Minor Feelings was described to me as a having a talk and a hug with your older Asian sister (if you're Asian). Which I think is fair, but I don't think describes the book well for all readers.

In this book, Cathy Park Hong attempts to describe Asian Americans and their place in the US while weaving in her experiences and gently doling out advice. The book is a little bit disjointed in that there is no overall... plot? I know it's not fiction- but somehow it feels like I couldn't really put my thumb on what exactly the book wanted to accomplish.

Instead, I think this book almost feels like... a cry to non-Asians to see Asian people as a group which isn't a monolith, and still faces racism (we actually do indeed suffer!!). The book specifically calls out non-Asian people for having the audacity to claim that Asian people are white-adjacent, that Asian people are next in line to be white, or that Asian people are the same in any way to white people or white supremacy. It also talks about some little known (unfortunately ugh) Asian American history- such as why the minority myth exists, the mass lynching of Chinese Americans, historical solidarity between Asian and Black Americans, etc.

If you don't know about any of those things, you should 100% read this book.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a book of contradictions. Accordingly, I had such opposing, conflicting feelings that have lingered days after finishing.

At its core, this book is a catharsis. Especially, a catharsis for those just beginning to radicalize and divest from the American political system, its myths and manipulations. Anyone who currently is or recently was wrestling with the rage and grief at realizing the system is irredeemable, that the American lie of "democracy" has always been an illusion.

There is a lot of value in mirroring this in a collection that has been so widely read and processed, and I have no doubt that this book will begin or deepen the radicalization process for many people.

El Akkad powerfully shuffles between philosophical political pondering and personal recollection. By vulnerably addressing his own failure to see behind the curtain, even when his profession as a journalist placed him in the middle of the imperial violence, El Akkad shows that the personal is political. In doing so, he also shows that the reality of disillusionment is messy and shameful.

Coming to terms with the collapse of a dream you believed in for your own survival and comfort is not easy, it does not happen overnight, and the cognitive dissonance often leads people down a worse path.

The shame of remembering and reckoning with your own complicity is a monster in and of itself, an ongoing project that never seems to have an end. El Akkad shows that it must be faced, even when it is painful and confusing and even when it makes you feel lost and hopeless.

El Akkad's writing is deeply moving. There are lines that hit you like a punch to the gut, that beg to be highlighted and quoted. There were times I found it a bit contrived, like El Akkad was searching for the most quotable sentences rather than the most transparent language.

His poeticism makes for a beautifully emotive experience, but at times felt like a performance. Many of its flowery moments feel like the language starts to center itself and the subject starts to recede; readers are prone to think "this is a beautiful sentence" rather than thinking about the people trapped under the rubble.

The best moments are when the language feels like it's just barely containing the thing it's describing, when you can feel the weight threatening to break the sentence. The mic-drop one-liners and quotable zingers are easier to forget. They become content, a black square to post and move on from.

This poetic language serves the book's overall purpose of emotional catharsis, but at times feels like it gets in the way of actual reflection and change.

While the cutting emotion is the strength of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, it also limits its framework. At times, there is a sense that El Akkad is so stuck in the emotion that he cannot see a way out. In his own words, this reckoning with emotion is "the most pathetic, necessary function of this work: witness". Like this quote suggests, the contradiction is that witness is simultaneously necessary and not enough.

The overarching critique of this book revolves around the oblivious way liberals buy into the American mythos, explaining away their complicity in genocide by using progressive language and useless yard sign activism, which feels powerful and empathetic but only serves the status quo.

If the critique within this book is that feeling bad is not enough to mobilize change, then it risks becoming exactly what it critiques: a way to feel righteous without being effective.

There is undeniable power in mirroring the emotions of the disillusioned, in providing catharsis for those who have nowhere for their feelings to go, but the reader is often left in the space this book creates. Angry, grieving, seeing too clearly, but stuck. Perhaps the discomfort of that stuckness is meant to push readers toward change (I hope it does), but it's an indirect strategy that risks reproducing the same problem it names.

Because of this book's focus on emotion and personal, individual experience, El Akkad often returns to pathologizing broader topics into individual feeling. Repeatedly, El Akkad conflates the idea of resistance with revenge.

I'm not naive enough to imply that vengeance is not even slightly part of the equation, of course the reality is complex and it would be foolish to expect emotion to not play a role at all. However, reinforcing the idea that resistance is a form of revenge only serves the imperial core, only reinforces the narrative of resistance being barbaric and devoid of rationality.

This conflation traps liberation in the empire's logic. Resistance becomes a reaction, defined by the thing it's responding to, rather than action. It makes resistance fully about psychology rather than politics. Even worse because he never names resistance for what it is, only relying on the assumption painted by the word "revenge".

