Can You Tell Us About Your Favorite Writers And Books, Please? Your Writing Is The Light!

Can you tell us about your favorite writers and books, please? Your writing is the light!

Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi

Two sisters, separated before they even have a chance to remember the other. One is sold into slavery, the other becomes a slave-owner’s wife. Every chapter is written from the perspective of one of their descendants, spanning three generations and hundreds of years, crossing continents, beginning in Africa at the onset of slavery and taking us all the way to modern day America. The true glory of this book is that you only hear from each character once and yet you are no less emotionally invested in them. The writing is mesmerising, brutal; full of softness, and of spit. Fire and water - as the book references - fire and water, come together.

The Third Life of Grange Copeland - Alice Walker

Everyone reads The Color Purple (and rightfully so), but in my opinion, this is Walker’s better book. It follows three generations of a poor black family in the American South. It’s set after the abolition of slavery, when it was no longer legal, but the effects of it were still felt by black men and the black women they often took their feelings of powerlessness out on. It gives us ugly, brutal, abusive black male characters and without asking us to forgive them, makes us understand the cycle that made them so callous. Brilliant.

A Girl is a Half-formed Thing - Eimear McBride

Gutting. Like being suffocated within the narrator’s head. Written in an off-the-cuff stream-of-consciousness type style. It follows the life of a young woman who experiences a myriad of traumas. I have never felt such stifling second-hand grief, and for a fictional character at that. Devastating, perverse, and hard to stomach, but one of the most worthwhile reads in recent years.

Grief is the Thing with Feathers - Max Porter

A book without a genre. A mix of poetry, prose, and even drama. A semi-autobiographical account of a man left to struggle with his grief after his wife passes, leaving him to raise their two young sons. The most original format I’ve ever seen in a book. Heart-rending, darkly comic, and entirely absurd at times.

White Oleander - Janet Fitch

One of the most poetic novels I’ve ever read. A young girl navigates a series of foster homes while her mother is in prison for having killed her partner. Something about this book feels like leaving candy floss to melt on your tongue. The character of the mother manages to be simultaneously alluring and disgusting. As a reader, we buy into the enigma of her; we desire her; we almost forgive her. And we watch as Astrid, the daughter, emulates some of her mother’s mistakes, and makes some of her own. We watch her suffer, grieve, fuck, and start to bite back.

Emotional Labor: What It Is and How To Do It

via Celine Loup

This won’t make your blog look ugly. How could you not reblog this? REBLOGGING THIS COULD SAVE A LIFE!!!

one of my biggest pet peeves is when people are like, “i don’t care, my significant other can go through my phone. i have nothing to hide.” 

okay. first of all.

wanting a partner to respect your privacy doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with “having something to hide.” maybe you’d just prefer that they trust you without putting you under surveillance like a fucking prisoner? 

second.

it’s not only your privacy. if you’re cool with that shit, i really hope you’re informing all your friends and family members who discuss their personal lives with you that they should be prepared for your shitty SO to read through all their messages to you, but i’m betting you’re not doing that. 

maybe your bestie from high school doesn’t want your boyfriend seeing her emotional messages about her recent breakup? maybe your sister doesn’t want him reading her messages about struggles with her kids or her marriage? maybe your friend with mental health issues isn’t counting on you sharing their struggles with anyone else? 

maybe you should grow up and realize that if your partner loves and respects you, they’ll believe you have nothing to hide without checking for themself.