bookreviewswithkb's reviews
641 reviews

What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence by Michele Filgate

emotional reflective

3.0

a good collection of essays that just didn’t hit me in the way i expected them to. i didn’t feel the emotional pull i wanted from such a vulnerable topic. however, the essays shared here are deeply personal and reflective, and i appreciated the centering of what it is to be both a woman and a mother, and how these identities interact with each other in a myriad of ways, especially in the context of the traumas and harm women experience being transformed into the ways they mother their children, and how their children have to come to terms with that reality 

Portrait of a Feminist: A Memoir in Essays by Marianna Marlowe

1.5

thank you to @booksparks for the review copy! Portrait of a Feminist is out on 2/28

while i appreciate the concept of this book, it fell very short of the nuance and self-reflection that makes for a compelling memoir. it felt like the author has neglected to challenge her own internalized misogyny, resulting in several instances where i was left perplexed at the clearly anti-feminist statements made, such as the author being offended when someone assumes she is a lesbian 

additionally, the author’s internalized Islamophobia is present in this work - she tries to equate the hijab with some sort of protection against assault ??? and compares wearing hijab or burqa to wearing a mask. and also talks about taking pictures of men praying during the call to prayer 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Islamophobia

Moderate: Child abuse and Rape

The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen Cheung

dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

Cheung offers so much nuance, intentional reflection, and passionate articulation of her experience living in Hong Kong, embedded within the larger landscape of the social and political issues of the city that impact her own life and well-being, as well as those around her. she draws parallels between the housing crisis in HK and the mental health crisis, the connections between art and resistance. it is both heartbreaking and informative and i highly recommend it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Police brutality

The Golden Son by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No

2.0

this started off really strong and then somewhere around halfway through it felt like it was nonstop traumatic event after traumatic event, without the characters doing any processing. when that’s the case, i wonder what the point of the traumatic event even is and it starts to feel like the trauma is being sensationalized

lack of character depth, unexplored storylines, and so many contradictions

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

challenging emotional

no one needs to see my review of this book 

Hurston deserves her flowers ten times over, especially for all the ways society tried to dismiss her. and so does Janie. and so do all the Black women of the world 

Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed

emotional hopeful inspiring sad fast-paced

4.5

“if everyone decided nothing could change, nothing ever would.”

such an empowering, beautiful middle grade novel! this is one of many stories that needs to be told. was the ending too good to be true? yes. but it’s middle grade people 

On Black Sisters Street by Chika Unigwe

emotional sad

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

this is a deeply painful examination of how four African women were trafficked into prostitution in Belgium, with a focus on the circumstances that led to them being in a position of little choice. through the sharing of their stories with one another, they lean into the power of friendships between women, of owning your own narrative, and how hope can carry us through 

the content is profound and this could have easily been a 5✨ if the writing had been more focused on leading me through the story, instead of telling me directly. i wasn’t emotionally connected to the characters or the storyline

Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

informative

this is a book filled with important content on colonialism, genocide, white supremacy and the american myth that the united states is a country of immigrants. unfortunately, it’s super disorganized which made it hard to follow at times 

The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America by Carol Anderson

emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

Anderson brilliantly connects the creation of the 2nd amendment with the murder of Black people at the hands of police in the present day. she describes the origin of the 2nd amendment, including an analysis of its roots as tied to the continued enslavement of Black people, and its continuation steeped in anti-Blackness

i think what is in this book is incredible, but it feels unfinished. the breadth of history covered is extensive, but huge swaths of time are not included, which i think, if included, would have further articulated the thesis of this book and stamped the connections Anderson made between the 2nd amendment and racism. however, i think it’s a hugely important read and i would encourage you to pick it up 

Recognising the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative by Isabella Hammad

emotional reflective

5.0

at the heart is this essay/speech is the question, “how many Palestinians need to die for one soldier to have his epiphany?” Hammad’s reflections and insights are beautiful, thought-provoking, rich, and deepened my thinking around the power or lack of power around individual moments of recognition. i definitely wanted more and it has inspired me to pick up her fiction books sooner rather than later (one of which is already sitting on my shelves 😬)