Alejandra
She's an ICON, she's a LEGEND and she IS the moment.
Janina is funny, fearless and unique, and she refuses to be diminished or dismissed by those around her, challenging societal norms, misogyny, speciesism, ageism, and advocating for the voiceless. Her unwavering position against animal cruelty and the marginalization of those who are considered invisible/worthless highlight themes of empathy and justice. Janina's character teaches us that life's beauty lies in its simplicity, its slow pace, its depth and complexity. This novel asks us to think deeper, slowly and honor and protect what truly matters.
This novel smells and tastes the same as Gloria Fuerte's poetry, they both explore the softness that true strength requires and how beauty is scattered around us, floating, shimmering, pulsing, like stars in a dark sky.
I really didn't want to leave this polish village.
A darkly humorous exploration of how personal trauma and societal norms can entrap individuals, leading to a distorted sense of self and morality. Eileen's life is a cocktail of internalized oppression, self loathing, societal expectations, the quest for liberation (or maybe just peace with oneself?) shaken not stirred. I like how physicality is entangled with emotional turmoil and they both keep feeding out of each other.
I don't know, I just love a disgusting and unreliable narrator and I'm in my self loathing mentally ill era so it was good but this meeting could have been a novella.
This book is the most beautiful form of violence you will ever endure. It's a beautifully devastating story about loss, identity, and the wounds history refuses to close. It unravels how trauma breaks and reshapes a person, how memory clings like a ghost, both unbearable and impossible to release, and how forgetting can feel like the deepest betrayal. This isn't just a book about a massacre, it's about the fragile, stubborn resilience of being human in the face of unbearable cruelty.
