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miffybooks's reviews
36 reviews
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy
3.0
“Gloria and I walked down by the master of ceremonies’ platform. It was nice down there about this time of the afternoon. There was a big triangle of sunshine that came though the double window above the bar in the Palm Garden. It only lasted about ten minutes but during those 10 minutes I moved slowly about in it letting it cover me completely. It was the first time I had ever appreciated the sun…
…I watched the triangle get smaller and smaller. Finally it closed altogether and started up my legs. It crawed up my body like a living thing. When it got to my chin I stood on my toes, to keep my head in it as long as possible. I did not close my eyes. I kept them wide open, looking straight into the sun. It did not blind me at all. In a moment it was gone.”
good quick read! i usually didnt love the straightforwardness of Robert’s internal monologue (the quoted part above is definitely an exception) but McCoy does a great job of maintaining consistent chaos and dread. and even though he barely hides the ending of the book, it still gave me chills to read. reminded me a lot of a Safdie brothers movie! made me want to check out more old noir.
…I watched the triangle get smaller and smaller. Finally it closed altogether and started up my legs. It crawed up my body like a living thing. When it got to my chin I stood on my toes, to keep my head in it as long as possible. I did not close my eyes. I kept them wide open, looking straight into the sun. It did not blind me at all. In a moment it was gone.”
good quick read! i usually didnt love the straightforwardness of Robert’s internal monologue (the quoted part above is definitely an exception) but McCoy does a great job of maintaining consistent chaos and dread. and even though he barely hides the ending of the book, it still gave me chills to read. reminded me a lot of a Safdie brothers movie! made me want to check out more old noir.
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
5.0
i went into this book entirely blind. a historical religious fiction story abt a small town girl in iowa isnt usually the type of book that i read but im really glad i gave this a chance bcs its really unlike any book ive read.
the BIGGEST thing about this book that immediately pulled me in from the beginning is just how beautiful the writing is. marilynne robinson has an otherworldly level of control when crafting Lila's voice as well as describing the world around her. the descriptions of the quiet nature of iowa: the wind, the snow, the sunlight, the water, are all built with tender and simple sensory details that let me vividly imagine what she's describing. i love how much of a presence iowa has in this. robinson makes an effort to sprinkle in descriptions of the nearby environment nearly every important scene so that you never forget what Gilead looks, feels, and smells like.
as described earlier, it is ridiculously impressive how precise Lila's voice is. the book is entirely dependent on her being an appealing narrator with interesting things to say (the majority of the book pretty much takes place in her incredibly curious thoughts) and i seriously cant believe how REAL she sounds. her behavior is seen as peculiar to the townspeople and even the reverend that she marries (to some extent) but as a reader i was able to have a perfect understanding of her motivations and desires. her thoughts are so clear! she is curious and wants so badly to understand the things around her in a way that is so resonant.
which brings me to talking about the depiction of religion in the book! i absolutely love how its portrayed and offered to the reader in this. we're introduced to Lila as someone who is deeply confused and detached from all the conventions of society. she uses her arrival to gilead as an opportunity to seek answers about basically everything from people who know more than she does. and then as the book unfolds, we learn in the most subtle and beautiful way, that nobody is really that different from Lila. Lila doesn't have any answers. her preacher husband doesn't either. nor does marilynne robinson! religion isnt being presented as a solution and it isnt forced upon the reader in this book. its moreso presented as just another way to process the world. everyone processes the world somehow! you dont have to agree with the preacher's sermons. you dont have to agree with lila's skepticism. this book just wants you to appreciate how people find hope and clarity in all their different ways, and offers their perspective for you to consider, as well as presenting the limits of how much humans can really try and comprehend. we can talk and argue about death all we want, but nobody really knows what happens when we die. and thats okay! we're all united in that uncertainty and that is so beautiful.
to conclude this review, heres a passage from the book that i thought was beautiful!
"Fear and comfort could be the same thing. It was strange, when she thought of it. The wind always somewhere, trifling with the leaves, troubling the firelight. And that smell of damp earth and bruised grass, a lonely, yearning sort of smell that meant, Why don't you come back, you will come back, you know you will."
the BIGGEST thing about this book that immediately pulled me in from the beginning is just how beautiful the writing is. marilynne robinson has an otherworldly level of control when crafting Lila's voice as well as describing the world around her. the descriptions of the quiet nature of iowa: the wind, the snow, the sunlight, the water, are all built with tender and simple sensory details that let me vividly imagine what she's describing. i love how much of a presence iowa has in this. robinson makes an effort to sprinkle in descriptions of the nearby environment nearly every important scene so that you never forget what Gilead looks, feels, and smells like.
as described earlier, it is ridiculously impressive how precise Lila's voice is. the book is entirely dependent on her being an appealing narrator with interesting things to say (the majority of the book pretty much takes place in her incredibly curious thoughts) and i seriously cant believe how REAL she sounds. her behavior is seen as peculiar to the townspeople and even the reverend that she marries (to some extent) but as a reader i was able to have a perfect understanding of her motivations and desires. her thoughts are so clear! she is curious and wants so badly to understand the things around her in a way that is so resonant.
