Nik Kroushl

I've reviewed so many books this year with “should be required reading” but it should be. Foundational for a reason.

Should be required reading for every US resident. Amazing breadth and depth. Takes no prisoners. Answers every possible question. Leaves no doubt about the complicity of the US government in enforcing segregation and the vast myriad of other ills that spawned from it.

Almost one sitting. I LOVE an angsty couple with great chemistry. And I LOVE an angsty heroine who has to overcome her inner darkness. And I loved this fast paced and beautiful story.

Any time I stay up till 2am on a weeknight to finish a book in a single sitting denotes a phenomenal book. The characters and relationships are so incredibly wrought and complex. Beautiful, gripping, wrenching, incredible.

I definitely learned some things. This would be a great book to give to your not-Very-Online parent or friend who is well-meaning but still slides back into respectability politics. (I imagine it serves a similar function to White Fragility, although I haven't read that book, except this book is actually written by a Black woman and thus has that lived experience.) Oluo breaks race, oppression, privilege and more down in a beautifully simple way (well–as simple as it can get) that makes it clear how racial justice is irrefutably necessary, and can help people who are confused or hesitant make the leaps and connections that need to be made.

If you need the perfect fix of angst, sapphics, espionage, desperation, fight scenes, assassinations, beautifully written kisses, more angst..... yes!!

Simply stunning.

Finished most of it in one sitting. Another beautifully compelling YA fantasy I got to read this year! What I enjoyed most about this book was the characterization of the two mains–how deeply flawed but good they are, how their flaws and mistakes dig them into deep holes. Definitely also a lot of interesting commentary about imperialism and xenophobia embedded too. And twists that felt anticipated but not necessarily predictable.

I finished this book at 2 a.m. on a Saturday morning which basically tells you all you need to know. I'm obsessed. It is stunning and beautiful and heartbreaking. Everything that made me love books in the first place. For sure one of the best books I've read this year.

Meticulously researched. I struggle with historical nonfiction so it took me a while to get through, but an incredibly important and well-done book that all NC residents should read.

I am insipidly in love with this book which has every beautiful, magical piece of epic fantasy that I fell in love with as a kid, rendered beautifully, and conspicuously avoiding all of fantasy's historic pitfalls. I may have a new all time favorite book. It has been a long time since I made it through an 800-page behemoth, but I didn't want it to end. I want to curl up and live in this book. I want to buy my own copy so I can kiss it goodnight every evening.

I learned a lot about actual lgbtq figures and history, but as others have pointed out, the author's definitions of many identities are outdated or just plain wrong/problematic. (See: calling asexuality a “phase”, bisexuality as attraction to “both” genders in some places and “various” genders in the index, some weird language/pronouns around trans people but specifically Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, ignoring pansexuality except to equate it with being “sexually fluid”...)

The book could also be quite pedantic at times. I picked up the “for young people” version mostly because it was shorter than the original (still almost 300 pages).

This is a good book if you're already on the up and up as far as queer identities but lack a historical context. AKA, good context for Very Online lgbtq+ folks like me.

I learned a lot about actual lgbtq figures and history, but as others have pointed out, the author's definitions of many identities are outdated or just plain wrong/problematic. (See: calling asexuality a “phase”, bisexuality as attraction to “both” genders in some places and “various” genders in the index, some weird language/pronouns around trans people but specifically Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, ignoring pansexuality except to equate it with being “sexually fluid”...)

The book could also be quite pedantic at times. I picked up the “for young people” version mostly because it was shorter than the original (still almost 300 pages).

This is a good book if you're already on the up and up as far as queer identities but lack a historical context. AKA, good context for Very Online lgbtq+ folks like me.

Imagine me pasting that Lady Gaga gif with her saying “talented brilliant incredible show stopping amazing” etc etc because, well, yeah. That's how I felt about the prose.

The transphobia is really pretty unfortunate here in what otherwise felt like an instant classic.

Update: I reread this in preparation for lending it to my girlfriend. I initially planned to reread a few of my favorite essays within (“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” “Age, Race, Class, and Sex,” “Uses of the Erotic,” “The Uses of Anger,”...) before recalling that almost all the essays are my favorite essays and you can't read this book in pieces. Her writing on white women and white feminism is especially precise and candid. Lorde's body of work is as interconnected with itself as she explains are marginalized peoples connected with one another, bonded by power and hope if we are willing to confront our differences and our sameness. This is a book to read again and again.


Iconic. All written 40+ years ago but just as relevant today. I have never read such a wonderful blend of fury, candor, and hope and love and compassion.

Stunning. I will have to reread to get everything out of it–it's rich like that. Caroline and Samuel and Daniel are such complex characters. The rage against the patriarchy is so intricately, quietly built and rippling. But I wish there had been a trigger warning for sexual assault–that bit was truly horrifying.

Another reviewer wrote that they felt “manipulated by” this book and honestly, same. It was such a dark, difficult read with endless abuse (serious trigger warnings re: physical, emotional, sexual abuse near constantly throughout the novel). You root for Mary and think at one point that a happy ending might be in store and yet... yikes!

Excellent writing, I finished within 24 hours. But holy hell!

Excellent–beautifully written, vulnerable but not overly sentimental, fascinating, fair to the snake handlers (fairer than maybe he needed to be). I can see why it was an NBA finalist. This is a book about a very niche Christian sect but it is also a book about the South.

Lovely but a bit hard to follow at times. A story told almost entirely in dialogue.

It was engrossing, although the last 1/3 dragged a bit. I'll admit I was hoping for a more epic romance, but there is a gritty reality to this that is stunning in its own way.

I reread this book alongside my partner and I think it really does work best as the basis of a longer discussion. I tried to sit with it, take notes, reflect as often as I could. And I think the first half of the book was much stronger than the second half: the core concepts are best described here and Brown shares the largest number of anecdotal examples in the first chapters, which were necessary for me to grasp what she was saying. The Guidepost chapters are somewhat short and vague, but I guess that's the point: they're touchpoints, not theses.

It seems to be a useful source of further reading in the genre as well!

It's hard to collect stories as good for adults as they are for children, but I enjoyed many of these stories so much!

Lovely and prosaic. A love story both tragic and enviable. An unmistakable writing style. A novel easy to melt into for hours, as cozy as a homecoming.

Oh my gooooooooood. I want every man, woman, and enby in my life to read this.

This is one of the strangest books I have ever read and I wish I could rate it in question marks. It seems to be less concerned with plot or character than with being as absolutely bizarre and disgusting and weirdly majestic as possible. I kept telling myself I didn't like it but couldn't stop reading it.