What We Lose | 
so-soI found this disjointed and unsatisfying. It felt more like an immature collegiate diary than a novel. So many statements put forth as “profound” that were merely trite. Not a fan.
#septemberbookspin
Still working on August pick but also looking forward to September‘s pick.
pickThandi grapples with the intense grief of losing her mother to cancer while preparing to have an unplanned child of her own.
Read February 12-13
Rated 3.5/5 ⭐️
Book 11/60
pickThere are parts of this book that are STUNNING. I think it got stronger towards the end and the beginning was a little fragmented. This was such an intense portrait of grief and race and how these things intersect. I can‘t wait to read more of Clemmons‘s work!
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️I didn‘t really know what to expect from this book, and I was blown away. Clemmons says things about grief & loss & parenthood that I‘ve thought & felt, but never said. It‘s such a honest portrayal. This book is short & could be a very quick read, but I‘m glad I paced myself through it to really take it all in. It packs so many punches, and I highly recommend. I‘m pretty sure this will end up being one of my best books of 2021.
Look what arrived in this morning‘s mail! Thank you @Soubhiville ! I love participating in #authoramonth - it‘s exposed me to authors I might not have read otherwise- and this is the icing on the cake. I look forward to reading it!
pickThandi grew up in Pennsylvania with her biracial mother who was born in South Africa and her white American father. They frequently visit Johannesburg, and her family there is a foundation of who she is. This novel is about struggling to come to terms with her mother‘s cancer diagnosis, subtle and obvious racism in both places, and what Love means to her.
Clemmons includes interesting quotes, photos, and graphs, contributing a lot to the book.
pickA thoughtful, moving novel about the loss of a parent and its resultant grief. Clemmons' narrative is succinct, and a little more experimental than I'd anticipated. Because or in spite of this it is full of moments of insight into immense pain and disconnection. As I read, I wondered why I had left it so long to get to this one.
Liberal people things- calling your parents by their first names 😂✌🏻
so-soDidn't love this book... It seemed memoir-esque with the way it intertwined real life statistics and events with the story.. but it was overall unorganized and confusing. Some parts would draw me in and then it'd lose me again. Didn't hate reading it, but wouldn't recommend it
pickA fast, powerful read about a woman struggling with the death of her mother and life afterwards. Told in vignettes which move through time and place, from reminisces about her mother to stories about trips to South Africa where her mother was from, this story is filled with the pain of losing someone you love and trying to find yourself again. It‘s a day by day process and this book explores that in raw, heartbreaking, & hopeful honesty.
I‘m out and about this morning and this is the book I‘m taking with me.
so-soWell-written, this novel reads like a stream of disconnected thoughts, interspersed with tidbits of South African political history and story. Half of my mental energy was spent trying to understand what I was reading while the rest just enjoyed the writing.
Tookey finally move you guys, so now I can eat dinner and start another book. What do you guys think, does it look like the picture on the box or did I get bamboozled? 😆 🤦🏽♀️
#YesiReads
so-soI listened to this on audio, and unfortunately, I think that may have reduced my enjoyment. I have seen from other reviews that the book is structured in short vignettes, but the break between these vignettes was lost in the audiobook, which often left me confused and made the whole book feel piecemeal. While I found many parts interesting, I was expecting more depth in the exploration of Thandi‘s grief and relationships. I was underwhelmed.
so-soDon‘t let this pretty cover fool you!!! This is NOT a happy, cheerful read. Told in vignettes ( without chapter headings or numbers) this is more of a stream of consciousness musings of a young woman coming to terms with grief, identity, loss and motherhood. Some beautiful sentiments but overall I felt detached from the story. I think the author‘s intentional use of short passages and jarring pacing left me feeling too disconnected.
I think @Reviewsbylola mentioned this technique of books without chapters. It‘s driving me crazy!!! While I‘m enjoying the story and the writing, I‘m hung up on pacing and lack of chapter indicators. At least Kindle is telling me I‘m at 31%😅
so-soOverall this didn't work on all levels. The characters, the plot, the writing, all didn't work. Instead, of feeling like a complete novel, What We Lose ends up feeling like an outline of a grander more moving tale. The backbones for a mother-daughter story were there but it was never expanded on enough to fulfill the promises described in the blurb. While What We Lose is a quick read thanks to it vignette style, it was not satisfying.
