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booksthatburn's reviews
1463 reviews
Prophet by Sin Blaché, Helen Macdonald
Did not finish book. Stopped at 0%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 0%.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing
Minor: Violence
A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
adventurous
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Torture, Kidnapping, and Murder
Moderate: Ableism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, and Grief
Minor: Child death, Self harm, Suicide, Vomit, Death of parent, and Alcohol
Dreams of the Dying by Nicolas Lietzau
dark
emotional
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? Yes
2.0
I wanted to like this book. I had a good time reading most of it, with some minor quibbles. Then the ending happened, and it was so off-putting that it prompted me to reevaluate some events that I had accepted previously as plot contrivances, but, in combination with the ending, make me distrust the direction of potential future stories in this series or with these characters.
First, I will cover some things that I liked, because it wasn’t all bad – I did get to the end after all. I’ve been reading a lot of unsympathetic or unlikable characters recently, and so I was in a zone to accept this very flawed and conflicted main character who feels surrounded by death and like he just destroys the lives of the people around him. They made some really good points about different philosophical and political topics, including an extended digression about free will and showing people having trouble coping after very traumatic events.
There were a few signs that something was a bit off. Early on, when trying to remove a magical brain parasite from a pretty terrible person, the main character gets infected so that he has the parasite as well, and it starts messing with his dreams, and eventually begins affecting his ability to perceive reality, even when he awake. The story seem to establish pretty early on this character is bisexual or whatever is the in-universe equivalent, since at the start of the book there’s a night where he sleeps with a male and a female sex worker (frustration one: the book’s language for them was derogatory slang). Pretty soon after he arrives where he was summoned, he starts working together with a woman, and they start casually sleeping together. They’re traveling with another man, and when the woman notices that the main character seems attracted to this guy, she says she wants to be exclusive. Almost immediately, he has a nightmare where he sees her as a corpse, and his romantic and sexual feelings for her go away literally overnight, he sleeps with the other man that same evening, then tells the woman and she breaks up with him. It’s a really frustrating mistake that didn’t need to happen, he could’ve just not wanted to agree to be exclusive, but instead, he agreed to be exclusive and broke his promise in just a couple of days. Infidelity is a thing that happens sometimes in monogamous relationships, and in real life, people of any orientation might cheat. However, this was the second thing that made me specifically uncomfortable because now we have a bisexual character who is cheating, which plays into pretty terrible real-world stereotypes. This is also an early sign, which it took me to the end to realize, that the characters seem to associate intense, fuzzy feelings with love, and treat the absence of them as spelling doom for a relationship. This is very allonormative of them, and seemed to come out of nowhere when I first read the ending.
This was frustrating and complicated in several ways:
1) The book consistently treats intense romantic feelings as being directly tied to sexual desire, and assumes both are necessary for a meaningful relationship, this is acephobic and aerophobic
2) It treats a lack of emotion or difficulty identifying emotions as meaning someone can't be in a meaningful relationship (as someone with a very limited emotional palette, I vehemently disagree). Even worse, by accurately portraying this as possible side effect of brain damage (which is a real potential cause of this condition), the ableism is explicit and the author seems to have done it on purpose.
3) There's now no place for the narrative to go that I could accept. Either the character is gone forever from the series because he no longer loves the main character and won't come back, or he comes back because he gets his feelings back. Both are unacceptable to me. Also, if he comes back without having his sense of emotions restored, then what the hell was the point of leaving in the first place?
First, I will cover some things that I liked, because it wasn’t all bad – I did get to the end after all. I’ve been reading a lot of unsympathetic or unlikable characters recently, and so I was in a zone to accept this very flawed and conflicted main character who feels surrounded by death and like he just destroys the lives of the people around him. They made some really good points about different philosophical and political topics, including an extended digression about free will and showing people having trouble coping after very traumatic events.
