That’s how it always started. You sighed too. A land far away. A beautiful maiden. A castle, the sea. You closed your eyes the better to see it all
That’s how it always started. You sighed too. A land far away. A beautiful maiden. A castle, the sea. You closed your eyes the better to see it all shimmering in your mind.
3.75 stars
Mona Awad's Rouge tackles the horrors of the beauty industry and how racist and toxic it can be, in this muddling story of obsession and envy and the relationships between mothers and daughters. It's a very cleverly crafted tale with an unreliable narrator which makes the plot dizzyingly confusing at times, but that ends up working in favour of the book. Very weird and disturbing, I found myself being unsettled by my reflection after I read this.
The writing is also really good, bordering on lyrical which works to highlight the dreamy nature of whatever breakdown the MC is going through. My favourite thing was probably Belle (the protagonist) and her relationship with her mother. It was twisted and fucked up but at some moments tender, but felt so so real and wrought with tension. It worked as brilliant plot fuel. What I didn't enjoy very much was the random romance subplot that was shoved in for no reason. It did make the last scene very striking and aesthetically charming but other than that I felt like the book could have stood well on its own.
This was my first book by Mona Awad and it was a pretty promising read. I am adding her backlist to my to-read shelf because I love books that focus on intense and complicated relationships between people and I feel like Rouge was brilliant at that.
First book read in 2024 and it did not disappoint!
Merged review:
That’s how it always started. You sighed too. A land far away. A beautiful maiden. A castle, the sea. You closed your eyes the better to see it all shimmering in your mind.
3.75 stars
Mona Awad's Rouge tackles the horrors of the beauty industry and how racist and toxic it can be, in this muddling story of obsession and envy and the relationships between mothers and daughters. It's a very cleverly crafted tale with an unreliable narrator which makes the plot dizzyingly confusing at times, but that ends up working in favour of the book. Very weird and disturbing, I found myself being unsettled by my reflection after I read this.
The writing is also really good, bordering on lyrical which works to highlight the dreamy nature of whatever breakdown the MC is going through. My favourite thing was probably Belle (the protagonist) and her relationship with her mother. It was twisted and fucked up but at some moments tender, but felt so so real and wrought with tension. It worked as brilliant plot fuel. What I didn't enjoy very much was the random romance subplot that was shoved in for no reason. It did make the last scene very striking and aesthetically charming but other than that I felt like the book could have stood well on its own.
This was my first book by Mona Awad and it was a pretty promising read. I am adding her backlist to my to-read shelf because I love books that focus on intense and complicated relationships between people and I feel like Rouge was brilliant at that.
First book read in 2024 and it did not disappoint!...more
I wanted to like this book so bad, but sadly it let me down. The premise was everything I love: alchemy, stories, mag 2.5 stars rounded down to 2
I wanted to like this book so bad, but sadly it let me down. The premise was everything I love: alchemy, stories, magic, math, and an awesome brother-sister duo, But it all simply fell flat for me. For one thing, this was too damn long. We could have done with it being 100 pages shorter, but the length just made it draggy and boring. Secondly, the world-building was pretty much non-existent. I kept waiting for things to make sense, for the Doctrine and the Impossible City to make sense. I kept waiting for the author to explain the entire magic system and what the whole business with the manifestation and the Up-and-Under was. But I was left hanging; the plot ended up feeling too abstract, and ultimately I stopped caring what happened next.
There wasn't much character building on the part of the villains or the heroes. It seemed promising when the twins were teenagers, but then they got old, and the huge time jump didn't exactly help familiarise me with the grownup versions of the twins. I also wasn't a fan of the writing. Idk why but present tense is something, not all authors can handle. It just put me off and annoyed me to no end. The only reason I didn't dnf it, was because, by the time I realized that things weren't gonna get better, I was already 65% done and just wanted to know how it ended.
Overall, this was super promising at the start, but it just didn't work out for me :(
Merged review:
2.5 stars rounded down to 2
I wanted to like this book so bad, but sadly it let me down. The premise was everything I love: alchemy, stories, magic, math, and an awesome brother-sister duo, But it all simply fell flat for me. For one thing, this was too damn long. We could have done with it being 100 pages shorter, but the length just made it draggy and boring. Secondly, the world-building was pretty much non-existent. I kept waiting for things to make sense, for the Doctrine and the Impossible City to make sense. I kept waiting for the author to explain the entire magic system and what the whole business with the manifestation and the Up-and-Under was. But I was left hanging; the plot ended up feeling too abstract, and ultimately I stopped caring what happened next.
There wasn't much character building on the part of the villains or the heroes. It seemed promising when the twins were teenagers, but then they got old, and the huge time jump didn't exactly help familiarise me with the grownup versions of the twins. I also wasn't a fan of the writing. Idk why but present tense is something, not all authors can handle. It just put me off and annoyed me to no end. The only reason I didn't dnf it, was because, by the time I realized that things weren't gonna get better, I was already 65% done and just wanted to know how it ended.
Overall, this was super promising at the start, but it just didn't work out for me :(...more
For a debut novel, this is really really good. Literary Speculative Fiction is one of those niche genres that either works wonderfully for me or eitheFor a debut novel, this is really really good. Literary Speculative Fiction is one of those niche genres that either works wonderfully for me or either crashes and burns. I really enjoyed the nostalgic and melancholic feeling this invoked in me. Scott Alexander Howard's writing is very beautiful and also easy to read. The premise of the book is also very ingenious and it gave me all the Studio Ghibli Your Name vibes I was hoping it would give me. I am really glad this didn't fall into the cliches that a book with such a premise has the danger of falling into. Howard takes a really cool concept and runs with it, spinning a tale that is full of heartbreak but also hope. That heartache-y feeling that The Other Valley instilled in me is reminiscent of Natasha Pulley books and Howard just nails that emotion so well with his evocative writing. Odile's character is interesting to read about and it is really cool to see her through time, as a young girl and then as an older woman.
The story is full of emotions and very readable and short which makes for a quick fun book. I really liked how Howard played with the concept of time travel and the ending was very satisfying in the end as well. Would love to see a film adaptation of this someday. One thing that I should mention is that there are no speech marks to mark dialogues which I assume was a stylistic choice to make the book sound more "literary" but it might bother some readers. Really glad I read this and really glad the library had this so soon after release. Will be keeping an eye out for this author....more
Stilted and distant writing made this extremely hard to get into. I've said before that 3rd person present tense narration is my least favoriDNF @ 15%
Stilted and distant writing made this extremely hard to get into. I've said before that 3rd person present tense narration is my least favorite style of writing and rarely do I end up enjoying it. This was my complaint for the Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, granted I picked this up for the pretty cover and to get into south asian/african mythological retellings but the story just didn't stick with me....more
*sigh* Leigh Bardugo is yet again trying to feed us the Darkling agenda. In this case, we have Vanilla Darkling aka his main sin is being an 2.5 stars
*sigh* Leigh Bardugo is yet again trying to feed us the Darkling agenda. In this case, we have Vanilla Darkling aka his main sin is being an edgy typical YA love interest. Which you might say is better than how problematic the Darkling was but I dissent.
I heard the phrase "Bardugo signs a 6 figure deal to write whatever the fuck she wants" and "standalone historical fantasy set during the Spanish Inquisition" and I came running. I should have tempered my expectations after the fiasco that was Hell Bent. Bardugo seems to want to write this style of romantasy that appeals to the current market and is good for her, go make bread. But I'm afraid this isn't for me.
Discussing my issues with the new style of Bardugo's work with a friend and I believe the issue is in how she tries to give these dues ex machine endings that end up being sickly perfect. These endings just do not work with the edgy and dark vibe she is going for in her stories. It ends up being unsatisfying and like too sweet cakes, mostly frosting and no flavor. Apart from my issues with the ending to this (which just FYI was just another rehashing of the S&B ending), I had issues with the simplicity of the plot and the characters. It only got good around the 80% mark and then fell back into the same maddeningly frustrating blandness. I have read a hundred other stories like this one before. There is nothing that I can do to separate it from the hundreds of mediocre YA fantasy books that come out every year. I kept waiting for that "oof" moment where I would be blown away by Bardugo's plotting (and I know she can be great at that, she wrote the Six of Crows books and Ninth House (no we are not mentioning Hell Bent in this house)) but it never happened and I just continued to be disappointed more and more with every chapter.
