bisexualbookshelf's reviews
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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This novella is out from University of Nevada Press now.

Yxta Maya Murray’s A History of Hazardous Objects is a brief yet powerful meditation on science, mythology, trauma, and survival in a world besieged by crisis. Set in 2020, the novella follows Laura, a Mexican American astrophysicist, as she grapples with the simultaneous pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter uprisings, and the looming possibility of asteroid impact. Laura’s career revolves around tracking Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs) like asteroids and comets, but her life is also shaped by the mystical stories her mother told about cosmic destruction. Caught between science and myth, Laura struggles to protect her family from both earthly and celestial threats while navigating personal loss and societal upheaval.

Murray’s writing is emotionally charged and lyrical, with moments of fragmented, poetic reflection that mirror Laura’s fractured mental state. The narrative deftly shifts between the practicalities of Laura’s day-to-day life—caring for her husband, son, and elderly mother—and the larger existential questions she faces. These questions are symbolized by the asteroids she studies and the crises unfolding around her, making the novella a profound exploration of fear and resilience. The story blends historical and scientific fact with Laura’s imaginative retellings of the lives of real-life scientists, creating a tension between the objective and the fantastical that reflects the uncertainty of living in a world on the brink of collapse.

At its core, A History of Hazardous Objects explores how trauma and catastrophe shape human understanding and connection. As Laura delves deeper into her research on asteroids, she begins to see the scientists she admires as figures shaped by their own personal losses, much like herself. This realization underscores one of the book’s central themes: that suffering can lead to insight, and that understanding the world’s dangers—both cosmic and human—might ultimately help us protect one another. The tension between hope and despair is palpable throughout the novella, with hope often depicted as risky, yet necessary for survival.

Though the novella is ambitious in its scope, some elements, like the opening chapter and Laura’s imaginative vignettes, feel disjointed at times. Still, by the end, Murray ties these threads together in a way that feels both poignant and meaningful. A History of Hazardous Objects is a thought-provoking, experimental work that challenges readers to reflect on the relationship between trauma, discovery, and the fragile beauty of human connection. I will definitely be seeking out more of Murray’s work after this insightful little book! 

📖 Recommended For: Fans of introspective, lyrical prose, readers interested in the intersection of science and mythology, those drawn to stories about navigating crises on both personal and societal levels, and admirers of speculative fiction with emotional depth.

🔑 Key Themes: Survival and Resilience, Fear and Uncertainty, Trauma and Scientific Discovery, Family and Connection, Mythology and Cosmic Threats.

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted ARC! Soft DNF - This is just not working for me right now. I'm so bored. It seems likely the marketing on this book was off - I don't actually think there's much Jeffrey Epstein in it. This is also way more rote history and way less political critique than I was expecting. The one thing I was enjoying was the insight into how deeply Victoria's Secret's functioning and growth was influenced by 20th century American capitalism. It seems unlikely this will exceed a 3.5 star rating for me, but I'm still interested in the capitalism history stuff, so will try to circle back to this at another time. 

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder is an electrifying exploration of motherhood, identity, and the primal rage that often simmers just beneath the surface of womanhood. Told through the lens of a woman undergoing a literal transformation into a dog, Yoder’s novel digs deep into the societal constraints placed on women, particularly mothers, and the visceral need to reclaim a sense of self amidst the suffocating pressures of domestic life.

At its heart, Nightbitch interrogates the tension between social expectations of women as selfless caregivers and the internal desires for autonomy and fulfillment. The protagonist’s metamorphosis—from a burnt-out mother struggling to balance her artistic ambitions with the relentless demands of motherhood to a feral creature driven by instinct and desire—acts as both a literal and metaphorical journey. Yoder’s prose captures this transformation in all its messiness and madness, laced with dark humor and biting political critique. The narrator’s body begins to sprout fur, her teeth sharpen, and she develops an insatiable craving for raw meat. These changes echo the internal fury of feeling caged by patriarchal expectations, amplifying the feminist critique of how motherhood is often packaged as a holy, selfless calling, while leaving little space for women’s personal fulfillment.

