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alisarae's Reviews (1.65k)
What a strange book. A boy on an island has a dad who dies at sea, and then his mom goes crazy, and the boy is just trying to navigate puberty while being stuck on a tiny island with a crazy mom. He starts caring for a baby seagull, which is a reflection of the oppressive care that his own mother gives him. I guess the message of the book is that people need to socialize with others in order to not go crazy.
Adorei! Li Retalhos pelo mesmo autor, mas prefiro Habibi. Thompson ficou estudando caligrafia árabe, o Alcorão, os hadith, as tradições do povo árabe, e os mitos árabes durante nove anos pra realizer esta obra de Habibi. O resultado é um livro imenso, cheio de beleza, com uma história que combina magnificamente tudo que o autor estudou. Tem várias coisas surpreendentes, mas o que realmente me marcou foi a complexidade da combinação da caligrafia com histórias religiosas e As Mil e uma Noites. Lindo demais!
This book is a very up-to-date look at tabloid culture (or since we don't really buy tabloids anymore... internet culture), how it is enabled, and why it even exists. Why do people care so much about people they don't even know, right?
Doyle shows, using conversational blog-type language and mountains of primary source material (complete with citations in the back), that fabricating a trainwreck narrative out of women in the public eye is nothing new, and has existed for centuries. It comes primarily from women, actually, and our internalized patriarchal standard that, "The good girl, the un-trainwreck, is feminine selflessness, taken to its most literal extreme; there is no self, no there, except as a reflection of someone else's wishes. She never makes mistakes, and she never has regrets, because she never does anything unless she is asked to do it. She is so entirely cleansed of neediness, irrationality, and inner conflict that the average woman cannot imitate her even in silence...The ideal woman has a silence that arises form never wanting to speak about anything at all." The trainwreck is a woman who we can project our shame and blame on to (If Britney wasn't such a sexualized teen, teen girls wouldn't be sexualized), or to pat ourselves on the back (I may not be rich, but at least there are no photos of me in my underwear on the internet), or to backup our beliefs that the patriarchy is right (See? You can't go around acting/being that way for long before you're put back in your place), to take joy in perceived social justice (Paris Hilton never had a hard day in her life, so it's good she's finally having a reality check), or maybe even our own schadenfreude.
Of course, many of our favorite trainwrecks really are mentally ill, or substance addicts... but in those cases, just ask: would you go along with the harassment, invasion of privacy, and millions of simply awful comments about someone's looks/personality/behavior/habits/emotions/personal life if this person was suffering from cancer instead of mental illness? I would hope not. (But that reminds me... the internet sure had a field day when Angelina Jolie had pre-emptive surgery, didn't it?)
Trainwreck culture reaches beyond celebrities to find much easier victims: everyday people who don't have the luxury of canceling work or school because of "exhaustion", who don't have a PR team to create a comeback tour, etc. Online bullying and harassment is a real thing that children and adults alike face on a daily basis. Speaking in public about anything, and on the internet everything is in public, is an invitation to get beat back into silence.
The point of the book is this: We are enabling a fictional narrative to dominate our minds, bodies, and culture—the lie that there are "good women" and "bad women" and that all of us are either one or the other, when in fact we are all humans who make good decisions and bad decisions, who do holy things and sinful things... even the privileged, air-brushed celebrities. "Women are not symbols of superhuman virtue. Women are not symbols of all that is disgusting and corrupt. Women, it turns out, are not symbols of anything, other than themselves."
Doyle shows, using conversational blog-type language and mountains of primary source material (complete with citations in the back), that fabricating a trainwreck narrative out of women in the public eye is nothing new, and has existed for centuries. It comes primarily from women, actually, and our internalized patriarchal standard that, "The good girl, the un-trainwreck, is feminine selflessness, taken to its most literal extreme; there is no self, no there, except as a reflection of someone else's wishes. She never makes mistakes, and she never has regrets, because she never does anything unless she is asked to do it. She is so entirely cleansed of neediness, irrationality, and inner conflict that the average woman cannot imitate her even in silence...The ideal woman has a silence that arises form never wanting to speak about anything at all." The trainwreck is a woman who we can project our shame and blame on to (If Britney wasn't such a sexualized teen, teen girls wouldn't be sexualized), or to pat ourselves on the back (I may not be rich, but at least there are no photos of me in my underwear on the internet), or to backup our beliefs that the patriarchy is right (See? You can't go around acting/being that way for long before you're put back in your place), to take joy in perceived social justice (Paris Hilton never had a hard day in her life, so it's good she's finally having a reality check), or maybe even our own schadenfreude.
