Sometimes it is very fun to read a a melodramatic vaguely (maybe not so vaguely) horny book for teenagers. I will never not be into "oh no everyone haSometimes it is very fun to read a a melodramatic vaguely (maybe not so vaguely) horny book for teenagers. I will never not be into "oh no everyone hates me".
I do fear I will be flying through this series. I am confused as to where to get the text version, but I assume I shall figure it out.
The art is pretty! The layout is great. The melodrama is melodramatic. No one knows how to express an emotion. I had fun.
Also! Proof I can like romantasy that is not that in depth on the fantasy!...more
This was a really weird one for me because I think all the elements on their own sound great, but for some reason I just wasn't really captured in theThis was a really weird one for me because I think all the elements on their own sound great, but for some reason I just wasn't really captured in the way I would have expected to be.
I did listen to this book on audiobook with narrator Lindsey Dorcus, and I do think this is is a reason I did not gel with the book. The narrator is an American doing a very weird British accent. It isn't awful, but it sounds like it takes a lot of effort and was generally very distracting while listening. I might give this book another shot with my eyes and maybe that will improve the experience.
My stand out feature of this book was the world building! I was incredibly interested in this world, frankly to the point where I wanted way more information than what was provided. WHich is not to say that the world was underdeveloped, just that I really liked learning about it. This is climate fiction set off Earth about a society of humans who are trying to re introduce plants and animals back to Earth so that the biome will be habitable to humans again. I really liked the information on how academia works here, it isn't dark academia so much as it is tongue-in-cheek academia, but the academic aspect of the narrative was probably what I found most enjoyable. I also really liked how much information on transportation systems the reader received. I love a train.
This is a Holmes/Watson situation except they are lesbians who used to date in college. I am not sure how well the mystery aspect of the story worked for me, but I do think my attention waning could have been more related to the narration than the content. I am also unsure how well the Holmes/Watson of it all worked for me as well. Especially with the pair being explicitly romantically linked I really needed to understand why Pleiti, the Watson, liked Mossa, the Holmes. And I just sort of still don't entirely get it. I do think I was starting to get on board and if I continue the series or reread I think I could be convinced, this might also be a case of the narration hindering my enjoyment.
I do think I will be reading the next installment in this series and making a decision from there about reading more from this author. But I am sure that this narrator is a no go from me, at least if shes putting on this accent. ...more
Jokingly every time there is a reference to the Second World War in a book about the First World War I like to saMy socks have been knocked right off!
Jokingly every time there is a reference to the Second World War in a book about the First World War I like to say to myself "omg spoilers!!!" and this book gave me a few opportunities to do my little joke. But the way it ended talking about Churchill and leading up to what comes next was great.
A has-been issuing warnings about the rearmament of Nazi Germany that few were prepared to take seriously. But that is another story.
It is the best job someone has done so far to get me to want to read a book about the Second World War. Or to finally finish the three volume Churchill biography I started years ago. He is an exhausting man to spend thousands of pages with.
But back to this book. A man on a podcast about WWI (it was not a very good podcast) said this was his favorite single volume account of the war and it was already on my list so I jumped into it once I got fed up with the podcast. And I am very glad I did!
This was a really well structured book, which is exceptionally important when a book is as long and dense as this one is. I really enjoyed the little asides in each chapter giving the reader context that might have been outside the strict purview of a war account. I also found the way Meyer was able to keep the reader rooted in time and place of new event discussed (and events the reader was returning to) to be very effective.
I listened to this book on audio and I am really interested in getting a physical copy and rereading it that way. It seems to not matter how many books I read on this topic I still feel like I know incredibly little about the subject, which isn't a dig at books like this just an acknowledgement that this is a massive topic.
I thought this was a great read on the topic, I look forward to picking up another book by Meyer in the future. ...more
As I was reading I was way way way more focused on logistical issues (transit, money, amount of time passing, access to electThis book is just awful.
As I was reading I was way way way more focused on logistical issues (transit, money, amount of time passing, access to electricity) than I was on emotions or anything remotely related to the romance. The characters are so flimsy, this book has a lot of very poorly written sex, I do not understand why these people like each other at all, and truly there isn't enough sport in this book ostensibly about football/soccer.