This months IRL book club selection. Having a cup of coffee and finishing up the book.
#currentlyreading
Was ready to start book no.2 for #aty2019 and then my second option came in off hold at the library ... so I‘m gonna attempt to fit in both 🙈🤞🏾
#whatwelose #zinziclemmons #whofearsdeath #nnediokorafor #aroundtheyearin52books #abookwithoneofthe5wsinthetitle #blacklitsy #blitsy
This February I‘m dedicating all my reading to black authors! Please leave any books that I can‘t miss. I love most all genres, nothing is off limits. #readingrecs #blackhistorymonth #blackauthors
pickI thoroughly loved this book. The writing and quirky style, the beautiful, painful, raw look at grief, the glimpses of South Africa, all of it.
pickDepressing (dealing with the death of a parent, marrying the wrong person), but well done and effective.
This was the paradox: How would I ever heal from losing the person who healed me? The question was so enormous that I could see only my entire life, everything I know, filling it.
pickI really enjoyed this lovely book about loss, of mothers, of love, of dreams. 4⭐️ #TwoInThree. #3
pickThis reads like a mashup of The Mothers and Swing Time, which is a good thing. Despite Clemmons‘s ‘exotic‘ heritage this hit very close to home for me, as the MC reminds me very much of my own dear wife. To have experienced such a significant loss so early on in life — it casts such a long large shadow over everything after. Bittersweet (the emotion, not the book), but with an upward ending. An interesting companion to Fierce Kingdom.
pickIn short, thought provoking chapters, Clemmons explores identity, love, loss, and grief. It is beautifully written and I read it in one sitting.
pickThis book is small but so full and substantial, telling a much deeper and larger story than it‘s size might imply. Her writing about grief and coping/not coping with it is beautiful and painful and would resonate with anyone because, of course, unexpected loss is part of the human condition. I loved that Thandi is far from perfect but in that way is perfectly relatable and recognizable. Heavy but good read. 4/5 ⭐️
It wasn‘t sexism, she said (such a disavowal, I noted, was usually a signal that it was) ...
[Yuuuuuup.]
OMG THANK YOU SHE ACTUALLY GETS IT RIGHT!!! I was recently diagnosed with panic disorder and agoraphobia, and it‘s fucking maddening when people think it means “being afraid to leave the house.” (AHEM A.J. Finn, based on what I‘ve heard about your uninformed book.) Not going out as much is a SYMPTOM of the disorder, not the entirety of it. Most of us do in fact leave the house often! But it‘s infused with the exact fear she notes here.
This book is technically 207 pages, but a bunch of pages are just images or like four lines of text. Pretty sure I‘ll be able to get through this one rather quickly 😜 #nowreading
pickZinzi Clemmons' WHAT WE LOSE is a searing novel of loss and family, told in a series of vignettes that make it perfect for your #24in48 stack consideration. Heavy in subject, short on length and with varying style across chapters. #readathon (pssst... Don't forget to sign up at 24in48.com!)
pickThis was beautifully written. The way Clemmons weaves the story together with digressions on grief, race, culture, history, and relationships is fascinating, but it‘s also the reason the book didn‘t resonate for me. The short chapters & frequent shifts in direction made the narrative feel disjointed, and while the structure echoes both the experience of grief and of being caught between cultures, it also made me feel disconnected from the text.
We were holding so much in, our pain distinct from one another‘s in so many ways. I suppose we thought that if we ever acknowledged this, all our carefully assembled control would fall to pieces. I was terrified of his pain—that of losing a lifelong partner, so many years tossed out the window. And I‘m sure he feared the destabilization of my loss—how much of my life yet to live would be marred by this trauma.
I do not see the mother with her child as either more morally credible or more morally capable than any other woman. A child can be used as a symbolic credential, a sentimental object, a badge of self-righteousness. I question the implicit belief that only “mothers” with “children of their own” have a real stake in the future of humanity.
