mae
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This is my type of poetry. Sng has a unique voice, blending pieces from sci-fi, horror, and fairy tales to create analogies to her own experiences with mental health. She ties together each story in “acts” to make the collection more cohesive. I loved it. It feels like something that was written directly for someone like me. A few of the poems I had to revisit to fully analyze what they were about. In a way, this adds value to the collection and benefits from re-reads. I recommend this for any fan of the aforementioned genres and for those interested in mental health!
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
As someone questioning my placement on the asexuality spectrum, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I felt like this book was a mess for several reasons.
Upfront, the authors qualify their experiences as cis white women. While I appreciate the qualification, they immediately give you reason to doubt their legitimacy in representing a lot of aspec people. They remedy this by using quotes by members of the aspec community of different identities, races, and genders. I wish they had explained that in the beginning because this was very effective to provide more of the “aspec lens” than the experience of two women. They continue to constantly qualify their statements to seem more “woke” or attuned to others.
For instance, they list examples of romantic-sexual relationships in movies, choosing to list a Western film from the 50s then qualifying their choice saying “we know this is racist, but it's prominent, and lots of films from this time were racist so it's hard to pick one that isn't!” What? We never needed that example in the first place! If it's racist and questionable, just don't pick it! They also didn't provide examples of “good aspec representation” which I really craved while reading. Tell us your critiques AND tell what to look for in media! Footnotes like this disrupt the flow of the book and just lead you to questioning their narrative choices.
The formatting of this ebook was TERRIBLE. I hope they clear it up for the print copy, but literally there were no quotation marks, no indentations or change in font when they quoted other people. Just narrative bleeding into a quote in random places. There would be paragraphs explaining themselves that would lead into a quote that I didn't... know... was a quote? I found myself wondering which parts the authors had written and which parts their community had written. The early chapters were titled with Kayla's perspective and another's with Sarah's perspective, which you'd expect later on but it just... stops?... and then they're writing together again for half of the book. It truly did not make sense. This can be fixed with some formatting tweaks and organization of their chapters.
You can tell that this was written by podcasters in the sense that it is very conversational. This doesn't always translate well to print, though, because Sounds Fake But Okay comes off as an awkward stream-of-consciousness that doesn't find a definite voice (since I couldn't tell what was a quote and what wasn't!!!). They start on a lot of topics and have a lot of breadth, wanting to cover everything very broadly without really finding conclusions on one thing (see: the 1 page written on “Housing” and its affect on people of color that references how they already talked about housing... felt like an afterthought). It needs better organization and focus to me.
I did learn a lot about distinctions between romantic and sexual relationships, as well as the spectrum of relationships that can exist between people. It serves well as a cutely formatted coffee table book, supplement for fans of their podcast, or a nice addition to a shelf of LGBTQIA+ nonfiction.
Recently, I've been thinking a lot about friendship and how it can be infinitely deeper than romantic love. You don't choose one “friend” for the rest of your life, or divorce a friend (though arguably, some should). You have friends you'd do anything for, that can pop up out of the blue years later asking for support, and you'd unconditionally give it to them. That is the beauty of friendship: it transcends time, keeping score, and exclusivity. There's no “just friends” in that.
This book is the kind I want to protect, the kind I had to cry and hug to my chest after I finished, the kind that made me pray afterwards. After I read it, I felt love and gratitude that I lived in the time I got to read this book. At this point in my life, I needed Sadie and Sam, I needed them to tell me that I was right about friendship all along. That lovers are common but a seamless player 2 is someone you should hold on to.
I worried about the nostalgia and references. Ready Player One just capitalized on the nostalgia almost repulsively. But each reference had purpose, each game provided symbolism, meta-references that crossed over from beginning to end and felt like they were necessary to tell a full story.
I hope you love this book like I did. I hope we find the love Sadie and Sam had.
playlist I made for this book: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1TROya189mKe86Umh2Nywa?si=pC4UqmthTY2YuKwe4Te4IQ
4/29/23 - It's funny how different chapters stick out to me as I read it the second time. I think so much more about my Island than the rest and trying to align myself, the decisions I've made with what I think and believe. How do I live according to what my Knowing says? I feel like I need to be honest with myself again and work past the twisty feelings in my stomach. I am happy now, much more than 9 months ago when I first read this. (One less star for the cringy political chapters.)
7/16/22 - I started reading this immediately after I made a drastic decision. It appears that my Knowing (that is the center of Doyle's story) told me to do that. It also appears that my Knowing is telling me that I need to reverse that decision.
I don't think that it would be doubling back and making another mistake. I think it would be an entirely new decision with knowledge that I have now.
Something I Know that I should do.
Another thing I Know I should do is spend time with myself and my instincts instead of externalizing and having someone else validate what I already know I want to do.
This is worth the read if you're ready to think about your life in a different way, if you want to trust yourself more, and if you want something different than where you are.
I never thought of how pop music sets cultural markers for songs released afterwards. It's cool to think of ‘firsts' and Breihan chooses a diverse cast of artists in his #1 choices. From 1960 to 2020, each chapter is its own mini-essay on why a #1 hit remains a significant song and how it affected music afterwards. While my eyes glossed over at the mention of chart numbers, the joy is reading about the times you're familiar with and how artists you love cemented themselves in from their own drama, created waves in rap music, or became anomalies in Korean pop music. I had a lot of fun with this as Breihan covers my musical coming-of-age with Limewire downloads and choosing ringtones... look out for that Soulja Boy chapter.
I think this book is best enjoyed while playing each song while you're reading the chapter. I always love reading deep-dives into music and appreciating it for more than just lyrics I hear. Fans of Pitchfork and other music columns will love this read. Overall, fun, well-researched, and presents an impressive, in-depth coverage of each time period, even from contexts of race and generational gaps.
Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher NetGalley.
I almost DNF'ed this but the last 40% made this book truly worth it. There are some gorgeous quotes that, paired with connections to my personal life, brought me to tears. I just wanted to hold their hands and tell them it was okay.
TJR has a way of making characters feel real and whole. Even surfers in the 60s feel real and breathable, like they could be friends of your own. That's what brings this to 4 stars for me... the redemption I craved for the characters I read.
I can only hope that redemption happens for the Kit and Nina in my life.
It reads like a fucked up short story your sophomore English teacher would make you read and analyze. I wanted to like this but I just felt dirty reading it. The metaphors were painful to digest (ha!) and it just felt like yelling something really quietly. Reminded me of Fahrenheit 451. To me, not a must-read but if you want something disgusting and thought-provoking, go for it.
I did like the ending, kind of?
I'm a sucker for an LA backdrop about has-beens, what can I say.
I almost want to complain about pacing but I blew through this in literally one day and enjoyed every second of it. It was often predictable, but overall just a fun drama that I wanted to see play out. The characters were vulnerable in just the right places.
But I feel like there was still something missing, some extra development I missed, something that would make this more into a movie and less like a mini-series. It didn't break new ground for me, it was just fun, and like I said I fucking love LA as a setting.
3.5 rounded up to 4.
Some of this hit too close to home (especially having the “superpower” of switching tabs from MSN messaging to homework seamlessly). But it helped me celebrate the move towards representation of Asian Americans, and having a story of the kid who broke through fulfilling only his parents' expectations is SO important.
