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brice_mo's reviews
409 reviews
You Lied to Me About God: A Memoir by Jamie Marich
1.5
Thanks to NetGalley and North Atlantic Books for the ARC!
Dr. Jamie Marich’s You Lied to Me About God is a deeply frustrating read in that it is a good book buried in a bad memoir.
Decorated with taxonomies at every turn, this begins as something closer to The Body Keeps the Score for spiritual abuse than a memoir. That’s where it excels, as Marich weaves therapeutic language and concepts throughout common religious trauma. The book is so successful in this regard that, for a while, I wondered if it might be eventually be considered a seminal text on the subject.
Unfortunately, though, this approach quickly undermines the structure of the book, as Marich treats her personal history as a problem to be solved—a therapeutic object lesson. As a result, there’s endless signposting like, “the full story will unwind in other chapters of this memoir.” The author completely loses the specificity of her story because she’s preoccupied with its singularity, so her fairly standard spiritual journey is framed as novel and implicitly didactic. Additionally, this attitude makes some of Marich’s other structural decisions appear misjudged, such as each chapter’s concluding “Expressive Arts Invitation,” which is essentially a trauma-informed reflection exercise. Because they are supposed to exist in conversation with “memoir,” they feel self-indulgent more than anything else. As a reader, it feels bad to see a memoirist seemingly convinced that their life is instructive.
Furthermore, like the recent Kissing Girls on Shabbat, a book that might be considered a spiritual sister to this one, the memoir within You Lied to Me About God feels grossly underserved by Marich’s therapeutic impulses. She seems intent on analyzing or justifying every past belief, often to the book’s detriment. I think effective memoir recognizes that its author is just one of many past, present, and future selves, but this book feels desperate to cast the now-Marich as the definitive one, capable of handling every aspect of her life with an authoritative finality. It reads as defensive, a characteristic further compounded by countless performative, white liberal touchstones, such as discussions on race that ultimately feel self-serving.
Lest these critiques seem to be in bad faith, I write this as someone who largely shares the author’s politics and feelings about religion. I also just think Marich’s use of BIPOC scholarship seems patronizing and flippant, rather than rooted in a desire for robust alternative perspectives. Every look outward feels meant to attract the reader’s attention to Marich herself. By the end of the book, this insularity feels like its defining characteristic—a memoir so convinced that it will be “useful” to its readers that it seems completely disinterested in them and detached from its author.
Dr. Jamie Marich’s You Lied to Me About God is a deeply frustrating read in that it is a good book buried in a bad memoir.
Decorated with taxonomies at every turn, this begins as something closer to The Body Keeps the Score for spiritual abuse than a memoir. That’s where it excels, as Marich weaves therapeutic language and concepts throughout common religious trauma. The book is so successful in this regard that, for a while, I wondered if it might be eventually be considered a seminal text on the subject.
Unfortunately, though, this approach quickly undermines the structure of the book, as Marich treats her personal history as a problem to be solved—a therapeutic object lesson. As a result, there’s endless signposting like, “the full story will unwind in other chapters of this memoir.” The author completely loses the specificity of her story because she’s preoccupied with its singularity, so her fairly standard spiritual journey is framed as novel and implicitly didactic. Additionally, this attitude makes some of Marich’s other structural decisions appear misjudged, such as each chapter’s concluding “Expressive Arts Invitation,” which is essentially a trauma-informed reflection exercise. Because they are supposed to exist in conversation with “memoir,” they feel self-indulgent more than anything else. As a reader, it feels bad to see a memoirist seemingly convinced that their life is instructive.
Furthermore, like the recent Kissing Girls on Shabbat, a book that might be considered a spiritual sister to this one, the memoir within You Lied to Me About God feels grossly underserved by Marich’s therapeutic impulses. She seems intent on analyzing or justifying every past belief, often to the book’s detriment. I think effective memoir recognizes that its author is just one of many past, present, and future selves, but this book feels desperate to cast the now-Marich as the definitive one, capable of handling every aspect of her life with an authoritative finality. It reads as defensive, a characteristic further compounded by countless performative, white liberal touchstones, such as discussions on race that ultimately feel self-serving.
Lest these critiques seem to be in bad faith, I write this as someone who largely shares the author’s politics and feelings about religion. I also just think Marich’s use of BIPOC scholarship seems patronizing and flippant, rather than rooted in a desire for robust alternative perspectives. Every look outward feels meant to attract the reader’s attention to Marich herself. By the end of the book, this insularity feels like its defining characteristic—a memoir so convinced that it will be “useful” to its readers that it seems completely disinterested in them and detached from its author.
Fire Exit by Morgan Talty
2.75
Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC!
Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit is a good story that doesn’t fit well in a novel.
Thematically, there are some interesting concepts about identity—particularly in the context of blood quantum—because the narrator is a white man who was raised on a reservation. This aspect of the book is largely held in the background, which keeps it subtle and lends complexity to the story without playing into tropes.
