a tale of love and a birdcage.

𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬.

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…𝓜𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄!

I'm by no means an accomplished scholar, philosopher, or pundit in the way that Mark Fisher is, so my comments aren't as honed or as polished as his probably are. This was a fascinating read, and it really did make me pause and think about an actual society where capitalism as we know it doesn't exist. And I found out that I couldn't really think of it! Even my little video game worlds that seem so divorced from our world run by similar economic models—given how much I end up striving to min-max in my Stardew Valley saves despite it being an "escapist" game for me. Oops. Sorry Mr. Fisher.

His cultural commentary was also super fun to read, and it's frightening how accurate some of his predictions are. I've been deliberately trying to wean myself off of my phone/social media for the past year (hurrah, I finally deleted Twitter of my phone about a month ago!), and picking up "slower" hobbies like reading and writing postcards has significantly done wonders for my mental well-being and attention span. Though it should still be noted that my attention span is still horrendously fried. Sorry again Mr. Fisher.

Ultimately, given that I'm young and spry and haven't had the rose-colored lenses fully knocked off of my face by the "real world," I think I'm too much of an optimist to really bite at Fisher's realistic mindset. But I learned a lot, and I was appreciative of reading this from someone who understands our socioeconomic standing much better than I do. I'd love to reread this further down the line when I'm older and more time has passed.

Quotes I marked: "That slogan captures precisely what I mean by 'capitalist realism': the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it." (pg. 40)

"What is being disavowed in the abjection of evil and ignorance onto fantasmatic Others is our own complicity in planetary networks of oppression. What needs to be kept in mind is both that capitalism is a hyper-abstract impersonal structure and that it would be nothing without our co-operation." (pg. 60)

"What we have is not a direct comparison of workers' performance or output, but a comparison between the audited representation of that performance and output. Inevitably, a short-circuiting occurs, and work becomes geared towards the generation and massaging of representations rather than to the official goals of the work itself." (pg. 102)

"The reversal of priorities is one of the hallmarks of a system which can be characterized without hyperbole as 'market Stalinism'. What late capitalism repeats from Stalinism is just this valuing of symbols of achievement over actual achievement." (pg. 103)

"Just as the anger has no proper object, it will have no effect. In this experience of a system that is unresponsive, impersonal, centerless, abstract, and fragmentary, you are as close as you can be to confronting the artificial stupidity of Capital in itself." (pgs. 135-136)

"Remember: words, especially those written, are immortal." (pg. 123)

I loved this book! It took me a moment to get into the rhythm of the novel, but once I was situated and figured out who was who, I was glued to everything that was happening. We don't see a lot of poplit that features older characters, so it was refreshing to read from a perspective that I don't often find. Sybil is a masterpiece of missed connections, love, guilt, bad decisions, romance, broken family, and everything beautiful and messy that makes us human. I love that she lashes out, pulls loved ones close, wanders aimlessly within her writing, and gives you a precious sliver into such an important aspect of her life.

I do wish the ending wasn't so picture-perfect happy. I understand I can't expect too much tragedy from poplit, but given that so much of the book's thematic emphasis was that people are imperfect and will end up dying or meeting imperfect ends, it felt counterproductive to wrap things up so nicely for Sybil. For a character who spends so much of her growth and life trying to navigate the muck and aftermath of her choices, I wish we got to see the finality of them instead of the deus ex machina that came and swept all of her troubles clean away.

Otherwise, it was a lovely read. I was touched greatly.

Quotes I marked: "What I had seen those years ago as a lack of mercy became to me a presence of... courage—to hurt them! To leave them in dismay! It was courageous because it was unbearable but it was true..." (pg. 255)

To get it out of the way: I consider myself an atheist. I'm not entirely sure what denomination I was raised under? It wasn't Catholicism for sure, and my family left our church when I was in high school. I don't consider myself religious anymore, but thanks to a vested interest in art history, the LOONAverse, and a weird crush in Saint Michael the archangel, Catholicism has become an unconventional interest of mine.

To a degree, this book was written at a perfect time. I think regardless of religious standing, it's important to reckon with the fact that Christianity at its purest is a religion of empathy, love, and compassion, and it's disheartening to see how much it's been bastardized—not only in modern day but throughout history. On a political level, Fugelsang and I stand on very similar grounds, so it was a breath of fresh air to interact with Christianity in a way that wasn't inherently all rah rah white supremacy Christianity.

That being said, on a literary level, the book kinda felt like preaching to the choir. Not a bad thing by any means, when the message being shared is 1) one I agree with haha and 2) ultimately spreading good lesson. I could see how someone younger than myself, someone less vested in Christian texts, and someone not as well-versed in the art of debate (or the art of not engaging at all given what "debate" has become nowadays) would find this helpful, but I left not having taken away anything new. What was rehashed was good stuff, but all stuff I had already come to a conclusion myself/heard before.

