Enia stopped reading Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have …
I can’t read this right now. She’s trying to be James Joyce and she’s not James Joyce.
Reviews and Comments
StoryGraph describes me as "Mainly reads fiction books that are reflective, emotional, and dark."
The rest of me is sfba.social/@eniatitova
More of what I've read and reading here: app.thestorygraph.com/profile/eniatea
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Enia started reading Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have …
my hold finally came in!
Enia started reading Everything Good Dies Here by Djuna
two Korean books in translation? why not. anything not to read Solito right now.
Enia reviewed Apartment Women by Gu Byeong-mo
a nuanced look at the modern meaning of community
5 stars
I absolutely inhaled this book in 48 hours.
The plot deals with an apartment building community populated by 4 families, who have all chosen to live together in an effort to create a “village” to support them in raising their children in modern day Korea defined by high costs of living, demanding jobs, long commutes to see relatives.
With this book, the author deftly navigates the question of why have so many grown alienated from their families and neighbors.
In my own personal circle of housing advocates there’s often talk of how communal housing would address SF’s housing affordability crisis. And every time it comes up, I think “I would rather let someone scrape my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon than live in communal housing.” I have never liked having roommates, I barely like living with romantic partners. Noooo thank you.
The modern outcome of many people choosing to …
I absolutely inhaled this book in 48 hours.
The plot deals with an apartment building community populated by 4 families, who have all chosen to live together in an effort to create a “village” to support them in raising their children in modern day Korea defined by high costs of living, demanding jobs, long commutes to see relatives.
With this book, the author deftly navigates the question of why have so many grown alienated from their families and neighbors.
In my own personal circle of housing advocates there’s often talk of how communal housing would address SF’s housing affordability crisis. And every time it comes up, I think “I would rather let someone scrape my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon than live in communal housing.” I have never liked having roommates, I barely like living with romantic partners. Noooo thank you.
The modern outcome of many people choosing to live separately and aggressively insisting on privacy comes at least partially from so many feeling the same way. Yes we can romanticize how our ancestors had the literal village but having that village came with costs. Nosy neighbors, lack of physical and mental privacy, being forced into maintaining relationships with people you don’t like.
so seeing this book expose this truth so deftly was really satisfying. It’s a great read.
Enia reviewed All Fours by Miranda July
Miranda July proves me wrong
5 stars
Content warning mild spoilers about theme, not plot; curse words
Until now, I have stayed away from Miranda July's work because of her public persona. I didn't think her art would be for me, produced by this twee, quirky LA artiste.
But boy has All Fours proved me wrong. Maybe it's because I am a woman in a similar stage of life as Miranda's protagonist, who lived through or is about to live through some of the things she describes.
Without providing too many spoilers, this is a book about Gen X and Millenial women who are starting to deal with the implications of perimenopause on their bodies, and in turn, their identities as sexual beings.
To put it bluntly, we don't look old (thanks to sunscreens and a regular pilates practice) younger people still find us fuckable, but our hormones are waiting to betray our libido at every turn.
Enia reviewed Long Island by Colm Tóibín (Eilis Lacey, #2)
makes Brooklyn better
5 stars
I was apprehensive about picking up Colm Tóibín’s Long Island, the sequel to his wildly successful Brooklyn. I had read it, before it became a movie starring Saiorse Ronan, and found it ultimately unsatisfying. Tóibín’s work stands apart from most modern literary fiction. He’s quite restrained in showing instead of telling, which means his work often lacks his characters’ inner voice. And without it, it’s hard to figure out their motivations.
But Long Island achieves something striking. In revisiting Brooklyn’s characters 20 years later, and examining the impact of their choices on their lives, it illuminates the motivation behind their past choices then. For me, Long Island redeems Brooklyn’s emotional opacity.
Enia reviewed We Are Too Many by Hannah Pittard
this book captures the devastation of infidelity
5 stars
The thing about infidelity in a long term monogamous relationship is that it’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t gone through the complete and total destruction of self you experience. When the person who betrays you has been with you for most of your adult life, you aren’t just mourning the betrayal and the loss of your future together. You are literally faced with reevaluating every positive and formative experience you had that they were a part of.
That’s what Hannah Pittard accomplishes here. She isn’t just recounting past conversations with her now ex-husband and ex-best friend to narrate the history of these relationships. She’s painstakingly recreating an identity that no longer includes trusting two people she trusted the most. This book tries to answer the question how you rebuild yourself when people you judged to be trustworthy were capable of betraying and hurting you so fundamentally.
Enia reviewed Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean, #1)
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among …
complicated feelings
2 stars
Content warning spoiler alert
This book is so hyped, which is probably why this review is a little bit unfair.
If you've managed to avoid the hype it goes like this: really compelling fantasy series, with tons of hot smutty sex scenes.