There were a few signs that something was a bit off. Early on, when trying to remove a magical brain parasite from a pretty terrible person, the main character gets infected so that he has the parasite as well, and it starts messing with his dreams, and eventually begins affecting his ability to perceive reality, even when he awake. The story seem to establish pretty early on this character is bisexual or whatever is the in-universe equivalent, since at the start of the book there’s a night where he sleeps with a male and a female sex worker (frustration one: the book’s language for them was derogatory slang). Pretty soon after he arrives where he was summoned, he starts working together with a woman, and they start casually sleeping together. They’re traveling with another man, and when the woman notices that the main character seems attracted to this guy, she says she wants to be exclusive. Almost immediately, he has a nightmare where he sees her as a corpse, and his romantic and sexual feelings for her go away literally overnight, he sleeps with the other man that same evening, then tells the woman and she breaks up with him. It’s a really frustrating mistake that didn’t need to happen, he could’ve just not wanted to agree to be exclusive, but instead, he agreed to be exclusive and broke his promise in just a couple of days. Infidelity is a thing that happens sometimes in monogamous relationships, and in real life, people of any orientation might cheat. However, this was the second thing that made me specifically uncomfortable because now we have a bisexual character who is cheating, which plays into pretty terrible real-world stereotypes. This is also an early sign, which it took me to the end to realize, that the characters seem to associate intense, fuzzy feelings with love, and treat the absence of them as spelling doom for a relationship. This is very allonormative of them, and seemed to come out of nowhere when I first read the ending.
This was frustrating and complicated in several ways:
1) The book consistently treats intense romantic feelings as being directly tied to sexual desire, and assumes both are necessary for a meaningful relationship, this is acephobic and aerophobic
2) It treats a lack of emotion or difficulty identifying emotions as meaning someone can't be in a meaningful relationship (as someone with a very limited emotional palette, I vehemently disagree). Even worse, by accurately portraying this as possible side effect of brain damage (which is a real potential cause of this condition), the ableism is explicit and the author seems to have done it on purpose.
3) There's now no place for the narrative to go that I could accept. Either the character is gone forever from the series because he no longer loves the main character and won't come back, or he comes back because he gets his feelings back. Both are unacceptable to me. Also, if he comes back without having his sense of emotions restored, then what the hell was the point of leaving in the first place?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Torture, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Colonisation
Minor: Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
Blood Justice by Terry J. Benton-Walker
Did not finish book. Stopped at 13%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 13%.
The start was slow and I lost interest, then realized a couple of months later that I haven't made any progress in a while.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racism, Violence, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Cursing, Police brutality, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Vomit
Stolen by Kelley Armstrong
Did not finish book. Stopped at 7%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 7%.
I don't like the audiobook narrator.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Violence, and Blood
Minor: Ableism
the Wings of Ashtaroth by Steve Hugh Westenra
Did not finish book. Stopped at 18%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 18%.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Chronic illness, Cursing, Drug use, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Vomit, Grief, Religious bigotry, and War
Minor: Pregnancy
For Real by Alexis Hall
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I read FOR REAL compulsively, staying up far too late and getting up unreasonably early the next morning, pushing myself to read the whole thing in less than a day. It grabbed me, insistent and captivating. I needed to know how things would play out between Laurence and Toby, and I was not disappointed.
Laurie is almost forty, he needs to submit like he needs air, but playing with strangers feels like going through the motions and his ex-boyfriend moves in the same kink party circles as his friends. Toby is nineteen and desperate to be taken seriously. He knows what he wants, he just needs someone who will believe him and give themselves to him. A single night turns into a weekly arrangement, then transforms into something neither of them can bear to lose. They don't quite know how to bridge the gaps caused as much by the idea of the years between them as any actual misunderstandings caused by the gulf in experience. Both characters are adults, and while this age-gap scenario isn't something I'm generally into, part of what I appreciate is that it rides that edge of acknowledging and incorporating Toby's youth without trying to play up ideas of him being a child (since he's absolutely not one). That dynamic won't be for everyone, but I like how it plays out here.
