felix's reviews
39 reviews

All the Things We Don't Talk About by Amy Feltman

emotional tense slow-paced

4.0

Disclaimer: I got an advance ebook of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review (that's what people say, right?)

TikTok review: https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPdk7KVjH/

There are a couple of types of book that I love to critique. One is Greek myth retellings, and another is books with autistic characters. I requested All the Things We Don't Talk About on NetGalley because it fits the latter category, despite the fact that I wasn't sure whether I would enjoy it. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised.

All the Things We Don't Talk About is about the members of one family: Morgan, a non-binary teenager; Julian, their autistic dad; Zoe, their alcoholic and estranged mother; and Brigid, Zoe's partner who has developed an online friendship with Julian over the years. The book follows the family as they navigate Morgan's first relationship and their curiosity about their mother as Zoe crashes back into their life.

Overall, I thought this book was well-written and thoughtful in how it navigated a family's turmoil. The characters felt very realistic, and their different identities felt very well-integrated into their characters. I really appreciated especially how the narrative didn't make a big deal about Morgan being non-binary, but did allow it contribute to Morgan's experience and the way they interacted with the world. I also appreciated how the story approached the difficulties that can come with being an autistic parent without implying that autistic people shouldn't or can't be parents. I was able to relate to the way Julian saw the world and the way he interacted with other people, which is actually pretty rare for me when reading.

I said earlier that I wasn't sure whether I'd enjoy this book. That's mostly because I tend to not like literary fiction type stories centered around characters' messy lives-- I often find that in authors' attempts to highlight the messy parts of life, they make the drama totally overwhelming and the characters become tiresome. I didn't have that issue with this book. There were a few points that felt awkward-- for example, I didn't feel like the consequences of the opening scene were fully integrated into the rest of the book, and it was sometimes hard to tell how much time had passed between events. But on the whole, I found this book to be honest without being tiresome, and I appreciated that even at their worst, I was able to sympathize with each character.

I think this book would be a great read for anyone who likes literary fiction in theory but finds it tiresome in practice-- which is how I feel. I can see it appealing to a wide age range, too. I hope to see more stories as thoughtful as this one in the future.

Content Warnings

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

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? It's complicated

3.5

I really enjoyed this book! It had pretty much everything I enjoy: different alien species, artificial intelligence ethics, WLW in space... I enjoyed the way the author took the reader through different characters' backgrounds and cultures, and I thought the characters were stunningly well-developed. I'm fully in awe of how each character had a distinct presence and style, and no one really felt flat.

Not five stars because I thought the pacing was a little off-- it was difficult for me to tell how much time had passed in between visiting each planet-- and I also feel like the author fell into a few different traps that sci-fi featuring alien species often falls into: each species was presented almost as a monolith, with little consideration to the different cultures within the species, and I wished the author had pushed some of the alien species a little further away from the humanoid norm. I was also uncomfortable with the way she presented the Aeluons as almost universally attractive to humans without a discussion of how that could lead to (or be a result of) fetishization-- there's a conversation to be had there, but I didn't feel like this book really addressed it.

All told, though, I really enjoyed this book, and I will almost definitely be rereading it!

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

I hated the beginning of this book, but about halfway through it redeems itself. If I hadn't been told that ahead of time, I probably would have stopped reading about fifteen minutes in. I tend not to like literary fiction, but I did think this was well-done with masterful use of language and literary tropes. However, I still found it a little tiresome.

Content Warnings