books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

This book made me question if its better to try to work towards social justice from within the system or not...

Samantha Power was Obama’s ambassador to the UN and NSC advisor in this memoir. She’s the current head of USAID. And she cares about genocide? Question mark?

She was a Bosnian genocide war correspondent and took Never Again so seriously she LITERALLY WROTE THE BOOK on the role the US should play in preventing genocides. And I truly believe she cares (cared?) deeply about this stuff.

So what the heck is going on with her record on Palestine? There were two 🤨 parts to this question:
▪️ one, there is a huge lie of omission in here. Despite going into detail about every other world event that happened (big or small, success or failure), she didn’t mention Palestine at all
▪️ and two, as the current director of USAID, she is overseeing the most clear-cut violation of humanitarian law (and the most obviously illegal role the US is playing in perpetuating this genocide): the withholding of aid in Gaza

That lie of omission was pretty yikes—a ton happened in Palestine at that time, including the two biggest invasions of Gaza (before this year). The occupation would have been one of the biggest (if not the biggest) things she dealt with on a daily basis. Not mentioning it at all?? Sketchy AF.

So what was happening?

Maybe she has a moral blind spot? Fighting against all genocides except the current one? There were a few clues that support this hypothesis within the book—from public criticism of her husband’s pro-Israel politics to a gift from a pro-Israel lobby in pride of place in her UN office (even though she describes how it makes other diplomats feel awkward). Plus, the weirdest thing she did in the whole memoir: advising the US not to join the Human Rights Commission (even though it’s 1000% her thing) because Israel is one of the countries it addresses.

Or maybe, this book has been heavily censored in order for her to get (and keep) her job at USAID. Other (retired) members of that administration, Obama included, talk about Palestine in their memoirs... but maybe that has more to do with their retirement than their honesty? At the end, she thanked people for telling her what *not* to include in here, and it was all very suss.

But at what cost? Remember how I said she was withholding aid to Gaza? While I was reading this, ProPublica leaked internal memos showing that Samantha Power gave Anthony Blinken a report stating that Israel IS withholding aid to Gaza. But Blinken lied under oath in Congress, claiming the report said they weren’t—leaning on Power’s anti-genocide legacy to legitimize what’s happening.

So who is she really helping?

The other day, I shared a bunch of collective liberation themed nonfiction books to my stories. And a friend was like ‘hey, have you read Emergency Skin?’

What an excellent sci-fi fiction recommendation! This teensy novella reminded me what sci-fi should be. And it was so well written that I had happy-tears in my eyes the entire time.

It had a robot-y narrator (like, Murderbot or Alliance by Etta Pierce). It was written in this highly amusing “royal we” first person plural present tense (it was giving The Goblin Emperor). And the main character never thought any thoughts or spoke any words in the text and yet they were the main character?? It was like the writing equivalent of a magic trick. And it was about collective liberation!

Highly highly recommend! And it’s one of those audiobooks that’s available through KU, so that’s fun.

Well, I hated it.

The sci-fi premise of this novella was a ‘what is knowledge?’ / ‘what is consciousness?’ question, AI edition.

… and maybe studying epistemology has ruined me for this topic?

The epistemology in here was simple. But it was also cartoonishly mid century retro (it was giving Cartesian Cogito meets Myth of the Given, Gettier Counterexamples, and some pretty unfortunate Coherentism), and it undercut the modern, video game come to life feeling the story was trying to go for.

And telling my this was futuristic was the epistemology version of trying to tell me the music scores of Grease or Hairspray were futuristic. Like, absolutely not.

Add in the fact that we didn’t take this premise anywhere it hasn’t already been taken by big blockbuster films. And that the writing didn’t save it, for me, either (too ‘on the nose’ and predictable). And that all the characters felt so stiff, the discussion of gender and queer relationships forced… it was a no for me.

This was a lovely bonus story featuring the romance of the heroine’s parents from Voluptuous. It was super cute and kinda bonkers.

But mostly, it allowed me to read two Felicity Niven books back-to-back (Voluptuous and this one) and reminded me why I love this author so much:
✨ because the personalities of the MCs have such an impact on the tone, the plot, and the atmosphere of the whole book. Voluptuous’s characters were emotional and awkward—and the whole book was emotional and awkward. Her parents were big-hearted and impulsive. And that’s exactly how this book *felt*

I’m obsessed. And bonus points for a heroine who dresses as a boy to do research on Anglo-Saxon history in a museum reading room.

I think this book was one flaw away from being an utterly perfect (though at times devastating) fantasy romance.

I loved the storytelling. Loved the narration. I loved how genuinely magical the world felt. I loved the Six Swans Brothers Grimm fairytale retelling.

It was enemies to lovers (she was a native Irish girl and he was an invading Briton). She couldn’t speak for magical reasons. There was this whole curse quest thing. Characters were genuinely in danger. It was epic.

