feliciaclark's reviews
720 reviews

Shocking. Nauseating. Episodic. Stream of consciousness. Vulgar. Raw. Dark. Shattering.

I was afraid to give this 5 stars due to the gutting contents, yet it was so brilliantly written from the mind of teen boy in an adult mental health facility that I couldn’t give it less than 4.75 stars. After every break in paragraph and chapter, you never knew where he was going to wake next. 

“Reality is a funny thing. There are no defenses against it except madness.”

“I guess if some didn’t hurt then others wouldn’t feel good.”

“Time doesn’t heal. It opens old wounds and starts new ones.”

“Knowledge is a painful thing isn’t it.”

It is wild to me how a book written about racism through the eyes James Baldwin can still be so relevant today. I long for a time when this country can read essays like this as historical context to avoid repetition instead of as a way to compare racism’s evolution. Same white people, different excuses. 

“A knowledge of the role [Black] people played and play in American life would reveal more about America to Americans than Americans wish to know.”  <— hence why racists are trying to ban Critical Race Theory 

“God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time.”

Like Gary Paulsen’s “Hatchet,“ this is another story about a young boy who must survive in the wilderness. After a plague begins wiping out Leif’s village, he’s forced to flee in a canoe. Paulsen final book, published after his death, takes us along a journey with no destination except the special place in our hearts.

“Don’t go to a place, go to be—just to be.”

“Maybe there were some things you just had to live.”

A read to get into the depths of fascist leaders of the past and ends with questions we should always ask ourselves before we go to the voting booth. 

This book flipped my female rage upside down. No wonder we’re angry. Damn, this book was good. Good and mad!

Historical research mixed with her own childhood memories, Lois Lowry writes beautiful and heartbreaking poetry about the atrocities of WWII, Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. 

I never stop thinking about her writing once I’ve finished her stories. This was yet another that will stick with me.

A deeper dive into indigenous history, and in particular to the injustices surrounding indigenous land and environmental rights.