alisarae's Reviews (1.65k)

"I may have been made, but now I'm making myself."

Based on the description of the book, I imagined that I was going to read a more straightforward sci-fi narrative of a dystopian workplace, like a Jeff Bezos engineered version of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The book does have a timeline and a narrative eventually emerges, but it is quite experimental: each short chapter is an excerpt from interviews with employees aboard a space ship. The employees treat the interviews as an opportunity to confess their sins and preserve their memories as a recognition that they existed, so they eagerly line up to talk. They describe the ship, how they feel about their job and colleagues, deviant thoughts, and most peculiarly, the onset of symptoms like dreams and itchy skin (those descriptions gave me the heebie-jeebies, so be ye warned).

There are strange objects aboard the ship that emit hums, warmth, and smells, and appear to be awakening the symptoms of dreams and memories, hallucinations, strong emotions, and the *gag* skin thing. Employees frequently talk about primordial concepts of birth/eggs, skin, consumption, and the desire to touch or put the objects in their mouth. The author notes at the beginning of the book that the idea for the story came from the artist Lea Gulditte Hestelund -- and indeed you can see the objects (sculptures with cords, smooth eggs) and the description of the ship (white walls with orange or grey floors, hanging draperies, hides, color baths) in her work: http://leagulddittehestelund.dk/ and https://www.instagram.com/leaguldditte/ Check out "Consumed Future Spewed Up as Present" in particular.







In the second half of the book, a conflict forms as existential questions arise about what it means to be a human, apparently sparked after the employees started experiencing symptoms from contact with the objects.

Honestly the story is much richer than it appears on the surface and there are a lot more concepts that I could talk about here, but I don't want to give away spoilers. If you like esoteric artsy-fartsy stuff with strong vibes of [b:Annihilation|17934530|Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403941587l/17934530._SX50_.jpg|24946895] and the show Severance, read this and then hit me up to discuss.

I like reading Austin's blog and seeing pictures of his journals. I am glad I finally read his book, but his blog is more interesting.

I was enthralled by the drama of the Gombe chimps: Flo's large and loving family, Fifi's antics, David Greybeard's easygoing trust, political power struggles and the friendships and alliances. I loved the anecdotes, like when two chimps discovered that the banana stash had reappeared they started screaming and hugging each other instead of rushing over to eat right away. Stories of how different mothers raised their children were so interesting.

I was left thinking about how hard and cruel life is in chimp society. Violent outbursts are common, how scary and chaotic that must be for socially unaware children and infants. How the chimps treated the ones who had been paralyzed during the polio epidemic was most heartbreaking of all--but as I reflected on that I realized that I was less sad that the chimps don't appear to have the capacity for empathy, and more sad that humans, who do have a boundless capacity for empathy, so often act like chimps.

SO CUTE and exactly the comfy Christmas romance with low stakes drama that I was looking for. Plus, how often do you find a romance that features a middle aged Black woman?

Gostei muito de ler esse slice of life situado em São Paulo, uma cidade que conheço tão bem. As ruas, as linhas de onibus, os pontos turisticos... consegui "ver" tudo enquanto o leia.

Mais que isso, reconheci tantas mulheres paulistanas nesse mesmo vibe da protagonista. A autora captura muito bem a sensação de decepção com a vida que vem aos poucos para mulheres: que a vida, marido, carriera acabarem não sendo o que foram prometidos. Tantos sonhos e projetos que brotaram mas não floresceram. Então, a gente tenta cavar outras maneiras de estar contente, na face do caminho "certo" que só proporcionou um vão dentro da alma. Me lembra do filme norueguês The Worst Person in the World.

Okay this took me an embarrassingly long time to finish reading my "christmas romance" but it was because my brain was so burnt out from work, not because the book was bad. This book is great! Cute plot, adorkable characters, good writing and pacing, HEA ending! Plus hanukkah! since I know it can be hard to find a holiday romance that isnt so christmas focused. The storyline is, in the words of my husband, "like The Holiday but gay." Good audiobook performance, too.

I have thumbed through a ton of tarot guides in the past few weeks and this one is the bestest. My goals with tarot align perfectly with this book: self reflection, personal growth, plumbing intuition. And while many tarot guides bring up myths and archetypes, I can’t say I have seen any that tie in researched psychology and therapy tools.

How fitting that my first draw with this book was the Wheel of Fortune! For the Tarot of Change lol. To give you an example, in the section on the Wheel of Fortune, Dore explains the Cycle of Change model by Prochaska and DiClemente, and how that model can help encourage you to stick with something by realizing that difficulty and otherwise unpleasantness are part of the process of change: “it brings together two seemingly conflicted realities: this stage is both awful and necessary….not everything that feels bad is wrong.”

I am so delighted in the potential here!

Crisply written and kinda creepy, definitely channeling Shirley Jackson.