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PictureIcelandic cafe decor. These are color coordinated books that look cool, but the books have been cut away about 3 inches from the spine so that they can be displayed. The bookshelves don't need to be full sized this way, but the books are unreadable.

2025~26. How Far The Light Reaches

6/6/2025

Comments

 
PictureSabrina Imbler. 2024.
I am so enthralled with the very concept of this book in which the author uses her obsession with sea creatures as the basis of these fabulous life stories that use the sea creatures as complex allegories for her life. Even the title, referring to the point in an ocean where the light can no longer penetrate, relates to moments in her life.  As a memoir, it is insightful and tells the story of a unique life of Queerness and mixed-race identity.

I particularly appreciated how the author's experience of trauma and sexual assault were presented in such an unusual and poignant way.  All of this was done in the midst of providing rich details about marine ecosystems and creatures, some of which (like the octopus), we often hear about in other contexts, but some  of which I knew nothing about and found fascinating.  This is just such an unusual set-up and read. 

I highly recommend it.

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2025~21. Somewhere Beyond the Sea

5/18/2025

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PictureTJ Klune. 2024.
I really enjoyed Beyond the Cerulian Sea and so I was disappointed that I did not love this book.  I really don't like being spoon fed morality in my novels and this one left nothing up to interpretation.  The metaphors and symbology were just too obvious and the pionts felt like they were being rammed down my throat at some points.  I obviously think that having trans representation in fiction is important and powerful, but my underlying take away from this book was that only magical beings (read Queer) can take care of magical kids and magical beings can only depend and trust magical beings. I can understand where this mentality comes from, but I just think that there is a lot more nuance than what this books allows for.  I found it pretty depressing, rather than inspiring, and a letdown.  The first book took quite a while to grow on me, but once it did, I was all in.  This one had the benefit of my coming in really excited for it and just progressively getting more and more let down as it went on.

Do not recommend.

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2024~X__ Overcome

12/18/2024

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PictureAmber Van de Bunt. 2021.
This is a fascinating read that certainly is not for everyone. It provides a unique perspective on the sex industry, including the author's time as a dancer and as a porn star.  The emotional abuse she experienced as a child led to physical and sexual abuse as an adult and ongoing mental health and addition issues.  In many ways, the books is self-aware an insightful, while at other times demonstrating the sometimes baffling nature of trauma.  While she never seems to see herself as having been exploited, it is hard not to read that into the story.  In fact, she is defensive of her choice to do sex work and articulates it in many ways as a choice that was empowering. At times she seems oblivious to the toll it took or how it related to the myriad of issues that she had.  Despite its drawbacks, it really is a fairly captivating read with a lot of explicit content--not just the assaults and abuse, but also the sex.  Proceed with caution, but while I can't fully recommend it, I also can't really not recommend it, either.

Not not recommended.

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The Burning Light of Two Stars

10/2/2024

Comments

 
PictureLaura Davis. 2021.
This memoir was written by one of the co-authors of The Courage To Heal, which is perhaps the book that has impacted me the most in my life. Written in 1994 originally, I read this first in 1988 when it was first released and many of the passages framed how I think about child sex abuse.  That book is quite dated now, though sections of it are as relevant to survivors now as it was then.  The Burning Light of Two Stars is the story of the complex relationship between the author and her mother. That complexity is bound up in their experiences of child sex abuse, the mother's failure to protect her, and the work they did, although primarily the author did, to try to find a way to reconnect as adults, if not exactly to repair the relationship.  I found the read insightful and appreciated that it did not suggest that this approach is always or even often possible and that it did not shy away from the pain that reengaging in the relationship caused.  Highly dysfunctional families so often are portrayed in two-dimensional ways that I think harm survivors of abuse.  This book addressed her choice to remain engaged head on in a unique and powerful way.

Recommend.