One of the things Alexis Hall captures so perfectly is that people always are the oldest they've ever been, and dismissing someone's attempts to get the very experiences they lack just denies them agency to little purpose. If Toby is a dom who's ever going to experience consensual kink then someone has to be his first sub. Laurie has complicated feelings about this, what it means for either of them. He thinks that Toby will leave him someday, sooner rather than later, and keeps trying to push him away before that happens. Toby is frustrated by the way Laurie gives himself wholly over during sex, but holds himself back emotionally, erratically.
This is the first Spires book that's felt even a little bit like a sequel, but I think it actually takes place a year or so before the events of WAITING FOR THE FLOOD. Toby is related to a minor character from that book, and both Edwin and Marius have brief appearances here (my guess at the timeline is based on Marius's reaction to the barest whisper of news about Edwin). I'm generally a fan of reading books in order, but it doesn't really seem to matter where the Spires books are read in relation to each other (at least not so far). This is a self-contained storyline which has its own events and themes, not really wrapping up anything from a previous book, but providing an emotional prelude to some of WAITING FOR THE FLOOD. I like it as the third book, it needs the emotional context of the previous books' tangled relationships and emphasis on the need for both intent and action when caring for someone else. Part of what's happening here is that Laurie starts out thinking he can survive on just action, but Toby can't help but bring love and intent into it, and Laurie doesn't want to admit that he wants that too.
I love the Spires series and this is an excellent addition to it.
Laurie is almost forty, he needs to submit like he needs air, but playing with strangers feels like going through the motions and his ex-boyfriend moves in the same kink party circles as his friends. Toby is nineteen and desperate to be taken seriously. He knows what he wants, he just needs someone who will believe him and give themselves to him. A single night turns into a weekly arrangement, then transforms into something neither of them can bear to lose. They don't quite know how to bridge the gaps caused as much by the idea of the years between them as any actual misunderstandings caused by the gulf in experience. Both characters are adults, and while this age-gap scenario isn't something I'm generally into, part of what I appreciate is that it rides that edge of acknowledging and incorporating Toby's youth without trying to play up ideas of him being a child (since he's absolutely not one). That dynamic won't be for everyone, but I like how it plays out here.
One of the things Alexis Hall captures so perfectly is that people always are the oldest they've ever been, and dismissing someone's attempts to get the very experiences they lack just denies them agency to little purpose. If Toby is a dom who's ever going to experience consensual kink then someone has to be his first sub. Laurie has complicated feelings about this, what it means for either of them. He thinks that Toby will leave him someday, sooner rather than later, and keeps trying to push him away before that happens. Toby is frustrated by the way Laurie gives himself wholly over during sex, but holds himself back emotionally, erratically.
This is the first Spires book that's felt even a little bit like a sequel, but I think it actually takes place a year or so before the events of WAITING FOR THE FLOOD. Toby is related to a minor character from that book, and both Edwin and Marius have brief appearances here (my guess at the timeline is based on Marius's reaction to the barest whisper of news about Edwin). I'm generally a fan of reading books in order, but it doesn't really seem to matter where the Spires books are read in relation to each other (at least not so far). This is a self-contained storyline which has its own events and themes, not really wrapping up anything from a previous book, but providing an emotional prelude to some of WAITING FOR THE FLOOD. I like it as the third book, it needs the emotional context of the previous books' tangled relationships and emphasis on the need for both intent and action when caring for someone else. Part of what's happening here is that Laurie starts out thinking he can survive on just action, but Toby can't help but bring love and intent into it, and Laurie doesn't want to admit that he wants that too.
I love the Spires series and this is an excellent addition to it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Gore, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Cancer, Child abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racism, Sexism, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Blood, Dementia, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment
Contains brief Harry Potter references.
Lord of the Empty Isles by Jules Arbeaux
dark
emotional
reflective
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
5.0
*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.
