⚠️ cw: r@pe, murd3r, racism, graphic descriptions—please check full list as there are more but these are the main ones!

When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions. Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith, and a vision of human destiny.

@bookishswiftiesclub club January read! This book came highly recommended by several of my friends, so I was excited to finally read it. This book was especially haunting in the context of the timeframe that it is set in and what is currently going on in the world; this dystopian future does not feel that far removed from our current reality. There are definitely a lot of dark and brutal moments in this book, but I really appreciated how Lauren held fast to her beliefs and dreamed of a better future for herself and her community. Her Earthseed religion was very interesting as it pulled from several different belief systems. This book does not hold back and its critique of capitalism and climate change, nor does it shy away from the brutalities of living in a post apocalyptic world. This was a fascinating and very deep book, but I definitely recommend looking up contact warnings as the book can definitely be harsh and disturbing.

One Hundred Years of Solitude follows the seven generations of the Buendia family in their founded utopian hometown of Macondo. I have to admit, at times I got a bit lost in this story, as there were so many characters with similar names that it was hard to keep track of who was who. That said, the book had incredibly strong themes and beautiful writing. Throughout the book, characters cannot break free of their family’s patterns, and find themselves trapped within fates that echo in the next generation. Even characters who attempt to escape their family history fail, due to their emotional ties to Macondo. Solitude is also a present theme, with the isolated characters suffering from a community that forces its members to do what is expected of them, rather than being allowed to follow their passions. The book serves as an allegory of Colombian history, with many of its events representing critical developments of Colombia as a nation. I think I may have enjoyed this book more if I had a better knowledge of Colombian history as it would have made the parallels more poignant. There was also a LOT of incest in this book, and while it depicted family devisions and insecurity that were relevant to the story, I found it to be off-putting and excessive. This was an interesting book with a lot of literary devices and important themes, but overall it was at times chaotic and hard to follow. 

 

Book 1 of 2025: Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy 

Rating: ⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

@bookishswiftiesclub challenge for January was to read a classic, so I took the opportunity to reread one of my favorites! Tess is a novel of hypocrisy and double standards. I learned that the book’s subtitle when published on 1891, A Pure Woman, infuriated critics and it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic. And I personally love rejecting purity culture and strict Victorian views of gender roles! In her search for respectability, Tess’s fortunes fluctuate wildly, and the story assumes the proportions of a Greek tragedy as Tess is ultimately only able to take agency over her own life through violence. The novel  explores Tess's relationships with two very different men and her struggle against the social mores and hypocrisy of the Victorian age. The mood of the novel is quite bleak throughout, exemplifying the oppression of poverty and gender roles of the age. The also novel serves as a critique of the strict modesty standards of the Victorian era and sexual double standards that have horrific implications for women but leave men blameless (as portrayed by Tess and Alec). I’ll always love Tess, and the resounding sentiment that her story always leaves me with—women deserve better.

I got about half way through this and just lost interest. And my Libby loan ends tomorrow lol. I think I’ll revisit this in the future but for now it’s a DNF.

Book 172 of 2024: Kindred by Octavia Butler

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

I wanted to read this book for quite some time and I’m so glad that I finally did. Many moments of this book were very difficult to get through, as to be expected in any story about slavery. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery but also learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence as her travels to the past become more frequent and for longer amounts of time. The book also explores interracial relationships, as Dana’s marriage to her white husband Kevin is tested when they travel in time together. Dana also develops an interesting relationship with Rufus; he cannot treat her as an equal because in his mind she is nothing but a slave, yet he often turns to her for council and prefers her company over that of other white people. There was some casual ableism in this book (I’m sensitive to use of the R word for people with mental disabilities). Overall, this was a very interesting story about racism, power, and heritage that blurred the line between fantasy and reality.