mirasu's reviews
116 reviews

Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids by Hunter Clarke-Fields, Carla Naumburg

reflective medium-paced

3.5

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

informative slow-paced

3.5

Dementia Reimagined: Building a Life of Joy and Dignity from Beginning to End by Tia Powell

informative slow-paced

4.0

One! Hundred! Demons! by Lynda Barry

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Eclectic and surprising. The cicada chapter hit me hard.

Babel by R.F. Kuang

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

R.F. Kuang dares to imagine a world where academics are the vanguard of political change... and where upwardly mobile POC in the heart of empire can become revolutionaries instead of compradors. By Jove, she somehow pulls it off.

"Babel" is at times heavy handed and corny... But overall clever, well paced, exhaustively researched, and shining with clarity of purpose.

A Colony in a Nation by

dark medium-paced

2.0

This book is the truism "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds" made manifest. Why does Hayes center his own emotions and experiences in a book about antiblack racism and the carceral state? Why does Hayes devote so much time to explaining that killer cops are "scared too!" and assuring readers that it's NORMAL to fear the "urban" — after all, EVERYONE wants the trains to run on time... right? (Too bad about the racist violence needed to maintain this illusion!)

Why was Hayes chomping at the bit for any opportunity to say racial slurs? Why did Hayes do ridiculous impressions when quoting from serious historical sources? And why did Hayes insist upon narrating (literally centering his own voice) despite his painful lack of training and terminal case of "sounds like he's holding gum in both cheeks"?

Lastly, why do mediocre white men constantly feel the need to remind people that they went to an Ivy League school?

The central conceit is promising, but "A Colony in a Nation" is essentially a navel-gazing YouTube podcast with zero literary or academic relevance. It is entirely divorced from the rich history of radical Black scholarship, and its primary purpose seems to be assuring a centrist white audience that it's COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE to feel uncomfy when confronting antiblack impulses... but carceral violence Bad because it harms white people too!

Read anything else if you want to gain actual meaningful insight.

Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement by Cheri Torres, Jacqueline Stavros

medium-paced

3.0

Everybody by Olivia Laing

challenging sad slow-paced

3.0

Not at all what is promised by the premise. Less of a historical overview of various bodily rights movements, more of a cobbled together collection of anecdotes and biographies, all centered around... the life and times of one Wilhelm Reich, for some reason.

Touches upon psychiatric violence but somehow fails to mention the disability rights movement. Average Cartesian dualism L.

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano

challenging reflective slow-paced

4.0