REVIEW: "Bodies of Magic" by Freya Marske (2.5)

I loved Freya Marske's The Cinder House. It created characters and a world that were interesting, funny and the story structure allowed for their growth.  This resulted in a working found family situation for the main protagonists. When I picked up Bodies of Magic, I was hoping for more. Maybe something along the lines of The Incandescent, which I adored. Instead, I got something along the lines of The Raven Scholar.

And you know what? That might just mean it's not my genre, which is fine. Preferences are real.

But there's a problem underneath the tone and pacing that goes deeper than genre mismatch. It's about what the book borrows and what it refuses to reckon with.

Bodies of Magic has a genuinely compelling mystery at its core: a brilliant student is dead, and there are institutional incentives to hide the death: keep students enrolled another year, keep the funding flowing, protect the academy's reputation. That's a meaty plot. There's real corruption there, real stakes. The detective work of uncovering what happened and why the institution had reason to want fail talented students training to meet a role that is in short supply in their world is really the book could sing.

And parts of it do. The mystery itself works. But the execution fractures everywhere else.

The protagonists swing between reading as young teenagers and college students gone wild -- not convincingly as both, not even convincingly as either one. The resolution doesn't feel earned; the villain makes a confession in front of a room of people without the setup to land it. The supporting cast feels ineffectual in ways that undermine rather than complicate the narrative.

These are craft problems, and they're real problems. But underneath them sits something that troubles me more.

In the real world -- the one you and I live in, the one Freya Marske lives in -- there are people who believe that physical illness can be healed through metaphysical, spiritual, or faith-based means instead of medicine. This isn't a metaphor. It isn't a thought experiment. It's a functioning ideology with practitioners and consequences.

Christian Science. Medical neglect in faith-healing churches. Anti-vax communities. The logic is the same: the body can be healed by belief, by prayer, by spiritual alignment, or, in this book's framing, by having the right magical gift.

The novel's portrayal of "healers" who cure illness through magical circles, humming, and singing risks romanticizing faith healing while overlooking its real-world consequences. Medical neglect is not limited to refusing vaccines; it can mean denying children doctors, hospitals, diagnostic tests, appropriate medicines, and even basic treatment for fever and pain. When serious illnesses are left untreated, the result can be preventable death, permanent hearing loss, neurological injury, developmental or behavioral difficulties, chronic disability, and lifelong suffering. The fantasy may present healing rituals as effective, but in real life, replacing evidence-based medical care with prayer or ritual can have devastating consequences, especially for children who cannot make that choice for themselves.

This is the ideology Bodies of Magic borrows and validates. The book tries to create distance by inventing fictitious ailments (phantomes, for instance) but it doesn't create enough distance. The logic remains unchanged: the body can be healed through non-material, non-scientific means, without ever engaging with how medicine actually works. The mechanism is magic instead of prayer, but the underlying delusion is identical.

The worldbuilding picks and chooses what exists based on plot convenience and aesthetic preference, not coherence.

Consider the infrastructure: the book includes hospitals, gyms, boxing clubs, self-defense training, pianos, and institutional bureaucracy sophisticated enough to set retirement ages at 70. Healers are revered as an elite, essential profession, yet they coexist with all these other systems. Why would a society have hospitals if magical healing works? Why gyms, why physical training, why concern about bodies at all? Why pianos and gymnasiums but also medieval garments and archaic names? Why sophisticated enough institutions to raise the retirement age, but not sophisticated enough to have a postal service—relying instead on wax seals on messenger-delivered notes?

While there's a non-binary character -- there's also repeated references to "whorish" as a pejorative descriptor (esp as related to short hair styles - sort of a 1950s/medieval-coded misogyny and shame-based sexual control) interspersed with olympian sexual exploits across characters.

Compare this to Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea, where magic students attend school and academy but remain embedded in society.  These magicians are revered for their skill as they would be for any other trade, integrated rather than separated, valued and relied upon as essential workers. That's a coherent world.

Bodies of Magic doesn't want coherence. It wants the aesthetic of medieval oppression (archaic clothing, gendered shame, class hierarchy, elite separation) layered over modern institutional infrastructure (hospitals, gyms, retirement systems). It borrows the visual and emotional texture of oppression without committing to understanding what any of it actually means.

And the faith-healing system is just the most ideologically charged example of this pattern.  The world also features elite hoarding of essential services as window dressing -- entire geographic areas are without proper medical care in this world.

By treating magical medicine as a functional, glamorous reality for an elite group of college students, the narrative unintentionally validates the internal logic of real-world faith healers. It proposes a world where the people who reject standard medicine are actually right—they just have access to something better. Everyone else just doesn't have the gift.

For anyone who has lived with the devastating, permanent consequences of that real-world delusion, this doesn't read as a fun magical escape. 

I'm not arguing that fantasy needs literal scientific accuracy. A hyperdrive is ridiculous. Enchanted swords are ridiculous. Dragons are ridiculous. Fantasy invents abstract impossibilities constantly, and that's the entire point.

But there's a difference between inventing an impossibility and borrowing a real-world ideology that has a body count.

A hyperdrive doesn't exist, and no one is dying because their parents tried to build one instead of taking them to the ER. It's pure invention. Harmless imagination.

A system where physical illnesses are treated through metaphysical, spiritual, or faith-based means? That's not pure invention. That's stepping directly into territory occupied by real, living people who use that exact logic to justify medical neglect.

The distinction isn't about realism. It's about tonal responsibility. When you borrow a real-world delusion that actively kills children and wrap it in aspirational, lighthearted narrative, you're not creating a fun alternate magic system. You're fulfilling a fantasy of a world where the people who reject medicine are actually right. That's not a neutral choice.

Bodies of Magic isn't a bad book. It has solid mystery structure, and the author clearly knows how to craft a narrative (see: The Cinder House).

But the premise is irresponsible, and the execution doesn't reckon with that irresponsibility. The tone stays light. The romance keeps the focus on interpersonal drama rather than systemic harm. The resolution is neat and unsatisfying.

2.5 stars feels right: good bones undone by a lack of tonal responsibility.

Maybe that's fine for readers who come to fantasy for escape and aren't carrying the specific trauma of having watched faith-healing ideology destroy people they love. Maybe for those readers, magical medicine is just another ridiculous trope, no different from a hyperdrive.

REVIEW: Oathbound by Tracey Deonn (2-stars)

I read Legendborn and Bloodmarked specifically because Oathbound is a Hugo nominee. Without that context, I wouldn't understand the extent of what's gone wrong.

The most obvious sign is textual. Across the trilogy, Deonn relies on a single formulaic construction to describe facial expressions: [facial feature] + quirk/quirked. In Legendborn, this appears 8 times. In Bloodmarked, 7 times. In Oathbound, it escalates to 15 instances (14 "mouth quirks," 1 "eyebrow quirking"). A human writer naturally varies: smirk, grin, curve, twist, tighten, narrow. Instead, this book locks into a template structure applied across different body parts, which could be a tell that the author is reading a lot of romantasy (I read somewhere it's a trendy term) or just has an editing blind spot. This pattern escalation across a 656-page book is not stylistic choice; it's mechanical repetition. But the textual issues point to larger structural collapse.

The book abandons every piece of emotional infrastructure established in the previous books. Bree's father doesn't appear at all. There's no acknowledgment of where he's been while his daughter has been missing for 8-12 months. Alice, who was observant and strategic in the previous book, is injured and falls into a coma where she is reliving her own death in some kind of purgatory-equivalent. Alice appears to exist only as motivation for Mariah's quest and involvement in the plot tangles. Edwin, Bree's father, gets brought back extremely late in the book through an enchanted ring that connects him with his dead wife. He goes willingly because of that spiritual connection. But then he just disappears from the narrative. He's acknowledged just enough to close a plot loop, then discarded.

This third book doesn't resolve the actual story. Bree entered a mentor-protégé relationship with the Shadow King. She chose to stay with him, to self-erase her memories of her other life to become "untouchable." That's psychologically complex territory: what happens when a traumatized girl decides the only way to survive is to disappear into power. But the book doesn't interrogate that. Instead it piles on seventeen other threads: the Crown, the collectors' auction, the gene therapy conspiracy, the trafficking of underage magical girls, the Whodunnit hotel lockdown. The actual story, the psychological fallout of Bree's choice to erase herself, gets buried under plot noise.

Descriptions of clothing and hair that aren't thematic anymore.  There are multiple paragraphs just describing outfits. There’s repeated backstory repeating from previous books, and internally (at least three sections describing a Medium’s capabilities).  In this book – the first person narration rotates across a pile of secondary characters including Natasia, William, Mariah, & Nick – a choice that dilutes rather than deepens Bree’s story. Natasia's chapters don't advance understanding; they just add pages. Emil is introduced, solves a plot problem by tunneling underground, and disappears with Bree's relief. He's a plot device, not a character.

The gender breakdown bothers me: all the root craft practitioners -- save Emil, who exists only to move earth -- are women. If that's intentional, it's saying something about gendered access to certain magic. Root magic as women's magic. That could be sophisticated thematic work. Instead, it's just there, unexamined.

The trafficking element also bothers me. Why underage magical girls? Why not adults with suppressed or latent powers? An adult woman on antidepressants who doesn't know she has access to root craft—that's a story about how medical systems suppress female power. Or even menopausal women who can’t figure out why they feel the way they do (it is the opposite end of teenage development afterall, leaving fertility vs moving into fertility). Instead, Deonn targets children who can be "shaped" into tools. One is a story about reclamation. The other is a story about containment. She chose containment.

