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kenziejustquietly's reviews
63 reviews
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This book stirred nothing within me. It answered none of my questions. It gave me no comfort. Nothing happened. It led me down no moral pathways. This book offers no peace. It offers no conclusions.
And I still really liked it.
The world as we know it has come to an end, and everything is quiet. Every day is the same. Every night is too. No one tips into unhinged madness, no one really comes undone. There are only flashes of possibility. Everything just...teeters. You're on the brink of everything, but you don't quite make it there. Just as the narrator never reaches puberty, never finds what she seeks, never deepens her understanding of the dystopia around her; you're always coming up a little short.
All she can do is focus on what she can learn, which is deeply human. Nothing on this planet makes me quite as thirsty as the promise of new knowledge. You can never, ever learn enough. Humankind's indomitable Faustian spirit will underpin everything - all pain, all fear, all complacency. We get up and we keep walking forward because we have to. We still have much to learn and discover, and that is reason in and of itself. Where there is more to learn, there is hope.
I think we will always seek methods and means of collecting new information or storing data - the narrator using her heartbeat as a means of measurement and distance felt so innate and correct. Like a newborn that can swim, like a patellar reflex; there was something so wonderfully right about it, and yet the idea had never occurred to me at my big age.
If you're not the type of reader who needs their stories to follow a formula, if you're okay with taking things for what they are (and not expecting them to behave like an HBO show), you should give this book a dalliance. It's short and simple, it won't take you long, and it might even make you miserable if you're lucky.
And I still really liked it.
The world as we know it has come to an end, and everything is quiet. Every day is the same. Every night is too. No one tips into unhinged madness, no one really comes undone. There are only flashes of possibility. Everything just...teeters. You're on the brink of everything, but you don't quite make it there. Just as the narrator never reaches puberty, never finds what she seeks, never deepens her understanding of the dystopia around her; you're always coming up a little short.
All she can do is focus on what she can learn, which is deeply human. Nothing on this planet makes me quite as thirsty as the promise of new knowledge. You can never, ever learn enough. Humankind's indomitable Faustian spirit will underpin everything - all pain, all fear, all complacency. We get up and we keep walking forward because we have to. We still have much to learn and discover, and that is reason in and of itself. Where there is more to learn, there is hope.
I think we will always seek methods and means of collecting new information or storing data - the narrator using her heartbeat as a means of measurement and distance felt so innate and correct. Like a newborn that can swim, like a patellar reflex; there was something so wonderfully right about it, and yet the idea had never occurred to me at my big age.
If you're not the type of reader who needs their stories to follow a formula, if you're okay with taking things for what they are (and not expecting them to behave like an HBO show), you should give this book a dalliance. It's short and simple, it won't take you long, and it might even make you miserable if you're lucky.
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Honestly, this book was a real undertaking. Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is less a story and more a gigantic minecraft-seed-sized landscape—a vast, shifting terrain where memory and experience trip over one another.
The plot, such as it is, only focuses on one guy, and his life. It begins in childhood and unspools through adolescence and adulthood, never quite linear, always folding back on itself like a road doubling its path through the hills. Proust describes the years as fugitives - which I think is particularly lovely imagery. It becomes dizzying, blurry, strange. It's exactly like how it feels to age.
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.5
NOTE: This was an audiobook for me.
Marcel Proust's funny one liners are better than anything the MCU has ever done. Two of my favourites are:
Marcel Proust's funny one liners are better than anything the MCU has ever done. Two of my favourites are:
"Please stop, you're going to make me miss the overture."
Girl, that was stone cold.
and:
"Maybe she'll die"
Lol. Lmao, even.
Then again, Proust will also hit you with some pretty painful daggers like:
Then again, Proust will also hit you with some pretty painful daggers like:
"He was quiet. He was watching their love die."
If you've ever felt like that, I know you drew a sharp breath in just then.
Honestly, this book was a real undertaking. Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is less a story and more a gigantic minecraft-seed-sized landscape—a vast, shifting terrain where memory and experience trip over one another.
The plot, such as it is, only focuses on one guy, and his life. It begins in childhood and unspools through adolescence and adulthood, never quite linear, always folding back on itself like a road doubling its path through the hills. Proust describes the years as fugitives - which I think is particularly lovely imagery. It becomes dizzying, blurry, strange. It's exactly like how it feels to age.
