other aspect of Extreme Home Makeover, it turns out that was a tacky veneer slapped over ruining the lives of an already struggling family, but we do not have time to talk about Extreme Home Makeover any more than I already have in this Goodreads review. Because it is time to talk about Maintenance Phase. Maintenance Phase is a podcast about wellness culture and fatphobia. It zeroes in on the idea that sometimes people say they are commenting on others' weight out of concern for their health. Yet, many of the medical treatments fat people are subjected to, cause new and serious health issues (example: prescription weight loss pills that could only be prescribed for a few months due to cardiac and neurological problems). Ableism and fatphobia are closely intertwined, as both rest on the idea that health can be ascertained based on outward appearance. This is false in and of itself, but the entire thing crumbles in on itself like an Extreme Home Makeover horse stable themed children's bedroom when the interventions detract from the health of people others are supposedly so invested in.Until this book, I had never thought about the idea that technology can or even should aim to solve (and thus, eliminate) disability. The section on outer space was way more interesting than I thought it would be. I loved reading this alongside [b:Doppelganger 138505710 Doppelganger A Trip into the Mirror World Naomi Klein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1689105362l/138505710.SY75.jpg 167494133] (even though, spoiler alert, I liked this more), as the accounts at times corroborate each other, and both draw on fictional texts. I would also recommend this to fans of [b:Disability Visibility 51456746 Disability Visibility First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century Alice Wong https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1582004027l/51456746.SY75.jpg 76117598], [b:Assata 100322 Assata An Autobiography Assata Shakur https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328857268l/100322.SX50.jpg 943760], [a:Devon Price 15184474 Devon Price https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1601572773p2/15184474.jpg], and [a:Angela Davis 5863103 Angela Y. Davis https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1643594354p2/5863103.jpg].
A coworker loved this and just yesterday I cackled at this image, so I thought this picture book about perfectionism might be good to page through.
And what an absolute delight. Mira captures the struggles of feeling preemptively embarrassed and reluctant about not being naturally gifted at everything. She learns about practicing on your own, and how sometimes the most judgmental audience of you is you, but that can be challenged when we are brave enough to still be vulnerable. She also comes to understand you don't have to excel at something to enjoy doing it, or for it to be worth your time.
I loved the color scheme, motif, how Mira and the other kids are drawn, and the careful but simple underlying message. So sweet, I want to buy it for all my friends' kids.
Oh no what a sweet, sad, hopeful triumph of a book.
Equal parts [b:A Monster Calls|19229818|A Monster Calls|Patrick Ness|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1435813838l/19229818.SY75.jpg|13492114] and [b:Melissa|40948486|Melissa|Alex Gino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1668272142l/40948486.SX50.jpg|44165520] but also so much more, Dear Mothman follows 6th grader Noah, who is grieving the sudden loss of his best friend Lewis. He decides to make his science fair project an homage to Lewis, who was fascinated by cryptids and especially Mothman.
Noah's teacher and parents are confused by his determination to apply the scientific method to Mothman research and worry about false starts and hopes. Despite their doubts, Noah persists, and the project is an unexpectedly healing and brave venture that leads Noah to interrogate what our society deems monstrous and threatening, and why.
Noah is such a pure and innocent character surrounded by harmful forces much larger than himself. He comes to understand, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Mothman is hardly one of them.
A perfect Pride Month read for the weird queer kids using the library, and also for me, a weird queer adult working here. For fans of [b:A Monster Calls|19229818|A Monster Calls|Patrick Ness|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1435813838l/19229818.SY75.jpg|13492114], [b:Melissa|40948486|Melissa|Alex Gino|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1668272142l/40948486.SX50.jpg|44165520], [b:Let's Call It a Doomsday|40942619|Let's Call It a Doomsday|Katie Henry|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1539263216l/40942619.SY75.jpg|63844915], and [b:I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself|60679392|I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself|Marisa Crane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1648063139l/60679392.SY75.jpg|95655500].
For someone opposed to most celebrity memoirs, I sure did love this one.
Fern Brady tells a raw story about what it was like for her to grow up as an autistic Scottish girl, only diagnosed well into adulthood.
Before Fern received any diagnosis, let alone a correct one, she was simply labeled “bad,” by her parents, teachers, and peers. And as Fern points out, as children we are taught to believe whatever adults tell us. Imagine growing up believing you are evil because your brain is wired to react far more strongly to fluorescent lights than most.
Fern was bullied and seen as uniquely gullible. She was subjected to the arm of the carceral state that dabbles in institutionalizing mentally ill, neurodiverse, disabled, poor, and/or traumatized youth. She was slut shamed and latched onto by abusive partners.
She excelled in certain subjects at school, yet racked up debt and failing grades during college because of struggles to articulate basic questions about finding the syllabus or when and where exams were. When she had the courage to ask questions, people would assume she was being lazy or disrespectful.