The heteronormativity is frustrating. Bree's caught in a love triangle between Nick and Selwyn, and the book treats it as inevitable that she must choose one or the other. Why can't she be in love with both of them? Why can't they agree to share? The book forces a binary choice for no reason except to enforce cultural norms of jealousy.

The conclusion doesn't resolve anything. The Whodunnit hotel lockdown where the host tortures and kills people on stage while guests stand around under mesmerizing forces? The logic falls apart. Why would anyone stay? The Crown turns out to be a Maguffin. The Shadow King bargain has vague consequences. The whole thing feels like it was written under severe time pressure—plot beats checked off, character arcs abandoned, thematic work buried under filler.

I'm rating this 2 stars because a Hugo nominee should demand better editing, better structural decision-making, and a clearer understanding of what story it's actually telling. This book does none of those things. It's 656 pages of potential buried under padding and pattern repetition. The fact that no one seems to be asking whether this was AI-assisted—or at minimum heavily revised under deadline—is its own problem.

REVIEW: Oathbound by Tracey Deonn 

RATING: 2-stars

REVIEW: Bloodmarked by Tracey Deonn (2.5 stars)

 Legendborn set up something genuinely specific: a 16-year-old who's grieving, intellectually advanced enough to do early college, suddenly pulled into a hidden magical world. She's fitting in with older students, proving herself academically, dealing with her mother's death, and managing phone calls from her dad who grounds her in reality. That friction between normal teen life and exceptional circumstances is what made the first book work.

Bloodmarked expands the world, but it loses the girl at the center of it. Halfway through this book, college has become scenery. Her father is barely present. The smart teen navigating exceptional circumstances—which is actually rich territory—gets flattened into magical plot escalation. The grief becomes motivation rather than something Bree is actually processing.

The ancestral magic system is genuinely interesting and represents the book's strongest footing. Vera was the enslaved first ancestor who made the original deal—a prayer for safety and protection while pregnant and escaping. The Hunter heard that prayer, hijacked it, and agreed to a pact that binds every daughter in her lineage, including Bree, to him forever (aside:  seems like a major disincentive to pray if it's a party line with eavesdropping demons). The women in Bree's bloodline have all died relatively young—some in childbirth—and they were warned to avoid tapping into the ancestral power altogether, trying to shield their daughters from the death sentence they inherited. But Bree, as the King, can't avoid it. She has to use the very power that's killing her bloodline. Arthur himself possesses Bree at times, another layer of violation and control over her body. She has to fight her way out of his dream world with Nick and Selwyn to reclaim her own agency. 

That's sophisticated territory: how a Black woman inherits not just power but the violence embedded in that power—slavery, rape, a demonic pact, and a curse of early death. The book also explores how demons exploit language in negotiations, preferring to leave things open-ended while those with less power have to be meticulous with every word. Accessing the magic costs your life. It's sharp work about how power structures exploit vulnerability. Bree's hair as an expression of her power is thematically sharp too. When she channels energy, her carefully styled hair erupts wild and loose. That's not just description; that's her interiority made visible. The gene therapy element adds something sinister.

But then Bree burns it all down at the climax. She destroys her ancestral streams. It's devastating and desperate and born from real rage. And then the book doesn't actually explore that. Instead of sitting with the psychological and magical fallout of severing all connection to her ancestors—which is genuinely complex territory—Book 2 just piles on more plot. More magic system exposition. More descriptions of clothing and hair that aren't doing any thematic work. More repeated explanations of what a "Medium" is, as if readers forgot. 

The structural problems run deeper. Two 16-year-olds in an early college program, away from home, in a dorm with minimal adult oversight, participate in hazing rituals that cause serious physical injury. The only adults present are either distant and ineffective or openly hostile to Bree's authority. The Order itself—the secret society that's supposed to accept her based on their own rules and traditions —doesn't accept a Black girl as their King. That institutional racism and sexism is a wall the teenagers have to battle from within their own organization. Bree's grandmother living in her head is not parental protection; it's neglect with a magical gloss. Her father was her emotional anchor in book 1. In book 2, he's gone. 

When the malicious adults on campus become a direct threat, they flee and end up as a “last resort” at The Crossroads, a supernatural bar where they encounter a Cambion proprietor in their search for the story’s equivalent of a powerful sorceresss in the rootcraft world. Alice does heavy lifting here - she's observant, strategic, worried about real-world consequences. She sees fraud being committed by an employee and uses that information to negotiate their way out with the proprietor. She saves them. And then at the final battle at the climax - Alice gets injured and falls into a coma. Her competence is demonstrated and then she's neutralized and completely sidelined for the next book. She ends up as a plot device or motivation for other people's quests (like Mariah). That's not character development. That's abandonment of the infrastructure that made book 1 matter. 

The romantic intensity described here reads like an adult's fantasy of what teen attraction should feel like, not what it actually is. The book expects this restrained physicality to carry emotional weight it hasn't earned through interiority.

And there's the Morgaine/Morgana problem: Deonn perpetuates the patriarchal Arthurian trope where Morgana has to be the villain. Marion Zimmer Bradley showed decades ago that you can retell this legend by centering Morgaine's agency and politics. Instead, the Morgaines here are just malicious adults extracting value from the young. They're not complex. They're functional antagonists. That was a choice.

Ultimately, Bloodmarked had the bones of a stronger book. The ancestral magic system was compelling. The college setting grounded the magical stakes. The grief was real. The smart teen navigating both normal and exceptional pressures was genuinely worth exploring. But instead of deepening those threads, the book widened the magical plot and lost the girl. It set up a devastating choice about ancestral connection and then buried the fallout under 400 pages of unnecessary description and repeated exposition. 

I'm rating this 2.5 because the potential is there. But the execution abandoned the original premise that mattered.

REVIEW: "Legendborn" by Tracey Deonn (3-stars)

This was my first Tracy Deonn book — I’m reading the series because the third one is a Hugo nominee — and Oathbound definitely gives me the context I needed. The worldbuilding is ambitious: grief, generational trauma, and a whole modern network of Arthurian descendants (apparently thousands of them, mostly in the U.S.) operating out of UNC like a magical Highlander chapter. There’s even a Hunger Games–style competition element, where the fate of the world hinges on getting the right supporters aligned with the right scions.

I alternated between audiobook and ebook, and the “Southern” accents in the audio were rough. I lived in the South for four years, and these sounded more like caricatures than actual regional voices.

The YA framing also feels strained. These are 16‑year‑olds in dorms with almost no adult oversight, navigating hazing, injuries, and adult‑coded emotional intensity. Bree’s grandmother “in her head” is meant to function as guidance, but it reads more like narrative neglect. The racialized “blood vs root” magic divide doesn’t hold up under scrutiny — both sides bind, both gatekeep, both hide their histories — so the binary feels more ideological than real.

There’s also a lot of focus on hair, clothes, and outfits. I know this is a common YA trope, but it doesn’t add much here. The scene where Bree tries on eleven dresses for a fancy secret‑society gala wasn’t tense — just personally terrifying to me. I’ve never understood why these books treat dress‑up moments as emotionally essential; it feels like padding rather than character insight.

As a GenX reader who grew up on The Mists of Avalon, I’m also tired of the default patriarchal trope where Morgaine/Morgana’s descendants are automatically coded as “evil.” Deonn didn’t have to perpetuate that. Given that the first book already revealed that people in power were lying — and were responsible for opening the hell gate — I’m hoping the Morgaine lineage is another place where the official story is false and we’re going to see that lie unravel in later books.

But overall, I did think this was an interesting Arthurian retelling. Making a young girl the “King” — and having Arthur literally possess her — adds a compelling gender‑transcendent angle to the myth. The way characters refer to Bree as their King is one of the more refreshing updates to the Arthurian canon.

I appreciate the way Deonn reimagines Arthurian power through Bree — not just in terms of gender, but perceived race. Having a young Black girl become “King,” and having Arthur literally possess her, reframes the myth in a way that acknowledges slavery, rape, escape, and generational trauma while also redefining who gets to inherit power. It’s one of the more interesting updates to the Arthurian world, and I’m curious to see how far the series pushes that idea.

Interesting world, uneven execution. I just hope the next books don’t repeat too much backstory (a la late‑series Harry Potter, which bloats with recap every volume).

REVIEW: "Legendborn" by Tracey Deonn

RATING: 3-stars

REVIEW: "Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves" by Sophie Gilbert 2025 (3 stars)

What Girl on Girl Misses — and Why the Context Matters

Sophie Gilbert’s Girl on Girl raises compelling questions about comparison, competition, and the ways women learn to see themselves through the eyes of others. Her cultural analysis is sharp and, at times, painfully resonant—especially in her exploration of homogenized beauty standards, the commodification of empowerment, and the pressures amplified by visual media. These examples matter; they’re part of the lived reality of contemporary womanhood in the U.S.

But Girl on Girl is also a very specific slice of culture—rooted squarely in U.S. mainstream pop culture and overwhelmingly centered on white, middle-class, millennial experience. And without deeper grounding in the systems that produce these pressures, its arguments risk confusing the medium for the message, attributing cultural shifts to the platforms that broadcast them rather than the forces that shape them.

This isn’t a failure of observation. It’s a failure of context. And that’s the heart of my frustration with the book.

Gilbert details how today’s visual culture—Instagram, reality TV, celebrity aesthetics—encourages women to benchmark themselves against a narrow, commodified ideal of femininity. She’s right that beauty “is for sale,” referencing industries in the U.S. and Brazil that promise transformation through consumption: hair, lashes, cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, luxury wellness, and endless self-optimization.

But this phenomenon didn’t begin with millennials, nor with digital culture.

