mentat_stem's reviews
787 reviews

We Move Together by Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire

emotional informative inspiring fast-paced

5.0

I love the format of We Move Together. It's mostly a picture book that shows diverse bodies existing and overcoming conflicts and thriving together.

The final four pages are mostly text, with illustrations cropped from the rest of the book. They provide a 101 introduction to Ableism, Accessibility and related topics. The relationship between these 2 sections make this a wonderful, educational tool!

Northanger Abbey by Nancy Butler, Janet Lee

lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

I've had this book a while. Enjoying a stage production of Pride and Prejudice prompted me to pick it up. When I was about halfway through I watched a television adaptation of Northanger Abbey from the 80s. The differences between these 2 adaptations may very well inspire me to read the original.

The preoccupation of the characters with respect to money, when all have servants. It's definitely of a different time. The resulting confusion made for an amusing plot.

Catherine's love of her novels and the way her imagination runs away with itself is the high point of the story.

The publication history mentioned in a note at the start is worthy of modern #BookThreads drama.

Haunted Holiday by Kiersten White

adventurous funny mysterious 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

5.0

I may revisit this with thoughts more specifically about this volume, but here's what I posted about the series on Threads right after finishing it.

Just finished Haunted Holiday by @authorkierstenwhite and I can heartily endorse this Gothic Voltron of a middle grade series.

- I loved the literary references and the meticulous narrative technique and the word play/instruction/creation
- I loved sharing these books with my cousin's twins who have so much in common with Theo and Alexander
- I loved the practical anarchy/consensus building that evolved from a group of smart kids as protagonists
- I loved this bookmark
- I love lists

🤖🐙💃💜

Atoms Never Touch by micha cárdenas

challenging emotional informative 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

5.0

It's been a while since I read a book in a 24 hour window, even a short one like this.

This book takes as its premise that it's hard for a trans woman to establish a family, particularly when the world is falling apart from both the climate crisis and unchecked bigotry.

It then explores that with the tools of both narrative structure and science fiction. The science fiction involves both the far out notion of involuntarily falling between alternate universes and the near future technology used to visualize and attempt to solve the problem.

The story is told in the 1st person from one character's PoV and 3rd person for the others. That 1st vs 3rd shift allows for different perspectives on the trans experience based on pronouns and names and such. It also emphasizes the scope of the near future surveillance state.

Within all of that framework is a ton of introspective stream of conscious. 

The end result is a portrait of transwomen doing the hard work to make the world a better place for everyone, while carving out a space they can exist and find love.

Highly recommended.

In my head canon the epilogue is a prequel to

This is How You Lose the Time War.

The Tent Generations: Palestinian Poems by Mohammed Sawaie

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I don't read much poetry. I picked this up to keep the Palestinian conflict forefront in my mind. I was struck by how the pain of loss surfaced in each poem, no matter the decade. A ton of Christian imagery used to describe a conflict largely seen as between Jewish and Islamic people. The biographical notes have a "kicked out because of political activism" refrain. Home and land and homeland. Keys and houses and farms and trees.

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.5

Bitten follows a reluctant werewolf as she returns from her life in the human world to help deal with a threat to her pack. She's an orphan. Her "pack" is a family thrust upon her, more than a "found family." She desperately wants to just live in the human world. It's this struggle to decide where she fits into the world that is the core strength of the book. The thriller and romance beats move the story along, but it's that core search for identity that gives the book its heart.

I finished the first season of the TV show before finishing the book. The most glaring difference was the lack of character development in the book for everyone other than the 1st person narrator. I guess that's an inherent issue with 1st person narration. Multiple characters (fleshed out in the TV show) met their demise with hardly any backstory. The book makes it feel like there are only a dozen werewolves in the world. The stakes feel equally small.

This can safely be shelved as romance, I guess paranormal romance in this case, but I think that's where it fell flat. It's spicy when you'd expect it to be. However, the love triangle is painfully skewed and the HFN resolution seems tacked on at the last moment. There's a TON of strong friendships and physical affection and a lack of jealousy amongst the pack. I'd find that WAY more interesting to explore than the simple pairing we end up with.

Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker

emotional informative relaxing slow-paced

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

4.75

The entire core narrative of this book involves a new father feeding one bottle to his 6 month old daughter and thinking about life.

The recursion of flashbacks within flashbacks flesh out the ambitions and insecurities of the narrator. The effect is intimate and vulnerable. It's a style of storytelling I found fascinating in Mezzanine. Here it's even further refined.

I connected with the French horn lessons and musings on musical notation. Thoughts on the deprecation of technology and language emphasize the fleeting nature of our time on earth.

The stream of conscious narrative taken to extreme allows me to appreciate how other offers embrace the technique to various degrees. Rarely does anyone else use it to the exclusion of all other narrative tools.

The Bedmakers by Chad Lutzke

adventurous dark lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

I love that our main viewpoint characters are elderly friends. Their support of each other is the strongest aspect of the book.

The period setting, homelessness, veterans and city vs small town all establish a unique backdrop. The recurring theme becomes people settling in the wrong side of gray than you'd expect. Plenty of death and violence. Satisfying weird and mysterious elements.

I enjoyed listening to the train from my window a few nights while reading this.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Racism

Moderate: Rape

Narcissus: A Novella by Adam Godfrey

dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

The present tense, head hopping narration is almost lush. As a twist on the mystical contagion trope, like The Ring, this holds up well. The 4 American tourists are annoying enough to mostly enjoy watching them get picked off. There's not enough time for character growth, but certain insecurities are revealed.

I'd have enjoyed more than the flat placeholder we're given for the police woman investigating the deaths.

A decent Twilight Zone episode. 

The Nib #7: The Pandemic Issue by Matt Bors

dark funny informative fast-paced

4.5

Surreal reading this while sick with COVID over 3 years after it was published. Still can't believe that The Nib shut down. I miss the daily emails.