This book does the thing where to be worthy of love the famous character must come out as publicly as possible. This trope wouldn't be so annoying if any author who used it was actually interested in exploring the ramifications of coming out incredibly publicly and (despite what every one of these characters has ever said) just for a romantic relationship, almost always a VERY new one, would actually have on a person. Coming out takes the emotional place of a grand gesture to make up for harm which just doesn't work! This is a whole different situation but authors treat it like its the same thing. I clearly hate it.
But before the book even touched the topic of coming out I hated this book. The dialogue is almost laughable, the characters lack consistency and just feel very much like cardboard throughout, the plot is so contrived. The secondary characters were also horrible (in the nonsensical way, not a moral judgment). Actions rarely had consequences, which made the plot hard to care about. I never felt like anything was uncertain. Just the whole book is a mess. The more self published books I read the more confused I am as to how anyone manages to find even decent books in all the mess that surrounds them.
The way this author wrote homelessness and drug use were both very bad, but my one "positive" of this book is she only kinda demonizes people who use drugs. It's fine to do for fun, but she seems a little judgey about addiction. Though she did literally write a character exhibiting signs of addiction but it was fine cause when he was happy and in love he didn't need drugs again.
I just wrote and deleted a paragraph where I was being VERY fiesty towards people who think this book is good. So it is time to end the review. This book sucks....more
I am not sure how to appropriately or adequately talk about this book. I kind of feel compelled to lMy brain is on fire. I am so very into this book.
I am not sure how to appropriately or adequately talk about this book. I kind of feel compelled to list this books sins as a way to buffer it from my very very big feelings towards this book. I don't think this is a good impulse and I don't really think I would do a good job. I also don't think I am going to do a good job talking about what I love about this book.
I knew basically every beat of the plot going into this book, I listened to an episode of the Shelf Love podcast where Emma guested and they talked about this book in detail, so I knew what events were coming for me in this book. This in no way made me disconnect from the emotionality of this story, it was truly just so effecting!
This book also has a lot of elements that are objectively wild but it feels sort of cheapening to highlight these factors when they aren't what makes the book so good.
I just really love romance that isn't afraid to have characters knowingly do harm to each other, and romance where despite that harm you still believe in the couple. Also Daisy is my new best friend, she's crazy and I love her.
I laughed, I cried, I snuck away from important things to read a single page because I just needed a little bit more of this book. I am so excited for future me who gets to reread this. ...more
This is my second Cassandra Khaw book this year and I'm glad I've followed this whim to read their novellas!
This was a book both delightfully disgustiThis is my second Cassandra Khaw book this year and I'm glad I've followed this whim to read their novellas!
This was a book both delightfully disgusting and linguistically lush! I was very icked out and I got to read someone be excellent with words, both of which I am very on board with. Also, is this the only mermaid horror where no one drowns? haha
I feel like this book is for people who like The Empress of Salt and Fortune and also horror. They have some superficial overlap, and some very clear differentiation (body horror), but they also hit some notes in a way that I think worked for me in the same way.
I love reading a horror that reminds me about how similar I think horror is to romance, and I love that even more when the author seems to agree with me. ...more
This was a really interesting addition to my First World War knowledge. The Somme is a collection of first hand accounts of the battle with additionalThis was a really interesting addition to my First World War knowledge. The Somme is a collection of first hand accounts of the battle with additional context and connective tissue supplied by Hart. It is a very British leaning account and it focuses on people across a wide swath of military experiences.
An aside: In lots of reviews of various books about this war that I have read I see people lamenting that a single book does not do everything, that it is too narrow or too broad, that it only covers a single front or national experience, that the book doesn't provide enough outside context or that it is not focused on the actual war being waged heavily enough. These complaints seem to silly to me, thinking that a single book is going to be able to handle every single aspect of the war and not be so long as to be exhausting to both read and write. I like that with each new book I've picked up on this topic I have been building a framework of understanding the narrative in the book and connecting that information with other sources. It is probably the most engaging part of any history learning and its so weird that so many nonfiction book people are so grumpy about it.
I really enjoyed this book! It is very long and focused on the granular. It provided enough context as to not be confusing but I do definitely want to find other accounts of this battle that take a different approach to fill out my understanding of the political choices, as well as the French and German perspective.
