Masters of Death is literary magic. It feels like the kind of book that you had to read for class but halfway through it became the book that changed your life. The plot takes its time and relies heavily on the theatrical cast and poetic and humorous prose, but aside from a lull around the 40-60% mark which is spent setting up character relationships and bringing together subplots, the pacing moves steadily.

Olivie Blake's skill as a writer is on full display in this novel for the reasons above, but to me it was especially distinct when the moral of the story was pulled together at the end. I often criticize books for their preachy endings when the rest of the story didn't support such lofty philosophizing, but this book was the exact opposite. OB excellently brings together the stories of each character up to the moment the questions are presented such that it just feels right that the character asks and in so doing, the reader naturally follows. The philosophical point of the book isn't new or unique, but OB's presentation of it is nothing short of breathtaking.

The primary reason this falls short of 5 stars for me is that middle-of-the-book lull. I think there were ways to maintain the reader's interest better as the number of flashbacks and lack of location changes in the present felt a little tedious. Nonetheless, I felt that the last 25% more than made up for the middle 20% and I have no regrets for reading this book.

If you like literary fantasy with punchy philosophy and heart-wrenching character arcs, you will love this novel.

Fearing the Black Body is a focused academic analysis of history, art, science, philosophy, and medicine that traces fat phobia as it developed alongside the concept of race. While academic, Strings manages to make the prose accessible and I found it easy to digest. The language used in this book is of an academic flavor and the source materials are uncensored, so the content and terminology used may be triggering for some readers.

I was surprised at first (by no fault of Strings) to find that this book does not deal directly with social or racial justice as I expected, but rather reads primarily like a history of fat phobia among people who came to be known as white. "Race" in this book maintains the same concept as race during the Renaissance through to the 21st century and examines how racialization and fat phobia affected white people in Western Europe and the US.

This book is primarily academic and not activistic, so do not walk in expecting a manifesto so much as the data from which to develop your own manifesto. Strings says exactly what her thesis says and nothing more. She discusses the intersection of the side-by-side development of race and fat phobia. Even the title implies the content—someone is fearing the black body, and that is the people who were so desperate to separate themselves from the supposedly lesser races. All of this to say, whatever people have marketed this book to you as, do not read this with expectations that it is an entirely different book, and take Strings at her word that what she claims to say is exactly what she says.

On top of the focus on racialization, Strings also touches on the patriarchal and religious origins of fat phobia. From the very beginning of the book, it is clear that the changing ideas about women's bodies primarily came from white men and their desire for pleasure and moral and hierarchical superiority. Whether about attractiveness or asceticism, white men were at the forefront of the movements to diet for holiness, find the "perfect" women to show off as wives or essentially as circus attractions, and analyze women's bodies without their consent as if it were academically rigorous. Many of these men were also the same people who were developing so-called "race science" with facial structure and body size as primary characteristics of the different races. Even later, as a "normal weight" became common in the US, it came from the capitalistic motivations of insurance companies and then doctors.

All of that said, I did think that the laser focus could have been expanded to the book's great benefit. While fat phobia absolutely is a massive issue among white people, it is not only white people today who participate in it. I would have been delighted to read an additional chapter on what it looks like from Strings' view for the fat phobia of white people to spread beyond the white upper class through all classes and beyond racial and cultural boundaries. The only part that addressed that, as far as I remember, is a short paragraph saying essentially that black women had no idea until much later that the shape and size of their bodies were used as weapons to keep black women and those lumped in with them down and punish white women. I wanted to know more about fat phobia beyond white people. Perhaps it's just that I'm intimately familiar with exactly what that looks like, but as enlightening as this book was, it felt mainly like the academic support for what I already knew. It feels like I said, "Well, now we know what white people think," and I keep waiting for more to complete the conversation, but it never comes. What do other people think? This is what kept it from being a 5-star read for me.

Regardless, while I have said this book is academic and not activistic, it is an incredible tool for our own activism. I am disgusted by the origins of the ideas and language that I grew up hearing about bodies and fatness and all the more desire to see cultures move past the wildly outdated and overtly wrong ideas that grew from oppression of various kinds. Fearing the Black Body is an uncomfortable but highly valuable read.

This is not a book for every reader, but it is exactly the book for me. There is something about seeing complex, flawed, and at times downright unlikable characters find love and redemption. If people like Ivan and Peter with all their complexities can lead meaningful lives full of love, then so too can I. There's something hopeful in that. I feel seen and I feel redeemable with all of my own complexities.

In classic Sally Rooney fashion, you will feel like you could finish the main characters' sentences by the end from how well you know them. Outlining the plot, however, might be difficult without a second read; it's less sequential than it is studying the various details of a photo so you can really understand the larger picture. As a huge fan of character studies, this hit for me. For those who want drama or big reveals, this is not the book for you. However, those who want to explore the complexities of relationships and grief, this may interest you.