divineauthor's reviews
382 reviews

Aquaman: Tempest by Phil Jimenez

adventurous tense slow-paced

"It might've taken a little while...but I've finally grown up, Tula." —Garth, issue #4

issue 1 was so hard to read, guys, i'm not even joking. like the pages were incredibly crowded in a way that made me SQUINT at my screen. anyway, i'm not an aquaman fan in the slightest, but i read for garth because he's precious and so, so, so sad. like unbearably sad.

also, i'm 2 for 2 on the mmc's dead love interest coming back wrong this year. that's a crazy coincidence. anyway . . . ciao!

This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.25

“What was worse than burying you, living in a world where I couldn't see you, where I was locked in this basement existence?” —Thiago, page 64

oh this was a book to start off the year with. i’m surprised this is a debut. the prose is astoundingly evocative—the the atmosphere was as eerie or beautiful or gory or dreamy as needed. what really hooked me in was how gutteral thiago’s grief was. it flooded each page, each word. there is no inch of this where he (and you) aren’t drowning in it. 

this isn’t exactly tech horror, more cosmic by the end, but i was a fan! i don’t really mind when the form doesn’t really fit into a specific genre, and moreno’s writing was so good that i didn’t care at all. do i fully understand the end? not particularly. does it matter? no! anyway, i do recommend this. captivating read! 

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

dark medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“Perhaps it is most miraculous when God exacts justice even when no human lifts a finger. Or perhaps it is simply fate. Everything seems reasonable in hindsight. Right or wrong, you will think what you need to think so that you can get by.” —page 286

this is my third moshfegh novel, and i did think i was prepared for the weirdness moshfeghian aspect of it all, but let me tell you right now: this book is weird. it’s gross—grotesque, really. it’s vile in its frankness about human nature and its tendency towards cruelty. no character is particularly sympathetic, but they’re dynamic, and that’s honestly more interesting than the average likeable character to me. watching a whole feudal town’s descent into ungodliness / amorality / freedom was insane. i’m pretty sure enjoyed this ? not in any normal way, i fear. yeah, crazy, crazy book. and what a way to end the year with, for sure. 

Genesis: Translation and Commentary by Robert Alter

informative

“Genesis begins with the making of heaven and earth and all life, and ends with the image of a mummy—Joseph’s—in a coffin. But implicit in the end is a promise of more life to come.” —Robert Alter, “To the Reader,” page xlvi

alter’s translation is comprehensive and his commentary is wholly welcomed. i’m not a religious scholar by any means, but i had no issue reading through the footnotes and the exegesis. 

what reading this has firmly reminded me is that the bible is not simply just a religious text, but also a literary work rife with complex relationship dynamics and  its own conventions of writing. i might just read more of alter’s translations in the future!

Justice League, Vol. 1: Origin by Geoff Johns

adventurous fast-paced

2.0

“They make me believe in tomorrow.” —Justice League (2011) #6

i don’t even remember what made me pick this up again. like i fundamentally dislike n52–i think they went about this reboot so messily that it’s honestly unbearable. anyway two stars because bruce and hal were funny for a few moments and i like the above-referenced quote in the sixth issue. rip to the rest but it felt so . . . not true to their characters. also, i will always miss the original jl lineup—j’onn j’onzz you have been missed. sorryyyyyy

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

dark emotional medium-paced

4.25

“Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal […] A change of scene. A change of fortune.” —Luzia Cotado

as a bardugo fan and avid reader, THE FAMILIAR has been a long time coming. she’s been circling around the metaphor of magic as jewishness for almost all of her books, so i’m not surprised it took this long to finally write that historical fantasy where jewishness and magic are one in the same. the relationship between luzia and santángel was so delicious, and i so do enjoy a narrative hell bent (ha!) on its characters changing their fates, breaking free of the cages they were born in. you add that luzia is a jewish woman hiding her own jewishness / magic . . . well, it sure paints a story, doesn’t it? how does an author write an era tainted in tragedy? how do you minimize the suffering that was caused? how do you give back agency to your own history? crazy things bardugo’s touching on!

my main qualm is that—and i think most people will not agree with me because i don’t think the bardugo’s general audience consumes historical fiction—i actually wish this book was like maybe 200 pages longer to really steep into the rich history of sephardic jews in inquisition-run spain alongside the varieties of magic she lays out. she’s so so so good at creating interesting power dynamics and setting the atmosphere right, but i would’ve loved to see things take time to settle. especially with historical fantasy, your typical (high) fantasy takes maybe about 100 pages to get the swing of things, and with this novel, there’s just not enough leeway to grand the characters enough breathing room to account for the exposition and setting drop. 

regardless, i deeply, deeply enjoyed this. sorry it took me so long to write a review, but i just finished annotating it (months later)! all right, guys. love n light

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross

emotional tense medium-paced

3.75

“Write me a story where there is no ending, Kitt.” —Iris Winnow, page 335

there really is something to be said about dacre’s power being healing—and by healing, he can close up memories, as if memories are open wounds that need to be healed. ugh. one of the most interesting bits about this book. i love you magical amnesia. 

anyway, my main qualms:

