Summary:
Material Mystery considers three apparently anthropocentric myths that are central to Abrahamic religions—those of the primal human, the incarnated and possibly divine redeemer, and the resurrected body. At first glance, these stories reinforce a human-centered theology and point to a very anthropomorphic God. Taking them seriously seems to ignore the material turn in the humanities entirely, with the same sort of willful ignorance that some of our politicians show in declaring that their myths count as facts, or that the point of the rest of the world is to further human consumption.

Thoughts:

Summary:
We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other Bunny, and seem to move and speak as one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled Smut Salon, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus Workshop where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

Thoughts:

Summary:
Exploring how neoliberalism has discovered the productive force of the psyche Byung-Chul Han, a star of German philosophy, continues his passionate critique of neoliberalism, trenchantly describing a regime of technological domination that, in contrast to Foucault’s biopower, has discovered the productive force of the psyche. In the course of discussing all the facets of neoliberal psychopolitics fueling our contemporary crisis of freedom, Han elaborates an analytical framework that provides an original theory of Big Data and a lucid phenomenology of emotion. But this provocative essay proposes counter models too, presenting a wealth of ideas and surprising alternatives at every turn.

Thoughts:
I read this sadly because I saw a guy on instagram reels reference it and was intrigued. It is very dense but very short. I'm not super into philosophy either, and this was not the place I should've started tbh. All this aside though I really liked it.

The main idea is that neoliberalism has created new kind of domination, where instead of outside forces making us to labor, we force ourselves to labor constantly by seeing ourselves as a product. This form of domination comes with data being the new most valuable asset. We create more data mainly via communication online. Everything we share about ourselves or reveal through internet history is known by data companies, and is converted to profit. This type of self-survaliance is encouraged to be as fast as possible, and we want the validation of algorithms, so all undigestable details of someone are flattened into easy to understand bites. The end of this the author warns is a taking over of free will by data companies having such complete profiles of us that they will find correlations even we do not know and be able to influence us at a subconcious level. All of this comes without truly understanding the WHY of this data, just stringing correlations together. Sorry if that was boring I feel writing out what I got from complicated books makes my thoughts ordered. Clearly I liked it tho. I'll def read his other work.

Link: Here

Summary:
Simone Weil is one of the few spiritual thinkers to give an adequate account for the place of suffering in our world. We traditionally view suffering as that which thwarts our most profound longings and happiness. Simone Weil insists that suffering is not a problem to overcome. Suffering, as it arises in the sacrifices of divine and human love is a fact of life, neither to be rejected nor invited, but also something that can shape human life by opening itself to the divine love.

Thoughts:
Read this very slowly before going to sleep every night. It was hard to get through at times, tho not as hard as Weil herself. I felt the author really explained Weils thoughts in a digestable way. It is kinda apologia for her more out there beliefs, but I got a lot out of the book.

Weil says that appreciating the beauty of the world, friendship, religious ceremony, and love of your neighbor as ways of indirectly loving god. She says that all these loves involve sacrifice as well, cause you have to give up what you want these things to be. Like you have to love the world as it is, people as they are, your friends without wanting something from them, ect. I just really liked that concept.

She also applies this concept to labor, and the idea that labor itself can be these forms of loving god. She says that capitalist and communist idealogies solve problems by promising good futures to workers now, but don't acknowledge the state of workers currently or the work that would have to be done to achieve these good futures. "Liberating workers from being workers" is what she says exactly. She has a concept of labor that sees it as a beautiful exceptance of the world and our neighbors, because in doing labor for others and experiencing the benefits of other peoples labor, you are accepting that you are a creature that needs others to survive. IDK I just really enjoyed that.

Summary:
Do you know what happened already?
Did you know her?
Did you see it on the internet?
Did you listen to a podcast?
Did the hosts make jokes?

Did you see the pictures of the body?

Did you look for them?

It's been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.

That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the 'definitive account' of the murder - and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

The only question is: how much of it is true?

Thoughts:
Eliza Clark I luv u. This was sooooo good. The girls portrayal seems so real to me. I know the narrator is unreliable, and you can def tell the times when it's purposfullly written to be written by a dude (Angelica calling herself moi...), but there is something honest here. Like the bullying the nastiness the retreating into an online world or an imagianary one. Eliza Clark does messed up women so well is basically it.

The way all these bad but boring things happen, like the hotel burning down or the girl drowning, and are then sensationalized as paranormal to make money really gets to me. The victim is always forgotten in the end so someone can use the creep factor to make money. Just so much to think about.