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2024~49. Surviving God

9/16/2024

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PictureGrace Ji-Sun Kim & Susan Shaw. 2024.
It is particularly difficult to review a book like this when you are friends with the author, but nevertheless I will endeavor to be objective.  This is a niche read.  It is a delicate read about surviving sexual abuse in the context of Christian religion, about healing within the teachings of the church, and about finding meaning in a religious tradition that often seems to turn a deliberately cold and harsh shoulder to survivors. Having not struggled with this issue of situating abuse within a religious tradition, I found it fascinating to read about, while also feeling detached from the experience.  Many times, I just wondering why making such an effort to find love, meaning, and acceptance in a system with such a long and continuing history of abuse is hard for me to relate to, which is, of course, one of the reasons we read--to find understanding of someone else's experience.  I would imagine that for folks teaching about theology, religion, and abuse, and for those who have experience abuse within the church community, this would be a truly impactful read.  For other working with survivors, I think it provides insight into this particular struggle that is not commonly talked about.  I am not sure its appeal would be widespread enough for a recommendation, but I also don't not recommend it at all.

Not not recommended.
​
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2024~39. The Heart's Invisible Furies

8/2/2024

Comments

 
PictureJohn Boyne. 2017.
The author's writing style here is not my favorite, both in terms of what sometimes feels like he is prattling on about things to fill up space, but also because he really likes a subtle cliffhanger.  The book is written in sections that are each 7 years apart, presumably based on the Waldorf or other similar theories about the important of 7-year developmental blocks divided in to 3 parts and an epilogue.  At the end of most (maybe all?) chapters, we are left in the middle of an event, the details of which are abandoned while we jump to the next time period.  I am sure this is meant to have some literary value and for sure all of the loose ends are tied up, but I found it irritating o have so many important facts just left hanging for so long.  It wasn't at all clear we were going to circle back to the dangling pieces and left me feeling hyper-aware of this as a literary tool.  I just found it distracting from the story.

However, given that I didn't love the prose itself and was irritated with the author's literary choices, by about part 3, I found myself very much immersed in the story on a number of levels.  I loved the complexity of the emotions and characters.  I really had to slog my way through the early years, which were a bit pedantic -- with a lot of emphasis on boys in all boy environments obsessed with their bodies and the ways they could use them.  At some point, though, the entire tenor of the book changed and I was quite surprised to find that as the character himself matured, the narrative did, too, until it had something meaningful to say.  

This story arc of a gay man's life in an homophobic world beginning in 1945 and continuing until 2015 was ultimately worthwhile, with insight about what growing up Queer was like and how that shapes a person's experiences and actions.

On a side note, I did not love how it dealt with a side issue of child sex abuse, which was told from the point of view of a woman who experienced abuse as a child and blamed herself in large part.  There was no counterpoint, leaving the narration of the story feeling victim blamey.  But, it was enough of a side issue and, given the context in which the story is told, it undoubtedly reflects how many women in her situation viewed the dynamics of what happened.

Recommend.

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2024~34.  The Pull of the Stars

7/13/2024

Comments

 
PictureEmma Donoghue. 2020.
A story about midwifery in the midst of flu epidemic during WWI, this story was good enough, but I thought it was trying to do much in such a short book.  Queerness, epidemic, how Irish rebels were being treated, maternal death, hospital policy, orphanages, adoption, religious oppression, unmarried mothers, sexism in the workplace, intimate violence, post-war PTSD, and so much more.  I felt like it just wasn't able to delve into any of these in a meaningful way and it took away from what could have been significantly better character development.

​Not recommended.

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2024 ~ 32. To Paradise

7/7/2024

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Picture
Sometimes, a book is just too sophisticated and avant-garde for me.  I started this book twice before I could get past the first 100 pages, plus it took me more than a month to read  The confusion I felt even after reading the beginning three times did not stop there.  After slogging through another 600 pages after that, I remained confused and frustrated with the story on many levels.  First, the main characters in the three different eras are mostly names Charles/Charlie, David, and Edward.  The story starts with an alternative history of the US, the origin of which is the end of the civil war when the South secedes after losing and the West breaks off into its own country.  In this alternative history, racism and classism persist, but homophobia is completely eliminated as prominent men regularly marry each other and take on childrearing, particularly by raising orphans abandoned because of the economic pressures on the poor.  In all three eras, women are relegated to their role as a daughter, sister, (birth) mother, or grandmother.  The book is entirely devoid of strong women, with perhaps one exception at the very end, but she would be considered "strong" in an unconventional way.  Instead, a complicated history unfolds that shows that putting gay men in charge of things does not result in a any better outcome than the mess straight men have made.  

