patlo's reviews
1277 reviews

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

adventurous challenging emotional lighthearted relaxing slow-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

5.0

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective slow-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

Yet another beautiful, charming, inviting, subversively challenging book from Becky Chambers’ world. This one is the most quotidian of all - how do humans interact with others, make a home and family and neighborhood; raise their kids and care for their dead; explore the universe and get in trouble and bake bread and have vocational angst and lose jobs to AI and get laid.

Like other Chambers stories, plot ls minimal and characters - in their everyday-ness - create a world that is imperfect and welcoming.

The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet by Leah Thomas

challenging hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

A really nice introduction to intersectionality, and how race impacts environmental concerns. The first chapter describing intersectionality was really well done, and would be a great excerpt for folks to understand the idea. The second chapter on environmentalism also such a good stage. The book is short, easy to read, encouraging, great for folks who are Just learning about these ideas.

The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Excellent and powerful. Reading the Preface already had me feeling all the feelings, and reading slowly, and making notes and highlights and talking with my therapist and family. 

hooks writes with clarity and power about the destructive impacts of patriarchy on both women and men. She knows that identifying the problems of violence, dehumanization, shame and anger isn't the end of the work; that the hard work of men becoming more whole and healed is on men, but also needs women's participation. And the work of dismantling patriarchy's influence on the family isn't just on fathers, but on mothers as well. She writes clearly about the promise and limitations of feminism, as well as some of the blind spots of early faminism.

There were a few places where I disagreed with hooks, or where I think we've made some progress since she wrote what she wrote, but it's not my place to measure that.  I appreciated hearing from a voice of strength and pragmatism about feminism, and from that same voice challenging men and culture to be better.

It's a bit dated in places - the chapters on media (understandably) and work feel especially so. The work chapter is not inaccurate, but the stark unacceptance of women in workplaces which hooks describes appears to have given way, while full inclusion is still to come.

I highly recommend this book to everybody. Men, women, anyone who wants to understand and improve the effects of patriarchy on men and, well, everyone.

At the end of the book, what impressed me was the depth to which I felt challenged, but also hopeful. That's a tough and rewarding balancing act by hooks.

PilgrimageToday: the meaning-making potential of ritual by Tatjana Schnell, Sarah Pali

challenging informative

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To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

adventurous challenging hopeful informative medium-paced

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

5.0

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

I love the characters that Becky Chambers creates. And she explores human vocation and meaning so beautifully 

Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride

adventurous challenging mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes

challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Sky Full Of Elephants by Cebo Campbell

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-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

4.0

A short while ago, there was a meme going around TikTok, where women were asked what they would do if men no longer existed. And many of them expressed s longing for freedom and safety.

In a similar vein, this novel is an interesting and engaging magical realism that begins with the event of all white people walking into the nearest body of water and drowning. From there, we see an exploration of Blackness in America as a variety of characters adapt to this new world. 

As I was reading, I heard echoes of 

 Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, and Percival Everett’s James. 

I don’t think this book is as good as any of those three - each of those is more deft and complex. There are some awkward plot points, a few themes raised that would be very intriguing to follow up on, but go nowhere, and at least one caricature-y character. 

But the whole thing is challenging, and should discomfort white folks.  In this, it’s not perfect, but it is good art.

I read this via audiobook. It’s well narrated, with multiple voices for multiple POV’s.