Bara

miscommunication tropes/slowburn can sometime frustrate the fuck out of me but i wasn’t that frustrated reading this. i actually liked the characters and felt like i understood why they were miscommunicating

did i understand all of it? definitely not. but i enjoyed reading it so much. the way it’s written is so fun and beautiful and it makes me jealous that i can’t even begin to write like that.

i read this book for the first class i ever had in college. no being 5 years removed from that and having lived in the US for the better part of the last 5 years, having read it again made this book so much more powerful, especially considering the current political climate. Coates knocked it out of the fucking park. truly incredible.

this might be the perfect slice of life

this book makes me feel so seen. as a foreigner (indonesian, very close to malaysai!) currently in the US, Chin highlights many of the same issues and anxieties that i’ve felt in my time here. the question of belonging, both here and back home, is one that i think about everyday. it was both so pleasant but also kind of mortifying to read. honestly, this might be my new favorite book.