Thought-reviews are half reviews, half tangents about what the books made me think about.
Finished
- Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving Fuck by Mark Manson
- The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
- They Both Die in the End by Adam Silvera
Current
- Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
- Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (audio)
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnman (audio)
- Legendborn by Tracey Deonn
- Story Genius by Lisa Cron
- How to Live by Derek Sivers
Long story short, I’m reading too many books right now, but I’m learning so much from all of them that it’s hard to stop.
Yolk is one of my favorite fiction (YA) books in recent memory. It’s a coming of age at its core that showcases the deep care and hurt we give and receive from those closest to us. The people we love most are the those we feel safe enough to give our very best and our very worst. It was also a love letter to New York City. Choi’s description of NYC culture was so saturated with hyper-specific quirks and flaws that I knew right away she had personally lived there. The main character’s love for the idea and reality of what NYC is, while hating it for what it is not, was resonant with how I feel about living in the bay area.
In general, I love the push and pull coming of age stories are able to capture. It’s always confusing to untangle our internal desires of who we want to be from who society tells us we should be.
I want to be fierce and loud, but society tells me Asian women should to be quiet and docile.
Do I actually want to be fierce and loud, or do I just want to prove that an Asian woman doesn’t need to be quiet and docile?
This endless tug is something I have felt throughout my life and hope to continue to feel as I move and grow. I think YA and coming of age stories always resonate with me because I’m often at an axis point of trying to define who I am and who I want to be.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck was better than I thought it would be. My impression going in was that it would be a white man manifesto of how not to care about anything from the perspective of someone who has the luxury of not needing to be perfect and represent their communities. And in some ways, it was that, but I think the subtle art bit of the title is the key differentiator. In a nutshell, this book was about the subtle art of deciding what you care about. This theme is so important that a large number of books, especially books popular within the work culture of tech and Silicon Valley, are dedicated to it. There is seemingly so much opportunity to work and fritter your time away in an endless whirlpool of tasks. I like to think of myself like a buoy in the middle of the ocean. I need some responsibilities (aka fucks) in my life to keep me grounded and able to swim through the whirlpools without getting swept up, but when I take on too many and strap 22 different weights to my ankles, most of which are non-essential, they drag me down to the bottom of the ocean with no way out. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Essentialism, and Anything You Want, are all books about getting rid of the dead weight and retaining what keeps you grounded.
The Subtle Knife is a comfort read to get the inspiration and creativity juices flowing. I find it kind of funny I read two books back-to-back with the word “subtle” in them.
They Both Die in the End was part of my new year’s resolution to read more YA published recently given I am writing a YA novel. I did enjoy this one despite it having tinges of two things I largely dislike in modern YA which are a) insta-love and b) dark, twisty, and unrelenting emotion. On the insta-love front, I am more into the slow and unspoken connection between two people that are so obviously right for each other that it’s showcased in a million different small moments over time. This is in contrast to a trope I’ve seen very often in modern (and popular) YA, where the main character spots someone across the pond with “strawberry-blond hair flopping in their eyes,” followed by an immediate internal self-hatred for being attracted to someone so annoying but so goddamn hot. They Both Die in the End was somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. On the dark and twisty front – this book kind of had to have it given the title. The constant press on my heart that the two main characters would “die in the end” made it hard to slip into the book as a comfort read before bed, but overall, it was an interesting concept and had a lot of heart. I especially appreciated the author’s note at the end and how his own experiences inspired the Point of the story – a fear of death should empower, rather than cripple our will to live.