Unfortunately, Fire Exit seems like it just doesn’t belong in a book of this length. Everything about it would be more at home in a tightly crafted short story, whereas it feels slack and cumbersome in a full-length novel. It’s written such that readers gradually learn more about its characters’ past, which might feel satisfying if constrained to a few pages, but because the book is so contingent on a constant unfurling of “major revelations,” it begins to consume itself, with each revelation carrying less weight. Furthermore, the characters always feel a little impressionistic, so learning more about them doesn’t add much shade or dimension—the new information just feels needlessly deferred.
When the book finally picks up momentum near its cataclysmic end, it feels like too little, too late, and I wished I could have just read those 50 or so pages independently. To be clear, I don’t think novels are obligated to take any particular shape—it can be enjoyable to feel a writer’s self-conscious decisions about form through the text; in Fire Exit, though, it feels less like intentionality and more like uncertainty.
All in all, I found Fire Exit to be deeply disappointing. It isn’t bad by any means—maybe I would have enjoyed it more if it were—but it feels strangely obligatory, like a book that was required to exist instead of a book that needed to.
Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit is a good story that doesn’t fit well in a novel.
Thematically, there are some interesting concepts about identity—particularly in the context of blood quantum—because the narrator is a white man who was raised on a reservation. This aspect of the book is largely held in the background, which keeps it subtle and lends complexity to the story without playing into tropes.
Unfortunately, Fire Exit seems like it just doesn’t belong in a book of this length. Everything about it would be more at home in a tightly crafted short story, whereas it feels slack and cumbersome in a full-length novel. It’s written such that readers gradually learn more about its characters’ past, which might feel satisfying if constrained to a few pages, but because the book is so contingent on a constant unfurling of “major revelations,” it begins to consume itself, with each revelation carrying less weight. Furthermore, the characters always feel a little impressionistic, so learning more about them doesn’t add much shade or dimension—the new information just feels needlessly deferred.
When the book finally picks up momentum near its cataclysmic end, it feels like too little, too late, and I wished I could have just read those 50 or so pages independently. To be clear, I don’t think novels are obligated to take any particular shape—it can be enjoyable to feel a writer’s self-conscious decisions about form through the text; in Fire Exit, though, it feels less like intentionality and more like uncertainty.
All in all, I found Fire Exit to be deeply disappointing. It isn’t bad by any means—maybe I would have enjoyed it more if it were—but it feels strangely obligatory, like a book that was required to exist instead of a book that needed to.
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
2.75
Thanks to NetGalley and W.W. Norton for the ARC!
Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time is a carefully manicured reflection on the garden as a social symbol and site of class demarcation, but it occasionally gets a little too lost in the weeds.
If you’ve read the marketing copy for this book, you already know that Laing began an 18th-century garden restoration project during the pandemic. It’s a starting point that seems like it should be fruitful; however, like many projects born during COVID, The Garden Against Time struggles with the tension between interiority and insularity, unfortunately skewing toward the latter. Laing’s usual preoccupations just don’t seem to fit within their framing device here, as the isolated origin of the work makes many of the author’s sociological observations feel more voyeuristic than astute.
The Garden Against Time seems to celebrate the garden as a site of escapism while also suggesting it’s an impossibility. Laing offers lush descriptions, treating readers to sensorial delights—I could almost smell the soil and taste the pollen hanging in the air—before interrupting them with discussions of history and politics. Sometimes, they work to shed light on the history of land access and ownership—I also loved all the material about Derek Jarman—but often they read like unexpected digressions. While this approach feels masterful and holistic in a book like Everybody, here it feels less focused—like someone sharing every fact that comes to mind after a wikipedia deep dive. Or, to use some garden imagery, it feels like an invasive species.
Perhaps these complaints are a matter of faulty expectations, but the book feels like it was written as a way to pass the endless, shapeless hours of the early 2020s. It never blooms beyond feeling like a COVID curio—cumbersomely divided, with its political distance in tension with its earthy intimacy. In the end, it’s disappointing because it feels like there are two great versions of The Garden Against Time if Laing picked a focus and an editor trimmed 50-100 pages. Even so, there’s still much to appreciate here, and I recommend the book to readers who understand what they are signing up for.
Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time is a carefully manicured reflection on the garden as a social symbol and site of class demarcation, but it occasionally gets a little too lost in the weeds.
If you’ve read the marketing copy for this book, you already know that Laing began an 18th-century garden restoration project during the pandemic. It’s a starting point that seems like it should be fruitful; however, like many projects born during COVID, The Garden Against Time struggles with the tension between interiority and insularity, unfortunately skewing toward the latter. Laing’s usual preoccupations just don’t seem to fit within their framing device here, as the isolated origin of the work makes many of the author’s sociological observations feel more voyeuristic than astute.
The Garden Against Time seems to celebrate the garden as a site of escapism while also suggesting it’s an impossibility. Laing offers lush descriptions, treating readers to sensorial delights—I could almost smell the soil and taste the pollen hanging in the air—before interrupting them with discussions of history and politics. Sometimes, they work to shed light on the history of land access and ownership—I also loved all the material about Derek Jarman—but often they read like unexpected digressions. While this approach feels masterful and holistic in a book like Everybody, here it feels less focused—like someone sharing every fact that comes to mind after a wikipedia deep dive. Or, to use some garden imagery, it feels like an invasive species.
