crybabybea's reviews
251 reviews

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

informative lighthearted reflective

4.25

I really liked this perspective on cults and other cultish groups, language is extremely important and this is filled with good information about how linguistics play into the role of cults across the entire spectrum.

Amanda Montell's use of the word "cultish" in an attempt to create distance from the word "cult" that comes with all kinds of negative connotations and promises of death and danger was interesting. She had some profound things to say about how language dehumanizes members of cult groups. I thought it was very clever for the author to point out the way the words "cult" and "brainwash" have become thought-terminating clichés, considering her focus on how cult groups use thought-terminating clichés to foster control over their members.

I just really appreciated the attempt to re-humanize cult members and survivors. On top of dispelling the myth of "brainwashing", the author constantly talks about how human beings are wired to desire community, connection, and purpose in life. It's not just "stupid, lazy people" that get trapped in cults, but it can happen to anyone and everyone, especially those who are vulnerable culturally or spiritually, and especially especially when the groups are ran by somebody who knows how to weaponize language to their advantage. I found it to be super compassionate and a perspective that doesn't get talked about enough when talking about cults and their members and survivors.

It was also interesting to see the ties between modern-day cultish messaging to the Protestant Reformation, which has such deep ties to the founding of America that it's intricately woven into almost every part of our daily lives. The author pointed out a lot of words that have connection to religious teachings and sayings, that have become so normalized I didn't even realize they were connected to religion at all.

The analysis of language is definitely a useful tool for anyone that wants to practice critical thinking and make informed decisions about the activities and groups they become part of. It definitely made me think about some groups I myself am a part of and wouldn't have considered "cultish" but see the parallels clearly now.

The only reason I don't want to give this 5 stars is because I felt like it was a bit short and didn't go as in-depth as I would have liked. If you've already read books (or even watched YouTube videos or listened to podcasts) about MLMs, cults, and diet culture, then a lot of the information here isn't really new.

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Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler

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dark reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

A great collection by the mother of Afrofuturism. Her stories perfectly capture what speculative fiction is meant to be, an exploration of humanity on its rawest levels; fear, passion, love, morality. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the stories stood up to the test of time.

My favorite was the story Speech Sounds, which involved an apocalyptic future set after a pandemic that caused extreme isolation, to the point that it affected people's ability to speak, read, and write. Super eerie. The titular story, Bloodchild, certainly deserves its Hugo and Nebula awards. However, every story here is well-crafted and definitely gets you speculating. I was amazed at Octavia E. Butler's ability to pack so much feeling into such short stories; even without time to explore deep characterization or worlds, she is able to get to the root emotion, the core of humanity and really tug at it.

I also appreciated that each story came with a short afterword, so we can hear the author explain her thoughts behind her writing. It was so interesting to see what sparked the ideas for her stories; for example, Bloodchild was in part inspired by her consuming fear of botflies.

It also features two short essays, in which she talks about how she got into writing, her struggles being the first Black woman to be published in Science Fiction, and gives tips for aspiring writers. She gives us this beautiful quote which will definitely stick with me:

Sometimes when I'm interviewed, the interviewer either compliments me on my "talent," my "gift," or asks me how I discovered it. (I don't know, maybe it was supposed to be lying in my closet or on the street somewhere, waiting to be discovered.) I used to struggle to answer this politely, to explain that I didn't believe much in writing talent. People who want to write either do it or they don't. At last I began to say that my most important talent--or habit--was persistence. Without it, I would have given up writing long before I finished my first novel. It's amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up.

I suspect this is the most important thing I've said in all my interviews and talks as well as in this book. It's a truth that applies to more than writing. It applies to anything that is important, but difficult, important, but frightening. We're all capable of climbing so much higher than we usually permit ourselves to suppose.

If you are wanting to try out speculative fiction, or want to get a taste of Octavia E. Butler's writing, this is definitely a good place to start.

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Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 62%.

Not for me. I think this was way too overwrought with useless facts and information that weren’t relevant to the story. I found the midsection about the creation of the FBI super boring and it felt like the author couldn’t decide what he actually wanted to write about. It’s written like a murder mystery but it’s clear who the culprit is and the motive behind the murders; maybe that’s the point but it made the whole setup of the book feel weird and unnecessary tonally.

I don’t know maybe I’m being a bit too crazy but I just didn’t like the way the story stopped focusing on the Osage and instead focused on the creation of the FBI and the white agents who were involved with the case, especially since the Osage people were such an important part of the case being solved, and especially especially knowing how the police/FBI have completely failed the indigenous communities and MMIW.

