booksanddopamine's reviews
222 reviews

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

dark emotional reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

This is a bleak book but I loved it. Throughout the journey the book explores what it means to be human. Does it make someone more human to be born into a society with constructs? Who and what determines what makes someone more human than someone else? Who are we when those constructs are removed, when we don't have a society telling us what beautiful is, or how to be in the world?

If the only thing that differentiates us from animals is the fact that we hide to defecate, then being human rests on very little, I thought.

What is freedom? (I loved the term "hollow freedom"). How can you find threads of hope when it seems like all is lost? How do you find meaning when all there is to look forward to is death?

The characters also grapple with mortality and time, and how time itself is a social construct. There are unending questions with no answers. This to me reflected our human nature to question and never be satisfied.

The alternation of day and night is merely a physical phenomenon, time is a question of being human and, frankly, how could I consider myself a human being, I who have only known thirty-nine people and all of them women?

What Lies Between Us by John Marrs

medium-paced

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

3.25

The plot twists are predictable, there's stuff thrown in for what feels like shock value, and there are quite a few points that were implausible. What is supposed to be the biggest plot twist made me groan (

vilifying mental illness trope

). I did read until the end but I wasn't invested in the characters. 

Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.

I keep thinking I'll go back to this and finish it but I'm done kidding myself. There's nothing about the story that compels me to want to continue with it and suffer through the boredom.

Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

I like a weird book so the weirdness factor was not a negative for me. The prose was beautiful. The first half of the book drew me in but the twist ruined the book for me. 

Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones

emotional funny inspiring medium-paced

5.0

I want to emphasize that I read the audiobook which I would equate to the director's cut of a movie - extended scenes and additional footage. I loved it. I enjoyed Leslie's conversational tone throughout the book and her not sticking 100% to the script. It was like listening to a friend share a story with authenticity and vulnerability.

I laughed a lot. I cried.  I'll never think of hemorrhoids the same way. It's the only audiobook where I enjoyed sticking around for the end credits.

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

dark mysterious slow-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

It started out decent and then just became a fever dream out-of-body experience of time passing by quickly. And the worst thing that can happen happened - I got incredibly bored.

This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

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

This was an emotional read. A large part of the book is written as if the protagonist is talking to his dead wife. The portrayal of grief and loss is raw and real. Unfortunately it seems many folks go into this book thinking it's about a haunted device similar to an Alexa, but it's not. There's also a large split between people who like the ending and people who think it fell flat. I don't mind an ambiguous ending and am still thinking on it. Beautiful book overall.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

A great winter read with cold and isolated feels. I didn't know what to expect going into it and it did get depressing as it went along. It's a quiet reflective story with beautiful writing. 

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

challenging dark emotional sad 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

5.0

This book absolutely wrecked me. I'm not sure if I've ever been more emotionally invested in a book. At the end I was sniveling and needed to take some deep breaths from that tense last thirty minutes that had me shouting, "Go, go, go!" This was a heavy (emphasis on heavy) read. There were ghosts, but the real horror of the book were the events and humans that were closely linked to reality and systemic abuse and oppression.