The characters are bland and I am already forgetting them. The romance was cliched and made me roll my eyes. The writing was okay but not her best, I had a hard time focusing and didn't have much motivation to continue it. It tries so hard to be a political fantasy as well and fails epically at it. We are info dumped about random important dudes and then they make sneaky moves that aren't very sneaky and are totally extremely obvious. The one chapter that made me sit up (chapter 43 I believe) was amazingly written and I could feel the breaths of Bardugo's genius in it (view spoiler)[It was the chapter Hualit dies in (hide spoiler)] and I felt myself thinking that yes, this is what I want more of. Sadly, that was the only chapter that actually made an impact on me and is the cause of 2 stars, not 1.
So will I be reading Bardugo's future books? Honestly, I can't say. I might pick them up if the hype is infectious but will have a lot less patience in the future. In all fairness if this wasn't a Bardugo novel I probably would have DNF-ed this less than halfway through....more
A dizzying tale of madness and loneliness. Hill House was very different from what I was expecting before4 stars
Journeys end in lovers meeting indeed.
A dizzying tale of madness and loneliness. Hill House was very different from what I was expecting before I started it. Jackson has a very peculiar writing style. It isn't exactly lyrical but at the same time, it is very very personal while seemingly like it doesn't try very hard. There is this ongoing feeling of acceptance; finally having a place to call home that we see almost immediately with Eleanor and the house. It also reminded me of Alix E. Harrow's Starling House which was about how these magical creepy houses always attract people with wild imaginations. The people who live on the margins of life, always drifting and never feeling home anywhere.
Eleanor was a very interesting character though I know many readers might find her annoying. But I feel like Hill House is a very personal horror story. In the sense that it might affect some people more than others. Jackson makes us feel the horror purely through Eleanor's eyes. Who herself is not a very reliable narrator and is scared by some things more than others. In that way, if you end up relating to Eleanor's fear of being left behind, and not being considered important the horror is very much there. It is a very cool style of storytelling, particularly horror storytelling, in that the horror itself is not explicit. It is all in how Jackson writes it. Sometimes you will be dropped in the middle of a conversation, mirroring how Eleanor has a fear of missing out which is mapped onto the reader.
The foreshadowing is pretty strong in this one. Probably one of my minor complaints. It feels a bit too strong though it might feel like you only end up putting the pieces together a tad bit too late. Just like the characters, you see the inevitability of their actions when it's too late.
I liked the theme of how Hill House seemed to be a way station or a refuge for the lonely and the castaway, the queers rejected from society. A meeting place for lovers (whether Hill House itself was the lover or if it was Theo is a separate debate). Also the paralleling between the "female companion" of one of the sisters and now Eleanor. It was a nice bit of foreshadowing as well.
There are almost too many "sentient house" horror stories these days, and at times they can feel a bit too formulaic if you read more than one back to back. I like how Jackson was able to use that well-worn horror genre to create something creative and new, which still feels fresh and timeless even so many years later....more
The living and the dead are all plagued by the same thing these days. Bureaucracy, and the banality of stupid men.
This was the cutest thing ever! FounThe living and the dead are all plagued by the same thing these days. Bureaucracy, and the banality of stupid men.
This was the cutest thing ever! Found family with some quirky humour mixed in, If Found, Return to Hell is my new fav comfort read. I want more of Em X. Liu's writing because it seems perfect for me. I picked up this novella after reading the author's upcoming The Death I Gave Him which could not be any more different than this, both in terms of plot and themes. Both books, however, managed to bewitch me with the wonderful writing, as well as the diverse range Liu seems to have. A debut author, but one I will be looking out for. This novella is the perfect blend of cozy fantasy, comedy, a slow-burn romance and found family. It's also not at twee at all for readers who don't like that in their cozy fantasy but succeeds in making your heart feel so very warm and full.
