The Canadian series Sort Of is a wry, thoughtful take on family and gendered labour with one of the best nonbinary characters I’ve seen on TV. My review here.
Sort Of | The Saturday Paper
Baking Impossible | The Guardian
A fun review from me in The Guardian today about Baking Impossible, a delightful Netflix series that shows you can have your cake and drive it through an obstacle course too. It’s also a sweet celebration of diverse talent in STEM and the culinary arts.
As Beautiful As Any Other | The Saturday Paper
I reviewed Kaya Wilson’s memoir, As Beautiful As Any Other for The Saturday Paper. Really appreciated having the space to think deeply about this book and the transition memoir as a growing genre.
‘Trans people are under immense pressure to present a coherent and palatable origin story that helps cis people make sense of us – even when we are not seeking medical treatment, we are treated by laypeople as if presenting to them for diagnosis. We are supposed to be intelligent, untroubled, sympathetic and reassuring.’
Antipodean China | InDaily & Writers SA
Plenty of ink and pixels have been spilled over the fraught relationship between Australia and China lately, so Nicholas Jose and Benjamin Madden’s anthology, Antipodean China: Reflections on Literary Exchange, would appear to be a timely intervention in a conversation that is rife with misreadings and illiteracy. Read my review in InDaily, part of Writers SA’s review series.
Eating with My Mouth Open | The Saturday Paper
I grew up thinking there were seven fundamental flavours: suān, tián, kǔ, là, xián, xiān, má. The first five translate easily – sour, sweet, bitter, hot, salty – but the other two don’t own a home on the English tongue. It was a shock to realise that something as material as flavour could be coloured and even erased by language. But eating has many dimensions beyond what happens in your mouth, as Sam van Zweden chronicles in this thoughtful debut, Eating with My Mouth Open.
– Eating with My Mouth Open | The Saturday Paper
Not For Broadcast | The Saturday Paper
‘[Evading censorship] felt a lot like a game, actually – a futile yet addictive game that made your heart race as you tried to jump from story to story, ducking and weaving, squeezing as much as you could through an ever-shrinking space.’
For The Saturday Paper’s culture section, I wrote about reliving the anxiety and adrenaline of working as a journalist in China while playing the dystopian newsroom simulation game Not for Broadcast. Read it here.
Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt) film review | The Guardian
For The Guardian, I reviewed Monica Zanetti’s teen romcom, Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt), a pretty charming story of queer love – romantic, familial, and intergenerational.
‘Zanetti cleverly plays with the idea that our queer predecessors paved the way for how we live now, but as individuals can be just as bumbling and out of touch as anyone else when it comes to dealing with teenagers. We might idolise OWLs (“older wiser lesbians”) but they’re only flightless, bug-eyed humans after all.’
Loaded | The Saturday Paper
I reviewed the new audio play of Loaded, Christos Tsiolkas’s debut novel that shot through my veins two decades ago as a queer migrant teenager living in North Richmond.
Guilt mountain | Meanjin
I’m in the Spring 2020 edition of Meanjin with a review of Mirandi Riwoe’s Stone Sky Gold Mountain. Grab a print copy or subscribe online to read.
The Baby-Sitters Club: the perfect PG escape for millennials and their kids – or anyone, really
Ann M Martin’s series was a staple of my childhood and luckily the Netflix reboot is excellent. I wrote about it for The Guardian.
Jinghua Qian 