I enjoyed this book, and I also think I approached it with the wrong perspective. The bright, beautiful cover, the "practical" in the title, and the pithy blurb on the back made me think that this book would be a hands-on guide to real-world applications of anarchist principles. What I got instead was something that felt less practical and more theoretical, which isn't inherently bad. Anarchism, as a practice, resists universalization, and so people writing about anarchism often rely on overarching principles to demonstrate what anarchism could be in practice. The book does focus on real-world applications in relationships, homes, jobs, art and community, but the language is intellectual rather than approachable. Where the book does shine is in rooting a practical anarchism in indigenaity, black radical thought, queerness, feminism and ecological perspectives that strengthen often white, male, Eurocentric anarchist thought into something broader and more applicable to all aspects of life for everyone.

This book is SPICY, and not my preferred kind of spice, but more than that, this book is a quick, punchy historical fiction about identity, the failure of community, and power.

It's the story of a nurse sent to an isolated town, a place brimming with malice and judgment. The narrative itself is tight and claustrophobic. The prose is simple and fast-paced. The menace presents foremostly in the townsfolk, who use outright violence, confinement and ostracization to violently enforce their vision of the world. At every turn, this close-minded place, fueled by a man hungry for power, denies agency to anyone who would be different. But this book refuses to run, to hide, to flee or to cower. In a way, it reminds me of Shirley Jackson, although perhaps a bit more explicit and in-your-face.

I love a queer narrative that doesn't begin and end with trauma. The characters of this novel have agency, even in the violent world they are forced to exist within. There is no hand-wringing about cycles of violence, just a delight in overcoming those who would harm us. This book is certainly worth a read if you want to spend a few hours in a dark, twisted world where the queer characters get to revel in being the monsters that some people choose to see them as.

A beautiful, lyrical dance through time and space, and through timelessness and placelessness. This was the perfect book to let wash over me while I set up a new worm bin; the prose is poetic, and the narration of the audiobook was so calming. I loved the balance of stark reality in this book and the philosophy: the book is a collection of stories of journeys, necessitated through state repression, bigotry, ostracisation, and bureaucracy and the very human people forced to flee. It's a story of history and imagination. Definitely more in the realm of literary fiction, but that suits me perfectly. The book did lose me a bit at the end, perhaps because I was distracted, or perhaps because the narrative shifted to a more modern political narrative that caught me off guard, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.