I read this partly because of the Fundie Friday coverage, partly because of my cults & extreme beliefs TBR. I went into this knowing a fair amount (mostly via the aforementioned youtube channel) but I still came out of it with more perspective on this family and the impact of IBLP and reality TV. Her experience is also a testament to how horribly victims/survivors of abuse are treated by many people and systems.

I read this shortly after Britney Spears's memoir. While they are from quite different places, both women were done very wrong by the entertainment industry, the media, and power-hungry men. 

Wow. I'm not sure that I've completed processed all of it, but this was beautiful and profound. I'm definitely getting a physical copy to reread

Slice of life-ish but it's about a dinosaur zookeeper. Cool notes from the paleontologist they consulted! Book 2 will probably go into background they've been alluding to, so I'm excited. Definitely will continue and want my own copy!

This would have greatly benefited from a cowriter or strong editor, however I still really appreciate this. And considering everything, I really understand why she wouldn't want a cowriter or anyone else to have their hands on her story. 

Her story is reflective of so many things wrong with society, from the textbook misogyny she experienced post-breakup to the isolating postpartum depression, to the even less talked about experience of conservatorship. I think it will make a lot of people feel seen and her story of conservatorship will hopefully open a much wider conversation about familial abuse, disability justice, and bodily autonomy for all. 

Palestine by Joe Sacco is a comic/graphic nonfiction work of journalism that documents his travels through Palestine in the early/mid 1990's. Alongside his own experiences, he tells the stories of many Palestinians that he interviewed. He is invited into many houses for tea and food while hearing stories of brutal imprisonment, death of children, political divides within the community, and much more. 

This work will certainly put the Palestinian struggle into perpective if you are unfamiliar. It also makes the crimes against humanity we are witnessing being livestreamed online even more horrific. For example: hospitals are being bombed now with doctors and patients inside, parallel is the story of a boy (15) who had already been shot by a soldier and sent to the hospital only to be beaten inside the hospital by soldier (his arm broken alongside the arm of a member of hospital staff who tried defending him). The horrors we are seeing now have a long history and this comic shows many small snapshots within that history.

Throughout the story of Sacco's time in Palestine, we see some of his thoughts and at times he outright discusses some of his biases. This was a self-aware framing that is supposed to (I think) show us some of the problems with the Western gaze. Even as I understood it, I still found some of it annoying in the moment. As I reflect on it, I do think that parts of this message are quite important in the context of journalism (particularly as we see how much western news has covered Palestine recently). I still have mixed feelings, but ultimately it's small parts that I have conflicted feelings about. 

Overall, this was an intense collection of experiences and an important read. I'd definitely recommend it to people who are unfamiliar and wanting to learn more about Palestine. It is western journalism that is self-critical and even if the jurry is out on my full opinion of exactly how he did that framing, I'm glad that it was there. 

The Groundings With My Brothers by Walter Rodney is a classic work about Black power, education, and the necessity of community in both. Rodney goes in detail about what Black power means, defying popular watered down notions and reveiling a revolutionary unifying understanding of what Black Power is. He discusses this in the context of Jamaca, having lived there and taught with and learned from the Rastafarian people. With this context, we learn about the racism of the Jamacan government (even post-Independence) and how African history is tied to the region. 

Not only is this useful historical context and breakdown of white supremacy in the Caribbean and global context, but this is an important work pedagogically. Education and power comes from sharing within a community, understanding your power as a collective. It's about defying the academic norm of isolation from (being above) the common person and about connecting scholarship and activism in the communities most impacted by the issues.

In this edition, the original work is framed by an introduction and essays about the work that come together to show the importance of this work both historically and how it continues to be relevant. I really enjoyed these essays and thought they added a lot as well. Parts of this a little difficult to fully grasp without some context, but these essays help with that.