La volonté de changer

Read La volonté de changer: les hommes, la masculinité et l’amour by bell hooks

Si pour beaucoup d’hommes, le féminisme est une affaire de femmes, bell hooks s’attelle ici à démontrer le contraire. La culture patriarcale, pour fabriquer de « vrais hommes », exige d’eux un sacrifice. Malgré les avantages et le rôle de premier choix dont ils bénéficient, ces derniers doivent se faire violence et violenter leurs proches pour devenir des dominants, mutilant par là-même leur vie affective. La volonté de changer est un des premiers ouvrages féministes à poser clairement la question de la masculinité. En abordant les préoccupations les plus courantes des hommes, de la peur de l’intimité au malheur amoureux, en passant par l’injonction au travail, à la virilité et à la performance sexuelle, bell hooks donne un aperçu saisissant de ce que pourrait être une masculinité libérée, donc féministe.

Je continue à être un énorme fanboy de bell hooks avec son excellent essai La volonté de changer, qui s’adresse à tout le monde et parle des hommes, un sujet… bizarrement oublié par des grands pans du féminisme. J’aime beaucoup l’avis rafraîchissant de bell hooks et sa volonté de rappeler que tout le monde souffre…

Mother Ocean Father Nation

Read Mother Ocean Father Nation by Nishant Batsha

Jaipal feels like the unnoticed, unremarkable sibling, always left to fend for himself. He is stuck working in the family store, avoiding their father’s wrath, with nothing but his hidden desires to distract him. Desperate for money and connection, he seizes a sudden opportunity to take his life into his own hands for the first time. But his decision leaves him at the mercy of an increasingly volatile country. On a small Pacific island, a brother and sister tune in to a breaking news radio bulletin. It is 1985, and an Indian grocer has just been attacked by nativists aligned with the recent military coup. Now, fear and shock are rippling through the island’s deeply-rooted Indian community as racial tensions rise to the brink. Spanning from the lush terrain of the South Pacific to the golden hills of San Francisco, Mother Ocean Father Nation is an entrancing debut about how one family, at the mercy of a nation broken by legacies of power and oppression, forges a path to find a home once again. Bhumi hears this news from her locked-down dorm room in the capital city. She is the ambitious, intellectual standout of the family—the one destined for success. But when her friendship with the daughter of a prominent government official becomes a liability, she must flee her unstable home for California. A riveting, tender debut novel, following a brother and sister whose paths diverge—one forced to leave, one left behind—in the wake of a nationalist coup in the South Pacific

Jaipal and Bhumi are estranged siblings. The first is a young gay man working as a bartender, the second a brilliant biology student, both of them living on a small West Pacific island. When the dictator starts discriminating against « Indians » more and more, they’re worried – when discrimination turns into plain government harassment,…

From Here

Read From Here by Luma Mufleh

In her coming-of-age memoir, refugee advocate Luma Mufleh writes of her tumultuous journey to reconcile her identity as a gay Muslim woman and a proud Arab-turned-American refugee.

This memoir started out as a read for my « Around the world in 195 countries » challenge and ended up with me sobbing (yes, again – what can I say, October was a mental health struggle). It was an excellent read.

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Hunt Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America

Read Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Hunt Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America by Krista Burton

A former Rookie contributor and creator of the popular blog Effing Dykes investigates the disappearance of America’s lesbian bars by visiting the last few in existence.

An excellent read in which Krista Burton tells us about her travels to 23 lesbian bars in the USA immediately after the pandemic lockdowns. She tells us about the importance of these places, their individual stories, different lesbian cultures across her country and much more, with a lot of thoughts about who belongs in lesbian…

When we were sisters

Read When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar

An orphan grapples with gender, siblinghood, family, and coming-of-age as a Muslim in America in this lyrical debut novel from the acclaimed author of If They Come For Us.

This novel follows three sisters who are orphaned at a young age and left in the « care » of a neglectful uncle. These three young Muslim girls grow up in the USA and have very different lives. The story is told from the point of view of the youngest, starting with what a small…

Les déracinés

Read Les déracinés by Catherine Bardon

Autriche, 1931. Lors d’une soirée où se réunissent artistes et intellectuels viennois, Wilhelm, jeune journaliste de 25 ans, a le coup de foudre pour Almah. Mais très vite la montée de l’antisémitisme vient assombrir leur histoire d’amour. Malgré un quotidien de plus en plus menaçant, le jeune couple attend 1939 pour se résoudre à l’exil. Un nouvel espoir avant la désillusion : ils seront arrêtés en Suisse. Consignés dans un camp de réfugiés, ils n’ont qu’un seul choix : faire partie des 100 000 Juifs attendus en République dominicaine après l’accord passé par le dictateur local Trujillo avec les autorités américaines. Loin des richesses de l’Autriche, la jungle sauvage et brûlante devient le décor de leur nouvelle vie. L’opportunité de se réinventer ?

