Scan barcode
booksinblossom's reviews
473 reviews
Honingeter by Tülin Erkan
4.0
3,5*
De thematiek van het boek is zeer boeiend: hoe we onze weg naar huis niet altijd terugvinden en hoe we verdwalen in taal. De schrijfster wekt een verstillende sfeer op en rijgt mooie beelden aan elkaar. In de eerste hoofdstukken trok ze me mee in het verhaal en leek het alsof ik naast het hoofdpersonage op een bankje in de luchthaven wachtte. Maar het wachten begon me uiteindelijk wat te vervelen, en voor mij ligt dat aan de komst van de piloot Wernicke in het verhaal. Ik vond hun interactie niet zo prikkelend en het leek nergens naartoe te gaan. Ik had liever meer over de beveiligingsagent Ömer gelezen. Dus ja, gemengde gevoelens over dit boek.
De thematiek van het boek is zeer boeiend: hoe we onze weg naar huis niet altijd terugvinden en hoe we verdwalen in taal. De schrijfster wekt een verstillende sfeer op en rijgt mooie beelden aan elkaar. In de eerste hoofdstukken trok ze me mee in het verhaal en leek het alsof ik naast het hoofdpersonage op een bankje in de luchthaven wachtte. Maar het wachten begon me uiteindelijk wat te vervelen, en voor mij ligt dat aan de komst van de piloot Wernicke in het verhaal. Ik vond hun interactie niet zo prikkelend en het leek nergens naartoe te gaan. Ik had liever meer over de beveiligingsagent Ömer gelezen. Dus ja, gemengde gevoelens over dit boek.
Permafrost by Eva Baltasar
4.0
Permafrost (Catalan title: Permagel) is the debut novel of Eva Baltasar, a Spanish poet and writer. We follow a no-bullshit lesbian narrator who has a wickedly entertaining way of seeing the world. Everywhere she goes, she tries to break out of the roles set for her by family and society, chasing escape wherever it can be found: love affairs, sex, travel, thoughts of suicide.
The text was initially written as a diary that the author's therapist told her to keep, which explains why it feels so fiercly intimate and at times uncomfortably real.
It's a darkly funny, wry exploration of its heroine’s existential dilemmas. I adore the bold writing style with quirky observations. Short episodes follow each other, but for me the fragments didn't stick together enough: there is too much space between the different fragments so that the whole was not hooked together enough. In other words, it should have been twice as long. Very much looking forward to her next book!
Also, kudos for Julia Sanches who translated this novel. In the afterword she presents a compelling argument for the decisions she’s made here.
*
<< I’ve settled on an edge. I live on this edge and wait for the moment when I’ll leave the edge, my temporary home. Temporary – like any home, in fact, or like a body. I’m not on medication. Chemicals are bridles that restrict you and slow you to a harmless pace. Chemicals mean early salvation: they ward off sin, or maybe they just teach us to label as sinful the exercise of freedom attained in times of peace – before death, of course. Mom self-medicates. Dad self-medicates, my sister didn’t at first but now she does too, because she’s grown-up and understood. Self-medication is a permanent temporary solution, like the low-watt bulb hanging in the hall. Twenty years with a dimly lit hall – how little it takes to become used to seeing so little. “We had halogen bulbs installed in the whole apartment and we forgot the hall!” Laughter. “And the best part is we didn’t even realize until yesterday!” Twenty years had gone by. Twenty years of putting on lipstick three times a day, a hairbreadth away from the mirror, twenty years of fumbling, blindly for keys. I used to think it was normal. And this normalcy shapes you. >>
The text was initially written as a diary that the author's therapist told her to keep, which explains why it feels so fiercly intimate and at times uncomfortably real.
It's a darkly funny, wry exploration of its heroine’s existential dilemmas. I adore the bold writing style with quirky observations. Short episodes follow each other, but for me the fragments didn't stick together enough: there is too much space between the different fragments so that the whole was not hooked together enough. In other words, it should have been twice as long. Very much looking forward to her next book!
Also, kudos for Julia Sanches who translated this novel. In the afterword she presents a compelling argument for the decisions she’s made here.
