Rachel > Recent Status Updates

Quoting Eloi Coly, curator of the House of Slaves in Senegal: “History is written by the perpetrators.”

About Angola Prison in Louisiana: “If in Germany today there were a prison built on top of a former concentration camp, and that prison disproportionately incarcerated Jewish people, it would rightly provoke outrage throughout the world.”

Focusing on people who escaped slavery, like Douglass and Tubman, “is part of the insidiousness of white supremacy; it illuminates the exceptional in order to implicitly blame those who cannot, in the most brutal circumstances, attain superhuman heights.”

“The thought back of the act was to set down essential truth rather than fact of detail, which is so often misleading.”

I am not enjoying this 🤗

Descriptor of a scientist who did a particular crackpot experiment: “(Nobel Prize-winning, but not for this)”

Astonishing level of infodump in the introduction. Truly breathtaking loogie in the face of all writing advice.

“…[T]he perfect crime isn’t the one you get away with.
“The perfect crime is the one they thank you for.”

Gotta give him credit: I did not expect the Peter Jackson/Steven Spielberg scene to go that way

First spot I noticed Vida use “we” in the past narrative (as the doctor is preparing to send Isabelle away)

Madame & the Map: a Journey in Five Movements
I liked this one—there were confusing parts, but I think they would become clearer on a second reading. (I’m not sure why the Nathan Bedford Forrest thread was there, though.)

Shanequa’s Blues—Or Another Shotgun Lullaby:
Mopti!!!

310 Lucy:
Hmm.

Who Needs the Stars If the Full Moon Loves You?:
An interesting metaphor about grief

The Dragon Can’t Dance:
I’d watch this as a movie!

The Parts That Make Us Monsters:
Huh.

Head Static:
This is the story that best matches the feel of the cover art (so far)

Child’s Play:
Now THAT was a good twist!

Stars Come Down:
Intriguing

River Clap Your Hands:
🧜🏽‍♀️👍🏽

Nightflight:
I was excited about Nelse as a character, but then the story wasn’t very good
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Aunt Dissy’s Policy Dream Book:
I like Cassie.

Thirteen Year Long Song:
[spoiler] I approve of the giant cicada! A happy ending.

1. Ancestries
Now that I’ve read it twice, I’m pretty confident: the twist doesn’t make sense. I like the post-apocalyptic sketch of world building, but the plot did not build to the reveal.

“Don’t look at me like it’s my fault. I’m just telling you shit I know.”

I’m such a square that it REALLY bothers me that Aiden doesn’t just get kicked off the team

Is my favorite character…Seiji’s dad?

“The hippies and the wasicu longhairs who come here, they don’t get that part, that our people are sacred too, not just the land and the water.”

Taking back my snark about Carhenge because HELL YES IT’S CASA BONITA TIME