Alisa's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:17:25 -0700 60 Alisa's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Rejection 199635125
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet.

In “The Feminist,� a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics� spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,� a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection.

These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.]]> 272 Tony Tulathimutte 0063337878 Alisa 3 3.87 2024 Rejection
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves:
review:
Bizarre, sexual, lonely stories about rejection. Some of them worked better than others for me. The collection is more fun if you’re into internet culture.
]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Alisa 4 3.87 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves:
review:
Well-illustrated characters contemplate love & loss. Depression figures heavily.
]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Alisa 5 3.52 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves:
review:
A genre I would like more of: weird, literary, and bisexual novel re: midlife & perimenopause. Highly recommended if you’re into that sort of thing.
]]> Sucker Punch: Essays 211003937 The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today.

Scaachi Koul’s first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she’d be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents. Instead, the Covid pandemic hit, the world went into lockdown, Scaachi’s marriage fell apart, she lost her job, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her signature humor and fierce intelligence to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she’s had—with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself—all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it's better to walk away.]]> 272 Scaachi Koul 1250270502 Alisa 3 4.04 2025 Sucker Punch: Essays
author: Scaachi Koul
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves:
review:

]]> Martyr! 139400713 A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Alisa 0 currently-reading 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Nevada 58837536 A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction finally back in print, Nevada follows a disaffected trans woman as she embarks on a cross-country road trip.

Maria Griffiths is almost thirty and works at a used bookstore in New York City while trying to stay true to her punk values. She's in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph. She takes random pills and drinks more than is good for her, but doesn't inject anything except, when she remembers, estrogen, because she's trans. Everything is mostly fine until Maria and Steph break up, sending Maria into a tailspin, and then onto a cross-country trek in the car she steals from Steph. She ends up in the backwater town of Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who is probably but not certainly trans, and who reminds Maria of her younger self. As Maria finds herself in the awkward position of trans role model, she realizes that she could become James's savior—or his downfall.

One of the most beloved cult novels of our time and a landmark of trans literature, Imogen Binnie's Nevada is a blistering, heartfelt, and evergreen coming-of-age story, and a punk-smeared excavation of marginalized life under capitalism. Guided by an instantly memorable, terminally self-aware protagonist—and back in print featuring a new afterword by the author�Nevada is the great American road novel flipped on its head for a new generation.]]> 290 Imogen Binnie 0374606617 Alisa 4 3.93 2013 Nevada
author: Imogen Binnie
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir]]> 198137139 A queer Syrian refugee reckons with a life spent out of place.

“Writing this memoir is a betrayal.� So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he’d rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to.

Starting with his family’s humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing to the city’s underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria’s LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that’s not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love.

What emerges is a powerful refutation of the oversimplified refugee narrative—a book that holds space for joy alongside sorrow, for nuance and complicated ambivalences. Written with fearless intimacy, Crooked Teeth is a singular achievement in which a master storyteller learns that his greatest story is his own.]]> 296 Danny Ramadan 0735242224 Alisa 5 4.58 2024 Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir
author: Danny Ramadan
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves:
review:
Gripping, funny, immersive, touching. Thanks to the author for writing it.
]]> The Message 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk� city of “old traditions and new machinery,� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 Alisa 5 4.51 2024 The Message
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life]]> 50887097 A wondrous debut from an extraordinary new voice in nonfiction, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and—possibly—even murder.

David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.

Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.

When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool�a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.

Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist reads like a fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.]]> 225 Lulu Miller Alisa 5 4.15 2020 Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
author: Lulu Miller
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:
The book is hard to describe—philosophy, science, and memoir all together. I learned a lot about the history of eugenics! :) And loved the love story. A great book.
]]> Trust 58210933 An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz 0593420314 Alisa 0 to-read 3.77 2022 Trust
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America]]> 52274929 From New York Times bestselling author Sarah Kendzior comes the bitingly honest examination of the erosion of American liberty and the calculated rise to power of Donald Trump.

The rise of Donald Trump may have shocked Americans, but it should not have surprised them. His anti-democratic movement is the culmination of a decades-long breakdown of U.S. institutions. The same blindness to U.S. decline � particularly the loss of economic stability for the majority of the population and opportunity-hoarding by the few � is reflected in an unwillingness to accept that authoritarianism can indeed thrive in the so-called “home of the free�.

As Americans struggle to reconcile the gulf between a flagrant aspiring autocrat and the democratic precepts they had been told were sacred and immutable, the inherent fragility of American democracy has been revealed. Hiding in Plain Sight exposes this continual loss of freedom, the rise of consolidated corruption, and the secrets behind a burgeoning autocratic United States that have been hiding in plain sight for decades. In Kendzior’s signature and celebrated style, she expertly outlines Trump’s meteoric rise from the 1980s until today, interlinking key moments of his life with the degradation of the American political system and the continual erosion of our civil liberties by foreign powers.

Kendzior also offers a never-before-seen look at her personal life and her lifelong tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time � living in New York through 9/11 and in St. Louis during the Ferguson uprising, and researching media and authoritarianism when Trump emerged using the same tactics as the post-Soviet dictatorships she had long studied.

Hiding in Plain Sight is about confronting injustice � an often agonizing process, but an honest and necessary one � as the only way that offers the possibility of ending it.

]]> 320 Sarah Kendzior Alisa 0 to-read 4.42 2020 Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America
author: Sarah Kendzior
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century]]> 33917107
On November 9th, millions of Americans woke up to the impossible: the election of Donald Trump as president. Against all predictions, one of the most-disliked presidential candidates in history had swept the electoral college, elevating a man with open contempt for democratic norms and institutions to the height of power.

Timothy Snyder is one of the most celebrated historians of the Holocaust. In his books Bloodlands and Black Earth, he has carefully dissected the events and values that enabled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the execution of their catastrophic policies. With Twenty Lessons, Snyder draws from the darkest hours of the twentieth century to provide hope for the twenty-first. As he writes, “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism and communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.�

Twenty Lessons is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.]]> 127 Timothy Snyder 0804190119 Alisa 0 to-read 4.24 2017 On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
author: Timothy Snyder
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Alisa 4 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves:
review:
Very entertaining novel set in a land of video games. I didn’t feel like it changed my life but it was fun to read. Gamers will enjoy.
]]> The School for Good Mothers 57846320 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781982156121 can be found here.

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents� sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.

Until Frida has a horrible day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida � ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers � that she can learn to be good.

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect� upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan Alisa 4 3.51 2022 The School for Good Mothers
author: Jessamine Chan
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:
Dystopian meditation on the impossible standards of motherhood. Gripping, not as subtle as I would have liked.
]]> <![CDATA[The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters]]> 37424706 A transformative exploration of the power, purpose, and benefits of gatherings in our lives: at work, at school, at home and beyond.

Every day we find ourselves in gatherings, Priya Parker says in The Art of Gathering. If we can understand what makes these gatherings effective and memorable, then we can reframe and redirect them to benefit everyone, host and guest alike. Parker defines a gathering as three or more people who come together for a specific purpose. When we understand why we gather, she says -- to acknowledge, to learn, to challenge, to change -- we learn how to organize gatherings that are relevant and memorable: from an effective business meeting to a thought-provoking conference; from a joyful wedding to a unifying family dinner. Drawing on her experience as a strategic facilitator who's worked with such organizations as the World Economic Forum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the retail company Fresh, Parker explains how ordinary people can create remarkable occasions, large and small. In dozens of fascinating examples, she breaks down the alchemy of these experiences to show what goes into the good ones and demonstrates how we can learn to incorporate those elements into all of our gatherings. The result is a book that's both journey and guide, full of big ideas with real-world applications that will change the way you look at a business meeting, a parent-teacher conference, and a backyard barbecue.]]> 304 Priya Parker 1594634920 Alisa 5 3.95 2018 The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
author: Priya Parker
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves:
review:
A quick read with many thoughtful tips about how to gather people in a memorable and purposeful way.
]]> <![CDATA[The Metamorphosis and Other Stories]]> 7723 The Metamorphosis,� a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature.

Bringing together some of Kafka’s finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author’s artistry. �The Judgment,� which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and �The Stoker,� which became the first chapter of his novel Amerika, are here included. These two, along with �The Metamorphosis,� form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as “The Sons,� and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family.

