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plantbasedbride's reviews
189 reviews
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
"The human being is the cause of all evil in this world. We are our own virus."
Tender is the Flesh is incredibly disturbing... and yet, also, in a way, mundane.
Let me explain.
While this novel seeks to explore an alternative world where human slaughter for human consumption has become the norm and to show in stark black and white (and red all over) how horrific this reality would be, the reality of the conditions the "heads" are kept in, the way they are slaughtered, and the way they are toyed with for sport, are all carbon copies of how we currently treat non-human animals considered disposable and consumable.
I wasn't shocked by what I read in this novel. I've seen slaughterhouse and factory farming footage. I know how animals are objectified and tortured for the whims of humans. This kind of horror shouldn't shock anyone. It goes on each and every day to provide the meat, special or otherwise, on your plate.
I wonder if this book would encourage anyone to consider how non-animals are treated and consider a more compassionate lifestyle. I think Agustina Bazterrica has found a clever way to highlight the cognitive dissonance so many people suffer from when it comes to the treatment of animals labeled "livestock" so as to be stripped of their individuality and right to a life free from abuse. We may love animals categorized as companions, but those who are arbitrarily assigned the label of "food" become a commodity and a possession - free to be branded, mutilated, and tortured at will.
"No one can call them humans because that would mean giving them an identity. They call them product, or meat, or food. Except for him; he would prefer not to have to call them by any name."
As this novel so viscerally points out, that distinction is meaningless.
Tender is the Flesh is incredibly disturbing... and yet, also, in a way, mundane.
Let me explain.
While this novel seeks to explore an alternative world where human slaughter for human consumption has become the norm and to show in stark black and white (and red all over) how horrific this reality would be, the reality of the conditions the "heads" are kept in, the way they are slaughtered, and the way they are toyed with for sport, are all carbon copies of how we currently treat non-human animals considered disposable and consumable.
I wasn't shocked by what I read in this novel. I've seen slaughterhouse and factory farming footage. I know how animals are objectified and tortured for the whims of humans. This kind of horror shouldn't shock anyone. It goes on each and every day to provide the meat, special or otherwise, on your plate.
I wonder if this book would encourage anyone to consider how non-animals are treated and consider a more compassionate lifestyle. I think Agustina Bazterrica has found a clever way to highlight the cognitive dissonance so many people suffer from when it comes to the treatment of animals labeled "livestock" so as to be stripped of their individuality and right to a life free from abuse. We may love animals categorized as companions, but those who are arbitrarily assigned the label of "food" become a commodity and a possession - free to be branded, mutilated, and tortured at will.
"No one can call them humans because that would mean giving them an identity. They call them product, or meat, or food. Except for him; he would prefer not to have to call them by any name."
As this novel so viscerally points out, that distinction is meaningless.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Torture, Death, Blood, Gore, Cannibalism, and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Child death and Death of parent
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
As with all of Becky Chambers' work, A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a heartwarming character-driven tale within a science fiction setting.
And, as per usual, I enjoyed it deeply.
This novella is a soothing cup of tea on a stressful day, and it brought me to tears once or twice.
I would have loved to learn a little more about the world, and found the pacing a bit uneven, but I imagine this is due to the fact that this is the first in a series.
Absolutely lovely and certainly worth the read if you enjoy slow, introspective, cozy sci-fi as I do!
And, as per usual, I enjoyed it deeply.
This novella is a soothing cup of tea on a stressful day, and it brought me to tears once or twice.
I would have loved to learn a little more about the world, and found the pacing a bit uneven, but I imagine this is due to the fact that this is the first in a series.
Absolutely lovely and certainly worth the read if you enjoy slow, introspective, cozy sci-fi as I do!
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
"In a way, people like her, those who wield a pen, can be dangerous. At once a suspicion of fakery springs to mind – that such a Person is not him or herself, but an eye that's constantly watching, and whatever it sees it changes into sentences: in the process it strips reality of its most essential quality – its inexpressibility."
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead begins in a very unassuming way, so unassuming, in fact, that we may imagine we're in for a slow character study of our protagonist, Janina, an older woman who lives alone in a remote Polish village.
And yet, within a few paragraphs, it becomes very clear there's more here than meets the eye.
Janina isn't a people person, but she loves animals, astrology, and the poetry of William Blake.
And when villagers start dropping like flies around her, she won't just sit idly by.
With exquisitely thoughtful prose and characters that jump off the page, Tokarczuk creates a compulsively quotable literary murder mystery with a message that needs to be heard.
On worth:
"But why should we have to be useful and for what reason? Who divided the world into useless and useful, and by what right? Does a thistle have no right to life, or a Mouse that eats the grain in a warehouse? What about Bees and Drones, weeds and roses? Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who worse? A large tree, crooked and full of holes, survives for centuries without being cut down, because nothing could possibly be made out of it. This example should raise the spirits of people like us. Everyone knows the profit to be reaped from the useful, but nobody knows the benefit to be gained from the useless."
On institutions:
"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."
