Jeff

It feels odd to say I enjoyed this book, but I did. Nothing more fun than reading about parental abuse and complex PTSD! Foo starts the thing out with a warning to others who might have complex PTSD, that the first four chapters are mostly a memoir about the abuse she suffered from her parents, and I wonder now what it would have been like to skip those before reading the rest.

The rest weaves her process of recognizing her traumas and various ways she tries to get some healing, and those are a nice mix of memoir and explanations (mostly explanations of how *complex* PTSD comes to be, and how its treatments can differ from other mental health treatments). The first few chapters are difficult to get through, but she layers them in such a way that it was doable. But it's raw, for sure.

I liked the bits and pieces about San Jose, and Oakland.

The best part of the book, for me, is her analysis of how racism (and in particular the model minority bullshit) helps to cause, say, a kid to make it all the way through high school while being verbally and physically abused, with nobody, adult or kid, noticing. Or if noticing, looking the other way.

Ran across this one on recommendation from a cartoonist that I like, and I'm really glad I did. A combination memoir, historiography and a fairly deep-dive into suicidality, I learned a lot. I like Patterson's writing style, and the mix of storytelling, history-examining and personal insights worked for me.

Like many folks, I came to know Hersey from The Nap Ministry (for me, on Instagam). This is definitely a manifesto, though for me it also reads like a sermon, and a polemic (against white supremecy and unbridled capitalism). In some ways, I "shouldn't" like this book--there's a lot of talk about praying and god (not my thing); it's got a structure like a sermon--it meanders and doesn't give the reader a lot of steady handholds. It's repetative. And yet all of these things that would usually be a negative for me work really well for what she's trying to accomplish: A strong, long-term, complex shift in thinking about our world, through the lens of what rest means for human beings. I

I loved it. Highly recommend.

Loved this one, and will read it again someday. Definitely a book for book-lovers (I started noting the books/authors she mentions and had to give up, because she talks about *so many*). Reminded me a bit of reading early Winterson--I was lost a good deal of the time in the prose, but lost in a good way.

I am a bit angry that this young person has only written two books, and they are better than most books. Whew.

I really enjoyed Polley's movie Women Talking, and when I saw she had a fairly recent memoir, I thought I'd check it out. Enjoyed it more than I thought I would. A lot of it is about parenthood, which is sometimes not so interesting to me, but Polley makes it interesting, and I just like how she writes.

Felker-Martin does pulp-y action and violence really well. She also does deeply moving, intense feelings about sex (and gender!) well. The shifts between the two things tonally weren't enjoyable for me--though perhaps that was part of the point? It reminded me in a way of Lovecraft Country, mixing real-world horror and pulp-y horror, but I was left wanting a bit more cohesion between the two.

Still, this was a fun and brutal read, alternatively, and I look forward to reading her next book.

The language in this is playful and fun, the themes sometimes intense and serious. It holds together for me, but just barely–I'd like a bit more structure, even in more experimental stuff like this. If you like to read another person's dream and have it entertain, humor and be interesting to you, this is the book for you.

This one wins most of its points for it's combination of memoir and noir style, and the rest of its points for brutal honesty. Ellroy gives us a really interesting look into his psyche (hint: paging Dr's Freud and Oedipus) while searching for answers regarding his mother's murder 35 years prior. He ends up finding some answers more interesting than whodunnit.

Found this in the used bookstore near my house. I am amazed that this book was written, and can hardly wait to delve into it.

Update: Turns out, this book is quite informative in a couple of ways. For one thing, because it was written in 1989, there are some insights available simply by comparing and contrasting women's participation in sports then and now.

Also, I learned a lot about the history of Title IX, which I was only moderately familiar with.

Schwartz wrote one of my favorite books, The Paradox of Choice, which is why I picked up The Costs of Living. In TPoC, Schwartz explained why having too many choices as consumers can actually have negative consequences on our psyches. In TCoL, which was written in the early 90's, he talks about the same sort of stuff on a more ‘macro' level, explaining how unbridled capitalism makes almost everybody–including those who are profiting the most from it–unhappy. Or at least that's what I think he's going do to.

One interesting thing about reading this book within our current economic crisis, is that much of what he has to say about the economics of the US applies now even more than it did then. The early 90s sort of presaged what's happening now, I think, especially around how deregulation can lead to such intense economic downturns.

Might come back to this one. I think it's not that well written, though some of the ideas are interesting. The very concept that how one looks back at one's past significantly affecting one's present and future is great, but could have been covered in a blog post. Or maybe I just can't stand the self-help genre. Wanted more of the pop science behind it.

It's tough to find an anthology that has such consistently good stuff in it, or at least stuff that I consistently find really interesting. This is a finely edited anthology, with lots of various perspectives represented, and myriad writing styles as well. I think I'm also finding this book at a time when it's most helpful to me, while I struggle with traditional scripts about what various types of relationships might look like, and how to find a way to navigate around the traditions without running aground.

It's fascinating to know that, while I struggle in my little world with my little scripts, lots of people are struggling (or not!) with so-called “alternative” relationship models, other ways of being; learning about some of those ways (and knowing this must just be the tip of the iceberg) really helps me find some solace. Given that “traditional” families only exist as comfortable fictions anyway, I'd say anybody might enjoy learning about different types of relationships from the authors here.