One of the book’s standout elements is Yoder’s writing style, which mirrors the protagonist’s descent into animalistic chaos. The prose is fast-paced and frantic, alternating between back-to-back sentence fragments and more meandering, reflective passages. This rhythmic shift creates an atmosphere of tension, pulling readers into the protagonist’s unraveling psyche. The transformation itself becomes a metaphor for the feral nature of feminine rage—the kind of rage that is long suppressed but eventually bursts free, teeth bared, demanding release.

What makes Nightbitch particularly striking is its feminist lens on motherhood, especially how the protagonist slowly realizes she might hate being a mother, or at least hate the version of motherhood society has imposed on her. This nuanced exploration of motherhood’s isolating aspects resonates with the broader conversation on how women’s needs are often sidelined or pathologized. As she confronts other moms in the story—who, in a darkly comedic twist, try to recruit her into a multi-level marketing scheme—there’s a sharp critique of wellness culture and the commodification of self-care.

While Nightbitch offers moments of wild, cathartic liberation, particularly in the protagonist’s ultimate embrace of her transformation, it also leaves some threads hanging. The relationship between the protagonist’s transformation, the mythical elements introduced through The Field Guide to Magical Women, and the dynamics of the Book Babies group feel loosely connected, not quite resolved by the end. Additionally, the presence of the protagonist’s son as a central figure in her journey to reclaim power may feel limiting to readers seeking stories of femme liberation untethered to motherhood.

Overall, Yoder delivers a fiercely original narrative that balances ferocity and tenderness, exploring the raw edges of womanhood. Though I craved a more radical collective femme liberation, the protagonist's individual journey remains deeply compelling. For readers drawn to weird, visceral explorations of rage and identity, Nightbitch is a triumph, offering both biting social commentary and a poetic deep dive into feral femininity. 

📖 Recommended For: Readers drawn to visceral, darkly comedic explorations of motherhood, fans of feminist horror, anyone interested in themes of transformation and feral femininity, and lovers of Sarah Rose Etter and Carmen Maria Machado.

🔑 Key Themes: The Repression of Anger, Motherhood and Identity, Feral Femininity, Patriarchal Constraints, Isolation and Longing for Community, Physical and Psychological Transformation.

Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire, edited by Alice Wong, is a transformative collection that explores the intersections of disability, love, care, and desire. Through diverse perspectives, this anthology pushes back against ableist ideas of intimacy and expands our understanding of what it means to love and connect as disabled individuals in a world that often marginalizes us.

One of the collection's most poignant themes is the reclamation of intimacy as a form of resistance. Many of the essays explore the experience of receiving care, often evoking the importance of “disability doulas,” someone who intimately understands the complex rhythms of navigating daily life with chronic pain. Many of the explorations of managing pain while still embracing joy and connection reminded me of the quiet but profound intimacy inherent in disabled life. For example, the subtlety of asking, "Is it Old or New pain?" felt like a radical redefinition of how disabled people might frame their experiences in ways that give them agency, rather than the usual ableist framing of pain.

I also found Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's essay, “republics of desire: disabled lineages of longing,” on intergenerational trauma and solitude deeply moving. Leah captures the essence of how disabled and neurodivergent people often navigate relationships in ways that may not fit normative ideas of "Real Sex" or "Real Relationships" but are no less powerful. This essay hit home as it articulated the significance of fantasy and desire in safe, controlled spaces—where queer, neurodivergent spoonies can find pleasure and connection without fear of exploitation or harm. Leah’s words about disabled femme longing being capable of powering the world left me breathless.

Similarly, the concept of “crip kinship” weaves through many of the essays, resonating with other explorations of care politics and family abolition. These reflections on caregiving, chosen family, and collective intimacy feel particularly vital. This anthology shows how disabled people create new ways of caring for one another and themselves, outside of the traditional, often harmful structures of care dictated by ableism.

Alice Wong’s curation is masterful in its embrace of intersectionality, showcasing the overlap between disability, kink, sex work, race, and queerness. Essays like Carrie Wade’s Know Me Where It Hurts: Sex, Kink, and Cerebral Palsy challenge the desexualization of disabled bodies and emphasize how adaptability can lead to expansive sexual and emotional lives. Meanwhile, Khadijah Queen’s The Exhaustion of Pretense and the Illusions of Care reflects on the tension between needing to perform wellness and the deep desire for authenticity—another form of intimacy that disabled people navigate daily.

