Currently reading: Evensong by Stewart O’Nan, one of the best writers (in my humble opinion)


#books #evensong #stewartonan #bookstadon #reading

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…”

My mum gave me Rebecca when I was eleven. We went to the library together, and she plucked it directly from the shelf. She told me it had been her favorite book at that age, and that was reason enough for me to love it too. But it didn’t take long for Rebecca to claim me for itself, inducting me into the shadowy world of gothic literature.

Manderley and its long drives, the cold, gray sea crashing beyond the trees, the housekeeper with her secrets, the second Mrs. de Winter with her silence. It all rooted itself deep inside me in ways I’m still unraveling.

At eleven, I read it as a kind of preparation for the life I hadn’t yet lived, and for the woman I hoped to become. Like the narrator, I longed to be a woman in black satin and pearls but was an awkward girl that didn’t like to be looked at. I didn’t fully understand the novel then and how could I? I knew there was a glamorous dead wife I wished to emulate, and a timid new wife I more closely resembled. I knew something terrible had happened in the time between them. But it was the mood I understood. The fog. The feeling of not being enough.

Reading it again now, I see Rebecca differently. I see it as a novel about power and the slow violence of erasing yourself inside your own story. The narrator folds herself smaller and smaller, hoping to disturb nothing, to replace no one. She doesn’t even want to change the dinner menu. Once, I understood that. I, too, would have left things untouched out of fear of upsetting anyone.

Now, many years later, I no longer see myself in the timid narrator. Her insecurities, once so familiar, now feel like someone that I used to know. That’s the strange magic of rereading: the story stays the same, but somehow, everything else changes.

#rebecca #daphnedumaurier #bookstadon #books #alwaysreading

This week’s reading list 📚

#bookstadon #books #rougestreet #thebookofdisappearance #readingcommunity

I’ve always been fascinated by beauty and cosmetic procedures—maybe precisely because I was raised by a mum who didn’t let me wear makeup or paint my nails until I was 16 or 17. Our attitudes toward beauty couldn’t be more different. And now, of course, I live in one of the most beauty-obsessed cities in the world, where the beauty arms race is very much a way of life. The irony isn't lost on me.

I also love body horror books and films, but I get frustrated by their predictable endings: the inevitable monster at the end. It feels like a missed opportunity as there’s so much more to explore about beauty, and the systems that shape it.

I really enjoyed this book because it almoooooost got there. Yes, it follows the familiar arc: girl enters starts beauty treatments and... transforms into something monstrous. But unlike The Substance (which, let’s be honest, was just plain ridiculous), Natural Beauty says something more profound.

The story follows a young Chinese-American woman who, after a family tragedy, takes a job at an exclusive wellness and beauty spa. She starts to use the beauty products. Her features shift toward Eurocentric ideals until she is no longer recognizable even to herself.

Reading this book brought up a lot of questions: What do we sacrifice in pursuit of beauty? Our sense of self? Our lineage? What does it mean to be worthy in a culture obsessed with youth, thinness, and flawlessness? What lurks beneath the glossy surface? What actually drives our desire to feel beautiful? It is really what we want?

Living in a city where beauty is inescapable, I know my perspective is probably a little warped. But I still think I’m allowed to ask: What’s the real horror here? Is it the procedures themselves, the women who want them, the colonial beauty standards driving them? The algorithm, media, men?

Or has this trope been right all along….

Are we the monsters?

#bookstadon #huang #books

I am trying to make my way from IG to PixelFed in a more permanent fashion but am finding that community building is way harder here. Is it because we are all in between the two apps?

Anyway, this is one of the best books that I’ve read recently. Such a refreshing voice guiding us through such a heavy topic! I’m nervous to write what it’s about (gov eyes and stuff) but I do highly recommend it!

I’d also like to point out that whoever designed the cover (those eyebrows! that eyeliner!) speaks to my soul. I was compelled to recreate the look which is why I adorned this image with my makeup 💄

#books #bookstadon #librarybooks

My first Murakami (ok, ok, my second— I did read his nonfiction about writing and running)

#currentlyreading #japaneseliterature #books #bookstadon #alwaysreading

Everyone who has spoken to me lately has, in a way, already read this book—I can’t stop talking about it. I’ve been retelling these stories, giggling at the absurdity, finding the similarities in my life, and then diving into deep conversations about diaspora, migration, and identity. No light chats with me, hehehe.

To me, that’s the mark of a brilliant book.

In Dearborn, author Ghassan Zeineddine presents ten tragicomic stories that capture the layered experiences of Lebanese Americans in Dearborn, Michigan. For those of you who know Lebanese people, you know that we love very little more than our most beloved Lebanon.

Some of my favorite stories: a father teaches his son to hide cash inside frozen chickens to evade the IRS; a group of couples at the gym pool are inexplicably hypnotized by a newcomer wearing a tiiiiiiiiny Speedo covered in landmarks of Lebanon; and in "Yusra," a male butcher spends Fridays living as their true self, as female Yusra, and finds a friend who sees them fully. Yusra gave me all the feelings.

These stories are so funny, so tender, and so beautifully written—a collection I’ll be thinking about (and talking about) for a long time.

#books #bookstadon #shortstories #alwaysreading #dearborn #diaspora #lebanon #literature

This book is difficult to put into words because it hurts. It is both a memoir and an act of remembrance, telling the story of Liliana Rivera Garza, a radiant architecture student who loved poetry and writing and had plans to change the world. She was brutally murdered in 1990 at just 20 years old by her ex-boyfriend. He was never arrested. Nearly 30 years later, her sister, Cristina Rivera Garza, finally opened the boxes of Liliana’s letters, notes, and diaries. In those pages, she found her sister’s voice again.

This book is also an ode to Liliana. So much of it is told in her own words—she was a writer, a scribbler, someone who carefully drafted letters before sending them. The sisters wrote this together. You grow to love Liliana, to know her, and, then…to feel the absolute weight of her loss. I kept feeling like we could have been friends—I, too, love writing and receiving letters. So many of the emotions she captured felt familiar to me, as if we had once passed each other secret notes, folded into intricate shapes, across a classroom. You love her, and yet you are terrified for her. How can we warn someone when the events have already happened? It feels so easy to turn back time.

Liliana’s Invincible Summer is also a call to action against gender-based violence. Globally, approximately 26% of women have experienced some form of GBV. This is terrifying. In Mexico, where femicide remains a daily reality, a 2020 report by Impunidad Cero found over 1,000 femicides in a single year, with more than half of those cases unsolved. Unlike in the US, where the Trumpian regime has erased terms like GBV from official policy and gender-based protections under Executive Order 14168, Mexico legally distinguishes femicide as its own crime.

This book hurts but it’s necessary. Liliana was not a cold statistic. None of the women lost are. This was an ode to a life, and an important call to action. What will my actions be? I don’t know yet, but we must honor through action.