Also included are �In the Penal Colony,� a story of a torture machine and its operators and victims, and �A Hunger Artist,� about the absurdity of an artist trying to communicate with a misunderstanding public. Kafka’s lucid, succinct writing chronicles the labyrinthine complexities, the futility-laden horror, and the stifling oppressiveness that permeate his vision of modern life.]]> 224 Franz Kafka 1593080298 Alisa 4 4.08 1915 The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
author: Franz Kafka
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1915
rating: 4
read at: 2011/06/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:
I had never read the Metamorphosis!...and I must say that I don't quite understand what all the fuss is about? I mean I very much enjoyed the story, but the ending doesn't really pull it together for me (a critique Kafka leveled at himself as well, he wasn't a big fan of that story either). Perhaps it was because I was reading it in a tent in a rainstorm but I wished for a little less gloom in general in these stories.
]]> Chain-Gang All-Stars 61190770
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.]]> 367 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 0593317335 Alisa 4 4.13 2023 Chain-Gang All-Stars
author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/12
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
review:
I cried a few times reading this book. The intensity of the violence makes it hard to put down and also hard to stomach. Read it anyway if you’d like an abolitionist look at the criminal punishment system that features incarcerated people as full humans�.who are forced to fight each other to the death. I think this will probably be made into a movie.
]]> What Are You Going Through 51152434
A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences. The narrator orchestrates this chorus of voices for the most part as a passive listener, until one of them makes an extraordinary request, drawing her into an intense and transformative experience of her own.

In What Are You Going Through, Nunez brings wisdom, humor, and insight to a novel about human connection and the changing nature of relationships in our times. A surprising story about empathy and the unusual ways one person can help another through hardship, her book offers a moving and provocative portrait of the way we live now.]]> 210 Sigrid Nunez 0593191412 Alisa 3 3.73 2020 What Are You Going Through
author: Sigrid Nunez
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/02
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves:
review:
Perhaps the first audiobook I have listened to all the way through. The rambling, low plot format lent itself well to a rambling weekend; I found the mood to be dark, but certainly well-constructed. For me the pieces of plot didn’t all fit together well.
]]> Afterparties 51733706 Afterparties offers an expansive portrait of the lives of Cambodian-Americans. As the children of refugees carve out radical new paths for themselves in California, they shoulder the inherited weight of the Khmer Rouge genocide and grapple with the complexities of race, sexuality, friendship, and family.

A high school badminton coach and failing grocery store owner tries to relive his glory days by beating a rising star teenage player. Two drunken brothers attend a wedding afterparty and hatch a plan to expose their shady uncle’s snubbing of the bride and groom. A queer love affair sparks between an older tech entrepreneur trying to launch a “safe space� app and a disillusioned young teacher obsessed with Moby-Dick. And in the sweeping final story, a nine-year-old child learns that his mother survived a racist school shooter.

With nuanced emotional precision, gritty humor, and compassionate insight into the intimacy of queer and immigrant communities, the stories in Afterparties deliver an explosive introduction to the work of Anthony Veasna So.]]> 272 Anthony Veasna So 0063049910 Alisa 4 3.94 2021 Afterparties
author: Anthony Veasna So
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/08
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World]]> 138505710
Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us―and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror.

Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now―and an intellectual adventure story for our times.]]> 416 Naomi Klein 0374610320 Alisa 3 4.21 2023 Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
author: Naomi Klein
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/10
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves:
review:
Listened to (most of) this book on audiobook. Interesting reflections on the rabbit hole that people have fallen down in US politics.
]]> <![CDATA[Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change]]> 58782831 From the acclaimed author of Like a Mother comes a reflection on the state of caregiving in America, and an exploration of mothering as a means of social change.

The Covid-19 pandemic shed fresh light on a long-overlooked truth: mothering is among the only essential work humans do. In response to the increasing weight placed on mothers and caregivers—and the lack of a social safety net to support them—writer Angela Garbes found herself pondering a vital question: How, under our current circumstances that leave us lonely, exhausted, and financially strained, might we demand more from American family life?

In Essential Labor, Garbes explores assumptions about care, work, and deservedness, offering a deeply personal and rigorously reported look at what mothering is, and can be. A first-generation Filipino-American, Garbes shares the perspective of her family's complicated relationship to care work, placing mothering in a global context—the invisible economic engine that has been historically demanded of women of color.

Garbes contends that while the labor of raising children is devalued in America, the act of mothering offers the radical potential to create a more equitable society. In Essential Labor, Garbes reframes the physically and mentally draining work of meeting a child's bodily and emotional needs as opportunities to find meaning, to nurture a deeper sense of self, pleasure, and belonging. This is highly skilled labor, work that impacts society at its most foundational level.

Part galvanizing manifesto, part poignant narrative, Essential Labor is a beautifully rendered reflection on care that reminds us of the irrefutable power and beauty of mothering.]]> 256 Angela Garbes 0062937367 Alisa 4 3.80 2022 Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change
author: Angela Garbes
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/11
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy]]> 77920745 WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTION

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Economist, Time, The New Republic, and the Financial Times.

Immersive and gripping, an intimate story of a deadly accident outside Jerusalem that unravels a tangle of lives, loves, enmities, and histories over the course of one revealing, heartbreaking day.

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed’s quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge.

In A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Nathan Thrall—hailed for his “severe allergy to conventional wisdom� (Time)—offers an indelibly human portrait of the struggle over Israel/Palestine and a new understanding of the tragic history and reality of one of the most contested places on earth.]]> 272 Nathan Thrall 1250854970 Alisa 0 to-read 4.33 2023 A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy
author: Nathan Thrall
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Bandit Queens 61065982
But she soon discovers that being known as a "self-made" widow has some surprising perks. No one messes with her, no one threatens her, and no one tries to control (ahem, marry) her. It's even been good for her business; no one wants to risk getting on her bad side by not buying her jewelry.

Freedom must look good on Geeta, because other women in the village have started asking for her help to get rid of their own no-good husbands...but not all of them are asking nicely.

Now that Geeta's fearsome reputation has become a double-edged sword, she must decide how far to go to protect it, along with the life she's built. Because even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry.]]> 342 Parini Shroff 059349895X Alisa 4 3.90 2023 The Bandit Queens
author: Parini Shroff
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/22
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves:
review:
I read it on a beach and it had beach reading vibes—a little bit frothy. The plot was dramatic and compelling, if triggering at times (trigger warning for sexual assault). I felt like I learned some facts about the area of the world where the characters were located (Gurjurat, India)—the author made sure to explain quite a bit for a western audience. That could be heavy-handed at times, and I am not from India so I am not sure how the explanation and portrayal would land for someone from there. The book rollicked through murder, domestic violence, poverty and corruption. At times the tone felt light for the subject matter. Overall, very entertaining, was probably 3.5 stars for me.
]]> <![CDATA[Advocating for Palestine in Canada: Histories, Movements, Action]]> 61862892 solidarity activism is on the rise in Canada and Canadians are more aware of the issues than ever before. Palestine solidarity activists are also under siege as never before. The movement advocating for Palestinian rights is forced to contend with relentless political condemnation, media blackouts, administrative roadblocks, coordinated smear campaigns, individual threats, legal intimidation and institutional silencing. Through this book and the experiences of the contributing authors in it, many seasoned veterans of the movement, Advocating for Palestine in Canada offers an indispensable and often first-hand view into the complex social and historical forces at work in one of our era’s most urgent debates, and one which could determine the course of what it means to be Canadian going forward.]]> 224 Emily Regan Wills 1773634763 Alisa 0 to-read 4.26 Advocating for Palestine in Canada: Histories, Movements, Action
author: Emily Regan Wills
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hundred Years� War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917�2017]]> 41812831
In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.� Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective.

Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process.

Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.]]> 336 Rashid Khalidi 1627798552 Alisa 0 currently-reading 4.50 2020 The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917–2017
author: Rashid Khalidi
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> We Do What We Do in the Dark 58735038 A novel about a young woman's life-altering affair with a much older, married woman.

Mallory is a freshman in college, reeling from her mother's recent death, when she encounters the woman. She sees her for the first time at the university's gym, immediately entranced. Soon, they meet, drawn by an electric tension and shared past wounds; before long, they begin sleeping together in secret. Self-possessed, successful, brilliant, and aloof--the woman is everything Mallory wants...and wants to be. Desiring not only the woman but also the idea of who she is when they're together, Mallory retreats from the rest of the world, solidifying a sense of aloneness that has both haunted and soothed her since childhood and will continue to do so for years even after the affair ends. As an adult, Mallory must decide whether to stay safely in isolation or step fully into the world, to confront what the woman meant to her and how their relationship shaped her, for better or worse.

Mallory's life is transformed by loss and by love and by discovering who she is while enduring both. In this enthralling debut novel, the complexities of influence, obsession, and admiration reveal how desire and its consequences can alter the trajectory of someone's life.
]]> 224 Michelle Hart 0593329678 Alisa 3 3.53 2022 We Do What We Do in the Dark
author: Michelle Hart
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/05
date added: 2023/11/05
shelves:
review:
It was dark. I didn’t feel like I understood the main characters well. There were some interesting power dynamics, but they went mostly unexplored.
]]> Jonny Appleseed 37514017
"You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine" is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling novel.

Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the "rez," and his former life, to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The next seven days are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny's world is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages--and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life.

