Damn. This book chewed me up and spit me back out and left me reeling.

This book is about magical thinking, searching for answers, obsessive intrusive thought spirals, panic attacks, abusive relationships, alcoholism, and dissociated, enigmatic Twitter posts.

It's about Twin Peaks and Red Dead Redemption and Stevie Nicks and Tarot and how we search for meaning and signs from the universe in every meaningless moment.

It's about an indigenous woman trying to break free from the colonization of her mind - the generational trauma of theft and rape and grief - and return to her land and her soul. It breaks every boundary and shatters every rule and snatches every satisfaction away from the reader.

Washuta's obsessive thinking is brazenly presented for examination and judgment. Each essay attempting to find a new meaning in the same moment, a new explanation for the same behavior, a new answer to the unsolvable riddle of trauma.

The titular white magic is squished and pressed and pushed until every last drop of meaning is squeezed out of it. White magic as culturally appropriative new-age spirituality. White magic as healing via writing and spellcasting and feeling. White magic as magical thinking and angel numbers and searching for signs in the nothingness.

It felt like the ground was constantly shifting under me, like I was falling into a rabbithole, then being yanked back to the surface, then being thrown into the air and plummeting back down. There is no center, no beginning and no end. Only flashes and flares of memory that twist and turn until up is down and left is right.

There were moments that felt like the dim in-between of dreaming and waking, when you can't quite remember if you heard something before, or if you just dreamt about it; when you can't quite remember if you actually did something, or if you just dreamt that you did.

Every single line forces you to stop and reflect and interrogate yourself. Does this line mean something because it means something, or does it mean something because you want it to mean something? Does this book make you uncomfortable because the topics are heavy, or because you weren't expecting to be implicated and examined too?

Her writing reads exactly as it feels to be trapped in the throes of PTSD cycles: trying anything, reading and consuming and examining everything for an answer and a solution, seeing yourself reflected in moments that would be meaningless to anyone else. Scratching and clawing and praying and hoping and begging and screaming for any sort of meaning or answer or way forward.

Each topic addressed and abandoned and re-addressed and re-forgotten, worried and reworried under Washuta's fingers as the essays tangle around seemingly unrelated topics until you have paragraphs building upon each other to paint a hazy picture of Washuta's mental state.

Obsessively watching and rewatching Silver Springs to see Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's prolonged eye contact becomes a way for Washuta to work through her own tumultuous relationship. Twin Peaks' The Log Lady becomes a mirror for her own magical thinking and connection to the supernatural.

Remembering bits and pieces of a DARE video she watched in the 70s becomes a way to understand her own alcoholism. The Oregon Trail becomes a simulation for what it means to live as an indigenous woman who passes as white in an America built upon genocide. Playing Red Dead Redemption becomes an outlet for her to explore her relationship to herself and question her attraction to men that hurt her.

Mirroring her interiority, Washuta's writing is somehow both painfully self-aware and dreadfully oblivious. She's trying to piece together answers that are impossible to find, and you're helpless but to watch as she walks herself further into traps and cycles that seem beyond her control, as she self-sabotages and relapses and hurts herself because hurt is the only thing that has ever meant anything.

She repeats sentences and epigraphs and conclusions and then cheekily breaks the fourth wall to check if you're following along. She's witty and poetic and drily repetitive and pitiful and full of rage all at once. In all of this, she directly challenges the colonial structure of writing itself. Are you able to sit with a woman who refuses to be healed, an emotional arc that refuses resolution, a narrative that breaks you and interrogates you without apology?

Tumultuous and ungovernable, White Magic is frustratingly inventive, and breathtakingly human. I have never read anything like it, and doubt it can ever be replicated with Washuta's skill and candor.

“Do you think this is a good book? How do you know? Is it because you compared it to other books? I do want to make you uncomfortable if you’re accustomed to being the ideal audience, your wants prioritized.“

I can't do it, it's not worth it, I hit chapter 5 and read less than a page and I just can't do it y'all 😭💀 This book suuuucks, it's the exact kind of trying-to-sound-smart litfic that I loathe, with sentences that mean literally nothing and a complete misunderstanding of how children and teens thinks, AND a man that sucks so bad I wish he'd died on the first page to spare me a single moment inside his head. I have so many better things to do with my time!!

I truthfully was a little afraid to read this because I am a hypochondriac, but this was so fun, uplifting, and enjoyable! It's so amazing how much we humans don't know about the natural world and how much there is left to pioneer in the natural sciences.

I really liked the message to appreciate and be curious about the nature around you (even in an apartment in a city!) Sometimes messaging about saving the environment or recognizing nature's grandeur can feel very far away, in glaciers and preserves and rainforests, but the creatures and livings in and around our homes are just as wonderous and needed. The medical and practical uses and learnings from our local crickets and other bugs described in this book are fascinating.

My favorite part of Never Home Alone was the discussion on kimchi and sourdough starters. I was aware of some famous old sourdough starters that have persisted for centuries, but I wasn't aware there was so much variety and differentiation and that the specific hands of the baker can make a difference! Even I who leans toward the germophobic side found it delightful that professional bread bakers have more biodiversity colonized on their hands than us civilians.

It's widely known at this point that we overuse antibiotics and there are and will continue to be serious consequences for this. The author describes some of the potential dangers of over-sterilizing and cleansing our environments to even greater detail, including some interesting twentieth century endeavors in the opposite strategy- spreading and colonizing "good" bacteria as a means to combat the bad. This book was written and published before Covid, and I imagine the author likely had a lot to say about how even more bleaching crazy we all went.

If you are especially afraid of vermin, spiders, and the like, I think you will still be able to enjoy this book as the author is not vulgar or gross in description, but there is much discussion of cockroaches, spiders, and other traditionally despised critters. I think you'll really like this if you're interested in the intersection of human behavior, evolution, and experience with flora and fauna, particularly of the smallish persuasion. What a marvelous start to The_BookishBug's Majestic Minibeasts quest!

only real men give you UTIs by eating your ass and then immediately sticking their tongue all up in your vagina

Went into this expecting a boring classic romance and was pleasantly surprised by a gothic story told by and about the worst people you'll ever come across. (No I did not read the synopsis). Based on others' reactions to this book, I really wasn't expecting to like it much, but it might be my new favorite classic!

The first few chapters are a lot to take in. You're thrown into a story with too many characters to keep track of, many who have the same or similar names. I highly recommend looking up a family tree to get acquainted BUT please know you will absolutely spoil some things for yourself by doing so. This one is the least spoilery I could find.

In terms of the actual story, this is a great example of the way that isolation and abuse are never ending cycles unless someone makes an active choice to break them. I appreciate that Brontë didn't shy away from showing how awful every single character was. Racism, sexism, and classism are all at play here and each person in the book perpetuates them despite being victims of one or more -ism.

This certainly won't be a hit for everyone, but if you enjoy beautiful writing in a gothic setting, it may just work for you.