I’m also not a true crime fan in general and don’t really care to hear interviews of suspects and details about crime scenes or whodunnit stories, so I just didn’t like this.

The information about the Osage community, their wealth, and the way systemic racism affected them was properly enraging but I just don’t know if this author was the right person to tell that story.

The audiobook narrator talks like Zapp Brannigan which irritated me lol

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Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

There are three reasons I love Leigh Bardugo so much:

Her sentence craft is beautiful. She knows when to make emotions punch. She knows how to paint scenes. She knows how to include literary devices that feel inentional and powerful. She has soo many quotable moments in all of her books. She's even good at writing quippy dialogue which I think is something many authors struggle with.
Her characters are intensely loveable as much as they are hateable.
When her plots get rolling, they get rolling. They feel like a rollercoaster that never stops, with reveal after jaw-dropping reveal. By the time you reach the conclusion, you want to snap the book shut and start all over so you can see all the things you missed.

This book... did not hold up to those standards for me. I felt like her writing seriously declined here. There were a lot of issues I had with this book that made it hard for me to rate it as high as I wanted to. I think I would have rated it lower (or maybe even DNF'd?) had it been written by a less competent author. The issues this book suffered from really reminded me of Babel. That is not a compliment.

I felt like I got the point of what Bardugo was going for here. And it fit really well within the dark academia theme. The secret societies, the allure and danger of power and fitting in with the crowd, the way the powerful see certain groups as disposable. I really did see what she was going for. But I didn't feel like she pushed it far enough. I felt like she relied on trying to make things arbitrarily "darker", leaning into horror tropes that didn't work out well for the story she was trying to tell. And every bit of it fell flat for me, especially knowing what she is capable of as a writer.

I would say this book doesn't pick up until around 30-40%, and even then, the plot unfolds slowly until the last four chapters where everything is revealed. I think this writing worked out in Six of Crows, because the tension was constantly being poked and prodded as you followed the POVs of the different characters. Here, we have mainly one POV that switches between timelines in the form of flashbacks. Which again, would have worked had it not been for the weird plotting. Those two things just did not mix well together. I was also really surprised to see how the POV switching was poorly executed, considering the masterful way she juggled six POVs in Six of Crows. Here, both of our POVs use the same narrative voice, and it would have been unclear who was narrating if they didn't point it out themselves.

The plot was also dragged down by Bardugo's tendency to info-dump world-building and exposition. There were pages of narration and explanations of things like architecture, the campus layout, what characters were wearing, that got to be incredibly boring. It also got in the way of connecting with the characters. The only dialogue we got between Alex and Darlington were dumps of exposition and explanations about the different secret societies at Yale. So by the end we are meant to care about this character who I simply could not care less about because we barely got to see him. His few POVs were not enough to make me invested in his character in any way.

Alex herself was okay as a character but I felt like Bardugo's messaging got lost with her. Her motives weren't clear, and I didn't feel like she experienced any growth or actual hardship through her journey here. I liked her manipulative tendencies, but I felt like they didn't have any actual impact on the plot. I thought Alex should have a lot more agency, but she spends most of the book reacting to the things that happen around her and she gets saved many times by other characters. I also wanted to see her struggle a bit more. She doesn't struggle with her addiction at all, or with intimacy after her traumatic experiences, and her status as a biracial Latina from a poor background doesn't seem to affect her ability to fit in at Yale or cause her any issues within Lethe. I just felt she lacked nuance as a character which really disappointed me, because again, this is Leigh Bardugo's massive advantage.

For what it's worth, the reveals at the end were decently satisfying for me. The villain monologues were eye-roll worthy but the final scene was so well-written that I looked past it. Such is the strength of Leigh Bardugo. So I won't give up on this series because I love the author, and I feel like I was given just enough to be interested in the potential.

Content Warnings

A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

1.5

Unbelievably boring and contrived. If I weren't reading this for a challenge I would have DNF'd at 15%.

I'm okay with slow plots but I need SOMETHING to hold me over while the plot progresses, and this had nothing going for it. The writing was juvenile, the characters were dull, the romance was cringey, even the world-building was poorly done. I got extremely tired of reading this after the 4th infodumping story about the world's lore. All of the world-building was done via dialogue, which amounted to pages and pages of wasted time spent talking to people about nothing instead of being IN the world and experiencing things naturally. The main romance between Jack and Adaira is so unnatural, even the way they talk to each other feels stilted and like they are holding each other at arm's length. This may have been better if the book solely focused on Sidra and Torin because their relationship was at least more mature and they had experiences together that made their growth as partners feel realistic and worthwhile.

