abbie_'s Reviews (1.79k)

Was super intrigued by this one when I saw it on the Philippines prompt page for StoryGraph’s Read the World, and although it was a bit uneven (aren’t all anthologies??), I am overall glad that I read it! This is the only anthology of lesbian writing from the Philippines so it’s such an important contribution to literature! The stories are nicely separated into sections like Beginnings, Family, Unrequited and Endings, although all the stories are supposed to be a response to ‘what makes you tingle as a lesbian?’ And I’m not sure all of these really seemed to ruminate on that theme.

My favourite section was the Passion section, there were some absolutely gorgeous pieces of writing about sex and lust. Then I also really appreciated the pieces that explore the tomboy phenomenon in the Philippines. It seems like a lot of queer women in these stories and essays still adhere to quite strict gender roles - mascs pair with femmes, stone tops abound.

Not all pieces left an impact, some left the wrong kind of impact (one was a bizarre recollection which seemed to romanticise touching a woman’s breast without her consent??), but overall glad this anthology exists!

I have been wanting to read Thiong’o’s work for a while now, and this one piqued my interest when it appeared on the International Booker longlist in 2021. It was originally written in Gikuyu and the author himself translated it into English. It’s a creation myth, an epic poem, and for that reason I do think the audio works really well. Such stories give themselves to oral recitation, the repetition sounds great and overall the narrator does an excellent job. However, there were some jarring parts where I guess the microphone stopped working properly or something? And it’d be super loud or weirdly muffled for a sentence or two.

Content wise, sometimes the story did lose me. But I was fully invested in all the ogre parts, it felt like a classic adventure tale, heroes overcoming tasks and challenges - including an ogre who never stops shitting, frankly iconic.

It didn’t leave a massive impact on me though. 

I started my year off so well with my books, high ratings all round, but unfortunately I seem to have lost it before January’s even over 😅 This one was partly my own fault because even though I wasn’t a massive fan of the Yacoubian Building, I thought Friendly Fire by Alaa al-Aswany might be better… I pretty much found it as inscrutable as TYB. I think it’s meant to be a satirical depiction of Egyptian society, emphasising issues such as corruption to an almost cartoonish level. Some of the stories, like Kitchen Boy, were quite entertaining while reading but not very memorable afterwards.

I think I might try and find something else for Egypt for StoryGraph’s 2025 Read the World challenge, as well as a few other countries. I’ve read almost 8 now (speed running it) but the last few have been disappointing 😭

Ask me if I have any idea what’s just happened in this book I finished 10 minutes ago… The answer is no. Some books are just not written to be consumed via audio. A Fist or a Heart is one of those, fragmented vignettes that need the visual of a paragraph break to make any sort of sense. Characters which have the same name bar one or two letters difference… it’s just not meant to be 😅 Two stars because there were flashes when I was loving what I was hearing but within minutes I’d be lost once more. Perhaps one to revisit in print.

I was intrigued by the premise of this one, knowing that it was about the battle between Mandarin and Cantonese in the professional environment, in this case schools. But it’s also marketed as a thriller and a thriller this is not. Yes there’s one gruesome bit, but other than that it’s a narrative driven by societal pressures and toxic workplace environments. No hint of a thriller. If you go into it without those expectations you’ll have a much better time.

The translator’s insights were fascinating as there’s so much going on in this novel linguistically. It’s also a slightly terrifying portrayal of life as a teacher - my partner is a teacher and I see how much she works, but apparently it could be even worse if she taught in Hong Kong!

I think it could have been a bit shorter and made more of an impact. I didn’t feel compelled to read large chunks of it in one go, and it didn’t call out to me when I put it down. But still glad I read it! 

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC! Unfortunately this one didn’t work for me at all, I only powered through it because it was a review copy and I also needed it to fulfil a challenge. It sounded so promising, set in the Borneo rainforest and about communist insurgencies. But I just found it deathly dull, the constant flora and fauna descriptions made the prose so static it was such a trek to get through it. Also whenever women were mentioned you could place bets on their breasts being described within the next two lines - supple, trembling, plump, we’ve got them all. Few things turn me off a book more. 

I’ve not read any of Lucy Sante’s previous work, but I picked this one up for Queer Your Year’s ‘read a book by a living trans elder’, and it also happened to fit StoryGraph’s Read the World Belgium prompt! It made me realise I rarely read from older trans folk, and the fact Lucy didn’t transition until her 60s is such an important viewpoint attaining to the fact that trans kids exist, and it’s not something that’ll simply go away with time. I really appreciated her vulnerability, opening up about not feeling womanly ‘enough’, about having lived almost a full live benefiting from white male privilege. I do however agree with other reviewers that she sometimes comes off as a bit judgemental of younger generations and subjects of identity - likely a generational difference as she is nearing 70! Some of the history of New York in the 70s/80s also lost my attention at times, though I liked the family side to the memoir. 

I’ve decided to speed run the StoryGraph’s Read the World challenge this year and visit all ten countries in January! So this was for Mexico, and I always feel sure that when I pick up something by Charco Press, I’ll be in good hands. ‘Zany’ is the word that comes to mind when I think about The Forgery. It’s a little whacky, a little out there, a sort of art-heist-mystery without the heist, fun sometimes, dark other times. I saw another reviewer say they want a film of it, and I definitely agree it’d make an EXCELLENT movie, just the right amount of twists and a colourful cast of characters - plus a macaw. Although I enjoyed it a lot, it wasn’t a new favourite, but they don’t all need to be! Will definitely be on the lookout for Barrera’s other works in English! 

I really liked this icky little horror novel about a young Korean-American woman taking her gory revenge on white men who fetishise Asian women. I loved the way the author took the stereotype of Asian women being mild mannered and said absolutely fuck this - and the way Ji-won used this stereotype to her advantage throughout the book was brilliant. 

The male characters written to be hated are written almost too over the top - I cringed every time Geoffrey was in a scene, a man hiding behind a feminist facade who is just as intent on controlling the women in his life as a man found in the deepest corners of 4chan. But they were effective. 

There was a definite queer undertone to one of the storylines and I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t go anywhere. I was also almost disappointed by the ending but Kim turned it around. 

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC of A Language of Limbs! This book was absolutely stunning, ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it. Everyone should read it. It’s urgent and raw, written so poetically that it took my breath away on occasion. It’s set in Australia in the 70s, and I’ve never read about the AIDs pandemic set anywhere other than the UK or US. Hardcastle does a brilliant job (in my opinion) of portraying the time period, the intersections of homophobia, classism, racism that affects the queer community. I loved the way it flitted between Limb One and Limb Two’s stories - starting off with two young girls, having queer experiences and their lives then run parallel, it’s one of those books that make you think about the tiniest choices we make and how the rest of our lives then play out. It’s so just beautifully done. Community is at the heart of this novel, the community we build and the family we choose and how it holds us up. This was all geared up to be my favourite book of the year already, but at one point I feel like it tipped too far into melodrama. There was enough emotion and poignancy, it then almost felt too much. But bloody hell, still loved it.