theliteraryteapot's reviews
285 reviews

Michiko Aoyama writes healing literature. A warm, soothing cup of tea after a cold day. I keep her stories close to my heart. I particularly appreciated the very last one.

Thank you to Netgalley and the University of Chicago Press for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review 

This is the first biography of 20th century Algerian artist Baya. Unfortunately, I could not finish the book due to a file issue, which I already tried to fix once but now I lost all access to the book. I could read 14% and I enjoyed this beginning but obviously it's not really much of a review. I had heard of Baya before and it's a shame she has little recognition (the author mentions only her home country, Algeria, celebrates her). So, I'm glad there is finally a written biography so that, hopefully, people will learn a little bit about her and her paintings.

This book has several ingredients that are appealing to me: Icelandic culture, exploring mother/daughter relationship, being a writer. And yet, this is a dnf not even halfway through. I really don't like the writing style. It feels overwritten (was using five synonyms to avoid repeating the word 'dog' in the span of 10 lines really necessary?), although it may be due to an awkward translation. I completely lost track of the timeline (going back and forth between the past and present). Mostly, I found the story boring. And there are too many other books to read, so many I'm quite excited for. Maybe I'll try this book again much later in my life.

This was a delight to read in terms of vocabulary, of musicality, of the author's ability to master and play with the language. It had been quite a while since I had genuinely enjoyed an English-language poetry collection. Jo Clement shows that English may not be such a poor language after all. Which is also the reason why I will definitely come back to Outlandish because I have to admit it was a bit challenging for me. And I'm glad that I read the work of a Romani poetess, a contemporary collection this time.

Thank you to Netgalley and Peachtree for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Compound Fracture is a young adult queer thriller that I really enjoyed as someone who doesn't usually read books in this genre. I've been meaning to read from this author for a while and I'm so glad I finally got the chance. I love the covers of his books and I knew White was the one for me to get out of my comfort zone so I can start diving a bit more in the horror and thriller genres. While this is young adult, the author does not shy away from gruesome elements and, as an adult who studied children's literature, I believe it's great and needed in a literature for young people (as my thesis director would say, kids deserve a “complete literature” meaning every genre and every topic). This is a book that also shows the trans experience (+ autism spectrum and aromanticism) and I am so glad young adults have representation, even when the characters are rather morally grey.

I found myself particularly interested in the Appalachian culture represented in the book. To be quite honest, I didn't know a single thing about it, which is a shame because I studied American literature; we covered a lot but I don't recall any professor ever mentioning it. And not only you can tell the author wrote a love letter to the Appalachian region, but it's also what drew me into picking up the book every day: portraying West Virginia, discussions about politics (it's interesting to see Americans’ relationship to leftist politics and how the Cold War and specifically McCarthyism influenced it), about class, poverty, characters that don't come from a culturally bourgeois background (you don't have to be amongst the rich to grow up in a culturally bourgeois environment, meaning you were privileged if you had access to culture, to literature such as libraries, if you had family encouraging cultural activities, learning an instrument, taking dance classes, if you lived in a city…). These are the type of characters I want to read about now, another example is Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin.

As I believe any good thriller should, this one was quite fast paced but still had moments to catch your breath. Definitely check the trigger warnings! (Lady the dog is fine). I recommend Compound Fracture, especially if this is a new genre to you as the young adult aspect may help you dive into thrillers.

Bury Me Standing is a work of journalism that examines the Roma and their culture, their language, their history and their place in the world. Although not a history book (and not by a historian), I believe this is a crucial piece in order to educate ourselves and to reduce the invisibility the Romani community constantly faces in history, in politics, in culture and media, as well as in diversity and inclusion activist debates and spaces.  As the book was published in 1995 (and as my copy is a French translation published in 2005), we have to bear in mind almost three decades have passed and many things may have evolved. The journalist has mainly travelled to Eastern and Central Europe which means her focus is post-USSR countries. Maybe this is because I'm reading this in 2024, but I think there should have been a preface or a note from either the author or the editor to give a bit of historical context. And I would have appreciated footnotes. But as said before, this is not a history book. From a literature point of view, the author introduced her work with Papusza, a Polish Romani poetess considered as one of the main figures in Roma poetry and Roma literature.

It's hard to review the book without writing a 10 page long essay, so I will say that I recommend it to everyone. Everyone. The writing is accessible. But mainly, this is simply too important. I constantly complain about how no one ever mentions the Romani community: history books barely mentioned them as victims of the genocide during WW2; there is such a lack of representation in fiction (or very negative and tsiganophobic representation); there is an awful lack of recognition of the Roma within activist circles and within diversity/inclusion discourses (when putting together my little diversity reading challenge based on the “history , heritage, awareness” months, there was no official international month dedicated to the Roma so I made it myself, Romani history and heritage month in August, based on the 2nd of August, or Roma Holocaust Memorial Day in Europe); when reading books with Romani characters and antitsiganist stereotypes, I don't see any reviewer saying anything about it. All this to say that I am aware that people may be uneducated about the Roma and obviously it's hard to educate ourselves on everything. But, I have also realised, over the past few years of doing research on the Roma, that many people also simply do not care. As the journalist stated several times, the Roma is the most hated group in all of Europe. I have seen tweets by supposedly ‘woke’/activist mutuals participating into this hatred towards the Romani community. My own family who has Romani ancestry has been struggling for so long with antitsiganist mentalities, even though I know a lot of it comes from generational trauma. Which is something the author highlighted as well: the lack of awareness isn't solely amongst non-Romani people, but within the Romani community too. There is so much said and shown in this book that I could identify within my family. Such as the idea of a tight-knit group (enmeshed family). This idea of family being so very important, which has its good (so much love and solidarity) and its bad (if you leave the group or if you put your individual self above the collective, the group, it will be seen as a betrayal, I have experienced this a lot with my family). It is so prominent and probably the main influence my Romani ancestors had on us.

If I have to be nitpicking, I'm disappointed Ceija Stojka was not mentioned once. She was also a poetess, Austrian Romani, survived the genocide and wrote and painted about her experience, making her an important voice. And, another thing is the lack of talk about the Western European Romani community (thinking of my own country France but specifically Spain) but I understand this was not part of the author's travels. Also it would probably be a whole another book.

Here are two main points I want people to remember because it is absolutely vile for the world, for you, to not care. The 400 years of slavery the Roma have endured. It is never (or barely) talked about. It seems it is not taught in schools nor much studied in universities. The Porajmos, or Holocaust. The nazi did unspeakable things (experiments on both adults and children, forced sterilisation, genocide) to the Roma as well. Yet there is not only a lack of work to remember (these past decades things have changed a bit), but there is also a lack of justice (the author talked about how the Roma weren't even mentioned during the Nuremberg trials...). Let's be clear, this is not the only thing interesting about the Roma, but we do have a duty to remember the slavery and the Porajmos.

Poem on p.81 wtf did I just read??
Just like the anthology of 20th c. Czech poetry I read earlier this year, this one has a poem about the poet or narrator SA'ing a young girl and it brings no criticism whatsoever. I've had enough of these and enough of anthologies of 20th c. poetry only featuring male poets (and their disgusting poems). That's a dnf.

This book has been collecting dust on my bookshelf since 2018 I believe. As much as I'm interested in Scandinavian literature, I realised I don't feel like reading this one, especially after seeing it's actually a six books series. I just don't care for it.