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| 3.35
| 13,258
| Jul 24, 2023
| Jul 25, 2023
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it was amazing
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This one is going to sit with me for a while. I’m sitting here trying to digest the many layers this book has that help to breathe life into the plot
This one is going to sit with me for a while. I’m sitting here trying to digest the many layers this book has that help to breathe life into the plot and the characters. The dangers of not teaching young women about their bodies and how to listen to them. The injustices of the juvenile detention system. The myriad ways in which white, cisgender males of any age can get away with nearly anything with just a wink and a smile and after all this time women still fall on their knees to please them. How women and couples have to constantly justify their decision to remain childless time and again. The ways in which we sometimes don’t know the people we love and trust the most until we’re forced into spending all of our time with them. The ways in which some people can be changed by time and others can’t. The ways in which some people just can’t stop: they need to be stopped. You have to be ready for the pacing in this book because it moves fast. Not only does it switch between May of 1997 and the “present day” of the book (which is between September 2019 and May 2021), but in the present day events of the book the POV switches between the three main characters: Amber (the titular “Prom Mom”), Joe (the boy who took her to prom who is now a commercial real-estate salesman and married to a plastic surgeon named Meredith), and Meredith (said plastic surgeon). Not only that, but page time isn’t wasted by easing in and out of POV transitions; Lippman simply drops in and out of each character with a solid paragraph shift. The shift is always defined enough that you definitely know which character you’re with, but I love that no time is wasted with trying to make the shift more gentle for the reader, because this book isn’t gentle in any way at all. This book is jarring. The reading experience matches. Part of the appeal of this book is that it takes place over COVID quarantine and into the 2020 presidential election. This forces the characters in these books to ask ethical, moral, political, and cultural questions both of themselves and others and to come clean about how they feel about certain issues. It shows the definite divides between the three main characters and what their priorities are in life. It makes all of them more interesting and multifaceted while forcing them into tighter and tighter corners as the plot progresses. It’s a brilliant book that had me ravenously turning pages from start to finish. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Review/Crime Thriller/Literary Fiction/Murder Thriller/Psychological Fiction/Psychological Thriller/Suspense Thriller/Thriller/Women’s Fiction ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 26, 2023
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Jul 26, 2023
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Mar 16, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0593619919
| 9780593619919
| 0593619919
| 3.97
| 231,898
| Nov 07, 2023
| Nov 07, 2023
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it was amazing
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Be still my freaking heart. You have to understand something: I loved the Netflix limited series “The Queen’s Gambit” (no, I haven’t read the book). I Be still my freaking heart. You have to understand something: I loved the Netflix limited series “The Queen’s Gambit” (no, I haven’t read the book). I’ve watched that entire series from start to finish so many times. You know what this book reads like to me? Like YA Queen’s Gambit but funnier, less serious, and with less substance and child abuse. I’m not saying that to be insulting because if you delved any deeper than this shallow comparison it’d be like comparing apples and oranges. I really just mean that they’re both brilliant, both filled me with joy, both made me swoon, and both made me want to go back and do it all again. First off: Dude, I have a fierce adoration for rivals-to-lovers. I also have a serious book crush on the book boyfriends who are the ones to fall first. Don’t even get me started on the fact that Hazelwood didn’t fall back on trying to make Mallory and Nolan some sort of opposites-attract trope. This book was the best kind of catnip: A fiercely independent, intelligent, bisexual, sex-positive FMC (praise be to Cheesus) and a strong, independent, intelligent, gives-no-effs MMC who acknowledges he is white and a trust fund baby (yes, it does cause problems but SPOILERS). Do I want to go into the plot of this book much? Not really. It’s a romance. A dramedy, if you will. It’s closer to that mixed bag of genre than a straight-up romantic comedy. I have a love affair with the logic and strategy behind chess, as well as the aesthetic of it all. Do I know how to play? Heck no. But I love watching. The supporting players in this book are absolutely vital and so endearing. Mallory’s sisters are exactly what little sisters end up being: pains in the butt but you would die for them in the blink of an eye. Her mother? Both a tragic and loving presence in Mallory’s life. Mallory’s bestie, Easton, is what we all wish we had in our life-long besties. Then there are all the chess players, big, small, misogynistic, kind, female, and more who make up the tapestry of Mallory and Nolan’s chess world. Some you want to castrate and others you want to just hug. I just can’t with this book. It was too adorable for words and I gobbled it up. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was written without recompense. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Reads/Contemporary Romance/LGBTQ Fiction/Rom Com/Sports Romance/Standalone Romance/YA Fiction/YA Rom Com/YA Romance ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 03, 2023
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Nov 03, 2023
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Mar 10, 2023
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Paperback
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| 0593599314
| 9780593599310
| 0593599314
| 3.75
| 9,713
| Jun 13, 2023
| Jun 13, 2023
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it was amazing
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Please, I beg of you, go into this book blind. You can read the blurb. That’s fine. That’s expected. But otherwise, try and stay as blind as possible
Please, I beg of you, go into this book blind. You can read the blurb. That’s fine. That’s expected. But otherwise, try and stay as blind as possible before you read this absolutely twisting, turning, mind screw of a thriller. You’ll find it all the more rewarding for it. I had absolutely forgotten the vast majority of the blurb when I opened my copy and I was absolutely delighted I did because it was one heck of an experience opening this book and reading the captivating prologue before getting swept away by the engrossing first chapter. You’ll find that those feelings never leave throughout the entire book: captivating and engrossing. Other feelings are added and mixed in like cookie dough, too: propulsive, desperate, disdainful, stressful, anxious, shocked, lonely, angry, betrayed, loved, and very lost. Also, there is pain: mental, physical, and psychological. And, of course, there’s a whole lot of wondering what the unholy heck is going on. There’s so much I don’t want to say anything about because I don’t want to spoil anything, so let’s stick with our two protagonists, Leo and Summer. Summer has been on her own since she was 17 (she thinks) and her mother left her alone in Big Sur with just over nine hundred dollars in cash, a tent, and her backpack so she could follow her boyfriend to join a new spiritual commune. In her mind, her daughter was now old enough to make her own way in the world. Summer had no last name, no father, no birth certificate, no car, and the only life she knew was the nomadic, displaced one she had been raised in, where the con and pickpocketing were her tools of the trade. Some years later, by the time Summer meets Leo while Leo is panhandling on a San Francisco street, she’s been lonely for a long time. She can see potential in Leo to be more than a mere panhandler, and Leo is too young to be alone on the streets of San Francisco for long without drugs or something worse to destroy her. So Summer adopts her like a little sister, and they put their trust in one another. Sleeping and moving around California in Summer’s converted and tricked-out Land Cruiser, they make their way up and down the coast with Summer clearing whole clubs of cash, credit cards, and IDs and Summer playing longer games, hooking men on her smile and personality to get them to take her home for the night where she can clear their houses and condos of more expensive valuables or get them to take her on shopping sprees. She’s the sugar baby when Summer is on the prowl. In truth, Leo is the only person Summer has ever truly trusted, which is why she goes absolutely breathless with worry when Leo doesn’t come back from her prior night’s con. She fears everything from Leo getting sick of her and abandoning her like her mother did to the con going wrong and Leo being dead. No matter which way the pendulum swings, she needs to find out what happened to her adopted sister, and so she goes looking for answers. What she finds is something far more intricate, ugly, and sinister than she ever thought, but she also finds out when you’re lucky enough to find family to love you, you’ll fight to keep it. You’ll hold on tight to their light and trust in them. This book has everything I love in a fully-rounded psychological thriller: excellent character development, an outstanding central plot with terrific and relevant themes, a traumatic and malicious subplot, a entire cast of supporting characters with their own agendas who you can’t trust as far as you can throw them, extremely interesting back stories, BAMF female protagonists, and a complete uncertainty of who’s going to come out of this alive and how. This whole thing throws twists and turns at you constantly. Heck, sometimes it even feels like Chutes & Ladders (or Snakes & Ladders, depending on where you are in the world), in the way it feels like characters gain and lose traction. This is my first Wendy Heard novel and now I’m itching to go back and read her backlist, because if they’re anything like this one I know I’ll enjoy it. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Review/Psychological Fiction/Psychological Thriller/Suspense Thriller/Thriller/Women’s Fiction ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 17, 2023
