by Lisa Crystal Carver
DNF 27%
A specific era and milieu of pre-internet edgelords. Empty, mean, and aboundingly white.
★¾
Category archives: ★½
Passion simple
Annie Ernaux
L’histoire d’une femme qui n’a pas d’autre identité que son obsession pour un homme indisponible et vide de personnalité. Une obsession telle qu’elle ne se lave pas pour conserver son sperme, qu’elle part dans des délires impliquant une femme qu’elle a vue dans un magazine et qu’elle reste figée … Read more
Eleven
by Patricia Highsmith
Beacons of unpleasantness
- “The Snail-Watcher” ★★½
- “The Birds Poised to Fly” ★★½
- “The Terrapin” DNF
- “When the Fleet was in at Mobile” ★★½
- “The Quest for ‘Blank Claveringi'” ★★½
- “The Cries of Love” ★★
- “Mrs. Afton, Among Thy Green Braes” ★★
- “The Heroine” ★★
- “Another Bridge to Cross”
Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World
by Carolyn Steel
DNF 8%
She invokves fucking Malthus in chapter 1, extending the idea that reproduction rates and the ‘lack of infrastrucutre’ are responsible for hunger and food waste in the Global South, deflecting blame from neo/colonialist capture, wealth extraction, and exploitation. She has some puzzle pieces with decent stats … Read more
Moms
by Yeong-shin Ma
★½
The Beautiful Ones
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
★½
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water
by Zen Cho
Not half a sneeze of subversion in this recreated patriarchy. Body shaming and threats of genital mutilation serve as comedy.
At the Mouth of the River of Bees
by Kij Johnson
★½
Corregidora
by Gayl Jones
★½
This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America
by Morgan Jerkins
★½
The Power
by Naomi Alderman
A fantasy I could indulge in but philosophically unimaginative, positing only that power corrupts. A simple reversal without consideration of history of oppression, blanketing humanity with the empathic capacity of a child wanting to be king of the hill.
Go Set a Watchman
by Harper Lee
★½