A boy grows up. He loves tea-soaked madeleines. He falls in love, often and unwisely (Girl, same). He moves through salons and parlors, observes the vanities of the aristocracy, and ends up being kind of a stuffy wanker himself every now and then. There are weird French bohemian parties, betrayals, affairs, lots of gayness, and sad deaths, but none of these are really that important. It's a strange read. You're constantly thrown back to the main event: time—how it moves, how it slips through your grasp, and how it changes you.
Does it get old? No - but it does tinge on a little dreary once or twice. Sorry, Proust, I am human; my dopamine receptors have been ravaged and fried by The Despot Algorithm. That's kind of my way of saying I'm a little too lazy and brainrotted to call this a couldn't-put-down'er.
In any case. RIP Proust, you would have loved:
Does it get old? No - but it does tinge on a little dreary once or twice. Sorry, Proust, I am human; my dopamine receptors have been ravaged and fried by The Despot Algorithm. That's kind of my way of saying I'm a little too lazy and brainrotted to call this a couldn't-put-down'er.
In any case. RIP Proust, you would have loved:
- hating the outfits at the met gala
- chappel roan
- ghosting your situationship when they start getting too serious
- fibromyalgia
- diagnosing your family with NPD
- replaying the bridge in "All Eyes On Me" because it didn't hurt enough the first time
- tweeting at people to "stop romanticising" things
The White Album by Joan Didion
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Joan Didion, they could never make me hate you.
The White Album is a gathering of dispatches from the smog-choked avenues of Los Angeles to the interior desert plains of American psyche. We will never have another voice quite like hers; I've said it before but no one can just... exist quietly next to such interesting people with such skill as Joan. If that does not sound like a skill, I'm sorry, but I really think it is. Everything they are, the minutiae of their personhood, is reflected back to you cleaner than bone.
This great strength of hers I think comes not from the answers she can get from people, nor even the behaviour she observes and interprets - but in questions, those brittle and lonesome things she offers with absolutely no lead, no discernable spin (yet). Here, the chaos of the late 20th century is rendered not as a spectacle but as a lived thing that you can actually feel yourself dissolving into —palpable, wearying, and strange as the shimmer of asphalt in high noon.
From Manson murders, to Black Panthers, to the weird energy I always knew that rat bastard (affectionately) Jim Morrison probably has, Joan picks the most interesting and curious subjects and asks them the most uninteresting questions. The thing is, no part of this book is really happy or sad, or dramatic, or even that surprising. It offers you no comforts, but neither is it cruel. It sees things as they are: unflinching, unsentimental, and—I'm guessing here, of course, but I feel like I can —true.
I also love how obsessed she is with water and dams. Autistic queen.
The White Album is a gathering of dispatches from the smog-choked avenues of Los Angeles to the interior desert plains of American psyche. We will never have another voice quite like hers; I've said it before but no one can just... exist quietly next to such interesting people with such skill as Joan. If that does not sound like a skill, I'm sorry, but I really think it is. Everything they are, the minutiae of their personhood, is reflected back to you cleaner than bone.
This great strength of hers I think comes not from the answers she can get from people, nor even the behaviour she observes and interprets - but in questions, those brittle and lonesome things she offers with absolutely no lead, no discernable spin (yet). Here, the chaos of the late 20th century is rendered not as a spectacle but as a lived thing that you can actually feel yourself dissolving into —palpable, wearying, and strange as the shimmer of asphalt in high noon.
From Manson murders, to Black Panthers, to the weird energy I always knew that rat bastard (affectionately) Jim Morrison probably has, Joan picks the most interesting and curious subjects and asks them the most uninteresting questions. The thing is, no part of this book is really happy or sad, or dramatic, or even that surprising. It offers you no comforts, but neither is it cruel. It sees things as they are: unflinching, unsentimental, and—I'm guessing here, of course, but I feel like I can —true.
I also love how obsessed she is with water and dams. Autistic queen.
Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Julie Smith
3.0
For those of us bogged down in the minutiae of Jungian-model therapy and years of CBT, this won't provide any eureka moments. It serves as an accessible, practical, entry-level revision exercise of the most famous tools and approaches you'd get with any counsellor worth their salt.
I like this author. I don't think this book is for people who have entrenched, severe, or decidedly chemical mental health issues - but it doesn't pretend to be so, either.
Keep it in your library for whenever you need a refresh of the basics - the section on awe, particularly, is very uplifting.
I like this author. I don't think this book is for people who have entrenched, severe, or decidedly chemical mental health issues - but it doesn't pretend to be so, either.