1. this should probably be a trilogy or just a longer duology (the passage of time from DIVINE RIVALS to RUTHLESS VOWS continues to feel rushed; slowing the pace down more, getting to know roman and iris and have their relationship woven together over the course of multiple books would make the events that happen in this book even juicier);

2. this probably shouldn’t be a ya book because iris and roman being eighteen is so . . . i’m not gonna say laughable because there are plenty of fantasy series with teens and children in them, but hearing roman cry out for his wife might just hit better if he was like, i don’t know, twenty-seven; and

3. the writing itself. i’m so sorry, but i mean this in the least cruelest way possible, but ross’ prose feels like the best wattpad has to offer. or, okay, let me put it this way: some lines are really good, but in the way when you’re sixteen and you read a really good line and then you come back to it later after years, and you think, ah, yes, i was sixteen when i obsessed over these words. i have no other way to explain it!

that’s all to say that this book is like a very, very high 3-star read with intriguing characters and beats, but the execution is . . . what it is. 

A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

“Arnesians had a dozen ways to say hello, but no word for good-bye […] but more often they chose to say anoshe—until another day. […] Anoshe brought solace. And hope. And the strength to let go.” —Kell Maresh, page 613

it’s a good thing this series isn’t over because their lives just begun. god. i shed true tears over these characters for reasons i can’t even name. 

my mind keeps turning back to a book i read not so long ago, TRANSLATING MYSELF AND OTHERS by jhumpa lahiri, and it’s because a passage juts out of the page as i kept reading A CONJURING A LIGHT—the whole series, even: 

The need to contain and the need to set free: these are the contradictory impulses […] To contain, in Italian, is contenere, from the Latin verb continere. It means to hold, but it also means to hold back, repress, limit, control. […] A container is designed so that something can be placed inside it. It has a double identity in that it is either lacking contents or occupied: either empty or full. 

our three antari are a study of containers. holland vosijk contained in his own body, bound by the dane twins then by osaron until he was set free—his own magic gone. here is a character who was controlled and found a type of freedom. but then you have lila bard contained in her magicless world until she slid into a new one and found that to be held—loved, contained—is not too terrible a thing. and kell maresh. the prince who was not a son, the boy who became a brother, the man trapped in the confines of a city too small for his own body. london has always been kell’s container. he’s a muzzled dog, leashed and loved because being held also meant being restrained. he’s the man with all the power and the heart that keeps him tethered to this place. 

they all found their peace with their containers in the end. 

i’ve slotted all these characters into my heart btw i can’t even front they’re in me fr i can’t wait to pick up THE FRAGILE THREADS OF POWER, guys, like to see these characters in their thirties will have me on my knees and wailing in the streets. GOD. ill be staring at my ceiling. love and light ❤️

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

5.0

“Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” —Frankenstein’s Creature, page 89

the last time i read FRANKENSTEIN, i was a senior in high school who was not at all prepared to read this classic. there is something so deeply universal about feeling loneliness and grief and alienation that it’s no wonder why shelley’s work reverberated through the world. there were moments during the creature’s chapters where i was in genuine tears; to be outside the world with no one other than yourself mars the mind and the body. to be shunned, constantly, without fail, and to have ended your life with the death of your father / creator / god . . . it’s such a miserable existence. 

shelley was insane for writing this book about being scorned by your father-creator-god and dedicating it to her own father . . . jesus christ. 

also, the thing about the wretchedness of this tragedy is that it was preventable. if victor showed his creation love, then this series of unfortunate events would’ve have occurred. it drives me nuts when the moment victor (god-father-creator) could’ve given the creature his eve, he snatched the chance of love away. god, with adam’s blood on his hands. adam, with a wound in his rib. the absence, a loneliness that could’ve been abated. it’s maddening, and, god, i fucking adore tragedies. 

i love you mary shelley. i love you preventable tragedies. i love you complicated creation-and-maker dynamics. i love you sci-fi. i, especially, love you lonely creatures spurned from the world. 

Metaphysical Dog by Frank Bidart

reflective slow-paced

3.75

“[. . .] you despised the world for replacing / God with another addiction, love. / Despised yourself. Was there no third thing?” —“For an Unwritten Opera,” page 108

i’ve seen fractions of bidart’s poetry floating around, specifically from his HALF-LIGHT collection, but this is the first time i’ve truly read a whole work by him. in METAPHYSICAL DOG, these poems straddle your mind and take you for a ride through this interesting medium of platonic idealism and the concreteness (and failures and ecstasies and, and, and—) of the physical body. there are lines that are absolutely gutting, and there were moments where i was reading aloud to get the full effect, to feel the meaning on my tongue. it’s fascinating how his brain works because the words he strings together are just . . . different.

that being said, there’s a blurb by stephen burt on the back of the book in which he says, “Bidart writes through passion, but also through subtraction.” and, after completing the METAPHYSICAL DOG, this is what’s holding me back from truly feeling it, deep in my bones, you know? like there is something about the metaphysical aspect, the “subtraction” that left me outside it. it’s not that i typically expect to fully understand poetry—poetry, in my opinion, does not need to be understood, only felt—but with this, i just felt like i was poking the borders of understanding and feeling. hence, my rating. 

anyway, i will be reading the HALF-LIGHT collection at some point in my life. we’ll see if life experience helps hehehe