Tag: Cate Le Bon

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/1/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: who would win in a fight: righteous haterism or unfettered whimsy? Neither, actually. They’re both more powerful when they’ve joined forces.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/1/26

“Lipstick on the Glass” – Wolf Alice

It feels redundant to say that this is a very 2010’s song for it coming out of the 2020’s—”Lipstick On The Glass” only came out in 2021, and Wolf Alice were active all throughout the 2010’s anyway. And yet, I can’t shake how much they’ve crystallized that 2010’s indie sound. This song feels like a cousin of Eisley’s “Currents,” a favorite of mine in middle school, which came out in 2013. Both of them feel very cloudy and foggy, but adorned with clear, angular sparks that stick out of the mist like fragments of crystal. Even through the almost Cocteau Twins-kaleidoscope in the chorus, Wolf Alice have set up a system of lighthouses: the sharp percussion, and Ellie Roswell’s vocals, that range from a husky whisper to a diving bird of prey cutting through the sky. Free-floating and without much of an anchor, “Lipstick On The Glass” ha such a sense of urgency despite the deliberate blending of most of its musical shapes and textures into each other, making for an exciting, cinematic blend—especially when the chorus first kicks in. That beat drop is even more gratifying paired with Roswell’s lyrics, succumbing to the siren song of an old lover. But even after that beat drop, “Lipstick On The Glass” is beguiling all the way through.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Stars Undying – Emery Robin – “Oh, my body does deceive me/Just as did yours/Though we’re fighting different wars/In our ways…”

“Harbour” – Cate Le Bon

Straightforward for Cate Le Bon usually means that it’s still delightfully strange. When I first listened to Pompeii, “Harbour” was actually one of my least favorites—I never disliked it, but it wasn’t as in-your-face inventive as some of the others on the first listen. It’s a case of every song on the album being excellent, so the benchmark is extra high from the get-go, making songs like this get lost in the dust. To be fair, after experiencing “Dirt on the Bed” for the first time tends to overshadow all else when you listen to Pompeii, but that’s no excuse for leaving a song like this to languish. I maintain that it’s one of the weaker songs on the album, but at this point, a weak Cate Le Bon would be a career highlight in your average artist’s hands.

Pompeii as a whole has a pretty even, calm pace, as adorned with all kinds of weirdness as it is. “Harbour” got lost for me because it didn’t have the same strangeness on the surface, but the more I listen, the more layers I find hidden within it. That’s the joy of Cate Le Bon for me—even her more radio-friendly songs conceal everything from watery, pre-Michelangelo Dying synths to spurts of saxophone that sound like the happier cousin of the brass blasts at the end of “Dirt on the Bed.” Pompeii as a whole is quite ’80s, but not in the way of shoving neon synths down your throat—it’s just a more subtle exploration of the sound rather than a way to farm nostalgia; even so, the specific use of saxophones in “Harbour” veered too close to the latter territory on my first listen. Once again, the bar just breached the stratosphere, given how seamlessly Le Bon has been able to integrate saxophones (and brass in general) into her music without it being full on “Careless Whisper” cheese. Now, though she’s used it in better ways, it’s still a cut above the rest. That goes for “Harbour” as a whole—she’s a master at manipulating seemingly ordinary elements and twisting them just far enough to the left to make you do a double-take. She’s full of surprises.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Ministry of Time – Kaliane Bradley – “What you said was nice/When you said my face turned a memory/What you said was nice/When you said my heart broke a century…”

“Presumably Dead Arm” – Sidney Gish

I’m back with another unexpected kick back into late 2019 from my shuffle…OOF. This one came during the period where I discovered some the fruitful harvest of offbeat indie rock after I got Apple Music. The floodgates were open, allowing me to listen to way too much girlpool…and this.

The thing that stands out to me about Sidney Gish is that I think she’s a key part of a newer aesthetic that will probably be defined more in retrospect. She’s the spitting image of a certain brand of Gen Z, internet-bred musician who records their music on their laptops and cut their teeth with covers on YouTube. (Gish, for the record, has a very sweet cover of The Magnetic Fields’s “All My Little Words” that she recorded in her shower that stars her pet rabbit. That should give you an idea of her general vibe.) They’ve all got purposely poorly photoshopped album art and quirky, vaguely surreal lyrics. For Gish, I think she’s at least an inch above the rest because her lyricism is, for the most part, very distinctly her and not necessarily just there to service a meme-y aesthetic. Yet I’m almost certain that it’ll date her music instantly, given a decade or so. Ed Buys Houses is still a solid, unique album, but there’s no doubt that it’ll be more and more distinctly 2016 as time passes.

I think “Presumably Dead Arm” was the first song of Gish’s that I ever listened to, and to this day, the charm of it mostly holds up. The sound is so distinctly late-2010’s, complete with the fuzz you get from recording music off of an aging laptop speaker. Now that it’s 2026, I can’t see the title without hearing it in the same cadence as this, yet even so, it’s just such a softly charming little tune. It has a very late teenage kind of wistful melancholy to it, but with the added through line of finding said presumably dead arm in a graveyard (and taking it to prom). Between laments about isolation and drunk and high friends, Gish’s distinct flavor of lyricism shines through: “I’d rather let the poor kid sleep/But he’s tripping balls, he’s tripping testes/LSD, post-wisdom teeth/He got lost in the shower/And he barely knows the hour.” But what hits me now, seven years after I initially found this song, is the genuine fear hidden behind some of the lyrics, the kind you can only get when you’re approaching your 20’s and don’t have a clue what you’re going to do about growing up: “And all these pretend spouses are a happy storybook/That’ll turn to stark non-fiction in the time it took/For me to notice that I’m old, which means I’ll be thirty and happy/Likely married to personified business-casual khakis.” As silly as some of those lines are, they’re delivered with such an urgency that for a fleeting moment, I feel them like a skipped heartbeat in my ribcage. It’s uncanny, how quickly Gish can switch from abject silliness to existentialism. But that’s very Gen Z—and very Sidney Gish, in the end.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Girl Who Was Convinced Beyond All Reason That She Could Fly – Sybil Lamb – an underrated oddball of the book world, as Sidney Gish is to indie rock.

“Therefore, I Am” – Jim O’Rourke

I’m all for having compassion and empathy in your heart, but there’s a special, beautiful place in this world for songs that innately feel like a massive middle finger. Sometimes it’s healthy to indulge the spite and blast your fuck-you song. And if you’re looking for a good fuck-you song, then boy, do I have the song for you.

I mainly knew Jim O’Rourke from his far calmer, instrumental world and his role as the longtime producer for much of Wilco’s discography. I knew that he had a solo career, but I honestly thought that it was more along the “Bad Timing” side than this. Apparently he’d been so steeped in his more experimental musical roots for so long and decided to try his hand at a more straightforward indie rock album, and came out the other side with Insignificance. It’s a shame that he doesn’t tap into lyric-oriented music and sing more—he’s got a great voice. And I’m not saying the stuff about the lyrics because they’re some poetic, soul-searching kernel of wisdom. They just happen to be some of the most artfully vitriolic disses I’ve heard put to song. Take this one:

“We are on a sinking ship/But I’d like to stay on board and shoot the cannons at you.”

DAMN. DEDICATION. On my first listen, I just kept hearing this over and over with each successive lyric:

I would not want to be on the receiving end of that. I pity whoever Jim O’Rourke was beefing with circa 2000. “As you can see/I’m a happy guy”—are you sure, Jim? For a song sung so calmly, every line is a gleeful slap in the face—it’s not just a fuck-you to whoever it may concern, but an open brag about how much his life has improved ever since they ended things. The instrumentals have a very Brian Eno, repetition-oriented feel to them (with a guitar tone that scratches every good itch in my musical brain, I might add), and yet even without any screaming or hammering guitars to pieces on stage, it manages to be so cleverly bitter under such an unassuming guise. Perfect cure-all for any and all breakups, toxic friendships, or just thinking about the excess of scummy authority figures all around. I need some Riot Grrl bands to cover this. God, it’s so fun.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath – Moniquill Blackgoose – “Why do you hide behind somebody else?/There’s one too many in this room/And I think it’s you…”

“Octopus’s Garden” – The Beatles

I know the whole situation of 3/4 of the Beatles being at each other’s necks during the Abbey Road/Let It Be sessions while Ringo Starr just made a song about an octopus has been memed to death. But really? We should all aspire to be like Ringo in that scenario. Observe the chaos around you and defy it openly with silliness and childlike wonder. Being labelled as the goofy Beatle must’ve had its perks, because I doubt anybody would’ve expected “Octopus’s Garden” to have as lasting of an impact as it did. It’s a classic, both in the Beatles sense and in the sense of most every child since 1970 having fond memories of it. And it’s a classic for a reason. Unlike some of the other more obliquely “joke” Beatles songs (see: “Wild Honey Pie,” which, I’m gonna say it: a thing of sheer beauty), the production is staggeringly good. It came on shuffle the other day, and when I just expected to have a little laugh with Ringo, I got blown away at just how tight of a composition it is—the piano arrangement? George Harrison’s guitar riffs? The harmonies? EVERYTHING? For a song that often gets dismissed as one of the more shallow songs in their catalogue, “Octopus’s Garden” has all manner of hidden layers to it, like bits of seashells hiding just beneath the surface of the waves.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Sea Sirens – Amy Chu and Janet K. Lee – I’m convinced that this book is set exactly where Ringo Starr set “Octopus’s Garden.” We found it, gang. We found the Octopus’s Garden…

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (1/27/26) – A Swift and Sudden Exit

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

First off, I figured I would share this resource with you all. My heart continues to break from seeing ICE violence wracking Minneapolis. If you’re financially available, here’s a post with a comprehensive list of places to donate to support the good people of Minneapolis. If you’re not financially able: continue to spread the word! When the government continues to propagate blatant lies, your words are the best weapon to use against them. Rest in power to Renee Nicole Good, Keith Porter, and Alex Pretti. ABOLISH ICE.