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Jun 17, 2023
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Mar 06, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0593437918
| 9780593437919
| 0593437918
| 4.04
| 22,535
| May 01, 2023
| May 09, 2023
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really liked it
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Some call this book slow, but in my opinion it’s not that this book is slow–it’s that this book requires its readers to slow down and pay attention, b
Some call this book slow, but in my opinion it’s not that this book is slow–it’s that this book requires its readers to slow down and pay attention, because it has a lot to say about a lot of things and all of those things take time to ingest and absorb. Yes, this book is the first book in yet another epic fantasy trilogy. Yes, it is almost 600 pages long. But this isn’t a book one reads for frivolity (because there is not much to be had, if any at all) or for whimsy (even though there is plenty of whimsy if you know the true meaning of the word). This isn’t a steamy romantasy, though these pages contain a great love story (I won’t talk about that, because spoilers ahoy). Is there an earnest, yearning man longing to escape his cage to find what he had lost? Why yes! Is there a plucky and persistent FMC who somehow has been chosen to complete tasks and solve puzzles in order to try and save the day? Of course! Is the book a thousand times more complicated and involved than that? Oh, you bet your bottom dollar. This book is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a pancake. I’ve been sitting here contemplating how to write this review and I’m finding myself comparing it to The Starless Sea in some ways. The main way is that both books are about libraries, of course. The other way is that both books are almost impossible to write reviews about without either being overly verbose or spoiling the whole thing. The magic in reading both books lies in reading them, of discovering what happens as you flip the next page and the next. Where The Starless Sea differs from The Book That Wouldn’t Burn is that The Starless Sea leans in on the pure fantasy aspects when The Book That Wouldn’t Burn just acknowledges the book is a work of epic fantasy, but it leans in on philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics to both tell the story and to help the cast of characters learn their lessons as the book goes on. The 3rd person POV omniscient is truly the only narrative style that could’ve worked in this book, even though I know a lot of people prefer 1st person POV. There’s just too much to say, see, hear, and do for 1st person to work. The library, the cast of characters, and the [spoilers be here] wouldn’t work if 1st person POV had been utilized. Usually, there’s a rule in books about world building that says you should have your world built completely in the first 15% of a book (so, if we’re talking “A Hero’s Journey” time, it would be when the hero accepts the quest completely). There are some sci-fi/fantasy books that outright defy this rule to great effect. This book is one of them, because this book never stops world building. The library is so vast in so many ways that there are new things and places to discover around every corner and through every door. You never know what you’re going to find if you climb a ladder or two or if you happen to find a way to open a previously forbidden door. And that’s a lot of the charm in the book. Humans are curious creatures who crave adventure and knowledge. We always want to know what’s over the next hill or through that door or in the next room. We thirst for answers to our questions. There are a few theories about the burning of the Great Library at Alexandria: Some say Caesar burnt it down because it contained too much knowledge he didn’t want people getting their hands on. Some say he sent troops to help rescue books from the library because it was an accidental fire and there weren’t enough librarians to save them all. No one knows the truth, because the truth is malleable after all these years. All we truly know is that the library burnt to the ground with most of its knowledge inside of it. In the end, after all this time, does it matter if Caesar doomed it or tried to save it? In the end, the knowledge is still gone, no matter what. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: Fantasy Series/Book Series/Dark Academia/Epic Fantasy/Secret Society ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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May 13, 2023
not set
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May 15, 2023
not set
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Mar 02, 2023
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Hardcover
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| B0BKQXVWS3
| 4.00
| 11,428
| Apr 13, 2023
| Apr 13, 2023
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it was amazing
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When I go to open up a new Eden Finley, Saxon James, or a book concocted by these two evil geniuses together like this installment of the Puckboys ser
When I go to open up a new Eden Finley, Saxon James, or a book concocted by these two evil geniuses together like this installment of the Puckboys series, I always rub my hands together briskly before starting and let out a silly little giggle because I know without a doubt I’m in for a really good time and a really good book. So I snuggled down into my bed with my puppies and settled in for my definition of literary comfort food. I asked, and they delivered: GOAL. I still don’t understand anything about hockey (even after reading hella hockey romances), but the jokes! The chirping! The personalities! The ups and downs of competition and the pros and cons of celebrity! Let’s not forget Oskar, who (along with other members of the Queer Collective) make some hilarious cameos or appear here and there to help give the plot a gentle nudge along. Oh Aleks, you sweet little baby pansexual. The world is your oyster and you have no idea what to do with it all. At the beginning of this book everything is brand-new for Aleks: new town, new house, new team, and a finalized divorce after he and his wife grew apart. He wants to explore everything the queer community has to offer, but has no idea where to start. Enter the Queer Collective, a bunch of alcohol and bad decisions (which honestly should be a warning sign Oskar wears around and all of us know it), and one small accident with fire that brings two firemen to Aleks’ backyard. It’s one hell of a meet cute. One of the best I’ve read in at least the last year. I was living for it. Gabe is one of the firefighters that responds to this odd and ultimately hilarious call, and let’s talk about that insta-lust, okay? The insta-lust was real and I’m a big fan, being prone to it in real life myself. The sparks fly, the chemistry is explosive, and neither of these two can list patience as a strong suit. They want hands, mouths, and more all over one another as soon as possible. The sooner the better. Trying to take it slow just doesn’t work. Eden and Saxon get me in one of my weakest spots with the dirty talk. I’m weak for it. And they write it so well. This book isn’t on the long side. It’s less than 300 pages, and it’s a quick read. The burn is fast, the writing is hilarious, the romance is pure fluff sweetness, and the friendships are so pure. It’s another winner from Finley and James, keeping them at the top of their game. I was provided a copy of this title by the author. All thoughts, views, ideas, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Read/Gay Romance/LGBTQ Romance/Sports Romance/Contemporary Romance/Book Universe/Book Series/Romance Series/Kindle Unlimited/KU/Romantic Comedy/RomCom/Spice Level 3/Hockey Romance/Sadenverse ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 12, 2023
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Apr 12, 2023
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Feb 23, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 1324021721
| 9781324021728
| 1324021721
| 3.84
| 477
| Feb 10, 2022
| Feb 14, 2023
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it was amazing
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This is not a romance. For the record, this isn’t a romantic book in any sense of the word. But, just like the title implies, it is a love story–just
