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lactoseintolerant's reviews
23 reviews
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
0.0
author did not do basic research into some of the studies he referenced. there are many studies debunking the microbiome of autistic kids being a cause of autism. autism is not a disease you can cure, and autistic kids needs acceptance rather than patronizing attempts to "fix" them. when you are a picky eater, your microbiome changes as a result of said eating. knowing he didn't do this basic google search level debunking makes the rest of the book impossible to take seriously. pop science at it again, dipping its toes gently into eugenics.
if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! let's use some critical thinking here people!
proposing a bunch of "hypothesis" that are actually just biggoted societal views disguised as science is exhausting. i just wanted to learn about microbes???? damn dude
if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! let's use some critical thinking here people!
proposing a bunch of "hypothesis" that are actually just biggoted societal views disguised as science is exhausting. i just wanted to learn about microbes???? damn dude
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism and Fatphobia
Death's End by Cixin Liu
perhaps the most poorly written woman i have ever read, submerged in some of the most exhausting and uncreative gender essentialist nonsense. the most wildly sexist ideas of womanhood and femininity, paired with the occasional disturbing notion of masculinity. truly confusing how this adult man has gone his entire life without having met or spoken to a woman. brutally distracting from the interesting and creative intergalactic plots.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
- Loveable characters? No
a bit too, uh, class-traitor-brown-nosing-the-wealthy for me, thanks. neither this book, nor its anti-hero are as morally complex or interesting as they strive to be- the not-all-billionaires undercurrent was not doing what it was trying to. probably the most beautifully written sex scene i've ever read.
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris
5.0
robust call to action, infinitely valuable
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown
4.0
when people state who they're attracted to, a carafe of discomfort is poured into my being. i find myself listening for people like or not like me and the reasons given for my inclusion or omission, sucked in by the dehumanization of incidentally ranking my desirability. seeing this in the introduction made this book a little difficult for me to get into. i had to pause and investigate my discomfort in order to continue reading.
who we are attracted to is inherently political, and when someone states they're most attracted to masculine women, effeminate men, and trans men, boxes are created. what i hear is: my attraction to trans men is separate and distinct from my attraction to men. what i hear is: trans men is a category i see as separate from, and outside of, men. what i hear is: transmisogyny keeps me interested in trans people who aren't women.
describing a generalized "who" we are attracted to is almost always harmful in some way to some people. an inverse is necessarily created. it is important we investigate who we find attractive, who we don't, and what political messaging has and continues to influence those inclinations. what were the first pieces of media you had an erotic reaction to? growing up, what did your family members say about different body sizes? how much transphobic rhetoric have you incidentally been witness to? how much of that was directed towards trans women? how has the misogyny around you shaped your opinion of femininity? how diverse was your upbringing, and what were community reactions to multi racial dating? how centrally was whiteness associated with beauty in your community, your schooling, your books, movies, and tv shows? how has colorism affected those norms? have any cultural taboos affected you, and how? how can we recognize the way society has shaped our desires without putting anyone down, singling anyone out, and without shaming ourselves?
how can we, the people both named and unnamed in desirability politics, not get bogged down by the endless unsaid-but-ever-present statement of, "i could never be attracted to you," or, "i am attracted to you because i don't see you for who you are"?
where's the chapter on deconstructing our attraction? how can we talk about pleasure without the politics of who we desire to experience pleasure with? adrienne marie brown touches on this within the context of herself, her relationship to gay sex, and what scenarios she and we as a culture fantasize about, but never who.
what is the best way to engage with the work of those we respect and find political kinship with, while honoring the critiques we have for said work? can the author of this book hold both awe for octavia butler's work, and critique her eroticized and unproblemitized age gap narratives, without having to re-assign an acceptable meaning to them? can i endlessly appreciate this work, while critical of how the author states her attraction, and critical of the missing questions and complications of who we desire? of the popular widespread use of the word "bodies" when we mean "whole ass human beings"? of the shrinking objectification of whole ass human beings to their bodies?
yes, but only by investigating and honoring our discomfort and critique. this book is full, worth reading, worth taking in, and worth investing real critical engagement and thought into. reading between the lines, finding the problems within a narrative, and contending with the pet peeves of language and its implications, is too, a pleasure.
Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness by Pooja Lakshmin
2.0
This book is for upper-middle class, American, cishet, gender conforming women in their 30s. You likely wont gain much if you're not in that group.
This is not horribly surprising, as the wellness industry also targets that demographic, so I can't necessarily fault the author for that. But I do fault her for claiming and pretending that's not the only demographic it's for, with a weird caveat that she means more than women by the word woman (stop). It's clear that not only is that untrue, but she doesn't even mean women as a whole, but rather the small percentage of privileged women I stated above. I also fault her for not further challenging these women. Though I'm sure this is mindblowingly helpful for some of them.
Unrevolutionary. Misrepresents Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. References copaganda positively. Women deserve more and better. This book barely scratches that surface.
This is not horribly surprising, as the wellness industry also targets that demographic, so I can't necessarily fault the author for that. But I do fault her for claiming and pretending that's not the only demographic it's for, with a weird caveat that she means more than women by the word woman (stop). It's clear that not only is that untrue, but she doesn't even mean women as a whole, but rather the small percentage of privileged women I stated above. I also fault her for not further challenging these women. Though I'm sure this is mindblowingly helpful for some of them.
Unrevolutionary. Misrepresents Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. References copaganda positively. Women deserve more and better. This book barely scratches that surface.
Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion by Koshin Paley Ellison, Koshin Paley Ellison
2.0
Seemed to jump around a lot- some of the ideas expressed here felt confusing and unfleshed out. For example, proclaiming that the most difficult people in our lives teach us the most, is not necessarily good advice... especially if those people are abusive. Other points, such as proclaiming that one is "stealing" their attention or time from others by not giving it to them, thereby making them a thief (which is karmically bad), along with emphatically praising someone who's done harm for admitting to it, seem like a recipe to encourage the acceptance of abuse in the name of religion. Despite understanding that this is not what the author intended to commutate, I fear his convoluted words could be easily twisted to fit that narrative. I long for further editing and clarification, as well as fewer Zionist implications with the complicity of benefiting repeatedly from Israeli programs, and therefore benefiting from their ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. It's confusing to read about peace in the same breath as Israel- but perhaps that in itself is a reflection of the acceptance of abuse in the name of religion undercurrent mentioned above.
Content Warnings
Minor: Bullying, Child abuse, Genocide, Sexual violence, and Antisemitism
Docile by K.M. Szpara
Did not finish book.
Did not finish book.
Another BDSM fantasy disguising itself as science fiction, while fully embodying ignorance towards cultural context. Wouldn't be surprised if this originated from a suburban white kid writing hunger games fan fic. No hate to fan fic, full hate to marketing books as something they're not. I did not make it very far.