So first, to address the latter. There are a couple of sex scenes. As in... two. They are both in the last third of the book. The rest of the book is filled with the kind of yearning a 7th grader might write about in her diary (drooling over a crush's muscular abs, or his thick hair). They are not the stuff of adult desire. At least, not from my perspective. And that's what's missing, even from the sex scenes for me: desire. I was not exactly carried away on the wings of fantasy reading them. I saw another review that said "these sex scenes were so explicit". Were they?! I'm worried about that person's sex life now. They were explicit, and they were graphic, but they described pretty vanilla hetero sex? and I'm not super kinky, and I like smut as much as the next person, but this was not compelling smut for me.
But here's the thing! I think, were it not for the awkward attempt at smut, this would have been a half-way decent fantasy book. Clearly, it borrows a lot of plot and universe building from other IP (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games). Still, it creates a mostly compelling narrative on its own (even though I guessed at every plot twist in the book since the author does some very obvious breadcrumbling). But the sex almost detracts from it: it feels completely unnecessary.
So... I will not be reading the sequels, is what I'm trying to say, unless I'm looking for something to occupy a weekend when otherwise very depressed.
Enia started reading Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean, #1)
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among …
look, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about...
Enia reviewed The Future by Naomi Alderman
When Martha Einkorn fled her father’s isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to find …
slow middle, weird ending
4 stars
it took me forever to get through this, mostly because the middle was overly drawn out with exposition on "this is how we got here." I love me some character development but this wasn't compelling and so it was a slog to get through.
similarly, the ending felt forced. like there was a true ending, and the editor wanted a couple of extra chapters to tie up the loose ends so the reader wouldn't feel cheated out of a conclusion after investing so much time in that sloggy middle. and then that felt too rosy so there was another ending tacked on.
the structure of this book, woof: you think youre done, there are acknowledgements, and then there's another chapter, a colophon, and then more book?! what kind of easter egg nonesense is that?! if I wasn't reading on paper, I would have missed it.
I really did like the …
it took me forever to get through this, mostly because the middle was overly drawn out with exposition on "this is how we got here." I love me some character development but this wasn't compelling and so it was a slog to get through.
similarly, the ending felt forced. like there was a true ending, and the editor wanted a couple of extra chapters to tie up the loose ends so the reader wouldn't feel cheated out of a conclusion after investing so much time in that sloggy middle. and then that felt too rosy so there was another ending tacked on.
the structure of this book, woof: you think youre done, there are acknowledgements, and then there's another chapter, a colophon, and then more book?! what kind of easter egg nonesense is that?! if I wasn't reading on paper, I would have missed it.
I really did like the concept of this book though. It's a shame that these things got in its way.
Enia rated A Living Remedy: 4 stars
Enia commented on A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung
I’m having trouble focusing on Immortal Longings so I’m going to go read something terribly depressing instead
Enia reviewed Waiting to Be Arrested at Night by Tahir Hamut Izgil
Required reading
5 stars
it isn't often that I say "wow, the Soviet Union [I grew up in] was not as bad as this." The world Tahir tells us about, the world he lived in for many decades, and fled to give his children a better future, is one which combines the worst of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s and the Nazi Holocaust, but turned up to 14 with the use of modern surveillance technology.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking stories in Tahir's book are about the choices family members and friends have to make to protect themselves from the consequences of his decision to seek asylum in the United States. Even his father, mother and brother are forced to denounce him after a single phone call from his US phone number.
What the Chinese state is doing to Tahir and his people absolutely meets the definition of genocide.
This book isn't just mandatory …
it isn't often that I say "wow, the Soviet Union [I grew up in] was not as bad as this." The world Tahir tells us about, the world he lived in for many decades, and fled to give his children a better future, is one which combines the worst of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s and the Nazi Holocaust, but turned up to 14 with the use of modern surveillance technology.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking stories in Tahir's book are about the choices family members and friends have to make to protect themselves from the consequences of his decision to seek asylum in the United States. Even his father, mother and brother are forced to denounce him after a single phone call from his US phone number.
What the Chinese state is doing to Tahir and his people absolutely meets the definition of genocide.
This book isn't just mandatory to understand the crisis China has created for the Uyghur people, but is also keen commentary on the importance of privacy, the destructive power of corruption in a totalitarian regime, the continued importance that American democracy, flawed as it may be, continues to exist.
Enia commented on Waiting to Be Arrested at Night by Tahir Hamut Izgil
the thing that really struck me so far is his description of an interview with the Public Security Bureau he had in 2009 where at the end, they demanded his credentials for his email and messaging accounts. and he had to write down a password. that's something that not even KGB agents would have the balls to demand in the worst Soviet times. sure, they would read your mail and listen to your phonecalls but they would at least be discrete about it!
