Lilly Mull

i find it interesting that we’ve read two different stories with snakes as symbolism but they have been soooo drastically different #bsueng490

“whether you carry the substance that can heal and bring life back to my people or not, i am your friend. i am honored to know you” even in a hundred page book there was so much growth from these characters and it was interesting to see binti and okwus relationship grow i thought this was a cute end

"We find ourselves having to repeat and relearn the same old lessons over and over that our mothers did because we do not pass on what we have learned, or because we are unable to listen." (290)

#bsueng490 i love the sci-fi elements of this book as a representation of african culture similar to what we saw in freshwater

#bsueng490 I CANNOT STAND SAM, like what do you mean cassie went through all of that, finally opened up about her mistakes she made with rob and your response is to propose??? i hated that ending for them they should've broken up LMAO

#bsueng490 as much as love feminism, it would be silly of me to discount masculinity in a class about literature and gender. i liked having the chance to read about emasculation and felt an odd comfort knowing that both women and men are subjected to the ideals other men have for our self-expression

man with a shocked and disgusted look on his face

pov sam on the other side of the wire listening to cassie and daniel #bsueng490

#bsueng490 cassie is getting wayyyyyy too emotionally involved, to the point that this doesn’t feel like a job and more like she’s reinventing herself as lexie in a sense

#bsueng490 this friend group is SO SUS me and cassie the same fr cause idk what to think of them

when mcrobbie was talking about the “can-do girl,” it made me think of the scene in avengers endgame where they have all of the female heroes in one shot and tried to make it a sort of girl power thing. these women were made out to be tougher and stronger than their male counterparts #bsueng490

#bsueng490 i was iffy of this book at first cause i tend to not like the forced 0crime fighting tough girl” for female main characters, but the story is pulling me in i literally cannot put this book down

i also found this part of the book fascinating! i thought it was interesting that as she was trying to westernize herself to prayed to yshwa but then as she started to accept being nigerian she focused on him less and accepted the ogbanje and herself as godly figures #bsueng490

#bsueng490 i love that we got to end the book with narration from Ada. i think that made the story come full circle for me

#bsueng490 i was coming back around to asughara and starting to like her, but now i'm kind ehhhh. like how you gonna guilt trip someone into k!ll!ng themselves just because they tried to live their life by their own means for a bit

every time i think about cyborgs i think about detroit become human and how they treated the cyborgs especially the women in that dystopian world i think it connects to this reading really well #bsueng490

#bsueng490 when asughara said they were innocent too

#bsueng490 i liked how in this section she was moving toward finding her own identity while a new voice in the "we" was created. to me, this showed that even though these beings feel so different, they are going about their lives and growing in similar ways

#bsueng490 the idea that the notion of what a woman is is a historical idea blew my mind. i have heard of other things being sort of social constructs, but no one really talks about how the true meaning of being a woman is something that everyone collectively fakes

#bsueng490 i really like the idea of being pulled between these two beings inside of you. while i know this is a cultural theme for this book, i am interested to see how it progresses in the idea of women and their transformations

#bsueng490 i think the religious themes ramped up in this section. it is so common that women are blamed for men's actions and that they should have the consequences for it. i literally sobbed for anna

"Mothers often find themselves unable to deal with the complexities of their children's experience because they are overwhelmed simply tending to their children's survival..." if that aint the most honest thing I have heard I def see this behavior in Lib trying to just get Anna to survive #bsueng490

there are some weird religious tropes present in this section, especially with this thought of religious guilt from rosaleen #bsueng490

"the rules for femininity have come to be culturally transmitted more and more through standardized visual images" this made me think about that american eagle ad... #bsueng490

as much as she irks me sometimes, you gotta admit lib's dedication to snuffing anna out is admirable #bsueng490

i found it quite symbolic that i was late today trying to help save a herding dog who, even after escaping their enclosure, was still trying to work. women are women regardless of species #bsueng490

when her mother says "oh, the poor priest, isn't he a man like any other?" i was SHOOK. how sad that women, regardless of age, race, species, or any other matter have to deal with this from men #bsueng490

purity vs sexuality in a sense of ownership. idk if that was initially clear

I really liked how different these two retellings were. With Mr Lyon being a sweeter love story and Mr Tiger being what seemed to be a story about purity and self. Mr Lyon takes my heart though, he's such sweetie tbh #bsueng490

Hot take: the podcast was a super confusing definition of what gaslighting actually is. I relate to their feelings of anger toward the topic and what it represents, but I felt like I kept having to backtrack for clarity 😬 #bsueng490

Huge mistake reading this after watching "The Summer I Turned Pretty." John is literally Jeremiah, controlling our narrator through denying her a sense of self. Conrad is that dang yellow wallpaper, who intrigues our narrator to the point of obsession. Kinda wild tbh. #bsueng490