I started this document on 6/6/2022. I am logging Books I've read here and Maybe I'll also post quotes, notes, a review or whatever else about a book I've read.
6/6/2022: Started Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
6/12/2022 Thoughts so far on Stone Butch Blues
I am on chapter 11. I've read 1-10 so far. My thoughts on it so far? I dont really know. I saw this book in a list of things to read/watch/whatever to learn about queer history. this book is "pre-stonewall" apparently so thats interesting. Maybe this is missing the point of the book but I would've liked content warnings? For example on page 40 (well. in my reader it says page 40 on the pdf itself but my pdf reader says its page 57. so for simplicities sake Its in chapter 4) their is a very graphic depiction of rape. In fact theirs multiple depictions of rape and sexual assault in the book and like maybe i should've expected it but its whatever. I just keep thinking about chapter four however "Bobby unlaced his uniform pants and jammed his penis into my vagina..." is a sentence that has uh, stuck in my mind and one of the moments that really printed itself in my head. I dont think the scene triggered me or triggered me that bad, its just as someone whos been sexually abused i like content with sexual violence to be labeled so when i can be prepared. Maybe its my fault for looking up content warnings before hand or something. I was expecting police brutality, homophobia, etc. (EDIT while writing this post about my thoughts I found a content warning in the book that I swore was not their before. Maybe its because of my problems reading, words and letters float and while I do have a good handle on reading I find that things change often because letters like to be all tobbley turny and words dont like to stay in one spot. I read 769 words per minute with 100 precent comprehension according to a test I took awhile back so I dont think its deslexia but. whatever. point is their is a warning for rape. I am keeping this in however because its important to show you make mistakes and this possibly contextualizes my feelings on the book? I dont really know.)
I like? The book. I dont have any negative feelings on it and its very interesting to read. I havent picked it up in a few days however. Its a historical fiction novel according to a quick search online, although its been described to me as a "memoir" by people and the places where I heard about this book. I think both descriptions fit this book pretty well. The book is about Jess Goldberg who is very clearly Leslie Feinberg and from what I read so far and from what i know about it goes over the life of the author.
My review is not negative per say, its just neutral. This book is praised by alot of people and alot of people like it so im hesitant to give my thoughts but. like. Its a very influentual and important sure, every single thing I read about this book says that i just dont really have any feelings about it. Its just a book. Its a book about very real things and history. The book starts in the 1950s and covers the late 20th century, goes over the authors life.
I might be going over the same facts about it but like. I read that some people describe it as "life changing" or gives it super high praise and maybe i need to start chaper 11, maybe chapters 1-10 just set up whats so important but like. Its just a book. I dont get why it has such high praise, its a book that tells a story. Maybe its because i never really interacted the queer community irl and I've been closeted in real life for literally most of my life, I've been outed and I've come out before but I was always pushed back into the closet and it was all forgotten about.
I am wondering if im reading the same book as everyone else because it gets high praise and people feel so many emotions about it. I just made my little "(EDIT while writing this post...)" thing because I was looking at the book while reading and found the words "Dear Reader: I want to let you know that Stone Butch Blues is an anti-oppression/s novel. As a result, it contains scenes of rape and other violence. None of this violence is gratuitous or salacious. Leslie" box right after the table of contents. So their was a warning and I didnt see it.
Honestly without the rape scenes and such the book wouldnt be that on my mind. That isnt a bad thing. It just makes me unsure of how I feel about this book and Im still trying to get my feelings on this. On around page 70 or so Jess and Angie have a uh. sexual encounter that is consentual. Maybe I missed a memo but last we heard of Jess' age it was 16, Jess dropped out of high school then met Toni at a bar, lived with Toni and a femme I forget the name of for a few months (at least thats I remeber from what I read) then got kicked out and then stayed at Angies. Jess would at least still be 16 or 17 here from what I remeber reading. I dont know how I feel because im pretty sure Angie is an adult, unless if i misread it here. I looked up content warnings while writing this and "adult/minor relationship" is one of them I found on a site and Im pretty sure thats what this scene is, like this is the part warned about.
and I dont know what to think about that. I dont know what to think about that scene and a few others. Its sure a book that stays in your mind. I have a negative relationship with sexual stuff as im a victim of sexual violence so maybe thats why the scene with the jocks, the scene with angie, and a scene on page 89 where Jim Boney pulled his cock out of his pants and rubbed it up against Jess's jeans are the ones I think about alot because two out of three of those scenes are sexual violence.
...God alot of this "thoughts and feelings" so far sound negative but I dont have a negative opinon. I have a netural opinon on it.
I dont really know what else to write about here. I felt emotional at some points. Nothing that stirred in my brain as long as those parts of that book did and theres nothing else I really wanna write here. I dont really know if this "thoughts and feelings so far" thing makes sense so im just going to save it, I already edited it a bit which is unlike me and I dont want to edit anything on here to the point where the original thoughts and feelings were lost. Thats why I am a bit unsure if my writing makes sense here as I havent reread it I just wrote. Im also very cautious about writing about this book for some reason, maybe because its so well praised and I dont get it. A notable thought about this book is that it affected my perception of myself near the beginning while reading it.
What i mean by that is i had a mini gender crisis? I dont really know what I am other than nonbinary transgender person. My gender as felt so far away, like a breeze for something i can never reach, Something dissociated from me completely that i can barely feel most of the time, and my body has always been fiction to me? The way i perceive myself internally have always been completely unrealistic to the real world and I feel like my body is not a body you would see irl but something stylized and animated and somehow this book challenged that a bit and made me look at my body and made me aware of my body and i felt as if I wasnt fiction anymore. I dont know how that caused a gender crisis because rereading my account of the experience it doesnt really make sense with that word but im a weird and this is my site i can describe myself however I want lol.
I dont know if that make sense honestly but its whatever. I am going to stop writing about this as words are starting to get mixed up worse than normal and i've been rewriting this alot. Please excuse any sort of spelling error or grammar error or word mixup or any of those things they are probably littered all over my website and i just havent found them or whatever LOL i dont really care to correct those things.
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