I read this after reading Isabel J. Kim's The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside, both of which feature a bureaucratic magic company and the employee who works there. Both are pretty wholesome and cute but at the same time pretty different from each other. I liked Liu's novella more than Kim's short story, mainly because I appreciated the depth the longer length was able to pack in and deliver a more emotional story....more
Okay, but I read the entire book and I kept waiting for someone to explain why Kai is called The Witch King when he's a demon???
Initially, wh2.5 stars
Okay, but I read the entire book and I kept waiting for someone to explain why Kai is called The Witch King when he's a demon???
Initially, when this book was announced I was very very excited about it. I'm a huge fan of Martha Wells's Murderbot Diaries, and despite the fantasy setting I was ready for something that would blow me away. After reading initial reviews by friends, however, I decided to push this down the tbr since I wasn't sure I would enjoy this. I'd just like to say that I was pretty decided on DNF-ing this at the 60% mark because the plot was so damn slow, I didn't care about any of the characters or their relationships, and the writing made me want to doze off. The frequent switching between POVs made it even harder to keep reading. If I had DNF-ed I would have mentally rated this as a 1-star book even though I don't rate DNFs on GR. But I decided to carry on, simply because I browsed through the Witch King Tumblr and was curious about what exactly all those people loved. And I'm really glad I finished this book.
The plot picks up significantly after the 60% mark, and I started to have some modicum of fun in the last few chapters. I still didn't care much about any of the characters except for Bashasa. The flashbacks ended up making me really enjoy his character and his relationship with Kai but I wanted more of their dynamic because I could sense it could have been full of potential. Similarly Kai's relationship with the human vanguard Ramad. That's my issue with this book, It gives us this huge cool new world and this huge cast of characters but there isn't enough time spent on getting to know the characters themselves. Too much of the book was spent building up the world and the history, such that there isn't much that happens in this book apart from the last 80%, which makes the pacing very very horrible to get through if you are a reader who prefers their stories with a focus on characters and interpersonal relationships rather than magic and worldbuilding.
I also do not agree with the majority of readers who claimed this was too hard to follow, I'd say this was pretty standard for a high fantasy novel. And I like it when we have to work to understand the world and everything isn't just told in a two-page long exposition dump. Reviews made me think this was some Harrow the Ninth kind of incoherent book where you have no idea what's going on because the narrator isn't the narrator and has schizophrenia. Witch King was way way easier to understand, its sin was that it was just too damn boring.
I couldn't help but think that this is the kind of story that would work a lot better in the tv/movie medium rather than the novel form. With the flashbacks and the magic, it could be really cool and a lot more digestible in that medium. But I guess studios don't want the next Game of Thrones to have a queernormative world where women aren't a plot device or an object to be abused.
I am still glad that I read this, but I probably won't be reading any future books set in this universe....more
Do you want to live because you want to live, or because you’re afraid to die?
I love being surprised by books. I love it when I go into 3.75 - 4 stars
Do you want to live because you want to live, or because you’re afraid to die?
I love being surprised by books. I love it when I go into a book with preconceived notions whether it be from blurbs or reviews or marketing and then being completely taken aback by how different the story is. Em X. Liu's debut novel The Death I Gave Him is one of those books. It was a lot more darker, angrier, and emotionally charged than I was prepared for.
I definitely see the comparisons to Gideon the Ninth. Spooky labs, mad scientists obsessed with cracking immortality, necromancy and resurrection. How a person's guilt and self-hatred can lead to spiralling to the point of self-destruction. And yet it is something completely unique and on its own. Fans of the former, however, will definitely enjoy this.
The Death I Gave Him is an exploration of mental health, grief and obsession. The writing is some of the emotionally wrought and rawest stuff I have ever read. I was expecting a murder mystery with some queer romance thrown in and packaged as a Hamlet retelling but it was so much more. Liu is a master at writing difficult to like, and difficult to dissect characters. Both Hayden and Felicia contain multitudes and are real fleshed-out characters. Their plights seem real and heartwrenching and it is a hard task distilling them down to "good" or "bad" characters. And I feel like that is the crux of writing a good story. Liu presents Hayden's grief over losing his father as well as his emotional turmoil in the most painful way possible. Hayden's depression and obsession with death and immortality are so interesting to read about because each page and each line reveals so many more layers to what makes him a person and ultimately leads to his tragic actions. Similarly, Felicia and her being torn between what her warring emotions dictate. The plight and conflict of these characters is the very essence of the iconic question "To be or not to be?" To betray their fathers by choosing the path of life and action or to avenge their fathers and commit themselves to the metaphorical or literal death of one's soul. In that, The Death I Gave Him is everything that a retelling should be: Thematically paralleling the original text but also expanding upon it in a unique and more nuanced setting and conflict.
