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Rabeetah Hasnain

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book reviews

When reviewing books I like to consider the ideal reader. When and where is one most likely to enjoy this book. I try to make my reviews focus on how I felt during and after reading and reflect on lingering thoughts and words. What is the taste in my mouth at the end of the last page?

reads_by_rabeets

Books aren’t sad, you’re sad

No spoiler book reviews!
⚜️New Orleans l @rabeetah19

A love story plays out in multiple realities in an A love story plays out in multiple realities in an attempt to recover what went wrong, how it went wrong and where it went wrong. A series of what if’s drive this book, each chapter a new scenario. What if the couple found a baby on the street together? What if they were celebrities? What if one was the other’s boss? The two women take turns narrating different stories. The structure and form of this book was my favorite thing about it. I liked the idea of telling a story through these fragments that you were supposed to forget when you moved to the next chapter but of course they lingered, and in that lingering, the full story was shown. 

This book is kind of hard to explain, I changed my mind on it every chapter, sometimes every few pages. Some lines I thought were hilarious, innovative, clever, new and others I found slapstick, overly simplistic, cliche or reducing. There was something about this book that insisted I keep going and every time I picked it up I was excited to read it and I did find it fun. So I guess my overall review is: go for it! It’s a very cool book conceptually, I like what it’s doing, and I even like how it’s doing it. Just know you may wince a couple of times at the characters but isn’t that kind of the point – art reflecting life // people are clunky and awkward and sometimes profound.. You get it. 

✨“In the lobby, they thanked the nice receptionist and promised her that they were going to try to accept organized society.”
Weirdo collection of short stories. Featuring ex b Weirdo collection of short stories. Featuring ex boyfriends, haunted fruit, dreams/not dreams in dreams, estrangement, memory.  This is my third book by this author- Beautyland and Parakeet are novels of hers that I have also loved. When reading multiple books by the same person I like it when I see concepts, ideas, themes borrowed from their previous books. I saw this in my favorite story in the collection, also named Exit Zero, where a woman has been tasked with emptying out her late fathers house and warned that there is a surprise there. The story lives in the unusual but then dips into the impossible and that’s what I love about it because my takeaway wasn’t ‘this could never happen’ my takeaway was ‘yes of course, I understand completely’. From that story– ✨““Jasmine?” The zookeeper chuckles. “That’s a little girl’s name. Her name is ________.” He makes a sound like a breeze moving through plastic tubing in an open field.”

All the stories evoked the same feeling I had when reading Beautyland, a feeling that makes me think this author really is an alien looking into our world in a way that I hope to see one day too. Sometimes when I read this author’s books it feels like she is writing just for me, haha. Maybe you feel that way too? And if so, I can’t imagine a better success for a writer. 

✨“Don’t I come every Sunday?” I grimace toward the audience of sympathizers I imagine follow me.”
We start with June who is on a journey to return h We start with June who is on a journey to return home. We turn to her niece, who is on a different journey to return home. We turn to Marie who is on a journey to escape home. We meet Nector… who meets Marie escaping the convent. We keep meeting more and more characters and sometimes they take over telling their stories and sometimes they tell others stories and somehow they are all connected. 

Set on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota, Erdrich weaves together the lives of the Kashpaws, the Lamartines, the Morrisseys through different perspectives and different years. The narrators sometimes support the other stories, sometimes they add new information and sometimes they contradict. I like how this felt- like how big families really feel, like there’s still something you don’t know and eventually through some telling of some experience you might find out one day. I think what I liked the most about this book was how each narrator told their stories with a different tone and melody but found a way to preserve this tradition of oral storytelling.

A family tree is provided at the beginning of the book, one that I referred to probably every 10 pages. The onus is on the reader to discover the relationships between characters, to remember who knows who and how. I liked this level of trust Erdrich put on the reader and I also liked how the lack of these descriptors in the stories allowed for a more natural sense of the narrative to unfold. This book is careful in its prose, kind to its characters, and thoughtful about the communities it represents. 

