hedsek's reviews
131 reviews

Crom Cruach by Valkyrie Loughcrewe

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Interesting read, loved the form and language of the book. There's some beautifully evocative and poetic language in there and I thought the dialogue was quite realistically done, bringing a modern and matter-of-factlike feel to what is all in all a pretty weird story. And of course it has bogs, megalithic sites, revolution, queers and Catholicism so I'm kind of bound to like it. I do think the book could have benefitted greatly from some more editing tho, as there was simply too much going on. I think having this many characters and this many ideas in such a short book kind of takes away from the good stuff in there. There were some weird spelling errors and typos in there as well, which is not that bad in and of itself but kind of another sign that some more editing could have been done. Lovely little weird read though!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicide, Transphobia, Blood, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Vomit, Antisemitism, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, and Outing

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.0

I have mixed feelings about this book. But let's start with the good! It is beautifully written and I do enjoy the way separate stories and anecdotes formed a whole. There are some good ideas in here as well: I especially thought the chapter on healing the relationship between people and land rather than healing just the land in order for it to be more sustainable was very insightful. I also enjoyed the first Windigo chapter and the story about the pond. I do think the book could have been quite a lot shorter and there were quite a few stories that had the same message, where one or two of them could have sufficed. I also didn't really enjoy the large focus on femininity and motherhood in the first chapters, but that's just my own preference. But what I really didn't like about this book is that is somehow seems to still be very individualistic in its approach to applying indigenous ways of thinking to our relation with science and nature. There were quite a few chapters where I felt like we as readers were invited to kind of laugh at the authors' students who couldn't go a day without their cellphones, wore high heels on excursions and couldn't look at a plant without going ewwww. But then when it turned to systemic issues, the book just didn't really seem to have a lot to say. It's not necessarily that I think a book like this should offer all the solutions to our problems, but the few solutions it did seem to offer are quite inaccessible for most people and I don't think the book really dealt with this. It didn't feel like the author was trying to blame individuals for their consumption too much, but the combination of these sort of caricatural depictions of random people who don't know enough about nature vs the way systemic issues were glossed over or treated more distantly/matter-of-factlike did leave a sort of sour taste for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Forced institutionalization, and Colonisation

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Racism, Dementia, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

Minor: Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Blood, Excrement, and Grief

De komst van Joachim Stiller by Hubert Lampo

challenging dark funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

Het is een paar pagina's inkomen door de wollige schrijfstijl, maar zodra dat went is het genieten van het prachtige Nederlands. De eerste helft van het boek is spannend en heeft een intrigerende opbouw, maar halverwege begon ik de interesse wat te verliezen door het herhaaldelijke geheenenweer van emoties van de hoofdpersoon en de saaie romance. Ook is het wat teleurstellend dat Simone zodra ze een grotere rol krijgt in het leven van de hoofdpersoon meteen alle karaktereigenschappen verliest behalve behulpzaam en begripvol (en blijkbaar ook nooit meer hoeft te werken of ook maar iets met het literaire tijdschrift hoeft te doen omdat ze te druk is met kousen wassen). Maar andere tijden I guess. Al met al toch wel een bevredigend boek dat naar het einde toe toch weer gaat intrigeren.

Ik vond de vrachtwagen plottwist wel heel random haha, maar het is ook wel passend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Blood, Stalking, Car accident, Pregnancy, and War

Minor: Child death, Cursing, Infidelity, and Classism

Defenestrate by Renée Branum

dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.75

Lots of interesting elements but for some reason I just didn't really care about the characters or the story all that much. The writing was nice in places but in some other also a bit too try-hard I think (to the point where certain analogies sounded smart until you thought about them). If it would have been shaved down quite a bit, I think it would have a lot of potential. This book also feels quite 'American in Europe™' and oblivious to class.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Homophobia, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Ziganophobia