While most of the book is deeply compelling, I found the final section somewhat lacking in cohesion. The focus on intimacy became muddled, and the connection to the collection’s earlier, more radical explorations felt lost. Nevertheless, Disability Intimacy remains a powerful and necessary anthology. It redefines intimacy in ways that embrace vulnerability, adaptability, and the deep love that disabled people show themselves and each other as they resist a world not built for them. Alice Wong has once again brought together a collection that is not only radical but also deeply intimate in its own right.

📖 Recommended For: Readers interested in exploring the intersection of disability and intimacy, those who value personal essays on love, care, and desire, fans of Alice Wong’s previous work, and anyone curious about how disabled and neurodivergent people redefine pleasure, intimacy, and liberation.

🔑 Key Themes: Disability and Intimacy, Crip Kinship and Community Care, Pleasure and Adaptability, Vulnerability and Resilience, Desexualization and Kink, Intersectionality in Disabled Identity.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This collection releases in the US from Graywolf Press on September 30th, 2024.

The Hormone of Darkness: A Playlist is a mesmerizing and surreal collection of poetry by Peruvian poet Tilsa Otta, translated into English by Farid Matuk. Spanning work published between 2004 and 2018, this bilingual collection pulls readers into a world where beginnings and endings blur, and autonomy is reclaimed in the face of social and existential constraints. Otta’s poems chafe against boundaries—whether they are imposed by society, God, or the speaker’s own sense of self—creating space for new forms of desire, love, and resistance.

Otta’s poetry is wildly experimental, dreamlike, and often deeply abstract, with a rhythm that carries the reader through fragmented reflections on life, pleasure, and grief. There’s a raw beauty in her vivid imagery, which invites us to question reality and meaning while feeling deeply the weight of human experience. The collection doesn’t shy away from the bizarre or the kinky; instead, it fully embraces queerness, both in identity and form, pushing the boundaries of what poetry can be. Themes of existential questioning and the tension between the material and spiritual worlds recur throughout, with a constant undercurrent of yearning for freedom.

However, the collection’s abstract nature occasionally left me lost in its tangled thoughts. At times, the poems’ resistance to conventional narrative made it difficult to find an entry point. Still, this only reinforces the collection's relentless desire for expansiveness, reflecting the speaker's ongoing struggle for hope and autonomy. Though challenging, The Hormone of Darkness is an evocative exploration of queerness, creativity, and rebellion, leaving readers with more questions than answers—just as it should. Overall, I rated it 3.5 stars for its bold experimentation, even if some poems felt a little too abstract to fully connect with.

📖 Recommended For: Readers who enjoy surreal, experimental poetry, those interested in exploring the fluidity of identity and desire, anyone who values boundary-pushing, queer narratives, fans of Anne Carson.

🔑 Key Themes: Autonomy and Rebellion, Existential Questioning, Queerness and Identity, Desire and Pleasure, Transcendence and Spirituality.

Nnedi Okorafor’s She Who Knows, the first novella in her She Who Knows trilogy, transports readers into a richly imagined world rooted in African spiritualities and the complex dynamics of gender, identity, and power. Set in the same universe as Okorafor’s Who Fears Death, the novella follows Najeeba, a young Osu-nu girl who defies centuries of tradition when she receives the mystical Call—an honor previously reserved for men and boys in her patriarchal society. As Najeeba embarks on her journey along the Salt Roads, she begins to uncover her own spiritual abilities while challenging the rigid gender roles that define her people.

Okorafor’s signature Africanfuturist and Africanjujuist influences are palpable throughout She Who Knows. Her prose is lyrical and introspective, weaving together elements of African cosmology and spirituality with futuristic imagination. The novella delves deeply into the power of tradition and the consequences of breaking from societal norms, positioning Najeeba’s story as a quiet but revolutionary exploration of personal growth. Najeeba's internal transformation is central to the narrative, as she grapples with her burgeoning abilities and learns to navigate the tensions between individual agency and communal expectations.

One of the most compelling aspects of She Who Knows is its nuanced exploration of gender roles within a deeply patriarchal society. Najeeba’s journey on the Salt Roads—traditionally forbidden to women—forces her family and community to reconsider long-held beliefs about the roles of women and men. Okorafor’s choice to center Najeeba’s feminine presence in this space symbolizes a broader interrogation of societal power structures, underscored by mystical and spiritual forces that shape the world around her.

