review
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Focus, Balance & Top Reads of 2025
Your body’s sense of balance relies on several complex systems. Most of these systems, like your inner ear and the nerves in your core, are reflexive, requiring no active thought. The main exception (for most) is visual stimulus. Our eyes… Continue reading
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The Anthropocene Reviewed: Reflection
The first time I became aware of John Green, I was choking back loud, messy sobs in my room at two in the morning. I was eighteen, it was 2012, and I’d just stayed up engrossed in his breakout hit… Continue reading
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On a Sunbeam: Reflection
There’s a prevailing idea in the literary scene that comics and graphic novels have no place amongst capital “L” Literature. It’s not surprising– after all, these are the same people who turn up their noses at genre fiction and romance,… Continue reading
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Anxious People: Reflection
There was a funny moment last year when, in the introduction for March’s Book of the Month Conversations With Friends, I rallied against judging a book by its cover. Determined to get over my own prejudices, I’d chosen Sally Rooney’s… Continue reading
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Somebody’s Daughter: Reflection
Typically, when reading for the Book of the Month Club, I finish before my partner. I have a strict timeline for finishing. My partner, not so much. Sometimes, if he’s unsure about a genre or author, he’ll wait for me… Continue reading
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The Sympathizer: Reflection
“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds. I am not some misunderstood mutant from a comic book or a horror movie, although some… Continue reading
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Mexican Gothic: Reflection
Gothic literature has been following the same tropes for centuries: old, dilapidated mansions filled with secrets; wealthy families fallen from grace; oil paintings illuminated by candelabra in a thunderstorm; young heroines, fleeing into the night in terror. Since the late… Continue reading
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Americanah: Reflection
About halfway through Americanah, we see the origin of Ifemelu’s blog, “Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black”. She makes her first post and checks the stats a little later. Nine… Continue reading
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The Collected Schizophrenias: Reflection
“In my peer education courses I was taught to say that I am a person with schizoaffective disorder. “Person-first language” suggests that there is a person in there somewhere without the delusion and the rambling and the catatonia. But what… Continue reading
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On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: Reflection
I finished On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous sitting in the passenger seat of my car. The tollway roared beneath me. Closing the book, I looked out over the empty land blurring past my window and said to my partner, “God… Continue reading
Tea Reads 