february 2025 reviews

oh fuck I forgot it's a short month

Mar 05, 2025

Hi <3 writing to you all from my new cubicle at my new job! February has been very busy with life changes, but I still found time to read a few books. Not included in this post: my reread of all three Fourth Wing novels in a span of… two weeks? A little worm in my brain is telling me to ignore my more “respectable” TBR and hide from my responsibilities behind Throne of Glass. I’m resisting at least until March, but I feel it coming like a horny fairy tsunami. Until then….

Politics

How To Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm (2021)

161 pages, read on and off for a couple weeks
5 deflated tires out of 5

A courageous and readable philosophical argument for “violent” resistance to the destruction of the planet. If you or someone you know is a liberal who thinks we can rescue our planet from the 1% by voting, or worse, by crossing our fingers that the market will somehow produce a profitable solution, please read (them) this book. It covers a multitude of historical examples when nonviolent resistance was ineffective, but property destruction and organized disobedience finally created change. It also disentangles violence, vandalism, and terrorism, for those who think breaking a child’s leg is the same as breaking a table leg. I found myself angry and inspired in equal measure.

Moral pacifism claims to hold life in the highest regard and detest its violent termination, but a defensive act that saves lives and reduces violence is unacceptable to it insofar as it involves active physical force. This seems flawed. It also appears to yield a priori to the worst forms of evil: precisely those agents most intent on taking as many innocent lives as possible—fascist mass murderers, for instance—will be the least receptive to meek non-violent opposition. Indeed, the precepts of pacifism have often come across as exhortations to surrender to suffering and atrocity. - Malm, 27

Literary

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill (2005)

260 pages, read in ~1.5 weeks
thank you to Miriam for lending me her copy <3
4.25 go-sees out of 5

Veronica takes its time, uncoiling itself in a supremely character-forward, simile-heavy artwork. It’s really gorgeous, so gorgeous that I was pissed off that her metaphors could never occur to me even though they’re totally apt and resonant. It’s not really a book I can describe, other than “Alison is a model and her friend Veronica is a difficult, sad person.” It’s about female friendships and stigmatized people. But the point for me isn’t the story so much as the prose. If you want to be swept away by the poetry and melancholy of life for 260 pages, Veronica is a perfect choice.

My forehead breaks into a sweat. I unfasten a button and loosen my scarf. The air cools my skin; the fever recoils, then sends hot tadpoles wiggling against the cold. Drive the animal before you and never stop. Starve it, cut it, stuff silicone in it. Feed it until it’s too fat to think or feel. Then cut it open and suck the fat out. Sew it up and give it medication for pain. Make it run on the treadmill, faster, faster. Examine it for flaws. Not just the body but the mind, too. Keep going over the symptoms. It’s not a character defect; it’s an illness. Give it medication for pain. Dazzle its eyes with visions of beauty. Dazzle its ears with music that never stops playing. Send it to graze in vast aisles of food so huge and flawless that it seems to be straining to become something more than food. Dazzle its mind with visions of terror. Set it chasing a hot, rippling heaven from which illness and pain have been removed forever. Set it fleeing the silent darkness that is always at its heels. suck it out. Sew it up. Run. When dark comes, pray: I love my ass. - Gaitskill, 120

Fantasy

Quicksilver by Callie Hart (2024)

624 pages, read on and off for a week or two
3 sacred butterflies out of 5

I had high hopes for this book to cure my Onyx Storm hangover, and while it was a fun pastime to read before bed, it’s not the best I’ve read in the romantasy genre. There were fun elements, like the magical tattoo transference and the quicksilver system, and there were things I liked about Saeris—her hometown setting, the desert city with two suns that never set, was creative and memorable, and her metalworking abilities (magical and regular blacksmithing) were cool. The book was underwhelming, though, because Saeris is a fucking moron. She’s just the most unobservant, anti-curious, undiscerning protagonist I’ve read in a long time. She misses everything and needs the men around her (another problem - nearly all-male cast, and zero female friendships) to explain things constantly. There’s also just so much going on that feels like Hart just picked fantasy elements out of a hat: fae, vampires, zombies, mean hottie with shadow powers, bitchy entitled blonde girl, immortal monarchs, charismatic slut boy, hottie’s interchangeable hot best friends, and everyone’s parents are dead… It’s just a mess and lacks direction.