gxuosi's reviews
326 reviews

Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen

1.0

an absolutely frantic word jumble of a collection with continually deteriorating clarity. i by far prefer chen chen’s other collection “when i grow up i want to be a list of further possibilities” over this one.

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

5.0

shut the fuck up im literally crying. satchel and fern oh my godddddd. those last 2 chapters whipped my ass. **it's a day later and i have better thoughts. i preferred legends & lattes, but really enjoyed the contextualization of viv and gallina when they were younger. i was gonna give it 4/5 up until those last 2 chapters. that sealed the 5/5.

Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia

4.0

sometimes you just gotta face north and know that there’s things you were never meant to understand

Pages to Fill by Travis Baldree

2.0

obviously wasn't really meant to be anything more than a bonus chapter for legends & lattes, which could have been done with a lot more delicacy and atmosphere than this had. with so few pages, it attempted to do far too much and so nothing was given room to breathe. there was no prose-like descriptions, we had little to no insight to viv's inner turmoil and aspirations, and there's a mystery plot that starts in the middle and ends with nothing. it really feels more like a scrapped prequel, a WIP that we were given so that it wouldn't be fully abandoned.

Capturing the Orc's Heart by Lyonne Riley

2.0

they spent the whole first half hating each other and then fucking. they built their entire relationship off of hate, lust, and familial duty. where was the mutual respect and understanding before she got pregnant???

Ayiti by Roxane Gay

4.0

after claiming independence and abolishing slavery, haiti was forced at gunpoint to sign a contract to pay 150 million francs to france, which they paid off via loans from french banks. it took 122 years and they’ve paid somewhere between 20 and 30 billion dollars in today’s money. not only does france owe haiti all of that money back, france and america owe haiti additional reparations to make up for the years of servitude, starvation, and violence they’ve suffered at the hands of western imperialism.

The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by 조예은, Cho Yeeun

3.0

a few of the perspectives really detracted from how engaged i was, but good lord the cat, jua, and yuji carried this.

LightFall by Rebecca Jaycox, M.A. Phipps

5.0

i fucking CALLED IT!!!!!! god this shit was so fun lmfao. it’s just the perfect mix of tacky, expected, and wildly original shit going on. 5/5 on yelp. 10/10 on the olive garden customer survey.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi (Novel) Vol. 3 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

5.0

OOOOHHHH THEYRE IDIOTS IN LOVE. all of the acts of service, the glimpses of lovelorn regret, the unsent gifts. GOD i love wangxian and the dynamic between yanli and wuxian

Bound by Flame by Anna Windsor

5.0

that was literally so fun what the fuck. like genuinely well developed magic system, creatures, political system. well written characters ???? BRO