Long before ring lights and filters, beauty in the U.S. functioned as a market-regulated system of value—something women were expected to invest in as a form of social and economic capital. Gilbert herself quotes Tressie McMillan Cottom’s insight at the beginning of Chapter 5: “Beauty isn’t what you actually look like; beauty is the preferences that reproduce the existing social order.”

This line—framed in Girl on Girl but underexplored—points directly to larger structures.  These aren’t just cultural quirks—they’re baked into bigger systems. White supremacy sets the rules, capitalism cashes in, perfectionism keeps us striving, and American exceptionalism tells us it’s all our fault if we don’t measure up.

In this context, beauty is not merely cultural. It is political and economic.

Marshall McLuhan famously said, “the medium is the message.” Gilbert, however, often flips this—treating the medium (porn, Instagram, reality TV) as if it were the cause of women’s suffering, rather than the conduit for ideologies that long predate those technologies.

• Porn did not invent sexualized expectations of women.

• Reality television did not invent beauty hierarchies.

• Instagram did not invent comparison.

These platforms amplify, accelerate, and intensify what the culture already demands. By attributing relational difficulties, sexual scripts, and self-worth issues primarily to media exposure, Girl on Girl risks implying that the problem lies in women’s “overconsumption” of harmful images rather than in the systems generating those images in the first place.

Media are mirrors, not architects.

Much of Girl on Girl reads like a chronological catalogue of pop culture, weaving together celebrity moments, viral trends, and reality-TV storylines. A significant portion of the book is also devoted to detailed descriptions of sexualized imagery and violations against women, which, while illustrating cultural pressures, can feel sensationalized and at times overshadow attempts at systemic analysis.

While Gilbert’s examples of beauty, comparison, and commodified empowerment are compelling, they are also largely drawn from a very specific cultural context. Much of her analysis centers on U.S. reality television, celebrity culture, corporate feminism (#Girlboss, Lean In), Instagram aesthetics, and narratives about ambition and beauty. This narrow focus highlights the pressures experienced by a particular slice of society, but it can make the patterns she identifies feel culturally specific rather than reflective of broader, systemic dynamics.

This matters because it makes the analysis feel culturally specific rather than structurally universal. The pressures she describes—competition, comparison, and self-surveillance—exist globally, but the forms they take vary widely across class, race, nationality, and culture.

By treating these pressures as if they are primarily millennial phenomena shaped by social media and pornography, the book overlooks deeper continuities across generations and histories of patriarchal control. These tensions are not new. They are simply newly branded, turbo charged and monetized.

Gilbert references racial disparities but doesn’t fully integrate intersectionality into her argument. The experience of beauty and comparison is profoundly shaped by race, class, disability, and nationality—but Girl on Girl remains focused on the dominant narrative of white, U.S.-based feminine insecurity.

And while the book centers women, a broader sociological view reveals that men and boys are also being shaped—and harmed—by these systems.

And it’s not just women.  In her book Men Who Hate Women, Laura Bates shows how boys and men are also trapped in these systems—though their pain often gets weaponized instead of commodified. These forces flow from the same systems of patriarchy and capitalism. The pressure to perform masculinity, to dominate rather than connect, to seek status through appearance or achievement—these are also forms of gendered control.

Girl on Girl is thought-provoking and at times emotionally powerful. Gilbert is deeply attuned to the lived experiences of comparison, aspiration, and insecurity among contemporary women. Her observations ring true—because the cultural patterns she highlights absolutely shape the world we live in.

But the story she tells is only one layer of a much larger structure.

Beauty standards, competitive femininity, curated empowerment, and the commodification of selfhood are not new problems created by digital media. They are expressions of systems that long preceded the technologies that now broadcast them.

When we focus on the images, we risk missing the architecture. The question is not simply why women compare themselves, but who benefits from a society in which women (and increasingly men) are: perfectible, self-surveilling, relentlessly optimizing, and continuously investing in their own inadequacy. The problem is not women looking at the “wrong screens.” The problem is the systems that built the screens—and profit when women lose themselves in the reflection. That’s why, for me, Girl on Girl is powerful but incomplete. It captures the feeling of living inside the mirror—but doesn’t fully explain who built it, nor what a better world would look like.

REVIEW:  "Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves" by Sophie Gilbert  2025 

RATING: 3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Smitten: Romantic Obsession, the Neuroscience of Limerence, and How to Make Love Last by Tom Bellamy (2.5 stars)

I came to Smitten curious about the psychology of limerence — that intense, euphoric, often obsessive state that masquerades as love. While I don’t doubt limerence exists, this book offers more breadth than depth. It’s readable and occasionally insightful, but lacks original research and leans heavily on secondary sources. For a book that claims to explore the neuroscience of love, it feels more like pop psychology than rigorous analysis.

One of the book’s core issues is that it tries to do too much for too many audiences. Is it a basic primer on limerence? A neuroscience explainer? A self-help guide for people suffering from limerent obsession? It’s unclear. These goals could have been better served by splitting the material into separate books or at least distinct sections with more focus. As it stands, Smitten reads more like a collection of long blog posts than a cohesive, well-structured work.

Bellamy is clear that limerence is not a mental illness:

“Experiencing limerence is not a symptom of mental illness, a psychological wound or an emotional failing. For most limerents it is a normal part of the process of falling in love, albeit with a force that has a fierce and alarming power.” (Chapter 5)

He also addresses attachment theory, noting that while limerence is often associated with anxious attachment, it’s not exclusive to it:

“More than half of the population who do not have an anxious attachment style are limerents. But—and it is a big but!—eight out of ten people who have anxious attachments are limerents.” (Chapter 6)

Bellamy introduces a taxonomy of archetypes who supposedly attract limerent individuals — the damsel in distress, tortured soul, agent of chaos, bad boy/girl, the rock, the leader, the guru, the free spirit, the mysterious stranger. These are interesting sketches, but the framing implies intentional manipulation. In reality, these people may just be living out their own unresolved narratives. As I wrote in my notes: “Maybe they just have their own movie going.”

One of the few moments that rang true for me was in Chapter 14, where Bellamy writes:

“Limerence fades. Regardless of how spectacular the thrills are at the beginning of a relationship, expecting that euphoric connection to last more than a few months is unrealistic. Quite apart from how exhausting it would become, it doesn't make sense from an evolutionary perspective. Limerence is the drive to form a pair bond tight enough to result in conception; it has no real role in making it last.”

This echoed something I told an ex who broke up with me after more than two years together because “we get along too well, you’re too nice to me.” We were compatible intellectually, physically, emotionally — but they said, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” When I asked what being in love meant to him, they described a pattern of unreciprocated obsession that lasted “until they blocked my number/stopped speaking to me.” That’s not romance — that’s limerence as compulsion.

Chapter 15 is even titled “I love you but I’m not in love with you,” but instead of exploring the emotional fallout of that statement, it focuses on infidelity and the vulnerability of limerent individuals to extramarital obsession. It’s a missed opportunity to unpack how limerence can sabotage healthy relationships — not because the partner is lacking, but because the limerent person is chasing a feeling that’s unsustainable.

In Chapter 16, Bellamy suggests channeling limerent energy into self-improvement. This reminded me of my ex’s cycles of intense infatuation — not just with people, but with hobbies. He would dive deep into culinary knives and sharpening techniques, then Afro-Cuban drumming, then pottery. These weren’t casual interests; they were full-blown obsessions. I can’t help but see a connection between limerence and adult ADHD — especially the dopamine-driven novelty-seeking, emotional impulsivity, and hyperfocus that characterize both.

Chapter 17 introduces a “recovery mindset,” reminding readers that “limerence is happening in your head” — that it’s the limerent person who makes the object seem special. Bellamy advises readers to “check your instincts,” avoid self-medication, and accept that you can’t “just be friends” with a limerent object. He encourages building a life of purpose, listing traits like honesty, self-awareness, openness to renewal, courage to face discomfort, an internal locus of control, decisiveness, and action orientation.

“Creating a life without limerence... may not be as flashy and exciting as the thrills of limerence, but it is a deeper, more profound contentment. Finding a purpose, a goal you care about, a vision of what your life could be like if you took control of your destiny, shifts you from a state of passive dependency to one of active motivation. Living with purpose means you stop depending on the LO for comfort, stop following their lead, stop letting their behavior dictate your mood.”

This is solid advice — and probably the book’s strongest section — but it comes late and without much psychological depth. Bellamy doesn’t explore how neurodivergence, trauma, or attachment styles might shape limerent behavior. Nor does he offer tools for people who are in relationships with limerents — those of us who are “too nice,” too stable, too real to compete with the fantasy.

In the end, Smitten is readable and occasionally insightful, but it left me wanting more. More research, more nuance, more empathy for the people caught in the wake of limerent obsession. It made me want to revisit Dorothy Tennov’s original work — and to seek out more rigorous writing on the psychology of love, obsession, and neurodivergence.

REVIEW: Smitten by Tom Bellamy

RATING: 2.5-3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2 stars)

I just finished The Ministry for the Future, and I have mixed feelings. It’s an ambitious book — sprawling, complex, and clearly the product of deep research and imagination. I applaud Robinson for tackling such a monumental subject: climate collapse and humanity’s response. But despite being lauded as one of the greatest living sci-fi authors, this book didn’t feel like science fiction to me. It’s more speculative policy fiction, with a dash of spy thriller and philosophical musing thrown in.

One of my biggest issues was the structure. The book felt like several overlapping novels crammed into one:

• A climate disaster narrative
• A geopolitical and economic reform manifesto
• A techno-utopian think piece
• A covert ops thriller with black organizations and assassination attempts

Each of these could have been its own compelling story, and I honestly think this would have worked better as a trilogy. The Children of Kali subplot, for example, was fascinating — a morally ambiguous look at eco-terrorism — but it felt underdeveloped in the context of everything else going on.