That being said this book does really shine because it is so focused on individual soldiers varied experiences. Hart puts a wide array of people together who have varied opinions and experiences. This kind of recounting of the war is not one I had yet encountered and I think this has been really enlightening.
It was very well structured and easy to follow. I listened to some of this book on audio and read some with my eyes and did not find either experience confusing. Although the book has very many maps that very much enhance the reading experience and I imagine that if you listen you will want to get a hold of a physical copy to actually look at the battle field. I was particularly struck by the map that contrasts the frontline at the start to its final position.
I feel I am not doing a good job talking about this book, but it is just so massive and covers so much ground I feel unsure how to do it justice. I thought it was great. It's a chunk, but it uses the page space very well. ...more
It follows a plastic surgeon, Harold Gillies, and is coworkers and contemporaries who did facial reconstruction surgeries (amonThis book is fabulous.
It follows a plastic surgeon, Harold Gillies, and is coworkers and contemporaries who did facial reconstruction surgeries (amongst other surgeries not detailed much in the book) on soldiers and veterans from the First World War. It does at times get into some of the nitty gritty of the surgeries, and also gives biographical information about both surgeon and patient as well as information about the war and common injuries.
I am quite a queasy person, and a few times the descriptions of surgical procedures made me pause reading for a few minutes, but the subject matter was so compelling that I kept reading quite quickly when this happened.
I cannot over state how compelling I found this book. The stories this book contains truly covers such a full expanse of the human experience. There is triumph and devastation, romance and heartbreak, stories of war time and peace.
I’ll finish my review at some point but the point is I love this book....more
Some books are better than other books. This is very much a book better than others.
An important thing about deciding to read this book is that I do Some books are better than other books. This is very much a book better than others.
An important thing about deciding to read this book is that I do not think that you should read the summary. I am normally both team you cannot spoil nonfiction and team spoilers don't ruin the reading experience but I do firmly believe that you will have a wilder reading experience if you only read the first two paragraphs and roll with the actual book from there.
I picked up this book because of this tiktok about the book by the lovely Haley, literally downloaded the book from my library half way through her video.
When describing this book I do feel a little like the Stefon SNL skit, but this book truly does have everything. A journey to find the source of the Nile, two Englishmen who come to hate each other, a lovely wonderful African man who does more than half the shit for them, scientific beef, DRAMA, a BUG IN A MAN'S EAR, wild animals, beautiful descriptions of land, romance that is also a little insane, betrayal (like several times), very very very good gossip, and it is just fabulously written.
I was so incredibly invested in this story. Truly this book is bursting with interesting happenings and intense conflict. Everything from incredible fun facts (you SHOULD hire women for your expedition because they are hardworking and don't require food as they can just "lick their fingers" as they cook and don't require actual meals) to big moments of intense geopolitical intrigue and import. I cannot overstate my own interest.
It is interesting to map your shifting feelings about the people in this book. Everyone has such an interesting story, even some of the bit players. But the main three Burton, Speke, and Bombay are fascinating. And Burton's eventual wife Isabel was a banana's dot com ride. She saw an incredibly hot man and immediately dedicated literally her whole life to becoming his wife, and then does some infuriating shit. Now to Speke, he immediately and consistently seems both awful and obnoxious, he must have been incredibly charming to have so many friends when his main thing seems to be eating animal fetuses and betraying anyone he possibly can.
I also appreciated Millard highlighting the harmful and racist philosophies Burton and Speke supported and the impacts these things had long after both men's deaths and despite Burton learning the error of his ways. She did a good job throughout the book of putting people's beliefs and actions in broader context, and not using that as a tool of absolution.
I am obsessed with this book and I think that is the natural conclusion of having read this book. ...more
This book isn't very good, and I liked the premise a lot, but it also just isn't very well executed. I cannot tell if LoveLight Press is a 'real' publThis book isn't very good, and I liked the premise a lot, but it also just isn't very well executed. I cannot tell if LoveLight Press is a 'real' publisher, they do seem to be defunct now, but this book very much feels like it wasn't really structurally edited, at least not by someone who is competent. I also don't think this is really a romance? It is absolutely a Cinderella retelling, and that does have romantic elements, but the couple spend so little time together that for a while I kinda thought the book was going to switch gears and pick a new love interest.