Summary:
Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity calling itself The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.

Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence—until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seep-tech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.

Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina chases after a young boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind.

Thoughts:
This is another book I read for my gay bookclub. I was pretty excited because it seemed so up my alley. I think this book had some cool concepts, but felt really messy. Like it was all over the place. And I felt it was weird performatively, not in an authetic way. Random weird stuff was thrown in for the point of being weird instead of to add substance. It had some interesting stuff about how things can chang for the better and you can still mourn and want to keep the painful past, but it was really on the nose about this. Like the author would set up these complex metaphors (or I assume that's what they were. They were purposefully convoluted) but then would just explain the point she was trying to make a couple pages later. I think this author could be really good this whole thing was very first draft.

Summary:
Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.

What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Thoughts:
Not to sound like I know better cause I def don't but why did this win the Pulitzer Prize? Like it's fine. Kinda a mess. The unique draw for this is that it's all one sentence. That parts interesting, but it's more for show than adding that much. And this book just tells you what it wants that to mean in the first chapter. Like word for word,

“just like the war won’t ever end, like the carnage won’t ever end, it’s a sentence in a book careening without periods, gasping with too many commas, a sentence that, once begun, can’t ever be stopped, a sentence doomed to loop back on itself to form a terrible black wheel that, sooner or later, will drag each and every person to their grave”.

And this happens with every damn metaphor. The author present them and then in the next paragraph just says what it represents. Kinda annoying.

I thought the character ark Bagger goes through doesn't make linear sense, and neither does the angels motivations. Like Bagger has religious/patriotic guilt from his dad who has religious psychosis? and then he delivers the angel to the general even though he hates authority? and then he gets really into soldiering and abandons his friend who literally just died and he begged to be brought back to life? I'm confused. His big brother relationship with his friend is sweet to but the kid character is so flat it's kinda whatever.

Also! The prose is like overly flowery but in the opposite direction. Just overly gross to the point I can't take it seriously. And I just remember there's an evil disabled character who's evil cause he's disabled. I could keep going lol there's a lot to be annoyed with.

All this being said it does have good thriller writing. I really wanted to keep reading it and finished it fast but honestly kinda frustrating.

Link: Here

Summary:
This user-friendly book blends theory and practice, gently and concretely taking the reader through the first steps of contemplative prayer. Armchair Mystic begins with the necessary details of time and place to pray, then presents the maturation of the prayer life in four Talking at God, Talking to God, Listening to God and Being With God. Each chapter begins with an Orientation and ends with a concluding summary. Step-by-step exercises throughout the book provide concrete examples of how to use the concepts discussed. Armchair Mystic will prove invaluable to individuals and small groups who are new to contemplative prayer, or who wish to deepen their experience of it.

Thoughts:
Ever since reading The Sparrow I've been fascinated by Jesuits and Ignatian Prayer. This was a decent introduction to the concepts, but it was more self-help like than I was looking for. I probably should've picked up on that lol. But it was a good look inside the head of someone who prays this way and the type of relationship it fosters between god. As a self help book I found some of the instructory passages a little vague.

Summary:
When Hester is diagnosed with terminal cancer on her fortieth birthday, she knows immediately what she must do: abandon her possessions and drive to California to kill her estranged father. With no friends or family tying her to the life she’s built in New York City, she quits her wildly lucrative job in corporate law and starts driving west. She hasn’t made it far when she runs into John, an environmental activist in need of a ride to different superfund sites across the United States. From five-star Midwestern hotels to cultish Southwestern compounds, the two slowly make their way across the country. But will the revelations they make along the way dissuade Hester from her goal?

Thoughts:
Read this as a Frankie's Shelf recommendation. They're a youtuber I trust for book stuff. I watched the whole video so I had spoilers but I was still intrigued. It's a very good book. Easy to read and the characters are interesting. I think the weird relationship between Hester and John is very sweet. They have this intimacy that neither would've chosen the other for. I liked John maybe more than I liked Hester, but I have a soft spot for moral OCD and religiosity.

All this said it's still three stars for me and I don't know why. Maybe it fell a little flat for me? I'm unsure. Frankie said something like that in their video too so maybe my view is colored. It's a good book just didn't leave an impression on me.

Summary:
Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast.

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.