As issues escalated, her family would pretend nothing was happening. In moments where she most needed understanding and support, she was condemned and punished.
Fern, who I knew already only from Taskmaster, is quite a talented writer, and this is a brave and needed memoir. There was some weird fatphobia and internalized misogyny in the book, from my view, but for the latter, I can't discount how the gender socialized into far more nuanced dynamics and niceties would target her unfairly.
For fans of Hannah Gadsby, Josh Thomas, Derry Girls, [b:I'm Glad My Mom Died|59364173|I'm Glad My Mom Died|Jennette McCurdy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649286799l/59364173.SY75.jpg|93537110], [b:The Woman in Me|63133205|The Woman in Me|Britney Spears|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1689090540l/63133205.SY75.jpg|95308537], and [b:Unmasking Autism|58537365|Unmasking Autism Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity|Devon Price|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1626115588l/58537365.SY75.jpg|91968379].
Absolutely hilarious light sci fi, with a plot that keeps jutting forward just as you think you've figured it out.
Our protagonist, Lauren, makes her way home from a friend's bachelorette party, clambering into her apartment drunk with a painted succulent in hand. Only to find a man in her home. Not just a man, but her husband Michael.
The only (albeit fundamental) issue is that Lauren has never seen this man in her life, let alone married him. Shortly thereafter, he goes into the attic to change a lightbulb he noticed went out. When he comes down from the attic, he's a different man. A different husband.
Lauren finds herself caught in an endless loop of inescapable, ever changing men who some version of herself pledged her life to. Time continues to pass, but normalcy passes her by, as each new husband changes her life, sometimes in small ways, and other times massively. The attic keeps blipping away men and the lives that came with them before she can get her bearings.
This was a really fun read with an ending that kind of sucker punched me. The premise allowed Gramazio to explore the inherent risks of vulnerability, trust, and love, without feeling trite. I also appreciated its long-running jokes and diversity. Wonderful audiobook narration, as well.
For fans of...I don't even know, actually. It is pretty unique. But I liked it so much!
Though I have been gravitating (PUN INTENDED, though it barely works) to science fiction recently, I do not usually pick up climate change fiction/cli fi. I read to escape reality, not face its worst case scenarios head-on. However, I listened to a Libby sample of this, and it hooked me right away.
Yours for the Taking imagines a United States a few decades into the future. Many of the attempts to stave off climate change were too little, too late. One such attempt was introduced by a wildly wealthy corporate feminist named Jacqueline. She created refillables, a setup where consumers have their items refilled by drones that fly in to snag and top off your empty toothpaste tube or olive oil bottle. I greatly desire for refillables to exist. I should be able to walk into any grocery store and buy one teaspoon of star anise and that's it. LET ME DO IT.
The combination of generational wealth and refillables wealth has given Jacqueline a tremendous amount of power. So when the global government decides to create a handful of hubs called Inside, she claims one as her own. And without the knowledge or permission of the government, she decides to run her Inside a little bit different. A little bit without any men.
Chapters of this story alternate between a small group different characters over the course of decades. We have chapters set on Earth (outside and Inside), and in space. We see the routines people fall into and the pockets of joy and meaning they find for themselves in the most desperate of circumstances. We see how people adapt and survive and (easily, frankly) overcome the violent, self-serving tendencies so many of us fear are inevitable in any crisis.
The pacing and the reactions of character are both very strange. Things come to a head so suddenly and absolutely towards the very end. There does not seem to be an internal struggle or the pure panic of your life being a lie. People's moral judgments are immediately accepted as they pivot course entirely. The drugs explain some, though certainly not all of this, and lazily at that. I think Jacqueline is let off easy (obviously just kill her, I say as someone opposed to capital punishment lol), and also has too much pinned on her. That is not how culture works. Why wasn't Ava more upset with Olympia? Why did Olympia calmly go along with everything until one moment when she didn't because she was horny? Why kill Ellory, one of the few men (really, boys) of color we know of like that, as some fridging plot device? I kind of liked that the ending was open-ended, but because of the nothing turned to everything turned to nothing again leading up to it, it was difficult for me to keep buying what was happening. And also, what a cop-out to just fade to black on Jacqueline's entire venture. Everyone seemed to be underreacting, or speeding through processing any new information. I can't figure out what it was trying to communicate about power and gender and a just society, because everything turned slippery, as if I was supposed to accept that certain characters were wholly good and others wholly bad. Many of the big reveals were embarrassingly obvious. Ava, if anything, felt like a Bella Swan-esque self-insert. I did grow attached to some of the characters with time, but I don't think the depth of any of them was enough to carry us through the gaping plot holes. I can't explain why I read it so eagerly when all of that is true, but I cannot pretend it hit hard.
One of those cases of the premise not living up to its execution. I felt the same way about [b:The Power|29751398|The Power|Naomi Alderman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1462814013l/29751398.SY75.jpg|50108451]. Fans of [b:The Measure|58884736|The Measure|Nikki Erlick|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1656427584l/58884736.SY75.jpg|88976673] might enjoy it? There was a lot about this that I found intriguing, but the ending ultimately let me down.
