alyssamakesart's reviews
323 reviews

Feminism and Pop Culture: Seal Studies by Andi Zeisler

challenging funny informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

This very approachable work is perfect for someone interested in learning about this young relationship (pop culture + feminism). While I did cringe a few times at the phrasing somethings -after all this book was publishing over 15 years ago- it felt like a close friend speaking to you. Not just in the jokes, but also asides and perspective.

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Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power by Kelly Nyks, Peter Hutchinson, Jared P. Scott, Noam Chomsky

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challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler by Ibi Zoboi

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hopeful informative medium-paced

3.0

I don’t think this book was for me. I liked the contextualization of the world Octavia lived in and the biographical elements but not so much the creative writing bits where Ibi wrote in first person. It wasn’t bad I think, just uncomfortable. I’ll admit an interesting exercise that I have now experienced and won’t be reaching for in book form again. I still want to real their other work.

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Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie by Rachel Corrie

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

I don’t want rate this because not only is it a personal account this was an intimate look at Rachel’s life shared posthumously and without her consent. I will say that I think most people should read the last quarter of this book.

It felt almost surreal seeing her adapt her language to trepidation to hopefulness and hopelessness and back to hopefulness before the book was ultimately cut short due to her murder by the IDF. I think the voices of Palestinians (there and abroad) and anti-Zionist Jews matter the most but there’s this string of familiarity reading the perspective of an American non Arab woman come to understand the genocide as I have. Our lives couldn’t be more different but also there’s a connection to the horror of understanding slowly and yet light years compared to most on how Israel/The US uses our tax dollars to fund the extermination of a people from a land into the 21st century.

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