Perhaps these complaints are a matter of faulty expectations, but the book feels like it was written as a way to pass the endless, shapeless hours of the early 2020s. It never blooms beyond feeling like a COVID curio—cumbersomely divided, with its political distance in tension with its earthy intimacy. In the end, it’s disappointing because it feels like there are two great versions of The Garden Against Time if Laing picked a focus and an editor trimmed 50-100 pages. Even so, there’s still much to appreciate here, and I recommend the book to readers who understand what they are signing up for.
Cloud Missives by Kenzie Allen
4.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC!
Based on the title, one might expect Kenzie Allen’s Cloud Missives to be a collection of weightless, wispy poems, but that would underestimate how much heft the book actually has—these are storm clouds, capable of powerful and unexpected turns.
Most of these pieces circle the difficulties of Indigenous identity in a world where mainstream culture has reduced it to racist iconography. We see well-known characters like Tiger Lily or Pocahontas (TM) parasitically leeching off the speaker’s sense of self, highlighting the way colonialism is not a historical event—it’s an ongoing reality. The poet pulls off a remarkable balancing act in her ability to engage with these themes and images without indulging them, and it showcases how cohesive and intentioned the whole project is. The marketing copy for this book invokes Allen’s anthropological impulse, and I think it’s a great articulation of how rigorous this collection feels, both in its methodological precision and the way the speaker reconstructs the present from countless artifacts.
Another aspect of the collection I really admire is how each poem feels like the broken shard of a narrative—the reading experience is often like hearing a heated argument through a wall. There’s a groundedness to the language and a unique cadence to what the speaker reveals or withholds, and both qualities make for a book that seems certain to reward attentive re-reads. Periodically, it slips ever so slightly, as the “Letters I Don’t Send” section feels like a familiar poetic fantasia, but it’s only a minor dip in an excellent collection.
Also, “When I Say I Love You, This Is What I Mean” made me weepy. What a poem.
Based on the title, one might expect Kenzie Allen’s Cloud Missives to be a collection of weightless, wispy poems, but that would underestimate how much heft the book actually has—these are storm clouds, capable of powerful and unexpected turns.
Most of these pieces circle the difficulties of Indigenous identity in a world where mainstream culture has reduced it to racist iconography. We see well-known characters like Tiger Lily or Pocahontas (TM) parasitically leeching off the speaker’s sense of self, highlighting the way colonialism is not a historical event—it’s an ongoing reality. The poet pulls off a remarkable balancing act in her ability to engage with these themes and images without indulging them, and it showcases how cohesive and intentioned the whole project is. The marketing copy for this book invokes Allen’s anthropological impulse, and I think it’s a great articulation of how rigorous this collection feels, both in its methodological precision and the way the speaker reconstructs the present from countless artifacts.
Another aspect of the collection I really admire is how each poem feels like the broken shard of a narrative—the reading experience is often like hearing a heated argument through a wall. There’s a groundedness to the language and a unique cadence to what the speaker reveals or withholds, and both qualities make for a book that seems certain to reward attentive re-reads. Periodically, it slips ever so slightly, as the “Letters I Don’t Send” section feels like a familiar poetic fantasia, but it’s only a minor dip in an excellent collection.
Also, “When I Say I Love You, This Is What I Mean” made me weepy. What a poem.
Waiting Isn't a Waste: The Surprising Comfort of Trusting God in the Uncertainties of Life by Mark Vroegop
2.5
Thanks to NetGalley and Crossway for the ARC!
Mark Vroegop’s Waiting Isn’t a Waste is a slight book, better attuned to day-to-day impatience than it is to deus absconditus, which means that its merit is almost entirely contingent on reader expectations.
I know Vroegop’s previous writing on lament was really resonant for many people, and there’s a possibility that the same will be true here, but it felt fairly insubstantial to me. Waiting Isn’t a Waste is not a challenging read, and I mean that both in terms of density and its ability to provoke reflection. Personally, I found it frustrating how rhetorically beholden it is to the format of a 45-minute sermon. Each chapter opens with an anecdote, which then introduces a main point, which is then supported by a few Bible verses and the occasional quote, which is then supplemented with reflection questions. It’s palatable to a fault, and it feels like a missed opportunity to dive deeper.
The following will sound like a harsh critique, but I don’t mean it as such—this is where audience expectations come in. This book feels tailor-made for evangelicals who are so steeped in their subculture that they are at least a little disconnected from the realities of the world. You could only give this to someone who feels comfortably at home in a Baptist/non-denom community because it’s so dependent on that shared lexicon and so disengaged with any concerns outside that demographic. I know a book can’t be all things to all people, but I do wonder if such a strict dichotomy between “sacred” and “secular” audiences promotes an unhealthy insularity. At the very least, the book felt ill-equipped for the existential and spiritual questions that implicitly motivate discomfort with “waiting.”
All that said, I accept that these quibbles are a reflection of me as a reader more than problems with the text. I have relatives who would adore this as a supplement to their morning coffee, and maybe it doesn’t need to inspire thought as much as it needs to be a conversational centerpiece for people who might not otherwise know how to broach its themes. If that’s where you’re at, maybe this is a perfect book for you!