Themes of consequence ripple through the novella, with Okorafor emphasizing how actions, decisions, and spoken words echo across time, affecting both the present and future. Najeeba’s growing spiritual powers, tied to a mysterious deal her father made with the goddesses Ani and Adoro, suggest that the forces shaping her life are both personal and ancestral, rooted in a history that she is only beginning to understand.

She Who Knows serves as a tantalizing prelude to what promises to be an expansive and thoughtful trilogy. While the novella may feel incomplete as a standalone story, it lays a strong foundation for the forthcoming exploration of Najeeba’s destiny and the liberation of her people. With its powerful themes, evocative prose, and complex worldbuilding, She Who Knows is a worthy addition to Okorafor’s ever-growing body of visionary work.

📖 Recommended For: Fans of afrofuturistic sci-fi, readers who enjoy introspective and lyrical storytelling, those interested in stories that challenge gender roles, and lovers of N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season trilogy.

🔑 Key Themes: Gender and Power, Ancestral Knowledge and Spirituality, Breaking Tradition, Identity and Self-Discovery, Consequence and Transformation.

“Tenants cannot continue to be passive objects of social intervention but must be political agents, taking action in the context of our daily lives.”

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! Abolish Rent is out in the US on September 24th, 2024 from Haymarket Books.

Abolish Rent is an uncompromising manifesto by Leonardo Vilchis and Tracy Rosenthal that dismantles the capitalist housing system and envisions a radical future where housing is a human right, accessible to all. Grounded in both the historical and contemporary context of Los Angeles, the book exposes how the housing crisis is not an aberration but an inherent feature of capitalism, designed to exploit and disempower tenants. Vilchis and Rosenthal’s writing is forceful, delivering a bold and urgent call to action, centering the collective power of tenants as the solution to end housing injustice.

At its core, the book’s central argument is that rent is a tool of exploitation, perpetuating inequality and concentrating wealth among landlords. Vilchis and Rosenthal expertly deconstruct the logic of rent, revealing its oppressive function as a “power relation” that traps tenants in cycles of poverty. They challenge the myth that housing is a mere commodity, instead positioning it as a fundamental human need that should not be subject to profit-driven markets. This critique extends to the role of the state, which the authors argue works hand-in-hand with landlords to police and maintain the system of rent, particularly through the violent eviction of tenants.

Race, class, and housing are deeply interconnected throughout the book, with the authors emphasizing that the housing system’s racial inequalities—disproportionately affecting Black, Brown, and working-class communities—are not incidental but intentional. From the annexing of Mexican land to the state-backed gentrification of neighborhoods, Vilchis and Rosenthal expose how housing has been weaponized to reinforce social hierarchies and uphold white supremacy. By weaving together histories of public housing, suburbanization, and state violence, the authors underscore that the fight for housing justice is inseparable from the broader struggle against systemic racism and capitalist oppression.

What sets Abolish Rent apart is its insistence on tenant solidarity and collective action as the path forward. Vilchis and Rosenthal don’t just offer critique—they provide real-world examples of tenant organizing, from rent strikes to eviction defenses, highlighting the successes of the LA Tenants Union and other grassroots movements. Through these stories of resistance, the book paints a vivid picture of how tenants, including unhoused people, can reclaim power and reshape their communities.

In sum, Abolish Rent is a vital text for anyone interested in dismantling the oppressive systems that govern housing and imagining a world rooted in collective liberation.

📖 Recommended For: Activists interested in housing justice, readers seeking critiques of capitalism, those passionate about tenant organizing and collective action, fans of Matthew Desmond.

🔑 Key Themes: Housing as a Human Right, Anti-Capitalism, Tenant Solidarity, Racial and Economic Injustice, Collective Resistance and Organizing.

Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly is an introspective novel that follows Dawn, an artist and bookbinder, as she navigates the complexities of gender identity, bisexuality, and artist’s block. Set against the backdrop of post-9/11 Manhattan, Dawn's internal journey mirrors her external exploration of the city's streets and its queer history. Kelly weaves these threads together with a quiet, lyrical style, rich in emotional depth and philosophical musings.

Dawn's struggle with her gender is the heart of the story. Unsure of what it means to be a woman—or if she is one at all—Dawn often speaks of "the boy inside" of her, a metaphor for her fluctuating sense of self. Kelly captures the frustration and fear of not fitting neatly into society's binary categories, painting a deeply personal portrait of someone yearning to be understood for their gender fluidity, even as they are unsure of how to express it.