…

Here’s another book that I got with some gift card money for Christmas. I’m always on the hunt for more books with good bisexual rep, especially when it’s in genre fiction. This indie-published time travel romance between a time traveler from the post-apocalyptic 2050’s and an immortal caught my eye immediately, in no small part thanks to the wonderfully comic book-y cover. Though it wasn’t without its flaws, A Swift and Sudden Exit was an emotional and action-packed romp through time and space.

Enjoy this week’s review!

A Swift and Sudden Exit – Nico Vicenty

Zera lives in a post-apocalyptic 2058, where a geomagnetic storm nearly two decades ago plunged Earth into almost uninhabitable conditions. The remains of the military are scrambling to make things right, and the only way out of the wasteland is time travel. But when Zera travels back to 2040—the date of the geomagnetic storm that started it all—she sees a woman who claims to have known her, and may just be immortal. Zera follows this woman over centuries as she struggles to find the missing piece of the puzzle, but will this mysterious, immortal woman be more than just a means to reverse the apocalypse?

TW/CW: homophobia, violence, police brutality, vomit, abuse, suicidal ideation, stalking, blood, murder, loss of loved ones

Maybe the real geomagnetic storm was the bisexual romance we made along the way?

A lot of the reviews for A Swift and Sudden Exit that I’ve read have talked about how this novel couldn’t seem to make up its mind on whether it wanted to be sci-fi or romance. This problem never popped up for me, and I think that might be the novel’s hidden strength. It wasn’t afraid to put the sci-fi and romance elements at equal importance. Vincenty did an excellent job of developing these aspects in tandem, and it made for a very unique mix of genres. The worldbuilding was sound for the most part, but the same attention was paid to making Zera and Katherine’s romance into something that had a very real, slow-burn progression. I felt just as much tension with Zera trying to prevent the geomagnetic storm as I did with her will-they-won’t-they dynamic with Katherine. It’s such a fun premise to begin with—a romance between a time-traveler and an immortal—but Vincenty delivered on both aspects. A Swift and Sudden Exit succeeded for me in part because equal effort was put into the two most disparate parts of the novel, and the merging of the two felt seamless.

The most compelling parts for me were how Vincenty explored both the past and the future. The radiation-wracked future was appropriately bleak, and I loved the atmosphere she created with Zera and the others in their bunker. Just the same, I loved Zera and Katherine’s journey through time. My only critique was that I wanted to see more of the 1884 period—I feel like the whole failed Arctic expedition subplot was way too interesting to only get a single chapter. Come on. Yet beyond that, I loved seeing the different time periods across the United States. Vincenty had a great balance of having some fun, romantic notions of the time periods that Zera and Katherine visited, but also of the very real dangers they presented for queer women like them. Zera and Katherine both being bisexual made my heart so happy, but I appreciated Vincenty’s approach to writing them navigating more unsafe time periods; it didn’t shy away from queer-related issues (including police brutality and the AIDS crisis), but it never veered into full-on trauma porn territory. Vincenty’s strength in this novel is balance.

However, throughout A Swift and Sudden Exit, I found myself unable to fully suspend my disbelief. Although the worldbuilding was fairly solid—I’m honestly fine with the immortals bit not being explained fully—it was the stakes that made me suspicious of the story. Even though this is presumably an incredibly dire situation with world-ending stakes, the remains of the military seemed completely content to let Zera go on all manner of borderline frivolous missions that conveniently lined up with her meeting her sexy immortal girlfriend. Sure, you’ve got to let some plot conveniences go just to keep the story going, but given that Zera’s pretty low in the chain of command (and on Colonel Vylek’s nerves almost constantly), it didn’t make sense that she hadn’t been demoted or kicked off the mission at least halfway through the novel. Additionally, a lot of the problems got resolved far quicker than they should’ve—the funding getting cut for the time travel initiative comes to mind. Seems like a huge problem, and yet it got resolved in the span of maybe 1, 2 chapters tops? It didn’t make sense. I can chalk part of it up to the pacing—A Swift and Sudden Exit has very swift and sudden pacing, giving us little time to rest; it worked when it came to some of the more climactic scenes, but not when glossing over important plot points.

Additionally, I found Vincenty’s writing style to be a bit bare-bones. It was entertaining, but I never found myself thinking that it was great. She did an excellent job with describing the historical time periods and post-apocalyptic 2058, but I think there could’ve been a lot more done with the character writing. Zera and Katherine were developed well, but a lot of the other characters, even the more important ones, felt like window dressing at best. Until the last quarter, Kissi didn’t function as much else than a witty sidekick for Zera. Without spoiling anything, the twist about Byrd came out of nowhere, but I feel like that’s more of a consequence of his character rarely appearing and not getting much development other than quirky banter. Colonel Vylek was much more secondary, but even though I gather her presence was meant to feel like a threat, she never did; maybe that’s because all of the obstacles that she put in front of Zera got resolved so quickly. Had they been developed more, especially Byrd and Colonel Vylek, I think the stakes issue might have been partially resolved. They never felt like real antagonists (or even just roadblocks, in Vylek’s case). I’m not saying that they needed to be on the importance level of Zera and Katherine, but given the roles they had, they could’ve been more distinct and developed.

All in all, an ambitious debut that didn’t fulfill all of its promises, but provided an adventurous, sapphic journey through time nonetheless. 3.5 stars!

A Swift and Sudden Exit is a standalone, but Nico Vicenty is also the author of Bone Dresser and Death Between the Stars.

Today’s song:

love love love crab day!!

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 1/25/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: Here it comes again; a fantastic voyage to Palo Alto to answer this essential question: where’s my phone? It’s been undone!

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 1/25/26

“Where’s My Phone?” – Mitski

It’s finally come to that time of year when I start accumulating albums that I’m looking forward to. Nothing’s About to Happen to Me, which is set to release on February 27, is topping the list at the moment for sure! Mitski is back for her first album in two and a half years, and as usual, she’s set to put a pulse on the neuroses of the world; Nothing’s About to Happen to Me seems to be a concept album about a recluse who never leaves her cluttered house. With the aesthetics of cats and old wallpaper, this album has such a clear image—and an intriguing one. Mitski channels some of her heavier guitar work on “Where’s My Phone?”; it’s an exciting sonic callback, like she’s been dusting off the old Bury Me at Makeout Creek sounds (!!!). Adopting a falsely cheery tone, Mitski sings of this character desperately repressing every possible source of negativity, yearning to be “clear glass with nothing going on.” The sentiment of “I keep thinking surely somebody will save me/At every turn I learn that no one will” is pure Mitski all the way down, but it’s refreshing to see Mitski going headfirst into a new character; her introspection, fictional or nonfictional, is where her art shines. Plus, that music video, in which Mitski’s multigenerational home gets assailed by dozens of strangers, is nothing short of bonkers. Definitely somebody’s vivid anxiety dream, for sure.

For some reason, my mind got stuck on the classic censored beep sound on the “I would fuck the hole all night long” line. Sure, we are in the age of musicians proactively self-censoring, but of all musicians, Mitski seems like the last one to do that, especially with how she’s clawed to keep her individuality—and sanity—intact in the music industry. She’s not a Taylor Swift type, and she hasn’t shied away from profanity before. There’s no clean version of the song, and the music video has it too—and yet the official lyrics don’t censor it. So what’s the deal? Was it some sort of artistic touch for the album’s central character’s supposed shame and guilt? I still haven’t come to a conclusion myself, but I swear that it’s intentional. Whatever the case, “Where’s My Phone” buzzes with neurosis, crunching at the edges, an ember of anxiety.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

I’m Thinking of Ending Things – Iain Reid – “I keep thinking surely somebody will save me/At every turn I learn that no one will/I just want my mind to be a clear glass/Clear glass with nothing instead…”

“Fantastic Voyage” – David Bowie

As calm of a song “Fantastic Voyage” is, it’s a certainly eerie start to Lodger. I finally got around to listening to the album in its entirety not long ago, while mourning 10 years since Bowie’s passing in 2016. Listening to Lodger not long after Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy put me in an irreparable chokehold makes me realize the sheer impact of Eno on Bowie—his weirdness was all there, but after decades of being mainstream, it was Eno who resurrected the less palatable parts of weirdness. I’m sure it was less unexpected at the conclusion of the Berlin Trilogy, but expecting another “Starman” and getting…I dunno, “African Night Flight” must’ve been some unparalleled whiplash. And he’d keep the act going throughout his entire career. In a way, Lodger is a microcosm of what his career would later be. There’s no shortage of tricks up his sleeve, from the strange, often eerie left turns to the sneakier tricks; for one, “Fantastic Voyage” and “Boys Keep Swinging” have an almost identical chord progression, but their atmospheres are so radically different that I didn’t even notice. It’s a trickster kind of album, obstinate in its mission to not be boxed in.

