alisarae's reviews
1578 reviews

The Haunted Boy by Carson McCullers

reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

My first Carson McCullers - an author whom I always suspected I would like. Women who wrote about darker undercurrents during the white and rosy 1950s always intrigue me. 

I found it quite interesting to read this back to back with The Problem That Has No Name by Betty Friedan, another book from the Modern Classics set. In two of the stories, middle class housewives are dealing with mental illness, perhaps part of their problem is "the problem that has no name." The other story, The Sojourner, paints a picture of a man who is unsatisfied, melancholic, and lonely, in spite of having many opportunities to not be those things. It questions the rosey midcentury American experience.

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Such a fun read! I like when sci-fi doesn't take itself too seriously. I hereby submit my petition to have more average intelligence characters and gallows humor in sci-fi. I am really hoping the movie plays up the comedy aspect. 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Creative and imaginative storywith a fun concept! I enjoyed it enough to read in one day. 

Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

A book about a bunch of insomniacs trying to solve a mystery in the middle of the night honestly sounds like it was written about me. The irony of my checking out this book at 3am was not lost.

The characters were good but I had hoped for more from the thriller/horror aspect. 

The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story by John Freeman

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

So many great stories in this anthology! Here were my favorites:

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K Le Guin - TFW you realize your comfort comes at the exploitation of others

The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich - A guy's brother has PTSD

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien - War is always personal. 

The Hermit's Story by Rick Bass - Just a really beautiful meditation on nature and hope

A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri - Gut. Punched. 

The Penthouse by Andrew Holleran - How NYC, and gay subculture, has gentrified

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu - Heart. Broken. (2nd time reading this)

The Dune by Stephen King - Look, Stephen King really does write better sober. 

The Great Silence by Ted Chiang - Chiang is one of the few geniuses of our time. 

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a thrilling addition to the Throne of Glass series! Maas's compelling plot building skills shine. 

This book follows three plot lines: Celaena learning about her fae powers and a new love interest, Chaol and Dorian trying to figure out how the king has his dark powers, and Manon Blackbeak with her new pet wyvern. 

I really liked Manon's storyline even though at first I was skeptical of where it was going. She has a lot of potential set up for future books. The boys back in Renthrall were kinda just dinking around until the end of the book... and Celaena underwent large character growth for once as she accepted the mantle of her rotal title. Excited to see where this goes next!

Dubliners by James Joyce

challenging reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

My first James Joyce. The writing was quite enjoyable to read and it evoked a melancholy feeling in me. I enjoyed and appreciated it more when I was reading the text rather than listening to the audiobook. 

I read on wikipedia that Joyce wrote the book to inspire Irish people to reflect on their lives and shake them out of the status quo... to help them develop a stronger sense of national identity. He felt that people were "frozen" and several of the characters do literally freeze up when they have to make a pivotal decision. So, it was interesting to reflect on the effectiveness of those two concepts when I was reading.

Yield Under Great Persuasion by Alexandra Rowland

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was way better than I was expecting! Just a random suggestion from Hoopla by a self published author that I had never heard of before. It took a little bit to convince me that I was going to like it but it starts getting cute around 20%. I am all about the cozy romance with just a touch of fantasy elements these days! I also really like the sunshine-grumpy trope so that was a bonus. 

The Problem That Has No Name by Betty Friedan

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

This feminist classic made me reflect a lot on the church my family attended in high school. Evangelical churches in general were never particularly charitable to women, but certainly that one in particular was not. It had around 500 people at a given service, all middle and upper middle class white families who homeschooled. I think there was maybe one or two whose kids went to a private Christian school, and nobody that I knew of went to public school. Families with three kids were on the smaller side and five was more typical -- though we were two degrees of separation from the Duggars. This was during the Mark Driscoll era, so people dressed stylishly, with teens in Hollister and American Eagle and moms winking that their Buckle jeans were worth every cent. 

There must have been around 30 girls my age and I only knew one besides myself who ended up going to a traditional university, and that girl's family stopped attending before she graduated high school. So in effect, I was the only girl my age in a church of 500 upper middle class white people who had plans to get a 4-year degree. In fact, the only woman I knew who worked full-time was my aunt, and she didn't go to college. Interestingly, I knew multiple women who had college degrees, and one of them explicitly discouraged me from going to college. 

So, what were girls encouraged to do while their brothers went off to law school or whatever? Stay living at home "under their father's protection" until they got married and that "mantle of authority was transferred to their husband." I suppose taking some community college or bible college classes were allowed, as several ended up doing photography, graphic design, and midwifery on the side -- things that they could juggle around their "primary calling" of being a mom and homemaker. 

When Friedan describes the feminine mystique, what its demands and arguments are, I felt sure I had heard it explicitly taught before: That the greatest source of fulfilment and highest calling as a woman was in the home with their children. Ignoring the fact that this has been nearly impossible financially speaking for most families for most of history, it hardly proved true emotionally in my high school church. I found out later that not a few of the women were on antidepressants -- which, no shame if you need those and are prescribed them, but why did moms need them more than dads if both are supposedly "living their highest calling"? Wait, I think I can guess the answer: their sinful nature is causing them to desire something other than God's perfect plan for their life, just like when Eve and Sarah tried to take matters into their own hands instead of trusting God. Perhaps they needed a little synthetic joy to get the godly joy flowing. 

In a community that was trying to emulate 1950s family life ideals, it is no surprise that a psychological malady that afflicted 1950's housewives was appearing decades later...The Problem That Has No Name. I wonder what I would have thought if I had read this back then?

Pair with Jesus and John Wayne

We Called Them Giants by Kieron Gillen

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I liked the art! The plot had an interesting premise but the storytelling was somehow a bit slow for a post apocalyptic story in only 100 pages. I think if Annette's character had been stronger comedy relief it would have been a better read for me.