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beegwhale 's review for:
Neuroqueer Heresies
by Nick Walker
I loved the form of this book so very much—it asked us what it meant to be in continuous conversation with ourselves, and embodied the way neurodivergent people (or at least I) often circle back to ideas, allow our thoughts to fold back into themselves, spiral inwards and outwards. I particularly loved the chapters that were contextualized before and after and how the “Neuroqueer: An Introduction” came almost at the very end. The structure was absolutely outstanding to me and I loved going through it—it felt like one of those sentences that you have to get to the very end of to understand in whole.
I do have my gripes—I think nestling any kind of alterity under Queer Theory, which is almost foundational to it, renders a certain fungibility. I didn’t find this book intersectional enough, but I also don’t think I was meant to. Dr. Walker is doing the work of trying to move something that was continuously in conversation with itself (through her blog) into something static in the form of a book, something she acknowledges as having its downsides. I think I personally needed more acknowledgements like that. But side-eyeing certain points in this book also helped me realize that I could be in conversation with this too: I don’t have to conform to the expectations of “the book” as a static form. Neither do I have to let go of my concerns entirely—sitting in a gray zone is hard and this book asks for that actively from its readers even if it doesn’t often do that itself. Again, the downside of being a static medium. These are only emerging thoughts, so it’s in my re-read pile. I can’t wait to re-engage with a keener eye.
I do have my gripes—I think nestling any kind of alterity under Queer Theory, which is almost foundational to it, renders a certain fungibility. I didn’t find this book intersectional enough, but I also don’t think I was meant to. Dr. Walker is doing the work of trying to move something that was continuously in conversation with itself (through her blog) into something static in the form of a book, something she acknowledges as having its downsides. I think I personally needed more acknowledgements like that. But side-eyeing certain points in this book also helped me realize that I could be in conversation with this too: I don’t have to conform to the expectations of “the book” as a static form. Neither do I have to let go of my concerns entirely—sitting in a gray zone is hard and this book asks for that actively from its readers even if it doesn’t often do that itself. Again, the downside of being a static medium. These are only emerging thoughts, so it’s in my re-read pile. I can’t wait to re-engage with a keener eye.