I was kind of surprised by how hard this hit. You don’t even need to be super interested in sea life to enjoy ! really fascinating scientific essays about ocean critters interspersed with personal memoirs from the author’s queer, mixed race experiences and somehow it all intermingles beautifully.
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Hard to explain this beautiful gem of a book so I’ll quote “Armfield said that the novel was in part inspired by a wish to explore the "crossover with queer women’s fiction and the sea," adding that the ocean is often used to symbolise both "something forbidden" and something that "can be many things at once." In an interview with Sam Franzini of Our Culture Mag, she stated that the novel was in part "about an anticipation of grief and losing someone," adding that part of the horror was from "the clanging bureaucracy of not being able to get an answer."
May 30, 2024
“I discover a journey not identical to my life’s path, and yet blazed with the intimate familiarity of my own lived experience. I locate theory—the way it is lived— in motion and in interconnection. Not hard to understand; hard to live.“
- Leslie Feinberg (10th anniversary edition)
heartwrenching from start to finish. a warm hug for someone like me.
i can’t really criticize the writing of this book, just because it’s the uniqueness and importance of this story that sets it apart. it is a story that absolutely needed to be written. what’s even more amazing is that such simple writing could capture the lived intricacies of gender and sexuality in so many shades.
i had never felt seen like this.
Jan 7, 2025
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Genuinely the best book I have ever read. For sure hard to get through especially in the beginning, but once you get through the half way point it’s easy sailing (no pun intended). This book made me cry, made me think about myself so differently, and I just really connected with the characters and the writing. I literally couldn‘t read anything for like a week after because I was still thinking about it.
4d ago
Top Recs from @joshkosh
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don’t give me a nasty bowl of mints. i want a free stickie that i’ll never do anything with
Apr 2, 2024
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dystopian/post-apoc easy read! I don’t read a ton of books in that genre, but found it really compelling
or Bliss Montage, also by Ling Ma, is a great short stories collection. sometimes short stories are the best way for me to break out of a reading slump 🤌
Apr 17, 2024