"If you want someone dead, you should have to sink your fingers into their eyes, feel their trachea collapse under your hands, let them scratch your arms and pull your hair and cry and beg. Because if you kill someone, you should want it more than anything you've ever wanted before. It shouldn't be easy." (pg. 74)

Do you ever read something so good it genuinely makes you want to run into oncoming traffic?

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng had me craving a bottle of soju once I was done with this book. I craved soju at other points throughout the novel, but this journey was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster. Kylie Lee Baker sets off to do something extremely ambitious with this book, tackling themes of grief, identity, systematic racism, and so much more, and all of them feel so fully realized by the time the book comes to a close. It's a lot to digest at once, and while I definitely should have taken the time to really chew this one over (but alas, my Libby copy was due tomorrow and the hold was projecting a 10 week wait time), every beat of the story felt thought out and purposeful.

The book does not shy away whatsoever from gore and body horror and other gnarly scenes of hate crimes. Cora definitely is struggling with some form of OCD as well, and her paranoia spills out across the pages throughout the entirety of the plot. It did get to a point for me where I felt nauseous eating lunch while I was in the midst of reading the book, so props to Lee Baker for being such an evocative writer. Such graphic writing will 100% not be everyone's cup of tea, but I toughed it out—and every second of it was worth it.

Quotes I marked: "Cora thinks about the Girl with a Pearl Earring, and the Mona Lisa, and all the beautiful women immortalized in oil paint, and wonders if they said cruel things too, if their words had mattered at all or just the roundness of their eyes and softness of their cheeks, if beautiful people are allowed to break your heart and get away with it." (pg. 18)

"Auntie Zeng said there are thousands of doors that will open to anyone who knocks. This is the door that Cora chooses—the one that opens up in the starbright fires of hell." (pg. 263)

"Cora Zeng decides in that moment, with the whole block staring at her and headlights searing her vision and a hungry ghost looming behind her that this is the kind of person she will be. The dirty street urchin who eats dogs and cats and bats raw, the communist spy who wants to kill Americans, the virgin in a schoolgirl skirt that will seduce him and ruin his life—all of his crooked fantasies can be true for all she cares. Because a bat eater is the kind of person that white men want to hurt, the kind of person who tangles their fear and hate together and elicits their rage, the kind of person who scares them. And Cora knows all too well that you can't fear someone who has no power over you." (pgs. 358-359)

"There would be no Stop Asian Hate movement without the advances of the Civil Rights Movement or the hard work and suffering of Black, Latine, and Indigenous communities. There is no justice for Asian Americans without justice for all BIPOC. So please do not pity Cora Zeng while condemning Trayvon Martin. Anti-Asian hate is real and deserves attention, but it is only one symptom of a deeply broken society, and we cannot understand or stop it without acknowledging the danger of white supremacy and all the other people it has hurt. Do not let your empathy stop at the borders of your own community." (Author's Note, pg. 377)

JULY

✦ renegades: marissa meyer

✦ dark sisters: kristi demeester

✦ bat eater and other names for cora zeng: kylie lee baker

✦ separation of church and hate: john fugelsang

✦ the correspondent: virgina evans

✦ capitalist realism: mark fisher

"You were told your entire life to want it. Finding the man. The romance. The storybook wedding. It was only after, in the quiet of your new domestic life, that the cracks started to show, and the voice you muzzled suddenly learned how to scream." (pg. 152)

This book is jinjja crazy. DeMeester has a talent for getting into the guttural, unnerving atmosphere and twisting it to a hundred. I read this while irritating a developing canker sore, and when I tell you that reading this book made me wish I could wash my mouth out with the strongest mouthwash in my house... The body horror is no joke. It's so fascinating the way different authors can depict female rage in all of its viciousness. I loved the root of the "horror" too—how denying the darkness inside yourself will inevitably catch up to you, and only in your wholeness can you set yourself free.

Some of the writing was a little on the nose as far as pacing was concerned, but everything else was fantastic. I was so stressed reading the latter half of the novel. I devoured the whole "timeless" aspect of the central conflict wholeheartedly. Such a gem of a gothic novel!

