staying sane

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rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5)

review below the cut

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rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐(4)

review below the cut

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rating : ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4)

"True sisterhood, the kind where you grew fingernails in the same womb, were pushed screaming through identical birth canals, is not the same as friendship. You don’t choose each other, and there’s no furtive period of getting to know the other. You’re part of each other, right from the start."

Blue Sisters is a novel that follows three sisters — Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky — after the death of their sister Nicky. We see how their lives develop not only after this tragedy but also how they lived their lives after they moved out.

This is a book about sisterhood, addiction, and how lonely that path can be. It explores grief and anger and how sometimes those feelings are aimed towards the ones we love the most, even if we don’t mean to.

Mellors has an evident grasp on what I like to call “addictive writing”. The book reads very easily and one page flows into the next without the reader noticing it.

Although easy, there are some gut-punching moments in its climax that made me emotional. Its depiction of grief and the very detailed descriptions of addiction are some of the highlights of this book.

The dialogue can be a bit … weird at times, but for the most part, it is well-written.

All three sisters had distinct narrative voices and different personalities, and having different storylines also helped differentiate between them, which was something I enjoyed.

My critique is that the side characters felt shallow and were undeveloped, I wish they had been given more personality. Even Nicky felt absent from the narrative although she was mentioned in every chapter.

"Actually, it would be better to feel nothing—to be nothing. That’s what Lucky wanted most, to find a nick in the fabric of the room, tear it open, and disappear into the black hole behind it."

The book’s main theme is both depression and addiction. We see one of the sisters fight to get cleaned while the other battles to not relapse. There are a lot of conversations about the anger of having to stay clean and how addiction affects the people around you.

The way all of the sisters experience their grief is vastly different, and all of them are unhealthy. I liked the real diverse feelings all of the sisters go through, whether they lash out or retract to themselves, I thought it read authentic.

We see how this anger could break a family but it’s also what makes these bonds stronger. You can never stay mad at your sister forever.

"A lot was written about romantic love, Avery thought, about the profundity of that embrace. But this, too, was deserving of rapture, of song. Before she ever knew a lover’s body, she knew her sisters’, could see herself in their long feet and light eyes, their sleek limbs and curled ears."

The bond between the Blue Sisters can be bittersweet at times, leaving you angry but realizing that they hold a very deep love for each other. Humans are imperfect, and Mellors makes it clear that the roles you had in childhood don’t always translate to adult life.

I do wish the novel had explored more this bond, I feel like it tried to be too many things at once. It wanted to talk about sisterhood, motherhood, and addiction, and at times it felt lost.

I think the main conflict with the elder sister was unnecessary, the motherhood plotline was enough. Also very glad those two divorced, they were terrible for each other even before *that* happened.

This was an enjoyable read that overall is well-written and a good addition to Mellors’ catalog.

rating : ⭐ (1)

The worst two things a book can be is being boring or being nonsensical. This book accomplishes being both.

What we talk about when we talk about love is a collection of short stories about mundane lives and how human beings interact with one another. It’s a great concept to pull you in and unfortunately it undeveloped.

The stories reach nowhere, they present a problem, the characters have a fight about it most of the time, but instead of reaching a conclusion it just ends … and there was no character development, the circumstances didn’t change and the issues remain unresolved. So I ask myself: why does this book exist? I can’t find an answer.

For such a short book with such short stories the book absolutely dragged, it was so boring. And the writing wasn’t the problem, because I did enjoy its simple approach, it’s probably the best thing about the book. It makes sense, when talking about mundane things, the writing matches the pace and the content. My problem was that the plot of the stories were boring, the issues with the characters were boring. The resolve (or lack there of) was boring, the stories blended into one another with no distinct voice. Yes we get it men suck, women are the victims, it’s not love if it’s abuse, give me something more because I’m bored now.

In the end of the book the author has a character justify abuse, “it was love in its own way”, and I’m not sure how to feel about it. I thought it was unnecessary especially because it led nowhere (as with everything with this book) so I’m just confused of what its purpose was.