Jonny Appleseed is a unique, shattering vision of Indigenous life, full of grit, glitter, and dreams.]]> 224 Joshua Whitehead Alisa 4
Merged review:

Irreverent, funny, and fascinating look at the life of a teenage Two-Spirit First Nations person in Canada. Full of little gems of sentences.]]> 3.94 2018 Jonny Appleseed
author: Joshua Whitehead
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/04
date added: 2023/10/13
shelves:
review:
Irreverent, funny, and fascinating look at the life of a teenage Two-Spirit First Nations person in Canada. Full of little gems of sentences.

Merged review:

Irreverent, funny, and fascinating look at the life of a teenage Two-Spirit First Nations person in Canada. Full of little gems of sentences.
]]> Another Country 38474
Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, this book depicts men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime.]]> 448 James Baldwin 0141186372 Alisa 5 4.32 1962 Another Country
author: James Baldwin
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2013/10/01
date added: 2023/07/27
shelves:
review:
I'm pretty ashamed I didn't read this until now.
]]> Poverty, by America 61358638 Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.]]> 304 Matthew Desmond 0593239911 Alisa 5 4.27 2023 Poverty, by America
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/27
date added: 2023/03/28
shelves:
review:
A book I wish everyone would read. If you were anywhere near me when Matthew Desmond’s last book, Evicted, came out, you know that it impacted my thinking deeply. This book does similar work, but it is more of a manifesto than a narrative. The essential question of why America has so much poverty is answered both well and succinctly (it’s our policy & personal choices). A reminder that we must as consumers support businesses that pay a living wage, and support desegregation.
]]> When We Lost Our Heads 58446244 A spellbinding story about two girls whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the trajectory of history.

Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At 12 years old, with her blond curls and her unparalleled sense of whimsey, she's the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, an affluent strip of 19th century Montreal. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly, and brilliant, moves to the neighborhood.

Marie and Sadie are immediately united by their passion and intensity, and they attract and repel each other in ways that light each of them on fire. Marie with her bubbly charm sees the light and sweetness of the world, whereas Sadie's obsession with darkness is all consuming. Soon their childlike games take on a thrill of danger and then become deadly.

Forced to separate, they spend their teenage years engaged in acts of alternating innocence and depravity--until a singular event unites them once more, with dizzying effects. And after Marie inherits her father's sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city's gritty underworld, a revolution of the working class begins to foment. Each of them will have unexpected roles to play in events that upend their city--the only question is whether they will find each other once more.

Traveling from a repressive finishing school to a vibrant brothel, taking readers firsthand into the brutality of factory life and the opulent lives of Montreal's wealthy, When We Lost Our Heads dazzlingly explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying power of the human heart when it can't let someone go.]]> 448 Heather O'Neill 0593422902 Alisa 3 3.94 2022 When We Lost Our Heads
author: Heather O'Neill
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/16
date added: 2023/03/18
shelves:
review:
A little gay romp through an antique Montreal. I found the book a little bit precious and grotesque for the sake of it. The revolution I enjoyed though. Would say 3.5 stars if I could.
]]> <![CDATA[Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco]]> 8240304

Ěý

When homelessness reemerged in American cities during the 1980s at levels not seen since the Great Depression, it initially provoked shock and outrage. Within a few years, however, what had been perceived as a national crisis came to be seen as a nuisance, with early sympathies for the plight of the homeless giving way to compassion fatigue and then condemnation. Debates around the problem of homelessness—often set in terms of sin, sickness, and the failure of the social system—have come to profoundly shape how homeless people survive and make sense of their plights. In Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders , Teresa Gowan vividly depicts the lives of homeless men in San Francisco and analyzes the influence of the homelessness industry on the streets, in the shelters, and on public policy.

Ěý

Gowan shows some of the diverse ways that men on the street in San Francisco struggle for survival, autonomy, and self-respect. Living for weeks at a time among homeless men—working side-by-side with them as they collected cans, bottles, and scrap metal; helping them set up camp; watching and listening as they panhandled and hawked newspapers; and accompanying them into soup kitchens, jails, welfare offices, and shelters—Gowan immersed herself in their routines, their personal stories, and their perspectives on life on the streets. She observes a wide range of survival techniques, from the illicit to the industrious, from drug dealing to dumpster diving. She also discovered that prevailing discussions about homelessness and its causes—homelessness as pathology, homelessness as moral failure, and homelessness as systemic failure—powerfully affect how homeless people see themselves and their ability to change their situation.

Ěý

Drawing on five years of fieldwork, this powerful ethnography of men living on the streets of the most liberal city in America, Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders , makes clear that the way we talk about issues of extreme poverty has real consequences for how we address this problem—and for the homeless themselves.]]> 368 Teresa Gowan 0816648697 Alisa 5 favorites
Teresa Gowan examines homelessness in San Francisco by actually meeting and spending time with people who are living outside. She brings to the book countless hours of conversation with people, and also an analytical framework through which to view these experiences. The stories she tells are fascinating, of tent cities in the Dogpatch and everyday life in the hotels of the Tenderloin. But I especially enjoyed her critiques of both "sick-talk" (categorizing all homelessness as addiction, as many outreach centers have come to do) and "sin-talk" (categorizing all homelessness as individual frailty). I am partial to the system-talk myself, and Ms. Gowan gave me more words to express that feeling.

Also, get involved--we're fighting a Sit/Lie law proposal right now in Berkeley!]]> 4.60 2010 Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco
author: Teresa Gowan
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2011/06/01
date added: 2023/02/02
shelves: favorites
review:
Go read this book right now!

Teresa Gowan examines homelessness in San Francisco by actually meeting and spending time with people who are living outside. She brings to the book countless hours of conversation with people, and also an analytical framework through which to view these experiences. The stories she tells are fascinating, of tent cities in the Dogpatch and everyday life in the hotels of the Tenderloin. But I especially enjoyed her critiques of both "sick-talk" (categorizing all homelessness as addiction, as many outreach centers have come to do) and "sin-talk" (categorizing all homelessness as individual frailty). I am partial to the system-talk myself, and Ms. Gowan gave me more words to express that feeling.

Also, get involved--we're fighting a Sit/Lie law proposal right now in Berkeley!
]]> <![CDATA[A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments]]> 6748 Infinite Jest.]]> 353 David Foster Wallace 0316925284 Alisa 5 favorites 4.24 1996 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2011/05/01
date added: 2023/01/05
shelves: favorites
review:
So, I am a giant sucker for DFW which I have mentioned on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ a few times before, despite his flaws as a person. This volume of essays I also was fascinated by. He even makes sports sound interesting!
]]> <![CDATA[How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community]]> 45032310



After almost every presentation activist and writer Mia Birdsong gives to executives, think tanks, and policy makers, one of those leaders quietly confesses how much they long for the profound community she describes. They have family, friends, and colleagues, yet they still feel like they're standing alone. They're "winning" at the American Dream, but they're lonely, disconnected, and unsatisfied.




It seems counterintuitive that living the "good life"--the well-paying job, the nuclear family, the upward mobility--can make us feel isolated and unhappy. But in a divided America, where only a quarter of us know our neighbors and everyone is either a winner or a loser, we've forgotten the key element that helped us make progress in the first community. In this provocative, groundbreaking work, Mia Birdsong shows that what separates us isn't only the ever-present injustices built around race, class, gender, values, and beliefs, but also our denial of our interdependence and need for belonging. In response to the fear and discomfort we feel, we've built walls, and instead of leaning on each other, we find ourselves leaning on concrete.




Through research, interviews, and stories of lived experience, How We Show Up returns us to our inherent connectedness where we find strength, safety, and support in vulnerability and generosity, in asking for help, and in being accountable. Showing up--literally and figuratively--points us toward the promise of our collective vitality and leads us to the liberated well-being we all want.]]> 272 Mia Birdsong 1580058078 Alisa 5 4.24 2020 How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community
author: Mia Birdsong
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/02
date added: 2022/12/03
shelves:
review:
I gave the book five stars because I wish everyone would read it! The author presents examples of friend-making and community that I found inspirational and reminds all of us that these connections are essential for health.
]]> All This Could Be Different 59576064
But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It's then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.]]> 320 Sarah Thankam Mathews 0593489128 Alisa 5 3.83 2022 All This Could Be Different
author: Sarah Thankam Mathews
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/14
date added: 2022/09/14
shelves:
review:
What an amazing work of fiction that feels very specific to our moment in time. The main character is queer and an immigrant to the US from India—her identity is nuanced, and informed by her experiences. The book is also about friendship, the indignities of capitalism, love—all of the big stuff. I did not want to put this one down.
]]> Hell of a Book 55964195 Hell of a Book, an African-American author sets out on a cross-country book tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Jason Mott's novel and is the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: since his novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.

Throughout, these characters' stories build and build and as they converge, they astonish. For while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art, and money, there always is the tragic story of a police shooting playing over and over on the news.

