Month: September 2018

State of the Arc #14: A Rocky Month

I know people like to joke that January and February 2018 were long months, but for me September seems to have lasted forever. I’ve been battling myself this month, so I haven’t been as productive as I would have liked. I managed to get a little bit of reading done, just not as much as I’d hoped. I also didn’t request many ARCs, but I found a super old ARC on my bookshelf while I was rearranging it. I got it back in high school, before I even knew what an ARC was. It’s a “Black Widow” spinoff by the author of Beautiful Creatures (Margaret Stohl). I think it’s just an excerpt, so I’ll probably glance through it some day.

 

Here’s a side by side comparison of my August and September ARC graphs. I switched from Infogram to Canva because I create all my other graphics in Canva anyway. It made sense to put my graphs there.

state of the arc 13 graphic

state of the arc 14 chart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I gained quite few more ARCs (I suddenly got approved for a bunch of books I forgot I even requested), I also managed to read two. I’ll review both The Library Book (Susan Orlean) and Well-Read Black Girl (Gloria Edim et al. ) in October, a few days prior to their publication dates.

 

I don’t have anymore 2018 ARCs, so now I can focus on reading old ones. My goal this month is to finish two currently-unfinished books, then I’d like to read something on my ever-growing TBR list. I picked up Han Kang’s “Human Acts” and I’ve had Ian Reid’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” forever. Both are short, so I’m hoping to finish them. If I have time, I’d like to read some of the chapbooks that have been sitting on my shelf since God knows when.

 

I only managed to get two reviews out this month. One book was awesome (This Burns my Heart, Samuel Park) and the other was awful (My Hijab, My Identity, Sadaf Farooqi). I’m still sitting on a huge pile of high-star reviews. Now I have not only a to-be-read list, but also a to-be-reviewed list, haha.

this burns my heart cover image
Simon & Schuster, 2011. 322 pages
my hijab, my identity cover
Amazon Digital Services, 2018. 44 Pages.

 

Here’s the shortlist of what I read in September:

I don’t plan on reviewing Maisie Dobbs,  but I certainly recommend it. It’s about a female private eye in England in the 1920s. A lot of Goodreads reviewers deem her “too perfect,” but I only see an incredibly intelligent woman who learned quickly and followed her intuition. Dhe’s kind, outgoing, and never forgets where she came from. She is always grateful to those who helped her move up in life. Besides the character herself, the interwoven plots themselves are interesting. There’s the story of how Maisie became a private eye, there’s a story of forbidden love, there are tales of The Great War and there’s case she’s solving, which leads to unexpected ends. I listened to the audiobook, which really helped bring the story to life.

 

My wish for a purple ARC came true, but I haven’t reviewed it yet so I won’t include it in the BINGO until next month. As a result, my BINGO is the same as last month.

State of the ARC BINGO

Writing this post actually made me feel a little better about my “failed” month. I’ve been in a low mood lately, and generally overwhelmed with life. Despite this, I still managed to read three books and post two reviews (as well as a tea tasting). I think I’m actually getting better at becoming a functional human being. T_T

As usual, I’m going to direct you to Avalinah’s Bookspace so you can read her post and see who else linked up with the meme. You can also join in if you’d like!  If you’ve read anything I’ve mentioned today, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Should I give Sadaf Farooqi another chance?

This Burns my Heart: It Hurts so Good

this burns my heart cover image
Simon & Schuster, 2011. 322 pages

 Title: This Burns my Heart

Author: Samuel Park

Synopsis: Simon and Schuster already made a video that sums the novel up perfectly.

 

Book Trigger Warnings: emotional abuse, domestic violence, kidnapping, domestic servitude, dystfunctional family

Rating: 5 stars!!

First Impression upon Finishing:   I am completely and utterly destroyed.

 

The Review:   This Burns my Heart delivers on its promise. The story begins with Soo-Ja wanting to get away from her controlling father. In the 1950s and 1960s, South Korea still followed a Confucian family system. Families favored sons over daughters, and daughters were the property of their fathers before becoming the property of the men in their husband’s family. South Korean society considered women who lost their virginity before marriage to be”spoiled.” Women who could not bear sons meant nothing.

 

Soo-Ja had plan to escape her father, but that plan quickly falls apart (in large part due to her father) and Soo-Ja hastily forms a plan B. Her only chance of being recognized as her own person rested in her ability to marry well. However, she makes a rash decision and jumps into a marriage she really shouldn’t have. The marriage continued to be the source of her agony (through various means) until the end of the book.

 

When the reader first meets Min Lee (the “supporting” character of the novel), we’re deceived into believing he’s a sweet, awkward boy. We see the same side of Min that Soo-Ja sees. Very quickly, though, his problematic behavior and his general incompetency come to light. By the time Soo-Ja was ready to marry him, I was bracing myself for the worst. I knew nothing good could come of them being together.

 

I completely understood Soo-Ja’s motivations. After all, I’m doing the same thing right now. Still, I was angry with her lack of planning and her execution. She claimed to be smart, yet she let her desperation get the best of her and made foolish decisions. She assumed she could mold a “guileless” boy to her will, which is a statement to her arrogance at the time. It didn’t take her long to realize her mistake, but she couldn’t divorce Min Lee without losing a part of herself. After realizing her situation was hopeless, she decides to try to love him, but in the process she tangles the rest of her family into her messy life.

 

I was angry with Soo-Ja until the middle of the book, when my hatred of Min Lee took over. Soo-Ja and Min Lee had a daughter to worry about; Soo-Ja couldn’t afford to make mistakes. By then, she had learned to better control her emotions when making decisions. By then, she’d also been tread upon by every one of her family members except her mother and daughter.

 

Min Lee was weak-willed and manipulative. Part of me understood his attitude towards Soo-Ja and Hana had a lot to do with the way he was raised. Min Lee’s father was even more abusive that Soo Ja’s father. While some people grow up unaware of their abuse and are therefore unable to fully heal from it, Min Lee knew his father was a horrible person. However, he’d been so brainwashed into being the perfect Confucian son that his ability to heal was greatly limited.

 

After the midpoint, my hatred softened to pity, and I wholeheartedly wanted to see Soo-Ja finally start winning, but Park did not yield. She experienced massive character growth, but Park kept dealing blows to my soul. He strung my along until the every end, and even the ending felt… wrong. Yet, but the time I got there, I was so happy Soo-Ja got ~something~.  Park took us through tales of fleeing the war, through abusive alcoholic men, through attempted sexual assault, death and bankruptcy before Soo-Ja finally started to “win.” Even still, after being punched in the gut for 300 pages, the last few leaves are a sigh of relief.

 

I HIGHLY recommend reading This Burns My Heart. It was a brutal read, but I literally couldn’t put it down. I read it almost in a single breath. Samuel Park’s posthumous (semi-autobiographical) novel, The Caregiver hit the shelves yesterday (September 25th). Considering Park’s brilliant knack for storytelling, I’m sure The Caregiver will be just as impactful as This Burns My Heart. 

 

I’ d love to hear from any one who’s read Park’s other work. I’d also like to see your recs for similar books. 🙂

 

This Burns My Heart links: Amazon | Thriftbooks | AbeBooks | Goodreads

The Caregiver links: Amazon | Goodreads

Thriftbooks discount code: Click Here

 

 

Mini Review of a Hijab Manifesto

My Hijab, My Identity by Sadaf Farooqi

Rating: 2 stars

my hijab, my identity cover
Amazon Digital Services, 2018. 44 Pages.

First Impression: Two wrongs don’t make a right.

The Review:  I was very excited to finally be able to read something by Farooqi. I’ve been following her blog for a while and she has written thirteen books. In the beginning of this manifesto of sorts, Farooqi says that her book is for people who are wondering about hijab, either because they want to wear it themselves or because they wonder why others wear it. Personally, I chose to read it to see if I could strengthen my own arguments. I often fail to properly vocalize my reasoning, so I figured I might be able to borrow some of her arguments. Due to the harshness of the book, however, I think My Hijab, My Identity does more to turn people away from hijab than to invite them towards it.

 

All throughout the book, Farooqi claims it is unfair for people to make snap-judgement about hijabis. She says that, contrary to popular belief, hijabis are often educated women with sovereignty over their own bodies. Farooqi does not, however, offer the same generous generalization of non-hijabis. She more or less argues that the more women show skin, the less self-respect they have. She seems to argue that they are blind and cannot see how right hijab is.

 

I also found it problematic how often Farooqi related her hijab to interaction with other men. She mentioned men so frequently you’d think they were the reason she wears hijab rather than God. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad reason to wear hijab, but I’m displeased that she generalized that reasoning to hijabis as a whole. All of the problematic arguments, combined with the poor writing style, are enough to keep this list firmly off my recommendation list. To be fair, though, I’m giving the book two stars because it’s largely opinion based and I don’t want to be known for judging opinions. If Farooqi used arguments that could easily be proved or disproved, then I might give stars based on the logic of the argument. As it stands, My Hijab, My Identity  is just a 45 page rant.

If you do want to read it, find it on Amazon.

Mystery Tea: Laoximen Milan Xiang

Tea: Milan Xiang  （蜜兰香, Honey Orchid) is a type of fenghuang dancong wulong (single-tree phoenix oolong) from Guangdong Province. Though the Chinese name of the tea typically includes the “honey” character (蜜), sometimes sellers called it use the “rice” character (米) and still others use “secret” (密). As far as I can tell, they’re all the same tea. The Chinese names sound slightly different depending on the character, but it is always romanized to Milan Xiang or Mi Lan Xiang.  Milan Xiang is a subspecies of Shui Xian/ Shui Hsien (水仙), which originates from Fujian Province. Over time, the popularity of the tea caused sellers to grow it all over the place, including Guangdong Province.

 

Company: N/A, I bought the tea at Laoximen Tea City in Shanghai.

Price per Gram: 4 RMB/ ~60 cents per gram, bought “on sale” for 2 RMB/~30 cents per gram (based on current conversion rates)

 

Brewing Method: Normally, I prefer to brew Milan Xiang at 6-8 grams per 100 ml, but I’d had a light lunch when I tasted this, so I decided to brew 5 grams in 100 ml. Brewing it a little weak meant I wouldn’t get as sick from the caffeine. The first steep was for 30 seconds at about 95 degrees Celsius. Each subsequent brew was about 10 seconds longer.

Appearance & Smell of the Leaf:  After heating the teaware, I placed the leaves in the gaiwan and gave it a shake. The leaves smelled like ground coffee. There was a slight hint of dried Chinese bayberry.  As for the appearance, they were a long and twisted with dark chocolate brown color. There were broken bits as well, but those broken leaves most likely came from me shoving the bag of tea into my suitcase unprotected when I returned to my apartment.

Laoximen Milan Xiang Dry leaves
Laoximen Milan Xiang’s dry leaves

First Steep: The aroma transformed from dried coffee grounds to wet ones, and it took on a heavy fruity note. There was also a bit of sourness I find characteristic of Milan Xiang. You could probably compare it to artificial sour apple flavoring, but this fragrance was a bit less sweet. It you were to take sour apple and remove the sweetness, you would have the aroma of Milan Xiang. Although it may sound gross to some, I also detected a bit of a pickle juice smell. The sour apple note was stronger, but the pickle juice sourness was there.

 

The tea liquor was an pink-orange color that wasn’t too dark. When I tasted the tea, I realized it was more floral that fruity. It was much weaker than I’m used to but still satisfying.  There as a little bit of bitterness, but I imagine that came from the broken leaves.

 

Second Steep: The color of the tea was much more distinctly orange and the character started to come out. The roast came to life, giving a stronger coffee flavor. Aerating the tea brought a sweet flavor into the mix. I couldn’t for the life of me identify the floral note. I liked it so much that I wished this Milan Xiang could be a daily drinker, but it was too expensive and I had too little on hand. The huigan (aftertaste) kept rushing forward while I spoke into my phone to take audio notes. It was very intense. Milan Xiang had a medium mouth feel.

 

Third Steep: After the third steep, the leaves had started to open. They had lightened significantly from a deep, soil brown to a color similar to red clay. I also found some stems in the tea, which I was not too happy about. I picked them out and continued brewing. For some reason, the mouthfeel grew thicker rather than thinner. The third steep was almost syrupy in character and just as sweet. The roasted flavor became weaker and the floral/fruity notes became stronger. Basically, the overall flavor profile of the tea stayed the same but the balance shifted. When I played around with the tea in my mouth, it tasted rather soapy (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). I could see how someone new to tea would enjoy this one.

 

The conclusion: The hole-in-the-wall tea always seems to be the best. I loved this tea so much, and I always love the tea from this seller. The issue is that I can’t buy it often because it’s simply out of my budget. He has a pretty successful business though, and some fairly loyal customers. Clearly they also like his tea and his company. I ended my session after four brews, then I stored the leaves in the refrigerator so I could drink them later.

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