Mark Vroegop’s Waiting Isn’t a Waste is a slight book, better attuned to day-to-day impatience than it is to deus absconditus, which means that its merit is almost entirely contingent on reader expectations.
I know Vroegop’s previous writing on lament was really resonant for many people, and there’s a possibility that the same will be true here, but it felt fairly insubstantial to me. Waiting Isn’t a Waste is not a challenging read, and I mean that both in terms of density and its ability to provoke reflection. Personally, I found it frustrating how rhetorically beholden it is to the format of a 45-minute sermon. Each chapter opens with an anecdote, which then introduces a main point, which is then supported by a few Bible verses and the occasional quote, which is then supplemented with reflection questions. It’s palatable to a fault, and it feels like a missed opportunity to dive deeper.
The following will sound like a harsh critique, but I don’t mean it as such—this is where audience expectations come in. This book feels tailor-made for evangelicals who are so steeped in their subculture that they are at least a little disconnected from the realities of the world. You could only give this to someone who feels comfortably at home in a Baptist/non-denom community because it’s so dependent on that shared lexicon and so disengaged with any concerns outside that demographic. I know a book can’t be all things to all people, but I do wonder if such a strict dichotomy between “sacred” and “secular” audiences promotes an unhealthy insularity. At the very least, the book felt ill-equipped for the existential and spiritual questions that implicitly motivate discomfort with “waiting.”
All that said, I accept that these quibbles are a reflection of me as a reader more than problems with the text. I have relatives who would adore this as a supplement to their morning coffee, and maybe it doesn’t need to inspire thought as much as it needs to be a conversational centerpiece for people who might not otherwise know how to broach its themes. If that’s where you’re at, maybe this is a perfect book for you!
Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology by Timothy Morton
1.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for the ARC!
Appropriately, Timothy Morton’s Hell is an inflammatory hot mess of a book.
Drawing on Dante, Milton, and Blake, the book (ostensibly) envisions a healthier relationship to the biosphere by dressing it in second-hand Christian and Buddhist iconography. It’s an exciting approach to a critical issue, and I found Morton’s reimagining of the divine both fun and interesting, as well as how they use it to critique “scientism” as its own form of religiosity. Or, as they put it, how they call for “a post-deist, that is to say, post-Enlightenment, indeed Blakean-Romantic, totally un-Hegelian fusion of Christianity and science, the complete opposite of intelligent design: the Stupid Accident theory.”
Based on that sentence alone, you probably have a pretty good idea of what Hell is like, and it's also where my appreciation ends.
This book is absolutely chaotic, proudly embodying a kind of squirrelly energy that will either entice or estrange readers. As an example, there’s a section in which Morton interrogates the etymology of abba as a name for god before suddenly saying our new name for the divine is social media. It’s a pivot that feels laughably unexpected and woefully irrelevant, sounding more like a 2014 evangelical youth pastor than anything else.
The frenetic nature of the text is mystifying; it’s written in the style of those professors who imagine themselves to be rockstars, unaware that they are frumpy, middle-aged, and a bit of a joke. That’s not a dig at Morton as an individual—those were my favorite professors. It is, however, an accurate summary of the kinds of digressions that populate the book, as the author attempts to unify almost every hot-button issue—from COVID vaccines to fascism to AI—until it all slips out of their control.
Like many “grand re-envisionings” of sensitive topics, “Hell feels limited by its preoccupation with cultural artifacts in lieu of their origin. Morton includes every one of their pop culture interests, but they rarely seem to enrich the conversation. To be frank, they often feel more like gestures towards relevance—“I know who Lil Nas X is. That’s cool, right?” Moreover, this book repeatedly circles around Trump, QAnon, and BLM, but their inclusion feels anachronistic and almost purely cosmetic. The alt-right icons simply feel unproductive, but the use of racial issues seems downright irresponsible. When Morton attempts to connect racism to speciesism, it rings disingenuous and reeks of the privilege of analysis without experience, and they are just as flippant in their use of sexual politics. As a whole, the author’s positionality often feels artificial—condemning white patriarchal structures without fully recognizing how much they enable this style of scholarship.
Ultimately, Hell is a letdown because it feels like there’s a premise here that would be fruitful if it were used responsibly in a book with a much tighter edit. In its current form, though, it parodies its own ecological urgency by reducing the climate crisis to a kind of pop cultural debate on par with children arguing about whether Batman could beat Superman in a fight.
That sounds like a joke, but I’ve probably forgotten a few pages in Hell that cover that exact subject.
Appropriately, Timothy Morton’s Hell is an inflammatory hot mess of a book.
Drawing on Dante, Milton, and Blake, the book (ostensibly) envisions a healthier relationship to the biosphere by dressing it in second-hand Christian and Buddhist iconography. It’s an exciting approach to a critical issue, and I found Morton’s reimagining of the divine both fun and interesting, as well as how they use it to critique “scientism” as its own form of religiosity. Or, as they put it, how they call for “a post-deist, that is to say, post-Enlightenment, indeed Blakean-Romantic, totally un-Hegelian fusion of Christianity and science, the complete opposite of intelligent design: the Stupid Accident theory.”
