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madgerdes's Reviews (970)
"I didn't believe Mom could be gone completely when there was so much of her left everywhere. There was her voice in the parrot, her sleepwalking in Lizzie, and now Dad asked me questions like if I was wearing sunscreen of if I'd had enough to eat. Mom showed up in parts of me too: I had her scientific mind, and now, without her, I was Boomer's favorite person in the family.
There was a sign over the church door that said: Jesus Is in Us All. Maybe we do breathe in a dead person's leftover spirit, like Soda had said. That's why there are parts of Mom still in the house, and parts of her in the river, parts left in Lizzie and in me. Maybe a spirit evaporates like vapor off of the bag of frozen peas you steam in the microwave; the droplets go everywhere, settle wherever they land."
A heartbreaking and honest look into the world of Elvis Babbitt, an 11-year-old girl whose mother drowned while sleepwalking, Rabbit Cake is one of the only books to make me laugh out loud. Elvis is an inquisitive, precocious, and candid narrator and through her perspective, we observe her family's and her own journey through the grief process. Despite being about grief and death, the overall mood of this book was hopeful. The one year anniversary of my grandfather's death being yesterday, my reading of this book could not have been more perfectly timed. It served as a poignant reminder that grief is not a straight pathway that everyone experiences in the same way. Additionally, it gave me a way to laugh at my own family dynamics, something that isn't always easy to do. I'd recommend this book to anyone - Annie Hartnett's writing flows easily and her message is universal. Topped off with a cast of imperfect characters that are easy to love, Rabbit Cake is a novel I won't soon forget.
There was a sign over the church door that said: Jesus Is in Us All. Maybe we do breathe in a dead person's leftover spirit, like Soda had said. That's why there are parts of Mom still in the house, and parts of her in the river, parts left in Lizzie and in me. Maybe a spirit evaporates like vapor off of the bag of frozen peas you steam in the microwave; the droplets go everywhere, settle wherever they land."
A heartbreaking and honest look into the world of Elvis Babbitt, an 11-year-old girl whose mother drowned while sleepwalking, Rabbit Cake is one of the only books to make me laugh out loud. Elvis is an inquisitive, precocious, and candid narrator and through her perspective, we observe her family's and her own journey through the grief process. Despite being about grief and death, the overall mood of this book was hopeful. The one year anniversary of my grandfather's death being yesterday, my reading of this book could not have been more perfectly timed. It served as a poignant reminder that grief is not a straight pathway that everyone experiences in the same way. Additionally, it gave me a way to laugh at my own family dynamics, something that isn't always easy to do. I'd recommend this book to anyone - Annie Hartnett's writing flows easily and her message is universal. Topped off with a cast of imperfect characters that are easy to love, Rabbit Cake is a novel I won't soon forget.
You, on the other hand, won't tell me what I want to hear. Does that make you very smart or very stupid?
Filled with caustic language and irony reminiscent of Vonnegut, The Sympathizer reminded me how to read intentionally. When thinking about the difficult novels I've read, this is one of the few for which the burden of the challenge did not outweigh the joy I experience while reading it. This book took me over two weeks of slow and purposeful reading, sifting through unmarked dialogue and attempting to decipher the narrator, our Captain's, true allegiances and feelings.
The Sympathizer reveals the absurdities and cyclical nature of war, blurring the already blurred lines of the Vietnam War. The Captain provides a unique view of American culture; He born and raised in Vietnam, attended college in America, worked for a prominent general in the AVRN, simultaneously served as a communist spy, and eventually exiled to America with his AVRN community. The son of a European priest and a Vietnamese woman, he was born a blend of two cultures and ridiculed for being a "bastard" his entire life. The Captain has one foot in the door of American culture, providing him with insight to understand. However, his Vietnamese features will never allow him to truly belong due to the fervent racism in America.
This book brings up many questions of identity especially in the context of race, morality, nationality, and culture. Beginning with the assumption that the Vietnamese are people deserving of respect and perspective, Nguyen explains that this is not a novel written to affirm the humanity of the Vietnamese. Rather, it is written to show the contrast between humanity and inhumanity that lives within us all.
It's hard to elucidate my feelings about this novel, because so much of what I experienced what just that - pure feeling. I was completely struck by the Captain's intellectual capabilities and undying bonds with his friends, Man and Bon, that transcended border lines and moral schema. I was thrown side to side trying to understand the absolute tragedy of the Vietnam War. A war that robbed a nation of its identity, making it synonymous with American failure. I believe this is a must read for all Americans who still think of the Vietnam war and consider it our tragedy. Yes, American lives were lost but it is not our tragedy alone. Our Vietnam War ended when we retreated; Vietnam was left in tatters.
