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caleigh_g's review
5.0
excellent! an interesting exploration of failure. i am inspired by halberstam's use of 'low theory' and pop culture. i often use pop culture as a lens into my own understanding of the world and my values. this is especially obvious in my drag performance. i highly recommend this book, especially to queer artists/makers.
kgmittty's review
challenging
funny
informative
medium-paced
4.0
I learned a lot, but the writing is very academic in most places which made it a little hard to read. I’m glad I made it through though because the ideas Halberstam introduces here are ones I am very intrigued by and will be thinking about when it comes to any piece of media I enjoy as well as my own life.
“To live is to fail, to bungle, to disappoint, and ultimately to die. Rather than searching for new ways around death and disappointment, the queer art of failure involves the acceptance of the finite… Rather than resisting endings and limits, let us instead revel in and cleave to all our own inevitable fantastic failures.”
“To live is to fail, to bungle, to disappoint, and ultimately to die. Rather than searching for new ways around death and disappointment, the queer art of failure involves the acceptance of the finite… Rather than resisting endings and limits, let us instead revel in and cleave to all our own inevitable fantastic failures.”
tbr_trepidation's review against another edition
This was more academic than expected and I wasn't giving with it so far.
melissafelicia's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
2.0
It started out interesting, with the argument that failing is important in life and that queer people are often better at the 'art' of failing, because they reject heteronormative ideas about succes. Then it turned to animated movies, which was a fun source to consider, though I thought the idea that animation connects to queerness just because main characters in animated movies are often oppressed and different from the group, was a bit of a stretch. When the argument went to female masochism and self-harm and the connection between homosexuality and fascism/nazism however, I kept making weird faces at the audiobook, because I so strongly disagreed with many of the statements. Not only did I not think the connection between masochism and nazism and queerness were very weak, the author also uses Freud's philosophy about lesbians having penis-envy to argue his points. So even though I liked the premise of the book, it definitely did not deliver for me.
philip_bonanno's review
4.0
I would love to read this again in a class. It has so many interesting ideas I don’t know if I understood all of them.