Nella > Recent Status Updates

I am struggling with this book. No matter how many pages I read, the percentage does not increase :( At first, I loved the hard to follow narrative but I am no longer convinced.

Amazing book, incredibly well researched and accessibly written. With many hot takes like:

“It doesn’t occur to him that the reason he doesn’t need Fridays off is not that he’s a better worker than his female co-worker, but rather that, unlike him, she doesn’t have a full-time wife at home.”

“The sea is a different sort of enemy. Unlike the land, where courage and simple will to endure can often see a man through, the struggle against the sea is an act of physical combat, and there is no escape. It is a battle against a tireless enemy in which man never actually wins; the most that he can hope for is not to be defeated.”

This book is heartbreakingly affirming. What makes it a hugely painful read is that, although published in 1994 and written from the perspective of a butch gender non-conforming person in the 1960-70s, so much of what she talks about and experiences are still common for trans/gnc folk now.

"I bought Theresa daffodils. When I handed them to her, her eyes filled with tears. I had a feeling nobody had treated her like someone special before. I silently vowed to always make her feel that way." - What a painfully tender novel, so unapologetically queer, loving and raw.

"With new research showing that pregnancy pushes the body closest to the maximum limit for human endurance, it makes sense that women can return to sport stronger than ever."

"When the US writer Shannon Galpin biked in Afghanistan over forty years later [1990s], she described how being a foreign woman meant she was seen as a 'hybrid gender' or 'an honorary man'." - Fascinating take on travelling solo as a woman in more conservative countries where women's freedom/movement is more strictly controlled.