souplover2001's reviews
263 reviews

idk i never read poetry books/collections all in one go and i think that marking them as "currently reading" when in reality, i read a couple in one sitting and get around to reading the rest of the poems in the book at another date feels a lil silly and not a good way to record books. i shall just mark them as read once i've actually read the book

have very mild feelings towards the main romance but i enjoyed the way everything came together in the end and the focus on friendships!! recognized parts of myself in harriet that i haven't with other emily henry mcs that i found to be a pleasant surprise

also shoutout julia whelan bcos i tried reading the ebook a couple months ago and found it hard to get through but her narration is always so good and entertaining!!

love stories about siblings and seeing the neighbourhoods and communities i grew up around in literature. feels both new and familiar – will get around to watching the movie soon!!

overall enjoyable + loved "staying awake while we read" + realized i am less inclined to borrow physical copies of books from libraries bcos i am always inclined to annotate them and keep them forever get sad when i can't :(

have lots of thoughts regarding this book that i will need to parse through, but for the most part i enjoyed it! unsure of how much i actually learned since it was very introductory and presented ideas i was already familiar with but it did leave me with good questions to reflect on like "how can i continue the practice of being an accomplice feminist?" and also "how can i take all the things i do learn in the books i read about feminism, politics, etc. and apply it to my communities? what actionable items can i take?"

i love lesbians and i love queer memoirs and how they are almost always stories about hope which i also love and i love queer people who are religious i think they understand God better than anyone else. 

while i do not consider myself to be as religious as her, nor am i muslim, i found there to be many moments when reading that i found my experiences with both my own faith and queerness mirrored but none moreso than early on in the book when lamya comes out for the first time and afterward says "i pray that night for God to help me, like He helped Musa, in all that will follow this moment. this moment of receiving this miracle, my miracle, from God" 😭😭her miracle from God😭😭 and mine too😭 i think being bisexual and able to tell people that and living a happy queer life is one of the best wonders of my life and i am grateful everyday for this blessing!

despite how many books i read that are similar, i am always so struck by an author's skill and, more importantly, their vulnerability to weave such poignant and informative pieces about bigger political issues with the experiences they go through in their own lives. this is a feat elliott executes beautifully!!

while all good, i found the strongest essays to be in the second half of the book and plan on revisiting "34 grams per dose," "boundaries like bruises," "on forbidden rooms and intentional forgetting," "not your noble savage," and "sontag, in snapshots."

in the same way that book dedications have a special place in my heart, so do book acknowledgements and i quite enjoyed reading the ones here. nya:wen to u too, alicia elliott!

"to survive by loving each other means to love our ancestors too. to know their pain, struggles, and joys. it means to live our collective memory, who we are, where we come from."

will write a more comprehensive review after work but wow!

hold at library lapsed, will revisit !

laura marling lyric quoted in this yeah.... love is not the answer but the line that marks the start!