CW for NSFW text for this review! If i had a nickel for every horny translated novel I've read about disability this year, I'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but I'm so happy it happened twice. This book is super fucking weird and explicit and gore-y and tbh I don't even know how to describe it. I don't even know what genre to call this. Truly "weird fiction" in every sense of the word. I love niche stuff like this though and it certainly delivered! Loved the themes this one was tackling. Loneliness and the drive for community while existing in a body that society deems unacceptable. Devouring as a form of intimacy. The isolation of never being able to drop the performance of gender or able-bodiedness. It really hit home for a novel that also equally as much talked about chopping up cock and balls to make into sashimi DJSNSN LOVED the narrative voice here too. You can tell the translator had so much fun despite the monumental task of translating this into English. It's so playful and candid, and it contrasts so well with the subject matter. As a result, the content never comes off as too intense or edgy. Never thought I'd meet a protagonist who hates stairs more than Glokta LMAO There's also a good handful of abstract drawings throughout the book, which helped to break up the blocks of stream-of-consciousness internal monologue. I don't know how recommendable this is, but I really enjoyed it. As it stands, I still prefer Hunchback when it comes to horny novels about disabled autonomy, but I think Walking Practice certainly can stand alongside it, especially given its extra layer of queerness. More translated books like this, please! 😫 Rated this one 4.5/5, but it might become a 5 the more I chew on it!

Man, what to say about this book that hasn't been said better by countless other people who are way smarter and more articulate than me 😭 I don't want to shower it in platitudes, because it deserves so much more than that. I don't want to call it "important", or "transformative", though it is objectively both of those things. This is a book with a lot of rage in it, but just as much hope and love. It's a clear indictment of the prison-industrial complex, but it's just as much an acknowledgement of the labour and sacrifices performed by Black women, particularly those who are queer. A love letter to community, especially those upon whose backs those communities are built and carried. It's a book that flatly refuses to be defined by any one facet of itself, just as it refuses to define any of its characters by any one of theirs. It's difficult to describe the experience of reading this in a way that doesn't simultaneously oversimplify it and place it on a pedestal. But I'll try anyways. This book succeeds where a lot of other books similar to it fail; it presents a clear thesis without ever making you feel like you're being preached to. I think there's merit in works that are more heavy-handed in this aspect, but I think fiction is far more effective when you aren't 100% aware of what emotions it's trying to stir in you, rather just letting you feel them organically. And this novel puts you through the entire damn spectrum of emotion during its entire length: Rage, dread, shock, vicarious tenderness, relief, sadness, and back again, rinse and repeat. I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't listen to at least a few chapters on audio, just to heighten the whole experience. But it's just as effective through the text alone. Speaking of, I think the way this is written is incredibly smart. We have two very clear main characters in Loretta and Staxxx, and one very clear main plotline, but the HUGE amount of side POVs add so much to this book without ever overshadowing the main story and characters, and without ever feeling like bloat. They're very often used as a way to world-build organically (and I find it absolutely hilarious how the only time where it feels hamfisted is when it's delivered by the one terrible guy who constantly mansplains things to his wife LMAO) and to develop the themes without burdening the main plot with flashbacks and contrivances. There wasn't a single side POV chapter where I was wondering why it was included. In fact, in many cases, I often preferred them to the more linear main plot, maybe because they played around more with formatting and character voice. I quite literally had to stare at a wall for half an hour after the double feature that was "To Be Influenced" and "The Art of Influence". Man. And the way the vast majority of them end up coming together and affecting each other? Absolute mastery. Truly a novel that in many ways is far, far greater than the sum of its parts. You end up feeling connected to each and every one of these characters, whether you love them or hate them, and they run the entire spectrum from morally good to absolute evil without the extremes ever feeling like caricature. And being able to do that in a novel of just over 400 pages is super impressive, especially with the amount of POVs we're given. I just also have to point out how incredible it is that this book can keep building up the tension despite showing its hand pretty early on. I thought I knew exactly how this book was going to end at about the 25% mark, but it still had some surprises in store and kept me invested right to the very end. And what a perfect ending it delivered. Definitely one of my fav reads of the year, and one that absolutely lives up to its reputation. And I know I said no shallow platitudes, but I think everyone owes it to themselves to read this. 5/5! "I learned a long time ago. On this one thing you don't negotiate. You love through all the people you've been and hope you have a chance at being better. What I'm telling you is you can curse yourself to the moon and back and what will it have you feeling like? But try to look at yourself and say 'I love you' and see what happens."