There are a few aspects of this book that are a little bit nonsense. The weirdest is when Ella's transphobic step-mother is actively kicking her out she suddenly starts using the correct pronouns, like literally as she is actively saying Ella isn't a woman. It seems like this is a patriarchal world but for some reason Ella, who everyone in her life treats as a man, does not inherit her dead father's estate. Also the world building in this book doesn't make much sense, it truly does feel like the author just sort of spewed a bunch of disporate details onto a page and did not really try to make it a coherent world?
We are literally given three different possible governing structures, a Kingdom, a Duchy, and a Diocese (I do know all these things can technically happen together but it does feel like the author is just throwing out words and not actually thinking of the implications of any of these systems?). There is a princess, we never again see a reference to a Duke, and I am baffled by the little blip of Catholicism. The princess seems to indicate that she has to marry a man, then just suddenly no one cares when she exclusively dances with a woman and then chooses to court that woman. In this world the Princess has never met a man who likes to talk about the outdoors which is very funny.
I legitimately cannot tell if the author was trying to write a society that baseline accepts queer people or not. I also am baffled as to who this book is for? Like the book seems to be marketed towards adults, and the book has some upsetting content, but it truly feels like the author is writing to a youngish child.
I also unfortunately found this book boring to read, it is under a hundred pages and I was still compelled to skim. The world is nonsense, the characters are almost robotic, the plot is beat for beat what you expect from Cinderella. Basically the only things I liked was some of the first chapter and the eyeshadow scene.
I am very glad I got this for free. I would love to read another trans Cinderella book, I do think Cinderella is a fairytale that you could do really interesting things with a trans main character, I just think I need to find a more competent author's attempt....more
I really loved a lot about this book! I was very much in the mood for a horror novel (I am currently reading a collection of horror short stories and I really loved a lot about this book! I was very much in the mood for a horror novel (I am currently reading a collection of horror short stories and I just really wanted a novel length story) and this book certainly provided! The book follows Mira, a Black woman returning home to North Carolina to attend the wedding of a white friend she had as a child. The wedding is being held on a plantation, which is horrific enough, but as children Mira and her friend Jesse had something traumatic happens in and because of that plantation.
I am a reader who enjoys flashbacks and the first 30-40% of this book have a lot of flashbacks to when Mira was a child and her friendships with Celine and Jesse. This gives the reader a slow layering of all the information needed to create this story. I really like a slower beginning, and I think this story benefits from a methodical set up. It really felt the the author trusted the reader to pay attention and glean what was important about the interactions being shared.
Oddly the ghost 'flashbacks' we see through Mira in the second half of the novel didn't work as well for me. I would have liked them much more if we had been rooted in the point of view of someone who was alive at the time getting their emotion and not just seeing it through Mira. This does tie into many other parts of the book where Mira's narration feels like she is not in her body experiencing the events of the narrative. This is used to show Mira holding herself back from the people around her and her own actions I assume, but it doesn't always make for a good building up of the tension in this story. Obviously the content of the flashbacks was necessary for the story to work, and I felt for the people in these scenes, but I do think the way it was done did disrupt the tension for me.
The biggest thing I disliked about the book also surrounded these flashbacks. The reader would get information from these flashbacks or some other way in the narrative and then a character, often times Jesse, would come in and give the reader a summary of the information we just learned. I just find it very frustrating when authors give readers information about the story and then soon after write an explicit summary of that information. It feels like the author doesn't trust the reader to pay attention to what was written in the book.
All that being said I did really enjoy the plot of this book! I thought it was really well put together and I remained very interested and engaged through out! This is a pretty good plot for people who like to 'solve the book', and the elements that are not solvable from the information presented to the reader are fairly guessable. But I really liked how much ground McQueen was able to cover narratively and thematically. Sometimes she manages this by being a little heavy handed, but she really shines when she trusts the reader to follow her story. I particularly liked the interludes for this reason.
McQueen writes really beautifully throughout the novel. There were multiple times I would read and reread a single sentence just because I was so enamoured with it. One of my favorites was "Memory can shift in its recalling, making the past become not what one remembers, but what one believes". This sentence was great not just in that I think it is well structured and worked in the paragraph but also because it is sort of the core of what this book is addressing thematically.
