Review of Assembly

Book Link: https://smile.amazon.com/Assembly-Natasha-Brown-ebook/dp/B097NRT7TN/

My first recommendation here is to read this in one sitting, I split it up over a few days and I had trouble keep the momentum and themes connected throughout the story. Overall though, this is a really good modern novella perspective on all the internal dialogues and dilemmas we have with ourselves. The author speaks to race, class, freedom, privilege, stereotypes, expectations, and other areas to deliver a really interesting and honest narrative. I especially liked the way she could paint a picture through her descriptive structure. A simple act like eating a piece of toast becomes an eloquent combination of words that not only describes the action but makes you feel what is happening (See highlight #7 below).

Some highlights from my reading: 1. As if each morning, fresh mediocrity slides out of the ocean, slimes its way over mossy rocks and sand, then sprouts skittering appendages that stretch and morph and twist into limbs as it forges on inland until finally, fully formed, Lou! strolls into the lobby on two flat feet in shined shoes. 2. What compelled Rach to pursue this career? I knew why I did it. Banks – I understood what they were. Ruthless, efficient money-machines with a byproduct of social mobility. 3. Merrick’s face appears huge, beaming with effusive American warmth and insincerity. The conferencing screen refocuses, then pans out, revealing a woman sat beside him. 4. Born here, parents born here, always lived here – still, never from here. Their culture becomes parody on my body. 5. Be the best. Work harder, work smarter. Exceed every expectation. But also, be invisible, imperceptible. Don’t make anyone uncomfortable. Don’t inconvenience. Exist in the negative only, the space around. Do not insert yourself into the main narrative. Go unnoticed. Become the air. Open your eyes. 6. He keeps a – no, not a journal, it’s a sort of biography, he’s continually writing, crafting it. His story, his life, he’s penning it over and over, every day, in his mind. Everything he does, before he does it, he tries it against the pages of that biography. Does it fit, does it meet the standard? Could it sit on these shelves? He needs a yes, or it doesn’t happen. That’s how he lives, he says. 7. Her jaw grinds rhythmically, bulging and elongating; tendons, emerging taut, flicker up past her ear and into greying wisps of hair. By her temple, a bone or cartilage or some other hard aspect of her bobs and strains against the stretched-white skin. The entire side of her face is engaged in this elaborate mechanical action until, climactically, the soft-hung skin of her neck contracts familiar and the ground-down-mushed-up toast, saliva and butter, worked into a paste, squeezes down; is forced through the pulsing oesophagus, is swallowed. 8. They take their modern burden seriously; over Beyond Meat burgers with thick-cut chips drizzled in truffle oil.