atomic_tourist's reviews
355 reviews

Survivor's Guilt by Robyn Gigl

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

Survivor's Guilt was off to a stronger start than Gigl's previous novel, By Way of Sorrow. I could really start to see how Gigl found her footing writing the characters, dialogue, and getting the pacing right. It was gratifying!

Like By Way of Sorrow, I have an overall favorable impression of Survivor's Guilt. It's compellingly readable and gets the balance right between being plot-driven and character-driven. The solution to the mystery was a tad obvious, but that didn't detract much from my experience as a reader; to me, in Gigl's books, the mystery of 'who did what and why' is secondary to the bigger question of 'what will happen in trial?'.

That said, I did have some other issues with this book. They are as follows:

- There's a Lisbeth-Salander-esque character in Survivor's Guilt. In fact, she is so reminiscent of Salander that I'd be surprised if Gigl didn't model her after the original. I have mixed feelings about this, because reading Survivor's Guilt felt (a bit - Gigl is not at Stieg Larsson's level) like reading the Millennium Trilogy, in the best way. The stakes were high, the characters were interesting, and the book was hard to put down. But ultimately, I was disappointed because it feels like Gigl just plagiarized from Larsson, and I know she can do better than that. This is a pretty big caveat for me.

- The one other thing that seriously impeded my enjoyment of the book is all of the copaganda. I am a mystery fanatic, so by necessity, I have made my peace with a certain level of police propaganda in my literary diet. I'm not happy about it, but I've accepted it, and I don't believe it matters too much since I can see through the BS and trust most other readers can, too. However, Gigl takes it a bit too far here... What was hardest for me to accept is that the Salander-esque character was in Fallujah and is described as 'serving her country.' But in general, there are just too many good cops in this book and also in its predecessor.

The Erin McCabe books are making history because there truly are not many other OwnVoices novels on trans women getting published. So it's disappointing that Gigl chooses to portray a false reality where trans & queer safety is contingent on the police when a simple Google search reveals that this is incorrect, both historically (Stonewall being an obvious example) and still to this day (I think this Vox article is a decent intro to the topic). 

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted 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

Such a fun romance!! McQuiston did a fantastic job rendering the leads' chemistry - you can practically feel it coming off the pages of the book. The plot is ambitious but balanced, and everything comes together in a satisfying conclusion, in typical rom-com style.

This is definitely a 'queer romance' and falls into (what I consider) the downfalls of the genre - too much astrology (lol it's true, I'm sorry!!), overly quirky characters, and quite a few cringey one-liners. But I'll take what I can get, and even with those annoyances, I was still completely absorbed in Jane and August's love story. I was kind of embarrassingly into it, actually. I think I even yelled at the book a few times, haha. In my defense, McQuiston teases the readers a lot with this one, so there is lots to yell about.

This book would have been perfect if it had been edited to be a bit more refined: I'm thinking of the style of Emma Straub's incredible time-travel novel, This Time Tomorrow. That said, it wasn't hard to meet the writing where it was at. The characters were loveable and the chemistry was palpable. A great comfort book!! 

Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

Oh MY god - Dirt Creek was absolutely phenomenal. Hayley Scrivenor is a writer who I will be keeping an eye on. I loved every single thing about this crime thriller. The plot was paced perfectly. The solution to the whodunnit was unexpected yet completely plausible. And the CHARACTERS. Oh, man!! That's what really sets this one apart. Scrivenor put so much care into getting the characters right, and that effort shines through. It's how she manages to combine so many different emotions that make this into much more than a mystery: it's a book about small towns, about friendship, family, loss, first loves, heartbreak, and everything in between. Just finished it yesterday but I already wish I could read it again for the first time. 

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? No

It feels like I inhaled The Daughter of Doctor Moreau too quickly, reading it in just a few quick sittings. But luckily, I can blame Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who made this novel all too readable and hard to put down, haha.

I especially enjoyed the interplay between Montgomery and Carlota's points of view, and their respective understandings of love - one of them jaded, the other eager. And truly, even though Daughter is also about the hybrids, and about land - I read it mostly as a novel about love, passion, and family. Moreno-Garcia delivered with this one! 

