I just finished chapter 2 of Sayaka Murata's book "Earthlings". Uhm. What the hell? π
I need to catch my breath before I continue. This is the most disturbing thing I've read in a while. Can't believe they put such a cute cover on this.
(it's very good though)
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π "Banned Book Club" written by Kim Hyun Sook & Ryan Estrada, illustrated by Ko Hyung-Ju
A beautifully drawn graphic memoir. Non-fiction, but the author's and her friends' experiences have been mixed up and combined into this true-but-also-different storyline to protect everyone's identity.
This is about the author's time as a student in South-Korea in 1983, only a few years after the Gwangju Uprising. There's a military regime, lots of books are banned, students are protesting and dealing with the state's extreme violence against them. Throughout the book, the author transforms from a shy, apolitical student into a motivated member of the banned books club, helping her college friends spread important texts.
Please read books like these and share them around. Oppressing regimes are too common and where they've been ended, they can and most likely will return. It's shameful that we're living in a world where reading from different perspectives, different people and different countries can be controversial or even forbidden.
Having access to information doesn't automatically make a good person, but at the very least it's a start for imagining a different world, developing empathy for others, and arming yourself against false standpoints that are being used to manipulate you.
[#]BannedBooks #AmReading #GraphicNovel #books #bookstodon #memoir
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π "Pew" by Catherine Lacey
In my yearly reading wrap-up I mentioned that although I love non-fiction, I wanted to read a little more fiction to find those gems that really touch me. Pew is such a book, so I feel very lucky to have found it.
Like with most vague books, I'll recommend going in knowing very little. There are many different analyses and interpretations of this story, and they all might be true in some form or another. For me, at this moment, it was mostly about what makes an individual and what makes humanity. What differs one person from the other? Is it something real? Does it matter? It'll probably change for me on every reread.
For a large part, the book consists of monologues. Some took unexpected turns and shocked the shit out of me. Some were so beautiful that I read them twice before moving on to the next section. It's equally eerie and comforting. It gripped me enough that I had to continue reading, yet I also had to stop every few pages to ponder and appreciate the language used. Such a perfect balance.
I'm not doing the book any real justice. Read this if you fell in love with 'I Who Have Never Known Men', if you like to stare into the mist, or if you'd walk away from Omelas.
[#]AmReading #fiction #books #bookstodon
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π "Wolf" by Lara Taveirne
Flemish non-fiction, so far not available in any other language than Dutch.
This is a grief memoir about the suicide of the author's little brother called Wolf. The circumstances were... unique (for lack of a better word). He was 18 years old, left his student housing with an excuse, traveled as far north as he could into SΓ‘pmi, and eventually passed away intentionally due to cold exposure in the middle of a forest in northern Sweden. When his body was found half a year later, he had a notebook attached to him, well protected. Turns out he had chronicled his last journey, with the idea that it would be discovered and returned to his family.
That's a lot. The author explores the many sides of her grief, more than ten years after it all happened. We also get to read entries of her brother's journal. Youth memories, changing family dynamics, the way he keeps living on in their forever wonderings... Eventually she decides to travel to the north herself and record some of that in here too.
About half of my life ago, my uncle committed suicide. That type of death is hard and strange. People mourn with sudden confusion, shame, regret, anger. There's often taboo and in my family's case, everyone just had to shut up and move on. But just like in this book, I think everyone who encounters this in their life is left with a 'what if?'. Maybe an ocean of it, at the very least a tiny drop that hangs off the edge of a leaf in your mind. What if I had looked closer? What if I had said that thing? What if, what if, what if. The author brings this to light beautifully.
This book was very readable, despite its heavy topic. The one thing that started to bother me was how Wolf slowly seemed to get turned into a legendary creature, a myth, someone untouchable, something you can always dream and speculate about and find some sort of meaning and eternity in. Maybe I'm being mean and that's a natural thing to happen for coping, but it also brought me some unease. I can't really put my finger on it. There is a part of sheer emptiness in loss that I don't prefer to see forcibly filled up, if that makes any sense.