LORD OF THE EMPTY ISLES begins with a problem caused by Remy’s attempt to seek revenge for the death of his brother. Namely, that when Remy succeeds in cursing his brother's murderer, the curse starts killing him. too. From there, the story transforms into a tale of abusive systems, fighting to live in the face of tyranny, and the way that punishment for punishment's sake wreaks destruction.
This was excellent! Once I started reading I didn't want to put it down. The cast of characters is big enough to feel numerous, but their roles and personalities are defined in a way that leaves just a few key players that really matter for those readers who have trouble keeping track of so many names.
The system of bonds is very complicated in terms of specifics, but I appreciate that I only really needed to keep track of a few aspects of how they work in order to completely follow the story. For those who want all the geeky explanations and extra detail, each chapter begins with a description from an in-universe text on how all of this works. The text exists because this is visceral but it isn't intuitive, and most people can't see the bonds, so there's a good reason to have this detailed explanation broken into easily understandable sections. It creates a more literal interplay between feelings and relationships, where grief isn't just a hollow in your soul but it can be a rotting tether that hurts, something some people can touch and other people can see.
Remy has spent the last five years trying to kill Idrian, outlaw and "Lord of the Empty Isles". Idrian gave the orders to whoever put a withering on Remy's brother, this curse that made him waste away in terrible pain until he died. As if that weren't traumatic enough, the tether which was the manifestation of Remy's love for his brother has rotted, leaving Remy wracked with grief and pain. Remy himself is a witherer, and, once he gets a hold of Idrian's blood, he has a way to do to Idrian what Idrian had done to his brother. However, when Remy lays the curse he discovers, to his horror, that he and Idrian must be fatebound, because the curse he just set in motion is killing him too. This is a very effective setup, and it's handled really well. The curse forces some level of physical proximity between them, which makes Remy not just have to spend enough time around Irian to see him as a person, but also to understand how many people he's keeping alive, and the real reason for his outlaw status.
LORD OF THE EMPTY ISLES takes place in the latter part of the century after a complicated climate/colonization disaster which left the subsequent generations with a tangible fear of overpopulation and squandering resources. The people in charge had, at some point, decided that prison colonies for resource-wasters and people with too many children was the way to ensure that the punishment was a warning. These colonies are the Empty Isles, and the truly cruel and disastrous effects of this system are explored at length when Remy ends up following Idrian to one of the Isles. It forces Remy to finally see the conditions of his world's prison colony when it's a crime to have extra children. There's an extra twist to the cruelty: because the population restrictions are based on class and location, it's possible for someone can have the allowed number, and then retroactively be denied an easement, making their children who already exist into a crime. The completely avoidable result of this is a lot of parents and kids in a prison without enough of anything, let alone the air.
The thing about an enemies to allies story is that you need a pretty good reason for them to have been enemies, but also there needs to be a really good reason for them to end up as allies. This is especially true when at least one party is so specifically devoted to the other's destruction. Simply having one of them lie to the other can get you a certain part of the way, but, to be actual allies, eventually something needs to be different than it was at the start. One or both of them needs to change in a way that is meaningful enough to call for them to realign their point of view. In LORD OF THE EMPTY ISLES, the presence of the withering means that long after someone's mind has changed they still have to deal with a decision made earlier, in a different state of mind and with different information. It changes the pressure and the momentum of the story. I'm used to (and generally frustrated by) stories which derive tension and anticipation from a character having lied early on and then the story maintaining suspense by putting the confession late enough that it's a betrayal no matter how the information comes out. I didn't feel that way at all here, even though some parts of that usual pattern were in place. The withering is at once a reminder of Remy's earlier mindset and an active danger, and I love how the reveal is handled.
LORD OF THE EMPTY ISLES begins with a problem caused by Remy’s attempt to seek revenge for the death of his brother. Namely, that when Remy succeeds in cursing his brother's murderer, the curse starts killing him. too. From there, the story transforms into a tale of abusive systems, fighting to live in the face of tyranny, and the way that punishment for punishment's sake wreaks destruction.
