Lillian > Recent Status Updates

YOOO ONIONS AND LAVENDER CRAZY ITS LIKE AN EGO FACADE OF STINKY! I audibly gasped at the last sentence.

Leman Ypi as lowkey nonbinary and has an ALBANIAN democtatic socialist boyfriend in the 1930s… ugh my dream 3

‘THE DOGS’ CRAZIEST MF CHAPTER WHAT DO YOU MEAAAAAAAN THATS JUST IN THE BAG AND THATS WHERE THEY MEET CUTE WHATTTTTT

josh can attest i audibly gasped twice and that never happens

broooooo is a nazi and pedophile capitalist i cant

I understand Selma and wish she weren't coerced to honor her family.

Ch 4: Turns out the original red pill was the post-wwi economy 3

ch 3 im soooooo selma

I got rejected from my first law school while listening to the audiobook so

Chapter 2 really took me by surprise. The Albanian narrator, Ypi's grandma, is lowkey giving some major non-binary thoughts, which is interesting given Albanians' strict ideas on gender. I had no idea that Pelasgians are mixed with Albanians, or that Thessaloniki has Alb, Greek, Turkish, and Jewish influence! The leech arc, I feel, is Ypi's humor coming into play. I also feel that Selma is the moral lamp post!

With a prologue that nice, I read it twice. Ypi begins her second acclaimed book to a raw, investigative start. I love the repetition of "you're not from here" from Tironasit because I got the same sentiment in Tirana and that sentence is even more ironic because Ypi is born and raised Albanian. There's an intense tension between past and present regime behavior that Ypi explores, which has drawn my attention.

Ch. 22- The Point is To Change It: Albanian dads love hitting their daughters with “what do you know about ____?”

Guys Im shocked tho- “I travelled to Italy on a boat that sailed over thousands of drowned bodies, bodies that once carried souls more hopeful than mine, but who met fates less fortunate. I never returned.” What a sharp way to end a narrative about Albania!

Ch. 21- 1997: you think the dictatorship was bad then u get the government regime change and thats bad and then u get the pyramid schemes and anarchy of 1997 and youre like woah! the worst of times.

Ch. 20- Like The Rest of Europe: ironic how a chapter with this title ends in the Albanian civil war.

Ch. 19- Dont Cry: Appreciate the nuance here within the dad being against the former communist dictator regime but having cried when the World Bank told him to fire the Roma port employees for “economic efficiency.”

Ch. 17- the Crocodile: WESTERN MAN OVERWHELMED BY ALBANIAN CULTURE WHAT DOESNT KILL U MAKES U STRONGER MY GUY what he experienced (hated) in his 40s was me when i was 11 visiting for the first time

The real chapter 16- “its all part of civil society”: really cool reading about how frivolous and exploitative civil society seems from western intervention in a dif country

Ch. 16- I Always Carried a Knife: Lovedddd observing the sexist gender dichotomy between her parents. Her father, the philosophical feminist who refused to do domestic labor, and her mother, who refused solidarity with other women and never saw herself as a victim of patriarchy when she really was, as two complicit pieces. Albanian distrust in institutions disempowered women from collectivization. Wow.

Ch. 14- Competitive Games: the discussion of this chapter with my family led me to know that my family is split between democratic dissidents on my maternal grandparents’ side and staunch communists on my paternal grandparents’ side. unraveling my heritage is what i sought to do w this book so im happy

Ch. 13- Everyone Wants to Leave: Asylum law excluded Albanian immigrants because the regime change apparently meant people were “fine,” but the transition from state econ to private econ led to even more unemployment and extreme poverty. The world looked @ Albs as victims during communism but as animals while refugees. There is no value in the right to exit Albania when there is no right to enter another.

Ch 12- A Letter From Athens: new perspective unlocked by landowners who lost their property in Albania pre-communism and have lives that represent all they lost.

Ch. 11- Grey Socks: “Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek replaced Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels almost overnight”