recently read: i'm afraid of men
12: by vivek shraya and exit west by mohsin hamid
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.
Book no. 1 of 2023
I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya
It’s a tiny book that I breezed through in just a couple hours. While short and quick, it’s also very impactful and vulnerable. It’s an important read in learning the perspectives of a trans woman and her overall queer experience. I learned a lot and finished the book with takeaways that will stay with me for a long time, especially when how society’s fear of people being “too masculine” or “too feminine” hurts us all, in how we limit and restrict even ourselves because of these gendered expectations and the different ways misogyny is so prevalent not just from men, but women, too. I highly recommend, especially with all the hateful anti-LGBTQ+ legislation Republicans have been introducing, advancing, and passing in the US. It’s one I’ve shared with lots of my friends and have gifted in a recent Seen Library book exchange.
If you are able to make a donation, I suggest considering the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, which provides free legal services to meet survival needs for transgender people who are low-income, people of color, and immigrants.
Underlined quotes:
“But ‘typical’ is dangerously interchangeable with ‘acceptable’… If we want masculinity to be different, we must confront and tackle the baseline instead of longing for exceptions… If we are invested in perpetuating and glorifying the myth of ‘the good man,’ we are also complicit in overlooking, if not permitting, the reprehensible behavior of the ‘typical man.’”
“I am soothed by your quiet demeanor, the absence of the masculine obligation to fill space… whereas I am perpetually unsatisfied, you easily find pleasure in the underrated and understated — a fridge cold chocolate bar, a plan-free Saturday.”
“Your fear is not only hurting me, it’s hurting you… Consider how often you have dismissed your own appearance, behaviors, emotions and aspirations for being too feminine or masculine. What might your life be if you didn’t impose these designations on yourself, let alone on me?”
Book no. 2 of 2023
While I love the concept of this book, it really fell flat… The narration felt like a long run on sentence and the storytelling never pulled me in as much as I wanted it to. I felt detached from the characters. I feel like this story had so much potential — the idea of migrants being able to enter different parts of the world through doors is compelling but the execution was sadly underwhelming. I read that this book will become a movie, though, which I’m excited for and hope it’s better than the book.
Underlined quotes:
“He preferred to abide, in a sense, in the past, for the past offered more to him.”
“But then around her she saw all these people of all these different colors in all these different attires and she was relieved, better here than there she thought, and it occurred to her that she had been stifled in the place of her birth for virtually her entire life, that its time for her had passed and a new time was here.”
“To love is to enter into the inevitability of one day not being able to protect what is most valuable to you.”
“Both would also wonder if this meant that they had made a mistake, that if they had but waited and watched their relationship would have flowered again, and so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgias are born.”
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