Based on that sentence alone, you probably have a pretty good idea of what Hell is like, and it's also where my appreciation ends.
This book is absolutely chaotic, proudly embodying a kind of squirrelly energy that will either entice or estrange readers. As an example, there’s a section in which Morton interrogates the etymology of abba as a name for god before suddenly saying our new name for the divine is social media. It’s a pivot that feels laughably unexpected and woefully irrelevant, sounding more like a 2014 evangelical youth pastor than anything else.
The frenetic nature of the text is mystifying; it’s written in the style of those professors who imagine themselves to be rockstars, unaware that they are frumpy, middle-aged, and a bit of a joke. That’s not a dig at Morton as an individual—those were my favorite professors. It is, however, an accurate summary of the kinds of digressions that populate the book, as the author attempts to unify almost every hot-button issue—from COVID vaccines to fascism to AI—until it all slips out of their control.
Like many “grand re-envisionings” of sensitive topics, “Hell feels limited by its preoccupation with cultural artifacts in lieu of their origin. Morton includes every one of their pop culture interests, but they rarely seem to enrich the conversation. To be frank, they often feel more like gestures towards relevance—“I know who Lil Nas X is. That’s cool, right?” Moreover, this book repeatedly circles around Trump, QAnon, and BLM, but their inclusion feels anachronistic and almost purely cosmetic. The alt-right icons simply feel unproductive, but the use of racial issues seems downright irresponsible. When Morton attempts to connect racism to speciesism, it rings disingenuous and reeks of the privilege of analysis without experience, and they are just as flippant in their use of sexual politics. As a whole, the author’s positionality often feels artificial—condemning white patriarchal structures without fully recognizing how much they enable this style of scholarship.
Ultimately, Hell is a letdown because it feels like there’s a premise here that would be fruitful if it were used responsibly in a book with a much tighter edit. In its current form, though, it parodies its own ecological urgency by reducing the climate crisis to a kind of pop cultural debate on par with children arguing about whether Batman could beat Superman in a fight.
That sounds like a joke, but I’ve probably forgotten a few pages in Hell that cover that exact subject.
Coexistence: Stories by Billy-Ray Belcourt
4.75
Thanks to Edelweiss & W.W. Norton for the ARC!
Billy-Ray Belcourt’s Coexistence sees the poet move gracefully to short-form fiction, comfortably unbothered by the complexities of identity and all of its multiplicities and contradictions. These aren’t short stories as much as they are momentary portraits of people at a crossroads.
The book’s title is apt, as every character attempts to figure out what it means to share the world. There’s a recurring discomfort with how to navigate the relationship between selfhood and collective identity, a theme Belcourt draws attention to by having characters explicitly interrogate the notion of the “I,” wrestling with what it means to be an archive of all their past selves.
If that sounds esoteric, it’s not because these stories are ultimately about intimacy in all its forms—characters constantly reach out or retreat in pursuit of sex, companionship, or whatever feels most like love. These stories depict people fumbling for connection through language or just beyond its borders, and Belcourt is so thoughtful about how these desires are nuanced and shaped by the realities of indigenous identity, whether in the form of fetishizing hookups or political abuses. Even so, Belcourt refuses to define his stories by the undertow of violence, opting instead for an undercurrent of gentleness.
The book is brief, but the first few pages make the reason for its brevity abundantly clear—Belcourt treats each sentence with the same attention he brings to his poetry, and these stories feel like a place to spend and suspend time. They are populated with the odd and insignificant details that comprise memory, all of the fragments that are difficult to shape into words. Belcourt’s voice and preoccupations are distinctive, but if I had to make a comparison, Coexistence shares the tenderness seen in Ocean Vuong’s work. As a qualifier to my praise, these stories are deeply engaged with academic conversations, and while I found them approachable, it’s possible that some readers will interpret specific sections as digressive or too “heady.”
I don’t know if Billy-Ray Belcourt is working on another full-length novel, but Coexistence makes me hope that’s the case. With its rich thematic continuity, adept narrative structure, and gorgeous language, it’s a signal of great things to come.
Billy-Ray Belcourt’s Coexistence sees the poet move gracefully to short-form fiction, comfortably unbothered by the complexities of identity and all of its multiplicities and contradictions. These aren’t short stories as much as they are momentary portraits of people at a crossroads.
The book’s title is apt, as every character attempts to figure out what it means to share the world. There’s a recurring discomfort with how to navigate the relationship between selfhood and collective identity, a theme Belcourt draws attention to by having characters explicitly interrogate the notion of the “I,” wrestling with what it means to be an archive of all their past selves.
If that sounds esoteric, it’s not because these stories are ultimately about intimacy in all its forms—characters constantly reach out or retreat in pursuit of sex, companionship, or whatever feels most like love. These stories depict people fumbling for connection through language or just beyond its borders, and Belcourt is so thoughtful about how these desires are nuanced and shaped by the realities of indigenous identity, whether in the form of fetishizing hookups or political abuses. Even so, Belcourt refuses to define his stories by the undertow of violence, opting instead for an undercurrent of gentleness.