*
<< I’ve settled on an edge. I live on this edge and wait for the moment when I’ll leave the edge, my temporary home. Temporary – like any home, in fact, or like a body. I’m not on medication. Chemicals are bridles that restrict you and slow you to a harmless pace. Chemicals mean early salvation: they ward off sin, or maybe they just teach us to label as sinful the exercise of freedom attained in times of peace – before death, of course. Mom self-medicates. Dad self-medicates, my sister didn’t at first but now she does too, because she’s grown-up and understood. Self-medication is a permanent temporary solution, like the low-watt bulb hanging in the hall. Twenty years with a dimly lit hall – how little it takes to become used to seeing so little. “We had halogen bulbs installed in the whole apartment and we forgot the hall!” Laughter. “And the best part is we didn’t even realize until yesterday!” Twenty years had gone by. Twenty years of putting on lipstick three times a day, a hairbreadth away from the mirror, twenty years of fumbling, blindly for keys. I used to think it was normal. And this normalcy shapes you. >>
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
4.25
Autobiography of Red, both a novel and a poem, is an extraordinary and tender book. It's an unconventional re-creation of the ancient Greek myth about Geryon and a wholly original queer coming-of-age story set in the present. It is written in verses which made it all the more fascinating and compelling. The space between the sentences gave me a chance to catch my breath. I feel reading this book one time isn't enough to catch the whole beauty of both the story as the poetry. So definitely gonna reread this soon.
*
It was raining on his face. He forgot for a moment that he was a brokenhaert
then the remembered. Sick lurch
downward to Geryon trapped in his own bad apple. Each morning a shock
to return to the cut soul.
Pulling himself onto the edge of the bed he stared at the dull amplitude of rain.
Buckets of water sloshed from sky
to roof to eave to windowsill. He watched it hit his feet and puddle on the floor.
He could hear bits of human voice
streaming down the drainpipe -I believe in being gracious-
He slammed the window shut.
Below in the living room everything was motionless. Drapes closed, chairs asleep.
Huge wads of silence stuffed the air.
He was staring around for the dog then realized they hadn't had a dog for years. Clock
in the kitchen said quarter to six.
He stood looking at it, willing himself not to blink until the big hand bumped over
to the next time. Years passed
as his eyes ran water and a thousand ideas jumped his brain -If the world
ends now I am free and
If the world ends now no one will see my autobiography- finally it bumped.
He had a flash of Herakles' sleeping house
and put that away. Gout out the coffee can, turned on the tap and started to cry.
*
It was raining on his face. He forgot for a moment that he was a brokenhaert
then the remembered. Sick lurch
downward to Geryon trapped in his own bad apple. Each morning a shock
to return to the cut soul.
Pulling himself onto the edge of the bed he stared at the dull amplitude of rain.
Buckets of water sloshed from sky
to roof to eave to windowsill. He watched it hit his feet and puddle on the floor.
He could hear bits of human voice
streaming down the drainpipe -I believe in being gracious-
He slammed the window shut.
Below in the living room everything was motionless. Drapes closed, chairs asleep.
Huge wads of silence stuffed the air.
He was staring around for the dog then realized they hadn't had a dog for years. Clock
in the kitchen said quarter to six.
He stood looking at it, willing himself not to blink until the big hand bumped over
to the next time. Years passed
as his eyes ran water and a thousand ideas jumped his brain -If the world
ends now I am free and
If the world ends now no one will see my autobiography- finally it bumped.
He had a flash of Herakles' sleeping house
and put that away. Gout out the coffee can, turned on the tap and started to cry.
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire
4.0
Warsan Shire is a Kenyan-born Somali poet, writer and educator based in London. She was the unanimous winner of the 2013 Inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize. Shire has written two chapbooks: Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth & Her Blue Body.
In her first full collection Bless the Dauger - Raised by a Voice in Her Head (2022) Shire introduces us to a girl who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. The poems captures trauma and resilience, what it means to survive, to search for a home in the world, what it means to inhabit a woman’s body, the tensions of reconciling faith and family and everything that threatens the borders of expectation and obligation. Shire's poetry electrifies and is fiercely tender and heartbreaking.
