mads_jpg's reviews
159 reviews

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

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

1.5

I have a lot of thoughts about this book. 

The positives:
  • I liked the non-linear storytelling through the Netflix clips that start to reveal certain details.
  • The story was interesting enough that I read it quite quickly despite the length.

The negatives (Spoilers!):
  • The book seems to paint Josie as a man-hating feminist, which doesn't sit right when she then goes on to kill the only men in the story.
  • The author said in the acknowledgements that she wrote this book in less than a year, and it shows, because given the inclusion of something as sensitive as pedophilia she did not portray it in a responsible way.
  • I can't tell if the book is a commentary on or a victim of the idea of the 'perfect victim' who never does anything wrong. 
  • The way the author described Josie's grooming by Walter was awful in almost every case, either saying she "allowed herself to be groomed" or that she in fact wasn't groomed at all and actually seduced Walter herself. Which still wouldn't make it ok since the adult is ultimately responsible for shutting that kind of thing down.
  • Every character is incredibly unlikable, and their actions make no sense. E.g Pat who is reviled as this full of life, go getting woman just let's her 16-year-old daughter take her 40-year-old boyfriend from her? And doesn't do anything to stop it?
  • Why the hell is Alix still working on the podcast after Nathan goes missing AND after he's confirmed murdered?!?!?! I was reading this assuming the police/documentary filmmakers had gotten a copy of the podcast, not that she'd RELEASED THE DAMN THING.
  • Alix mourns Josie's victims as people who were killed "for no good reason at all", and that was a big issue for me. I really did feel like I had no idea why she would go this far, and the last minute twist in the epilogue doesn't account for that.
  • I'm all for an unreliable narrator story, but at no point did it feel like the reader had any chance at following what was really going on, and the ambiguous ending made that even more frustrating, but that's probably just a me thing and not a legitimate issue.
  • It was also bloody annoying how many times the author said Josie could hear the sound of Erin's headphones through the door, there's literally no way that's possible without Erin sustaining serious ear damage, I'm sorry but no.

Overall this felt like a dangerously careless representation of some very serious issues given the amount of trigger warnings I had to add to this review.
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You Talk, We Die: The Battle for Victoria's First Safe-Injecting Facility by Judy Ryan

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

As someone who spends a lot of time in Abbottsford, I only know the area post the establishment of the safe injecting facility, and it was unbelievable reading about just how far it's come. The place that Judy Ryan describes is unrecognizable. 

This book is an amazing testament to how much impact a community can make when they band together, and ask "if not me, who?"
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A Decolonial Feminism by Françoise Vergès

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challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

2.75

I'm not sure if it was the translation or the author's writing style but I found this quite hard to follow. I liked the overall ideas of the book but definitely struggled to understand it.
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Dear Dolly: On Love, Life and Friendship, Collected wisdom from her Sunday Times Style Column by Dolly Alderton

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funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

4.25

While I loved Dolly Alderton's memoir, part of me was worried that I look back on it with rose-tinted glasses and that I wouldn't like Dear Dolly as much, but boy was I wrong. This book is what I think I expected her memoir to be - short chunks of life advice on varied topics - so that was a great surprise and it had all the humor and warmth of Alderton's writing that I'd loved last time. 

Unfortunately I borrowed this book from a friend so I didn't get to annotate it, but that gives me an excuse to read this a second time once I get my own copy.
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Working Girl: On Selling Art and Selling Sex by Sophia Giovannitti

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challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.75

An incredibly interesting comparison between how the art industry and sex work function under capitalism. Couldn't put it down.
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Heartstopper Volume 4 by Alice Oseman

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dark emotional funny lighthearted 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

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Heartstopper Volume 3 by Alice Oseman

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted 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? It's complicated

4.0

So lovely reading this after watching the show, they really followed the source material so closely I love it.
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The Nerves and Their Endings: Essays on Crisis and Response by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

I struggled with this book at first, finding it simultaneously too academic and too poetic for me to understand, but as it went on I found myself enjoying it more and more. It's both uplifting in how it discusses hope and depressing in how it describes the fear and uncertainty that comes with future-planning in this current time. I'm left feeling a lot of complicated emotions now that it's over.
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How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm

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challenging dark hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This is the book I've been needing. While I was disappointed the book didn't  provide clear instructions on direct actions readers can take, and I don't agree with some of the author's points, I still can't let myself give this anything less than 5 stars for the hope it's given me for the climate movement. Something I feared I was losing hold of.
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Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search by Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, Gene Luen Yang

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adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A fun addition to the Avatar story, I always wanted to know what happened to Zuko's mother so I was happy that this answer didn't disappoint. I loved how it incorporated the spirit world and the flashback sequences, but I found Azula frustrating and the ending was a bit rushed.
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