Who has been killed? Who is The Kid? Will the author finish his book tour, and what kind of world will he leave behind? Unforgettably powerful, an electrifying high-wire act, ideal for book clubs, and the book Mott says he has been writing in his head for ten years, Hell of a Book in its final twists truly becomes its title.]]> 323 Jason Mott 059333096X Alisa 4 4.00 2021 Hell of a Book
author: Jason Mott
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/01
date added: 2022/09/01
shelves:
review:
The book was wild, veering here and there, playing with perspectives. I liked that. It was also an intense and raw look at racism in America (specifically, a Black experience). The wrapping up was a little too neat for me at the end but the first 3/4 was truly a Hell of a Book.
]]> <![CDATA[Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory]]> 58284103 Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present

These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven't told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry.

Sarah Polley's work as an actor, screenwriter, and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity, and deep humanity. She brings all those qualities, along with her exquisite storytelling chops, to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley's life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory, the mutability of reality in the mind, and the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. As Polley writes, the past and present are in a "reciprocal pressure dance."

Polley contemplates stories from her own life ranging from stage fright to high-risk childbirth to endangerment and more. After struggling with the aftermath of a concussion, Polley met a specialist who gave her wholly new advice: to recover from a traumatic injury, she had to retrain her mind to strength by charging towards the very activities that triggered her symptoms. With riveting clarity, she shows the power of applying that same advice to other areas of her life in order to find a path forward, a way through. Rather than live in a protective crouch, she had to run towards the danger.

In this extraordinary book, Polley explores what it is to live in one's body, in a constant state of becoming, learning, and changing.]]> 272 Sarah Polley 0593300351 Alisa 4 4.29 2022 Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory
author: Sarah Polley
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/20
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves:
review:
A fascinating collection of essays from an actor & director & mother about growing up in show business, motherhood, and recovery from illness & trauma. I found the essays easy to read and often inspiring.
]]> American War 33311863
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.]]> 384 Omar El Akkad Alisa 0 to-read 3.79 2017 American War
author: Omar El Akkad
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Permanent Astonishment 56808290 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Capricious, big-hearted, joyful: an epic memoir from one of Canada's most acclaimed Indigenous writers and performers

Tomson Highway was born in a snowbank on an island in the sub-Arctic, the eleventh of twelve children in a nomadic, caribou-hunting Cree family. Growing up in a land of ten thousand lakes and islands, Tomson relished being pulled by dogsled beneath a night sky alive with stars, sucking the juices from roasted muskrat tails, and singing country music songs with his impossibly beautiful older sister and her teenaged friends. Surrounded by the love of his family and the vast, mesmerizing landscape they called home, his was in many ways an idyllic far-north childhood. But five of Tomson's siblings died in childhood, and Balazee and Joe Highway, who loved their surviving children profoundly, wanted their two youngest sons, Tomson and Rene, to enjoy opportunities as big as the world. And so when Tomson was six, he was flown south by float plane to attend a residential school. A year later Rene joined him to begin the rest of their education. In 1990 Rene Highway, a world-renowned dancer, died of an AIDS-related illness. Permanent Astonishment: Growing Up in the Land of Snow and Sky is Tomson's extravagant embrace of his younger brother's final words: Don't mourn me, be joyful. His memoir offers insights, both hilarious and profound, into the Cree experience of culture, conquest, and survival.
]]> 344 Tomson Highway 0385696205 Alisa 0 to-read 4.16 2021 Permanent Astonishment
author: Tomson Highway
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sea of Tranquility 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Alisa 0 to-read 4.04 2022 Sea of Tranquility
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World]]> 44000539
In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author's characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.]]> 156 Kai Cheng Thom 1551527758 Alisa 0 to-read 4.42 2019 I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World
author: Kai Cheng Thom
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> With Teeth 56160395
If she's being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best—driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school—while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent wife. As Samson grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, Sammie's life begins to deteriorate into a mess of unruly behavior, and her struggle to create a picture-perfect queer family unravels. When her son's hostility finally spills over into physical aggression, Sammie must confront her role in the mess—and the possibility that it will never be clean again.

Blending the warmth and wit of Arnett's breakout hit, Mostly Dead Things, with a candid take on queer family dynamics, With Teeth is a thought-provoking portrait of the delicate fabric of family—and the many ways it can be torn apart.]]> 304 Kristen Arnett 0593191501 Alisa 3 3.49 2021 With Teeth
author: Kristen Arnett
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/06/09
date added: 2022/06/09
shelves:
review:
The kind of book I would give 3.5 stars to if possible. It was entertaining and strange but it didn’t really move me. Mostly read if you want a sad book about the end of a lesbian marriage/difficult time raising a child. I ended up feeling a little disturbed. Also, the book was full of asides that didn’t really work for me.
]]> Home Fire 33621427
Then Eamonn enters the sisters� lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to—or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz’s salvation? Suddenly, two families� fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?

The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences ]]> 276 Kamila Shamsie 0735217688 Alisa 4 4.00 2017 Home Fire
author: Kamila Shamsie
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/04/18
shelves:
review:

]]> The Spectacular 56753477
“In the best books, characters feel like my friends, but with the mothers of The Spectacular, they came to feel like my family.”—Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

It’s 1997 and Missy is a cellist in an indie rock band on tour across America. At twenty-two years old, she gets on stage every night and plays the song about her absent mother that made the band famous. As the only girl in the band, she’s determined to party just as hard as everyone else, loving and leaving a guy in every town. But then she meets a tomboy drummer who is hard to forget, and a forgotten flap of cocaine strands her at the border.

Fortysomething Carola is just surfacing from a sex scandal at the yoga center where she has been living when she sees her daughter, Missy, for the first time in ten years—on the cover of a music magazine.

Ruth is eighty-three and planning her return to the Turkish seaside village where she spent her childhood. But when her granddaughter, Missy, winds up crashing at her house, she decides it’s time that the strong and stubborn women in her family find a way to understand one another again.

In this sharply observed novel, Zoe Whittall captures three very different women who each struggle to build an authentic life. Definitions of family, romance, gender, and love will radically change as they seek out lives that are nothing less than spectacular.]]> 368 Zoe Whittall 1524799416 Alisa 4 3.64 2021 The Spectacular
author: Zoe Whittall
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/25
date added: 2022/04/18
shelves:
review:
Probably I would have given the book 3.5 stars if I could have. I had fun reading it, but when it was over I couldn’t remember the plot very well. Interwoven stories, three generations of women, queer themes—if that sounds good to you, then you will like the novel.
]]> <![CDATA[The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs]]> 119723
After all, although humans and dogs share a remarkable relationship that is unique in the animal world, we are still two entirely different species, each shaped by our individual evolutionary heritage. Quite simply, humans are primates and dogs are canids (like wolves, coyotes, and foxes). Since we each speak a different native tongue, a lot gets lost in the translation.

The Other End of the Leash demonstrates how even the slightest changes in your voice and the way you stand can help your dog understand what you want. Once you start to think about your own behavior from the perspective of your dog, you’ll understand why much of what appears to be doggy-disobedience is simply a case of miscommunication. Inside you will learn

How to use your voice so that your dog is more likely to do what you ask.
Why “getting dominance� over your dog is a bad idea.
Why “rough and tumble primate play� can lead to trouble–and how to play with your dog in ways that are fun and keep him out of trouble.
How dogs and humans share personality types–and why most dogs want to live with benevolent leaders rather than “alphawannabees!�
In her own insightful, compelling style, Patricia McConnell combines wonderful true stories about people and dogs with a new, accessible scientific perspective on how they should behave around each other. This is a book that strives to help you make the most of life with your dog, and to prevent problems that might arise in that most rewarding of relationships.]]> 272 Patricia B. McConnell 034544678X Alisa 4 4.39 2002 The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs
author: Patricia B. McConnell
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/09
date added: 2022/01/09
shelves:
review:
You may have noticed my recent obsession with fostering dogs, which has led to a strong interest in dog training. This book is not really a dog training book but it gives a good foundation in understanding dog behavior, which I found really helpful. Recommended (in fact should be required) for anyone with dogs at home!
]]> One Last Stop 54860443
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.]]> 418 Casey McQuiston 1250244498 Alisa 3 3.90 2021 One Last Stop
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2021/12/29
date added: 2021/12/31
shelves:
review:
I read it for a book club and romance novels are really not my genre. But it had its cute moments!
]]> <![CDATA[Beautiful World, Where Are You]]> 56597885 356 Sally Rooney 0374602603 Alisa 4 3.53 2021 Beautiful World, Where Are You
author: Sally Rooney
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/26
date added: 2021/11/26
shelves:
review:
I see myself reflected in the leftist, overly anxious & educated milieu of a Sally Rooney novel. Here, the characters were depressed in just the same way that it feels like my generation is depressed—and this was a sign of good writing perhaps but also felt a little trite. Also my first time reading a novel with part of it set in the real pandemic we are living through!
]]> <![CDATA[Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning]]> 52845775
As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity.

Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and artmaking, and to family and female friendship in a search to both uncover and speak the truth.]]> 209 Cathy Park Hong 1984820362 Alisa 4 4.20 2020 Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
author: Cathy Park Hong
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/12
date added: 2021/09/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy]]> 52569124
Polyamorous psychotherapist Jessica Fern breaks new ground by extending attachment theory into the realm of consensual nonmonogamy. Using her nested model of attachment and trauma, she expands our understanding of how these emotional experiences influence our relationships. Then, she sets out six specific strategies to help you move toward secure attachments in your multiple relationships.