I'm not an American, sir, I said. If my confession reveals anything, isn't it that I'm an anti-American? I must have said something outrageously humorous, for he actually laughed. The anti-American already includes the American, he said. Don't you see that the Americans need the anti-American? While it is better to be loved than hated, it is far better to be hated than ignored. To be anti-American only makes you a reactionary. In our case, having defeated the Americans, we no longer define ourselves as anti-American. We are simply one hundred percent Vietnamese.
Filled with caustic language and irony reminiscent of Vonnegut, The Sympathizer reminded me how to read intentionally. When thinking about the difficult novels I've read, this is one of the few for which the burden of the challenge did not outweigh the joy I experience while reading it. This book took me over two weeks of slow and purposeful reading, sifting through unmarked dialogue and attempting to decipher the narrator, our Captain's, true allegiances and feelings.
The Sympathizer reveals the absurdities and cyclical nature of war, blurring the already blurred lines of the Vietnam War. The Captain provides a unique view of American culture; He born and raised in Vietnam, attended college in America, worked for a prominent general in the AVRN, simultaneously served as a communist spy, and eventually exiled to America with his AVRN community. The son of a European priest and a Vietnamese woman, he was born a blend of two cultures and ridiculed for being a "bastard" his entire life. The Captain has one foot in the door of American culture, providing him with insight to understand. However, his Vietnamese features will never allow him to truly belong due to the fervent racism in America.
This book brings up many questions of identity especially in the context of race, morality, nationality, and culture. Beginning with the assumption that the Vietnamese are people deserving of respect and perspective, Nguyen explains that this is not a novel written to affirm the humanity of the Vietnamese. Rather, it is written to show the contrast between humanity and inhumanity that lives within us all.
It's hard to elucidate my feelings about this novel, because so much of what I experienced what just that - pure feeling. I was completely struck by the Captain's intellectual capabilities and undying bonds with his friends, Man and Bon, that transcended border lines and moral schema. I was thrown side to side trying to understand the absolute tragedy of the Vietnam War. A war that robbed a nation of its identity, making it synonymous with American failure. I believe this is a must read for all Americans who still think of the Vietnam war and consider it our tragedy. Yes, American lives were lost but it is not our tragedy alone. Our Vietnam War ended when we retreated; Vietnam was left in tatters.
I'm not an American, sir, I said. If my confession reveals anything, isn't it that I'm an anti-American? I must have said something outrageously humorous, for he actually laughed. The anti-American already includes the American, he said. Don't you see that the Americans need the anti-American? While it is better to be loved than hated, it is far better to be hated than ignored. To be anti-American only makes you a reactionary. In our case, having defeated the Americans, we no longer define ourselves as anti-American. We are simply one hundred percent Vietnamese.
"Not everyone living in a distressed neighborhood is associated with gang members, parole officers, employers, social workers, or pastors. But nearly all of them have a landlord.”
As I was reading this book, I couldn't stop the overwhelming sense of shame I felt about how little I knew about the cycle of poverty and eviction. Having taken the stability of a home for granted for my entire life, I guess I simply thought of a home as a have or have not. Either one has a home or is homeless; I did not even consider the limbo of eviction.
Following these 8 Milwaukee families was devastating and eye-opening. It's hard not to love people that Desmond writes about the way that you may love your family, recognizing the good and the bad, feeling endless frustration towards their bad decisions, and just wanting to protect them however you can. For a research-driven project, this book is poignant and flows easily. Desmond removes himself from the characters until the very end, finally elucidating his role in their lives and the way that he conducted his research. I can't imagine the weight he carries upon leaving these families behind to continue living his life; it must be similar to the way I feel each time I leave the walls of a prison.
I don't know what to do with the knowledge that I've gained through reading Desmond's book. The more I read about social issues, the more I understand how interconnected all of our societal issues are: healthcare, mass incarceration, housing, the opioid epidemic, and most other issues plaguing America are more related than they originally appear. Evicted definitely pushed me further towards macro social work and is another book that I plan to recommend every opportunity I get.
As I was reading this book, I couldn't stop the overwhelming sense of shame I felt about how little I knew about the cycle of poverty and eviction. Having taken the stability of a home for granted for my entire life, I guess I simply thought of a home as a have or have not. Either one has a home or is homeless; I did not even consider the limbo of eviction.
Following these 8 Milwaukee families was devastating and eye-opening. It's hard not to love people that Desmond writes about the way that you may love your family, recognizing the good and the bad, feeling endless frustration towards their bad decisions, and just wanting to protect them however you can. For a research-driven project, this book is poignant and flows easily. Desmond removes himself from the characters until the very end, finally elucidating his role in their lives and the way that he conducted his research. I can't imagine the weight he carries upon leaving these families behind to continue living his life; it must be similar to the way I feel each time I leave the walls of a prison.
