lilcurious's reviews
205 reviews

Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker
Did not finish book. Stopped at 57%.

The brand of feminism this is just doesn't cut it anymore. Very angry, talks about sex all the time, slightly racist, definitely radical feminist. And the collage style is not my thing, but that's more of a me problem.

Alien by Roger Luckhurst

4.0

Lovely little book, a must read for Alien fans (though the beginning is a little slow.)

Although Luckhurst mentions a lot of different theories about the movie, his main interest is definitely in alterity and how the movie juxtaposes humans, monster, machine and cat! Which was nice because my personal obsession has more to do with the body horror of it all, so I got to see a new side I hadn't really thought about. 

Alpha & Omega by Patricia Briggs

2.5

I unfortunately liked this book... The poor characterization is kind of whatever, but the discussion of SA was absolutely egregious, please don't read this book if you think that'd bother you. But the werewolf part kind of won me over, sorry, I just love werewolves too much, so I had fun and will probably continue in the series. I do not recommend it though. Please stay away.

Slippery Creatures by KJ Charles

3.5

So much fun!! KJ Charles knows how to pace a mystery plot alongside a romance plot like no one else. 

Diamond Ring by KD Casey

3.5

I never shipped a couple so much so fast, impeccable chemistry, and the angst after the time jump affected me so much, it's been at least a couple of years since I was hurt like that. But the end of the book lost something, I can't pinpoint what exactly (sorry, not very useful), but I was just not that excited :/ I will definitely read more in the series tho.

(Kinda obvious but it's VERY baseball heavy! I had to google a lot of stuff.)

Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Did not finish book. Stopped at 16%.

truly a case of A Man Writing™

The River Where Blood Is Born by Sandra Jackson-Opoku

3.5

I loved the narrative framing! We have two deities competing for who tells the best story about the same women from this one family and, even when some harsher things were happening in our real world, Anansi and the Gatekeeper kept being petty and silly, the tone was perfect. The characters, though complicated, were all so compelling and easy to root for. This book really does flow like a river, just let the story wash over you and you won't regret it.

Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb

1.5

I loved the Farseer Trilogy, with Royal Assassin swiftly becoming part of my favorite books of all time, but in Assassin's Quest some things started to bother me, and I fear they continued into Ship of Magic, now with the aggravating factor that I'm far away from every character I care about. 

Some of my complaints are: characters keep making out-of-character choices just to forward the plot; Hobb is awesome at making characters you hate, unfortunately I don't enjoy their actual characterization and find them to be silly and shallow; which relates to my dislike of Hobb's third person narration. Her villains act in a very compelling way, but I feel so underwhelmed every time we go into their thoughts, like our glimpse at Regal's mind in Assassin's Quest, which made me hate what she did with his character. Similarly, Kennit is so compelling whenever someone talks about him, but his pettiness when we are inside his mind is just so boring.  

So yeah, my opinion is the same as everyone else who also dislikes this book: the characters are annoying and hard to root for, even the ones we are supposed to enjoy. Everyone is dumb and boring and keeps making choices that I find hard to understand (would just like to remind you I could always understand Fitz' decisions, so it's not like I'm super criterious, I just really couldn't understand where they were coming from), Wintrow being the absolute champion at this, but Althea following closely behind. The family drama maybe family dramed a bit too hard for me. Malta is the most annoying thirteen yo I've ever heard of. Kyle is so much a caricature of a misogynist it stops being angering and it's just annoying.

Also, I finally understand people hating the pacing and lack of plot in Hobb's books... This one dragged me to hell and back through that middle section.

Sorry this was such a negative and inarticulate review, but I spent a whole month reading this book I just don't care to think about it for any longer. That said, I'm still going to read the sequel because I loved Assassin's Apprentice and Royal Assassin way too much to give up hope so soon.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

1.5

I don't know how well I can explain this, but this book left me with two major bad impressions: 

• There is no theme. The book is about imperialism, violence and there's certainly mention of drugs and symptoms of abusing them. But I don't think Kuang said anything at all about them, there's no thematic exploration, they are shown to be bad and it kind of ends there. For example, the name of the book is The Poppy Wars (as in inspired by the real-life Opium Wars), the main character was adopted by opium dealers and saw how it affects people's lives, and later we find out a magical use for opium. But the author barely connects any of these facts with each other, even though opium use is very significant to a lot of different narrative parts, there's no overarching comment about it. It feels like Kuang was telling me facts and not a story.
• Rin's narration. I was feeling a certain disconnect between Rin's narration and her actions since the beginning, but I was only able to put my finger on it in the end, when she does a huge thing and I realized I didn't quite believe it. She is an angry girl, for sure, who turns into an even angrier young adult, but the author didn't portray the kind of thinking that someone who did what she did has. I felt like I was in someone else's mind, but certainly not Rin's.

I have other critiques besides that, like Rin being an unbelievable character in general, the pacing towards the ending going haywire, a lot of characters' decisions being made just because they were convenient. Also, some adaptations she had to make on real Chinese history so it could better fit a fantasy plot, like Japan being the one responsible for the influx of opium in China and

China being responsible (specifically Rin, so maybe Taiwan (Speer) was responsible?) for the atomic bombing of Japan

, I think just make things a bit weird, I wish she would've followed real history to a T or diverged from it in more significant ways, this middle of the road is awkward. But the two things that certainly bother me more are the lack of thematic exploration and Rin's narration.

That said, I read the first 30% in a single sitting. The beginning is very exciting and fast-paced, so I can't in good conscience give it one star.

Orpheus Builds A Girl by Heather Parry
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.

Characterization felt too on the nose (quasi incestuos relationship with his grandmother? really?) and the pacing was too slow for me (maybe because of the dual pov), which seems to be a common critique among reviewers.