holy fuck, a burning such a fast paced read, absolutely devastating. empathetic yet brutal treatment of how greed and power causes people to turn a bliholy fuck, a burning such a fast paced read, absolutely devastating. empathetic yet brutal treatment of how greed and power causes people to turn a blind eye. how we accept justifications the world provides us because it’s easier than to do the right thing. so timely, stunning and intense characterizations, and you really do feel them even as you think about what they let happen. ...more
one of the most gut wrenching books i’ve read in a while. the type where after i just sat back and felt. what a gorgeous work, does a really good job one of the most gut wrenching books i’ve read in a while. the type where after i just sat back and felt. what a gorgeous work, does a really good job capturing raising race and class consciousness from a white perspective. empathetic, yet sure-footed. it knows what it criticizes. it sometimes punches in a pretty obvious, almost borderline self deprecating, “white-person-realizes-race-exists” type of way, but i think it ultimately was executed well. and this sort of empathy, the hope for the younger generation to do better than the generations of the past, the belief in the power of kids & teens to change the world and change hearts, all packed into the metaphor of the potato plant. poisonous leaves, poisonous everything that lives above the dirt. in the dirt is where beauty can grow. that people also sometimes tunnel down, tunnel around instead of surfacing to the truth too. that beautiful things can grow from rotten roots. that what grows under the ground isn’t always an exact reflection of what’s visible on the surface. gonna think abt this, the way it was written, its characters and its heart, for a really long time. ...more
i enjoyed this ride mostly. finished it in airport/airplane transit. very digestible, fast paced writing.
i actually thsomewhere between 3.5 and 4
hmmm
i enjoyed this ride mostly. finished it in airport/airplane transit. very digestible, fast paced writing.
i actually think this was executed better than my heart is a chainsaw in terms of its meta acknowledgement of horror and final girl culture; mostly that it flowed way more. however i did like jones’ indigenous character adding a lot of personality and spunk to the story; lynette and grady’s acknowledgement of different cultures/races/ethnicities feels a lot more hesitant and tiptoeing ; i also think that lynette is a slightly less built up character. she’s interesting and an unreliable narrator but idk something about the way she acts and interacts throughout the book, especially in the ending, didn’t feel consistent all the way through; the ending felt a little rushed.
overall, i enjoyed the commentary on the final gurl narrative from a bunch of different perspectives; this especially punctuated with newspaper clippings and other fun little media bits interspersed. it really built up this slightly alternative universe grady built. definitely this novel is a love letter to slashers, and for that i have no complaints. ...more
uhhh i like the idea of it? of the 23 stories, kinda gives me some of the vibes of the 8 show in the greed of peopummmmmm
tbh it was kinda mid as fuck
uhhh i like the idea of it? of the 23 stories, kinda gives me some of the vibes of the 8 show in the greed of people whose dreams of fame and/or money creates horror in human behavior
i liked the afterword? i thought all of this being based on somewhat true stories is interesting.
mostly: it’s treatment of the trans woman in that one horror story? like i understand what he’s saying and i think it’s fucked up. like i get how the vibes r kinda like terfs being terfy but it just feels wholly traumatizing without any criticism or like. thought into what’s wrong. it kinda just feels extremely hateful of trans women. ...more
uhh tbh took me a LONG time to get into it. i was having such a reading moment and then i hit a wall with this book. but, i’m so glad potentially 4.5…
uhh tbh took me a LONG time to get into it. i was having such a reading moment and then i hit a wall with this book. but, i’m so glad i stuck with it. finishing it was rewarding, the concept was so fun, i love the trans rep and i think it was well done, i think it does a great job of acknowledging the difference between past times politics and contexts in comparison to now without feeling overly intense or addressed poorly. what a fun cast of characters, a super original plot line, and an ode to the teen girl who wants the world...more
i fucking hate tapeworms on a deeply personal, predating me reading this book, level. so this was a brutal read**spoiler alert** uhhhhhhhhhh holy shit
i fucking hate tapeworms on a deeply personal, predating me reading this book, level. so this was a brutal read.