The short chapters that read like technology riddles or philosophical interludes were, frankly, useless to me. They broke the flow and didn’t add much. I found myself skimming them, wondering why they were included at all.

Then there’s the language. Robinson occasionally uses made-up or obscure terms like “stocktake” instead of “inventory.” Who says “stocktake”? Nobody. That kind of jargon pulled me out of the narrative and made the book feel unnecessarily academic or bureaucratic.

That said, some of the proposed solutions were genuinely intriguing and thought-provoking:

• Seeding clouds for rain or solar cover
• Deploying biological agents to disrupt animal agriculture
• Sabotaging fossil fuel-intensive industries like air travel
• Heavily taxing cement production
• Dismantling dying small towns and converting the land into wildlife preserves
• Reclaiming highways and turning pavement into gravel for use elsewhere

These ideas were bold and imaginative, and I appreciated the effort to think outside the box. But many transitions — like the shift from jet travel to hot air balloons — were glossed over. What were the trade-offs? How did that become viable? Similarly, the book hints at a global population decline but never quantifies it, which weakens the impact of the societal changes Robinson describes.

The Ministry itself is a compelling concept — a UN-adjacent body with moral authority but limited power. But its evolution, and the shadowy black ops subplot, felt like they belonged in a different genre. The espionage elements were gripping but disconnected from the rest of the book’s tone.

Ultimately, The Ministry for the Future is a book I respect more than I enjoyed. It’s full of ideas — some brilliant, some half-baked — and it’s clearly written with urgency and passion. But as a novel, it’s uneven, fragmented, and often frustrating. I’d recommend it to readers deeply interested in climate policy, geoengineering, and speculative futures — but not necessarily to fans of traditional sci-fi or character-driven storytelling.

REVIEW: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

RATING: 2 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender (3 stars)

 I enjoyed this book as an audio book - and it did a fair job of covering the risks of falling for the "AI is inevitable" nonsense.  The authors do a great job of pointing out the real issues of using LLMs as a "one size fits all" in law, medicine, health management, journalism, art, academia, scientific research and other areas.  LLMs need to have better transparency and more "human in the middle" (a term I was waiting for them to use).  They authors do a good job explaining the topics but miss an opportunity to describe things like "Value Sensitive Design" and "Human Centered-AI." 

They mention that about 16 oz of water is used for every LLM prompt - but fail to dig deeper into the real impact on people in areas where data centers are demanding use priority over limited aquifer resources.  There is a quote about how some tech billionaire mentions that AI will be used to analyze x-rays and images.  While the authors mention that studies show medical imaging jobs are predicted to be one of the faster growing fields, they fail to tie together the two thoughts:  the tech bros WANT that business.  They want to take over that field and push people out.  The reality is that we need the "human in the middle" to ensure quality.  Recent studies of doctors lose the skills of reading imaging when they become dependent on AI, just like humans miss out on critical thinking tasks required in generating meeting notes or writing their own assignments.

The recommendations provided by the authors are not novel - and they are covered in other works on the topic I have read.  They also mention Cory Doctorow a lot, and it seems he supports an idea I have been trying to float whenever I talk about AI:  more task or topic specific small language models are needed. 

AI is hurting a lot of people's jobs and churning out garbage that nobody wants to read or look at.  Demand better from your employers, schools and companies that provide you software that you use for your day-to-day.  The authors tell people to opt out when they can - from using AI (even facial recognition at airports) - and mercilessly mock and call out bad AI generated content.

Not included in this book is my recommendation:  demand that businesses do better and provide transparency about the amount of natural resources consumed for every session, whether it is your search on Google, or using Co-Pilot to polish some copy in your memo.  This should be transparent and visible to end users, system managers (ie, in enterprise or academic settings) and aggregate impact should be visible to the entire world.  Companies all got on the green bandwagon over the last several decades and promised to improve their greenouse gas emissions and energy consumption but AI is leading them all in the opposite direction. 

People over profits, always!

REVIEW: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender

RATING: 3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman (4 stars)

Jennifer Ackerman’s "What an Owl Knows" is a compelling exploration of owl biology, behavior, and conservation. I’m so glad I switched from print to audiobook—Ackerman narrates it herself and does her level best to imitate the owl calls she describes throughout the book. It adds a layer of charm and immersion that print couldn’t offer.

The book focuses heavily on conservation efforts like banding, census tracking, and public education. Ackerman emphasizes the ecological value of owls and how dispelling harmful superstitions can protect them. In Serbia, for example, urban owl colonies are now protected by the community after extensive education campaigns. She also discusses the legal and practical challenges of caring for owls. In the U.S., people can get licenses to care for owls for educational or raptor use, but the government wildlife agency still “owns” and can “recall” the owl at any time. In England, it’s legal to sell bred owls, and after the Harry Potter films, demand surged. Many people adopted owls and later abandoned them, leading to the creation of owl-specific rescues for these human-habituated birds.

Ackerman touches on owl territoriality, migration, nesting, and mating habits. She mentions cannibalism among owl chicks—stronger siblings eating weaker ones, or a parent feeding a dead owlet to its siblings—but doesn’t go into survival odds. My bird expert friend, who has two owls, told me that the chances of a baby owl surviving its first year are incredibly low. For red-tailed hawks, it’s even worse: only one in five make it to their second year.

She also talks about training owls, including their use in the Harry Potter films, and compares their trainability to cats. My owl expert friend describes owls as “cat software, bird hardware,” which feels exactly right.

While listening to the book, I learned that in the jungles of Indonesia, people use owl hoots to communicate across distances. That night, I heard owl hooting outside my window, along with a strange whistle. Half-asleep, I thought it was human ne’er-do-wells using owl calls as code. I shouted out the window, “NICE TRY! There are no owls in this neighborhood!” As I did so, I woke up fully and realized—those were actual owls. I recorded the sounds and sent them to my owl expert friend, who confirmed it was a Great Horned Owl parent and baby, probably out hunting together.

Ackerman also weaves in folklore, like Athena’s association with owls and the Egyptian hieroglyph for the letter “M” being an owl. Throughout the book, she’s clear about what it means to rescue and care for owls, and how little we truly understand about how birds think. It’s a fascinating read that whets my appetite for more information about birds. 

REVIEW: What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman 

RATING: 4 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Best Wishes from The Full Moon Coffee Shop (The Full Moon Coffee Shop, #2) by Mai Mochizuki (2-stars)

"Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop" is a glossy, whimsical novella that blends magical realism, astrology, and holiday sentimentality into a series of loosely connected vignettes. Set during Christmas and populated by gods and goddesses who shift between cat and human forms, the story feels like a blend of a Japanese fairytale and a Dickensian ghost story—with a heavy dose of aesthetic charm and celestial symbolism.

The narrative follows three main characters:

Satomi, whose boyfriend plans to propose on Christmas Eve, though she’s unsure about her future; Junko, her sister-in-law, who is estranged from her father and navigating new family dynamics (including a strangely delayed dog adoption from the café’s magical cats); and, Satori’s employee, a young woman grieving her father’s death who ultimately reconnects with her mother, stepfather, and half-brother.

Each character is guided by planetary deities who offer moral lessons tied to reincarnation, forgiveness, and personal growth. The book leans heavily on astrology, even including star charts for each character and emphasizing the ascendant sign as a marker of past-life strengths. While this may appeal to astrology enthusiasts, the execution often feels twee and overly expository.

The café staff—celestial beings in disguise—are given their own chapters, but their personalities blur together despite the effort to tie their roles to planetary movements. The result is a story that feels more like a concept pitch for an animated film than a fully realized novella. The emotional beats are present, but often feel distant or overly orchestrated.

While the book has moments of charm and visual richness, it’s weighed down by its own aesthetic and moral framing. Readers looking for a cozy, magical holiday tale with strong visual and astrological themes may enjoy it, but those seeking deeper character development or narrative cohesion might find it underwhelming.

REVIEW: Best Wishes from The Full Moon Coffee Shop (The Full Moon Coffee Shop, #2) by Mai Mochizuki 

RATING: 2-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: "We'll Prescribe You A Cat" (3 Stars)

We'll Prescribe You A Cat is a collection of short stories—or so it seems at first. Each chapter introduces a new character, a new struggle, and a new cat. But as the book unfolds, the stories begin to interlace, revealing a deeper, interconnected narrative centered around the mysterious Clinic for the Soul.

The clinic itself is a marvel: it appears when you need it most, staffed by an imperious nurse and a delightfully silly vet who, instead of pills or therapy, prescribe cats. Not just any cats—the cat you didn’t know you needed. The kind that curls up in the hollow places of your life and fills them with warmth, mischief, and meaning.

The book never explains how the clinic works, where the cats come from, or why it sometimes disappears. And it doesn’t need to. The magic lies in the acceptance that healing can be whimsical, that transformation can arrive on four paws, and that sometimes the best prescription is a purring companion who chooses you.

If you’ve ever been chosen by a cat—or wished you would be—this book will feel like a warm, knowing nudge from the universe.

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida,  E. Madison Shimoda (Translator)

RATING: 3 stars

REVIEW: Stone and Sky (Rivers of London, #10) by Ben Aaronovitch (3-stars)

 I’ve been a fan of Ben Aaronovitch’s “Rivers of London” series since my good friend Matt first loaned me books 1-5 of the series many years ago.  I thoroughly enjoyed the sense of humor, the urban fantasy worldbuilding and its commitment to diversity. I have been looking forward to the latest installment in the series – which includes graphic novels and novellas.  

