welcome to the azalea garden!

A month late, but such is life. I’m hoping to start writing enough over the course of each month that I’ve got wrap-up post ready to go the first, but that certainly wasn’t the case for February’s reading and it won’t be for March’s either. But it’s no big deal if not, considering this is a hobby, not an obligation.

Overall, I read eleven books, and many of them were even good! My thing about February has been, like, picking up books that aren’t good, that if I’d known that the contents would be either a slog or outright shit, I would’ve avoided them, but once I was in I was too compelled to give up. So fortunately it wasn’t the usual sunk-cost fallacy that so often has me trudging through books I want to abandon.

My reading for the month was: Afghan Women: Identity and Invasion by Elaheh Rostami-Povey; God in Pink by Hassan Namir; Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country by Emily Tesh; The Death of a Beekeeper by Lars Gustafsson, translated by Janet K. Swaffar and Guntram H. Weber; Famished by Anna Vaught; Coming Out of the Dark: A Memoir of DID, Self-Acceptance, and Healing by Pat Suzie Tennent; When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz; A Night to Slay For by Petra Pine; and Witch Hat Atelier volumes 12-13 by Kamome Shirahama.

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Afghan Women: Identity and Invasion was a very interesting and informative read! It says some questionable things about “Western” feminism, but I don’t expect the average, everyday woman to be familiar with the array of intricacies, nuances, and variations found within feminists movements in any country or region of the world, let alone when it comes to feminism from outside their and/or their family’s country of origin. And even with that aside, Afghans have no reason whatsoever to view the West with any degree of charity.

At the start, the author discloses that, while her book exists to amplify the voices of Afghan women on the subject of gender equality and women’s suffrage in Afghanistan, as well as the gendered struggles of Afghan diaspora women in both other neighboring nations and in the US and UK, she herself is Iranian-British and thus isn’t able to speak on anything conveyed to her with direct personal experience. In fact, her personal opinions don’t come through at all; if she has strong agreements or disagreements with any perspectives presented in the text, it doesn’t come through. She set out to write a book about the state of women’s lives and gender relations in Afghanistan prior to Western invasion and occupation, what women were doing to work towards equality and how they empowered themselves in whatever ways were available to them, and the massive negative impact invasion/occupation had not just on Afghanistan in general but how women specifically were impacted.

I learned a lot, but none of it was particularly surprising. Almost everyone living in the West with no connection Afghanistan have countless massive blind spots with regard to it and the West’s impact on it—and, honestly, on the entirety of that region of the world – but if you know anything of the US’s imperialism, you’ll never be surprised.

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God in Pink fucking sucks. It’s gay, sure, but it’s also super homophobic. The writing is painfully drab, and despite having two first-person POVs, it’s the same dull narrative voice through the whole thing. I complained about it a lot in my StoryGraph review of it.

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Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country were both super fun. I picked up Silver in the Wood from the library shortly after it came out but forgot to read it, and I’m glad I remembered to come back to it. It doesn’t have much by way of actual substance, either in terms of characters or plot, but the atmosphere is immaculate. Each word creates a beautiful, wonderful world that feels like a dark fairytale. It’s all so beautiful. Usually vibes are totally worthless to me without plenty of actual substance, but this duology is an exception. It’s really good.

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The Death of a Beekeeper is dogshit. Not good at all. Thank god the beekeeper died, it’s a shame he didn’t die sooner so the book could be shorter. Review here. It sucks ass.

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Famished could’ve been good but it really wasn’t. Vaught’s writing style doesn’t click with me, but even if it did, she sucks at writing short stories. I’m sure if she wrote a novella or a full novel it could be good. Review here.

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Coming Out of the Dark is such a complicated one to talk about. It isn’t written well, desperately needed more editing, and isn’t really what it says on the tin, but I’m glad it exists. I know from firsthand experience how hard it is to accept you’ve experienced ritual abuse, let alone to talk about it publicly, so above all I’m glad Tennent was able to acknowledge the ways she was traumatized and found the courage to tell her story publicly. Review here.

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When My Brother Was an Aztec was… very difficult. I had to read it incredibly slowly because I couldn’t handle more than a bit at a time. Everyone should read it.

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A Night to Slay For is cheesy as hell and honestly not good at all but it’s a ton of fun. If you like lame mysteries, stupid twists, and/or kind of shitty media, this is the book for you. I had such a good time. It was so fun. I loved it. It sucks and I had a blast.

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Witch Hat Atelier continues to be incredibly good! Gorgeous to look like, full of interesting explorations of social issues, and intelligently and excellently executed. I don’t think I can say anything I haven’t mentioned previously so I won’t repeat myself. It’s all really good.

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I’m hoping I’ll get the March reading wrap-up within the week! And if not, oh well, it’s not like there’s any kind of obligation.