I should have hated this book. I’ve been hating on Peter Beinart since he was manufacturing consent for the Iraq War in the NYT in the early 2000s.

And now a still-kinda-Zionist book about how it feels to (almost) deconstruct Liberal Zionism, post Oct 7th? What are we even doing? 🫠

But I only half-hated it 🤔 and it made me reflect on the possible merits of (too?) moderate books. Let’s get into it.

What I hated: 👎 The vibe was very ‘Zionism is a good idea, poorly executed.’ Whereas I’m more of a “ethnicity-based nationalisms and settler colonialism are rotted to the core” kinda gal. 👎 He routinely referred to the genocide in Gaza as “a war”—unacceptable in a book with a 2025 publication date, imo. 👎 While he discussed the genocide of other groups seven separate times, he only mentions genocide once in the context of Palestine. And only this (pretty mild, imo) quote that, “Israel now stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice.” Make of that what you will. 👎 He cites Benny Morris (Mr. “I’d Rather Be a Racist Than a Bore”). Red flag—it always gets a star removed (looking at you Ta-Nehisi Coates). Benny Morris is the only pro-Zionist New Historian—he’s also the least respected and the least popular—and I’m suspicious when a book cites him rather than his pro-Palestine New Historian colleagues like Ilan Pappé or Avi Shlaim.

So… why 3 stars and not 1? ▪️ There’s something honest and raw about Beinart’s journey from committed Liberal Zionist to just a Liberal, even if it’s not fully complete. ▪️ This book feels open to further progress. It feels like a stepping stone book, not a foreclosing roadblock. There were no too-neat self-soothing fictions in here for Beinart to land on. Instead, there were a lot of hard truths that he just hasn’t fully incorporated into his worldview yet.

I can see this book meeting someone exactly where they’re at and pushing them forward towards a pro-Palestinian political stance. Because even if it’s an incomplete deconstruction of Liberal Zionism, it still felt like a good faith deconstruction of Liberal Zionism.

And I respect that.

The romance plot in here? ♾️ /10. It was absolutely perfect. We had: ✨ A rake; utterly bamboozled by his own simp-y behaviour, kind of a shithead who needed to GROVEL ✨ A wallflower; a secret suffragette who was so wallflower-y that it almost felt… claustrophobic to read from her perspective. In a compelling way

Their family dynamics added so much to the plot and the setting was really cool.

So why the four stars? I struggled to figure this out, myself. Most of the time, this book was in ‘stay up too late reading’ five star territory. But it had a few ‘feels put-down-able’ moments too. And it wasn’t obvious what connected them… but here’s my guess: there were plot moments, for this book and the overall series, that didn’t feel organic to Olive or Emil’s perspective. It felt like they were being told, as much as I was.

This (beautiful) graphic novel made me realize something: ▪️ I like cozy stories where nothing happens ▪️ But I dislike “cozy” stories where the characters are constantly in danger but the story keeps telling me to relax

Why? I have no clue. But this was very much the latter.

A majorly atmospheric Prohibition era marriage of convenience historical romance set in Kentucky. With ghosts 👀

It was perfect. Until the ghost plot turned into a mystery plot—mysteries aren’t for me. They activate the worst parts of my over-analyzing brain. And I always guess whodunnit.

But it was so atmospheric and gothic that I ended up having a decent time, despite all my over-analyzing. If you like mystery subplots in your historical romances, you’ll love this one.

The was the single most radicalizing book I’ve ever read. Marxism, women, heretics, and witches. Let’s go.

This book challenged me. And it did something too rare: it didn’t just say that Marxism (which is too white and too male) must be updated to include other forms of exploitation—Federici actually did the updating.

Read this book if you’re someone who: ▪️ likes witches—learn the connection between witchcraft and socialism; ▪️ likes feminism—move from a (white) liberal feminism to an intersectional one and understand the original link between 15th century European misogyny and the birth of colonialism; ▪️ likes Marxism—expand Marx’s definition of primitive accumulation (as the Enclosures and colonial territory) to include women’s bodies and labour.

This book is over 20 years old but it’s kinda having a moment right now. And I can see why—because:

Federici demonstrates a pattern in the history of class relations going all the way back to the 1300s: the rich get too powerful, they dial the exploitation up wayyy too high, workers can no longer afford to feed themselves let alone have a family, the economy threatens to collapse…

And then it gets “fixed” by: MISOGYNY 👿 Turn up the misogyny, make women precarious and dependent on men, increase their unpaid labour, make that free labour essential to the economy, let the rich pocket all the surplus value of their labour…

With enough misogyny, the rich can have low wages and STILL force women to have children. If we decriminalize sexual assault, make non-reproductive sex taboo, criminalize contraception and abortion, and burn the witches.

