elsieols's reviews
198 reviews

it’s so refreshing to read some good feminist theory, and i adore audre lorde. her ideas are monumentally important to the possibility of progress in the world.

what did i just read???? 

the beginning was rather boring to me, and then i felt bad for our protagonist. and then

the almost suicide and murder confession

happened and ngl i hadn’t seen THAT coming. To be honest, I was expecting that it could have taken a supernatural turn or if the protagonist would go crazy. I did not expect the reality. I don’t really know how to feel. Everyone loves this book, but I genuinely don’t know how to feel about it. the twist was shocking, but shock doesn’t automatically translate to me liking the book more. i don’t particularly enjoy the kind of novel where you follow someone’s mundane rich-person activities, though, and that’s was honestly all the first 60% of the book was to me. I likely would have abandoned it if i hadn’t been reading this as a part of my 12 book challenge. it took far too long to get interesting, and i’m shocked it’s considered a thriller with how little suspense there is before the last quarter of the novel.

the misogyny and the random antisemitism was striking at various points in the book, but i think it still had a lot of merit in its other aspects and had a lot to tell the world. some philosophy related to the three siblings i’m still not done parsing in my own mind, so i’m not sure how much of it i agree or disagree with. but fuck graff and rackam, and i hope the buggers kill humanity when they come back. i won’t be continuing this series.

cultural anthropologist or just weird racist who is shocked that people can function without being european—who knows?!

This book is absolutely incredible and does so much in unpacking the intersections between queerness, race, immigration, and religion. I adore all of it and how Lamya has found parts of her religion that she identifies with and that can comfort her in her struggles in a world with so much in place that targets her. I will definitely go back to this book in the future. It is so important to preserve stories like these, with members of religions some may see as inherently conservative or bigoted, stories of people on such religion that are queer and feminist and don’t fit the traditional mold. Lamya did not struggle through their life and its intersections just for people to overlook the people like them. It’s so often that people look at Abrahamic religions, especially Islam, as constricting forces working against marginalized people, but this story can serve to help remind everyone that religion can be used for good and for healing just as well. I adored everything about this book and how Lamya connected the prophets to turning points in her life. This was probably the most creative memoir I have read so far!

as someone who faced some of the same challenges growing up as ajoy did, this book was a nice read. much of ajoy’s politics now seem less left-leaning than i ended up, and i don’t agree on her conclusions for a couple of minor points in this memoir, but this book remains an incredible work that opens up the issue of the pipeline into unknowingly becoming a christian nationalist. i’ve already recommended it to a couple of my family members. i think it will bring them some comfort and give them space to question where they stand without feeling so alone or left-behind.