*
"I don't know where I'm going. Where I came from is disappaering. I am unwelcome. My beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory. I watch the news and my mouth becomes a sink full of blood. The lines, forms, people at the desks, calling cards, immigration officers, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English classes at night, the distance I am from home. Alhamdulillah, all of this is better than the scent of a woman completely on fire, a truckload of men who look like my father - pulling out my teeth and nails. All these men between my legs, a gun, a promise, a lie, his name, his flag, his language, his manhood in my mouth."
[Second part of the poem 'Home']
In her first full collection Bless the Dauger - Raised by a Voice in Her Head (2022) Shire introduces us to a girl who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. The poems captures trauma and resilience, what it means to survive, to search for a home in the world, what it means to inhabit a woman’s body, the tensions of reconciling faith and family and everything that threatens the borders of expectation and obligation. Shire's poetry electrifies and is fiercely tender and heartbreaking.
*
"I don't know where I'm going. Where I came from is disappaering. I am unwelcome. My beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory. I watch the news and my mouth becomes a sink full of blood. The lines, forms, people at the desks, calling cards, immigration officers, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English classes at night, the distance I am from home. Alhamdulillah, all of this is better than the scent of a woman completely on fire, a truckload of men who look like my father - pulling out my teeth and nails. All these men between my legs, a gun, a promise, a lie, his name, his flag, his language, his manhood in my mouth."
[Second part of the poem 'Home']
Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman
1.0
Oh, I hate this book with a deep passion. The only reason that kept me reading was to understand why and how much I hated it.
Rewind one month ago: I saw this beautiful book cover at the Berlin bookshop She Said. The cover text promised 'a radical, daring and bracing sex masterpiece'. So, of course i wanted to read it.
The beginning lured me in and i liked the first chapter, but after that i just found it boring and very problematic. The narrator is a young, beautiful, priveleged white woman with nauseating views on sexuality and desperetaly in need of attention. An toxic sexual triangle full of gaslighting, manipulation and humiliation, where only the dominant man fully gets everything he wants - that's not hot at all. (And if you want to tell a story like that, it needs a very different tone.) The whole book felt immature and thoughtless. The plot is paper thin and the characters dull. I didn't have any sympathy for any of them, couldn't care less and was secretly hoping they would all die painfully at the end.
*
"I could watch Nathan and Olivia having sex but watching them kiss made me near sick. Nathan was a skilled kisser, capable of soft control. When they kissed she was a supplicant and he was boundlessly merciful. He was always above her, holding her head, bearing her softly against him. (...)
Come sit with us, Nathan said.
I never felt stranger than in the moments in which I attempted to give Olivia privacy in her transparent love and Nathan saw that I needed reassurance. I didn't want to need it and yet my gratitude toward him threatened my clarity. While he was turned towards Olivia I had a small, precious distance. I could see his body harboring his power. When the beam of his attention fell on me I could only perceive the force of his control, an empatic moon that found me no matter where I stood."
Rewind one month ago: I saw this beautiful book cover at the Berlin bookshop She Said. The cover text promised 'a radical, daring and bracing sex masterpiece'. So, of course i wanted to read it.
The beginning lured me in and i liked the first chapter, but after that i just found it boring and very problematic. The narrator is a young, beautiful, priveleged white woman with nauseating views on sexuality and desperetaly in need of attention. An toxic sexual triangle full of gaslighting, manipulation and humiliation, where only the dominant man fully gets everything he wants - that's not hot at all. (And if you want to tell a story like that, it needs a very different tone.) The whole book felt immature and thoughtless. The plot is paper thin and the characters dull. I didn't have any sympathy for any of them, couldn't care less and was secretly hoping they would all die painfully at the end.
*
"I could watch Nathan and Olivia having sex but watching them kiss made me near sick. Nathan was a skilled kisser, capable of soft control. When they kissed she was a supplicant and he was boundlessly merciful. He was always above her, holding her head, bearing her softly against him. (...)
Come sit with us, Nathan said.
I never felt stranger than in the moments in which I attempted to give Olivia privacy in her transparent love and Nathan saw that I needed reassurance. I didn't want to need it and yet my gratitude toward him threatened my clarity. While he was turned towards Olivia I had a small, precious distance. I could see his body harboring his power. When the beam of his attention fell on me I could only perceive the force of his control, an empatic moon that found me no matter where I stood."