✨“So many things in the world have happened before. But it’s like they never did. Every new thing that happens to a person, it’s a first... In that night I felt expansion, as if the world was branching out in shoots and growing faster than the eye could see. I felt smallness, how the earth divided into bits and kept dividing. I felt stars.”
Anna and Tom are a young, expat couple living in B Anna and Tom are a young, expat couple living in Berlin. You know someone like this, you can picture their apartment, you can see their lives. You might wonder how they can afford such a carefree lifestyle but maybe you heard something about some remote job they have that sustains it. They’re cool, they’re progressive, they’re easy going.. You have to be these things to live this life!

The first several pages that are hyper specific descriptors of apartment photos are maybe my favorite. It’s here where I realized that Latronico shows us moments from our everyday life that we get to ignore. Moments we prefer no one acknowledges. Secrets we all keep from one another exposed in a way that we have to say “Yeah I think this all the time. You do too? What a shame.” 

This is a book of a people stuck in a time and a place. Hyper contemporary. The narrator is observing our main characters from a  distance. There is not a single line of dialogue in the entire book. There was this feeling throughout my reading where I felt like we were in exposition, waiting for a big drop or turn and in that waiting I turned the last page and it ended. I don’t mean this is a criticism, rather, a feat. It was in the anticipation of the build up that I realized the build up was the turn. How slowly our lives change and we look back and everything/nothing is different. This book captures that feeling of a stagnant unrest. It’s uncomfortable and it’s relatable and those 2 affections are, of course, related.

✨“The life promised by these images is clear and purposeful, uncomplicated. It is a life of coffees taken out on the east facing balcony in the spring and summer while scrolling New York Times headlines and social media on a tablet. The plants are watered as part of a daily routine that also includes yoga and a breakfast featuring an assortment of seeds. There is work to be one at a laptop, of course, but as a pace more befitting an artist than an office worker: between intense bursts of concentration at a desk there might be a walk, a videocall with a friend who has an idea for a new project, some jokes exchanged, a quick trip to the nearby farmers market.”
Various forms of essays, memories, conversations, Various forms of essays, memories, conversations, reflections about topics ranging from culture and society to pets and the human condition. 

It took me 3 years to finish this book, taking bites of it every few weeks and then engulfing the rest of it one afternoon on a train. It’s the perfect train book - snippets and vignettes varying in length, allowing moments of pause long enough to look out the window and remember where you are. And then come back to the text to forget. 

Not many people can pull off what Clarice Lispector had done with this book. It requires a real understanding of craft and prose to write such short form essays (some as short as 4 lines and the longest being 3 pages) and keep the readers attention. But she’s done it, of course she has. She sees the world in a way that tempts you to board and stay on. There is this feeling of the vastness of time in her words. Like we’re running out of it and we need to quickly do everything but don’t forget to slow down. I think it’s funny and irresistible- this urgency to remain calm. 

✨“Do I love you, precious moments? Yes or no? I wish others to know what I will never understand. Shall I have to spend my entire life waiting for Sunday to pass?”
Blending memoir and cultural critique through a se Blending memoir and cultural critique through a series of vignettes and anecdotes, Eve Babitz takes us on a tour of her life in the 1960s in LA- showing us all the glamour and contradictions- the romance, parties, the sun shining almost always, and with it the loneliness thrust about her. 

I didn’t know much about Eve Babitz before reading this book (and can’t say I know that much more about her now), I don’t know much about LA or the 1960’s, I don’t know much about this lifestyle either but what I do know is what it means to love a city. The first 50 pages or so, when she talks about LA is honest and brutal, written in a way that only someone who has really loved a city can. She embraces its impermanence, the way people reinvent themselves there, and how the city, despite its reputation for superficiality, allows for a kind of freedom that doesn’t exist anywhere else. 

I guess I also read this book because I was curious about this parallel that is drawn between Babitz and Didion and I suppose this book helped form that narrative but I don’t see a reason for them to be compared, really. They seem like pretty different writers with pretty different styles. There were some ideas she spoke on that made me grateful how far we have come as a society and seemed very specific to that time period. What surprised me, unfortunately, was how there were so many more topics that still seemed contemporary or revolutionary despite the nearly 50 years that separates us. I think it was worth reading to contextualize her life and start to learn about her. I liked her voice and I liked her reflections and I liked being shown a life that’s pretty different from mine but still relatable in the thoughts we have about ourselves as individuals and parts of a whole. 

