A review by savvylit
How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo

challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

How to Read Now is an incredibly thought-provoking essay collection about how we read. Elaine Castillo, herself a lifelong bookworm, explores the ways that everyone can seek to be better readers. Taking a decolonial approach, Castillo demands that we consider who it is that our popular literature serves. She also lambasts the idea of separating the art from the artist, instead proposing that doing so is both damaging and prejudiced. She reminds us that it is simply not possible to remove a work from its political context. Castillo writes that "this kind of nonpolitical storytelling - and the stunted readership it demands - asks us to uphold the lie that certain bodies, certain characters, certain stories, remain depoliticized, neutral, and universal. It asks us to keep those bodies, characters, stories, forever safe from politics -- forever safe, period."

Additional essays go on to support this conclusion and explore it even further. In the essay "Reality is All We Have to Love," Castillo shows how becoming better, more critical readers can be both a hopeful and powerful thing. In "The Children of Polyphemus," Castillo discusses how beautiful and freeing it is to discover the voices of the silenced once you look closely enough.

Overall, this collection was enjoyable and provocative. Castillo, in addition to being a brilliant critic, is also quite funny. There were many times when I laughed out loud at her sarcastic commentary. Anyone who identifies as a reader or lover of literature absolutely must check out How to Read Now!
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