jayisreading's reviews
524 reviews

I started this novel with no assumptions or expectations, which, for me, ended up being a good approach. I thought this book was enjoyable enough, in that I didn’t expect to find bits of humor here and there (your mileage may vary on how you feel about snark) and Suárez does a decent job building up the “whodunit” situation for the reader to try and figure out who has the Meucci documents (and learning more about the man himself, Antonio Meucci, credited as the inventor of the first telephone).

In the midst of mystery, though, what really caught my attention was what life was like in 1993 Cuba. The protagonist, Julia, described her country at one point as such: “We were living in a country being screened in slow motion and sometimes in black and white, where the only things that weren’t an uphill struggle were a smile, making love and dreaming. That’s why we’re always smiling here in Cuba, why we make love and dream all the time. We’ll dream of anything.” I really would have loved to read more about daily life in lieu of Julia ending up in all kinds of drama along the lines of deception and infidelity. (When I say the characters are all messy, I really mean they are messy.)

My major gripe with this novel was actually how it was translated. I found that the English translation read very awkwardly and found the flow difficult to follow. Since I haven’t read the original, it’s unclear to me if this is a translation issue or if this is just Suárez’s style and MacSweeney was trying to remain faithful to the source, but it really didn’t work for me.

This poetry collection focuses on the 1965 genocide in Indonesia, which was led by the Indonesian military and backed by the United States. It's a dense collection that asks the reader to realize the damning position that US empire has had globally, but especially in Asia. Oka approaches her poems from different angles, ranging from character interviews, illustrations drawn to music, fictional telegrams, to a disassembling of declassified documents. She invites the reader to sit with grief of this genocide, but also grief of buried voices and histories due to oppression.

I continue to think about what Oka wrote in Act I, which I think captures her call to the reader to take time to reflect while making sense of this collection:

A powerful collection, but definitely a dense one that will take time to mull over.

I think I'm going to have to check out Szabó's other writings, because this one had most elements that I like in a book that are character-driven, but it didn't quite grab my attention as much as I'd have liked. This was an interesting dive into a rather intense and complicated relationship between two women who came from very different backgrounds but crossed paths because one (Emerence) was hired to be the housekeeper of the other (the narrator). Emerence in particular was a memorable character with her sharp personality and mysterious background. I think what threw me off a little, though, was how she sometimes came off as an almost mythological figure, which didn't quite work for me. On another note, there was definitely significant symbolism attached to the door that led into Emerence's house that left a lot of food for thought.

Again, I'll have to check out Szabó's other works. This was an interesting step into modern Hungarian literature for me though.

This was such an interesting dive into a queer woman's mind and negative feelings about children and motherhood. I feel that society still often expects women to have maternal instincts, and for the narrator to so blatantly push back against that is incredibly refreshing. In such a short book, Baltasar unravels her characters to reveal numerous flaws and vulnerabilities, as well as creating a well-crafted claustrophobic tension to reflect the feelings of the titular character (Boulder being a nickname).

I'm looking forward to reading Baltasar's other works, because Boulder scratched an itch for a good character study.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted from this book, but it didn’t really work for me. I wanted to enjoy this book, especially because I was interested in the period this book took place (1950s to 1960s Korea), a tumultuous and transitory time that doesn’t seem to receive as much attention in fiction about Korea. However, I’m not very invested in drama and love triangles, and this book had plenty of drama with its somewhat intense love triangle at the front and center. In some ways, If You Leave Me felt like a book form of a Korean drama.

I think my greatest concern was the incredibly ableist thinking that existed throughout this novel. One reason for this could be that this is reflecting the dominant beliefs about trauma and disability during this time period (which, unfortunately, is still present to this day). However, I think this could be addressed while still empowering and giving agency to the disabled characters in this book (and there are a few!). Most (if not all) of them were just treated as weak or at fault for being disabled. While it wasn’t anything super egregious, the off-handed comments, internalized ableist thoughts, etc. all add up.

I think I do have more thoughts, but these were my main takeaways from the novel.

