michaelion's reviews
250 reviews

Created Within the Hearts of Tigers by Rabitt, William James

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dark emotional reflective fast-paced

2.5

Of the two zines I picked up at the Little Free Library in Hayward, this was the better one. Once again, poems that are just okay, but also a few of these were good. Not good enough that I'll keep the zine or reread it but good enough to be passed on. Hopefully some angsty teen in my area picks up the zine and resonates with this book and feels inspired to write their own angsty poems!

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A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

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emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I read Evil Eye last month and gave it 5 stars, and it's near impossible for me to give things 5 stars, so I figured this woman must be amazing I gotta read what else she has. Only one other book?! How heartbreaking! I need more! Etaf Rum the woman that you are!!!

I do feel that if I had read this book first and Evil Eye second, I still would've given Evil Eye 5 stars. These books were written for the culture. Not my culture, but the importance of them, the weight of them, were not just to represent Palestinians and Arabs, but to show other Arabs "this is who we are, we have stories to tell, and we have to be honest with ourselves" and I love that SO much. Etaf Rum you will always be famous!!!

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Are You Free? A Collection of Verbal Liberations in a Gritty City by Kellee Maize, DJ Brewer, Carolyne Whelan

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informative reflective fast-paced

1.75

Poems that are just okay. Only two stood out to me: One about how we are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn and the other about how capitalism / fascism is bad. That one was interesting since the zine was made in 2009 and things keep getting worse.

I found this (and another) zine in Hayward, CA, and it must have lived quite the life to travel from one coast to the other. I thought that was worth saying.

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The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

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dark informative sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

To be a woman is to suffer at the hands of a man! Good message to teach kids about abusive relationships and self harm very early!

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If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff

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funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Bad message to teach kids don't share or else they'll keep asking for more. The capitalist indoctrination starts VERY young I see. Negative points! Cute art though!
Girasol by Vianney Casas

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

2.25

My rating and review is biased because Vianney is / was my friend. I knew her in the Friducha era, I bought the book years ago when it was first publisbed and only just found it again and finally read it.

That being said, with a lot of my own poems they aren't very good they're just something I had to get out of my mind. Raw thoughts, raw emotions and feelings. Sometimes nonsensical. When I go back and read them I go ew that's never seeing the light of anyone else's eyes but mine and even I don't wanna look at it. You're going deep into my google drive folders.

Not that Vianney's poems here are necessarily like that, but they are just raw emotion. It's very real, deeply personal, very much something she had to get out there or else she would go crazy. As she said Friducha was a character she made when she thought she wouldn't survive. The poems are not for me, I don't think they have rereadability, but I feel like I know her, or at least the person I knew in 2016-2019, more now. Whoever she is now  and the state and contents of her poetry, I hope she's alright!

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A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow

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

3.25

I'm not a fan of this style of mixing fantasy and reality. Like, why would the Disney princess Ariel exist in this universe? If mythical creatures are real, why in the real world would you call them mythical beings? Surely there would be some other term. Also, the writing tries to be mysterious to be point where it's confusing. Like. Just tell us what's happening instead of telling us what happened 3 pages later.
Also!!! A quarter into the book, my journal entry for page 73 is "medusa?!" I guessed it that quick! Which isn't bad but is funny. In a world where "mythical creatures" are real and there's real stigma around them, even though no one's ever seen a gorgon or whatever why didn't they think of that?! I did!!!
But anyway. It really hooked my attention after the halfway point, which isn't good, but I had fun. The fantasy element just clearly wasn't thought out thoroughly enough, but before the book was over I rented out the sequel at my library because I wanted to keep the ball rolling!

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Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

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challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-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

Akwaeke Emezi, I will find you one day. One day, I will find you. I will drop to my knees. And I will ask for your hand in marriage.

They peeled my scalp back, cracked my skull open, and wrote exactly what's going on in my brain. What the heck Akwaeke Emezi my future spouse. How dare you. I love you. I guess I'm an ogbanje? Is it appropriative of me to say that even though I know my ancestry comes from Nigeria I'm just not sure which people group? Anyway anyway. I am her and they is me and I am we. Amazing. I'm so glad I chose to pock this up this month. THIS IS Black history NOW !!!

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Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

2.25

I like poems that rhyme so this one just wasn't for me :/ There's a few good moments but it didn't really feel artistic. That doesn't take away from the art though, it just feels more like she had all these heavy things on her mind weighing her down that she just had to get out there and maybe she'd feel lighter after. FIVE stars for the art FIVE stars for the title.

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God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

So it's come down to this huh. My last Toni Morrison fiction. This is heartbreaking. I liked the book; it's heartbreaking I have no more novels! But it does mean I can reread them for the first time now!

It's not her best work, but it's not her worst either. A breeze to read as usual. It hooked me more towards the end, or more than halfway through the book, which isn't good while reading but the parts before that were pleasant enough I didn't look at the book negatively. I'm sure it wasn't her intention but it is a little sad she didn't go out with a bang. This book is fine. I love Black love, and that was her primary love through all her books in all its different forms. All her books are about love! 🫶🏾

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