pangnaolin's reviews
88 reviews

La Distancia Entre Nosotros by Reyna Grande

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

este libro fue increíblemente conmovedor. el lenguaje no es demasiado complicado ni nada por el estilo; no es un libro difícil en ningún sentido técnico, pero está escrito maravillosamente. cada personaje estaba bien desarrollado y ninguno era solo malo o solo bueno. la forma en que reyna grande me hizo apoyar y despreciar a ciertos personajes no tiene comparación con la mayoría de los libros que he leído (que se joda la abuela evila).

también siento que esto brindó una perspectiva tan hermosa y triste sobre la inmigración y la separación de familias de una manera que había oído antes, pero que nunca había escuchado con tanta profundidad. lo recomiendo absolutamente, ¡especialmente si eres un estudiante de español de nivel intermedio y quieres practicar!

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

i connected with this book on such an interesting level. janie was so incredible to follow, and the way she danced into flowery language anytime she was alone earlier on in the book was beautiful, as was the fact that hurston decided to fade away that thoughtfulness as time went on and she was taught she couldn't be that. the images of the pear tree and God destroying & rebuilding the world each dusk & dawn really struck with me. i also just adored the way she created settings. the store was incredibly well done as a sort of cage for her, but i also loved her description of the muck & the everglades-- i could imagine it so perfectly, especially in terms of the energy she described

one of the most intense moments for me, though, was when

tea cake's friends all praised janie's compliance when he beat her-- the way they were so in awe and excitedly said things along the lines of "wow, i bet she didn't even fight back, huh?"

the feeling hit me so hard and i feel like it brought the whole book together, despite being a small moment

i don't have much else to say, but it was truly just a beautiful book. those were my favorite moments. i hope you enjoy it if you read it, too

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Salvage the Bones is a book that pulled me in and didn’t let go. Ward writes with such intensity, I couldn't help but feel like I was right there with Esch and her family, dealing with their struggles long before Katrina shows up. The way she captures love, loss, and survival is unreal-- every character flawed and raw, yet full of so much heart that they ended up holding a special place in my heart.

I feel like it's especially powerful in the way it explores family, survival, and motherhood. Esch’s journey is so deeply tied to her understanding of love, and that love isn’t always gentle-- fierce, raw, and sometimes painful (though I wish she didn't think that's the norm or how it should be). The bond between Esch, her brothers, and their father-- and even some of their friends like Big Henry-- really showcase community in a way that totally broke my heart and warmed it, too.

I'd have to say that one of the most striking things through this novel is the way Ward connects Esch’s experience with motherhood to her brother Skeetah’s relationship with his dog (China), China's relationship with her puppies, and then even Esch's own relationship with her mother. There’s this constant tension between caring for those you love and the violence of the world around you, and I really felt the weight of that, especially as Hurricane Katrina loomed closer.

This book genuinely made my nail-biting habit worse. I was waiting every chapter for something worse, more intense, more incredible to happen, and it kept happening.

Ward’s writing is visceral and vivid, and pulls you into the sweat, dirt, and heart of Bois Sauvage. It doesn’t flinch away from the hard realities of life, but it’s also full of moments of tenderness. I'd say that everyone should read Salvage the Bones (as long as you're ready for some heavy shit), but especially if you’re looking for a story that digs into the messy, complicated love of family and the ways we fight to survive.

The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was a pretty incredible book to me. It was sort of enthralling in a very weird way, and I don't really know where to begin talking about it. It definitely made me realize that Mexican gothics/surrealist horror pieces have a very specific style. Regardless, the prose was incredible, and I felt like the rug was constantly getting pulled out from under me.

I was especially drawn in by the way it explored the dividing lines of gender, sanity, language, life & death, attraction & fear, relationships in general, and obviously geographical spaces/cities. It felt very vague, and didn't let you sit with anything too long before pulling you along.

