sandrinepal's reviews
1227 reviews

 Historical fantasy of a sort, this certainly involved more research than "Ninth House" or "Hell Bent". Bardugo has spoken to the fact that this is, among other things, a tribute to her Spanish Jewish heritage and I was excited to read her spin on that. Welp, I'll take the dark academia over this genre, in the end: the messy tangle of history and religion with magic and mythical creatures left me without a foot to stand on. Also, whyyyyyyyy does everything have to have romance? 2.5 stars 

 Well, if I wanted to be endlessly patronized to by a man, I would... idk, just walk out into the world? But this is extra special, because Marcus Sidonius Falx will talk down to you regardless of your gender, solely on the basis that you are NOT A ROMAN. What a treat! Everyone gets to feel that they could never possibly measure up!

The main merit of this book is that it collates a lot of fun little factoids about the ancient world that would otherwise take you years of reading to glean. It's like a CliffsNotes of weird snippets of everyday life that have escaped from the entire canon of (mostly imperial era) Latin writings. If you're a nerd, you will nod knowingly; if you're less of a nerd, you might gag, chuckle, shake your head, and otherwise marvel at how those guys managed to conquer and hold onto most of the western world for several centuries. 

 After two books about menopause, you'd think I would take a little breather, but no. Not I. I soldiered on and am now extra super mad.

There were many things of which I was already aware (partly due to the aforementioned menopause books), but some still blew my ever-loving mind. Chlorosis (the so-called virgins' disease), the sexification of tuberculosis, and institutionalizing inconvenient wives being just a few of those facts. Perhaps the most concerning was the fact that cardiovascular disease in women was swept under the rug until VERY recently.

In all seriousness, I can't speak to the experience of being male and seeking medical care, so I honestly don't know if the callousness doesn't cut both ways. What this book did, however, was remind me of (at least) two encounters I've had with medical professionals that I can't help but feel might have played out differently if I had been male.

One was as a 25-year-old living in a new city and meeting a primary care physician for the first time. The purpose of my visit was to get my 10-year tetanus booster shot. I ended up being told that I should practice abstinence with my live-in boyfriend of nearly five years. Jeez, buy a patient a drink first, can't ya? (Though I did eventually get my tetanus shot.)

Another time was when I found myself in the ER shortly after my dad had passed away. Unbeknownst to me, I had just had my first panic attack. The attending essentially sent me home after telling me to 'not party so hard'.

In both cases, I remember walking away confused, embarrassed-slash-chastized, and definitely not better equipped to advocate for my own health and needs. Comen's entreaty at the end of the book to see our medical practitioners for the humans that they are, and to strive to form a partnership with them really struck a chord with me. It reinforced the need to instill in my children, especially my daughter, not just the respect for the medical profession that I was taught as a kid, but also the self-respect to speak up (or sometimes even walk out) when the relationship is predicated on outdated models (gender or otherwise). 

 me: "I need to stop reading all these books that make me angry at the world."
also me: "Oh, look! a Sarah Cooper book about sexism in the workplace. Should be good!"
me again: "Great, now I'm angry at the world."

But in a fun way!

Seriously, though, I teach a career English class for undergrads and some of the graphics in here are solid gold. Especially since my charges are science majors and not overwhelmingly female. Course materials are about to get a facelift. 

 Disconcerting is one word that came to mind after I finished this book. Not just for the suspended ending, but also for the subject matter, which felt very different from the other five books by Percival Everett I've read so far. For one thing, there is no satire here, this book is (literally) painful in its earnest representation of marriage, parenthood, work relationships, and above all, loss. Not like I haven't been deeply moved by other Everett books, but this one left me feeling more defenseless than the others, probably because the shield of humor is down in this case. It's probably no coincidence that I found myself feeling that way, as this book is also not about race, unlike "The Trees", "Dr No", "Erasure", "James", or "I Am Not Sidney Poitier". In fact, the protagonist, Zach Wells, a geology professor in Southern California, actively rejects a representation role when his campus' Black student organization sollicit him to protest. It's a layer of Everett's work that is new to me, and a very affecting book. 

 I have been mainlining information about the Troubles for about two months now and it's hard to say whether this book hit the right notes because I'm beginning to be semi-literate on the topic, or because it is just that well written and organized. I listened to the audiobook and even in that format the chronology was clear, as were the parenthetical profiles of key players. Perhaps this book felt especially helpful because it does not deal in anecdotes. In some cases, that might be what brings history to life, but for my part, I appreciated a no-frills approach that gives a clear bird's-eye view of those 5+ decades. 

 Not prime Atwood, for my money. The story fails to live up to the promise of its opening line:

"We could just push them out of windows," says Leonie.

No one gets defenestrated, in fact nothing much happens beyond a bad case of the runs (offset, one hopes, by the weed thrown in). It's a little funny, a little endearing, a little refreshing in the way it shows that 'cancel culture' is a storied, man-led tradition in academia when it comes to female scholars. But a little feels like too little on all counts here. 

 Very thorough and peppered with personal histories and profiles of major stakeholders, the audiobook was enjoyable, as it felt more lively than reading the information off a page. That said, it also felt rather longer than I'd bargained for. It was sometimes more difficult to connect the pieces of the puzzle than it would have been reading a paper or ebook edition. 

 This was the most personal of the books I've read by Abdurraqib. Outwardly, this is a book about basketball. It's cleverly divided into four quarters, each punctuated by a clock running down from 12:00 and peppered with time-outs. It's about the teams and the athletes that consumed a generation "coming up" in Ohio in the '90s and early 2000s. But really, to me, it was a book about intersections. The way that your local teams intersect with your early life, the way that the people intersect with the teams they root for and with each other, and most of all, the way that we intersect with home.

It was both the most poetic (disclaimer: I have not read his books of poetry) and the most intensely political of the books by him that I've read. The freewheeling journey through family, work, homelessness, and prison was candid, but not without reserve. LeBron's return to Cleveland and the Cavs' eventual championship title in 2016 are woven into a complex tapestry of yet-unvindicated violence (Henry Green, Tamir Rice), homesickness, and the strength of community. When I first moved to Ohio in 2014, I was given David Giffels' The Hard Way on Purpose, which was blurbed by The Black Keys' Patrick Carney, calling Akron "a hard place to be from". Abdurraqib makes no such claim. Obviously, the hard knocks are everywhere between the lines, but the book shines as a paean to that derided, undesired home in the "Heart of it all". I loved reading that love of place and people, so strong that it can make even a Nike commercial beautiful. 

 This was really cute, but I don't currently have the right demographic either in my house or in my classrooms for the content. I am all about vestigial everything (in bodies and in language) and yet I had no idea about the disappearing kidney: mind. Blown. I thought the insistence on providing pronunciation guides for the scientific terms was helpful, if a little overdone. Would I read the crap out of a grownup, expanded version of this? Heck yes.