After falling back to Earth, the Berlin Trilogy got much more worldly, and Lodger was its peak. The entire album reeks with the recollection that the world is rife with the unknown, be it in places unseen or the machinations of politics. “Fantastic Voyage” is the thesis of that song; it reads like a scrawled diary before the apocalypse, and it very well could have been, what with the threat of nuclear annihilation and the Cold War on Bowie’s mind. He pits the casual dehumanization of entire peoples against the plea for the dignity of all individuals. He looks skyward, pondering the missiles that could rain down on the population and end everything in an instant. But in the midst of all this turmoil, decades after 1979, the final verse rings truer than ever: “They wipe out an entire race and I’ve got to write it down/But I’m still getting educated/But I’ve got to write it down/And it won’t be forgotten.”

Oof. Certainly feels like a slap in the face, given that ICE has been snatching children off the streets and shoots unarmed civilians in Minneapolis, and I’m just holed up in my apartment trying to get my thesis done. Yet Bowie’s words feel like a guidebook. I’ve got to write it down—I interpret that both in the sense that we have to commit the crimes of these monsters to paper, lest the government conveniently paints them in a more pleasant light (as they already are), but also that in spite of everything, we have to keep on with our creativity. Sometimes, all we can do is write. Of course, that doesn’t make political action, however small, null and void, but sometimes it’s all you can do but journal everything around you to stay sane. All that matters, both for Bowie and for all of us, is to keep the pen moving—that keeps our minds sharp, it creates a record of the soul.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh – “Remember it’s true/Dignity is valuable/But our lives are valuable too/We’re learning to live with somebody’s depression/And I don’t want to live with somebody’s depression/We’ll get by, I suppose…”

“Palo Alto” – Radiohead

In a move that’s probably stunned nobody, I’ve decided to become the insufferable neighbor and take up collecting vinyl; my parents were nice enough to gift me with a record player, as well as my two favorite albums: David Bowie’s Hunky Dory and Radiohead’s OK Computer. I can’t thank them enough. My neighbors, on the other hand, are probably rueing the day that they had to hear “Fitter Happier” through the walls without warning. Your honor, I plead “whoopsie daisies.”

OK Computer—specifically, the 2017 remaster with all of the b-sides, OKNOTOK—all but swallowed me whole in my freshman year of high school, and the version of me that got chewed up and spit out was irreparably, permanently changed. Whether it was for the best or the worst is up to interpretation, but either way, it’s given me a love of Radiohead that hasn’t waned to this day, more than seven years after I first listened to the album. However, at that age, I was still in the woeful process of immediately deleting whatever songs that didn’t hook me on the first few listens from my library. The destruction left in the wake was irreparable—and it also made me completely forget that this absolute gem existed. I can’t even put my finger on why it wasn’t a favorite at the time; the only reasonable explanation is that OK Computer is just so jam-packed full of songs that shattered my brain that brain-shattering became the standard. I was harsh back then.

Yet on my new record player, “Palo Alto” came out of left field. In the mindset of Thom Yorke, I can sort of see why this one got the axe back in the day—musically, it’s less adventurous than some of the other tracks. It’s very much of the same, more straightforward rock/Britpop crop of The Bends, despite the avalanche of fuzz and decorative beep-boops. Thematically, it’s on par with the anxiety of OK Computer, with the tiresome monotony of corporate life: “In a city of the future/It is difficult to concentrate/Meet the boss, meet the wife/Everybody’s happy, everyone is made for life.” Even if it’s not as compositionally inventive as some of the a-sides, even Radiohead’s more straightforward songs are a cut above the rest, and “Palo Alto” is proof. With the sudden, grinding assault of Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien’s guitars against Thom Yorke’s exasperated delivery of regurgitated small talk, it encapsulates the exhaustion of being trapped in an endless cycle of work buttressed only with surface-level interactions.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Embassytown – China Miéville – “In a city of the future/It is difficult to find a space/I’m too busy to see you/You’re too busy to wait…”

“Here It Comes Again” – Cate Le Bon

I regret to inform you that I’ve been listening to way more Cate Le Bon again, but I can’t help it that it faintly fits the vibe of my honors thesis. Michelangelo Dying, Pompeii, and Reward all got revisited last week, and you will be hearing about it. This is, once again, a threat.

Among the many impressive things about Cate Le Bon is the myriad ways that she makes her music sound innately aquatic. I talked about how watery all of Reward feels when I first listened to it back in July, with “Miami” and its sounds of aquarium gravel and bubbles. Unlike a lot of her songs, “Here It Comes Again” feels more like water rhythmically; with an almost waltz-like rhythm, it feels like the motion of a plastic toy boat being carried out to sea. The melody continually repeats and lives by eating itself, a gently cyclical waltz across a flooded ballroom covered in algae. That precise quality of the melody is what enhances the lyrics. It’s implied in the title (and the chorus), but “Here It Comes Again” drowns in monotony, its sonic eyelids growing heavier with each repetition: “Man alive/This solitude/Is wrinkles in the dirt.” Very few artists make solitude and dreariness into such musical feasts like Cate Le Bon does—if it’s loneliness, she’s spun it into something as appealing as a bowl of candies with brightly-colored wrappers.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Here Beside the Rising Tide – Emily Jane – “Man alive/This solitude/Is wrinkles in the dirt/I borrowed love from carnivals/Set it in a frame/Here it comes again…”

“Been Undone” – Peter Gabriel

HE’S BACK! PETER GABRIEL IS BACK TO SAVE 2026!

Once again culminating in an album coming out this December, o\i is being released in singles corresponding with each full moon of 2026. Three days into 2026, it gave me some hope—and a bittersweet full-circle moment for me. I spent the spring semester of my freshman year of college listening to i/o‘s singles, and I’ll be spending the spring semester of my senior year listening to its inverse. The songs comprise of both castoffs from the i/o sessions and from further back in his career; according to this video, the chord progression for “Been Undone” has been on the back burner for several decades. As the starting gun for the album, it’s an expression of some of what I love best about Gabriel: his boundless creativity and his grounded humility. “Been Undone” is all about learning moments—the ones that cause us pain or overwhelm us, but ultimately teach us something valuable: “By all the forms that you get from the Mandelbrot set/I’ve been undone/By the recursive slaves in the home of the brave/I’ve been undone.” I’m assuming the latter is in reference to the deeply broken U.S. prison system, but back to back with a mathematical concept that results in dizzying, fascinating patterns, it proves the song’s point: both great wonder and great pain can be the origin of learning. Musically, I thought it was going to be a more standard new-era Gabriel song, and it continues so for nearly 6 minutes; but at 5:59, he takes a left turn back into “The Tower That Ate People” territory, turning a pleasantly synthy tune into his personal brand of almost-industrial, proving that even at 74, he has no shortage of tricks up his sleeve.

Also, the bit where Gabriel was asked about the Bright/Dark-side mixes and if he allows the producers to play with the structure cracked me up—probably the clearest vocalization of “no <3” I’ve ever seen HAHA

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Life Hacks for a Little Alien – Alice Franklin – “Though I want to observe, it keeps touching a nerve/And I’ve been undone/By the past that you trace, by a moment of grace/I have been undone…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 1/18/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: two queens maximizing their joint slay, songs that get a little confusing in the discography next to each other, and unintentionally capitalizing (as if I earn any money from this blog) on gay hockey being the next big thing. Also, a shoutout is due to my mom, because I ended up getting 3/5 of these songs from a single car ride with her. Love you 🙂

Enjoy this week’s review!

SUNDAY SONGS: 1/18/26

“Sleeping Powder” – Gorillaz

Here’s the thing about Gorillaz: I’ve talked extensively about how since 2018, they’ve become less Gorillaz and more about the collaborations, and it feels like they’ve lost themselves somewhere in the midst. The thing is that they’re fully still capable of returning to their roots and balancing the old with the new. Even though it sounds like it could’ve come from Plastic Beach, “Sleeping Powder” was released after Humanz came out in 2018. According to the official Gorillaz lore, 2D made this song behind the rest of the band’s back because he felt that he’d been excluded from the album (shhh, don’t tell Murdoc); the song is primarily about the character’s drug addiction, as evidenced by the music video, complete with the classic “this is your brain on drugs” sample and a 3D 2D (they said it couldn’t be done…) tripping balls and abusing his green screen privileges. It feels like a promise of what Gorillaz still could be; “Sleeping Powder” never feels like it could mesh with Blur or Damon Albarn’s solo work, as some of his more recent music does. It’s pure Gorillaz, channeling the urgency and grooves from their earlier eras but giving them a more modern flourish. Complete with a fusion of acoustic guitars and synths—and one of Albarn’s signature raspy howls—”Sleeping Powder” feels like a reminder that the core of Gorillaz exists—it’s just been buried, which, given how hit or miss their output has been since 2018, is a real shame.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Shamshine Blind – Paz Pardo – “I get dropped from where I belong/I take my pills and I get in the mode/And I take five to get it to load in/Even in the place…”

“Heat Wave” – Snail Mail

Seems like this is a very advantageous time to write about this song, since a) the nearly 5-year Snail Mail drought is purportedly ending next Tuesday (!!!), and b) gay hockey is in. May I interest you in some lesbian hockey?