I do feel like it doesn't exactly focus on gender as much as summaries & reviews might lead you to think, or at least not in a trans/queer/feminism sort of way. Actually, I'm not sure how to describe it. It does have that string sewn throughout, but it doesn't explain much for you, and it's not always very direct. I'd argue it's more about the erasure of feminine works, ideas, values, etc... whether in how it explores language or Amparo Dávila's work. I wonder if gender might stand out more strongly if I were to read it in its original Spanish language. I should probably try someday!

There's definitely a lot of historical and cultural context around this I want to explore more, though. I feel like every paragraph of this book begs to be analyzed, and it'd do me a lot of good to read some essays on it, reread it with a more critical & analytical eye, and then read some more essays. 

You need to be ready for some insane surrealism if you read this, but it definitely is an incredible read.

dayliGht by Roya Marsh

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Roya Marsh’s dayliGht is a collection that grabs you from the first poem and doesn’t let go. She isn’t afraid to confront tough topics like police brutality, systemic racism, and the intersectionality of being a queer Black woman in America. The balance she strikes between raw anger and deep tenderness is incredible. She’s unflinching in how she calls out injustice, but there’s a lot of love beneath it all— love for herself, her community, and the future she’s fighting for.

The poems feel urgent— meant to be heard right now, in this moment. Her voice is unapologetic, and she refuses to sugarcoat the pain and trauma, but there’s also a clear sense of resilience as she makes space for both the anger that comes from being marginalized and the care it takes to survive in a world that constantly devalues you. There’s this underlying thread of hope running through the collection, a belief that even in the face of so much injustice, there’s power in speaking out, in being heard.

I also really adored the use of structured titles with slight adjustments. It really tied each story together, and I felt like the collection really was one story/piece, whereas a lot of poetry collections can feel more disjointed to me. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes a sort of... Danez Smith/Hanif Abdurraqib style of poetry.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I have to say that I truly adored this novel, and at the same time, it didn't stand out to me all that much— maybe because it's one of the first of many that told this story, and I've read many others. I wasn't too drawn into the imagery or storytelling, but I was also never bored— just sort of vaguely interested in leaning more. That said, I did really love what it had to say (and especially found that it got better near the end), so I'd absolutely recommend it.

To me, Things Fall Apart feels like it’s telling a fairly straightforward story on the surface— Okonkwo is a man of tradition, holding fast to the values and customs of his Igbo culture, even as the world around him begins to change. I guess it is straightforward in that regard, but I also feel that there's so much more to it.

Okonkwo, trying so hard not to become like his father, ends up creating a rigid identity for himself and his children. He’s constantly worried about appearing weak, and that insecurity drives almost all of his actions. He’s obsessed with showing strength, but it also makes him blind to the changes happening around him, and makes it harder for him to genuinely fight for his beliefs. In this way, the arrival of European colonizers in the latter half of the novel isn’t just an external conflict, but symbolic of the internal conflict that Okonkwo faces with himself— he can’t adapt, even for the sake of fighting colonization and the erasure of his culture, and it ends up being his undoing.

The way Achebe weaves in these themes of masculinity, power, and change feels timeless. It’s interesting how Okonkwo's struggle isn't just about the Europeans or colonialism but about how people respond to change in general.  I think the real power of the novel comes from Achebe’s portrayal of Igbo society before colonization, though. He paints it with such depth and respect that you really feel the loss when it begins to fracture. You see the complexity of their traditions and beliefs, which makes the cultural shift and the arrival of the missionaries feel that much more devastating. We feel the erasure of their collective identity, and it becomes that much more tragic when Okonkwo, in his fight to preserve it, is left behind.

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

Lord. This book is so incredibly beautiful, I don't know where to begin. I'm not giving it five stars simply because I have a very strict criteria for my five star books (they have to be the most personally, emotionally impactful books of all time), but it truly does deserve it quality-wise.

