bifuriousaf's reviews
6 reviews

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Solomon really digs into the dirt, the blood, the earthiness of us all in this book. I love the way they blended knowledge of the land and Indigenous sovereignty into this book so naturally as well as the history of oppression and how land has been stolen, how revolution and communities have been broken. This is a central part of the story and our very realities as people who occupy what is now known as the U.S.A.
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I found this book to be brutal and a deep red, like the bright lifeblood the author/narrator references. It’s a tale about the co/fragmented existences of a little girl and something more as it tries to burst out of her flesh. The struggle between godhood and mortality and survival and love and self reclamation. I felt like Emezi looked into my soul and saw my deepest hopes and fears and shames and I felt the broken mixed bastard demigod stuck between planes (that is and isn’t me) starring back at me. 
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Impostors by Scott Westerfeld

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challenging dark emotional sad tense 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? Yes

4.0

I did not expect this book to gut me the way it did. Scott Westerfeld builds upon the world of Uglies heart wrenchingly as the protagonist Frey explores what it means to be her own person in the interpersonal and systematic perspectives. Gotta love some science fiction that’s actually a love letter to people pleasers. 
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This is the first of Okorafor’s books I read at 14. It blew my mind, as a child who grew up being fed white sci-fi and always wanting more. It led me to understanding my mother, it reminds me deeply of Xenogenesis by Octavia E. Butler, and will always have such a special place in my heart. Onyesonwu’s journey to find her place in a world that believes in binaries is heartbreaking yet powerful and joyful. She finds community and love and power despite the entire world’s attempt to take or keep those things from her.
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Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • 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

5.0

Wildseed is a beautifully brutal tale about survival and magic and ancestry.
Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

5.0

As a fellow hafu/Okinawan daughter of an Okinawan immigrant, this book spoke to me on such a personal level. I grew up knowing my mother and Bachan’s stories but this perspective gut punched me as it offered me a bowl of cut fruit. Great do immigrant daughters looking to understand their mothers and their sacrifices.
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