pangnaolin's reviews
100 reviews

Sitt Marie Rose by Etel Adnan

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

this was such a short book but it absolutely stunned me. i was only assigned the first 20 pages for a class, but couldn't keep myself and ended up reading the whole book in a day. it was genuinely so incredible. it takes place during the lebanese civil war, centering on a lebanese christian woman (sitt marie rose) who we know pretty much from the beginning is doomed to be killed for supporting palestinian resistance. it was a little hard to follow at first because i felt dropped into the middle of a situation i knew nothing about (especially with a fairly non-linear narrative), but once i found my footing, i was flying through it

adnan writes with this detached calm that makes everything feel even more brutal. especially the violence, which is constant and never quite explodes but simmers under everything-- it’s horrifying, but not gratuitous. she’s not trying to shock you-- she’s trying to make sure you feel it and remember it, and it works.

the structure’s fragmented in a way that really works, in my opinion. we hear about marie rose from everyone except marie rose, and the way they talk about her says more about them than it does about her. it makes sense, because everyone’s projecting onto her, talking around her, using her.  she becomes this mirror or symbol or target, depending on who’s speaking. especially the men-- each one tells on himself in a different way with the way he talks about her. the men are actually incredibly well-written (as are all the characters, to be fair)

(examples of characters & traits with some vague references to things they do)

fouad, for example, is genuinely a horrifying character. his violence isn’t a breakdown, but a worldview; he feels no shame, no hesitation, no guilt. he talks about cruelty like it’s his right. and then mounir sort of wants to be better, but really just wants marie rose to be willing to be ignorant & worse with him. he can’t let go of his comfort or cowardice. even if he doesn’t hurt her himself, he stands there and lets it happen. his whole section made my stomach turn in a quieter way. and the palestinian doctor she truly does love who seems to truly love her, too, we get very little of. his point of view still isn't important in the dominant culture, even as a man

finally,  there’s the the deaf-blind children marie rose teaches, who speak in chorus (one character, speaking as an "us" and “we” like a single being). they were probably one of the most interesting & devastating parts to me. i love the way they talk about marie rose-- their voices full of reverence and fear and so much love, almost as if they’re talking about a god. she's held the world together for them, and they speak about her the way no one else can: without agenda, without ego, just love and loss and a sense that something beautiful has been broken

this novella is also just beautifully written. not in a flowery way-- adnan’s style is spare and strange and dreamlike, with things shifting suddenly and an expectation that you can keep up with it-- but i liked that. it felt honest. this is a novel doesn’t try to explain war to you; it shows people changing inside it.

it’s not an easy read, and it’s definitely not comforting, but i finished it and immediately wanted to read it again. i think i'll likely stay thinking about it for a while, and i can't wait to read some more of her poetry

full-metal indigiqueer: poems by Joshua Whitehead

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

wow. what a difficult & incredible collection of poetry. this took me a really long time to work through; not knowing much l33t speak let alone oji-cree made it difficult, but it was so worth it. i feel like i learned a lot-- pieces of language, new experiences, about poetry & reading poetry-- with this book. i think re-reading it would be an entirely different experience

it's definitely not an easy book, at least to me. it forces you to be slow & take your time, but it's so rewarding when you do. whitehead has an incredible command of language, and i was genuinely so impressed by their approach to these difficult & interesting topics of sex work, indigequeerness (obviously), technological mutilation of the physical world, murdered & missing indigenous women & two-spirit people, and so much more. i particularly loved the way they manipulated cultural & literary icons, making space for indigequeer identity in history & the present. that reminded me of faith ringgold's the french collection, actually

anyway, yes. i absolutely recommend this, but it isn't easy. take it slow. talk about it, also! this book really pushed me to process out loud. have fun :]

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

i adored this memoir so, so much. lamya did an incredible job weaving together stories of her life & of the quran, and i felt like i really understood how she saw its themes reflected in herself. something about the way she, at every age, explored the quran in a deeply personal way and didn't let others sway her was really wonderful to me; i particularly enjoyed the chapter about hagar, and the way she examined the 'test' given to ibrahim when he was 'told' to kill ishmael

i honestly don't know what to say about this book. it completely flips on its head western ideas of joy and what queerness should look like, and it's incredible. i adored this book & i know i'll have to read it again. i genuinely could not recommend it enough

