Angie > Recent Status Updates

Having to do a lot of Googling so far. Not sure who the audience for this book is. For example, why are the Brethren (a Bedouin zealot movement) avoiding people who visit Kuwait? I’m just supposed to know this.

I’m starting to get a little irritated. When she complains that her mother buys her sister a wedding dress that cost several thousand dollars, but displays no interest in the author’s dress, it starts to get a little privilege-y, but with an attempt at disguise.

I love the metafictional, therapeutic aspect. Her mom telling her what to write. But I also love the language: “the sun might give you life, but the moon read your heart.”

She was so precient.

I haven’t put it down since I picked it up.

Look, I’m in a bad place right now, and I need something light and fun, with absolutely no literary value.

So I’m 40% of the way into this book and literally nothing has happened other than people glaring at each other.

Despite her lack of formal training, Chavez has some good oral interview skills. But what’s most important is that she has a knack for inserting the right contextual information for us foreigners in a way that is not disruptive, and in fact enhances the interview.

It’s interesting that so many myths must have come from the same ancient culture. In Kinjgseq (a Greenlander story), a man journeys to the underworld and must not eat fruit, or he will never return.

I have concerns about the providence of the writing. Were these translated? If so, it was done in a racist manner. I have doubts these were transcriptions of oral retellings. This is not how anyone would speak. For example, p 112 “so he knows she’s okay and he leaves.” Great. Fine. The “author” knows how to conjugate the present tense. Next sentence “before he go he burn bodies up.” Now no conjugation?

I don’t understand what the words are doing in some of these. Were they translated? If not, some editing might have been useful. Or notes. Or anything helpful from the editor.

“One person said he saw a mood of Owl Old Man cause a snowy owl out of a clump of snow.” (P74)

What am I to make of this sentence?

I. Will. Finish. This. Book.

I can see why this book hasn’t been reviewed yet.