Polysecure is both a trailblaizing theoretical treatise and a practical guide. It provides nonmonogamous people with a new set of tools to navigate the complexities of multiple loving relationships, and offers radical new concepts that are sure to influence the conversation about attachment theory.]]> 268 Jessica Fern 1944934987 Alisa 4 4.36 2020 Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy
author: Jessica Fern
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/01
date added: 2021/09/12
shelves:
review:
This book was a good overview of various ways people structure non-monogamous relationships and how that can interact with your attachment style. I would love to hear more research on the topic—it felt like the beginning of a conversation.
]]> <![CDATA[Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic]]> 27485
In her 20 years of clinical experience, Perel has treated hundreds of couples whose home lives are empty of passion. They describe relationships that are open and loving, yet sexually dull. What is going on?

In this explosively original book, Perel explains that our cultural penchant for equality, togetherness, and absolute candor is antithetical to erotic desire for both men and women. Sexual excitement doesn't always play by the rules of good citizenship. It is politically incorrect. It thrives on power plays, unfair advantages, and the space between self and other. More exciting, playful, even poetic sex is possible, but first we must kick egalitarian ideals and emotional housekeeping out of our bedrooms.

While Mating in Captivity shows why the domestic realm can feel like a cage, Perel's take on bedroom dynamics promises to liberate, enchant, and provoke. Flinging the doors open on erotic life and domesticity, she invites us to put the "X" back in sex.

©2006 Esther Perel (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers]]> 272 Esther Perel 0060753633 Alisa 4 4.17 2006 Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic
author: Esther Perel
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/18
date added: 2021/09/12
shelves:
review:
I have listened to Esther Perel’s Ted talk before, and felt inspired to read the book. I think she has great insight into the human psyche and need for novelty in romance. Highly recommended especially for pandemic lockdowns with a partner. :)
]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Alisa 4 4.11 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/07
date added: 2021/09/08
shelves:
review:
I really enjoyed reading this novel. I was invested in the characters, there were fun twists, the setting was interesting, the writing was tight. I didn’t find it transcendent but it was fun to read. Recommended for the characterization primarily—the author climbed deep into the minds of many different people.
]]> <![CDATA[The Story of the Lost Child (Neapolitan Novels, #4)]]> 25242224 The Guardian about the Neapolitan novels in 2014. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance.

The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women � the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up � a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city's obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable.

The four volumes in this series constitute a long remarkable story that readers will return to again and again, and each return will bring with it new revelations.]]> 473 Elena Ferrante 1609452860 Alisa 5 4.47 2014 The Story of the Lost Child (Neapolitan Novels, #4)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/14
date added: 2021/08/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Neapolitan Novels, #3)]]> 23156040 418 Elena Ferrante Alisa 5 4.38 2013 Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Neapolitan Novels, #3)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/07
date added: 2021/08/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novels, #2)]]> 17465515 My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New Name is the second book in this series. With these books, which the New Yorker's James Wood described as "large, captivating, amiably peopled ... a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal," Ferrante proves herself to be one of Italy's most accomplished storytellers. She writes vividly about a specific neighborhood of Naples from the late-1950s through to the current day and about two remarkable young women who are very much the products of that place and time. Yet in doing so she has created a world in which readers will recognize themselves and has drawn a marvelously nuanced portrait of friendship.

In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, the acclaimed author of The Days of Abandonment, gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.]]> 471 Elena Ferrante Alisa 5 4.47 2012 The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novels, #2)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/01
date added: 2021/08/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Detransition, Baby 48890225 A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.]]> 337 Torrey Peters 0593133374 Alisa 5 3.94 2021 Detransition, Baby
author: Torrey Peters
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/19
date added: 2021/08/19
shelves:
review:
This book was imperfect in its construction I thought—making statements it hadn’t earned, precious at times, a little over the top. But I had to give it five stars anyway because I truly loved the jokes, and felt seen in the millennial queer milieu populating this book. It’s bold and fun and sad and you should read it.
]]> <![CDATA[My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)]]> 35036409 My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists.]]> 331 Elena Ferrante Alisa 5 4.08 2011 My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)
author: Elena Ferrante
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2021/07/28
date added: 2021/08/15
shelves:
review:
What an amazing tale—the author is completely spellbinding, though many of the moments she speaks of are small childhood travails. I understand the buzz around this series.
]]> Transcendent Kingdom 48570454 Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

Gifty is a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after a knee injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.]]> 264 Yaa Gyasi Alisa 4 4.10 2020 Transcendent Kingdom
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/15
date added: 2021/07/24
shelves:
review:
Really loved this meditation on love, science, and religion—but it didn’t stick the ending for me. Read it for gorgeous prose, not plot.
]]> Breasts and Eggs 50736031
Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.

It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.

On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.]]> 430 Mieko Kawakami 1609455878 Alisa 3 3.87 2008 Breasts and Eggs
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2021/07/08
date added: 2021/07/09
shelves:
review:
I would give 3.5 stars if I could! I found the book fascinating at times, especially when it dove into Natsu’s emotional life, asexuality, and her struggle with becoming a parent. The plot is slow however, and the two sections felt disjointed to me. Read for a long contemplation on becoming a single mother if you’re looking for that.
]]> <![CDATA[The Cynical Writer's Guide To The Publishing Industry: How to Convince the Gatekeepers that Your Book is a Potential Bestseller]]> 57960051
The secret isn’t the quality of the writing or storytelling. It’s not even â€who you know.â€� It’s all about one thing: Does the publishing industry believe your book has the potential to be a bestseller?

The Cynical Writer’s Guide to the Publishing Industry is a manual for playing on agents� and editors� preconceptions and expectations. It teaches you how to get the industry players excited about your book’s potential to become a bestseller. This isn't about selling out or compromising your vision. It’s about generating excitement for the book you’ve written—and excitement, more than anything, determines which books get acquired and which don’t.

Here’s a smattering of what you’ll find:

On finding the right pitch for your book - “Ideally, your pitch should be quality-agnostic. You want a pitch that’ll excite people regardless of whether the book is good or is bad.�

On why editors don’t care about small profits - “…nobody’s paying close attention to the nuts-and-bolts of how an editor’s books perform. In fact, almost nobody in a house can tell you, off the top of their head, whether a given book has made or lost money for the company.�

On finding a market niche - “Unless there’s been a commercially successful book released in the past ten years that’s similar to your book, you'll have a very hard time selling to a major publisher.�

On what veteran authors know - “[Unpublished authors] have no idea. They think they just need to â€write better books.â€� It’s only once you’ve published a book that you really understand the panicky, claustrophobic, fighting-for-the-last-lifeboat-off-the-Titanic quality of the publishing industry. This is a war of all against all, and if you survive for fifteen years, then you’ve done better than 99 percent of the people who started out with you.â€�

But more than anything, the Cynical Guide is about the times and places when you shouldn’t be cynical. This isn’t a book about writing a formulaic bestseller. It’s aboutmelding innovation and insight to survive in a marketplace that can be hostile to authors and their careers.

Written by the author of two books out with major publishers, the Cynical Guide gives you the tools you’ll need to convince a big publisher that your manuscript is a can’t-miss opportunity.]]> 241 Naomi Kanakia Alisa 5 4.55 The Cynical Writer's Guide To The Publishing Industry: How to Convince the Gatekeepers that Your Book is a Potential Bestseller
author: Naomi Kanakia
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2021/06/10
date added: 2021/07/08
shelves:
review:
As a long-time aspiring novelist, this guide (while cynical) made me feel like it is possible to publish fiction! Though it also convinced me that making much money off of it is unlikely. I appreciated the inspiration and guidance. Highly recommend to people thinking about publishing.
]]> Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?]]> 448 Casey McQuiston 1250316774 Alisa 3 4.06 2019 Red, White & Royal Blue
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2021/01/22
date added: 2021/01/29
shelves:
review:
I feel a little bad rating this book only three stars when in fact this is probably due to my innate dislike of the romance genre but here are all of my takes: it’s frothy, I didn’t really buy the dialogue, the plot twists are wild, the writing is cheesy, but in no other book have I ever gotten to read a fictional gay romance between two (almost) heads of state so... go for it if you want that story!
]]> Severance 36348525
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale and satire.]]> 291 Ling Ma 0374261598 Alisa 4 3.90 2018 Severance
author: Ling Ma
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/10
date added: 2021/01/10
shelves:
review:
It was a little on the nose to read this book about New York during a pandemic right now, and often I found the parallels between life and fiction disturbing. (Can you believe this was written in 2018?) But I appreciated that the book also made other things disturbing: unfettered capitalism, glitz, preppers, long-term relationships. It’s truly absorbing and easy to read.
]]> <![CDATA[Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion]]> 43126457 Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Jia writes about the cultural prisms that have shaped her: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the American scammer as millennial hero; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the mandate that everything, including our bodies, should always be getting more efficient and beautiful until we die.]]> 303 Jia Tolentino 0525510540 Alisa 4 4.04 2019 Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
author: Jia Tolentino
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/01
date added: 2020/12/31
shelves:
review:
This book was so good I didn’t review it at the time I read it because I didn’t have the words.
]]> <![CDATA[Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America]]> 25898216 Stamped from the Beginning uses the lives of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and anti-racists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W. E. B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading pro-slavery and pro–civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America.