Keep it in your library for whenever you need a refresh of the basics - the section on awe, particularly, is very uplifting.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland
3.0
This book smells nice inside your brain.
I'm aware that doesn't make much sense - but it will if you read it. Vivid, sensational descriptions of scorched Australian earth, running creek water, clay, and masses of plant matter will make a strong world for your imagination to play in.
The book begins with a knife-edge, an uncomfortable tale of what, as a Kiwi myself, feels like a familiar picture of a (sadly all-too-common) specific flavour of domestic violence in Oceania. As the tale progresses, we learn this is no ordinary husband just pissed off at his boss and the rugby results.
The fraught, complicated relationship between the child and her abusive parent is beautifully told. The way the cycle of abuse perpetrates, is broken, is canonised, is forgotten, is hidden, is unable to be kept hidden, and serves as a catalyst for self-development, is truly gripping. The way the author writes grief, too, is clear and sharp.
Alice forms her own identity, and it's a wonderful journey to be privy to, even if the storyline can be at times a little predictable, frivolous, and ...kinda asking too much in terms of your suspension of disbelief.
There are some tropes you've definitely seen before. There are some passages of the book that will have you wondering if they're just in there to get you to the next plot point. And one thing is CLEAR - it's movie/TV bait. There is an undoubted air of screenplay about this book.
Despite this, characters - particularly the women of Thornfield farm - are charming. Twig and Candy Baby in particular provide a great ensemble-style background cast that gives a nice, solid, opaque feeling to the world-building. They feel like archetypes - but they're nice ones. Who doesn't love a cool "older sister" and a chosen family?
You'll also learn some great fun facts about flowers and what a particular species is said to mean when you gift them.
I'm aware that doesn't make much sense - but it will if you read it. Vivid, sensational descriptions of scorched Australian earth, running creek water, clay, and masses of plant matter will make a strong world for your imagination to play in.
The book begins with a knife-edge, an uncomfortable tale of what, as a Kiwi myself, feels like a familiar picture of a (sadly all-too-common) specific flavour of domestic violence in Oceania. As the tale progresses, we learn this is no ordinary husband just pissed off at his boss and the rugby results.
The fraught, complicated relationship between the child and her abusive parent is beautifully told. The way the cycle of abuse perpetrates, is broken, is canonised, is forgotten, is hidden, is unable to be kept hidden, and serves as a catalyst for self-development, is truly gripping. The way the author writes grief, too, is clear and sharp.
Alice forms her own identity, and it's a wonderful journey to be privy to, even if the storyline can be at times a little predictable, frivolous, and ...kinda asking too much in terms of your suspension of disbelief.
There are some tropes you've definitely seen before. There are some passages of the book that will have you wondering if they're just in there to get you to the next plot point. And one thing is CLEAR - it's movie/TV bait. There is an undoubted air of screenplay about this book.
Despite this, characters - particularly the women of Thornfield farm - are charming. Twig and Candy Baby in particular provide a great ensemble-style background cast that gives a nice, solid, opaque feeling to the world-building. They feel like archetypes - but they're nice ones. Who doesn't love a cool "older sister" and a chosen family?
You'll also learn some great fun facts about flowers and what a particular species is said to mean when you gift them.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
3.0
This was a nice yarn. It wasn't perfect, but I wasn't expecting the world.
It may be that I lack the minds eye, but I fail to draw much of a larger meaning or thematic apperception from this book outside of "don't kill yourself! You only get one life"! And I feel like Eminem's classic banger "Lose Yourself" did a better job of driving that point home.
I will say that as a kid, I loved Sliding Doors. I watched that movie over and over, fascinated endlessly by the concept of what's largely just The Butterfly Effect. That might be why I had such a good time slipping in and out of the different realities that Nora found. Its fun to live, for just a moment, in the eternal playground of your childhood potential.
Each reality was a little bit cartoonish, admittedly - most aren't far off the life lesson and general plot trajectory of an episode of The Fairly Odd Parents. But that didn't mean it wasn't FUN. And isn't that all we really need from a book like this?
It may be that I lack the minds eye, but I fail to draw much of a larger meaning or thematic apperception from this book outside of "don't kill yourself! You only get one life"! And I feel like Eminem's classic banger "Lose Yourself" did a better job of driving that point home.
I will say that as a kid, I loved Sliding Doors. I watched that movie over and over, fascinated endlessly by the concept of what's largely just The Butterfly Effect. That might be why I had such a good time slipping in and out of the different realities that Nora found. Its fun to live, for just a moment, in the eternal playground of your childhood potential.
