There are some book topics and genres that I will immediately pick up no matter what, because they always appeal to my lYeah, this one was not for me.
There are some book topics and genres that I will immediately pick up no matter what, because they always appeal to my life and literary preferences. Then, there are other sorts of stories (ex: fantasy or speculative fiction) where I only tend to enjoy the cream of the crop. The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi certainly fell into the latter category. There was nothing objectionable here, but also nothing remarkable (at least for me.)
If you love thinking about not-so-far-off advancements in biotechnology and their moral implications, I think you will enjoy this!! However, if you read most books hoping to connect more deeply with characters than concepts, you'll probably get to the end of this story feeling just as underwhelmed as I did! ...more
I am so glad this book exists! It is very inspirational, even while describing harrowing, not-so-far-away events. Showing whatActual Rating: 4.5 stars
I am so glad this book exists! It is very inspirational, even while describing harrowing, not-so-far-away events. Showing what is possible “on the other side” of these ongoing and impending crises is really encouraging to me, especially because the authors did so in a way where I didn’t have to suspend disbelief too often.
Finding our roles + better relations to “work” One key theme that I loved from Everything for Everyone is how each person alive can take a role in shaping and contributing to this new world. This is something I really admired when reading Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire. That collection has a similar format with compiling different narrators, except those narrators are IRL Palestinians who are resisting the occupation with their research, caregiving skills, literary hobbies, agricultural experience, and so much more!! This idea that anything you do can be directed towards supporting other humans is so beautiful. It made me hopeful about the things I can do now to better prepare for the things I don’t want to come (climate collapse, civil war, mass famine) and the things I sincerely hope will come after/during all the doom (fall of capitalism, family and prison abolition, end of the nation-states, etc.)
Here are just a few of my favorite quotes about this topic:
1. This quote in Chapter 1: “…in the weeks after taking the Market I focused on what I was best at: taking care of people. About five hundred people came to live in the Market and work on food distribution. I made sure every one of them got taken care of when they were sick, had friends or a sweetie or decent sex, had a safe place to sleep, had ways to learn something new and help out…It was an inspiration for a lot of people in trying to rethink how to live. I found my role here at the beginning, and I focused on that so I wouldn’t find the rest of it too overwhelming.” (29)
2. This passage about drilling down to what you can do to meet the needs in your surrounding area, and how that exercise can help with finding your place in things: “I think that model really influenced the communes later, how everything had to be local first. You had to know who you were dealing with, there had to be trust, you were accountable not to some big, anonymous dawla but to like your actual neighbors and housemates.” (48-49)
3. This discussion of how much would have to shift for us to find an affirming relationship to work: “At first, I was on cleaning duty. I liked that. I liked getting things clean and ready for everyone…I think living in the camps and then in the factory housing left me with this very deep resentment about work, and it took me some time to learn other ways of relating to tasks…Like, we knew in the factory we would starve if we didn’t work. But now there was no job that no one was unwilling to do. No job was worth more than another. But I had always hated work so much, there was a clash inside me.” (108)
The last quote especially spoke to me, as it’s going to be SO REAL FOR SO MANY PEOPLE who are exhausted by the labor exploitation of our current world. However, this book offered so many promising examples of a more affirming connection that we could have to work. I particularly enjoyed the moments in Chapter 3 when Tanya described how her aunt and baby sister truly came alive through getting involved with the commune. It reminded me of the huge shift that the concept of work takes on in one of my favorite books ever, The Land by Mildred D. Taylor. Once Paul, Cassie, and Mitchell are freed from bondage and living by choice in Mississippi, they develop this really proud connection to the laborious tasks of chopping trees, planting crops, building a physical home, and many other items. It’s the same work they did on the plantation, but it’s completed with completely changed autonomy, promise, and thus fulfillment. I think Everything for Everyone shows a similar shift taking place in the lives of its characters.
It gave me hope that while a perfect relationship to work or our roles within a communist society won’t cohere perfectly in this world, there is hope in the next—and there are windows to begin now. I saw so many potential roles I could take on, many of which I can begin practicing today! Like in addition to just becoming better with socializing with my neighbors and growing my caregiving tolerance and skills, there are even some ways to use my educational/professional training more thoughtfully. Like this book even has a character who is an information systems processor/research analyst who helps ensure there is democratic decision making at the general assembly!! If this really becomes a future “role”, I call dibs on it cause wow!!!