He compares armed resistance and genocidal imperialist violence as "two evils". There is a chapter devoted to tearing apart the word "terror", which again equates resistance as something borne of fear; the empire's terror (violence) creates terror (fear) in its victims. The empire pathologizes that "terror" (fear) as "terrorism", despite the empire being the true "terrorist".

I understand the purpose of wanting to interrogate language in this way, but it feels flat when El Akkad falls into the same rhetorical traps that ultimately serve the empire's mythos. Here is a direct quote about the actions of Hamas (whom he refers to as a "terror group") during the Al-Aqsa Flood (October 7th): It was a bloodbath, orchestrated by exactly the kind of entity that thrives in the absence of anything resembling a future.

This quote, and El Akkad's subsequent pathologizing of resistance throughout the whole book, specifically Palestinian resistance, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the Palestinian cause.

Anyone who has read anything about Palestine's liberation knows that their lives, despite being under the most gruesome occupation and genocide for 75+ years, are carried on by an astounding thrum of indestructible hope. This hope for a better future is a fundamental tenet of radical thought, something that has carried movements across the globe for centuries, and Palestine is no exception.

Oppressed people are not fighting for revenge, they are fighting for liberation. Palestinians are fighting for land that is rightfully theirs, for an end to occupation, for the right to live. The very act of their resistance is evidence of their hope for the future. To chalk that up as simple fear and a desire for vengeance collapses all depth of importance.

This language only serves to dehumanize Palestinians as helpless victims who have no hope for the future, and it reinforces the same individualism that El Akkad seeks to critique. Oppressed people are fighting because they insist on their future. To miss that is to miss everything.

This subtle return to individualism is present throughout all of El Akkad's writing. Victims of imperial violence are scared and vengeful, politicians are cowardly, citizens of the empire are selfish and unempathetic. This enforces the idea that the system can be saved, that the US has just taken a turn away from democracy, that we just need the "right" politician to stand up and do the right thing.

Politicians are not failing to act, they are profiting from a system that is functioning exactly as designed. Israel is not an ally that the US is too afraid to oppose, it is a military asset, a projection of power, and a tool for imperial control. Calling political inaction cowardice implies that braver people could fix it, which lets the system off the hook. There are even moments where El Akkad throws in US-backed anti-Chinese propaganda for seemingly no reason.

Normally, I would not zero in on such minor faults of language, and I would not discredit a book based on a handful of unsavory additions. But, in a book about rhetoric and propaganda and the illusion of neutrality, about how language becomes a way for the state to manufacture consent for its violence, doesn't it make it even more important to be clear about the language used? Doesn't the book lose part of its meaning when it subtly reinforces the same problem it critiques, even if unintentionally? Doesn't it become even more blatant when the author spouts state-funded talking points?

Again, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is fundamentally a book of contradiction, a half step between radical analysis and liberal catharsis. It is one man's reckoning with his own radicalization and complicity in the imperial core.

An imperfect, messy, personal experience that can never be expected to be flawless. It is not a perfect book. Its core message is striking, timely, and so, so important. And yet, it does not feel like enough, and its limitations become more and more glaring for those who are further along on the journey of radicalization.

So, read this book. Feel the feelings. Grieve, rage, nod your head knowingly when El Akkad says the right things, but don't stop there. Turn the rage into action, educate yourself on the reality of Palestinian resistance from Palestinians themselves, revolutionize your thinking and build a community of radical thought and radical care.

So one day, when everyone claims to have always been against this, when the rage and grief comes back full circle, rather than it being because the system cannot be stopped, perhaps it will be because enough people rose to action, because enough people chose to divest from the systems that profit from genocide and imperialism. That revolution does not start or end with this book. It starts and ends with you.

Finally some good fucking thriller.

The Plans I Have for You is a very solid debut. I would say the characters stood out the most to me, which is what personally made this such a successful read. Every time I picked up the book, I was sucked in. Well-written complex characters are so important to have in order for me to be invested in a story and Plans delivered in that regard.

Shelley Hu is working at a shitty themed motel in Orlando, hiding out after her life has been ruined by a viral video of her having an emotional breakdown on the subway in response to an entitled white woman who was demanding her seat. Enter Sophia Moon, a mom, a wife, an artist, and someone who had also gone viral years ago as the Cornell Hobo when she had been discovered to be living on campus and pretending to be a student there. Sophia seeks Shelley out to get revenge on the people that had ruined Shelley's life.

I enjoyed Sophia so much as a character. There was so much pressure-sealed emotion packed into her and despite all the progressively worse things we find out about her, I could see exactly where she was coming from. She almost didn't feel evil. Instead, she often felt more like a human embodiment of the spirit of vengeance.

