Nik Kroushl

A short modern fable. Lots of woo woo about manifesting your true destiny. Peddles in individualism. I just never believed the premise that "when you're pursuing your Personal Legend, the whole world conspires to help you," or that when we don't pursue the dreams of our youth our lives become worthless and out of sync with the universe. Overuse of the phrase "Personal Legend," disappointing relegation of the one female character to the role of personality-free love interest... wasn't for me.

What I expected: Stories of various attempts at utopian communities over the past several centuries, reportage on current utopian and communal living projects.

What I got: Chapters organized by ways that we organize society (homes/housing, childrearing, education, parenting and the nuclear family), a crash course in 20th century socialist and communist theory, examples in fiction ranging from Plato’s *Republic* to Ursula K LeGuin, examples in real-life ranging from monastic religious societies to modern-day eco-villages, a *Star Trek* themed call to radical hope, an impetus to work toward systemic change *and* individual life choice that upset the capitalist status quo fomented on inequality and exhaustion…

It makes me want to start a book club.

This is a dreamy book, in many ways feels like being dragged into a riptide of beautiful and dense and continuous prose. The perspective tumbles around, between the minds of protagonist Laura Diaz and her family members and lovers, often a narrative that hunts down a truth not consciously known to our narrator but which even so underlies each event. A conversation between Laura and one of her lovers seamlessly cascades into a wordless exchange of secret thoughts, which in their specificity also reveal broad truths about the human experience.

I'm still trying to wrestle with all this book "means". There's so much packed into this lifetime epic that traces the major political events of 20th century Mexico as much as it does the life of Laura Diaz. (It was a very fun way to learn about some of the history, especially the Frida y Diego cameos, but I wish I'd solidified more historical knowledge before I read it.) I resonated with Laura's internal conflicts as she tries to figure out her place in post-revolution Mexico, to figure out what meaning her life can have both in personal relationships and in broader political endeavors, especially as a privileged woman who is also constantly navigating the waters of grief. Laura consistently loses herself in trying to understand and care for others, until she finally discovers the meaning-making and contributory artistic calling that pulls the fragments of her life and experiences together.

The writing is beautiful and often confusing. The symbolism is ripe and lyrical. There are aphorisms that succinctly, cuttingly lay bare the burdens of life in a dark world, the meanings or lack thereof of individual lives. There is the seemingly evergreen conundrum of young revolutionaries (or people who want to change the world, who fight hard and lose a lot for what they believe) who find their ideals and dreams trodden into the ground as time goes on, the struggle of idealism that either dies young or lives long enough to become a villain. There's the long confusion of family members who don't understand one another or who understand one another too well, and to their detriment. The characters are stunningly wrought if not always easy to understand or to like; they're larger than life in their arguments, their martyrdom, their ideals.

There are pieces I found frustrating: I don't think this book passes the Bechdel test (which is not an end-all, but indicates the focus of the book on the men in Laura's life). Her relationship with Harry felt like it could have been cut from the book -- the dynamics bothered me and I think the points made in this piece of the plot could have been made elsewhere. Fuentes seems to have a fascination with Jews and the Holocaust that feels... weird, including the martyrdom of Raquel Mendes. At times the poetry of the writing undermines the point.

But I think there's much more here for me to mine, and I'll hopefully be returning to re-read this book.

A really comprehensive history of migration and US policy on immigration spanning the 70s to 2023. While I vaguely knew that US interventionist policy in Central America contributed to the migration crisis, I had no idea of the details or scale. It was sometimes hard for me to keep straight the developments and policy in the US side of things, but largely because US administrations kept backtrackingand reinstating and changing processes, making it impossible to follow. This book has both a policy element and a very human element.

This is less a "solutions" book and more of a "wow, we fucked up SO big in so many ways" book. Infuriating. Difficult to read. And really well done.

Meh. There were a few useful ideas – namely that of creating/optimizing an environment for habits and the 2 minute idea that the trigger action is the habit rather than a whole performance. A lot of it was self helpy fluff or stuff you'll have heard before. There were a lot of references to weight loss as a goal (cw I guess) and overall it felt like a bit of a bro-ey book but there were some interesting anecdotes. It probably could've been a blog post instead.

I really had a lovely time getting swept up in this book. It's certainly science fiction but reminded me of the high fantasy genre that has captured my heart for so long, in the political/court drama and intrigue. The central theme exploring Mahit's love and hate of the colonizing force of the Empire, and of course viewing the Empire from the perspective of the colonized, was a unique strength – rarely do we see empire structures in SFF treated as “imperial” in an explicitly critical way. (Like usually the king is evil or whatever but we don't get the same critique of the entire empire, the cultural assumption that the imperial model is fine.) This book drew me in similarly to Gideon the Ninth, where watching a big cast play metaphorical chess but in space and with sapphics hit many satisfying spots I didn't realize I wanted. I also thought it was really fun/interesting that the identity crisis in this book does not come from the literal brain-merge Mahit undergoes (or at least, not only from that; the imago is an accepted part of her heritage and if there are identity issues it's because of the malfunction) but from her wrestling with her position in the empire.

