crybabybea's reviews
236 reviews

 Beautifully written & engaging exploration of the nuances of latinidad, and how it intersects with America’s nebulous, made-up definitions of racial division. Very reminiscent of James Baldwin’s writings, which makes sense because the author later mentions Baldwin as his biggest inspiration.

Although this isn’t necessarily an in-depth overview of the history of immigration, Héctor Tobar includes a brief overview when it’s necessary, without dumping too much. I really enjoyed how he was able to mix his personal memoir with the anecdotes of his own students and people he’s met through his research and journey to reconnecting with his heritage, with just enough information to help uninformed people (like myself) understand the deep historical nuances to immigration and Latin America. In doing so, Tobar illuminates every corner of the subject of latinidad, and showcases a vast array of opinions and experienced informed by the inextricably connected joy and struggle of what it means to be Latinx. 

And, speaking of the term Latinx, there was a lot of pondering on the meaning of the term, alongside Latino/Latina, Hispanic, and Latin American, all of which have complicated histories and reasons that people do/do not support the terms. A great example of how much language is still used to continue the effects of colonization and racism that often gets lost in today's landscape of cultural scapegoating and debates between talking heads. 

There’s plenty to learn here, and as the subtitle suggests, it’s a meditation. Somewhat stream of consciousness, but Tabor does a beautiful job transitioning between each essay and painting a broader picture by focusing on individual stories and experiences. 

Despite the beautiful writing and many memorable quotes, I found myself wanting more from the reading experience. I'm not sure if the meditative style worked for me here, as there were times I wished the author would have dove deeper into the topics he was discussing. The overall themes were well done but it almost felt like the collection as a whole was missing something to really pull it all together.

Every bit of this describes our current political climate and how we got here. Although Trump isn’t necessarily involved with the organizations mentioned, every move being made by the Trump administration is paralleled. This book lowkey broke my mind.

Although this is a book mainly about the corrupt lobbying utilized by right-wing politicians, Jane Mayer doesn’t fully absolve the Democrats either, which helped her argument come across as less biased. She points out how the Democratic party failed to take threats seriously, underestimated the “other side”, and attempted to appeal to moderates which helped the Overton window be pushed further and further to the extreme right; something that we saw repeated in 2024. Also, although Obama was outwardly spoken about the issues he was facing with corporate lobbying, Jane Mayer doesn’t hold back on naming the Democratic politicians who were *also* in the pockets of the corporate donors. Such a corrupt system through and through, throw it all out honestly.

During my time reading, I was reminded of something Imani Barbarin said at the beginning of the 2025 election; it's time to stop memeifying politics, especially Donald Trump and other right-wing extremists. Jane Mayer exposes how coldly calculated these people are, although they might come across as mediocre white men bumbling their way to success, their money translates to very real, very tangible power.

While the ideas presented here might be obvious — billionaires (majorly white men) in America are able to manufacture consent by lobbying politicians, influencing culture, creating smear campaigns, and denying science just by virtue of throwing money wherever they want. This book, however, really digs into the nitty gritty of how deep the corruption goes. Deeply, thoroughly researched, and every detail matters to create a broader perspective of just how insidious these “dark money” organizations are.

You might know, on a fundamental level, that America has descended into oligarchy (and perhaps always was one), but Dark Money lays out in excruciating detail how this issue came to be, and the many, many people behind it.

Similarly, you might think, on a fundamental level, that the Koch brothers and others of their ilk are inherently evil. Obviously. They’re billionaires who are content to destroy the world for their own profit. But Jane Mayer pushes it even further, peeling back layer after layer of corruption, including their inspirations pulled from extremist groups like the Russian oligarchy, the Taliban, and even, yes, the Nazis.

The writing itself is quite dry. Due to the sheer amount of information presented, and complexity of the situation, the names of people and organizations, dates, and dollar amounts all seem to run together after a while. But I feel like I have to recognize the impressive extent of investigative journalism on display here.

I have to admit it was hard not to spiral into doomerism while reading this. I can’t overstate how deep these issues go. The history of “dark money” goes back decades, and has tentacles in literally every realm of American existence. Billions and billions of dollars have been funneled into these projects. Overall I think the information I learned will stick with me forever and will continue to be applicable as politics in America continue to crumble.

This book had, I think, three goals in mind:
1) To tell the story of the author's experience juggling being an ambitious journalist as a Mexican-American woman
2) To share a brief history of immigration, as experienced by the author through her decades of journalistic endeavours and personal experience as an immigrant
3) To connect the two above, and paint a larger picture of people affected by immigration policies

María Hinojosa achieves what she set out to do. I found the overall tone and themes to be well-done, and well-connected, as any good memoir should be. María is an example of what is possible for immigrants in America, if they are supported and allowed to thrive without bureaucratic red tape, federal policies, and cultural scapegoating that seek to keep immigrants as second-class citizens at best, and enemies of the state at worst. She's had a prolific career that centers voices of the marginalized, and was arguably revolutionary to journalism in the way she approached stories intimately, leading with empathy.