I am really excited to read more by LaTanya McQueen in the future. She is such a captivating writer and I am very interested to see where her writing goes after this book. ...more
This was a really fun collection! I had a lot of fun reading it, I only truly disliked one story and I thought six were really great. The one I didn'tThis was a really fun collection! I had a lot of fun reading it, I only truly disliked one story and I thought six were really great. The one I didn't like is marked as three stars and I meant to change it to 2 but I couldn't remember which one it was so I did not. Oops.
My main complaint about this collection is that most of the stories aren't really scary at all, every story I do think meets the genre definition of horror, but I do think a lot of the stories would feel more comfortable in a speculative fiction collection rather than a horror specific collection. Which might be overly nitpick-y, but also was something I thought about constantly while reading.
I do think this collection is otherwise really well put together. The stories each have their own thematic space to embody, each story has its own space to breath. I really liked the way the stories were layed out, I don't agree with the assertions that some reviews have made that all the good stories are grouped together, though I do think the first three are great and the last three as kinda perfect. But there are really great stories in the middle as well!
My favorite story was Your Happy Place by Terence Taylor, but I also really loved Eye and Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse, The Aesthete by Justin C. Key, A Grief to the Dead by Rion Amilcar Scott, Hide and Seek by P. Djeli Clark, and Origin Story by Tochi Onyebuchi.
Reckless Eyeballing by N.K. Jemisin 4 stars A cop sees eyes instead of headlights on cars and taks this as a sign the driver has committed a crime. This story is thought provoking and well written and upsetting and gross! I did have to read the end over a few times to be sure I got what was going on, I think this is because I don’t read very much body horror.
Eye and Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse 5 stars This story contains the title of the collection! It is about two monster hunting siblings who are on a business trip to rural Texas. I only needed to read a few pages to know I need to get a move on reading Roanhorse’s books. This story isn’t scary at all but it is fabulous!
Wandering Devil by Caldwell Turnbull 4 stars This one was really good! It really wasn’t scary though. Right at the end something bad happens but it isn’t something scary. I mean it would be scary to be in that situation but it happens right at the very end so we don’t get to see what is scary. This story is about a man who is wrapped up in Wonderlust that is personified in his brain. He travels across the US never staying in one place for long. We spend the majority of the time with him in Philadelphia while he tries to decide if he should continue his nomad lifestyle or settle down with a lovely lady.
Invasion of the Baby Snatchers by Leslie Nneka Arimah 3 stars THIS ONE IS SCARY! Not terrifying, but 100% I was scared. Until the end when I was just kinda confused. This is about a woman who works for an agency that tries to eradicate alien babies that are being born from human mothers. This story has a lot of really really interesting stuff going on in it, and is occasionally quite funny. I reread this story and I still think the that it is an excellent story right until the very last moment, literally like I just didn’t like the last few words.
The Other One by Violet Allen 3 stars Small quibble, Thor is a nickname that would work for the MC’s ex. Also, this person is blackmailing someone in writing. This would be incredibly easy to prove, this author needs a better justification for not calling someone. Doesn’t even need to be 911, just like does she not have friends? This story is about a woman who was recently broken up with. She sad texts her ex boyfriend and receives a picture of a human heart in return. I’m not totally sure I gel with the writing style, it is a touch quirky. I do think the story is interesting, I particularly liked the ending! I think I’m middling about this it has a good story, writing I cannot stand, and that weird plot justification that makes no sense. Maybe I should be less than middling? And this one is gross but not scary.
Lasiren by Erin E. Adams 3 stars This story follows a young girl with two sisters. One of the sisters is taken by a magical woman in the sea who tried to make a bargain with her. I liked this story although it did exactly what you assume it will do after you hear the bargain offered. It is very much a story with fairytale rules, which I generally like. I would have liked something surprising in the plot of the story but I did like it and I thought the writing was lovely.
The Rider by Tananarive Due 4 stars I liked this story! Again, it isn’t really scary. Or the super natural elements of the story aren’t scary or horrifying really? The reality of the time period is horrifying! This story is about a pair of sisters making their way from Tallahassee to Montgomery with CORE to join the Freedom Rides in 1961. While on the bus the pair notice the driver is going the wrong way, and then he lets a strange man on the bus. I did really enjoy the method of this story, and I thought it is placed in its time incredibly well.
