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maramergens's reviews
277 reviews
The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet by Avery Dame-Griff
This one took me foreeeeever and the library is charging me $30 to replace it, hopefully I can just return it and they will waive the fee, we’ll see…
Some really interesting stuff, just pretty dense. I would love to read something on this topic with a bit more of a narrative arc instead of straight academic.
The last chapter, which talked about Tumblr, Twitter, and Google search results, was the only one I could relate to generationally. The earlier chapters had a lot of surprises for me both about the internet and the transgender community of the 80s and 90s.
The archiving of social media and personal internet websites is so important and this author is doing such cool work!!
Some really interesting stuff, just pretty dense. I would love to read something on this topic with a bit more of a narrative arc instead of straight academic.
The last chapter, which talked about Tumblr, Twitter, and Google search results, was the only one I could relate to generationally. The earlier chapters had a lot of surprises for me both about the internet and the transgender community of the 80s and 90s.
The archiving of social media and personal internet websites is so important and this author is doing such cool work!!
Severance by Ling Ma
medium-paced
3.5
So wild that this was published two years before the pandemic. Obviously the fictional Shen Fever and Covid-19 don’t have a lot in common as diseases, but there were a lot of things she got right about the start of a worldwide pandemic. I found that going between two timelines to tell the story kept me engaged. I’m not a big apocalyptic story person, so I liked that a lot of the book was just about Candace’s normal life in early 2000s New York.
Nimona by ND Stevenson
Re-reading this makes me like the film adaptation even less. This is much less clean cut.
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
I read this as a kid and wanted to pick it up again 1. after reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and realizing it was the same author and 2. when watching the scene in The Boy and the Heron where the Wara Wara float back to earth.
There are so many beautiful renderings of the afterlife and this one has stuck with me until adulthood. The book is definitely written for a younger audience and I sometimes didn’t click with it, but I still ended up crying towards the end.
The reverse aging is a beautiful concept to me. Getting to meet your grandmother when she is 35 and you are 15 and all the other nonsensical relationships that occur at Elsewhere. The denial that Liz goes through when first arriving, the addiction she has to watching her old life… I would love to see a film adaptation of this.
There are so many beautiful renderings of the afterlife and this one has stuck with me until adulthood. The book is definitely written for a younger audience and I sometimes didn’t click with it, but I still ended up crying towards the end.
The reverse aging is a beautiful concept to me. Getting to meet your grandmother when she is 35 and you are 15 and all the other nonsensical relationships that occur at Elsewhere. The denial that Liz goes through when first arriving, the addiction she has to watching her old life… I would love to see a film adaptation of this.
How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis
5.0
<3 really great. Normalizes the struggle to complete care tasks, and has a huge focus on freeing the reader from any shame they might feel about this struggle. Then of course has some really great tips on how to get stuff done in the best way for you! Seriously can’t recommend this enough to my neurodivergent baddies
Foul Heart Huntsman by Chloe Gong
2.75
I’m really tired of this series, honestly. Listening to the audiobook meant I wasn’t always paying attention, but still, a lot of stuff just didn’t make sense. One thing I’ll say is that Emily Woo Zeller is THE GOAT of audiobooks. She can do so many different voices! This book has a lot of different characters and somehow they all have their own distinct voice, all of which are believable.
Aphasia by Mauro Javier Cárdenas
Did not finish book. Stopped at 24%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 24%.
I’m all for experimental styles of writing, and I did genuinely enjoy a good portion of what I read. The stream of consciousness writing felt very true to the way my brain can work, and was sometimes very easy to follow. But it got to the point where reading this felt like work and it had been a few days and I still hadn’t broken through the same section. No disrespect
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, Claire Morgan
3.5
Pacing was a little weird for me. Most of the big themes were the same as the movie but lots of plot points and details were different. Reading this has made me very curious about Patricia Highsmith and her life. She didn’t sound like much fun to be around! But one time, she brought a handbag full of snails to a party, and I think that’s awesome.
Clementine, Book Two by Tillie Walden
The TWD gamer fans who gave this bad reviews are hater incels who will do anything to try to stop a gay baddie from winning