El Llano En Llamas (the Burning Plain, Spanish Edition) by Juan Rulfo

adventurous 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

4.25

esto fue una colección realmente reflexiva y hermosa. la escritura de rulfo es desoladora pero intensa, y sus personajes están increíblemente bien pensados. en particular, disfruté macario, talpa, ¿no oyes ladrar los perros? y el llano en llamas, todos bastante intensos y probablemente los más centrados en los personajes de sus obras

creo que la razón principal por la que no lo califiqué más alto es que los cuentos fueron inconsistentes: algunos eran hermosos, impactantes e intensos, y otros me dejaron pensando “eso fue una historia…!” por ejemplo, nos han dado la tierra fue difícil de que me importara; sentí que fácilmente podría haber sido un ensayo, pero fue forzado en un formato narrativo. me encantó aprender más sobre el clima político que describe rulfo (aunque lo hiciera más difícil de relacionar), y me alegra haber leído el llano en llamas, pero definitivamente hubo momentos en los que sentí que el libro era difícil de atravesar. dicho esto, realmente me encantó. estoy agradecido y asombrado por la colección, y espero leer pedro páramo después

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

4.5

this was honestly an incredible novel. every character was deeply flawed & complex— understandable & lovable & frustrating (though i truly could not stand magos most of the time). i loved the casual queerness (which i wasn’t expecting largely because i got this as a gift and had no idea what i was getting myself into). it should be normal, but it doesn’t feel it. i can’t think of the last book i read where absolutely everyone was queer and the queerness itself wasn’t the focus of the story.

i will say that a lot of things are left sort of unfinished. magos in the beginning & magos later on feel like entirely different characters. on some levels, this makes sense for her; we get a sense in the first part of the book that she’s performing a lot of her behavior, so this difference could just be that coming to life. at the same time, it feels to me like something has shifted and i can’t tell what. also, at some point,

lena finds santiago’s cryptic journal where he draws monstrilio

and it’s completely left behind! obviously, we can draw some connections ourselves—

that monstrilio is who he is because he’s an embodiment of grief and deeply connected to santiago, and also an expression of suppressed desire of all kinds.

but even then, it feels lazy that this is how that was introduced, and then it was never brought back!

i found córdova’s style really interesting. obviously the book is surreal, but his style is sort of simple in a lot of ways— definitely influenced by the sort of bleak style of mexican literature, and yet somewhat americanized in a way that made me think “this guy could easily write a YA novel” as i read a gory description of someone getting cut open. i think it got better as the book went on, and this isn’t to say that his writing itself is bland or bad— i felt like i had really strong images of every location in the book and the characters were incredibly developed— but it did strike me so i wanted to note it! generally, his style felt much less surreal & weird than, say, carmen maria machado’s. i will say i really loved m’s distinct voice. his thinking & speaking was so different from everyone else’s, and really intrigued me!

regardless, i loved this book. it only took me a few days to get through despite being quite busy, and i loved every second of it! it wasn’t a hard read, but it was a really cool one, and i feel like i could analyze it forever. definitely would be a great book for an english class (minus the intense sex and gore at parts)

Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories by Ghassan Kanafani

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

i have no idea how to begin, to be honest. this was incredible. kanafani's writing is dry & arid & bleak & also full of emotion, somehow. his characters come to life so easily, even as i feel somewhat distant from them, and i felt struck by every story in this collection. i feel like i started thinking about something new & learned something new with each one. someone else's review here said something i loved-- that "his martyrdom lends little to his writing. all of its power seems to have always existed, and always will exist." it's so very true. there's so many layers of grief in each story, each one slightly different with the same undercurrent among them. i'm not even sure what else to say, to be honest. this really was beautiful. it reminded me quite a bit of juan rulfo's writing as well

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective 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? It's complicated