I enjoyed the writing, the world building (although honestly I was sometimes skimming over the detailed explanation of language, syllables, verse). I loved the characterization of cast members like Nineteen Adze and the emperor and even Yskandr, these enigmatic people with deep convictions all around Mahit who contrast her frequent internal dialogue. I enjoyed Mahit as a protagonist though agreeing that her personality and development were often obscured by stewing or plot events – enough of her came through to make me like her, root for her, want to know more about what she does next.

A fun escape when I needed a fantasy book to dive into, with much political intrigue (just the way I like it) and thriller elements. The two main characters were coded as having OCD and chronic illness respectively, and I can't speak to whether or not the depictions were accurate. The world building was interesting and had some more-explicit-than-most-fantasy-books critiques of colonialism and the mistreatment of indigenous peoples, but the message became heavy handed quickly, and the allegory of the Darfri as an indigenous people felt a bit stereotypical at times.

I learned a lot about actual lgbtq figures and history, but as others have pointed out, the author's definitions of many identities are outdated or just plain wrong/problematic. (See: calling asexuality a “phase”, bisexuality as attraction to “both” genders in some places and “various” genders in the index, some weird language/pronouns around trans people but specifically Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, ignoring pansexuality except to equate it with being “sexually fluid”...)

The book could also be quite pedantic at times. I picked up the “for young people” version mostly because it was shorter than the original (still almost 300 pages).

This is a good book if you're already on the up and up as far as queer identities but lack a historical context. AKA, good context for Very Online lgbtq+ folks like me.

A really interesting book that is broader than it is deep and has value for most folks, not just those curious about nonmonogamy. (Although I agree it gets pretty dorky at times and could've been a lot shorter.) Plenty of good writing on boundaries, owning your own emotions, dealing with insecurity or jealousy, building networks and community, and embracing a sense of abundance when it comes to love and intimacy in all relationships. Even in the 2017 edition, parts of this seem dated when it comes to discussions of gender and sexuality. But it is not for nothing that the authors have decades of combined experience building polyamorous lives and networks.

I was expecting a fairly straightforward treatise on travel, its complexities, the privilege inherent for white Westerners in contrast with people of color and people of the Third World*. Maybe because so much of the nonfiction I've read lately has been so clear-cut and written primarily from the researcher's and self-help guru's point of view, a vantage point of instruction and enhancement. I didn't realize until I picked up this book how much I missed memoir, mysticism, stumbling around alongside an essayist.

Habib combines fascinating passages on the history of elements of travel from passports to highways, as well as personal stories and beautiful travel writing of places she has been and conversations she's had with "locals" (an ever-shifting identity) and tourists alike. She interrogates so much of the hallmarks of modern (and earlier...) tourism: suspicious of the idea that travel itself enlarges us, cognizant of the way that tourism economies transform cities and towns especially in the Third World, doubtful that a distinction can ever be made between a traveler and a tourist, recognizing that the expansion of leisure travel is both a matter of cross-class access and one of ecological devastation. Despite being markedly more well-traveled than I am and less steeped in the white Western world, Habib asks many of the questions I do and is enmeshed in the complicated politics of travel. There are also explorations of other kinds of travel: news and reading as the originator of cosmopolitanism, the city bus as a method of flaneuring and wanderlust, the sweet reciprocity of a pair of vagrant music students cooking French food.

It was just such a compelling book to read, from the perspective of a history buff, a lover of lyrical language and braided essay, a would-be traveler, a daughter or mother or spouse, or just a person mildly self-aware of their own hypocrisy. I want to read it again immediately.

*Habib explicitly used the term Third World and explains why she chooses to in an epilogue

Weird and mystical, a fictional exploration of La Malinche. This book gave me so many fascinating views of history and life during the brutal Spanish invasion of Mexico (fictionalized and with liberties taken of course) and at the organization of Mexica and Maya groups at the time. It was easy to get lost (in both positive and negative ways) in some of the meandering prose, expositions of cosmology, and deep symbolism; it was also a very “internal” book based in protagonist Malinalli's thoughts and dreams rather than in scene.

The idea was interesting but the execution left much to be desired here – so much of the writing really too dense, charmed by itself, and nestled in niche theory to be accessible, at times feeling condescending. I found the histories of family abolition movements more interesting than the other chapters. I find when I seek out books like these I'm looking for a practical handbook for today (or tomorrow) not a theoretical dream for a post capitalist future.

Not as fun as the other books in this series imo, but we do finally get a badass bisexual character from Butler who survives. So, major points. (I wish we had spent more time on that!!!!! Butler spends so much time interrogating and imagining sexual and romantic dynamics between men and women. Imagine if she had spent more time on queer women?!)

The patternmaster series is interesting in that the books are really only tangentially related, the first two more than the last. Wild Seed was probably the best one. Patternmaster had to spend way more time on the world building; Clay's Ark had an absolutely bleak and almost gratuitously gorey ending. At least Patternmaster ends on a high note.

I'm really enjoying this series and Butler's usual talent for character development, relationship building, and saying so much between the lines. I'm a sucker for a book whose characters face difficult moral choices and also for characters who pull it together in whatever ways they can to make meaning after apocalypse.