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.25)

What I’d rather not think about follows the story of an unnamed female narrator whose twin brother has committed suicide. It spans over their childhood until two years after the death of the brother. It sets to deal with themes such as self discovery and complex relationships, both as siblings but also as individuals.

I’ll start with the critics:

The dynamics between the twins are odd at best, but I’ve also never had a twin, I only have a sibling and maybe they’re a kind of a different bond. Still I wished the novel had more bantering between siblings, to show an accurate depiction of family bonds. We do get the sense they love each other, but the brother is unlikable, which usually doesn’t bother me, and it didn’t bother me here, but I wish I had something more.

However, The novel deals with codependency and detachment in a very balanced way which I enjoyed.

The book includes facts about a lot of horrible historic people that harmed innocents. I found those references irrelevant and didn’t add much to the overall plot, nor for the development of characters. They served one purpose: to show that our narrator lived in the early 2000 and could google things, still I think it could’ve been shown without tragic holocaust facts.

Your gift isn’t a gift, it’s a defect, said my brother. You can’t keep your distance.

Eventually people grow out of their childhood and need to learn how to land on both of their feet alone, but what happens when you’ve never spent a second alone? Not even in the uterus? That’s why this book exists.

Our main character is very dependent on her older brother, and it becomes toxic and self-destructive very fast. This behavior causes the twins to have fights and disagreements and adding to the depression both of them have, they grow apart.

The novel explores self identity, forgiveness and personal boundaries within sibling relationships, however it never forgets to address the love that exists in that special bond.

Both of the siblings travel solo, have love relationships and different goals in life, we as readers follow their growth into their own selves, for better or for worse.

I can never get it right with you, said my brother. Why are you always so pushy? I’m trying to reach out to you, I said. Hello! Hello, said my brother. Here I am. He closed his eyes to concentrate on tasting the meat.

As the mental health of the brother deteriorates we see the author address a complex and sour topic: how do you help someone with depression. It’s the best part of the book and why it earned its rating for me.

Seeing someone you love succumb to depression is not easy, and you don’t always have to patience to deal with it. It most definitely not always end with a happy ending, in the end the brother still killed himself. I loved how the sister tried to reach out to him and he wouldn’t let her, because sometimes that’s what happens, people feel alone and they don’t want to be helped. This book does an excellent job at showing that without blaming the person who commits suicide. It also shows the flaws os someone trying to reach out, the sister could’ve done more, she could’ve paid more attention, and yet she didn’t but no one can say it’s her fault her brother is dead.

The author deals with this topic with such delicacy but at the same time such ease it really pulls you inside the story.

I’m trying to understand him. When someone says they love you but still ends up leaving, I can’t understand it. I don’t believe in that kind of love

This leaves us with the aftermath of mourning the death of a person who took their own life. It truly amazed me to see how the narrator went through different stages of grief in such curt pages. The anger and sadness both contrast each other in this part of the novel and yet none wins.

She’s still alive, he’s still alive, I thought every time someone walked by. She didn’t throw herself in front of a train. Everyone who’s still alive clearly thinks life is worth living. Clearly, I think life is worth living.

In the end of the novel the narrator still feels sad, as grief never truly goes away, but she also reaches peace with what happened. I really enjoyed reading both their journey into adulthood and dealing with the anguish and the happiness of life.

Many people might think this book doesn’t go deep enough into the grief, but I found it the perfect book at the right time for me. The small references of mundane things added to the story in my opinion, they felt vital to bring the characters to life and shaping them into real people.

I’ll end my review with my favourite quote:

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4)

longlisted for the international booker prize 2024

The Details by Ia Genberg is a book about a woman who comes down with a fever and starts reminiscing her life. We see her remembering four people, two ex-lovers, an old friend and her mother.

The novel sets out to explore small moments, or small details about these people the narrator is reminiscing about. It concentrates sometimes in the most frivolous aspects of their relationship.

The writing was really easy to follow, Kira Jofferson, the translator, did an excellent job. They didn’t shy away from words in the original language which is something I love in translated fiction and I can appreciate the hardwork that went into translating the novel.

