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the magic system and its ties to religion are well-developed but the writing feels like incurious telling and i have realised i despise the trope of 'i am a white woman and you are a man of color and therefore we are both outsiders who can bond through that marginalisation' i actually think sciona being courageous and respectable doesnt preclude me from hating her guts

reading this while love is going up in smoke and i feel profoundly alone / defeated but also incredibly flat / detached has been an insane experience. this + bibliophobia (one which compresses & the other which dilutes time) in williamstown, a place where he says i feel both past and present and thats why time feels so syrupy & liquid, was fucking insane

realising smth i dislike adamantly abt rfk's writing is this painful self-consciousness and effort to (1) display rather than share / invite into the knowledge she's acquired (even abt smth as non-pretentious as mountain climbing); (2) address common criticisms through verbal gymnastics and discourse w/o curing the fundamentals (obsession w academic elitism & status disguised as intellectualism)

immediate mild irritation at the unnatural britishification of an american and how much of the way it's written is clear 'pride in having gone to oxbridge And having awareness that academia is sordid'

but if you vow to go through it head empty no thoughts it is so far enjoyable the premise is funny

currently being scolded by tiffany bc so far i dont like it 😭

i dont know enough stem OR history to understand this book as well as i should

first page is great i got too overwhelmed to keep reading i'll need to do this slowly i've been looking forward to this for so long

can italian women ever catch a break

added this to the favorites shelf as soon as i saw the hand-drawn map

im confused where is this book going and is it an autism diagnosis

tbh ive never read plath so i am missing the bulk of this book i think but sometimes yu has these extraordinarily articulated nuggets of insight abt young womanhood, humanities education, loneliness/abjection & smth abt erotic artistic collaboration BUT then she'll insert like a "do you speak english" level of reflection on racism & the bubble bursts

13 pages in and we already have a ching chong slant eyes childhood recollection. i know that i lived a blessed life growing up among mostly asian americans but it is always harrowing to recall that literally every other east asian in diaspora has a story like that and that it was deeply and memorably abjecting

an incredibly strong contender for my Most Mother (Negative) of my Mothers (Negative) gr shelf. zhenia and irina are both lowk insane but i get them

a slog unfortunately and extremely trope-y.. the unpassing obv doesnt have the same historical angle (taiwan vs brunei origins) but it does some of the immigrate-to-a-cold-ass-working-class-town-battling-the-elements stuff more originally

"You wear me like a jewel upon your finger, Casiopea," he said and offered her his arm with a practiced aloofness. She took it, her hand careful as she touched his sleeve.

nvm im invested now

at some point we've got to retire the ancient all-knowing serious handsome omnipotent god meets spunky normal female mortal and they fall in love trope . but the descriptions of the mexican cities and towns and landscape are very nice

finally some good satire

v strong characterization of the moms but remi and destiny and the boys all seem a bit caricaturish so far

still engrossed... feels v much like a primer on class and religion and colonization in uganda and the author seems to doubt her audience's familiarity w the subject matter or ability to pick it up w/o being told it straight which is fair.. but she also maintains the mythology/language at a fairly detailed level w/o too much exposition which is also great

engrossing i am Sat

bro this french man's gonna die and i hope it happens before he makes me feel sympathy for the french (this is a joke. im already attached to him despite the troubled colonial scaffolding of his character)

the prose was gorgeous at first but then when 'ouroborosed' appeared i was filled with fear for the rest

i thought this would be funny

lowk a little scary like i've been saying this deer's vibes are Rancid. it's a behemothic grieving, accusatory mother-satan-virgin mary amalgamation and it's Ugly

made me make a whole new goodreads shelf... anyway bc im dumb i was enjoying the nature interludes btwn the whole stalking your 85yo mother thing but wasnt sure what was going on until johanna goes 'im going back to my mother, the forest, where i've made my nest' and i went what the FUCK. anyway cannot believe i hadn't heard of this book before now its compelling and sharp and sometimes a bit too pristine but oh well

this book is literally if four treasures of the sky slayed... ppl w a more Adult understanding of daoism & the history of chns philosophy + chns american labor mvts may not be impressed but I, Ignoramus, Am Personally Captivated. although unfortunately i did predict the ending within the first 10pg (& then flipped to the back to check bc four treasures of the sky did scar me emotionally)