Currently reading

Currently Reading - The Silvered Serpents

Why is this book dedicated to Nicolas Cage? 😂

”I realized after years of dieting that I had been trying to change the wrong thing. I didn’t need to change my body; I needed to change the way I felt about it”

Virgie Tovar

Friendly reminder that all my original content has transitioned over to @classickhal on instagram ✨🧡 it’s a good time 😌

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

A Moveable Feast, and a beautiful October day

“ Any moment might be out last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

~The Iliad, Homer

fandoms where the piece of media the fandom consumes has a mlm character or couple are the worst fucking fandoms. some of you cis straight women motherfuckers (and some of you cis lesbian motherfuckers) are fetishy as fuck !!! there is no need. the way you talk about mlm is disgusting and sexualising. please stop

- a tired mlm

Review: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

One particular draw I’ve always felt towards speculative fiction is its ability to unsettle. To disquiet. How it’s capable of disturbing the imagination and prickling the senses to the point where I, too, am trapped in the rippling current of possibility it presents. Where I, too, am caught in its subjugated web of strife and despair, of yearning and struggle, with characters who live in a world which is both alien and familiar to me in striking degrees.

Books in this genre can forcibly pitch me forward into a state of baited, this-could-happen, ‘oh fuck, what if this really could happen' suspense that leaves me dangling and clutching at a tightrope with sweaty fingers as reality blurs with conjecture, and as conjecture becomes a plausible nightmare. What’s more, I find they’re usually able to accomplish this because of a slight conflagration of one or more previously simple (seemingly innocuous) practices or ideologies that have been pushed to the extreme.

All it takes is a spark. All such a book needs is for one flame of believability to take root, to catch the wick. Then it can incinerate the flimsy wall that’s erected between what is and what could be with ease, so that all I’m fit to do is puzzle, wonder, think–ruminating over all that I know or thought I believed.

The Handmaid’s Tale does all this and more. It takes speculative fiction to a new level. I say this because of the delicacy with which it’s handled, because of the minced subtlety Atwood wields to construct a dystopia where women are objectified, oppressed, categorized, and silenced under the thumbs of male dominion.

Her worldbuilding may be called scant at first glance, gradual. It’s without preamble or bombast, so there’s not much expanse on the political how’s, the why’s. However, don’t let this fool you because it’s that quality in addition to Offred’s measured, meditative, passive, internally-crying-and-screaming narration that allows you to understand that women in this society have been violated in body, stripped of their individualism, and shed free of their voices in every awful, conceivable way.

Self-expression, personal freedom–those things do not exist here. Not really. They have been siphoned away, placed high up on a shelf in a locked cupboard, just out of reach, where Justification after Justification have decreed them to be Out Of Use for all women. For all handmaids like Offred.

This is a horrific chilling tale, no doubt about it. Yet, what makes it so strangely dismaying for me has less to do with the reminiscent/recognizable aspects of present society (though the misogyny parallels are stark and glaring) and more to do with how this book’s themes, its realities, slowly dig themselves beneath your skin. You cannot escape their clutches. They swat and scratch and scrape until you can do nothing else but trace their markings: paying them heed with your own thoughts, tears; your own blood.

With every turn of the page, you’re reminded a little more of freedom’s precious fragility. With each end to a chapter, you drift further into rational shock and chaotic sensibility. With every nurturing relationship, with each memory where happiness may have once reigned for the main character, you feel as if you’re thrown into a hall of mirrors where things are distorted, askew, and angled in uncomfortable positions that you can hardly bear to process. The unbearableness of it all is what buries itself inside of you, slowly, until the echo of what could be is there to stay.

If you don’t come away from this book half wanting, half perceiving, then you’re a liar. This is not a story you forget. It stokes, it haunts. It whispers your name in the dark whenever you think you’re done listening.

You simply cannot clap your hands over your ears, shut your eyes, or command yourself to believe that you will be no different after reading it. Because you will be.

“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

4.5/5 stars

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There are a lot of good nonfiction books out there but there’s also a significant number of books out there that im just like…

You Should Read This If You’re Looking For: Ownvoices POC stories for children that deal with tradition, culture, migration to foreign countries, refugee stories, etc. in a wholesome setting with beautiful illustrations. 

Reading “The Most Beautiful Thing” by Kao Kalia Yang is a mesmerizing experience. It’s a heartwarming short story of a young girl finding beauty in an unexpected place. Drawing from Yang’s childhood experiences as a Hmong refugee, this is a story of a family making their home in a foreign country, getting by with very little money and a lot of heart: the little things that are commonplace for children of displaced families. 

I found pieces of myself and my home in this story. As an expat living in Kuwait, my family too had to move to a foreign country when I was very young. I found myself in the little details around the living room when they sit down to eat, the way they take care of the elders in the family, the traces of tradition that immigrated with them, the stories grandma tells the little children. Growing up in middle class poverty, I know what it feels like to be disappointed in your circumstances and wish for more, while also finding hope, and beauty in the love of family and tradition. 

Grandma is obviously my favourite character in the story. The way she holds the family together, weaving her stories and magic, making the most mundane things feel special. I can see my own nana in her laugh lines, the cracked, calloused feet, and her beautiful toothy smile. 

Yang weaves a beautiful tapestry, blending tradition with modernity brought to life by the breathtaking artwork by Khao Le. The beautiful illustration with their bright, vibrant colours, and rich details really elevate the story into something magical. 

My only complaint is that I wish we could have had a few more of grandma’s stories. She lived such a long, eventful life and I wish I could have spent more time on that. The ending also felt a little abrupt. But all in all, this book feels very much like home and I’m so glad its out in the world for more children to read and feel a part of! 4 stars.

You Should Read This If You’re Looking For: easy to digest contemporary poetry dealing with depression, anxiety, mental health, suicide, survivor’s guilt, the aftermath of messy breakups, and trauma, etc. 

Designed, as the cover suggests, as a mixtape with Side A and Side B. Favourite poems include: tracks 3,4, 6,7,19,25,26,29,32,73,86.  

Format, Side A: contains a collection of 92 poems with titles as track numbers. 

Each poem also has a song inspiration at the end, with the song title and name of the artist that makes for a fun extracurricular activity if you want to put together a playlist for these poems. 

Alicia Cook’s poetry deals with some really heavy themes such as anxiety, depression, suicide, survivor’s guilt, love, messy breakups, trauma, etc. The poems are written in an easy, digestible format that would appeal to readers of Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey collection. As I’m not a fan of this type of writing, however, this held little interest. 

The poems in this collection are mostly literal, with a few scattered easy-to-pick metaphors that have little depth beyond surface level. There is no profound meaning to unearth, unravel, or divine at. 

Yet, Cook’s poetry is relatable to the struggles we face in a 21st century social landscape. Especially in light of the pandemic, feelings of isolation, alienation, uncertainty, inability to commit to relationships, and social pressures are all reflected back with comfortable familiarity. I was especially drawn to the hint of depth in poems that deal with grief, depression and suicide; there’s a rawness to these poems that I wish was explored more in depth. 

Side B: “Remixes” contained blacked out versions of some of the poems from Side A that I found utterly pointless and pretty banal.  

My favourite part of this collection might be the mixtape concept this book is presented as, particularly the cover art and title that feel hopeful, funky, relatable, and original: the potential is there, peaking through in certain poems. I just wish it was more. 3 stars.

Monday 26th of October | Internship as a high school teacher is going way better than I thought (as in, I actually enjoy it and get excellent feedback from my supervisor) but it just turned out a bit more rock'n'roll with schools more or less closing again in Belgium due to covid.