luckyonesoph's reviews
277 reviews

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa

hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

what a gorgeous little novel. i want to go give my dad a hug now. 

The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes
Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.

maybe i'll come back to this but i'm just not a fan of books that dump a whole bunch of sociopolitical commentary on the page with no nuance or subtlety. everything - from the politics to the plot points to the social media references - was just so over-exaggerated. i'm sad because i really wanted to love this :(

Open Throat by Henry Hoke

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

"I want to devour their sound / I have so much language in my brain / and nowhere to put it."

oh my god.

Modern Divination by Isabel Agajanian

hopeful lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

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

3.5

Isabel Agajanian, you have a fan for life. Teddy Ingram might be one of THE most pathetic and devoted book boyfriends to ever book boyfriend, and Aurelia Schwartz deserves it all. 

Modern Divination follows Aurelia Schwartz, a witch with a green thumb completing a PhD in medieval history at Cambridge University. She spends her days warring for the favour of her professor with a tall, dark-haired boy named Theodore Ingram - her rival, her nemesis, the centre of her resentment. When she's not working on her research, exchanging biting remarks with Teddy, or hanging with her roommate and best friend Ryan, Aurelia is using her magic to grow plants and make tea, and she's safe - as long as no one else finds out about her powers. When one of Aurelia's colleagues - and unbeknownst to her, a fellow witch - is murdered at a faculty event, Aurelia and Teddy are thrown together, and forced to fight for their families and their lives. 

Modern Divination was one of my most anticipated new releases this year. I read the indie published edition years ago, and fell in love with the atmosphere, the yearning, and Isabel Agajanian's beautiful prose. There were so many lines that truly took my breath away without ever feeling forced or purple-prose-y. If I were rating this book on vibes, on romance, and on writing alone - immediate 5 stars. 

Unfrotunately, I think this needed a few more rounds of developmental editing before it was ready for traditional publication. I read it because I know these characters and love them, and I was looking forward to seeing what changes (if any) were made, but like....nothing really happens that would convince any of my fantasy reader friends to keep going after the first few chapters. It is so, so, so slow, and pretty uneventful. The plot is pretty basic, and is only partially resolved, and that partial resolution happens quietly, only 70-80% of the way in. There were so many really interesting threads introduced - Teddy's parents, the bookshop, the crows - that just sort of fizzled away into the background. Meanwhile, we spend scene after scene after scene watching Rory and Teddy have the same circular arguments about their hatred of one another. It was fun at first, but got tired very quickly. I love them - I'd listen to them sing terribly in the shower or discuss their grocery lists - but even i was getting bored of them after a while. 

Still, despite my issues, I still think Modern Divination is a solid book, and I'm looking forward to picking up a physical copy to shelve next to my indie edition. Isabel Agajanian has so much talent, and I'm really looking forward to reading the sequel, and any future projects. 

Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

an absurd and melancholic fever dream. feels like a love letter across time from one 23 year old girl to every girl in their 20s that came after her, and i mean that reverently. will definitely need to re-read this several times to really understand it but the prose took my breath away. 

"Where does music go when it’s not playing?—she asked herself. And disarmed she would answer: may they make a harp out of my nerves when I die"

Fable for the End of the World by Ava Reid

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

2.75

“And maybe that’s all it takes—at least at the beginning. Just a few people who care. And that caring matters, even if it can’t cool the earth or lower sea levels or turn back time to before a nuclear blast.”

I have such complicated feelings about this book. Fable for the End of the World was one of my top 3 most anticipated reads of 2025; I wanted it in my hands so badly from the second it was announced. I begged for an arc on every platform, entered every instagram and book festival giveaway, and when those efforts failed, I pre-ordered both the e-book and the audiobook so I could drop everything and read it the second it came out at midnight on march 4th. And to give the book credit where credit is due, I was hooked from the first page. I read it in one sitting, pausing only to catch my breath and yell about the drama of it all in my reader groupchats, and was completely hooked throughout.

