It hurt to read this book and it hurts like hell to put it down and it’s one of these books that gives me a massive book hangover, the kind where I look at all my other novels and feel defeated because right now I just need to stop feeling.

The Mountains Sing is a story told by two interwoven voices. There’s a young girl in the 1970s at the close of the Vietnam war, who sees the grownups coming back from the front diminished, both mentally and physically, and who wonders if her parents will ever be back. In the meantime, she lives with her grandmother. The second part of the novel is set in the 1950s, just after the First Indochina War, when it’s hard to figure out whether one should flee the French or the Communists more, because both want her dead. It’s told by the grandmother, who tells her granddaughter what happened to their family twenty years prior.

I think it might be the first time that every chapter has me excited (?) for the next chapter in this voice. Both storylines were equally compelling and worked so well together. It was so good to read a book that wasn’t just about the Americans, but also about resisting the French and about having the hardest time “choosing sides” in a war that nobody wants to wage.

You can also read this review on my personal blog.

 Un recueil de nouvelles poignant, qui donne un peu trop souvent envie de se taper la tête contre un mur. C’est le genre de livre où on apprend à ne pas comprendre ce qu’on lit et à l’accepter ; un peu surréaliste, ça m’a beaucoup rappelé « Incident au fond de la galaxie ». À lire à petites doses pour ne pas perdre trop d’envie de vivre d’un coup. 

Pays: Afghanistan. 

i feel like a book that says "at the time nobody telecom-muted" in its intro probably shouldn't be read in 2023

idk. felt like a beginner's guide, and the "I've always known" narrative, while completely valid, is not something I'm interested in reading about.

imbitable 💀

Petite pièce qui donne sa place aux femmes de la vie de Marx. Rien de bien détaillé, mais c'est plutôt cool dans l'ensemble !

Très bon livre. Moi-même survivaliste et de gauche, je me suis souvent arrêté dans ma lecture pour questionner mes propres biais, notamment sur le racisme, la masculinité, et la fameuse peur de l'autre.

Excellente lecture.

Can't believe I wasted several hours of my precious time being told overreacting is bad.