Each reality was a little bit cartoonish, admittedly - most aren't far off the life lesson and general plot trajectory of an episode of The Fairly Odd Parents. But that didn't mean it wasn't FUN. And isn't that all we really need from a book like this?
Cult Following: My escape and return to the Children of God by Bexy Cameron
2.0
I feel a little cruel rating this book low, because there's no doubt Bexy has been through a lot and speaks of her utterly dreadful trauma with a really beautiful maturity and strength.
That I didn't enjoy the writing doesn't diminish what she's been through, what she's overcome, and how culturally and socially imperative it is to tell stories of religious abuse and cult brainwashing.
Now that I have that said - I found this account thoroughly underwhelming. You could almost pick the parts where her editor told her to go back and add one of the "five senses" to flesh out the scene.
The hurtling between two worlds and two realities also didn't work - an attempt was made to show just how ~different~ things were in each situation, but there weren't any good parallels drawn between each scene, all contrast was lost, and it only served to jar the reader and to needlessly break up the story.
If you enjoy true crime episodes that try to tell three stories at once, each in 5 minute increments before switching to the next, you may be fine. I don't care for that format.
The insights into the Church itself were truly fascinating. The recounting of the family dynamics and the gut wrenching difficulty with which you have to choose between religion, order, happiness, and family were gripping. The conversation needs to be had. I just think this would have made a better documentary. Though incredible, Bexys story simply isn't expansive enough to hang a whole book upon.
That I didn't enjoy the writing doesn't diminish what she's been through, what she's overcome, and how culturally and socially imperative it is to tell stories of religious abuse and cult brainwashing.
Now that I have that said - I found this account thoroughly underwhelming. You could almost pick the parts where her editor told her to go back and add one of the "five senses" to flesh out the scene.
The hurtling between two worlds and two realities also didn't work - an attempt was made to show just how ~different~ things were in each situation, but there weren't any good parallels drawn between each scene, all contrast was lost, and it only served to jar the reader and to needlessly break up the story.
If you enjoy true crime episodes that try to tell three stories at once, each in 5 minute increments before switching to the next, you may be fine. I don't care for that format.
The insights into the Church itself were truly fascinating. The recounting of the family dynamics and the gut wrenching difficulty with which you have to choose between religion, order, happiness, and family were gripping. The conversation needs to be had. I just think this would have made a better documentary. Though incredible, Bexys story simply isn't expansive enough to hang a whole book upon.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
4.0
Some of this is delightfully absurd to read in 2022, but most of it is timeless and ever-pertinent.
I'm not going to review this book for it's story/stories, value, or ease of reading. Who am I to try and quantify the emotional insight of a time-proven genius? I am, truly, just some sad bitch. I'm going to briefly explain how it made me feel, instead.
We can't stop ourselves from feeling sad, pent-up, frustrated, and depressed. We aren't alone in those feelings, either - how comforting it is to know that between us modern souls and those of long ago, we still share a fondness of olive trees, a fear of death, and a tendency towards anxious thoughts.
Though easily misappropriated by the "just don't be sad" crowd of Instagram quotes and poorly-printed Motivational Coffee Mugs, I think these lessons are empowering for those who are ready to hear them. Stoicism is not just an ideal, it's a set of small guidelines and steps one can take to encourage effective emotional self-regulation.
Meet yourself where you're at, friend.
I'm not going to review this book for it's story/stories, value, or ease of reading. Who am I to try and quantify the emotional insight of a time-proven genius? I am, truly, just some sad bitch. I'm going to briefly explain how it made me feel, instead.
We can't stop ourselves from feeling sad, pent-up, frustrated, and depressed. We aren't alone in those feelings, either - how comforting it is to know that between us modern souls and those of long ago, we still share a fondness of olive trees, a fear of death, and a tendency towards anxious thoughts.
Though easily misappropriated by the "just don't be sad" crowd of Instagram quotes and poorly-printed Motivational Coffee Mugs, I think these lessons are empowering for those who are ready to hear them. Stoicism is not just an ideal, it's a set of small guidelines and steps one can take to encourage effective emotional self-regulation.
Meet yourself where you're at, friend.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
4.0
I remember reading this on the dirty banks of the Avon river in Christchurch, so engrossed that I failed to notice that my shoe had come off at the heel and my socks were now crusted with mud and grass.