The writing consists on reminiscing, so we don’t see what the narrator thought in the moment, but what she remembers feeling. It worked for this novel, as we see in retrospect what happened, but the narrator never diminishes her feelings even if they seem frivolous years later. It is something I can appreciate.

This novel deals with love, friendship and grief. It also explores what makes “us”.

"That’s all there is to the self, or the so-called “self”: traces of the people we rub up against."

I really enjoyed the exploration of these themes among different people who had come across the narrator’s path. How each of them presented a different perspective in each side of love.

Maggie Nelson would be the perfect person to get drunk with.

Bluets is a book with a serie of vignettes about the colour blue. It sets to explore what a colour might mean to a person, how can someone love something so much that everything around them ceases to exist. Notheless, it also explores how a colour can complement our life, how we can learn to appreciate the little things that relate to that colour — blue, in this case. 

Is to be in love with blue, then, to be in love with a disturbance? Or is the love itself the disturbance? And what kind of madness is it anyway, to be in love with something constitutionally incapable of loving you back?

Blue means a lot to Maggie Nelson, that much is clear and she goes on a journey to understand why this is. Emotions and life stages can also influence how you perceive a colour. At one point she speaks of yellow, red and green. All colours that don’t bring the same satisfaction as blue does — and why don’t they? To answer this she cites a lot of references that speak not only of colour theory, but also of people who have studied and made art about blue. Whether it’s phylosophers, writers, painters, singers, she tries to make sense of why this colour affects her so deeply. She gets there in the end.

Blue-eye, archaic: “a blueness or dark circle around the eye, from weeping or other cause.

This book has made me realize there’s colour everywhere, and Nelson does a great service to point it all out. Can we appreciate the variety of colours at our disposal and still feel sad? Yes, we can. It’s all part of life afterall. At least, that’s the conclusion she reaches.

“We’re only given as much as the heart can endure,” “What does not kill you makes you stronger,” “Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn”: these are the kinds of phrases that enrage my injured friend. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to come up with a spiritual lesson that demands becoming a quadriparalytic. (…) She has no time for it. She is too busy asking, in this changed form, what makes a livable life, and how she can live it.

the international booker prize longlist is out and all of them sound incredible. ugh so blessed to live in an age where translated literature exists, do not contact me i will be busy for the next 2 months while i devour these

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (3.75)

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a story about two families who despite being physically separated, are intimately connected to each other. It’s a book about how the political climate of a country can break or make a person, but that, in the end, we come back to the things that have always given us comfort. It’s clear to me that the author appreciates music deeply, the way music is described in these pages is unreal. I had never seen music come alive this way before, music moves the narrative and mirrors our characters struggles not only within themselves but with the society they are inserted in. The novel is set in two different timelines, the 50’s-60’s and the 90’s-2000’s. I’ve found really interesting how China’s political stances are explored in both timelines.

“How easy it was to mistake your brother for a traitor or your beloved for an enemy, to fear that you yourself were born in the wrong moment of history.”

This is a historical novel that sets to explore how Chairman Mao’s government affected the people of China and later on why people started rioting. I wish I had more knowledge about this period in China, maybe the novel would have made more sense to me and perhaps the language would not have seemed so dull at times. The author goes into great detail in how the lives of simple people would have been during that time. The famine, the torture, the “distribution of wealth” is heavily explored in this book. It is an interesting topic however I think the language could’ve been more accessible and maybe less information would’ve led to a more cohesive story with less filler sentences. At times it felt as if I was rereading the book due to how repetitive it got because the two timelines the novel explores are so interconnected and it’s basically history repeating itself. One thing I think it was done well was how the characters were afraid to speak up, that seems the logical thing to do in an authoritarian regime. If the characters were suddenly speaking against the government freely it would’ve been incoherent given the time. However, the book addresses the issues without compromising the characters (the ones that aren’t tortured anyway) while still making a clear social commentary.

“I felt she saw into me, past every facade and flourish, and that the more she knew me, the more she loved me. I was too young, then, to know how lasting this kind of love is, how rarely it comes into one’s life, how difficult it is to accept oneself, let alone another. I carried this security—Ai-ming’s love, the love of an older sister—out of my childhood and into my adult life.”

