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floatinthevoid's reviews
233 reviews
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks
informative
slow-paced
2.0
I think a lot of the other reviewers have articulated the problems that I had with this book enough. But my personal gripe with this book is this book have so many anecdotal arguments yet inadequate data to back it up. Not mentioning how a lot of things in here aged like milk to the point that it is being weaponized by incels, I just think there's other books you can read that explore on the topic of masculinity better than this one.
Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Something about the way Langston Hughes writes that compels to follow where he leads.. Something about the way he utilizes silence to enhance the overall atmosphere.
Not Without a Laughter is a solemn train ride back home after a long-planned holiday in your hometown had ended. It moves slowly, it feels quiet and full at the same time. Like Sandy, I find myself pondering about life while staring beyond the window, after finishing this book. We live in better times, and yet, still grappling with the same struggle in breaking norms and traditions that no longer serve best for human potential.
Hughes has a deep understanding of human nature. His writing, exceptional. This novel does an excellent job of integrating a variety of important and challenging topics into the characters' interactions. There’s just an elegance about the way he carefully build the characters in this book. Everyone is given the opportunity to be a whole person of their own; they have positive qualities and weaknesses; they make mistakes and do things right; nobody here is one-dimensional. Even Sandy being a rather quiet character that he is, we still get an expanded view of his thought process, and attitude.
Reading this feels like I'm looking at this fictional community through Hughes' own eyes, seeing the people around him for whom he cares and loves. He knows how to make the ache cut deep by handling the story's details so carefully and precisely. I like how this story highlights the ordinary people and the harsh society they live in where they find themselves dealing with difficult choices. The mundanity of hardship, that feels very close to my heart.
I've learned a lot about black people's struggles and injustices during a time when racial segregation was the the norm from this book. The nuanced discussion of how black people were discriminated against, as well as the role of religion, society, and gender roles, was written remarkably. This book, I believe, will stay with me for quite a while.
I've learned a lot about black people's struggles and injustices during a time when racial segregation was the the norm from this book. The nuanced discussion of how black people were discriminated against, as well as the role of religion, society, and gender roles, was written remarkably. This book, I believe, will stay with me for quite a while.
Being colored is like being born in the basement of life, with the door to the light locked and barred—and the white folks live upstairs.
He understood then why many old Negroes said: “Take all this world and give me Jesus!” It was because they couldn’t get this world anyway—it belonged to the white folks.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Hate crime, Misogyny, and Sexism
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
For a person to born into slavery, human relation is controlled, deprived. To be able to form a connection with another is a toil of active choice.
Douglass' ability to read and write is self-taught. And this is the key to freedom. I was once again reminded how important literacy is for every human being. That a system deliberately build an illiterate group of people is a part of strategy in maintining dominance and power.
Incredibly powerful and inspiring, this memoir is important to preserve memories so we don't forget history.
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
In this memoir, Frederick Douglass recounted the harrowing experience of living as an enslaved person. While following the story of his journey to freedom, I'm impressed by the sharpness of his mind. Douglass reflected keenly on oppression, racism, and religion.
This book greatly displays Douglass' eloquence, resulting in a very poignant narrative about the injustice, the dehumanization he'd gone through during that part of his life.
This book greatly displays Douglass' eloquence, resulting in a very poignant narrative about the injustice, the dehumanization he'd gone through during that part of his life.
All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together— at this time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise towards a declining parent— my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim embers.
For a person to born into slavery, human relation is controlled, deprived. To be able to form a connection with another is a toil of active choice.
Douglass' ability to read and write is self-taught. And this is the key to freedom. I was once again reminded how important literacy is for every human being. That a system deliberately build an illiterate group of people is a part of strategy in maintining dominance and power.
Incredibly powerful and inspiring, this memoir is important to preserve memories so we don't forget history.
Wrong Norma by Anne Carson
2. Lecture on the History of Skywriting
3. Oh What a Night
4. Thret Part II: Aspirin and Travellers
I love this strange, funny, and confusing book. Definitely not for everyone, but if you write, this book will probably ignite something in you.
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
3.75
3.75/5 ⭐️
A weird little book that I absolutely adore. Anne Carson will show you that you can write whatever you want. Unrestrained from categories and boundaries, this collection of various form of writing is full of unexpected turns.
Some of my favorites:
1. 1=1
A weird little book that I absolutely adore. Anne Carson will show you that you can write whatever you want. Unrestrained from categories and boundaries, this collection of various form of writing is full of unexpected turns.
Some of my favorites:
1. 1=1
To be alive is just this pouring in and out. Ethics minimal. Try to swim without thinking how it looks. Beware mockery, mockery is too easy. She feels a breeze on her forehead, a night wind. The fox is stroking splashlessly forward. The fox does not fail.
2. Lecture on the History of Skywriting
This happens on a small scale when you lie on your back on a hill on a summer day gazing up and saying, Oh look that one’s a camel! there’s Werner Herzog! a can opener! the Taj Mahal! - the interpretation and reinterpretation of shifting shapes of cloud is one of the most basic exercises in free imagining known to you dwellers on the earth; also useful for reminding you that most of the ideas you conceive about the world are fragmentary, fugitive, self-ruining and soon forgotten.
3. Oh What a Night
For we all know a lover and his
boy are not interchangeable.
Yet Sokrates acts as if he were the boy dazzler
and I the old guy begging for love.
4. Thret Part II: Aspirin and Travellers
We want to believe that other creatures grieve like we do. Have we any proof or knowledge of this? Not really. Do we understand how we ourselves grieve? Not really. Grief is big, grief is little, grief is cranky and comes at the wrong time, usually disguised as something else. Chemically, a conspiracy of hormones, opioids and dopamine in the forebrain. I have a sense most grief is also deeply and horribly humorous but we’re not supposed to say so. Aspirin for travellers, grief.
I love this strange, funny, and confusing book. Definitely not for everyone, but if you write, this book will probably ignite something in you.
The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.5
As Marcial Gala's first translated book into English, this book manages to sustain his authencity. But, while in the whole book he attempted to work out what to do with many different elements he wanted to put into the story, all the different POVs presented fail to make a coherent plot. It's messy, hooping back and forth with no clear intention, and regretfully bland.
“It’s always like that. Childhood makes us what we are.”
“It’s always like that. Childhood makes us what we are.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Murder
Moderate: Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Lesbophobia, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, and Alcohol