This is not a romance. For the record, this isn’t a romantic book in any sense of the word. But, just like the title implies, it is a love story–just not the love story between a boy and a girl (though a boy and a girl do fall in love, I suppose). Iron Curtain: A Love Story is about Milena, one of communism’s Red Princesses, and though one might be tricked into thinking this is a traditional love story, it’s not. Milena is in love with one thing and one thing only, and that is her homeland, behind the Iron Curtain. That’s the genius behind this whole book, a communist Cold War twist on “There’s no place like home”. Milena Urbanska ran away from her communist homeland not because she hated communism and wanted to defect; no, she ran away because she was young, she had witnessed something traumatizing when she was younger that had shifted some of her thinking, she didn’t want to be forced into marriage at her parent’s hands, she didn’t want to be a politiburo wife, and she was sick of being who she was and of everyone knowing everything about her and constantly being a subject of conversation across the country. So she decides to slip away to England and marry the young Irish poet she had fallen in love with when he was in her country a few years prior, even though she hates the western world. She’s hoping their love and his poetry fame will make up for living in a Capitalist society. But best laid plans… England is both everything she thought it might be and nothing like she knew it would be. She hates it. There’s only two things she loves about England: fresh vegetables and her in-laws. At first, she’s deliriously in love with her husband, too. But in Thatcher-era England, being poor was more than a kick in the teeth, and it didn’t help that Milena’s husband seemed to fancy himself a man who ran on Lady Luck and whimsy. This novel is full of a specific type of ennui I love: A sense of listlessness, of not knowing what to do with oneself. It’s the feeling of being in some kind of suspended state between two choices or situations you’ve been presented with but not being able to determine which is the lesser of two evils. You hate your life, but either not enough to leave it or you’re too stubborn to give up just yet. I’m a sucker for Cold War-era fiction. Well, I’m a sucker for Russian historical fiction in general. I loved the research and detail put into this book, both on the Russian and British sides. It couldn’t have been easy researching everything from Thatcher economics to Russian Nationalism and how one could fly from the USSR to Cuba and how many different stops they could make while doing so. Vesna Goldworthy’s characters blaze to life, each so distinct in voice, style, and worldview they not only form the unshakeable framework for this novel but they also create the ebb and flow around Milena, moving her around in that suspended state, all making impacts large and small on her life and decisions as they go. I can’t say anything else about this book other than it was a tremendously lovely read that I highly recommend. I was provided with a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, and opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction/Political Fiction/Satire/5 Star Reads ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 14, 2023
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Feb 15, 2023
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Feb 14, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 3.96
| 14,188
| Apr 18, 2023
| Apr 18, 2023
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it was amazing
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You want an awesome dark fantasy romance novel full of witches, curses, and an ancient warlord sorcerer that manages to bespell a vulnerable witch int
You want an awesome dark fantasy romance novel full of witches, curses, and an ancient warlord sorcerer that manages to bespell a vulnerable witch into opening his well-hidden and buried sarcophagus and lifting a 2,000 year old curse? You want that sorcerer to be sexier than sin, possessive like a barbarian, Machievellian and vengeful, and yet still have space in his dark heart to truly care for you? Oh yeah, you’re going to absolutely love Bewitched. Laura Thalassa is absolutely a reliable author of the character-driven dark fantasy romance novel. Her men aren’t good men–they’re definitely callous and unemotional to start out with and surely strung along the darker shades of the greyscale. Her women are feisty and often out of their element with their male love interest to start off with: a little lust drunk, unsettled by their power and mood swings, and yet they learn somewhere along the way how much power they hold both as women and as lovers. This first installment in this series is heavy on exposition, to be sure, but the characterizations of Memnoch and Selene don’t suffer for it. If anything, the exposition helps to fill these characters out, to help us understand Memnoch’s motivations, goals, and experiences, and to also help us get a glimpse into Selene’s anger, frustration, weaknesses, and strengths. In essence, Thalassa wields exposition in the manner it’s meant to be wielded: showing us instead of merely telling us. There is a lot of magic flying around in this book, and while there is a nominal effort made to explain the magic system, I still found myself a touch confused at times. I’m going to chalk it up to this being the first installment and there was so much going on in this book that it’s likely we’ll learn more and more about the magic in this series as it moves on. There is also a lot of plot running around. Besides the main plot between Memnoch and Selene, there’s also two (maybe even three?) subplots running under the surface that keep the pacing flowing nice and steady, waiting there to mix it up so us readers aren’t simply sitting here reading your standard romance novel. There’s some heft to it. Some pizzazz. It’s simply a great read and a great win for Thalassa under her new imprint. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. Any thoughts, views, ideas, or opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Read/Fantasy Romance/Romantic Fantasy/Paranormal Fantasy/Urban Fantasy/Dark Fantasy/Fantasy Series/Book Series/Romance Series/Contemporary Romance/Dark Romance/Paranormal Romance/Spice Level 2 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 06, 2023
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Apr 17, 2023
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Feb 10, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 1250244099
| 9781250244093
| 1250244099
| 4.00
| 30,456
| Aug 15, 2023
| Aug 15, 2023
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it was amazing
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T. Kingfisher plus a Sleeping Beauty remix. Sign me up. I’m here for it. Mostly because I love Sleeping Beauty, and some of it because I really wanted
T. Kingfisher plus a Sleeping Beauty remix. Sign me up. I’m here for it. Mostly because I love Sleeping Beauty, and some of it because I really wanted to see what Kingfisher was going to do with it. I wasn’t disappointed; in fact, I was absolutely, positively delighted. I think this is my favorite Kingfisher novella thus far. It all starts with an underpinning question that can twist the whole tale on its head: there’s two reasons anyone would go to such lengths to hide a sleeping princess behind a huge mess of thickets of thorns, masses of briars, a forest of trees, and tons of huge bushes. It’s either to keep other people out, or to keep something in. Kingfisher wants us to contemplate the latter: What if Sleeping Beauty is the dangerous one? Somehow this premise excited me so much I was almost giddy as I read this charming and somehow sweet (I don’t know why my clock ticks this way, but it does and I don’t question it) fairy tale told from the point of view of Toadling, a changeling who was actually meant to be the real princess she’s now guarding as she sleeps. Toadling doesn’t have much magic in her, so almost everything she has goes into keeping the changeling child that’s disguised as a human asleep and trying to make sure no one comes near the hidden tower where the small child eternally slumbers. Not even Toadling goes near her too often, for fear the magic will become unstable and wake her. The world building in this story is just so unbelievably detailed and rich, even though it mostly takes place in one place. There are interludes as Toadling tells her story to a traveler from (what was then called) Anatolia, as it seems he’s determined to get through the briar thickets and the hedge of thorns and up to the hidden tower to see the princess. Toadling doesn’t have it in her to hurt practically anyone, especially not a nice person who’s the first person she’s spoken to in over 200 years. She thinks it’s important to impart to him the history of who the princess is and why she’s in the tower so he really decides against trying to break the spell. While these could be considered info dumps, they’re really more of a fairy tale inside a fairy tale: two stories nested within one another, and they’re both fascinating and well-written. This is what’s so vital about novellas: Knowing how to pack the most punch with less than 200 words to work with. Despite this being a novella, this felt like a whole and complete story. Nothing was rushed, nothing felt missing, and it was such a satisfying read. It’s well worth the five stars I rated it. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Review/Fantasy/Folklore/Fairy Tale Retelling/Folklore/Found Family/Historical Fantasy/Novella ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 14, 2023
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Aug 14, 2023
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Feb 07, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0593535375
| 9780593535370
| B0B9WPF9NQ
| 4.03
| 6,765
| May 16, 2023
| May 16, 2023
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it was amazing
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If there’s one fusion of genres I’ve come to appreciate a great deal in the last couple of years it’s science fiction and noir. It’s not a new genre,
If there’s one fusion of genres I’ve come to appreciate a great deal in the last couple of years it’s science fiction and noir. It’s not a new genre, having roots going back 30+ years, but it’s new to me. The first novel I read with this kind of flavor to it was last year’s The Paradox Hotel, which I absolutely couldn’t put down (just like this book), rated five stars (just like this book), and which occupies a well-deserved spot on my crowded bookshelves (which this book does as well, thanks to Knopf and Penguin Random House). There’s something about the cold, implacable march of science with its empirical laws and rules of evidence and the cool, calm facade of a detective who has their own laws and rules of evidence to follow that simply creates a fascinating, mutually beneficial relationship that can result in some of the most fascinating stories about the human condition. Titanium Noir is a story that has a lot of story to tell and most of it isn’t pretty, but all of it is about some kind of love. No noir novel is complete without a socioeconomic divide (in this case, a river and lake divide one side from the other–the rich and the not-rich). In the world of Titanium Noir, money doesn’t only mean you live in nicer houses and have better healthcare. It also means you might just make enough money to become a Titan. Not a titan of industry, but one of a select number of people who can afford to be injected with a genetic therapy formula called T7, which will rewind and repair all damage time or injury has inflicted on you. A literal bodily reset. The monetary cost is astronomical. Changes to your body? Yeah, there’s some of those too. You won’t ever be the same again and people will never