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sashahc's review
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
"Dead Collections" by Isaac Fellman is a gem of a book. Beautifully written, full of wry humor and sweetness, and with a main character who you will totally recognize. Sol Katz is a geeky neurotic trans Jewish vampire who is crashing on the DL in his San Francisco office where he works as an archivist. He meets a widow who has come to donate her famous wife's papers. Weird (weirder?) shit starts happening. This book is in many ways more vibes than plot, but SUCH VIBES. I will definitely be regularly re-reading this one. It is aimed at adults, mostly because it will go over younger folk's heads.
Content Warnings
Minor: Transphobia
vulgarboy's review
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Loss of points for deadname existing for the sake of existing, but maybe that's my own personal bias. Anyway, this was interesting. Sol was compelling and complicated, and it was refreshing to read about characters above the age of 35 still actively struggling with things like gender identity and sexuality. It proves that those are fluid, and it is never too late to change. I feel like the book was more character focused than plot focused, which isn't a bad thing! I just wish it had a little more about how certain things worked. I liked the normalization of vampirism, the cast of very dynamic and complicated characters. Yet, when I finished, I found myself not aching for any of them or wishing for more. It was a simple wrap up, a concise ending.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Transphobia, Sexual content, and Deadnaming
Moderate: Car accident
pobi's review
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
A very good book, but a bit too sad and existential (and romancey) for my taste tbh. I liked the way it played with form, and it's nice to read a book about trans masc people!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Transphobia, Sexual content, Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Outing, Hate crime, and Death
Minor: Infidelity, Dysphoria, and Addiction
caseyreadslol's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.25
I can enjoy corny but this was not my cob
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Transphobia
dustghosts's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Outing, Sexual content, and Dysphoria
Moderate: Blood, Ableism, Chronic illness, Transphobia, Violence, and Medical trauma
Minor: Car accident and Deadnaming
blue_bird31's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book follows Sol who for most of the book is going through a dark shitty time. He is adrift and lost as he has not accepted that he is a vampire. The book becomes hopeful and adventurous in the last 20 pages or so.
I loved the discussion of fanfic and shipping culture. In conversations between queer characters there were queer patterns/styles of speech that I really appreciated. There was also discussion about the remnants of a body in objects after death.
This was a good book, but I was not in the right frame of mind at the time. I was dragging myself through reading this book as it was ruminating on someone who was having a difficult time in life and I should have been reading something more hopeful.
I loved the discussion of fanfic and shipping culture. In conversations between queer characters there were queer patterns/styles of speech that I really appreciated. There was also discussion about the remnants of a body in objects after death.
This was a good book, but I was not in the right frame of mind at the time. I was dragging myself through reading this book as it was ruminating on someone who was having a difficult time in life and I should have been reading something more hopeful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Transphobia
Minor: Medical content
necroplasm's review
dark
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
another unfortunate victim of the "book recommended to me by a tiktok that pitched it as something completely different from what it actually is which causes me to not like it as much because it's just so not what i was expecting" curse, though thankfully not the most egregious example bc i did still enjoy the book! dark academia it was not, but it did have some interesting musings on gender and a neat take on vampires that i haven't really seen anything similar to before, also probably serving as a metaphor for several things, most of which probably went over my head. also the first book i've ever read that revolves around fanfic/fandom in such a prominent and genuinely sincere way, which was also quite neat to me! hearing ao3 get mentioned in a real published work nearly made me do a spit take but i still had fun :]
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Sexual content, Grief, and Outing
Moderate: Blood, Car accident, Infidelity, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Death, and Transphobia
Minor: Pregnancy and Deadnaming
osladek's review
This book has absolutely no plot and no romance. The two main characters bored me to death and had nothing in common or even interesting to talk about. The way this entire book is dialogue made me lose interest so quickly. The dialogue is also so word vomit-y and feels like each character is talking to their therapist and not a love interest. The trans main character also annoyed me immensely. I am so tired of reading trans characters that only have 1 personality trait and thing to talk about and that is just being trans and sad. It's so odd to me that this is written by a trans masc person and they cannot write compelling trans characters. Not to mention the weird lesbian stereotypes that felt lesbophobic. Also I felt so gross reading lesbian characters described as a slur. This wouldn't be an issue to me if the writer was part of the group that slur is used against, it can absolutely be reclaimed, but the author is NOT a lesbian and seemed to want to rip apart lesbians in every chapter. Overall I will not be picking this up again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Lesbophobia
Moderate: Transphobia
saloninareads's review
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
So, I enjoyed the intermissions with the screenplays and the vampirism as presented as interesting but I just didn't vibe with this one as much as I had hoped : /
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Transphobia
mielenmaisemia's review
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia
Moderate: Deadnaming