By the time you notice, it’s too late, a precipice inside your own mind that calls to you whenever you feel like you’re not enough, that sings about how much easier the dark is, how nice it might feel to step off.
The structure keeps the reader hooked and makes this book frankly unputdownable. I love the found footage style of narration this had with the footnotes. It really worked to further flesh out the background as well as the consequences of the story. Very unique and original.
In terms of the locked room murder mystery, I wouldn't say there is much shock or actual "mystery" to it. Especially if you know the story of Hamlet. Events leading up to and the conclusion of the murders are pretty much in line with the play. Finding the murderer or the villain isn't the point of the story. It's whether the characters can forgive themselves for all that they've done and learn to live and grow from that. However, what Liu does is use the mystery to develop and push the characters' on their path of existential crisis. The plot pushes Hayden, Felicia and even Horatio to action. To do something about the conflict they are stuck in. So if you go into this expecting to be given a puzzle of whodunit, be warned. This is less a murder mystery and more an exploration of a character's mind and the limits to which it can be pushed in its desire for revenge and meaning. Liu does that exquisitely and this book is a keen study of mental health and suicidal ideation. Though rather than being bleak, the ending is pretty hopeful. It promises light at the end of the tunnel and that there is always a path to healing if you are willing to give life a chance.
The Death I Gave Him comes out 12/09/2023.
Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for sending me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own....more
What else was she, really, but another animal body afraid of being alone in the cold?
Maybe the real horror was your failing marriage all 4.5 stars
What else was she, really, but another animal body afraid of being alone in the cold?
Maybe the real horror was your failing marriage all along.
My first time reading anything by Lee Mandelo, and believe me I have not missed the hype around his work. I went in with very high expectations and ended up being pleasantly surprised. Did not expect so much nuance and depth to this short novella about a crazy experiment where a scientist links her brain to a wolf to experience life through the eyes of said wolf. I really enjoyed the ethical discussions on the science being carried out, especially when it is funded by some big corpa, but at the same time acknowledging the lack of funds for research in academia. The themes on preservation, climate change and sustainable science were all very very interesting and Mandelo gives it the time and respect topics such as these deserve, which is no small feat.
The main character is extremely insufferable but her exceedingly worse and worse choices make for a fun read. Her issues with her wife and her sense of isolation "no one gets me except for the wolf I kidnapped and put fancy tech in", is also a major part of the book. I do believe she was let off too easy by the end and the book publishing seems to be another chance for her to stroke her own ego. Her pride is the main reason for her downfall, the research she so claims will "better our understanding of how wolves think" is just her selfishness and desire for fame in her field.
This was a pandemic book and you can feel the sense of doom looming just in the periphery of the book, as well as Sean's isolation from other humans. I really liked this part of the Author's Note:
Feed Them Silence grew from that fertile, toxic soil. Ultimately, the novella wrestles with the fears and worries of a singular moment in time—but the emotions and critiques at its core remain, I hope, prescient. I’m sure plenty of other artists will be scribbling their way through closing notes like these over the next decade or more.
There is some gore in the book but most of the horror is psychological and weird. Still something really enjoyable. I will be reading more of Lee Mandelo's works in the future....more
There hadn't been anyone though, and he couldn't see why it was striking him as all tragic and gooey now. Some people didn't get a person. It wasn'
There hadn't been anyone though, and he couldn't see why it was striking him as all tragic and gooey now. Some people didn't get a person. It wasn't a right; it was a gift, and you couldn't go around sniffing about it as if you were entitled to be worried over. The thing was, it did seem to be a gift that everyone else got at least once.