look at you the same way again. You’re a Titan now, and there’s power in merely being you. The power exchange is too great to overcome now. Our protagonist, Cal Sounder, is a private detective on paper. In reality, he walks the thin line between the police and the Titans. He looks into things on the Titan’s side of the fence for the police from time to time and he looks into things on the poorer side of town for the Titans from time to time. This time around, he’s been retained by the police as a consultant on a case a little too hot for them to handle: A Titan has been murdered. The worldbuilding in this book is simply great. Take the gritty, icy streets of Chicago in winter and marry it to the neon city you’d see in an anime like Ghost in the Shell or Akira, and that’s the feel I got from the book. Crazy nightclubs, dirty dive bars, weird socialist social clubs, fusion restaurants, an elite university, a multinational conglomerate, apartment buildings, and a pig farm. This book visits a great many locales, all different from one another and fascinating in their own way given the landscape. Cal has that same cool, implacable facade of a practiced detective, but with far more leeway than a badge. His morals are a lot more flexible, too. That’s why he’s good at his job. He’s an enigmatic and charismatic character. He’s far more than he seems and capable of far more than you’d be able to discern, but it’s not until the book puts him into a situation that you get to see that Cal Sounder is a man of quick reflexes, wit, resources, and more. He has the trademark cynicism and wariness that comes from being surrounded by criminals and death as a profession, but he has one bright thing in his life and he keeps going, knowing she’s still around and waiting. The dialogue in this book is amazing. It’s all over the place in tone, just like human conversation should be, but you can read the shifts in tone as if they were being spoken and not written. It has razor-sharp wit, barbed sarcasm, tired musings over cups of bitter coffee, weary late-night conversations, exasperated arguments in hallways and alleyways, demented and dislocated words and phrases uttered under pain and duress, words softly spoken by soft lamplight in the late hours, and pessimistic rants from exhausted cops expressed at all hours of night and day. The plot is engrossing from the start, leaving the book an absolute page-turner you can’t put down. It absolutely feels like you can’t stop reading, because you never know when something bonkers, bloody, revelatory, or just plain interesting is going to happen. The book just keeps moving because Cal just keeps on moving. Unless he’s hurt. Then he stops for a minute. The ending might surprise you. It might not. I loved the ending, even though I guessed who the killer was. Keep in mind that the ending and the killer are two separate things. This is a story about love, after all. It’s just about different kinds of love. The killer and the ending are not about the same kinds of love. No matter what, though, this book is absolutely a killer read. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. I also received a physical early review copy of this book from Knopf and Penguin Random House as part of their influencer program (thank you). All opinions, thoughts, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Read/Crime Fiction/Crime Thriller/Dystopian Fiction/Murder Thriller/Mystery/Noir/Science Fiction ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 16, 2023
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May 17, 2023
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Feb 07, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0593084934
| 9780593084939
| 0593084934
| 3.29
| 13,421
| May 30, 2023
| May 30, 2023
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it was amazing
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“Oh she wants to conquer the world completely But first she'll conquer me discreetly The female of the species is more deadly than the male Oh she deals “Oh she wants to conquer the world completely But first she'll conquer me discreetly The female of the species is more deadly than the male Oh she deals in witchcraft And one kiss and I'm zapped Oh how can heaven hold a place for me When a girl like you has cast a spell on me… …The female of the species is more deadly than the male…” This classic rock song by the English band Space was something I hummed off and on while reading Beware the Woman, which I’ve come to think of as the love child of Rosemary’s Baby and Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s legacy from generations of female authors reading The Yellow Wallpaper and saying, “Oh heck no”. This isn’t just feminist psychological thriller at its finest, though. It’s also a deep satirical commentary on the waning power of the aging white male in his isolated mountain stronghold, a member of the boy’s club, where women aren’t welcome and should be home with the children and minding the house. In this book, boys will be boys until they get married to a good girl and have kids; and all girls are just tempting little Eves walking around just asking for it. These rural mountain communities are places out of time in a way, yet they are filled with men and boys who think they have every right to know everything about a woman’s body and to make decisions about it for them. Right from the start, our protagonist Jacy tells us she’s always had a bad picker. I’ve known women who have bad pickers. I myself have an inadequate picker, but not exactly bad. Somehow, between a fit of whimsy and that glow of brilliant new love, Jacy ignores her knowledge of having a bad picker and decides choosing to marry her boyfriend Jed after a short courtship is the best choice she’s ever made. She decides there’s nothing wrong with Jed. He’s perfect. See, I don’t care if this major point of foreshadowing may seem a bit too obvious. I don’t care at all. Why? Because this book hooked me as soon as I opened it. I was trying to decide which ARC to read next and I opened this one and all of a sudden I was more than ten pages in and couldn’t put it down. You should have seen me absolutely devouring this book: I snapped at anyone and everyone who pulled me away from it. I just wanted to keep reading. If I could’ve cooked my mom’s lunch while reading it, I would’ve. The first few pages hook you hard, and the first ten percent just reel you in nice and steady. Once Jacy and Jed have reached Jed’s father’s house, the frenetic energy from the very beginning slows to a steady thrum so it can pick up what feels like a sense of awkwardness at first, then anxiety, then foreboding, then dread, and then it becomes outright paranoia and panic before it becomes outright desperation as the book head into the 80% mark. From there, it’s a wild, frenetic ride that’s everything I had hoped it would be. I felt so satisfied by this book. The ending, pacing, plot development, character development, and sublime way Megan Abbott weaves those deep and dark themes into the narrative made Beware the Woman into one of the most satisfying thrillers I’ve read so far this year. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All opinions, thoughts, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Read/Domestic Thriller/Literary Fiction/Psychological Fiction/Suspense Thriller ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Jun 03, 2023
not set
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Jun 03, 2023
not set
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Feb 01, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0008600481
| 9780008600488
| 0008600481
| 3.68
| 25,048
| Apr 03, 2023
| Apr 11, 2023
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it was amazing
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On the day the physical ARC of this dark, twisted, and audaciously funny novel showed up on my doorstep I knew I was going to love it when I read it s
On the day the physical ARC of this dark, twisted, and audaciously funny novel showed up on my doorstep I knew I was going to love it when I read it simply from one little thing that has since been removed from the cover but was on my copy: If you look in the lower left hand corner of my picture, in very fine print, it says, “For legal purposes: a novel”. Cheeky. I snickered over that small bit of fine print for a little bit and even took a pic of it and sent it to my bestie because I thought it was that cheeky. How to Kill Men and Get Away With It isn’t a cheeky book, however. It’s dark, twisted, wicked smart, tragically funny, merciless in its anger, and unforgiving in its social criticisms. Katy Brent managed that rare feat of literary alchemy of perfectly weaving exposition into narrative without skipping a beat or losing a single bit of momentum in what had to have been a hard book to keep on track and keep even in both tone and pacing. While men are the most obvious target of anger and criticism in this book, don’t think that a single character (including Kitty, our protagonist), is immune to being a target of the book’s criticisms. The second largest set of people this book targets with anger and criticism are people who are glued to their social media accounts and what they’ll do to grow their accounts, keep their followers, and keep the money from collaborations and sponcon coming in. The third largest set of people to be razed and criticized are the rich and their tendency to do things purely for the power of virtue signaling (eco-tourism, holding huge charity galas, visiting orphanages in war-torn countries, adopting war orphans only to have nannies raise them, etc). Kitty Collins is the vegan heiress to a meat corporation. She’s been on her own since she was 18 and her mom moved to the south of France. Her dad went missing a couple of years before then. Kitty may be rich, but her posh apartment was set up for her by her mom before she left the UK and Kitty doesn’t spend any of the money she gets from being the heir to what she thinks of as blood money: she gets plenty of money and free products from just being Kitty Collins, one of the most popular influencers on Instagram. Her only family are her fellow astronomically-high follower count influencers, who she fully admits all have eating disorders, daddy issues, and absolutely have love affairs with alcohol and drugs of different shapes and sizes. They don’t tend to hang around other