Unfortunately, plot and character seem to fall short in “Stone & Sky,” and I found more than a few distracting representational and structural issues that reduced my overall enjoyment.  More than previous installments in this series, this one (combined with my recent reading of the “Springtime Masquerade” and the two most recent graphic novels) illuminated questions about authenticity, authorial gaze, and the limits of metaphor in fantasy fiction.  

From uneven portrayals of queer relationships to the infantilization of magical beings, from the overuse of white male cultural references to the stylized rendering of dialect and slang, Stone & Sky reveals cracks in the series’ inclusive veneer. What emerges is a pattern of selective authenticity—where some identities are explored with depth and care, while others are flattened, exoticized, or reduced to narrative shorthand.

Queer characters have been present throughout the series—Thomas Nightingale, the emotionally reserved wizard, and Augustus “Gussie” Berrycloth-Young, a flamboyant figure in The Masquerades of Spring. Yet their romantic or sexual lives are treated with restraint, stylization, or humor. Nightingale’s queerness is acknowledged but rarely explored with emotional intimacy. Gussie is rendered as a campy, comedic figure whose attraction to men is more implied than deeply felt.

In contrast, Stone & Sky devotes significant narrative space to Abigail Kamara’s emotional and romantic attraction to Ione, a new female character. Abigail’s feelings are described with vivid emotional texture—her longing, her confusion, her desire. This disparity raises a critical question: why is a teenage girl’s same-sex attraction rendered with such depth, while adult queer male relationships remain emotionally muted?

Abigail is portrayed as a teenager in Stone & Sky, though her exact age is never explicitly stated. Based on the series’ internal timeline, she was born in 2000, which would make her 24 or 25 if the book is set in 2024–2025. However, the tone of the narrative—and the way her emotional development is framed—suggests she is still in her late teens. 

The narrative lingers on Abigail’s feelings for Ione in a way that feels less like a teenager discovering her identity and more like an adult imagining what that discovery might feel like. The emotional intensity, combined with the sensual framing, risks crossing into voyeurism -- especially given that the author, a white man in his 60s, is writing from the perspective of a teenage girl.

Writing across lines of identity—age, gender, race, sexuality—is not inherently problematic. But it requires care, humility, and a deep understanding of the lived experiences being portrayed. When a teenage girl’s romantic feelings are described with more emotional and sensual detail than any adult relationship in the series, it raises questions about authorial intent.

Is this Abigail’s authentic voice, or is it Aaronovitch’s projection of what a teenage girl might feel? The line between empathy and appropriation is thin, and in Stone & Sky, it feels increasingly blurred. The result is a portrayal that risks centering the author’s imagination more than the character’s truth. Back to Abigail’s voice in a moment.

Complicating matters further is the fact that Ione is not just a girl—she’s a siren, a magical being capable of manipulating human emotion through song. This raises a fundamental question: is Abigail’s attraction to Ione genuine, or is it the result of magical influence?

If Ione’s presence or voice can enchant anyone, then Abigail’s feelings may not be uniquely queer—or even uniquely hers. They could be induced, universal, or illusory. The narrative does not clearly interrogate this possibility, instead presenting Abigail’s emotional / hormonal / pheromonal experience as unquestionably real. This ambiguity undermines the authenticity of the queer representation the book seems to offer. If the attraction is magically induced, then it’s not a story about queer identity—it’s a story about manipulation and consent.  Is Abigail truly consenting if she’s under the influence of glamour?  Ione is presented as being at least 18 and heading off to uni – which further complicates the consent issue.  

The Rivers of London universe is populated with magical beings—faeries, selkies, talking foxes, river gods—who often serve as metaphors for marginalized or misunderstood communities. While this can be a powerful narrative device, it also risks reinforcing stereotypes through fantasy proxies.

The fae are portrayed as beautiful and emotionally distant; the foxes as tribal and cunning; the rivers as territorial and often exoticized. These portrayals can feel like stand-ins for real-world racial, ethnic, or social groups—especially when their behaviors are framed through suspicion or danger. As Borowska-Szerszun (2021) notes, Aaronovitch’s work attempts to challenge the “habits of Whiteness” in fantasy fiction but also reveals the “friction and negotiation” involved in representing difference.

When magical beings are used to explore social issues without naming them directly, it creates a safe distance for the author but also a lack of accountability in how those metaphors land.

Characterization of voice, intelligence and other traits is another very noticeable part of “Rivers of London.”  I remember the first time that I read D.H. Lawrence and couldn’t understand the dialect representation of the “lower class” manner of speaking.  Aaronovitch frequently and unevenly represents Jamaican patois, Scottish, Irish and Caribbean English phonetically as “dialect,” while “standard” British or American English is not, implying a linguistic norm and effectively othering some of the characters.  Using this technique can reinforce caricatures or reduce characters to their accents.  It also creates a power imbalance in representation – regional or ethnic pronunciations are marked as “different” or “exotic” while others are normalized.  

For example, more than in previous books in the series, Abigail’s dialogue is peppered with contemporary London slang, including terms like “bare,” “peng,” and “peak,” which are common in Multicultural London English (MLE). This is consistent with her earlier portrayals as a sharp, streetwise teen from South London who is very smart, picks up Latin and is training to be a wizard. However, in this novel, the use of slang feels exaggerated—almost performative—and stands in contrast to the way other young characters speak. Ione and her cousin Duncan, despite being close in age to Abigail, speak in a more neutral, almost formal tone (aside from occasional “Scottish as dialect” representations).

This inconsistency raises questions about why Abigail’s voice is so heavily stylized. Is it meant to emphasize her “urban” identity? If so, it risks reducing her to a stereotype—especially when other characters of similar age and background are not written with the same linguistic markers. It also reinforces a sense of “othering” within the narrative: Abigail becomes the “voice of the streets,” while others are allowed to speak more generically.

Rather shockingly – there are assertions made about the communication abilities or styles of other species / characters in the book.  The selkies—mythical seal-people—are depicted as unable to speak English. Instead, they “bark,” and their communication is described in animalistic terms. This portrayal strips them of linguistic agency and positions them as less-than-human, even though they are sentient beings with their own culture, and clearly intelligent enough to be pursued and enslaved/indentured to work on deep marine oil projects. 

This is compounded by a moment in which Beverley Brook, a river goddess and Peter’s wife, mentions attempts to communicate with bottle-nose whales—and dismisses them as “kind of stupid.”  While this may be intended as a humorous aside, it reinforces a troubling pattern: magical or non-human beings are often portrayed as primitive, unintelligent, or linguistically inferior, especially when they don’t conform to human (and specifically English-speaking) norms.

The portrayal of the talking foxes adds another layer to this critique. These creatures are shown to be technologically advanced—they have specially adapted tools to access the internet, maintain networks with humans for medical care and transportation, and operate with a high degree of autonomy. Yet Peter remarks, “if someone taught them to be spies then their teachers left some major gaps in their vocabulary.” This line, while humorous, undermines the foxes’ intelligence and agency.

Moreover, the foxes’ speech is rendered in a simplified, stylized dialect. They use phrases like “big diggy thing” instead of “boring machine,” which may initially seem charming or whimsical. But this linguistic reduction can also be read as a form of intentional infantilization—a way of making their intelligence appear quaint or incomplete. It’s possible Aaronovitch intended this as a commentary on how the foxes perceive human language, or even as a subversive joke about humans needing things “dumbed down.” But without clear narrative framing, it risks reinforcing the very stereotypes it might be trying to critique.

In effect, the foxes are presented as a paradox: technologically sophisticated, yet linguistically and culturally “othered.” Their dialect becomes a marker of difference, and their intelligence is constantly undercut by the way they are spoken about—and made to speak. This mirrors broader patterns in literature where dialect is used to signal inferiority or exoticism, especially when applied unevenly across characters.

This kind of framing echoes real-world colonial and racial narratives, where language and intelligence have historically been used as tools of dehumanization and domination. When magical beings are denied language—or mocked for their perceived lack of intelligence—it reinforces a hierarchy in which human (and often white, Western) characters are the default standard of intellect and civility.

In a series that otherwise tries to explore multiculturalism and magical diversity, this kind of portrayal feels regressive. It undermines the richness of the magical world by reducing some of its inhabitants to caricatures or comic relief.

Finally, let’s address a few of the larger, overarching tropes including the “Immortal White Wizard.” Thomas Nightingale, born in 1900, is over 120 years old in the Rivers of London timeline. Yet due to magical intervention, he appears to be in his early 40s—an ageless, elegant figure at the peak of his physical and magical power. He is consistently portrayed as the most powerful practitioner, the calm center of magical authority, and the one who saves the day when things spiral out of control.

In contrast, Peter Grant—young, Black, and the series’ protagonist—is often associated with chaos, improvisation, and collateral damage. His investigations are messy, his magic unpredictable, and his victories often come at a cost. While this may reflect a more modern, fallible hero archetype, it also reinforces a troubling dynamic: the older white man as the eternal, infallible guardian, and the younger man of color as the well-meaning but unstable apprentice.

This dynamic is further complicated by the fact that Nightingale’s age is magically concealed, allowing him to retain the visual and narrative authority of a man in his prime, while Peter is constantly reminded of his limitations—by others and by the narrative itself. For example, someone mentions that they “pulled a Peter” in the story.  Ouch.

Why does the old white man get to be timeless, powerful, and composed, while the younger Black protagonist is framed as volatile and reactive? This imbalance echoes a long tradition in fantasy literature where wisdom, power, and control are embodied in white, male, often aristocratic figures, while characters of color are positioned as learners, disruptors, or comic relief.