Jonathan Abernathy is hopelessly, crushingly in debt. One night, Abernathy dreams he should go to a certain building and ask for a job. In his waking hours, he finds the building and fills out an application. He is offered the job.What job, you may ask? First of all, one which ensures he will never ever be free of work, because all his shifts will take place while he is asleep. He is to audit others' dreams. Corporations are now allowed to (secretly) opt their employees into dream auditing. The goal is to improve employee productivity by having people invade their subconscious, to identify and vacuum out any yucky or mentally ill or disturbing bits. As the saying goes, what you don't know can't hurt you! Why not take an eraser to your sleeping underlings' brains so invoices are submitted in a more timely manner? Seems risk-free and fine.Throughout the novel, Abernathy is trying and failing to keep touch with reality, and to spin his job in a positive light. Because despite it all, his job provides a glimmer of hope that he may escape debt and live a life before he dies.He was sought out precisely because of his desperate circumstances, and this could be his only way out of them. He may not be able to dream while sleeping anymore, so he compensates by dreaming while awake. He can finally hope for the bare minimum with a little less irony. Being able to make plans, to look forward at all, feels unfathomable. It is a feverish depiction of the primal tunnel vision that kicks in when you are routinely denied the smallest of wins. Les Mis could never.McGhee's writing is funny, devastating, and surreal. Jonathan Abernathy is so sympathetic and tender and awful and wonderful and human. The audiobook is one of the best I have listened to in a long while, and where I live is available immediately for free on the library app hoopla. I am all in on any fiction that starts with a nonfiction [a:David Graeber 29101 David Graeber https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1479657149p2/29101.jpg] quote.The book is unique, but calls to mind lots of other media, like Severance (the TV show and the unrelated [b:Ling Ma book 36348525 Severance Ling Ma https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1507060524l/36348525.SY75.jpg 58029884]), The Double, The Good Place, [b:Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism 1213463 Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism (Perspectives on Gender) Melissa Wright https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347559260l/1213463.SY75.jpg 1201878], workplaces in [a:T.J. Klune's 5073330 T.J. Klune https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1546275989p2/5073330.jpg] books, [b:I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself 60679392 I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself Marisa Crane https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1648063139l/60679392.SY75.jpg 95655500], [b:Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine 31434883 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493724347l/31434883.SY75.jpg 47327681], and [b:Klara and the Sun 54120408 Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603206535l/54120408.SY75.jpg 84460796]. Please read it so we can talk about it!
Removed rating 1/8/25. Angie Kim write a gripping novel without pushing misinformation about autism and/or disability while centering the perspectives of family members challenge (impossible).
— — —
Happiness Falls is narrated by Mia, a college student doomed to return home by the COVID pandemic. Mia is back at her parents' house in Washington DC, along with her fraternal twin John, mom and dad, and younger brother Eugene. One morning Eugene and Dad go for a walk, and only Eugene comes home. Eugene knows where Dad is or if anything happened to him, surely. Except that Eugene is nonverbal. Meaning, the only person who can tell us where Dad is, cannot tell us where Dad is.
THE GOOD
Kim is a very talented writer with a unique perspective given her background, both cultural and professional. I fly through her books. The title is also very good.
I love Mia. She is one of my favorite narrators of all time. She has a lot to say and she has a lot of passion behind it. She goes on frequent tangents about topics that seem unrelated to everyone but her, revealing her point only after considerable backstory and lead-up. These tangents are sometimes compensation to avoid directly looking at something she's not quite ready to face or voice. She tries to think her way through and out of things in a way that aggravates others around her, because she gets caught in made-up loops that start to feel real and higher stakes the longer she's stuck. Her parents view her as cynical compared to siblings, but she is sensitive and feels hurt by this realization. She is great. I adore her. I would die for her.
THE ???
This book is a broken jack-in-the-box. The song plays and plays and the clown never springs out. Mia alludes to Detective Janis' betrayal, an Asian international adoption falling through, coming to regret different moments. And then, nothing happens. It all leads to absolutely not one thing. I did not need us to find a body; I think an ending about lack of closure and the pain ambiguity adds to grief is quite compelling! I just felt led on by the red herrings thrown about. It felt like Kim got tired of writing the book and the editors got tired of editing out all the moot foreshadowing.I have been thinking about what we learned from Adam. To not try so hard to control for happiness and certain outcomes in a life full of unpredictability and coincidence? Trite. Maybe it is that wanting to protect people from harm can come at the expense of you being vulnerable or honest with them, which itself causes harm. Adam was shocked to learn his calculated efforts to prove efficacy of letterboard communication with TFT were cruel. His solution is to do it again, but this time to prove it CAN work. In service of this larger project with Eugene, he is dismissive of information that his other family members bring him. What does this teach us? To not wait to tell others good news just because it may not be set in stone? To not apply so much pressure to arbitrary benchmarks? To free ourselves of the assumption that progress must be linear and incredible to “count”? That all joy and wonder comes with a risk of surprise hurt? Mostly I learned that everyone in the family is pretty quite a lot autistic, not least of all Adam.Last and kind of least, through no fault of his own, Vic felt like a very hamfisted and unnecessary addition. He was great, but it felt like a strange way for Kim to show anti-Blackness in America's police apparatus without giving the character much depth or purpose. Did we even know Vic was black until the cops showed up (I am genuinely asking because I'm not confident in the level of attention I paid the audiobook lol)? That plus the one-off George Floyd name drop felt to me like products of the time Kim wrote this book. I think their inclusion was undercut by a lack of accompanying substance.