As Kendi illustrates, racist thinking did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Racist ideas were created and popularized in an effort to defend deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and to rationalize the nation’s racial inequities in everything from wealth to health. While racist ideas are easily produced and easily consumed, they can also be discredited. In shedding much-needed light on the murky history of racist ideas, Stamped from the Beginning offers tools to expose them—and in the process, reason to hope.]]> 592 Ibram X. Kendi 1568584636 Alisa 5 4.53 2016 Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2020/12/31
date added: 2020/12/31
shelves:
review:
I started reading this book during the uprisings of the summer of 2020, and it took me six months to finish. It’s long, it’s dense, and it is an extremely helpful framework for race in America. I resisted a little his definition of racism, having been educated in the school of thought that racism requires both privilege and power, but I am glad to have this to think about and the deeply racist history of the United States re-iterated.
]]> <![CDATA[Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life]]> 22609341
Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a “pink pill� for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never exist—but as a result of the research that’s gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women’s sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all.

The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others� experiences. Because women vary, and that’s normal.

Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm.

Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it. Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible.

And Emily Nagoski can prove it.]]> 400 Emily Nagoski 1476762090 Alisa 3 4.28 2015 Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life
author: Emily Nagoski
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2020/12/31
date added: 2020/12/31
shelves:
review:
The writing style of this book was infuriating (like she was writing to a child or teen) but some of the actual information presented was really useful and the kind of information that actually will shape my thinking about sex. I can only recommend the book very half-heartedly but thinking about the science of sex is definitely worth doing.
]]> The Year of Magical Thinking 7815
From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."]]> 227 Joan Didion 1400078431 Alisa 5 3.94 2005 The Year of Magical Thinking
author: Joan Didion
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2020/12/25
date added: 2020/12/25
shelves:
review:
I chose to finish reading this book on Christmas of 2020—a sad but perhaps hopeful end of the year. I’ve never experienced a loss quite as profound as Didion’s but still this book helped me think about grief.
]]> <![CDATA[How to Write an Autobiographical Novel]]> 35721123 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation’s history, including his father’s death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing—Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley—the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump.]]> 277 Alexander Chee 1328764524 Alisa 4 4.40 2018 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
author: Alexander Chee
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/19
date added: 2020/12/19
shelves:
review:
These essays hit me, and also made me want to get an MFA.
]]> The Other Americans 40988961 The Moor's Account, here is a timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant--at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.

Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant living in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; his widow, Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country; EfraĂ­n, an undocumented witness whose fear of deportation prevents him from coming forward; Jeremy, an old friend of Nora's and an Iraq War veteran; Coleman, a detective who is slowly discovering her son's secrets; Anderson, a neighbor trying to reconnect with his family; and the murdered man himself.

As the characters--deeply divided by race, religion, and class--tell their stories, connections among them emerge, even as Driss's family confronts its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love, messy and unpredictable, is born.]]> 320 Laila Lalami 1524747149 Alisa 4 3.88 2019 The Other Americans
author: Laila Lalami
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/08/07
date added: 2020/11/22
shelves:
review:
Masterfully woven together with characters from many backgrounds and perspectives all telling the story in different sections. It relies more on a suspenseful plot and strong character development than poetic language.
]]> Mostly Dead Things 41817578 356 Kristen Arnett 1947793306 Alisa 3 3.36 2019 Mostly Dead Things
author: Kristen Arnett
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2020/11/01
date added: 2020/11/21
shelves:
review:
The pandemic took away my focus, and I haven’t read a book for fun in a long time. Finally was able to now—and this book was easy to read. The characters and subject were dark but also glossy. For me though there was more gloss than substance. I would have given this 3.5 stars if I could have.
]]> <![CDATA[How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy]]> 42771901 232 Jenny Odell 1612197493 Alisa 4 3.68 2019 How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
author: Jenny Odell
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/06/16
date added: 2020/06/16
shelves:
review:
A meandering walk through the dark woods of the attention economy. Timely, in the moment, to think about how to be happier rooted in place and context.
]]> Cien años de soledad 322 Cien años de soledad leídos en todas las lenguas y el premio Nobel de literatura coronando una obra que se había abierto paso «boca a boca» -como gusta decir el escritor- son la más palpable demostración de que la aventura fabulosa de la familia Buendía-Iguarán, con sus milagros, fantasías, obsesiones, tragedias, incestos, adulterios, rebeldías, descubrimientos y condenas, representaba al mismo tiempo el mito y la historia, la tragedia y el amor del mundo entero.]]> 495 Gabriel García Márquez 9871138148 Alisa 5 4.42 1967 Cien años de soledad
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> How We Fight For Our Lives 43682552 From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.

“People don’t just happen,â€� writes Saeed Jones. “We sacrifice former versions of ourselves. We sacrifice the people who dared to raise us. The â€Iâ€� it seems doesn’t exist until we are able to say, â€I am no longer yours.â€� â€�

Haunted and haunting, Jones’s memoir tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his mother and grandmother, into passing flings with lovers, friends and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.

Blending poetry and prose, Jones has developed a style that is equal parts sensual, beautiful, and powerful—a voice that’s by turns a river, a blues, and a nightscape set ablaze. How We Fight for Our Lives is a one of a kind memoir and a book that cements Saeed Jones as an essential writer for our time.]]> 192 Saeed Jones 1501132733 Alisa 5 4.27 2019 How We Fight For Our Lives
author: Saeed Jones
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/09
date added: 2020/03/09
shelves:
review:
What a brilliant memoir. The author delves into queer identity, race, and death with easily poetic phrasing and thought. Fascinated all the way through.
]]> <![CDATA["A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide]]> 368731 Former UN Ambassador Samantha Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning analysis of America's repeated failure to stop genocides around the world

In her Pulitzer Prize-winning examination of the last century of American history, Samantha Power asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide? Power, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former US Ambassador to the United Nations, draws upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policymakers, thousands of declassified documents, and her own reporting from modern killing fields to provide the answer. "A Problem from Hell" shows how decent Americans inside and outside government refused to get involved despite chilling warnings and tells the stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and lives in an effort to get the United States to act. A modern classic, "A Problem from Hell" has forever reshaped debates about American foreign policy.]]> 620 Samantha Power 0060541644 Alisa 5 4.24 2002 "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide
author: Samantha Power
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2008/04/01
date added: 2020/03/06
shelves:
review:
Samantha Power has created an amazing compilation of the ways that the United States has responded to genocide. Compelling and complete. I agree with most of her assessment, and while it's a big book and took me a long time to wade through, it's worth it. Big topic.
]]> Girl, Woman, Other 41081373
Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.

Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.]]> 453 Bernardine Evaristo 0241364906 Alisa 4 4.27 2019 Girl, Woman, Other
author: Bernardine Evaristo
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/03/04
date added: 2020/03/05
shelves:
review:
An intricate and fascinating series of woven vignettes. At times I got lost in the sheer number of characters and stories, but I loved the sprawl.
]]> The Overstory 40180098 The Overstory is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

A New York Times Bestseller.]]> 502 Richard Powers 039335668X Alisa 4 4.10 2018 The Overstory
author: Richard Powers
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/01/18
date added: 2020/01/18
shelves:
review:
An intricate novel populated by many interesting characters, where nature is the most important character. I loved many of the descriptions of the trees and our current environmental crisis. Plot-wise the book dragged for me at parts—it is long. And sometimes the characters didn’t feel realistic. But definitely worth reading.
]]> Trust Exercise 40046059
In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,� two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.

The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.

As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.]]> 257 Susan Choi 1250309883 Alisa 3 3.12 2019 Trust Exercise
author: Susan Choi
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2019/12/06
date added: 2019/12/06
shelves:
review:
I would do 3.5 stars if I could. The first half of the book dragged for me at some points, and I was glad the second half came as a fascinating surprise. But then the ending, which was its own mini-story, didn’t seamlessly blend for me with the rest of the narrative. Overall, I enjoyed the writing, but I didn’t end up feeling very connected to any of the characters. Check it out if interested in: inventive plot devices, shifts in perspective between characters, reading about high school drama.
]]> Just Mercy 20342617
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

One of EJI’s first clients was Walter McMillian, a young Black man who was sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman that he didn’t commit. The case exemplifies how the death penalty in America is a direct descendant of lynching � a system that treats the rich and guilty better than the poor and innocent.]]> 336 Bryan Stevenson Alisa 5 favorites 4.62 2014 Just Mercy
author: Bryan Stevenson
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2016/04/22
date added: 2019/11/22
shelves: favorites
review:
You should only read this book if you are ready to cry. But also, read it. Such powerful individual stories of people failed by our justice system.
]]> Less 31933085 You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years now engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes--it would all be too awkward--and you can’t say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of half-baked literary invitations you’ve received from around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

If you are Arthur Less.

