Posts

Showing posts from July, 2024

A new favorite has been added to my list: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Image
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a masterpiece! 👏🏻 This book made its way to my top favorite books ever. I started reading it with no expectations whatsoever. I first heard about it from Booktube and decided to put it on hold at the library. James Baldwin's writing caught me right from the start. I think the plot was okay, but the incredible writing turns this into an incredible book. I 100% decided to get a physical copy because it was painful to know everything I highlighted was going to get lost since I read it on the library app. “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” ― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room View all my reviews

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart is the saddest book I read in 2024 so far.

Image
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book is sad! I spent the last few days reading Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. It took me some work to finish. Not only to read it but also to process it emotionally. This is a very dark story, and I strongly recommend everyone check all the trigger warnings before diving into it. From a literary point of view, the book is wonderful. It feels like diving into the 1990s in a way that other art forms do not allow us to. As a queer boy who grew up in Brazil in the 90s, a lot of things in the book have resonated with my experience. It reminded me of times I prefer not to remember so well. However, I still fell in love with Mungo and his story. It was lovely, delicate, and harsh, just like real life. Violence is almost a character by itself in Young Mungo, it gives birth to characters and shapes them, their actions, and their bodies. It is a powerful reading experience that sometimes resonates with our own scars. I can only give