coolfoolmoon's Reviews (357)

dark informative sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

To be a woman is to suffer at the hands of a man! Good message to teach kids about abusive relationships and self harm very early!

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funny lighthearted fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Bad message to teach kids don't share or else they'll keep asking for more. The capitalist indoctrination starts VERY young I see. Negative points! Cute art though!
dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

My rating and review is biased because Vianney is / was my friend. I knew her in the Friducha era, I bought the book years ago when it was first publisbed and only just found it again and finally read it.

That being said, with a lot of my own poems they aren't very good they're just something I had to get out of my mind. Raw thoughts, raw emotions and feelings. Sometimes nonsensical. When I go back and read them I go ew that's never seeing the light of anyone else's eyes but mine and even I don't wanna look at it. You're going deep into my google drive folders.

Not that Vianney's poems here are necessarily like that, but they are just raw emotion. It's very real, deeply personal, very much something she had to get out there or else she would go crazy. As she said Friducha was a character she made when she thought she wouldn't survive. The poems are not for me, I don't think they have rereadability, but I feel like I know her, or at least the person I knew in 2016-2019, more now. Whoever she is now  and the state and contents of her poetry, I hope she's alright!

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hopeful mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I'm not a fan of this style of mixing fantasy and reality. Like, why would the Disney princess Ariel exist in this universe? If mythical creatures are real, why in the real world would you call them mythical beings? Surely there would be some other term. Also, the writing tries to be mysterious to be point where it's confusing. Like. Just tell us what's happening instead of telling us what happened 3 pages later.
Also!!! A quarter into the book, my journal entry for page 73 is "medusa?!" I guessed it that quick! Which isn't bad but is funny. In a world where "mythical creatures" are real and there's real stigma around them, even though no one's ever seen a gorgon or whatever why didn't they think of that?! I did!!!
But anyway. It really hooked my attention after the halfway point, which isn't good, but I had fun. The fantasy element just clearly wasn't thought out thoroughly enough, but before the book was over I rented out the sequel at my library because I wanted to keep the ball rolling!

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challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Akwaeke Emezi, I will find you one day. One day, I will find you. I will drop to my knees. And I will ask for your hand in marriage.

They peeled my scalp back, cracked my skull open, and wrote exactly what's going on in my brain. What the heck Akwaeke Emezi my future spouse. How dare you. I love you. I guess I'm an ogbanje? Is it appropriative of me to say that even though I know my ancestry comes from Nigeria I'm just not sure which people group? Anyway anyway. I am her and they is me and I am we. Amazing. I'm so glad I chose to pock this up this month. THIS IS Black history NOW !!!

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

I like poems that rhyme so this one just wasn't for me :/ There's a few good moments but it didn't really feel artistic. That doesn't take away from the art though, it just feels more like she had all these heavy things on her mind weighing her down that she just had to get out there and maybe she'd feel lighter after. FIVE stars for the art FIVE stars for the title.

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

So it's come down to this huh. My last Toni Morrison fiction. This is heartbreaking. I liked the book; it's heartbreaking I have no more novels! But it does mean I can reread them for the first time now!

It's not her best work, but it's not her worst either. A breeze to read as usual. It hooked me more towards the end, or more than halfway through the book, which isn't good while reading but the parts before that were pleasant enough I didn't look at the book negatively. I'm sure it wasn't her intention but it is a little sad she didn't go out with a bang. This book is fine. I love Black love, and that was her primary love through all her books in all its different forms. All her books are about love! 🫢🏾

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emotional reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Automatic negative points for being pro-Paris / pro-France and using the French language. AUTOMATIC !!!!!! I can't help my dislike, nay I say hatred of those baguettes!

Negative points also for the main characters, all characters being white. I understand that the story couldn't be told without them being white. It's just hard for me to relate to white stories. I don't understand them. Usually when I read them I think "Okay but you don't have real problems. Why are you complaining?" Which is only halfway a joke. 55% a jape.

I did relate to the main character however. For future me reading this, you just broke up with your first girlfriend. You only related in some, a few ways, not completely, but it was noticeable.

Despite my criticisms the writing was lovely. It feels like thee queer/gay book that mothered or grandmothered queer books. I loved the brief analysis into gender and heteronorms. It came out of nowhere but it really stood out. Every thing you feel for the first time has already been felt by the rest of humanity a billion times over. I also love when classics can still be relatable.

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced

I keep saying it. Georgia Douglas Johnson would've loved Mitski!

What a blessing that these poems were still available! She's my favorite poet and it's amazing that someone found more of her work! Wow!!!!!

My one complaint (that didn't affect my rating) is that the book should've been broken up with the text in the introduction giving more context after you read the poem. It was over 50 pages! I guess books aren't traditionally written like that but it'd be cool if they were. I came for the poems but here's someone who found her works and chose to provide context, it's fine if we break the mold a lil.

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emotional funny tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

For once, sort of, the experience of the Youngers is not relevant to today. They bought a house for $4k. Somebody had to die for them to afford it. Meanwhile in this present day when most people family die they can't even afford to bury them. Everything else is pretty much the same though. Just called by different names now.

Lorraine Hansberry was definitely ahead of her time. 

This may have a higher rating if I actually saw it on stage instead of read / listened to it. I read it in pretty much one sitting to stay true to the theater experience – you can't pause a play, you have to sit through it – and it was still very moving and hooked my attention. But reading and listening to the play I'm sure doesn't compare to actually seeing and living it in the theater.

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