The plot is propelled forward when Dawn stumbles upon a hidden piece of queer history: a lesbian pulp novel cover sewn into the binding of another book, inscribed with a lesbian love letter. This discovery leads Dawn to investigate the lives of Gertrude and Marta, the women behind the letter, ultimately drawing a powerful parallel between the intergenerational queer experiences of hidden love, gender nonconformity, and survival. This quest, coupled with her exploration of her own identity, forms the core of Endpapers.

Dawn's relationships with her bisexual boyfriend Lukas and best friend Jae add layers to the story, allowing her to explore masculinity and intimacy in various forms. The dynamics between Dawn and Lukas, in particular, are fraught with tension, as Dawn feels boxed in by Lukas’s preference for her masculine side. Though their relationship provides fertile ground for Dawn's gender exploration, it’s clear from the beginning that their connection has become toxic. Unfortunately, Kelly doesn’t offer much insight into the positive foundation of their relationship, which made it hard to connect with or understand why Dawn continues to stay.

One of the novel’s standout features is its bisexual representation. Both Dawn and Lukas’s fluid sexualities are presented with nuance, and the exploration of biphobia within the queer community is handled with care. Dawn’s feelings of exclusion from both the straight and LGBTQ+ communities due to her gender nonconformity and bisexuality are poignant and relatable, underscoring a broader theme of belonging and the cost of hiding one’s true self.

However, the novel’s pacing can be uneven. The stream-of-consciousness narrative in the first half, while thematically aligned with Dawn’s inner turmoil, at times felt meandering and made it difficult to stay engaged. Additionally, a subplot involving an attack on Dawn, Lukas, and Jae, who is straight, by homophobic men, and Jae’s subsequent injuries, felt somewhat disconnected from the main narrative and left me questioning its place in the larger story.

Despite these criticisms, Endpapers is a thoughtful exploration of gender, identity, and the queer experience, offering readers a tender glimpse into one woman’s journey toward self-acceptance. With its rich themes and evocative prose, the novel is a testament to the power of queer solidarity across generations, even when the path to self-understanding feels elusive.

📖 Recommended For: Readers who enjoy introspective and evocative prose, those interested in exploring gender fluidity and bisexuality, lovers of character-driven stories set against historical backdrops, fans of Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club.

🔑 Key Themes: Gender Fluidity, Bisexual Identity, Creative Block and Self-Discovery, Queer History and Intergenerational Solidarity, Belonging and Isolation.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book releases from Random House on September 17th, 2024 in the US. Unfortunately, I chose to stop reading the book at 47% due to extremely fatphobic and ableist language.

This is my second foray into Enriquez's work. I withheld my reservations about my first experience with her (The Dangers of Smoking in Bed) because I was new to Bookstagram, who loves her, as well as new to translated literature, which I understand has some nuances when it comes to diction. I was excited to explore Enriquez's latest collection and see whether or not I had the same issues. Turns out, I did.

First of all, a lot of these stories just didn't work for me. "My Sad Dead" was a really strong start, but after that, I got halfway through the book and didn't enjoy any of the other stories. 

The titular story, "A Sunny Place for Shady People," follows a journalist to Skid Row to report on a group that holds rituals honoring Elisa Lam. For those who don't know, Elisa Lam was a real person who mysteriously died in Los Angeles in 2013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elisa_Lam). Elisa was bipolar and had likely been off her medication at the time of her death. As such, her death was ruled an accidental drowning, with many suspecting she was experiencing a psychotic episode due to her bizarre behavior in surveillance footage that is the last known sighting of her. However, not all the evidence points in this direction, and many people still suspect Elisa was the victim of foul-play. Either way, Elisa was a 21-year old neurodivergent Chinese American woman who died a tragic death, and Enriquez's use of her story in this book feels particularly exploitative.

