Rat 🛸

I mean what can I say? This is possibly my favourite book, I love Ursula's writing, the rhythm of it, the world-building, the insight into politics, patriotism, duality.

By far the standout is the 1/3 of the book spent with Genly and Estraven journeying together. The relationship and intimacy that builds between them is one of my favourite relationships in any book I've read - the way that Estraven is devoted to his cause and in that way becomes devoted to Genly. The way that Genly describes the journey on the ice as some kind of joy - through the horror of the cold and starvation he feels such purpose and connection. Makes me crazy.

Also really meaningful to me in terms of what patriotism is, and could be. I love the quote about loving one's country so much. It's so reflective of how I feel about the UK; in love with the landscape, with so many of the people, but that love isn't defined by borders and shut out when you cross that line. I hate the government, it's history of empire and the rising number of white supremacists with seats in parliament, but I always wish the best for the people of my country.

Anyway Genly x Estraven 4eva, off to read fanfic now.

okay damn!!! this was really good. Isabel and Eva are such great characters, I absolutely love how messed up and repressed Isabel is. Shoutout to Stina Nielson and Saskia Maarleveld for the audiobook because it was so consistently well-read, they were making such great acting choices.

Never read a book before that is this well-written and deserving of mainstream critical acclaim while also being sexy lol. Very impressed by it. Told my sex therapist I was reading this and she was like yes!!! that book is hot!! which is quite a recommendation lol. Thanks Carlin for the rec <3

Really love the themes of complicity, memory, repression and wilful forgetfulness of great evil. I was absolutely gagged when it came to the diary entries - I'd figured Eva was Jewish but not the full context. I love how she was written with such anger and such tenderness.

I really got a lot out of this. Obviously learnt a lot about disease and healthcare, but consistently as I was listening I was really appreciative of the lengths Green goes to emphasising that economic inequality is the major barrier today for TB treatment worldwide. Made me think a lot about how healthcare and welfare are not separate, and have only artificially been separated in an attempt to organise our funding and priorities. At what point does food become healthcare? If someone is starving, then food is the cure - does that not then mean that food is an essential part of any treatment? Obviously someone having in-house treatment will be provided with food, but what if they need it at home? IDK these are just ramblings but Everything Is Interconnected So Much and this book does a good job of bringing this across.

While I was very taken with Henry and his writing and his story, I initially found myself bumping up against how often he was used by John as an example. It reminded me of the charity impact segments they do between skits on Red Nose Day - documenting a real and important story, but built for easy consumption for a western audience, not bringing across the real depth and detail of a person's life. But as it went on, my perspective changed; Green does a good job of trying to tell us about Henry's whole life, the complexities, his family and his drive. I started thinking 'Well why are you telling us John. This is Henry's story, I want to hear it from him.' But of course that is on me. I didn't pick up a book by Henry Reider. I probably wouldn't have, even if it existed. I chose to read a book by John Green, a well-known author who I trust to entertain as he educates, someone who is familiar to me. Thanks to this book, I have now checked out Henry's YouTube channel, and have enjoyed several of his videos so far (One that stands out to me is him celebrating the historical Dr Alan Hart, a trans man who was one of the first people in the US to receive gender affirming surgery and was very influential to TB healthcare in the States. I know that Sierra Leone has a very low rate of LGBT+ acceptance so I thought it was especially meaningful for Henry to share this with his largely Sierra Leonean audience.)

Anyway, appreciated this book. Funny that I'm now someone who has only read John Green's non-fiction.

Really enjoyed this!! Love the way that it plays with form - the testimonies are obviously iconic for a reason. Parts of the descriptions I loved, especially the way he likens multiple things to apricots. The titular story is very sad, but I found it really evocative.

Didn't like this one as much as the other one I've read in the series unfortunately - I felt like Sylvia didn't get any characterisation and the monsters anatomy was inadequately expanded upon (which is annoying bc the Spider and Gorgon concepts are very fun!).

I had the great privilege of hearing George Takei speak in person at a Star Trek convention a few years ago, and me and my family were so incredibly struck as he talked about his life, the great injustices that he and the rest of the Japanese-American community suffered, and the way that that same rhetoric is resurging in power with ICE today. It's one thing to know the facts and figures, it's another to hear personal testimony.

There's so much in this book I'm impressed with. I really like the way it talks about different choices that people made, respectful of all decisions made by different Japanese-American families to keep safe or strong or true to themselves. Example: I love that this book pays remembrance to the enlisted Japanese-American soldiers who fought the fascist regimes in Italy and German-occupied territories, but gives equal appreciation and respect to the people who chose to refuse to enlist as a protest of America's violation of their human rights.

I also appreciate the theme of participatory democracy. Politics isn't voting once every 4 years, it's turning up, being a part of your community, using any platform you have to educate and advocate.

There's a few odd lines in this book that stick out to me a bit American-exceptionalist but I don't think it bothers me much - they are the opinions of people in the book, not something the book is trying to get you to agree with.

Love that this book includes a link to teaching resources/lesson plans based on this. Maybe I can convince one of the teachers I work with to use it.

It's fine, it's good, but it's not really adding a great deal to the Murderbot franchise that we didn't already have. The first 25% of this is essentially a recap. Far and away the standout in this is Miki <3 Great character.

I think I'll have to take a little break from this series as this felt like it was getting a little repetitive. I'm still really excited to see where it's going, and I really want to see Mensah and Murderbot reunite again, but I was like ok ok speed it up.

I think this really would have helped me out when I was early on my journey to understanding my depression and anxiety, granting myself compassion and grace a little more, not setting unreasonable expectations. As it is, I have been diagnosed for over 6 years, and some of this had lost its relevancy to me. I keep on getting caught up on people saying 'it's okay to ask for help' - I've heard it not only from this book but from a whole hoard of medical professionals. I'm fortunate to have a partner who supports me daily and a boss who accomodates my special needs, they do help me have fewer terrible moments. But whenever I've had a really bad time, a mental health crisis, and I've gone to the people who I'm supposed to reach out for (GPs, crisis lines, NHS stress team), they've just asked me why I'm there and if I understand that there's not a magic wand they can wave that will solve everything for me. Honestly doesn't seem like there's any point in asking for help any more. I think I just get disillusioned, thinking about how there seem to be so many things that can bring so many people out of depression, but never me.

One thing that did still work for me was thinking about how things pass. While I was reading this I was feeling very depressed and everything felt dry and meaningless. I know things sometimes do have meaning to me so I could appreciate the words in the book that reminded me that sometimes time just needs to pass for you to feel differently. (TBH I'm still struggling to feel like anything matters, but it's a bit better than it was).

I'm glad I read this though, there's an element of comfort to it, relating it to my past self. I think this book is well executed and will make a really important read to some people - just not quite me.