There were some research flaws, specifically dates that were slightly off, and details of certain stories told. While not necessarily incredibly important, argument-breaking errors, they were noticeable and kind of gave the sense that María was retelling the events from memory without researching to double-check, or that she didn't have an editor that cared enough to double-check.

Personally, I just didn't vibe with a lot of the thought processes. It's very girlboss, liberal feminism, which is perfectly fine, but not my cup of tea. (also she kept referring to herself as "small and petite" which started to creep me out) I do think she came across as neutral and unbiased, which is saying something considering how personal the events/stories/topics are to her. She includes criticisms of both the Republicans and the Democrats, and strikes a great balance of pointing out the flaws in the American system, while still acknowledging the opportunities she received as a virtue of being an American citizen.

It's hard to rate this from a western perspective. So I want to give a disclaimer that when I make critiques, I'm in no way implying that "America does it better", and I know America has its own issues with corporatized, privatized therapy practices and mental health stigmatization. But I want to mention the cultural differences, because I think it helps to go into this book trying to see it with a different perspective.

There is something to be said about the intimacy of this book, coming from a culture like Korea which still has a heavily stigmatized outlook on mental health. I can imagine that this book was a breath of fresh air for many, many Korean people (and others, of course) who have likely struggled with similar anxiety issues and feeling bogged down by the pressure to sweep it under the rug, grit their teeth and work harder. Because of that, I do think it's a bestseller for a good reason, and certainly not only popular because it's recommended by BTS, as some other reviewers imply.

My issue I think is that the psychotherapy shown is kind of lackluster, the therapist involved doesn't really tackle issues like I'm used to. There's a lot of individualism (as in, blaming the individual) and reliance on medication. The author opens up talking about her experience with an abusive father, controlling older sister, nitpicking mother, alcohol dependency, self-esteem issues, crippling anxiety... and the therapist is just kinda like. "Well, have you considered not feeling bad? Here's some pills." But, then again, the author says that therapy really helped her, and I'm not a professional, so who am I to say it's bad therapy?

The writing itself is a mixed bag for me. I think Baek Se-hee is clearly a talented writer with an eye for metaphor, and I found myself a bit sad that I'm not able to understand the book in its native language. But I will say I do often like Anton Hur's translation work, and I feel he does a good job keeping the poetic language intact while keeping it readable and accessible. The use of transcripts as the main part of the book wasn't my favorite thing. It got repetitive (especially as an audiobook), and felt quite dry, cold, and detached.

I don't know if it stands against memoirs that go in-depth into the psyche and trauma that can cause anxiety and depression, like What My Bones Know. It's more of a surface view, for people that struggle with mild anxiety and depression, which certainly has its place in the genre too.  

If you struggle with mild anxiety and depression, or perhaps feel like you don't relate to other memoirs that tackle more "severe" disorders such as C-PTSD, give it a go - I think what the author has to say is worth reading, but I personally would recommend taking the therapist's advice with a grain of salt. And, it's a quick read so there's not much to lose!

Just fine, I have negative interest in sports so my review lacks the perspective of someone with a long history in the sports fandom. I will say that I learned a lot that I didn't know, but I'm not sure how much that means as someone without much knowledge. Maybe long-time sports fans would already know a lot of the information presented.

I picked up this book because I thought the ideas around fandom would apply to other non-sports fandoms, and I can say that it mostly does.

Although a big part of the book talks about the sports-industrial complex which is very unique to American sports; teams purposely throwing games as a form of gambling, taxpayers having to pay for billion dollar sports arenas via pressure from team owners, political figures paying millions to insert American propaganda in hopes of recruiting people to the military, the author does stay true to the title of Rethinking Fandom, and I think a lot of what's talked about could apply to all sorts of fandoms.

Such a huge perspective shift, I'm really glad I read this.

This book goes in-depth about decolonizing environmental justice, and provides clear examples as to the steps of decolonizing different issues that arise around environmental issues. Dina Gilio-Whitaker uses real-world examples to show the reader how things have gone wrong in the past, and what could be done to fix them and avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

Honestly, for how complex these issues are and the long, long history behind them, the author does a really great job making this accessible and digestible. I went in with pretty much 0 knowledge of environmental issues (that is, legal battles surrounding environmental issues) or environmental justice and came away having learned so much. I was really awed by the ways the author shifted such simple perspectives, and this book provides the "why?" behind decolonial practices that I think would make things a lot clearer to those interested in learning more.