a hint of lord of the flies with less tribalism bc there’s only 5 boys. max is the only one to make it out. don’t really feel like there’s much thematic weight to the book? i guess science bad, military also bad and government will sacrifice kids for the public good? capitalism breeds biological weapons? idk but it was interesting and very well paced, and i enjoyed the actual reading of it despite it feeling like a series of events that just like… happens,.. not a lot of sympathy for any of the characters ...more
feels strange rating this book bc it feels so sealed in my memory of the past and being in high school BUT rereading this series for g!
i did really enfeels strange rating this book bc it feels so sealed in my memory of the past and being in high school BUT rereading this series for g!
i did really enjoy reading this back and felt like i picked up a lot more than i did the first time i read it. and; the characters r a lot of fun. i do think im gonna enjoy reading catching fire and mockingjay bc they’ll have more allusions to revolution that i think ill have vastly different perspectives on now...more
finished in a day. enjoyed, like i tend to do with king. premise is pretty interesting and especially considering that i’m reading it in 2025 and it’sfinished in a day. enjoyed, like i tend to do with king. premise is pretty interesting and especially considering that i’m reading it in 2025 and it’s set, prospectively, in 2025. thinking on that and comparing how we are to this dystopian world king constructs is interesting.
ofc, as with other 80’s era king books, beware the N word and other slurs, fatphobia, etc. unlike other king books of the era, though, there’s more of an element of revolution and disavowal of systems. while that’s a common element in many king books, i found myself surprised at the strength of sentiments that are held up today; ACAB and fuck state legitimized violence, class revolution ultimately is about a people movement and not an individual, even in spite of how richards commands his own ending, he acknowledges the future lying in the people taking back power.
very hunger games esque, with the glamor and capitalism driving a games that derives entertainment from real time death, money being the prize. dystopian as it is, unfortunately doesn’t feel so different from the casual brutal violence we see on our phones today, that we let go by.
one of the more thought provoking books of this era of king...more
lesbians in iran. struggling with the quintessential of queer experience; how do you achieve your “becoming” when the world renders your life unliveablesbians in iran. struggling with the quintessential of queer experience; how do you achieve your “becoming” when the world renders your life unliveable? under ideological and political siege, how do we make our lives? extremely fast read, somewhat sad, was really interesting to see how intersectionality played out; i.e. the (conditional) “acceptability” of trans people as opposed to gay/lesbian people ...more
oh em gee. ngl i forgot to write a review so here we are a couple weeks later …
this is a book that sits with you. i just finished watching the 8 show oh em gee. ngl i forgot to write a review so here we are a couple weeks later …
this is a book that sits with you. i just finished watching the 8 show on netflix and its similar that it sits with you. it doesn’t need a veiled metaphor because the brutality of capitalism and the way it causes routine (state sanctioned) violence isn’t veiled. it’s outright, and it’s normalized, and that is the intensity of tender is the flesh. it is so clear in what is communicating and it hits all the harder because something that feels like an exaggerated violence and something “we would never do”… is actually not dissimilar to what IS happening in the world. there’s a line where the hunter, a character who is first introduced by the sheer intensity of his atrocities, makes a remark about human nature. and the terrible thing is he isn’t far off the mark; from what we see happening in gaza, in colonized spaces across the globe. masterful book that also made me feel pretty sick to my stomach...more
holy crap. this might be the best book i read this year. good god.
intensely deep and empathetic glance at a man who is functionally a bystander to thholy crap. this might be the best book i read this year. good god.
intensely deep and empathetic glance at a man who is functionally a bystander to the crimes of the catholic church. empathetic, but uses the book to uncover the ultimate harm odran realizes he has caused although he has lived his life, as he imagines, as uninvolved.
feels like if remains of the day was rewritten in regards to a man uncovering his previously unexamined life, the incidents and evidence and silence and complicity even as he imagines his life as of great contentment and little mark. all the while, his pursuit of uninvolvement and ultimately loneliness keeps him from seeing the harm he has caused
as someone who has also been cut in deep ways by the church, only in recent years having been more able to uncover the ways the church is set deep into my psyche, this novel hit hard. ...more
Today, I caught you in the garage, eating the peaches from the earthquake kit. We drank the syrup and then we drank the packets of water.