Family abolition (and other concepts of a liberated world), live in action! This book also includes many beautiful explorations of the forms family abolition could take in a communist society, and how each of those forms would be incredibly empowering for children and gender-oppressed people. Abdelhadi and O’Brien show how the commune and its networks of care would actually be an important antidote to loneliness and isolation, without stripping members of the autonomy we currently have to sacrifice to be “a part of something.” Like what a concept, that people wouldn’t have to stay together because they wouldn’t be lonely and left to die without a romantic partner!!!
I also *loveddddddddd* the connection of ecological and psychological restoration in Chapter 10. This chapter is about a schizophrenic scientist on a quest to help mitigate the damages of climate change in a world that is now seeking to take better care of the planet. The scientist is partially doing all this by seeking to simultaneously reconcile the damage of psychosis with the potential for their unique mental state to actually help them live more fully and positively within the new world. I’m poorly describing the concept, but it nearly brought me to tears! A world where that sort of approach to mental health exists would literally be a lifesaver for several of my loved ones.
I should note that this literary framework all makes sense coming from M.E. O’Brien, who has one of the most helpful views on this from most modern thinkers I’ve seen. I often come back to this quote from her interview with David Camfield:
“Ultimately the kinds of communities that we yearn for are not going to be possible under capitalism…Communities may be organized as authoritarian property-based cults that are focused on their own reproduction at the exclusion of the outside world. Or if a community is actually an inclusive place that working-class people can participate in, then they usually lack the material means of being able to persist in the [face of the] tremendous violence of racial capitalism. When we speak of community, we are yearning for something else, we are yearning for something that we have not yet figured out how to create, and ultimately something that will require the overcoming of class society. What we mean by community is our yearning for communism.”
Suffice to say I will be bumping her other book, Family Abolition, way up my TBR. We need more people thinking about these topics in such a way!!
Random pettiness This is random, but I also enjoyed Abdelhadi and O’Brien’s prediction that if/when these insurrections happen, the self-proclaimed leftists will have little to do with it. On page 10, the author-narrators note that “Pre-insurrection, there were groups who identified as communists and were commonly called the ‘organized left.’ These groups and their rhetorical and theoretical framework largely played only a marginal role in the insurrections.” Their argument is basically that the state will “cease to exist” due to the combination of economic and climate collapse and mass uprisings, most of which will be initiated by people who have never considered themselves to be “political” before. This all just felt so much more realistic to me, especially in America, because let’s be so honest, our “serious” communists here are not going to save anybody. as this lovely thread from last week notes, most U.S. leftists can't even find their way out of a roommate chores dispute—explain to me how will they "lead a revolt", quickly!!!
Additionally, I do think many other reviewers had thoughtful criticisms of this book’s literary flaws, including but not limited to the “tell, not show” nature of the oral history form. I didn’t mind this and thought it was a fine choice, though I agree with reviewer KC that reading a live action version of this book could have been incredibly exciting to read. As several review note, I think this book’s main stylistic issue is the conversational similarities of the interviewees. They really aren’t separate characters, but instead a collection of plot devices used to showcase different aspects of this new world. Again, this new world really excites me, so I dealt with it! However, it really did feel like they were just checking random boxes sometimes—and more than anything, I was upset that they didn’t create a character who could speak more about the “Republic of New Africa” and the NUCLEAR ATTACKS that happened in this story!
This is getting too long, because the main thought I have is that you should read this! It is super encouraging, even while being very sobering about some of the real things that are likely to happen in the next 50 or so years. I am doing a buddy read of this one, which I think will be a really helpful way to keep thinking about some of the themes over the long term. Potentially more thoughts after that, but until then, I would completely recommend this book, and also Kathleen’s stunning review of it....more
This book is immediately so warm, and grows into a really touching exploration of one woman's journey through numerous life challenges. Ranita AtwaterThis book is immediately so warm, and grows into a really touching exploration of one woman's journey through numerous life challenges. Ranita Atwater is such an endearing protagonist, and even when she does not believe in herself, the author helps us to immediately believe in her story and the future she is trying to build for herself and her children.
One of this book's core themes is "love as an action", and how characters' choices result in them either extending care to each other, or harming the people close to them. Ranita, specifically, is caught between people's incomplete love of her, and her brave path to live out more authentic forms of love upon her reentry.
