Reviews and Comments

I listened to this book as an audiobook narrated by the author. I first learned about it in 2020 and watched "Why Trust a Corporation to do a Library's Job". I think this made me have a different impression of what to expect from the book. Some of it was information I was familiar with and some of it was new. It's also quite personal as others have noted. I was really surprised to learn about a side of Ello that didn't make the same impression on me when I was a teenager who didn't know about the drama that was happening around it. I think it'd be a book that would get along well with some friends, but I'm not sure what the person I'd recommend it to would be exactly. Perhaps something along the lines of someone who'd be interested in books like Blockchain Chicken Farm. It's the type of thing I feel like not enough of my peers know about.

I listened to this book as an audio book. I have been interested in Alice Wong's works for a long time, though you don't hear too much from them personally in the book. For some stories, I wasn't sure why I was listening. Some authors I was familiar with and were going over topics or summaries of their work I'd already read. It didn't help that the narrator made it very hard to tell stories apart and some things were just blending together. As Pretense mentioned in their review: I did not find the different sections meaningful. At other points, the things that I was listening felt very pertinent to where I'm sitting in my life, really struck me. I think different parts of this book can be very meaningful for different people to find healing and feel perceived by someone who shares their experiences. The book has caused me to reflect more deeply in ways I wasn't sure where to start/somewhat avoiding, especially on how I talk about and treat my own disabilities, as well as share that and look for care in my communities.

I learned about this book because the author came to my school freshman year. I didn't get one of the free copies they were giving out at the time, but it stayed on my mind and I saw it as an audiobook so I figured I'd check it out. Oh boy, what a journey, harder and harder to put down. If you're familiar with "The Overstory" by Richard Powers, you're introduced to several different characters with some common themes that link them to a major event—that is what came to mind when reading this book structure wise. I never finished "the Overstory" and I wouldn't compare the plot otherwise. For "There There", the final event, as well as things that happen to characters of various indigenous descent, all connected to Oakland, will sit with you for a long time. It's different from other books by indigenous folx, I've read with an emphasis on cultural loss/revitalization/reclamation in an urban context. It reminds me more of what I've heard from indigenous podcasts about current indigenous issues. I really enjoyed the role of grandmothers in this book as well.

Finished this book in about a week. I've heard of Ryka Aoki before but I did not know she was trans, so I was even more hyped to read this book and learn more about her. The writing level is appropriate for something oriented at the YA audience, especially with how it drops pop culture references (lmao Lindsey Stirling, Sword Art Online, and totally-not-undertale) and reaches to the occult and sci-fi. It was easy to breeze through.

I enjoyed the world building and character building a lot for those at the center of the stage, the food is given a lot of care 🤤, it really took the story forward from the start. You start to get draw into the cadence of their life. While the ending felt like what I thought was sufficient for a YA novel, I was disappointed how some characters really did not get their justice/recognition. There are times that this book feels like a typical YA novel and I wish it said more, but there are other times I remember how important it is that it's doing exactly what it's doing (I say as a queer trans Asian person myself). Just... maybe for someone younger than me (in my 20s)?

As others mentioned, this book could use some content warnings on the traumatic experiences that the main character especially experiences. I also noticed that aspects about inter-Asian discourse aren't really touched on: there's a celebration of primarily East and Southeast Asian cultures, not really a mention of many other cultures like South Asian or issues of colorism.

Nu Nu Yi begins the story by threading through a handoff of perspectives between those at the Taungbyon festival: from a pickpocket, to a wealthy woman asking for good fortune, to the spirit wives themselves, all tied to this event. Toward the latter half of the story, we are set through a drama focusing on Daisy Bond in particular into the end of the festival period. As a whole it's not too long of a read and does well to propel you to another world that pulls the curtains back behind a festival, showing what people are really thinking when it comes to spirits, love, wealth, and power.

