pathological_reader's Reviews (841)

Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power; A Method for Getting What You Want by Getting Off on What You Don't

Carolyn Elliott

2.5

challenging lighthearted slow-paced

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This book normalizes whiteness and white privilege. I found it annoying and hard to get through and I still don’t understand the techniques. 

The Rosie Project

Graeme Simsion

3.5

hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love With the Universe

Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

4.5

challenging funny hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes from a Trap Feminist

Sesali Bowen

4.5

hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Long After We Are Gone

Terah Shelton Harris

4.25

challenging hopeful informative tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Adulthood Rites

Octavia E. Butler

4.0

challenging mysterious tense medium-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

Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Onyi Nwabineli

4.5

challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

The Book of Lost Friends

Lisa Wingate

3.75

adventurous hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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This is an important story and it needs telling, over and over again, but this book was more of a vessel for the author to tell the story off of actual history than a story that wove it all together. I saw the plot lines and knew how it would end in the first chapters, which is rare for me. So although I literally hungered for the idea of this story and read this more quickly than most wasn’t as deep and surprising as it could have been. I found the writing basic and predictable, prioritizing telling the stories of many from the actual book of lost friends, over richly articulating the relationships between the main characters. 

As I’m finishing the book in my headphones,  The author thanks the specific reader who introduced the author to the actual Book of Lost Friends. The author says “and Hannah and Benny wouldn’t exist” without us, and I realize - that’s what this work feels like… that the author thinks these characters wouldn’t exist without her, and yet, the people she was writing about DID actually exist without her, literally. The story lacks the depth because it wants to tell the surface stories of many. I get the pull to want to honor so many, and I wonder if it could have been more richly written by a different author? 

No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories Read Aloud

Miranda July

4.5

challenging lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing From White Supremacy

Rachel Ricketts

5.0

challenging hopeful informative reflective medium-paced