I also saw that the canon namechecking to be rather overbearing and too “insider-y” to be enjoyable.  Throughout Stone & Sky, Aaronovitch peppers the narrative with references to iconic figures and franchises—almost all of them white and male:

• Star Trek (Gene Roddenberry)
• Saruman (J.R.R. Tolkien)
• John Connor (Terminator)
• Darth Vader (Star Wars)
• Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who)
• The Lord of the Rings (“One does not simply…”)
• Neil Gaiman, referenced via the phrase “Neil Gaiman black”

These references are often used for humor or shorthand, but cumulatively, they reinforce a very narrow cultural canon—one that centers white male creators and their visions of fantasy, science fiction, and heroism.

This is especially jarring given the book’s attempt to foreground a young Black British girl as a protagonist. Why is Abigail—who is otherwise written with a distinct voice and cultural identity—constantly filtered through the lens of white male geek culture? Why not reference Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, Marjorie Liu, or even Afrofuturist icons like Sun Ra or Janelle Monáe?

Even the reference to “Neil Gaiman black” is problematic— not only because it reduces a complex aesthetic to a single figure, but also because Gaiman himself has faced recent criticism for his public behavior and comments. In a book that already struggles with authenticity in voice and representation, this kind of namechecking feels less like homage and more like cultural defaulting—a reliance on the familiar, rather than an effort to expand the canon or reflect the diversity of its characters.

A quick visit to any online forum or fan site will reveal that many longtime readers have noted that the series has become increasingly formulaic. Each book introduces a magical disturbance, a new creature or system, and a procedural investigation that resolves with a mix of magic and logic. In Stone & Sky, this formula is stretched even thinner. The early chapters focus heavily on a family camping trip, with little narrative urgency or magical intrigue.

While this may be an attempt to deepen character relationships or explore quieter moments, it contributes to a sense of narrative drift. The stakes feel lower, the pacing more meandering, and the once-vibrant magical world increasingly routine.  There’s simply too much padding in this book.

One recurring distraction in Stone & Sky is the level of detail devoted to what characters are wearing and how they look—often with commentary that feels judgmental, class-coded, or simply unnecessary. For example, a character named Mason is described in terms that go beyond observation and veer into critique:

“He was a short white man in his early thirties, brown hair, curls on top and short at the sides that didn't really suit a square face with a prominent nose and thin lips. At least his head matched the rest of him - broad shoulders, short legs, but a much better suit than I would have risked wearing to work. Dark brown wool, bought off the shelf, I reckoned, but then tailored. Despite the weather, he wore a lambswool pullover over his shirt.”

Peter is mixed-race, younger and from a working-class background -- why would he be even care if someone’s suit was bought “off the rack” and then tailored? I understand he wouldn’t want to risk wearing expensive clothing to work since he often ends up in situations where his clothing is damaged – but why would that matter in a passing evaluation of another person in a different role?

Descriptions like this don’t just paint a picture—they evaluate the character’s appearance, often through the narrator’s subjective lens and many of these observations come across as mean-spirited or superficial, especially when repeated across multiple characters. These moments rarely advance the plot or deepen character insight. Instead, they feel like narrative padding—a way to fill space rather than build momentum.

This kind of detail might have worked better in a graphic novel, where visual storytelling could convey these elements more efficiently and with more nuance. Given the success of the Rivers of London graphic novels, it’s easy to imagine Stone & Sky functioning more effectively in that format—especially given its visual settings, magical creatures, and dual perspectives.

Final Thoughts: Stone & Sky attempts to expand the emotional and magical scope of the Rivers of London universe, but in doing so, it exposes several representational and structural weaknesses. Queer male characters are emotionally sidelined; a queer teen girl’s feelings are spotlighted with intensity that may not be her own. Magical beings are used as metaphors for social difference, but often in ways that reinforce rather than challenge stereotypes. Linguistic choices—from stylized slang to infantilizing dialect—further complicate the portrayal of identity and intelligence.

The series’ once-fresh formula is losing strength and its cultural references remain narrowly focused on white male creators. Even as it strives for diversity, Stone & Sky often defaults to familiar tropes and voices—leaving its most radical possibilities unexplored.

Aaronovitch’s work has always aimed to be inclusive. But inclusion without critical self-awareness can lead to distortion. If Stone & Sky is meant to be a story of queer awakening, magical discovery, and emotional growth, it needs to ask harder questions—about power, about authenticity, and about who gets to tell whose story.

References (Other than the "Rivers of London" related books):

Borowska-Szerszun, S. (2021). Ethnic and cultural diversity in Ben Aaronovitch’s urban fantasy cycle Rivers of London. Journal of Contemporary Literature, 12(3), 45–62. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335318094

Follypedia. (2023). Abigail Kamara. Retrieved from https://follypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Abigail_Kamara 

Follypedia. (2023). Thomas Nightingale. Retrieved from https://follypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Thomas_Nightingale

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Medieval Cats: Claws, Paws and Kitties of Yore by Catherine Nappington (4-stars)

Thanks to NetGalley for sharing this ARC for me to enjoy on a cold rainy caturday. 

Really enjoyable, light read with plenty of interesting tidbits.  I wonder if the final book will include an appendix or go through a fact checker.  The claim that Pope Gregory's call to kill cats resulted in the Black Plague is a myth.  I also am curious why the Clan Chattan wildcat and motto "Touch not the cat" are not included as it is of medieval origin.  

Many of the cats have human looking faces - which is weird - and a lot of pictures of cats licking their butts.  Fun compendium and would make a nice gift book. 

REVIEW: Medieval Cats: Claws, Paws and Kitties of Yore by Catherine Nappington 

RATING: 4-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Co-Intelligence: The Definitive, Bestselling Guide to Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick (2 Stars)

I wanted to love this book -- and while it's funny and humorous, it's basically a long blog post or online message board discussion. The conversations with AI are amusing - but not substantive.

The author talks about anthropomorphization -- and dismisses people talking to their pets as the same as talking to their cars or other inanimate objects. And yet - he wants to make a case for AI being some kind of "alien mind" - when he's making a stronger case for it as a mirror of our own expectations.

Throughout the book he talks about how AI is filling in the most probable or likely response -- so if you say "To be or not ___ " it's going to say "to be" since that is the most probable. If you say "The alien ate a banana because ___" you'll get more variety every time you ask the question because it's not a topic or subject reflected in the AI training corpus.

AI is just another way for us to summarize back all the stuff we've written/created with words or images -- to us. It's more like a fun-house mirror than an intelligence.

My cats are more intelligent and capable of communication than an AI -- so where does this leave us?

Humans want to imagine that AI is more intelligent because it sounds like us and tells us what we want to hear. AI is very conformist - it will rewrite and reshape your thoughts and ideas to make them more appealing based upon the corpus of information it has already digested. It will align your communication to meet the greatest common denominator. You can ask it questions and it will tell you to analyze "Heart of Darkness" vis a vis Jane Austen's marriage plots -- and come up with some reasonably interesting points based on what it expects are most probable points from what we have already fed it. NOT because it's thinking of these things. Rather, AI acts as a sophisticated tool for summarizing and regurgitating information in a manner that aligns with human expectations.

I'd like to see a deeper exploration of AI's capabilities and limitations beyond surface-level interactions examining the fundamental nature of AI and its true intelligence compared to human and even animal cognition.

The author quotes someone who says that humans are just a historical point in the evolution of "intelligence" as if that is an autonomous being or subject. I'd contend that it is not -- we aren't merely vessels for "intelligence." There's no hierarchy of value based on "intelligence."

However, I do appreciate the author's optimism that AI will remove the boring/redundant tasks from human labor and his call to consider universal basic income and healthcare as real needs as humans move toward an era where we should focus our attention on tasks and activities that are more intrinsically rewarding to us and which do not require a 40 hour (or more) work week.

The mythical 4 day work week has been promised for decades, the practicalities of achieving a reducing "full time" work weeks remain uncertain. Striking a balance between dystopian and utopian visions of AI's impact on society is crucial for informed decision-making.

Co-Intelligence: The Definitive, Bestselling Guide to Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick

RATING: 2 stars

 

REVIEW: The Future by Naomi Alderman (4-stars)

 In my quest to distance myself from the surplus of dark, dystopian fiction portraying grim futures, I've sought narratives with a more positive outlook. I chose to read this book to explore the author's vision of the future following the redistribution of power through the abduction of several influential figures.

Similar to Alderman's previous work, "The Power," this new novel delves into a critical examination of societal structures, power imbalances, and the impact of technology and greed on human behavior and the planet. The characters grapple with ethical dilemmas as they find themselves uniquely positioned to instigate substantial positive change.

In contrast to Shakespeare’s "Julius Caesar," the conspirators in this tale successfully counter tyranny, avert environmental destruction, and catalyze numerous positive transformations in the world.

A mixed chronology is employed by the author to establish multiple narrative hooks. If you're accustomed to a sequential chronology in your media consumption, this book may pose a challenge to your expectations.

Readers who enjoy the interactive nature of "Choose Your Own Adventure" or appreciate works like “Rayuela,” along with language enthusiasts treating books as tools, might relish the mental challenge of assembling the narrative pieces. For those who, like me, explore books as tools, skipping around and investigating, a rewarding discovery awaits at the end:

“Zhen, I found it. I know you loved up in secret fuck cave or whatever, love is great. When you want to know the truth, email me. mariuszugravescu@gmail.com"

An email to that address is rewarded with an auto response that is very gratifying in an old-school “multimedia” sort of way that fills in a partial “who dunnit” for those of us who don’t believe the concept of “spoilers” exists (see the end of my review).