I have no idea how to rate this book. Part of the reason why I took so long to finish this was because I kept putting it off so I would be able to stew in my emotions and think about what this book is trying to say (not very obvious) and whether I'm taking away the right message from this, and what my beliefs on many of these topics are.
A very big departure from most of Pulley's books, this is not historical fiction and while it sells itself as scifi, I would say it is pretty firmly in the realms of fantasy disguised in the shabby clothes of scifi. Technology and science don't make much sense and are very "just trust me, bro". I did try not to think too hard about it because I knew if I did I would not have been able to stop or get past the first few chapters. It felt like just a speculative world for the author to make her "what if" scenario to discuss the different themes she wanted to talk about. And there were A LOT of themes.
Pulley has so much packed into this book. Gender, ableism, class privilege, xenophobia, sinophobia as well as bodily autonomy. I was worried that it would be too much for a single book to handle and that she would end up making very hard statements on solutions for such complex topics. And while I'm glad she didn't make any such strong statements for frankly difficult-to-solve topics, her two sides weren't super extremes which liked because rarely are humans so easy to sort into boxes. I still had a very hard time figuring out what exactly she was trying to say. Because at times it does come across as this "China bad, china powerful, Chinese people are coming to steal our land and put their dictatorship in our country. The refugees are brutes and savages who will bring their basic religions and cultures into our superior cultures which is why we should let them die." But idk if my own beliefs made it feel like she was trying to say that even if the refugees have different beliefs about gender and power it does not mean we let them die because the purpose of a colony on Mars is to extend the human race?? But also sometimes it felt very settler colony-esque? Who's land is it anyway? The people who have been living here for generations or those escaping from Earth? I would like to believe that land isn't owned by one class of humans and it should be common decency to share it with people who have nowhere to go, but at the same time do those people have the right to claim that land as their own? Isn't that how you get Israel? Like I said it was A Lot and I could not parse what the author was trying to say, but perhaps the point of the book was not to be a Mother Goose story but to make you ponder about this stuff and realize what your own beliefs are and if they are harmful and bigoted. So I understand how this could very easily fall prey to cancel culture and people with zero media literacy will be ready to sharpen their pitchforks and burn Pulley on the alter of their hardliner beliefs.
At the same time, writing a romance between a white refugee with no rights whatsoever with very leftist beliefs and an Asian non-binary nationalist right-wing politician is something not easy to sell. (Pulley says so in her acknowledgements that her UK publisher refused to publish this book). I did struggle a lot to connect with Gale and I know it was supposed to be confusing and a hard pill to swallow, and the path to them NOT being a huge bigot that wanted to forcibly disable people and was telling refugees to stay on Earth and die, was bumpy (understatement) as hell. But I wasn't the biggest fan of it. Pulley's pairing seems to be a lovable pathetic soft man x morally dubious man with slight psychopathic tendencies that has a path to slight redemption but she seems to be pushing the line with this pairing a lot. Mori was a sexist pig and a manipulative asshole, Kite killed a whole bunch of people and was chill with it, Shenkov was a member of the KGB and now Gale is basically Trump. So yeah...idk what she'll write next. Probably not a decent female character.
I do prefer Pulley when she writes magical realism or fantasy as compared to scifi. This lacked that magical aura that The Kingdoms and The Bedlam Stacks (IMO her best works), there weren't passages that blew me away or made me want to sob into a pillow. She is really good at writing romantic pining so I did have that funny heart-twisting breaking that I call the "Pulley Effect"; but primarily because of how January Stirling was written.
