Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Dinner on Monster Island
Dinner on Monster Island: Essays | Tania De Rozario
6 posts | 4 read | 1 to read
In this unusual, engaging, and intimate collection of personal essays, Lambda Literary Award finalist Tania De Rozario recalls growing up as a queer, brown, fat girl in Singapore, blending memoir with elements of history, pop culture, horror films, and current events to explore the nature of monsters and what it means to be different. Tania De Rozario was just twelve years old when she was gay-exorcised. Convinced that her boyish style and demeanor were a sign of something wicked, her mother and a pair of her church friends tried to banish the evil from Tania. That day, the young girl realized that monsters werent just found in horror tales. They could lurk anywhereincluding your own family and communityand look just like you. Dinner on Monster Island is Tanias memoir of her life and childhood in Singaporewhere she discovered how difference is often perceived as deviant, damaged, disobedient, and sometimes, demonic. As she pulls back the veil on life on the small island, she reveals the sometimes kind, sometimes monstrous side of all of us. Intertwined with her experiences is an analysis of the role of women in horror. Tania looks at films and popular culture such as Carrie, The Witch, and The Ring to illuminate the ways in which women are often portrayed as monsters, and how in real life, monsters are not what we think. Moving and lyrical, written with earnest candor, and leavened with moments of humor and optimism, Dinner on Monster Island is a deeply personal examination of one womans experience grappling with her identity and a fantastic analysis of monsters, monstrous women and the worlds in which they live.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
review
TracyReadsBooks
post image
Pickpick

In this collection of essays, the author details her life growing up “as a queer, brown fat girl in Singapore.” The essays blend memoir with pop culture, history, & current events with a particular focus on horror films & how they reflect society‘s ideas, images, understanding, control of women & their bodies. Compelling, occasionally heartbreaking, & always interesting, these essays tell a remarkable story of finding yourself & where you belong.

review
CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
post image
Pickpick

This excellent collection of essays alternately taught me a lot (mostly about Singapore, a place I knew pretty much nothing about before reading this book) and moved me, particularly when de rozario writes about her mother and the intense homophobia she experienced from her and Singaporean society at large as a young person. I also particularly liked the essays that drew parallels between horror media (The Shining, Walking Dead) and her life.

34 likes1 stack add
blurb
CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
post image

In this collection of essays called DINNER ON MONSTER ISLAND, the table of contents is a "menu"!

I'm excited to start this, with themes of monsters in horror movies and growing up queer, brown, and fat in Singapore.

blurb
Branwen
post image

Nonfiction is not generally a genre I gravitate towards unless it's about something I'm super interested in. That being said, these three new nonfiction books just came out and I am really excited to start them! 📚❤️

review
GerardtheBookworm
post image
Pickpick

Writer and artist Tania De Rozario provides her perspectives on various topics as a citizen of Singapore and as a queer woman in a series of essays. Using the metaphor of monsters and femininehood, she tackles themes of family, sexuality, religion, and national politics. Such examples are her forced exorcism, Christian hypocrisy, her attraction to women, and contradictions of Singaporean society and government, this is a visceral read!

blurb
Matilda
post image

Todays no questions asked automatic buy