Hearing “Heat Wave” when I was 14 felt as though something in the world of music had cracked open like an eggshell, and the yolk of possibility had opened up for me. I’d just discovered Snail Mail on the cusp of her first album, Lush, and the first few singles instigated a seismic shift in me. Here was Lindsey Jordan, only 18 at the time, making such raw, fully-formed music with guitar at the forefront. She was openly gay, she wasn’t traditionally feminine, and she looked like somebody who I’d see in my brother’s high school class. But here she was, taking the indie world by storm.

It’s so oddly raw listening to “Heat Wave” now. I’m older than Jordan was in that video now. The lyrics are even more teenage now, but they hit almost as hard as they did when I was 14. At a show I saw her at when I was 16, Jordan admitted that she’d forgotten which song was about which girl; now, it hardly matters—she bottled that open-wound feeling of a fresh breakup and concentrated it so fully that its source is irrelevant. Concentrating that emotion so distinctly is a feat at any age, but at 18! 18! I was writing stories about weird spaceships with way too much purple prose at 18. Man. “Heat Wave” is so chock-full of emotion that it felt almost heady, like strong perfume, listening back to it after so many years; and yet, adorned with some seriously intricate and catchy guitar riffs (once again, AT 18, Jesus Christ), “Heat Wave” is such an indie gem, and Lush remains a testament to the sheer talent she’d worked so hard to cultivate.

Even if Valentine was weaker in retrospect, and even if this new single doesn’t turn out good, there’s still the Snail Mail I loved in 2018. She’s the main reason I picked up the guitar in the first place, and she gave me the courage to come out not long after I saw her at a tiny club in Denver. And I will always treasure that Snail Mail.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Perfect on Paper – Sophie Gonzales – “And I hope whoever it is/Holds their breath around you/Cause’ I know I did/And otherwise/If only sometimes/Would you give it up, green eyes?”

“Tied Up!” – Genesis Owusu

One word keeps popping up like a whack-a-mole every time I listen to “Tied Up!”, and that is “groovy.” Dear lord, this is such an expertly tight groove. There’s not really a genre I can definitively pin it to, and from the looks of it, the same is true for STRUGGLER, the critically-acclaimed album the it comes from. But either way, this song is neat as a pin—this is a groove, nothing more, nothing less.

Loosely centered around the character of The Roach, a struggler on the run from the manifestation of any antagonistic force you can think of, named God. (Sidenote: I love the bug-eyed sunglasses that Owusu wore when he toured for this album. Perfection.) Along with “Leaving the Light,” an adrenaline-fueled sprint away from God’s wrath (“I’m a beast I can feel them poaching/Stamp me down, but a roach keeps roaching”), “Tied Up!” embodies what feels like the mentality of this Roach character: no matter what God throws at him, roaches are famously unkillable, virtually impervious to apocalypse and mass extinction. Owusu declaring that he’s bleeding from his legs right on the heels of the most upbeat pop chorus is whiplash, but it embodies that feeling of taking pride in being unbeatable when you’re being beat down from all sides. Owusu chucks all manner of musical influences in the pot—hip-hop, pop, alt-rock—but they all come out feeling like something wholly new. Aside from a few weak lyrics here and there (“What other choice can I chose?” always trips me up), “Tied Up!” has no bumps in the road—it’s a slick groove all the way through.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Resisters – Gish Jen – “I’m bleeding from my legs but it’s alright today/Better out here than the hell where I stay/I said my feelings start to wobble when I stare at the doves/I’m fighting through life, I have no boxing gloves…”

“Always The Same” (feat. St. Vincent) – Cate Le Bon

If there ever was an audio manifestation of “two queens coming together to maximize their joint slay,” then this is it. This is the only thing keeping the fabric of 2026 together. I can only hope that Cate Le Bon will follow in St. Vincent’s footsteps and retroactively announce a tour date near me.

Praise! We get a momentary extension of my favorite album of 2025, Michelangelo Dying! From the looks of it, there was a fruitful window where St. Vincent and Cate Le Bon were drawing from each other’s musical wells; back in 2024, Le Bon contributed backing vocals to “All Born Screaming.” Now, St. Vincent’s switched roles, providing a harmony for Le Bon on this track from the Michelangelo Dying sessions. “Always The Same” falls on the slower side of the album with songs like “Pieces of My Heart” or “Is It Worth It (Happy Birthday)?” and deals with the same heartbreak, although not in the heart-ripped-from-your ribcage way. What stands out to me about Michelangelo Dying is that it’s not a breakup album in the traditional sense—it’s not about the romance so much as it is about the gradual buildup leading to the break. There’s little rage or sorrow, but what there is in great amounts is exhaustion, repressed and built up in the chest until it makes you collapse. She’s not a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl so much as she is a river running dry.

“Always The Same” takes that same bleary-eyed exhaustion and draws it out; Le Bon describes her losing battle with her lover as “back and forth like a country/losing land to war,” shrinking herself until there’s nothing left of her at all. The background saxophones are almost unrecognizable as the instruments they are, made so ripply and strangely plastic by the production, expanding and contracting like a lung made of rubber. Both lyrically and instrumentally, it’s like watching a bundle of herbs dry out in the oven: something that was once green burns up and loses all its color. St. Vincent offers her higher harmonies to rise with Le Bon’s sonorous vocals, a devil on her shoulder to dismiss her pain, repeating: “she can bury it!”

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Ephemera Collector – Stacy Nathaniel Jackson – “I swallowed your memories/Like a morning prayer/I’m in your debt now/Almost there…”


“Troubles” – TV on the Radio

Nowadays, this song has to be a pain for TV on the Radio, since they put out a far more popular song called “Trouble” four years later. Oops. Hindsight is 20/20. At least “Troubles” is a bonus track, so it gets forgotten easily. Good for clarity, not good for a perfectly good song that deserves more attention. But if girlpool could make it work by having two completely different songs called “Pretty,” then TV on the Radio can too.

Either way, “Troubles” doesn’t deserve to get left in the dust; even if there are stronger tracks on Nine Types of Light, it’s a calm, steady track—the even-keeled instrumentals makes the chorus of “Despite all the heartbreak it brings/Our love is a surefire thing” feel just as anchored. With imagery of springtime fields and songbirds aplenty, it’s alight with flickers of hope amidst the plateau. It’s a vow to be the calm after somebody’s storm. Even if it’s more restrained than some of the more adventurous, intricate tracks on the album (see: “Killer Crane”), the vocal harmonies are as melodic and light as the songbirds they describe, and the flickers of horns and fluttering synths make for a song built like a dense greenhouse full of bright blooms.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea – Rebecca Thorne – relaxing and steady, with steadfast love and a pastoral, magical setting.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 10/12/25

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: shoutout to the Welsh for carrying alternative music at the moment. Also, I continue to eat up 99% of what Horsegirl does, and Michael Stipe appears in (somewhat) unexpected places.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 10/12/25

“Body as a River” – Cate Le Bon

Y’all. MICHELANGELO DYING! It’s a strong contender for my favorite album of the year at this point. I’m trying my best not to listen to it to death, but it’s so hard when this album has hidden sonic surprises every time I go back to it.

Since 2019, Cate Le Bon’s music has felt like an ever-expanding, tactile landscape. Listening to her last three albums feels like running your hands over a model village of an alien world, full of all manner of silken, rubbery textures charting out a world that only Le Bon has access to. Thankfully, she’s chosen to share that world with us, and her musical cartography has made me all the better. Michelangelo Dying in particularly made me feel like I was plunging through a sunlit creek, watching the sunlight dapple through the water onto my skin, watching pebbles, plants, and silvery fish dart through the current alongside me. As she maps out the prognosis of a personal heartbreak, she transforms her knotted mess of pain and grief into a vibrant swath of glistening sound; “Mothers of Riches” bobs up and down like birds vying for a mate, and “Ride,” with the help of John Cale (!!!), meanders into a searing climax and shows off Le Bon’s vocal and emotional range.

But it’s “Body as a River” that swept me off my feet and into the frigid creek waters—or the river, I guess I should say. Or maybe not: after all, “My body as a river/A river running dry.” There’s only a riverbed to speak of now, for Le Bon, a once rushing energy force now diminished by pain. It’s one of those songs that you instantly surrender to. Awash in thrumming pianos and guitars and saxophones so warped and bubbly that they cease to become instruments, Le Bon drags you along with the proverbial current. You can’t do much other than release yourself to the thrall of the music—and I’m glad to do it time after time. The entire album feels watery, but this feels like this musical concept pushed to its extreme; it all burbles and rushes like a waterfall, Le Bon’s voice layered, echoed, and pulled apart in all directions to linger in the feeling of exhaustion and transience. Her lyricism dwells in the real and the surreal in equal measure: “Do you see her/Falling on the wishing bone/Dripping like a candle?/In the pages lost/I’m holding on to sorrow and lust.” It’s a song that makes me glad to be alive in a time when, if you look hard enough, artsy people are honing their craft beneath the shadow of the mainstream, free to let their unique sound flow free like water. We don’t deserve Cate Le Bon.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Ephemera Collector – Stacy Nathaniel Jackson – “See what you like/I read what I write/And it’s never without shame/My body as a river/A river running dry/And I’m sick all the time…”

“In Twos” (Demo) – Horsegirl

Phonetics On & On has had me in a chokehold ever since it came out on Valentine’s Day. Like Cate Le Bon’s new music, it just gives me so much joy that there are so many artists out there making music true to their quirky selves, and music that’s so catchy and creative at that. Somehow, even the demos are almost on the same level as the final products of the album—both versions of “Julie” were worthy, scratchy precursors to one of the album’s most introspective moments.

