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mmcloe's reviews
232 reviews
Água Viva by Clarice Lispector
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
"I know a he who shivers in horror before flowers - he thinks that flowers are hauntingly delicate like a sigh of nobody in the dark"
Simply one of the best pieces of art ever put together. I try to reread this every year and every year I find something new and startling.
Simply one of the best pieces of art ever put together. I try to reread this every year and every year I find something new and startling.
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Absolutely astonishing understanding of the archives and history and aesthetics and radical optimism. Hartman is the most exciting scholar writing right now and the combination of her prose talents and the depth of her research (evidenced by the hundreds of footnotes) is unmatched in any genre.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, and Slavery
Mona by Pola Oloixarac
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Incantatory, lyric, starkly theoretical while inescapably personal
An absolutely startling novel that explores and revels in the way discourse and narratives can maim and summon and transfigure
2023 Reread: Paid a lot more attention this time to how fleshy and bloody and tangible Oloixarac's bodies are in this novel, especially that of Mona's. The way that the contours and colors of the body reference and reflect the aesthetic and philosophical turns throughout the novel are really fascinating and an excellent illumination of the ways in which our bodies reflect our experiences and ideas.
An absolutely startling novel that explores and revels in the way discourse and narratives can maim and summon and transfigure
2023 Reread: Paid a lot more attention this time to how fleshy and bloody and tangible Oloixarac's bodies are in this novel, especially that of Mona's. The way that the contours and colors of the body reference and reflect the aesthetic and philosophical turns throughout the novel are really fascinating and an excellent illumination of the ways in which our bodies reflect our experiences and ideas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
Minor: Fatphobia
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka
challenging
funny
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
My knowledge of contemporary Nigerian politics is incredibly limited, so much of the specific satirical aspects went way over my head. Nevertheless, this was a knotty and lyrical exploration of the ways in which neoliberalism works with religious and medical institutions to control people's physical bodies.