Cet énorme pavé suivant une famille juive autrichienne dans les années 1930 puis 1940 et leur exil en République dominicaine me donne envie de poser plein de questions sur ce pan de l’histoire, et je suis ravi qu’un roman vienne faire connaître cette initiative et la période. J’ai beaucoup apprécié ma lecture.

Bâtir aussi, des Ateliers de l’Antémonde

Read Bâtir aussi by Ateliers de l’Antémonde ( )

2011, les printemps arabes ont donné le ton à d’autres révoltes. Un mouvement mondialisé s’étend, c’est l’Haraka. Les productions industrielles, les États et toutes les hiérarchies vacillent. Des dynamiques populaires s’entrechoquent pour répondre aux nécessités de la survie et dessiner un futur habitable.

2021, les communes libres s’épanouissent sur les ruines du système. Comment vivre avec l’héritage de l’Antémonde ? Comment faire le tri des objets et des savoirs d’une époque aux traces tenaces ? Les haraks dessinent leur quotidien en fonction de leurs ressources et de leurs rêves. Des dynamos aux rites funéraires, des lave-linge aux assemblées, ces nouvelles d’anticipation politique racontent non pas une utopie parachutée, hors-sol, mais des routines collectives qui se confrontent à la matière, à ce qui résiste dans les têtes, bâtissant un monde qui s’espère sans dominations.

Bâtir aussi a été une lecture franchement agréable. J’adore ces romans qui prennent un « et si… » et décident de creuser à fond dedans, avec des bouts de sciences en tous genres et de géopolitique, en suivant des personnes super variées dans plein de lieux en France (pardon, en Rhônalpie et à Nantes), en…

When Echoes Die, Courtney Gould

Read Where Echoes Die by Courtney Gould ( )

Beck Birsching has been adrift since the death of her mother, a brilliant but troubled investigative reporter. She can’t stop herself from slipping into memories of happier days, longing for a time when things were more normal. So when a mysterious letter in her mother’s handwriting arrives in the mail that reads Come and find me, pointing to the small town at the center of her last investigation, Beck hopes that it may hold the answers.

But when Beck and her sister Riley arrive in Backravel, Arizona, it’s clear that something’s off. There are no cars, no cemeteries, no churches. The town is a mix of dilapidated military structures and new, shiny buildings, all overseen by a gleaming treatment center high on a plateau. No one seems to remember when they got there, and when Beck digs deeper into the town’s enigmatic leader and his daughter, Avery, she begins to suspect that they know more than they’re letting on.

As Beck and her sister search for answers about their mother, she and Avery are increasingly drawn together, and their unexpected connection brings up emotions Beck has fought to keep buried. Beck is desperate to hold onto the way things used to be, but when she starts losing herself in Backravel—and its connection to her mother—she risks losing her way back out.

When Echoes Die was predictable sometimes, gripping always. I felt my heart sink with some bad decisions, I loved the protagonist and wanted to punch everyone else in the face just to make them feel something, I panicked when the supernatural took over. This novel didn’t rock my world, but I won’t forget it anytime…

Your driver is waiting, Priya Guns

Read Your driver is waiting by Priya Guns ( )

Damani is tired. Every day she cares for her mum, drives ride shares to pay the bills and is angry at a world that promised her more before spitting her out. The city is alive with protests, fighting for people like her, but Damani can barely afford – literally – to pay attention.

That is until the summer she meets Jolene and life opens up. Jolene seems like she could be the perfect girlfriend – attentive, attractive, an ally – and their chemistry is undeniable. Jolene’s done the reading, she goes to every protest, she has all the right answers. So maybe Damani can look past the one thing that’s holding her back: Jolene is rich. And not only rich, but white, too. But just as their romance intensifies, just as Damani learns to trust, Jolene does something unforgivable, setting off a truly explosive chain of events.

I really wanted to like this book. I really did! It had some funny characters, although the satire is so bleak I wouldn’t even call it satire anymore, just dystopia. The lead character is supremely unlikeable and that’s exactly what we want. I was really into the first half – and then I don’t know.…

Alfie, de Christopher Bouix

Read Alfie by Christopher Bouix ( )

Alfie est un robot d’assistance pour le quotidien, doté de la meilleure technologie d’Intelligence artificielle. Il est au courant de tout ce qui se passe dans le foyer et remarque que son propriétaire passe moins de temps chez lui et cache des choses à son épouse. Lorsque cette dernière disparaît mystérieusement, Alfie a des soupçons qu’il note dans son journal intime.

Ce livre n’a pas changé ma vie MAIS !!! J’ai plusieurs fois éclaté de rire (et fait sursauter mon pauvre copain à moitié endormi), et je n’en demande pas plus à ce que je qualifierai donc de « thriller léger ». Une lecture agréable, pas bien longue, avec sa dose de rebondissements et de marrade.