joanofradius's reviews
243 reviews

this book took me a full year to read but it is good enough that I would recommend it to anybody in the venn diagram of being interested in history or cheese, which i’m not sure is super large. the amount of research and interviews and photos in this is a truly phenomenal undertaking!!! it is a little bit boring in some parts but i think that’s because it’s a history book

you know what there were points in this collection where i stopped and was like what is the point of this use of language. sometimes i feel too stupid to read poetry. this is a very strong collection and especially a strong debut which plays well with form and grief and despair. at times the imagery felt deeply kitschy and i kinda felt eh about the audience participation, which felt like one of the weaker aspects of the book. the poet is very sharp it’s just kind of odd to me how much the voice is defined by 90s-00s pop culture nostalgia and touchstones. like it’s sometimes saccharinely nostalgic. good poems but i’ve been trying to read this for at least three months and i’m glad to be done

anne saxelby save me… save me anne saxelby

fr i think this is a rly unique book amongst my many food/cheese books! i really like how strong saxelby’s voice and experiences are and i miss her presence in this world greatly. also it has things to ruminate on about dairy systems and all of that which i’m kind of ehh on and it’s hard to do research on producers when you’re based where i am atm. but mostly good advice :)

it slapped

its very encouraging to see the thoughts of the writer grow and change throughout the book tbh. makes me feel slightly less crazy

temporally locked i think but still very good and very human.

this is good. i think the poems speak to a really specific moment in time for the poet (written 10 years ago!) but i liked this much more than i thought i would. ennui is real. also separately jerrold has really nice eyebrows

books i will think about frequently for the rest of my life

i love you gabriel picolo

i need to go back and bump down the last book bc i think this one was actually better. like i enjoyed it more and the plot twists were fun.