I read this at the recommendation of my therapist, as we trudged thru EMDR sessions that were breaking me apart and unearthing painful roots of trauma. I spent ten weeks with this book, and found a lot of value. 

I can see myself returning to it again in the future, curious and open to the experience, with a fresh set of eyes. If it makes me 1% better each year, that's worth the 10 week investment. I was thankful this time to have a guide to check in with once a week. I could go over integrated experiences with her and gauge my progress. 

I hope to carry these ideas with me for a long time. 

I read this in college and thought it was kinda boring. I read it this time as a challenge, an Asian/eastern historical fiction. This time, about half of it was still boring but the latter half, I had gotten into the story, the history, the tablets themselves and the language. It has a rhythmic quality of repetition I don't know if I could've appreciated at 19-20 and I'm only barely beginning to appreciate now, 20y on. I think I'd revisit Gilgamesh in another decade to see if I appreciate it anymore. It's a really interesting peek into the cradle of civilization that predates biblical stories and the fact any of it survived and makes any kind of sense to us, millenia later, is amazing. 

Fuck Lloyd's of London. The sugar frade. The US and Great Britain are so enmeshed with racism and slaves. 

This book was fucked up, which is fine. I do wonder though, was it fucked up in service of something, or just fucked up for the sake of being fucked up? 

My hold from the library expired in 3 days so I went from 45% to finished today. Maybe that my mistake, rolling open the throttle on this heinous and gruesome exploration. The book starts out mostly nauseatingly and each new milestone holds onto that, the characters don't grow or change, we are stuck in this fetid atmosphere, watching the story play out. It's a vignette of sorts, but I'm having trouble finding a vignette that focuses on such horrible developments. Usually a vignette is like, the family goes away on holiday to a ski resort. Oh wait, that's the Shining. Maybe it is that kind of vignette. 

It's also interesting, I tend to like the books that fall into the storygraph boolean of a mix of plot and character. This one leans mostly on the plot. We know the characters, and a few details about them, but I think the book moves along much more via the plot rather than the internal workings of the characters, and maybe that's why I feel a little undecided about it. I guess I'm also wondering what it says about me if I gave this book 5 stars. It's gratuitous, especially for the British. Maybe therapy is healing me from my magnetism to horror. This was horrifying and not in a quirky way. 

I didn't follow what was happening for a lot of the book but at the end I feel good about it and I'll read some essays.  It's short enough that I could read the book again for understanding. 


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STATEMENT 179 I believe in the future. I think you need to imagine a future and then live in it. I believe in unfathomable quantities of nourishment. All of us here on board are but fleeting carrier craft of the program. We bear the program with us. I think I’m going to encounter a great love in my life. My love is waiting for me already, I’m already immersed in it. Look around you. We are but craft, fleeting carriers. Shortly we shall be gone, to regenerate in some other form. Have you noticed how we’ve settled into new modes now? We nest-build in spaces between sleep and waking, between night and day, between human and humanoid, between object and room, between room and voice. I believe in the future. I think you need to imagine your future and then live in it. I believe in unfathomable quantities of nourishment. You say I mirror back at them the missions of my coworkers. But now it’s you who are mirroring me. Mirroring back at me the person I’ve been on board the ship. Reflecting what I gave and returning it like a beam of light. Everyone on the ship is doing their utmost. I believe in the future. I think you need to imagine a future and live in it. I believe in unfathomable quantities of nourishment. We are but humble carrier craft of the program. Shortly, like obsolete updates, we shall be gone. I believe I’m going to encounter a great love in my life.

I thought listening to the audiobook would be like listening to a podcast interview. But, instead, it was boring. I hesitate to use the word monotonous but, that is kinda what it was. Maybe I've grown and don't love celeb memoirs anymore because they're all kinda monotonous, in the same way. It was rote, and followed the average script. Maybe part of it, too, is that she's what, in her 30s, writing a memoir? It smacks of cash grabbing, to me. Although she has led an interesting life. Childhood wound, drug use, catastrophic sex life, vascillations on and off the wagon, choosing better and worse partners. I like Lily Allen. This felt a bit like, how they always say, don't meet your heroes. One thing I didn't know about her was all the stalking from her crazy fan(s) . 

Either I'm too smart or too dumb, emotionally, for this. It felt like "Well, duh," but also like I won't change anything based on reading this book. I know I struggle with even body neutrality, so the idea of body positivity is a stretch, and I don't think this book made any major dents in that. I still need therapy, lol.