alexture's reviews
948 reviews

 What an interesting little book.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, really - probably because I enjoy reading memoirs, and reading a "fake memoir" makes me feel a bit icky. But for those who have always struggled to bridge the gap between fiction and nonfiction, this might be your perfect introduction.

The protagonist was interesting, the way the author weaved in so many historical details and figures (with instructive footnotes for each of them) and the excellent story made for a really good read, even though I didn't vibe so much with the format. 

The first two thirds were really really good. The third section is about self-defense and wasn't too interesting to me, so I skipped most of it. Good book overall with some very solid foundations.

this might have been a good book if the parents had been less of a caric ture or if the kid had a personality.

Je m'attendais à un recueil d'images : c'est en fait un article académique très très illustré, donc attention au ton assez sec qui peut prendre de court. Une fois la surprise passée, l'ouvrage est extrêmement instructif et montre à la fois les évolutions de la presse syndicale et celles du dessin de presse, avec de nombreuses illustrations et une superbe archive de plein de thèmes, journaux, artistes ou encore approches de sujets parfois pourtant répétitifs. Une très bonne lecture.

Les informations sont très bien (même si parfois un peu périmées parce que manifestement pas mises à jour d'une édition à l'autre). 

Par contre, la maison d'édition a été lamentable : le livre est bourré de fautes d'orthographe sur les mots en langues étrangères et sur les noms des sportifs, ce qui gâche la lecture.

I thought this was a book about making activism positive instead of constant discourse and miserabilism. Turns out it's about feeling sexy, and even when it's not about sex, the sex imagery is pervasive in the writing (as in, thinking about politics is "foreplay" before liberation, or whatever).

I should have read the reviews first, this just isn't what I wanted to learn about.

This is probably a good book, but being lied to in the summary makes me really frustrated.

An excellent read in which Krista Burton tells us about her travels to 23 lesbian bars in the USA immediately after the pandemic lockdowns. She tells us about the importance of these places, their individual stories, different lesbian cultures across her country and much more, with a lot of thoughts about who belongs in lesbian spaces, from feminine lesbians who « look straight » to trans men and even straight people.

This memoir started out as a read for my « Around the world in 195 countries » challenge and ended up with me sobbing (yes, again – what can I say, October was a mental health struggle). It was an excellent read.

Je continue à être un énorme fanboy de bell hooks avec son excellent essai La volonté de changer, qui s’adresse à tout le monde et parle des hommes, un sujet… bizarrement oublié par des grands pans du féminisme. 

J’aime beaucoup l’avis rafraîchissant de bell hooks et sa volonté de rappeler que tout le monde souffre du patriarcat. En ouvrant la porte à des représentations positives de la masculinité (et non pas à une masculinité positive, parce que la masculinité n’est ni bonne ni mauvaise en soi) et en questionnant les normes de genre établies, on peut avancer tou·tes ensemble et c’est important et plein d’espoir.

Jaipal and Bhumi are estranged siblings. The first is a young gay man working as a bartender, the second a brilliant biology student, both of them living on a small West Pacific island. When the dictator starts discriminating against « Indians » more and more, they're worried - when discrimination turns into plain government harassment, it's too late to leave. Jaipal tries to survive, while Bhumi, their mother's favourite, finds out she has a passport ready and is eligible for refugee status in the United States. Their two destinies keep getting further, as both of them try to build a world and a life wherever they are.

A compelling and horrifying read.

As a teenager, I was obsessed with dystopias, and was extremely sad when the genre finally came to pass. Now that I'm all grown up, I read contemporary novels and see the dystopia in them.

This one is an easy one, but the fact that it's based on real slices of history horrifies me - and even more so the fact that I had no idea.