I think I was most drawn to the relationships and characters that Helen Elaine Lee placed all around Ranita in this novel. It was a rare joy and true relief to read a book where I enjoyed all the characters, even the ones I didn't particularly like. The connections between Ranita and her friends at Oak Hills, her aunts and mother, and even her past lovers felt so lived in that it was easy to find a way into caring about her and this story. You understand the weight of each relationship, and are led to root for the ones that hold promise to work out.
I really enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to anyone who is in the emotional space for a tearjerker. If you feel up for a "gloomy" read but are sensitive to certain traumatic topics, I would share a TW for the following items: substance abuse/addiction, incarceration, verbal abuse (particularly from parents), domestic violence, sexual violence (including towards children), and religious violence....more
Hmm…not quite what I was expecting! As everyone knows, I have no problem hatereading Akwaeke Emezi’s work (see: the absolute tomfoolery that is You MaHmm…not quite what I was expecting! As everyone knows, I have no problem hatereading Akwaeke Emezi’s work (see: the absolute tomfoolery that is You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty or my thoughts on Bitter, the disappointing and derivative prequel to Pet.) However, their eighth (ICK) book doesn’t warrant a full rant review. Little Rot is nowhere near as awful as Akwaeke’s worst novels, but also falls short of their strongest books (in my opinion, the aforementioned Pet and to a lesser extent, The Death of Vivek Oji).
This was a confounding experience To Akwaeke’s credit, Little Rot certainly defies any easy categorizations—they’ve created a novel blend of chaos and mediocrity. I really enjoyed Book of Cinz’s review, which notes that Little Rot felt “insanely predictable, often times it felt like the author was trying to shock me which made me roll my eyes. It felt so pedantic and overdone…amateur, that's what I will say.” These sentiments perfectly explain the experiential rollercoaster this book will evoke in its more discriminating readers. (At this point, I’m convinced that Akwaeke’s hive would 5-star rate a published collection of their iCloud notes.) This book is doing the most while not doing enough, and its author seems to suffer both from an endless imagination for evil, and a lazy execution of said evil. One would hope that a book like this would surprise readers, and not merely shock them.
I got through this book in one sitting, which is usually a good thing, but in this case, it seemed like an unfair trap. The inevitable collision course towards Little Rot’s final scene sneaks up on you right as you’re getting used to some of the characters. To be fair, I believe that’s what the author intended—they wanted this story to feel like a 2.5-hour thriller that takes up part of your afternoon, and stays with you well into in the night as you feel a bit icky about what you’ve just watched. Unfortunately, Little Rot is just too forgettable to achieve this effect.
Things I did like I can’t deny that there is a cinematic quality to this novel, and it pays off in the moments where we encounter characters who have been (relatively) well-developed. I loved the split-second decision in the scene when Aima and Ijendu entered a certain character’s home, and almost immediately sprung into action. These moments made me think of my favorite scenes in How to Get Away With Murder, where the high stakes and stress of a situation shine a positive light on the characters who seem the most competent in “fixing the mess.” Once the smoke clears, you shamefully realize is that “the mess” in question is killing, and the people you are now rooting for are the ones who have disappeared the actual victims. Back to that earlier scene, the unraveling of Ijendu’s mystique was particularly delightful. You see how much we’ve underestimated this party girl, and I honestly would have enjoyed reading about “the first time” she was involved with something like this (I stood up straight in my seat when the pastor said that!)
I was also fascinated by the moral geography of this book, namely Akwaeke’s argument that the city’s rot seeps into the behavior of its residents. This “rot” is most evident in the characters’ constant power grabs and attempts at social climbing, be that through the extortion or outright elimination of their competitors. At one point in Little Rot, a character almost begins to brag that a very famous person put out a hit on him, as “it was almost impressive to have someone like that take such a personal, if homicidal, interest in you” (Kindle Locations 2775-2776). The assassination and murder schemes in this book feel just as intimate as the sexual interactions, partially because I think they are often coming from a similar set of motivations. For instance, one discussion of a murder plot occurs amidst some serious flirtation:
“This pastor has more power than you.” Souraya didn’t realize she’d said the words out loud until she heard them and saw the answering grimace on Ahmed’s face. “I hate hearing it that way, but you’re not wrong.” His jaw clenched. “Fuck.” (Kindle Locations 2271-2273)”
While we could have some better-written dialogue here, the characters’ bluntness works for the most part. Akwaeke has stated that this book is about the nakedness of immorality in Lagos, and how that differs from the artifice around corruption in the West. In other parts of the book, I think they show this bare corruption with great clarity:
“Privately, Souraya thought Kalu sounded like a rich and careless man who probably didn’t deserve the help. New Lagos had so many girls who needed it more, who probably needed help precisely because of men like him.” (Kindle Locations 2302-2304).
