"The only reliable compass in 21st century America is a moral one."

This was a hard book to read, but it was harder to put down. Picked it up just after the re-election of Donald Trump was perfect and hideous timing. Kendzior explains exactly what paved the way for his first win, along with the long corruption and dangerous movements he joined and inspired before 2016, and her warnings in this book pointed to his reelection as well. It was disturbingly cathartic to see beliefs I held myself be written out with such clarity and further or different research than I had done, and maybe this catharsis is what some people need to regain energy in the fight against fascism.

While Kendizor is more patriotic than I expected and than I will likely ever been, I can see how that motivates her and led her to the work she does now. I might need a break from my next read, but will likely be picking up another of her books in the future.

"COVID is but a prelude for how states will handle the era of catastrophic climate change. It is a test run of what happens when powerful elites deem the public disposable without even feigning a pretense of concern. It is a dark omen of our lost leverage... Constant momentous climate events can lead to the normalization of mass death. The normalization of mass death is a stepping stone to the normalization of mass murder. The climate crisis is a gift to fascism, and it is already being exploited by authoritarian kleptocrats worldwide. What is predictable is preventable... We are now at the point of no return, there is no going back. But there are still choose to make about how to move forward and mitigate the damage, and one of those is the be honest about the crisis, to be honest about everything. It means feeling around the edges of the void, grasping at loose ends, and following them back to where they lead, even if it is a place appalling in its familiarity."

“This particular woman, she said, pointed at another woman wailing in distress on the television screen in her living room in London and cried, “That’s me! That’s me!” I found this story quite moving. Then I was told the woman’s name, and learned that it was my own grandmother. I suddenly laughed, because my grandmother is very dramatic. Reflecting on this now, however, I find myself moved once more. What a pure connection, to see herself in the woman on the television, to experience the distance between them not as numbing, but as another component of her pain. The present onslaught leaves no space for mourning, since mourning requires an afterwards, but only for repeated shock and the ebb and flow of grief. We who are not there, witnessing from afar, in what ways are we mutilating ourselves when we dissociate to cope? To remain human at this juncture is to remain in agony. Let us remain there: it is the more honest place from which to speak.

…

There is a temptation to leap forward rhetorically to reflect on the present. What will you have done? What that means is there is still time. What that means is time is running out. Every ten minutes, according to the World Health Organization, a child is killed. It will be easy to say in hindsight, “What a terrible thing. That was a terrible moment when the movements of the world were out of my hands.” Do not give in. Be like the Palestinians in Gaza. Look them in the face. Say, “That’s me.” … The Palestinians in Gaza are beautiful. The way they care for each other in the face of death puts the rest of us to shame. Wael Al-Dahdouh, the Al-Jazeera journalist who, when his family members were killed, kept on speaking to camera, stated recently with a calm and miraculous grace, “One day this war will stop and those of us who remain will return and rebuild and live again in these houses.”

A perfect book to follow reading The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates as both authors break down their time with the Palestine Festival of Literature, the privilege of awakenings, and so much more. My favorite passages from both books are when the authors explain how speaking clearly within our own communities is persuasive enough to awaken outsiders to our struggles. Hammad honor Edward Said and ties in so many critical aspects of literature, life, and history together that I now feel like I’m rambling on longer than the work itself in praising it. Read this, then read it again, as well as Hammad’s other works.

A cute, easy read, though the amount of killing and gore was a bit much for me. I didn’t love the way modern slang was incorporated, maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for the lightheartedness in that juxtaposition to overthrowing a slave holding tyrant.

"History is not inert but contains within it a story that implicates or justifies political order. So it was with Josia Nott looking back to Ancient Egypt to justify slavery. And so it is with the American Revolution and the founding of a great republic, or the Greatest Generation who did not fight to defend merely the homeland but the entire world. If you believe that history, then you are primed to believe that the American state is a force for good, that it is the world’s oldest democracy, and that those who hate America hate it for its freedoms. And if you believe that, then you can believe that these inexplicable haters of freedom are worthy of our drones. But a different history, one that finds its starting point in genocide and slavery, argues for a much darker present and the possibility that here too are haters of freedom, unworthy of the power they wield. A political order is premised not just on who can vote but on what they can vote for, which is to say on what can be imagined. And our political imagination is rooted in our history, our culture, and our myths. That the country’s major magazines, newspapers, publishing houses, and social media were suddenly lending space to stories that questioned the agreed-upon narrative meant that Americans, as a whole, might begin to question them too. And a new narrative — and a new set of possibilities — might then be born. "

A deep and deeply personal dive into the meaning of nations, the role of writers, and the duty of journalists. The voices we listen to and amplify shape not only our own thought, but the political reality and power of the future. A must-read for anyone who cares about justice and equality, and what the present and coming fights for those rights are.
Don't stop at this book. Coates tells readers himself: "Even my words here, this bid for reparation, is a stranger’s story — one told by a man still dazzled by knafeh and Arabic coffee, still at the start of a journey that others have walked since birth. Palestine is not my home. I see that land, its peoples and its struggles through a kind of translation — through analogy and the haze of my own experience — and that is not enough. If Palestinians are to be truly seen, it will be through stories woven by their own hands — not by their plunderers, not even by their comrades."

