danaaliyalevinson's reviews
91 reviews

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

3.5

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

This book truly floored me. It was a meditation on grief but one of the things I loved about it is that it was about a grief familiar to all of us but rarely explored, the grief of might’ve beens. There is Akash, an alcoholic closeted gay man, still deeply affected by the trauma he experienced as a child in the form of homophobic bullying at school, his first love as a teenager, and the fact that he had no space to process that trauma because his family didn’t allow that space for him. Then there is his mother Renu, mourning the loss of her husband and Akash’s father, but even more so, losing herself in the reverie of what might have been if she had fought to stay with her first love, Kareem when she was a young adult and her parents arranged a marriage for her. Both characters lose themselves in regret, and it causes such tension with each other in the present. The denouement of the book and the way these parallel storylines came together was devastatingly beautiful and really got to the essence of the human condition. All of the characters are beautifully drawn. The prose is beautiful. And every single beat of the story felt so incredibly earned. I read this in one sitting. Absolutely loved it.

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Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

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4.25

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

Set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War, this is a surrealist and metaphysical take on a murder mystery in which a ghost must find his killers, protect his friends and boyfriend, and decide whether or not to move on or seek revenge. This book was a wild ride and I largely enjoyed it.

Witty prose. Fun characters. A vibrant world. Karunatilaka also did a great job at bringing us into the backdrop of the war without ever getting us bogged down in it. Sometimes I struggled with the sheer amount of characters (some with multiple nicknames) and also the way the narrative seamlessly moved between the metaphysical plane, the real world, and also flashback. Oftentimes I would find myself needing to go back over pages to resituate myself in the narrative. But overall, it was a good read!

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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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4.25

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

A woman and her estranged brother have to clean out their recently deceased parent's home in preparation for selling it... but complications arise when they realize the house doesn't just have "bad vibes"... it's hopelessly haunted. I don't want to say anymore than that! I did not expect it to be a one day read at around 400 pages and some change but I couldn't put it down. Like any good horror, the book deals with much bigger themes than the situation at hand. Really, it's about grief and the stories we tell ourselves to get by. It's funny, it emotional, it's scary, and most of all, it's fucking bonkers. The tone also has a good amount of pulpy Charlaine Harris style Southern Gothic in it without ever getting too broadly painted. Really enjoyed this one and immediately went and picked up one of this author's other books

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I fell in love with hope by Lancali

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.0

I think what works in this book far outweighs what doesn't. A group of chronically ill teens who practically live at a hospital buoy each other through the storm. There is a supernatural/metaphysical element of the story that I can't get into without spoilers, but it takes what would be a run of the mill drama and makes it fascinating The characters are compelling and beautifully drawn. The prose is often beautiful. The world is interesting, there's an almost plucked out of time and place feeling, where the hospital exists in its own world with its own rules, which only heightened the sense of it as the only world these kids know. What I thought it needed help with was focus. There are a lot of ideas. But once the twist of the story became clear, it also became clear how many of those ideas were unnecessary to make that ending land, and in fact, the ending would’ve landed that much harder had there been more focus. It made me wish the author, who clearly has immense talent it should be said, had been able to get this book published the traditional route so that she could’ve had an editor helping to hone the narrative. That said, the whole time I kept thinking what a fantastic movie this film would make, especially if the film can narrow the focus to its most important parts.

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Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

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dark emotional funny tense 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? Yes

3.0

A woman struggling with her sexuality and with an eating disorder finds healing when she falls in love with a fat orthodox Jewish girl. I'll start with what I liked. The prose was snappy and fun. The book's wit burned bright.

My issues were two fold. First, I felt that the fat character was basically used as a device for the thin main character's healing and not given much agency of her own. Second, growing up Jewish but not orthodox, does not give you the knowledge and understanding of what an orthodox family might look like, behave like, or believe.

There's an argument toward the end of the book that belied the author's utter lack of knowledge on that front, and there was more than one instance where that clear lack of knowledge exacerbated negative stereotypes. The most egregious example was the argument toward the end of the book where

the main character, Rachel, gets into an argument with Miriam’s orthodox family about Israel. Miriam’s mother is a hardened Zionist parroting surface level talking points, and the argument rises to the point of Rachel getting kicked out. The problem is, the majority of Orthodox sects are anti-Zionist because they believe it’s heretical for a Jewish state to be reestablished before the messiah comes. The whole argument was also so besides the point, with Rachel parroting the most inane overheard on a college campus talking points to Miriam’s mother’s implausible overheard at AIPAC Zionist ones. It had nothing to do with the overarching plot, and it felt like the author trying to remind the reader that while she might be Jewish, and her protagonist might be Jewish, don’t worry, she’s one of the good ones! And this is done in counterweight to this orthodox family, who would be wildly unlikely to hold the positions she’s railing against in the first place. So, misrepresenting Orthodox Jews at a time of rising antisemitism when Orthodox Jews are the most targeted because of their visibility, not great.

So the writing was good. But it gets docked points for offensiveness.

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The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon

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challenging dark emotional inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

I was floored by this book. Told over the course of 35 years, this is the story of an epic love between a Jewish man and a Muslim man from Sarajevo set against the backdrop of the first half of the 20th century, covering WWI, its aftermath, and WWII. This book is a lyrical and deeply moving portrait of war, trauma, grief, displacement, and Jewish longing. As a Jewish reader, there’s a certain ineffable Jewishness that can sometimes be imbued into an author’s work. I think of Nicole Krauss’ work as an example, or also Nathan Englander. It’s this balance of emotionality, an almost biblical poeticism, a sense of past always being present, and a sprinkling of absurdism and surrealism. This book oozed it. I was also impressed by how much Hemon utilized these tools to draw a vivid picture of war and being a refugee, not in the external details, but in the emotional ones. I know it’s only January, but this will be a book that all others I read this year are held against. A stunning read.

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These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

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challenging dark emotional 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

Two disaffected queer Jewish teens are drawn into each other’s arms and pull each other down a dark path from which neither can escape. That’s the most I can say without spoiling things. This book is dark as hell. It also pulled off a rare feat. The story could’ve been very pulpy and quick paced. Like the story itself feels like it could’ve been a snappy, dark, Palahniuk book. But instead, it really focused on the interior lives of the characters and stayed quite literary from start to finish. The characters were also incredibly fascinating, despite, and often because of their maladaptive thoughts and behavior. And the writing still made me root for them when they were doing despicable things. The prose is gorgeous as well. The ending is jaw dropping. Highly recommend it.

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danaaliyalevinson's reviews 91 reviews

danaaliyalevinson's reviews
91 reviews