Quotes like this reveal the part I really did enjoy about this book: there is a constant shuffling of the food chart and power ladder, switching back and forth in characters’ minds as they perform the mental math on who to align with, who to lend courtesy to, and who to annihilate. It takes an astute author to capture these characters’ unfiltered calculations in a way that’s immediately recognizable to readers. So in this respect, I guess you could say that for once, Akwaeke has actually succeeded at placing us inside what I have come to see as their trademark bastardized ethics.
Things I was disappointed in As the quotes above indicate, the quality of their writing is just all over the place. ☹ Sometimes, I thought their descriptions worked really well, and then a paragraph later, they completely lost me. The sex scenes that are interspersed with murder plots and confessions felt just cartoonishly villainous, and I hated Ahmed’s pet name for Souraya almost as much as I hated Alim’s for Feyi.
I also never really understand Kalu’s motivations and feelings toward another central character. We have lots of passages where the other characters are musing on how he might feel about this person, but never receive a straight reflection from him. It felt like another instance where the author needed to “show, not tell”—particularly because why else include him as a POV character?!? This leads me to another complaint, which is that I think Akwaeke had too many POV characters for such a brief story. I felt like we spent much of the book in Ahmed’s head, in a way that made sense and was helpful. But then other characters who were equally relevant to the story (Ola, Kalu) felt relatively cut out of the narrative minus a few chapters, which led to the lack of clarity and anticlimactic ending.
In addition to us not receiving enough focus from some of the POV characters, and too much focus on others (Souraya always felt one-dimensional to me), I was quite surprised by the choice to exclude Machi as a narrator. Her lack of agency seems to be a moral connector throughout this story, but her actual voice or thoughts are stunningly absent from the narrative. It’s an interesting choice in a story that wants to make a point about how sidelined people like Machi are in this world.
I also felt that Little Rot does nothing to challenge the continually basic depiction of masculinity in these sorts of “noir” books. The male action characters continue to be deeply underimagined when it comes to their emotional range, and this often stifles the character development potential of their love interests, too. I’ve written more about this in my reviews of All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby and Femi Kayode’s Gaslight, which interestingly enough, also includes an “evil Nigerian megapastor” storyline. All this particularly limits Souraya’s story, because of her connection to Ahmed. I feel like Akwaeke tried to keep this from being a cut and dry "knight in shining armor saves the helpless damsel" situation, but it wasn’t enough. Sure, they show us that Ahmed is no knight, he isn’t “helping” Souraya for pure reasons, and Souraya has imposed distance in their relationship so that she can better stand independently. However, we don’t meet the character in the middle of her years of independence—we meet her on Friday morning, and by Saturday evening, she is back crying in this man’s arms.
The damsel in distress trope is also reinforced by this huge disparity in how the characters process the acts they are seeing. It feels like the women (Souraya and Aima, particularly) are the only ones coming apart at the seams, but Ahmed’s comparable moment of “weakness” is a bit of shock and then back into rage and action mode. Sure, you have female counterbalances like Ijendu and Ola who are dependable even in these dangerous moments. However, Akwaeke provides no real counterbalance in the form of male characters who “crack under pressure” with the same manner of vulnerability that you see with Souraya or Aima. I just would’ve liked to see “both, and”, if that makes sense.
End note: Akwaeke continues to be delusional about their publishing assembly line, and readers are putting the battery in their back. So, here we are at the end of their eighth book in like five years or so, and there is no foreseeable end to the Akwaeke Emezi industrial complex. While preparing to write this review, I read the Elle interview for Little Rot, and was dismayed to see that Akwaeke truly doesn’t get that the problem isn’t the quantity of their books, it’s the ever-dwindling quality of them. Their assertion that they have “zero flops” within their body of work is patently false, and a real testament to the author-as-influencer and readers-as-followers cycle that has occurred thanks to BookTok or Bookstagram. As we speak, there is another “little rot” going on: in the minds of all the readers who have become mindless stans for this author and others like them, and in the authors who are embracing their own megalomania thanks to all this uncritical praise.
