'Sing, Unburied, Sing' Review

Sing, Unburied, Sing

By Jesmyn Ward, narrated by Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chris Chalk, and Rutina Wesley

Genre: magic realism, fiction

Content warnings: racism, death, incarceration, police brutality, child abuse

Description: “Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.”

Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing is a powerful novel that explores the complexities of grief, family, and childhood within the context of systemic racism and anti-Blackness in the United States. The book is haunting and beautifully written, with profound explorations of all the characters involved and their actions.

What I enjoyed:

-Ward writes the characters and their relations to one another poignantly. Each character carries a complexity and nuance that challenges assumptions and encourages empathy. Leonie and Jojo’s complicated mother-son relationship is particularly well-written, where you can feel so much for both characters as they negotiate their understandings of and feelings toward one another. While this book focuses on family, Ward avoids divorcing the context of generational trauma from the wider context of systemic injustices. Grief is a significant part of the story, specifically in how it relates to family, anti-Black racism, and the US incarceral state, and Ward deftly examines grief both through the ghosts and through those who live.

-Ward’s prose is masterful. The scenery and the various places the characters travel to are described viscerally, and the most painful parts of the novel are depicted sensitively yet powerfully. Narrators Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chris Chalk, and Rutina Wesley convey the emotions of each scene with passion and care.

-The magic realism melds with the realistic elements of the novel very effectively. The addition of the ghosts brings the present and past together in integral ways and enhances the book’s messages on the relationships between memory and reality and the continuation of systemic violence and their impacts on grief and family.

-Since I listened to the audiobook, I have to give a special shout-out to Kelvin Harrison Jr., Chris Chalk, and Rutina Wesley for their reading of the book. They portray the characters with attention and compassion.

What I thought could be better:

-I had no major concerns while reading this novel. I appreciated listening to this book and immersing myself in its stories and messages.

Overall, Sing, Unburied, Sing was a powerful read that I highly recommend to anyone looking for an engaging novel that thoughtfully and meaningfully grapples with family, grief, and systemic racism.

'The Fortunes of Jaded Women' Review

The Fortunes of Jaded Women

By Carolyn Huynh, narrated by VyVy Nguyen

Genre: adult, magic realism

Content Warnings: discussion of war, imperialism, colonization, racism, depression, grief, miscarriage, death

Description: “A multi-narrative novel brimming with levity and candor, The Fortunes of Jaded Women is about mourning, meddling, celebrating, and healing together as a family. It shows how Vietnamese women emerge victorious, even if the world is against them.”

The Fortunes of Jaded Women is a quick and amusing read that tackles topics of grief, loss, joy, and healing. While I do have some critiques of how this book handles certain matters, overall, I found this book to be an entertaining listen.

What I enjoyed:

-The book is incredible with voice! Huynh fits a record number of main character perspectives, ensuring each character feels fresh and animated. While listening, I never felt confused about which character was in focus. Special kudos to the narrator, VyVy Nguyen, for her terrific acting!

-On a related note, I loved the author's sensitivity to each character's choices and feelings. It’s always a difficult task when writing generational stories to showcase trauma as an explanation and not an excuse. As I mentioned, the book provides each character a unique voice, allowing readers to understand or at least sympathize with each of their choices. The particular attention to gender was impactful and handled thoughtfully. The women are allowed to be flawed in this novel, creating a richer narrative that speaks true to real life while providing hope for reconciliation.

-I appreciated how the novel tackles painful subjects of war, discrimination, colonization, and grief while also holding space for healing and joy. This book exhibits the myriad of human emotions while acknowledging systematic injustices and cycles of abuse, and you can feel the love Huynh has for her fellow Vietnamese American community. While this book has some moments that require a bit of suspension of disbelief, the magic realism elements of the story balance these features out.

What I thought could be better:

-The novel does walk the fine line between attempting to critique stereotypes and potentially perpetuating them accidentally. While the humorous nature of the book does somewhat emphasize to readers that these stereotypes are trying to be mocked, it’s a fine line, especially when the book will call out directly the problems and effects of American imperialism, the fetishization of East and Southeast Asian women, and racism within Asian communities in some parts of the narrative and then immediately after showcase a character’s classism for comedic effect. While I do love morally complicated characters and stories, I do wish these topics were handled in the novel with a bit more nuance.

-On that note, while not unacknowledged, the novel struggles to fully wrestle with the implications of assimilation and the privileges of some of its characters. This feels like a lost opportunity, particularly when the book does emphasize the impact American imperialism and intervention had on the women’s families. The book becomes very wrapped up in the family reconciliation side of the story by the end, which is sweet, but feels like a missed chance to go even deeper into exploring the characters’ and story’s messiness.

Overall, The Fortunes of Jaded Women was a fun listen that kept me itching to hear more. The strength of this novel is its attention to its characters. While the book toes a fine line with its critiquing of stereotypes and misses opportunities to delve even deeper into certain complexities, the novel is still an enjoyable read/listen for anyone looking for a quick, entertaining story about family drama.

July 2025 Updates

Happy July! I hope you are doing well! I can’t believe I have an actual writing update to share this month. See my updates below!

