everything i read in april | reverse lolita, critiquing didion, re-reading, overrated classic, etc.

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:08]Hi. Hello. It's your boy Nate. I read books cuz reading is sexy. And if you're not reading, you're not sexy.

[00:00:18]First sip of the day. All right, here's April reading wrap-up for you.

[00:00:23]Let's get to it. As you can see, quite a steady month. Um, I didn't mean to read this many books, but uh, well, we we did them. Started the month with Joan Ddian uh, by Katherine Usher Henderson. I had made a vlog and I was really thinking about on self-respect by Joan Ddian a lot and at the same time I was talking a lot about Joan Ddian with a lot of my contemporaries and they started reading Joan Diddian. So, at some point I was just like, am I an influencer guys? Am I a Joan Diddian influencer?

[00:00:55]Anyway, I have read a majority of her works, but with my reading of this, I realized there's actually a lot of unpublished um essaic non-fiction work that have just appeared in newspapers and magazines. I'm glad that this actually has a bibliography of all of those articles that are mentioned in here. So, I must get to those at some point. Be well aware, I have a Joan Diddian tier list because I've read all of her completed collected works. So, uh, check that out if you haven't yet.

[00:01:25]But what this does is that it only tracks all of her work up until the publication, the end of the publication of, um, the White Album and is looking very early at the start of her career.

[00:01:38]So, it's really nice to take a look at these academicleaning examinations of a person's work as they're still alive. I wonder what Joan Ddian thought of this or if she read her own reviews or if how she responded at all to any of the criticism that people had of her. It's so wellinformed in that it does have this like very strong academic voice but is also well aware of everything else that's going on in terms of the women's movement and how Joan Ddian sort of excluded herself from that while also looking at and a strong comparison between um her fiction work and her non-fiction work as well about her family life who she essentially writes about how she never really writes about parental love and I've said this I've mentioned this before and someone beat me to it. Joan Diddian always has a strong relationship between mother and daughter in her fiction work but never about parental love essentially and so she looks at that as well. Yeah, it's really great because Henderson also looks at her work from like a lineto-line basis how Joan Ddian uses parallelisms to uh evoke a certain image and to end with a certain image so you're left with particular impressions what uh Joan Ddian's work is trying to do for you. her use of commas as well.

[00:02:54]And it's it's just so chalk full of so much great information that I it makes me miss being in the classroom and um examining work like this and essentially how I'm led to question like what am I?

[00:03:08]Am I just a person online that just likes to talk about books? Am I a book reviewer? Am I a critic? What am I essentially? It's hard to essentially navigate those spaces, but at the same time, does it even matter? But it's works like this that I think develop a stronger vocabulary around how to talk about a work. And I could continue on and on about how much I love Diddian's work and how great of a text this is. If you're trying to analyze particular text very closely, but yes, it it critiques Ddian's work in how she integrates the self. not so much Henderson's point of view on new journalism, but how Diddian brings the self forth in moments where she's supposed to step back. So, we're looking at like the great San Francisco essay about the child eating acetabs, but a array of other things. It's a text that I'll probably revisit because it's so well written and there's a strong voice of it. Henderson neither supports Ddian's work nor defaults it at any point but is a huge appreciator of her work and is able to look at everything carefully without a particular bias which I feel like we have such a problem with these days. to a point I wanted to get to is that yes, you can separate art from artist. You just got to know how to talk about it carefully enough to do it.

[00:04:29]And Henderson does that. In this giant whopping collection, I finished uh the triumph of Achilles. I'm going to read you the last poem in this because I think it pretty much sums up the very essence of this collection. What does the horse give you that I cannot give you? I watch you when you are alone.

[00:04:45]When you ride into the field behind the diary, your hand buried in the mirror's dark mane. Then I know what lies behind your silence. Scorn, hatred of me, of marriage. Still you want me to touch you. You cry out as brides cry. But when I look at you, I see there are no children in your body. Then what is there? Nothing, I think. Only haste to die before I die. In a dream, I watched you ride the horse over the dry fields and then dismount. You two walked together in the dark. You had no shadows, but I felt them coming toward me since at night they go anywhere. They are their own masters. Look at me. You think I don't understand what is the animal if not passage out of this life?

[00:05:27]God, there are these like incredibly strong images of animals, nature, and light that are almost these like passages toward the self and into the soul, but also other selves and into other souls. And um I think this always like grappling of trying to fully understand a person and where they're coming from, but not ultimately there. I think she understands so well that nature fades but then it comes back and it's always this like very short time of passage that always seems to be occurring especially within the very limits of poetry and um how confined poetry and the the form of the poem itself is a very tight confined space and though it might not seem so because of so much negative space and you can talk about the breathing room of how a poem sits on a page but yeah I I think it's just so beautiful. I think this collection in particular is very much her. This is Peak Gluck and I I love it so much. I think this is by far one of my favorite collections as I'm slowly trekking through this. I read a poem a day and sometimes I forget a day, but it's been a joy to always, you know, come to mornings like this and be able to pick up a Glock poem. But yes, enjoyed the Triumph of Achilles so much.

[00:06:44]Next up, Midcareer Writing by Frederrio Sergeant Tony. This is a fun one. This is essentially a dime square pseuda intellectual sitting you down for an espresso. Not an iced coffee, maybe a cold brew, but definitely an espresso.

[00:06:59]And it's just sitting there chatting it up maybe 4 hours over one one espresso talking half-heartedly about the way that people are moving from online to offline. talking about trends, talking about aesthetics, talking about the patriarchy, talking about all of these things that seem like they should matter and we should be tackling them, but it's all just hot talk and that's it. I really had fun with this. There's an essay in here that talks about ambiance and our hunger for ambiance and not the actual thing. started from like Brian Eno's airport music and what ambient music is, but then like delves into our own favor interests in wanting to take a picture of aesthetic itself and ambiance itself. Like we don't care anymore about the value or the goodness of food, but more so the setting itself. And just like fun, flimsy thoughts like that all fluttering throughout this uh collection here with such big font. and he says that uh he he wants the book in big font because you process the words a lot better and faster. The street intellectual sells ideas and not words.

[00:08:06]This was an essay about Marshall McLuhan, which I still have not yet read, but essentially one of the, you know, forefathers of internet and internet speak, but uh the image portrays a corny photo montage starring the face of Marshall McLuhan and the body of Tupac. Yeah, it's a bit snarky.

[00:08:21]He has like tables about art and money, how one spends their own money. Do we actually care about value? Um, do we actually care about fabric? Do we actually care about name brands? Things like that. Out by Sar Press. It's just a fun little book to, you know, read between lunch breaks, commutes, and uh pass around with your friends.

[00:08:43]Next up did an arc of 200 Monos by Joan Mets. This was sent to me by Little Brown and Company out already uh March 3rd. meant to get to this sooner, but I was just doing like a flurry of arcs.

[00:08:55]And anyway, what you have here is a girl, she's in college for med. She finds out that her dead mother used to be a drug dealer. Drug dealer comes to her and she owes a [ __ ] ton of money.

[00:09:07]So, she's like, "How the hell do I pay off this debt?" She's threatened. She's scared. She's just this teeny bopper.

[00:09:14]Still, the only thing she's worried about are grades, finishing exams, studying. That's it. That's it. and she's never really been in love and she has this like great deal of debt now and still dealing with the grief of her mother. She's frantic, really frantic, really quirky. She talks to herself a lot in her head. So, she'll have these aides that are really funny. Oh. Oh, so sorry. Need to include what are the Monas? There are these love drugs essentially. It's essentially ecstasy x times 10 orgasm pills that uh are supposed to be for women, but um they get in the hands of some males and they go a little little uh a little frisky.

[00:09:52]But yeah, for what it is, you got drug dealers, love drug, you'd imagine a lot of sex, but the stakes are so low. The whole thing spirals into this strange romcom while also dealing with these other things of dealing with grief and being this sort of cat-and- mouse chase, but it ends up falling really flat. So, in the format of a book, it just doesn't work. I think if this was a Hulu miniseries starring Aubrey Plaza, I think this would do fantastically. But here, it's just kind of meek. I think because the humor at first gets really strong but then waters itself down because it focuses too much in wanting to become within a genre piece of a romcom but it doesn't essentially do that and so this was okay for me. It's a very much compulsive read. I think like if you have a long flight this would be a great airplane book but beyond that better as a miniseries.

[00:10:51]Next up half his age Janette Mccertie.

[00:10:54]We love Janette Mccertie. Anybody I Carly out there? I loved I Carly. I It was very much a part of my internet speak and how I speak sometimes and my quirkiness if you will. Why did nobody I thought this was non-fiction. This is Janette Mccertie's debut fiction piece which is sort of a reverse Lolita. And I feel like I need to read you my review of this because I feel like I'm a better writer than I am a speaker for this one.

[00:11:22]I include this quote. Let me read it for you. I excuse myself and head to the restroom. I lock myself in a stall and start to text him that I miss him and that I have to see him and then delete the text and go to his Instagram page and masturbate to it with my chili cheese fingers. The chili burns my vagina. But I keep going and going while that song that shaboom shaboom life could be a dream plays in the background. That essentially sums up the entire novel. This is about a girl in a writing class that falls in love with her professor. reverse Lolita without any of the Nabokov chops. McCertie converts her rage against her mother through a CW 101 course to make use of past trauma. The whole text is narrated as if it's an audio book, very much like her memoir. To which I want to believe McCertie speech to texted this instead of pen to paper. That was pretty good, guys. That was pretty good. much in the same voice and tone of her previous book, um, I'm Glad My Mother Died, which was an a great audio book. I recommend the audio book for that. I don't think I recommend reading it because I think McCertie just has a better oral version of storytelling that works better as audio books. And so, I think this would have been much better as an audio book if it was narrated by her. I need to fact check that, but it's written in the same voice. And it feels like she took one creative writing course and thought she could write a novel. And honestly, she should not. It would be better as like a miniseries, but not as a novel.

[00:12:51]This was just such hogwash. Like there there are very poor developments in character. It just seems as if like a quick flip switch. She realizes that her relationship with her professor isn't actually good. This is a man that has a wife and kids and she knows it's bad and he knows it's bad and he has so much agency and she doesn't but the agency is almost given to her. She never realizes it on her own and that's what upsets me so much. And it's written in this like annoying teen voice and sure yes I teens they know no better. I get that.

[00:13:26]Yes, I get that. But here you have to create particular enrichments in character, create invigorating tones to make me believe that uh this is someone that I care about. And I don't I don't every page I was like, "Girl, the sex scenes aren't even that great here in here." And that's what irks me, too. I think because it's just not written very well that I I was just this is just awful. Awful. And I don't think McCertie should write another fictional piece.

[00:13:56]But if she had another memoir, I'll read it. If she is director and is directing this as a miniseries, I'll watch it, but not read it. I think I read this mostly because I'm interested in Mccertie as a child actress who has lived such a tumultuous life, her relationship with her mother. You get notes of that here too as well that she put out that memoir and then now she put this out. It's just really interesting to look at her career, her steps in sort of like trying to become a person again in the world.

[00:14:25]And I say all this because I'm reading Famesick by Lena Dunham right now. And it's really interesting. I'm still a person that enjoys like tabloids and and following celebrity lives in this way.

[00:14:36]It's just really interesting to see progressions in a person's work. Next up had an arc of Afternoon Hours of a Hermit by Patrick Catrell. This is already out by Ekko April 21st. Wow.

[00:14:47]Interesting. Very, very interesting.

[00:14:49]Very particular. a compelling trans narrative about a writer who returns to their childhood home after the passing of their Korean adoptee brother. It's sort of a soft mystery because they're trying to understand the passing of their brother. I say soft because it's not so much thrilling in that it's a mystery at all. It sort of plays with that genre uh more steeped into grief narrative, processing grief, looking at the trans self before and after transitioning. And it's written with this sort of quirkiness that has really deadpan humor. Dan Moran, the trans writer here, is really kind of sad and sppy, but they encounter these like really quirky characters that are dead pan funny, but also the text is so starkly contrasted with these very big feelings that it's a fun ride. But overall, I thought it was kind of meh.

[00:15:44]Mostly because I came into this thinking it was a mystery of sorts, but it's it's really not. I think that's what gives it its sort of strong literary merit is that it is able to balance these very strong feelings that are written very well and eloquently mixed with yeah humor that is yeah dead pan absurd in some moments but uh funny like nobody it's so funny to read these like good readads reviews cuz I'm just like are these all bots like nobody is going to talk about how the climax of this book stems from Mariah Care's fantasy that's that's the clim climax of the book.

[00:16:19]Spoiler, but not really. I mean, I don't I don't know what that tells you, but it's just yeah, funny in that way.

[00:16:27]Okay, I reread Norwegian Wood by Huruki Murakami. This is the translation done by Alfred Burton Bomb. Um, most of his books are translated by J. Rubin. And I need your help, folks, cuz I don't have a J. Rubin translation anywhere near me, and I think most of you do because most of you have read the J. Rubin translation. But yes, it was actually previously published in this collection where it split up into two, which is so so beautiful. Isn't that gorgeous? The red and the green together. Gorgeous.

[00:16:52]So, the first book essentially ends at the [ __ ] They did that. They did that. Incredible that they did. But I I don't know if this was in the Reuben translation, y'all. But there's this line here said by Reiko. She says, "You can come in and rape us in the middle of the night, but make sure you know who's where. The one on the left without any wrinkles is NO." Is that in the J Rubin?

[00:17:15]There's a reason why there are so many complaints about Haruki Murukami. I get it. I do. And uh yeah, this was a reread for me after almost a decade. Oh, nope.

[00:17:26]Oh, I don't I'm not going to age myself like that. But yeah, essentially after a decade. I'd read this when I was a sweet 16. There was a particular time in my life that I read a bunch of Makokamis and they made so much sense to me because I loved getting lost in his worlds. Actually though, when I first read this, I thought it was just fine.

[00:17:42]Mostly because I enjoy Murakami's magical realism more. I just think like the worlds that he creates in say Cap on the Shore or Windup Bird Chronicle are just so mystical and magical. Killing Commandator, just like those books are so whimsical in the magical realism that it just like lifts off from the page.

[00:18:03]Here, I'm fine with this one because I think by the end I have sort of the same feelings first time I read it around.

[00:18:09]second reading. I uh thought a lot about uh sex and death and love and life in that way that uh I think you do kind of have to think about with your first love. Anybody else? Anybody else with their first love think about sex and death? Oh god. I will say though, I did go out with this guy one time and uh our first date I we did talk about our suicide attempts and it was actually really great. Yeah, we cried about it.

[00:18:34]We had a good laugh about it. The dinner itself was really wonderful and he was really wonderful too. It was very very charming, very romantic and um yes, I went back to his place and so maybe maybe one does talk about sex and death on the first date. This is me recommending that to you. But yeah, I didn't really like it the first time around and still my reservations are the same because the realism that exists in this or say his two first books, all that realism also appears in his other magical realism books. So it's okay.

[00:19:04]It's fine. Overall, I still thought this was just fine. But I will say with this Bomb translation, I feel like it's a lot closer to the text than say J. Rubin's translation because there is also a glossery in the back of like certain particular words and explanations for all of the translation. So interesting to reread something and go back to the very same sentiments that you initially had when you first read the book. And uh yeah, it was really nice to revisit those feelings.

[00:19:34]>> What am I looking for?

[00:19:37]>> There we go. Next up, another arc by Dutton. This is out May 26th, The Maiden Heads by Benny B. Peterson. Butch Babes with Bushes Out for Kate Bush. This one's for the lesbians. It's a DC indie scene book about a girl. She doesn't really have her life together. She's sort of bibbing boopping around life, work, writing reviews in the music world, in the music scene. Once loved, a chick in a band, we're just friends, but then later in life, they're in lesbians with each other. I thought this was just fine given that it doesn't really climax. girls don't get to climax because it's sort of written with these like very mini plots and these like very many minuscule problems that our narrator works through. But I don't think she's interesting enough or has enough character in her to really make this an invigorating read in any way.

[00:20:37]She's sort of an observer in sense and she almost looks at everything and everything with sort of a distance. All of these plot points feel like diary entries and don't really add up to say a full-fledged narrative. Sort of situates you in the yearning of a love that you once had that you want to have work out so hard, but it just doesn't. It fizzles out. Begs you to question that like if previous crushes way back when can amount to anything now. And it just really settles within that question without really exploring a lot and heightening itself from that. Um, it just really sits within the question and that's it. Also way too long for what it is. And I thought it would dive deeper into indie music scene, but there's very little of that too. And u yeah, I thought this was just fine. Mary Shell's Frankenstein. Yeah, I'm going to say it again. There's a reason I don't do classics. Nobody told me that the first third of this book is epistlary. Okay, you know what? I think novels in the epistlary form, you have to earn your right to get to that form. There has to be a little something, a little something to be able to get me to that intimacy. I know that form is used to get you there, get to intimacy really quick, but it just doesn't work here because you're slapped in the face with it and then you're sort of set from the get- go to believe this man off bat. And I'm just like, no, I need some sort of buildup, Shelly. I just think that at the beginning there lacks a structural integrity to the rest of the novel where I feel like in the last twothirds is just like really really good. It's just like heightened emotions, really intense, but then it just becomes this sort of battle between woe is me, who has a greater suffering than I. And it's so annoying.

[00:22:26]This book was annoying. And thank God for movie magic and cinema for adapting Shel's work to higher imaginations of what monster can be of what ugly dead parts accumulate into the flesh of a soul essentially. It's always good to like go back to these original texts and see where everything gets birthed from.

[00:22:46]It was definitely written by an 18-year-old, let me tell you. And I will say this, I don't think she really knew how to write men. The way that she writes men is how I romanticize men.

[00:22:55]I'll leave it at that. But there there were like really beautiful swells of writing in here that I was just like, "Okay, okay, Shelly, I'll give you props." But yeah, I just thought it was so annoying. It's just literally two men fighting over who is more depressed and I'm just like, "Okay, is that what Shelly thinks of men?"

[00:23:15]Last book of April read Tokyo Unueno Station by UI, translated by Morgan Guiles. This ended up being a reread. I did not realize that I had read this before. I'll say here what I didn't mention or forgot to mention in my vlog that's coming out. Geographical location as memory site. Like it's so interesting to pass by a place, especially like Ueno Station where I feel like it's a place that people just sort of frolic and lolly gag and it's just a really cute place to have picnics and meet up and just bask in the sun.

[00:23:46]It's really beautiful in that way. But there's a lot of history to that place and how much a place shapes itself over time and history and um the people that frequent it. So many passing bodies that also have histories within themselves.

[00:24:00]And so physical locations as memory sites is so interesting to me. And places I think of like um Golden Gate Park in San Francisco or Grand Central Park in New York or you know Prospect Park. It's just like when you think of these places, it's so strange and it makes you realize you live in a world, these various histories circling around each other or upon histories that I think makes life so beautiful. And I with that sentiment I think adds to sort of the airy and waterlike quality.

[00:24:34]There's this great fluidity through this book and it almost feels like you're you're flying across buildings and people and time. It's uh it's beautiful in that right. Further thoughts in an upcoming vlog.

[00:24:47]Look out for it. Well, that's it. That was April. I think I got to cool it. I think I'm kind of slowing my reading down. I don't know how I got through all those to be honest. To me, April felt like such a long month, but then now May is going to be an even longer month and I'm just like, you know. Anyway, did you read any bangers in April? Let a boy know. As always, be well, do good work, keep in touch.