labyrinth_lit's reviews
7 reviews

Confrontations by Simone Atangana Bekono

emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

Mammoth by Eva Baltasar

adventurous emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

I loved this book. My only quibble is that it was too short, as I wanted to see what happened next with the character. Original, interesting, and well-written. 

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

emotional 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

Since this won the Printz award, I don't think I really need to add yet another rave review of this book -- but yes -- it is quite good, especially for YA, and my only quibble is that at times it seemed a bit unrealistic. However, that's life, right? Great book, especially for high schoolers, and I would also highly recommend the audiobook. 

This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud

slow-paced

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

2.5

I love other books by Claire Messud but this one not so much. I felt like it never went anywhere and neither the characters nor the writing was interesting enough for me. It didn't feel completely developed -- I never felt like I really got to know the characters and the historical context wasn't in-depth enough for me to understand the full impact of the context. It's okay. 

Carson McCullers: A Life by Mary V. Dearborn

challenging informative slow-paced

All Fours by Miranda July

adventurous emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

 Overall, All Fours is about desire and freedom. Books like this should be their own genre, and they’re exactly what I like to read. Weird, artsy, middle-aged women who still don’t quite have it all figured out. A woman who makes unconventional decisions — but why not? What else should she be doing in this world? Of course, it’s confusing. Marriage, love, lust, all the feelings that can happen so abruptly in the most mundane or absurd of circumstances yet change everything.

Our heroine is obsessive, questioning her own reality (or sanity?) — but she knows it’s impossible to evade her own thoughts and feelings. How can one compromise when there is so much work to be done, so much life to experience? All of this while reckoning with motherhood, menopause, her work, and the mess of life. Frank yet poetic and sexy, the book reads like you’re talking with your best friend and she really, really gets it. 

Rooms: Women, Writing, Woolf by Sina Queyras

challenging reflective medium-paced

4.0

Do you really need to read another book about Virginia Woolf? Even the author questioned this, but the answer is yes. They shouldn't have worried, however, because the text is an interesting mix of the author's experience with their own writing life and Woolf's work. One of the things I most relate to in this book is how Queyras describes their quest to inhabit a room to work in and how incredibly hard it is to achieve this. Life gets in the way, and rooms have their price. Yes, this book is for Woolf lovers but it doesn't let her off the hook -- it encourages us to judge her by her best attributes and relates themes that flow throughout Woolf's work to the real, complicated world we live in.