coolfoolmoon's reviews
313 reviews

Feels like a movie. Extra points for no men. Negative points for the art not being clear. It's very beautiful, but it should've had more color. Maybe that's the artist's style but many moments were hard to differentiate between things like characters and lighting because the color scheme kinda melds together.

First book I've ever annotated. And starting with the first page too. It's mine, I bought it, but at the first poem I knew it was a keeper.

Also I love when Black people!

Also also I love when Black people are inspired by other Black people overseas / in the diaspora. It's like Pan Africanism is alive and breathing.

I had no expectations other than I knew it would fuck me up. Any story about mothers and daughters. Especially women of color! So complex!! Too real!!!

I don't like reviews with quotes from the piece of media but I had to stop reading to make note of this masterpiece and let it simmer for a while: "And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, she still came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born a girl. All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way."

Presents itself as a book about the inner turmoil of being the center of a love triangle, but really it's about the horrors of the American "justice" system and what American prison does to not just a person but the people they love.

I got emotional twice. Twice!!! That's a great feat. That really doesn't happen often. What beautiful writing too. There were several moments I had to gasp, pause the audiobook, pull back the book, and reread the line. My goodness. Wow. The ending lost me a little bit that's why it's not a 4.75 rating but still. Wow!

I liked a lot of the poems, only loved a select few, but it was still very insightful and informative. It's very interesting to see early American authors and poets, even before America itself was a thing, and relate to them.

One of my concerns reading this collection was whether or not it would include diverse poets, poets of color and immigrants, which is does very little. There are at least five Black poets starting from Phyllis Wheatley and ending with Gwendolyn Brooks, at least one Jewish poet, and a handful of poets who were immigrants, although the number dwindles once America is established as a country. I was worried about if racist, slaveholding poets would be included. The poetry collection isn't titled "Great Poems by Great American Women," so I can agree that's my fault for assuming. My thoughts on this is of course swayed by my position in time, because I'm sure when they put this book together they weren't thinking to include that because it was something so commonplace it went without saying, but I especially thought of it because of the brief biographies about the poets before the poems. Most of them include whether or not the woman was married or had children. The fact that that was included is a shining example of the position in time the editor lived in. Anyway, whether or not they were slaveholders is not included, in fact I'd say many of the women were from Northern states, but there are two poets included who's works I purposefully avoided because I learned of their beliefs a few months ago. Charlotte Perkins and her best friend / cousin(?) Grace Ellery Channing were proud eugenicists. The beliefs and actions these women took in their lives, I think, are more important than whether or not they were married and had children. At that point I wondered if other women had similar beliefs, which would sour my opinion of the poems I liked if I found that out. I don't know where this essay is going. I just feel like that information should've been presented. It also gives more context to the type of America those women lived in, even for the women born in the same year but in different places and different religious upbringings and whatnot. Not that this is a history book, but it is there without even trying.

I used to go fishing a lot with my dad and it's not really an experience I would think to write about, so props for making fishing seem exciting on paper. Like it's fun in person but I never would've thought it could be written in a thrilling way too. The odds were stacked against this to be boring, thankfully it wasn't, but it also isn't my cup of tea. It has it's moments.

I didn't read this book. Page after page after page, this book read me.

i love when baby girls are rambunctious vicious monsters. i love when friends to enemies to lovers. i love when monarchies burn. i love when gay people. i love when gay people!!! gay people!!!!!

This is my full review, the paragraph following is just nitpicking: Everything about that boy is gay and autistic and it makes no sense that he isn't. That's it. That's my review. Thanks for reading.

Maybe it's me, maybe I missed something, maybe I gotta give it a reread but I feel like the childhood assault was placed in there randomly at the end. It didn't feel wrong, but it didn't feel right. Not like csa ever could, but there's a time and place, ideally, and this just didn't make as much sense narratively, especially that close to the end. I suppose one could argue real life is full of surprises and the book is supposed to depict that, but to that I say bullshit. Little moments here and there about his auntie, alright, but it's a very touchy subject and I don't think it got the respect and conversation it deserved. So, negative points.

Sea racism. Discriminocean, if you will.

I could hear Ariel in Halle's voice so bonus points for that.

Not a book I would buy but it's something cute for the kids with a Black girl on the cover so, once again, bonus points.

In every Disney iteration of The Little Mermaid King Triton is just a stubborn man who never ever listens to his daughters even after it's too late!

Now, a few questions. At one point someone is told to run. Run. Not swim. Run. Why? I get it if there's no equivalent like walking is to running as swimming is to _____. But run??? I had to make a note of that.

How does one tell the difference between drool and ocean water? 

Who at Disney has something against people with U names? They're already an underrepresented group, give them a break!

I've noticed a growing trend of Disney's, and other media's, push against monarchy and into democracy. Which is fine, except princess-ship is literally Disney's brand. What's up with that???

Okay I'm done. For now.