I can't pinpoint what it is that's bothering me about how the book is written, but it's not working for me, unfortunately. I think the structure is a really fascinating one though, from what I was able to gather.

I admit that I really struggled through this collection. The ideas were incredibly abstract, and I think a reason for the particularly abstract nature of these poems is a result of things getting lost in translation from Korean to English. The translator, Don Mee Choi, did her best to attend to this in the back of the collection (called “Translator’s Diary”), which helped make things click a bit more. However, I think Phantom Pain Wings is an excellent example of a poetry collection that begs to be read in its original language to fully appreciate what the poet wants to convey. This is by no means the fault of Choi— Her explanations made it clear to me that these limitations will inevitably be present. I just didn’t expect it to be as much of a barrier as it ended up being for me.

As a result, I couldn’t quite follow the ideas of this collection, other than that birds and death are major motifs. It made it hard to appreciate what Kim wanted to get across, which I imagine is intelligent. I say this, having read Autobiography of Death, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I don’t know if it was the result of the translation limitations (again, I don’t fault Choi for this at all) or the general content (or perhaps both), but this collection didn’t quite meet my expectations, unfortunately. 

Hurston was well ahead of her time, creating a protagonist like Janie. It’s not to say that headstrong female characters didn’t exist in the past, but I could imagine some readers at the time might have been scandalized due to Janie’s fierce independence and the time she spent with three different men, which was so unabashed, I loved it.

It was a bit difficult to get into the writing style at first, but after a few chapters, the novel became an even richer text that beautifully shared the Black South’s language and culture. In addition, there was a lot to think about in this novel, ranging from race (and, relatedly, colorism) to gender/sexuality to the legacy of slavery. All of these were inevitably tangled up with one another, which added so much detail to an already rich story.

It took way longer than it should have for me to have picked this one up, and while I didn’t completely enjoy the story in general, Hurston gave so much to the reader to contemplate. This is absolutely a book that’s worth reading closely, and I can see why it’s assigned to students so regularly in the United States.

I have mixed feelings about this one. Newson did a wonderful job giving the reader a very personal look into the world of a young gay Black man in 1980s New York City during the AIDS epidemic. Woven into the story were footnotes explaining who certain individuals, organizations, etc. were to enrich your understanding of this time and situation. I really appreciated the distinctly Black perspective and learned a fair bit.

On that note, the book often read more as an opportunity for Newson to teach the reader than to experience a story, making things feel a bit labored at times. There were also some plot points that kind of floated around, most notably the story with Trey’s brother. I wasn’t entirely sure what Newson wanted to get out of this.

This novel is a great dive into queer history, and it’s clear that Newson took great care to do as much research as possible. However, as a fictional work, I felt that there was a lot left to be desired. 

This was such a lovely poetry collection to read. I think what made me enjoy and connect with these poems as much as I did was because of my familiarity with many of the cities Fernandes wanders through in her poems. As adventurous as her poems sound due to their globetrotting nature, I found that most of these poems highlighted the more mundane moments of everyday life, regardless of location. In addition to wandering across different spaces, Fernandes wanders across time in her musings that I found evocative.

There is a playful element to many of these poems in their tone and form that I appreciated. Furthermore, these poems are introspective in nature considering the simpler aspects of life, yes, but also the complex (particularly when it comes to love), with Fernandes taking in these moments at her own pace.

I admit that I would hesitate to recommend this collection to readers who are only starting to get their footing in poetry. It’s not because the poems are difficult to understand, rather, I think this collection would be harder to appreciate due to the way Fernandes approached many of her poems. Some of them are a bit erudite in that she will be in dialogue with other poets and their works (e.g., Rilke).

I really enjoyed this collection though, and I’ll certainly be looking into more of her works.

Some favorites: “Love Poem,” “Letter to a Young Poet,” “Shanghai,” all of Part II, “Do You Sell Dignity Here?,” “Fuckboy Villanelle,” “Get Your Shit Together and Come Home,” “Phoenix,” “May to December,” “Company, Company,” and “Tired of Love Poems”

Note: Many thanks to Tin House for sending me an ARC.