I actually wrote and published a fic! This is the first fic I’ve published since my Kingo one a couple of years ago. My new fic is inspired by Fire and Blood and is titled “Lavender.” It provides a glimpse into the end of Maegor the Cruel’s headsman, gaolers, and confessors. I definitely attempted to pack a lot into the fic’s 247 words. I had wanted to grapple with the dehumanization inherent in systems of violence and complicate the role of the child as a symbol of innocence. There are a lot of other complex dynamics that I tried to hint at in the fic, too. I wrote the fic as a way to wrestle with these subjects and not to analyze them, as I am very unqualified to provide scholarly critique of them. However, since the topic is extremely sensitive, I want to make it clear that I am very open to constructive feedback.
Speaking of fanfic, the list of long-form fanfics I’m reading is slowly growing. Besides Ossuarium, I’ve been reading LeucisticPuffin’s we will make this place our home (which is making me cry) and TheChasm’s The Fairest Stars (which is the first bullet fic I’ve read and it’s amazing). Once I finish Fire and Blood, I’m hoping to start either timelessutterance’s Prayers to the Broken Stone (I’ve been reading her essays on Tumblr and it sounds like such a powerful story) or Leethevix’s Light Splintered and Sewn (I read one of his Tumblr responses and then skimmed through the fic and it looks like such an intriguing AU). I’ll end up reading both of them somewhere down the line.

Wow, that was the longest update I’ve written! Anyways, thank you for stopping by! Let me know what you’ve been reading and writing in the comments. This month, I urge you to support USCPR’s Water Is Life Gaza campaign, which is a Palestinian-led project that delivers clean water to families displaced by Israel’s ongoing genocide. I also encourage you to support Refugees in Libya, an organization advocating for refugees throughout North Africa and Europe. Finally, please support the Massachusetts Bail Fund, which is an abolitionist direct service organization that pays bail for those who cannot afford it. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.

Fanfiction: Lavender

A glimpse into the end of Maegor the Cruel's headsman, gaolers, and confessors. https://archiveofourown.org/works/67667316

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“The royal clemency did not extend to all. Maegor’s headsman, gaolers, and confessors were all adjudged to be guilty of abetting Tyanna of the Tower in the torture and death of Prince Viserys, who had so briefly been Maegor’s heir and hostage. Their heads were delivered to Queen Alyssa, together with the hands they had dared raise against the blood of the dragon. Her Grace pronounced herself ‘well pleased’ with the tokens.”

-Fire and Blood, “Prince into King: The Ascension of Jaehaerys I”

The boy’s lavender eyes pierced you. You who knelt before the dowager queen. Knees dug into stone. Stone laid by those whose bones now grumbled and moaned within the chasms they hollowed. The boy, only a wisp now. One of many you defiled for Him and with Her. Although this boy is only one, still he is the one setting your end. His ghost, a flicker that sparks.

But you. Who are you? Gaoler? Yes. Subject? Yes. Murderer? Victim? Both yes. Although you do not–can not–comprehend all the fragments of you at this time. And what little time you have and what little time you were given and what little time you gave.

And what of this queen? One queen where once there were six. Two your cruel hands fell. Though you answer not for their lives. This queen sits above you. Son’s ghost by her side and son’s words delivering vengeance. She is the sea scraping the shore, burying guilt and grief beneath sapphire waves.

And what of the nameless? The others whose blood spilled beneath your fingers and whose shrieks raged through your ears. They are nameless as surely you are nameless. Phantoms lingering in crevices of halls.

You stand and go now to death as you once bequeathed it. And as you stumble on, you remember. You remember a time where you smelled lavender. Tasted it, felt its drops on your tongue. You were young then and lavender was simply a balm.

June 2025 Updates

I made it in time this month! My updates for June are below.

I’m still in a Silmarillion bubble 😅 and I particularly enjoyed reading theScrap_Witch’s fanfics “From Ruins We Grow” and “This is Not a Second Chance.” I also enjoyed steadfastalysanne2022’s Fire and Blood fanfic "‘A Kinder Ghost, But No Less Sad’."
I’m still reading Fire and Blood and I am almost done reading the Dance of the Dragons section. It’s been an interesting journey!

Thank you for stopping by this month! Feel free to share any fic recs or book recs in the comments! This month, I encourage you to donate to the Sameer Project, a Palestinian initiative working to provide medical aid, supplies, and food in Gaza. Also, please check out ‘Āina Momona, a community organization working toward environmental health, social justice, and Hawaiian sovereignty. Thirdly, Hope Relief and Rehabilitation is a Sudanese organization supporting people with disabilities, particularly in the Nuba Mountains, where famine has been declared. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.

May 2025 Updates

Hello! Sorry for the later update than usual! I have posted my updates below.

After being trapped in a Fire and Blood rabbit hole for a few months, I have (unfortunately) now fully fallen into a Silmarillion-shaped pit. I blame this pit for why I am late with this month’s updates. 😅
On the other hand, I did manage to get some work done on that Roku fic I started writing last year. Hopefully, I can finish it before Awakening of Roku comes out in the Fall!

Anyways, that’s my May updates! Let me know what rabbit holes and pits you’ve fallen into below! This month, if you live in the US, I encourage you to contact your congresspeople to urge action regarding the ongoing forced famine in Gaza here and to advocate against cutting SNAP here. Please also review Saroyah’s Twitter list here for updated information regarding the continuing humanitarian crisis in Sudan. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.

April 2025 Updates

Happy April! I hope you are all doing as well as you can be. My updates are below.

Thanks to The Sillymarillion podcast, I’ve been re-reading The Silmarillion, which has been entertaining. I’m realizing how little I retained from reading it about five years ago.
I worked a bit more on that Roku fanfic I started last summer after reading The Reckoning of Roku. You can also now find me on Neocities and Wix (links are on my Carrd).

Thank you for reading my updates! Feel free to share what you have been reading and writing in the comments! This month, I encourage you to support the Basandja Coalition, which lifts the voices of Indigenous and local communities in the Congo Basin, and FiveforFive, a collective fund for trans women in the UK. Also, please check out AILA’s immigration advocacy resources. For more resources and organizations to support, please look here.