An Ugly Truth

It’s been an interesting last quarter of the year in terms of the books I’ve read and I’m actually really looking forward to 2022 in terms of new releases because this year was a pretty nice crop. It’s also really nice to be able to not be on my phone (though my screen time is still stupid high), all the fucking time.

From the title alone, Pop Song by Larissa Pham already was a hit in my book and then I started reading it and honestly it felt like my guts were being torn out. I related to it in ways I didn’t think I would and I don’t know what that says about me but it was a nice, cathartic letting go of a lot of things. Picking up on different chapters here and there and a pretty satisfying end, too.

I was listening to an episode of Kara Swisher’s podcast Sway and she had on author Jeanette Winterson talking about AI and sexbots and naturally this piqued my curiosity. And so, it was then that I checked out her book 12 Bytes, which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would. I didn’t think I would be interested in AI and robotics but her intersection with feminism and her point of view made it all the more different!

Finally, I highly recommend everyone read An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, and though it won’t necessarily stop me from using the suite of products Facebook has me tethered to, it really makes you think twice about how things can go incredibly wrong when every intention to make things right was built up from the start. It was both harrowing and so completely expected that things escalated the way they did. So gripping, I couldn’t put it down.

Last month for 2021 books! What else are you reading that I could get into? Tell me please!