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Singout

Singout

Joined January 2020

Audiobook-dependent, Canadian, passion for justice, history, protection of Earth, kindness. She/her pronouns.
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Singout
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To anyone else, Eddie‘s reason would‘ve been baffling. But Ky understood. She hated how well she now understood. After all, hadn‘t she kept every hurt she‘d experienced from her own parents? Hadn‘t she hidden the bullying, the name-calling, the times she‘d been told to go back where she came from, the “ching—chongs,” the pulled-back eyelids, the blondies with their Cabbage Patch kids, the way she was asked why she couldn‘t just take a joke? /1

Singout /2 Hadn‘t she lived her own ambitious, exciting, anxious, uncompromising life, while knowing she could never, ever, ever, ever tell her parents about what she had been through? Because knowing would break their hearts. Because she had to help them believe that their sacrifices had paid off. Because she had to help them believe that moving to a country where they didn‘t speak the language and weren‘t seen as individuals had been worth it. 11h
6 likes1 comment
review
Singout
Pickpick

Moving, engaging, informative: two teen girls, best friends in post WWII France, create a scheme where the more gifted one channels literature through the more middle-class one, whose work is more likely to be accepted. They unexpectedly become separated when the “prodigy”writer is sent to England and the rest of the book explores their friendship, with its strong lesbian subtext, issues of culture and class, and youth power and choices. #Bookspin

TheAromaofBooks Great progress!!! 19h
12 likes1 comment
blurb
Singout

April ##Booksping
1. Doppelgänger
2. A Woman Is no Man
3. Run Towards the Danger
4. Thank You Mr Nixon
5. When We Were Sisters
6. An Immense World
7. Ghosts of the Tsunami
8. Hunger
9. Fresh Water for Flowers
10. Saving Time
11. Citizen
12. H is for Hawk
13. The Covenant of Water
14. Fruit of the Drunken Tree
15. We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky
16. The Bandit Queens
17. Big Men Fear Me
18. Don‘t Bite the Hook
19. Some People Need
20. Greenwood

review
Singout
Pickpick

Good collection of essays with different takes on how the Black experience of racism intersects with shame, trauma, and vulnerability. I had varying responses to the essays, but found most of them moving and informational, with a wide range of themes. I particularly appreciated Burke and Brown's dialogue at the beginning about why they wanted to work together.

#SheSaid

#Nonfiction2024 #IKnowWhytheCagedBirdSings

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“I‘m going to decorate my house in a Western style,” Denny said, during one of their last phone calls. “Do you mean, like, Wild West?””No, like white people.” “Have you ever been in a white person‘s house?”Ky asked, genuinely curious. “I watch Better Homes & Gardens,” Denny said. “Mom watches it too, but I think she does it to feel superior to white people. She reckons they‘re super impractical and waste money on decorative junk they don‘t need.”

review
Singout
Pickpick

For my IRL book club: canceled by a snowstorm! I expected fluffy: it actually tackles serious issues about gender and trans identity, mutually supportive women‘s communities outside mainstream culture, aging, and, of course, magic. Resilient women brought together in childhood have all developed their own specific powers, internal tensions, and affiliations, to find that their property is threatened with destruction and they need to fight back.

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Singout

“There are things that my body doesn‘t allow me to do, like walking long distances. This means I can‘t really attend physical protests. So, I protest for change by the written word and across my platforms. I also fight by being all that I am without asking for permission.”

Yep. This is me. #SheSaid

blurb
Singout

#Bookspin

1. Doppelgänger
2. Nothing to Envy
3. Run Towards the Danger
4. Thank You Mr Nixon
5. When We Were Sisters
6. An Immense World
7. Ghosts of the Tsunami
8. Hunger
9. A Small Place
10. Saving Time
11. Citizen
12. H is for Hawk
13. The Reason I Jump
14. Fruit of the Drunken Tree
15. We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky
16. The Bandit Queens
17. Big Men Fear Me
18. Don‘t Bite the Hook
19. Some People Need Killing
20. Greenwood

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!!! 1mo
Singout Winner: Nothing to Envy 4w
9 likes2 comments
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Singout

One day, when I am old and gray, with whitish blue rings around my failing eyes…I won‘t only have to reach up for my peace, but I‘ll be able to reach out, to a faith community that values my mental, physical, and emotional safety over just my survival. Love absolutely, will lift us but there are generations of Nanas, mamas, and baby girls looking for something else to help out. The church has so much more than shame to give us. #SheSaid

