alexture's reviews
936 reviews

On Community by Casey Plett

4.5

In this very long essay (or very short nonfiction book, depending on what framing you prefer), Casey Plett says she’s going to try to define community, then immediately makes it clear that it can’t be defined. 

Take the phrase “the [X] community.” When I read that phrase, I think: How does this person know this about the [X] community? What are the borders of the [X] community? How is the writer deciding who counts within them and who does not? Is the writer a member of the [X] community? Would others dispute their membership? Whatever claim is made about the community, how many sections within it must the claim apply to in order to justify the term? Perhaps most importantly, How can that writer possibly decide who gets to speak for the community? And who are those not speaking in their place?

 
And then, she tells us what it means to feel like you have a community, or none, or to be included or rejected of one community. She talks about « cancel culture », she talks about awkward trans picnics and of justice in the Mennonite community and of when you feel that you’re « from here » − a topic that I definitely relate to.
 

Communities welcome certain people and cast a suspicious eye on others. Communities lift up their valued members and ignore those they value a bit less. Sometimes those values are, shall we say, suspect. Communities can expel members when they choose, regardless of what that means for the member, and they stay communities no matter how heartless that expulsion might be.

 
tldr: communities are a vague concept with good and bad things in them.
 
…but I feel like it’s best to read the book, because that’s a pretty short tldr, huh?

Il n'y a que moi que ça choque ?: Huit ans dans la bulle des journalistes politiques by Rachid Laïreche

Dans Il n'y a que moi que ça choque ?, Rachid Laïreche nous raconte ses huit années de journaliste politique chez Libération.

L'envoi à sa première conférence de presse un peu à l'arrache, parce qu'on n'a qu'un seul Arabe et qu'on ne va quand même pas le garder au service des sports comme un cliché. La découverte d'un écosystème où des médias d'opinions complètement opposées bossent ensemble pour se partager un scoop ou une interview. Les ministres invités à déjeuner, les petits coups en traître et le off.

Et puis, après un moment, l'incertitude. Rachid Laïreche commence à ne plus trop parvenir à communiquer avec sa famille : il est journaliste, les médias nous mentent. Et puis au-delà de nous mentir, on ne comprend rien à ce qu'ils racontent, ces politiques. Et puis de toute façon, Rachid, il a trahi, il ne s'occupe plus de nous, il ne parle plus de foot.

Une réflexion super intéressante sur le journalisme politique, certes, mais aussi sur la politique française elle-même, sur le journalisme dans son ensemble, et sur comment on revient sur Terre discuter avec les gens qu'on aime quand on ne s'exprime plus comme eux et qu'on a appris à ne plus les entendre.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

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

Natural Beauty has stayed with me for a few weeks. I wasn’t going to write about it here, because I didn’t find it significant or likeable enough. And here I am a month later, still browsing through the list and feeling… something, when I scroll past the name of this book. 

I say « something » because I really don’t know what is going on here. Natural Beauty is such a short little horror novel, and yet it touches on so much. The body horror is engrossing (and also just gross), but it goes so much further than that − to the point that it feels like the least awful part of the book, in a sense. 

I found the book very similar to The Centre in a way, with its horror take on cultural appropriation. Others talk about this with more sensitivity and knowledge than myself, including the author herself. 

To me, the main topics were grief and body image. I could have chosen half a dozen more − pressure to perform, conformity, identity, being your parents’ caregiver, awful roommates, bisexuality − but these two stayed with me. The way grief makes you give up on what you love the most and pulls you down into this spiral. The way your body image makes you ignorant of what’s happening in your own mirror until it’s too late to understand that something else happened to your body. It’s good. It’s really good.

Station eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

Une pandémie (non, pas celle-là) détruit presque l'humanité. Un homme meurt sur scène. Le reste du monde meurt deux semaines plus tard.

Des petits groupes de survivants tiennent bon, du mieux possible. Cet homme qui est mort un soir lors d'une représentation de Shakespeare a laissé d'autres personnes dans son sillage. Des ex-femmes, un enfant, une petite fille qui jouait un rôle mineur dans sa pièce, un paparazzi. Certains sont encore vivants, d'autres non.

