books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

Naomi Klein on rightwing populism + social media. Let’s go!

Three stars seems harsh. This book was really insightful. I just hated the way some things were framed and I can’t let it go.

The glue of this book was its doppelgänger and Alice in Wonderland metaphors—
✨ doppelgänger: how Naomi Klein (lefty Queen) gets interpellated as Naomi Wolf (90s feminist turned rightwing pundit). An analogy for how right populism is a doppelgänger for left populism, explored via the major works of doppelgänger fiction. Cool!
✨ “through the looking glass”: how Klein framed her investigation of the alt-right and its surprising constellation of ideas + conspiracy theories.

And it’s the Alice in Wonderland stuff I had beef with. Because, imagining another realm for rightwing populists to inhabit and then using portal metaphors to ‘travel there’?
👉 The most alienating way to un-alienate ‘us’ from ‘them’. And the most othering way to critique rightwing othering.

Not to mention,
▪️portal fantasy metaphors imply a metaphysical dualism, obscuring how right & left populism share the same ontological ground (same economy, media structures, literally the same planet). Call it the same ‘material conditions’ (Marx) or ‘logic’ (Hegel)—it’s this shared ground that matters
▪️ it was mystifying and kinda conspiratorial? I loved her argument that the conspiracy-heavy milieu of rightwing populism benefits the capitalist and authoritarian powers that be because of how “look over there!” distracting they are, by offering simplistic and fake solutions to real problems. But it also made me wonder how culpable this book is in that very distraction… because it, too, was mystifying (were we being for real with all the shadow-self psychic landscape stuff or just invoking Freud for the vibes?), offering self-admittedly too simple descriptions of some of the real issues covered. So, does this book also benefit the capitalist and authoritarian powers that be?
▪️ and the too-neat division was false. Which Klein acknowledged—in the epilogue 🤦🏻‍♀️ The nonfiction equivalent of ‘and it was all a dream’ (very Alice)

But there were two exceptions, the best parts of the book, imo. The explanations of:
✨ the fascist roots of the autism-phobia of anti-vaxxers
✨ the warping of Never Again and her visit to Gaza (pub date: Sept 12, 2023 👀)

The Alice metaphors paused for these topics because they were personal for Klein. Which makes sense, the portal fantasy idea didn’t fit for topics so personal since there was nowhere "to go". But I wish this had been proof for her that this metaphor didn’t fit for the other topics either.

Still, the popularity of this book is much deserved! And I always feel like I like Klein's second books on a topic better than her ideas' first iterations so I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

This book combined my two favourite things:

1. a monstrous alien hero (the more body horror the better)
✨ four-legged
✨ a Y-shaped mouth that goes all the way down his throat… and was kind of his hands? It was weird
✨ absolutely enormous, like taller at the withers than your average horse 👀

2. a richly characterized heroine
✨ she was Korean and I was learning about Korean holidays and googling Korean sayings
✨ she had a disability
✨ I’m obsessed with the interpersonal and cultural dynamics of all these post-abducted humans in space

Oh yeah, and can I add another favourite thing?

3. stalking

Also: 4. when the alien mates thing is genuinely bizarre. But I’m still happy for her 😆

Best climate change anthology I’ve ever read. For two very specific reasons:
✨ it had essays from basically every academic discipline
✨ the essays were written by the Who’s Who of each niche topic

All glued together with no-nonsense essays by Greta Thunberg.

(… and because I can’t resist being long-winded about literally everything…)

It intrigued me that this anthology was an embodiment of the debates surrounding the 1959 CP Snow, Two Cultures speech (which argued that dividing science from the humanities would hinder both discipline’s ability to solve the world’s problems—and is required reading if you ever come to our house for dinner 😆)

There’s something to this problem. And climate change books are a good example of why.

Because climate change involves every single university department. Of course, you have your earth science and ecology people (like Mr. BooksErgoSum). But also epidemiologists (climate change pandemics, oh goodie). Also physicists and engineers (green tech, please). And economists (globalization F-ed us). Political scientists (we need to un-manufacture the consent for climate destruction). And post-colonial intersectionality peeps (climate destruction and our current solutions are super unjust and discriminatory).

Literally everyone. And this anthology represented that. There were even Literature Department people like Margret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh in here. Most climate change books don’t try to reconcile all these university departments. But I love that this one did.

So kudos to Greta Thunberg for this collection of authors. And kudos to all the authors for synthesizing this information as much as they did. The silo-ification of the university doesn’t make it easy.

This was an extremely well written book. Just in a not-my-fav genre, hence the 4 stars.

Imagining those white-hooded K-named menaces as zombies? A great premise. It had me thinking of Sartre, the way such a racist ideology turns someone into a zombie like false consciousness makes the un-critical server “all waiter”.

And this book was a love letter to early 20th century African American languages and accents (including Gullah and Creole). Which the audiobook narrator absolutely nailed! She narrated this book like she was voicing a movie. It was incredible. But I don’t know if I’ll ever give a horror book 5 stars. I’m with Sartre—l’enfer, c’est les autres. For me, the scariness factor gets turned down a notch for when horror books reimagine monstrous people as literal monsters.

But if K clan zombies (and sword wielding African American zombie killers) sounds cool to you, this novella will knock your socks off—especially the audiobook!

Revolutionary education, late 1960s, Brazilian author. Let’s go!

