it's more middle grade, but i think inkheart by cornelia funke would make good company on this list!

It’s a day or two before the end of the unofficial readalong for Let This Radicalize You, and I think we’re all reflecting on things that have happened, things that are still happening, what’s brought us here, and where do we move forward.

One thing that Let This Radicalize You stayed true throughout the book for me was about the power and presence of active hope. Our solidarity is hope. Our activism is hope. Our community is hope. Our resistance is hope. It’s easy to shout FUCK ICE, fuck the capitalistic, white supremacy, imperialist fuck ass country that is the US (and we will, all day everyday), but in between our righteous rage, I’d like focus on what Let This Radicalize You, what Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, and so many other organizers hone in on: how our ability and action to hope for the future we want can be as powerful against the system that tries to take that from us.

A few quotes that I’d like shine light on:

Anchors can take numerous shapes: a story, a community space, a sense of fellowship, a memorial—anything that helps ground people in a shared sense of history, compassion, and purpose. Projects and actions that anchor us awaken compassion, enliven our connectedness, reinforce our values, and, when necessary, reorient our political focus. (pg. 36)

”For me, relationship building is as much of a politic as my commitment to abolition is, or my commitment to anticapitalism. Some people see building relationships as a chore, but I actually feel like you’ve got to believe in it. You have to believe that it matters.” (pg. 46)

This is not the outcome the powerful are hoping for. They are relying on our cynicism, our divisions, and our despair, in addition to their mass apparatus of repression, to prevent us from cultivating a new way of living in relation to each other. To defy and defeat them, we must cultivate hope, belonging, care, and action. (pg. 78)

I have hope that you will rebel against the continued normalization of mass death, human suffering, and annihilation. I have hope that you will choose to keep feeling the things that are hard to feel, even as people around you may surrender their values. I have hope that you will continue to give a damn, even when it’s hard, and that you will fight for each other. Perhaps I will even see you in the streets. (pg. 224)

For me, hope is not a metaphor; it’s a lived practice. It isn’t a thing I possess. Rather, I have to remake it daily. I don’t have hope, I do hope. It’s an active process that I have to regularly commit to—hope not as an emotion but as a discipline. Hope for me is grounded in the reality that wondrous things happen alongside and parallel to the terrible. Every single day. (pg. 232)

What stood out to me is how community and hope are intertwined. Yes, this feels intuitive, but when we peel things back, we are constantly bombarded by the system to be and think individualistic even in our hope! This feeling like we, as individuals, aren’t doing enough, saying enough, acting enough. Yet, when I witnessed how many users here rallied for other users who are currently living and experiencing what’s happening in Minnesota right now, I saw community. Whether through vocal or financial support, that shared value of fighting and supporting for each other. How a place like Pagebound can create a central location for community; a place that’s free, that’s accessible, that can provide an opportunity to grow our activism, and bring that to our own local community to organize. We, here, can have hope. Can be hope.


If you have read the book, whether during the readalong or not, or even haven’t read it (yet), I’d love to hear what are some things that have given you hope? Whether that be within your own local community; with something online; something you’ve read or learned; something you’ve done personally. Let us radicalize each other.

Just earned my bronze after finishing Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore 🫡🎊🎂✨. Excited to go for silver! Gotta see which book is up next ➡️