THE BAD
This mostly covers things I've observed in both of Kim's novels.
Didn't Angie Kim just write a book with an autistic boy as a tragic central character ([b:Miracle Creek|40121959|Miracle Creek|Angie Kim|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1537287675l/40121959.SX50.jpg|55758063])? That she did, to critical acclaim. At least Eugene is alive. Although he may be a murderer. Of his own dad. Hm.
Wasn't the portrayal of autism in Miracle Creek disproportionately focused on the burden placed on women caregivers to excuse some pretty blatant abuse? I think there's an argument there!
In the end, we find out Eugene is not nonverbal. He had words all along, which motor difficulties made extremely challenging to get out into the world. He was trapped within his own body, perpetually demeaned and underestimated by everyone, including his own family. He was assumed not to have the cognitive faculties to speak based on physiological symptoms. This led even those most supportive of him to believe he lacked intelligence, potential, and the right to participate actively in any decisions even and especially related to his own life and therapies. I think there are interesting (but inadequately examined) pieces here about how the people most supportive of you can also be most unsupportive of you. There is deep trauma in expecting disabled loved ones to overcome diagnosed conditions to meet certain benchmarks of functionality or productivity, and withholding approval when they are unable to do so. But there is also deep trauma in loved ones being so convinced of your incapability, of limitations they define and enforce for you. It's like a Black Mirror episode. I'm pretty sure it was a literal Black Mirror episode.I do like that Happiness Falls shows sometimes possessing the wrong kind of knowledge can cause harm that totally eclipses complete ignorance. In other words, thinking you understand autism and neurodivergence but having that knowledge hinge on archaic or skewed stereotypes that dehumanize autistic people and undermine their authority compared to medical professionals, can result in confidently making harmful choices on behalf of someone else and turning a blind eye to their protests and suffering in the process. Sometimes we misjudge whether our adjacency to a topic qualifies us to speak on it definitively, with major consequences.
With that in mind, the author's note details a lot of research Kim did to write this book, including several specific sources. I don't want to wave away the work she put in, work I myself have not done. I just find that work hard to square with repeated unchallenged mentions of “quiet hands.”
Still, maybe this is to autistic representation as trans representation is to [b:Mad Honey|59912428|Mad Honey|Jodi Picoult|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1642705453l/59912428.SY75.jpg|94339228]. That is to say, it's bad to me, even harmful, but maybe it is for an open-minded older generation to start to understand (or unlearn) something very novel (pun intended) to THEM. Even this is hard for me to accept because I just think we can do so much better. Okay that's all.
15 years ago, Jason decided to put his illustrious career on the backburner to see through an unexpected pregnancy with his now-wife, Daniela. Daniela's talent as an artist and Jason's cutting-edge physics research were replaced with marriage and raising their son, Charlie.
On his way back from drinks with a friend who put his own career first and has the prestige to prove it, Jason finds himself unexpectedly abducted while carting home ice cream for Daniela and Charlie. Dark Matter follows his desperate effort to be reunited with them.
I thought the beginning of this was interesting, and it did pick up at the end, but I found it dragged in the middle, especially for how wild the events transpiring were. I have read a handful of other speculative fiction authored by men where the premise is excellent but the execution is lacking ([b:The Humans|16130537|The Humans|Matt Haig|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353739654l/16130537.SY75.jpg|21955852], [b:Reincarnation Blues|33571217|Reincarnation Blues|Michael Poore|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500555996l/33571217.SY75.jpg|54372404], [b:The Perfectly Fine House|52294362|The Perfectly Fine House|Stephen Kozeniewski|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1583945288l/52294362.SY75.jpg|77451566]).
Usually where it falls flat for me is the characters. The women are not dimensional humans insomuch as reductive motivators for the men. The men are plagued with ennui but fundamentally good and strong. This makes exciting plots incredibly boring.
Take Jason. He loves his wife and son. He doesn't regret leaving science behind for his family, unless? He appreciates his life as is, unless? The takeaways are painfully trite. Family will always be the most important thing, no matter how much you achieve financially or professionally. You don't realize what you have until it's gone. The quiet comfort of loved ones is fleeting, not something to take for granted. It's like Blake thinks his audience is a toddler watching a Hallmark movie.