✨“I wonder if I’ll ever be able to have what I like or if my tastes are too various to be sustained by one of anything.”
A collection of 12 stories all set in Nigeria. Som A collection of 12 stories all set in Nigeria. Some stories dip their toes in the weird and speculative while others fully submerge themselves in the horrors of everyday-ness. Stories are sprinkled with folklore, superstitions, and the supernatural. In the first story a woman starts to see her dead mother in her daughter- told from the adult daughter’s perspective who is preoccupied with a new pimple on her face. In another story, Breastmilk, a woman cannot produce milk for her child and finds reasons in her own life for this problem- starting with her husband. I think my favorite story was ‘24, Alhaji Williams Street’ where a fever spreads on this street killing the boys of each family and the residents turn to folklore to try and find an answer. 

There were some stories that stood out and those were the ones that had this backdrop of unease, like a bad taste in your mouth. They would start slow and kind of stay slow but you could feel something forming far after the story was over. Stories like ‘Imagine Me Carrying You’, where a mother worries her daughter will die as her punishment for killing another woman’s daughter in an accident also brings up years of unresolved tension. In that piece especially you can see the story going on and the characters still living beyond the last page. 

I think the good stories were really good and the average stories were very average. It’s hard to bind a collection of stories and advocate for all of them but the fun thing is they’re not in any set order so this is a good candidate for a book you chew on for a long time. Pick it up, read a story, and put it down until you have that itch to be uncomfortable again. You know, that universal itch we all have to read something with an undercurrent of malaise, a crawling unrest, a pervasive anxiety. 

✨“You ask your father if he wants more beans and beef, your hand back on that pimple. He shakes his head no. Your father hates that you take the weevils out of the beans; he thinks they add a certain flavor to the dish.”
Our narrator’s captivating thoughts tell us that Our narrator’s captivating thoughts tell us that she is a careful woman who cares very much about how she is perceived, indulges in her spiraling and is obsessed with her husband. She has everything to make her live a content and calm life but her obsession controls her- it keeps her up at night, it startles her in the middle of the day. It’s unsettling and constant. Written like a mix between literary fiction and a thriller the story moved at a quick pace, keeping its steady momentum until the very end. 

Here’s my suggestion: if you read the first few pages and you think it’s interesting, maybe a bit weird, clever, then I insist you finish the book.. Make it to the very last page. Even if you feel a lul in the middle, just push through and finish it: it’ll be worth it. If - after the first few pages - you don’t find any of it relatable or the psyche of this person’s mind odd and tempting, then you should stop here. 

✨“More generally, the idea that my husband existed before meeting me is surreal, even revolting.”

It’s a fast and crazy read. The writing is indulgent in a way I kinda liked. The paranoia of our main character propels the story forward and I found it to be pretty entertaining and even funny at times. I think the trend of living in the mind of a woman and watching her become more unhinged through her thoughts is certainly on its way out but I’m glad I made room for one more. I think this was the perfect book to close that specific chapter of literary fiction for me. 

✨“If we could identify our last times as easily as our first times, thousands of moments would be lived more intensely.”
Told in 3 parts, The Vegetarian revolves around Ye Told in 3 parts, The Vegetarian revolves around Yeong-hye, a woman who decides to stop eating meat—not unusual in itself, but her reasoning and the reactions of her husband, sister, and parents are extreme. The first part is narrated by her husband, who finds Yeong-hye emptying the fridge of all animal products, claiming her dreams have forced her to do so. Her decision, exceedingly disruptive to their lives, drives her husband to drastic measures. The second part, told from the perspective of Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law (an artist entranced by Yeong-hye’s transformation), fills in some of the gaps from the first narrative before diving into his disturbing fixation on her. His obsession is unsettling, and the lines between his desires and Yeong-hye’s unraveling grip on reality blur. The final section is narrated by Yeong-hye’s sister, both of whom now are a part of a deeply fractured family.

I finished this book 10 days ago and still, maybe every day since then, a different scene from this book has come up in my mind and made me reconsider what that part was about. So, if I had written this review right after I had finished reading I suspect it would have been tamer- the distance from this book helps to see which parts linger. While I found the book suspenseful and dark in a way I like, I think I still haven’t fully grasped its entire allegorical message (perhaps this too needs time!). There’s an heir of surrealism that I think is done well and kind of adds to this feeling of uncertainty and weirdness. I’ve heard a lot about this author and wanted to start with her most unusual book. More Han Kang book reviews coming here!!

