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bashsbooks's Reviews (266)
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
The Gnostic Gospels is such a good book - I would recommend it to anyone interested in Christianity or religion in general (especially if you're a fantasy writer and you want to create a complex worldwide religion in your universe). Pagels is obviously an expert in her field, but she makes this content so accessible, which is a rare feat. She starts by giving readers a general sketch of gnosticism, though she constantly reminds us that gnosticism wasn't a monolith, and that it was a general term for many types of early Christianity that weren't orthodox. And then she takes us through a few of the key places where orthodox and gnostic Christianity butt heads: in their literalism (or not) of the passion of Christ, in the role of women, in whether or not there should be a hierarchy within the religion, on whether or not to be a martyr, and how to truly know God (internally and externally). Also, who (or what) even is God?
I also appreciate Pagel's thoughts on why gnosticism didn't quite catch on like orthodox Christianity, and I like that she's transparent about her attempts to be as neutral as possible. This isn't a book pushing you to convert to orthodox or gnostic Christianity; it's a book about understanding them relative to each other.
My only critique is that I wish it was longer. I'm not sure I have the ability to parse the denser and less beginner-friendly materials under the references.
I also appreciate Pagel's thoughts on why gnosticism didn't quite catch on like orthodox Christianity, and I like that she's transparent about her attempts to be as neutral as possible. This isn't a book pushing you to convert to orthodox or gnostic Christianity; it's a book about understanding them relative to each other.
My only critique is that I wish it was longer. I'm not sure I have the ability to parse the denser and less beginner-friendly materials under the references.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry
Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Torture
-Martyrdom
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Though it seems abundantly clear to me now that Lucasfilms or whoever has a very specific format they want these novels to fit (they're all structured the same damn way lol), I think Kemp did a better job with it than Karpyshyn. It's funny to me that Malgus is like, a Vader redux, but I do appreciate the exploration of a Sith with a lover post commitment to Sithdom. In fact, I appreciate all the explorations of love in this book: Aryn's love for Zallow as a father figure, Zeerid's love for his daughter, Aria, and their budding love for one another, in addition to the explorations of Malgus and Eleena. Speaking of Aryn, I think it's cool to see a Jedi who leaves the Order without becoming evil, leaving for love and becoming better for it. Need more of that in the Star Wars Extended Universe.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Ableism, Chronic illness
Minor: Slavery
-Terrorism
adventurous
dark
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:
Complicated
Urgh, I feel like this one was the worst of the three! It did have all the same improvements I noted for Rule of Two (and I also listened to this one as an audiobook), including soundscaping, cool battle descriptions, and fascinating Sith lore - though I think some of that was lazily copypasted from the previous book and given a new sheen. But there was so much more I did not like. Not a fan of Set Harth as a character. I feel like he's Giving Me Nothing. The plotline of Serra and Lucia had its high points, but it was also super frustrating to watch Serra fuck herself over so severely.
The saving grace of this book was The Huntress, my beloved Darth Cognus. I love her and I would do anything for her. She would torture me for fun and kill me when she got bored, just how I like it. I think her precognition shit is rad as fuck. Also, the final battle between Zannah and Bane was appropriately climactic, which is a feet considering how built up-to it was.I like the ending implication that maybe their essences merged into one.
The saving grace of this book was The Huntress, my beloved Darth Cognus. I love her and I would do anything for her. She would torture me for fun and kill me when she got bored, just how I like it. I think her precognition shit is rad as fuck. Also, the final battle between Zannah and Bane was appropriately climactic, which is a feet considering how built up-to it was.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Death of parent
Minor: Alcohol
-Emotional manipulation, terrorism, drug use in a torture setting
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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:
Complicated
I liked Rule of Two better than Path of Destruction, though I think 75% of the improvement had nothing to do with Karpyshyn's writing (I'll give 25% to him - I like the way he describes fight scenes); I listened to the audiobook version of this, and the soundscaping plus the narration improved the story overall. I loved the relevant background noises, the beeping for the droids, and the timely motif music. I think the narrator, Jonathan Davis, does a good job at distinguishing between the voices without being grating, most of the time. That said, I don't really like his Darth Zannah. And I don't really like Karpyshyn's Darth Zannah, either, if I'm being honest. (Okay, that's not true. But she has a serious and terminal case of Woman Written By A Man Syndrome, and it reaches its peek with her little Twi'lek boyfriend, Kel.) We also have another case of Heavy-Handed, Spoonfed Morals.)