Amanda was a particularly hamfisted addition, with competing roles as “free therapist” and “would-be mistress.” She spells out obvious psychological principles to redirect Jason's entire mindset, tries to sleep with him, then bolts in the night, never to be heard from again. There were so many other and better ways to accomplish the same things. I also pondered whether this book is traditionalist propaganda about the nuclear family, but I think that may just be a bad case of my Too Online Brain.In fairness, I think Ned Fulmer probably knocked this down a star as well. 2024 Becca is definitely leery of Wife Guys, and Jason is definitely a Wife Guy. Which I guess makes sense for how Daniela was written. She and Charlie immediately believe Jason about the multiverse and wander off into another universe. We really needed to have Jason kill zombie Daniela instead of giving him a few more pages with his actual wife for her to ask some follow-up questions?
Anyway, I am still thinking about this a lot days after finishing it, and I am still interested in [b:Recursion|42046112|Recursion|Blake Crouch|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1543687940l/42046112.SY75.jpg|64277987].
I don't know! It was cute and exciting and Cinnamon is a hilarious main character who holds her own against many powerful people and forces. I also grew fond of a lot of the side characters.
Still, I am picky about romance with an overconfident man. If they start out arrogant, I at least want them to get nervous and weird over time because I find that endearing. Overconfident all the way through is less my jam, because I do not like when men smugly inform women “I know you want me too and eventually you'll admit it and we'll be together” and then that just ends up happening in the end? It is coercive and undermines respect for someone telling you “no.” Also it implies that men know better than women, what women want. Based on all my experiences with men, that is the most fantastical element of this fantasy novel. And the love interest is a dragon.
HOWEVER, I was won over by the Cheese Queen chapter as someone who once got drunk and ate so much Trader Joe's smoked gouda that I messaged several friends individually begging for reassurance that I “would not die of the cheese.” Hotter still was the idea of a man who can just put his hand on my forehead and take away my physical ailments. As a frequent (yet brave) head and tummy ache sufferer, this is as intriguing as Twilight (and inexplicably Confederate soldier) Jasper's emotional powers to smooth over adolescent Becca's undiagnosed clinical depression. Why am I oversharing in a Goodreads review.
The pacing is pretty quick, which I kind of liked but at times felt rushed, and more like telling than showing. As always I am a prude and the sex scenes and dirty talk made me feel like an awkward voyeur after a point.
Despite what may seem like a lukewarm review I am absolutely picking up more of this series as it becomes available. I've found I like this certain subgenre of fantasy a lot. There needs to be more dumb fantasy and superhero media! I'd recommend this to fans of [b:Legends & Lattes|61242426|Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1)|Travis Baldree|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1654581271l/61242426.SY75.jpg|94968745], [b:In Other Lands|31944679|In Other Lands|Sarah Rees Brennan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1496783711l/31944679.SY75.jpg|52603350], [b:My Roommate Is a Vampire|60041932|My Roommate Is a Vampire|Jenna Levine|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1665612756l/60041932.SY75.jpg|94663345], and also [b:Get a Life, Chloe Brown|43884209|Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters, #1)|Talia Hibbert|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1614273529l/43884209.SY75.jpg|66903616].
Mr. Villain's Day Off is a hilarious and quaint depiction of insisting on a work/life balance. An easy entry point to manga for those like me who haven't read much of it, with lessons about the depth of those with a rough and intimidating exterior, taking time to decompress, being comfortable doing fun things in public by yourself, and not being embarrassed about special interests. For fans of [b:Check, Please!|37534577|Check, Please! Book 1 #Hockey (Check, Please!, #1-2)|Ngozi Ukazu|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1589341298l/37534577.SX50.jpg|59136002] and [b:Scott Pilgrim|29800|Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (Scott Pilgrim, #1)|Bryan Lee O'Malley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348109012l/29800.SX50.jpg|30220].
A sprawling history that manages not to be too dense, though maybe that's only because I grew up Mormon and was intensely fascinated. Now I'm just going to ramble for too long about some takeaways that stuck with me.
The tension between Joseph Smith's (the first Mormon prophet) family and Brigham Young (the second Mormon prophet, and the namesake of BYU) following Joseph's death. How Mormonism is a uniquely American faith, yet many early saints viewed the US government's treatment of their faith as oppressive and divorced from its own founding principles.
Some early Mormons viewed the persecution of Indigenous tribes as comparable to how the state treated their religion. First of all, no. Second of all, Mormons identified all tribes under the umbrella term “Lamanite,” and went on to establish American Indian Boarding Schools, whose attendees were taught they were “apples” — red on the outside but white on the inside (Y I K E S). Similar teachings were relayed to Black saints — they were promised to be perfected in heaven, which meant turning white (Y I K E S).