This ties in really well with Braiding Sweetgrass, I think the two would make a great pair to read side-by-side.

boring, terrible world-building, stupid plot. just let it be smut pls

This was so unbelievably boring. I pushed through because it's been recommended so many times by people whose reading tastes usually perfectly match mine, and it's also been personally recommended to me by people I trust. Everyone swears that it pays off by the end but I just left feeling meh. I hope that it pays off in reading the rest of the series but after my experience with this book I have very little desire to continue the series, at least for right now.

I love a character driven story, and I love when fantasies really take their time with the world to allow the reader to explore and really feel immersed. I think the problem I had here was that all the build-up felt unnecessary. 

The world itself is not complicated enough that we really need to dig into the details of political machinations, nor are the characters unique enough that we need to spend 80% of the book in the mundanity of their lives to really get a feel for what motivates them/what their challenges are. Yes, they were good characters, for the most part, I love unlikeable characters, but you have a good foundation for their characterizations pretty quickly. The world is just like every other medieval fantasy, and though I see the subversions taking root, I can't say my reading experience was bettered by spending the majority of the book in war rooms discussing the action happening off-page.

The way women were portrayed in this book was also ick, despite there being a huge lack of female characters at all. Sometimes I even felt like women didn't even exist in this world except Ardee, who basically served to be a motivation for one of our POV characters, and a plot device for the character arc of one of the secondary main characters. I hope her story gets a little more attention in the following books. Ferro, our only female POV character, has such an interesting (though not necessarily unique) characterization that makes her POV one of the standouts for me. The chapter that introduces her was my favorite out of all, I think.

And it kinda bugs me because Abercrombie is clearly a talented writer. He has a great ability for "show don't tell", as well as a dark, witty humor that really settles itself well in the world he's created. I don't really understand why he chose to write this book the way he did, so that the first book is almost like a prequel introducing the characters and world, rather than a fully-fledged first book with its own plot.

I don't regret my time reading, and I'm still interested in the series as a whole simply for the fact that it's supposedly right up my alley, but this was really hard to get through.

The first half was a solid 5 stars; the idea of shifting your perspective on America's racial hierarchy to categorize it as a caste system similar to India or Nazi Germany is something that seems simple on the surface (many times the author explains something and I went ??? DUH why didn't I see that before), but Isabel Wilkerson really digs deep into research to show the complexities of her argument. Surely it should shift the way you view America as a whole, as well as the details of every interaction, from public political events to everyday conversations.

Though it was relevant at the time of its writing, referencing 2016, the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests, etc., it is still just as important in 2025, almost sickeningly so. The threads that Wilkerson draws are at times hard to swallow but will definitely shift the way you view the country.

The last half of the book devolves a bit from the main point, though I understand why Wilkerson included the stories/facts she did. It serves to bolster her argument that she sets up in the first half, but I think that those who already have experience reading about systemic racism in America won't find much new information. Because of this, the second half begins to feel repetitive. Though I can see it being incredibly enlightening for those who have the least experience with the material. 

Definitely a must-read to anyone trying to study anti-racism.

This book made me physically ill. Sickening, but necessary.

Nick Turse doesn't hold back when detailing the horrendous war crimes committed by US soldiers during the Vietnam war. Although most people with a cursory understanding of the war will know of the My Lai massacre, Turse makes the argument that the atrocities of My Lai were only one example out of many. 

Turse highlights the systemic abuse of power shown by the US army, especially of those commanding officers which passed their horrific policies down to their (extremely young) subordinates. He fully blows away the common belief that the military is full of a few "bad apples", and that reckless violence committed during war can be excused as "kill or be killed", instead making an extremely persuasive argument that the US military itself, built on imperialism, colonialism, dehumanization, and racism is rotten to the core.

You can bet your ass that the systemic violence, racism, misogyny, classism, etc. plays a part in every US conflict to date. It's very clear that the issues laid out in this book are the modus operandi of the US military, not just a "mistake" or an "accident". It's easy to see parallels to the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the genocide in Palestine involving IDF soldiers trained directly by the US, and even as far back as the Long Walk.

Of course, the book lacks context about the war at large; why was the US involved, which events led up to massacres like My Lai, how was public reaction to certain policies, what was the president doing? But, that's not the goal of this book. Instead, Turse forces the reader to ask themselves, no matter the context, no matter the reasoning, can the careless disregard for life ever be justified? 

What we're left with is yet another entry in the long, long list of atrocities committed by the United States that continue to be whitewashed and swept under the rug, that the United States refuses to address or remedy.