people, because who else is really worth their time? Kitty doesn’t really like people, but especially men. When one follows her out of a bar after she turns down his advances they have a physical argument and the man falls onto a broken half of a champagne bottle, which goes straight into a major artery. Kitty can’t help him and knows it wasn’t completely her fault, so she leaves the man there and goes home. The next day, she feels revitalized. She feels like she’s glowing. She doesn’t feel any guilt or remorse for what happened. She feels energetic and better than she has in some time. She took out a predator. A man who wanted to take what she wasn’t willing to give. She has no issue with that. She wouldn’t change a thing. I love how Katy Brent engineers Kitty Collins’ “code” for killing to make it look like Kitty is doing her own kind of virtue signaling by committing these vigilante murders: No kids, no women, no disabled people, no veterans, no homeless people, etc. As if murder isn’t murder no matter how you frame it. Not to mention, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and rules were made to be broken. As Kitty sits down to write herself her “code”, you can’t help but get the feeling that this code is going to come back and bite her in the butt later. You have to be careful with murder. You can’t risk recklessness. That’s how you get caught. The barbed, mocking tone that permeates this book is a joy to read simply because it matches up so nicely with the vacuousness of social media culture. Think of how easy it is to mock the people who are famous simply for being…them? How does one get famous and rich simply for being spotted at that one party that one night at the same time as that one celebrity and now somehow they have 10K more followers on Insta and are being sent sponcon and asked to collaborate for companies that aren’t scams? But once you’re up there with the influencers who have more followers than the population of a decent-sized city, what else is there? Who else is there? All day, every day, you’re just treated like an empty piece of meat for the public to consume. What will you do about it? I was provided a digital galley of this title by NetGalley and the author. I was also provided a physical ARC of this title by the folks at HarperCollins through their influencer program. All thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Read/Dark Comedy/Murder Thriller/Psychological Fiction/Satire/Suspense Thriller/Vigilante/Women’s Fiction ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 06, 2023
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Jun 06, 2023
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Jan 23, 2023
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Paperback
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| 0316457914
| 9780316457910
| 0316457914
| 3.76
| 8,374
| Jan 10, 2023
| Jan 10, 2023
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it was amazing
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In theory, I love noir mysteries. In reality, I need to be in the mood and have enough patience for them, because a good noir mystery can’t be rushed
In theory, I love noir mysteries. In reality, I need to be in the mood and have enough patience for them, because a good noir mystery can’t be rushed and I’m very impatient and prone to distraction. I will tell you it took me a lot of patience for me to read this book, because it definitely isn’t a book you will want to rush through and it isn’t one that will allow you to do so anyway. I will also tell you it took me almost two whole days of off and on reading to finish the book, which is a long time for me (just me, I know I’m weird and everyone thinks I must be a robot for being able to read more than one book a day) and I still loved the book, so that means it was really worth taking my time with this terrific neon-noir murder mystery. Heck, even simply calling it a “neon-noir murder mystery” seems like shortchanging it. It’s closer to “neon-noir murder mystery conspiracy thriller suspense novel”. There’s a genre mashup for you. Jordan Harper writes like he’s an architect: He builds this book using bricks made up of some of the most striking and sharp sentences I’ve seen in quite some time. I stopped more than once to re-read some of the sentences or to read them aloud because they were just that hot. And then those amazing sentences helped to make up well-structured paragraphs that housed this heavy, sordid, dark story of people who have enough money that humanity means nothing to them anymore, the people who are employed to make sure secrets stay secret, and a race to both try and save the day and see if there’s such a thing as redemption after a certain point in your life. If you’re looking for levity in any way, don’t look here. While there is humor in this book, it’s the humor borne of cynicism and seeing too much bad in the world. It’s gallows humor, heavy sarcasm, and sometimes even crude. It’s all right in line with the tone of the book and the characters, but this book isn’t written for the laughs–it’s written for the tragedy and sins of the rich, the famous, and the people who take out the trash. I’m trying to think of everything I could say about this book, but keeping in mind the genre, I don’t want to spoil anything. Let’s just say it’s a long ride, but it’s a wild one, and at the end you’re not going to regret taking your time with this one. Mulholland Books provided me with access to this title. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. Thank you. File Under: Crime Fiction/Noir/Mystery/Thriller/Crime Thriller/5 Star Reads ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 21, 2023
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Jan 23, 2023
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Jan 22, 2023
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Hardcover
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| B09WRJJKXC
| 4.32
| 403,141
| Aug 30, 2022
| Aug 30, 2022
|
it was amazing
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!!! #bookreview !!! Title: The Serpent and the Wings of Night Series: Crowns of Nyaxia, Book 1 Author: Carissa Broadbent Publisher: #indieauthor (this edi !!! #bookreview !!! Title: The Serpent and the Wings of Night Series: Crowns of Nyaxia, Book 1 Author: Carissa Broadbent Publisher: #indieauthor (this edition) Publication Date: August 30th, 2022 I’ve actually had this book sitting in my Kindle since around the time it was published. Why did I hesitate to read it? Probably because I was pretty sure I’d like it and didn’t feel this overwhelming push to read it right away. That feeling only increased once the second book in this duology came out. There was this feeling of, “Okay, well, now they’re out there and I can chill. No pressure to read them right this minute”. But I’ve been feeling the urge to read some good romantasy lately and a Throne of Glass-like vibe has been resonating with me, so when an ARC I was reading today turned into a DNF I decided to read this. So, yeah. I was right. I loved it. Loved it the way only devouring about 500 pages in less than seven hours can feel. Like it’s an old friend. Like it’s good for the soul. Like it’s good gossip and a warm cup of coffee on a classic fall day. Is it the best romantasy I’ve read this year? No. Was it just what I needed today? Yes. Did I immediately go download the sequel to immediately start absorbing tomorrow? Yes. Do I now want to own physical copies in addition to my ebooks? Yes! It was fun, it was sexy, it was violent, and I need more. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Jun 25, 2024
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Jan 18, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0063233924
| 9780063233928
| 0063233924
| 3.65
| 583
| Jul 04, 2023
| Jul 04, 2023
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it was amazing
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This is a collection of essays about criminology and criminal justice I didn’t even know I needed. I feel like I’ve just been injected with a huge dos
This is a collection of essays about criminology and criminal justice I didn’t even know I needed. I feel like I’ve just been injected with a huge dose of knowledge that’s going to take some time to totally soak in, but it feels almost like a vaccine: now that I have read and know these things I can’t unknow them and unthink them. Honestly, I don’t want to. I would rather have this inoculation–this knowledge–in my system than not. Because I have taken a bite of this apple and even though that apple was bitter, I am all the better for that bitter apple. The bitterness will help me remember to stay angry and remind me of my sadness while reading some of these essays. Evidence of Things Seen is split up into three parts: What We Reckon With (essays about the types of crimes that highlight the social inequities in this country and why they continue to be an issue); The True Crime Stories We Tell (essays about how social media intersects with true crime and how that can affect the time in which a crime is solved or how it can negatively affect the parties involved); and, Shards of Justice (essays featuring discourse on the future of criminal justice). The first part of the book, What We Reckon With, is by far the largest section of the book, as it takes up almost half of the collection. None of the essays in this collection are bad, but in this section, I found that I was captivated and felt most passionate about an essay called “‘No Choice but to Do It’: Why Women Go to Prison”, by Justine van der Leun, which calls into question why women who are forced to commit heinous crimes by their abusers under extreme duress (like the threat of murder) are charged alongside their abusers as if they are just as guilty of the crime instead of the victim of one. “The Golden Age of White-Collar Crime” by Michael Hobbes is a long essay I thought would bore me (which is a point made about white-collar crime in the essay itself) but actually managed to ensnare me instead by explaining very well how is it that every time another old, white man gets arrested for doing something heinous with money and destroying a bunch of people’s lives all he seems to manage to get is a couple of years in Club Fed. It’s a long but rewarding read. “Picturesque California Conceals a Crisis of Missing Indigenous Women” by Brandi Morin reports on