I don't know what to do with the knowledge that I've gained through reading Desmond's book. The more I read about social issues, the more I understand how interconnected all of our societal issues are: healthcare, mass incarceration, housing, the opioid epidemic, and most other issues plaguing America are more related than they originally appear. Evicted definitely pushed me further towards macro social work and is another book that I plan to recommend every opportunity I get.
At the recommendation of a friend, I pushed Annihilation to the top of my TBR list. This book had me holding my breath and racing through the pages in a way that reminded me of the way I'd consume each new Harry Potter book. The world that VanderMeer created is vague and mysterious, yet feels just out of reach - as if just one more page will give you all the answers.
The members of the twelfth expedition into Area X are all women - a biologist (our narrator), a surveyor, a psychologist, and an anthropologist. Aside from the atmospheric grandeur of this novel, my favorite aspect of Annihilation is that the women are represented as exactly what they are: human. The women are good, bad, curious, guarded, violent, paranoid, brave, strong, and not caricatures of the myth of what women are viewed to be. The biologist is awkward and not driven by her emotions towards other people (specifically her husband) but instead by an extremely scientific mind which was a refreshing and real perspective to hear from a woman.
As I finished the final pages of this book, I felt as if I was coming out of Area X myself. There is so much left unknown about the nature of Area X, Southern Reach, the Crawler, and the expeditions themselves. Everything becomes fluid in Area X: the lines between life and death are blurred, as is the definition between Area X and the members of the expedition itself. What the biologist called "the brightness" begins to overtake her in a way that never feels threatening but leaves room for vague paranoia.
I told myself I wasn't going to spend money on books for a while so I need to check the rest of this trilogy out from the library. Knowing VanderMeer, I have a feeling that these next books will bring more questions than they will answers.
I don't think I want to see the movie because there's so much in VanderMeer's prose that transcends the ability to be transferred onto the screen.
The members of the twelfth expedition into Area X are all women - a biologist (our narrator), a surveyor, a psychologist, and an anthropologist. Aside from the atmospheric grandeur of this novel, my favorite aspect of Annihilation is that the women are represented as exactly what they are: human. The women are good, bad, curious, guarded, violent, paranoid, brave, strong, and not caricatures of the myth of what women are viewed to be. The biologist is awkward and not driven by her emotions towards other people (specifically her husband) but instead by an extremely scientific mind which was a refreshing and real perspective to hear from a woman.
As I finished the final pages of this book, I felt as if I was coming out of Area X myself. There is so much left unknown about the nature of Area X, Southern Reach, the Crawler, and the expeditions themselves. Everything becomes fluid in Area X: the lines between life and death are blurred, as is the definition between Area X and the members of the expedition itself. What the biologist called "the brightness" begins to overtake her in a way that never feels threatening but leaves room for vague paranoia.
I told myself I wasn't going to spend money on books for a while so I need to check the rest of this trilogy out from the library. Knowing VanderMeer, I have a feeling that these next books will bring more questions than they will answers.
I don't think I want to see the movie because there's so much in VanderMeer's prose that transcends the ability to be transferred onto the screen.
Do we even want to be ideal, or is there a way for us to become more comfortably human?
I loved this book for some of the reasons others did not: each essay felt like a conversation with Gay herself. This was a deeply personal series of essays that did not feel pretentious in any way. Gay is authentic, self-aware, scathing, and imperfect which is why her voice is so important. I consider myself to be decently well-versed in feminist and racial justice conversation, but Bad Feminist kicked me to the curb and reminded me how much I still have to learn. Despite having learned so much thus far, I have a lot of self-reflection to do. This book made me particularly aware of the way I consume books, movies, and TV shows about the Black experience in America - written by white individuals. Equal parts humbling, devastating, and hilarious, Gay's collection gave me a lot to think about.
I loved this book for some of the reasons others did not: each essay felt like a conversation with Gay herself. This was a deeply personal series of essays that did not feel pretentious in any way. Gay is authentic, self-aware, scathing, and imperfect which is why her voice is so important. I consider myself to be decently well-versed in feminist and racial justice conversation, but Bad Feminist kicked me to the curb and reminded me how much I still have to learn. Despite having learned so much thus far, I have a lot of self-reflection to do. This book made me particularly aware of the way I consume books, movies, and TV shows about the Black experience in America - written by white individuals. Equal parts humbling, devastating, and hilarious, Gay's collection gave me a lot to think about.
