recently read: if cats disappeared from the world

17: by genki kawamura, black cake by charmaine wilkerson and seen library in october

Knowing what book someone is reading and what parts they resonate with most can be so intimate. It reveals their interests, where their head is at, and what excerpts are so significant that they will mark up a page because they think it’s worth revisiting at a later time. I’m fascinated by what books others gravitate towards and I find that it helps me get to know them better and gives me a small glimpse into who they are at their core. No one asked for these book reviews, but maybe it’s my way of showing who I am and what I’m interested in – beyond the clothes, the products, and my career. Or at the very least, encourage some to look up from their phones and instead towards the pages of a good book. 

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Book no. 11 of 2023

If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

To be honest, I bought this book for its cover… Cute cover, not so great book… And this is why I wrap my books and put clues on the top of them ;)

Good overall messages and life lessons, but super simplistic. I’m not sure if it’s because it was translated, but the writing felt disjointed — it was all over the place and never delved deeper or in a more meaningful way. There were cute and clever aspects of the story, just not executed as well as I would have hoped. Lots of reminders of telling your loved ones how you feel about them when you can and enjoying the present and the simple things… like spending time with your cat :) — which I love. I think one of the things I liked most was that “the devil” is just another version of ourselves. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend.

Underlined quotes:

“Human beings may think that they’re looking at the world as it is, but they’ve got it all wrong. In actual fact, they’ve just imposed a meaning on things, a definition of what the world is all about which happens to suit them.”

“I’m made up of all those little regrets in life. Like, what if, whenever you reached a fork in the road in life, you’d gone the other way? What would have happened? Who would you have become? That’s what the devil is all about. It’s what you wanted to become but couldn’t. It’s both the closest and the furthest thing from who you are.”

“He would never do anything other than what felt most important to him — and he had no problem doing it alone, at his own speed, without needing validation from the people around him.”

“My mother… did she have any hobbies of her own? Did she have any time to herself? Were there things she wanted to do, hopes and dreams?”

“Had I done anything significant during my 30-year existence? Had I spent time with the people I really wanted to spend time with? Had I said all that needed to be said to the people who mattered?”

“In the course of your life there’ll be both good times and bad. You’ll experience joy, but there will also be times of sadness and pain. So I decided to write down 10 beautiful things about you so that whenever you’re going through a difficult time, you’ll be given the courage and self-belief to go on…”

*I decided to do this for a friend for her birthday after reading this — wrote down 10 beautiful things about her and gave it to her.

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Book no. 12 of 2023

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

A multi-generational story that touches on race, sexuality and identity, and familial sacrifice, all themes I gravitate towards. It was a bit all over the place and felt like the author had a list of topics and themes she wanted to cover and tried to sprinkle them all in. I was pretty into it at first, but was kind of underwhelmed in the middle and while I did like the ending, it felt a bit rushed. It was a highly rated and anticipated novel but one I thought didn’t live up to its hype.

The air of mystery throughout the story did make it more compelling and I found both the Chinese-Caribbean diaspora and Jamaican-British immigrant experiences to be the most interesting about the book as they weren’t ones I’ve ever read before — I look forward to reading more stories about them both in the future.

Underlined quotes:

“They were afraid that their children might not manage to live as easily in the world as they had hoped, after everything they had done to make it so. And so, they became part of the problem.”

“This… is one of the laws of human nature. If you are visible, you become a target.”

“The biggest moments in our lives are often just that, a matter of seconds when something shifts and we react and everything changes.”

“What are you willing to do?… Are you going to let someone else’s view of who you should be, and what you should do, hold you back?… Who are you willing to let go of?”

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Seen Library in New York :)