This was excellent! Once I started reading I didn't want to put it down. The cast of characters is big enough to feel numerous, but their roles and personalities are defined in a way that leaves just a few key players that really matter for those readers who have trouble keeping track of so many names.
The system of bonds is very complicated in terms of specifics, but I appreciate that I only really needed to keep track of a few aspects of how they work in order to completely follow the story. For those who want all the geeky explanations and extra detail, each chapter begins with a description from an in-universe text on how all of this works. The text exists because this is visceral but it isn't intuitive, and most people can't see the bonds, so there's a good reason to have this detailed explanation broken into easily understandable sections. It creates a more literal interplay between feelings and relationships, where grief isn't just a hollow in your soul but it can be a rotting tether that hurts, something some people can touch and other people can see.
Remy has spent the last five years trying to kill Idrian, outlaw and "Lord of the Empty Isles". Idrian gave the orders to whoever put a withering on Remy's brother, this curse that made him waste away in terrible pain until he died. As if that weren't traumatic enough, the tether which was the manifestation of Remy's love for his brother has rotted, leaving Remy wracked with grief and pain. Remy himself is a witherer, and, once he gets a hold of Idrian's blood, he has a way to do to Idrian what Idrian had done to his brother. However, when Remy lays the curse he discovers, to his horror, that he and Idrian must be fatebound, because the curse he just set in motion is killing him too. This is a very effective setup, and it's handled really well. The curse forces some level of physical proximity between them, which makes Remy not just have to spend enough time around Irian to see him as a person, but also to understand how many people he's keeping alive, and the real reason for his outlaw status.
LORD OF THE EMPTY ISLES takes place in the latter part of the century after a complicated climate/colonization disaster which left the subsequent generations with a tangible fear of overpopulation and squandering resources. The people in charge had, at some point, decided that prison colonies for resource-wasters and people with too many children was the way to ensure that the punishment was a warning. These colonies are the Empty Isles, and the truly cruel and disastrous effects of this system are explored at length when Remy ends up following Idrian to one of the Isles. It forces Remy to finally see the conditions of his world's prison colony when it's a crime to have extra children. There's an extra twist to the cruelty: because the population restrictions are based on class and location, it's possible for someone can have the allowed number, and then retroactively be denied an easement, making their children who already exist into a crime. The completely avoidable result of this is a lot of parents and kids in a prison without enough of anything, let alone the air.
The thing about an enemies to allies story is that you need a pretty good reason for them to have been enemies, but also there needs to be a really good reason for them to end up as allies. This is especially true when at least one party is so specifically devoted to the other's destruction. Simply having one of them lie to the other can get you a certain part of the way, but, to be actual allies, eventually something needs to be different than it was at the start. One or both of them needs to change in a way that is meaningful enough to call for them to realign their point of view. In LORD OF THE EMPTY ISLES, the presence of the withering means that long after someone's mind has changed they still have to deal with a decision made earlier, in a different state of mind and with different information. It changes the pressure and the momentum of the story. I'm used to (and generally frustrated by) stories which derive tension and anticipation from a character having lied early on and then the story maintaining suspense by putting the confession late enough that it's a betrayal no matter how the information comes out. I didn't feel that way at all here, even though some parts of that usual pattern were in place. The withering is at once a reminder of Remy's earlier mindset and an active danger, and I love how the reveal is handled.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Cursing, Genocide, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Deadnaming, Self harm, Terminal illness, Torture, Abortion, and Pregnancy
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall
adventurous
emotional
funny
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
5.0
ROSALINE PALMER TAKES THE CAKE features Rosaline, a single mom on a British baking show, falling for her fellow contestants and doting on her anglerfish-obsessed daughter. She needs the money, and hopes the resulting spotlight will lead to a lucrative cookbook-writing career. This is the first book in a series which seems slated to have different protagonists in each entry, with a fictionalized version of a particular British baking show as the connecting thread. This means that while I'm sure some sort of connecting lore will develop, I can, at least, assess this as if it's a stand-alone book. It isn't trying to leave anything in particular to be resolved later (except that there will be another season of the show), and this story wraps up on schedule.