Thoughts:
Yippie more Murderbot. I thought this one was short and sweet. Fascinated by the robot PTSD angle but I wish they focused on it more I guess. Murderbot to me has always read as having robot PTSD but this one just more overt in the naming of it. It felt like I was less impactful to the plot than it should've been. But that might've been the point. Like Murderbot can still do it's job even when messed up. Interesting that Murderbot had kinda stopped refering to itself as Murderbot in the last couple books but when it's mad at itself in this book it goes back to that... I also wish there was more Three. I'm curious about it. But I really liked getting to see ART's crew interact more. Tarik is so interesting to me I'd love to learn about his life in the corporation. Also Ratthi was so cutesy in this one.

Summary:
It calls itself Murderbot, but only when no one can hear.

It worries about the fragile human crew who've grown to trust it, but only where no one can see.

It tells itself that they're only a professional obligation, but when they're captured and an old friend from the past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

Thoughts:
Another Murderbot win. I needed fiction after literally 2 months of anthropolgy religion books. Also I associate Murderbot books with summer, so I've been waiting to read this. I loved the interactions in this book. Murderbot is so fun with ART and I loveeeee them. ART/MB is so good. Perfect like QPR platonic soulmates situation. All the human characters where nicey too. I LOVE AMENA. Also the bit with Ratthi thinking MB and ART are romantic is fun to me. I liked the begining when MB got to go to a film festival, and the details about it sharing media with Mensa's kids. Just lots of friendship for me to enjoy. It get's one star off cause I had a lot of trouble following the mystery element. Maybe it's my fault, maybe it's tech jargon idk.

Summary:
Two boys, alone in space.

After the first settler on Titan trips her distress signal, neither remaining country on Earth can afford to scramble a rescue of its own, and so two sworn enemies are installed in the same spaceship.

Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor, with no memory of a launch. There’s more that doesn’t add up: Evidence indicates strangers have been on board, the ship’s operating system is voiced by his mother, and his handsome, brooding shipmate has barricaded himself away. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making his mission succeed—not when he’s rescuing his own sister.

In order to survive the ship’s secrets, Ambrose and Kodiak will need to work together and learn to trust one another… especially once they discover what they are truly up against. Love might be the only way to survive.

Thoughts:
I read this only cause I wanted to join this gay book club in my town, but they mostly read like romance fantasy stuff. Truly I thought I would hate it. I'm not into YA and I'm not into romance. Nothing against those genres, just not my thing. This was actually really good though! The writing is a little juvenile, and so are the characters. Not in a bad way just I can tell it's for highschoolers. The cold war thing is a little corny too. But the plot is great. So engaging and actually quite messed up. It really reads like a thriller. Very compulsive. The romance was cute too. I like romances where people are kinda "fated" to be together in a way that's awful. Like they have to be with one and other because there's no one else (If you've read A Touch of Jen or seen the show Beef it's that vibe). This romance isn't that awful, but it's got enough of those elements for me to be invested.

Summary:
In Jesus in Our Wombs, Rebecca J. Lester takes us behind the walls of a Roman Catholic convent in central Mexico to explore the lives, training, and experiences of a group of postulants―young women in the first stage of religious training as nuns. Lester, who conducted eighteen months of fieldwork in the convent, provides a rich ethnography of these young women's journeys as they wrestle with doubts, fears, ambitions, and setbacks in their struggle to follow what they believe to be the will of God. Gracefully written, finely textured, and theoretically rigorous, this book considers how these aspiring nuns learn to experience God by cultivating an altered experience of their own female bodies, a transformation they view as a political stance against modernity.

Thoughts:
Omg I'm finally free from this book. That sounds so mean, but it's how I feel. The book is not bad at all, just very academic. I'm not deep enough into antropology to understand half of it. I was also more interested in how women in convents experience god, not the formation of a nuns identity, which is really what this book is about. Really good if you're interested in ideas of gender in nuns or like changing ideas of womenhood in Mexico. I wasn't interested in either of those things, but they turned out to be interesting enough I kept reading. Just soooo academic. There is an unadressed maybe lesbian nun side plot though.

Summary:
How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people--as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn't easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort--by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others--helps to explain the enduring power of faith.

Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more.

Thoughts:
Very good but academic overview than ethnography. Which is what I signed up for lol. I really liked the comparative religion angle of this one. The part where she compares different cultural ideas of God within the same religious sect was super cool to me.