Ils ne se connaissent pas, et pourtant, ils se retrouvent : dans une troupe de théâtre itinérante, une secte meurtrière, un aéroport devenu musée.

Un ouvrage frappant, aux personnages tiraillés entre le monde que nous connaissons et celui qui les attend. Brillant.

Debout, les damnés de l'Uber !: Chroniques by Charline VANHOENACKER
Did not finish book. Stopped at 11%.

C'est pas que ça a mal vieilli, c'est plutôt que ça n'a pas vieilli. Je ne comprends pas très bien l'idée de sortir un bouquin sur des chroniques qui parlent d'une actualité quotidienne.

To Name the Bigger Lie: A Memoir in Two Stories by Sarah Viren

Sarah Viren examines the nature of lies and conspiracies and how we build our Truth. 

When the author started writing this memoir, it was about her high school philosophy teacher in an European-inspired magnet programme where philosophy exists (i love this). In freshman year, it was an amazing class where the teacher encouraged everyone to think by themselves, some kind of Dead Poets Society type of genre-bending lessons. Two years later, when she had him again, this same teacher took these kids into a whole journey in absorbing conspiracy theories. 

Viren most memorably tells us about him peddling Holocaust denial to his students. She starts with her own recollection: the teacher playing a debate on whether the Holocaust actually happened, but only playing the first half of it, the denial part. Her shock and anger. Her friend, whose grandparents died in a concentration camp during World War II, trying to explain to her parents that they believed a lie, alienating herself from her family history for years. Her other friends, the one who don’t remember this story at all. And the few people who started remembering details she hadn’t − he said he didn’t have time for the second half, he had a fight with another teacher on this topic. Things she might have known, but didn’t remember. 

What begins as a study of a teacher and his lies becomes thoughts about how we build reality from our incomplete memories. How do you share memories to build a collective history that allows you to move forward? 

The second part of the memoir is another lie. As Viren is about to get her dream job in academia, with the sole caveat that her wife Marta needs to also find a job nearby, anonymous reports start accusing her Marta of sexually harassing students. They are taken seriously by the university, as they should; the couple is under investigation, the hiring is paused, Marta and Sarah have to contend with horrible accusations that they know are wrong… unless? 

It turns out that the job had two top candidates; the other person saw that Viren would get the job, and launched this smear campaign to have a chance. Academia is a cruel field. But during all that time, the women in this story deal with a « what if this was true? what if I can’t trust my partner? what if I can’t trust anyone? » kind of situation, which ties in very neatly to the conspiracy theories of that high school teacher. 

All these thoughts are linked, and all of them amount to how fragile and subjective the truth is. There aren’t many solutions throughout the book − I guess that’s a task for each of us. And maybe we can share our solutions and build new realities together.

Le Serment des pécadous by Wilfrid Lupano

Mon ami Loïc m’a fourré cette bande dessinée dans les mains en me disant « prends ça, je sais que tu vas aimer ». Je dis « mon ami Loïc » parce que manifestement, il me connaît très bien. 

Je me suis bien marré à la lecture du premier tome de Traquemages, intitulé Le serment des pécadous, qui suit un berger vraiment trop saoulé des mages qui dévastent ses alpages et des trolls qui bouffent ses cornebiques (mais pas ses fromages, ils puent trop). 

Comme on n’est jamais mieux servi que par soi-même, il fait le serment d’anéantir les mages et la magie, et se met en quête, armé de ses fromages et d’une épée un peu pérave. Accompagnée de sa fidèle biquette Myrtille (la seule qui ait pas été bouffée, parce qu’elle a bravement résisté s’est cachée en tremblant), il croise une fée alcoolique qui lui donne des informations mais pas grand-chose d’autre et s’apprête à faire face à son destin. 

Il semblerait que pour vous en dire plus, je doive lire le deuxième tome. Ça devrait pas trop tarder.

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

The original title of this book was Maryam Was a Dyke, as Lamya H said in their interview on the podcast Gender Reveal (if you speak English, grab the episode or transcript, if you prefer French, the translated transcript will be on this blog soon). They then changed it because some friends said that would alienate more traditional Muslim readers, who would be feeling defensive before even starting to read.