On the human condition:
"As I gazed at the black-and-white landscape of the Plateau I realized that sorrow is an important word for defining the world. It lies at the foundations of everything, it is the fifth element, the quintessence."
And most notably, our treatment of non-human animals:
"Its Animals show the truth about a country," I said. "Its attitude toward Animals. If people behave brutally toward Animals, no form of democracy is ever going to help them, in fact nothing will at all."
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is an award-winning work of fiction for a reason, and I recommend it highly.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead begins in a very unassuming way, so unassuming, in fact, that we may imagine we're in for a slow character study of our protagonist, Janina, an older woman who lives alone in a remote Polish village.
And yet, within a few paragraphs, it becomes very clear there's more here than meets the eye.
Janina isn't a people person, but she loves animals, astrology, and the poetry of William Blake.
And when villagers start dropping like flies around her, she won't just sit idly by.
With exquisitely thoughtful prose and characters that jump off the page, Tokarczuk creates a compulsively quotable literary murder mystery with a message that needs to be heard.
On worth:
"But why should we have to be useful and for what reason? Who divided the world into useless and useful, and by what right? Does a thistle have no right to life, or a Mouse that eats the grain in a warehouse? What about Bees and Drones, weeds and roses? Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who worse? A large tree, crooked and full of holes, survives for centuries without being cut down, because nothing could possibly be made out of it. This example should raise the spirits of people like us. Everyone knows the profit to be reaped from the useful, but nobody knows the benefit to be gained from the useless."
On institutions:
"Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion."
On the human condition:
"As I gazed at the black-and-white landscape of the Plateau I realized that sorrow is an important word for defining the world. It lies at the foundations of everything, it is the fifth element, the quintessence."
And most notably, our treatment of non-human animals:
"Its Animals show the truth about a country," I said. "Its attitude toward Animals. If people behave brutally toward Animals, no form of democracy is ever going to help them, in fact nothing will at all."
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is an award-winning work of fiction for a reason, and I recommend it highly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Animal death, and Animal cruelty
Darling by K. Ancrum
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I am... so disappointed.
This is my second time reading work written by K. Ancrum and I expected to love it as much as I did the first (The Weight of the Stars, which was immaculate) but this just fell flat.
While there is incredible diversity to applaud here there is very little else of substance. The characters felt like hollow caricatures, the dark twist felt unearned and unnecessarily grotesque, and all of the events taking place in a single night caused the pacing to be uneven and rushed.
With more editing this could have potential, but as it is I wouldn't recommend.
This is my second time reading work written by K. Ancrum and I expected to love it as much as I did the first (The Weight of the Stars, which was immaculate) but this just fell flat.
While there is incredible diversity to applaud here there is very little else of substance. The characters felt like hollow caricatures, the dark twist felt unearned and unnecessarily grotesque, and all of the events taking place in a single night caused the pacing to be uneven and rushed.
With more editing this could have potential, but as it is I wouldn't recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, and Child abuse
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Violence
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The Haunting of Hill House is a character study about a woman who has never truly lived, buried in utter loneliness, finally finding contentment and a place to belong. Except that place is a haunted house, and that contentment comes from finding joy in the terrifying exhilaration of being trapped with the lingering souls of the dead.
"Journeys end in lovers meeting; I have spent an all, but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine. I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long."
It's never quite clear if this is a straightforward haunting, a result of the supernatural, or if it is all in our protagonist's head. Unsettling and subtle, you never truly know what is real.
Who is haunting who?
We'll never know for sure.
"Journeys end in lovers meeting; I have spent an all, but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine. I have been frightened half out of my foolish wits, but I have somehow earned this joy; I have been waiting for it for so long."
It's never quite clear if this is a straightforward haunting, a result of the supernatural, or if it is all in our protagonist's head. Unsettling and subtle, you never truly know what is real.
Who is haunting who?
We'll never know for sure.
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
What a magical, lovely, emotional, and heartwarming book! I feel my heart has grown three sizes upon finishing it. Glorious descriptions of the magnificence and fleeting essence of the natural world, vivid characterization, and a protagonist to fall in love with and root for with abandon.
The Blue Castle will undoubtedly become a new comfort read that I will keep with me always!
Trigger/Content Warnings: fatphobia, racism, use of “queer” to mean strange or odd, terminal illness, death of an infant
The Blue Castle will undoubtedly become a new comfort read that I will keep with me always!
Trigger/Content Warnings: fatphobia, racism, use of “queer” to mean strange or odd, terminal illness, death of an infant
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Fatphobia and Racism
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
While the sequel to the stunning first installment of The Singing Hills Cycle is just as exquisitely written as its predecessor, I felt something was missing.
The world-building was incredible, as I have come to expect from Nghi Vo, but the two storylines didn't connect as seamlessly, nor was this story as gripping as expected.
I missed Almost Brilliant's presence and hope they return in the next novella, though I was happy to spend more time with Chih. I also felt a certain disconnect from the new characters introduced and didn't feel as swept up and emotionally moved as I did with The Empress of Salt and Fortune.