Thus begins an around-the-world-in-eighty-days fantasia that will take Arthur Less to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India and Japan and put thousands of miles between him and the problems he refuses to face. What could possibly go wrong?

Well: Arthur will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Sahara sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and arrive in Japan too late for the cherry blossoms. In between: science fiction fans, crazed academics, emergency rooms, starlets, doctors, exes and, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to see. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. The second phase of life, as he thinks of it, falling behind him like the second phase of a rocket. There will be his first love. And there will be his last.

A love story, a satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, by an author The New York Times has hailed as “inspired, lyrical,� “elegiac,� “ingenious,� as well as “too sappy by half,� Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.]]> 272 Andrew Sean Greer 0316465186 Alisa 5 favorites 3.70 2017 Less
author: Andrew Sean Greer
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/07/08
date added: 2019/11/22
shelves: favorites
review:
I read this book on a yoga retreat and I kept finding myself running from the retreat center at the end of the day so I could keep reading. A meditation on love and loss; a hopeful look at middle age and settling down; a gay man on queer romance and untraditional ways of meeting and being committed to people. Complex and self-referential, threaded with flashbacks and memories, like the human brain. And so clever that I laughed out loud at parts. Delightful. You should read it.
]]> <![CDATA[Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World]]> 37506348 An insider's groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve.

Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can--except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. We see how they rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; how they lavishly reward "thought leaders" who redefine "change" in winner-friendly ways; and how they constantly seek to do more good, but never less harm. We hear the limousine confessions of a celebrated foundation boss; witness an American president hem and haw about his plutocratic benefactors; and attend a cruise-ship conference where entrepreneurs celebrate their own self-interested magnanimity.

Giridharadas asks hard questions: Why, for example, should our gravest problems be solved by the unelected upper crust instead of the public institutions it erodes by lobbying and dodging taxes? He also points toward an answer: Rather than rely on scraps from the winners, we must take on the grueling democratic work of building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world. A call to action for elites and everyday citizens alike.]]> 288 Anand Giridharadas 0451493249 Alisa 5 favorites 4.12 2018 Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
author: Anand Giridharadas
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2019/01/02
date added: 2019/11/22
shelves: favorites
review:
This book made a huge impression on me, and I will likely be pressing it on people for years to come. In short, it chronicles the failures of big business to create an equitable society, and questions the philanthropic model. Do we need charity, or do we need transformative political organizing? I believe firmly in the latter and I love this book for articulating it so clearly.
]]> In the Dream House 43317482 251 Carmen Maria Machado 1644450038 Alisa 5 favorites 4.41 2019 In the Dream House
author: Carmen Maria Machado
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2019/11/22
date added: 2019/11/22
shelves: favorites
review:
Wow. a full-throated five stars for this incredible memoir/collection of stories. What a fascinating look at queer intimate partner violence. I found myself highlighting often.
]]> The Ungrateful Refugee 43835469 A Finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction

"Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence.� �The New York Times Book Review

"Nayeri weaves her empowering personal story with those of the â€feared swarmsâ€� . . . Her family’s escape from Isfahan to Oklahoma, which involved waiting in Dubai and Italy, is wildly fascinating . . . Using energetic prose, Nayeri is an excellent conduit for these heart-rending stories, eschewing judgment and employing care in threading the stories in with her own . . . This is a memoir laced with stimulus and plenty of heart at a time when the latter has grown elusive.â€� â€�Star-Tribune (Minneapolis)

What is it like to be a refugee? It is a question many of us do not give much thought to, and yet there are more than 25 million refugees in the world. To be a refugee is to grapple with your place in society, attempting to reconcile the life you have known with a new, unfamiliar home. All this while bearing the burden of gratitude in your host nation: the expectation that you should be forever thankful for the space you have been allowed.

Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother, and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple falls in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials.

Nothing here is flattened; nothing is simplistic. Nayeri offers a new understanding of refugee life, confronting dangers from the metaphor of the swarm to the notion of “good� immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, The Ungrateful Refugee recalibrates the conversation around the refugee experience. Here are the real human stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh.]]> 368 Dina Nayeri 1948226421 Alisa 5 favorites 4.05 2019 The Ungrateful Refugee
author: Dina Nayeri
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2019/10/30
date added: 2019/11/22
shelves: favorites
review:
What an amazing mixture of autobiography, storytelling, and philosophy. Especially recommended for people who are not refugees but who work with refugees. A reflection on what it means to be a refugee, and what it means to welcome people.
]]> The Need 42201850
But then the footsteps come again, and she catches a glimpse of movement.

Suddenly Molly finds herself face-to-face with an intruder who knows far too much about her and her family. As she attempts to protect those she loves most, Molly must also acknowledge her own frailty. Molly slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood: the ecstasy and the dread; the languor and the ferocity; the banality and the transcendence as the book hurtles toward a mind-bending conclusion.

In The Need, Helen Phillips has created a subversive, speculative thriller that comes to life through blazing, arresting prose and gorgeous, haunting imagery. Anointed as one of the most exciting fiction writers working today, The Need is a glorious celebration of the bizarre and beautiful nature of our everyday lives.]]> 272 Helen Phillips 1982113162 Alisa 4 3.15 2019 The Need
author: Helen Phillips
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/11/15
date added: 2019/11/22
shelves:
review:
It feels like the kind of book that will be made into a movie--full of twists and turns. The meditation on motherhood is interesting and disturbing. The writing is gorgeous.
]]> Rubyfruit Jungle 165395 246 Rita Mae Brown 0553146963 Alisa 4 3.92 1973 Rubyfruit Jungle
author: Rita Mae Brown
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 2019/11/07
date added: 2019/11/22
shelves:
review:
Recently re-read this classic for a book club, and remembered that I'd liked it the first time. It's funny and moving and Rita Mae Brown is a badass. The writing doesn't blow me away, but worth reading for a look at gay women in the 60s, and a tale of an extremely unconventional life.
]]> Drift 12143200
Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring the disturbing rise of executive authority, the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies, the plummeting percentage of American families whose children fight our constant wars for us, and even the changing fortunes of G.I. Joe. She offers up a fresh, unsparing appraisal of Reagan's radical presidency. Ultimately, she shows us just how much we stand to lose by allowing the priorities of the national security state to overpower our political discourse.

Sensible yet provocative, dead serious yet seri­ously funny, Drift will reinvigorate a "loud and jangly" political debate about how, when, and where to apply America's strength and power--and who gets to make those decisions.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 288 Rachel Maddow 0307970388 Alisa 5 4.03 2012 Drift
author: Rachel Maddow
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2019/08/04
date added: 2019/11/04
shelves:
review:
Wow. A comprehensive takedown by Rachel Maddow of extreme amount of resources we spend on the American military. The chapters on Reagan reminded me that Americans electing TV celebrities who lie to the public is not just a problem of this election cycle. The section about nuclear weapons reminded me that we must champion the dismantling of of our huge nuclear arsenal (but with some humor!). All written in an extremely accessible tone and packed with facts. Highly recommend.
]]> <![CDATA[Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the USA]]> 3929243 280 Mumia Abu-Jamal 0872864693 Alisa 4 4.46 2009 Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the USA
author: Mumia Abu-Jamal
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2009/07/01
date added: 2019/11/04
shelves:
review:
I often found this book to be rambling. However, it is a perspective on the judicial system that I was completely unacquainted with, and therefore I found it very much worth reading. Mumia Abu-Jamal has been in prison for decades. He has something important to say.
]]> The Nickel Boys 42270835 Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead Alisa 4 4.25 2019 The Nickel Boys
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/19
date added: 2019/10/19
shelves:
review:
A devastating novel based on a true story about a “reform� school where boys were beaten and killed. Honestly hard to read for the sheer brutality of the events, including endless racism. Also worth reading and magnificently crafted.
]]> Lost Children Archive 40245130
A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home.

Why Apaches? asks the ten-year-old son. Because they were the last of something, answers his father.

In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an "immigration crisis": thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States, but getting detained--or lost in the desert along the way.

As the family drives--through Virginia to Tennessee, across Oklahoma and Texas--we sense they are on the brink of a crisis of their own. A fissure is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. They are led, inexorably, to a grand, harrowing adventure--both in the desert landscape and within the chambers of their own imaginations.

