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heelturn2's reviews
84 reviews
Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.25
at times excruciatingly boring. early to middle of the book are very “cis person discovers gender exists and it’s hot!” but I ended up feeling much warmer on this book than I thought I would. the relationships & dynamics between the characters were interesting, I enjoyed the sort of challenging conversations playing out and developing the themes & thoughts of Eve, imo the strongest parts of the book are scenes between Eve and Fatima and Eve/Olivia/Nathan.
How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.0
writing style was a little too bare to do it for me. sometimes so similar story-to-story that they could have been disjointed scenes from a single novel. I always wanted the weird/magical/surreal elements to go a little further than they did. overall ok but unsatisfying.
The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-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
3.0
nice prose. captures crushing 18 y/o social anxiety and unsureness-of-self well. lost me toward the middle once the relationship was established but i enjoyed things coming to a head near the end. I can’t figure out what fucking street Nora’s supposed to live on though other than it’s near High Park/Roncesvalles!!!
Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis
emotional
funny
lighthearted
tense
slow-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
4.0
deranged! i love femmes
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
insane nightmare fever dream. multigenerational occultist power struggle tragedy. argentinian gothic. so evocative of place and time. really beautiful and truly scary in a lingering way I rarely find horror novels to be - thinking about omaira’s head and pablo’s hand as I walk down the hall in the dark. a book you have to lie down after finishing.
The Short While by Jeremy Sorese
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-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
4.5
slow, reflective queer slice of life. beautiful art and a comic format I really enjoyed - a mix of paragraphs of text + static images, sometimes more like manuscript illuminations + sequential panel comics.
this book is emotionally dense without feeling heavy - the characters grapple with trauma, witnessing atrocities, struggles with family, deep seated beliefs about themselves and the world, but it never feels melodramatic or heavy handed or like it’s trying to shock you. this was actually kind of a great companion to read right after Sea of Tranquility because both books hit on this theme I love and have been thinking about: insane terrible things happen to you and you keep going because that’s life, and even in the aftermath of this thing life is still good in these little ways.
I think… not many people are good at writing about grief and trauma, either because they haven’t experienced it and fetishize it, they assume their reader hasn’t experienced THIS trauma, or because they’re writing about something so raw it feels like it’s just happened. The Short While is not that - it withholds showing you the traumatic incident itself for a long time, hops around in time, shows you the characters and their responses instead, and then just kind of lets the clock roll forward as things change. there’s no raw sensationalism around the event itself because it’s clear that it marked the characters and changed their relationship with one another. those changes are what’s interesting, not the details of the precipitating event. it’s what makes the world around the characters work as well - the precise history and mechanisms of the oppressive regime the characters live and have lived under aren’t necessary to explain in detail (tho that said I do love an ursula k leguin ass dystopic utopia/utopic dystopia). what’s interesting is how living in that world has affected the characters, their families, their communities…
anyways I’m losing my train of thought but this was a great comic. and it took me like 3 days to read! put more paragraphs in comics!!!
this book is emotionally dense without feeling heavy - the characters grapple with trauma, witnessing atrocities, struggles with family, deep seated beliefs about themselves and the world, but it never feels melodramatic or heavy handed or like it’s trying to shock you. this was actually kind of a great companion to read right after Sea of Tranquility because both books hit on this theme I love and have been thinking about: insane terrible things happen to you and you keep going because that’s life, and even in the aftermath of this thing life is still good in these little ways.
I think… not many people are good at writing about grief and trauma, either because they haven’t experienced it and fetishize it, they assume their reader hasn’t experienced THIS trauma, or because they’re writing about something so raw it feels like it’s just happened. The Short While is not that - it withholds showing you the traumatic incident itself for a long time, hops around in time, shows you the characters and their responses instead, and then just kind of lets the clock roll forward as things change. there’s no raw sensationalism around the event itself because it’s clear that it marked the characters and changed their relationship with one another. those changes are what’s interesting, not the details of the precipitating event. it’s what makes the world around the characters work as well - the precise history and mechanisms of the oppressive regime the characters live and have lived under aren’t necessary to explain in detail (tho that said I do love an ursula k leguin ass dystopic utopia/utopic dystopia). what’s interesting is how living in that world has affected the characters, their families, their communities…
anyways I’m losing my train of thought but this was a great comic. and it took me like 3 days to read! put more paragraphs in comics!!!
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
the last 100 pages of this book made me cry like a little bitch!!!
at its core is the same thing I loved about Station Eleven:
a life lived in a simulation, apocalypse, pandemic is still a life. things happen and you can never go home and the world you knew doesn’t exist anymore. and life goes on and you live it and it’s lovely and sad and stupid and funny.
could draw comparisons to Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell but obviously much shorter/less dense than either of those novels. I’m a sucker for non-linear/long timeline stories with an interconnected cast like that. felt like you did get to know the characters here and their emotional landscapes, even if some of them only get a little time onscreen.
at its core is the same thing I loved about Station Eleven:
could draw comparisons to Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell but obviously much shorter/less dense than either of those novels. I’m a sucker for non-linear/long timeline stories with an interconnected cast like that. felt like you did get to know the characters here and their emotional landscapes, even if some of them only get a little time onscreen.