Since I’m currently enrolled in a product development and marketing class, and I’m thinking in terms of score cards – here are some of the things that came to mind when reading this book over the weekend.  Here are some of the archetypes that I ticked off my list for this reading:

Archetypes Explored:

• The Hero's Journey: The inner circle orchestrating the disappearance of powerful figures embodies the hero's journey archetype, ushering in positive change.
• The Trickster: Both conspirators and billionaires pursue specific outcomes, with differing goals—individualistic for the billionaires and pro-social for the conspirators.
• The Rebellion Against Tyranny: The classic archetype of rebelling against tyranny is explored, but the conversion of conspirators against billionaires raises skepticism about their altruistic motivations.

Character Development:

• The Sacrifice: Characters compromise integrity for the greater good, exemplified by sending loved ones to a well-provisioned island for indefinite entrapment.
• The Fall from Grace: Instead of proving the wrongdoing of billionaires, a scenario is staged for their disappearance, allowing societal and environmental changes in their names.

Narrative Elements:

• Cultural Details: Attention to detail varies, with vivid scenes like the Singapore shopping mall contrasting with less engaging aspects such as the Enochite cult and message board descriptions.
• Technology and Environment: Technology and environmental descriptions are mainly conveyed through "telling," with the notable exception of the engaging "happymeal" implementation.
• Character Dynamics: Martha's character, portrayed as somewhat villainous, could benefit from more development. The challenge lies in the narrative primarily unfolding from Zhen's perspective, limiting insight into other conspirators.
• Symbolism and Themes: The Fox vs. Rabbit concept is richly woven into the story, but the tale of Martha and the bear is symbolic, representing her "coming of age" rather than a literal event.

The Shortcomings:

• Character Development:  Overall development of the four primary conspirators was thin – and the billionaires were very thin.  The majority of the character development was spent on Martha, followed by Zhen.  As primary actors in the conspiracy – Selah, Badger and Arthur fell flat – while Zhen’s friend Marius had more sparkle and interesting development. 
• Forced Diversity: The author includes non-heteronormative characters, but the relevance of their queerness is not relevant to the plot.  Aside from mentioning that Selah is straight, heterosexuality and gender binary are still the assumed default in this story.  Although lip service is paid to non-heteronormative characters (they gay billionaire ousted tech CEO, the enby antifa child of a tech CEO, lesbian survivalist and lesbian child of a survivalist cult leader “gal Friday” of tech CEO) – I’m not getting a strong sense of how Arthur’s homosexuality really matters in this story.  I can’t imagine that the near future is still so accepting of gay billionaires, lesbian survivalists and enby Antifa activists that we have to mention their orientation or gender identity – without doing the same for heterosexual characters. 
• Cultural Details:Attention to detail was really fantastic in some areas – like the highly detailed scene in the Singapore shopping mall, but the Enochite cult and the message board details were so much “tell” and not show.  The retelling of the Bible stories was entertaining but also felt a lot like filler.
• Character Dynamics: I wanted to see more of Martha as a primary character so that I can cheer for her – but she’s still played off as a bit of a villain (even at the end, Zhen sees a “heavyset figure” – when her physical shape wasn’t mentioned earlier).  Arthur “tells” us the tension for Martha (i.e., father figure issues).  Zhen’s security / safety and mother issues are also narrated for us throughout.  

One of the challenges of this book is that it’s told primarily from the perspective of a very interesting but non-primary character, Zhen.  Yes, she’s an important part of the plot as she was used as a guinea pig to create a potentially fatal proof-of-concept demonstration for technology that was used to persuade the billionaires of its efficacy (and a critical part of the means of duping them).  

Overall development of the four primary conspirators is thin – with Martha (the lover of Zhen) having considerably more character development, followed by Badger, Selah and Arthur.  Their stories are often told in third person, not through Zhen’s perspective.  Selah and Badger feel pretty “flat”. 

Symbolism and Themes: In addition to the whole Fox (hunter gatherer) vs Rabbit (farmer) concepts spread thickly across the story – the story about Martha and the bear was not actually about a bear.  Think about it:  the “bear” didn’t exist.  It was her “coming of age” and the bear with the rotten jaw represented her father.   

Just a little bit of research (or talking to anyone who goes hiking in the Western US) would tell you:  black bears are typically the least aggressive and smallest bears found in the US, any survivalist (or child in California) would know you don’t climb a tree to get away from a bear. Bears don’t typically suffer from dental disease.  If the bear wasn’t scared by the arrival of two people in a pickup truck – and was really starving – why not attack those people?  

The whole fantasy of climbing up a tree to evade and fatally wounding a skinny, young black bear before hibernation is just a weird detail that didn’t work for me unless you just look at it as symbolism.

The Strengths:

• Unique Narrative Structure: The the mixed chronology and the use of multiple narrative hooks,  was a lot of fun.  I liked the inclusion of the chatboard content but maybe a bit less of that would have allowed for more character development.  This narrative structure might challenge readers accustomed to a more sequential chronology.
• Interactive Element: The inclusion of private messages added an intriguing layer to the narrative, revealing character motivations and potential conflicts.
• Thematic Exploration: The book successfully explored themes of societal structures, power imbalances, and the impact of technology and greed on human behavior and the planet.
• Engaging Scenes: Scenes like the one in the Singapore shopping mall had a ton of details and played really well as an action film scene (leave it to a Doctor Who fan!).  As a great example of “showing” rather than “telling” -- the implementation of the "happymeal" worm in various social media platforms was well executed. 

Here's the text from the email bounceback; sharing it here because one never knows how long the email will continue to function: 

<spoiler>

Private message log from ntd/enoch

> ArturoMegadog

Look, I can't say this publicly on the forum but I am actually very sympathetic to your point of view here. Lai Zhen never should have said what she said. Someone needs to teach her a lesson. 

> SavedByEnoch

I just want to meet her. I want to tell her what I think face to face. She ought to be afraid. 

> ArturoMegadog

Right, I think that's all we're talking about isn't it? Just scaring her. So she won't go near any of this ever again. 

> SavedByEnoch

Enoch's teachings helped me believe there was a future for me again. She's a worthless piece of shit. 

> ArturoMegadog

Yeah no I get that. We all need to believe in a future. So listen, I do have a way you can track her. I mean it's not hard to get in touch with her, she has all her speaking engagements listed on her website. But if you need to track her down to have a more private conversation... just to scare her, right? I can help you with that. 

> SavedByEnoch

I'll know what to do when I see her. 

>ArturoMegadog

OK, looking at the schedule... how do you feel about a trip to Singapore? 

</spoiler>

REVIEW: The Future by Naomi Alderman 

RATING: 4-stars 

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Real Flow: Break the Burnout Cycle and Unlock High Performance in the New World of Work by Brandi Olson (4-stars)

This book covers three important topics critical for the health of an organization and, ultimately, its success. The integral, systems approach is a mainstay of digital transformation - but that topic can be difficult to tackle. Brandi Olson approaches the topic in accessible language, with excellent illustrations -- both graphics and metaphorical.

Much of what she describes is not new: Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, among others, wrote about these kinds of issues over 100 years ago.

Olson issues a challenge: "you (and everyone else) will need to stop settling for the appearance of productivity and performance rather than the real thing."

The author describes the challenges faced in organizations and low-key leads up to a discussion of the roots of corporate culture in a white supremacist, colonialist mindset which not only results in overworked, burned out employees but which also perpetuates the same dysfunctional system, reinforcing the lack of diversity of cultures, people and ideas.

"Burnout is energy-consuming and self-perpetuating. It fosters a monoculture: if everyone is operating on a burned-out and overworked level, no one has the brain capacity to think that perhaps things could and should be different."

Most organizations respond to symptoms -- burned out employees are compelled to use up their vacation time before the year-end, company potlucks or online "coffee/happy hour" chats (or worse: Yammer) substitute for connection and culture. More is seen as "better" and forcing employees to jump between many different projects always leads to no clear successes or improvements.

What organizations fail to realize is that “peak performance means making the greatest possible impact over the longest period of time.” That means addressing root causes -- finding the smallest changes you can make that will have the biggest impact (Pareto principal), implementing changes incrementally and iteratively to have time to reflect on the impact throughout the ecosystem (ie "butterfly effect"), and avoiding toxic perfectionism ("better > best").

"Flow is the experience of energy, creativity, and value moving from ideas to results throughout your entire organization." This is achieved by making your work visible throughout the organization -- put it on KanBan boards, for example (or open up access in Confluence to all enterprise users).

In John Doerr's "Measure What Matters," he similarly advocates for cross-functional sharing of goals so that individuals, teams, departments and divisions can work together to ensure they all help each other meet their goals (and thus all the company/enterprise level goals).

When an organization is "flooding" -- they are taking a shotgun approach which may inevitably result in some losses: limiting growth opportunities, trapping people in a "wash, rinse, repeat" or dooming teams to failure like Lucy's chocolate factory speed-up.

Olson offers a lot of practical tips to get people thinking differently about how to identify the challenges and keep track of the work: switch from small screens & spreadsheets to big whiteboards or walls, establish "work in progress" (WIP) limits. Olson's analogy on how a WIP functions:

"Have you ever been to one of those gigantic waterslides where you first spend 25 minutes climbing up six stories, only to whoosh down the slide in approximately 93 seconds? Have you ever noticed that, in order to keep everyone safe, they have a one person on the slide limit?"

Work that has been started but not finished is a big liability - it represents unrealized value (and may end up as waste). This is why prioritization is critical -- but rather than prioritize, many organizations would prefer to continue piling up the work and ignore the costs in turnover as people burn out from constantly being spread too thin or having to switch projects too frequently.

"Productivity without outcomes is not real productivity." Building a bridge is an output while people safely crossing that bridge is an outcome. Migrating a website to a new content management system is an output while enabling marketing team members to update their own pages quickly is an outcome. "Outputs answer the question, How will we do it? Outcomes answer the question, Why does this matter?" -- or "When can we open the champagne?"