✨“Life is such a strange thing, she thinks, once she has stopped laughing. Even after certain things have happened to them, no matter how awful the experience, people still go on eating and drinking, going to the toilet and washing themselves - living, in other words. And sometimes they even laugh out loud. And they probably have these same thoughts, too, and when they do it must make them cheerlessly recall all the sadness they’d briefly managed to forget.”
A collection of short stories, each set in or feat A collection of short stories, each set in or featuring  Argentina, are all very strange: ranging from a journalist researching the cult following of a woman’s drowning to a woman whose face starts disappearing to a haunted mansion to ghosts to body modifications to rotting corpses coming back to life. My favorite story was ‘Julie’, told from the account of an Argentinian girl whose cousin (Julie), aunt, and uncle are visiting from America to get psychiatric help for Julie. When what Julie needs help with is revealed, you realize something more sinister is going on. I liked that story the most because the narrator, a child, had funny ruminations on how her family changed when they moved from Argentina to America but even then, I didn’t love the plot line of that story. 

Every story and book I have read by this author has had the same feeling of discomfort. This collection of short stories propels that discomfort into more the realm of weird. Her first short story collection lived more in the spooky realm whereas this one was way more bizarre. The stories often end with a vague ending which I’m starting to be more okay with but as a whole this collection felt a bit slow to me. What I liked about her previous work is the lack of explanation her stories provided and the trust she had in her reader to find the hidden meanings and social parallels. This collection felt lazier. I liked reading the stories because I never knew what was going to happen and that certainly counts for something. But none of the stories lived with me afterwards. None of the stories linger on my tongue and no characters show themselves in my everyday life. If you want some strange plot lines that are interesting/unpredictable, check out this book. If you want a better version of it, check out her previous short story collection: The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (previously reviewed on this page!)
Bill Buford, American journalist and former New Yo Bill Buford, American journalist and former New Yorker editor, tells us of his immersion into the world of French cuisine. Buford moves his family (wife and twin boys) to Lyon- where he works and learns from some of the most revered (and intimidating) kitchens. For me, French cooking is mysterious, glamorous, enticing— almost unattainable and guarded-  so I really enjoyed having Buford illuminate what happens behind the scenes and how these kitchens operate. Admittedly, I might not have gravitated toward this book independent of the fact that my husband was reading it (in preparation for our trip to Lyon). Seeing him read it and get excited about it excited me too so Dirt split its time between us. 

Buford’s writing is approachable and readable. I like that you stay in scenes for a while, there’s no rush to move on to the next day or next part of the story- a welcome contrast to how the kitchens where he works operate. Bill Buford was the lead editor for the New Yorker and helped revamp the literary magazine Granta so there is no surprise how well written this book is. I think more than anything I liked the book’s slowness. Not sluggish or tiresome, but deliberate—like savoring a dish where every element is intentional. It would often switch from personal experiences to the history of a food or place or famous French family for further context. It was descriptive in the way that I would want a friend who staged at a restaurant in Lyon, France to tell me every detail, to tell me about the hierarchy in the kitchen, to tell me about the inherently ‘American’ thoughts they had, to tell me his successes and to also trust me with his shortcomings, to tell me how it impacted his family, to tell me what he learned, to tell me how it changed him fundamentally. And yes even tell me the intricate -seemingly mundane, but not the way he told it- process of how you were able to acquire a visa and live in France past the allotted 3 months. I was fully here for the ride, I wanted all of it.
An absurd exploration of 2 art critics whose obses An absurd exploration of 2 art critics whose obsession with a single (fictional) painting: ‘Saint Sebastian’s Abyss’ by Count Hugo Beckenbauer defines their entire lives. The story starts with our unnamed American narrator who has received a letter from his estranged former best friend and colleague, Schmidt informing him that he is on his deathbed and requesting that our narrator go visit him to make amends before he dies. While our narrator is on his journey we learn about their decades long friendship based on this 16th century painting, their connection to that painting, we learn A LOT about the painting, and we learn what led to their fallout: an awful thing that our narrator said. That’s all the information we get for the first five sixths of the book. That he said something awful. That awful thing he said isn’t revealed until the very end. 

