Same shirt, different book.
Hi, my name's Matthew, and oh my freaking goodness, I have a new favorite book.
Maybe not of all time, but I'm definitely adding Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo
Buchanan to my top ten list--maybe top 20. I don't know, I'm very fickle. When I
posted my TBR for reading women this month (I'll link that video down below
because self promotion) I think that the majority of people were interested in my
opinions on this book in particular, which is exciting because that's the
first one that I read, and I am enamored. Harmless Like You follows two main
characters, Yuki and Jay. We see Yuki starting in New York City in the 1960s
through the 80s and then through today. Jay, we see specifically in 2016. Let's talk
about these two perspectives--I listened to the audiobook of this book and I
highly 100% recommend it because Emily Wu Zeller is the narrator for Yuki's
half and Emily Wu Zeller is one of the best audible narrators ever. If you see
her name on a book, just buy it because it's going to be read fantastically. I
didn't catch the guy's name who read Jay's part, but he was great too.
Yuki's perspective is told in third person and Jays perspective is told in
first person, and I think respectively, these are great choices. In the case
of Yuki, Yuki is a character that you can get easily attached to. She's a young
girl, she's a hopeful, she wants to be an artist. You follow her life in these very
delicate stages and she's somebody with the emotional capacity of any human, so
putting her story in the third person gives you enough distance so that you
don't have to (as a reader) suffer her emotional trauma throughout this entire
text, but at the same time, is a nice doorway into more emotional state and
more reflection because it isn't so close. Jay's perspective, being in the
first person, I also thought was a brilliant choice because Jay is not
exactly a likable character. He is kind of a classic straight (and maybe bisexual??)
man and he experiences so many emotional states that I think are so vividly
depicted and so accurately described by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan. Just overall I
think that she is a master when it comes to emotional fluidity and describing the
nuance and--and--grittiness of the human experience
when it comes to feeling all of the feels. He is a man who
is disgusted by his wife's pregnant body, who is terrified of his own child, who
has so much anxiety and so much hatred for other things--and himself--for feeling
these things, and while it's not exactly nice, while it's very wrong in many cases,
having his perspective in the first person really opens you up to him in an
empathetic way, and makes you perhaps sympathise with someone who does resent
these negative feelings, who is aware of how awful he is. But at the same time I
don't think Rowan Hisayo Buchanan gives excuses for his behavior and excuses for
his thoughts. There's something so raw, and I hate using that word, but it's very
true there's something so raw about Jay's melancholy--depicted in a way that I
would normally hate. Like, I think of all of the American modern classics that I
utterly despise, because I'm so tired of hearing about straight men and their
woes, but for some reason the way that this is crafted in this book actually
spoke to me and hit me in a very profound way. I felt sympathy for a man
that in pretty much any other novel I would despise. Another thing I really
liked about this book is that in Yuki's perspective, we get New York City
in the 60s and 70s, and in no way does the author romanticize this time period.
Because other people's versions of New York are not necessarily your version
of New York, and historically New York City was great if you were a straight
white man, usually married, and with a lot of money. For everyone else, it wasn't
exactly the most amazing place to be, and so no faux nostalgia is placed upon
this version of New York. It's just very accurately described, and then your
personal nostalgia may be put upon the text if you feel so inclined as a reader.
Now in this book there is a trigger warning for domestic violence for abuse.
The character Yuki is in an abusive relationship for the majority of this
text. She is in a relationship with a man named Lou, and I found this depiction of
abuse to be so tactful, so educational, and it really opened up my mind
and heart to this fictional situation in reflection of the world. The first time
that Lou hits Yuki, the narration goes from describing Yuki, Yuki, Yuki, to "the
body." Yuki is described as "the body" completely separate from herself. There's
a scene right after, where she pours tea and the narration says that a cup of tea
was poured for Lou and a cup of tea was poured for "the body." And this
dissociation with oneself is such a very vivid and active thing, while also
being a very traumatizing act of apathy. And above all of this I don't think the
author was trying to make a fascination of abuse. This was a very real situation
to be in during the 60s and 70s if you were a woman. You see those old articles
from newspapers of like "ways to spank your wife if she doesn't listen." Like,
that was a thing. That was common pop culture, was hitting your wife ,abusing
your wife. There was just an overall earnestness and purity of this text, even
the writing sentence by sentence wasn't flowery, wasn't this lyrical expression.
It was very simple, clear-cut, and pure, and I appreciated 100% everything that
happened. This book is a debut?? This book is a debut!! And I encourage everyone to
read it. Have you read this book, do you want to read this book, do you want to
read it now specifically because I'm so excited about it? Comment down below! Or
if you have any other questions, thoughts, comments, opinions, or beliefs about what
I've talked about, put those down below as well. Otherwise, thank you so much for
watching, and I hope to see you soon.
For more infomation >> 【馬來西亞】人民組屋不準租給外國人房政部：3個月內搬走否則收回房子 - Duration: 8:14. 
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