The thought process is this: I'm gonna put the books I read here so that I can keep track of them instead of just forgetting. When I finish a book, I'll write a review. Just for fun.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
(aka stuff already in my shelves whoops)
Summary
Catholic nuns in space! It's about faith and love and doing what's right, but also about corruption within the church / how religion is used by governments to control people. Also they have living ships(!!!).
Thoughts
I don't remember why I grabbed it but I was, initially, a lil uncomfortable with them being so religious. And then I kept reading and them being nuns wasn't super overbearing. I also thought there would be more hostility towards other religions, but there really wasn't. Ik there's a second book in the series so I'm just gonna have to go get that from the library now alskdfjsdl
Fave Thing
Big fan of the worldbuilding :DDD And also there's a queer couple!!! Didn't expect that, but was I was delighted that Gemma could be with Vauca without losing her faith. That's really important to me, because a lot of people (at least online) seem to think that being queer means you can't be religious.
Least Fave Thing
. . . it was so short. . . and the last page made me cry :(((
Fave Quote
"They put it to a vote, as a formality, because they voted on everything. It was unanimous." (pg. 111)
"And the universe would need them to do what small good things they could, even in the face of that which they could not stop. If all they could be were small rocks to break the current, it would have to be enough." (pg. 155)
Summary
Sula by Toni Morrison is a book about Black female friendship in the early 1900s. It deals with grief, loneliness, racism, but also the incredible joy that comes from being Black and being women.
Thoughts
I thought it was really good. I was scared I wasn't going to get it or feel anything because I don't really have a good relationship with gender but it was actually really good. I really like these sorts of really serious stories that tell a story across many, many years (like Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi).
Fave Thing
This is so weird to have as a fave thing but I really liked how the women's relationships with men were described as. Sula's grandmother and mother had such casual loving relationships with the men that they know and I especially liked the way Nel describes loving her husband. She kinda describes it as having something in or between her thighs? It's an illusion to sex ik, but it's also such a sweet way of putting it. After he leaves she says that her thighs are empty and like I felt that.
Fave Quote
"Show? To who? Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me."
"Lonely, ain't it?"
"Yes. But my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely." (pg. 143)
Summary
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