Also it skips around in POVs between the four main characters (and sometimes the main character's little sister) and there are no breaks between POVs. Wtf? I've never seen that before. A scene will end with a character and then the next line will be in another character's POV without any page break or even a symbol to mark the end of a POV. On top of that, all the POVs sounded exactly the same and no character had a unique voice. Just super clunky and annoying to read.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense 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? Yes

5.0

This is everything I love about reading. It's emotional, tense, and thought-provoking. I was also really impressed by the scope of this book. I think it would have been very, very easy to mess this story up, to make it not hit as hard as it did, to make it another Hunger Games ripoff that tries to be smarter than it is. But it stands on its own and it stands very strong. Not only does Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah tackle something as huge as the prison industrial complex, but he slips in commentary on other issues too, that although not directly related, play a part in the system as a whole. The idolification of celebrity; the fetishization of Black female athletes; misogynoir, misogyny and patriarchy; capitalism and the tech industry; the criminalization of the mentally ill; and of course the dehumanization of criminals. Soo much is packed into this story that it's impressive it's less than 400 pages. And every single bit of it makes you think, a lot.

This is a Black Mirror style dystopia. It feels weird to call it a dystopia, because it feels so real. It's not too far off from reality, which is why it feels like a Black Mirror episode.

Something that made this book stand out for me was its multiple POVs. At first, it felt overwhelming to be constanly juggled around different people that didn't seem to matter to the story. But I came to understand that that was the point; everyone is connected to the system in small or large ways. There is no separating yourself from the system whether you want to or not. At the same time, we are all connected together as people. It made the entire story feel like a snowballing of seemingly unrelated butterfly effects. The death of a character's father leads her to accidentally invent the torture device used against prisoners and protestors. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time means one person gets convicted for a crime while another goes free. It shows how the little choices can make somebody's fate, and how the prison system capitalizes on those little moments to punish, dehumanize, and control. It makes the reader ask, are we defined by the choices we make, or do the choices we make really have nothing to do with us at all?

All the POVs come together in one way or another at the end; characters we read the perspective of one time at the beginning of the book become someone we meet in passing in another character's perspective. I loved the effect it created and how it showed each tiny piece of the system and the story as a whole. Some people will find it discombobulated and confusing, but it really worked for me.

And the characters we focus the most on are beautifully done. They are people who have done some of the quote unquote "worst" things a human could do. They are murderers, rapists, arsonists, criminals. But they are also people, and the author does a really great job making you fall in love with them despite what may be your gut reaction to them. They have passions, fears, regrets, dreams. Some of them forgive themselves and others want to punish themselves just as badly as the world wants to punish them. Some of them fully lean into the hand they have been dealt, and others succumb to their own hopelessness. The characters definitely shine here and also open up a lot of introspection and reflection. I would say there are four main characters, but the minor characters play a huge part in the story and I was every bit as moved by their individual stories as the main storyline.

The plot itself is rather basic, and I think if the characters were less compelling it would have quickly become boring. The main conflicts themselves wouldn't have been enough to carry the whole story, but because we become so close to the characters and the POVs are split up the way they are, the intrigue stays high and, at least for me, it was impossible to put this down. The last 25% of this book does not pull any punches. It hits hard and it hits fast.

Every choice the author made feels extremely intentional. The choice to use different narration styles for different character's POVs. The choice to include footnotes that break the fourth wall by pointing to real-world statistics on imprisonment and systemic racism. The choice to end the story how he did. Everything was done extremely well and I'm confident I'll be thinking about this book for a long, long time.

Brutal and devastating.

Content Warnings

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

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dark reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Indescribable. Literally. This book is beautifully weird. It feels like a fever dream.

I wouldn't say the book necessarily surprised me in terms of plot twists; it was easy to guess what was happening from the very beginning. By about 20% I had a good idea what was going on, but it didn't stop me from wanting to know more. Which is so crazy because that's exactly what happens to the main character, who continually chooses to exhaust her curiosity even in the face of death and danger. And even then, at the end, there are no answers. We don't even know if the story we are reading actually happened how it is told. Our main character is unreliable and almost in a state of dissociation throughout the entire narrative. And, even though it was clear what was going to happen, my jaw still dropped. Many times.

I loved the way this was written. We are essentially reading the journal entry of the main character, written in retrospect after everything takes place. Each event unfolds with uncanny intrigue. We're pulled forward alongside our main character by the unstoppable force that is Area X. The overall tone, yes it's creepy, but in a dreamlike way. We are stuck in, more or less, solitude with our main character as she tries to uncover the mystery of the island.

