poisoned_icecream's reviews
2023 reviews

A Knight to Remember by Bridget Essex

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad tense fast-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
This is about Holly, a librarian who's in an unfulfilling relationship with a woman who started a generic tech company. She enjoys going to renaissance fairs and reading fantasy romance books. One night a portal opens up in her backyard and out comes a really big lizardy beast and a gorgeous knight whose mission is to slay the beast. The beast escapes to the ocean to heal from its wounds, and Holly takes Virago, the gorgeous and muscular knight who also has great lips, into her home to treat her wound.

I've owned this since 2018 and finally got around to reading it. I'm surprised I liked it more than I expected to. The scenes of Virago learning about modern technology and grocery stores were funny. However I got tired of reading "oh, my god" in practically every chapter and got annoyed at Holly lusting after Virago, but thinking about how she can't break up with her inattentive girlfriend who later reveals she has been having sex with another woman when she finally does break up with her. Also at times Virago came across like a random video game knight character who says stereotypically knightly stuff if the player approached her, so some chapters through her perspective would have been nice to read. Furthermore while this book was fun, it would have benefitted from a good proofreader and editor. I also must mention Holly's best friend who is so supportive and sweet to her. The friendship between Holly and Carly was my favorite aspect of this book. Overall I still had fun with this fantasy romance book and I will read the sequel and more books by this author.
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Winter Horrorland: An Undertaker Books Anthology by D.L. Winchester

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
Winter is my favorite season so I knew I would end up enjoying this anthology. All of these stories are so atmospheric and unnerving. Some of these stories deal with grief, one is about the dangers of AI, and there's one about hunting werewolves. Also I've never read anything by any of these writers before so I'm excited to read more of their stuff. :)
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Humans Are The Problem: A Monster's Anthology by Willow Becker

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective
Even if I didn't like every single story in this anthology I still had fun reading them all. Some of the creatures in this collection are trolls, vampires, werewolves, a tooth fairy, a blob, the banshee, and the Loch Ness Monster. This is a good read for anyone who likes monsters. :)
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Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I liked this retelling of Jane Eyre. Jane Steele is definitely an interesting character. It is as gothic and dark as the original, but of course there are differences, the most obvious being the fact that in this book Jane is a serial killer. All the parts where she kills terrible men brought me a lot of joy. The romance between Jane Steele and Charles Thornfield bored me though. It would have been better if there was no Charles and instead she ends up with her childhood friend Rebecca Clarke, or she could have ended up with both of them, but whatever this is still a fine book. Also seeing "females" and "males" used as nouns really irritated me, and I also got tired of seeing of seeing non-English words being written in italics. Despite its flaws I would still recommend this to readers who like Jane Eyre and gothic novels.
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A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Botanist Gregor Sandys and his taxidermist partner Simon Rievaulx live together in a garden. Gregor receives a mycelium that is really smart and decides to put it in a human corpse. Their housekeeper is grieving the death of her friend Constance. These four characters become a family. 

I really enjoyed this and I'm glad I took my time with it. It is so gothic and so unapologetically queer. I will definitely read more of Noah Medlock's books. :)
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Vicious by Chloe Spencer

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challenging dark emotional funny tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Yay a sequel to Vicarious. In this novella Gertie and Bea get married. They are happy until a video of them dancing goes viral on TikTok. Bea doesn't have a social media presence due to her past. This event leads to Gertie either ruining some peoples' reputations or brutally killing them.

This is such a fun sequel. I really enjoyed Bea and Gertie's messed up romance in Vicarious, and reading about them planning their wedding, getting married, and taking down their enemies was a great experience. There is a lot of gore and bloodshed, but there's also several sweet moments in which Bea and Gertie are vulnerable with each other. In one of these moments Gertie discovers she is demiromantic when Bea brings up how she's only felt romantic feelings for her and her deceased husband. I adore Bea and Gertie so much. They're now one of my favorite fictional sapphic couples. :)
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Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
This is such a bleak book about a woman who's trying to cope with the effects of a plague. She lives alone after her divorce and nannies a disabled child who compulsively eats anything he can. She also visits her ex-husband, who still cares about, at the hospital after he got infected. Her relationship to her mother is complicated. The book switches between past and present. This book is timely and important but it definitely won't be for everyone. There are mentions of animal death, child death and suicide. The writing is exquisite, but at times it came across as pretentious. There were also times I came across words I've never seen, but I didn't feel like looking them up so I just kept reading. This is a decent work of speculative fiction, science fiction, and eco-horror. I'll read it again someday but I'm not in a rush to do that right now.
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Bellies by Nicola Dinan

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emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I had a hard time staying focused on this book. It's not a bad book but I don't consider it one of the best things I've ever read. I did not feel invested or interested in Tom and Ming's relationship and breakup. I felt indifferent towards the side characters except Rob, who I've headcanoned as aromantic, but he gets hit by a car and dies. His death leads Ming and Tom to reunite and come to a reconciliation. I'm so annoyed that Rob dies. There was a missed opportunity for him to figure put that he's aromantic and then Tom could have decided that he's fine with being single. But anyway this book is fine. I did like it but I don't see myself ever rereading it or reading anything else by Nicola Dinan.
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What do Nightmares Dream of by Antonija Mežnarić

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Sanja is being haunted by a creature known as a mora. She has terrible nightmares and feels pressure on her chest. Her childhood was traumatic due to being raised by her abusive grandmother after the death of her parents. Also at her job as a teacher she becomes friends with a substitute named Ana and goes on a date with her.

This novella had me hooked the entire time. The dreams Sanja has are so unnerving and the way she reacted to them and the mora had me intrigued. There is an interesting twist towards that provides some information about why the mora chose to haunt Sanja. I also really liked reading about Croatian folklore in this book. I would recommend this to readers who like sapphic horror.
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A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Cordelia lives with her sorcerer mother Evangeline, who is extremely overbearing and abusive towards her daughter. She does a spell to make Cordelia obedient, which means she controls her actions and behavior. They are both poor, and after Evangeline's "benefactor" decides he no longer wants her, so she makes him obedient and has him murder his family, then she is determined to marry a wealthy man and finds a  bachelor squire who lives with his sister named Hester. Cordelia grows to care about them and with the help of Hester and some friends sets out to stop her mother from hurting and killing more people.

Like everything T. Kingfisher has written this did not let me down. It is a real page-turner and towards the end I did not want to stop reading. One specific image will live rent-free in my mind and I'm honestly fine with that. Also while this is a retelling of The Goose Girl, it is not necessary to have read that to enjoy this book.  This story gets 10/10 geese.
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