Book reviews: Time Is a Mother, Honey Girl, and Handspun Rosaries

Hi, it’s been a long time since I’ve properly updated this blog (other than the Junji Ito blog post!) — I’ve been reading a ton of great books lately, and I think you should check them out. Outside of work, I’ve been taking things slow but devouring books like a little Junji Ito nematode demon. Some thoughts on my fave recent reads:

• Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers: Reading a book about a burnt-out, high-achieving person in her late 20s with deep anxiety kinda hit, you know? Morgan Rogers treats us to a beautiful story about the millennial experience and chosen family while throwing in a fun random-drunken-Vegas-marriage-to-actual-love kind of pipeline.
• Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong:  Ocean Vuong made me cry over an Amazon shopping list. “Time Is a Mother” is such a beautiful rumination on mortality and grief and time; it plays around with form and structure in a way that made me rethink the purpose of art and poetry, especially how form can be a vehicle for storytelling to move people.
• Handspun Rosaries by Dina Klarisse: I had the great honor of receiving an ARC for this book, and it was such a pleasure to read! Dina, who’s one of my online writing pals, writes poetry that is so incisive and curious yet warm and witty, and she explores those lingering questions about faith that are taboo but you’re probably wondering about them anyway. And you get hit with those diaspora feels. My favorites poems were “A Sonnet for Mary,” “To the ocean,” and “Asian Supermarkets.”

Anyway, if you came here from my Instagram, welcome! I’m trying to personalize this space to be specific to my interests while throwing in guides and personal hobby records here and there. Thanks for coming, and we’ll talk soon.