Of course, many of our favorite trainwrecks really are mentally ill, or substance addicts... but in those cases, just ask: would you go along with the harassment, invasion of privacy, and millions of simply awful comments about someone's looks/personality/behavior/habits/emotions/personal life if this person was suffering from cancer instead of mental illness? I would hope not. (But that reminds me... the internet sure had a field day when Angelina Jolie had pre-emptive surgery, didn't it?)
Trainwreck culture reaches beyond celebrities to find much easier victims: everyday people who don't have the luxury of canceling work or school because of "exhaustion", who don't have a PR team to create a comeback tour, etc. Online bullying and harassment is a real thing that children and adults alike face on a daily basis. Speaking in public about anything, and on the internet everything is in public, is an invitation to get beat back into silence.
The point of the book is this: We are enabling a fictional narrative to dominate our minds, bodies, and culture—the lie that there are "good women" and "bad women" and that all of us are either one or the other, when in fact we are all humans who make good decisions and bad decisions, who do holy things and sinful things... even the privileged, air-brushed celebrities. "Women are not symbols of superhuman virtue. Women are not symbols of all that is disgusting and corrupt. Women, it turns out, are not symbols of anything, other than themselves."
These poems are not dense or hard to understand. They are very easy to read before bed, like Billy Collins (she even refers to him in one poem)
All the poems are 3 stanzas of 10 lines with 10 syllables per line (I don't know the special term for this structure). Sometimese there are rhymes or clever turns of phrase within lines ("saucy salsa songs"), but it's not often. Alavarez is more concerned with the structre.
There are some poems about trees (meh), growing up as an immigrant in NYC (interesting! With some Spanish words sometimes!), a few poems about being an adult woman (meh), and her love of words and poetry (her love is honestly contagious).
My favorite poems in this collection are:
- MY BOTTOM LINE
- TONE
- "POETRY MAKES NOTHING HAPPEN"?
Hold on tight! could be the first commandment / for this life, and the second, Let it go! / Only the empty hand is free to hold.
All the poems are 3 stanzas of 10 lines with 10 syllables per line (I don't know the special term for this structure). Sometimese there are rhymes or clever turns of phrase within lines ("saucy salsa songs"), but it's not often. Alavarez is more concerned with the structre.
There are some poems about trees (meh), growing up as an immigrant in NYC (interesting! With some Spanish words sometimes!), a few poems about being an adult woman (meh), and her love of words and poetry (her love is honestly contagious).
My favorite poems in this collection are:
- MY BOTTOM LINE
- TONE
- "POETRY MAKES NOTHING HAPPEN"?
Hold on tight! could be the first commandment / for this life, and the second, Let it go! / Only the empty hand is free to hold.
I had a hard time getting into this, but I'm glad I stuck with it and I really liked the ending!
LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. I got it from the library, but the information in this book is incredibly valuable. People probably pay a couple hundred dollars for a psychology course at a college and don't learn as much as this 230 page book teaches, not to mention the economic, psychological, and emotional costs saved by protecting yourself from sociopaths in your life.
This book is not technical, I mean it's not like reading a scientific journal. It's hands-on and practical, though talking about sociopaths lacking a conscious invariably brings up philosophical and theological questions (that the author does a good job of contextualizing and discussing).
I'm planning to re-read this again and take notes this time. There's a lot of interesting material to ponder and digest, besides the more pratical tips in the book.
This book is not technical, I mean it's not like reading a scientific journal. It's hands-on and practical, though talking about sociopaths lacking a conscious invariably brings up philosophical and theological questions (that the author does a good job of contextualizing and discussing).
I'm planning to re-read this again and take notes this time. There's a lot of interesting material to ponder and digest, besides the more pratical tips in the book.
I laughed to the point of tears, this book is so great. I love comedy that makes fun of how pathetic we humans are. The last couple essays in the book are more serious, but address the process of how we lie to ourselves about our selfish motivations in a way that I think the majority of the population never comes to realize. Really wonderful stuff.
One of those books that are cool to adults but not so much for kids. For picture-book-aged kids, the connections between pages are hard to follow. So it will take quite a bit of extra storytelling on the adult's part. Which is fine, I think it's important to have those types of discussions about poetry and abstract or implied connections with kids, but it's not exactly bedtime material. I saw some other reviews from teachers using this to teach haiku in the classroom--great idea! This book is great for explaining that poetry uses a lot of "holes" and our imagination gets to fill those holes in.
Cute cast of diverse characters and also horses. Yay ponies! Katie loves horses but when it comes time to ride... they are a little bigger than she imagined.
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Really really great romantic fantasy. The characters are all interesting and well built. The descriptions of the worlds are so beautiful and rich-- they really sold me. The plot never drags, though some of the romantic parts had me rolling my eyes (not badly written, it's just like... Well that escalated quickly). I'm going to keep reading the series.