some really hard hitting essays in here while some others are a bit flat. i thought this would touch more on growing up fat but it's really only one essay, though that essay is very informative and eye-opening. I quite liked the anti-carceral angle a few of the essays took and how it explored that in many cases, the people themselves can operate as an arm of the surveillance state. reading the author grappling with her own knee-jerk reactions ingrained in her from her upbringing was relatable and well-written. 

there's also a lot of great stuff on growing up queer, but I did cringe a little at an earlier essay where she claims "gay" is too reductive a term. i'm glad she feels comfortable and happy with using queer as a label, but i dislike when terms like "gay" or "lesbian" or even "bisexual" are deemed too limiting despite a vast history of that being far from the truth. i think there's a way to identify with queer w/out unnecessarily dragging down other terms that are liberating and expansive for many.

i also didn't enjoy a lot of the movie summaries, especially for the mike flanagan film 'doctor sleep'. i understand where she's drawing parallels to her own life, but as a mike flanagan hater who couldn't make it through that movie it wasn't exactly a pleasant reading experience for me. while i enjoyed the essay on Ringu and Sadako, i wish she had dug a little deeper into her analysis. i think that's just me having consumed too much horror analysis in my lifetime so the ideas presented weren't exactly new or groundbreaking. they don't always have to be! but that just means the horror essays often fell a bit flat for me.

it was mainly her essays on Singapore that made the collection for me. she depicts her complicated relationship with her home country so well, as well as her frayed family connections. the complexity of her situation, of loving her home when it doesn't necessarily love her back, is one I've seen from other authors but felt Rozario did an excellent job examining from multiple angles.