a phenomenon that’s well-known to anyone who lives in Northern California (which I do, though not as far north as she’s reporting on), and that’s the extremely high rate of indigenous Native American women who just up and disappear from reservation lands in the upper third section of the state. If you’ve ever seen the true crime docuseries “Murder Mountain” or read up on “trimmigrants” (the migrant workers, largely female, who make the trek up to the Emerald Triangle every year to harvest the marijuana crop), you might be familiar with how during harvest season it’s not only indigenous women who go missing. It’s a serious problem in general in Northern California; but for Native American women it’s so much worse, because they just get snatched up off their reservations and are never seen again. In part two, The True Crime Stories We Tell, there’s only one essay I didn’t like too much, and that was “Who Owns Amanda Knox?” by Amanda Knox. The essay itself brings up plenty of valid points about how it feels sometimes that she has a doppelganger walking around that is the Amanda Knox everyone thinks she is instead of the Amanda Knox she actually is and that’s the Amanda Knox people keep thinking they can vilify and make money off of. The only reason I disliked this essay is because it felt a bit whiny. I understand she feels truly victimized after being wrongfully convicted by the Italian government twice, but she has her own podcast and a platform with which to voice her frustrations. I just felt like her essay wasn’t at the same level as the rest included in this collection. The other three essays in this section are all equally interesting and well-written. In part three, “Shards of Justice”, the first essay, “Will You Ever Change?” by Amelia Schonbek completely floored me. It’s one of the best essays in this whole collection in part because it talks about restorative justice, which is one of my favorite rehabilitation tactics to avoid recidivism rates. In this case, the type of restorative justice they’re talking about is surrogate dialogue. Surrogate dialogue takes the victim of a crime and a perpetrator of the same crime (but a completely unrelated one), and puts them at the same table across from one another. Each of them has an advocate and there is a facilitator to keep everyone in line and stand witness for the non-profit running the program. In order to engage in this program, the victim has to approach the program themself and the perpetrator (who has to be out of jail and be evaluated before being approved for the program) has to want to use this surrogate dialogue to help victims heal. It’s a community service. I found this essay to be touching and thought-provoking, because even though programs like this show great potential to reduce recidivism rates, no one wants to fund them. Another highlight of this section is “The Prisoner-Run Radio Station That’s Reaching Men on Death Row” by Keri Blakinger, which touches on how music is a universal language, even in prison. It’s a touching and emotional essay about how even the residents of Death Row, cut off from Gen Pop, can be part of the great prisoner community by being allowed to write into their prison radio station and have their words heard or their song requests played. Don’t forget to read the introduction or the editor’s note. They’re both interesting and informational reads. The introduction has a whole lot to say about the late, great author James Baldwin, who was writing essays about how systemic racism ran long and deep in our criminal justice system long before anyone was willing to listen. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Review/Anthology/Biography/History/Nonfiction/True Crime ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 09, 2023
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Jul 09, 2023
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Jan 16, 2023
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0358581281
| 9780358581284
| 0358581281
| 3.95
| 647
| Apr 11, 2023
| Apr 11, 2023
|
it was amazing
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‘“Hey, you know what Waco stands for?” went one. “We Ain’t Coming Out.”’ - Quote from Koresh The siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas t ‘“Hey, you know what Waco stands for?” went one. “We Ain’t Coming Out.”’ - Quote from Koresh The siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas took place when I was in my freshman year of high school. That was a landmark year for my family because my parents had finally saved enough money to buy us a brand-new house and we had moved in just the year before and were settling in. I was still an awkward, tiny girl with glasses and I knew there was something wrong with my brain but didn’t know exactly what it was yet. I just knew I wasn’t like other kids. I had a ton of friends, but I was also paranoid and insecure in my friendships. So believe me when I say, Waco was the last thing on my mind at that point in time in my life. Things like Ruby Ridge, the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, and Waco wouldn’t become something I even gave some thought to until the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 (incidentally, I visited that bombing site in the summer of 1995 during a cross country trip and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so devastated before in my life). Cults and cult leaders have been of great interest to me ever since I became interested in true crime in my late teens but David Koresh has been a topic I’ve largely stayed away from because of how volatile it can be and how much misinformation is out there about the events that happened at Mount Carmel. But Ruby Ridge and Waco are tied intrinsically to the alt-right and the fight against gun control legislation in the present day, so I felt it was time to go in and read something that might give me some insight as to how Waco ties into today’s arguments against gun control and just what went wrong during that siege that made so many people upset and paranoid. I should note: I did not fact check this book or Talty’s research. I did not have the time to do so. I am aware there is a ton of conflicting research and books on Koresh and on the siege of Mount Carmel. I am also an atheist, so I may come off as dismissive or unconcerned with the Branch Davidians religious beliefs. This is not intentional. I deeply believe in the part of the first amendment where we get to practice whatever religion we want and also be free not practice any religion. I love the first amendment, full stop. I also should note I am pro gun control, in a very, very strong manner, so I will try to keep away from discussion about weaponry. I’m not here to fight. I just want to review this book. I was very impressed with the first half of this book. In my opinion, Talty did an excellent job not only researching David Koresh’s childhood and family history, but he also did a tremendous job of humanizing the future cult leader. As a reader of fiction and nonfiction, I know how important it is to humanize the “villain”. David Koresh was a human being. His followers were human beings. His family are human beings. The survivors are human beings. None of these people just popped up out of a cabbage patch. Understanding David Koresh when he was just little Vernon Howell is absolutely vital to understanding how he ended up a dangerous and criminal cult leader. Reading the chapters involving Koresh’s childhood broke my heart, made me angry, and made me wonder just how many times there might have been a different choice that could’ve been made or a different way things could’ve gone that would’ve led little Vernon Howell away from the path that ultimately led him to Waco. We’ll never know, of course, but the sadness of a wasted life weighs on me, and it’s going to leave me thinking for just a while. It’s when Vernon Howell joins the Davidians that the sympathy for him as a child begins to evaporate and turn into condemnation and sorrow: Condemnation for Vernon, and sorrow for those who fell under his spell or became his victims of sexual assault and/or abuse. It’s clear by this point that Vernon Howell had either not escaped the copious amount of serious mental illness that ran through his family or the severe abuse he had received as a baby, child, and teen had damaged his brain enough to cause some sort of traumatic brain injury that had never been treated. It’s another thing we’ll never know and can never be fully explained. As much as I condemn the Branch Davidians and David Koresh for what they built, what they approved of, what they allowed David Koresh to do to their wives and children, and for their blind fanaticism, I was absolutely astounded at the ineptitude of the ATF and FBI. Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Oklahoma City bombing all took place before the formation of the department of Homeland Security (which wasn’t formed until after 9/11). Back then, the alphabet agencies not only didn’t share, they didn’t share well. If they were forced to share, it was a dominance fight every time. It was alpha males everywhere, banging their fists against their chests, all determined they were the best agency for the job and sometimes even willing to pull the rug out from under one another’s feet. Waco is an excellent example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing and sometimes even the right hand is unsure of what its supposed to be doing and the left hand is just hanging out not doing their job and acting like frat boys. Up until reading this book I hated Homeland Security, but boy does this book make it look like an excellent idea. What Waco needed was interagency cooperation from the bottom to the top and a very, very clear chain of command. One chain of command. Instead, it seemed like there were about 3-4 chains of command running around and sometimes people were just guessing at what they were supposed to be doing. Waco could’ve ended sooner and maybe even more peacefully if all these little boys had cooperated, shared information, and had one clear chain of command. Instead, there was chaos. I did feel like the second half of the book wasn’t as interesting to read as the first, if only because a lot of the time it felt repetitive when reading the transcripts between David or Steve and either the negotiators or one of the other agencies. I’d swing from bored to angry at how our government was acting to sad because I knew how the story was going to end. The book is a compelling read, especially if you’ve never read much about Koresh or what happened at Waco. What happened there changed the sociopolitical fabric of America that reached into the minds of people who are leaders of the alt-right today. It’s an important part of American history, and you should take the time to understand why this happened and why people have every right to be upset with our government’s part in what happened there. Because, in the end, the Branch Davidians needed to be taken down, but they didn’t deserve what happened to them. They deserved to go to jail. And a large part of why everything went so wrong was because of our government and the inability to listen or to humanize these people. It’s an important lesson we all need to learn. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, ideas, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Read/Biography/Cult/History/Nonfiction/True Crime ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 06, 2023