Makes sense!

I, however, am not a Muslim reader, regardless of tradition. My main relationship to Islam is that every year for about a month, I feast on pastries and dried dates thanks to my local supermarket's Ramadan aisle. (Okay, I do have a bit more knowledge and personal relationship to this religion, but it's not relevant to what I'm about to say and I was reminded yesterday by Auchan that Ramadan aisle time has come again).

For reasons that have nothing to do with my faith, I still don't think I would have picked up this book if it had been called Maryam was a Dyke. And I would have missed out on something incredible.

Hijab Butch Blues only has the butch in common with Stone Butch Blues, from which it gets its name. Everything is else is new and shiny − especially to me, a person interested in religion and faith, interested in queerness, interested in anti-racism, but with wildly different experiences and characteristics as Lamya H.

This read was both engaging and instructive − I related to so much, and learnt so much about what I did not − cannot − relate to. It's respectful of everyone and tells a story that needs to be heard again and again by people like me. I think Hijab Butch Blues is a memoir that works for absolutely everybody, always holds you by the hand without ever being condescending, and beautifully mixes the concrete, easy to grasp anecdotes and the more philosophical thinking that goes behind how these little stories were perceived and how they affected Lamya H to this day.

Honestly one of the best memoirs I've read, and one of my best reads of 2024 so far.

Elisabeta by Rozenn Illiano

adventurous medium-paced

 

Le récap annuel d’Ours Inculte mentionnait Rozenn Illiano et a attiré ma curiosité, j’ai donc fait l’acquisition d’Elisabeta, le premier résultat de ma recherche sur son nom. 

N’ayant fait absolument aucune recherche sur le bouquin avant de le lire, l’ayant sur liseuse donc avec une couverture bof en noir et blanc et de pas de page de résumé, et le lisant dans un avion donc sans accès au résumé sur Internet, je n’avais aucune idée d’à quoi m’attendre, à part « un truc indépendant par une autrice qui est peut-être bretonne j’en sais rien je suis nul en noms bretons ». 

Je vous épargne la confusion : 

Elisabeta suit deux jeunes femmes, Saraï et Gabriela. L’une est vampire et assignée à résidence à Rennes à cause de son pouvoir spécial d’empathie. L’autre est humaine en Italie et compte bien le rester, que son compagnon immortel le veuille ou non. Et d’un coup, leurs destins se mêlent, alors qu’apparaît une reine prête à se venger − sauf qu’elle est coincée dans une poupée en céramique, parce que son mari l’a assassinée pour prendre le pouvoir il y a deux siècles, et que ça limite pas mal sa capacité d’action. 

On se prend vite au jeu du scénario, avec ses complots et ses rebondissements plutôt classiques et toujours satisfaisants. On se prend aussi d’intérêt pour ses personnages secondaires amoraux et ses intrigues où personne ne peut être totalement du côté du Bien, parce que les dommages collatéraux ne sont jamais insignifiants. Ce scénario bien ficelé et les relations entre les personnages, construites avec attention, m’ont permis de pardonner le seul vrai point faible du roman : ses deux héroïnes m’ont trop souvent paru interchangeables. J’ai peur que ce soit un vrai défaut d’écriture, parce que la reine Elisabeta s’exprimait aussi de la même façon − mais comme le roman était excellent, j’en tenterai peut-être un autre de la même autrice pour voir si elle a su créer des personnages féminins plus singuliers dans d’autres œuvres. 

Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher

 

This recommendation from Tracy was a really fun and sweet Beauty and the Beast retelling. 

It took me a while to get into the story, for two reasons: 

• I have no idea why I even started reading it since I’m very tired of fantasy and of romance
• I didn’t know it was a Beauty and the Beast retelling and was very confused for a while (although not knowing didn’t make it less enjoyable, just more confusing)

But somehow the first point didn’t bother me and the second got revealed after I read a couple of reviews for the book on The Storygraph, allowing me to enjoy my read and be absolutely obsessed with Bryony the story.
 
Lovely characters, a plot has a few holes but is cute enough to be forgiven, wonderful spirit, funny jokes − sounds good to me, and if it sounds good to you too, it’s a quick and lighthearted read.