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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
I love a good collection of short stories and I’m from the East Bay Area, so this was a fun read for me!
Adjectives I’d use to describe this book: eerie, tense, magical, mysterious, heavy, like the thick fog that creeps over the Bay.
Adjectives I’d use to describe this book: eerie, tense, magical, mysterious, heavy, like the thick fog that creeps over the Bay.
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This is a book of supernatural themed short stories; many, but not all, center a specific type of story, where a person of color, often a woman or queer or a queer woman, finds in some supernatural entity, a means to fight back after more worldly forms of oppression. It was kind of giving superhero stories when I got to the story about a graphic novelist who is saved by the vengeful homunculus from his stories that I caught to why I was finding this not fully satisfying. Good superhero stories are about when and how to exercise power, I think, and here, the power was exercised because it was there, or to remedy an overwhelming wrong, which felt a little flat. In one story, a woman uses her power to, at first, aid the FBI to disrupt a Black Panther Party chapter, and that sort of scratched that itch, but it maybe didn't go deep enough...
Things I really did like were the centering of non-white characters. There's a lot of very specific Oakland, CA geography here, which was cool, and many of the stories don't exactly take place in the current moment. The supernatural elements of the stories were varied and appropriately haunting. There's a lot of cool stuff here; I just wanted it to be maybe a little more complicated than it was.
Things I really did like were the centering of non-white characters. There's a lot of very specific Oakland, CA geography here, which was cool, and many of the stories don't exactly take place in the current moment. The supernatural elements of the stories were varied and appropriately haunting. There's a lot of cool stuff here; I just wanted it to be maybe a little more complicated than it was.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, Police brutality, Sexual harassment
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Cynthia Gomez does not disappoint with stories of brown boys whose mom's are so scared they'll grow up she'll do something about it and adult white baby boys with guns and paranoia problems making the world a dangerous place because they're, "scared of home invasion." I thoroughly enjoyed every story.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated