torchlab's reviews
129 reviews

Surveys by Natasha Stagg

2.5

The first third of this book is a sharp if depressing portrait of what one could describe as Mall Life: not just because the main character Colleen works in a mall, but because the boundaries of her life as a whole seem hemmed-in and stale, the way that air and light inside a mall feel. Then all of a sudden, in the span of literally less than a page, Colleen becomes incredibly famous online. The details of how this fame occurs and what it entails are frustratingly scarce: we know that she makes blog posts, and that she cemented her fame via a relationship with a man named Jim, but we don't know what she blogs about, or what makes her particular blog so special, or what Jim did to become famous, or what kinds of content they post together. I've read reviews that say this vagueness is intentional on Natasha Stagg's part, to make a kind of statement about the hollowness and interchangeability of all internet fame. But to me it just vastly lowered the realism of the book. Without any specificity as to what Colleen and Jim do all day in their public life, we get instead chapter after chapter of these people—who are pretty boring in isolation—drinking in hotel rooms and arguing about nothing. I couldn't see anything special about these people despite the book's insistence that they were fabulously wealthy and beloved. Their fame felt arbitrary, like something Stagg just decided to throw in for intellectual excitement without thinking through how it manifest in the lives of these particular characters. Sure, it might all be a statement about how much it sucks to be an influencer, but it also kind of sucks to read after a while. 

Temporary by Hilary Leichter

3.5

I feel like the way this book was marketed did not end up being accurate to the book it actually was LOL. I was expecting a sort of Sally Rooney-esque disaffected female narrator struggling against the soul-diminishing everyday realities of capitalism. Instead, I got a wry, dreamlike fable that evoked Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Aimee Bender, and Alexandra Kleeman. If you like any of those authors you should read this book.

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

5.0

Truly what is the point of writing anything about anything after Baldwin. If there's something worth writing about anything he has probably already written it in its best possible form. Maybe the single greatest 20th century American essayist.

The Gangster We Are All Looking For by lê thi diem thúy

4.0

The prose in this is just gorgeous—vivid, lyrical and exact. The author manages to pull off the impressive feat of writing from a child’s POV for nearly the entire book without ever coming across as false or cloying. Instead, she evokes the wonder and surreality of childhood experience, the way the boundary between the magical and the everyday is just that much more permeable.

My Body by Emily Ratajkowski

3.0

I liked this book more than I expected to. Ratajkowski is an incisive, observant writer with an eye for striking detail. Her stories of rubbing elbows with some of the most famous people in the fashion and entertainment worlds are just as engrossing as her memories of her childhood home. And her take on the politics of being a famous model—which is, essentially, that all women are exploited and judged by men on basis of their bodies, so why not profit from that if possible—is an intriguing, if somewhat cynical perspective.

My one main issue with this book is that Ratajkowski seems unaware that plenty of women exist who in fact don’t care about their looks or what men think of them, and that these women can and do live happy and fulfilled lives. In Ratajkowski’s conception of the world, all women are trapped in and by their bodies, unable to escape the constant mental burden of calculating how the world sees them. And while I understand why she has this view, and even agree with it to an extent, I wish for her own sake as much as the imaginative boundaries of her writing that she understood that not every woman has to feel this trapped. Tl;dr Emrata have you ever talked to a butch lesbian in your life I think it would benefit you

Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony

4.0

Flawed but fascinating; you’ve probably never read another book like it, and after reading it I suspect I never will. I don’t quite know what this book is really about but I will say that what has stuck with me the most since reading it is its portrayal of how men—across time, space, class, circumstance, and desire—devalue and mistreat women, and what that does to their psychological landscapes. Anyway, this is a very funny book.

Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction by Charles Baxter

5.0

Baxter! What else is there to say really. Read this fucking book if you’re a writer.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg

4.0

Weather by Jenny Offill

3.0

Offill’s approach to writing a narrative is interesting: this book is blissfully free of plot or even really any kind of forward motion, instead relying on the steady accretion of coincidence and observation to serve as a propulsive force. The narrator is also a bit of a wash. Not much distinguishes her from many of the other nervous white women in the post-Trump autofiction that I’ve read. What this means, basically, is that the book won’t grab you unless you like Offill’s prose. Which I did, most of the time.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

4.0

I literally started (and of course never finished) writing an essay because of how many thoughts I have about this book. The short version of it is: this is a book that has very many missteps and flaws, all of which were visible to me during and after reading it, and yet it grabbed me like almost nothing else I’ve ever read. I both laughed out loud and cried real tears multiple times while reading it. The relationship between Reese and Katrina is one of the most unique I’ve come across in any work of fiction, and it is portrayed with such astonishing tenderness and care and detail. A rich, complicated, frustrating book you will not regret reading.