Naturally, being stuck in solitude lends itself to intense self-reflection. The story of the biologist's journey on Area X is intertwined with her journey in her relationship with her husband. So in a sense the exploration of the force of Area X becomes an exploration of humanity, relationships, and connection. How do we find meaning in life when nothing actually matters? Do we repeat the same cycle over and over again for generations until the sun consumes the planet? Is there a sort of gauntlet we must all pass, an end goal we must all reach, a higher power we must all answer to? What makes us as humans different from the land we inhabit, the invisible ecosystems that live under our noses every single day? The book never answers these questions. But it sure does make you think about them.

I was, however, really surprised by the writing. There are some insanely profound quotes to be found here. Things I reread over and over again. Some lines written by VanderMeer could have found their place in a classic literary novel. His attention to detail makes the land feel immersive. Having a biologist be the main character/narrator was such a genius choice. You begin to see parallels between the biologist's experience in Area X with your own experience as a reader. The biologist's eye for miniscule details gives VanderMeer the opportunity to make the world feel incredibly detailed and real. The imagery used throughout, but especially in the more horror-esque portions of the book are beautifully portrayed.

Despite leaving with more questions than answers, I'm super satisfied by this book.

Content Warnings

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

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dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

What the fuck.

This book felt like watching a medieval play; the fiefdom is nothing more than a backdrop to watch our characters act out their darkest desires. It worked really well as a vehicle to tell the story of the human condition of trying to find meaning in life and how people's perspectives shape the way they experience the world and make sense of the things that happen to them and the choices they make. The story is told with an omniscient narrator that jumps from character to character, which does make for some telling-not-showing issues here and there. But overall the writing was well done, and Moshfegh is very intentional about each and every word she chooses to really dial up the grotesque imagery that fills every page. In Lapvona, babies are not birthed, they are plunked out.

The characters we follow are like caricatures of the worst people you have ever met. You have the perpetual victim Jude, who sees it as his manly duty to beat his child and rape women; the pitiful Marek who makes excuses for his own actions but judges the actions of others; the pious holier-than-thou servant Lispeth, who denies herself all mortal desires except a single piece of cabbage every day; the imbecile lord Villiam that can't be alone with his thoughts for more than 2 minutes

and lies to the villagers about bandit raids and droughts

; and the priest Barnabas that preaches gospel (despite knowing nothing about the Bible) so he can live in comfort at the manor.

The characters are exasperatingly self-serving. They don't think about others except to judge them. Their interactions with each other are always transactional, full of projections that each casts onto the other.

"You're too kind, young sir," Villiam said. "It is all a testament to God's glory, not mine." He looked at the priest to say something further, but Barnabas was picking the bones out of his fish stew. He'd been ornery and distracted lately. Perhaps the priest suffered from envy--Villiam would soon be a father to the son of God; Barnabas would never attain such glory.

At this point in the story, the priest is distracted and ornery because he's

having a complete psychotic breakdown, believing the supposed immaculately conceived baby to be God punishing him for lying about his religious knowledge.

Each character spends all their time in their own head, constantly feigning moral superiority over arbitrary rules, lacking empathy and self-reflection. At the same time, the reader can see bits of themselves in each character too which causes a bit of ironic self-reflection. I, too, cannot eat my dinner without watching a silly little guy dance for me on a screen.

The idiocy of the characters and the disgusting plot that ensues opens up a commentary on things like religion, moral piety, putting certain ideas or people on pedestals, all that jazz. It explores the idea of perspective and uses a lot of (disgusting) imagery about eyeballs.

I don't want to say this book was funny because of its horrifying content, but the whole book was filled with a sardonic tone that worked really well for me. Characters had sarcastic, dry one-liners that did make me chuckle:

"Why do I feel unhappy?" he asked Lispeth.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Don't you have any wisdom?"
"No."

The witchy character, Ina, adds a bit of dark fairytale imagery that lends itself well to the setting and overall themes of religion and perspective. Don't get me wrong, she is also a terrible person that abuses everyone she comes across for her own benefit, but her storyline in particular is super interesting and its fairytale-esque quality adds a bit of supernatural mystery and causes reflection on things like higher powers and idols.

This was a good introduction into horror, even though this book doesn't really get classified as horror. I definitely think it leans more on the literary side, but it reads like a depressing gothic fairytale and calls upon some of the imagery that is often used in horror such as religion and inner turmoil, but with a sarcastic, ironic twist. Yeah I liked this a lot despite (or in part, because of?) its gratuitous depravity. I really liked how Moshfegh used horror elements to an absolutely absurd degree. I read a lot of reviews saying that the horrific scenes served no purpose except cheap shock value, which I definitely can see, but to me it felt like that was exactly what she was going for. They are needlessly graphic to the point that they veer into absurdity which only amplifies the characters' issues with moral superiority and lack of self-reflection.

