ohmage_resistance's reviews
75 reviews

Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

This book was a good follow up to book 1 in the series, although it goes in a different direction. I enjoyed having Katherine as a MC, and her and Jane's friendship was my favorite part of the book

especially since it's not often a YA book will end with two girls, as friends, going off on an adventure with one another, instead of having a love interest. The lack of amatonormativity was nice

. I also want to give the audiobook narrators a shout out, they were great at giving the MCs a little bit extra personality/making some of the humor hit.

This book is also pretty dark at times, especially for YA, although things aren't completely hopeless

Poor Jane just has no luck. I'll also note that it was really odd to read a book where the main villain was evil for recklessly developing a vaccine that came out in 2020. I know that it was pulling more from the experiences of Black Americans being used for medical experiments rather than modern vaccine commentary, but it was still a little jarring

. I think the experiences of Black Americans in this slightly after the Civil war era time were well portrayed in this book as far as I can tell, but I'm less sure about other minority racial groups.

Over all, I had a pretty good time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Colonisation

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Slavery, Alcohol

Body horror and Pandemic/epidemic are both because of the zombie element.

A Fledgling Abiba by Dilman Dila

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

This is a Ugandan inspired book, which affects a ton of the worldbuilding. At the beginning, there's a brief intro where Dilman Dila explains how singular and plural forms work in Bantu language family, and that's really the first and last time he really explains things in depth for non-Ugandan audiences. Pretty much everything else the reader has to pick up from context (unless they're familiar with Ugandan cultures, then I imagine things would be much easier!). I like this, even though I didn't always get the difference between a muchwezi and a lakwopo etc (there are a lot of different kinds of spirits in the book—and I'm pretty sure a lot of them are take from/inspired by traditional Ugandan religions), it made the setting feel way more immersive. IDK, reading this book really emphasizes how many of the [x culture]-mythology inspired books I've read are probably really simplifying things for Anglosphere audiences.  

You can also tell that a lot of the book is concerned with stuff that's very relevant to Uganda—there's an illness that's very reminiscent of AIDS and a huge part of the book deals with social attitudes towards spirits/traditional Ugandan spirital beliefs. There's also some bits that felt kind of jarring to me probably because of cultural differences (one of the MC's magical powers was the ability to fart/defecate fire, which comes up a lot).

Unlike the last book I read recently with worldbuilding that the reader had to pick up from context (The Archive Undying), in this one, the motivation of the characters were always clear (especially the main character, who is facing an evil spirit called a wor-yama, trying to find a place to belong after her mother died, and trying to figure out who her father was). The prose style/rhythm of the story might also feel a bit odd to some readers, I think because it's going for a slightly more myth/folktale style. I liked it, and I liked the coming of age story that the MC went on, although the ending is pretty abrupt and could have been fleshed out more, imo. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Excrement, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Child abuse, Slavery, Terminal illness, Violence, Death of parent

Minor: Gore, Cannibalism

One of the MC's magical abilities is the ability to fart/defecate fire (that's the excrement and fire content warnings there). At the start of the book, the MC's mother is dead, so she is living with her neglectful/abusive aunt. The slavery is of a magical nature. There's a magical illness that felt very AIDS like (hense the terminal illness warning) although

the MC and another woman find a cure, so I don't think we see anyone actually die from it

Religious bigotry is prejudice against the MC for having magic related to traditional Ugandan spirituality especially around spirits. There's a fair amount of infidelity happening with the adults in this book, most of which has pretty disastrous consequences, especially as people seek revenge.

The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon

adventurous challenging medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

The worldbuilding in this book seemed pretty cool (AIs, giant mechas, etc), except there's pretty much no exposition so you kinda just have to try to piece things together from context, which is tricky. The bigger problem is that because the worldbuilding is never fully elaborated on, it is really hard to get a sense of stakes or what any character's motivation is. There's a lot of twists and characters changing goals/secretly trying to do something other than they seemed to want towards the end, and none of that had any impact because I didn't understand their motivations in the first place or why one option would be better than the others. 