Once again, the coolest stuff from this series is Sith Lore. I love the development of Zannah's Sith sorcercy. I was LOCKED IN whenever Bane tried to create a Holocron, I think the construction and design of them is SO FUCKING COOL. Fascinated by Belia Darzu's technobeast thing. The Sith remain doing fucked up shit, but it's cool though.RIP to the Jedi POV people, that's a baller choice. Definitely can see that he didn't necessarily intend for it to be a trilogy. And RIP to my unaligned KING, Caleb.
Once again, the coolest stuff from this series is Sith Lore. I love the development of Zannah's Sith sorcercy. I was LOCKED IN whenever Bane tried to create a Holocron, I think the construction and design of them is SO FUCKING COOL. Fascinated by Belia Darzu's technobeast thing. The Sith remain doing fucked up shit, but it's cool though.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse
Minor: Alcohol, Pandemic/Epidemic
-Emotional manipulation, terrorism
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Mysticism needs a revival, I'm telling you. These anchorettes and prioresses were onto something with their vivid descriptions, near-death altered states, and their 30 years of reflection. I really enjoyed Julian of Norwich's revelations, which mostly focused on vision she had of Christ on the cross. I think it's fascinating how interested, bodily and spiritually, she was in this one (important, sure, but only one) moment in Christ's life. And also I thought it was funny seeing reviews from other Christians being like "has she read the Bible?" as if they, themselves, have read the Bible. I didn't find anything to be like, heretical by biblical standards in this; it's just very different from modern interpretations, even modern Catholics.
The narrator wasn't bad but I do think her accent in half-translated Middle English is super bizarre.
The narrator wasn't bad but I do think her accent in half-translated Middle English is super bizarre.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, Murder
Moderate: Antisemitism, Religious bigotry
Minor: Misogyny
-It seems religiously disrespectful to call her visions psychosis, but also a modern reader might interpret them that way? So just be aware of that.
-There is a life-threatening illness that comes up over and over again.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
I was browsing the New Nonfiction at the library when I picked this up. I heard about Gisèle Pelicot's story in passing when it became international news, but I didn't look into the details at the time. I try not to read too much real-world crime content that isn't written by the victims themselves.
Darian is one of the victims, the daughter of the perpetrator and the victim - but also, a victim herself, along with her sisters-in-law. I think she explores the complicated feelings she has for her father in a very raw, human, and compelling way. She also is very good at writing how insanity-inducing this level of manipulation is.
It is a difficult read, given the subject matter, but I think Darian's goal of highlighting chemical submission as a pervasive but little-talked about form of abuse is important.
Darian is one of the victims, the daughter of the perpetrator and the victim - but also, a victim herself, along with her sisters-in-law. I think she explores the complicated feelings she has for her father in a very raw, human, and compelling way. She also is very good at writing how insanity-inducing this level of manipulation is.
It is a difficult read, given the subject matter, but I think Darian's goal of highlighting chemical submission as a pervasive but little-talked about form of abuse is important.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Grief, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Incest, Panic attacks/disorders
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Sour Cherry is the best fiction novel I've read in a long time. An ethereal meditation on domestic abuse and cycles of gendered violence, I was hooked from the first page. Theodoridou handles the weight of the themes with a deft hand, taking them seriously and making the reader look without it ever feeling gratuitous. I was fascinated with the central questions: 1) what stories do we tell ourselves to survive? I think Sour Cherry interrogated that to a degree I've never seen before. I enjoyed that the answer, in part, seemed to be fairy tales, to this day, at this age. And 2) what is the power of a name? The unreliable nature of names, the use of ephitates, the fact that the man never gets a name, really, the loss of names with a loss of self... that was woven into critiques of patriarcal violence exquisitely.
