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gxuosi's reviews
326 reviews
Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun
5.0
grief and guilt and grief and guilt and the indomitable desire to live anyways
Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
4.0
sort of enraging just how fucking stupid everyone was even when they weren’t supernaturally ill; juliette at the doctors, harrie in the house, richard before the doctor’s appointment. and the end was a disappointing limp out of what had been incredible plot and tension building for half the book.
Sin Eater by Megan Campisi
4.0
…. huh. *edit okay i’m back with thoughts. i had to sit with this one for like 20min. no one in that whole fucking town deserved may. she was the best of them condemned to live with their worst. and if it weren’t enough, she gave and gave and worked harder than anyone in her position ought to as so someone might be delivered “justice.” *plays paris paloma’s labour*
Ultraxenopia by M.A. Phipps
3.0
2.5, bumped up cause i generally like m.a. phipps. cool concept but just completely undeveloped. at no point did i ever know what the state’s authoritarian laws were, in what way the state controls the citizens, how society in the state functions on a day to day level, what phoenix’s goals are, why phoenix is considered a terrorist group, when phoenix was founded or by who, how much time was passing at any given moment. i also totally was blindsided by the romance plot given i thought wynter had only spent 36 conscious hours with anyone in phoenix before the confession happens.
Human Acts by Han Kang
5.0
to be clear: i did not like this book. but i think that's the point. it was cold, deeply detached, and cruel at times; lacking emotional depth in some points and in others i was drowning in grief. maybe because that's what the soldiers were in gwangju. or maybe because that's the only way the author and her characters can handle their grief; store it away in a root cellar until they can't anymore. i did not like this book, but i don't regret having read it.
Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy
Did not finish book.
Did not finish book.
i’ve never given up so fast but dnf at 8%. she was so deeply unlikable and boring. the vibes were so off and i couldn’t put a name to why… and then i found out the author is a cisman which unleashed incomprehensible rage i never could overcome.
Dream by the Shadows by Logan Karlie
1.0
given that i denied myself the right to dnf another book so soon, i managed to finish this. i really wanted to like it, and given the comparisons it garnered on tiktok- i should have. but it turned out to be the most nonlinear, at sometimes plotless, ring-around. the pacing was often stunted by the author choosing to use broken sentences and then immediately repeat them. this mechanic works for emphasis, but when used is excess it becomes just a endless game of smacking your skull into a concrete wall. i also found the character development generally lacking due to dream-like absurdist scenes taking priority. i was never able to connect with or care about any of the characters nor did any of their goals, motivations, desires become apparent until the second they exacted them. the general concept was intriguing, but due to the under developed and poorly explained magical universe, it felt like i was the one stuck in a dreamscape time loop instead of esmer. also it basically quoted batman/the dark knight twice... and that reeeeeaaally annoyed me.
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
4.0
an obsessive absurdist study in being known, grief, love, and the terrible reality of not having the answers. chen's use of surrealist and absurdist tableaus woven into painfully real moments creates a fascinating twist through his life making something somehow better than mangos.
A Place Called No Homeland by Kai Cheng Thom
4.0
“is it sacrifice that makes a mother is it suffering that makes a woman is it sacrifice / suffering / sacrifice / suffering?”
maybe it’s both. maybe it’s neither. probably it’s a hurricane of hope, dreams, sacrifice, suffering, violence, peace, rebellion, tenderness, rage. in the end its all the same; a performance but one we each learned or lost differently. this collection hit somewhere so strange inside for me as it’s kai cheng thom’s endless pursuit of womanhood while i seek to erase my own.
maybe it’s both. maybe it’s neither. probably it’s a hurricane of hope, dreams, sacrifice, suffering, violence, peace, rebellion, tenderness, rage. in the end its all the same; a performance but one we each learned or lost differently. this collection hit somewhere so strange inside for me as it’s kai cheng thom’s endless pursuit of womanhood while i seek to erase my own.