By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl

challenging dark emotional funny 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? No

There were a few moments in the beginning when it was clear that By Way of Sorrow could have used stronger editing. But around the 1/3 mark, the story picked up and Gigl's writing solidified. Overall, it is a strong legal drama with a cohesive mix of characters and a plot that balances thrill with emotion.

That said, if anyone I know reads this, I'd like to hear your thoughts on how Gigl wrote Sharise's character, particularly her use of AAVE. I admit that it made me uncomfortable at times. 

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

emotional mysterious reflective 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

Enjoyed Ishiguro's prose a lot but the heart of the novel failed to impress me. 

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

In need of: a hot dyke to mansplain "Especially Heinous" to me. Serious inquiries only!!

These stories were a mixed bag for me personally. I'd read "The Husband Stitch" before and the way it's been discussed online made me think it'd be the standout in this collection. But I actually found it to be a tad too obvious. "Inventory" was my favorite out of the bunch and I also enjoyed "Mothers" and "The Resident", the latter of which showcases Machado's ability to conjure a vivid atmosphere and sense of foreboding-- a true horror queen!

I truly did not 'get' the longest story (really, it's a novella) in the collection, "Especially Heinous" and it's unclear to me why it's gotten so many rave reviews over stories that I consider stronger. (Though far be it from me to begrudge Machado the well-deserved attention!).

Also, it's hard for me to compare the experience of reading Her Body to the experience of reading Machado's second book, In the Dream House (which is one of my all-time favorites). Dream House is a TOUGH memoir, and, in it, Machado really exposes herself, telling the story of how she survived an abusive relationship. So there's an inherent (morbid) curiosity and nosiness that gets satisfied when reading Dream House and that doesn't transfer over to Her Body.

With the cult status Machado has achieved in the world of lesbian fiction, it's easy for me to forget she's pretty early in her career; I am holding my breath until her next fiction release so I can better gauge what her writing 'feels' like to me. 

Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

The sort of book that makes you go woah, what did I just read?! in the best sort of way.

I'm left with a million thoughts and a bajillion questions. If anyone I know ever reads this book, please please PLEASE tell me what you think!! And if you're on the fence about reading it, do it.

Rumfitt beautifully pays homage to the 'greats' of horror, with passages in the book that wink at Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, Henry James, and others. But rather than imitating or simplifying their works, she is in conversation with them. In Tell Me I'm Worthless, she expands upon existing works by directly engaging with questions of queerness, race, fascism, and how they intersect with the horror genre.

My one qualm about Rumfitt's writing is that at times it read as overly neat or academic. But I think it's impossible to write a novel like this without having some structured segments that guide the reader toward the politics and theory that Rumfitt has added to the mix.

What I loved the best about Tell Me I'm Worthless, though, were the raw, emotional, unstructured parts. That stream-of-consciousness bit near the end, when Ila and Alice are back at the House-- I was holding my fucking breath for minutes while reading it. It was incredible.

A great execution of a haunted house novel that draws on tensions inherent in queerness and questions of race and intersectionality. Worthless was horrifying (meant as a compliment, given its genre) and is maybe my favorite horror novel of 2023. 

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

Daisy Darker was off to such a good start! An ultra-readable take on the Christie classic And Then There Were None, the ending (and its completely unnecessary supernatural components! Like, come on!) left me wanting more. I was reminded of my experience of reading Acts of Violet, where the ending similarly let me down. Ugh. 

Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

Really wish I could have liked Thrust, but it just didn't do it for me. From her writing, I get the sense that Lidia Yuknavitch is the sort of person whose head I'd love to spend some time in; it takes a great deal of intellect and vision to execute something like Thrust. I think I would have enjoyed it when I was younger, maybe, and I can see myself recommending it to some friends, but I'm at an emotional place right now where Yuknavitch's writing style was too flowery for me, and her take-home messages were preaching to the choir rather than altering or expanding my perspective.