scruffie's reviews
111 reviews

I found this to be very well and powerfully written; the content warnings are not to be taken lightly though

only 25 pages in and I already feel like Rufus is an irredeemable bully whose future I have no curiosity about. I don't think this book is for me

DNF. I tried really hard but, god, I just can't stand Whitman's "(white) america is amazing" attitude. I can see how some aspects of his views can be considered progressive for his time, but I can't deal with the blatant parriotism or Whitman's overt confidence.

From the poems I read I liked only one (when I heard the learn'd astronomer.) but I'm not willing to read over 450 more pages looking for the next good 8 lines.

Great starting point for veganizing your cooking! Even if I've only made a few of this book's dishes in their entirety, I've integrated several of Maya's tricks into most other foods I make—the cumin/paprika-based mix for spicing up tofu and the vegan "parmesan" mix are only two such examples. 

I really dislike please-evolve-out-of-your-autism narratives and this was definitely one, if I ever saw one. A pretty harmful narrative, in my opinion, where autistic people are seen as inhuman or "robots", and where the only path to true life and happiness is by some form of conversion into normativity, because being your authentic self is clearly not enough and makes you sub-human. Ugh. There were aspects of the writing and the story that I enjoyed, but that is all unimportant given the overall taste that the book left in my mouth. Example quote from the book: "I wanted to know more people, to be able to engage in deep conversations, and to learn what is was to be human." And another one:

At last, I became a human.

I wouldn't have minded it as much if it were the main character that had such view only, but it's the narrative itself that promotes it that I find unbearable.