wanderlust_romance's review

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

 Is it the end of the world as we know it? If so, why does it feel like we’ve been here before? How do individuals contend with their place in this cycle of anger, violence, revolt, and hope? This collection of poetry is filled with so many raw emotions. The poems examine and reflect on a multitude of themes - colonization, the Korean War, racial consciousness, environmental degradation, the COVID-19 pandemic, SA, gun violence - with much thoughtfulness and wisdom.

If you read Mohammed El-Kurd’s Rifqa and connected to the juxtaposition of nature, destruction, and resistance, then this collection by Franny Choi will also satisfy. It’s an honest reflection on the state of the world: it’s (sometimes) all kinds of awful, and yet we keep moving through it. Excellent on audio and read by the author. 

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michaelion's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

4.5

I've been feeling very hopeless / miserable lately and even just the first poem made me be like wow there really is hope for the future / humanity. I paid $28 for this book and it was worth it. 

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panickedhonking's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

A strange mix of the most tragic and heartbreaking poems which gave me a sense that there's something after every apocalypse. Exhaustive list of content warnings somehow non-exhaustive still.

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tmchopra's review

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5


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juney_'s review

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challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

5.0


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pabi's review

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emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.5


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readingwithcoffee's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Some things referenced went over my head especially the most personal poems that mentioned Sam. But that gives me reasons to come back and reread the book. 

I loved it and I loved Choi’s love and despair and grief and hope for the world. I think the book is very relatable to every one though some of the terms seem very modern or text/online slang or terms I’m not sure how an older audience may read it (tho there’s plenty of other things I had to look up).  I think it’s very relatable to the current feeling on the world on fire and grief for everyone everywhere, with specific reference to American tragedies such as masa shootings, the Atlanta spa shootings and violence to children in the name of care (such as Grace who’s news story flickered on the back of my mind while reading) that makes this book ache in a particular way as an American. But it’s also a book with global concerns and comments whether it’s from the authors Korean heritage or grief for the ongoing indigenous genocide in the Americas since Columbus or anti blackness or the imperialism America has export. And it’s a book with so much love and grief and also hope and I loved it. 

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smblanc1793's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

Meanwhile I cut 
an onion, and its onions all the way down, and that’s a fine
reason to cry at the sink on a Monday after the empire 
congratulates itself on persisting again.

Franny Choi microdoses the apocalypse, and somehow the idea of the world ending over and over and over again and yet still persisting gives me hope.

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