Take this call for action and pick up Noura Erakat, Edward Said, Isabella Hammad, Mosab Abu Toha, Rashid Khalidi, Susan Abulhawa, Adania Shibli, Raja Shehadeh, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Sahar Khalifeh, Mohammed El-Kurd, and so many more. Don't stop there, but take what you've learned and share it and use it. 

"Every cell in my body is filled with the code of generations of trauma, of death, of birth, of migration, of history that I cannot understand. Just piecemeal moments I collected from Auntie over the years. My family tried to erase this history. But my body remembers. My work ethic. My fear of cockroaches. My hatred for the taste of dirt. These are not random attributes, a spin of the wheel. They were gifted to me with purpose, with necessity. I want to have words for what my bones know. I want to use those gifts when they serve me and understand and forgive them when they do not.... I want to reclaim my stolen past. I need it, to write my future." 

Enlightening and helpful memoir that dives deep into Foo's life and her long journey to finally find helpful ways to grow and heal. The reminders of our need for mindfulness and productive reflection are especially useful now. As only one example, many people have buried their grief and trauma from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and use it now to lash out at those who still take precautions, allowing their fear to be used for eugenics and in service of fascism. Wear a mask and decouple health from worthiness. If we allowed our grief to be useful, we could build a world that prevents harm, rather than continuing to perpetuate it. 

I'm not exactly sure what didn't click for me here, if I had hyped myself up to read this for too long or if I was too distracted by unrelated irl issues to keep hold of the world, but I felt very disconnected from the world building and flow of this book. The characters were incredible, and it got more interesting once the Safi appeared. However, the magical appearing of characters felt way too convenient. I think I'm normally pretty able to suspend my disbelief, but when every character is somehow able to meet exactly who they need to on time, even claiming the help of a witch got too old. This also was a flaw with the magic system - there wasn't enough world-building to find each revelation believable. Powers and needed objects somehow appeared exactly when needed, each build-up to climactic events became a let-down. It was also exhausting how everyone was suddenly related. One plot-twist of that nature worked, but by the third, it was obvious and over-done. The romance had a similar issue - if the strong connection between Zafira and Nasir was supposed to be special, then why did they have such strong chemistry with everyone else who flirts with them? It didn't seem like a pro-polyamory story, so it only lessened the believability of that core romance. I also had a hard time visualizing the settings - one moment they are in endless dunes, but when it's time to sleep, there is conveniently a ruin or building to settle into? Again, this could have been my own distraction, but I couldn't figure out how large the Arz or the Sharr were when characters kept describing them as huge and impenetrable, but then traverse them quickly and seem to find shelter easily. 

Finally, it was very hard to mourn Deen when he treated Zafira so badly. He really should have learned what CONSENT meant - a lack of a fully and enthusiastic yes means NO, Deen. Zafira's anxiety over not reciprocating his feelings felt like coercion on his part, and while their friendship seemed great, he ruined it.

 

I've read four Raja Shehadeh books now and plan to continue, though this book disappointed me. It was very interested to take his tour of Ramallah, but most of his thoughts on his family, politics, and other societal changes were completely nihilistic and depressing. I can't blame anyone for feeing the work as dark and disappointing when surviving genocide and occupation, but the way Shehadeh criticizes people in Ramallah for turning further into their faiths for hope and guidance was disappointing and felt sometimes Islamophobic. Not only could the resistance of the First or Second Intifada do nothing right, but he criticizes every aspect of resistance except for the feeling of solidarity he gained during the First Intifada. It would have been good to hear what he learned and wished more people would use going forward, rather than only pointing out the failures of resistance tactics. He also criticized people just existing in public. The way he describes women, especially older women, in this book also made me cringe. He complains about how children act these days. He says the city is gentrifying, then praises some aspects that come with gentrification, and also criticizes half the modernizations of Ramallah. It's hard to see your hometown change, but some of these changes were not unique to Palestine or Ramallah and felt useless, or as if he didn't fully examine what about them bothered him and if those feeling were justified or prejudiced. 
We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I and Palestinian Walks remain my favorites as he digs deeper into his relationship to his father in the first than in Going Home, and more clearly explains the physical impacts of the Israeli Occupation in the second. 

Talia Hibbert never misses!

The third act break-up was annoying, but I think it could have improved if Aria had more flash-backs to Simon instead of mostly mentioning that trauma in chapter one and at the end. But I loved the characters enough that I didn't really care!

and miles with no border blocking my feet, with no unexploded bombs scaring me off.

Difficult and impactful poems. 

Cute! But wasn’t for me. It was a little too insta-love without the depth of attraction or calling to back it up. I also cringed at lot at the crass way sex and  masturbation were discussed. Even in conversations about an allegedly anti-toxic masculinity app and about consent in the characters lives, treating women well and having consent before and during sex were presented as a good bonus instead of an absolut necessity. 
I did love how the setting was portrayed - I’ve tried some of the Indonesian dishes mentioned and this definitely made me want to head to my local Indonesian grocer and find an Indonesian restaurant ASAP to eat more!