It brings to mind this video of Fran Lebowitz that has been circling around. Fran describes the dearth of connoisseurs following the AIDS epidemic, and how this is connected to the lowered standards for modern art, despite the never-ending increase in artistic exports. Fran’s argument is that the audience is just as influential in cultural production as the artist, and in some ways, without an audience of high standards, the art will continue to suffer. To me, it seems that the Akwaeke hive’s standards are basically how much clickbait and smut can be found inside these books, and on how attractive Akwaeke looks promoting said books on their Instagram. I just do not see any of their superfans engaging with their books as actual works of art—they are moreso engaging these books as new toys or fixations. And again, all that is all fine!!
My only issue is that people will do all this, AND ALSO try to sell the rest of us on Akwaeke’s literary prowess as an author!!! I hate it because you literally can’t have it both ways. ☹ The insistence that these books are technically sound, and not just an opportunity to indulge in mess, bothers me deep in my soul. I think often about the authors who likely would have book deals right now if more of the literary world was just a bit more honest that Akwaeke cannot do it all—and they are no longer doing much with excellence.
With all this said, I guess I’m part of the problem, because even a hateread of their books is a continued read! At the same time, we are still very limited when it comes to Black queer fiction that is NOT YA, and I just know someone who isn’t trying to write nineteen books at once could’ve delivered a truly enjoyable version of this concept. Sadly, until that more talented and less egotistical writer gets their book deal, I will be seated waiting for what comes next from the author we are stuck with.
TWs a few lines below here . . . . . TW: copious sexual violence, child abuse (including sexual), murder, unnegotiated BDSM, and religious violence...more
This was one of my most difficult buddy reads of 2024, which is regrettable as I think it’s super important to learn more about the historical resistaThis was one of my most difficult buddy reads of 2024, which is regrettable as I think it’s super important to learn more about the historical resistance to exploitation in the Congo. My friend and I set out to read The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History because unlike many “primer” books we could find, it actually seemed to be written by a Congolese author. The framing of a people’s history also suggested that we might encounter a more human-scaled history than we did when reading The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi. As I’ve noted, I learned a lot from that book politically, but it was less attuned to people’s everyday experiences of and resistance to the occupation than expected.
I think Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja does a better job at explaining what various political decrees actually meant for the lives of everyday Congolese people, so I must give him credit for that! He's also skilled at laying out the central political themes of the Congo over the last few centuries, which seem to still influence today.
Things I Learned One of the major themes of this book is how the Congolese people are repeatedly denied the chance to select their own leadership. This "negation of democracy and the popular rule" is of course stood up by the powers that be in America, Belgium, and other colonial nations and world powers who had a vested interest in the significant resources that can be exploited from this region. Like in Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila describes the post-WW2 imperial transfer of power where America began stepping in to prop up these neocolonial governments. Nzongola-Ntalaja shows how over the course of many decades, this outsized American influence (and Belgian/French influence before that) has continued to impede the Congolese people’s continued fight for self-determination and democracy (term used lightly here).
Another unavoidable theme of this book is how it truly all goes back to the resources!!! I read How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney in February, and I think he is of a similar mind to Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja. Both books describe the mineral and ecological wealth of the Congo, though this one of course provides much more detail. I was just shocked by the abundance of resources in the Congo—like other countries have literally financed their invasions into the Congo by extracting resources from the country. (My fellow urban planners will immediately be reminded of value capture schemes in this section!!) This pattern of exploitation has made all but the average Congolese people very rich, and with Western countries and their Congolese “strong men” harvesting everything from uranium for atomic bombs to the coltan that powers our phones in the Congo!!! While Nzongola-Ntalaja’s work is a bit too old to fully discuss the smartphone front in detail, he clearly draws a line to how the current travesties of child and adult slave labor are actually “business as usual” in terms of foreign industries’ resource extraction in the Congo.
