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dearvillains's review
3.25
Graphic: Medical content, Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Dysphoria, Lesbophobia, Sexual content, and Transphobia
Moderate: Deadnaming, Infidelity, Ableism, Misogyny, and Suicidal thoughts
thecolouryes's review against another edition
- 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
Moderate: Outing, Confinement, Mental illness, Blood, Dysphoria, and Transphobia
Minor: Sexism, Grief, Sexual content, Lesbophobia, Body shaming, Car accident, Deadnaming, Death, Homophobia, and Toxic relationship
osladek's review
Graphic: Lesbophobia
Moderate: Transphobia
_brenna_'s review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Sexual content and Lesbophobia
solspringsreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Even so, the actual plot of this book is pretty interesting. It somehow manages to be exactly as advertised (vampire archivist!) and not at all what is advertised and then also more than what is advertised. The relationship between the main characters burns incredibly fast and is very intense, and like many other readers, I’m not sure I really… liked the main relationship. Not that I’m even sure that I’m supposed to? It’s complicated.
This is a book about very messy, flawed people trying to work through their chaos together. It’s not trying to be healthy or idealized, and that’s pretty great! We deserve to have messy queer characters figuring out who they are. I really appreciated what this book was doing thematically, even if the execution wasn’t my favorite. This book can also be very emotionally taxing if you, too, are a messy, flawed person trying to work through your chaos. Please check the trigger warnings before picking this one up.
Graphic: Lesbophobia, Sexism, Outing, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Biphobia, Hate crime, Transphobia, Misogyny, Dysphoria, Homophobia, Deadnaming, Infidelity, Blood, and Toxic relationship
sucreslibrary's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
flat characters. insta-love. very narrow idea of transness and trans bodies. seems to have some real beef with butches and believes them to all be closeted trans men. every character speaks in the same way. embarrassingly overwritten. all the "good" characters praise the MC up and down for some reason even as he himself talks at length about how awful he is. so much fandom BS that adds nothing to the story even when taken as the metaphor it's meant to be. has waaaaaay too many metaphors as it is and looooves to spend a ton of time discussing them.
just terrible. i had really been looking forward to this book and ended up feeling incredibly insulted and hurt by the contents of it.
Graphic: Lesbophobia
literatemushroom's review
That's not all, the writing was flat and all of the characters were the same. No unique voices at all.
All together I am extremely disappointed in this book.
Graphic: Lesbophobia and Transphobia
dizzymissliz's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
from the perspective of a cis woman i think that this was an excellent recreation of the trans experience that really helped me to understand the fluidity and development of gender. there was also some truly beautiful prose that made me go "wow." and the ending was very beautifully written.
that being said.
the characters were barely fleshed out and felt like cardboard cutouts or characters in an educational video serving no purpose except to make Sol 3-dimensional. Else was super cute but I did not like Sol that much. Honestly I was kind of neutral about both of them but leaning negative, like, I would not like them in real life.
The main thing that made me have a sour outlook on this book was the author's treatment of lesbians, and women in general.
for one thing, the author (a MAN) continually uses the d- slur to describe characters, which is a slur he can't reclaim. also, lesbians are just treated very poorly and women are continually described in a way that kind of made me uncomfortable? Sol himself seems to love women sexually but doesn't like them very much otherwise which made me dislike him. I know that as a trans person there is some discomfort with your AGAB but DAYUM the author didn't have to be weird about it.
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Transphobia and Homophobia
Minor: Car accident and Lesbophobia
metalmakubex's review against another edition
Moderate: Transphobia, Lesbophobia, and Deadnaming