The Aesthete by Justin C. Key 5 stars I thought I was going to hate this one from the first few paragraphs but truly this one had me absolutely gripped. This is basically a droids are people too story which is very much catered to my interests. The author covers a lot of themes, it really feels like this idea could have carried a novella or even a full novel. I would have loved to spend more time in this world. I wanted the ending to have a little bit more room to breathe, again so much was packed into so little space. But I did really enjoy this one and totally intend on reading more by this author. I think I just generally need more information to be truly scared but I was certainly very concerned for the main character throughout!
Pressure by Ezra Clayton Daniels 3 stars This is in 2nd person which is a thing I love. It follows you, the only Black person in your family, just after you have flown back to your home town and are now hanging out with your cousins. Also your ears haven’t popped. I think a lot of people don’t like this one because it’s horror is mostly just having a racist family member everyone else likes or tolerates. It also has a very abrupt ending and is quite short. It is also weird about fatness. I still think it does some interesting things with the story.
Dark Home by Nnedi Okorafor 3 stars This story is about a woman who returns to Nigeria for her father‘s funeral. When she goes back home to Arizona, something follows her. This is a story about grief, and it is the least scary story so far. One thing does happen towards the end of the story, that could be scary, but I kind of felt like it was just a metaphor for processing grief. I think this is a good story, but I’m not sure if it felt like horror. But I also think I’m reaching the point where I just think maybe horror doesn’t work for me in short form. But the story did remind me that I’ve been meaning to read a book by this author for a really long time. And I liked her writing style.
Flicker by L.D. Lewis 3 stars This one has a really fun concept and I liked the writing! It follows a young woman’s who brother is also her optometrist, she is at an eye appointment with him and then leaves to meet some mutual friends when suddenly the vision for every person goes out for 22 (I think) seconds. The root of the issue is a thing you have almost certainly talked to an inebriated person about, but it is so popular because it is a fun concept. It made me feel sad more than anything else!
The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World by Nalo Hopkins 4 stars This story left me feeling happy and excited in a way I have never felt from horror. A lot of these stories feel more like adventure tales than horror. Like this one has a monster, and definitely stuff that is comfortably in body horror, but the story is so triumphant and clever I just couldn’t be worried or fearful?
The Norwood Trouble by Maurice Broaddus 4 stars Another case of a story that I like! It is a good story. It is about a girl who lives in a segregated city, Indianapolis post Civil War, and is sexually assaulted by a white man and then harnesses the magic of the forrest to enact revenge on that man and his fellow white people who were terrorizing the town and seemed to be planning a lynching. But like a lot of stories in this collection it truly feels like a fantasy hero story and not like horror. Like the racism is obviously horrific, but the beats of the story just feel like that is the evil the main character is dedicated to defeating. And the story does end with a foreboding note of the evil rising again. So it is very possible I am just overthinking. Maybe short stories just don’t have enough time to make me feel scared? I’ve gone way off topic. This is a good story! But again, also not scary.
A Grief to the Dead by Rion Amilcar Scott 5 stars. This one feels like horror! I am reading this WORRIED. Also ronald_raegun2AR15 made me cackle. This story is truly great. I was very worried, the theming was superb, and it was so well paced. I have not a single complaint. This sorry is about a man whose twin brother recently died and he has been in a deep depression even since. As our main character makes more choices, seeming to lead to him, ending his own life we also learn more and more about the supernatural elements of the story. This one is weird and sad and excellently written.
A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree by Nicole D. Sconiers 4 stars I liked this one a lot! It follows a college student who dies in 1993 she is tethered to the side of the highway where she died. In 2008 another dead girl joint serve. The two of them enter into a competition to see who can kill 15 men the quickest. It’s a monster origin story. Horror from the point of view of the monster doesn’t always work for me, I didn’t find it very scary, but I did think it was really good Storey. So I think this one worked for me.
An American Fable by Cheesy Burke 4 stars maybe I also liked this one! All of the terror is in the first third, and then the rest of the story is sort of mystical. It was an interesting story. It followed a black man post, World War I, I believe, who was a soldier and is now moving from the American south to Chicago. on his train journey, he gets attacked by a Lynch mob in Cincinnati. He is led to a mystical clearing by a little girl. Then magic happens.
Your Happy Place by Terence Taylor 5 stars This one is perfect. I am obsessed with it. It is horrifying, it is painful, the structure is great. The story follows a man who is imprisoned and working for the prison system to offset his time. I don’t want to say too much more than that. I think it’s great. Favorite of the collection so far.