If you can read Dutch, and can handle the topic, it's worth a read.
[#]AmReading #NonFiction #BelgianLit
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π "Sultana's Dream" by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
This is a short story from (now) Bangladesh, not a full novel. I read it through the Serial Reader app, and it existed of only two issues.
It's sad that it's so short, because it was fascinating. It's a sci-fi utopia tale from 1905 (!) about Ladyland, a mysterious region where women rule and men are locked up indoors. Women have expanded their studies, developing science to have renewable energy from the sun and a solution to water shortages by extracting moisture from the air.
Public life is practical, but aesthetically pleasing, with an eye for detail. There's barely any crime. Life is peaceful and good. A girl can dream. Dreaming in 1905 and still dreaming now, too many years later.
In a review elsewhere I saw some artwork for the text made by Chitra Ganesh. I found all of them here:
https://www.durhampress.com/viewing-room/4-chitra-ganesh-sultana-s-dream/
They're really cool and fit the story beautifully.
[#]AmReading #fiction #ShortStory #SerialReader
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π "Growing Up Disabled in Australia" edited by Carly Findlay
This is an anthology with more than 40 contributors! There's mostly memoir-esque essays, but also some poems, letters and even a comic.
I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the collection. Some of the topics discussed are MS, EDS, blindness, deafness, ME/cfs, cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, autism, ADHD, and many more. The social model of disability is the general approach for most of these, and there's room for all disability, chronic illness and neurodiversity, no matter if the person themselves or only society regards it as a negative or not.
Because there's a range of ages, you're just as likely to read about a very recent school experience as a post-war polio treatment for children. There's views into (the problems with) special education and institutionalization of people with intellectual/learning disabilities. Happy childhoods and traumatic youth memories all come to pass. Racism against Aboriginal peoples, sexism in healthcare, discrimination in public spaces... Some chapters were extremely relatable for me, some were completely new impressions. Parts of this are of course very Australia-specific, but a lot is universal too.
I think this anthology has a good balance. Like any big collection, the quality of writing varies quite a bit. But that didn't stop me from appreciating the contributions. Some made me cry, while other made me laugh out loud. I wish every country had a book like this, I'd definitely want one for my own country of birth.
[#]AmReading #DisabilityLit #NonFiction #books #bookstodon
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π "My Ten Years' Imprisonment" or "My Prisons" by Silvio Pellico, translated from Italian into English by Thomas Roscoe
This book had no right being as fun as it was. I read this through the Serial Reader app and looked forward to reading my daily issue.
Pellico, a poet and writer of plays, was imprisoned during 1820-1830 for being active in the movement for Italian unification. This is a memoir about some of his time in various prisons. Oddly enough, there's barely anything about politics or his reasons for being there.
I admit, his religious rants were quite boring. But I enjoyed reading about all the people he met and the way things were run in the early 19th century. I was surprised about there being female guards, and about guards bringing their family or children to work and letting them roam around. Also, apparently there was no anesthesia for amputations yet, ooffff.
He teaches a kid for while, gets a crush on a visitor, makes some friends. He has a lot of good insights, I saved quite a lot of quotes. But I also laughed out loud with his escalating letter exchange with a fellow prisoner, a sassy atheist. When I gleefully summarized these letters to my partner, he stared at me blankly. I'm starting to think I might be the only one having a blast with some overly dramatic musings from 200 years ago.
Later on Pellico is sentenced to jail in hard conditions, and the tone becomes more somber. There's lots of illness and suffering for him and his co-prisoners. Although this rough phase is the longest part of his imprisonment, he writes the least amount about it. Fortunately we get to see him getting released in the end.
I thought this was great in its own weird way. I have no clue who to recommend this to. Give it a go if anything at all sounds good to you, it's in the public domain anyway.
[#]AmReading #memoir #NonFiction #books #PublicDomain #SerialReader
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π "Play Boy" by Constance DebrΓ© &
"Playboy", translated from French into English by Holly James
I read the original French and the English translation side by side, since the French was still a little too difficult for me.