The second section of the book tells another David's backstory growing up in Hawaii, filled with intimate violence and sorrow, and the third section is a dystopian landscape in a future New York under authoritarian rule that comes to power while trying to manage pandemics and natural disasters brought on by climate change.

I spent a lot of time and energy trying to link the three books, thinking that there must be a cohesive family tree I was supposed to be following, but could not.  In reading book summaries after I finished it because I remained so confused (something I almost never do--reading summaries, not getting confused), I think I have finally accepted that the three books were completely independent of each other, other than the tie each story had to a mansion in NYC.  I could have saved myself a lot of intellectual energy if I had realized it was three entirely separate storylines.  I am sure someone more committed to analyzing the books could come up with a lot more themes and B plots that tie it together, but I only caught a couple.  I did find the reuse of the names to be unnecessarily confusing.  

Each of the books were incredibly depressing.  The misery the characters inherit and then create for themselves and those around them is beyond my emotional capacity for the kind of investment this story required.  And yet in many ways the writing, particularly with respect to  character development and the absolutely lovely, detailed descriptions of their misery, was so good that I was sucked into the stories--despite being incredibly confused about who people were and how they related to each other.  As if this wasn't enough, each of the three sections leaves us with a cliffhanger such that I can say that this book at the most unfulfilling ending I can ever remember a book having-- and it had three of them.  I left completely unsatisfied, despite the author having put in an incredible performance in many ways and despite the fact that I invested a lot of intellectual energy trying to keep up with the narrative and figure out what was happening. 

The number of characters alone, many of them introduced quickly at the same time and many of them with the same names, just made this even more complex.  I am all for an intellectual challenge, but I left feeling that I put in a lot of effort only to find that none of that effort actually mattered. Moreover, the story is full of intimate and state violence that was exhausting and was left unresolved and unanalyzed. 

Ultimately, this is one of those books that I feel like I should have loved, but that I ended up feeling like I wasn't intellectually up to the challenge of loving.  

​Do not recommend.
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Comments

2024~24. Under The Whispering Door

4/28/2024

Comments

 
PictureTJ Klune. 2021.
TJ Klune's whimsical writing style is pretty much the only thing I liked about this book.  I mean, that is a lot in favor of a book.  His playful, vibrant storytelling is kind of fabulous.  The way he plays with character development, especially with the layers of sexual orientation and sexuality, is unique and fun.  There is something just so lovely about his writing style.

But, everything else about this book was kind of a mess.  I hated the plot, which was just a variation of show The Good Life, with a kind of purgatory situation where the rules and process are a mystery, but everyone is nevertheless kind of muddling their way through.  I particularly hated that the main character was an awful human who was given a chance to redeem himself by having a change of heart.  In all honesty, it pissed me off that he could be just such a heartless, uncaring jerk for almost his entire life and then he meets really kind and patient people after he dies whose love and care help him transform himself into a totally different person.  It was just so irritating and trite and I just felt like their energy could have been spent on someone more deserving.  There was nothing redeeming about this person that warranted the special treatment he gets.  

Plus the plot just did not hold together and every time there was a particularly large plot hole, something bizarre would happen that made no sense and just made things weirder and made less sense.  It wasn't painful to read, since the writing is so lovely, it just left me feeling disappointed that nothing made sense.

Not recommended.

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

Comments

2024~X9.  All I Love and Know.

4/27/2024

Comments

 
PictureJudith Frank. 2014.
I couldn't stop reading this book. It drew me in on so many levels.  The characters, the plot, the writing...all captivating in their nuance.  The complexity of trying to live a life consistent with hold values while navigating traumatic grief, discrimination, and parenting without role models for how best to do that.  This book feels especially timely again, amidst the renewed conflict in the Middle East and the slow, subtle erosion of protections for Queer parents here at home.  My kid was reading this as part of a college course and I always particularly love getting to share in a story he is reading. Over the two decades I have been parenting, they have been assigned a lot of crappy, problematic literature, so it was a real treat to read something this good.  

Highly recommend.

​

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

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     I'll read anything a friend recommends & I love telling people what I think about it. Every year, I read 50 books recommended by 50 different friends.  Welcome to My 50 Bookish Friends Blog.


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