Antonio is such a beautiful young character to follow, and the Anaya (through Ultima among others) expertly leads him to explorations of his beliefs and values while navigating those of the people around him. I was incredibly stunned by the beautiful symbolism within the novel, and just the imagery in general, whether it's the golden carp, the mermaid, the races with the Kid, the duality of earth vs. wind and rooted vs. free, Ultima's owl, or something else entirely. I'm constantly looking around me in every scene of the novel, wondering what different little things mean and feeling curious about every single choice and character.

There were definitely some weird choices with the way he wrote characters (I'm still sort of left confused about Bones and Horse), alongside some frustrating sexism (though I wonder how much is him painting an image of how Antonio and those around him perceive the world vs. how much of it is his personal perception of the world), but I still generally felt that the novel had incredible merit as is, and analyzing issues like sexism even add to my personal understanding of it, regardless of whether it was intended.

I also feel like, on a personal level, this book re-awoke my sense of magic. I've always felt it and never stopped believing it, but I feel reaffirmed and alive in that side of myself, and I'm excited to explore it again. Anaya brought me to a new world and I was able to explore alongside Antonio in the most beautiful of ways.

Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Okay, so this book is sort of a mess. Its main story line follows a New York couple trying to regain intimacy that has been lost under the stress of taking care of a high support needs autistic child, who then lose said child in the desert, but it also follows a ton of people in a sort of cult that believe they can communicate with aliens, an Iraqi immigrant family, and a few other, more brief characters.

I have to say, the style was totally up my alley. I loved the energy, and was drawn closer to the story with every word (which I think was aided by my love for the American Southwest and its mythology and essence), but I also felt sort of lost a lot of the time. I think that Kunzru really didn't want to connect the dots for us-- just lay them out and let us map it all out-- which was interesting, but also left the story feeling really disjointed. I was hoping that the stories would connect in ways that left me having moments of realization or felt like they added something new to the narrative, but it just didn't really.

I wanted more of their ties, and I wanted to really know and understand each character. Sometimes, while reading, I wondered if what he was talking about really mattered at all. It felt a bit like some of the different stories were just trying to be clever. That said, I do think every character on their own was written incredibly. I was especially impressed by Lisa and how well she was made both sympathetic and an incredibly fucked up dickhead. 

Overall, I do have to say I really loved reading this. It was super enjoyable and interesting, and I loved getting lost in the tangled knot of this book, but I also don't think I really got any greater meaning from it. I think I'd need to reread from a more analytical lens, and maybe do some annotating, to get that. I don't think that me not finding it means there wasn't something more there.

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

It's hard to rate this book, because it was such an incredibly grueling and tiring read, but the thoughts Fanon brought to the table were obviously incredibly important. It's interesting to think about how these ideas have been disseminated into other theories, frameworks, etc before I've ever read them as their own concept, but it was definitely worth reading on its own, too.

I have to say, though, that although I can absolutely see how this was incredibly important for its time, it feels like it's filled with information most people educated on topics of race, gender, colonialism, and intersectionality have already come to understand, and I feel like there were some moments of homophobia and misogyny that kind of shocked me back into life, too.

I'm not sure. It definitely has some really solid ideas that were explored in an interesting way, and the structure and anecdotes were easy to follow, but I also feel like it's just a bit outdated in some ways. It's obviously a good and important read, especially if you're looking to understand history, but if you're looking to understand the role of race in relationships in today's society, I feel like there's probably a better book for you out there.

Pipe Bomb for the Soul by Alice Bag

challenging funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.25

I've never read anything along the lines of an edited journal before, and Alice Bag's was an incredible first! I've loved her music, and even met her when I watched her play live, and getting to hear more of her stories was so interesting.

I think the most valuable part of this book is getting to watch someone young learn in real time-- explore more ideas and start to understand intersectionality and global solidarity as she steps outside of her comfort zone and sheltered world.

It definitely isn't a literary masterpiece-- it's a journal, after all-- but it was fun, interesting, and thought-provoking to read, and I definitely learned a lot, too! I'd recommend it-- especially since it's a quick read!