Reviews

A Place Called No Homeland by Kai Cheng Thom

var's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

sonjapardee's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

4.0

mayormccheese's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

bashsbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad tense slow-paced

5.0

Thom's work is a must-read for white queers and cis queers everywhere. Tracking her complex relationships to race, gender, and her family, she does not flinch away from her experiences - fetishization, rape, abuse among them. She laments the ways in with the Queer Movement has failed her, and people like her, how we still have people who fall through the cracks in our communities, places where we are not intersectional. Some of these poems are tough to read, but they're all important.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Violence, Cursing, Misogyny, Alcohol, Child abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Xenophobia, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Racism, Sexual violence, and Transphobia

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Self harm, Body shaming, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and Blood

tinyjude's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

I usually find it hard to enjoy and connect with modern poetry's format and style, but there are many incredible, raw, heart-wrecking poems here that I enjoyed and hurt me in ways poetry hasn't in such a long time.

The poems are explicit in nature and denounce/reflect about various topics, mainly the reality of woc and trans women of colour, colonialism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, sexual assault and violence (particularly against asian gay boys, trans women and asian trans women), white feminism, cultural memory... it isn't an easy read and it will definitely make your stomach churn at many points, but it is so worth it.

For many more poetry by cis and trans women of colour. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Dysphoria, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Racial slurs, Blood, Body shaming, Hate crime, Racism, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

lelex's review against another edition

4.0

made, what the moon saw, autopsky, 3 love stories were my favorites.

"dear scientist, mortuary explorer, search me thoroughly / tenderly catalogue all my wayward parts"

"i am a (trans)woman out to taste the world. my body demands furious consumption."

"i am forced to wonder whatever happened to that child? whatever happened to my childhood's ferocious appetite? my childhood's killer heart?"

the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

A truly beautiful poetry collection. This is so raw, so intense and so full of emotion that it was hard to put down. Some poems that really struck my emotionally were:

• between friends
• girlboy, you femme femme fabulous
• what the moon saw
• the funny thing about violence: six meditations on a theme
• trauma is not sacred

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Racism, Child abuse, Sexual content, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Self harm

Minor: Drug use

kaeli's review against another edition

5.0

Wow this was amazing!!! 

kieran317's review against another edition

5.0

Kai Cheng Thom is brilliant! She has a way with words - many of these poems left me speechless and grasping at the knot in my throat. Definitely recommend!

ursulawren's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

The poems in this book deal with survivorship, they casually mention sexual assault and racism and homophobia and transphobia. Since they're poems, it's not usually descriptive — more like, evocative. But sometimes, maybe, that's worse.