Unfortunately, there were just too many glaring issues for me to completely fall in love with this world and these characters, and the more distance I get from it, the more it pisses me off.

Unorganized, slightly incoherent complaints below:

• I knew this was inspired by the hunger games, but "inspired" is doing some heavy lifting here. It's impossible to separate the two because the similarities are so, so glaring. If Ava Reid hadn't openly admitted to writing this as an ode to that era of dystopian YA, she'd be cancelled on booktok for plagiarism a la Lauren Roberts for Powerless. It's just too hard to respect the reverence when this is so shallow in comparison to the source material. 
• There was almost too much social commentary going on for any of it to really hit. Yes, capitalism and social stratification and ecological collapse and misogyny and the dominance of the tech industry and the tyranny of the medical system are all intertwined, but none of it was really followed to its logical end. Everything is underwater and flooding but you still have constant electricity and access to tablets? Evolution has begun to change the wildlife in response to climate collapse but not the humans? And so much more. 
• On a related note, the whole plotline about Inesa's mom being a medical malingerer was..... a choice. Yes, the medical system takes advantage of people and throws them into massive amounts of debt. No, I don't think the notion of a woman faking her illnesses is subversive in any way. Whatever impact Ava Reid was going for there, she failed. So many opportunities to explore disability in a realistic way (
  HELLO YOU ALTER A GIRLS BODY AND TURN HER INTO A semi-ROBOT AND TREAT HER FOR SEVERE PTSD. DO SOMETHING WITH THAT.
  ) and she capitalized on none of them. Super disappointing, honestly. 
• This was DARK. A lot darker than I was anticipating, even for an Ava Reid work, and especially for a YA novel. And yet, that darkness just did not resonate for some reason. I felt so detached from it all, almost like a video game. I was horrified, but in a very passive way. As soon as the scene ended, I was able to move on - which is completely different from how I've felt reading other bleak dystopias. Maybe that was the point? I'm not sure it was effective. I can't really pinpoint why. 
• The ending sucked. Genuinely what was that? So anti-climactic and completely unresolved. 
• So many threads were left unresolved. Atrocious ending aside,
  What happened to Inesa and Luka's father? What happened to Luka? The specific Gauntlet was the most watched in history, but did anything come of it?
  I understand that the unshakeably bleak future is probably Ava Reid's point, so then why introduce all these threads of hope without seeing them through til the end? It's not that the hope is quashed - that would have been more satisfying - it's that you get no answers AT ALL. 
• The prose in this was so bleak and so basic. The intent, probably, but very un-characteristic of Ava Reid and I was not a fan. 
• The romance came out of left field and while I did buy into it at the end, I did so by hand-waiving over a lot of details. Fake it till you make it and all that. 
• The ending is very clearly leaving room for a sequel while concluding just enough to pass as a standalone - the exact same way A Study in Drowning did. Annoying because of how unresolved this story felt. And if it doesn't get a sequel, then
  the only one of Ava Reid's couples to not get a happy ending is the sapphic one.
  lol. I saw a goodreads review that said "
  bury your gays but its ~feminist~ hunger games fanfiction
  " and like yeah exactly lmao. really frustrating. 

I could probably keep going but I think I hit all of the salient points. It was underdeveloped, and shallow, and read like Hunger Games fanfiction written by a teenager who discovered class consciousness last night on tiktok. 

The three things I did like:

1. Inesa's total commitment to remaining hopeful and compassionate and kind. The world needs more of that. 
2. Luka.
3. The Wends
   . What a creative idea, and a brilliant allegory. 

Sigh. That's not a very long list. I want to love Ava Reid so badly because I LOVED A Study in Drowning, but I'm losing hope. I had a hard enough time putting the atrocity that was Lady Macbeth behind me. 2.75 is my go-to rating for books with a lot of potential that I wanted to love, but that ended up just pissing me off instead, so there you go. 

Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

God. What a gorgeous novel. I inhaled it in one sitting, and immediately went back to re-read certain passages. I can't believe it's a debut, and I cannot wait to see what this author does next. (I also heard they're making it into a movie? With Saooirse Ronan? And Austin Butler? I need to be at an advanced screening like right now oh my god). 

The best way I can describe Deep Cuts is as a perfect cross between the love of music and the harsh realities of musical ambition you get from Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, with the messy relationships and emotional resonance of Conversations with Friends (or maybe even Normal People) by Sally Rooney. I just know the booktok girlies are going to eat this up and I cannot wait for the edits. 

Set against the backdrop of Berkeley’s campus in the early 2000s, Deep Cuts is more than just a love story between two people; it’s a love story between characters and their craft, their ambitions, and themselves. Percy Marks, a music-obsessed twentysomething, has strong opinions about every song and genre under the sun but none of the natural musical talent to back it up. Enter Joe Morrow (Joey), an aspiring musician with enough raw talent and charisma to pull in any audience, but who has not yet tapped into his full potential. The two meet one night at a bar, where Joey's admiration for Percy's musical insight leads him to ask her for help moulding his lyrics into something better. What follows is a decades-long on-and-off partnership filled with that undeniable will-they-won’t-they tension. Can they work together to create the elusive perfect track? Can their artistic partnership evolve into something more? The emphasis on the intimacy of creative partnership in particular made sure that Percy and Joey were not a cliche, and I was in awe of it. 

What I liked most: The characters! Oh my god the characters! Percy and Joey (and Zoe, you'll meet her eventually and she's my favourite) are self-centred and vibrant and insufferable and intense and so, so relateable. I adored them. Speaking from experience, everyone is a little annoying and little pretentious when they're in college, and this book captures that "i can totally do what you're doing but better" feeling everyone feels, even for a little bit. That feeling that you're a little bit smarter than everyone around you, even whe imposter syndrome is closing in. Every character felt exactly like someone you'd see around at your campus bar or library, and I saw pieces of people I know even in the background characters. I also loved the writing. Like I said, I really can't believe this is a debut. There were so many lines that took my breath away, and the dialogue felt natural and honest. I loved the prose so much I did something I almost never do: I bought a physical copy to annotate and put on my shelf, even though it has deckled edges. I hate deckled edges. 

What surprised me: The immersiveness (is that a word? idk) and depth that the lyrics, significant cultural shifts (eg. the pre-digital to digital music industry), and pop-culture references brought to the story, even though I recognized almost none of them. I was not old enough to be tuned into any form of media or news in the 2000s - let alone the indie music scene - and still, I saw how the timeline of current events and musical trends didn't just serve as a backdrop to the romance - they actively and inextricably shaped the way Percy, Joey, and Zoe interacted with the world and with one another. The scenes surrounding 9/11 were especially evocative; while I was not lucid enough to experience 9/11 in real time (i was like 2), the scenes mirrored my own experiences witnessing more recent watershed moments, like Manchester Arena bombing, the Pulse nightclub mass shooting, or the California wildfires. The book is sectioned out into chapters that are titled after songs, and so you can put together a soundtrack for the novel as you read. All of the songs were new to me, so seeking them out was a fun and unique way of tracking the passage of time throughout the novel. Look up the playlist if you can! There were probably some references or plays on words I didn't pick up on, and that's okay. 

The only thing that kept this from being a perfect 5 stars was the pacing in the back-half of the novel: a few scenes (especially surrounding Percy's trendsetting job) could have been tightened or cut altogether without losing any of the character depth, in my opinion. Those scenes lost my attention, just a little. A few emotional threads - relationships between certain characters, etc - are left unexplored and without resolution, and probably could have been cut too. 

All in all, this was a beautiful little book and I'm really looking forward to whatever Holly Brickley does next. Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced digital copy!

All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.25

Haunting, horrifying, important. 

