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jess_esa's reviews
511 reviews
No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre
5.0
So to my taste, hysterical and brilliant. I truly tapped into something reading Estelle, she’ll never leave me. Looking forward to reading some more Sartre.
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino
3.5
There’s a lot that’s special about this book. I love the way it was written, the candid messages to and from space, and the way it taps into the autistic asexual experience. Overall, though, it didn’t make a huge impression on me and I found the first half a lot more impactful than the second.
Machete: Poems by Tomas Q Morin
4.0
This collection was a mixed bag for me. I found the poems at the beginning and the end more memorable than the middle. The ones that hit, though, hit hard. I'll definitely look out for more from this poet in the future.
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
4.0
Observed some great scenes from this in acting class and was immediately compelled to come home and read it with Arrow. Had a lot of fun with it, it’s definitely a quirky one that inspires a lot of interesting discussion.
Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon
Did not finish book.
Did not finish book.
I loved her first book but this was unfortunately very boring
Camille and Other Plays: A Peculiar Position; The Glass of Water; La Dame Aux Camelias; Olympe's Marriage; A Scrap of Paper by
5.0
God this was so sad, kill me 😭
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
5.0
I loved this book so much, I can’t put it into words. I was captivated from the first page. It’s so haunting, quiet, and masterful in how much (how little) information it gives you. I wish I could wipe my brain and read it again.
“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering and that I was human after all.”
“I was forced to acknowledge too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering and that I was human after all.”
Curl by T. O. Bobe
4.0
Picked this up on a staff recommendation and really glad I did. It’s a surreal little collection of prose and poetry that centres around the lost loves and loneliness of the world’s greatest barber”. The translators note at the back is really interesting too.
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
4.5
This is such a wonderful book. It's so beautifully written that I would be finishing it from page one. Obviously, it was written by a British Arab author and centered around theatre and Shakespeare —there was a lot here that I was going to connect with. But I really admired how sensitive and thoughtful this book was, how maturely it discusses the role of art in political resistance, and how deftly it weaved into political history and the reality in Palestine. It also really spoke to me as a bi-racial person in ways I didn't expect; the specific feelings of guilt and otherness weren't something I thought could be put into words as well as it was done here. I also chuckled at how tech week theatre drama always has the same vibe, no matter the scale of the problem, and the problems are *very* big in scale here. I highly recommend!