brookegabor's reviews
210 reviews

Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley

adventurous funny fast-paced

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

5.0

OH THIS VOLUME ATEEE

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe by Bryan Lee O'Malley

adventurous funny fast-paced

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

4.25

one of my fav volumes so far!! excited to read the last volume & then immediately binge the anime

Serious Concerns by Wendy Cope

funny lighthearted fast-paced

4.5

silly, quirky, fun — wendy cope feels like someone i’d want to be friends with!! 

fav poems — the orange (obvs), serious concerns, goldfish nation, leaving, magnetic

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis

informative reflective

4.5

so informative and so helpful in reframing the way we think about issues from a singular to a global /systemic context!! only reason i knocked it down a half star is because it gets pretty repetitive — it’s a collection of interviews and speeches, so this is not surprising, but a lot of the same ideas were presented several times in a row

Now Go: On Grief and Studio Ghibli by Karl Thomas Smith

reflective slow-paced

1.0

i had a lot of problems with this book but i can sum up my thoughts with this:

this would have made a very good 12-page essay with a couple personal anecdotes and instead was a 90-page book that had little to do with analyzing grief in studio ghibli and instead focused on using the movies to bolster the author’s own philosophies on grief. maybe would have hit harder if i needed to hear those messages but instead i was just bored and annoyed by the lack of editing down lol

also i love a good em dash, but i swear every paragraph was just a long sentence bogged down by 5 em dashes each — i felt like i was going crazy!!! 

Clementine, Book One by Tillie Walden

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

tillie walden can do no wrong

Palestine by Joe Sacco

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

really informative read and more relevant today than ever!! 

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

challenging informative reflective slow-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? No

3.25

The future of Sappho shall be us.

i had a really hard time with wanting to pick up this book. the prose was beautiful and the message was strong but was personally not engaging until i got to historical events and figures i already had some background on — wwi and virginia woolf. i think i would take a lot more away from this book had i more context, and maybe i’ll reread it one day for that reason. 

Woolgathering by Patti Smith

reflective relaxing slow-paced

3.25

beautiful writing as always but i didn’t really connect with this one in the same way i have with patti smith’s other works. my favorite story was “nineteen fifty-seven”

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

dark mysterious slow-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

4.0

FINALLY finished my reread after starting 9 months ago lol. i love this book and i LOVED carmen maria machado’s introduction and footnotes throughout. much more engaging than the edition i read previously.