helloroci's reviews
211 reviews

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

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5.0

Touching, tender, so beautiful. I can’t wait to re-read it already. The way Anne Carson just dives in to the soul of the issue and pours light into every corner of it is so beautiful. I felt transformed by this book.
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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5.0

Told in four unforgettable POVs, Monstrilio begins so tenderly and absurdly. As the novel goes on it becomes so unexpectedly dark and beautiful. Dealing with the difficult intersections of family dynamics and chosen family, loyalty, what we owe the people in our life, loss + grief and the allowances we permit loved ones and ourselves because of it. What if our grief became a living thing? The novel never feels rushed and every character feels fully developed and whole. Though brutal, the body horror and gore is carefully chosen and placed. It is surprisingly touching, sentimental, and universal in many ways. Not what I expected, but haunting, delightfully queer, fascinating and devastating. I would read anything Córdova writes in the future. 
Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

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4.5

In a way that is so quintessentially Kevin Wilson, this book is sweet, tender and vulnerable but never shies away from the hard stuff. There’s always this element of quirk and softness in his novels but in a way that feels so human and real and possible—his books feel like watching the last two seasons of The Good Place or Schitt’s Creek. This book is about art, friendship, memory, and what it means to hold on to the person we once were. It reminded me of the phrase “you have to forgive your body for no longer being 18 and your mind for ever having been.” Kevin Wilson never misses. 
I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel

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1.0

I very rarely say this, but this book was a complete waste of time. I thought I was really going to like this and had really been looking forward to it but it’s painfully heterosexual in a way that is damn near anti-feminist. The narrator is pathetic and sad but not in a vulnerable or raw way, in a detestable and deeply off putting, self-inflicted way. The narrator goes on and on AND ON with criticisms of institutionalized racism and patriarchy but is consistently an enabler, worshipper, and hugely willing and obsessive participant of all the systems she is criticizing so it makes the book one long whine from someone who’s repeatedly asking for advice they will vehemently not take. Despite all of this, the book’s worst crime is being profoundly boring. It was a reminder that sometimes people on booktok and bookstagram are paid money to tell us books are good when they aren’t. 

If you read this book jacket and want to read something actually akin to what that promises I’d highly recommend The Fake by Zoe Whittall or even better The Shame by Makenna Goodman which is phenomenal.