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Apr 14, 2023
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Jan 16, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0593320700
| 9780593320709
| 0593320700
| 4.07
| 7,111
| Feb 14, 2023
| Feb 14, 2023
|
it was amazing
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It’s there in the title and you should take it as a warning: This book is savage. It’s a painful, visceral, heartbreaking read that reached right into
It’s there in the title and you should take it as a warning: This book is savage. It’s a painful, visceral, heartbreaking read that reached right into my stomach, womb, heart, and brain with long fingers filled with beautiful words, ugly secrets, horrific scenes, and nauseating characters in a way no book has for a good long time now. I don’t get book hangovers that often, but I’m telling you that after I closed this book I felt like a deflated balloon, a crushed soda can, or maybe even a flattened cardboard box. I feel drained, dried out, and just worn at the seams. Tiffany McDaniel has weaved a spell on this book that I don’t think will allow any reader to escape unscathed. You might try your hardest to harden your heart, but I can guarantee that between all the dark, dirty, sad, and desperate things that occur during this book you will definitely find yourself feeling something, and McDaniel’s writing will pierce you deeply. I found myself thinking of my review for Erin Kate Ryan’s release from last year, Quantum Girl Theory, where I said: “Is every missing girl the same as every other missing girl, or do some missing girls count for more?…When do people just give up on missing girls, and when does a missing girl stop being just a missing girl and becomes more of a distant memory?” This book’s thesis is rightfully on the side of some missing girls counting for more, but the book is also clear in pointing out that no one cares about missing girls much at all, no matter who they are or what they do for a living–not as long as men make all the rules and enforce them. As long as men hold the reins, we will be under their hooves. McDaniel’s prose is bewitchingly beautiful, even when what’s happening is horrible and depraved. This book has the most melancholy and lovely passages told from the POV of the river, and even as the river describes matters such as the decomposition of the human body, there’s something poetic and naturally calming about these passages, like the river is trying to reassure us readers that she is taking care of the bodies that find their way into her waters, that the breaking down of their physical bodies is something natural and nothing to be afraid of. It was what happened before those bodies entered her currents that’s to be feared. What’s simultaneously gutting and healing are these quasi autopsy reports that crop up periodically throughout the book, which you would have to see for yourself to understand what I’m talking about. There is not a single character in this book who is even close to whole. They’re all broken into pieces, but how many pieces differ from character to character, and varies depending on where each character is in their life as the book goes on. The way McDaniel writes them, though, you could think that even the most shattered people are the most lovely and the people who seem like they might actually be living a more complete life are carrying the ugliest secrets. A special toast to McDaniels for the courage she showed not only in writing this book, but in the way she chose to write it. It couldn’t have been easy to make the choices she did, but she made them all the same. Not only was I close to gobsmacked, but I couldn’t think of a more perfect ending. I was provided with a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All views and opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: General Fiction/Literary Fiction/Psychological Fiction/Mystery/Thriller/Suspense/Crime Thriller/Murder Thriller/OwnVoices/5 Star Reads/Crime Thriller/Genre Mashup ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 20, 2023
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Feb 20, 2023
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Jan 13, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 125028080X
| 9781250280800
| 125028080X
| 4.07
| 201,502
| Feb 02, 2023
| Mar 07, 2023
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it was amazing
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This novel, written with great care and love by Emilia Hart, is most obviously about women and their connection to the earth and to nature. To what be
This novel, written with great care and love by Emilia Hart, is most obviously about women and their connection to the earth and to nature. To what being kept away from it does to us and what being steeped in it does for us. That’s the way it’s always been. It is also, under the surface, a treatise on how men fundamentally can’t (and therefore don’t or won’t) understand that connection women have to the earth and consistently covet them and snatch them up like magpies and then cage them and guard them sometimes to the point of violence. Men are the hunters. Women are the hunted. The more innate power a woman carries, the more men will be drawn to her. That’s the way it’s always been. Weyward takes these two ideas, both of which are true if you dig down to our evolutionary roots, and soaks them in magical realism, lovely prose, vivid imagery, terrific world building, and careful character construction to weave together three timelines featuring women of the Weyward family line and how these two themes affect(ed) their lives, relationships, travails, and how the rest of their lives panned out. Each story is filled with earnest and heartfelt emotion. While at times a touch too on the nose or melodramatic, this novel is one I’d definitely recommend picking up for a lyrical and moving read. I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction/Magical Realism/Women’s Fiction/5 Star Reads ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Mar 07, 2023
not set
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Mar 08, 2023
not set
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Jan 13, 2023
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 3.77
| 600,939
| May 16, 2023
| May 25, 2023
|
it was amazing
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Dudes, give into the hype surrounding this book, because it’s every bit as good as everyone says it is. This book is the literary equivalent of these
Dudes, give into the hype surrounding this book, because it’s every bit as good as everyone says it is. This book is the literary equivalent of these addictive little frozen chai milk tea-flavored mochi bites they sell at Trader Joes. I just can’t help but keep putting those morsels into my mouth, and I just couldn’t help but devour this book page by compelling page. Oh, how I love to loathe a book’s protagonist. What’s more is I love how much I hated just about everyone in this book. They were all awful, save Mrs. Liu. She’s an angel. But otherwise? Each and every other character in this book is either so inconsequential I could dismiss or forget them as easily as June (our protagonist) does or I could just outright think each and every one of them was an absolutely awful person in their own way. And, to my amusement and for the shade of it all, I adored each and every one of them for being the horrible human beings they were. Because that’s who they are. Human beings. And that’s part of what I took away from this book. We’re all human beings living in the shades of grey, and between cultural diaspora, socioeconomic strata, generational trauma, and social media none of us know how to be genuine anymore or know how to handle people who actually are genuine. There’s a general distrust between each and every one of us here in America, because America runs on individualism and that need to be the one wearing the crown, and white people largely and genuinely don’t know what to make of other cultures where collectivism, trust, and generosity make the world go ‘round. We white people want that feeling for ourselves (I know I do), but most of us aren’t willing to give up our individuality, prestige, and money for such a life. And that’s sad. The first act of this book upset me greatly, to the point where I was growling and shaking my Kindle because I was so mad. Please don’t mistake this for criticism of the book, because it’s not. This section of the book should make you upset. It should make you mad because you’re reading the process of taking one author’s hard work and stripping away her unique voice only to supplement it with another’s. You see large sections of important historical events get cut from the book for the sake of not triggering readers. Terrified young women become softer. June and her editors essentially vivisect the original author’s manuscript until it becomes a neutered version of the original, all set for proper public consumption. Now it’s not a tour de force piece of historical literary military fiction–it’s just a solid historical military fiction novel. It’s a ghost of the novel it could’ve been. That’s a travesty in and of itself. The fact that June, the original author’s white friend, rebrands herself in order to sell this novel and keeps using absurdly twisted logic to justify her actions is almost