Summary:
How does God become and remain real for modern evangelicals? How are rational, sensible people of faith able to experience the presence of a powerful yet invisible being and sustain that belief in an environment of overwhelming skepticism? T. M. Luhrmann, an anthropologist trained in psychology and the acclaimed author of Of Two Minds, explores the extraordinary process that leads some believers to a place where God is profoundly real and his voice can be heard amid the clutter of everyday thoughts.

While attending services and various small group meetings at her local branch of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, Luhrmann sought to understand how some members were able to communicate with God, not just through one-sided prayers but with discernable feedback. Some saw visions, while others claimed to hear the voice of God himself. For these congregants and many other Christians, God was intensely alive. After holding a series of honest, personal interviews with Vineyard members who claimed to have had isolated or ongoing supernatural experiences with God, Luhrmann hypothesized that the practice of prayer could train a person to hear God’s voice—to use one’s mind differently and focus on God’s voice until it became clear. A subsequent experiment conducted between people who were and weren’t practiced in prayer further illuminated her conclusion. For those who have trained themselves to concentrate on their inner experiences, God is experienced in the brain as an actual social his voice was identified, and that identification was trusted and regarded as real and interactive.

Thoughts:
Soooooo good so up my alley. It's def just an ethnography so if you don't want to read a kinda dense book about Evangelicals then it'd suck. But I DID want to read a dense book about Evangelicals and I was so fed. This book is specifically about charismatic Evengelicals, the type that speak in tongues and stuff. Deeply fascinated by their conception of God. Like it's so individualized that God sends signs to tell you what color shirt to wear.

It all seems kinda fun until they start talking about demons and how people believe in demon possesion and everything. Just so interesting these people are totally normal folks but then every sunday they're exorcising demons. I saw that with no disrespect either, I with I had that level of belief in me lol. The only thing I wish was addressed more was the very conservative politics of Evangelicals. I think the charismatic churchs the author was in lean more left compared to others, but still. How can people believe in a supremely loving God and alsoooooo if your gay your going to hell?

Summary:
A journalist describes an assignment in the mountains of Alabama which led to his spiritual journey into the world of holiness snake handling, a faith whose followers characteristically place themselves in life-threatening situations.

Thoughts:
Veryyyyyyyyy interesting. I need to see one of these snake handling churches before I die. I do wonder though if half the spiritual experiences described in this book are live music. Like the transcendant amazing out-of-body feeling the author describes sound to me how I feel in a good mosh pit. Anyways, the faith these people have is enviable. Nothing matters to them but God it seems.

One issue I do have with this book is the author is weird about the south. There's a lot in here about him discovering his southern roots and the rich culture in Appalachia. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, I'm literally from Apppalachia, but he really glazes over all the bad parts of the south in favor of some imagined noble past. He's very good at ignoring the questionable morals of people I guess. Like he starts going to these churches and befriending these people AFTER he learns that their old pastor tried to kill his wife with rattlesnakes. And he brings his young wife and daughter. Okay.....

Summary:
The only member of the original mission to the planet Rakhat to return to Earth, Father Emilio Sandoz has barely begun to recover from his ordeal when the Society of Jesus calls upon him for help in preparing for another mission to Alpha Centauri. Despite his objections and fear, he cannot escape his past or the future.

Old friends, new discoveries and difficult questions await Emilio as he struggles for inner peace and understanding in a moral universe whose boundaries now extend beyond the solar system and whose future lies with children born in a faraway place.

Strikingly original, richly plotted, replete with memorable characters and filled with humanity and humor, Children of God is an unforgettable and uplifting novel that is a potent successor to The Sparrow and a startlingly imaginative adventure for newcomers to Mary Doria Russell’s special literary magic.

Thoughts:
My bestie Emilio Sandoz is back. I think I'd read anything about this guy I love him. This book isn't as good as the first, but still quiet lovely. More of a focus on "Do the ends justify the means" and forgiveness and such. I found the ending message very moving.

This one does have an issue the first one has where Russel gives characters an ethnicity and then 50% of their personality is explained as, "Well they're from X". In the first book it was like okayyyy maybe cause this is about first contact, but in this one it's just annoying.

ALSO I think if I was assaulted by aliens for months, and all my friends died, and I ate babies, and killed my kinda-kid, and lost faith in god it would take more than a year or two to recover and date. But idk maybe that's the power of an italian mafia princess. No hate to Gina tho I like her.

