Zana’s Reviews > Bestiary > Status Update

“We work our hands into the seam-lipped 口, squatting the way we once did when we dug shitholes in her father’s lot, imagining that if we dug deep enough we’d hit water and our shits would float up as islands we’d founded together.”

Istg this HAS to be a fetish novel

“At night, Ben climbs over my mother’s body and nestles her head in my armpit. We kiss until our tongues can’t tell themselves apart. I dream of biting off her nipple, spitting the coin of it back into her palm. Make a wish, I say, while she flings the nipple-coin into her mouth, swallows.”

Just making out with her gf right next to her mom

“When my mother farts in her sleep, I shape the steam with my hands and release it outside as fog.”

😮‍💨

“She kissed me and my bladder almost unzipped itself, eager to empty, to be filled with what she could give me. I reeled the tail up from between my legs and held it between our bellies, both of us grinding hard against it. It hurt, but it was a hurt that harmonized with my hunger, with the hum of my backmost teeth....”

I wanted a queer read for pride. But at what cost??

“Once, I fished with my father. He taught me which ones to throw back: He said if it’s bigger than your dick, butcher it. If it’s not, give it back to the river.

That's it. I'm done with reading for the rest of the day

“My brother and I spent hours killing him in our mind, rehearsing our grief early. We invented so many ways to kill him before he died of his own body. We knew he would be proud of us. With a plastic bag. With a deep fryer. With a blow dryer. With a tree branch. With a tire swing. With a rope and a pantry....”

Casually fantasizing about murdering their grandpa

“We jarred Agong’s shit and brought it to our zhongyi, who looked at it under light and in the dark, who poked it with a straw and smelled it through one nostril and then the other, reading the odor out loud to us. The zhongyi combed it with a salad fork. We weren’t sure what he was looking for. Maybe death could be unburied from his body like a seed and be replanted in someone else.”

I paid for this book

“My brother farted close to Agong’s face, pulling down his pants and posing his butt cheeks next to Agong’s dreaming mouth. Sometimes Agong woke, skin shimmering in sores. Sometimes his nostrils trumpeted open, breathing it all in. I imagined that his body was full of my brother’s farts, and that one day he’d rise from the bed like a balloon we let go of, a balloon butting the moon aside to replace it.”

Award winner

“Ama undressed and curled beside the riverwoman in the mud, soaking in the palm-sweat of night. She lowered her head to the riverwoman’s skin, tilting her tongue into the belly button, lapping out its sour lake of sweat.”

Gross but honestly this is one of the least grossest passages from this book

“Ama pissed and shat and birthed at the same time, baby snakes streaming out of her. The river hooded over her head and she opened her mouth underwater, exhaling snakes. They poured out from her mouth and anus and vagina by the dozens, writhing away from the radius of her belly.”

Jesus Christ