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heifers.library

@heifers.library

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memoirs and nonfiction are nothing but documentaries. and therefore i… … *love* them
@magnesium.glycinate

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model home —

mothers, sisters, siblings, absent (minded) fathers, and the promise of abuse. this book had everything.

i went into this story thinking it was going to be a clever play on the family structure as a house, and hopefully one that was haunted and dark and needing of an exorcism (curing generational trauma!?). and i left this story wishing that it was what I thought it was.

i dunno guys. I thought it was going to be scary. mostly bc I found it in the horror section and because it was supposed to be scary.

this is going to sound insane but I feel like the author was given the prompt: “write about racism as if it were fake” and the result was the mystery we (very hastily and lazily) uncover in the last few pages of the book.

I think my biggest critique is that it felt unfinished / not fully fleshed out. I struggled a bit with the main POVs thoughts bc I found our mc annoying but that’s easily forgiven with good writing, which I think that this book had! however, I found a lot of sentences and paragraphs and quotes to be repetitive and all the more interesting parts of the book to have been completely abandoned.

so i’m left disappointed and still in want of something scary to take the edge off of reality by @heifers.library

hangman —

the most allegorical book i’ve ever read. odd narrator, fully unreliable, but in a humans don’t remember the whole truth of their experiences kind of way. so the book was very well grounded and relatable in that there were many universal themes on feeling and emotion and desires and dislikes (and so on). but still the journey the mc / narrator went on was very wacky and farsical and a bit repetitive but in my opinion each new character met on the narrator’s journey to find his brother still offered a fresh insight and experience despite the fact that you catch on very quickly to the fact that you’re going to be “meeting” a lot of people through this book and each meeting is going to offer insight to some sort of sociopolitical or moral/ethical theme. I really enjoyed the writing. it was full of interruptions that made for a kind of unique (though not *too* annoying) read. I would’ve read this faster if it wasn’t summer and i didn’t have hyperactive qualities to my personality. i recommend it, bc i want to talk to someone about the end. i think i need to re read it to pick up on clues that im sure the book was rife with so i can better understand the end. by @heifers.library

cherry —

not that great. pretty unremarkable in fact. there were some moments where i felt like the author beautifully explained an emotion behind a circumstance. like when he wrote about someone’s crib, described how bleak it was and then said, “i didn’t like going to their apartment: too many dreams that wouldn’t ever come true”. but moments like that were few and far between and I don’t think i’d recommend the book just for you to read little sentences like that after fighting through a million uses of the r slur (and actually a few uses of “nigga” too despite the author mr. niko walker being a white man. which id consider forgiving him for if either time he wrote the word it was worth it contextually. but of course it never was). there were good moments, that felt insightful, but mostly it was surface level. the casual first person pov and plain language writing made it seem more intimate than it really was. and ultimately? it was boring. and maybe that was intentional. maybe the author was saying that heroin addiction, with all its depressing circumstances, pain and expense, is ultimately just extremely boring. by @heifers.library

funeral diva —

what poetry it is to be black, queer, and in nyc throughout the most beautiful and gruesome of times. both presently and decades ago. pamela sneed’s lyrical and matter of fact writing effectively held my hand as she told me more about the america I never seem to know enough of

#heiferlovesamemoir by @heifers.library

kappa —

small book, big world

(also the kappas are small) by @heifers.library

they can’t kill us until they kill us —

to share any of my favorite lines & moments from the book is to just share with you the entire book.

i don’t have anything to say. just read it.

well, i guess i will say: do yourself a favor and follow @nifmuhammad as well, i read every one of his stories with the same focus and amazement as i read his book (thanks @_jentropy__ for putting me on to his insta) by @heifers.library

kitchen —

y’all are gonna say i’m being dramatic but reading this book was like being warmed up by a good & filling meal.

super short & sweet & a bit sad lowkey — i see why they keep hyping up ms. banana yoshimoto, excited to read more of her work by @heifers.library

freshwater —

very lyrical, very beautiful, very quotable in a poetic adage sort of way. if i’m honest, at the beginning i had a hard time staying focused amidst the intricate prose. but i’ll blame the state of my brain on that one.

i enjoyed the story a lot. it was like a more sophisticated/ adult version of “inside out”. (but also that feels like a crude and not quite right comparison. but i’m leaving it in bc like… it sorta is!!) freshwater will also fuel my attempts at pontificating about other religious & spiritual beliefs beyond christianity and also my many many many thoughts on what we know as “dissociative identity disorder” so, ultimately i really liked this book. i think i need to go back and reread the beginning with the knowledge of the rest of the book to pick up on some pieces that i missed. i’m not gonna do that right now though lmao
——————

• “because belief … is the colostrum of existence”
• “we, however, knew already that forgetting could be protection”
• “and it meant nothing, it felt like nothing. we were not surprised — many things are like this” by @heifers.library

the deeper the water the uglier the fish —

I like this book the way I like the film eve’s bayou, which is to say immensely, except for *that* part…. *that* part in eve’s bayou also unfortunately happens to be a main plot device in this book. so of course, trigger warnings abound. great book though. like incredible. beautifully written and extremely creative. the story weaves through an assortment of pov’s the way a documentary weaves through an assortment of pov’s to craft the narrative and push the story forward (think the perspectives from neighbors, coworkers, family friends, right person walking their dog at the wrong time, etc.) and if you read my bio, you know im a [heifer] for a documentary lmao, so I was genuinely obsessed with how this book was framed. the story is extremely extremely triggering though lmaoooo

side note ______
the author (white) does a surprisingly! excellent job at describing a back character without ever just saying “the BLACK woman was BLACK and my how BLACK and beautiful did her big BLACK body carry that sweet SOULFUL voice”

the last slide in this post has an excerpt to show what i mean. the highlighted portion is literally the only information that we get about the character. she never says he’s black, you just know. and there are a few other characters (appropriately placed!) that she clearly writes as being black without ever directly mentioning that they are indeed black. by @heifers.library

luster —

trojan horse-ing as smut, this book is a beautiful and refreshing socio-cultural commentary on race and the very real and constant thoughts of being a Black 23yo woman trying your best. genuinely couldn’t put it down by @heifers.library

all night pharmacy —

it was okay. well written, but i definitely wanted more detail in some moments. the pacing was just a touch too fast in my opinion. Also feel like I absolutely got no closure about her girl which is questionable considering the “mysterious girl(friend)” was meant to be a focus part of the story but whatever by @heifers.library

the adult —

gay. but at what cost 😒
fast read, but a .. bad one by @heifers.library