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flags's reviews
13 reviews
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
delightful use of meta commentary for a genuinely tense horror narrative that manages to also be funny and vindicating at points. LOVE IS REAL! so is art as connection.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Homophobia, and Violence
Conclave by Robert Harris
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
Read after watching the film and honestly surprised at just how close to the book the film remained, helped to highlight what little differences there were in tone and focus. This was a quick drama with all the elements I enjoy from single location narratives, as well as some political manoeuvring and who will it be mystery from the papal election. Fairly light in the approach to the topics it touches on and none of the scandals go so far as gratuitous content. the 'twist' is treated with surprising restraint that focuses on the warmth and strength of character rather than exploitative shock factor. depending on where you land on the religious themes personally this will either feel like a WILD choice of content or like a fairly average airport read.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Transphobia, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Peter Darling by Austin Chant
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
adventurous
funny
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
Kept thinking about Calvino's Invisible Cities with how this was structured. Love how it wears it's 1984 but hopeful on it's sleeve. love the epistolary format. love the glimses of time and place. love the encoded letter mediums. love our two chromatic long distance lovers. love how this was collaboratively written. good fast book.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
emotional
funny
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
First off I really did enjoy this book and it's characters, our mother daughter dog (GOOD DOG!!!) family are all chatmingly written and every character in this is funny and odd and moves the story along with every interaction good or bad.
A fun book yes but also the plot is carried more by the drama of sexism assault death and such, the tv show is secondary to the character drama and extended life story sequences.
Flew by as a read, one of the most autistic 4 autistic romances I've read.
Wears it's messaging bluntly, backs up it's feminism with it's interesting cast of female characters and their interractions.
Suffers from wanting to stay within it's lane of white middle class feminism, by focusing so much on the stereotypes and critiques of 50s/60s american heteronormative patriarchy, it shows a near total disinterest in the political realities of that period. I had to laugh at the tokenistic way our protagonist pauses mid show to hold up a photo of rosa parks and say she stood with her when there are no mentioned characters of any diverse background, no organising beyond her own in show monologuing which does not broach the topic of race or class or much else, the only scandal is a palatable non scandal of neutral atheism which is treated as more politically relevant. Her brother commited suicide for being gay so we know she individually is not homophobic but she knows no other gay people and does not advocate for them, she name drops rosa parks but we never hear about her noticing how race limits the hiring of scientists in the same way gender does.
the story is well told but by placing such a uniffensive to modern readers version of a feminist hero it invents a whitewashed version of the femi ist movement. the complexities of that wave of feminism, the way women activists were also marginalised within adjacent political movements across race and causes. gone is almost any mention or credit of the real women who existed and made strides in the entertainment and scientific industries.
it's the blandly benign progressivism that results in things like the fictional non racist white guy tearing down the segregation sign at nasa for the real black women in hidden figures. it's the barbie movie pretending Mattel never had a female CEO to make a joke about sexism being bad. it's the fictional guy who threw the first brick at stonewall. I prefferred this style of fictional feminist revolutionary when it was the tongue in cheek spoofing of Down With Love's Barbara Novak.
I would not be so harsh on it if it weren't so centrally about feminist issues. The fact is as a reader I'm not interested in the simplistic pop feminism that misses so many opportunities for intersectionality. If I am going to read something obviously engaging with social and political themes I want a little more meat on it. I don't want something that feels this tidy. outside of alegory like in scifi the inspirational optimism doesn't ring true for me even though I know it works as warming empathy for others. Maybe it's because I've been enjoying the feeling of unfamiliarity I got recently when watching a movie from a time and country I did not have adequate contextual framework to navigate the themes of, that slight confusion and discomfort and curiosity is what a work should evoke if trying to be provocative with it's politics. This book felt like preaching to the choir. fun, charming, a good character driven story, but felt more suited for readers who don't engage with these narratives and themes often.
A fun book yes but also the plot is carried more by the drama of sexism assault death and such, the tv show is secondary to the character drama and extended life story sequences.
Flew by as a read, one of the most autistic 4 autistic romances I've read.
Wears it's messaging bluntly, backs up it's feminism with it's interesting cast of female characters and their interractions.
Suffers from wanting to stay within it's lane of white middle class feminism, by focusing so much on the stereotypes and critiques of 50s/60s american heteronormative patriarchy, it shows a near total disinterest in the political realities of that period. I had to laugh at the tokenistic way our protagonist pauses mid show to hold up a photo of rosa parks and say she stood with her when there are no mentioned characters of any diverse background, no organising beyond her own in show monologuing which does not broach the topic of race or class or much else, the only scandal is a palatable non scandal of neutral atheism which is treated as more politically relevant. Her brother commited suicide for being gay so we know she individually is not homophobic but she knows no other gay people and does not advocate for them, she name drops rosa parks but we never hear about her noticing how race limits the hiring of scientists in the same way gender does.
the story is well told but by placing such a uniffensive to modern readers version of a feminist hero it invents a whitewashed version of the femi ist movement. the complexities of that wave of feminism, the way women activists were also marginalised within adjacent political movements across race and causes. gone is almost any mention or credit of the real women who existed and made strides in the entertainment and scientific industries.
it's the blandly benign progressivism that results in things like the fictional non racist white guy tearing down the segregation sign at nasa for the real black women in hidden figures. it's the barbie movie pretending Mattel never had a female CEO to make a joke about sexism being bad. it's the fictional guy who threw the first brick at stonewall. I prefferred this style of fictional feminist revolutionary when it was the tongue in cheek spoofing of Down With Love's Barbara Novak.