Hide and Seek by P. Djeli Clark 5 start This one is good too. I do like a book about a game. And this is a good story about a game. This story follows two brothers, whose mother makes them constantly play hide and go seek with her. Like very much.
Origin Story by Tochi Onyebuchi 5 stars I need to read this one again. There was a lot going on. Also it was surprisingly funny. Also not funny. But I think I left three times. ...more
I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me follows Laure, a Black 17-year-old ballet student who is vying for one of six apprentice spots with the PaI Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me follows Laure, a Black 17-year-old ballet student who is vying for one of six apprentice spots with the Paris Ballet, Laure has been the top student in her class for years but worries for her spot in part due to the racism she is subjected to from her peers and the powers that be at the ballet. After being swept away by a glamorous ballerina who experiences a meteoric rise she is offered a chance to make a deal with a river of blood like the other ballerina did.
Probably my favorite aspect of this story was the way Shea describes dancing. I really loved the way it it really rooted the reader in Laure's body and mind. We got so much character information from these scenes and they were just so compelling! I would have read dancing scenes from this author from the entirety of the book.
My biggest frustration about this book was the way Shea was directing the readers attention. They would introduce big story aspects and then just sort of leave them by the wayside. There is a murder right at the beginning of this book and it initially seems like Laure is very invested in somehow solving it because she feels she is also in danger, and then Shea tries to get the reader to be distracted maybe by other aspects of the plot?!? It was very weird! There was a murder! That is what I wanted Laure to be paying attention to! She had been so worried for her own safety and she just left her clues hidden away for so long! There are lots of other incidents of this happening throughout the story, Shea just did not do a good job of getting me to think that the red herrings were worthy of attention.
I did really enjoy Laure as a main character, I thought she was interesting and following her journey as she descends into the shadowy underworld of magic and nightmares was very compelling. I did want more from the side characters, especially the ones who were very very plot relevant. Other people's motivations feel under explored in ways that make reveals throughout the story feel a bit underwhelming. I also thought the character who is murdered early on didn't have enough pre-murder page time!
Another aspect where this book fell flat for me was the world building. The magical aspects of this story were a bit shaky. Some of it was really interesting, but it takes a very long time to present real information about the magic and it was never really clear what the scope of magical possibilities were. Which I understand how this was used in the plot, but it made some of the supernatural elements feel a little boring because I really understood a few peoples gifts/curses so everyone else just felt like they could do anything? There are also a few moments where it seems Laure is going to explore the overarching powers that grant these abilities and then she only seems interested insofar as to get the next piece of plot relevant information. I thought so much about this world was so interesting just also so under used!
One thing that they do very well that a lot of authors falter on is they treat the nonmagical elements of the world building incredibly well. The world of this ballet really comes alive, Laure's studio and apartment and the streets of Paris really feel tangible. The stakes of ballet, the consequences, and all encompassing fervor and pressure are beautifully presented on page.
Related to the attention issues I had with this book I also felt like the pacing was weird. It is weird to go from "my life is in danger" to just not addressing this for like forty pages. It made the book drag almost anytime we were doing supernatural things without trying to actually access information.
Another connected aspect in the way the author wrote the action scene of this book. Especially later on in the story I would have to reread these passages cause I found them a bit confusing, which is odd cause I really thought Shea did an incredibly job writing the physicality of dance!
And just as a note this book is very gross! Which I say positively, it is horror (I could also see an argument for dark fantasy) gross is common here! The gross aspects of the story are very well incorporated! I was very icked out!...more
I have been wanting to read this short story ever since I heard about it years and years ago (I think I was in high school and I heard it referenced oI have been wanting to read this short story ever since I heard about it years and years ago (I think I was in high school and I heard it referenced on NPR driving home from school) and the other day while I was walking around in a bookstore I came across the book and immediately decided to finally buy and read it.
This is a short story about two young girls named Twyla and Roberta, they meet in a group home when they are both 8 years old. One child is black and the other is white and the reader is never told which child is which race. We follow the pair through the group home and see their encounters later in life once they are both adults. Morrison plays with the readers expectation of what characteristics are paired with people of what race throughout the novel. It is also just a really well structured short story with Morrison's excellent and tight prose throughout.