4.5

i found this read really interesting! her exploration of how anarchism could work and not work was incredibly well thought-out and left me wondering what's important to keep in mind as we create anarchist spaces, even when it's not post-revolutionary like it is on anarres. also, on a basic literary level, this book was so much fun! i absolutely adored the characters and felt consistently interested in what they had to say, and the format of working both backward and forward through time both made it that much more gripping and interestingly emphasized shevek's work in the novel

one of the better novels i've read, an incredible anarchist analysis, and generally pretty enjoyable! i'd be curious to learn more of its history & context and return to it a second time

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

i have very mixed feelings about this book. on one hand, it was easy to read (accessibility-wise; its content was intense, obviously) and kept me entirely engaged. the stories stevenson told were incredibly important ones to hear and often left me with quite a heavy feeling that took time to sit with & work through. i loved it to that extent.

at the same time, this book felt like an introduction that led in a direction i slightly disliked. i feel that stevenson functioned on the idea that this system is broken and must be fixed, despite his ability to address the way plantations directly led to prisons and things of the like (which, in my eyes, should make obvious the fact that the system is functioning entirely as intended). he returned to the idea of mercy, which feels silly to me when we're discussing people who have been systematically targeted by a system created to exploit them. is it mercy to try to help them out of that system? really?

anyway, i definitely liked the book and felt that he presented good information & research alongside really hard-hitting stories. it felt more like a series of essays than i expected (i thought i was walking into more of a 'memoir' that would focus on his story as a throughline), but i wasn't mad at that at all. i honestly liked it more! at the same time, as an abolitionist, it fell a little flat.

No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad 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? Yes

4.5

really beautiful book! it did a wonderful job analyzing the way beliefs of the colonizer are forced on the colonized until they accept & enforce them themselves. it was especially interesting in the context of the african trilogy series, being a sequel to things fall apart-- the same patterns repeating in different ways.

achebe's writing is incredible and intriguing, and i really got into this book; i read the entirety in a couple hours! i'd absolutely recommend this book if you're interested in stories about colonization & end of empire or really loved things fall apart.

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

thinking about 100 Years of Solitude feels like trying to remember a vivid dream upon waking— the details are lush and the emotions intense, but articulating them fully feels impossible.

one of the most striking aspects for me is the theme of generational cycles and trauma. the buendías are caught in an endless loop, where each generation seems doomed to repeat the mistakes of the last, seemingly unaware of and unable to avoid them. this cycle obviously plays a part in their emotional & internal worlds (i especially loved getting to experience the older characters realizing these cycles and watching their children & grandchildren repeat them), but i also feel like it acts as a vivid illustration of historical amnesia.

memory— or lack of it— plays a crucial role in the development of these themes. macondo itself seems like a place out of time-- a sort of capsule where memories are as fluid as the river that passes by it. the town has this recurring amnesia about its history that contributes to a stasis, where no real progress can occur. obviously, this allows for capitalism and its impact to be woven into the narrative through issues such as railroad development and the arrival of the banana company & the rains that follow, showing both subtle and overt downfalls-- and epsecially for families such as the buendías, who continuously gain and lose power, for better or for worse. it's fascinating and also sort of melancholic to see how garcía márquez uses the supernatural to symbolize the real-life failures of collective memory and the impact of this on a community, whether it's through

the overt erasure of a massacre in the minds of citizens, the slow forgetting of colonel aureliano buendía, or even the forgetfulness of the townspeople about simple everyday objects

i will say that this book was incredibly interesting and also a slog to get through. at times, i managed to forget i cared about the characters or even liked the book because i was so caught up trying to figure out what was going on; it felt like an assignment. putting it down and coming back to it really helped that, though, as i loved it much more once i'd had a break. i feel like garcía márquez does a great job at getting you close to the characters without ever truly letting you into their lives & emotions. it's distant and close, and perfectly reflects that theme of solitude (no way!)

anyway, i'd definitely recommend this book, but only if you're ready for some dense reading! to be honest, i'd suggest you write down the events you've experienced in the book every few chapters-- or at least read the spark notes summaries-- just to truly solidify your understanding in your mind. it can take a lot to process this book! i think it's going to be stewing in my mind for a while, now