(I also learned about how Reconstruction Era reforms pitted American Indians and Black Americans against one another. That is not particularly related, it was just grim. Oppression always hinges on preventing coalition building among vulnerable groups. Always. Because there is no way for people hoarding power and wealth to win when everyone else stands together. Okay back to my book review.)
Mormons have long pursued wider acceptance by Christianity and mainstream culture. As Mormonism grew, its members wanted Utah to gain official statehood and to expand the faith's reach globally. To this end, they made concessions, especially about (at least public practice of) polygamy. Polygamy was once a central and cherished Mormon principle, yet from the beginning the practice was often hidden from first wives, and later generations did their best to downplay polygamy's relevance to Mormonism.
Mormonism distinguished itself in the beginning with personal revelation, but with time became highly hierarchical and esoteric. Assassinations of core leaders dropped off steeply after a rocky start. Increasingly older white men stood at the helm, whose revelations happened to include a ton of racism, sexism, and queerphobia.
Even as they sanitized their own history, church leaders became more vocal about new problematic policies. Mormon doctrine became more regressive about race and gender, forbidding Black saints to participate in ordinances necessary to achieve the highest level of salvation. As attitudes about race began shifting during the Civil Rights Movement, homosexuality was promptly identified as a new target.
The church faced a tricky balancing act, between affirming that the Lord speaks through living prophets and wishing some of those prophets did not do a lot of what they did (child brides, I'm referring to pedophilia) and did not say a lot of what they said (Elder Holland giving a strangely vicious talk about muskets in reference to people with “same-sex challenge” existing).
Was Heavenly Father really in favor of segregation until 1978? How can Mormons undermine the authority of past prophecies without implicating the discernment of current and future prophets? Why would God urge a wide-sweeping “I'm a Mormon” campaign and then five years later ask that no one use the term again? Why would the Lord choose to speak through men who allowed their personal biases to leech into the supposedly divine?
Benjamin Park provides a measured history about the dimensions and tensions within the church, casting prominent figures with nuance. I believe he strikes a fair tone, making it clear when evidence is scarce and laying out timelines and primary sources rather than trying to manipulate a certain narrative into being. His voice is most prominent in the conclusion, but I liked it. I don't know who this book's audience necessarily is, other than me, but it most definitely includes me.
Opal and her younger brother Jasper have grown up in a complacent Kentucky town built on, like the rest of America, a shameful bloody past swept under a whitewashed rug.
After their mom dies, the only thing that keeps Opal going is ensuring Jasper has a future to look forward to outside of this place. She also dreams constantly about a spooky house down the road. But that is fine and normal and don't worry about it.
Opal is stubborn, and finds herself caught in cycles of miscommunication with both Jasper and spooky house occupant Arthur. Some readers may consider that frustrating. I am personally sympathetic to control freak women who do not vocalize their priorities and try to think their way out of problems and assume they understand and moreover are responsible for their loved ones' happiness. Who knows why I would find that so compelling? Truly a mystery. Anyway I'm saying I did not mind that but I get it if you do.
I really liked the slow build of magic being real only for Opal to be too tired to react or care. It reminded me of when they tried to tell us all that aliens exist and we could not summon anything in response. I liked the way in which the house was sentient. It was a petulant moody annoyance that was trying its very best to help with an enormous undertaking.
I liked how irritable the love interests were about being horny. I liked that they matched each others' melodramatic martyr energy. I like that the book kept reiterating how ugly Opal's soulmate was, because it is true that sometimes ugly is the hottest thing.
I'm just waffling with the end. I didn't feel like a take-home point really landed for me. I was interested in these themes of home and family. What we do and do not owe our biological family. How names and family are things we can change and decide for ourselves. The idea of property - who owns a house? Who owns land? How does past pain and lack of closure map onto places that still exist to this day?
I felt like Opal was trying to say something about all of this at the end, but I didn't fully grasp its significance or feel like the ending culminated meaningfully. I think part of it, is that it feels like Opal went from her life revolving around Jasper to her life revolving around Arthur. And I guess home ownership? I mean, part of me gets it. I do be Zillowin. And I think a quaint quiet life is okay to be content in, especially after surviving chaos. But did the townsfolk just all get amnesia? Or are they really that disengaged? I'll have what they're having.
I don't know, it felt flat for me. Unrelatedly, the word “harassed” was repeated far too many times. I felt harassed. HA. Okay.
