Reviews and Comments

Wild Woila

wildwoila@wyrms.de

Joined 2 years, 8 months ago

I have #mecfs so I have a lot of time for reading, mostly #fantasy and #SciFi but I'm happy to dip into nearly anything.

Ratings: 1 star: I didn't like it 2 stars: it was okay 3 stars: I liked it 4 stars: I really liked it 5 stars: it was brilliant

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Sophie Lewis: Abolish the Family (2022, Verso Books)

What if family were not the only place you might hope to feel safe, loved, …

Thought-provoking & disruptive

The nuclear family is a patriarchal institution of oppression & capital, and yet remains unquestioned. Thought-provoking & disruptive but short on constructive ideas. Heavy on the lib arts jargon.

N. K. Jemisin: The City We Became (Hardcover, 2020, Orbit)

Five New Yorkers must come together in order to defend their city.

Every city has …

Explosively creative & often funny.

New York comes alive, through six human avatars, but something in the multiverse isn't happy. Explosively creative & often funny. Shares a deep love for the city & its people. Clever use of identity politics and gentrification.

Omar Musa: Millefiori (2017, Penguin Random House)

Poetry with a hiphop steetwise feel

Poetry with a hiphop steetwise feel. On prejudice, a broken world, and lost love. A few were great, but a bunch missed me.

'We know that the world is a horror story, but we also know it's got love notes at the margins.'

Reading time 5 days, 20 pages/day

J. R. R. Tolkien: The Silmarillion (Paperback, 1982, Ballantine Books)

A number-one New York Times bestseller when it was originally published, The Silmarillion is the …

Bessel van der Kolk: The Body Keeps the Score (2014)

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath …

The massive burden of trauma

Trauma is a major unrecognised public health issue. Talk therapy and drugs are not effective; emotional & social engagement has to be revived. Not as useful as I hoped for my own issues, but neurofeedback and EMDR are intriguing.

Reading time 24 days, 18 pages/day

reviewed Unbranded by Herb Wharton (UQP Black Australian writers)

Herb Wharton: Unbranded (1992, University of Queensland Press, Distributed by International Specialized Services)

Simple but evocative

Fictionalised autobiography of an Aboriginal stockman in the pastoral outback. Despite simple prose, it absorbingly evokes that long gone world with its tall stories, colourful characters (so much grog!) and damages of colonisation.

Reading time 13 days, 19 pages/day

Catherynne M. Valente (duplicate): The Past Is Red (Hardcover, 2021, Tordotcom)

The future is blue. Endless blue...except for a few small places that float across the …

Darkly humourous

The last remnants of humanity are adrift on a flooded earth, clinging to a giant life raft built from the refuse of the 'fuckwits' who destroyed it. Morbid & irreverent, with everything taken to extremes.

Reading time 3 days, 49 pages/day