isabelreads's reviews
262 reviews

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini, Rebecca Paley

emotional funny informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

Told with wit and distinctive voice, Remini provides a really great mix of tell all, memoir, and reflection on growing up in a high demand religion. A surprisingly hilarious stop on my current Scientology reading rabbit hole.

Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina by Raquel Cepeda
Did not finish book.

returned to library 

Finding Masculinity: Female to Male Transition in Adulthood by Alexander Walker, Emmett J.P. Lundberg

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.25

A solid anthology of trans masculine experiences! I would have loved a few more gay transmasc voices and maybe some more people who were not quite binary but tbh this was an awesome collection that gave me a lot of reflect upon myself.

Going Clear by Lawrence Wright

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

3.5

Fascinating and packed with information but could have been put together a bit less confusingly. A timeline or list of major figures would have been a huge help.

Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.0

Alex is not as compelling to me as Verity in the slightest. He's fine but bland and I don't find his defining features very interesting. His love interest was funny but felt a bit too convenient and like she was mostly one joke. The other supporting characters were not really utilized to their fullest extent and all in all I found this probably the weakest entry in there series so far. I literally called the culprit of the main mystery in the scene where they were introduced before there was even a victim. I hope the next one develops them better, is more interesting, or at least is as quick a read so I can return to the girlies.

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

 A gorgeous piece of archival work and pop history. Tubbs glosses this archive beautifully, knitting together biography, history, and speculation to reclaim an archive of Black motherhood that shaped our nation. A necessary work and one that I tore through in just a few sittings.

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Lovely work from Silvia Moreno-Garcia but I feel like I wanted more from this book and these characters. Not more story but maybe more depth or length in the story we have. I loved the characters as well as the mysterious world we were entering and it felt like it was all over way too quickly. A fine problem to have and a great read nonetheless 

Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

The prose was gorgeous and I lov d the concept but I found the execution deeply lacking. The first two stories about Me. Jageroop were almost complete divorced from the later stories surrounding Mr. H. It seemed like a sudden change where we never really even went back to the characters introduced in the first two sections as we did in the last parts of the book. The final story also felt weirdly Islamophobic. Also also tbh I'm tried of stories where the message is "Men are awful and women suffer beneath them." this story deals with this in a nuanced way, especially in the the Declan and Ruth story (I thought that in particular was an excellent use of POV) but it's a bit exhausting when that's the major through line of the book. I'll likely check out future works by Mohammed, especially future shirt fiction because I think that form in particular is well-suited to her.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

A truly excellent outing from Moreno-Garcia, one of the best gothic/scary house books I've read in a long time. The supernatural elements were tied in flawlessly with the larger messages on race, eugenics, and inheritance, and the build up of the tension was pitch perfect to me. I read it in about two sittings bc it's so difficult to put down once you start. The only thing that quite kept it from being a perfect 5.0 read for me was I wanted a bit more of the relationship between the cousin and Noemi, especially given their different coloring and different temperaments. However, the structure of the novel doesn't really allow for that which I totally accept. All in all, an excellent read for anyone into horror, haunted houses, or Latinx spec fic.

Samandar : book of travels by Lourdes Vázquez

challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

Lovely poetry but I think a lot of it went over my head. Love the billingual edition.