Basically, Freire argued that:
✨ some methods of education are inherently oppressive; some inherently liberating
✨ these oppressive education methods are central to Western and colonial education cultures
✨ revolutionary movements must educate people such that they join the movement as Subjects (rather than objects)
✨ too many revolutionary leaders have reinstated oppression in their “liberation” movements by using oppressive education methods for their people

It was great. It felt super relevant. We’re trying to educate each other about politics and marginalized communities—but maybe sometimes we’re giving Oppressor Energy™️ as we do it? 😅

My favourite part of this book was maybe a bit niche: I loved the Hegel scholarship in here. And the philosophy commentary just generally was 🔥 I think it would be a great place to start if you wanted to engage more with philosophy, particularly people like Marx, Fanon, and Hegel.

We had the best use of Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic (that now infamous part of Selbständigkeit und Unselbständigkeit des Selbstbewusstsein in The Phenomenology of Spirit). Most interpretations try to understand it in terms of irl slavery and run into problems because Hegel was using slavery as an analogy for a type of epistemology… But post-colonial pedagogy? I can f*ck with that! Freire was onto something there.

I did have two minor philosophy criticisms, though. First, if I never see another Scholastic-Aristotelian division of humans and animals, that would be great. And second, concluding that education culture must be “for-itself” (a Hegel reference)? I wish Freire had concluded that education needed to be “in-and-for-itself” (a different Hegel reference).

This was a tiny free-with-the-newsletter short story. I didn’t expect a ton of romance plot from such a short friends to lovers story (the intimacy is usually grandfathered in with friends to lovers, I find).

Sapphic
Friends to lovers
Trans femme & cis butch FMCs
Only one bed
‘Oh no my apartment flooded, can I stay at your place?’

But I was pleasantly surprised by how much this story demonstrated their compatibility and what they brought to each other’s lives. That warmed my heart. And it had some spice, which I appreciated.

Plus, I randomly liked how un-idealized this New York setting was. Our lawyer FMC with wealthy parents still had a tiny apartment and I felt that.

It makes me want to read this author’s debut full length novel, Make Room For Love.

Ten chapters. Ten myths. Less than 200 pages.

And the myths he challenged were:
1. Palestine was an empty land
2. The Jews were a people without a land
3. Zionism is Judaism (and criticism of Zionism is antisemitism)
4. Zionism is not colonialism
5. The Palestinians “voluntarily left” their homeland in 1948
6. The June 1967 War was a war of “no choice”
7. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East
8. The Oslo Accords were about peace, not increasing Israel’s colonial power
9. Hamas is to blame for attacks on Gaza
10. The two-state solution is the only way forward

I’d recommend this book to anyone.

But if you’re the kind of person who wants to understand dafuq is happening in Gaza yet you looked at some of the Chonky™️ nonfiction in this genre and said, “Babe, I can’t read this history book—the names, the dates, it’s not me!”

Then I especially recommend it for you.

Because this book is so argument-forward and so neatly organized into these ten chapters, that you don’t need to memorize who Yizhak Rabin or Ben Gurion are (though you can!) in order to understand the heart of the matter and what’s at stake.

This book came out in 2017 but both the audiobook and my library’s ebook copy had a Forward from 2024 so, super relevant? Check.

This review feels harsh. Because this histrom was so well written—especially all the historical literary details and niche old timey words.

But I *am* a crank. Because:
▪️ I almost never give full-length rom-coms five stars (😅 seriously, have I even given one five stars?)—though I do love a novella length rom-com (and I’ve given all of Vasti’s novellas five stars)
▪️ I am not a fan of kids in books

So, on some level, this book was doomed because I hate fun apparently.

I did enjoy the first half—
✨ loved the absolutely idiotic internal monologue of this hero
✨ loved the ‘she’s matchmaking him with other ladies but he’s falling for her instead’ trope, a favourite
✨ loved that our heroine was so smart but also such a dumb-dumb (when it came to her feelings)

But it lost me with the second half. The kids started playing more of a role in the story, for one 🙃

And mostly, what I enjoyed about the first half of the romance plot just felt kinda ‘settled’ by the second half? The plot shifted from internal (character arc / couple compatibility) motivations to external (what to do about her library / our hero might not get custody of his younger siblings) stuff. And the characters lost a bit of their dumb-dumb-ness, which had been my favourite part.

The writing was so good, though, that I want to keep going with the series. If anyone can make me give a full-length historical rom-com five stars it’s this author.

Am I on a poetry journey this year? I’ve gone from reading basically none for my entire life to three poetry collections in just a few months—is that a lot? I have no clue.

I loved the topics in here so so much. Activism, resistance, being queer, being trans, and growing up in the Palestinian diaspora. I realized after I’d read this that—I already know (in a parasocial way) this author. Their reels and posts get shared around Bookstagram all the time. And that made this feel even more special.

I am learning something about my newly burgeoning poetry taste, though. I think I want my poetry to be thoroughgoingly emotional, symbolic, and allegorical. And some of these poems leaned the opposite way, more left-brain-vibes. But most of them still gutted me.

This had a lot of the things I’ve been enjoying from this (very fun) series:
✨ an “oh no this can’t be happening” fated mates situation
✨ human-orc size difference,
✨ overcoming prejudices in a society where humans and orcs are supposed to hate each other

And it also had a ‘she’s his boss, and wants to be called sir 😉’ element that was just delightful.

But this wasn’t a five star read for me (like the other books in this series have been) for totally personal, not the book’s fault reasons. Because it was missing two things that were in the other books that I (completely irrationally) expected here: a language barrier (she was already fluent in his language this time) and an anti-war message.

And rather than the anti-war theme I’d been hoping for, we got two police officer MCs who were just as corrupt as they were overworked. And idk, I’ve been in too much of an ACAB mindset to be into stories about cops torturing and extrajudicially killing property crime suspects, you know?

Still having fun with this series though so I’m optimistic about the next one!