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mmcloe's reviews
232 reviews
Muscle Memory by Kyle Carrero Lopez
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
"symbolism and personhood / aren't friends"
A very very solid debut with complicated examinations of art, labor, leftism, language, Blackness, queerness, and memory. excited to see how the poet's body of work progresses.
A very very solid debut with complicated examinations of art, labor, leftism, language, Blackness, queerness, and memory. excited to see how the poet's body of work progresses.
Little Foxes Took Up Matches by Katya Kazbek
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Just kept getting better and better and better. My experience with coming of age novels is pretty limited but I absolutely adored how essential Mitya's aging was to the structure and themes of the plot.
Something I particularly admired about this novel was the different ways that Kazbek constructed queerness. Mitya constantly engages with queerness as a fundamentally social and economic phenomenon, mediated through interactions with intersecting friends, family, and authorities. At the same time, queerness is fantastical and futuristic, requiring a dive into mythmaking and aesthetics to make sense of the turmoil in the "real" world. Everyone read asap!
Something I particularly admired about this novel was the different ways that Kazbek constructed queerness. Mitya constantly engages with queerness as a fundamentally social and economic phenomenon, mediated through interactions with intersecting friends, family, and authorities. At the same time, queerness is fantastical and futuristic, requiring a dive into mythmaking and aesthetics to make sense of the turmoil in the "real" world. Everyone read asap!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Rape, Transphobia, and Police brutality
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Very exciting and interesting to read alongside McKittrick. Massively impressive tour through history and trauma and inheritance and identity. I'd love to see follow up stories zooming in on a specific character or two. So much room for expanding.
A lot of reviews note this but this book would be PERFECT to teach in high school - so many jumping off points to engage with history and it's (mis)telling.
A lot of reviews note this but this book would be PERFECT to teach in high school - so many jumping off points to engage with history and it's (mis)telling.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Violence
Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle by Katherine McKittrick
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
An incredibly invaluable and helpful toolkit for thinking through the role of space and place when talking about identity. I'm particularly struck by McKittrick's use of the "garret" as a critique/expansion of the idea of marginalization when talking about Black women. I've always been a little hesitant when referring to people or groups as "marginalized" but was never quite able to put my finger onto the reason why. McKittrick's analysis of how the "margins" aren't quite as far away as we think they are restructured the way I think about power and oppression.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Sexism, and Slavery
When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Oh this was quite lovely.
Very polyphonic examination of the impacts of trauma/violence on the landscapes of rural Spain and postwar Spanish memory. Also an excellent illustration of the fluidity of categories of "natural," "cultural," and "spiritual."
It's really tricky to write about nonhuman nature in a way that avoids athropocentrism but I think Sola does an fairly solid job at depicting nonhuman nature as having its own syntaxes, desires, preconceptions, etc that are entirely separate from humans.
Very polyphonic examination of the impacts of trauma/violence on the landscapes of rural Spain and postwar Spanish memory. Also an excellent illustration of the fluidity of categories of "natural," "cultural," and "spiritual."
It's really tricky to write about nonhuman nature in a way that avoids athropocentrism but I think Sola does an fairly solid job at depicting nonhuman nature as having its own syntaxes, desires, preconceptions, etc that are entirely separate from humans.
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Aw man this was so so so sweet.
So much has been written about how this book talks about queerness as it relates to pregnancy and motherhood but I'm also fascinated by how Peters connects queer time to the process of remembering and misremembering. There's so much flipping back and forth through time (all of it centered around conception, almost like a pregnancy guide book lol) and it demonstrates how the past messily (mis)informs the present which does the same to the future. For all of us, queer people especially, time and community can be so ephemeral, so there's a simultaneous sense of urgency and resignation for the future. This book captures this excellently!
Like Don Delillo, I want Torrey Peters to write a tv show.
So much has been written about how this book talks about queerness as it relates to pregnancy and motherhood but I'm also fascinated by how Peters connects queer time to the process of remembering and misremembering. There's so much flipping back and forth through time (all of it centered around conception, almost like a pregnancy guide book lol) and it demonstrates how the past messily (mis)informs the present which does the same to the future. For all of us, queer people especially, time and community can be so ephemeral, so there's a simultaneous sense of urgency and resignation for the future. This book captures this excellently!
Like Don Delillo, I want Torrey Peters to write a tv show.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, and Transphobia
Minor: Drug use and Miscarriage
Lote by Shola von Reinhold
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
AHHHHHHHHH
I think if you designed a book in a lab to be everything I dreamed of, it would be this book.
Queer archives, aesthetic futurity, modernist commie cults, satire of stuffy academics, gorgeous gorgeous prose - it's all so DECADENT and brilliant and fascinating I want to absolutely devour everything written like this.
In very very good company with the work of Pola Oloixarac and Saidiya Hartman.
I think if you designed a book in a lab to be everything I dreamed of, it would be this book.
Queer archives, aesthetic futurity, modernist commie cults, satire of stuffy academics, gorgeous gorgeous prose - it's all so DECADENT and brilliant and fascinating I want to absolutely devour everything written like this.
In very very good company with the work of Pola Oloixarac and Saidiya Hartman.
The Stories of Breece d'j Pancake by Breece D'j Pancake
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Oh my goodness he was such a brilliant writer. The comparisons to Hemingway are very common and make a lot of sense but I think Pancake's writing is often more comparable to Joyce; focused on how powerful political forces can shape local cultural ecology, centering deeply flawed characters undergoing epiphanies, and immensely playful with regional language and dialect. He also picks apart the brutal seams of white southern masculinity and, in doing so, begins to gesture towards a possibility of relations outside of thus brutality. Appalachia is a deeply complicated and beautiful region with a multitude of histories and cultures all their own. I think these stories capture some slivers of these cultures in a way that is dignified and unornamented.
My favorite stories were:
1. Fox Hunting
2. The Mark
3. Time and Again
4. The Salvation of Me
I'm so so so thankful that we're left with his perfect writing, even if it's only a dozen short stories. I will be returning to this collection yearly for sure.
My favorite stories were:
1. Fox Hunting
2. The Mark
3. Time and Again
4. The Salvation of Me
I'm so so so thankful that we're left with his perfect writing, even if it's only a dozen short stories. I will be returning to this collection yearly for sure.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, and Violence
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I'm a tremendous fan of Silko's short stories ("Tony's Story" in particular) and it's interesting to see her expand upon the themes of her short work in a novel. I'm always thinking about how we read things and have been taught to read things and Silko is a master of reinterpreting events through a lens of Pueblo mythology, ecology, politics, and religion. Reinterpreting and rereading is a necessary first step to the direct work necessary for the abolition of settler colonialism and capitalism.
Her writing is also top notch. Immensely vivid and piercing without being overdone.
Her writing is also top notch. Immensely vivid and piercing without being overdone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Violence
Moderate: Alcohol
Pure Colour by Sheila Heti
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
A bit divided on this one. Many of the reflections on the divine, aesthetics, and silence were all incredibly interesting and reminded me a lot of my experiences with Quakerism. I like the idea of a process-oriented God who we mimic by arguing and creating art. Heti's prose is also lovely and crisp and easy to read.
Much of the novel's framing flew a little to close to self-help literature for my tastes, however. The division of people into three groups (aesthetically minded, structurally minded, interpersonally minded) didn't land for me and seems all too similar to Instagram-level spirituality classes.
Much of the novel's framing flew a little to close to self-help literature for my tastes, however. The division of people into three groups (aesthetically minded, structurally minded, interpersonally minded) didn't land for me and seems all too similar to Instagram-level spirituality classes.