If you like horror or want to try to get into horror I think this would be a good read for you.

Content Warnings

Jade City by Fonda Lee

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dark tense 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

3.5

I have mixed feelings. I enjoyed reading this and found enough things I liked to keep going, but it didn't quite meet the hype for me.

The plot, inspired by old-school kung fu and Chinese gangster movies, was fresh and interesting, but it didn't push the envelope or add anything new. There are high-stakes politics, with a couple of good twists at the end. The plot is fairly generic, with real-world elements changed to imaginative fantasy ones.

The world-building was well-done. I appreciated the author's focus on small details. The world follows a stereotypical Confucian blueprint of patriarchal values, filial piety, and honor. Since it's urban fantasy, there wasn't an overwhelming amount of new information to process, making it easy to grasp the setting and its culture. The focus on Kekon made the setting feel intimate and immersive, and the capital Janloon felt bustling and full of life. Again, it's urban fantasy, so don't expect sprawling Fellowship of the Ring adventures.

I liked the characters but wanted to see a bit more from them. Anden had the coolest characterization, with an interesting backstory that made his motivations feel complex. I would have liked more from the villain, who has an intriguing story. There is a serious lack of complexity when it comes to the female main characters, so I hope they are explored more in the next installments. I see potential in the characters and their relationships despite not fully connecting with them here.

The choice to use jade as a magic amplifier is a unique idea that fits well with the old-school kung fu themes. I liked that the magic had drawbacks and didn't feel overwhelmingly powerful. The idea of the magic being akin to an addiction that harms the body over time, while not being the adds depth to the story. The addition of

a street drug that counters the aftereffects of jade

is interesting and makes it feel like we are watching the world progress. The magic system was definitely the best part of this book. It was easy to understand, fit well with the setting and premise, and wasn't overpowered.

The writing itself was okay. I liked the author's tendency toward simplicity, but explaining actions and emotions overtly rather than letting them unfold naturally was distracting. There were some hard-hitting lines but nothing that wowed me. The POV switching was well done and added a cinematic quality to the book that made the experience satisfying. It never felt confusing or unnecessary and didn't take away from the pacing.

Overall, pretty solid as the first in a trilogy. I expect the first book in a fantasy series to be a bit slower and less in-depth than the following books, and Jade City does its job well: setting up the world and characters, introducing action, and leaving things up in the air to make you want to continue the series.

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The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee

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challenging hopeful informative slow-paced

4.75

Wow, this was amazing. The Sum of Us is not only incredibly well-researched, it's also incredibly accessible; Heather McGhee's writing ability is definitely noticeable and makes this potentially dense book so easy to read.

My biggest personal gripe with lots of nonfiction authors, particularly those that write about politics, history, or economics (which, by the way, this book sort of falls into all three categories), is that they tend to be extremely knowledgeable but seem to have trouble transferring the information to a layperson or casual reader in a digestible way. Lots of nonfiction I have read has obvious academic merit, like something that would be great for a research paper or thesis, but as a casual reading experience, is dry, dense, and hard-to-follow. Sometimes reading nonfiction can feel like the author is throwing statistic after statistic after date after date at you. This book does NOT suffer from this problem at all.

The author does a great job combining her personal anecdotal experience, her abundance of knowledge and research, and the anecdotal experience of those she has worked with and talked to about the issue. In some parts it reads almost like a memoir, in others like an investigative journalism piece, but the main thesis stays strong and the author manages to argue her point extremely well. I found this to be a really enjoyable reading experience as a casual nonfiction reader.

The main argument made here draws attention to the intersection between racism and capitalism. In progressive spheres, it's pretty widely accepted that those from minority groups experience poverty at a disproportionate rate due to things like racism (and homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, etc. but this book focuses on racism). Heather McGhee expounds upon this thesis with her own; not only does racism cause disproportionate amounts of harm to minority groups, but upholding white supremacy actually hurts everyone in the system, including white people.

Heather McGhee brings up lots of issues that deserve reflection, I feel like I learned so much about so many related topics. Each new section I remember thinking "oh this is definitely my favorite part", then the next section would come up and it would become my new favorite, and so on. So I guess the whole book is my favorite.

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crybabybea's reviews 251 reviews

crybabybea's reviews
251 reviews