The world-building was incredible, as I have come to expect from Nghi Vo, but the two storylines didn't connect as seamlessly, nor was this story as gripping as expected.
I missed Almost Brilliant's presence and hope they return in the next novella, though I was happy to spend more time with Chih. I also felt a certain disconnect from the new characters introduced and didn't feel as swept up and emotionally moved as I did with The Empress of Salt and Fortune.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Death, and Animal death
The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
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? No
4.0
“After thirteen years, the Dark has finally come home.”
This novel's title couldn't be more apt.
A haunting and achingly lonely story, about hatred and prejudice and all the evil the dark reveals that is burned away in the light.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away as the narrative twisted and turned into the depths of what lurks in the dark corners of a small town. As Gould refused to back away from the things that go bump in the night.
A story that aches and shocks and yet somehow is full of love and family and how it feels to finally belong.
A sapphic love story between two lost souls in search of answers, no matter what they may find.
VIDEO REVIEW: (coming soon)
You can find me on...
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/plantbasedbride">Youtube</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/elizabethturn/">Instagram</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ElizabethTurn">Twitter</a>| <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@plantbasedbride?lang=en">TikTok</a>
This novel's title couldn't be more apt.
A haunting and achingly lonely story, about hatred and prejudice and all the evil the dark reveals that is burned away in the light.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away as the narrative twisted and turned into the depths of what lurks in the dark corners of a small town. As Gould refused to back away from the things that go bump in the night.
A story that aches and shocks and yet somehow is full of love and family and how it feels to finally belong.
A sapphic love story between two lost souls in search of answers, no matter what they may find.
VIDEO REVIEW: (coming soon)
You can find me on...
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/plantbasedbride">Youtube</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/elizabethturn/">Instagram</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ElizabethTurn">Twitter</a>| <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@plantbasedbride?lang=en">TikTok</a>
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Death, Child death, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Hate crime, Bullying, and Grief
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc
challenging
informative
medium-paced
5.0
A fascinating and eye-opening exploration of the connection between fairytales and disability. Amanda LeDuc did an excellent job of compiling a tremendous amount of information into a compulsively readable, concise, and understandable format.
Disability and mental illness are so often vilified in the stories we consume; used as shorthand to indicate that someone is unworthy or wicked. A trope in lazy writing that directly correlates with how disabled and mentally ill people are treated in their day-to-day lives.
How does it feel for a young person consuming media such as The Little Mermaid to see themselves represented in a way they never had, only to find that the heroine is magically cured of her "ailments" and gets her happy ending as an able-bodied woman, with legs and a voice.
How does this reinforcement of the idea that a happy ending is inextricably linked with able bodiedness impact our preconceived notions and biases as we grow up?
This is a world-view shifting book that everyone should read.
VIDEO REVIEW: https://youtu.be/Z6jPExstT1Y
You can find me on...
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/plantbasedbride">Youtube</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/elizabethturn/">Instagram</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ElizabethTurn">Twitter</a>| <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@plantbasedbride?lang=en">TikTok</a>
Disability and mental illness are so often vilified in the stories we consume; used as shorthand to indicate that someone is unworthy or wicked. A trope in lazy writing that directly correlates with how disabled and mentally ill people are treated in their day-to-day lives.
How does it feel for a young person consuming media such as The Little Mermaid to see themselves represented in a way they never had, only to find that the heroine is magically cured of her "ailments" and gets her happy ending as an able-bodied woman, with legs and a voice.
How does this reinforcement of the idea that a happy ending is inextricably linked with able bodiedness impact our preconceived notions and biases as we grow up?
This is a world-view shifting book that everyone should read.
VIDEO REVIEW: https://youtu.be/Z6jPExstT1Y
You can find me on...
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/plantbasedbride">Youtube</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/elizabethturn/">Instagram</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/ElizabethTurn">Twitter</a>| <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@plantbasedbride?lang=en">TikTok</a>
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic illness, and Child death
Moderate: Sexual assault, Violence, Medical content, and Body horror
Love From A to Z by S.K. Ali
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This was a cute YA romance with two Muslim protagonists, one American and one Canadian, who meet on a plane on the way to Spring Break with their respective families in Qatar.
I enjoyed the characterization of both Zeyneb and Alex, and found their different Muslim journeys (Zeyneb having been born into a Muslim family and Alex having converted along with his father and sister at age 11) very interesting. I loved that this romance had two Asian protagonists and that it explored difficult subjects such as loss, grief, islamophobia, and chronic illness (MS).
This was a quick yet thought-provoking read and I would definitely recommend it for insight into the Muslim experience with a side of meet-cute!
I enjoyed the characterization of both Zeyneb and Alex, and found their different Muslim journeys (Zeyneb having been born into a Muslim family and Alex having converted along with his father and sister at age 11) very interesting. I loved that this romance had two Asian protagonists and that it explored difficult subjects such as loss, grief, islamophobia, and chronic illness (MS).
This was a quick yet thought-provoking read and I would definitely recommend it for insight into the Muslim experience with a side of meet-cute!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Islamophobia, Grief, Death of parent, and Chronic illness
Minor: Medical content