Literally Graphic reviewed My Wandering Warrior Existence by Nagata Kabi (My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, #5)
2022 Review
3 stars
Content notes for childhood sexual assault (Kabi includes a trigger warning and instructions on how to skip this section in the book as well) and some nudity elsewhere.
Keywords that come to mind reading this instalment were love, deconstruction, intimacy, harm, growing up, sexuality and gender.
The summary is "After attending a friend’s wedding, Nagata Kabi decides she wants one of her own. That’s not the only thing she wants—she longs to love and be loved. But she has three major problems: she has no partner, no dating experience, and her only sexual encounters are limited to a lesbian escort service. With the help of a photoshoot, a dating app, and more, the author embarks on a journey to seek the love and happiness she so desperately desires."
An interesting read, although for better or worse it is more of what we have come to expect style and content wise. …
Content notes for childhood sexual assault (Kabi includes a trigger warning and instructions on how to skip this section in the book as well) and some nudity elsewhere.
Keywords that come to mind reading this instalment were love, deconstruction, intimacy, harm, growing up, sexuality and gender.
The summary is "After attending a friend’s wedding, Nagata Kabi decides she wants one of her own. That’s not the only thing she wants—she longs to love and be loved. But she has three major problems: she has no partner, no dating experience, and her only sexual encounters are limited to a lesbian escort service. With the help of a photoshoot, a dating app, and more, the author embarks on a journey to seek the love and happiness she so desperately desires."
An interesting read, although for better or worse it is more of what we have come to expect style and content wise. A lot I could relate to, it still left me with a question or two.
Starting with the positives, I will probably always have a soft spot for people flailing through life. Well, unless they are being a menace to society and hurting people...
The way Nagata is left deconstructing the entire concept of love felt so incredibly relatable in a way I've only started seeing. Then of course we have the continued exploration of Kabi's gender and sexuality journey.
And while chaos and crises is something that Nagata is perhaps known for, it was nice to read about her for about 75% of the book going through confusion that did not involve something life threatening or self harming. That said, except for the part in the middle that covers Nagata's experience of childhood sexual assault.
Told fairly mater of factly, I am still left with the uncharitable thought that maybe this story wasn't totally necessary here and now. Like was the rest of the book not quite edgy enough? It is good for people to tell their own stories (and I deeply hope that no one pressured Kabi to include this story) and trying to break down silence and stigma is important. So I'm probably getting too nitpicky here. The way that parents and adults believed Kabi and tried to help was good, even if telling everyone in her school about it was obviously super misguided and understandably traumatizing. It's obvious that these events had a huge impact on Kabi's life, but it still felt very different from the rest of the book.
Even more so then usual, this personal narrative is highly focused on just one person. So not exactly a rainbow of diversity across the various axis I generally try and talk about. There's also what people want to disclose and label or not label about themselves. But I continue to find myself pretty interested in Kabi's offbeat and stress filled life, even while I really hoping their life calms down a bit and maybe for them to not have anything more to write about any more.
I'm going with a solid three stars on this one.