This particular edition has an introduction that is almost as long as the story itself written by Zadie Smith, if you haven't read the story before I recommend reading the introduction after you read the story. The introduction itself it great and gives a lot of really interesting information about the text, but I think going into the story blind is a more fulfilling reading experience.
The short story was every bit as interesting to read as I imagined it would be when I first heard about it! Glad I finally go to it and what and excellent way to remind myself that I still haven't read all of Morrison's work and I really should get to that quicker!...more
This is a weird one for me. I probably would not have picked this book up if my parents hadn't given it to me for Christmas, but I did like reading itThis is a weird one for me. I probably would not have picked this book up if my parents hadn't given it to me for Christmas, but I did like reading it fine! Also I have talked to some folks who know the author (apparently she is local!) and everyone says she's the nicest which is lovely to hear.
Here are my disjointed notes I will hopefully return to make into a full review:
Lots of interesting ideas, genetice, eugenics, DNA tests, women supporting men who hurt other women, but sometimes weird execution
Large cast of characters where some of them feel very under explored, mostly Alice for me
The beginning is very drawn out in a way that was a little unpleasant.
I actually really liked that Bracken the pervert ended up having kinda a weird sweet story line haha
I do think that this book underplays how important it is for people to know they are donor conceived or adopted.
The villain is like truly very wacky which is tonally a bit weird. And some of the dialogue is grandiose in a weird way
I was SURE I was gonna adore this book. Unfortunately I was incorrect. Full thoughts soon! The tl;dr will be I don’t think this author is comfortable I was SURE I was gonna adore this book. Unfortunately I was incorrect. Full thoughts soon! The tl;dr will be I don’t think this author is comfortable writing negative emotions or conflict.
Notes I will return to make an actual review: Family dynamics and his arc
Introduces interesting conflict with lackluster resolution
Her lack luster arc
I wasn't that interested in them as a couple
Author deflects from conflict and negative emotions constantly. Therapized characters that the author seems to think means that they cannot have negative emotions
Sex as relationship without having to talk about feelings
Sometimes when I read a novella and I end it thinking I want it to be longer. This can be positive or negative, but either way I most of the time I feSometimes when I read a novella and I end it thinking I want it to be longer. This can be positive or negative, but either way I most of the time I feel this I worry I am being unfair to the format. That I am searching for a novel (or once a short story) in a format with different expectations. I do not have this worry with this book, I am very sure I would have been bananas into it if I had another like 20 or 30 pages exploring these peoples relationships before the supernatural horror stuff had started going down.
This book is dripping in metaphor and lavish prose. The metaphor is almost too much but I found it like just on the right side of flowery! I especially enjoy it when horror is disgusting, but in a very beautiful way. This book absolutely did disgusting in a beautiful way so well. One casualty of the beautiful language was a line about ligaments crunching which very much confused me, are ligaments crunchy? I thought they were more on the squishy side of stuff that hangs out in your body? (Edit: I have spoken to my tendon expert and she says they can be crunchy or squishy, so crunching tendons is fine haha) But this is not important, mostly I was not confused by the language. It was very very lovely!
A few times throughout this book, starting about half way through I believe, the characters do some meta horror commentary that is a little bit tonally jarring. I have read other horror that comments upon itself (hello My Heart is a Chainsaw, a book I am obsessed with) and I have liked it in the past but I just was a little bit confused by it in this book. I also felt like these people took literally zero time to fully believe in the supernatural stuff that was happening to them, which is fine but very much not to my taste! I like for the horror to be a little bit more creeping and a little bit less blunt!...more
Reading this book felt like I was being punished. I should have DNF'd it but I kept talking myself into giving it time to grow on me. And by 40% I jusReading this book felt like I was being punished. I should have DNF'd it but I kept talking myself into giving it time to grow on me. And by 40% I just sort of felt like this book could not win, I had to finish it to defeat it. Which is very stupid. I need a sticky note explaining the sunk cost fallacy to myself on my kindle.
The writing is not terrible but it is repetitive and boring, the characters are a bit nonsensical, and whenever they were being romantic I was disgusted. I literally made a grossed out noise twice while reading this book.
I need to stop trying to read books I got on stuff your kindle day. There is a reason these people are giving their books away for free. And it is not because they are writing good books. ...more
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