Here I am, iToday, I caught you in the garage, eating the peaches from the earthquake kit. We drank the syrup and then we drank the packets of water.
Here I am, in lieu of you, collecting the moments.
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is this a particularly memorable book? (haha) in the course of books i’ve read, literarily speaking, no. but to me, at this particular time? definitely. it’s not a plot driven book, but it is the kind of book i like: sentimental and full of humanness at its heart, wandering and ambling and doing so with love.
i think it feels particularly apt to be thinking about memory, age, and dementia right now. made me deeply sad and sentimental in turn. ...more
did i, in fact, stay up until 3am and cry like 8 times reading the last 200 or so pages of this book? who’s to say?
would i ever read it again? no probdid i, in fact, stay up until 3am and cry like 8 times reading the last 200 or so pages of this book? who’s to say?
would i ever read it again? no probably not. did some deep sick part of me wish it was sapphic instead of deep soul mate attachment to the swan girl of your lonely imagination? sure. is it my favorite book ever? probably not.
did the sheer insanity of crying over it feel like enough of an insane experience to deserve it a five star review? absolutely.
thank you to the power of absurd female friendship, true creativity and elitist creative writing, and a typical liberal arts college program....more
obsessed. finished in one sitting. family lineage but so much deeper and more intricate and heartbreaking and seeped in Black resistance and love and obsessed. finished in one sitting. family lineage but so much deeper and more intricate and heartbreaking and seeped in Black resistance and love and strength over time. two absolute all star books in a row. ...more
the elastic sinusoid waves of time, and the all encompassing lens of the camera simultaneously capturing both what it sees and the photographer’s eye the elastic sinusoid waves of time, and the all encompassing lens of the camera simultaneously capturing both what it sees and the photographer’s eye on the other side. there is something so whole about this book, something that feels like a redwood situated in its network of forest; simultaneously everywhere and grounded in its one spot. cole captures what many hope to; a narrative that is just as much focused on the community and the landscape as its individual narration. care is put both to the specificity of individual stories told and the sweeping arch of human lives, the intersection of culture, art, music, emotion, experience. the singularity, and doubleness, of all of these things. the duplicity that makes things both immortal and replaceable. the self aware pressure of / the ego / trying to capture such a grand thing, of the fear of inauthenticity, or pretentiousness, in art just as much as the innate beauty of the world and the delicate hope to hold it still and for others to see, for just a moment… the chagrin of an artist who must mediate these things. i adore this book as i adored open city; this is a book to make you feel keenly and love.
the type of book to make me feel so intensely the desire to create, to spend the hours, for the art to exist, to flourish, and eventual wash away…...more
mmmmm i feel like im supposed to like this but tbh i like… felt like i did reading camus’ stranger
like, i mostly get what he’s trying to say and i thimmmmm i feel like im supposed to like this but tbh i like… felt like i did reading camus’ stranger
like, i mostly get what he’s trying to say and i think that’s pretty cool and good for reference but good god that was brutal to read. i. did not. finish this book. over the course of a FIFTEEN HOUR FLIGHT. like… erm.
i get the point of the monologues but i was just exhausted.
i do like what he has to say about politics, radicalism and nihilism, egoism, and the quintessential humanness that is so central; the very thing that makes a “perfect, moral” crime paradoxical and impossible. i like the struggles rodion experiences in the aftermath of what he does; the emotional experience and turmoil just as much as the logical paradoxes he mulls over. what he sees as cowardice is also what saves him.
in the modern context it’s hard not to draw parallels to the nihilism / radicalism i see / experience;
the pureness of intent and moral force of the youth faced with the greater difficulty of (singular, non community focused) action; drowning in individualist failure
also… i just hate raskolnikov. i know he’s supposed to be unlikeable but good god. it’s giving pick me white man. bro has never thought about the collective struggle towards liberation and it shows. ...more