At its core, the novel examines the space between passion, rivalry, and the cost of devotion. The writing itself felt indulgent and repetitive, much like the characters’ obsession, which makes for a fascinating, if at times maddening, read. The book reads as a tribute to the general topic of “art” and perhaps a sly commentary on the excesses of art critique, the pretentiousness that lives in that world, but how maybe it’s earned. The voice was oftentimes insufferable but kind of in a way that you could acknowledge and appreciate and find funny? I liked the ending, something I have not been saying recently!! It’s funny, it’s extreme, it’s weird, it’s clever, it’s good. 

✨“...Schmidt admitted in private that if were up to him he would’ve happily burned them, burned them with glee and without thinking twice and kept the ashes too, he’d said, in an urn that he’d place prominently on a mantel in the Berlin residence he hoped one day to die in, an urn that would serve as a reminder of the perils and pitfalls of mediocrity.”
This book follows Elwood Curtis, who is reflecting This book follows Elwood Curtis, who is reflecting on his time at Nickel Academy, an abusive, cruel reform school for boys. We have a brief introduction set in the present day which confirms that Elwood was a student at Nickel Academy and then we switch to the 1960’s where we see a young Elwood as a fierce student and do-gooder. The reader is struck as we quickly realize what had to have happened to have Elwood get sent to this reform school. The rest of the book is about his time at the Nickel Academy. 

The writing is layered with hope and horror. I think I wanted to like this book just a bit more than I did. Even while I was reading it, and especially now looking back, there were moments that certainly should have had a grave impact on me but felt like they fell short. Moments that are just not sticking with me now. I think it’s a really well written book with a tragic (in a good way) plot. I don’t know if I’m just more sensitive to endings these days but this ending felt a bit cheap to me. Shocking for the sake of shocking. And despite my urge to go back and read the beginning as soon as the book ended, I must confess it’s hard for me to remember much else. When I did go back to read the beginning again, I didn’t find the exciting clues I was looking for and ultimately it downplayed whatever tension I had accumulated. I lost my lines of connection with our main characters and it was hard to pick back up afterwards. It felt restricted, unable to get deep enough. Perhaps you are not seeking this though in which case you will be satisfied with the prose (lovely!) and the truly captivating plot. 

✨“He who gets behind in a race must forever remain behind or run faster than the man in front.”
In James, Percival Everett tells the story of Jim- In James, Percival Everett tells the story of Jim- who you might recognize from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. All that I remember about Huck Finn is that he was Tom Sawyer’s friend, something about a raft on the Mississippi River with an enslaved man named Jim who is trying to escape. That is all I knew going into James and while I’m sure it helps to know more about Huck’s story I did not find it was essential to enjoy or understand James. This book starts, after a bit of exposition, at Jim learning that he is about to be sold and sent to New Orleans, away from his wife and daughter, so he sets on a journey to escape. 

I read this book so fast- the plot is easy to follow and because it’s written like a hero’s journey it’s easy to pick back up in the middle of a page. I think this book was clever and while I was reading it I was recommending it to anyone around me who would listen. I was engrossed completely. I think endings are hard and they’re especially hard when the beginning and middle of a book are so strong so I feel forgiving and despite how I felt about the ending falling flat (compared to the rest of the book) I really don’t think that should dissuade you from reading this book. I think 85% of James is visionary and compelling. 

I find this review has a lot more qualifiers and I feel that’s necessary when a book wins a major accolade (like the national book award) and with that comes a lot of fans who celebrate the book and of course, the opposite as well. I read this book independent of its praise and liked it. It’s possible that if James has been too hyped up to you, or if you are expecting something quite life changing that this book will not assuage those desires. But if you’re looking for a book that is entertaining to read the entire time, well written, and evocative then I am sure you will like it. Read it with the lens of contemporary fiction.

✨“I felt tired of the failures of men. They were always failing in the most basic ways, like looking down or away at the moment when they should be gutsy enough to meet your eye.”
A collection of short stories, each paired with a A collection of short stories, each paired with a photo. Each story is 1 page long and all are focused on moments of time in this writer’s life. This is a work of nonfiction, the stories are autobiographical. With this pairing of photo and story I expected the photo would linger in my memories but really it’s the words that I keep seeing over and over again in my brain. I used to be a lot more obsessed with feeling the need to classify books like this one that exist between nonfiction and poetry, before I learned of flash nonfiction and before I learned of the even more exciting idea of bending genres. Now all I know is that this is a really great collection of stories. Each story is a micro moment but still it is complete. What a notion that these flash pieces are not a portion of a larger work or a “condensed” story but rather, it is the whole story itself. 

