oosij's reviews
108 reviews

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

3.5

i finished this during my one hour walk at the gym, which is absolutely buckwild to me lmao. the entire book - short stories that give me a horror film version of folklore type of vibe - is just a collective "what the fuck am i reading?" moment, and i can't say i hated it. only rated it 3.5 because at least a third of the stories were rather blah personally, but overall i recommend. tw for body horror. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

3.5

feel-good emotional read. love how japanese books can be read in one sitting and still hold weight in its meaning. 

Happy Place by Emily Henry

2.0

not my favorite emily henry read. i'm so sorry if you loved this book, but i personally... did not. a lot of it felt very surface-level: the friendship between the three women, the location/setting, the characters in general. everyone is horrible with communication despite the main couple being together for years and the friend group supposedly being airtight since college; i absolutely despise the miscommunication/lack of communication trope in stories, so this was just not it for me lmao. 

also for a solid chunk in the beginning, i couldn't tell the characters apart because they all seemed so similar to each other... which is probably why i was so confused at the "big" conflict near the end - i get the miscommunication should have ended up bubbling over like it did, but it still felt so out of left field for it to be dramatic. maybe i read too quickly and missed the too-subtle hints? (eg, "you set the date" and sab's Look™️)

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

3.5

god i love reading romance books so i can feel good about myself (i finish them in a couple of hours, at most lol). i had fun reading this, and the smut was actually pretty good - at least SO much better than it was in LOVE HYPOTHESIS. i read this because i heard it was dramione-coded, but it's just kinda loosely that. it's dramione if you squint, and draco doesn't have constant snark, and hermione is the stupidest smart girl to exist. like... elsie... girl. you're supposed to be smart!!!

i will say, i really do not care for ali hazelwood's... obsession? with the smol fmc and fucking ginormous mmc trope. it's a kinda disturbing concept i loved in my Youth™️, but now that i'm older (and thoroughly icked out by the ao3 manacled illustrations), i personally just can't get behind the constant "he's soooooo big, and i'm sooooo smol next to him" thing. 

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

4.0

despite figuring out the ending the second time around meeting the character (it's a curse to be on the spectrum sometimes, i swear), i had such a fun time reading this. i tore through this murder mystery within a couple of hours! some questions were left unanswered for me, but isn't that what YA kinda is all about lol? 

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

4.0

nonfiction always takes me longer to read, phew. a solid read that i think every american should read, as it goes into how our government at every level further perpetuated segregation and racism against black people. 

Your Utopia: Stories by Bora Chung

5.0

utterly fantastic in its eight fantastical short stories. what bora chung has written is insane in the best way possible. 

tw: body horror, death, zombies???, ai/intelligent machines, the idea of humans honestly

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green

5.0

we're here because we're here because we're here because we're here. 

i give the anthropocene reviewed 5 stars. 

Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel by The Authors Guild, Douglas Preston, Margaret Atwood
Did not finish book. Stopped at 23%.

premise lured me in, but i honestly kept getting bored while reading and looking for excuses not to pick the book up. just wasn't for me, i guess. 

White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy by Paul Waldman, Tom Schaller

4.5

fascinating insight to the rural white % of our population. a must-read for anyone living in america or interested in our current political climate. i just wish it had more suggestions or explained how there's still hope when things look so bleak.