Why did I pick this book? Why do you want to know? I thought the cover was hot, okay? Okay, yeah yeah, are we over it? Let's talk about something that's more problematic than picking books based on that, namely the main character. I mean, the author. No wait, the main character. Autofiction, why do you have to be like this?
The author comes from a very well-known high-class French family. She leaves her husband and her high-paying job to become a lesbian author. You know, kind of like the protagonist. It doesn't go very smoothly.
I'm not going to lie, if this were written by a man I would've thrown it out the window. But I read to the very last page, a full two times because of the two languages. Of course it's interesting, but it comes with so many painful downfalls... This exploration of female desire for other women frequently warps into a masculine hatred-as-fascination for women. I can't call it anything else than misogyny, maybe some internalized homophobia mixed into it. If it were a confused character, it could simply be a well written character exploration, but because it's autofiction it's hard not to constantly wonder about the writer too.
There's so much bad communication in here, as well as bad sex. Looking down on people, classism, the whole lot. It's funny when she airs out her family's problems and attitudes, in a tragicomedy kind of way. But it's also so very tiring when she thinks she can maneuver it all in her own way like it's nothing big, without much care for others. I feel pretty bad for her ex-lovers and hope they're fictional or anonymized enough to never recognize themselves in the text.
I'm often sort of an annoying "everything is banal and meaningless" person like the protagonist, but I pray to the seas that I'm not as obnoxious, mean, careless or full of myself as she is. She has this casual attitude towards everything, but then at times takes herself way too seriously. I'm worn out by reading about her: a pompous person writing about not being pompous and being annoyed at everyone else being too pompous, lol. I'm still unsure if this was all very genuine (which would be embarrassing) or not genuine enough (which would be frustrating).
This is the first book in a trilogy and I've read that the next book will contain massive character development. It's the only thing that will convince me to maybe read the next one. Maybe.
[#]AmReading #WomenInTranslation #books #bookstodon
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π "The Wildcat Behind Glass" by Alki Zei, translated from Greek into English by Karen Emmerich
Look at that cover. How could I resist reading it? To my surprise this was a middle grade book, written in the 1960s, about the Greek Metaxas dictatorship of 1936, newly translated in 2024. Wow!
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that a book for young children made me cry, but it did. The first half is still quite airy and fun. Two sisters and some of their friends live on an island, explore nature, go to school... The second half gets significantly darker, when Metaxas comes into power and fascism takes over all aspects of life.
For an adult reader, it's tough seeing all the parents freak out and the children not really understanding. The small things that happen, you know what kind of dire things are meant with them. People are using the kids for good, for bad, for survival. They get caught in the crossfire and have to grow up too quickly.
There's a scene with a book burning that got to me. There's also a slow build-up with some of the kids being recruited into the new youth movement and a revelation of what they're up to. Families get torn apart. I think it feels extra scary, reading this while most countries around me have right-wing extremists soaring in the polls and elections.
Of course, this being middle grade, most tragedies happen off page or are only hinted at. People aren't brutally killed, things can end 'well' with people surviving, fleeing and going into exile and such. But, pfff, I'm going to cry again just thinking about it, haha.
I don't know much about kids and education, but I assume that this is a book very well suited to slowly ease children into the idea of fascism and dangerous regimes existing and still being a threat today. How fucking sad.
[#]AmReading #WomenInTranslation #fiction #MiddleGrade
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π "The True Deceiver" by Tove Jansson, translated from Swedish into English by Thomas Teal
I grew up on the Moomins, but only recently learned that Jansson also wrote adult books. This is the first of those that I've read and I loved it.
I read it over a few snowy days here -very fitting for the wintery setting of the book. I think this is one of those books that's best enjoyed not knowing a lot about ot beforehand, so I'll remain very vague.
The True Deceiver is set in a small town. It focuses on the ways people not only deceive each other, but themselves most of all. Should we trust ourselves more than others? Do we have a responsibility to point out every form of deception? If we can, should we?