I did have tons of fun reading this, despite the ending. They should turn the cover artwork into wallpaper for me to buy. I'd recommend this to fans of [b:Rules for Vanishing|42872940|Rules for Vanishing|Kate Alice Marshall|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552954687l/42872940.SX50.jpg|66663075], [b:We Have Always Lived in the Castle|89724|We Have Always Lived in the Castle|Shirley Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1704229774l/89724.SX50.jpg|847007], [b:Pet|43568395|Pet (Pet, #1)|Akwaeke Emezi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548836225l/43568395.SX50.jpg|60224408], [b:The Perfectly Fine House|52294362|The Perfectly Fine House|Stephen Kozeniewski|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1583945288l/52294362.SY75.jpg|77451566], [b:Through the Woods|18659623|Through the Woods|Emily Carroll|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414845473l/18659623.SX50.jpg|26477611] and [b:Book Lovers|58690308|Book Lovers|Emily Henry|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1638867089l/58690308.SY75.jpg|92341790].
This review is very long because MLMs are a special interest of mine. Get ready for me to be INSUFFERABLE.
You may be familiar with some MLMs (multi-level-marketing companies), like Amway, LuLaRoe, Young Living, or doTERRA. All these companies offer products, but the main way the company makes money is not by selling products, but by recruiting others...to recruit others...to recruit others, on and on. Many see MLMs as pyramid or ponzi schemes, or even cults. Those in MLMs, predictably, disagree.
MLMs in the United States target women, and especially moms with children still at home. Often these women are lonely, bored, stressed, or some combination. MLMs promise prospective recruits flexibility to make their own hours and spend time at home with family, extra income with little effort, and the empowerment of being your own boss and networking with other ambitious women.
It is easy to join but hard to leave, and harder still to make a profit. Most lose money, and others earn a paltry sum compared to the amount of time put in. Emily Lynn Paulson found a needle in a haystack. She joined an MLM and financially succeeded. Despite this, she left. And now she has written this book about how MLMs are exploitative, racist organizations.
I found a decent amount to like here. Opening a book talking about winning a white Mercedes and then getting a DUI driving it home is an excellent if tragic hook. The introduction also includes several bold claims about MLMs. Paulson says they perpetuate white supremacy. She compares MLMs to religious cults like the Unification Church, alleging that both use the BITE model to prey on vulnerable people.
She says they are anti-feminist despite claiming to promote women's empowerment. She talks about the irony of “girl power” organizations being so flippant about consent. Coercing others to join, refusing to accept that no means no, lashing out when rejected. She says MLMs are socially isolating despite claiming to promote sisterhood. Pushing everyone you know to join often leads to strain and alienation with existing friends and family members. Emily joins to make new friends, but instead experiences jealousy and infighting. Everyone has ulterior motives because their income is tied up in each others' commitment to the cause.
MLMs promise opportunity without sacrificing family time, but Paulson gets so caught up in the noise that she goes from already being a full-time homemaker to paying for a live-in nanny. The more money the MLM gives her, the more money she spends out of pocket to prove how lavishly the MLM lets her live. For years she believes her success (and others' failure) is based on the amount of effort put in, until she stops making an effort and the checks keep coming while her down-line continues to struggle.
Alcohol is served heavily at MLM events, often without any substantial food. When Paulson becomes sober after years of heavy drinking, the MLM trots her out to share her inspirational story of sobriety, while serving abundant alcohol to the listening crowd.
All of this is fascinating and sick and grim and I'm all in. But then every once in a while (and especially at the beginning and end of the book), the author abruptly undercuts her own argument. She includes multiple lengthy disclaimers about not hating MLMs. Maybe she's trying to avoid defamation suits. Maybe she's trying to soften her tone to better reach current members she hopes will step away. I don't know what it is. It's just so strange to say, “This is white supremacist. I use that term because I mean it. But don't get me wrong, I don't hate it.” Very “I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at animal cruelty” coded of her.
Paulson even compares this to drinking. She's been sober for several years and is passionate about addiction and recovery, but does not mind when others buy and drink alcohol around her. But it's not like her sobriety was spurred by realizing drinking is racist? What a strange connection to make in a book detailing how your drinking increased heavily due to the alcohol constantly pushed during MLM events. Events with an open bar but little if any food, to lower inhibitions. Events meant to get people drunk, because drunk prospects are more likely to join the MLM and drunk consultants are more aggressive in their sales tactics: they feel less remorse about pressuring and guilt tripping people who are supposed to be their friends.
Something that was only mentioned in passing but really stuck with me is a section towards the end where Paulson describes a giant divide between her monthly checks and take home pay after taxes. We find out she was living a $400k salary lifestyle but her salary was much lower, about $85k after all was said and done. She lists all these expenses that cut into the funds actually available to her, and she mentions spending $22k on childcare and $36k on her personal assistant. Oh yeah, she also hired a personal assistant on top of the au pair.
Stop right there Emily. You're complaining about earning “only” 85,000 dollars a year in addition to your husband's income, and you're paying someone else $22,000 a year? This better not be the live-in nanny. Context is lacking, so I am trying not to get too mad at hypotheticals my brain invented.
22 and 36 were just jarringly low amounts to throw out alongside “I didn't even make six figures because I bought Hamilton tickets out of pocket when I went to this conference.” I felt a little ill considering those might be the measly salaries she paid those filling in the gaps for her at home. Without context, I don't feel comfortable jumping to conclusions. My point is more that without context, it doesn't sound...great. It reminded me a little too much of Arlie Hochschild's “care drain” literature I read in college.
