librarymouse's reviews
430 reviews

Loving, Ohio by Matthew Erman

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

This was a really well done, trippy Midwestern gothic centering on teens raised in and around a neo cult whose rhetoric may or may not be true, but whose methodology leaves blood and grief in its wake. For a quite short book, it took me a while to read, flipping back and forth between pages and seeking detail in the illustrations. This is a great exploration of the impact of high demand religion on families and the unique strangeness of the Midwest.
my only critique is what happened to her dog, who protected her, and to her cat? What happened when she left. She couldn't take them with her on the bus, but it didn't look like they were in the house after she left. Did she leave them behind? I hope she left them with Ana.
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The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

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adventurous emotional reflective 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

5.0

The City in Glass is a story of grief, extended in an order of magnitude when it is a whole city being grieved across centuries. Nghi Vo's mastery of language and ability to create sympathetic characters outside of the boundaries of good and evil allow for a deep exploration of what it means to miss not only people, but the place that was created by their presence and the essence of their having lived.

The slow progression of the relationship between Vitrine and her angel is wonderfully fleshed out. The detail in how the pieces of each other each keeps within themselves - Vitrine voluntarily and her angel as involuntary penance - slowly bring the two of them together, poisoning the angel into vulnerability as he learns to love what he destroyed and poisoning Vitrine into loving him.
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Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood by Claire Hoffman

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emotional funny informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Greetings from Utopia Park is a unique autobiography when it comes to the genre of memoirs written by cult survivors. Hoffman's grappling with her conflicting feelings on the value she's found in transcendental meditation and the fraud and extortion of the community committed by the organization that taught her the method lends itself to a more in depth an nuanced understanding of her childhood experiences than other religions I've read about. The luster of childhood and the idea of belonging slowly falling away is something so many of us can relate to.
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That Night in the Library by Eva Jurczyk

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dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Pretty much every one of the characters was immediately dislikable. Faye's point of view was an enjoyable, to a point, as a lens through which to watch the plot unfold though she, too was similarly flawed to her peers with her voluntary isolation and her unacted upon longing for friends. The plot and interpersonal conflict was engaging enough that I continued on reading despite the unlikable nature of the characters. Jurczyk has a way of exploring vulnerability and desperation in her characters, their grisly deaths and injuries, and their mourning rituals. The twist ending was very unexpected, but made sense given what we are shown of Kip.
No one in this book is innocent, and there are questions of guilt left unanswered in such a way that no one is absolved.
Faye imagines a life for herself with Umu as her best friend, replacing Ro so quickly after his death at her hands, because she's read so much about bonds that form over shared trauma. It's unclear whether or not Davey killed Soraya because she got the permanent job over him. He decapitates Mary and Faye doesn't intercede when the fight between Mary and Davey leads to Umu's death. The two survivors are killers by the end of the night and while neither is in trouble with the law when they're taken out of the bloodbath that is the basement, readers are left hanging whether or not they will be held accountable for the carnage. Kip having licked one of the green books for a meme, honestly makes sense given his entitlement and lack of care for the work others are doing beyond what his name can give him access to. My only issue with this is that Kip goes from zero to sixty in his cruelty before disappearing. It seems like something he's kept under wraps, with the exception of his entitlement, throughout the flashbacks later in the novel, as opposed to being a side of himself he'd share with five other people. I wasn't able to find anywhere whether erratic behavior, delusions of grandeur, etc. are symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning. Depression, anxiety, and cognitive impairment are symptoms of ongoing arsenic exposure. Maybe he was just a dick. Faye climbing into the collapsed shelving and hiding near Soraya's corpse to keep away from Davey after he kills Mary is such a sad, memorable scene.
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Santa's First Christmas by Mac Barnett

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lighthearted slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This was a sweet Christmas story, detailing the first year the elves realized that Santa never got to celebrate Christmas. Mac Barnett does a fantastic job illustrating the scenery and characters with a smudgy, dreamlike quality, while still expressing complex emotion on the faces and movement of the characters. I really enjoyed the bear dressed up to deliver presents, and Santa's joy at the gifts the elves gave him.
Like Crazy: Life with My Mother and Her Invisible Friends by Dan Mathews

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adventurous challenging dark funny reflective fast-paced

4.5

Dan Matthews writes near identically to Augusten Burroughs. At points throughout this memoir, I wasn't sure how to feel about it because of that comparison. However, by the conclusion, I found that I really enjoyed Dan and his family's perspective on their mother, her life, and her death.
I still hold dislike in my heart for PETA and the horrific actions its taken to kill captive animals rather than leave them in captivity. Their all or nothing stance on animal freedom and their equation of pets to slaves is one of my many gripes with the organization, but Dan's part in PETA's activism and his dedication to veganism seem, at the very least, to be affiliated with the good works PETA has done.
Overall, an enjoyable, fast, strange read.
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Re: Dracula by Bram Stoker, Tal Minear

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

4.5

This was a great way to present the Dracula novel in audio form. I started with a good chunk to catch up on and finished in just about real time. Really well done audio, and some awesome, often corny original songs added into the mix - I say corny with the utmost love.
I do have critiques of the novel itself, like how the doctors consider Lucy's receiving a blood transfusion from more than one man as polyandry/as a slight to her reputation, marking her as a whore. The male main characters also fall into the exact same pitfalls as Victor Frankenstein when he destroys his creation's half made wife and fully disregards the possibility of revenge harming anyone beside himself, leading to the death of his betrothed. In them killing and redeeming Lucy after Dracula had made her a part of his harem in his slow killing of her, how could they not suspect Mina would be in danger of the same fate as her best friend while living next door to the vampire? I did enjoy the "dracula polycule" moments in the book, as is related to the sexualization of Lucy Westenra, especially since John, Quincey, and Arthur remained close and devoted to each other even after Lucy's death. 
Overall, wild book from start to finish, while also somehow managing to be boring often.
I need to read this again, in its book form.
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The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 14%.
Anxiety inducing in an actively un fun way
A True Home by Kallie George

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adventurous lighthearted reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book was really sweet! It's definitely meant for a younger audience, but I really enjoyed the use of the found family trope in a book written with a younger audience in mind. There's a lot of creative problem solving in this of a type often missing from books written for adult audiences.
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

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challenging emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

This was an interesting look into the lives of the average North Korean of a decade and a half ago. The fear mongering of Western media and the violent escalation of North Korean threats against enemy nations and against its own people has made the country into something larger than life in the eyes of the general public. The people of North Korea having to just barely scrape by while their leader lives in luxury and hides the poverty of the average citizen even while seeking aid is horrifying. It's sad to see how little has changed in the last fifteen years.
This book is well written and the firsthand accounts of life in North Korea add weight to the input of what Demick has to add as a foreign journalist.
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