The book is brief, but the first few pages make the reason for its brevity abundantly clear—Belcourt treats each sentence with the same attention he brings to his poetry, and these stories feel like a place to spend and suspend time. They are populated with the odd and insignificant details that comprise memory, all of the fragments that are difficult to shape into words. Belcourt’s voice and preoccupations are distinctive, but if I had to make a comparison, Coexistence shares the tenderness seen in Ocean Vuong’s work. As a qualifier to my praise, these stories are deeply engaged with academic conversations, and while I found them approachable, it’s possible that some readers will interpret specific sections as digressive or too “heady.”
I don’t know if Billy-Ray Belcourt is working on another full-length novel, but Coexistence makes me hope that’s the case. With its rich thematic continuity, adept narrative structure, and gorgeous language, it’s a signal of great things to come.
Kissing Girls on Shabbat: A Memoir by Sara Glass
2.75
Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC!
Dr. Sara Glass’s Kissing Girls on Shabbat is a cocktail of a memoir, mixing discussions of religion, sexuality, and mental health to the point that the nuances of each occasionally disappear—it feels more like self-exposure than self-disclosure, and the result is a difficult read.
The book’s premise is ripe with potential and fraught with trauma—Glass’s long-unfolding understanding of her queerness within her conservative Hasidic community—and I admire the author’s willingness to excavate almost unbearable pain for the sake of sharing her life with readers. The prose lumbers bluntly through emotional abuse, fear of divine retribution, and Glass’s work as a therapist.
With each passing chapter, though, it begins to feel like many of these situations are still too raw of a nerve for Glass to address within the confines of this particular medium, reading more like a list of painful events than an emergent narrative. It might be a therapist’s responsibility to help people reclaim the past, but I wonder if it’s a memoirist’s responsibility to recognize when parts of the past can’t be reclaimed. There are so many topics here that it’s difficult to see the book’s themes, and the obfuscation happens at the author’s expense.
This tension between Glass’s therapeutic expertise and her personal experience escalates until it warps the distance of hindsight into forced perspective. Much of what could be subtext is immediately examined or explained, often caricaturing a past self’s beliefs as irrational, rather than accepting and grieving them as a rationale. For example, Glass writes that while in labor, she sidestepped her decision-making rights because “I would not allow protocol to get in the way of the real rules. Decisions needed to be made by the man.” It seems that the absurdity of the sentiment is easier to stomach than the tragedy of it not being experienced as absurd, and recurrent moments like this suggest that Glass’s desire to make a point takes precedence over compassion to herself.
The approach might be a necessary precondition for the book to exist as a testament to Glass’s triumph rather than a revival of her trauma, but it begins to read like a case study more than a memoir—self-analysis instead of self-reflection. I’m sure the book will still resonate with many readers, but I always feel sad when it seems like an author doesn’t fit well in their own memoir. If writing is not a kindness to the self, how kind can it be to its readers? Lest that sound too critical, I think this is a story worth telling, but I wish it had the breathing room afforded by, say, an ongoing podcast series, where the weight of the written word wouldn’t hang over every moment.
Regardless, all memoir is something to celebrate, and I look forward to seeing the kinds of conversations Kissing Girls on Shabbat inspires upon its release.
Dr. Sara Glass’s Kissing Girls on Shabbat is a cocktail of a memoir, mixing discussions of religion, sexuality, and mental health to the point that the nuances of each occasionally disappear—it feels more like self-exposure than self-disclosure, and the result is a difficult read.
The book’s premise is ripe with potential and fraught with trauma—Glass’s long-unfolding understanding of her queerness within her conservative Hasidic community—and I admire the author’s willingness to excavate almost unbearable pain for the sake of sharing her life with readers. The prose lumbers bluntly through emotional abuse, fear of divine retribution, and Glass’s work as a therapist.
With each passing chapter, though, it begins to feel like many of these situations are still too raw of a nerve for Glass to address within the confines of this particular medium, reading more like a list of painful events than an emergent narrative. It might be a therapist’s responsibility to help people reclaim the past, but I wonder if it’s a memoirist’s responsibility to recognize when parts of the past can’t be reclaimed. There are so many topics here that it’s difficult to see the book’s themes, and the obfuscation happens at the author’s expense.
This tension between Glass’s therapeutic expertise and her personal experience escalates until it warps the distance of hindsight into forced perspective. Much of what could be subtext is immediately examined or explained, often caricaturing a past self’s beliefs as irrational, rather than accepting and grieving them as a rationale. For example, Glass writes that while in labor, she sidestepped her decision-making rights because “I would not allow protocol to get in the way of the real rules. Decisions needed to be made by the man.” It seems that the absurdity of the sentiment is easier to stomach than the tragedy of it not being experienced as absurd, and recurrent moments like this suggest that Glass’s desire to make a point takes precedence over compassion to herself.