Though compelling, parts of this definitely made me feel uncomfortable in a way I think was unintentional. I think the author has, at best, a very complicated relationship with female sexuality, and a tenuous grasp on how to write women convincingly.
Time has not been kind to books with undertones like some of those present here. To review it with a modern lens is, in my opinion, totally valid though - art exists as much FOR the consumer as it does FROM the creator. I can't exactly fault people for dismissing it as misogynistic.
Revisiting this book, though, I remembered why I used to read it until 3 am even when I had class early in the morning. Perhaps it's nostalgia, but the slow-building emotional muck and mire of a man who has no idea what he wants actually makes for a great story - something I reckon even J.D Salinger struggled to pull off. (I'm unkind to characters like these, usually, so I have no idea how Murakami was able to write Watanabe in such a way as to make me sympathetic to him.)
Sweeping, dimensional city-scapes and a strong, heady atmosphere make Norwegian Wood a fun visual, too. I could see it inspiring great visual art, if I was capable of anything more than dreadful scrawls and stick figures I'd give it a go myself, but I'm bloody terrible.
This was one of those books that really implanted itself within my feeble teenage brain, and I am the first to admit this review might be a little biased because of that.
Though compelling, parts of this definitely made me feel uncomfortable in a way I think was unintentional. I think the author has, at best, a very complicated relationship with female sexuality, and a tenuous grasp on how to write women convincingly.
Time has not been kind to books with undertones like some of those present here. To review it with a modern lens is, in my opinion, totally valid though - art exists as much FOR the consumer as it does FROM the creator. I can't exactly fault people for dismissing it as misogynistic.
Revisiting this book, though, I remembered why I used to read it until 3 am even when I had class early in the morning. Perhaps it's nostalgia, but the slow-building emotional muck and mire of a man who has no idea what he wants actually makes for a great story - something I reckon even J.D Salinger struggled to pull off. (I'm unkind to characters like these, usually, so I have no idea how Murakami was able to write Watanabe in such a way as to make me sympathetic to him.)
Sweeping, dimensional city-scapes and a strong, heady atmosphere make Norwegian Wood a fun visual, too. I could see it inspiring great visual art, if I was capable of anything more than dreadful scrawls and stick figures I'd give it a go myself, but I'm bloody terrible.
This was one of those books that really implanted itself within my feeble teenage brain, and I am the first to admit this review might be a little biased because of that.
Aup New Poets 7 by Ria Masae, Rhys Feeney, Claudia Jardine
5.0
You can always, always rely on young academic poets to bring the strongest blends of social commentary, cinematic scene-setting, and subtle internet humour.
Rhys Feeney begins this collection of poems with a true sharpness and cleverness, an impressively lively exploration of our world. They cover global warming, d*n*ld tr*mp, and the fact that brutalism is mad ugly, but is also pretty cool to look at, honestly.
Ria Masae is an incredible talent, a real artist, with the prettiest and most thoughtful passages in the whole book, and an enviable inner fire that makes me feel like most of my thoughts are about as deep as a monkey banging cymbals together.
To me, though, the standout poet in this book is Claudia Jardine. Claudia is a deductive memory-collector, an archivist with a sparkling sense of humour, a Hellenistic handbasket. There is nothing that will add more to one's sense of contentment than spending an evening with a nice hot chamomile & lemon, reading aloud to a man (who is giggling stupidly) about all the clickbait headlines of ancient Rome.
The best one is a baby cries "Triumph", in my opinion. Close second is that someone heard a trumpet sound, somewhere. How excellent!
Rhys Feeney begins this collection of poems with a true sharpness and cleverness, an impressively lively exploration of our world. They cover global warming, d*n*ld tr*mp, and the fact that brutalism is mad ugly, but is also pretty cool to look at, honestly.
Ria Masae is an incredible talent, a real artist, with the prettiest and most thoughtful passages in the whole book, and an enviable inner fire that makes me feel like most of my thoughts are about as deep as a monkey banging cymbals together.
To me, though, the standout poet in this book is Claudia Jardine. Claudia is a deductive memory-collector, an archivist with a sparkling sense of humour, a Hellenistic handbasket. There is nothing that will add more to one's sense of contentment than spending an evening with a nice hot chamomile & lemon, reading aloud to a man (who is giggling stupidly) about all the clickbait headlines of ancient Rome.
The best one is a baby cries "Triumph", in my opinion. Close second is that someone heard a trumpet sound, somewhere. How excellent!