an even larger travesty. This book has so many terrific points to make: About how there’s a difference culturally in how stories are passed down from the old to the young. About how some white people think all Asian people look alike and their names sound alike but never think about how white people all look a lot alike. About how social media is poisonous to everyone, but especially creative souls. About cancel culture, how easy it is to be canceled for something that happened years and years ago and how you can never recover once that happens but how men still always bounce back quicker from scandals than any woman does. How fast the news cycle runs and the pressure to publish or perish doesn’t stay in academia but extends into the publishing industry as well, and how important it is for authors to be firm and specific when it comes to negotiations with film studios over film rights. You make your own hell. You make your own prison. June did both of these things the moment she decided to take her dead friend’s manuscript and make it hers. It hems her in by shame, greed, anxiety, and fear. She sees no way out and she definitely doesn’t know if she wants out. The only way she’s going away is if she’s forced. There’s that Protestant Work Ethic wrapped in vice. I don’t think I need to tell you to pick this up. It should be a foregone conclusion. It’s sharp, biting, shady, witty, and will make you angry three ways to Sunday. It’s worth every minute you spend on it. You won’t be able to put it down. I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Read/AAPI Fiction/Literary Fiction/OwnVoices/Satire ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 19, 2023
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May 19, 2023
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Dec 16, 2022
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0593438884
| 9780593438886
| 0593438884
| 3.72
| 4,110
| Jun 06, 2023
| Jun 06, 2023
|
it was amazing
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There’s really no way Eliza Jane Brazier could’ve titled this book anything different, because Girls and Their Horses is the perfect title for this bo
There’s really no way Eliza Jane Brazier could’ve titled this book anything different, because Girls and Their Horses is the perfect title for this book and all it encompasses. It’s not only the present-day horse girls who the title applies to–it’s also the horse girls of the past and the horse girls of the future. I seriously don’t think Eliza Jane Brazier can write a bad book. Her writing is just so freaking compelling, propulsive, and engaging. This story starts off slow and steady and just keeps building the story, narrative, relationships, suspense, rewards, consequences… It just keeps building and building everything up like a really good suspense novel does until a really well done turn that’s sublimely plotted. I admire how well EJB writes characters. From the bottom to the top they’re all completely fleshed out and unique. No one gets left out in terms of having their own voice. In this book that’s especially important since the cast skews largely female and between teenage daughters and mothers. The dynamics there vary between mothers and daughters, sisters, friends, fathers and daughters, and boys and girls. For each dynamic and character there’s going to be a different push and pull. EJB is blessed in her talent to keep everything straight and consistent throughout the book. I’m not saying the book is perfect, because it’s not. I found certain aspects of the book predictable. Not all of it. Not the most important part of the book. That kept me guessing all the way up until it was revealed. But some of the rest of the mysteries I could guess. That’s not entirely bad, though. Not when the book is this good. And it’s really good. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Review/Literary Fiction/Psychological Fiction/Suspense ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 20, 2023
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Dec 21, 2023
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Dec 13, 2022
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1250879035
| 9781250879035
| 1250879035
| 4.18
| 7,000
| Jul 11, 2023
| Jul 11, 2023
|
it was amazing
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For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. (King James Version, Mark 5.8-9) It’s 1905 in Pennsylvania, and we’re at a Catholic orphanage for boys. Our protagonist, Peter, has been at the orphanage for seven years, ever since his father shot his mother (accidentally setting the house on fire in the process), and then put his shotgun under his own skin and pulled the trigger in front of young Peter. Since that night he’s been at St. Vincent’s, and is almost ready to enter the priesthood himself, if he can decide he loves serving God enough to give up hopes of marrying the Hill girl down the road someday. It’s early winter in Pennsylvania, and everyone is trying to get ready for the time when they’ll all be hunkering down as the snow falls, the rough roads become impassable, the game goes to ground or is all hunted down, and there is not even one root vegetable left in the ground. The orphanage, already living on Christian charity alone, barely has enough food to feed their charges, which number close to 40. They are completely full of growing boys of all ages, and not one of them isn’t living with their own inner demons. Not the biblical ones, silly. Not until one night, when the county sheriff brings his horribly injured and possessed brother to the door of the orphanage and begs the priests to help save his brother’s soul. That night, something dark is let loose on hallowed ground and into the vulnerable souls of damaged boys. The thing about darkness is that you never know who it’s going to affect, why it’s going to affect them, and just how bad it’s going to be when it hits them. Sometimes it’s the ones you suspect the most. Sometimes, it’s the last ones you expect. This book is stark and bleak, but vividly drawn with gore and terror. There’s a great juxtaposition between heroism and sainthood. There’s another great juxtaposition between being made evil and being primed for evil (we’re leaving the moral/philosophical argument about the notion of evil out of this since this book is set in a highly religious landscape and has a lot of biblical references). This book is no Hobbes v. Rousseau treatise: Everyone in this book is uniquely gray in their own way. It’s how they have dealt with their personal demons, how they have lived their life in the orphanage, how they have helped the other orphans, and how they handle the demonic infestation that endangers them all that helps to shine a light on their true natures. Don’t think the adults are exempt from this same judgment. They have to face the same God, after all. I was absolutely thrilled by the evil children, because I loves me some evil children. Especially if demons are involved. There’s a good deal of blood, guts, decay, and gore, so that makes me a happy horror fan. The fight scenes are violent and bloody and I’m here for it. It’s super violent and there’s a ton of death. It has an almost cinematic vibe to it, which absolutely thrilled me. I don’t issue a laundry list of TW/CW, but I am going to say that if you are the type of person to have triggers involving kids, animals, or religion, then I think you might wanna stay away or look for a comprehensive trigger list online. Otherwise, let the blood fly! I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. File Under: 5 Star Review/Gothic Fiction/Historical Fiction/Horror/Occult Fiction/Occult Horror ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 11, 2023
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Jul 11, 2023
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Dec 01, 2022
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 3.35
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 26, 2023
|
Mar 16, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.97
|
it was amazing
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Nov 03, 2023
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Mar 10, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.75
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 17, 2023
|
Mar 06, 2023
|
|||
|
| 4.04
|
really liked it
|
May 15, 2023
not set
|
Mar 02, 2023
|
|||
|
| 4.00
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it was amazing
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Apr 12, 2023
|
Feb 23, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.84
|
it was amazing
|
Feb 15, 2023
|
Feb 14, 2023
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|||
|
| 3.96
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 17, 2023
|
Feb 10, 2023
|
|||
|
| 4.00
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 14, 2023
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Feb 07, 2023
|
|||
|
| 4.03
|
it was amazing
|
May 17, 2023
|
Feb 07, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.29
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 03, 2023
not set
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Feb 01, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.68
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 06, 2023
|
Jan 23, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.76
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 23, 2023
|
Jan 22, 2023
|
|||
|
| 4.32
|
it was amazing
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Jun 25, 2024
|
Jan 18, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.65
|
it was amazing
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Jul 09, 2023
|
Jan 16, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.95
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 14, 2023
|
Jan 16, 2023
|
|||
|
| 4.07
|
it was amazing
|
Feb 20, 2023
|
Jan 13, 2023
|
|||
|
| 4.07
|
it was amazing
|
Mar 08, 2023
not set
|
Jan 13, 2023
|
|||
|
| 3.77
|
it was amazing
|
May 19, 2023
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Dec 16, 2022
|
|||
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| 3.72
|
it was amazing
|
Dec 21, 2023
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Dec 13, 2022
|
|||
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| 4.18
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 11, 2023
|
Dec 01, 2022
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