I would not be so harsh on it if it weren't so centrally about feminist issues. The fact is as a reader I'm not interested in the simplistic pop feminism that misses so many opportunities for intersectionality. If I am going to read something obviously engaging with social and political themes I want a little more meat on it. I don't want something that feels this tidy. outside of alegory like in scifi the inspirational optimism doesn't ring true for me even though I know it works as warming empathy for others. Maybe it's because I've been enjoying the feeling of unfamiliarity I got recently when watching a movie from a time and country I did not have adequate contextual framework to navigate the themes of, that slight confusion and discomfort and curiosity is what a work should evoke if trying to be provocative with it's politics. This book felt like preaching to the choir. fun, charming, a good character driven story, but felt more suited for readers who don't engage with these narratives and themes often.
Fluids by May Leitz
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I've not really read so-called extreme horror before, i've read horror novels with extreme content but not where that content has been so much the focus. So I was curious what reading this type of violence and graphic and shocking content would be like for me versus watching it.
The answer is personally I just kind of go ew and tilt my head one way to look at the themes and tilt my head the other to look at the writing style. In this particular case I think the higher impact violence (especially the sexual violence) left me a bit underwhelmed in reaction because it was so prevalent in the second half of the book. The intended awfulness was achieved but any one of the acts described could have been exchanged for any other brutality you can imagine and have the same effect.
I think there's a visceral discomfort that comes through for certain elements being used. I think there is a catharsis to reading about someone going through undeniably the worst things that can happen to a person and surviving. I think there's a pretty good perspective shift between the two protagonists and their individual warped understanding of what they are experiencing.
For me I really did enjoy the first third of the book, the set up of these lonely women and the way they think and their shared fixation on the most gruesome shock content you are likely to experience online.
The pacing just goes and goes as these two characters self destruct together, I think that the manic-putrid-nightmare-girl of it all is pretty funny in a morbid way.
It was an interesting read, I alternated between stopping to go GIRL NO! and stopping to go EW YUCKY! and that's more or less a reasonable reaction to have to what was going on here in this book.
It was for sure a splatterpunk examination of self loathing and toxic co-dependence and identity crisis in a post-covid era. An extremely quick read for anyone inclined to the tolerance level required for it's graphic content. And the trigger warnings are literally on the cover for you if you think it might be too much then take heed of those.
The answer is personally I just kind of go ew and tilt my head one way to look at the themes and tilt my head the other to look at the writing style. In this particular case I think the higher impact violence (especially the sexual violence) left me a bit underwhelmed in reaction because it was so prevalent in the second half of the book. The intended awfulness was achieved but any one of the acts described could have been exchanged for any other brutality you can imagine and have the same effect.
I think there's a visceral discomfort that comes through for certain elements being used. I think there is a catharsis to reading about someone going through undeniably the worst things that can happen to a person and surviving. I think there's a pretty good perspective shift between the two protagonists and their individual warped understanding of what they are experiencing.
For me I really did enjoy the first third of the book, the set up of these lonely women and the way they think and their shared fixation on the most gruesome shock content you are likely to experience online.
The pacing just goes and goes as these two characters self destruct together, I think that the manic-putrid-nightmare-girl of it all is pretty funny in a morbid way.
It was an interesting read, I alternated between stopping to go GIRL NO! and stopping to go EW YUCKY! and that's more or less a reasonable reaction to have to what was going on here in this book.
It was for sure a splatterpunk examination of self loathing and toxic co-dependence and identity crisis in a post-covid era. An extremely quick read for anyone inclined to the tolerance level required for it's graphic content. And the trigger warnings are literally on the cover for you if you think it might be too much then take heed of those.
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
challenging
funny
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I was in the mood for this sort of subject matter recently, and I wanted to see how accurate the movie was (very!)
Every character in this is so controlled by their convictions, not just faith in a religious context but convictions of morals and the workings of their lives so that everyone talks past each-other in repetitive phrases with the assurance that they’re the only person who knows what they’re talking about. The further Hazel Motes runs away from religious guilt the further he falls into it’s structures of thought and action. So funny and strange- preachers and beggars and items of religious fetish and show prophets con-men and mortification of the flesh. I love a story where every character is the weirdest person.
There’s definitely plenty lonely about the main four characters, the estrangement from parental affection, the lack of romantic or physical intimacy, the crisis of faith whether through commodification or exploitation or motivation.
There’s definitely plenty lonely about the main four characters, the estrangement from parental affection, the lack of romantic or physical intimacy, the crisis of faith whether through commodification or exploitation or motivation.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, Outing, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Religious bigotry