imogenrose97's reviews
445 reviews

Free Food for Millonaires by Min Jin Lee

challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.0

I wish I could capslock the YES that the flaws of the characters were a main focus of this book because this book was messy and long and took place over I want to say 5-10 years. My copy had a foreword about learning to write after quitting being a lawyer. What followed was effectively a masterful collection of human thought, how someone is thinking about a situation, how many different thoughts we all have all happening at the same time in the same room, ricocheting from the things we take in. How separate from those thoughts the other people experiencing that same moment are and how incorrectly we judge what the other might be thinking. 

Thunderhead by Miranda Darling

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I took a little to get into this book, the pages felt gluey, and the writing so different to the book I had just finished, I felt disjointed. Our narrator hides so much from us, her mind a mess of moments and lists that make so little sense, until all at once they make all the sense until all at once it's too late and you realise the space she inhabits is so different to what we expected. The confusion falls away after that. Suddenly you are tightly wound and holding your breath. Suddenly you can't uncurl your fingers for the fear of it. Suddenly it's over. Suddenly I breathed again.

The Best 100 Poems of Dorothy Porter by Dorothy Porter

emotional informative

3.75

I've set myself a goal to read a book of Poetry a month because incidentally, I had already started too. This was a beautiful collection though I did find myself a little lost as we flipped between personal collections and fictional poetry. Both had stunning prose but my head felt lost in interpreting.

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

adventurous emotional funny reflective sad 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

The first time I saw this book I judged it by it's cover and I didn't want to get involved, I did however grab a copy for a friend and she was O B S E S S E S ED, so naturally I found a cover I actually loved and when Christmas came around I was gifted the most beautiful hardback copy from the friend who's copy I bought for her. 
I started as I start so many books, without reading the blurb and it worked out perfectly this time. I got to experience it all blindly. I loved the descriptions of the singularly isolating experience of childhood as a strange child in the countryside, let loose to roam without adult interference, the games you make up, the intense clarity you feel about who you are without knowing how to name each part. The stupidity of adults who don't really know you, despite having known you your whole life. '
I felt a little cheated that queerness was not explored in the intensity of our main characters' friendship. However, queerness is also something that I as a child did not know or acknowledge in my strangely possessive friendships, there was though ample opportunity in the descriptions of the present moment. This likely is why I didn't give it five stars. It felt like it would have slotted sweetly into the plot to answer so many questions on my mind. I guess the beauty of the story was this unanswerable question, why was the friendship the way that it was? 

Open Throat by Henry Hoke

adventurous emotional funny fast-paced

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

4.25

I had no expectations for Open Throat, no ideas for how the book might proceed. I was utterly delighted by what I found. I loved the human experience through our protagonist's eyes. I loved the words spelt as they sounded, I loved working what they were.
This was a book I chose to read at the queer bookclub I host through a bookshop, this time I had a few friends and my partner come along as they had read and loved the book. It was so lovely to see the group through their eyes, to get to hear newly how lovely the environment is, to have people confirm what a special place it is. The discussions for the book were overwhelmingly positive, everyone had enjoyed experiencing life through a mountain lions eyes and enjoyed the ways the author played with words to create distance between him and us. 

DallerGut Dream Department Store: The Dream You Ordered is Sold Out by Mi-Ye Lee 이미예

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing

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

3.25

What a delightful romp, if romp could be used to describe a book spent mainly in dreams, the characters were varied and interesting though at times very much a type cast of a character rather than one very well written out. Having more interesting lovable characters working in the department store would have enamoured me more with the book. However, I'm sure there is something that I am missing from the characters, something their identities reveal about finding a space for yourself even if you might be found to be a difficult personality by others.
I find it so interesting the books how the books that do so well in countries like Korea and Japan are so often tales of humanity, of searching for a purpose, for who you are, for where you fit. There is often an open sense of curiosity and play that is not often present in mainstream Western fiction.

Special message to read the translator's note if you didn't. Her love for the book shines bright in the passages of the English translation.

Returning by Kirli Saunders

adventurous emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad

4.0

Books composed in interesting ways always intrigue me, each poem in this collection had a corresponding artwork that was either inspired by the poem or vice versa. That alone made me want to pick this up. The art inside is stunning, I enjoyed comparing the words to the writing to find connections in them.

The Man Who Planted Trees: One of the most pressing stories of our time by Jean Giono

funny hopeful informative inspiring sad fast-paced

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

4.0

My second read of a book from the Vintage Earth collection and a spectacular one at that. The story itself is in two parts, the first a short story, the second is a description of pure delight that Jean Giono felt at the request to write the story, the reception to the story and finally the glee of a man who has pulled off a deception so pure. I can't recommend this tiny simple story enough.

The Night Parade by Jami Nakamura Lin

adventurous emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

 I felt a lot of connection to this book, the depictions of life as someone chronically mentally ill and the way the world around us is so unkind, misunderstanding and often out of touch with the reality of mental illness. In particular not being able to see other patients after being released from the psych ward is ridiculous. The feeling of community and connection I feel reading this book is what I would assume she would be getting from the people around her while hospitalised. It has been life saving for me to have people around me who understand what it's like to struggle in the ways that I am struggling, to have a connection in the loneliest times. I know that the author wanted you to feel this connection, wanted to show you that even without a community of people who feel as you do, the community you already have can be enough. The people around who you rush to you and understand that you are struggling and that due to who you are its just going to be different to what they need or feel. 
I deeply enjoyed the connections to a varied cultural past through the use of yokai as the structure to move the story and connect the parts of you that felt incompatible. The connections of isolation otherness and fear so prominent in ghost stories around the world lie barely covered in the the stories we tell about mental illness. What monster am I and where do I become more than a body of fear to turn into the self who overcomes the pain of living? Where do I turn from myth into person?

Her First Palestinian by Saeed Teebi

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The stories in this book were wide and varied, the final story the hardest to deal with. The complexities of living in a capitalist society where your life and family depend on the money you can provide to them. How do you balance your ethics with your will to survive and prosper, where does the line appear to tell you to turn back? You have gone further than you should now. Nothing is worth the cost of selling your dreams to those who oppress you. 

I thought a lot about the responsibility of representing your people or community with kindness. The Palestinian people don't have the privilege of being hard to deal with, weird or angry, as so many marginalized people can't. There is no room for human flaws in the minds of the oppressor because confirmation bias is going to eat that one weird thing someone did and spit it up as a reason we shouldn't trust that entire marginalised group.