The approach might be a necessary precondition for the book to exist as a testament to Glass’s triumph rather than a revival of her trauma, but it begins to read like a case study more than a memoir—self-analysis instead of self-reflection. I’m sure the book will still resonate with many readers, but I always feel sad when it seems like an author doesn’t fit well in their own memoir. If writing is not a kindness to the self, how kind can it be to its readers? Lest that sound too critical, I think this is a story worth telling, but I wish it had the breathing room afforded by, say, an ongoing podcast series, where the weight of the written word wouldn’t hang over every moment.
Regardless, all memoir is something to celebrate, and I look forward to seeing the kinds of conversations Kissing Girls on Shabbat inspires upon its release.
Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor by Caleb E Campbell
2.5
Thanks to NetGalley and IVP for the ARC!
Caleb E. Campbell’s Disarming Leviathan offers a thoughtful approach to engaging with Christian nationalists, but its usefulness may be limited to a certain audience—pastors.
There’s so much to admire about this book, and if you have any sort of religious background, it’s almost impossible to read it without a sense of grief. Campbell adopts a well-informed missiological approach and supplements it with personal research and historical background about the complexities of Christian tradition in the United States. He opens the book with a series of recently collapsed distinctions, such as the difference between a culture and a state or the rhetorical boundaries between sermons and political speeches, as observed in Turning Point USA’s programming.
Disarming Leviathan is at its strongest when Campbell draws from personal conversations and his own experience attending Christian nationalist events. The examples are really helpful, and I wish there had been even more because despite all the sociological and theological explanations of why people become radicalized, there’s a sense in which it still feels like an inexplicable turn. It’s still difficult to parse when Christianity ends and where nationalism begins, but maybe it’s impossible to make a clear delineation.
Despite the book’s strengths, I had a few concerns about its applicability to the average reader. Campbell often feels questionably optimistic, particularly in how willing people will be to connect “heart-to-heart” over many of these issues. Perhaps it’s my cynicism talking, but I wonder if some of the author’s ability to have these conversations is rooted in his pastoral role. He writes about connecting over shared values, but in my experience with Christian nationalist family members, the assumption is that your values are no longer shared—they are tainted; they are the trojan horse that smuggles an “agenda.” Because nationalism is predicated on celebrating power, I wonder if pastoral authority offers an inroad that isn’t available to the layperson.
Another quibble I had was Campbell’s recommendation of seeking out “shibboleths” (insider language) and avoiding “red flags” (outsider language) to connect with Christian nationalists. As an example, he recommends “we need strong borders” as a shibboleth and identifies “January 6th was an insurrection” as a red flag. I appreciate the sentiment, but the issue is that language informs reality, and the use or avoidance of these phrases tacitly affirms a whole array of presuppositions. If we don’t begin our conversations with accountability in our language, I’m skeptical of how far they can meaningfully go.
Many of these concerns are, however, dealt with as Campbell recognizes that some readers may simply not be able to have conversations with certain people. I just wonder how often any such conversation can occur. Much of this book is built on the premise that if we are compassionate and reasonable, we can interact with nationalists, but I just don’t see that happening when the idea of “reason” is rejected in favor of celebrating logical or emotional discontinuity. In the case of my family members, their mindset is that it “doesn’t add up” because it “adds up to more than you’d think.”
All of that said, I think Disarming Leviathan has a lot going for it. It just might be a better book for people in the throes of Christian nationalism than for those who wish to pull them out. I imagine that the transparency of Campbell’s care would resonate more than attempts to synthesize it for a specific context, and his role as a pastor may foster the “heart-to-heart” openness necessary for readers to receive it.
Caleb E. Campbell’s Disarming Leviathan offers a thoughtful approach to engaging with Christian nationalists, but its usefulness may be limited to a certain audience—pastors.
There’s so much to admire about this book, and if you have any sort of religious background, it’s almost impossible to read it without a sense of grief. Campbell adopts a well-informed missiological approach and supplements it with personal research and historical background about the complexities of Christian tradition in the United States. He opens the book with a series of recently collapsed distinctions, such as the difference between a culture and a state or the rhetorical boundaries between sermons and political speeches, as observed in Turning Point USA’s programming.
Disarming Leviathan is at its strongest when Campbell draws from personal conversations and his own experience attending Christian nationalist events. The examples are really helpful, and I wish there had been even more because despite all the sociological and theological explanations of why people become radicalized, there’s a sense in which it still feels like an inexplicable turn. It’s still difficult to parse when Christianity ends and where nationalism begins, but maybe it’s impossible to make a clear delineation.
Despite the book’s strengths, I had a few concerns about its applicability to the average reader. Campbell often feels questionably optimistic, particularly in how willing people will be to connect “heart-to-heart” over many of these issues. Perhaps it’s my cynicism talking, but I wonder if some of the author’s ability to have these conversations is rooted in his pastoral role. He writes about connecting over shared values, but in my experience with Christian nationalist family members, the assumption is that your values are no longer shared—they are tainted; they are the trojan horse that smuggles an “agenda.” Because nationalism is predicated on celebrating power, I wonder if pastoral authority offers an inroad that isn’t available to the layperson.