Summary:
Rob Bell's bestselling book Love Wins struck a powerful chord with a new generation of Christians who are asking the questions church leaders have been afraid to touch. His new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, will continue down this path, helping us with the ultimate big-picture issue: how do we know God? Love Wins was a Sunday Times bestseller that created a media storm, launching Bell as a national religious voice who is reinvigorating what it means to be religious and a Christian today. He is one of the most influential voices in the Christian world, and now his new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, is poised to blow open the doors on how we understand God. Bell believes we need to drop our primitive, tribal views of God and instead understand the God who wants us to become who we were designed to be, a God who created a universe of quarks and quantum string dynamics, but who also gives meaning to why new-born babies and stories of heroes and sacrifice inspire in us a deep reverence. What We Talk About When We Talk About God will reveal that God is not in need of repair to catch him up with today's world so much as we need to discover the God who goes before us and beckons us forward. A book full of mystery, controversy, and reverence, What We Talk About When We Talk About God has fans and critics alike anxiously awaiting, and promises not to disappoint.

Thoughts:
BORINGGGGGGG. Might be a me problem tho. It's all fine it's just very very very surface level stuff in my opinion. Like God is nice and such... and don't be anti-progress. There was a nice part about God being pro-progress and meeting society where it's at which explains the stuff in the Bible that's quiet evil as relatively progressive for the time. What a nice thought. I get why people like it like it's fine apologetics I think I'm just too deep in the religion hole so I was very bored.

Summary:
In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet that will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be "human".

Thoughts:
No book has ever been more up my alley than this one. Priest main character, sci-fi, amazing cast of characters that are all domestic and lovely, loss of faith, insane ass side plots, debating the problem of evil, it has everything. I love Emilio like he's a real guy and I've never seen feeling abandoned by god shown so well. It's like when you grow up in religion, and remember how it felt to believe, and how bad that hurts when you can't sustain faith any longer.

Only complaint is I read this cause I saw someone say it was an uplifting story, which I don't know about all that. The start tricks you with the lovely friendships and relationships and domestic bliss. Truly some of the best frienships I've ever read. But then you get flashbanged. Shockingly heavy on the sexual violence.

But just amazing book and there's a sequel I'm so hyped.

Summary:
I'm still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind.

Thirty-year-old Millie just can't pull it together. Misanthropic and morose, she spends her days killing time at a thankless temp job until she can return home to her empty apartment, where she oscillates wildly between self-recrimination and mild delusion, fixating on all the little ways she might change her life. Then she watches TV until she drops off to sleep, and the cycle begins again.

When the possibility of a full-time job offer arises, it seems to bring the better life she's envisioning - one that involves nicer clothes, fresh produce, maybe even financial independence - within reach. But with it also comes the paralyzing realization, lurking just beneath the surface, of just how hollow that vision has become.

Thoughts:
Reminded me of when I tried to watch The Office and I couldn't because it made me too sad that everyone hated each other. There is some comedy, but it has a sort of millenial vibe. Nothing wrong with that, just not for me. I liked when she said, “My pits are slick, and my face smells like a bagel.” And I liked when she went to visit her loving parents. Other than that I read this very quickly so I wouldn't need to be sad about office workers anymore.

Summary:
"1798, France. Nuns move along the dark corridors of a Versailles hospital where the young Sister Perpetué has been tasked with sitting with the patient who must always be watched. The man, gaunt, with his sallow skin and distended belly, is dying: they say he ate a golden fork, and that it’s killing him from the inside. But that’s not all—he is rumored to have done monstrous things in his attempts to sate an insatiable appetite… an appetite they say tortures him still.

Born in an impoverished village to a widowed young mother, Tarare was once overflowing with quiet affection: for the Baby Jesus and the many Saints, for his mother, for the plants and little creatures in the woods and fields around their house. He spends his days alone, observing the delicate charms of the countryside. But his world is not a gentle one—and soon, life as he knew it is violently upended. Tarare is pitched down a chaotic path through revolutionary France, left to the mercy of strangers, and increasingly, bottomlessly, ravenous."

Thoughts:
Going through a weird 17th century french guy phase reading this right after Perfume. This book is kinda Tumblr, which I say with love. Something about the writing style and the general historical changes. It's basically, "What if Tarare was a traumatized bisexual guy." And I ate it up. They even made him less deformed than historical accounts lol. Kinda confused why it starts with a framing device it abandons half-way through, but I'll forgive it.

Summary:
"In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle.

Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father--an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.

This is also the tale of another remarkable vision--not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten."

Thoughts:
Super calming book. Almost too calming cause I kept forgetting what I had read and having to re-read it. But it's a sweet book, more introspection than plot.

