Status Updates From Not Your Child (ká-sióng #5)

the ending line is gripping and is basically the thesis statement of this whole chapbook if it has one: "Why must it be so slow? It was as though she had already travelled twice the distance, such was the difficulty, and yet, at the same time, it felt as though she hadn't made any progress at all."

3.5 ⭐️, great idea but the messy execution left me a bit unsatisfied. might work better as a longer novella.

the narrative of the personal and political is messy, but it is done intentionally in here to evoke the same feelings of rage and frustration towards sexual abuse, and it works hauntingly well. the commentary on the double standards against women in the world of motherhood, in politics, and even in familial hierarchy are scattered in an organized kind of mess.

this is a furious storm of a book. Lâu Tsí-û paints an accurate portrayal of the suffocating frustration of dealing with sexual assault as a societal and legal issue. there is a sense of suffocation under the noise of the crowd in the train and online, both in the narrator's life (grappling with her own experience of sexual abuse as well as her niece's) and the political climate in the book.

after reading the Yeoyu series, i knew i had to continue with other chapbooks by Strangers Press, which is why i picked this book up. Not Your Child is a forest fire: a political assistant deals with the aftermath of her MP's statements on sexual assault of minors, battling the dilemma of empathizing and criticizing the rage of self-righteous netizens.