Quotes I marked: "All those small suggestions. No one had ever told them to starve themselves. To sweat through hundreds of Pilates classes from private instructors in the name of a tight ass and flat stomach. To pay for liposuction. A breast augmentation. A brow lift. But they were quiet daggers offered up at an altar they imagined they'd built. This was how you found a husband. This was how you kept him. And didn't they want that? To be found desirable? Worthy of attention? Didn't they want to look good so their husbands would not stray? Would not sin?" (pg. 26)

"He should have taken it all. Taken our lips and tongues. Sliced our vocal cords so we could no longer make sound. He did not understand a woman's rage. How it manifests even as it stutters into death." (pg. 250)

but i did it! i had to make an uggo ass collage bc tumblr wont let me post the regular degular screenshots i took for some reason... im hoping to be better about it for the new one that went live yesterday!! this time will be different!!!!! i swear!!!!!!

i also finished the storygraph's genre challenge by reading the many faces of josephine baker for the black historical figure biography category! yay!!!

i also signed up for the hardest reading challenge you'll ever do 3.0! i know it's not designed to be completed, so i will be aiming for a humble 70%... fingers crossed!!

Despite how intimidatingly long this book appeared at first, I flew through it a lot faster than I had anticipated. The plot is fast, the characters are interesting, and I found myself sucked into the world-building and political turmoil that Gatlon City finds itself embroiled in. Oftentimes, books are quick to toss their characters into dystopian sci-fi/fantasy worlds, but very few really stop to pick through and develop a world where the "worst" has already happened and what it looks like to be in the aftershocks where people are torn between needing to rebuild while trying to reestablish what a new "normal" looks like.

Renegades hits that niche perfectly. It's a little on-the-nose as far as its metaphor and real world parallels are concerned, but I suppose that's to be expected for a young adult novel. It's so fascinating to see superhero society from the view of Nova, an anti-hero spy, and Adrian, a vigilante who should be at the heart of what Gatlon City stands for. They really are the perfect picks to unfold the story with, and I love how the crux of this book is dedicated to establishing them as narrative foils before hinting at romantic plotpoints—it really got me invested in learning their motivations as individuals and their worldviews, rather than viewing them as a pair per se.

Super excited to talk about this with my online book club soon!

"The mortal realm of Iseung disgusts him, but there is one feature—and, mind you, one feature only—that he finds he does not loathe with the entire expanse of his bitter soul. Coffee." (pg. 21)

The reviews aren't lying when they said this book is a K-Drama in novel format! It's cute and a little childish as any adventure-fantasy-romcom is, and I could definitely see the tropes that the author drew upon while bringing this story to life. It was easy to read, and I found the characters to be pretty compelling. I enjoyed the mystery element too! I totally fell for the red herring, so the twist at the end was pretty nice.

I don't have any qualms with romances that unfold quickly, but it did throw me for a loop when it mentioned at one point that Seokga and Hani are doing all this within a week of meeting each other. They have good chemistry, but it felt a lot longer than that! The ending was tragic and somewhat predictable in the way K-Dramas tend to be, but it seems to be the author's way of setting up the plot for the second novel so I'm able to forgive that aspect. While it didn't blow my pants off or anything as far as how much I was impressed is concerned, it was an entertaining read, and I always enjoy seeing Korean culture being reimagined in clever ways!

Quotes I marked: "'You'll find, brother, that those whom you deem 'lesser' posses a hunger to become greater.'" (pg. 152)

"...and that is when Hani realizes, with a slight start, that Seokga and she have both been speaking in banmal, the informal. Not to mock, not to deride—just casually. But for how long? When did she make that shift? When did she stop speaking in the informal only to mock him and start speaking to him as a friend?" (pgs. 312-313)

"'It's a sad fact about true love,' my mother told me once. 'The sheep love me without ceasing, and that is why I am able to cause them pain—love is the path of least resistance, you see? It's a lot more work to cause harm to someone who mistrusts you, or fears you. Or hates you. Love opens the city gates wide, and allows all manners of horrors right inside. That's why they don't flinch when I come at them with something unpleasant.'"

The Crane Husband is a haunting novella about a young girl who watches her mother, her family, and the life around her slowly shatter as the talons of domestic violence dig deep. It's a perfect example of the "less is more" writing mantra, as every single sentence carries a weight to it that adds masterfully to the heart-wrenching atmosphere Barnhill sets up. The narrator is a gem, and like a car crash you can't tear your eyes away from, even though the tragedy is written plain as days on the wall, you can't help but feel your heart getting painfully ripped out as she fights to keep a grasp on everything that she loves.

It's a fascinating reimagining, filled with tons of metaphors and delightful storytelling. I was very impressed despite being such a quick read!

Quotes I marked: "'You're you. You belong to yourself. You belong to your art. You belong to me and Michael, We don't want you to fly away.'"

"Her black eye is a pool of ink. It is a bottomless pit. It is a collapsed star, all density and hunger and relentless gravity, pulling everything it can into its center—to be unraveled, unmade, undone, and unrecognizable. How can anyone survive that kind of love?"