All the books I read in April and what I thought of them

In April I read 4 books, except one of them I kind of skimmed. I am being so prompt with my blog post to make up for last month's blog post, which was frankly a disgrace. I wrote the previous sentence on May 1st, and then I didn't post it until today, and now the statement is no longer accurate.

Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod

rating: ⭐

The point of this book is that Westerners have condescending ideas of women in the Muslim world because we see their experiences as monolithic and assume that every problem they have is because of sexism, so we need to bomb their countries so they can be liberated Westernized women. To some degree, she's right, especially about how in the West we are so obsessed with Muslim women living their lives in ways that we don't think is liberated enough. I don't understand the obsession with the hijab. I mean, society sort of tells us to dress, too, and I imagine it can't really be such a big deal to most Muslim women if it's normal in their community to wear the hijab. I think hijabis are more fashionable than me. Also, it's probably more of a dry heat in, say, Egypt, so you're less likely to overheat. Anyway, I don't think it's my job to tell Muslims how to live their lives. The Quran is the literal word of God, and I read the New Yorker.

The author's good points notwithstanding, this book is insufferable. She cannot ever admit that any Muslim woman's problems are caused by sexism, because that would be reductive and playing into our negative stereotypes. So instead of saying something more balanced like, the Muslim world has problems with misogyny, but the experience of any Muslim woman is very complicated and we should respect her agency and her beliefs, she just hates on the West and minimizes gender-based violence and abuse. Sexism can't be the real villain, because that would be reductive. She tries to equate American rape culture with THE TALIBAN, which is wild, and implies that Muslim women who speak out about surviving abuse are traitors who reinforce stereotypes which lead Western countries to bomb Yemen and Iraq. She says that one woman is in an abusive marriage, but the woman in question has chronic health problems, so would her life really be that much better if she left her husband?? This is so insulting. Her response to any report of abuse against women is, it's probably fake/exaggerated/hardly ever happens, so who cares? I'm sure millions of Muslim women care, and she is trying to speak for all of them. Her argument is selling itself as so nuanced, but it's like she's allergic to complexity if it doesn't make the West look as bad as possible. 

✨✨✨

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I put this book on hold from the library two months ago, but, at the same time, I was so sure I was going to hate it because I have a really low tolerance for ideas about love that I disagree with. I want to read more books that have something to say about love so I can trash them on the internet. I love liberalism and the free marketplace of ideas!! I don't have anything mean to say about this book because it didn't talk very much about romantic love. You might think it would, because it's about two asexual college students who make friends without knowing that their Instagram relationship advice blogs are feuding, but all it really says is that the distinction between romantic and platonic love is confusing, and it's okay to be uncertain about things. It is!! 

I didn't like the internet feud between the two protagonists because I thought it made Sophie seem nitpicky and unfun, and it made Jo seem likes a borderline cyberbully. Then they both got found out, and it was extremely fun to watch the webs of deception crumble. Then everyone got upset with each other and it was blown way out of proportion. Why are there about five third-act breakups in a book with NO CENTRAL RELATIONSHIP? When I think about it, this whole book is just the miscommunication trope, or, I guess more accurately, the refusal to communicate trope. Then, at the end, there was a lot of platonic fluff that I didn't enjoy either because I felt like it was cosplaying a romantic relationship. I have a lot of thoughts on this issue, but the readers of my blog have the good fortune/bad fortune of not being subjected to any of them at this time. 

Notwithstanding my previous complaints, this is a very good book. It is lighthearted and fun and easy to read. There were some nice parts that dealt with the fear of your friends getting into relationships and leaving you behind. The characters are cool. It feels very college. I recognized this atmosphere (although my educational institution is very different). Everyone was really unsubtly politically correct, but I believe this is actually how small liberal arts students talk and behave, so I'll allow it. If the author was going to give Jo a Jewish last name (Ephron), I would have appreciated her making Jo more than extremely vaguely Jewish, just because it got my hopes up. I really enjoyed that this book is having a dispute with itself over whether Taylor Swift makes good music. If you think this sort of thing is fun, you should read Snow by Orhan Pamuk, which is having a dispute with itself about political Islam. 

✨✨✨

Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran by Lior Sternfeld

I have essentially no thoughts on this book because I mostly skimmed it for a research project for which it was only moderately helpful. 

✨✨✨

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book is so good. I bet the author's first novel was a cultural phenomenon for a reason. I like books that feel like eavesdropping, so this was fantastic from the beginning. It is the kind of petty drama that I eat up in my real life (and as a reader). It was so convoluted it was actually challenging to explain to my roommate. My favorite kind of drama!! And then when you think the book can't get any more dramatic, the RA and the researcher start eavesdropping themselves on insufferable privileged college girls to write mean-spirited articles about them. An eavesdroppingesque book that also features eavesdropping, I mean, it can't get any better than that.

Every character is either kind of terrible or increasingly becomes kind of terrible. I love it. They all do the most questionable things, but they also have endearing little personality traits. So a character will be taking a bribe, but then she says she's going to use the money to buy a dog because she loves dogs. The characters are so three-dimensional and fun to eavesdrop on as a reader. I forgot these were not real people, I just needed to know more incriminating things about them. I really liked Ryland's search history ("how to become a saint" "saint application" "who owns math"). I bet the author had a good time writing that part.

I understand the criticism that this book has no plot and no point, but the difference between me and those who have this criticism is that I will never stop enjoying eating clementines after holiday dinners and listening to my relatives' problems, even though their problems have no plot and no point, and this book is just that but more exciting (fewer clementines). The transfer student's mom is extremely comforting and supportive and reminds me of how my mom helps me whenever I am going through it.

In a certain sense this book is saying a million little things constantly, but in terms of the big picture is saying not much. It just feels like real people's (riveting) lives, which don't have a point in the way a novel does. I think that's impressive to pull off as an author. 

✨✨✨

The end (I apologize once again for the embarrassing delay).