Extremely insightful and accessible read. I appreciate the reflective or identifying exercises!

Even with a lot of info I already knew, it's very affirming to hear it from someone whose studied this for years. The biggest takeaway is learning to accept that your emotionally immature parent(s) will never be able to give you the relationship you fully want from them because they're quite literally incapable of it. But accepting that allows you to make a pathway forward to what extent you DO have a relationship with them (or not!) And how to unlearn the Roles you've taken on as a coping mechanism.

Easier said than done of course, but it's an important part of trauma recovery. 

One thing I noticed and would be interested in hearing about is how neurodivergent people fit into all this, as certain traits pointed out about emotionally immature people could be misinterpreted as ND traits.
 
Example: story sharing misinterpreted as making the conversation about you rather than a way for ND people to relate and show empathy about a situation you're in. 

Anyways, I understand not being able to cover every little thing so I don't necessarily expect the above or see it as a critique, but would be interested in hearing about the distinction!

Fave stories:

The City Born Great
I want to consume this concept it's so cool

Red Dirt Witch
Fey story

L'Alchimista
Cute story about chef alchemy

Cloud Dragon Skies
This one made me emotional/existential
 
Cuisine des Memoires
Another food related one hehe

On the Banks of the River Lex
Also made me emotional/existential

The Narcomancer
Love this fantasy setting and am excited to read the duology it spawned!

Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters
Possibly my favorite I think. But are we surprised a bayou horror won my heart? Let's be serious here 

Everytime I read a locked tomb book all I think is

WOW, you crazy for that. Keep going.

Your worst sin is that you've destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing !!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHBBH
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 *picture of me laying in the family guy death pose*

Hmm I think this is extremely well written but mis-marketed (?).

On one hand, a very well written account of grief and reckoning with your life changing forever with circumstances out of your control. Reckoning with being completely dependent on another person in the purest sense. It succeeds well in this.

Where I think is flounders just a bit is the mystery aspect. I wasn't surprised to learn Oghi was a bad person, the

cheating

was predictable. The beginning with the white figure and later the hole gave ideas of something more sinister that never really came to be. I craved more in that aspect, but that would make it a very different book I suppose.

If you keep saying you're a queer nun over and over again, that's the same thing as character reflection on having conflicting identities, right?

There were times when the MC literally read like characters I wrote in middle school who were always 'not like other girls' and were basically self inserts. Let's not even get into the fact that I'm not a girl at all anymore.

She's also so *selfish*. Like how do you find a way to make

your mom having cancer

all about you? How do you make

your brother being sexually assaulted

still all about you somehow?

And even worse, she joins the convent to try and become a better person...and learns nothing??? She's still insanely selfish but masks it by being the 'sleuth'. She literally

physically assaults a student who is one of the troubled kids that truly needs her help more than anyone in this story

because she still has no control over her anger issues. She's learned nothing from the years she's spent hiding from her problems. Like you're not tough and cool in this scenario, you're just an asshole!

But this is meant to be a series so maybe character development is gonna start in the second one? God I hope so! 

And the 'plot twist' feels completely out of left field. There's no build up that makes it feel realistic. It's just a bunch of plot points that get thrown together to make a mystery. She doesn't even DO any actual sleuthing, people just give her evidence or she causes a problem and someone shares a tip to the cop she's always hanging out with.

I didn't go into this book a hater. I REALLY wanted to like this. Queer nuns have been a thing throughout history, so I loved the possibility of getting to explore that, but you don't. At all. The author is spending too much time trying to convince you how 'cool' the MC is for that to happen.

Oh I love this story. Oh I want to hold it in my little arms forever like a hug.

I love Rivers Solomon's writing in Sorrowland, and I'm so happy that they've continued to enrapture me with something entirely new and wonderful. 

"It only builds up, doesn't it? It doesn't just disappear. And one day you start prodding at what you've suppressed. And it's a mass of black rot, and it's endless, horrifying, and you can't look away."

This is one of those books that falls in the, "not a fun read, but a necessary one."

I think my only critique is that it dragged in the middle, but I'm always a 'to the point' kind of person. I don't think it detracts from the story, however.

Translation as an act of betrayal. Language as a tool for colonialism. 

Revolution is not comfortable, and it is not safe. It's why people who may sympathize can never empathize. Comfort is a temptation many will sacrifice morals for. 

Fuck Letty. That privileged little witch.