9 likes1 stack add
review
Singout
Pickpick

Not quite what I was expecting, but very intriguing: the French author, relying heavily on French sources, explores the tropes and history of persecution of “witches” that have come down through the centuries, and looks at how they continue to play out today. Some of the themes are aging, being single, being “unattractive,” being independent and powerful. Having a cat comes up too!
#Nonfiction2024 #HarryPotter

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Singout

The shift that needs to happen is the one that aligns with the Gospel the most: embracing mystery leaves room for our own mysterious emotional responses, and allows love to fill us up in ways that our certain faith never could…This is why the binaries of certainty: “do this and go to heaven, don‘t do this, and go to hell,” are so problematic.
Tracey Michae‘l Lewis-Giggetts
#SheSaid

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Singout cavities where metals lay hidden became her uterus.
Having gradually grown untenable, these ancient views were replaced by others that, in stripping out our sense of the world as a living body, dissipated all such old scruples and would eventually allow untrammeled exploitation.
(edited) 1mo
10 likes1 comment
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Singout
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review
Singout
Night Tiger | Yangsze Choo
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Pickpick

Captivating: entwining family relationships, youth seeking a better life, traditional beliefs, and crime thriller in British-colonized 1930's Malay. The story alternates between a houseboy whose master has died leaving him with the responsibility of locating his severed finger, and a girl making her way when cut off from schooling who is pulled into a vortex of serial mysterious deaths. Again, insights into a country and time I know little about.

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Singout

Corinne Maier, 1977: “We live in a society of ants: in which working and nesting shape the alternate prospects of the human condition. If work is the opium of the masses, does that make children our consolation? A society in which life is limited to living and reproducing is one that has no future, for it has no dreams.” For her, procreation represents the deadlock of the heart of the current system that leads directly to ecological catastrophe.

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Singout

In “Une vie à soi” Erika Flahault distinguishes between “women en manque,” who feel something is missing, but put up with their situation, despite some suffering; “women en marche,” women who are learning to appreciate their situation; and the “apostate du conjugale,” women who have left marriage behind and are deliberately organizing their lives, loves, and friendships outside the framework of the couple.

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Singout
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“ I was 13 when my grandfather‘s leg was amputated.”
#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

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Singout
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In 1233, a bull issued by Pope Gregory IX declared cats to be “the devil‘s servants.” Then, in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII ordered that all cats seen in the company of women be considered their “familiars.” These witches were to be burned along with their animals. The cats‘ extermination contributed to the growth of the rat population, so aggravating subsequent outbreaks of disease, which were blamed on witches.

Bookwomble I thought this an interesting historical situation that I wanted to learn more about, however it seems that it's a modern, internet-era myth. The core elements are still interesting, though 😊 https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/11/08/cats-mass-killings-plague/ and https://museumhack.com/black-cats-black-death/ 2mo
Singout Oh, no! That‘s discouraging when you find out you can‘t trust your author‘s interesting historical “facts”… 2mo
9 likes2 comments
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Singout
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Pickpick

Another excellent Inspecteur Gamache mystery: set in Three Pines and exploring a painful family tragedy, with background narratives of both a flooding of the St. Lawrence river and internal conflict within the police force.

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Singout

It took two minutes on Google for me to understand that I‘d been having“panic attacks.” I couldn‘t understand why the doctors looked at my tucked-in shirts, heard my fake accent, and still refused to do anything other than treat me like a n*. That‘s crazy. My problem, I guess, is that I don‘t think being crazy should stop us from being compassionate and actively regretful about structural or interpersonal harm we‘ve caused. #SheSaid

CatLass007 I‘m looking forward to beginning our discussion of this book tomorrow. Nope, it‘s after midnight, so we‘ll be discussing it today. 2mo
9 likes1 comment
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Singout

In co-creation, lived experience always trumps academic experience…you can‘t make your research accessible to people if you don‘t prioritize lived experience, relevance, and accessibility.
#SheSaid

TheBookHippie 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 2mo
15 likes1 comment
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Singout
Mercy House: A Novel | Alena Dillon
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Pickpick

I was glad that the #nunlit book shows both justice work that many in religious orders practice as well as the impact of hierarchy and patriarchy. The main character is part of a trio that sets up a home for abused women that connects some with abortion opportunities, in direct defiance of the Catholic Church, resulting in punishment. Lots of painful reading here about abuse, rape, lost love, and broken families, but also supportive community.

jlhammar Great review, Sarah! 2mo
13 likes1 comment
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Singout
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Pickpick

A brilliant novel that captures the pain of oppression, exile, and refugee life in Canada. Two sisters, with their parents and uncle, are forced out of Tibet into Nepal, in a camp with other Tibetan exiles. One, with her niece, ends up in my neighbourhood in Toronto with its large Tibetan population. I learned so much from this about the Tibetan history, religion, and culture of the community, and was pulled completely into the narrative.

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Singout
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This is a familiar threshold, facing in opposite directions: toward a country I cannot truly enter, and back to a world that cannot be my home. Forward or back. No step makes sense. So I must remain between two realms. This fence under my feet is a tightrope I can never leave. At our camp, at my school in Kathmandu, in the West: all along I was standing here at the edge of becoming, where the needle trembles but cannot move.

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Singout

February #bookspin:

1. Doppelgänger
2. The Book of Goose
3. Run Towards
4. Thank You Mr Nixon
5. When We Were Sisters
6. An Immense World
7. A Better Man
8. The Art of Gathering
9. A Small Place
10. Saving Time
11. Citizen
12. H is for Hawk
13. The Reason I Jump
14. Fruit of the Drunken Tree
15. We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky
16. The Bandit Queens
17. Big Men Fear Me
18. Don‘t Bite the Hook
19. Some People Need Killing
20. Greenwood

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!!! 2mo
11 likes1 comment
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Singout
Man Booker Prize | Frederic P Miller, Agnes F Vandome, John McBrewster
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My #Bookerdozen : it was embarrassing how few of all those books I‘ve even heard of. But I still had to pare it down! Not necessarily the absolute best books, but the ones I enjoyed the most.

BarbaraBB Some great ones you chose 💕 2mo
TheKidUpstairs LOVE Cat's Eye. But I only let myself choose one Atwood for my list :) 2mo
Singout @TheKidUpstairs lol I deliberately chose the underdog 2mo
17 likes3 comments
review
Singout
On the Savage Side: A Novel | Tiffany McDaniel
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Pickpick

This powerful book is a fictionalization of of the “Chillicothe Six,” young women serially murdered in rural Ohio. It doesn‘t pull any punches with violence, sex trade, and drug use, but the thread of love amongst them and some of their family members is clear: the closing is a statement of how much they loved each other, even if they would be forgotten or only remembered for life elements that were tied to “the savage side.”#auldlangspine

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Grendel | John Gardner
Pickpick

My #Booked2023 #Monster book: a retelling of one of the English language epics, (although I learned that it wasn‘t set in England) from the perspective of the “monster,” instead of the human heroes. Mostly well written and intriguing (sometimes confusing), although it‘s been 34 years since I read Beowulf, and I‘m not going back to it! Good exploration of the pain and isolation that Grendel, who doesn‘t fit into the surrounding culture experiences.

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Singout
Love Enough: A Novel | Dionne Brand
Pickpick

Beautiful, eloquent book by one of Canada‘s best-known Black and queer poets, intertwining four stories of diverse people in Toronto who are all connected in some way. Newcomers, struggling drug addicts, women seeking new relationships, parents and siblings, piano teachers and students, and hairdressers all make their way into this book, finding how to live with themselves and each other. Toronto is vividly portrayed as well.

7 likes1 stack add
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Singout
On the Savage Side: A Novel | Tiffany McDaniel

She nudged me until I used my finger, revealing a piece of paper beneath the dirt. “Read it aloud,”she said. I hesitated. “I am incredible.” I read the note in the shaky voice. “That you are,” she said. She turned the page again. “Dig, Ark, dig. I pushed the dirt off the page, discovering another note that said, “I am amazing.“ “You are that, too.”“Men might think they‘re the big dog archaeologists, but only women know how to go deep.”