The Taungbyon festival is not something that my family participated in, yet it's one of my main connections to queer trans history in Myanmar. Natkadaws are spirit wives, composed of effeminate gay men, trans women, others elsewhere and in between, and those who are not a part of that at all—but are looking to profit off the festival. It is difficult to read this book with the way it captures the queerphobia and transphobia that has it mark on the majority of people in society. I see how my family might struggle to imagine I might be anything like them. If not for their role as spirit wives, their identities would not hold them to any standard of acknowledgement, though given it is driven by the colonizers discretion, this didn't necessarily leave them any better off. I wonder what those festivals might be like now with the most recent coup and pandemic; it would be hard to get any of my family to tell me.

I randomly came across this audio book in my uni's collection. I first learned about Marie Kondo first came out in 2014. Since middle school, I have been vertical folding, and have been notoriously known for having organized collections. Much of the specifics I have forgotten since then, but it motivated something special in me about my own spaces, though in combination with cultural expectations, many of those initial words of advice have become diluted. Yet as I've distanced from it along with the ways it's been tied into trauma, with her own Netflix show, Kondo has become as popular as ever.

The Afrominimalist is well aware of these trends and is what I needed to ground myself in what minimalism means to me and my cultures. The Afrominimalist looks at the context of why our spending and owning habits have formed to what they are today, and how we engage intentionally with what should come next. Furthermore, it considers minimalism not just from an environmentalist perspective but from an environmental justice perspective, considering the impacts of what we buy on labor and the natural world. I'm in the process of planning a move in a few months, and it'll be an important time for me to sort through everything I've got and decide what I'll be taking with me into a new chapter of my life where I want to stay true to myself. I will definitely be reflecting on the questions posed in this book. I also liked the featured contributions that were incorporated into this book, showcasing multiple perspectives, interpretations, and relationships that are all valid in this dialogue.

• I listened to this as an audiobook, my first checked out from Libby.
• I liked the narrator's voice and felt it was generally quite well to meet the range of voices for the characters.
• The book took too long to build up and the ending was too abstract and fell apart.
• I also generally didn't like or understand why the characters were selected with the traits they had.
• Some of the dialogue felt well played, while others felt jarring
• In the end, my favorite part is Klara's relationship with the sun, which goes for the most part unexplored with other characters. This book has vague environmentalist themes.
• many of the tropes that show up in this book I feel, have been better expressed in other works I've read.
• I think this book would be fine for a middle schooler as it goes generally without much complexity with its readability. Though I do think it should be followed with journaling or a book discussion. I would be curious how this book could be used to engage youth about AI ethics.

I have been on a search for books on Myanmar, especially those written by people of heritage there too. At the end of the book, the bio mentions in a quick sentence that he was born in India to Burmese parents, but I cannot find anywhere online if this is in reference to ethnicity or nationality. It is from stories of his family that send him on a five year research journey for this book. One must be careful to consider what is fact, what is fiction, and what we can only surmise because what has been lost.

At some points of the book, things felt way too drawn out, at others, it felt too short. But as someone who has not read a true storyteller's story in a long time, I began to find much joy and excitement from reading this book. If I had followed my plans, I might have finished it in just over two months, and rather: I finished it in under one! With momentum I pushed forward. And it was brutal for so many days to feel such attachment to characters, so many who do not get any resolve. He covers a vast, rich history, where you encounter more than 5 generations of narratives.

Yet, in many ways it was also a relief, a time to reflect on histories and the momentum that has existed while current news about home leaves me so disabled and numb. I think this book was good for me to read in this time in my life in a way I could appreciate it. While I may not be a strong literary critic, I cannot go without saying there is power in his writing. In some ways, I am a bit abashed to even share it. But I think it did something good for me, to have someone acknowledge how complex it can be to have so many people whose lives are constantly intertwined yet their worldviews might be so vastly different. These are not stories that could be easily passed on at such a level to me by my parents and grandparents. A part of me knows they have been so affected that there are stories that they could never bear to reach my ears from their own mouths. Still, I have a desire to know, I see the edges curling around the makeshift walls they've placed along my path and I can't help but peel them back and see the path for myself so I can go beyond.