A review by cubaitlubin
Model Home by Rivers Solomon

challenging dark reflective tense

5.0

It’s not even them being gone that’s rattled me. That hasn’t truly hit me yet, I don’t think. What’s getting me is knowing that what got them will get me, too. That I fled all the way to England, but the house found me, it found me. It always does. It knows I’m bad. Nightmare Mother knows I’m not a sliver and never could be.

Shit, this was tough. As with any hazy horrors this book is all quite nebulous until alarm bells shriek with heartwrenching clarity.  But I think that's reductive. This book is in a league of its own.

Throughout my reading my experience shifted for me - I thought I had a sense of what this book was until it would morph into another facet. That made the first third or so a little tricky for me to stick with it (also the fact I didn't get a lot of time for sustained reading) - once I made it to the third act I couldn't put it down, and I'm glad I had the time to dedicate to it. It is so much more than what it says on the cover and it is a gut punch. Check content warnings. 

Rivers Solomon is such a force in writing and reflection and contextualizing. I have and will continue to read everything they write. Always with care and attention. In fact, looking back at my highlights I found moments that I thought were simply impactful writing that turned out to be foreshadowing at something deeper. Masterful.

from the acknowledgments: Model Home did not come easy. Few books do, I suppose, but this one proved an especially difficult ordeal for me. Illness and disability were my constant companions throughout Model Home's becoming. The world is daily breaking my heart, and it's not easy to create under such conditions. Even now, as I write these words, I think, What is the point? What is the point of anything unless Palestine can be free? What is the point of anything when there are those outside my sphere of influence who are suffering? Starving? Enslaved? Assaulted? Unloved? Unconsidered? There is no life without pain, without suffering. Loss, unspeakable violence, humiliation- they are facts of existence. Sometimes it is easy to carry on despite, and sometimes it's not.