I was very glad to read about a bisexual protagonist who gets a narrative which doesn't treat her identity as a spectacle. Rosaline does, however, have to deal with some biphobia and some truly awful behavior. One of the potential love interests slowly becomes more and more unpleasant as the show continues, in a way which allows for several possible moments where a reader can realize that something is wrong and this isn't just a choice between two perfectly fine relationship options. I don't want to spoil how things go, but the slow escalation of toxic behavior is a really great example of how this kind of person can stay in someone's life well past the first warning sign, depending on what other pressures and stressors are in play. I've seen some other reviews which were upset at Rosaline for not realizing how bad this person was much earlier, and this frustrated me, because they seemed to not understand the narrative arc and her growth as a character. The book would have been dull and half the length if she'd immediately known who to end up with and just gotten there fast. Instead, her slow realization highlights how insidious classism can be, particularly the way that this person got past her guard because he engaged in the "acceptable" forms of bigotry. By not having Rosaline perfectly clock this person as a socially-adept asshole, there's room for her to have an arc of realization and struggle over how to deal with this new information.
Part of Rosaline's story off-camera is renegotiating her relationship with her parents. They have this idea of who she could have been which is incompatible with who she is, and she's felt bad that she didn't have the career they envisioned because she had Amelie instead. She doesn't regret her daughter, and doesn't particularly seem to long for a career in medicine, but it's hard to be settled and confident in the life she actually has when there's never enough money and her parents don't let her forget for an instant how much they've done to help her make both ends meet.
Things I love, in no particular order: Amelie and her various interests (I also loved anglerfish when I was a kid); the process of filming the baking show; the other cast members; Rosaline's relationship with her ex-girlfriend/best friend.
I was very glad to read about a bisexual protagonist who gets a narrative which doesn't treat her identity as a spectacle. Rosaline does, however, have to deal with some biphobia and some truly awful behavior. One of the potential love interests slowly becomes more and more unpleasant as the show continues, in a way which allows for several possible moments where a reader can realize that something is wrong and this isn't just a choice between two perfectly fine relationship options. I don't want to spoil how things go, but the slow escalation of toxic behavior is a really great example of how this kind of person can stay in someone's life well past the first warning sign, depending on what other pressures and stressors are in play. I've seen some other reviews which were upset at Rosaline for not realizing how bad this person was much earlier, and this frustrated me, because they seemed to not understand the narrative arc and her growth as a character. The book would have been dull and half the length if she'd immediately known who to end up with and just gotten there fast. Instead, her slow realization highlights how insidious classism can be, particularly the way that this person got past her guard because he engaged in the "acceptable" forms of bigotry. By not having Rosaline perfectly clock this person as a socially-adept asshole, there's room for her to have an arc of realization and struggle over how to deal with this new information.
Part of Rosaline's story off-camera is renegotiating her relationship with her parents. They have this idea of who she could have been which is incompatible with who she is, and she's felt bad that she didn't have the career they envisioned because she had Amelie instead. She doesn't regret her daughter, and doesn't particularly seem to long for a career in medicine, but it's hard to be settled and confident in the life she actually has when there's never enough money and her parents don't let her forget for an instant how much they've done to help her make both ends meet.
Things I love, in no particular order: Amelie and her various interests (I also loved anglerfish when I was a kid); the process of filming the baking show; the other cast members; Rosaline's relationship with her ex-girlfriend/best friend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Sexual assault, and Classism
Moderate: Biphobia, Confinement, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Infidelity and Racism
Duking It Out by E.J. Russell
Did not finish book. Stopped at 21%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 21%.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement and Kidnapping
Minor: Abandonment and War