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

inspiring lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

Unfortunately I did not enjoy this nearly as much as I thought I would. Mostly because the writing style is not for me: it's very clear that it's supposed to be funny but then when the humour doesn't work for you it becomes kind of awkward to read. I also didn't think the characters were worked out sufficiently for a full book. They had strong and vivid introductions that were really quite fun, but then it seemed like there wasn't anything more to it and I got a bit bored of them. The story itself could have been fun enough I guess (although I think they dealt with cultural appropriation pretty strangely) but because of those other things it just didn't really work for me. I did sort of enjoy the juxtaposition of techy and old school food preparation methods. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cultural appropriation

Moderate: Alcohol and Deportation

Minor: Alcoholism and Racism

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

dark hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Quite an intriguing read but I wish it took some more time with the second half of the book. It was interesting and disturbing to see Keiko and Shiraha interact, but the writing style was kinda bland (easy to read tho).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Misogyny, Sexism, and Acephobia/Arophobia

Moderate: Animal death, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Stalking, Pregnancy, and Classism

Minor: Infidelity, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

Incel rhetoric

Finna by Nino Cipri

adventurous hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

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

2.0

Egh I did really want to like this but I think it should have been a video game or something since the mechanics seem to already work that way anyway and all the side characters have major npc energy. The main characters were interesting but a bit underdeveloped. The fact that it mentions being anti-capitalist but truly does nothing more than saying it's bad that companies see employees as expendable and having a few 'capitslism amirite' jokes also feels a bit cheap, especially considering

that the company asks the main characters to do something pretty unethical which they barely reflect on, proceed to do and somehow it turns out fine with the person affected randomly finding it a good idea for plot reasons only

. The idea behind this book is pretty fun and I got some chuckles out of the hive stuff tho.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

dark funny informative medium-paced

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

2.25

Yikessss dit is de meest seksistische bullshit die ik in jaren geleden heb. Elke vrouw in dit boek kan geplaatst worden op twee assen: hoe graag wil de hoofdpersoon haar neuken en hoe sociaal acceptabel zou het zijn om haar te neuken. En dat is niet alleen vanuit de hoofdpersoon of zo, het boek vindt het absoluut prima om kritiekloos geen enkele vrouw een persoonlijkheid te laten hebben. Het is verder niet erg dat er heel weinig gebeurt in het boek maar je verwacht ergens wel dat er dan een interessant inwendig leven bij komt kijken maar dat is ook niet zo. Wel prachtig geschreven en dat is eigenlijk de enige reden dat ik het uit heb gelezen en benieuwd genoeg was over wat er komen ging. Maar yikes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Body shaming, Death, Racism, Rape, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Stalking, and Alcohol

Minor: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

Autogynephilia

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Read this pretty quickly because as per usual Armfield's prose is gorgeous but very readable. The atmosphere of this book is really well conveyed and kind of surrounds you for the entirety of the book. The characters were all flawed and annoying and very very human, which I liked a lot. Another big plus were the little descriptions of trying to make life as normal as possible in a world in disarray, felt very realistic. I think the book missed some of the magical realism vibes of Our wives under the sea and was overall a bit more striaghtforwardly depressing, but it worked in its own way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Homophobia, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Stalking, Lesbophobia, and Alcohol

Minor: Infidelity, Self harm, Blood, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Lots of climate desperation and nail picking, also

drowning

Der Spiegel im Spiegel by Michael Ende

challenging dark funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Really really enjoyed this, even though it took me super long to finish it as the German was a bit above my level (especially when trying to read before bed). I loved how the stories were sort of going nowhere most of the time, just there for the strange vibes. Some stories were better than others but there are definitely a few which I'll be thinking about often (the train station islands one is living rent free in my head already, as well as the one with the clown). Absolutely recommended for anyone who likes surrealism, labyrinths, things referencing themselves and weird stuff in general.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Fatphobia

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Sexism, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Cursing, Suicide, Blood, and Alcohol

This book is pretty old, I probably didn't mention everything in the cws but expect the normal levels of old -timey bigotry