tinycl0ud's reviews
134 reviews

This was very, very good. Ten short stories (actually short in scope and length). Each story feels like a slice of a perfectly-sized cake. The collection is trimmed and punchy, no excess fat or padding. The stories are imaginative, kooky, sometimes even a bit spooky. This book is unobtrusively rooted in the locale - yes it’s Singapore, yes it matters that it’s Singapore, but even if you’re not from Singapore these stories still convey something that matters. I only wish there were more stories in this collection!!! Will definitely be looking out for his other books :-)

Both hybrid and arrangement, The Orchid Folios is an elegant collection consisting of select ‘cuttings’ of texts that speak to and with one another. Mok ambitiously intersperses excerpts from historical texts (playfully edited and/or redacted) with instructions, stories, poems, essay questions (think SBQ) and even advertisements. As you progress through the pages, these disparate threads gradually unfold and bloom, leaving you with the sense of holding a bouquet of a book. I found this read delightfully intertextual and experimental.

Very dense, very thorough, very academic, requires a background in critical theory to understand the meat of the analyses. Quite eye-opening! Covers a wide range of anime across the decades. References films from the western canon too.

Chapters I enjoyed:
3. Akira and Ranma 1/2: The Monstrous Adolescent
Very interesting takes on representations of the unstable/amorphous adolescent body

5. Ghosts and Machines: The Technological Body
The last part talks about NGE through a psychoanalytic and mythic framework to comment on how this anime subverts mecha conventions

6. Doll Parts: Technology and the Body in Ghost in the Shell
Paralleled comparison of GitS with similar films like Blade Runner

8. The Enchantment of Estrangement: The Shojo in the World of Miyazaki Hayao
The first half talks about Totoro as a “classic fantasy of compensation” and Kiki’s Delivery Service as straddling the line between the fantastical and the realistically economical.

Short stories about broken marriages, dysfunctional families, neurotic children, abandoned elderly, and all around misery. Start reading only with a full tank of happy if not it can get quite draining. The foreword by Gwee Li Sui really hits the nail on the head. This is a Singapore that is plausible and uncompromising in its plausibility.

I initially had serious misgivings because of how tailored to western fantasies of 20th Century S.E.A. the descriptions are (straight-up self-orientalising), but about 150 pages in it became very good. The focus wasn’t so much on explaining the exotic locale anymore and you can get to the meat of the matter, which is a young girl’s journey across the underworld. The world-building from parts 2.5 till the end + pacing + action + romantic tension is excellent. Some scenes towards the end were breathtaking I felt like my endurance of the first part was worth it. There were so many twists and surprises I did not see coming. The introduction of the 牛郎织女 myth at the beginning made sense only at the end when there was a modern reversal I really appreciate!!

Reading this collection leaves you with the sense that reality is slightly off by a few degrees — not so much that things become surreal, but just enough to deeply unsettle you without you being able to fully articulate why.

I think this book gets too much bad hype from people completely misunderstanding the premise and the development of the novel. As another reviewer mentioned, it’s best to get into it with unbiased eyes — ignore all reviews, whether good or bad, and just be present for the journey. Don’t compare it to other feminist works because that’s not very fair when they were written for different times. The feminist themes are overt rather than subtle, but what’s wrong with that? The line between villain and victim is blurred, but isn’t that a mark of nuance? Just because Mother was abusive and carrying out King’s orders does not make this novel a failure of a feminist novel, especially if you’ve picked up on how internalised patriarchy is within her.

read it for the feels. ALL THE FEELS (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`)

“Knowing makes all the difference. Knowing that we’re not just pointless freaks – a few bewildered deviations hoping to save their own skins. It is the difference between just trying to keep alive, and having something to live for.” — The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham

Decided to reread this wonderful 1955 SF classic and I still cannot believe it was written so long ago when so much of it still rings true. It’s like X-men, but cooler ◟(๑•͈ᴗ•͈)◞

This novel is timeless in the way that it captures how horribly bigoted people were and still are. 65 years later, and there are people who think black skin is an aberration, who treat people with disabilities like they are subhuman, and who twist scripture to suit their own intolerant and self-righteous ideologies. “[T]he essential quality of living is change; change is evolution: and we are a part of it.” Wyndham seems to be suggesting that instead of eradicating difference to preserve the status quo (and to keep power centralised in the hands of a select few), we should embrace it and allow the human race to progress the way the we are designed to.