malayapapaya's reviews
53 reviews

Did not finish book. Stopped at 0%.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Did not finish book.

Did not finish— Some typical fantasy violence that I was not in the right mental place for. Would like to return to it though!

Café Con Lychee by Emery Lee

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Did not finish book.

just realized i wasn’t interested in YA tropes anymore, or that vibe/sort of speaker

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker

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informative inspiring reflective

5.0

Queer: A Graphic History is an easy-to-read introduction to the development and ideas of queer theory and how we can “queer” the world by disrupting norms and challenging binary ways of thinking (not just in terms of gender and sexuality, but also in the binaries of assimilationist/liberating, good/bad, etc). And so much more. I’ve had to take this book slowly some times I start it and other times I whip through it. It mentions the history while also pointing out a lot of the flaws of that history, and as someone who learned a lot of this material as I read the book (and who has no deeper knowledge to criticize from) really inspired me to want to learn and deconstruct more. (That sounds like a non-compliment lmao. The point is that it was a very motivating start for someone who wants to dig deeper).

For anyone who wants specifics, here are some of the things I found most intriguing and marked for deeper reading later:
1) bell hooks’s work about marginality as resistance to the “norm” instead of a place of despair, and the place of compassion in activism
2) Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s work calling attention to the fact that our definition of sexual orientation categorizes only by gender when there are SO MANY OTHER THINGS it could categorize by
3) Jack Halberstam’s “The Queer Art of Failure”
4) Sari van Anders’s sexual configurations theory, connected to #2 above

I loved this and will be recommending it to everyone ever lol

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I am a HUGE Red, White, and Royal Blue fan, and was really looking forward to this. I really loved the characters (Niko and Myla have my whole heart), many individual lines and scenes, and the love letter to NYC that this whole book was. However, the whole sci-fi bit never worked for me, which was disappointing because it was so much of the plot. It never suspended my disbelief enough, and had more plot convenience than I would have liked in a way that felt more like fanfiction than what you look for in a published book. I also felt like the integration of queer history was hyped up more than made sense based on how much they actually talked about it. I have a lot of faith in Casey McQuiston's writing if it focuses in more than this book did, but this one wasn't a favorite for me. Hoping the next one is a step up!!

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