Things I Struggled With Now, for the not-so-great. I made the Walter Rodney comparison intentionally, because I found both books to be similarly dry—though I didn’t find Rodney to be as condescending. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja seems hellbent on this quasi-attached, quasi-detached criticism of every single Congolese freedom movement that took place over the last 200 years. I spoke with my friend who is a historian about this, and they noted that this sort of narrative fence-straddling is woefully common in political histories. The authors seem unsure about whether they want to cast themselves as authentic dissidents commenting on something they know intimately, or culturally-motivated academics making a detached analytical review of their history. This makes for a perspective that is obnoxious in some places, and confusing in others, but never fully enjoyable.
Final Thoughts/Application Corner You will learn things from this book, but you will be forced to learn them from an author who loves to list the mistakes of every revolutionary that was fighting against Mobutu while said author was *checks notes* in grad school in Wisconsin. When I wasn’t struggling with this lack of self-awareness, I was struggling to keep interest in a story that seems to be written in the driest way possible. If anyone has recommendations for other introductory political books by Congolese authors, I will gladly accept them!
In the meantime, I would highly recommend the Friends of the Congo page on Instagram. Through following this account, I have learned about modern Congolese perspectives, boycotts being held in solidarity with the Congo (such as the iPhone 16 boycott), and how the Congolese genocide connects to Palestine, Sudan, and even the future of “green energy.”...more
A World Between by Emily Hashimoto is easily one of my favorite sapphic romance novels in the last five years! That’s saying sActual Rating: 4.5 stars
A World Between by Emily Hashimoto is easily one of my favorite sapphic romance novels in the last five years! That’s saying something, because we’re reaching a critical mass of options to actually choose from now. Even in the pack, Hashimoto (they/them)’s work stands out from the others. This is technically a 400+ page book, but my buddy read partner and I ended up flying through this story, and we both agreed that we would’ve read another 200 pages if Hashimoto had written them! Sequel, anyone?!?!
Hashimoto gets a lot right here, but the first thing they do masterfully is develop characters that we either want to root for, or enjoy rooting against. In the age of diFFiCuLt wOmEn and CoMpLeX nArRaTiOn, it has become a rare luxury to enjoy all the characters in a book. To me, this is not the same as liking all the characters—it’s moreso about appreciating the author’s vision with each character, because their personality has a clear purpose and positive impact on the story as a whole. For instance, I found Nasrin to be one of the most repulsive, smug little assholes I’d read about in a long time. Thankfully, Hashimoto is aware of how this character comes across, and skillfully uses Nasrin as a classic heel who seeks to destroy the budding roomie-lover-friends plot. This means Nasrin’s character fulfills the role of a delightful villain that you love to hate, instead of a troublingly annoying character that takes readers out of the story. Hashimoto is also skilled at making readers love unexpected characters. Making the bisexual’s boyfriend a clueless but mostly enjoyable tech bro was a brilliant move, and I found myself enjoying each time Dhaval was mentioned or popped back up in the later scenes.
I did have some timing gripes with this story, most of which could have been solved with even more chapters. ...more
This actually felt really self-contained and satisfying by the end. I will enjoy a sequel, but won’t be mad if it takes a few more years before we getThis actually felt really self-contained and satisfying by the end. I will enjoy a sequel, but won’t be mad if it takes a few more years before we get there.
Sapphic plot is worth the slow burn, and even the less interesting narrators (Niclays and Tané) pick up their steam around the 300 page mark.
Would recommend if you have the patience to get past the first 150, and unlike I did, I’d recommend trying to get through that point fast so you don’t drag this out over months! The whole thing gets REALLY FUN after then. ...more
WOW: this collection is equal parts sobering, inspiring, and enlightening. After buddy reading of the Hundred Years' War on Palestine, my friend AdriaWOW: this collection is equal parts sobering, inspiring, and enlightening. After buddy reading of the Hundred Years' War on Palestine, my friend Adriana and I were hoping to find something with more of a human scale. Light in Gaza offers this and so much more, and it indicates how so much more is required of those of us who bear witness to everyday people's suffering under the Israeli occupation.
I think my favorite part of this book was how many different angles the contributors took in sharing their experiences of life in Gaza. Some essayists offered creative and thoughtful explanations of how their hobbies, passions, and professions were influenced by the occupation; while others focused on how their family ties have been impacted by the blockade and travel restrictions. Essayists with particular connections to kids described how their children or students dreamed about Palestine's future, and the many skilled poets featured in this collection shared their own dreams and nightmares in verse.
There are so many great examples to share, but I'll try to summarize some of the most memorable or eye-opening to me: First, while reading Asmaa Abu Mezied's essay, I learned about how the occupation has robbed many Palestinians in Gaza of their families' agricultural heritage, and also how many people are--against all odds--working to reconnect with the land through continued stewardship. Mosab Abu Toha's essay focuses on his work to make it possible for other refugees in Gaza to share his love for English literature. In the process of just trying to provide library access for his neighbors, he ends up taking on all these endeavors to catalog Gaza's artistic and cultural presence, showing (again) just how many ways there are to tie our passions to our solidarity with other oppressed people.
Other people spoke less about their hobbies/professions, and more about their family ties. This was just as impactful to read about. Again, just a few of the many meaningful examples: Israa Mohammed Jamal's essay really drove home the intergenerational and inherited nature of refugee status in Gaza, a thread that Shahd Abusalama introduced earlier in the collection with the concept of "permanent temporality". And of course, Refaat Alareer's essay, "Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass?" was just so haunting. In one part of this piece, he references a 2021 NYT op-ed of his , where he states that his wife "Nusayba and I are a perfectly average Palestinian couple: Between us we have lost more than 30 relatives." To hear Dr. Alareer write about how Israel has already murdered his brother and his wife's sister, amongst many other friends and family members, and realizing how much compounding grief his murder (which was accompanied by the murder of his brother, sister, and niblings) must have created not just for his wife and children, but also for the many people in his community who'd already lost so many others they know?!?
This was my first time ever reading a book where I had to Google which of the authors were still living, and which had been killed due to the genocide they are facing. It's also evil reading this book, knowing that my country is the reason this is still happening. Knowing that the writers in this collection are describing the unfathomable pain of living through the wars in 2014 and 2021, and knowing that by many accounts, this current war is considered to be even worse. It's things like this that leave me feeling that there are really no words, only hellfire awaiting those of us who profit from the settler colonial ways of this world.
As much as there is despair and deep guilt for the role we play in Gaza's suffering as Americans, there is also so much opportunity/inspiration for action in this collection. To go back to the earlier point about the variety of these essays and poems, I think this shows how everyone in this collection is literally taking whatever knowledge, words, and relations they have and using them to resist the occupation, and work to create as many possible instances of Light in Gaza. This provides so many entrypoints to think about on our side of things. Nearly every part of my life could be more in support of the Palestinian resistance, and that is the constant goal I see for me moving forward. It's clear from this book just how many everyday people in Gaza have continued to find ways to support and strengthen their communities, in light of insurmountable repression. While I don't know if it's even possible for someone like to me to mirror their bravery, I am at least really hoping to mirror their creativity. To continue figuring out how even more of my spare time, my hobbies, my economic choices, and relationships can support the end of the occupation.
So in a terribly weird closing, I'll say that I am incredibly thankful to have gotten to read this book, and would recommend it to anyone and everyone....more
Don’t want to give this a full negative review, since I never finished it. However, the stories I did read felt both underwhelming and hard to follow.Don’t want to give this a full negative review, since I never finished it. However, the stories I did read felt both underwhelming and hard to follow. I never reached the throughline between the stories, and did not feel like forcing myself to get to that point (though I doubt I would have enjoyed that point either, since I did not connect with any of the characters enough to want to see them come back around.)
I think others may enjoy this, so I don’t want to not recommend. However, neither I nor my buddy read friend (who forced themselves to read the whole thing) thought it was time well spent. ...more
I am really mad I didn't read this the minute it came out! Tembe Denton-Hurst's debut has so many exciting concepts, and I would love to see how fleshI am really mad I didn't read this the minute it came out! Tembe Denton-Hurst's debut has so many exciting concepts, and I would love to see how fleshed out they will be in her future work. I put it this way because while there was a lot of promise in Homebodies, unfortunately the last third of the novel fell flat for me, so I can't give a completely glowing review. However, if I were rating this book simply on the first two-thirds, it would be an easy 4.5 stars!
