As a Muslim American who has questions about my faith, my cultural background and my society, this book is an amazing reprieve. It feels like being welcomed by a form of Islam that I wish I had when I was younger. An Islam that welcomes queer, questioning, non heterosexual, non cis gendered bodies. It was very healing.

This book is very stirring. Looking at the LGBTQ movement through a series of photographs with small captions really allows you to see who was included as a part of the official “movement” and who wasn’t. I don’t know if this was intentional but almost every shot of Marsha P Johnson is a solo shot. There are very few people of color represented. That being said, I learned a great deal about the amount & type of work early LGBTQ protestors did. For example, it’s only 40 years since the American Psychiatric Association took being “gay” off of the list of official diagnoses. To see the return of such sentiments in the modern political era is disheartening to say the least & makes this a timely read.

I wasn't really sure what to think of this novel, and I feel like the author wasn't sure either. It's a hesitant hello, like the friend who hasn't quite found their voice yet. The prose is lovely with long sentences and poetic descriptions of little things that make the piece seem alive, and the plot is simple, easy enough to follow but with a multitude of complexity. However, the narrator borders on being overly neurotic which is made even more apparent by the lack of plot line.

This was a really effective overview of Asian American Activism in the 60s. The author worked hard to place the works of folk like Yuri Kochiyama and Richard Aoki in the proper context, right next to Black Liberation & the Vietnam War. Using quotes, interviews & summaries, the author shows the vast array of Asian Americans who got the movement to where it is today. It’s recounting legacies upon legacies upon legacies & should be read more by “activists” and “woke people” today.
One of my favorite parts was reading about how UCLA students connected to Japanese gang members & helped them navigate the legal system because it felt like education living up to its promise.

At the same time, it felt like some parts could have been explored more and the author was hesitant about critiquing. Why did they leave out Soon Ja Doo and the struggle between Korean Americans & Black Americans in the 1970s? What did the author make of the way Asian Americans have been suppressing indigenous people in Hawaii? Why was there a lack of South Asian Americans in the third world movement? Why is there still a disconnect between fractions of the Asian American population? If the Asian American movement is primarily a student movement as proposed here, then what does it need to do to amplify the voices of the unheard?

This is a book that makes you grateful. Grateful for the trees that were planted & processed to make the pages, the flowers & other sources used to make the ink, the air that sustained the author. I loved the way science and indigenous knowledge were seamlessly integrated & presented.

To quote Nicole Byer, “What a treat, what a dream.” I loved every inch of this wondrous book, the way the words sang themselves off the page, the swaying rhyme throughout. In particular, the small handwritten magical elements grabbed your heart like an eight year old trying to save the world in her mama’s kitchen gown cape.

The delicacy of this work, the way it's neither fact nor fiction, neither memoir nor historical retelling is its strength and weakness. The reader finds themselves slipping through the mortal and immortal world until one starts representing the others and the boundaries of definition are pushed to their extreme. At the same time, the reader longs for some semblance of structure.