Sound familiar?! It’s giving trad wives and overturning Roe v Wade.

Oh, and of course, if this misogyny is essential to the European economy, just know they’re exporting it to the colonies.

And OF COURSE we got here because men continually side with the rich rather than having class solidarity with women 😤 This. Part. filled me with the accumulated rage of hundreds of thousands of burned witches. I was breathing fire by the end there.

This book was… eerie?

Sure, I learned a lot about the US’s colonial history. And its colonial present. ✨ Like, did you know that, just after the end of WWII, more people lived in American colonies (135 million) than on the US mainland (132 million)? ✨ Or, how many colonies does the US currently have? If you think it’s zero, you DEFINITELY have to read this book. If you think it’s just one or two (maybe Puerto Rico and Guam come to mind?) then um, yeah you’re still too low 😬

But mostly, this book was an eerie proof of the success of propaganda. Because the US has hidden its colonialism. And if a country can hide an empire, what can’t they do?

Of all the post-Oct 7th ‘Western journalist writes a book about Palestine for a Western audience’ books I’ve read**

This is the best one.

It’s not even close.

For one reason: Chris Hedges writes about Palestinians like he thinks they’re people. It’s that simple 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hedges has lived in both Gaza and the West Bank, as a part of his decades-long pro-Palestinian journalism. He speaks Arabic. He’s been an on-the-ground war correspondent for decades. He’s even reported, on location, about genocide before (Bosnia, 1995).

He knows Gazans. His friends are among the dead and the missing. He quotes and discusses Palestinian activists as well-rounded, complex people. Not as perfect victims. Not as dead bodies to be mourned in their passivity, but as people to be admired for their activism and the difficult choices we force them to make.

So of course, he doesn’t call it “a war” (looking at you, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza by Peter Beinart 👀). He calls it “a genocide.” He even includes Francesca Albanese’s UN Report on Genocide in Gaza as an appendix to the book.

He doesn’t “vigorously condemn Hamas” (looking at you, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad👀). He says, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization.”

He doesn’t say ‘one day we’ll have always been against this’ from the safety of our imperial bubble. He says, “One day we will all be Palestinians” because he understands imperial boomerang and the importance of collective liberation.

He speaks in plain language—clear enough for anyone new to pro-Palestinian nonfiction. Yet he’s radically pro-Palestinian. And I just think he’s Based. GOATED. Whatever the kids are saying these days. He’s just the best.

This is my top recommendation for a book about Palestine by a Western journalist. 10/10 would recommend.

**the other Western journalist books about Palestine I’ve read are: ▪️ The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ▪️ Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza by Peter Beinart ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ▪️ One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad ⭐️⭐️

I hated this book for (mostly) one reason: its terrible autism rep.

Arguably, this entire book is about autism. Emily Wilde is the 1909 version of a high-masking autistic woman. Her hyperfixation (faeries) drives the plot. Her hyperfixation journal is literally the text. And her trouble with social cues is the backbone of the story’s tension, the romance plot, and her character growth.

As a high masking woman who also has a hyperfixation journal? I loved her. I saw myself in her.

👉 But there’s another 1909 autistic character in this book: the changeling child.

The sad truth about changeling faerie lore is that those were just human kids with disabilities like autism. So it was a CHOICE to make the changeling child a villain. It was all about “fixing” him, unburdening his parents, and… literal child abuse 😵‍💫

And F all the way off with that. Because, as someone with a 7 year old nonverbal autistic daughter with eerie pattern recognition and a fae-like love of mischief, I just know some biatch named Emily would’ve been telling me she’s a changeling and to leave her under a tree if this was 1909 😤

So here’s my argument: if a book has good autism rep for socially acceptable autistic characters but bad autism rep for the truly marginalized types of autism in our society, then it’s actually terrible autism rep.

And the rest of the book didn’t save it for me. Because: ▪️ as much as I liked the overwrought navel-gazing of Emily’s journal, especially the interesting limitation it placed on the storytelling… we annoyingly dropped this limitation whenever we needed to. ▪️ as much as I liked that our love interest was kind of a shithead (lol)… chemistry and romance plot, where? ▪️ as much as I liked an anthropology of faeries, the story read 1940s Karl Popper science demarcation criteria back into 1900s science (👎) and didn’t recon with how racist social anthropology was in 1909 (her own university, Cambridge, was particularly bad 🥴)