But. She was too dang young! She needed to be aged up like… five years, at least 😳 Not just because some truly horrific stuff happens to her in this book, also because it was hard for me to sink into this epic love story when ultimately she was just in her mid-teens.

This was not YA (oh my gosh, reading this as a young person would be so traumatizing 😵‍💫). The trigger warnings in here are no joke (though they were handled really emotionally and not gratuitously, I thought).

Loved it.

160 pages?
On the entire history of the Israel-Palestine conflict?
Published in 2024, including details up to and after last October?

Pappé is my favourite pro-Palestinian nonfiction author. And I’m used to him writing 800 page mega-detailed books on just a tiny section of the history. That I hesitate to broadly recommend because—it’s true, they’re a lot.

But 160 pages?

I thought I knew what this book would be like: a general, birds-eye-view kind of thing…

Wrong. It was super specific, super detailed. I didn’t think it was possible for a book to be this short, this thorough, and this detailed at once. I’m obsessed. I listened to this audiobook in one sitting just… in awe, honestly.

This book kind of blew my mind. And it made me reflect on the role social media, novels (not to mention bookish social media) plays in politics and activism.

I just happened to read it in conjunction with another book (Seen and Unseen by Marc Lamont Hill and Todd Brewster) about social media and the BLM movement which basically argued that the shocking footage of police violence just "speaks for itself" and generates a movement.

Isabella Hammad’s speech, on the other hand, had this quote by Edward Said at its heart:
👉 “Facts do not at all speak for themselves, but require a socially acceptable narrative to absorb, sustain and circulate them.”

And I’m obsessed with the way Hammad brought this social narrative idea down to the level of her own novels. Particularly, her penchant for writing ‘recognition scenes’: when something important dawns on the character—the “oop I love them” or the “Luke I’m your father” scene. A great type of scene. But she suspects she writes so many because actually, she’s been “writing mostly about Palestine.”

So many things unlocked in my brain. When we share a video (from Gaza, for example), aren’t we trying to craft a recognition scene for the viewer? And don’t we have a video that acted as a recognition scene for us?

So reading is political. Because we don’t escape into narrative—everything is always already narrative.

Seen and Unseen was a great explanation of what I’d call the ‘received view’ of how social media (particularly cell phone footage that goes viral) shapes social justice movements: that the footage just speaks for itself. The facticity defies the usual narrative, generates a new idea, and even a whole Black Lives Matter movement.

I just happened to read it in conjunction with another book on a similar topic that I found more compelling, Recognizing the Stranger by Isabella Hammad, which had this Edward Said quote at its heart:
👉 “Facts do not at all speak for themselves, but require a socially acceptable narrative to absorb, sustain and circulate them.”

There’s a weird moment in Seen and Unseen: the authors try to explain how one viral and incriminatingly racist video was released by the murderer/retired cop’s own defense lawyer. If video speaks for itself, how did the lawyer not see how horrible it was? They suggested that the lawyer’s eyeballs, “have ‘muscle memory’”—years of racism blinding them, literally. However, I do think Hammad had a better explanation of how this situation could have happened.

Still, I appreciated all the background this book gave.

What a unique nonfiction book!

This felt, vibes-wise, like if Midsommar (yes, the horror movie) was set in Palestine. About hiking. And Florence Pugh was played by the Uncle-iest Uncle that ever Uncled, Mr. Shehadeh.

Am I making any sense? 😆

Yes, it was about hiking. Our author is a middle aged property lawyer who escaped the humdrum of Ramallah with his hiking hobby. We encountered some breathtaking vistas, a cool fossil, and lovely local flora and fauna.

It began as the pure love that a nature-enthusiast indigenous person can have for their environment. But then there was this dawning horror, an increasing sense of unease, as that nature was slowly partitioned, fortified, and settled by an occupying force.

So this was also a book about how occupation kinda… snuck up on West Bank Palestinians. It snuck up on our author/Uncle, Mr. Shehadeh. And it sneaks up on the reader, too. It wasn’t a nonfiction history of Palestine, this was a book about how occupation *feels*—even for this lovely man’s lovely hobby.

Sorry Cardan fans, but the romance in here between Suren and Oak is way cuter than Jude and Cardan from The Cruel Prince. Yup, I said it.

Our heroine was the ultimate black cat—a literal feral forest creature with blue skin and serrated teeth (and she scratches). And our hero was one of those swoony rakes (manipulating people into loving him is literally his fae power) with a secret hurt.

And you know who loves overanalyzing the misdirecting dialogue of these fae who physically cannot lie? Me 🙋🏻‍♀️ I read all the dialogue in here so many times, especially the parts where they’re trying not to admit their feelings for each other without actually lying. Love that.

That said, this first book in the new spin-off series had a “picking up where we left off” feeling? Instead of the sense of wonderment I got from the introduction to this bizarre fae world in the first book of the main series? It’s been so long since I read the main series that I would’ve liked more of a refresh. I think it would have made the story feel more whimsical.

Still, I had fun. And I’m looking forward to book two.