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mmcloe's reviews
235 reviews
Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
A glittering example of the Assemblage. Jefferson reflects on her constantly changing self as mediated through music, dance, literature, family, race, class, and a rapidly shifting postwar society. She breaks herself (and the genre of memoir) into tiny shimmering pieces and reconstructs them into a new and fluid version of herself and American history.
Would love to see all of my favorite writers do something like this.
Would love to see all of my favorite writers do something like this.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This is one of the most thorough indictments of heterosexuality I think I've ever encountered. This book is all about readings and misreadings: of romance, of science, of gender, of war, of culture, of poetry. Garcia Marquez tries his damndest to enchant us into misreading love into a nasty awful man for whom women are an aesthetic commodity.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, and Suicide
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I somehow managed to avoid this in my American high school education but I'm glad that I'm able to encounter this book for the first time with a fairly critical and practiced eye.
I have a lot of respect for Twain's almost-anthropological approach to depicting dialect (though Jim's was way too over the top sometimes) and the odd little ins and outs of a rapidly shifting American society/understanding of childhood. I think this novel is a serious benchmark in ushering in of a new mode of American prose distinct from the high Romanticism of the books which came earlier.
Twain's attempt at being not racist towards Jim provides an incredibly illustrative example (intentional or otherwise) of how Blackness is (mis)represented through the narrative force of white writing. I'd be interested to see a novel written from Jim's perspective.
I have a lot of respect for Twain's almost-anthropological approach to depicting dialect (though Jim's was way too over the top sometimes) and the odd little ins and outs of a rapidly shifting American society/understanding of childhood. I think this novel is a serious benchmark in ushering in of a new mode of American prose distinct from the high Romanticism of the books which came earlier.
Twain's attempt at being not racist towards Jim provides an incredibly illustrative example (intentional or otherwise) of how Blackness is (mis)represented through the narrative force of white writing. I'd be interested to see a novel written from Jim's perspective.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Minor: Death and Violence
Muscle Memory by Kyle Carrero Lopez
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
"symbolism and personhood / aren't friends"
A very very solid debut with complicated examinations of art, labor, leftism, language, Blackness, queerness, and memory. excited to see how the poet's body of work progresses.
A very very solid debut with complicated examinations of art, labor, leftism, language, Blackness, queerness, and memory. excited to see how the poet's body of work progresses.
Little Foxes Took Up Matches by Katya Kazbek
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Just kept getting better and better and better. My experience with coming of age novels is pretty limited but I absolutely adored how essential Mitya's aging was to the structure and themes of the plot.
Something I particularly admired about this novel was the different ways that Kazbek constructed queerness. Mitya constantly engages with queerness as a fundamentally social and economic phenomenon, mediated through interactions with intersecting friends, family, and authorities. At the same time, queerness is fantastical and futuristic, requiring a dive into mythmaking and aesthetics to make sense of the turmoil in the "real" world. Everyone read asap!
Something I particularly admired about this novel was the different ways that Kazbek constructed queerness. Mitya constantly engages with queerness as a fundamentally social and economic phenomenon, mediated through interactions with intersecting friends, family, and authorities. At the same time, queerness is fantastical and futuristic, requiring a dive into mythmaking and aesthetics to make sense of the turmoil in the "real" world. Everyone read asap!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Rape, Transphobia, and Police brutality
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Very exciting and interesting to read alongside McKittrick. Massively impressive tour through history and trauma and inheritance and identity. I'd love to see follow up stories zooming in on a specific character or two. So much room for expanding.
A lot of reviews note this but this book would be PERFECT to teach in high school - so many jumping off points to engage with history and it's (mis)telling.
A lot of reviews note this but this book would be PERFECT to teach in high school - so many jumping off points to engage with history and it's (mis)telling.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Violence
Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle by Katherine McKittrick
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
An incredibly invaluable and helpful toolkit for thinking through the role of space and place when talking about identity. I'm particularly struck by McKittrick's use of the "garret" as a critique/expansion of the idea of marginalization when talking about Black women. I've always been a little hesitant when referring to people or groups as "marginalized" but was never quite able to put my finger onto the reason why. McKittrick's analysis of how the "margins" aren't quite as far away as we think they are restructured the way I think about power and oppression.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Sexism, and Slavery
When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Oh this was quite lovely.
Very polyphonic examination of the impacts of trauma/violence on the landscapes of rural Spain and postwar Spanish memory. Also an excellent illustration of the fluidity of categories of "natural," "cultural," and "spiritual."
It's really tricky to write about nonhuman nature in a way that avoids athropocentrism but I think Sola does an fairly solid job at depicting nonhuman nature as having its own syntaxes, desires, preconceptions, etc that are entirely separate from humans.
Very polyphonic examination of the impacts of trauma/violence on the landscapes of rural Spain and postwar Spanish memory. Also an excellent illustration of the fluidity of categories of "natural," "cultural," and "spiritual."
It's really tricky to write about nonhuman nature in a way that avoids athropocentrism but I think Sola does an fairly solid job at depicting nonhuman nature as having its own syntaxes, desires, preconceptions, etc that are entirely separate from humans.
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Aw man this was so so so sweet.
So much has been written about how this book talks about queerness as it relates to pregnancy and motherhood but I'm also fascinated by how Peters connects queer time to the process of remembering and misremembering. There's so much flipping back and forth through time (all of it centered around conception, almost like a pregnancy guide book lol) and it demonstrates how the past messily (mis)informs the present which does the same to the future. For all of us, queer people especially, time and community can be so ephemeral, so there's a simultaneous sense of urgency and resignation for the future. This book captures this excellently!
Like Don Delillo, I want Torrey Peters to write a tv show.
So much has been written about how this book talks about queerness as it relates to pregnancy and motherhood but I'm also fascinated by how Peters connects queer time to the process of remembering and misremembering. There's so much flipping back and forth through time (all of it centered around conception, almost like a pregnancy guide book lol) and it demonstrates how the past messily (mis)informs the present which does the same to the future. For all of us, queer people especially, time and community can be so ephemeral, so there's a simultaneous sense of urgency and resignation for the future. This book captures this excellently!
Like Don Delillo, I want Torrey Peters to write a tv show.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, and Transphobia
Minor: Drug use and Miscarriage
Lote by Shola von Reinhold
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
AHHHHHHHHH
I think if you designed a book in a lab to be everything I dreamed of, it would be this book.
Queer archives, aesthetic futurity, modernist commie cults, satire of stuffy academics, gorgeous gorgeous prose - it's all so DECADENT and brilliant and fascinating I want to absolutely devour everything written like this.
In very very good company with the work of Pola Oloixarac and Saidiya Hartman.
I think if you designed a book in a lab to be everything I dreamed of, it would be this book.
Queer archives, aesthetic futurity, modernist commie cults, satire of stuffy academics, gorgeous gorgeous prose - it's all so DECADENT and brilliant and fascinating I want to absolutely devour everything written like this.
In very very good company with the work of Pola Oloixarac and Saidiya Hartman.