Marina Katague > Recent Status Updates

I can’t like things in a chill way

This is a good first pass, but the best parts are where the white author quotes Black authors. I think it’s good for folks you know who might need to hear these things from a white person to find them palatable. Yet, this is a white lady capitalizing off of racism, both by selling this book and by shilling her diversity trainings in the book. We need Black authors and for them to get paid in this space.

I know this a book for teenage girls but I’m just trying to acquaint myself with some approachable poetry. Also, this was available on my library app.

Ahhhh this book is testing me but it is lovely

This book is really unsettling in the best/worst way. I wanted to finish this today, but it’s given me a lot to sit with. Although not a book of poetry, this book is poetic, and I am probably going to annotate it on another read-through if it continues to impact me in this way.

I’m cry :(

Enjoying this reread.

Brutal but truthful so far. Reading this as an ebook on my phone.

If I had to rate what I’ve read so far, I’d give it two stars. This is pretty elementary which is fine. There are some succinct poems that are still five stars to me, but an equal amount are cringe-worthy and self-serving (i.e., all my critics are underachievers). I don’t like how r.h. Sin profits off telling women they’re enough. If women are gonna be empowered through poetry can we let a woman do it?

The author is a white lady who set out to write a suburban tale about race relations and I'm not loving it. The writing is irritating too. It's a lot of dialogue that people would not naturally be having. Like, here I am at the neighborhood's book club, time to expose my childhood trauma, and have other people respond with theirs too. Weird dialogue, and then a looming foreshadowy sentence at the end of each chapter.

I’m one chapter in and this might be the worst book I have ever read.

Listening on audio.