I have no qualms with lying to strangers or in particular settings to get by and survive, but I'm very honest with people I care deeply about. Too honest, probably, as I often (accidentally) trample on some sensitive nerves. I can't let any form of questionable truth, hypocrisy, obliviousness or deception go. I get that that makes me a menace at times, and I'm forever unsure if I'm doing myself or my loved ones a favor. Can't I just let stuff go? Wouldn't that be more peaceful? This book thought it was fun to pull that same shit on me. It suits me, though, and made me reflect a lot.
Most likely I'll reread this book and see how my perspective on it shifts over the years. For now I love it dearly and I assume I'll get something new out of it with every read.
[#]AmReading #WomenInTranslation #books #bookstodon #fiction
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Me in my reading year wrap-up about book tracking: "I could use LibreOffice Calc (/excel), but got really annoyed by it in years I've done so. It quickly becomes a frustrating chore."
Also me, a week later: joyfully spends two days customizing a book tracking google sheets template to her liking
π€‘
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π "A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid
Here, some oven mitts. You'll need them because this book is scalding hot.
I love this long essay about the effects of colonialism on Antigua, about the divide between western countries and the way they use the global south for both resources and entertainment, and about the inequality that comes with tourism. Kincaid really does not hold back.
I've been reading and thinking a lot in the last few years about why my life is the way it is, here in Europe. About being lower class, yet still having libraries I can use. About being disabled and discriminated against, but being able to use certain healthcare. About never travelling and struggling with classism, but still having clean water and a roof over my head for now. I'm not able to word it eloquently, but there's a difference between comparing myself to my surroundings ("I'm not that well off") and looking at myself compared to the rest of the world ("I have a great standard of living because all of our forefathers robbed other continents and still our governments and businesses are exploiting the rest of the world"). Because I indirectly profit from years of conquering and war, and although I have limited means to fight the status quo, I want to learn all about it and see in what ways one can at the very least opt out wherever possible. Maybe it's a naive thought, but I'm not sure where else to start.
The author directs her anger more towards the US/EU middle class who plays obnoxious tourist everywhere, but also doesn't stop to critique on how places like hers have changed through exploitation and will never be able to go back to how they were before. And they'll never develop into what they could've been either. It's sad to see that with such clarity. The ripple effects are everlasting and sadly often internalized as well.
A Small Place is almost 40 years old. I can only imagine what a more updated version would look like, now that there is more mass tourism, but also more anti-tourism movements. And now that so many countries are dealing with more natural disasters because of climate change... which in the west is mostly approached as 'a disaster for tourism' without much care for local inhabitants. Things haven't gotten much better, have they?
I'm sure I'll pick up more titles from Jamaica Kincaid soon, both fiction and non-fiction. She writes so well.
[#]AmReading #NonFiction #essays #memoir
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π "You Dreamed of Empires" by Γlvaro Enrigue, translated from Spanish into English by Natasha Wimmer
I wanted to read this because I thought the title was great and that was reason enough. But was it enough, though? Hmmm.
This is a historical magical realism novel about HernΓ‘n CortΓ©s going to meet Moctezuma and their arrival in Tenochtitlan that started the downfall of the Aztec empire and some of the many peoples that were part of it. I was in over my head, but after spending an evening with some relevant Wikipedia articles I was up to speed, at least enough to not feel lost.
The first half I was really enjoying myself. It's a literary and difficult book, but also one full of great commentary about (destructive) empires, imaginings of the everyday and a lot of humor. But halfway through I was kind of done. I got the jokes, I got the points, I've seen the thing -I was a little over it. But I kept reading because I saw so many people say a magnificent twist or ending would come.
I stuck around and... okay? It's a surprising ending, it's kind of fun, clever. I could somewhat appreciate it, but I also thought it was way overhyped.
Although I had quite a few laughs, I also was disturbed. Sometimes in the right way, sometimes in an unnecessary way. For example, I'm tired of scenes of (sexual) violence against women that are added to make a point about the personality of the male perpetrator or the barbarism of his culture, etc. Especially if this is done without the needed care that such topics require.
Overall I found it interesting but also lacking. I was left unsatisfied. Please don't take offense at my limited literary taste and don't ritually offer me to the book gods to make up for it, thank you.