The plot twist was also pretty much predictable but I did like that the "villains" weren't two-dimensional mustache-twirling evil. It was nice to see some nuance and that politicians are inherently fucked up and even the good guys are not saints. Despite that (view spoiler)[I didn't like that Aubery was killed at the end, I do not understand why they would try to kill River at the end after that whole chapter about how they felt horrible for giving them fake sleep paralysis etc. Like I know they killed their partner for the lols but it seemed like they had "changed"? If that makes sense. (hide spoiler)]
Not the best thing Pulley has written IMO, also could have used a stronger editor since there were some strange grammatical errors. The political elements she touched upon were interesting but a bit much for a single book. It did feel a lot more original than all those marriage-of-convenience AO3 inspired books that have been coming out recently....more
Habeck had such an interesting idea and she executed it in the most boring and literary snobby way imaginable. The prose was awful to gDNF @ 200 pages
Habeck had such an interesting idea and she executed it in the most boring and literary snobby way imaginable. The prose was awful to get through, I couldn't help cringing at some of the quotes and I had the formatting for this. I kept waiting for this to make me cry but I just felt tired and frustrated. Wren, the wife, feels like a manic pixie dream girl and so does the husband. I had high hopes for this but throughout the book, I could not help but compare this to Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea. A book that was poignant, and emotional dealt with loss and grief in half the number of pages with double the amount of skill....more
Very very cute. The romance in this was heart-fluttering, and I enjoyed reading this, however, there wasn't a lot happening in it. Which is fine! I still enjoyed it a lot, but I don't think it's something groundbreaking. Yes, I agreed with the Fuck the Police sentiment (because honestly fuck the police). The persecution of Asian Americans especially Asian American women was a huge issue last year specifically so I see where the author is coming from. But there wasn't any set conclusion to it, which I guess is fair enough, how do you fix systemic racism?
I loved the title for this, and what it meant in the story. It was very clever and witty so props to Chu for that.
This won Best Novelette in both the Locus and Nebula Awards 2023. Not sure if this was the best choice since I have yet to read the other nominees, but I did feel like the scifi/fantasy aspect was a very very small part of the story.
Read as part of Short Stories July 1/31. Inspired by Hirondelle's challenge of reading a short story every day for a month (let's see how long I last!)....more
I loved this so much! Alice Oseman is the best at writing about platonic love. I love how much emotion and love they pack into their books. Loveless wI loved this so much! Alice Oseman is the best at writing about platonic love. I love how much emotion and love they pack into their books. Loveless was about 18-year-old Georgia and her journey in figuring out and coming to terms with her sexuality. The way Georgia's journey was written was soo relatable. I feel like any queer person would be able to understand how difficult it can be to realize their sexuality especially when it's something not normalised. People on the aromantic and asexual spectrum will find it even more relatable. Oseman does their best to cover all the different facets of the spectrum, but everyone is unique and experiences sexual and romantic attraction differences. So while this might not be the ultimate treatise on the subject, it's a book that handles the topic with care and nuance. Part of that might be Oseman's own sexuality and coming-of-age story shining through, but it's a wonderfully written book nonetheless.
I've read two of Alice Oseman's novels previously: Radio Silence and I Was Born for This. And I have also read their Heartstopper: Volume One comics and watched the tv show adaptions. In terms of their novels, I still believe Radio Silence is Oseman's magnum opus, though Loveless is a very very close second. I didn't really like I was Born For This and it remains my least liked of their novels, though I haven't read the Heartstopper prequel and sequel novels, and not really interested in them.
I loved the friend group but I especially loved the friendship between Pip and Georgia, and Rooney and Georgia. It's everything you want in a female friendship and there is so much love and tenderness packed in. Loveless had me crying, laughing and deconstructing my own guilt and internalized homophobia, as well as my attitude towards my sexuality. I'm so so glad I have an amazing friend to bother during my emotional breakdowns at 3 am, and crying over my gay meltdowns. I don't know when or if I'll ever find true love, but I am immensely grateful for the beautiful female friendships I am lucky enough to have. Thank you Alice Oseman for forcing me to rethink a lot of my misconceptions about gender and sexuality.
I love weird architecture. Correction: I find weird architecture unsettling and that intrigues me. (Just look at that cover!) I loved how Spi3.5 stars
I love weird architecture. Correction: I find weird architecture unsettling and that intrigues me. (Just look at that cover!) I loved how Spiral and Eye-coded Rose House was. Reading Rose/House was like living in a dreamy fugue state. The writing is great, no surprises there, Arkady Martine has proven herself to be a master wordsmith and that is pretty obvious in the way she so wonderfully builds the atmosphere of this novella.