One of the high points of the book is the relationships between the characters, the deep love they feel for each other, whether familiar, platonic or romantic. We see how these characters evolve in each other’s influence and how some people shape our lives. There are a lot of characters in this book and maybe some people can’t connect with most of them because of their multitude, but I’d argue that is the point. In a communist China you’d have to hide yourself a lot of the times, not speak aloud and follow what the Party said. In a way I feel as if the characters’ inner monologue is exactly that, them convincing themselves and the reader that they are loyal to their country, which translates to being loyal to the Party, even in thoughts.

“Why is it that we can’t choose our own jobs? What right does the government have to keep a private file on me? (…) What illegal thoughts. The ones who should die…But actually, why should anyone’s thoughts be illegal?”

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.5)

Her first palestinian is a short story collection about Palestinian emigrants who had to leave their motherland and are now living in Canada. 

The stories include a variety of characters, some left Palestine due to the genocide, others are children that were born in Canada and only visited Palestine during a short period of time, others only heard stories about the country. 

All of the short stories are well constructed and although there were some I didn’t enjoy as much they are there to humanize palestinians. Very few stories are about the conflict itself, but how palestinians live their daily life in a different country than their own. Consequently it shows how the genocide affects their personal lives, even if they are so far away. 

I cloaked my origins as well as I could. If pressed, I offered a summary statement: my parents are from the Middle East, or something equally bland and untraceable.

A big theme throughout the book is identity, some characters hide the fact that they’re palestinians, others say it proudly only to be encountered with oposition, rejection and anti-semitism claims.

The writing is accessible, it is clear that Teebi wanted this book to reach a wild audience, not only those who were familiar with arab traditions, but people from all around the world. It is simple, but direct, however it doesn’t take away from the stories, if anything it adds to it, these are just normal people narrating their lives. 

Most of all, I thought of the mountains that hugged our tiny village, that circumscribed our world. I missed those mountains, even if I always longed to escape their embrace.

I enjoyed how each short story had a different voice and that the reader can distinguish them. We don’t get confused about which story are we reading now, the difference is clear.

“My understanding is that the family would like to get the body to their home country so they can perform the funeral rites themselves, in their traditional way,” he said. “It’s an admirable purpose, isn’t it? You would understand that more than anybody.”

This collection dives deeply into the microagressions arabs suffer, especially in the West. Always being asked where they are from or in cases like the excert above, that the traditions in all arab countries are the same. Watching these microagressions happen through the eyes of the characters that we were following, it felt as if they had been directed at you. You could understand them right away as you were inside their head. However, most of the times they were never addressed, because the character was so used to them. Knowing this happens regularly in the real world just seems dystopian, but it was a point Teebi adressed extremelly well.

Mohsen had managed to emigrate as a young man long ago, establishing himself and starting a family. He returned to Gaza every few years — the ajnabi cousin, the foreigner — with his well-tended teeth and sunscreen-preserved skin (…) “How lucky you are,” he would say, taking languorous looks around, “to still have our homeland’s air cool the pupils of your eyes every day.” But everyone in Mohsen’s company would have traded places with him any day

The stories about emigration where without a doubt my favourites. It explores both sides, those who move to another country and those who stay behind and face the consequences. The ressentment of watching your family leave but knowing you'd do the same if the opportunity was granted. The way emigration takes away your identity and that you’d wish to say in your motherland, but knowing it isn’t safe. These were all adressed with care and it gave a new perspective.

What I want most is silence. Since the tumult started, since children began to be unearthed from the rubble of downed buildings, I ache for silence

Palestinians are constantly bombarded with the awful news that their homeland is suffering. Sometimes it gets too much and these short stories address it in the most heartbreak way possible. What is it like for normal people, who are not activist, to deal with the fact that their home is disapearing?

I could put all the quotes I underlined here, but then i'd be spoiling the book.

I urge everyone to read this collection, it gives us great insight into normal daily lives of emigrants and there are interesting concepts to be debated here.

My rating of the stories: