this john steinbeck collection had 6 books in it so this is gonna be a lot of words. 3 were rereads for me 3 were new.
tortilla flat
no one appreciates and accepts the nuance and duality of man like steinbeck. not a day goes by that i don’t think of this man. i am always ranting about how everyone wants to be seen as a good guy, but doesn’t want to actually be good. they justify their bad actions in any way to avoid admitting they did something wrong. this one perfectly encapsulates that. the scene with the candle was written so masterfully if i didn’t know better, i would never believe it’s one of his earlier works. words were invented for steinbeck. 10/10
the red pony
so fuckin sad man, especially the chapter about the grandpa. i love when he talks about how the spirit of westering filled them and they would have went even further west if there was any further to go, but the ocean stopped them, and now the coast is filled with men angrily staring at the ocean that stopped them. so sad to be old and to know you have fulfilled your life’s purpose, and now you’re just waiting around to croak. the pony stuff is sad too, of course. i’m kinda going backwards with this review, but i love the quote “they knew instinctively that a man on a horse is spiritually as well as physically bigger than a man on the foot. they knew that jody had been miraculously, lifted out of equality with them, and had been placed over them” i first saw that quoted in jo jo meyers’ the giver of stars and then got to fall in love with it all over again reading it where it came from. 8.5/10
of mice and men
this was my third time reading this, and it never gets easier. i was crying by the second page and hardly ever stopped. the two shootings foil each other so incredibly, right down to the placement of the bullet. i hope they never stop teaching this one in schools, even if it’s mostly just so english teachers get to scratch their itch of wanting to say the n word. 10/10 one of the best books ever written.
the moon is down
i usually never reread the same book twice in one year, but this one was next in this collection i was reading, and i didn’t want to skip over it. i’ll say something different about it this time, though. when this first came out a lot of people were mad, because they thought steinbeck was a nazi sympathizer. those people are dumb as rocks. steinbeck does such an amazing job at showing that the german soldiers were humans that laugh, cry, feel, and bleed just like us, while still condemning their actions. i understand that people want to see nazis, and their enemies in general, as monsters rather than people. life would be so much simpler that way, but bad guys still do good things, and good guys still do bad things. of course nazis deserve to burn, but they will still hurt while it happens. last time i gave it an 8 this time it’s getting a 10.
cannery row
well i’m sore as hell that i haven’t read this one before, but it made me too happy to be too upset for too long. steinbeck at his most taoist. i wish i could crawl into this world and hang out with these people. the fomo is especially strong since so many of them are based off of real people like ed rickets. (smash btw) i would get a quote from this one tattooed if i didn’t dislike tattoos with letters and if all my favorite quotes weren’t paragraphs long. i’m so looking forward to reading the sequel. 10/10
58 the pearl
i haven’t read this for almost 5 years, yet i remembered every single piece. that didn’t stop rereading it from being even better than the first time, though. this story so gracefully tackles issues of class, gender, and race in less than a hundred pages. steinbeck is the reason i will never take “they were from a different time” as a valid excuse. this man is more “woke” than any contemporary man i know of. i could talk about him all day but my words will never do his words justice. also ,,, smash,,, js 10/10 of course
here’s a little sneak peak of the last message i just sent out ;)
i don’t think a lot of you realize it’s TWO videos for the price of one, PLUS 18 pictures! all focused on getting cumshots on my bush. it’s a steal. go to our dms to check it out ❣️
tao of pooh and te of piglet benjamin hoff
these were both rereads for me, but i’ve never reviewed them on here, so let’s do it. the tao of pooh is a 10/10 book for me. i have no notes; it has only my highest praise and recommendation. let’s talk about the te of piglet, though. i’ll keep my complaints down to two. he says if the western world wasn’t so obsessed with overconsumption obese people “wouldn’t exist.” this is obviously idiotic. that terrible take doesn’t take into account thyroid conditions or many other factors. even binge eating disorders don’t usually stem from issues with overconsumption, but instead issues with control and emotional regulation. dumb ass take. alot of this just reminds me of the “old man yells at cloud” meme; like when he’s ranting and raving about feminists, or as he calls them “amazon eeyores” “trying to do away with masculine and neutral language.” his main point with this is that fighting hypermasculinity with hypermasculinity is just fighting fire with fire, which is true to some extent, but he uses terrible examples to try to make this point. he says “saying he or she” instead of just saying “he” is clunky and awkward, but then also shoots down gender neutral they/them pronouns as “nonsensical plural speak”
i have half a mind to email him and ask if he’s changed his mind since the 90s or if he’s been doubling down. 8/10 for tao of piglet, even though that shit makes me angry, the rest of the book redeems him. 10/10 for the original tao of pooh though of course
i’ve never tried using this quiz feature before. would it be fun for you guys if we started doing some lex lore trivia ? let’s try it out. todays question is: who is my favorite author?
all of these options are people i love, so there are no stupid guesses here, but one has a slightly bigger piece of my heart than the rest.
i meant to post this yesterday for book review tuesday but i had a busy busy day with the jaw doctor sorry guys
philosophy and hope richard rorty
i feel like this one is really hard to review because it’s a collection of essays and speeches with many different themes and i feel like to accurately give my opinion i’d have to go on philosopher mode and respond to many different points and break down so many ideas. the main ideas are pragmaticism and what a lot of people would call “relativism”, but rorty hates being associated with that word. as always with rorty i found myself agreeing more than i disagree but getting very angry when i disagree haha. id recommend if you’re familiar with philosophy and enjoy reading dense stuff, but if not you’ll hate this. between rereading, thinking, and googling, it takes me about an hour to read 10-20 pages of this 7.5/10
i want you to grab it 🍑
also - can y’all start liking my posts ? there are hundreds of y’all on here and i’m only getting like 10 likes per post lol. i know ur hands are busy but maybe try.
johnny panic and the bible of dreams by silvia plath
well i was sadly kinda disappointed in this. i mean her writing is as amazing as ever but most of the plots of the stories just didn’t interest me. i found myself enjoying rereading the selected journal entries the most. loved the title story tho. it feels blasphemous saying this but most of them bored me. sunday at the milton’s bout gave me a heart attack tho so i’m not saying it’s all boring. maybe one day i’ll reread it when i’m a changed person and change my mind but for now i find most of this ,,, mid. 6.5/10
sat down to film a video and it ended up being an hour long 😭 it was another video for adam and eve and they sent me so much stuff this time ! (i mean, they always spoil me, but this time was crazy) took me an hour to try on all the lingerie and try out the toys ! i didn’t even get to one; it’s gonna be it’s own video ! i’m so excited to take a bunch of pics with the lingerie for you and to keep using these toys in videos too! it’ll be out on the hub by the end of the month 🤩
no book review today because i’ve had a migraine so bad i couldn’t open my eyes let alone read 😭 see you on tuesday with the next one 📖 here’s a sweet lil throwback to 2018