All the Water in the World is a story of survival. Nonie, an autistic-coded teenager, lives with her family on the roof of the abandoned American Museum of Natural History because catastrophic floods have ravaged New York City, rendering it an uninhabitable and completely lawless place. Nonie grows up learning all she can from the museum as the rooftop community works to preserve and protect what they can of the museum's collections. When an especially devastating hypercane hits, Nonie and her family are forced to flee. The question is: will they make it to safety, with all that they saved from the world as it was?

What I liked: No better time for climate fiction than right now, as we watch communities all over the world struggle to recover from natural disasters that get closer and closer and closer to home. Even though this book is shelved as sci-fi and dystopia, it felt extremely realistic - scarily realistic actually - and we need more of that, because a lot of people are really comfortable pretending the climate catastrophe simply won't affect them from inside their million-dollar Manhattan homes. I also liked the emphasis on preservation, the reverence for our shared planetary histories, the call-backs to wars and disasters and lootings that have threatened those histories before. I liked the neurodivergent representation, and the harsh but necessary reminder that disability, disease, and chronic health complications are intimately tied to the climate crisis, and are coming for us all. 

What didn't work for me: This book is thematically urgent, but I am already a person who is constantly stressed out about the state of the world, so I didn't need any convincing on that front. Unfortunately, this book didn't feel temporally urgent. I couldn't put my finger on why the pacing wasn't working out for me, but this was just....a little bit boring, and a little bit slow. I expected more from a book marketed as a thriller, and at the same time, the meditations on art and collections and preservation didn't feel weighty enough to offset the lack of tension. I understand that the author made a deliberate stylistic choice to make the narrator a young neurodivergent girl who is so clearly traumatized by the only life she's known, it seemed to halt the flow of the narrative moreso than it helped the tone, worldbuilding, and reflection. I see it, I understand it, it just didn't work for me. The choppy cuts to different points of Nonie's life made it hard for me to follow the story at times, and there was an emotional disconnect between her narration of the events and the chaos you assume is unfolding. For a water-logged world, the events of the novel read very neat and dry. 

Lastly - and I will not let this part affect my rating, because I know it's not in the author's control - please stop comping books to Station Eleven that come nowhere near it in terms of emotional weight or prose. You're just setting the book up for failure. I know comps had to be tough for this one, but still. 

Ultimately, I think this is a very timely, very important read, and I will reccomend it to friends who I know will appreciate it. I just don't think it accomplishes all that its trying to do, and I didn't have the greatest time reading it. Sometimes books like that make for good reads anyways. 

Thank you NetGalley and SMP for the advanced e-copy of this book. 

Oathbound by Tracy Deonn

adventurous emotional tense fast-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

4.25

just going to repeat what i said in my book 2 (bloodmarked) review because i read them back-to-back and it holds true: god what a brilliant continuation of this incredible series. tracy deonn is a mastermind; the way she expanded on the world and magic system she introduced in books 1 and 2 in such unique and unexpected ways, the way she raised the stakes with twists and turns and new characters that never felt like they just popped out of nowhere for the sake of plot, the way so many threads introduced in books 1 and 2 are starting to (un)tangle, the entertaining and silly (in a good way) side quests,

THE ROMANCE(S)!!!?!?!?

, the explosive finale - all of it was chef's kiss. the strongest fantasy series i've read in maybe a decade. 

this was the best book of the series imo and i have no idea how i'm going to survive the wait for the finale. 

Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn

adventurous emotional inspiring fast-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

4.25

god what a brilliant follow-up to the already amazing debut. tracy deonn is a mastermind; the way she expanded on the world and magic system she introduced in book 1 in such unique and unexpected ways, the way she raised the stakes with twists and turns and new characters that never felt like they just popped out of nowhere for the sake of plot, the way so many threads introduced in book 1 are starting to (un)tangle, the explosive finale - all of it was chef's kiss. the strongest fantasy series i've read in maybe a decade.