Olson also talks about the importance of focus and the damage of "multi-tasking" -- an organization that is flooding is multitasking across the enterprise, busy without achieving meaningful outcomes.

Let's jump ahead to characteristics of white supremacy work culture outlined in “White Supremacy Culture” --

1. Perfectionism - focusing on what doesn't work, punishing people for mistakes, not leaving room for learning and continuous improvement.
2. Sense of Urgency - everything is a "high priority" where I work, probably where you work, too. "There is little time for thoughtful decision-making, short-term fixes come with long-term costs."
3. Quantity over Quality - conflict avoidant environments with a focus on productivity and output over EQ and the underlying mechanics that enable the establishment of teams with high levels of trust where creativity can flourish.
4. Document-Driven Communication - leaves little time for conversations and exploration.

A key takeaway:

"By making work visible, limiting work in progress, and being clear on prioritization, you can create time, focus, and energy for teams to have difficult conversations, get to know each other personally, build trust, and identify significant opportunities for learning how to do and be better."

As the author states: the future of work is PEOPLE - who need to be in environments designed to for cross-functional collaborative teams where they can develop trust and work toward shared outcomes:

• The team must have all the cross-functional skills and expertise to do the work from start to finish
• The team must work together long term
• The work must be transparent so the team can be in flow

There is no such thing as "best practices" -- start by identifying what you do now, create a map of your ecosystem. Make improvements - better not best., and don't obsess with a "big bang" of fixing "all the things."

"If everything changes at once, you’ll overwhelm the system and slow down learning."

"...empower people to do their best work, solve problems, and be better leaders—no matter where they are in the organization."

"better is always better than best."

REVIEW: Real Flow: Break the Burnout Cycle and Unlock High Performance in the New World of Work by Brandi Olson 

RATING: 4-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Rare Trees: The Fascinating Stories of the World’s Most Threatened Species by Sara Oldfield (5-stars)

I was thrilled to receive an advance copy of Rare Trees. As someone who loves trees, I hoped for a book that combined striking visuals with clear, accessible information—and this volume exceeded my expectations.

With its National Geographic–quality photography and encyclopedia-style detail, Rare Trees is both visually stunning and deeply informative. It’s the kind of book that invites readers to linger over its pages, making it equally at home as a coffee table centerpiece or an educational resource.

What impressed me most was the thoughtful conclusion: a concise, one-page list of practical steps readers can take to support trees and the environment. The inclusion of lifestyle suggestions—such as reducing meat and dairy consumption—shows the author’s commitment to connecting beauty with action.

This is a gorgeous, inspiring book that will appeal to adults and children alike. I can’t wait to see it in print and share it with others. 

REVIEW: Rare Trees: The Fascinating Stories of the World’s Most Threatened Species by Sara Oldfield 

RATING: 5-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Don't Run Out of Money in Retirement: How to Increase Income, Avoid Taxes, and Keep More of What Is Yours by Allen P. Harris (1-star)

This book was not written for people like myself.  The tone is casual and cordial, but full of lots of padding and humble bragging about all the wealthy people used as case studies.   I don't have a portfolio, I don't own property, I don't have "wealth" or investments.  This book mostly sounds like a sales pitch for why it's such a great idea to go to a money manager like Berkshire Hathaway but there's not much practical advice.  "Come from a working class family and support your mother by paying her utility bills?  You should probably pay her rent in advance and kill yourself."  

It's a puff piece without any real advice or guidance.  Won't recommend to friends/family. 

REVIEW: Don't Run Out of Money in Retirement: How to Increase Income, Avoid Taxes, and Keep More of What Is Yours  by Allen P. Harris 

RATING: 1-star

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey (5 stars)

The dangers of rest to the dominant paradigm have been well known for millennia. Centuries ago Aesop and other writers described the story of the “Ant and the Grasshopper” as a cautionary tale. For hundreds of years – strikes and work stoppages have been the primary means of resisting the demands of productivity demanded by Capital. People put down their tools and walked off the job and out the factory doors. Truck drivers block ports with their vehicles.  Work stoppage has long been a means of resisting the dehumanizing effects of capitalism.  

“Capitalism commodifies whatever it can and doesn’t allow space for us to experience the full spectrum of being human.”

“We are socialized into systems that cause us to conform and believe our worth is connected to how much we can produce.”

“Fear and scarcity are a big part of how the culture keeps us bound up in the hamster wheel.”

Tricia Hersey’s new book is part auto-biography, part history book and part sermon, offering us a lens for resistance of the dehumanizing, deleterious effects of capitalism & the cult of “productivity” that is womanist, liberationist and at the same time deeply validating of both the need to disconnect for dreaming & private thoughts and of community.  

Hersey makes her keen observations in a style of a song: intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, outro.  

She doesn’t need to expand too much on her verses – it’s not novel information for her audience.  It’s the repetition and the chorus – the soothing reassurance that “You are not unworthy. The systems are unworthy.” 

Deep inside, people know:

“ we didn’t arrive on Earth to be a tool for a capitalist system.” … It is not our divine purpose. […] You were not just born to center your entire existence on work and labor.”

The effects of this fatigue remove community and intellectual agency – turning us into machines: 

“When you are exhausted, you lack clarity and the ability to see deeply. Your intuition and imagination are stifled by a culture of overworking and disconnection."

“[…] stealing your imagination and time, grind culture has stolen the ability for pleasure, hobbies, leisure, and experimentation.”

Black liberation and womanism are woven throughout the book – her message that “Black liberation is human liberation” is strong and consistent.  The goal of capitalism and white supremacy is to strip away the humanity – it’s essentially reductionist and isolating.

“Black liberation is a balm for all humanity and this message is for all those suffering from the ways of white supremacy and capitalism.”

If you are reading this book and feel that the topics of white supremacy and black liberation are a bit heavy – you have a lot more work to do before you can well and truly appreciate what is being communicated in this book.

The goal of this work is to decolonize your mind and enable a culture shift.  If your reaction to creating a nap practice, making time for day dreaming or resting as resistance is to immediately think of slackers, freeloaders and laziness – you’re falling into racist stereotypes as well as white supremacist programming. 

“We have been bamboozled. This is why it’s so critical that we create systems of care to help people dismantle and decolonize their minds.”

“We are resting not to do more and to come back stronger and more productive for a capitalist system.”

The loudest chorus in this book is that you don’t have to always be “productive” – and that busyness reduces your ability to heal, dream and tap into your imagination. Even Hersey’s grandmother would rest with her eyes closed and reminded her granddaughter that every shut eye was not asleep.  We close our eyes to reduce distraction and focus inward on our own experience whether it’s breathing in meditation or processing feelings or enjoying the fragrance of a flower (to name a few). 

• “Resting is not a state of inactivity or a waste of time. Rest is a generative space.”
• “Naps provide a portal to imagine, invent, and heal.”
• “Rest is not a luxury, privilege, or a bonus we must wait for once we are burned out.”
• “Rest is not a privilege because our bodies are still our own, no matter what the current systems teach us.”
• “Your bodies don’t belong to capitalism, to white supremacy, or to the patriarchy.”

Social media is another area covered by various choruses throughout the book.  Just as a reminder:  where anything is “free” – you are the product.  Hersey rightly points out that social media is a marketing tool and an extension of capitalism. “The goal is to keep you scrolling long enough that you become a consumer. The goal is for you to buy, buy some more, and stay on as long as possible until that happens.”  Social media “is a space of dependency” and “robbing us of the archives and memory. Taking from us the ability to go to the past for guidance, motivation, and grounding.”

Hersey highlights the disruptive nature of social media and how it has absorbed “our quiet time” – and urges us to “detox intentionally and often if we are to find rest.”

Our challenge is to “spiritually disconnect from the shenanigans of grind culture while physically still living in it.” Establish healthy boundaries, resist responding right away to email or social media. Reject urgency.

“You cannot achieve deep rest in a consistent way if we don’t detox regularly from social media and the internet. Technology is not built to support our rest or make space for our rest.”

Finally – you have to accept that you have been brainwashed.  You have been swimming in a pool of the dominant paradigm for so long, there’s no way it could be any other way.  The repetition in this book serves a purpose – to begin unspooling the cocoon that has been limiting us for so long so that we can claim our birthright.  

We are enough just as we are – we are enough because we exist.  We do not have to be productive, busy or constantly contributing.   There is no quick fix – dismantling millennia old mindsets and building communities of care takes time.  

“Our interconnectedness is a form of resistance in times thriving against the dehumanizing ways capitalism and white supremacy sees the world.”

“We will not heal alone. We will not thrive alone. Communal care is our saving grace and our communion. Community care will save us. It is already saving us.”

Hersey offers some places to begin:

- Intentionally and regularly detox from social media

- Learn boundaries – “heal the individual trauma you have experienced that makes it difficult for you to say no”

• Establish a “daily practice in daydreaming”
• “Slow down”
• “Listen more”
• “Create systems of community care”

Print out this quote and stick it up in your environment in a half dozen places:

1. I deserve to rest now. 

2. I am worthy of rest. 

3. I am not lazy. How could I be lazy? My Ancestors are too brilliant for that. 

4. Capitalism wants my body to be a machine. I am not a machine. 

5. I am a magical and divine human being. 

6. I have the right to resist grind culture. 

7. I don’t have to earn rest. 

8. Do less, watch how I thrive. 

9. Ease is my birthright. 

10. I Will Rest!”

“You don’t have to wait on permission from the dominant culture.”

“Grind culture is violence. Resist participating in it.” 

REVIEW: Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey (2022)

RATING: 5 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.