I received this book as an Early Reviewer from LibraryThing. It consists of small prose snippets, sometimes poetic, about the author's life and experiences in Los Angeles during some of the California wildfires. Sometimes it is lyrical and evocative of the environment and nature, and sometimes of anonymous big city life. At times, I felt like I was in a home in a burning canyon, or a temporary shelter. But sometimes it wasn't so atmospheric, and sometimes there are shades of self-pity or pretended offense, like when a Starbucks barista asks how to spell her name, Felicia (not everybody knows how to spell that name). But I expected there to be more structure, maybe a build up to something special, and a denouement, but I didn't feel it or detect it in any way. Maybe I'm dense and need to reread it many times, which would only take about 40 minutes, but it's not calling me to do that. Maybe others will reveal to me a different interpretation. ( )

I enjoyed the short, almost poetic format of this book. The cover is beautiful and made sense with the topic of the book. The author had a lovely and purposeful way of writing. I liked the blending of languages. It was extremely relatable to me (including the fires and marriage problems). I completed it yesterday, which was a great time to read anything but more information about the election.

Thank you for the ARC, Akashic Books! I appreciate your gift. ( )

Particulate Matter by Felicia Luna Lemus is a collection of verse reflecting on a very difficult time in the author’s life. Included in the ARC is a note from the author that describes how this work was written over the time where she was living apart from her wife due to illness and had to endure a long daily commute to see her. Reading this, I found some of the passages really moving, pausing on these when I came across them to let them sink in. Other passages I didn’t understand the message or purpose, and found myself now and then just flipping through pages in confusion. So a mixed bag overall. Some elements beautifully crafted, others odd and instantly forgotten. My take away is that I enjoyed it but it didn’t blow me away. But I’m not a big poetry reader, so maybe there’s more here that I didn’t pick up on.

Thank you to LibraryThing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Particulate Matter is a memoir in the form of poetic fragments. My mother kept a sort-of diary, year in and year out. Every day she noted the temperature with additional observations about the weather such as seeing a bird chasing a squirrel away from the suet or a particularly good score at Scrabble. Reading Particulate Matter reminds me of my mom’s diaries.

The book begins with the writer preparing a house for her spouse who needs to be someplace she “can breathe, literally.” People leaving a relationship often say they can’t breathe, but it’s a metaphor. When Lemus says literally, she means literally. Her partner needed better air, but this is not self-evident within the book. That one word, literally, is being asked to carry a lot of weight. There is an artist’s statement that came with the book for review, but if readers who buy the book don’t get this, they may feel as confused as I was when I first read the book, before reading her statement.

I think of Particulate Matter as an abstract memoir. I just made that genre up, but it seems to fit. If you look at abstract art, you can infer what it means, but you can’t be sure. Lemus makes the big things in her life abstract while detailing the minutiae.

I did not like Particulate Matter. There were moments that I liked such as the paragraph where she writes about bringing in a hummingbird nest, freezing it, and placing it on her desk. On the other hand, most of this book is less interesting than my mother’s diary entries. Several “chapters” or “poems” consist of one word. I was so irritated by this I was describing it to a friend who asked what the words were and I couldn’t remember. I told her I was “rolling my eyes too hard to read them.”

Particulate Matter will be released on November 3rd. I received an ARC from the publisher through LibraryThing.

Particulate Matter at Akashic Books
Felicia Luna Lemus author site
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2020/10/28/particulate-matter-by-fel... ( )

This is lovely, allusive, associative, dissociative. Lemus' writing about being separated from her wife during the California fires is visceral. You feel her loneliness, desperation, determination to make it through. I kept thinking, though, how someone like Anne Carson would have taken this to a deeper place. Lemus never gets below the surface, never takes us beneath diary-like thoughts. Moreover, I couldn't help but be distracted by the fact that a book about the California fires often had only a single word on a page, thus guaranteeing more fires, more global warming, more particulate matter for us all to breathe. While this is a slight book, it nonetheless earns its place as a significant piece of eco-emergency literature. ( )