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BookmarkTavern Woo! 🤩 3mo
9 likes1 comment
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Singout
On the Savage Side: A Novel | Tiffany McDaniel
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I‘ve come to the conclusion that the minute between us was nothing more than sisters lying as close to each other as they could without bearing a wider berth upon their mother. Twins, who in the womb, decided upon 60 seconds: it was as much as we would allow ourselves to be separated, just enough for our mother to rest after the big push, but brief enough that we would not be long from each other in the new world outside her glistening body.

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Singout
On the Savage Side: A Novel | Tiffany McDaniel
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Starting my first #AuldLangSpine with memories of my preteen years downriver from a pulp town…drawn into these girls‘ lives so far.

ncsufoxes This was probably my favorite book last year. I love McDaniel‘s books even though she writes about such difficult subjects. Enjoy! 3mo
11 likes1 comment
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Singout
Love Enough: A Novel | Dionne Brand
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Right now, she is probably an odd-looking woman in the coffee shop. She looks around, and laughs again. Everybody in the Tim Horton‘s is odd-looking, except those who have someone sitting across from them talking. Companionship makes you look sane. There could be two perfectly crazy people sitting together, but that act of social mingling legitimizes their sanity. Ridiculous, June thinks. This is another act of cultivation.

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Singout
Love Enough: A Novel | Dionne Brand

June disliked starlings. They sought each day to displace the sparrows. She did not like their twitter or their sharp yellow predatory beaks. And she had no appreciation for their multicolored, glistening feathers, at once green, gold, red, blue, and black. She understood that they lived in a communal nest that could take over an attic. This would otherwise have been admirable as socialism but she hated the aggression of starlings.

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Singout
Love Enough: A Novel | Dionne Brand
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Mercede‘s love was exhausting because it needed love back constantly. Leah and Jermaine were children and didn‘t always know how to love back. They simply knew how to love, and at times they wanted to run or play, and have love waiting for them when they returned. Mercede‘s love was a burning, wanting love. Mercedes‘ love could not hold out against the panic of never being loved enough.

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#Nonfiction2023 Bingo Card: not complete this year but lots of good stuff in here! Thanks, @Riveted_Reader_Melissa!

Riveted_Reader_Melissa I didn‘t finish mine this year either, but still great reads. So reading win! 3mo
7 likes1 comment
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Singout
Bad Girls: A Novel | Camila Sosa Villada
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I didn't read every country in the Western Hemisphere, but did pretty well this year! Lots of new knowledge and insights! Thank you @BarbaraBB and @LibraryBelle for this year's #ReadingtheAmericas2023!

Librarybelle Wow! Impressive! Congratulations, and thanks for joining us!! 3mo
Bookwormjillk Nicely done! 3mo
BarbaraBB You did so good!! Thanks for joining!! 3mo
Singout And more books on my to-read list that I didn‘t get to! Going to send some recs to my former coworker who specialty was collaborating with organizations in Latin America for human rights and justice. 3mo
10 likes4 comments
review
Singout
Pickpick

Highly recommended: captures the courage and terror of people fleeing through #Mexico from #Guatemala, #ElSalvador, and #Honduras in the hope of a safer life in the U.S. Centred on “The Beast,“ a train to which people cling in any way possible through Mexico. Martinez does a fabulous job of interviewing people from various backgrounds and at all stages of the journey. #ReadingtheAmericas2023 #Nonfiction2023 #StillHaventfoundwhatI'mLookingFor

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Singout
Love Enough: A Novel | Dionne Brand
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The best way of looking at a sunset in the city is in the mirrors of a car. If you ever travel east along Dupont Street at that time look back: you may see something breathtaking. It‘s perhaps because this street is so ugly: car wrecking shops, taxi dispatch sheds, rooming houses, hardware stores, desolate all-night diners and front yards eaten up by 100-winter salt, it is because of all this that a sunset is in the perfect location here: needed.

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Singout
Untilted | Autechre

January 2024 #Bookspin
1. We Measure the Earth
2. Doppelgänger
3. The Book of Goose
4. Run Towards
5. Thank You Mr Nixon
6. When We Were Sisters
7. An Immense World
8. A Better Man
9. The Art of Gathering
10. A Small Place
11. Saving Time
12. Love and Drowning
13. H is for Hawk
14. Pure Colour
15. Fruit of the Drunken Tree
16. Crip up the Kitchen
17. Love Enough
18. We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky
19. Either/Or
20. The Glass Universe

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!!! 3mo
6 likes1 comment
review
Singout
A Million Aunties | Alecia McKenzie
Bailedbailed

I just couldn‘t get through this in time for the #Jamaica ReadingtheAmericas2023 challenge, and it didn‘t capture me. Some of the writing was really eloquent with intriguing characters, but it just seemed to wander around too much for me to fully engage with it. Maybe I‘ll come back to it another time.

Librarybelle If it doesn‘t grab your attention, I‘m a firm believer in bailing or setting to the side for later 3mo
9 likes1 comment
review
Singout
Bad Girls: A Novel | Camila Sosa Villada
Pickpick

This was excellent: a narrative of an emerging trans woman who becomes a sex trade worker and finds a community of others, led by a unbelievably older woman and adopting a baby boy. It really brings to life, the strength of the community, including both the love, and the pain That exist there as well as the phobias that tried to crush sex work and trans people.
#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Argentina

BarbaraBB This sounds good! Happy new year 🎆 3mo
Librarybelle Hooray!! 3mo
11 likes1 stack add2 comments
review
Singout
Pickpick

15 stories and essays comes from young adults whose backgrounds are rooted in diverse Latinx countries. A range of issues are addressed, including multiracialism, racism, LGBT issues, immigration and refugee struggles, & more.
Favourites include #Julian4spiderman by Julian Randall and Half In, Half Out by Saraciea Fennell.
#Nonfiction2023 #BlackSheep
#ReadingtheAmericas2023
#Mexico
#Haiti
#Cuba
#Honduras
#Panama
#DominicanRep
#PuertoRico
#Brazil

Librarybelle Sounds very good! 3mo
9 likes1 comment
blurb
Singout
BookSpinBingo | Untitled

Last 2023 #bookspin, heavy on #TheAmericas

1. We Measure the Earth with our Bodies
2. Olga Dies
3. A Million Aunties
4. Run Towards
5. Bad Girls
6. Never so Bad
7. How The Garcia Girls
8. The Savage Detectives
9. Magdalena
10. Fresh Banana Leaves
11. A Small Place
12. I am a taxi
13. Love and Drowning
14. H is for Hawk
15. Memory Police
16. Solito
17. Pure Colour
18. Wild Tongues Can‘t Be Tamed
19. Fruit of the Drunken Tree
20. Love after Love

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!!! 4mo
6 likes1 comment
review
Singout
Pickpick

Belated #SheSaid book: powerful memoir from the woman whose experiences with childhood sexual abuse, sexism, and racism led to her beginning the Me Too movement empowering women and girls to speak up about their experiences and work to end, sexual harassment, and abuse. #MeToo went viral during the Harvey Weinstein case in 2017, prompting vast numbers of women to state that they too had survived abuse.
#Nonfiction2023 #StrangeFruit

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Bad Girls: A Novel | Camila Sosa Villada
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We called them [cis gay men] “The Crows” because they liked to scavenge alongside us. But we knew that we‘d never really know why they came. What could possibly be the attraction of a motley troubled pack like ours made up of street girls, runaways.We mistrusted them even more for their double male lives. Their ease highlighted our discomfort: we‘d never had the chance to hide in the closet in the first place. We were born out of the closet.

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Singout

Sexual violence doesn‘t discriminate, but the response to it does. In some ways, it is the great equalizer. No demographic or group is exempt, but the reactions to different people telling their stories are far from equal. That is, why my work has always centered black and brown folks, especially women and girls. The response to our trauma and our truths is wildly different from the response to white women‘s.

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Singout
Migrations: A Novel | Charlotte McConaghy
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My #ReadingtheAmericas2023 progress: continuing to knock a few off, although I won't read everything on the list by 2024!

Librarybelle Excellent progress! 5mo
BarbaraBB You‘re doing great 👍🏽 5mo
Singout @librarybelle @BarbaraBB Are we starting over next year or is that all there is in the world to read? I only started with Africa last year! 5mo
See All 6 Comments
Librarybelle Honestly, I have not really thought too far about next year with this! Totally my fault. @BarbaraBB 5mo
BarbaraBB @Librarybelle I haven‘t either, we‘ve covered most of the world, except for Oceania, which has only 18 countries, most of them small islands… 5mo
Singout Fair enough, just curious...lots of countries have two books 😏 but no pressure!
5mo
11 likes6 comments