Ryan Ulen > Recent Status Updates

At Yogananda’s gardens in Encinitas —
I sit on a bench overlooking the ocean. Next to me grow a group of hostas. My feet ground on dirt. I close my eyes and kindle my light. Some time later, I reopen. I sit on a bench overlooking bliss. Next to me grows bliss. My feet ground on bliss. Bliss, bliss, bliss! Hallelujah, life!

The narration and prose is quite nice — but that’s about the extent of praise I’ll offer for this book. The characters are horribly impersonal. I’m not sure if the author is trying to demystify wealthy individuals or not, but regardless, their descriptions are cliched and “cookie-cutter.” Additionally, it’s hard to relate to many of these (unlikeable) characters. Nothing resonates with me.

The best exposé of a suffering Black community I’ve read/watched/consumed. This book needs to be made accessible to as many people as possible.

I have never cried so hard from a book before. In fact, books normally don’t make me cry. But I’m less than 50 pages in and this book is wrecking me

Assigned reading, ch. 1-3

I get what an encyclopedic novel is, but there is nothing more annoying than flipping through a 1000+ page book to define a footnote that, really, is so minor it has significantly little significance.

Also, postmodernism is really confusing.

Also, also, this is the book I incidentally chose to read as a new effort to “wind down” before bed and maintain my mental health through my beginnings college.

Yikes.

“and he ran his hand up and down her body, in an appraising way, like a farmer inspecting land he was about to sell.”

How does stuff like this get published

Taking a break from this because the details are so tragic and I need to be happy for my graduation week