bravokidroxy's reviews
59 reviews

The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions by Kerry Greenwood

Go to review page

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

5.0

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

Go to review page

Did not finish book. Stopped at 40%.
Literally cannot figure out what is going on. I know this is supposed to be a really good book but I can’t get into it. 
The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins

Go to review page

challenging hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

“You have to really look at a place, for among time, to see it clear…I know the opposite is also true, I’m guessing it’s that way with you, you loved this place so hard you turned blind.” 

The Unmapping isn’t a book about Emergency Management and broken systems that are trying their best regardless. It isn’t a book about grief, trauma, or the ever changing nature of reality. It isn’t even really about community and the inevitable flaws of humanity in close contact. It’s all of those, and something so much more.

I love surrealism because it forces your brain into taking this obsene, absurd premise of a city shuffling its buildings around, as straight fact. You step over the initial hump of shock and awe and into the world with parallels to reality you can’t even fully grasp. At least that’s what happens for me. The reality is that this version of the end of the world probably isn’t going to happen but we as readers and as humans living in modern post-capitalism have already experienced the end of the world over and over and over again. 

What’s next is the interesting part. When we figure out how to get into the nitty gritty dirt band work of hurting each other and asking forgiveness. Causing new problems by fixing old ones. Holding hands across the street to stand up against chaos and indifference. We live in a society and part of the reason our messy culture loves to write stories set in NYC is because its parallels to that society are so clear. Cities are the place where chaos and order smash into each other, gridded roads coming right up to the edge of a river that isn’t a river. Boroughs and neighborhoods that are so culturally defined they forgot where the geographic boundaries are supposed to be. So many people standing on the same street corner each wrapped in their own bubble of anonymity. These dicotomies aren’t opposites, they are continuations. Contradictions are the only way we’re going to save the world, by letting it end again and again. 

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for this review. All opinions are my own 
Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman

Go to review page

Did not finish book.
Went out of town returned the library book and will wait before I try again because it wasn’t connecting with me. 
Attack on Titan, Volume 10 by Hajime Isayama

Go to review page

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

4.0

The Call is coming from inside the castle, times three. I hate it here. And Krista’s definitely gay. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Go to review page

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

4.5

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss

Go to review page

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

5.0

Every single kid in my life now is going to get a copy of this book. I cannot deal my whole heart, thank god for John Oliver
Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir by Nikki Grimes

Go to review page

challenging dark medium-paced

4.0

I loved the look at “Swiss cheese brain” as my sister calls it, traumatic memory loss. I had a gloriously lucky childhood and getting a tour thru all the holes left by Nikki’s life on her life, an experience barely a fraction of the difficulty hers has been. The use of poetry as a medium adds to the liminal nature of sharing these kinds of horrible spaces with each other safely. 

A top level poetry book. A top level memoir. A top level Black History Month read. Generally top tier. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

Go to review page

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

1.0

I read this book because it was handed to me by a guy at work who watches me read everyday at lunch. It read like the author had read CS Lewis and decided his allegory’s were not simple enough to understand so she wrote her own, aggressively less imaginative version.  Then we add on the Abelism the weirdly anti-Semitic Israeli author and over use of quotation marks. 100% not for me. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Expand filter menu Content Warnings