pedanther's reviews
486 reviews

The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects by Mike Mignola

adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

For the first time, I find myself wishing the "Plot- or character-driven?" question was one of the ones with an "It's complicated" option. These stories are not driven by plot or character, they run on vibes and fun moments - one of them has a seven-year-old credited as the co-author, and it isn't noticeably weirder than the stories that don't. I don't doubt the people who gave it five stars, because I'm sure it's awesome if you're in tune with the vibes, but for myself I enjoyed some of the moments but the only story I really liked as a story was "Abu Gung and the Beanstalk", which has the closest thing to an actual plot.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Body horror, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail

The Girl with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, War, Deportation

Minor: Bullying, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Slavery, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Excrement

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

hopeful reflective medium-paced

3.5

Like the first book, this one is okay. I think I'm just not who these books are for.

Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Babington Macaulay

medium-paced

3.5

The lays have some striking moments, but also some bits where the sense is clearly playing second fiddle to the meter, and they probably play better to an audience that already knows the stories they're retelling. I didn't care for them on the whole, and was more consistently interested by the author's forewords about the background of the lays than by the lays themselves. I got on better with some of the other poems in the collection that commemorate events from more recent history, possibly because the subject matter is more familiar (and not just, I'm fairly sure, because they're much shorter). "Sermon in a Churchyard" was my favourite, and the one I'm most likely to re-read at some point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence

Moderate: Gore, Blood, Grief, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

Minor: Racial slurs, Rape, Slavery, Suicide, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

Day of the Dead: A Babylon 5 Scriptbook by Neil Gaiman

adventurous lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Suicide, Grief

Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Murder

Version Control with Git: A Pocket Guide by Ryan Taylor

informative medium-paced

There's a Sea in My Bedroom by Margaret Wild

hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

4.0

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Classism

Minor: Body shaming, Homophobia, Dementia, Alcohol, War

Soulless by Gail Carriger

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.25

I found the prose style easy to read - aside from an irritating tendency to change its mind several times a scene about who the viewpoint character was - but for me the story never entirely came alive. The plot is serviceable, but unsurprising, the characters underdeveloped, and while the worldbuilding has some interesting elements, it also has a tendency to rely on unexamined tropes that often left me wishing that certain aspects had been thought through more. I suspect that someone who's already more into urban fantasy and/or regency romance than me would find it more enjoyable. (I don't know if someone who's more into regency romance than me would be more or less annoyed by the use of regency romance tropes in a story that's explicitly set in the late Victorian era.) I wasn't surprised to find PG Wodehouse listed as one of the author's inspirations; I'm going to say that she doesn't have Wodehouse's knack for funny character names and leave it at that.

It says something that I've gone on so long about the book: I don't usually have this much to say about books I really dislike (or books I really like). This one's in that middle ground where it was good enough that I want to be just to it, but not good enough that I really liked it. Not sorry I gave it a shot, not likely to read any of the sequels.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Classism

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Hate crime, Racism, Sexism, Blood, Stalking, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Infertility, Mental illness, Self harm, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, War