All in all, THIS is what I'm looking for from reimaginings of classics.
All in all, THIS is what I'm looking for from reimaginings of classics.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Body horror, Infidelity, Abandonment
Minor: Cursing, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
mid
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Body shaming, Death, Homophobia, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Fatphobia, Genocide, Rape, Torture
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Self harm, Suicide, Transphobia, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Medical trauma
it's the bible
emotional
mysterious
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:
No
Honestly, A Curse of Fate isn't as bad as I thought it would be - I read it because of a bunch of memes clowning on it, but it's a perfectly fine book of its genre. Or it would be. If Eve had just hired an editor. Like, many of these self-pub books are bad not because their authors can't write, but because they don't put effort, money, or time into editing. An editor would've told Eve that the vague references to Hunter's CEO job are lazy and interrupt the world building, for example. They would've smoothed out disjointed scenes and reworked painfully cringe dialogue. They would've eased the exposition dump.
On top of all that, it thinks a little too highly of itself ("this isn't omegaverse, it's a shifter romance").
On top of all that, it thinks a little too highly of itself ("this isn't omegaverse, it's a shifter romance").
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Sexual content, Blood, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Violence, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder
Minor: Torture
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I've had They Were Her Property on my TBR for years. I'd forgotten about it until it was cited in the early chapters of Enemy Feminisms. 100% had an "oh, shit, I meant to read that!" moment.
My roots are in the USAmerican South (specifically Appalachia/Mid-Atlantic region - Maryland and Virginia), so I grew up hearing a lot about the antebellum South, alongside romaticizations and softenings of the inhumane, violent, and horrific realities of slavery. And one of those myths, yes, was that white women weren't really involved in all that 'cause they were oppressed, too. Jones-Rogers addresses that myth directly a number of times in the text, but the indirect refrences to it in numerous othet historical and academic texts that she refutes with her data does a clear job of displaying just how entrenched that has become in our perception of slavery here in the United States.
And that leads me to this book's strongest aspect: it is extremely clear. It grasps your hand and drags you through it, piece-by-piece, explaining the implications of minute details and putting them into full context. There is no way to wriggle away from the central thesis of the text. Jones-Rogers will not allow it.
Something that surprised me about They Were Her Property was the humanization of white women slave owners - without excusing their actions or placing their humanity as more important than the human beings they enslaved. Retrospectively, this makes a lot of sense - they were people, and confronting that reality over and over points out that 1) you can have legitimate concerns and marginalizations while still doing objectively horrible and inexcusable things and so 2) we're not immune to being horrible, too.
All around stellar book. I'd make it required reading in high school US history courses if I could.
My roots are in the USAmerican South (specifically Appalachia/Mid-Atlantic region - Maryland and Virginia), so I grew up hearing a lot about the antebellum South, alongside romaticizations and softenings of the inhumane, violent, and horrific realities of slavery. And one of those myths, yes, was that white women weren't really involved in all that 'cause they were oppressed, too. Jones-Rogers addresses that myth directly a number of times in the text, but the indirect refrences to it in numerous othet historical and academic texts that she refutes with her data does a clear job of displaying just how entrenched that has become in our perception of slavery here in the United States.
And that leads me to this book's strongest aspect: it is extremely clear. It grasps your hand and drags you through it, piece-by-piece, explaining the implications of minute details and putting them into full context. There is no way to wriggle away from the central thesis of the text. Jones-Rogers will not allow it.
Something that surprised me about They Were Her Property was the humanization of white women slave owners - without excusing their actions or placing their humanity as more important than the human beings they enslaved. Retrospectively, this makes a lot of sense - they were people, and confronting that reality over and over points out that 1) you can have legitimate concerns and marginalizations while still doing objectively horrible and inexcusable things and so 2) we're not immune to being horrible, too.
All around stellar book. I'd make it required reading in high school US history courses if I could.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Cursing, Miscarriage, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, War
-Dehumanization
-Familial separation