arguhlincozzi's reviews
907 reviews

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
Did not finish book. Stopped at 16%.

It was honestly too dark for me. I was also going through a death of a friend and I couldn't handle that plus this book and its heaviness. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Kidnapping, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Abandonment, Blood, Death, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Cannibalism

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Violence, Gun violence, Antisemitism, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Blood, Racism, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Ableism, Car accident, Drug use, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Dysphoria, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Abandonment, Medical content, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Pregnancy, and Sexism

it's just so good.

Subterranean by James Rollins

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-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

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

adventurous challenging dark inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Classism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Police brutality, Self harm, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, War, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abortion, Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Death, Grief, Homophobia, Mental illness, Blood, Child abuse, Excrement, and Physical abuse

Under A Pole Star by Stef Penney

adventurous challenging emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I did find the romance at the center of the book to be heartbreakingly tragic and touching written. However, I think I agree with past reviews that given that it was the central point of the book, the narrative took too long to get to this story. There were other elements that were clearly of interest to the author but not explored fully and thus were placed in there and underdeveloped. Further, the entire story is written very much from a settler's perspective, with main characters getting to be drawn as the kind of person who is against certain settler perspectives, but still very much written from this narrative of being a good white person in this era. The ways the Inuit people are thus written is, at best, insulting. The usage of the word "E*****" I understand wouldn't be seen well by many, and I think overall, I expected and hoped for better.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Racial slurs, Cultural appropriation, and Racism

Micro by Michael Crichton

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative fast-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

3.5

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

adventurous dark emotional inspiring 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

The Inn by James Patterson

adventurous dark fast-paced

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

2.5

The Remaining by D.J. Molles

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I expected this to be a book focused on a military man in a zombie apocalypse world being the hero because he's trained and resourced. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the driving mission for the main character is to work with others to rebuild society, and share resources and rescue people to rebuild trust and faith. Further, the main character contemplates on the emotional turmoil of surviving in such a world a lot more than I expected/have seen from similar novels and I think this is a characteristic that takes the book above its peers. 

Dog spoiler >

the dog dies

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Content Warnings

dog dies