gxuosi's reviews
343 reviews

The River Judge by S.L. Huang

dark emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

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

5.0

you have made me a hungry daughter; and what do the hungry do but eat?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Cannibalism, Death of parent

Minor: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Sexual harassment

The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

yeah sure why not

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Sexism, Murder

Minor: Infidelity, War

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

poirot... oh i need you so badly. i love that little freak.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs

Moderate: Death, Racism, Antisemitism, Murder

Minor: Infidelity

this book was written by a white author during the first world war and and filled with characters of the era and "high society." they are not above racism, antisemitism, and other moral failings prevalent of the time. christie repeatedly uses a slur for romani people when describing a character and there's a single instance of an anti-black hard slur mentioned off-handedly between an all white social gathering.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

adventurous 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? No

5.0

what the helllllll !!! once again suzanne does the impossible and manages to surprise us all with a story we already know the ending of. it can’t be an easy task to be an author with a universally loved trilogy and then a over decade later try to add on to it—but suzanne fucking nails it like it’s easy as walking. this so easily could have turned into fan service (given how bad we all wanted to read haymitch’s games) with all the cameos of characters from both ballad of songbirds and snakes and the hunger games trilogy. but it doesn’t !!! everyone who is there should be there, they have purpose and reason. it’s disgusting, gory, emotionally terrorizing. it’s just a good ass book, man

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Confinement, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Alcohol

Minor: Body horror, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Suicide, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, War, Classism

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

2.0

khalidi, like a true academic, has written written a book for other academics which is lacking the through-line and penetrable language the average reader would need to actually understand the history he wants to share. the first 150 pages of the book are built near entirely on cited data points that trace the history of palestinian-israeli relations in what khalidi claims to be an unbiased history. however, it’s next to impossible to write an ethnographic historical piece on palestine that lacks bias; especially when Khalid’s frame of reference for first hand accounts is a mixture of his family’s journals from the period. so it's particularly biased and highlights or conveniently misses events that help promote a specific perspective (which is to be expected for an ethnography or history book written by someone who is part of the subject culture). ultimately, all of this ends with an incomplete history of palestine, written from the perspective of a descendant of a bygone ruling class in mostly impenetrable language. khalidi's personal stances on the solution, entities like hamas, and where to lay the blame—leave a bad taste in the mouth with lacking contextualization and a heavy dose of victim blaming. overall it’s acceptable reference material, but not comprehensive or a good place to start if you want to learn about palestine and the genocide palestinians have endured.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Racism, Violence, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, War

khalidi finds a way to blame palestinians for their own plight, calls hamas antisemitic, and in-so-many-words calls for two state solution. so make of that what you will.

Here After by Amy Lin

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

bro i am bawling my fucking eyes out. this is one of those books that makes me nasty cry. that wretched painful sobbing where you can’t stop and that makes you cry more; a cathartic release that you didn’t plan on having

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death of parent

Gaza Writes Back by Refaat Alareer

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No

3.5

for refaat alareer (sept 23 1979-dec 6 2023). language is the weapon of a people and our greatest gift. thank you for sharing yours with us and collecting the voices of young palestinians so that they could be heard. overall the collection is cohesive and soul crushing as it threads the lives of the authors together in stories about today, tomorrow, and yesterday. the importance of this collection outreaches the general quality of the writing when removed from historical or social context. but the true value of this book is that it was written at all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Torture

Forest of Noise: Poems by Mosab Abu Toha

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

by far a more impactful and cohesive collection than the previous work i read, "things you may find hidden in my ear: poems from gaza." supremely distressing and poignant.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Racism, Death of parent, War

Moderate: Medical content, Religious bigotry

The Seventh Day by Yu Hua
Did not finish book. Stopped at 48%.

dnf at 48%. yu hua attempted to write a surrealist critique of modern capitalist china and the degraded value of human life. instead we got a shallow surrealist stroll through stunted half plots with the continued vilification of people with HIV and other STDs as well as queer people and sex workers. it’s just not worth my time to read a humanities fiction that’s totally lacking in compassion.

Conclave by Robert Harris

emotional reflective 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 and film have filled my brain with unending rot; an obsession. the movie handles the plot with far more grace and nuance and adds more characterization to the cast than the book which is really often the reverse for adaptations. vivat innocentia.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Islamophobia, Religious bigotry

Moderate: Confinement, Sexual violence, Violence

Minor: Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Genocide, Homophobia, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Alcohol, War