Speaking of lacking context, I'd love to know more about the “amends” made to Hannah after pressuring that poor woman to open multiple new credit cards without her husband's knowledge. I hope the amends were material, and I don't mean hand-me-down Kate Spade bags.
It's also weird that she claims to have pretty privilege right off the bat, I'm just gonna say it. She should have talked more about her husband's name being literally Kale, instead. I feel like that really encapsulates her privileged perspective.
Paulson warns about black and white thinking, but pairs her own strong accusations with hemming and hawing about what we can do about how MLMs function. To me, this reads as more blasé than nuanced. It gives the impression that she either does not fully believe (or understand, I guess) what she's trying to teach us, or that she does not condemn bigotry definitively. Neither option is ideal.
Those are the main reasons I struggled with Hey, Hun. Still, I did find some of the book interesting and unique. Fans of [b:Cultish|55338982|Cultish The Language of Fanaticism|Amanda Montell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603741877l/55338982.SX50.jpg|86301080] and [b:The Cult of We|54998264|The Cult of We WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion|Eliot Brown|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1620708897l/54998264.SY75.jpg|86248795] may enjoy it!
I have downloaded the app TikTok as a woman, which means I have at times convinced myself I am autistic, have ADHD, or both. Less jokingly, my family and workplace and self are all so very neurodivergent. Plus I loved [b:Laziness Does Not Exist|54304124|Laziness Does Not Exist|Devon Price|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1607877126l/54304124.SY75.jpg|84737407], by the same author. All good reasons to pick up this book.
Unmasking Autism reminds me a lot of [b:Ace|52128695|Ace What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex|Angela Chen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580804471l/52128695.SX50_SY75.jpg|73599792], because both books straddle this line of “primer/101” and “hugely expansive ambitious vision of a better world we could build together.” Sometimes they're just defining a word, other times they're showing how systems of oppression box even the most privileged in. This happens because justice does not trickle down; it swells upward. Accessibility benefits everyone, including abled people.
At its core, Unmasking Autism insists that there is room and hope for everyone. There is a utopian tinge to some of the concluding points, but I think a lot of the suggestions and exercises are within reach. Dr. Price does not mince words; he spells out the risks and drawbacks of unmasking. But he shows how it can still be worth it, because of what we lose by not taking that leap — both individually and as a species.
This review may just sound fluffy and dramatic, but every once in a while I come across a nonfiction book that really resonates. And to be totally honest, reading Unmasking Autism made me a better person. I feel a little kinder, a little more patient. Dr. Price narrates the audiobook and his tone is comforting. He is emphatic but not preachy or pretentious. His work always provides me with more compassion for myself and others.
I'd recommend this to people who liked [b:Real Self-Care|61327482|Real Self-Care A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included)|Pooja Lakshmin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1660050441l/61327482.SY75.jpg|96704606] and/or did not love [b:The Emotionally Exhausted Woman|60062210|The Emotionally Exhausted Woman Why You're Feeling Depleted and How to Get What You Need|Nancy Colier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1664631572l/60062210.SX50.jpg|94706608]. It has made me want to read more about disability justice, too. My shortlist is [b:Sincerely, Your Autistic Child|54615849|Sincerely, Your Autistic Child|Sharon daVanport|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1605573791l/54615849.SY75.jpg|49605219], [b:We're Not Broken|55985404|We're Not Broken Changing the Autism Conversation|Eric Garcia|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1606026641l/55985404.SX50.jpg|87211805], and [b:Disability Visibility|51456746|Disability Visibility First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century|Alice Wong|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1582004027l/51456746.SY75.jpg|76117598].
A sweet little book for the shy and/or introverted kids, showing them that they can seek out others in quiet corners and find their people if they put themselves out there just a little.
I like that it debunks some stereotypes about not being fun or friendly just because you are the type of person who gets overwhelmed in big groups or loud settings.
I did not expect my first 2024 read to be so pee-centric, but here we are.
Lou is a little fire hydrant who dogs pee on all the live long day (get it, like loo, like a toilet, you understand). One day there is a nearby fire, and he is able to tap into his almost forgotten purpose/power. This lifts his spirits, changing both how others see him, but perhaps most importantly, how he sees himself. It is a cute little read, but did not blow me away.
Not my favorite. The commentary on homelessness was off. I'm not sure how to describe it, but at some point my personal politics have evolved from “honesty is the most important thing” to “give people who have less more, obviously.” People without homes need homes more urgently than they need jobs. Who is to say they do not already have jobs?
I do like the idea that anyone has the power to make enormous positive change with simple acts, and the idea that there is enough for everyone, and then some. I just couldn't stop thinking of that 55 burgers 55 fries ITYSL skit.