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svetyas4's reviews
193 reviews
Women Writing Resistance: Essays on Latin America and the Caribbean by Jennifer Browdy
5.0
A really great collection with thought-provoking pieces and a great blend of prose & poetry.
The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins by Griffin McElroy, Clint McElroy, Carey Pietsch, Travis McElroy, Justin McElroy
5.0
Amazing art, totally captures the spirit of the podcast, funny and sweet and exciting and great. Will be giving it many rereads!
Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture by Katha Pollitt
5.0
Fantastic. Everyone should read this. Just as relevant today as it was when originally written.
In Search of Lost Books: The Forgotten Stories of Eight Mythical Volumes by Giorgio Van Straten, Simon Carnell, Erica Segre
1.0
First of all, content warning for this book for suicide and self harm mentions.
I was very excited to start what I thought would be a fascinating adventure through some incredible and lost books. If there’s one word I would use to describe this, it would be presumptuous. Or maybe pompous. It feels like getting trapped in a conversation with some old straight white man who is intent on telling you about the “great intellectuals”, all of whom happen to be European or American straight white men. The deviations to this rule (Lord Byron, who was bisexual, and Sylvia Plath) are handled badly. Talk about bisexual erasure! And Plath’s chapter is somehow far more focused on her husband than her. Oddly enough, the author seems to be working overtime to clear Plath’s husband of playing a role in her suicide (explaining that his cheating on her with a close personal friend only three months before was hardly related, and explaining away the fact that his second wife after Plath also committed suicide by referencing his attraction to “troubled” women) and to clear Lord Byron’s life of any bisexuality (stating instead that his obvious true attraction was to men, while only a few pages earlier referencing Byron’s many sexual relationships with women).
When you’re talking about content that relates to lost or disappeared books, and where the authors are long gone and cannot speak for themselves, you have to do some assuming and some guesswork. However: this author makes extremely bold claims about the motivations and mindsets of the writers he discusses, even when they are disapproved by texts from the writers that are even included in the book! It is infuriating when an author writes down clearly exactly what they meant to say, and some “scholar” goes: here is what they REALLY meant.
The authors (with the exception of Plath) are treated almost reverentially by the author, even as he discusses their complete personal incompetence, referencing one whose wife wrote that he “couldn’t even open a window by himself”. Men who cheated on their wives and treated them badly and then wrote so many poems about how sad it was when they got fed up and left. I am tired of this kind of man being held up as a hero solely because of their writing.
Additionally, the author sort of glorifies Sylvia Plath’s untreated mental illness as a source of inspiration that was just natural to her, writing about it in a strangely positive way. Troubling.
One star because it was a quick read and easy to follow. But a very skippable book, especially because it purports to be scholarly but is overrun with personal bias, and even misinformation, particularly in relation to Lord Byron. It feels condescending; narrow in scope, and yet not in-depth or thorough. Where are the writers from South America, from Africa, Asia, anywhere but Europe, the US and Canada? Perhaps the author doesn’t feel we’ve had any “great intellectuals” from those places.
I was very excited to start what I thought would be a fascinating adventure through some incredible and lost books. If there’s one word I would use to describe this, it would be presumptuous. Or maybe pompous. It feels like getting trapped in a conversation with some old straight white man who is intent on telling you about the “great intellectuals”, all of whom happen to be European or American straight white men. The deviations to this rule (Lord Byron, who was bisexual, and Sylvia Plath) are handled badly. Talk about bisexual erasure! And Plath’s chapter is somehow far more focused on her husband than her. Oddly enough, the author seems to be working overtime to clear Plath’s husband of playing a role in her suicide (explaining that his cheating on her with a close personal friend only three months before was hardly related, and explaining away the fact that his second wife after Plath also committed suicide by referencing his attraction to “troubled” women) and to clear Lord Byron’s life of any bisexuality (stating instead that his obvious true attraction was to men, while only a few pages earlier referencing Byron’s many sexual relationships with women).
When you’re talking about content that relates to lost or disappeared books, and where the authors are long gone and cannot speak for themselves, you have to do some assuming and some guesswork. However: this author makes extremely bold claims about the motivations and mindsets of the writers he discusses, even when they are disapproved by texts from the writers that are even included in the book! It is infuriating when an author writes down clearly exactly what they meant to say, and some “scholar” goes: here is what they REALLY meant.
The authors (with the exception of Plath) are treated almost reverentially by the author, even as he discusses their complete personal incompetence, referencing one whose wife wrote that he “couldn’t even open a window by himself”. Men who cheated on their wives and treated them badly and then wrote so many poems about how sad it was when they got fed up and left. I am tired of this kind of man being held up as a hero solely because of their writing.
Additionally, the author sort of glorifies Sylvia Plath’s untreated mental illness as a source of inspiration that was just natural to her, writing about it in a strangely positive way. Troubling.
One star because it was a quick read and easy to follow. But a very skippable book, especially because it purports to be scholarly but is overrun with personal bias, and even misinformation, particularly in relation to Lord Byron. It feels condescending; narrow in scope, and yet not in-depth or thorough. Where are the writers from South America, from Africa, Asia, anywhere but Europe, the US and Canada? Perhaps the author doesn’t feel we’ve had any “great intellectuals” from those places.
Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly
5.0
An absolutely lovely end to a beautiful story. I loved the first book, couldn't connect at all with the second. But this one came back full force and provided a beautiful wrap up to a love story that overcomes every nasty hand life had to deal it. I finished the book with a gigantic smile on my face and my heart totally full. The one thing I will say is **MAJOR SPOILER** it made me sad that such an awesome character as Cordelia got an unceremonious off-screen death. She was too cool to go out like that, even though I know she didnt really have a place in the story for this book. Other than that, a lovely read that filled me with surprising joy. Do recommend.