Readings II

 2 posts in 24hrs ??? who is this ???

Some books I've been really into:

1) Invisible Man- I read this book a couple months ago and I still think about it almost daily. I read the first chapter in one of my first yrs of college and I've always wanted to read the full thing but I felt like I wasn't competent enough to fully grasp it. It was a fairly hard read because it was just so jam-packed with metaphors and symbolism but it was worth it brain power. I couldn't wait to finish the book just so that I could do research on it that unpacks all the symbolism I might have missed. And I loved the development of the characters like how the author represents the different mentalities of black people during that time from Dr. Bledsoe's "White is Right" to the veteran's more "woke" approach. . It's just such a great book. Definite 10/10 I can't wait to read it again.

2) Things Fall Apart- Another book that got me thinking about it months after I read it. I even read the other 2 books in the 'African Trilogy" because I loved to see how Nigerian society was pre-colonialism. I first read this book like freshman year of high school and at the time I was just straight up confused and didn't "get" it. Alhumdulillah my reading comprehension skills have improved since then and I loved reading it. Growing up in a capitalist society, it is so easy to forget that it isn't the only way to live. This book also opened my eyes to how ignorant I was to African history and society in general. I also loved how the author incorporated Nigerian proverbs like one that I think about a lot for some reason which is "A finger covered in oil spoils the whole hand" (paraphrase). Idk I just feel like we should start using proverbs more because there's such an elegance of speech that I feel like has been lost. 

The other 2 books were also good but they aren't necessary to read. I do like how all the books have such a blunt/open-ended ending that leaves me wondering what happens after I close the book. The books don't directly connect to each other but it picks up in the years after so you can track the progress of colonization and how it changed their society.

3) Homegoing- This was a hard read just because it was so jam-packed with trauma and bad things keep happening but it was so informative in how the author represents the development of how the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade affected us in the U.S. and those that stayed in specifically Ghana. Of course I know this was a work of fiction but I did learn about how impactful Baltimore, Maryland was in the development of black wealth because of the boats and how prisoners (mostly convicted of ridiculous crimes my looking at a white woman) were used as another form of slaves in the coal mines even after slavery was supposed to be abolished. And on the Ghana side how those who worked with the slave traders got so much wealth and power but at the cost of selling their neighboring peoples. I could tell the author did a LOT of research when writing the book and it is so informative because it teaches history in the perspective of those living it.

4) The Radium Girls- This is like the only non-fiction book I've read this year and I actually enjoyed it. It infuriated me how evil a company can get just for some money even if it costs dozens of women their lives and their quality of life would forever be changed. Reading about the effects of radium was horrific and it blew my mind first of all how strong these women were to keep fighting and secondly how the owners of the radium companies absolutely knew how their product was affecting these women but still deny deny denied until they couldn't any more. And I was thinking about how if it weren't for these women, how unsafe would my and everyone else's' jobs would be. How many harmful chemicals would I be interacting with and I wouldn't know the consequences of until years later. Yeah you can argue that there is probably a substance that is harmful right now that has little research, like how microplastics or 5G are affecting us but there is a lot more caution with new chemicals and they put down the precedent for workplace incidents of that nature.

5) I Who Have Never Known Men- This was a short book but it was pretty good. I haven't read a dystopia in so long so it was kinda refreshing. That reminds me I need to read "The Handmaid's Tale" soon. This book was so interesting because of all the questions it creates. How would growing up in a completely different way that we know of affect someone. How would they interact with others if they have never known common social etiquette and what makes us human? I feel like if i re-read this book in a couple years I would have even more to think about because I was left with such a sense of unease and I truly didn't know what to think when I was done.

6) American Psycho- ...um yeah....so the author might actually be the crazy one. Idk how someone could write a book like that. The movie, while it was so accurate to the book, was not able to encapsulate how absolutely crazy, insane, bonkers, this man is. But there was no way to capture it because it was a lot of little things that built up while reading. There were entire paragraphs and even CHAPTERS that I skipped otherwise I feel like I would go insane as well. I couldn't recommend this book to someone as a moral obligation but, as an art piece and to show how dedicated an author can be to a bit, go ahead. I was not prepared at all.

So yeah, I love yapping about books because I've read so many good ones this year. I've read more books halfway through this year than I have the entire 2024. I thought I would hate historical fiction but I absolutely love it and I wanna read even more. So I went from only romance to only thrillers/mysteries and now I love me a fairly boring book. I guess its that frontal lobe development or sumn idk. Anyways, I'm currently reading MARCH, a graphic novel depicting John Lewis' life and the Civil Rights Era and I really like the art and learning about historical figures and events.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Random Memory: Playing fetch with my wonderful cat. She was amazing, I hope to meet up with her in the afterlife <3 

へ ♡ ╱|、 ૮ - ՛ ) (` - 7 / ⁻ ៸| |、⁻〵 乀 (ˍ, ل ل じしˍ,)ノ