I still don't think I completely get the book. It's a mixture of gothic noir murder mystery but set in the 22nd century about an AI house. I loved the atmosphere of the story, it feels pretty classic gothic, except the whole technological aspect to it which makes the story very creative and unique. I don't know if this was an experimental piece by Martine, but it was really really good in selling the spooky vibes but keeping the concept fresh at the same time.
I was a bit miffed about the ending since I found it abrupt. This might be one of those cases where an open-er ending would have worked better. Since I was really digging the foggy narrative style. Other than that, the main selling point for this has to be the great writing and atmosphere....more
I have been in a particularly vicious mood regarding books, and this book being something other than what I had expected it to be going in, dDNF @ 30%
I have been in a particularly vicious mood regarding books, and this book being something other than what I had expected it to be going in, didn't really help. To be fair, that fucking Canva-generated cover should have been a dead give away but I guess I was too stupid. I wasn't in the mood to read a book about people dying, especially when I didn't care at all about those people. The Jordans were kinda cute I guess but they had barely any stuff and I didn't want to read about the boring other friends.
That last sentence made me bump the rating from 3 stars to 4.
Naomi Salman's Nothing but the Rain was a short and foggy novella about a town where beinThat last sentence made me bump the rating from 3 stars to 4.
Naomi Salman's Nothing but the Rain was a short and foggy novella about a town where being exposed to rainwater wipes away your memories. The story is written in an epistolatory form, which helps give it a strong narratorial voice. I love books where the character's narration comes across strong and full of their personality. There's a very smudgy aura to the story which works well to establish the setting. The plot isn't very very great, it's more the character and their ramblings that drew me in. I would say objectively, this was a 3.5 star read. Salman is an author I'd keep an eye out for longer works. I've been burnt out on fantasy especially high fantasy so these novellas are great to snack on....more
2 stars Someone needs to slap me every time I add another contempt romance novel, because how many times do I need to be taught the same lesson?! It's 2 stars Someone needs to slap me every time I add another contempt romance novel, because how many times do I need to be taught the same lesson?! It's almost like I want to torture myself and write scathing reviews because I rarely end up like this genre. My main issue is concerning how formulaic they all are. The meet-cute/ insta love, then the lusting after someone you met 2 days ago, then the third act breakup, and then the happily ever after. I do not think I have ever read a contemporary romance novel where I have been surprised or gasped out loud at some reveal. It's all so damn predictable!
I mainly picked this one up because of the cover, and the hype surrounding this book (also need to stop going for hyped books, but my FOMO can't help it!). My biggest complaint for The Fiancee Farce was the insta-love. I kid you not, the main characters meet for the first time at a wedding, and 5 mins later are already lusting and pawing each other. I don't think they even knew each other's full names at that point! After that the whole "falling in love montage" goes way too fast. They immediately start dreaming and thinking of each other, and it was simply too unbelievable. It felt cringe and stupid, and I didn't care for any of them. One thing this book did do right was canceling the miscommunication trope. It was nice to see the characters actually sit down and talk about other feelings in a mature way, and that is the only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 1. The miscommunication trope has been over used so much in the genre (I'm looking at you Emily Henry ...more
Like Miri, I was not prepared to let this book go, but all things end and the ending just about broke my heart. Beautifully written, melancholic, and Like Miri, I was not prepared to let this book go, but all things end and the ending just about broke my heart. Beautifully written, melancholic, and packed to the brim with emotion. A wonderful book to end my Challenge on. I love tragedies and this is a tragedy done in the best way possible. You have an overwhelming feeling of doom and grief throughout the book. The feeling that you have lost something even when you've barely started the book. It's writing at its best and I will definitely be reading whatever Julia Armfield writes next. A beautiful book on love and loving and learning to let go even though you don't want to. Had me crying throughout the last few chapters. The horror aspect is also very interesting. It does horror in a very different way. It borders on fantasy/scifi but never really gives the reader many answers so keeping the mystery which in turn makes the horror more plausible due to the fear of the unknown.
One of the best books I read in 2023. Everytime I think back on it it fills me with an overwhelming sense of melancholic catharsis, a sign of a great book always....more
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