The grandpa's history as an aboltionist was the most interesting part to me. AND the story about the horse in the hole. That was so funny like what.

I wish it leaned more into the struggle of someone who wants to believe in god but can't. That's such a fascinating struggle but it was raised and not resolved. Maybe that's the point, not to resolve it, but I wish it was at least discussed more.

Summary:
"An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity."

Thoughts:
Silly little book. Felt like a fairytale. Lots of messed up stuff happens but it's told so fancifully I wasn't freaked out. So well written that even when the plot got kinda random I was still invested. I've never read a story where a charcters motivations are just, "He's evil" lol.

Summary:
"From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi--a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café--collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed.

Hadi soon realizes he's created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive--first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path. A prizewinning novel by "Baghdad's new literary star" (The New York Times), Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humor the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq."

Thoughts:
You know the books going to be good when the first pages are a list of all the characters so you can keep track of them. There's so much happening in this book, but it works. TBH the characters aren't even that hard to keep track of. And all of them are lovely. Elishva and Hadi are my favs. They're two older people living in Baghdad and I want to read books just about them and their lives. Hadi felt very real, and I liked how he just wanted enough money to drink and have fun. His sadness at the death of his straight-laced bestie added to him. I want to read about their livessssss. Elishva I was really fond of, and was sad when the book moved away from her POV. I have a soft spot for eccentric religious characters lol.

My favorite thing is learning about the minutiae of a different time/place, which this book does great. I feel like I really got a glance into daily life in Baghdad. All the characters made the neighborhood feel alive. There's some great commentary about war and the cycle of violence that creates with the monster too. Also I liked the nods to the original Frankenstein, with the monster being a monologuing melodramatic dude, and the book starting as a story someone else is telling.

Summary:
"In 2024, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.

Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind."

Thoughts:
Good book, well written and everything, just didn't grip me. I think I'm still burnt out on dystopia from when I only read dystopia in middle school lol. I felt like the plot was kinda slow until the middle of the book, and even when the action began it was slightly repetitive for me. The characters are all nice, I like Zahara the best. I wish we could've gotten to know more about all the characters but for a large cast I think they were all fleshed out pretty well.

The world building is the best element for me. I was super into the dystopia and how it seemed quite possible. There's no major disaster, just growing issues overtime while everyone tries to act like everythings fine. Lauren's religion is also a great part of the book. It's a perspective on God I haven't ever seen before, and a good religious view for the apocolypse lol.

If you've read the book I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but a part that REALLY took me out of the book was Laurens romance. I think it really goes against some of the other themes of the novel. Other characters have backstories that show how relationships like that are predatory and traumatizing, but when Lauren does it everything okay? I don't get it :(

I'll probably eventually read the sequel just to know what happens and enter the world again, but I'll have to recover from all the dystopia stuff. If you like dystopia though this will be up your alley :)

Link: Here

Summary:
"A collection of suicide notes accompanied by a brief description of who the individual was, what their note meant, and the circumstances which led up to their suicide"

Thoughts:
Very depressing, as you would expect. I was curious about this topic after seeing Virginia Wolfe's famous suicide note. But the commentary on the notes and the categorization really makes the whole thing feel hacky. Like, the book begins by telling you this is pornographic and you're a pervert or voyeur for reading it. YOU WROTE THE BOOK. and I think the book would feel much less like voyeuristically enjoying someone elses suffering if the commentary didn't read like freakshow advertisements.

There is totally a respectful way to present something like this, they just didn't do it. The notes themselves were heartbreaking as you'd think. If you're interested in the topic of suicide notes and what people usually put in them/blame their suicide on, this is a decent compilation. Just ignore all the commentary.

Summary:
"Emerging from the thought-provoking discussions and correspondence Simone Weil had with the Reverend Father Perrin, this classic collection of essays contains the renowned philosopher and social activist's most profound meditations on the relationship of human life to the realm of the transcendent. An enduring masterwork and "one of the most neglected resources of our century" (Adrienne Rich), Waiting for God will continue to influence spiritual and political thought for centuries to come."

Thoughts:
I was craving some difficult to read nonfiction and this was that. Simone Weil has some really interesting ideas, though I'm not sure I grasp them all. I think her thesis is basically the title. That longing for god is god or the closest we can hope to get to god. That we should be happy empting ourselves out and focusing all our attention on the desire for god, making ourselves an empty vessel for him, and being satisfied with that emptiness if god never comes.