I'm complaining a lot, but I liked this book more towards the middle (I was having a fun time trying to piece things together), where the ending kind of lost impact. Definitely don't even try this book unless you actively like being confused when reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Toxic friendship

Minor: Drug use, Suicidal thoughts

Sphizophrenia/psychosis is sci fi tech related (although it takes the characters (but not the reader) a bit to realize this). Suicidal thoughts I put on there, um, the MC often puts themselves in situations where it would be easy for them to get killed and seems to want to die at parts, but is physically unable to (

for most of the book

)

New Suns 2: More Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color by Nisi Shawl

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

Mixed bag, I liked some stories more than others. I think I liked more focused anthologies more. Best short stories were Counting Her Petals by Christopher Caldwell and Juan by Darcie Little Badger. Least favorite was Before the Glory of Their Majesties by Minsoo Kang. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Toxic relationship

Moderate: Misogyny, Racism, Transphobia, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Colonisation

Minor: Rape, Classism

Probably more content warnings that I'm not remembering, short story collections are tricky like that.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

slow-paced

This book wasn't my favorite, but more in a "I thought it was bland way" than a "I thought it was bad" way. I'm not really into reading about political machinations and that was definitely the focus here. I guess I'm into more action-y takes on sci fi? Breq was also not a very interesting character to follow imo (she didn't have much of a personality in general), but honestly, I felt that way about most of the characters.

The worldbuilding around gender wasn't super interesting to me. There's multiple layers to it, but I'm familiar with all of the angles and I'd read different books that handled a lot of these aspects in ways I thought were better. It also bothered me that I think the takeaway that a lot of people got from the book (which is the takeaway the narrative supports)"wow, a cis man is being referred to with she/her pronouns, that's so weird" (which is not what is happening in world) instead of actually dealing with what a gender neutral society would look like in more detail. IDK, I suspect this will work a lot better for other people, but it didn't work for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Gun violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization

In Shadowed Dreams by S. Judith Bernstein

adventurous fast-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

I enjoyed this one. The prose could have used a little bit more polishing at times and it's a bit meta about books/reading in a way that I'm not the biggest fan of, but otherwise it's pretty nice. I especially like the rep of chronic migraines, that's a form of disability we don't see a lot of representation for, and I thought it was well handled here. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Gun violence, Blood

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Ableism, Transphobia, Antisemitism, Sexual harassment

Minor mentions are pretty minor. Chronic illness is representation of a major character who gets chronic migraines.

Promise of the Betrayer's Dagger by Jay Tallsquall

adventurous reflective

Not bad. Could use for a little bit of polishing, and I had a little bit of trouble remembering the magic stuff in book 1, but it was nice to read a pretty solid classic fantasy book. 

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

adventurous tense

This was generally a fun time. There was a bit too much focus on romance towards the end for my taste, but I did appreciate the demi rep. I liked seeing the MC's growth.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Classism

Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Grief, Abandonment

Minor: Addiction, Death of parent

Eating disorder isn't quite the right term, shaming over eating habits is probably a better one. Adult/minor relationship is because the MC is disguising herself as a princess (who is the same age as her) who has to marry an adult man (who is much older) (That man also attempted to sexually assualt her when she was a maid). Abuse is in terms of the MC being a servant who was abused by her employers (in her backstory).

The Weaver of the Middle Desert by Victoria Goddard

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

This was generally pretty enjoyable. I liked that this was more similar to/mirrored the first book in the series in a fun way. 

The thing that excited me the most was that (light spoilers)

It's pretty much confirmed now that Pali is (aro?) ace! Also her sisters seem kinda demisexual? But at any rate, I've gotten ace vibes from Pali before (from the books in the Return of the Red Company series) but it wasn't enough to confirm it for me, but this definitely is. So on one hand, I do have some critiques from an ace stereotype perspective, mostly to note how much Pali fits the ace female warrior/knight/paladin archetype (which is surprisingly common), on the other hand, I'm so excited for book three in the Lays of the Heart Fire series, because I really think her and Kip are going to have some interesting conversations, hopefully! 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual content, Pregnancy, Alcohol

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

adventurous emotional

Liked this one better than Wintersmith (did still have an edge of victim blaming as a holdover, but way less than Wintersmith). I'm also a bit tired of the way witches need to do stuff on their own/prove themselves. IDK if it's just because I'm older now, but I don't know if that's the inspiring feminist message Pratchett means it to be.

I did like the focus on doing the hard work to help other people who are easily forgotten or make tough decisions as what witchcraft really is. I also liked how the book focused on how social outsiders are hurt by witch hunts. Oh, I also thought the theme of having to deal with an old crush who's now into someone else was a pretty good theme to come up in a YA book.

I thought the ending would be a bit more exciting, but that's Terry Pratchett books for you. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt

Moderate: Body shaming, Pregnancy, Alcohol

Minor: Infidelity

An abusive, drunk father beat his daughter after finding out she's pregnant without being married so badly that she miscarries, and later, he tries to hang himself out of guilt.