which brings me to talking about the depiction of religion in the book! i absolutely love how its portrayed and offered to the reader in this. we're introduced to Lila as someone who is deeply confused and detached from all the conventions of society. she uses her arrival to gilead as an opportunity to seek answers about basically everything from people who know more than she does. and then as the book unfolds, we learn in the most subtle and beautiful way, that nobody is really that different from Lila. Lila doesn't have any answers. her preacher husband doesn't either. nor does marilynne robinson! religion isnt being presented as a solution and it isnt forced upon the reader in this book. its moreso presented as just another way to process the world. everyone processes the world somehow! you dont have to agree with the preacher's sermons. you dont have to agree with lila's skepticism. this book just wants you to appreciate how people find hope and clarity in all their different ways, and offers their perspective for you to consider, as well as presenting the limits of how much humans can really try and comprehend. we can talk and argue about death all we want, but nobody really knows what happens when we die. and thats okay! we're all united in that uncertainty and that is so beautiful.
to conclude this review, heres a passage from the book that i thought was beautiful!
"Fear and comfort could be the same thing. It was strange, when she thought of it. The wind always somewhere, trifling with the leaves, troubling the firelight. And that smell of damp earth and bruised grass, a lonely, yearning sort of smell that meant, Why don't you come back, you will come back, you know you will."
My Private Property by Mary Ruefle
4.0
this is some of the most remarkable prose ive ever read! ruefle has such an exhausted outlook on everything but shares everything in such a calm tone that all the super defeatist existential pieces dont actually feel scary. she also has such an amazing mind for imagery, theres so many beautiful lines that i was constantly underlining.
she has such a unique kind of rambling structure that works SO well in the shorter pieces (the ones that are 3 pages or less) but sometimes i felt the themes slipping away from me bcs of it in the longer pieces. the way she contrasts this rambling way of writing is by ending nearly every poem with powerful, succinct endings that somehow always manage to wrap everything together, no matter how disorganized it seems. this is most present in my absolute favorite piece (and probably my current favorite piece of writing) "lullaby" which is just 3 brilliant pages that lull you into calmness perfectly setting up an incredible final line that just smacks you awake.
also, i cant talk about this book without mentioning the color pieces! these are a few short pieces throughout the book that characterize sadness through different colors. these pieces are written a lot more poetically than everything else in the book, and i absolutely adored them. they are all so image heavy and i found myself so vividly seeing everything she wrote in these pieces but completely washed in a light of the color she was describing. it was a really visual experience that i dont often find in books.
if goodreads let me do half stars, id give this a 4.5 out of 5. really fantastic book that i spent too much money on and do not regret at all.
she has such a unique kind of rambling structure that works SO well in the shorter pieces (the ones that are 3 pages or less) but sometimes i felt the themes slipping away from me bcs of it in the longer pieces. the way she contrasts this rambling way of writing is by ending nearly every poem with powerful, succinct endings that somehow always manage to wrap everything together, no matter how disorganized it seems. this is most present in my absolute favorite piece (and probably my current favorite piece of writing) "lullaby" which is just 3 brilliant pages that lull you into calmness perfectly setting up an incredible final line that just smacks you awake.
also, i cant talk about this book without mentioning the color pieces! these are a few short pieces throughout the book that characterize sadness through different colors. these pieces are written a lot more poetically than everything else in the book, and i absolutely adored them. they are all so image heavy and i found myself so vividly seeing everything she wrote in these pieces but completely washed in a light of the color she was describing. it was a really visual experience that i dont often find in books.
if goodreads let me do half stars, id give this a 4.5 out of 5. really fantastic book that i spent too much money on and do not regret at all.
The Babies by Sabrina Orah Mark
4.0
literally so brilliant! sabrina orah mark is so insanely creative i would love to have a conversation with her today.
this book is basically “Wild Milk” for the apocalypse. its so grim and so funny and a PERFECT wild milk companion!!! benny needs to read this immediately
this book is basically “Wild Milk” for the apocalypse. its so grim and so funny and a PERFECT wild milk companion!!! benny needs to read this immediately
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
5.0
jsut so good if u dont like this book idk what to tell u dude its literalyl so silly n all about appreciating what u have in ur life i love it yum
Moshi moshi by Banana Yoshimoto
4.0
“It was like a twining plant, made of a mixture of desire and misery and love and splendid smiles and abundance and everything else in our collective unconcious. Even if the vine was severed with a hatchet, or burned to the ground, nothing would take away the landscapes inside people’s hearts or the time that lived on inside them.”
a beautiful reflection on the people and places that we’ve all lost, and a delicate reminder that we are all constantly surrounded by small bits of comfort that we will miss in a few years time. an incredibly kind book that asks us to cherish the tiny bits of the present before we face a thrillingly uncertain future. so good!! yayy
a beautiful reflection on the people and places that we’ve all lost, and a delicate reminder that we are all constantly surrounded by small bits of comfort that we will miss in a few years time. an incredibly kind book that asks us to cherish the tiny bits of the present before we face a thrillingly uncertain future. so good!! yayy
Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color by
4.0
a reminder of why i love poetry so much! not every poem did it for me here, but thats to be expected of such a massive collection. loved how diverse the poets were, in background and in style! top 3 poems were “Heavy” by Hieu Minh Nguyen, “Untitled” by James Baldwin, and “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” by Ocean Vuong (“& remember,/loneliness is still time spent/with the world.” will stay with me for a long time)
cannot recommend this collection enough, i think absolutely everyone can find something special in this!
cannot recommend this collection enough, i think absolutely everyone can find something special in this!