Jemisin makes everyone else’s genre-bending look amateur. She builds on what began with The Broken Earth trilogy but where that psychicsThis was FUN.
Jemisin makes everyone else’s genre-bending look amateur. She builds on what began with The Broken Earth trilogy but where that psychics-based magic was rigorously structured and thoroughly explained, this city magic just /is/. The confidence of Jemisin and her characters makes it easy to suspend disbelief as you get hurtled through the art-math-fantasy-sci-fi beauty-chaos-love letter of this book. Not to mention that I’ve never read SFF that could be so accurately and lovingly described as camp, let alone campy anti-colonialism?!
And y’all. The imagery is WILD. An MFA’s wet dream. Roaches on rats carried by pigeons shredding tastykakes. Cuttlefish as an adjective. Multidimensional King Kong with Lenape weaponry. And that’s just one chapter.
Unsubtle and heavy handed, but so is New York. This book is a trip and it fucking rules....more
“Don’t look up and don’t look down, look out.�
I looove a good coming-of-consciousness story! This one is heavily about class consciousness and solida“Don’t look up and don’t look down, look out.�
I looove a good coming-of-consciousness story! This one is heavily about class consciousness and solidarity, and the conditionality of ruling class acceptance. Touches on intergenerational trauma and diaspora, and sprinkles in a healthy criticism of academic institutions. A lot is packed into this little book but it’s not too much; the prose is beautiful and intentional. the gentle repetition of symbols/words/concepts pulls you along easily....more
“Sometimes a community’s experience is so traumatic, it stays rooted in us even generations later. And the later generations continue to rediscover th“Sometimes a community’s experience is so traumatic, it stays rooted in us even generations later. And the later generations continue to rediscover that experience, since it’s still shaping us in ways we might not realize.�
Intergenerational trauma and memory, connecting contemporary racism to anti-Japanese racism in WWII, blood and found family and community, casual queerness� holy shit ...more
This book is sick; it reads like a modern gothic novel. Rly into the use of gothic motifs like sight / being seen / noise / being heard / ghostliness This book is sick; it reads like a modern gothic novel. Rly into the use of gothic motifs like sight / being seen / noise / being heard / ghostliness in classic ways (ex sudden appearances, mirrors, edie’s literal struggle with her own voice, watching Eric work, viewing a subject while painting, etc) and in terms of race + identity (ex hypervisibility + invisibility being two sides of the same coin). Also: isolation + loneliness, doubt + different versions of reality due to things unspoken, performance + costumes, death, violence, locked doors, underlying fear (re: roles, money, the future, the past), the overall concept of something beautiful being fucked underneath and related questions of monstrosity�. There are def more but I think it’s really fuckin cool how these classic motifs are used to explore race / class / womanhood / etc and to satirize the ~american dream~ (gags)
I think just once you should be allowed to give a book six stars and I would choose this one. Everyone should read this but especially if you have eveI think just once you should be allowed to give a book six stars and I would choose this one. Everyone should read this but especially if you have ever identified with the word “diaspora.�
This book asks more questions than it answers: What do home and exile mean in diaspora? Are those states self-imposed? Where does selfhood begin and end in the context of generational memory and/or community? And. How do you forgive yourself for loving someone who is part of and perpetuates a culture that denies your personhood?
I don’t know the answer but I think Mahit has the first step down; no matter how much you care about each other sometimes they are incapable of understanding and leaving is an act of love and preservation for yourself and your ancestors. (“It wouldn’t have been terrible to stay with you. Which is why I didn’t.�) God, desirability as a tool of imperialism is violent and violating. Diaspora is lonely but also feels like rage and heartbreak. This book saw inside my soul and I am ruined
“distant, as desire-choked as she felt: that’s the way we fall, being wanted / that was what felt broken. how she had wanted the world to be / no matter how many times they kissed there was no such thing as safety and no such thing as going home / she’s worth how upset you are / there was nothing of how you loved one another that was clean�
It was a little hard for me to get into at first, with the short paragraphs and the quick shifts in perspectives, but the more yoThis BLEW my mind !!!
It was a little hard for me to get into at first, with the short paragraphs and the quick shifts in perspectives, but the more you read the more natural the dissonance feels. It does not have to be seamless to be cohesive. The sci fi and the fantasy, the rage and the love, the music and the tech, all the superficial contradictions yin and yang into one beautiful masterpiece
Listen to the bartók and eat a donut at the same time, it will all make sense...more
insanely beautifully written, anti-capitalist and anti-tenderqueer and equally self critical, heavy on catholic guholy shit everyone should read this
insanely beautifully written, anti-capitalist and anti-tenderqueer and equally self critical, heavy on catholic guilt but not always as you might expect, made me think a lot about nostalgia and pain and family and fairy tales ...more
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