Her obediance and devotion to god was certaintly moving. It has to feel great to be that devoted to anything.

A lot of what she talks about is stuff that doesn't make sense logically, but to me makes sense experiencially. She talks about affliction as the point of a nail being hammered into you, and that that pain brings you closer to god. Logically that doesn't make much sense, but experiencially I think that is true.

She also just says interesting stuff. I think she says god doesn't interfere with the world because god diminshed a part of himself to create the world, and that we are so diminished that his perfect-ness can't interact with us.

I don't agree but like what a concept. Overall very interesting, would reccomend if you want some ideas about religion I haven't seen elsewhere.

Summary:
"Cat's Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal. Elaine must come to terms with her own identity as a daughter, a lover, and artist, and woman—but above all she must seek release from her haunting memories. Disturbing, hilarious, and compassionate, Cat's Eye is a breathtaking novel of a woman grappling with the tangled knots of her life."

Thoughts:
VERY GOOD! I think bullying usually isn't portrayed well in stories because they make it too violent and not emotional enough. This story gets what bullying is. If you're a girl whose been terrorized by girls, especially those who were your friends, you'll get this book.

I like the start of this book more than the later half, but the end is still good. The portrayal of forties culture and how that has affected the main characters art is great too. I just like to hear about different time periods.

I really liked this part,“This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.” Like isn't that agonizing.

Summary:
"A book that asks: Is there life after the internet?

As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats—from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness—begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"

Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature."

Thoughts:
Really good. Extremely easy to read, extremely online. If you've gotten that "everyone is watching me" feeling from using the internet, then I think you'll get this book.

The second part is much better than the first, so don't give up too quickly. The love these characters have for the baby is beautiful.

I really liked how they said "She only knows being herself" or something similar. Got me thinking about different ways life is experienced and stuff, which is more than I thought I'd get out of a book about an influencer lol.

Summary:
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?

Thoughts:
I liked this one. The reason it's only getting 3 stars is because I was expecting a murder mystery, and then that wasn't really what the story was about. If you want a character study/introspection on an interesting old woman than this is that book! and I liked it for that.

The main character was deeply endearing to me. Her voice really nailed the eccentric old lady thing. The relationships between the towns folk and her were my favorite parts of the book. The part in the middle when the entomologist is visiting is my favorite. Very solid book overall, just needs a less deceptive description I guess.

Summary:
What if you could enter the mind of the person you love the most?

Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her. Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka—trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world—pours everything into their friendship. But when Mathilde’s fame and success cause her to begin drifting away, Enka becomes desperate to keep her close.

Enter SCAFFOLD. Purported to enhance empathy, this cutting-edge technology could allow Enka to inhabit Mathilde’s mind and access her memories, artistic inspirations, and deep-seated trauma. Undergoing this procedure would link Enka and Mathilde forever. But at what cost?

Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, Immaculate Conception offers us a portrait of close friendship—achingly tender and twisted—that captures the tenuous line between love and possession that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

Thoughts:
This book is just every sci-fi concept ever + toxic girl friendship + weird fine art drama. And I was sat.

It's incredibly entertaining, but maybe not the most well written. There's so much exposition, not even folded in nicely, and then the world building that was just established gets forgotten in a chapter. This book has AI commentary, genetic engineering, cloning, mind-reading stuff, YA dystopia style divided cities, women having babies without men, and so much other concepts that could all be their own book. I feel that most of these topics weren't explored to their fullest.

That's the same issue I have with the toxic girl friendship. It's what the book is about, but I feel like they could've explored it more or had the two women interact more.

Despite all this I was so entertained by this book. It's easy to read and I was constantly wondering what would happen next cause something unheard of was happening every page. I would recomend it just for that.

Summary:
Set largely on the pages of a website where gay male escorts are reviewed by their clients, and told through the postings, emails, and conversations of several dozen unreliable narrators, The Sluts chronicles the evolution of one young escort's date with a satisfied client into a metafiction of pornography, lies, half-truths, and myth. Explicit, shocking, comical, and displaying the author's signature flair for blending structural complexity with direct, stylish, accessible language, The Sluts is Cooper's most transgressive novel since Frisk, and one of his most innovative works of fiction to date.