Another quibble I had was Campbell’s recommendation of seeking out “shibboleths” (insider language) and avoiding “red flags” (outsider language) to connect with Christian nationalists. As an example, he recommends “we need strong borders” as a shibboleth and identifies “January 6th was an insurrection” as a red flag. I appreciate the sentiment, but the issue is that language informs reality, and the use or avoidance of these phrases tacitly affirms a whole array of presuppositions. If we don’t begin our conversations with accountability in our language, I’m skeptical of how far they can meaningfully go.
Many of these concerns are, however, dealt with as Campbell recognizes that some readers may simply not be able to have conversations with certain people. I just wonder how often any such conversation can occur. Much of this book is built on the premise that if we are compassionate and reasonable, we can interact with nationalists, but I just don’t see that happening when the idea of “reason” is rejected in favor of celebrating logical or emotional discontinuity. In the case of my family members, their mindset is that it “doesn’t add up” because it “adds up to more than you’d think.”
All of that said, I think Disarming Leviathan has a lot going for it. It just might be a better book for people in the throes of Christian nationalism than for those who wish to pull them out. I imagine that the transparency of Campbell’s care would resonate more than attempts to synthesize it for a specific context, and his role as a pastor may foster the “heart-to-heart” openness necessary for readers to receive it.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
1.5
Oh! (derogatory)
First, let me say that the prose is a lot better than I anticipated, and for the first few chapters, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach—I was having a good time.
I wasn’t loving it, but I was enjoying it in the way that one might enjoy The Bachelorplaying in the background while folding laundry. I really understood the appeal of this book and series and genre. In fact, I thought I might I give the TV adaptation a shot when it eventually happens.
But by the time the “romance” kicks into gear, I was struck by how its whole premise is that resistance is a barrier to overcome instead of a boundary to respect. I’m sure that part of this is because chemistry is difficult to write, but I think there are dangerous consequences to glorifying possessive “love” and depicting latent violence just beneath the surface of every interaction.
To get overly autobiographical for a moment, much of my adult life has been unfortunately marked by months-long situations where women who read exclusively YA and fantasy decide we will be together, and nothing will stop it from happening, including me.
That’s not a humblebrag. It’s pretty horrific.
I’ve had people call me hundreds of times, show up at my door at odd hours, and write multi-page letters about what I “owe” them.
While reading A Court of Thorns and Roses I was really shocked to hear the origin of conversations that have echoed in my life, where my “no” is not a “no”—it’s a challenge. Or worse, where I have resorted to unkindness out of desperation, and it has been interpreted as a sign that I am “complicated” or “enigmatic,” that I just “wasn’t honest with myself about what I wanted.” Lest I sound a little too woe-is-me here, I think these books primarily prey upon their readers by lowering their standards for what they deserve. They encourage them to misinterpret relational sharp edges as a narrative arc. Maybe people are less afraid of a broken will than they are of a broken heart.
Is this a melodramatic read for such a lightweight book? Probably. I know a lot of people can read it and enjoy it and move on with their lives, and that’s awesome—but it’s not escapism when it escapes into actual relationships, and A Court of Thorns and Rosesmakes me wonder what authors owe to their vulnerable readers.
I’m not sure, but I think a little more than SJM gives here.
First, let me say that the prose is a lot better than I anticipated, and for the first few chapters, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach—I was having a good time.
I wasn’t loving it, but I was enjoying it in the way that one might enjoy The Bachelorplaying in the background while folding laundry. I really understood the appeal of this book and series and genre. In fact, I thought I might I give the TV adaptation a shot when it eventually happens.
But by the time the “romance” kicks into gear, I was struck by how its whole premise is that resistance is a barrier to overcome instead of a boundary to respect. I’m sure that part of this is because chemistry is difficult to write, but I think there are dangerous consequences to glorifying possessive “love” and depicting latent violence just beneath the surface of every interaction.
To get overly autobiographical for a moment, much of my adult life has been unfortunately marked by months-long situations where women who read exclusively YA and fantasy decide we will be together, and nothing will stop it from happening, including me.
That’s not a humblebrag. It’s pretty horrific.
I’ve had people call me hundreds of times, show up at my door at odd hours, and write multi-page letters about what I “owe” them.
While reading A Court of Thorns and Roses I was really shocked to hear the origin of conversations that have echoed in my life, where my “no” is not a “no”—it’s a challenge. Or worse, where I have resorted to unkindness out of desperation, and it has been interpreted as a sign that I am “complicated” or “enigmatic,” that I just “wasn’t honest with myself about what I wanted.” Lest I sound a little too woe-is-me here, I think these books primarily prey upon their readers by lowering their standards for what they deserve. They encourage them to misinterpret relational sharp edges as a narrative arc. Maybe people are less afraid of a broken will than they are of a broken heart.
Is this a melodramatic read for such a lightweight book? Probably. I know a lot of people can read it and enjoy it and move on with their lives, and that’s awesome—but it’s not escapism when it escapes into actual relationships, and A Court of Thorns and Rosesmakes me wonder what authors owe to their vulnerable readers.
I’m not sure, but I think a little more than SJM gives here.