[#]AmReading #fiction
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π "You Must Not Miss" by Katrina Leno
I'm unsure of what to think of this one. I'll have to see how it stays and warps in my mind over the next few weeks or months.
You Must Not Miss is a young adult novel, but quite a dark one. Its magical realism is very intriguing. The way it's written is so very uncanny and I loved that. The word choice for descriptions is always odd and unexpected in a great way.
For this book you'll have to be able to manage expectations. The characters won't be likeable, things will never go as you hope they'll to go, and destruction will take precedence over healing. That's what's interesting about it, but also frustrating. I didn't like some of the turns the story took. It just didn't totally go there in the way it could have. Maybe that would have been too much for a book for younger readers?
There are so many tales of hope and improvement and I can sort of appreciate how this story with its main character kicks that concept in its stomach when it's down on the ground and begging for its escape. It's a full-on "no", a rejection of the world, in an uncommon way. I'm a sucker for that, but this book didn't quite do it well enough for me to be fully on board.
Overall a strange story about meeting the monsters around you and inside you, made for when you feel like a stranger in your own life. Maybe check CWs before reading because there's certainly difficult stuff in there and it made me feel quite sorrowful at times.
[#]AmReading #YAfiction #books #bookstodon
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π "A Negro Explorer at the North Pole" by Matthew A. Henson
Starting the year off with a strange one. Sorry for the unfortunate title. I've been browsing public domain non-fiction in the Serial Reader app and this is the result.
This book is from 1912 and logs the expedition to the North Pole of the author and his captain. It starts with an introduction by a white person full of terribly awkward racist praise of newly freed African Americans. Then we continue with Henson's own tale and ehh, it doesn't get much better in that regard. Now we get a lot of racist remarks about the indigenous people of Greenland.
I think it's fascinating to see how people thought and acted in different times -especially if they're exploring and discovering places, back when people knew even less of the world than we know now. They were travelling through a cool and treacherous place. Looking at it that way, this text is interesting and has a humorous tone too sometimes.
However, it's hard to overlook the sinister side of it all. Inuit people are infantilized, exploited and compared to animals (and the animals aren't treated well either btw). It reads like an example of just because your people went through a horrific collective trauma, doesn't mean you'll never fall prey to perpetuating the same sorts of behavior. The author is one of the first generations to live after the abolition of slavery in the US. It's painful to hear him talk about things like his 'adoption' of a native kid, stripping him of his things and keeping him under his bed as if he's more of a pet than a son. He clearly likes the people he meets and has a soft spot for them, but also treats them as nothing more than convenient but child-like creatures, looking down on them and laughing at their beliefs and habits, yet making use of them when it suits him and the crew. Extremely uncomfortable (yes, even though "those were different times").
If you like niche, old diaries/memoirs and seeing what things were like in the past, this is probably compelling. But prepare to be offended too.
[#]NonFiction #AmReading #SerialReader #memoir
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π I hope you all had a great reading year and that 2025 will be good for you too. π
If you have any reading/book wrap-ups or goals, let me know or link them to me, I'd love to take a look.
(9/9)
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ποΈ Next year
Having strict goals with clear numbers stresses me out, so I don't want to have any specific reading goals for next year. Should I call them vague aims of no consequence?
(8/9)
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π Fiction books I've given up on this year:
"The Country Will Bring Us No Peace" by Matthieu Simard
This is why I'm often hesitant to pick up fiction by male authors. The way the women behave and are described in here makes my skin crawl. I gave up not even a quarter through.
"The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black
I really don't get the hype. It's extremely boring and not fun at all to read for an adult audience imo.
"Shelter" by Jung Yun
To me, this is torture porn, shock for shock, misery for misery. I gave up halfway, because the graphic violence and sexual assault that was described made me feel horrible, and the circumstances only become worse and worse. I read a spoiler review about what happens in the second half and was so glad I had given up.