“In Twos” was a faintly melancholy bridge before the album really got up and started doing the dance from the end of Fantastic Mr. Fox, but it was one of the highlights for me in terms of songwriting. It was already a spectacular track, but somehow, this lo-fi, larval stage of it is almost better than the studio version. Practically, I feel like the lower key would’ve probably been more difficult to sing, but it feels more resonant and more fitting with the lyrics, a gentle, wistful ramble through crowded city streets. The spare instrumentals on the studio version made the melancholy more tangible, but on a personal level, I just love the more garagey sound that this demo has, chock-full of a more restrained version of the sounds of Versions of Modern Performance. Despite the wistfulness, they can never take the jangle away from Horsegirl.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers, #2) – Becky Chambers – “Every car that passes by drives to you/Overlooked by any face just passing through/Your footprints on the street, they walk in twos/Every good thing that I find, I find I lose…”

“Disconnect the Dots” – of Montreal

Isn’t it so wonderful to look back on a musician’s sound to see exactly where the good stuff gestated? “Disconnect the Dots” is already the good stuff in question, but I swear it’s like peeling back a layer of age to see the future of where of Montreal would go in the next four years. I can practically hear an embryonic version of the anxious thrum of “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse” in the bouncing bass of this track and the ever-so-slightly off kilter, catchy dance music of The Sunlandic Twins. “Disconnect the Dots” comes right as Kevin Barnes had stepped off of the precipice of their potential; the lyrics haven’t gotten as English major delightful yet, but this feels like one of their dance songs, so it doesn’t really need those lyrics quite yet. What it does have, however, is Barnes saying “Come disconnect the dots with me, poppet”—I really should’ve seen “poppet” coming a mile away, but it’s such a quirky little additive to the song that exhibits a weirdness in Barnes that could never be suppressed.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Of Monsters and Mainframes – Barbara Truelove – only a book as bonkers as this could be befitting of a song like this…

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Flu” – Super Furry Animals

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Flu?” That’s just what happened when I saw Gorillaz and then realized that I’d gotten RSV a few days later…thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all night.

Super Furry Animals have been all but dormant for the better part of a decade, having not released new material since 2016. Separately, most of the band has been active on different projects, but after an agonizing string of teasers that lasted a solid week, Gruff Rhys and co. announced a UK tour and a reissue of their 2005 album Love Kraft. The (extreme) optimist in me is hoping that they’ll do a US tour (and come to Colorado by some miracle), but…listen, I’m glad said super furry animals have emerged from their hibernation, at least for a fleeting moment. Big fan of whatever Super Furry Animal is in this visualizer too.

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Flu,” a joyous, harmony-driven stomper, was a B-Side from the Love Kraft sessions that has just now been released. Though I haven’t listened to any of the album, it’s got some of my favorite qualities of a good Super Furry Animals song. It’s got an absolutely glistening glam sheen to it; it really seems to shimmer like a just-washed car with a handful of water droplets clinging to the surface. With its spacey instrumentals and the seamless harmonies. It’s one of those songs that seems to encapsulate the art that Super Furry Animals surrounds itself with—it’s the exact kind of song to fit in the backdrop of their universe of bold colors and cartoon creatures on rocket ships.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

You Sexy Thing – Cat Rambo – the perfect soundtrack to a bonkers yet heartfelt romp through the galaxy with a bunch of chefs.

“Your Ghost” (feat. Michael Stipe) – Kristin Hersh

There’s at least five different sayings about what you can do with three chords in a rock song, but some songs make you instantly understand every one of those sayings. It didn’t even occur to me that “Your Ghost” is comprised of only three main chords until I listened to it more closely. That might be a consequence of the cello in the background making it appear more lush and complicated, but it’d be lush without it. That’s that talent of someone like Kristin Hersh; she weaves a narrative so haunting and compelling that you barely even notice how deceptively simple the composition is.

Conflicting sources about this one have said that it’s either about Hersh’s struggles with schizophrenia as a teenager or grappling with the death of a close friend. Either way, the lonely yearning for something just out of reach resonates in every note. The music video, directed by Katherine Dieckmann, captures that feeling of an early 1900’s house with aging decorations that I associate with a solid handful of Hersh’s songs. This time, it’s cast in a more decaying light as Hersh sings of being mocked by memories and visions: “So I pad through the dark and call you on the phone/Push your old numbers/And let your house ring/Till I wake your ghost.” Her lyricism is nothing short of evocative, and the verbs are really doing the heavy lifting—her “pad[ding] through the dark,” and instead of simply waiting on the other line, she “slide[s] down your receiver/sprint[s] across the wire” as she yearns for someone to answer her. Nothing does, but this ghost, whatever it may represent, drives in circles around her in dreams, almost mockingly, as if taunting her with the reminder of mortality. When I first heard “Your Ghost,” I was floored by the fact that Michael Stipe and Hersh had crossed paths, but in retrospect, I really shouldn’t have been. I guess they did run in similar circles, and if you slicked up the production and added some mandolin, this could’ve been a cut from Green. But he proves a fitting duet partner for Hersh, whose voice echoes through the decaying wooden slats of her decaying house and onto a forlorn wind.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez – Claire Jiménez – “You were in my dream/You were driving circles around me…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (9/30/25) – Beasts of Carnaval

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Continuing with Latine Heritage Month, here’s a new release that caught my eye! The cover and premise seemed stunning, and I was intrigued by the inclusion of Taíno mythology. On almost all of those fronts, Beasts of Carnaval delivered instantly—I was hooked from page one!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Beasts of Carnaval – Rosália Rodrigo

Sofía has heard legends of Isla Bestia since she was a child. They say that enchanting performances and mysterious people populate the mysterious island, and those who come there are too entranced to ever return to the real world. Sofía is sensible enough to not believe the rumors. But when her twin brother goes missing, her trail leads to Isla Bestia. There, she’s drawn into a bizarre, luscious world of magic and shifting alliances. Caught up in a tangled web of intrigue, Sofía must keep her wits about her if she wants to find out which of her new allies are men—and which of them are monsters.

TW/CW: colonialism/imperialism themes, loss of loved ones (past), panic attacks, religious bigotry, blood, murder, racism/slavery themes, misogyny

Before I get into gushing about everything I adored about Beasts of Carnaval, I’ll get my one major pet peeve out of the way: fantasy worlds that are named so closely to reality that they basically are reality. Rodrigo’s world is essentially the Caribbean, except that the countries are named slightly differently—their colonizers are Hisperian, for instance. Real-word terms such as mestiza are used, so at that point…I dunno, it’s so close to historical reality, so why not just set it in the Caribbean of the past and just establish that there’s magic and some minor changes? Alternate history, anyone? I guess there’s a ton of fantasy novels that do that for European countries, but honestly, I’ve never liked it no matter the country that inspired the setting.

I dunno, the commentary would come across no matter the setting. Beasts of Carnaval isn’t the first book to have this, but for me, even though it peeved me, it didn’t take away from how lush the worldbuilding was; beyond the real-world hierarchies that were present, I loved the magic in this world, and it was integrated into the real world almost effortlessly. It’s a very fleshed out world rooted in historical themes and cultures, enlivened by vibrant and vivid magic inspired by Indigenous Taíno mythologies.

After reading Beasts of Carnaval, I’m absolutely going to be looking out for anything else that Rosália Rodrigo writes, because the prose of this novel was truly captivating! A Carnaval-inspired setting is bound to have some fun imagery, but Rodrigo wrung every ounce of magic out of it. With her prose, Isla Bestia wasn’t just abstractly a place that nobody wants to leave—she really makes you feel the seductive enchantment of the entire island! From the first description of the hummingbird dancer at the beginning, I was nothing short of captivated—I was hooked from start to finish, and I loved every minute of exploring the world that Rodrigo had crafted!

Compelling prose needs a compelling protagonist, and Sofía was just that! I adored her character, and she just seemed to leap off the page for me. From the start, I loved the many facets of her personality; she was strong-willed, determined, sensible, and sometimes practical to a fault, but I loved watching her adventures. Especially in contrast to the other characters around her, she was so focused on her mission of finding her missing brother that I got sucked in immediately. Hidden beneath her practical exterior, her deep caring for Sol made me root for her instantly, and I loved the way she fought back against the micro (and very much macro)aggressions that she experienced in daily life for being mixed-race. It’s rare that I love a character from the get-go, but Sofía captured my heart immediately!

A part of Sofía’s character that I also appreciated was the discussion of her mixed-race/mestiza identity! As a mixed-race person myself (though I’m very white-passing), I loved the nuanced discussions surrounding her conflicting feelings about her identity and how it positioned her in the highly stratified world around her. Rodrigo also had some excellent discussions about passing privilege and the treatment that Sofía got as this universe’s version of an Afro-Latina woman, especially with her being a former slave; Rodrigo did an excellent job of balancing her pride with the hurt she carries from enduring decades of racism from her peers and having to justify being a part of either of the communities she’s descended from. It was also especially poignant to have her arc revolving around discovering the magic of her Indigenous ancestors, inspired by Taíno mythology! It’s always so fulfilling to connect with one’s culture (speaking from experience), and to have that be physically manifested as healing magic was nothing short of emotional. I couldn’t get enough of it!

Overall, an enchanting and emotional novel that hooked me instantly. 4 stars!

