butchbaby reads a book(s)
My rating: 
I will be rereading this book at least once, I know it already. Maggie Nelson's take on queer and trans love, lesbianism, motherhood, identity politics, etc etc etc feel familiar and multifaceted. Nelson remains in conversation with theorists, poets and artists of different mediums and moments throughout this incredible narrative/argument/work. I enjoyed the gentle shift from 'You' to 'Harry' and the difficulty of expressing the inexpressible, the challenge of needing to/wanting to communicate the complexity and the limitations of words and the ineffability of queer Self/Other. Reading this while visiting my alma mater highlighted moments in my own life and made me feel, at times, that despite the extreme specificity of this story to Nelson's life, this book was about me. I felt often that I was Harry and that I was Maggie and, even, at times that I was Iggy (Maggie being my mother). I'm sure I'll be rereading and thinking and writing about this book for a long time. Thank you for attempting to eff the ineffable.
My rating: 
[Review contains spoilers]
I was unable to put this book down. Literally read it in two sittings-- picked it up before bed and only put it down because my eyes couldn't stay open. The minute I woke up I kept reading until the end, pausing only to wipe my eyes. Holy shit. So many moments stuck with me, from the first time she saw anything beautiful that was man-made to all her questions about the purpose of the sexes and her strange perspective.
I think, when we read feminist books from the past (or really any politically leaning books from the past), we must consider them artifacts of a moment. I don't think this book would push any modern person towards a more feminist leaning, nor do I think it should be the center of anyone's current perspective on the world. However, I do think it holds value both in understanding a past perspective on patriarchy-- a struggle we share with the past, but which looks so different today than it did even 30 years ago when this was published-- and in understanding how far we've come. The insidious persistence of patriarchy,even when the 40 women had lived decades out of the prison with no men around, reminded me of many current day race and gender theorists. Ultimately, I think it is a good thing when old spec-fic doesn't feel radical anymore. I hope everything I read and find radical today feels stale and outdated and weird in 30 years. That would be a very good thing. And I would still cherish those books for the work they did in the liberation, and for their value as art and beautiful prose.
My rating:
I sped through this book, mostly because I spent a lot of time on trains while reading it. It was a weird, sad, gross book in a way that was mostly fun to read at this point in my life. I am very glad I did not read it as a supremely depressed person or a younger version of myself.
My rating:
This book, while almost 90 years old, feels so fresh. Carson McCullers manages to capture the complex, kind, struggling spirits of every person in the small town this book is set in. This book follows many residents of a small town in the American South, many of whom are staunch Marxists and all of whom are engaged in complex class and race struggles. This story is slow and quiet, creeping around at night between buildings and into the 24-hour New York Cafe and occasionally bursting into sudden loud, bright chaos complete with knife fights and gunshots and the horrifying violent reality of oppression. Beautifully written and impossible to put down, this book had me falling in love with the human spirit.
My rating: 
I wanted to like this book So Much. However, I often found that the teenage voice fell flat, and the age of the authors felt so present. As a trans person reading this book I often felt like the book wasn't written for me to read at all, and I wish that it wasn't just for a cis audience. I do think that this book would be a great stepping stone for a middle aged mother of a recently out trans kid. I am simply not that audience. Much of the book was disturbing and sad, and I had trouble relating to any characters in the book at all. I never really understood why anyone made any of the choices they made, and it often felt more like they were making choices simply to further the plot rather than due to their own motivations. I did find myself captivated by the plot and the mystery of it all was compelling enough that I did finish the book. It was recommended to me by a tgirl so maybe its more for the transfemme than the transmasc... don't know.
My rating:
Throughout this book I wanted to scream, to look away, and to climb right into the very pages. So many feelings! Beautiful prose with a story so winding and complicated that made me forget that the beginning had even happened by the time I got to the end (a good thing, truly). I felt myself get drawn into the life of the characters so deeply that I became utterly disinterested in my own life. Could not put this book down. Read it at my desk at work while waiting for things to load simply because I could not get enough!!
My rating:
This perfectly disgusting dark New England modern gothic lesbian romance had me curling my toes and holding my breath from the first page to the very last. Nearly every choice the characters make is the wrong one, and every choice Jen Beagin made was the very best one. Every sentence made my skin crawl and my heart beat nearly out of my chest. One moment that had me nearly screaming out loud was when Greta finds herself caught up deep in her lies;
She felt unprepared for all the name-calling. Naturally, Luke called Big Swiss by her real name, Flavia, and he called Greta by her fake one, and Greta wasn't used to any of it, because she and Big Swiss only called each other You.
Names are complicated throughout the book, with Greta often referring to people by crazy monikers rather than their actual names (even when she knows their names). In fact, the only people consistently named are Sabine (her housemate), Om (her boss), Stacy (Her Ex), and Keith (Spoiler). In fact, even her precious dog, Piñon gets called 'Him' by Sabine, with nearly no explanation. (Him as in, "'Him can have anything he wants when he wakes up, okay?'"
) This book was a wild ride and I am so glad to have been on it.
My rating:
Bolaño tricks you into thinking this book is just about pretty sentences and benign beach scenes, lulling you with pleasantries until the roar of the world beyond Udo and Ingeborg, Charly and Hanna becomes so deafening you're not quite sure how you didn't notice it in the beginning. Bolaño's world building is so complete it almost feels like you could peak your head around the corner of Udo's room into the world he isn't observing and find a complete existence. Somehow both indescribably complex and yet so mundane and plotless it skates carefully on the edge of boring without ever falling, The Third Reich manages to perfectly capture the Global North falling asleep at a beach resort during the end of the rest of the world.
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