Thoughts:
Read this when my insomnia was getting soooo bad and thought it might've been cause I was reading this before bed. It wasn't, but this book does stress me out. The format is fun, and it's a very compulsive read, but it is rough. Just all these dudes talking casually about abusing a maybe-underage prostitute, how nonchalant they are about it... The book feels very cruel. The ending didn't do it for me. I don't know if the book earned the right to go the places it did basically. I think that was the point tho. That these extreme horrible things could happen and no one would care except to get off to it.

Summary:
It was decreed from the moment she was born. Twenty-three-year-old Reality Kahn would embark on a quest so great, so bold. She would become the greatest girlfriend of all time. She would be a zine maker, an aspiring notary, the greatest waterslide commercial actress on the Eastern Seaboard. She would receive messages from the beyond in the form of advice from the esteemed and ancient ladies magazine, Girlfriend Weekly.

When she attends a party in Gowanus at a punk venue known as “Paradise,” Reality meets Ariel, who will become her boyfriend. She bravely works for his everlasting affection and joins a clinical trial created by Dr. Zweig Altmann to help her become a more perfect girlfriend. She stars in a new commercial. She learns how to become an indelible host. But Reality will also learn that sheer will and determination, and a very open heart, are not always enough to make true love manifest.

At turns laugh-out-loud funny, tragic, and jarring, Reality’s quest grows ever complicated as the men in her Ariel, her waterpark commercial agent Jethro, and Dr. Altmann himself prove treacherous. Paradise Logic is a thrilling, psychosexual breakdown of our obsession with authentic true love, asking whether that is even possible in a patriarchal world, and announces Sophie Kemp as a wholly original, transformative, and brilliant new voice in fiction.

Thoughts:
The cover of this book... so amazing. The actual book is better in concept than practice. The MC is like almost compelling. Her loneliness and desperation for friendship + love is sweet. The completely un-sensitive way it talks about sexual violence is also great. The collapse of reality's mind after Ariel abuses her is really well done too. Like it all does make you feel like an anime girl trapped in the technocolor garden of eden. In a way. But it's just a little too silly to me. Reality's voice is too funny. It kinda makes the deeper themes superficial to the spectacle of how weird this book is.

Summary:
Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out ― with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes ― to breed their own exhibit of human oddities.

There's Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family's most precious ― and dangerous ― asset.

As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.

Thoughts:
Best book ever ACTUALLY. I read this book for such long chunks of time I gave myself headache level eyestrain, and then kept reading.

The summary is just the tip of the iceberg of stuff that actually happens in this book. I won't say anything else because I think you need to be shocked, but it's like 5 stories in one. And all of those stories are told to their fullest. It's so immersive I felt like the world of the Binewski's was real, and my actual life was just something distracting me from them.

The dark places this book goes to are disturbing but also creative!!! and the shock of them feels earned by the messed up world the author's created. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK. I can't recommend it enough.

Summary:In 1945 an Egyptian peasant unearthed what proved to be the Gnostic Gospels, thirteen papyrus volumes that expounded a radically different view of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ from that of the New Testament. In this spellbinding book, renowned religious scholar Elaine Pagels elucidates the mysteries and meanings of these sacred texts both in the world of the first Christians and in the context of Christianity today.

With insight and passion, Pagels explores a remarkable range of recently discovered gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, to show how a variety of “Christianities” emerged at a time of extraordinary spiritual upheaval. Some Christians questioned the need for clergy and church doctrine, and taught that the divine could be discovered through spiritual search. Many others, like Buddhists and Hindus, sought enlightenment — and access to God — within. Such explorations raised questions: Was the resurrection to be understood symbolically and not literally? Was God to be envisioned only in masculine form, or feminine as well? Was martyrdom a necessary — or worthy — expression of faith? These early Christians dared to ask questions that orthodox Christians later suppressed — and their explorations led to profoundly different visions of Jesus and his message.

Thoughts:
Kinda think I got the wrong cover for this but I'm keeping it. Great book if you're obssessed with religion and early Christian history. Anyone else will be bored. It's very academic in writing basically.

I wanted to learn more about Gnosticism cause I heard that they believed the God of the old testament was an evil demon who had made the world and that real God was Jesus who had come to free everyone. Like a worldview involving existence itself being made by an evil demon how novel how bleak. There is some info on that, but apparently it was a niche view even at the time.

Learning about all the weird sects of thought springing up at the time was great though. The idea that Christian texts where just basic knowledge, and that personal revelation is more impactful cause it's new is so cool. Never seen that before. Seeing what the early Jesus movement was up to and what could've been is just soooooo interesting to me.