Beasts of Carnaval is Rosália Rodrigo’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

MICHELANGELO DYING MY BELOVED

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Books for Bisexual Visibility Week (2025 Edition) 🩷💜💙

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

This past week, September 16-23, has been Bisexual Visibility Week, and today, September 23rd, is Bisexual Visibility Day! See me. I’m right here. Well, in your screen. Along with my Latine Heritage Month post, this is another one that I’ve neglected to do some years since it comes at a slightly dicey time in the school year, but I probably shouldn’t be neglecting, since it, y’know, directly correlates to my identity. Oops. A little embarrassing, but once again, no time like the present.

Every year. Every year, I swear to god. I’m much less online than I used to be, but from what I see snatches of, every other year, some discourse comes back about whether or not bisexuals are actually “queer enough” or if straight-passing bisexuals are allowed at pride, or something equally meaningless. (Also, I feel like everyone debating the latter should remember that Brenda Howard, a bisexual woman, was a key figure in creating Pride events and rallies as we know them here in the States.) Just seeing flashes of whatever’s going down on TikTok makes me lose a year off my life. But it brings up a point that I’ve often thought about when it comes to the queer community: the infighting needs to stop. Please. There’s no sense in playing the oppression olympics amongst ourselves, especially when the threats against the LGBTQ+ community at large are so much more pressing. Also, please stop being weird about bisexual people. This is coming from somebody who’s had the privilege of not experiencing any direct biphobia, thankfully, but has heard it in real life directed at friends and loved ones, as well as seeing it run rampant on the internet. All of this petty fighting is a distraction from what’s really happening: not long after they removed the word transgender from the Stonewall National Monument website, they removed the word bisexual from the “history and culture” section. As of now, they’ve since reinstated it (though the absence of trans people remains glaring…love to all my trans siblings, in light of, well, everything), but it sends a clear message: they’re bent on cutting our community up until they can conveniently erase it from American history. And we will not be erased.

To all of my fellow bisexuals: you are bisexual enough. No matter your relationship status, attraction, or partner, you will always be bisexual. Nobody can dictate your identity but you. Not the internet, not the people in your life—nobody. There is no one central bisexual experience, but every individual experience under the sun is valid, so long as you want to claim it. You’re the captain of this ship, and you are bisexual enough. And you are loved. I don’t know about you, but I’ve loved being bisexual in the nearly seven years (Jesus, has it been that long?)

For my lists from previous years, click below: 

Let’s begin, shall we?

🩷💜💙THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR BISEXUAL VISIBILITY WEEK (2025 EDITION)🩷💜💙

FANTASY & MAGICAL REALISM:

SCIENCE FICTION:

REALISTIC AND HISTORICAL FICTION:

or “dear god, how do almost all of these books have pink/purple pastel covrers?”

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, what did you think of them? What are some of your favorite books by bisexual authors? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

MICHELANGELO DYING IS UPON US, LET’S GOOOOO

That’s it for this recommendations post! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 8/10/25

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: a David Bowie double feature (who could’ve seen that coming?), upcoming artsy albums, and more reasons why I really just wish I had dual British citizenship, because apparently all of the good music related stuff happens exclusively in the UK.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/10/25

“Is It Worth It (Happy Birthday)?” – Cate Le Bon

I could really do with some more restrained excitement about Michelangelo Dying, but…these singles just aren’t letting me do it! They’re both so enchanting! I can’t get enough!! I’m really hoping they’re not the best of the bunch, but I have faith that Cate Le Bon has something quirkily artsy up her sleeve, if this and “Heaven Is No Feeling” are any indication.

“Is It Worth It (Happy Birthday)?” takes the palette of the album down a more subdued, melancholy route than “Heaven Is No Feeling,” trading the former’s synthy strut for glassy-eyed introspection. But even with the thematic shift, Le Bon’s signature modern touches are there. Awash in fizzling, electronic textures, this track is an outstretched bolt of lavish fabric, much like the pink background of the album cover. Silky and watery, it makes every instrument feel like it’s been drenched in sunlit water, from the gentle, barely perceptible bass to the saxophones. I’m not usually this big of a fan of saxophones, but the way Le Bon utilizes them, more for added sonic texture than for dramatic solos, make her world even more layered and delectable to pick apart. It’s distinctively her, but I can’t help but think of the dense, dreamy soundscapes of the Cocteau Twins when I listen to it. (“For Phoebe Still A Baby” jumps out in particular.) Yet drama is what this song quietly thrives on, as the lyrics muse on trying to make light out of abject sorrow: “Open up in hell/And dress the hall/It’s a holiday/It’s a birthday/Is it worth it?/Is it worth it?” The lyrics nearly get swallowed by the sheer magnitude of sounds woven into the production—including the signature, lilting cadence of Le Bon’s voice—but it almost seems exactly her intention. It feels both mean and inaccurate to call any of it window dressing, but next to the lyrics, all about trying to laugh heartbreak away and pretend it’s something that it’s not, it feels like exactly the kind of shrouding she’s singing about. At the end, she laments that she’s “Checking out/Even with my language in him,” just as the listener tries to extricate her from the vibrant sea of sound she’s crafted to shield herself. It’s easy to get washed away in, and if the rest of Michelangelo Dying is anything like this, I’ll be gladly losing myself in it come September.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Ephemera Collector – Stacy Nathaniel Jackson – “Open up in hell/And dress the hall/It’s a holiday/It’s a birthday/Is it worth it?”

“Saviour Machine” – David Bowie

“David Bowie predicted ChatGPT” would’ve been a good headline for this post, but as much as I love him, he was far from the first to ponder about AI. But really…this song does basically predict ChatGPT, and in this song it’s “President Joe” who introduces it to the world, which is kind of a crazy coincidence. Had to do a double take when I first heard the lyrics, for sure. Drawing from much of the sci-fi media of his time, Bowie’s version of AI comes in the form of The Prayer, an AI system introduced by President Joe to make the population’s decisions easier for them, from stopping wars to simply thinking themselves. However, it’s The Prayer itself that calls for its own destruction, going insane after having such decisions weighing on its shoulders and pondering: “Please don’t believe in me/Please disagree with me/Life is too easy/A plague seems quite feasible now/Or maybe a war/Or I may kill you all!” Life is too easy for sure, now that everyone’s trying to flirt and make art and music and go through school entirely with AI. Sorry, but can’t you idiots stop and forgo convenience to experience the tedious pleasures of the human experience? Embarrassing. Jesus Christ. Remember, kids: you can’t stake your life on a savior machine.

“Saviour Machine” rings reminiscent of short stories of the likes of Ray Bradbury, but it also reflects the much darker tone of The Man Who Sold the World. Though it wasn’t like he hadn’t trod into darker lyrical subjects before, going from something like “Uncle Arthur” to an album comprised of insane asylums, the Vietnam War, and gay sex with Satan in the span of three years is a whiplash-inducing left turn for anyone. I don’t think it’s the edginess of the subject matter that makes it feel more mature, but the exploration—The Man Who Sold the World represents a critical turning point in Bowie’s storytelling ability, and he was willing to explore places that he hadn’t explored before, pushing himself out of his typical territory in order to create something wholly unique. It feels to me what he said when he spoke about art: “If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.” Darkness was coincidental, and of course, not all of the album is necessarily dark—it was merely territory that he hadn’t scoured before, and that challenge led him to create some of his most innovative work, time after time, album after album. “Saviour Machine” feels like the prelude to that storyteller’s attitude, one that would guide him to untold heights in his career.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Outside – Ada Hoffmann – A few centuries in the future, when something like The Prayer gets out of control…

“Real Lovin” – Black Belt Eagle Scout

Katherine Paul has a distinctly whispery voice—everything they sing sounds like they’re singing it into a cool breeze. Most of her music pre-The Land, the Water, the Sky suits it perfectly; though she’s become more adventurous with her vocal capabilities later on, a lot of her songs had a slower, softer demeanor that suited the airiness of her voice. But if there’s any song to be characterized by this, it would be this one. I’d forgotten all about “Real Lovin” for years—I initially listened to At the Party With My Brown Friends around five years ago—until it popped back into my shuffle out of nowhere. Though Paul’s voice soars with more volume towards the end of the track, her whisper-singing is perfectly suited to the quiet tenderness of the lyrics: “Now that you can dream/What is it you see/When you wake up in the folds of blankets in your bed/In your room/In your house/By yourself?” It’s the sound of a sliver of dewy light sliding through the slats of shutters in the early morning as you blink away the threads of sleep. Paul’s voice is a comfortable sheet over me as I listen, and she delivers what’s easily the softest, tenderest uttering of “well that’s bullshit” I’ve ever heard in a song. But no matter the intensity, which rises with every passing minute as the instrumentals build up, I never have a doubt that Paul means exactly what she’s saying.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Each of Us a Desert – Mark Oshiro – “You’ve tried and tried/What seems a million times and you wonder how you’ll end up/Is it the moon?/Is it the stars?/Do they rule you and your heart?”

“Crocadillaz (feat. De La Soul and Dawn Penn)” – Gorillaz

While I froth at the mouth that I can’t go to the Gorillaz exhibit in London, I figured it would be fitting to talk about them…for the millionth time on this blog.

