kafkaesque_coffee's Reviews (30)

The Bell Jar

4.75

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

‘The more hopeless you were, the further away they hid you’

Wow…
🔔💍🥜✒️

No wonder this book is such a classic. A wonderful exploration on depression, mental illness, expectations, and the treatment people faced (and still face) because of them.

All my life I’ve been told I have no reason to be depressed and that other people have it worse. But books like these are great representation on how anyone can fall into this pit, and the struggles that come with it drag us down to the worst. It was so nice reading a character facing the same problems, even tho me and our main character have completely different lives, what we have in common are the opportunities we are missing, the situations we encounter, are because we’re stuck in this bell jar.

Uhh be warned there is some racism and out of date terms used in this books since it was in the 60s, besides that it’s still wonderfully written.

The fig tree analogy will forever haunt me.

-🔔🤍

Black Chalk

Christopher J. Yates

2.25

dark mysterious slow-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: N/A

I can’t even think of something stupid to say because thinking about this book is giving me a headache 🫩
Longer review than usual, weird considering I didn’t like this book.
💸🕯️🚬 🦷

Ok so I was recommended this from a dark academia website that clearly used ChatGPT because this was not it. My problem wasn’t the fact that it wasn’t giving the dark academia I was looking for, my problem was how utterly boring, dragging, and pointless it was.

Lacked any descriptive text on setting, academic writing was just put in weird places, plot twist were poorly executed, and even had me stressing out. So slow, and not in a charming way. The conflict between characters was some of the stupidest shit I’ve ever read.

Characters were so.. meh… Literally the only one I liked was Chad. And it’s not like the characters didn’t have backgrounds, they did, but I straight up couldn’t care less since they felt like, well, BACKGROUNDS. I don’t even remember if Jack shared his story.

Their friendship also felt so flat.. so when betrayal or fights happened I literally felt nothing. With ‘The Secret History’ , you felt the friendship and closeness between the Classics, so when everything went downhill, you felt the spiral downward. But everything between these six felt so empty and even feels forced.
Which is definitely the point since they’re playing a game that forces them to isolate themselves from the rest of the world, but whenever someone brought up how close they used to be, I would think ‘Dude, when?’

Game Soc also felt like a boring mystery thrown in to add something. But the three (Tallest, Middle, Shortest) were more interesting than the main characters.

Ending was extremely underwhelming, no spoilers, but I was hoping for more. I also wished we got to explore whatever Jolyon and Chad had going on, since that was more interesting than the Game.

In conclusion, a very disappointing read. I’m still open to reading Yates other books however.

Also none of the characters used Black Chalk so automatically a two star sighh.

-💸🤍

An Abundance of Katherines

John Green

4.25

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The best thing about most of John Green’s YA books is that all of his male protagonist are fucking losers.
📚🛁☀️❤️

As I expect with a John Green book, a funny, simple (cringy at times) read. The characters were fine, the small town setting was really nice because I’m a sucker for those, and while the humor sometimes fell flat, still would get a laugh out of me (I have shitty humor).
Colin bringing up Katherine every page got annoying sometimes, but I’m DemiAroAce and never been in a committed relationship like he was, so maybe that’s what’s it’s like lmao.

And I will admit, this and his other book ‘Looking for Alaska’ are very similar. But I think the build up and relationship between Colin and Lindsey was a bit better than with Miles and Alaska (especially because Colin was more respectful and less of self centered jerk than Miles). Uhh I still like ‘Looking for Alaska’ more. (Personal preference)

Hassan calling himself ’Daddy’ is criminal, and I’m going to jail for laughing every time he did.

-📚🤍

Our Wives Under the Sea

Julia Armfield

5.0

dark emotional informative mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Loveable characters: Yes

An absolute crime that it took me this long to get around to reading this, and I apologize.
🌊🐠🪼🦑

This has got to be one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. The characters Leah and Miri, their love for each other, the mystery surrounding what happened in the submarine and the weird ass company that sent Leah and her crew there. The writing is absolutely stunning, I felt like I was watching a movie.

Ugh, it was truly a magical and mysterious experience. 10/10

Miri Miri Miri 😭😭😭😭😭😭

-🌊🤍

The Hymn to Dionysus

Natasha Pulley

4.25

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Dionysus and Helios supremacy fr fr
🍇🌿🍷🐝

You could tell the author was having fun with this, and the writing was extremely creative. I felt like the banter was placed at the wrong moments, but not to an overwhelming extent that it ruins the book. Phaidros was also such an asshole, but that’s the kind of the point of his character arc and development anyways lmao.

I’m glad the author took the more creative approach with the dialogue, and while it caught me off guard at first, it felt like a good way to bring outsiders in but kept in mind the people who do know the stories and Dionysus.

And I will admit, that cover is what drawn me to the book in the first place because GOD DAYUM 😍😍

-🍇🤍

Content Warnings