That's another thing I loved: the never resolved paranormal elements. [light spoiler from here] I couldn't tell if the jinn was real or just a metaphor/haunting of trauma and I couldn't tell if the water was its own being or just a part of Sophia that she dissociated from in order to justify her actions [end of light spoiler]. It added such a well-placed gothic tinge to the atmosphere.

There are so many delicious parallels between Sophia during her Cornell days and Shelley in the present. The way we learn how Sophia has been manipulating every person around her was exquisitely done. Shelley's relationship with her mom and family was so nuanced and so real. Shelley's relationships with everyone around her in general grow complex and I found it so fascinating that part of Sohpia's manipulation tactics was to simplify them and reduce them to black and white. And the thing is, I'm not even sure if she was necessarily doing that knowingly because she believes the black-and-white thinking. That's how she has gone through life and that's how she had justified all the things she has done. This is definitely an unpopular opinion, but Sophia is sympathetic to me in concept because of all of these BPD-esque symptoms she displays (I don't have BPD but I have a family member and a close friend who do so it was easily spottable).

Anyway, moving on from the characters. The themes in this book are so beautifully articulated, which is another thing I loved. Themes of heritage, identity, generational trauma, cycles of abuse, microagressions and white neoliberalism/white saviorism, orientalism, misogyny, privilege, familial duty and expectations, abusive relationships, the internet (derogatory) and surveillance, etc. All of these are treated with such care and with such articulated insight. None of it felt like we were beaten over the head with it. Sanders took the frame of the thriller genre (which was also well done) and filled it with nuanced commentary things that made me personally care for each character, which is so hard to find in a thriller these days.

I'm still unsure how I feel about the epilogue (and I have so many things to say about the ending but will abstain for spoiler reasons). But either way, I'm so glad I got a chance to read this.

I'm so excited for this new voice in fiction. Will be keeping an eye on Lai Sander's next work.

(I also hate the comp to Yellowface because the only elements it shares is themes of racism and identity deception and Yellowface does not do those themes justice the way Plans does.)

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for this eARC!

The Plans I Have for You is a twisting, gut-dropping rollercoaster that takes you completely off the rails. This book is sharp and disturbing, and intentionally destabilizing in a way that leaves you reeling hours after you turn the last page.

There are so many deeply tangled threads that create such a layered experience. This book, by nature, refuses flattening. What impressed me the most was its central focus on cancel culture and internet surveillance. There's something chilling about seeing the modern experience projected in such a horrific way, placing you in the headspace of someone who had the worst day of their life filmed and posted to viral fame.

The fact that everyone everywhere has a camera in their hands at all times, and how quickly that can become a weapon. How quickly virality can strip its subjects of humanity, flattening them as the public demands clean heroes and villains, easy black-and-white moral boxes that end in dehumanization and erased interiority.

The Plans I Have for You mirrors the experience of being a spectator, a surveillant in the panopticon of modern life, in a brilliant, twisted way. Constantly playing with morality and forcing her characters into choices that get darker and darker, Sanders asks the reader to reckon with their own inner compass, to recognize in real time what it feels like to have your predetermined categories shattered, to feel the seduction and collapse of moral certainty.

The novel's horror is quiet and simmering, a spiral that spins out of control, much like a moment that goes viral overnight. Virality is contagion; characters blend into one another and identities collapse and roles reverse as victims become villains and larger-than-life aggressors become pitiful and legible. Choices and influences become so tangled that every easy answer is refused.

Behind the uncomfortable thrill of navigating a web of fucked-up choices that sometimes make too much sense, there is the recurring symbolism of inheritance. The cultural pressure of being a first-generation Asian immigrant, the familial expectation of making your ancestors' sacrifices mean something, and emotional survival patterns imprinted on us from the cycles that we were born into.

When love is a transaction, when sacrifice means debt is owed and worth is proven, when intimacy begets obligation, and when acceptance must be earned, the line between attachment and codependency wears thin. The Plans I Have for You explores the complexity of intimacy becoming the site of power, and the impossibility of tearing apart the threads of manipulation and emotional attunement.

Sanders forces the reader to face the complicated reality of vulnerability; how control and care and love and damage can create a cocktail of dependency that feels impossible to escape. Refusing, yet again, any easy answer and any easy category, to show how love can heal and harm in tandem, and how the most effective forms of control can sometimes show up wrapped in care.

The scariest part isn't that the characters are inherently evil, but that they are infinitely relatable, built upon foundations of trauma and operating by a logic that at times feels eerily coherent. We are all constrained by the systems and cycles that produced us, and yet we are still responsible for every choice we make.

This debut is ambitious as hell, and Sanders does not shy away from its difficulty. The Plans I Have For You is a deeply unsettling exploration of how surveillance culture, inherited trauma, and transactional models of care create people who both suffer under and perpetuate the same systems of violence. Even when they believe they are correcting harm, even when they believe they are severing the past, and even when they believe they are morally just.

I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.