It was a strangely pivotal moment when, a week after Cracker Island released back in early 2023, three more songs were added to the lineup. I had middling thoughts about the album up until then; for me, it represented the point at which Gorillaz (and later Blur with The Ballad of Darren) became nearly indistinguishable from Damon Albarn’s solo work. There were a handful of fun tracks, but as a whole, it failed to hold as much water as something like their first three records, even with the star-studded list of collaborators. And when it seemed all hope was lost…Del the Funky Homosapien and De La Soul returned! (Two years later, “Captain Chicken” has no business being so good for a song with such a goofy title AND samples of chicken clucks. God, it’s so good.) Disregarding the “Momentz” haters (heathens, all of you), every time De La Soul and Gorillaz collaborate, a special kind of magic happens. Even with Trugoy the Dove’s too-soon death hanging over it, “Crocadillaz” was one of the unmistakable highlights of the album. For a song about constantly looking over your shoulder and the trappings of fame, it has a steady, easy calmness to it, propelled by Dawn Penn’s “Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo” chorus, which gets delightfully stuck in my head more often than not. Trugoy and Penn make for an unlikely but smooth pairing for this song, with the former providing the sharp-edged, quick-witted verses and Penn’s smooth, resonant vocals giving the song a simultaneously retrospective and playful chorus. I’m not usually a fan of the “Gorillaz but it’s just the collaborators” songs, but with a pairing as talented as these two, it’s easy to excuse.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

So Let Them Burn – Kamilah Cole – “Could play the sheep, but beware of the wolf’s eye/Hypnotized by the crocodile’s smiles/The exchange is brief, but watch for the teeth…”

“Watch That Man” – David Bowie

Aladdin Sane has to be the most iconic album cover in David Bowie’s catalogue. If you know any album cover, it’s that one—the nondescript, asleep-looking Bowie with a glittering lightning bolt slashing across the front of his face. And that silvery bit on his collarbone—I always thought it was a bone fragment when I was a kid, and my dad thought it was something like mercury pooling on his skin. It raises questions! It sticks in your head! And yet, the album cover gets talked about much more than the actual album. Sure, it’s probably the weakest if we’re grouping it in with Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, but that’s because you’re grouping it with two of the greatest albums of all time. But it’s really such a disservice that the album only gets remembered for the cover—there are so many excellent cuts from the album, even if it never usually makes the cut for hit Bowie songs (except for maybe “The Jean Genie”). It’s slick as hell, incredibly funky…it just rocks. Listen to the album and you just know. And “Watch That Man” is what sets the tone, a rollicking dance floor rocker that begs for you to shake your hips with every word—not just the “shakin’ like a leaf” bit. Inspired by seeing the New York Dolls live, “Watch That Man” follows a lively party, with the lyrical camera roving over every participant as the music blasts. I never had any particular problem with the mix, but it was one of the more rushed songs on the album, and on reflection, doesn’t sound as clean as some of the other tracks—it’s all a bit muddy, with most of the instruments, Bowie’s voice included, being at a very similar volume. But for a song meant to emulate the rush of a concert or being on a crowded dance floor, it gets the job done spectacularly.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens – Tanya Boteju – dancing, parties, and no shortage of glitter and makeup.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 7/27/25

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: Aquarium gravel music, driving-in-the-summer music, and music that I would’ve made a badly-animated Warriors AMV for in elementary school, if I had the capabilities.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 7/27/25

“Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” – Car Seat Headrest

Yeah, yeah. I will not shut up about the Car Seat Headrest show two weeks ago. This is a threat. Consider this me gripping the sides of your head and forcing you to look at this screen and listen to a painfully awkward gay man’s earth-shattering voice cracks. You WILL listen.

After talking about how he doesn’t play much of his old music anymore, namely that of Teens of Denial, Will Toledo said that this song was one of the more optimistic songs he’d written during that period, where he described himself as an “angry young man.” This is going to sound incredibly corny, but stay with me. I knew all the words to “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” for years, but it wasn’t until then that it really hit me. That’s when I knew them. Granted, I was 13 and focused more on the enigmatic wails of Will Toledo and the raw wave of emotion that swept me up in the undertow, but I never quite considered that, in the midst of an album steeped in substance abuse, self-hatred, and depression, that this is a much more optimistic outlook on it all. (Speaking of said substance abuse, I really think that listening to Teens of Denial so much when I was younger was unironically very good drug prevention for me. Sure, a good 50-75% of their songs up to 2016 are about drinking and drugs, but they’re all about just how deeply miserable Toledo was while drinking and doing drugs. They need to implement this album in schools instead of D.A.R.E.) I wouldn’t be surprised if “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” was the last song of the album written; it takes a more retrospective look at the cycle of self-hatred and bad decisions that color Teens of Denial as a whole, and it offers a knowing look, a hug, and a rallying cry: “It doesn’t have to be like this.” From the outside looking in, Toledo looks at the wreckage of everything he’s done up to this point, and professes this to his own anxieties:

“Here’s that voice in your head/Giving you shit again/But you know he loves you/And he doesn’t mean to cause you pain/Please listen to him/It’s not too late/Turn off the engine/Get out of the car/And start to walk.”

GOD. OW. That’s another way homer. I suppose it’s taken years for it to hit me like it was likely intended to, but that’s probably for the best. I think of recent times, when I was so wrapped up in my own anxiety that I didn’t even realize that I could make the choice to work with it, to create a life for myself that would result in me being a happier, healthier person. I’m still on that road. Every day, it’s a little more effort. But it’s all worth it, brick by brick. As Toledo says, “But if we learn how to live like this/Maybe we can learn how to start again/Like a child who’s never done wrong/Who hasn’t taken that first step.” The power is always in your hands, whether you realize it or not. You can’t make every negative thing in your life disappear into thin air, but you can make those choices, take control of the wheel and start to steer your life in a better direction. It takes a monumental, gradual effort, but IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS. It never does. Looking back to a year ago, I can’t be more proud of myself for taking that leap, of leaning into my support system to try little by little to end the cycle of anxiety that I was falling into. This song couldn’t have come back to me at a better time. You can always learn to start again.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Seep – Chana Porter – learning to break free of a state of societal complacency in disguise as betterment, and learning to live with grief, love, and every other complicated emotion.

“Stay” – Shakespears Sister

There’s a brief window in every decade where the signature sounds haven’t yet been cemented. It’s a limbo that allows for the final bastions of the last decade’s sound to grab ahold. This song comes to mind, because this is quite possibly the most ’80s song of the ’90s.

My mom knew exactly what she was doing when she played this for me. I feel like I was around 8 or 9 when she first played it for me. I wished I remembered more of the specifics, because I definitely had some kind of elaborate Warrior Cats AMV planned in my head set to this, but I remember just being so enraptured. It was one of those songs that instantly marked its place in my memory: I was in the backseat of the car, at a gas station, and the sky was overcast, and I’d just had a revelation. My mom and I are definitely interlinked at critical points in my music history, and the more I think about it, “Stay” was absolutely one of them. Like…how did I not know that the album was called Hormonally Yours? I mean, what else is there to say other than fuck yea, that’s an album title??

“Stay” is pure drama, and as over-the-top and gloriously camp as it is, in the right amount, that’s my absolute catnip. Funny that I should mention catnip, because despite the ubiquitous lyrics, it was meant to be part of a concept album, all based around [checks notes] this ’50s sci-fi movie called Cat-Women of the Moon. (Hence this song.) “Stay” was intended to be about the love story between one of said Cat-Women and one of the human male crew members of the ship to the moon, with Marcella Detroit being the Cat-Woman in love and Siobhan Fahey taking the part of, one of the other Cat-Women who shuns their romance. Despite Shakespear’s Sister not being able to execute the concept album as they wanted to, “Stay” retains the high drama and yearning present in the original idea. Over-the-top as it is, I can’t help but be enraptured by it, the same way that I was when I was a little kid. The dueling voices of Detroit and Fahey craft a story of operatic proportions, cranking the yearning up to 11.

Even though the Cat-Women of the Moon never saw the light of day, what did survive is glorious—namely the music video for “Stay.” Instead, we’ve got a vague sci-fi setting, where Detroit is doting over a comatose man, and Fahey is Death tempting the man to come to the other side, complete with a star crown and some absolute Harley Quinn crazy eyes. It’s so camp. God, I love it.

Jenny Joyce could never.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Death’s Country – R.M. Romero – I’m aligning more with the music video interpretation here, but what’s more high drama than going into the underworld to save your girlfriend from the brink of death?

“Re-Hash” – Gorillaz

Nothing like a great pop song about how much pop music sucks.

Gorillaz, at least in the early days, was a study in artificiality. The project famously came about because Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett had been watching a lot of reality TV and hearing the much more manufactured aspect of pop music at the time (“It’s the sweet sensation over the dub/A one-off situation that don’t wanna stop”), and wondered if they could take it to the extreme: an entirely artificial band. In a way, “Re-Hash” was them slyly taking a shot at what Albarn viewed to be the state of pop music at the time, before blowing it out of the water and making the most artful indie-pop music possible. That first album is almost a no-skip album, and there’s no shortage of tracks that I constantly revisit. I hadn’t listened to “Re-Hash” in quite some time, and I’d forgotten just how incredible of an opener it is. Admittedly, my association with their self-titled album will always be of summer, since I’m pretty sure I first listened to it in July or August back in high school, but everything about “Re-Hash” is soaked in sunshine, with a combination of acoustic guitars mixed with drum machines that begs for a rolled down window. That Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-aaaaah repetition towards the last third of the song is just infectious—without a doubt, a very recent holdover the more playful side of Blur’s discography. What a propulsive start to such an iconic album.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Hammajang Luck – Makana Yamamoto – I’m going more off of vibes and atmosphere than lyrics, but this would fit right in with the more lighthearted sides of Yamamoto’s sci-fi world.

