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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
dark
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
this felt like walking beside firdaus as we both uncovered, piece by piece, the horrors of life carved into women by the men around us. the violence is shown so plainly that’s the reality so many women know too well.
“i want nothing. i hope for nothing. i fear nothing. therefore i am free”. the way she says this after everything she’s endured… like the world tried to break her, but in killing all her hopes and fears, it gave her a freedom she was never meant to have. it was so sad but impactful to me.
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
This book reads like a fever dream turned nightmare where the nightmare is being a woman. Just an exquisite piece of work.
Lines that I’m really resonating with right now:
“If I had something to say, therefore, it could only concern the future. For the future was still mine to paint in the colors I desired. Still mine to decide about freely, and change as I saw fit.”
I adore the idealism and optimism of young Firdhaus, and it was really nice to be reminded of what a privilege it is to be educated and to learn in school.
“I was not destined to achieve what I had hoped for… my virtue, like the virtue of all those who are poor, could never be considered a quality… but rather looked upon as a kind of stupidity or simple-mindedness.”
There’s so much to unpack from this one passage alone. “I was not destined to achieve what I had hoped for” is heartbreaking, it’s the one fear voiced that invalidates hopes and dreams and ambition. Is there anything as heartbreaking as a dream flouted? Then, as Firdhaus reminiscences on the disillusion and dehumanization of work, where honest work in a meritocracy is so often used as the epitome of honor and virtue. The way she explained how employment instills virtue in some, like corporate executives, and the licenses them to a moral weapon with which to point out the failings in non-traditional, uneducated work, like sex work, when those jobs literally exist to answer to their demand. And then, the irony when she explained how being an in-demand prostitute was better respected than being an entry-level employee. Wow. So compelling.
She also put into words so beautifully the endless spiral of self-doubt that pervades womanhood and workers alike. As a career-oriented woman, another one of my biggest fears is aging out of an acceptable “rookie girl employee” archetype into the “stupid, simple-minded woman employee” archetype. In today’s girl-boss, you-can-only-succeed era of corporate feminism, it is refreshing to hear that career failure and dissatisfaction is totally real.
“Everybody has to die. I prefer to die for a crime I have committed rather than to die for one for one of the crimes which you have committed.”
It was at this point that I just realized… wow. I am not as brave as Firdhaus, or nearly as eloquent as to so poignantly shift the focus away from her crime and towards the society that robbed her of her honor and dignity. Patriarchy is ugly, and it’s the ugly truth that everyone twists themselves into contortions to deny, to moral absolve themselves. Firdhaus going face-to-face with that truth, acknowledging it, accepting it, and doing something about it, that’s courage. That’s bravery.
This book left me fundamentally changed. I loved it.
Lines that I’m really resonating with right now:
“If I had something to say, therefore, it could only concern the future. For the future was still mine to paint in the colors I desired. Still mine to decide about freely, and change as I saw fit.”
I adore the idealism and optimism of young Firdhaus, and it was really nice to be reminded of what a privilege it is to be educated and to learn in school.
“I was not destined to achieve what I had hoped for… my virtue, like the virtue of all those who are poor, could never be considered a quality… but rather looked upon as a kind of stupidity or simple-mindedness.”
There’s so much to unpack from this one passage alone. “I was not destined to achieve what I had hoped for” is heartbreaking, it’s the one fear voiced that invalidates hopes and dreams and ambition. Is there anything as heartbreaking as a dream flouted? Then, as Firdhaus reminiscences on the disillusion and dehumanization of work, where honest work in a meritocracy is so often used as the epitome of honor and virtue. The way she explained how employment instills virtue in some, like corporate executives, and the licenses them to a moral weapon with which to point out the failings in non-traditional, uneducated work, like sex work, when those jobs literally exist to answer to their demand. And then, the irony when she explained how being an in-demand prostitute was better respected than being an entry-level employee. Wow. So compelling.
She also put into words so beautifully the endless spiral of self-doubt that pervades womanhood and workers alike. As a career-oriented woman, another one of my biggest fears is aging out of an acceptable “rookie girl employee” archetype into the “stupid, simple-minded woman employee” archetype. In today’s girl-boss, you-can-only-succeed era of corporate feminism, it is refreshing to hear that career failure and dissatisfaction is totally real.
“Everybody has to die. I prefer to die for a crime I have committed rather than to die for one for one of the crimes which you have committed.”
It was at this point that I just realized… wow. I am not as brave as Firdhaus, or nearly as eloquent as to so poignantly shift the focus away from her crime and towards the society that robbed her of her honor and dignity. Patriarchy is ugly, and it’s the ugly truth that everyone twists themselves into contortions to deny, to moral absolve themselves. Firdhaus going face-to-face with that truth, acknowledging it, accepting it, and doing something about it, that’s courage. That’s bravery.
This book left me fundamentally changed. I loved it.
sad
tense
fast-paced
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Quotes that stuck with me:
Revolutionary men with principles were not really different from the rest. They used their cleverness to get, in return for principles, what other men buy with their money.
I had learnt that honor required large sums of money to protect it, but that large sums of money could not be obtained without losing one's honor. An infernal circle whirling round and round, draggng me up and down with it.
Who said to kill does not require gentleness?
Men force women to sell their bodies at a price, and that the lowest paid body is that of a wife.
They said, “You are a savage and dangerous woman.”
I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous
Life is very hard. The only people who really live are those who are harder than life itself.