flags's reviews
4 reviews

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

adventurous challenging dark 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

4.5

A brutal take on the zombie genre, body horror and sharp commentary with diverse cast of characters. Uses the conventions of the genre to create a world that takes the hateful contentions of transphobes to their logical conclusions. Every protagonist is wonderfully complex with insecurities and skills and hang ups and something at stake in the narrative. Might be hard to parse if you aren't familiar with the humour, controversies, and cultural touchstones of the lgbt and queer communities, but it's very clear about it's politics as a novel so when it talks about gender and race it's obvious what it's trying to say. There's also a frequent amount of sex scenes for various reasons and they aren't superfluous as they all say something about the characters involved. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Suicide, Sexual violence, Cannibalism, Gore, Violence, Drug use, War, Sexual harassment, Murder, Transphobia, Sexual content, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Gun violence, Deadnaming, Physical abuse, Body horror, Vomit, Outing, Misogyny, Hate crime, Sexism, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Dysphoria, Death, Classism, Body shaming, Medical content, Alcohol, Rape, Racism, and Child death

Moderate: Religious bigotry

This All Come Back Now by Mykaela Saunders

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

I love speculative fiction and I love well curated anthologies and it is honestly so refreshing to read aussie fiction (that isn't excruciatingly dull)

A brilliant mix of content varying from familiar to external to me, some of the style of language especially walked that line between "I know people who talk like this" and "I don't know these words but I understand the general context". 

Please Buy This Book, I Owe People Money by Ellison Skinner

adventurous funny inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

iconic

Solaris by Stanisław Lem

challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

Read physically briefly till I realised the translation was bad and switched to audiobook, highly recommend the Bill Johnston translation

Having watched the older film and a play adaptation made the book extra fascinating. The various sections of academia about Solaris make the focus on how everyone interprets it differently and when keeping that in mind the difference of tone and complexity from adaptations is kind of thematically on point.