chlonline's reviews
26 reviews

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

very insightful essays on cultural and political phenomena. intriguing and ultimately fascinating commentary on the complexities of womanhood, a lot of points on which i agree on. some points are rather a reiteration of basic feminist thought, but valuable nonetheless. loved “The I in Internet”, “The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams”, “Ecstasy”, “We Come from Old Virginia”, and “The Cult of the Difficult Woman”. 

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

fast-paced

2.0

incredibly disappointing and unambitious even if it were a “feminism for starters” type of book. somebody on goodreads wrote there’s a reason it’s titled men explain things to me instead of why men explain things to me and it’s true!

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Together we peer into the cauldron of hell. We stare into the bubbling red sea of fire, and the air hitting our faces is so hot it makes us reel. Even though we’re standing side by side, even though we’re closer to each other than to anyone else in the world, even though we’re friends forever, we don’t join hands. No matter how forlorn we are, we each insist on standing on our own two feet.

 
both kitchen and moonlight shadow are odes to grief. it’s about having to live life as it’s always been, but with a sudden wave of pang, longing, and regret that eats away every piece of your personhood. 

yoshimoto’s writing made kitchen feel so cozy yet so heart-achingly painful. the way she articulated the feeling of grief reminded me so much of didion’s essays on loss in the year of magical thinking.

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee

dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

3.25

right. i become ugly. because i’m so extreme. i want to die. 

this book felt weirdly comforting. i get why there are so much mixed reactions; that the prose and structure may not exactly be the best, and how the both the author’s and the psychiatrist’s flaws were hard to read through, but it sadly hit too close to home. 

i too, am rotting on the inside. 

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

emotional funny reflective fast-paced

5.0

would you still love me if i were a giant cockroach

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.25

if we face the fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was shakespeare’s sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo

emotional informative reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

topics aren’t entirely new but cho nam-joo gets it

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

emotional reflective sad

3.75

amazing writing. incredibly raw and honest. thought the medical terms were a bit too much but the year of magical thinking is didion’s personal account on grief and i respect that. i’ve had my own experiences with death, but nothing like didion’s. this is definitely a book i’ll reread and appreciate more in the future

Severance by Ling Ma

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

To live in a city is to take part in and to propagate its impossible systems. To wake up. To go to work in the morning. It is also to take pleasure in those systems because, otherwise, who could repeat the same routines, year in, year out? 

ling ma’s severance is an anti-capitalist, anti-work social commentary that revolves around a chinese-american immigrant in dystopian new york. for something written pre-pandemic, severance paints an eerily accurate picture of a pandemic in a capitalistic society. to add, one of the things i loved the most about the book was its title — it’s one of the wittiest titles ever and i love how every chapter leads me to realize the different things the word “severance” may pertain to.

tl;dr severance is fucking neat go read it

All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks

2.75

i didn’t hate it, and i don’t think it’s bad at all. i just had high expectations for it. hooks’ writing is, as always, moving and captivating. however, (1) i didn’t like her overemphasis on religion in every chapter. (2) i didn’t agree about the whole loving work bit. and (3) i found the ways she talked about love to be quite heteronormative.

on the other hand, i did like her insight about romantic love not being any more “special” than platonic love, and how gender affects the way we see, give, and receive love. overall, hooks did make some points in the book, but i just expected more. i might feel differently when re-read in the future. would still recommend this to others though