loveryoushouldvecomeovermp3's reviews
59 reviews

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

5.0

oh james baldwin the man you are. so deeply insightful and empathetic. all the character in this are so well fleshed out and so easy to understand. loved the use of prose in the hallucination sequence towards the end. 

Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems, 1979-2006 by Wendy Cope

3.0

there are some poems in this that i really enjoy like the ever popular 'the orange', 'two cures for love' and 'leaving'. her poems work best for me when they focus on love in a very simple form. but a lot of the poems in this collection felt like filler to me and i didnt really enjoy them. but i do like her use of rhyme and almost conversational way of writing. 

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

reflective slow-paced

3.0

my favourite section was the second one since it really resonated with me . 'on self respect' feels very significant in my life rn and i can see myself returning to it multiple times. the first and third sections were just not it for me, probably because i am not american and both those parts feel extremely american. i was missing out on a lot of cultural and geographical references and i felt like I was just reading something alien sometimes. but the writing was really solid just not very universal

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

hopeful inspiring reflective

4.25

i feel I've kinda lost my way with writing for a while now so this book has really ignited in me some idea of how to find my way back.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

4.75

poignant would truly be the best possible way to describe the inheritance of loss. every character every plotline is dripping with relevance. by focusing on the lives of the characters, it details how the insurgency period affected members of different social strata and the inhumanity of it all. seeing

biju reunite with his father at the end was simultaneously Beautiful and heartbreaking as it was the only bit of hope left. i loved their relationship so much. there was a line where biju says that they were no longer relevant in each other's lives except for the hope that they would be and that was just. oof.

i love the experimental details kiran desai includes in her work. by making the font bigger, smushing words together, her use of onamatopoeia, they all contribute to creating a really immersive experience. just so good. fortunate to have met her and got a signed copy <3

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

completely taken by the way agency is depicted in this book.  our bodies and our diets are so policed and the structures of society so rigid that the smallest deviancy seems to warrant a violent reaction. as i read through the brief parts of yeong hye's dialogue or thoughts i felt a resonance with her as i wondered whether her desires were really so extreme. she seeks to escape the normalisation of violence and desires a peaceful existence. hurting has such an integral space in our world that we simply do not realise how much we do it. im already a vegetarian but if I wasn't this would have convinced me. 

Pink by Kyōko Okazaki

3.25

pink is so deceptively simple, it follows the structure of a slice of life josei manga but it has so much depth to it hidden in the day to day life of yumi. 

yumi works as a day job as an office lady and part time as a sex worker. both of her jobs represent the limited opportunities for women in the job market. yumi relies on objects and purchashing for her happiness which is why both these jobs are even necessary for her though her parents pay for her rent. consumerism plays a huge role in the setting and impacts everything that occurs. 

i really like the message of pink but i found the over the top silliness was just not my thing. i can appreciate it for what it is though,  a character study of a woman living in japans economic bubble of the 80s and how that affects her. 

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

inspiring reflective

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

5.0

oh. wow. i have so much to say. 

i was 14 when i asked my parents to send me to therapy. i was grieving the loss of a friend, but the problems had been in me for years before that. some of my friends who were also affected by the death in our friend group were going to therapy and it seemed to really help them so i thought it could work on me too. 

i hated therapy. i hated the way my therapist spoke about me. i hated how she just told me i was very pretty when i told her about my bulimia. i hated how she seemed more concerned about my grades than the fact that id tried to kill myself. i hated myself for lying to her constantly because i just couldn't trust her. 

despite this, i did get better. but i credit that to my family and my friends. once they learnt of my struggle, i learnt of love. i learnt how much my struggle affected them. i learnt of bringing meaning into my life. i learnt of living for myself while also carrying his life within me, now that he couldnt anymore. 

this book to me reflected exactly what i learnt from my experiences. our struggles cannot be classfied. the capitalistic structure of society is such that any form of classification ends up being oppressive and restrictive. the importance of community in recovery simply cannot be understated. 

i do however think therapy has its merits. like i said, it did help many of my friends and for that i am eternally grateful. but the approach to mental illness as something that is uniform is what can cause harm. 

god i just loved this book. i love it's approach to life. i love the characters. i love it's depiction of grief. i love the version of it that exists in me. 

Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

emotional mysterious reflective tense

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

this is one of the first books I've read in college as an english major. ive been reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez for about three years now but this is the first time I'm actually examining him. it feels full circle for me, to study about an author who changed my perception of literature. even after reading his more famed masterworks, i think this might be my favourite book of his. ive written enough essays about this book but something about it is so deeply special. marquez has an amazing talent of being able to explore cultural context through the deeply personal and intimate lives of people. everyone means something, no one is divorced from all that came before and all that sits around them. 

The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib

emotional reflective

4.25

love, love, love. love is spilling out of every page and falling on my fingers. fills you with the knowledge of life as a miracle. love u so much hanif abdurraqib