My friend, a poet, introduced this writer to me by sharing 4-5 of her pieces and I knew right away that this would be one of those books that I would be referencing often. Referencing for when I seek examples of clever diction (the exact right word in the exact right place) and referencing for when I crave an evocative melancholy/ or a deep emotional haunting. It is like a collection of memories- it almost feels unfair that we get to have access to this given how personal they feel. 

This collection by Sophie Calle has proven to me just how profound brevity can be.
…….yes what you’ve heard is true. It’s a g …….yes what you’ve heard is true. It’s a good read- it feels homey perhaps because it follows 2 brothers: Ivan and Peter, 10 years apart, who are grieving after the death of their father. You end with the same characters you start with which adds to that comforting feeling. Despite how it may seem, despite how emotional and lyrical the writing may be, this isn’t the kind of book that will live inside of me for my coming days. It’s more the kind of book that is quite enjoyable to read (very easy to read very quickly). It’s also true, not much happens but if you can sustain my attention for 400+ pages with character development alone, then sure I don’t mind. 

I imagine if you were one of the several people I texted while I was reading this book to say “um wow pretty good so far” then this review might not seem congruent with that message. I confess that towards the end I was getting increasingly underwhelmed and my initial pleasure was related to my dislike of this author’s previous books (I haven’t read them all!! Just don’t like what I’ve sampled). I do think it was fun to read. I liked the changing perspectives and spending time in the minds of each of our characters- all so different and relatable to some degree.

How I feel about this book is simple: sometimes you want your life changed and sometimes you just want to enjoy your days. This book is for when you crave the latter. 

✨“And yet, accepting the premise, allowing life to mean nothing for a moment, doesn’t it simply feel good”
A hyper contemporary collection of short stories a A hyper contemporary collection of short stories about people who are lonely, detached, and perhaps vengeful? Some of our characters are chronically online- the effects of which have penetrated into their social lives. The characters in these stories aren’t sad… they’re kind of pathetic. At times, just when you settle into a new story there is a reminder of the recurring characters and settings. I like those moments of intersection reminding you that we’re still in the same world, same time, same existence. 

My favorite story was ‘Our dope future’ written like a post to an online forum where a man (who feels eerily familiar) is trying to figure out what went wrong with his relationship (but.. he’s not really, is he?) The story that I can’t get out of my head is ‘Ahegao’ - a repressed gay man who only finds relief in very specific, particular ways. The book overall has this tongue in cheek heir to it while also making societal observations and being funny and serious and sad but don’t forget- funny!!

I ate these stories up. Each one slowly tapered into the extreme, but a very believable extreme. And then, again, just when you start to have reservations about the topics of this book, curiosities about the author, wonderings of what exactly is going on, what points are being made, who is being victimized and who is being celebrated, the last story presents itself. Don’t read them out of order and don’t stop until you get to the end!! I really liked this book. 

✨“We’ll wake up at 5 am, chug our shakes, engage in physical and mental enrichment, and get our yeeks in bed at the stroke of eight. As soon as the kids acquire language we’ll start them on an *actually useful* curriculum focused on bizdev and Stoic thought that will give them a massive edge on public-schoolers - picture everyone happily sweating away at their custom desks/treadmills as they absorb meticulously rated high-quality podcasts at 2.5x speed.”
In the first half Coates speaks of his time in Dak In the first half Coates speaks of his time in Dakar where he writes of the idealized notion of a ‘return to Africa’ and then we find him in SC where he talks of the American education system, reflecting on book bans that target his writing and his own upbringing. 

The second half of this book focuses on a 10 day trip Coates took to Israel and Palestine. He writes in a way that forces the reader to taste the blood in his mouth, to feel the wave of recognition, the paralyzing haunt of the familiar alongside him. It is a group of people who are treated differently based on their race and ethnicity, either you are morally okay with that or you are not. The first 2 parts connect to guide us through his final section which emphasizes how the treatment of Palestinians is nothing more than an extension of the American system of racial oppression. It is expertly nuanced and focuses on the power of narrative.

