Giuli

🥺

Cruzes, odiei

Intimations: the window to the invisible that everyone can see\n\nI don't know where to start, when trying to convince you to read this book. Because it called me to read it. I hope it does the same with you.\n\nIt's definitely that book that needs to be read at the right time - for if you read it when it won't bring you anything new, everything that is said will feel worthless. In my case, it was on my TBR for months, but in a turn of events this week, I watched a video from the same booktuber that recommended it (Jack Edwards), and he mentioned it again. And I had to pick it up AT THAT MOMENT to read.\n\nDon't look at the ““91 pages”” in the Book Info Page and assume it will be a light reading. That's why I said you'll find what you need to hear, at the right time. In my ““pandemic case””, every piece fit at the right time for me to not need to go back in person to many activities, which left me alone. I know I'm not the only one, but around the corner from two years with my life on hold, I feel very lonely lately, longing for places and people that are now just memories, because none of them is where they used to be. Yearning for intimations, for the details of my daily life that no longer exist, the invisible that was dear to me, the person I no longer am.\n\nThis book is a glimpse of the first moments of the pandemic - I would say from March to May 2020, when the ““we'll be back in two weeks”” seemed real only in social formality (because deep down, in the invisible visible to all, we already knew that it wouldn't be like that, but we didn't want to say it out loud so as to not jinx it). It is the beginning of the end of the old alternative universe in which we used to live, the moment in which this universe became strange to us, repulsive and which, two years later, we find absurd (the author mentions leaving the house without a mask on, because it was not yet something common and I was in shock). Zadie returns to the real ghost town in our minds, eternally unreachable and almost incredulous these days. The city that we will never stop missing, but that will live in ourselves forever.\n\nI can't point out any technicality in this book, I can only try to convince you to read it. Zadie doesn't sound like she's argumenting, it's more like a conversation, a story that unfolds in our minds, agitated by all of the political debates brought to us by the virus, and ironically (or very cleverly), the numbness and paralysis of ““the strange”” ends, alongside the book, when the first major political event after the beginning of the pandemic hit: the murder of George Floyd and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement.\n\nLet Zadie invade your deepest self and let her put into words what we all felt and can't verbalize. It hurts, but at the same time it brings joy and warmth, supplying the insatiable longing for what was and will never be again.

RATING #1 (1st read): 3/5\nRATING #2 (2nd read): 5/5

Thank you so much Maya MacGregor and NetGalley for this eARC!\n\nIf you love a wide variety of representation in books like me, this one's for you!! Even though ““The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester”” sounds like it has a very cliché whodunnit plot, it brings much more than a mystery to the table. Not only do the communities this book represents need rep in ““cliché”” plots, but this book also intertwines problems within the community to the mystery.\n\nSam Sylvester is the non-binary autistic MAIN CHARACTER we all needed, and their father is a gem too. Yes, you will be slapped across the face with MANY hurthful truths and scenes, but that's why I loved this book. It doesn't sugar coat the VERY bad situation that happens to Sam and, unfortunately, still happens to many LGBTQIA+ teens to this day. The only thing I wanted to deep dive into a little more was the autistic side of Sam (and I'm using the term used by Sam/the author in the book to refer to ASD) - but it was okay that I didn't get to though, because it made sense that the reader wouldn't be someone Sam would share something so deep and personal upfront. This was only my personal curiosity, it still is very well presented and I loved it. <3\n\nGreat for nostalgic 80's lovers - though it doesn't focus that much on this topic -, this book gives me 80's movie vibes, with many loving and interesting characters in this newcomer to town setting. It reminded me a lot of Back To The Future 1 for some reason (but it has nothing to do with it). It also felt very real, not only due to the raw scenes and situations, but because of the small things that happen that can hurt you the most, small details or even situations that come alongside mundane things.\n\nI found some things to be unlikely, even if this mystery isn't an ““epic”” one, like Agatha Christie's. But considering the absurd things that can happen to LGBTQIA+ people - and the repertoire of very bad crimes that happen to anyone who is not a cis-het white man in my country - it was plausible enough.\n\nI REALLY think everyone should give this a shot. Whether you're an adult or teenager, whether you're LGBTQIA+ or not, this book is revolutionary. This book taught me a lot!\n\nWhen I finished it, I felt happy that someone chose this book to come out of a publishing house and made it possible that we have another beautiful and respectful story with great representation of these minorities, I cried a lot. Relief washed through me and I also felt like Sam was a new friend I could count on.