"Self-Portrait with Nothing" by Aimee Pokwatka
This is how it reads:
Character dropped a glass. She thought about if there was another universe in which the glass had not fallen. Glasses actually have several names, from different origins, how come? I wonder, character said, if there is another me somewhere else that didn't drop glasses. Another me, who created glasses, maybe a me who loved glasses. She went to bed and dreamt of her million selves and the millions of glasses, all different. Every time a glass fell, a world of opportunities opened up. Broken glass, glass half full, glass half empty, maybe even no glass at all. Character woke up and picked up a glass, while somewhere else the glass still stood on the bedside table.
We get it! It's about multiverses and parallel timelines! 33% through I couldn't stand it anymore! Let me out of the timeline in which I'm reading this book! I don't care anymore!
"Razorblade Tears" by S.A. Cosby
The way this is filled with stereotypes, performative lectures and needless violence -I thought it was satire at first. But turns out it wasn't?! I couldn't stand the writing style either. I have no need to read about chests that were 'as tight as virgin pussy' and the likes. Sorry, I'm good.
"Hell Hound" by Ken Greenhall
A little funny at first, but then became more and more extremely strangely sexual in a horror-for-the-male-gaze kind of way. Yeah, no thanks.
"Yokohama Station SF" by Yuba Isukari
I don't really have a specific problem with this one. It sounds fascinating, I tried a few times, I just couldn't get into it.
"The Fisherman" by John Langan
I don't know either why I thought a book about some men fishing would keep my attention. It didn't.
"The Centre" by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
The best premise. The worst execution. Really, really bad. Go directly to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect.
"Counterweight" by Djuna
The background of the story is fascinating: an island group bought by a conglomerate, now ruling there instead of a government, purely for their own gains in the space industry. The story however is tragically boring and meh. Also everything is men men men men men and one women described as lusted by all. Sigh. I saw Anton Hur had translated this, and I think he took inspiration from the interesting parts of it for his own book, which was fun to see. But about halfway through I gave up.
(7/9)
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π Non-Fiction books I've given up on this year:
"Stalking the Atomic City: Life Among the Decadent and the Depraved of Chornobyl" by Markiyan Kamysh
I should have believed the title. The author really is depraved. I could hardly stomach all the 'look at me being a bad boy' attitude nonsense, but I hated the way he talked about women too much and eventually gave up.
"I Choose Elena" by Lucia Osborne-Crowley
I think the book is okay and I wish the author all the best. It was just too triggering for me. Almost all my life I have not been taken seriously medically. Every symptom was pushed into the 'hysterical woman with traumas' category. In this book it's discussed that the link between trauma and chronic illness isn't emphasized enough, but in my experience, it's all that is emphasized and it's too much. I think this just pushed too many buttons of my medical trauma.
"The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight" by Andrew Leland
Literally dropped it after reading the introduction because I was so annoyed about the way he spoke about the pandemic ('it's endemic now blabla') and because he sounded generally insensitive about ableist topics. I lost all will to explore the rest of the book.
"A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine Story" by Nathan Thrall
This book is good, but I gave up I think 1/3 through. I've been reading a lot of books about/from Palestine in the last few years. Sometimes it becomes it a bit much to bear. For a difficult subject, I want the reading experience to be as tolerable as possible. The structure of this book is kind of hard (it's not one day, it's a full life history). I don't really like it when a person is talked about, instead of a person telling their story themselves. I was postponing this constantly, until I ultimately gave up. This might be right for you in you want to read something related to Palestine, but you're more of a fiction reader (it's non-fiction but reads very much like a family drama or historical fiction).
"Exotic Vetting" by Romain Pizzi
This was too much all over the place for me. Not really coherent, more stream of consciousness with animal facts about different animals in every sentence. Could've used more editing or structure.
(6/9)
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β DNFs
I stopped reading (dnf-ed, or 'did not finish') quite some books this year. I discussed every book I finished one here, but these dumped ones remained unmentioned -until now. If you don't want to read some quite rude, salty takes, stop here!
Below I've made separate posts for the fiction and non-fiction books I've given up on with my reasons. I refuse to return to those books. You can try to convince me, but it'll be difficult!
(5/9)
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