At times the writing can feel dense but I suspect that’s an intentional choice meant to mimic the heaviness of this topic and the lack of summary it necessitates. I don’t mean that as a criticism- I like working for my conclusions. Early on in his chapter about Palestine, Coates contradicts his former self who wrote ‘The Case for Reparations’ and surrenders to the new information he has been exposed to since then. (quote below) My favorite part is from this section when Coates is in Hebron detailing his observations which lead him to sudden realizations: ✨“For as sure as my ancestors were born into a country where none of them was the equal of any white man, Israel was revealing itself to be a country where no Palestinian is ever the equal of any Jewish person anywhere. This fact is not hard to discern.” ... ✨“On seeing these cisterns, it occurred to me that Israel had advanced beyond the Jim Crow South and segregated not just the pools and fountains but the water itself.” It is the same racist reasoning in Israel that justified America’s own ‘separate and unequal’.

Now, I have a stronger conviction in my beliefs and a sharper understanding of my values. This book has equipped me with a richer, clearer vocabulary to express my thoughts, and that is paramount.
A woman goes missing. The story is about the after A woman goes missing. The story is about the aftermath of the disappearance of Sabina- how her boyfriend and sister are forced to cope. A lot of what I loved about this book is specific to the mode of graphic novels but the plot and story and dialogue and pictures are what determine the vehicle so the high praise is for the book itself. I’ll never not be amazed by graphic novels- the way they elevate the reading experience. The writing is slow but in a way that when it hits you it feels darker. I liked seeing the evolution of conspiracy theories and how quickly they escalate. 

Ever wanted to watch something on tv but have time slow down a bit so you can live in every scene. Maybe you only have enough of yourself to extend towards dialogue and the rest of the work is done for you – but even better it’s in your hands, on paper. I know graphic novels are not a new medium for many of you but they are rare for me and this one specifically I couldn’t put down. I finished this book in 2 sittings. Some pages have 16 squares of pictures with dialogue in every box and other pages have 1 large image to let the reader assume feeling, emotion, and intention. The dialogue is simple, the pictures are simple and the simplicity of it all is what I advocate for today. A good book with some heavy moments but a welcome escape. 

✨“How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Rate your overall mood from 1 to 5, 1 being poor. Rate your stress level from 1 to 5, 5 being severe. Are you experiencing depression or thoughts of suicide? Is there anything in your personal life that is affecting your duty?”
It is 1972 and 12 year old Tomoko is going from on It is 1972 and 12 year old Tomoko is going from one city in Japan to another to spend a year with aunt and her family. Tomoko has always been intrigued by her aunt, who has a very different life from Tomoko- married to a rich business man who owns a beverage company. They live in a mansion, all of which is completely alien to Tomoko, and this is where she gets to know her cousin: Mina. Among the many odd things in this house and family is their pet: a pygmy hippopotamus who has been trained to carry and escort Mina to school and back. There are certainly some strange things going on in this house, riddled with secrets, all with a backdrop of a turbulent political and social atmosphere in Japan. 

I’ve read 2 of Yoko Ogawa’s books (both reviewed on this page) and I’m a big fan of this author. I find her writing style to be funny in its bluntness with an heir of an eerie, unsettling feeling. That combination has always worked for me. It’s the great ability to be able to observe something odd, acknowledge its oddness, marry it to a funny memory, and arrive at a conclusion that either nothing can change or perhaps everything can. I think if you accept that our writer is doing just that, then you’ll like this novel. It reminded me of a more playful version of her short story collection: The Diving Pool. Same tone, same voice but a bit lighter. It’s simple, this book has: beautiful imagery, somber moments, coated with a charming story. 

✨“Whenever I return there in my memory, their voices are as lively as ever, their smiling faces full of warmth. Grandmother Rosa, seated before the makeup mirror she brought from Germany as part of her trousseau, carefully rubbing her face with beauty cream. My aunt in the smoking room, tirelessly hunting for typographical errors. My uncle, impeccably dressed, even at home, endlessly tossing off his quips and jokes. The staff, Yoneda-san and Kobayashi-san, working hard in their respective domains; the family pet, Pochiko, relaxing in the garden. And my cousin Mina reading a book. We always knew when she was about from the rustling of the box of matches she kept in her pocket.”
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