This is a story that is so easy to sink into--the introductions to our characters and settings feel comfortable, well-paced, and just a bit unexpected. This is a traditional story/plot, but there are enough eccentricities in the main character and her love interests to keep you interested. While I found a lot of the dialogue to be clunky, I do think Tembe Denton-Hurst had a particular knack for the sparring/flirting dynamics between Mickey and her grandparents, Mickey and her friends, and Mickey and her lovers. These portions of the story rang the most true, and offered the best insights into the characters who felt the most one-dimensional (Grandma Anna, Jasmine, and Scottie.)
Before discussing my next concern, I want to note my bias: I am consistently bored by the whole Black Girl Employee Experiences Microaggressions saga. It's a topic that has been exhausted in popular novels of the last few years, and I have found more interesting takes on this in Teams/Slack DMs and iMessage/Discord group chats than I have in the actual books that get published. Thankfully, Homebodies moves on from the cubicle scenes fairly quickly, and onto a much more understudied element of our modern era: what happens when work doesn't work, and you end up back at home. However, I do think that part of my disappointment at the end of the story came because it returns--rather hastily--to the workplace drama. In other words, Denton-Hurst dropped the topics I am interested in for one the broader world (and publishing industry) seems to be interested in. You cannot fault someone for this!!
I feel like I'm not doing a great job of conveying the things I did really enjoy this book. First, I have to note that I sped through it because I couldn't wait to see the mess unfold on each page. This is the first book I've brought with me to soccer, because that is how much I didn't want to come up for air! As anyone could guess, I was also super excited by the familiarity of the setting. This is the second book by an author from PG County that I've read this month, and of the two, Tembe Denton-Hurst leans way more into her hometown than Aaliyah Bilal does in Temple Folk. I really enjoyed the author's attention to detail when it comes to a traditionally understudied place, especially when she could have easily leaned into the more "flashy" places discussed in the story. The idea that Fort Washington could have just as many fascinating residents, meaningful traditions, and noteworthy patterns as Columbia Heights or Astoria is so fun to me. It was refreshing to see an author resist the urge to lean into the nostalgia of other people's childhoods, and instead set a compelling, modern story in her particular piece of the region. This is something I'd love to see more authors in her (our) generation and class do. For some reason, many authors tend to hyperfixate on writing stories in the neighborhoods they are gentrifying, without any awareness of the irony of this (yes, once again, I am complaining about Fool of Death.) When reading these sorts of books, I often want to remind people that they have homes, too--and it would often be better to let someone else write about the place they moved to three years ago, and instead to revisit the places they are actually from! My final thought on the geography piece is that I hope that Denton-Hurst's future work can expand on this even more. I think the concept of the return to suburbia can take on even more emotional resonance than it does in Homebodies, particularly for queer characters. Here, I'm thinking of the portions I loved best in Alejandro Varela's The Town of Babylon, my most regrettable DNF of 2022--and a book that Homebodies has inspired me to check out again.
I also love how this is one of the few books that is clued into the lives of people like me and my friends (non-men, Black people, and/or lesbians born between roughly 1994-1999.) For so many years, I have read books about twenty-somethings that were clearly written by thirty-somethings, and cringed with every overexplanation of Twitter and misunderstanding of Gen Z behavior. For me, one of the best parts about getting older is finally being able to read books by people who "get it!" One particular example of where Denton-Hurst's age is a benefit to the novel's accuracy is in her ruminations on the spectrum of parental homophobia. Homebodies does a great job of capturing the range and nuance in how adult children make peace with their parents' passive, snarky forms of disapproval. In our modern age, more parents are becoming "evolved" enough to not excommunicate their queer children, but that form of tolerance still leaves much to be desired. This all is something I talk with my friends about a lot, but have never seen reflected on the page--it is difficult to explain this phenomenon without feeling like you're complaining about something that earlier generations of queer people would die for. In Homebodies, I was both awed and comforted by how precisely Denton-Hurst could tap into that particular experience. I remember having a similar feeling while reading Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis, but that book is very white and so of course a lot of the discourse/mannerisms/etc. are different. Homebodies has shown me that an even deeper level of personal connection to fiction is possible, and this is a delightful part of 2023-and-beyond literature that I can't wait to keep enjoying!
To close: I cannot wait for this author's future work, because she is hitting on so many topics that I've wanted to read about for years. I would recommend this book, as it won't take you long to finish at all, and there are certainly some enjoyable moments. However, I am casting an even greater recommendation for her future work, whenever that comes to fruition!...more
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