Told through several compelling voices, blending texts, sounds, and images, Lost Children Archive is an astonishing feat of literary virtuosity. It is a richly engaging story of how we document our experiences, and how we remember the things that matter to us the most. With urgency and empathy, it takes us deep into the lives of one remarkable family as it probes the nature of justice and equality today.]]> 385 Valeria Luiselli 0525520619 Alisa 5 3.75 2019 Lost Children Archive
author: Valeria Luiselli
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2019/09/13
date added: 2019/09/26
shelves:
review:
An amazing journey of a book across a landscape of emotions, mostly. A look at the child refugee crisis and the end of a marriage wrapped in a thin veneer of plot. I loved all the luminescent stories-within-stories. You will either love or hate the leaping, looping style of the book.
]]> <![CDATA[On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born � a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam � and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 Alisa 4 4.05 2019 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/09/25
date added: 2019/09/26
shelves:
review:
Melancholy and poetic account of relationships: a doomed gay romance, and a complicated mother-son bond. Not plot-centered, but compelling for the pearls of language throughout.
]]> <![CDATA[My Year of Rest and Relaxation]]> 44279110
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 Alisa 0 to-read 3.62 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma]]> 18693771 A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.]]> 464 Bessel van der Kolk 0670785938 Alisa 5 4.36 2014 The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
author: Bessel van der Kolk
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2019/06/10
date added: 2019/06/25
shelves:
review:
This nonfiction book rearranged my thinking about trauma and the brain. Highly recommend for anyone interested in healing work.
]]> Slouching Towards Bethlehem 424 The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, decades after its first publication, the essential portrait of America—particularly California—in the sixties.

It focuses on such subjects as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up a girl in California, ruminating on the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture.

It contains Didion's famous essay, "Goodbye to All That".]]> 238 Joan Didion Alisa 5 4.20 1968 Slouching Towards Bethlehem
author: Joan Didion
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at: 2019/06/19
date added: 2019/06/25
shelves:
review:
Can’t believe it took me so long to read anything by Joan Didion and now I need to read everything else. She is a mood. A pensive mood. Read for gorgeous descriptions, nihilism, and sad, well-told short stories/essays.
]]> Educated 35133922
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 352 Tara Westover 0399590501 Alisa 5 4.46 2018 Educated
author: Tara Westover
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2019/05/20
date added: 2019/05/24
shelves:
review:
Wow. This memoir is breathtaking. Tara had an extremely traumatic childhood, and captures a lot of truths about childhood trauma and effects on mental health. Also, she is such an unlikely person, it’s impossible to stop reading.
]]> Normal People 37539457
A year later, they're both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.]]> 266 Sally Rooney 0571334644 Alisa 4 3.93 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/05/13
date added: 2019/05/24
shelves:
review:
easy-to-read novel about the relationship between two very different people. I enjoy Sally Rooney for her eye for detail and her ability to matter-of-factly capture emotional range. I would recommend even more her first novel (Conversations With Friends).
]]> Washington Black 38140077
When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or "Titch," is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist.

He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Titch abandons everything to save him.

What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic, where Wash, left on his own, must invent another new life, one which will propel him further across the globe.

From the sultry cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, Washington Black tells a story of friendship and betrayal, love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again--and asks the question, what is true freedom?]]> 334 Esi Edugyan 0525521429 Alisa 4 3.93 2018 Washington Black
author: Esi Edugyan
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/11/30
date added: 2019/03/09
shelves:
review:
Sharp, well-constructed journey of a book. Fun plot, dark subject matter.
]]> Immigrant, Montana 36655278 0 Amitava Kumar 0571339581 Alisa 4 3.11 2017 Immigrant, Montana
author: Amitava Kumar
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2019/03/09
date added: 2019/03/09
shelves:
review:
The book is not strong on plot; very little happens. Read it instead for academic musings on life, love, and an immigrant experience. I found myself highlighting passages.
]]> <![CDATA[Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love]]> 9547888 Is there a science to love?

In this groundbreaking book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and psychologist Rachel S. F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love. Attachment theory forms the basis for many bestselling books on the parent/child relationship, but there has yet to be an accessible guide to what this fascinating science has to tell us about adult romantic relationships-until now.

Attachment theory owes its inception to British psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who in the 1950s examined the tremendous impact that our early relationships with our parents or caregivers has on the people we become. Also central to attachment theory is the discovery that our need to be in a close relationship with one or more individuals is embedded in our genes.

In Attached, Levine and Heller trace how these evolutionary influences continue to shape who we are in our relationships today. According to attachment theory, every person behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways:

*ANXIOUS people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back.
*AVOIDANT people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.
*SECURE people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving.

Attached guides readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mates) follow. It also offers readers a wealth of advice on how to navigate their relationships more wisely given their attachment style and that of their partner. An insightful look at the science behind love, Attached offers readers a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections.]]> 304 Amir Levine 1585428485 Alisa 3 4.11 2010 Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love
author: Amir Levine
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2019/02/01
date added: 2019/02/10
shelves:
review:
I didn’t find it very scientific, and also found it to be pretty reductive, and didn’t agree with some of their basic premises but if you’re looking to muse about romantic relationship patterns there are definitely some useful nuggets in here.
]]> Exit West 30688435
Exit West follows these characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.]]> 231 Mohsin Hamid 0735212171 Alisa 5 3.74 2017 Exit West
author: Mohsin Hamid
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/12/20
date added: 2019/01/09
shelves:
review:
This book has lingered in my mind. I loved the concept of a change in how people move through physical space, and I loved the poetic musings on how that would change society and the characters. Beautiful work.
]]> Conversations with Friends 32187419 A sharply intelligent novel about two college students and the strange, unexpected connection they forge with a married couple.

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa spots their potential. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman's sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband. Private property, Frances believes, is a cultural evil--and Nick, a bored actor who never quite lived up to his potential, looks like patriarchy made flesh. But however amusing their flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy neither of them expect. As Frances tries to keep her life in check, her relationships increasingly resist her control: with Nick, with her difficult and unhappy father, and finally even with Bobbi. Desperate to reconcile herself to the desires and vulnerabilities of her body, Frances's intellectual certainties begin to yield to something new: a painful and disorienting way of living from moment to moment.

Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."]]> 304 Sally Rooney 0451499077 Alisa 4
She writes the kind of glittering observations about characters and situations that made me want to underline.]]> 3.74 2017 Conversations with Friends
author: Sally Rooney
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2018/10/25
date added: 2019/01/09
shelves:
review:
A spot of light reading by a very smart young novelist all about feelings. I loved hearing a story where no one was ever in danger of death and I loved hearing a story primarily about a queer friendship—perhaps you will too?

She writes the kind of glittering observations about characters and situations that made me want to underline.
]]> Asymmetry 35297339 A singularly inventive and unforgettable debut novel about love, luck, and the inextricability of life and art, from 2017 Whiting Award winner Lisa Halliday.

Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, Folly tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War, Folly also suggests an aspiring novelist’s coming-of-age. By contrast, Madness is narrated by Amar, an Iraqi-American man who, on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan, is detained by immigration officers and spends the last weekend of 2008 in a holding room in Heathrow. These two seemingly disparate stories gain resonance as their perspectives interact and overlap, with yet new implications for their relationship revealed in an unexpected coda.

A stunning debut from a rising literary star, Asymmetry is an urgent, important, and truly original work that will captivate any reader while also posing arresting questions about the very nature of fiction itself.]]> 277 Lisa Halliday 150116676X Alisa 4 3.43 2018 Asymmetry
author: Lisa Halliday
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/01/09
date added: 2019/01/09
shelves:
review:
I’d probably give the book 3.5 stars if I could. It was inventive and and philosophical, and the central conceit was well executed, but I wasn’t compelled by either the characters or the plot. The most fun part was the voyeurism of reading about what was likely the author’s real relationship with Philip Roth.
]]> Fates and Furies 24612118
At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed.]]> 390 Lauren Groff 1594634475 Alisa 3 3.55 2015 Fates and Furies
author: Lauren Groff
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2018/12/24
date added: 2018/12/24
shelves:
review:
I’m annoyed by the rave reviews of this book. I didn’t connect with any of the characters, and I didn’t get a sense of their humanity. Annoyed also by pretension in the writing style. The conceit of it being written from the point of view of two people was well constructed but ultimately unsatisfying as both characters were so disconnected from reality.
]]> Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body 26074156 New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.

“I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.�

In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,� Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.

With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.]]> 306 Roxane Gay 0062362593 Alisa 4 2017 4.17 2017 Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
author: Roxane Gay
name: Alisa
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2017/09/19
date added: 2018/12/23
shelves: 2017
review:
I adore Roxane Gay and her vulnerability and her strength. I adore that she has put all of her fear, trauma, and anxiety into the world for us to contemplate. She has shed a light here on fatphobia, and queer identity, and so many other things. Read it and learn one person's story. (Trigger warning: sexual violence)
]]> The Mars Room 36373648 338 Rachel Kushner 1476756554 Alisa 3 3.41 2018 The Mars Room
author: Rachel Kushner
name: Alisa
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2018/10/10
date added: 2018/10/31
shelves:
review:
I was interested in the material (women’s prison) but perhaps because I’m too close to it her take didn’t feel fresh. I didn’t become very invested in the characters. She does have a knack for a good description though
]]>