Reviews

My opinion remains the same, this is a good book but it is not particularly groundbreaking, nor is it instructive in how to read critically. Rather, it is a showcase of how the author is good at reading critically and a few choice examples she dives into. I liked it but felt it fell short of its synopsis. I will also say that it begs the question who is she writing this for/to? She spends pages castigating the surface level reader but will those readers be reading this book? Doubtful. It thus gives off elitist reader vibes "I am good at reading but mostly everyone else isn't and only reads to get the participatory 'diverse reader' badge." Where then, does that leave HER readers?? Are we to take our beating (honestly it's not a beating, unless you really like didion or American dirt or books completely divorced from their contemporaneous reality - which again, if you did, why would you be reading this collection?!?) and walk away feeling happy that we got our diversity badge lmao I don't get it like where in this supposed dichotomy of readers are people like me who agree with all her arguments and/but still don't have a masters degree in literature, still can be better at critical reading?
Especially as she doesn't actually provide any guidance on how to become a better reader so even those well-meaning readers who pick this up will not actually become any better at reading for having read her book. It feels like indulging in call outs I guess. A letter to her shitty lit profs in grad school maybe?
I still say that she writes an excellent analysis and the writing made me laugh out loud multiple times. I have about a dozen bookmarks in the Reading Teaches Empathy section. I think it's worth a read but not for the reasons the synopsis claims

novella42's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.75

Absolutely fantastic. I'm going to be thinking about so many of the concepts from this book for years. Especially the idea of the "unexpected reader."

I tried describing this book to someone as "How to read from a decolonizing, anti-racist lens" but that doesn't even begin to cover it. It really shifted my perspective on a lot of things.

Her observations and sarcasm are sharp as a scalpel. I loved the part about how she feels being a BIPOC writer today is as much an existential grievance as it is a labor dispute:

Writers of color often find themselves doing the second, unspoken and unsalaried job of not just being a professional writer, but a Professional Person of Color, in the most performative sense—handy to have on hand for panels or journal issues about race or power or revolution, so the festival or literary journal doesn't appear totally racist; handy to praise publicly and singularly, so as to draw less attention to the white audience, rapt in the seats too expensive for local readers of color.

She opened my mind to nuances around the "representation matters" hashtag I've been using for years, both for my own queer, disabled, neurodivergent identities, and also in building anti-racism practice. This doesn't fully capture it, but still—

The way we reckon with our history has a bearing on how we reckon with each other, and how we reckon with our art—the kind of art we’re able to imagine, the ability of our art to truly imagine us. In the wake of this contemporary political climate and the heightened awareness it has ushered in, the full-scale moral, aesthetic, and intellectual vacuity of Representation Matters Art—the crumbs that representation throws at us—only becomes more glaring. I’m more interested in solidarity, even if I don’t quite yet know myself what I mean by it, just the feeling I get from it—the startling, quenching relief of it; the force of its surprise, like being loved... Solidarity is not nothing. It is a labor—like building a person, a love, a body of knowledge. And that labor, its peopled dailiness, has a tangible, vibrating effect in the world, radiating liveliness like a furnace throws off heat in the cold. And the art that I truly love, the art that has saved me, never made me just feel represented. It did not speak to my vanity, my desperation to be seen positively at any cost. It made me feel—solid. It told me I was minor, and showed me my debts. It held me together.

I do still think representation matters, but I agree with her completely that it's not nearly enough. I know what it felt like to me as a kid to see insipid token representation of a white boy in a hospital wheelchair in the background of TV shows. I know what it felt like to see positive and more thoughtful representations of disability more recently. But it pales in comparison with seeing characters get to be whole people, messy, with fully-faceted identities beyond the marginalized identity we share. We cannot be human if all we're allowed is the tiny pedestal of positive representation. Having been "inspiration porn" for others many times over, I can say, the experience is absolutely suffocating.

I am debating giving this book 5 stars, because it absolutely achieved what the author set out to achieve. If I'm rating it for me, I need to put it at 4.75 because her preferred sentence structure is so winding that I frequently got lost and had to keep re-reading passages two, three times or more. I believe it slowed the book down considerably, but maybe that was an effect she wanted. For us to slow down and really sit with the concepts as she unfolded them.

Sometimes reading this book felt like watching reverse origami in slow motion. Poetic, precise, academic but lovely in its own unique form of storytelling. Moving from a shape we think we know, like the ubiquitous paper crane, until it's all spread out before you with all the intricate lines showing how it comes together, how and why it was made. And how much deeper your appreciation becomes, both of the crane and the art that made it.

I found that going back and forth between formats helped me make progress when I got stuck on her long sentences. I originally borrowed a hardback from the library, and loved it so much that after a few chapters I ended up buying the Kindle with the add-on audiobook. It helped so much to be able to highlight and get quick definitions of the more academic terms or pull up Wikipedia entries for more context on her various historical or cultural references. And when the sentences began to look like labyrinths to me, I switched to the author-read audiobook and her conversational tone was far easier to parse.

I did a Buddy Read and will be meeting a friend soon to discuss the book, so I may try updating my review when I've had more time to process.

That last chapter, though. "It’s his confidence in his own context that is Odysseus’s greatest strength, his greatest privilege, and his greatest cruelty. He may be traveling, but he’s not a migrant. Man of many resources, worldly-wise, skilled in diplomacy, lover of stolen wealth and sadistic games—Odysseus always has a home to return to. Wherever he goes is civilization, to the despair of everyone else." I'll never see the Odyssey the same way ever again. And honestly, thank God.

Now I have this shifted perspective, I cannot imagine wanting my old views back.

Content Warnings

ktchiddix's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

wackomac007's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

For those of immigrant cultural heritage and wrestling to reconcile their colonial past and colonial imaginations with their present circumstances, not knowing how to decolonize and return to what was. Elaine Castillo’s How to Read Now is a soothing balm like the one my dad puts on his nose during a cold, it stings and burns but in its wake it leaves behind a peace and comfort.
It tackles the minutia of that which is felt subconsciously and in our body. The book helps you find them. The book is an invitation into decolonizing your story and helping you release those trapped words and embodied feelings.

echtwaarmiet's review

Go to review page

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

2.5

lcl_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

donttellmomwhatimreading's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

This isn’t so much a critique but a journey or exploration on how we consume media, especially what we read. Castillo highlights many of the beautiful things that are missed in story telling and many of the horrible things that are missed. The urge to read without critical analysis is something I think most people who read heavily can admit they have do, however, it adds to our collective misunderstanding of what constitutes important media. Arguably the most pointed aspect of this, especially as a white reader is the need for diversity to bring about empathy for other people. This is one of the biggest reasons white readers claim they need to read diversely, when empathy for our fellow human should be a given and the reason to read diversely is not as a means of achieving your own self actualization but instead experiencing the world differently.

More...