“Miami” – Cate Le Bon

Oh my god, CATE LE BON!! Reward is an excellent album as a whole—I’d say that it’s just about equal to Pompeii as far as consistency, creativity, and the uniqueness of the soundscape. Although she’d begun to transition into the more synth-dominated part of her sound here, Reward has a more naturalistic feel to it. Even if the album cover didn’t have her bent over, walking over the contours of a time-worn cliff against an overcast sky, it has this inherent aura to it that feels like having the wind toss your hair as you walk along a pebbly beach as a storm brewing in the distance. The comparison that jumped out immediately to me was Damon Albarn’s The Nearer the Fountain, the More Pure the Stream Flows, an album with similarly rocky shore imagery on the album cover and throughout the lyrics. I wouldn’t expect such a feeling to brew in me from an album dominated by artsy brass and woodwinds and synth in equal measure (lots of great clarinet and saxophone action here, similar to Albarn).

In my exploration into her music, I’ve found a constant in Cate Le Bon’s more recent work: she’s damn good at making an opening track (see also: “Dirt on the Bed”). “Miami” sounds like being in a goldfish bowl. The bright, percussive synths in the background bubble like an aquarium filter, while others sound like water sliding against glass. Some of the more recognizable percussion hushes like aquarium gravel crunching in the palm of your hand. It’s all so strangely aquatic, even with the steady blast of saxophones in the background. It honestly feels far more appealing than the actual Miami, but then again, my only experience of Miami was a grotty hotel, so maybe that’s my overall Florida bias. But I’d be hard-pressed to think of a song on Reward that’s better suited to open up Le Bon’s peacefully avant-garde soundscape than this one. It lulls you into a state of calm while enticing you forward with breadcrumbs of her signature, off-kilter charm. The lilt of her voice is as much an element of the ecosystem as the brass or the synths; if anything, it’s the goldfish in this metaphor, her voice like the smooth, effortless flap of fins underwater.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Letter to the Luminous Deep – Sylvie Cathrall – a gentle and tender dispatch from a submerged world.

“You’re Damaged” – Waxahatchee

For all intents and purposes, I really should be into Waxahatchee. Stylistically, she’s often grouped in the company of Snail Mail, Adrianne Lenker, and Soccer Mommy, which should be a massive red cape to my sad indie rock bull. (In fact, my reigning association with her is this one tweet that reads “I would personally be afraid of snail mail because she’s friends with waxahatchee and waxahatchee looks like she open carries”) But the main thing that keeps me from enjoying her most of the time is her voice. It’s fully just personal preference, and I’m sure she’s very talented, but Waxahatchee feels like proof that singing in cursive isn’t exclusive to pop music. Please!! Sing without over-enunciating everything!! My god!!

Thankfully, there are exceptions to the rule. “You’re Damaged” fits snugly into the indie rock that I usually love, with Katie Crutchfield’s sparse, bare vocals. Here, her voice soars, free of expectations, dipping deftly from hard to soft as she runs circles around memories of a broken relationship: “And no I can not see into the future/No I cannot breathe underwater/Bit your last word, I call out to you/This place is vile, and I’m vile too.” It mirrors the album cover of Cerulean Salt, where Crutchfield is blurry and submerged underwater, her face obscured by her own hair and the ripples of the water; rambling through the misty glass shards of memory, she struggles to break away from an unhealthy relationship when she’s just as unhealthy as the other part, wanting them when everything around her screams for her to do the opposite. It’s the kind of song that only a raw voice and an acoustic guitar can capture, and it does so hauntingly.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Desert Echoes – Abdi Nazemian – “And no I can not see into the future/No I cannot breathe underwater/Bit your last word, I Call out to you/This place is vile, and I’m vile too…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/8/25) – Something More

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve been looking around for books to read for Disability Pride Month, and in general, trying to find some books by Palestinian/Palestinian diaspora authors. Something More fit both of those, so I figured I would give it a go! Though it wasn’t a perfect novel, it had all of the qualities of a classic YA romance novel—angsty, romantic, and heartfelt writing.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Something More – Jackie Khalilieh

Jessie is determined to turn over a new leaf. On the precipice of starting high school, she wants to show the world that she isn’t the girl who she was in middle school—lonely, awkward, and more importantly, autistic. Keeping her diagnosis a secret, Jessie quickly makes new friends—and new crushes—at Holy Trinity High. But when her friendships begin to unravel and her relationships start to crumble, Jessie questions whether it’s worth it to keep her authentic truth a secret after all.

TW/CW: ableism (external & internalized), xenophobia, racism, substance abuse, bullying

Dude. Jessie and I would’ve been best friends in high school. I would’ve gladly welcomed another neurodivergent Radiohead girlie to go sneak off to the library with during my lunch period.

Though I can’t speak to the accuracy of the representation, I loved how Something More explored Jessie’s identity! It’s something that I assume has a lot of personal importance to the author, and Khalilieh’s explored all of the facets of Jessie’s identity with such sensitivity and love. I’m not autistic, but I am neurodivergent (I have SPD), and I deeply resonated with a lot of her struggles with fitting in and adjusting to high school while being neurodivergent. I loved the arc of Jessie realizing that there’s no reason to hide her autism from her friends, and I also appreciated that a lot of her friends, despite their flaws, were respectful and accepting of her identity. The same goes with her Palestinian-Canadian identity—again, I can’t speak to the representation, but Something More had such a lovely exploration of Jessie’s experience growing up in an immigrant household and feeling like an outsider because of her Palestinian roots. It’s a deeply refreshing intersection of representation in YA literature that I adored!

I normally don’t advocate for things becoming Netflix movies, but I swear that Something More has the perfect recipe for becoming that kind of YA classic that gets a cute streaming movie. I can already see the Clueless-esque ’90s soundtrack from here, tailored towards Jessie’s special interest and the music integrated in the novel. From Jessie’s diary full of friend and boy-related (and getting her parents to get her a phone-related) goals to Jessie’s unique spark as a protagonist, it’s got the classic tropes down to a science, yet never makes them feel tired. She injects the right amounts of both the sass and the vulnerability that comes with a lovable YA rom-com protagonist. Khalilieh perfectly captures the awkwardness of entering high school and the rocky path to fitting in and finding your place. Jessie has so much great development, from realizing her self-worth in the face of her crush being dismissive of her, to realizing that she needs to stand up to her toxic “friends.” Jackie Khalilieh has clearly done her homework on YA, and with a little refinement, is well on her way to making a classic.

Despite what I loved about it, Something More suffered from a few key flaws. The most glaring of them was that…oh my god, there were so many wild, random subplots and side tangents that didn’t contribute much to the plot. Jessie’s grandma, who was almost never mentioned, randomly dies towards the end of the book, one of her friends gets involved with a creepy older man and gets dumped in a parking lot, and the rest of the friend group continuously gets tossed between several skeevy guys, seemingly with no resolution. Yeah, high school is weird, but by the end of the novel, the relationship/ex statuses between Jessie and her friend group looked like that one panel in Diary of a Wimpy Kid with the massive relationship diagram. And that’s just her friend group of FOUR PEOPLE. It was wild. Other than the gross Mel subplot, which…at the very least, I guess it gave some depth to Jessie and Levi’s relationship, none of them added to the plot, and nor did they have any ripple effects throughout the novel. I guess there was only so much time for Jessie to reflect on her grandmother dying, but if they were as close as we were blatantly told in a handful of sentences, why did it barely have an effect on Jessie? Wouldn’t she be…y’know, experiencing some form of grief? It all just felt rushed and took away page time that could’ve been used to develop the more central relationships in the novel.

Speaking of relationships…thankfully, as the cover might lead you to believe, there really isn’t much of a love triangle. (Cue a sigh of relief.) I guess you could technically make an argument for it, but honestly, up until the 80% mark, I fully thought that things between Jessie and Griffin were going to stay completely platonic. Yet even then, Levi would’ve been the worse choice…LEVI. What a piece of work! I know that Jessie had to learn, BUT GIRL! YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN HIM! Just because he’s vaguely nice and looks like Kurt Cobain doesn’t mean that he’s not a flaky, disrespectful asshole! I get that Jessie had to learn both her lesson and her self-worth when it comes to falling head-over-heels for guys, but I feel like the writing of their relationship needed some work. I feel like the time between them meeting and having their first kiss was way too fast, even if Jessie was infatuated; their dynamic over the rest of the novel felt repetitive, and it didn’t serve much to the novel save for building the case for Levi being insufferable. As for Griffin, I did like their relationship, but I honestly think it could’ve worked romantically or platonically—I did like them getting together at the end, but I also would’ve appreciated him being part of Jessie’s (abandoned) goal of getting a guy friend and having a healthy depiction of friendships of the opposite gender.

Overall, a diverse YA romance that nails all of the factors for a classic formula, but faltered in its overabundance of subplots and awkwardly-paced relationships. 3.5 stars!

Something More is a standalone and Jackie Khalilieh’s debut novel. Khalilieh is also the author of You Started It and the forthcoming Everything Comes Back to You, which is set for release in 2026.

Today’s song:

I love this song, it sounds like being in a goldfish bowl…

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourself!