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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.

Tämä on toinen lukemani Itkosen kirja. Edellisen lukemisesta on ehkä viitisentoista vuotta, mutta ei selvästikään riittävän pitkä aika, jotta tämä olisi tuntunut mitenkään omaperäiseltä lukukokemukselta. Mutta sepä toisaalta taitaa vähän olla sukupolviromaanien ideakin: niiden pitää kuvata mahdollisimman tavanomaisia tapahtumankulkuja, jotta mahdollisimman moni voisi kokea ne omakseen. Noh, minua lähinnä tympi. Eikös buumereiden ja heidän vanhempiensa sukupolvista ole kirjoitettu jo tarpeeksi monta sukupolviromaania? Eikös vahinkoraskauksista alkaneet velvollisuusavioliitot riitoineen ja lopulta eroineen ole aika mielikuvituksettomia, jos niihin ei edes yritetä saada mitään mielikuvituksellista (kuten tässä kirjassa ei ole tehty)? Kauhean tylsää cisheteronormatiivisuutta ja vieläpä hirmuista setäselittämistä. Noh, Hämeenlinnastahan Itkonen oikeasti kirjoittaa, kuten siinä toisessakin Itkosen kirjassa, jonka olen lukenut, vaikka tätä on yritetty häivyttää kertomalla hiukan muistakin kaupungeista, mutta silti vain Hämeenlinna-kuvauksissa on kirjoittajan sielu mukana.

Mutta okei, kirja onnistui kyllä jossain määrin tavoittelemaan sitä lopun aikojen tuntua, joka Euroopassa ja Yhdysvalloissa vallitsi vuoden 2010 tietämillä, ja on jossain määrin pysäyttävää lukea se niin selkeästi ilmaistuna vuonna 2012 ilmestyneestä aikalaisromaanista ja pohtia, kuinka nämä lopunaikojen tunnelmat ja kehityskulut ovat täällä vain vahvistuneet sen sijaan, että olisi siirrytty johonkin uuteen alkuun. Tämä on ehkä kirjan ainoa varsinainen ansio.

This book is one of the few that I found that talk about sex workers in a nuanced light. This is largely because it's a book that's by sex workers, and that makes all the difference.

As someone reads through it, they'll start seeing the connections between a lot of different issues and sex work in particular: trans and queer issues, homelessness, misogyny and violence against women, migrant issues, race, and so on. It provides one more link in a chain that highlights the ways in which everything is connected, which is something that more people really need to be cognizant of.

There are a few parts that I take issue with, and it's largely because they try to be... more polite to people than I think they ought to be. There's a part of the text where they say something along the lines that they want to sit down and have genuine conversations with anti-prostitution feminists who they openly acknowledge they disagree with to make their positions clear, but many of those people that they list are also known TERFs (Julie Bindel). I think such additions of "wanting to talk" are really just pointless, and they most certainly were in 2018 (when the book was published). The belief that we can just talk to these people and make them change their minds... I struggle with that because a lot of time has been wasted on just talking with these people, and they haven't budged an inch. In fact, they've entrenched further.

So while everything else was great and really informative and helped build a lot of connections between issues, I really just wish they would've removed these elements of "sitting down and nicely talking" with people who have shown themselves to be openly hostile and violently aggressive to calm discourse.

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.