ajdotcom's reviews
10 reviews

Heal Your Way Forward: The Co-Conspirator's Guide to an Antiracist Future by Myisha T. Hill

challenging emotional hopeful medium-paced

5.0

I confess to going into Heal Your Way Forward with a slight worry that it would repeat things I had read in other anti-racism books. No fear! I don't think there is anything else like this out there. Myisha has perfectly timed this book for the "Class of 2020", two years after many of us white people finally started our anti-racism journeys. I was challenged, inspired and reinvigorated to carry on authentically in this work. If you have been on this journey for a while, if you feel stuck, or if it's started to become a comfortable routine, I can't recommend this book enough. It will shake you up like the beginning of your journey did. It is a rebirthing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt and Racism

Minor: Sexual assault

Not necessarily a comprehensive trigger list!

Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The emotions in this book really caught me off-guard. Taking place over 10+ years, it's a complicated and nuanced story of motherhood, the immigrant experience and queerness, told from the third-person points of view of Patsy, a Jamaican woman living in New York, and Tru, her daughter who she left in Jamaica. It took me a while to get into- although I think that says more about my being used to being catered to as a white reader from the Global North than it does about Dennis-Benn's writing- but the second half was absolutely breathtaking. From the 50% mark, I finished it in four days. I nearly cried near the end, and I couldn't put it down in my final reading session. I highly recommend- and I especially recommend sticking with it if you're finding it hard to get into at the start.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt and Mental illness

Moderate: Homophobia, Miscarriage, Racism, and Sexual assault

The triggering content ramps up in the second half, with

flashbacks to child sexual abuse and a miscarriage, and a graphic suicide attempt.

The first half contains some descriptions of racism and depression.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

emotional reflective slow-paced

5.0

 In just 100 pages or so, James Baldwin absolutely blew me away. I really felt his themes of love and anger- not as opposites, but complementing each other. Some of his descriptions, particularly when he recalls first going to church at the beginning of Down at the Cross, I physically felt in my body. I was also struck by how similar Baldwin's words from 1963 are to the leading voices in racial liberation today. This brought home to me how much we owe to the wisdom of ancestors like James Baldwin. Overall, this is a short and accessible book that in no way compromises on its searing tone or emotional impact. I'd recommend it to people of all races and levels of nonfiction reading experience. 

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Content Warnings

I am reviewing this a few months after reading- there absolutely were triggering parts, but I can't remember them in enough detail to put them here.

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book reminded me of a David Lynch movie, in that I felt that there was some great thematic narrative just beyond my reach, but I didn't quite understand it. Ishiguro's minimalist style leaves room for reader inference, and the entire book, especially the parts set in Japan, have an overwhelming sense of foreboding. This contrasts with the parts set in England, where Etsuko is looking back at tragedy rather than feeling it coming. This book is complex, and I think it is about many different things- family, grief, cultural and generational differences, pre- and post-war Japan. I wouldn't recommend it if you need to "understand" a story or reach a satisfying ending (or really any ending at all)- I'd say this is written in a way that allows you to drift with the ominous flow of the storytelling. I was entirely wrapped up in it and the tone, moreso than the plot, will stay with me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Grief, and Suicide

Minor: Murder

A major plot point is the recent suicide of the narrating character's daughter; the circumstances of this are discussed, but there is not a play-by-play description.

There are mentions of child murders at two points, the first with no explicit detail and the second with one graphic detail mentioned almost in passing. These sections make up a total of probably four sentences.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

challenging reflective medium-paced

2.5

(PLEASE SEE REVIEW END)
Every sentence in this book is a new piece of wisdom. Don't go into it thinking it will mirror other antiracism books you may have read before; Kendi has quite a different viewpoint in some places, which made me face my own stubbornness and conviction that my views on the problem are "right". Chapters are split into half memoir, half historical/legal/etc. context. The memoir parts are really touching and it's inspiring to see Kendi's own journey from racism to antiracism; hearing how he's changed over years and through the help of others gives me hope that I and others can do the same. I sometimes found the factual context sections a little intellectually overwhelming; there are a lot of legal cases, dates, facts and figures mentioned, so I don't feel like I took it all in, but the parts I did absorb added much-needed context to the memoir sections and the antiracism struggle in general. This book is absolutely rammed with much-needed information and I would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
EDIT: Since writing this review, I have been signposted to the That's Not How That Works podcast's episode about this book, which you can listen to here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/129eEvOkro4MQO0hRRJK44?si=EUs9Ocg2QUiApdCL9dJOiw&utm_source=copy-link. I did not have the required critical thinking skills to see what lens this book was written through, and my positive review was reflective of that. Please listen to Trudi and Weeze's podcast; I have changed my rating to a 2.5 so I don't have an impact on the book's overall rating on the StoryGraph. I have a lot more to learn, and I'm sorry that I contributed to harm through lack of critical thought.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, and Cancer

Moderate: Police brutality

The police brutality part is

a description of the immediate lead-up to the murder of Trayvon Martin.

It is one paragraph that I would say is skippable if this is triggering for you.

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Did not finish book.

Didn't get on with the narrative style at all. I am all for unsympathetic narrators, but I find Eva so anger-inducing that I don't enjoy reading from her perspective at all. I admit to having very little resilience here, because I returned the book within two days.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mass/school shootings, Murder, and Gun violence

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Death

Eva is a very good depiction of a neglectful mother in denial, so anyone with mommy issues beware.

Insurgent by Veronica Roth
Did not finish book.

Personal reasons- not in the right headspace for this at all, especially (whole series spoiler)

knowing that Tris dies at the end of the trilogy

. Will maybe come back to the series eventually, but for some reason it really pulls at my heartstrings in a way I don't like.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Abandonment and War

Both of the protagonist's parents die- one right at the end of the previous book and the grief is dealt with here, and one in this book (to my recollection). Her brother also seemingly betrays her and she grieves this loss very explicitly. There are themes of not belonging throughout the series that may be triggering.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock
Did not finish book.

Life got really hectic and I stopped reading for a few months right in the middle of Redefining Realness. I want to come back to it at some point, it's nothing against the book!

First Love, Last Rites by Ian McEwan
Did not finish book.

I read this off the back of finishing Black Dogs, which I loved, but I just didn't get into it in the same way. I can't remember anything about what I read, which I think is telling.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

adventurous tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 The aspects of this book that I enjoyed, I really enjoyed. I found Drayden's character development to be very strong, although I wanted to hear so much more about certain characters. As a queer reader, I found myself especially drawn to Muzi, Elkin and

Stoker's

character arcs; I found

Stoker's

to be well-rounded, but I wish we had seen more of Muzi and Elkin together. I also really appreciated Drayden's dry humour. However, I found that the story became very cluttered, at least for my neurodivergent attention span, which took away from those parts that I enjoyed so much. I can tell that Drayden has experience in writing short stories, as I found that the fairly long book was split into small story arcs that I enjoyed, mixed in with parts I found more difficult to engage with. This is a maximalist book that I would recommend to people who get bored with novels easily or who want to be surprised with every chapter. I enjoyed it overall, but I also prefer a slightly slower pace. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief

I have recently lost a friend and I found

Muzi losing Elkin to be very upsetting, even though I always had a hunch that it would be temporary

. If you've been through similar experiences or if you're sensitive to grief/loss in general then I would be cautious.