The story that put the nail in the coffin for me was "Julie." In this story, the narrator's cousin Julie moves back to Buenos Aires after a childhood in the US. Julie started seeing "invisible friends" as the result of seances her parents hosted as social gatherings. Almost immediately, the narrator describes Julie as fat. Several scenes describe how Julie eats with her hands, shoveling fistfuls of food into her mouth at a time. The story describes Julie as "ob3se" multiple times, including in this quote:

For those who aren't aware, the word "ob3se" is considered a fatphobic slur by many because of its medicalized, stigmatizing history and how it pathologizes fat bodies. It is derived from medical language that often equates higher body weight with disease, labeling fat bodies as inherently unhealthy, without considering individual health differences. It is also frequently used in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes about fat people, such as being lazy, unhealthy, or lacking self-control. The Body Mass Index (BMI), which classifies people as "ob3se" or "overweight," is widely critiqued for being an inaccurate and incomplete measure of health. As such, many body liberation advocates prefer terms like "fat," which some have reclaimed as a neutral descriptor without moral or medical judgment. 

Beyond the fatphobia, Julie is assumed to be schizophrenic due to her "invisible friends," leading to some ableism and sanism about psychotic people. 

Despite these concerns, I tried to read the story that follows "Julie" and found it just as disappointing as the others. With this in mind, I chose to DNF A Sunny Place for Shady People at 47%. I am not familiar with all the nuances of translated literature, so I am unsure if this is a problem with Enriquez's writing or McDowell's translation, but I am unlikely to seek out Enriquez's work in the future. 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! Intervals releases on September 24th, 2024 in the US from Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Intervals by Marianne Brooker is a harrowing yet profound meditation on death, autonomy, and the societal structures that shape our experiences of care. Brooker reflects on her mother’s decision to die after living with multiple sclerosis for a decade, using this deeply personal narrative to ask complex questions about what it means to die—and to live—under capitalism and austerity. The result is a heart-wrenching exploration of care, grief, and the inescapable pressures that mold our final moments.

The book begins with Brooker’s mother’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, which was initially mistaken for alcoholism, and then vertigo. Over time, the cost of medical treatment and care rendered her houseless, scraping by on welfare in a system designed to abandon the most vulnerable. Faced with mounting pain, poverty, and a deeply ableist healthcare structure, Brooker’s mother chooses VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking), a decision that Brooker depicts as an act of self-determination in a world that offers little compassion or agency to disabled people. At just 26 years old, Brooker becomes both a caregiver and a witness to her mother’s death.

What makes Intervals so powerful is how Brooker intertwines her mother’s personal story with broader ableist critiques. She challenges the dehumanizing effects of capitalism, ableism, and austerity, examining the ways in which care, under these systems, becomes a burden. She draws upon thinkers like Judith Butler, Anne Boyer, Maggie Nelson, and Johanna Hedva to expand on themes of care and autonomy, critiquing the medical-industrial complex and the commodification of dying. Brooker’s reflections on the UK funeral industry, its capitalist motivations, and the medicalization of death illuminate the absurdity and injustice of how we handle life’s final chapter.

One of the book’s most compelling arguments is that a “good death” should not be reduced to clinical processes or institutional interventions. Brooker insists that community care, death doulas, and honoring one’s autonomy offer more humane alternatives. Her examination of care is also deeply relational—bearing witness, as Brooker poignantly argues, is itself an act of care, even when intervention is not possible or desired.

Brooker’s prose is reflective and lyrical, skillfully moving from the personal to the political with urgency and intimacy. Her writing confronts the painful contradictions of caregiving in a world that demands productivity over compassion, dignity over the inevitable messiness of death. She invites us to consider how we can better love one another, even in the most difficult circumstances.

Ultimately, Intervals is not just about dying; it is a call to reclaim care from the capitalist systems that distort it. By interweaving personal grief with radical political thought, Brooker challenges us to imagine a world where care and connection are not burdens, but vital parts of a more compassionate society. Thank you, Marianne, for bearing witness and sharing this story. It is truly revolutionary. 

📖 Recommended For: Readers who are drawn to reflective, philosophical prose; those interested in exploring the intersections of care, autonomy, and structural violence; anyone who values radical critiques of capitalism and the medicalization of death; fans of Maggie Nelson, Judith Butler, and Anne Boyer.

🔑 Key Themes: Caregiving under Capitalism, Autonomy and Choice in Death, Grief and Interdependence, Ableism and Austerity, Medicalization and the Funeral Industry, Community Care.

**Please note that while VSED is not considered suicide nor an eating disorder, readers who find this kind of content difficult to engage with may be triggered by Brooker’s mother’s story.