readthesparrow's reviews
276 reviews

lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This review is based on an advanced galley sent by the publisher.

The only reason this got 2.5 stars is because I am desperate for masc cowboy sapphic love interests. Otherwise it would have maybe scraped by with 2 stars.

ONE: THE PLOT

The plot is fine, for the most part. Molly struggling to decide how she wants to handle the enormous responsibility of getting a huge property dumped on her is realistic; she's under an immense amount of stress and struggling to make a decision about how to handle this situation she's been thrust into without consent. Molly weighs her needs against other folk's needs against the reality of money and debt. When she has conversations about this with characters like JJ, Aiyana, Lochlin, or Lita, whether or not she will keep or sell is actually an interesting drama.

The romance part of the plot is a mess of miscommunications and people contriving to keep information away from Molly for no reason. She is constantly saying that she doesn't understand things or asking for clarification and the only reason it's not given to her is to drag the plot out longer or to cause a dumb fight between her and the love interest, Shani.

Though it was a bit silly that no one

made the very obvious connection that the land is a beautiful event space and would be a perfect start for Molly to both begin her event company (side note: Immaculate Events is a terrible name) while not evicting her aunt's boarders. Like rub those brain cells together, girl, I know you've got at least two of them rattling around in there.

Speaking of Molly.

TWO: THE MAIN CHARACTER

Molly feels like a character whose entire character is "relateable."

She fulfills every stereotype about a mid-20s bi white woman romance MC. She likes Taylor Swift. She reads romance novels. She likes iced coffee. She's drowning in student debt. She's working part time after being unable to chase her dreams. She's a little clumsy. She's Totally Not Gorgeous (100% absolutely beautiful, insert One Direction lyrics here).

(Also, sorry for being a petty bitch, but

I cannot stand her Taylor Swift obsession. I understand why it's there because contemporary romance readers go gaga for her but I just Don't Care About Her and I'm sick of seeing her everywhere.

)

The few parts of her that seem unique and really interesting either don't get fully developed (her toxic relationship with her mother) or only shine briefly at the end (her passion for event planning). As a result, she's just kind of boring as a main character.

Also, why is she labeled "sunshine"? Because she bakes and is a lil clumsy and likes the most popular singer of the modern day??? Please.

When she's stressed out about trying to get things done or taking care of the horses (aka actually engaging with the plot) I like her! I love my protagonists being anxious or upset or angry. What I don't love is when the book doesn't seem aware of how _fucking awful_ she is being to other people (see: her being labeled as "sunshine," her being right in the end _vis a vis_ Nat) or just slaps #relateable characteristics on her to appeal to (a very specific type of) The Gays.

And, look, again, maybe this relateability is just a genre convention and it is just Not For Me. In that case, mea culpa. But, in my humble opinion, Molly _sucks._

THREE: MOLLY AND SHARI

You seriously expect me to believe that two characters that can’t go 24 hours without miscommunicating, fighting, or crying are going to get an HEA?

Please.

Also I’m sick of chemistry between characters entirely relying on physical attraction and calling it good enough. For example, personality. (And while Shari is undeniably a catch, Molly has the personality of a modern day Wattpad Y/N, so I don’t understand why Shari likes her.)

Their conversations were uninteresting because half the time they were fighting over something contrived or were acting like children about finances. The entire book I was just thinking “Jesus Christ, someone get an adult in here.”

And then they would get an adult—Nat—in there. And I regretted it. Immediately.

Starting a petition to get Nat into a better book because she does not deserve the vilification she gets.

FOUR: NAT

Nat has always been there for Molly. She comes whenever Molly asks for help or calls her in tears over every minor inconvenience (seriously, Molly couldn't even _look at a list of repairs on her own_ and dragged Nat and her girlfriend KiKi two hours out of town every weekend to do free labor for her.)

Nat has missed so many opportunities to pick up the pieces for Molly and has seen Molly’s unhealthy attachment pattern to her partners and how many times she’s been emotionally and financially ruined by moving too fast in a relationship. So when she says that Molly is exhibiting unhealthy attachment to Shari, or expresses concern that Molly is basically willing to throw her entire life and savings into a risky debt-laden project, or tries to get her to return to the city, the novel tries to paint her as the villain, or in the wrong, for doing that.

_But Nat is fucking right._

And what I also think is interesting is that… we never see her (or hear mentioned) that Molly had ever tried to support Nat like Nat does Molly. Molly never runs lines with Nat, she never drops everything to comfort her when she doesn’t get a role she wants.

Not only does Molly never reciprocate the support she’s given by Nat in any way, she’s got a pattern of treating Nat like her emotional sponge, and never considers Nat’s life or needs. Hell, Molly abandons Nat, a lesbian, alone in a bar in the middle of nowhere, without her car, in a building full of men, with two men Nat _does not know_. Molly accepts that was a bad thing to do but all she does is be like “wow I’m Weally Weally Sowwy 🥺” and Nat forgives her pretty much immediately. Molly treats Nat terribly throughout the entire book, and, I’m sorry, but as a reader I just am not on Molly’s side at all, even though the book absolutely expects us to take it.

Molly assumes Nat will prioritize her, and gives lip service that she doesn’t _really_ want that, but relies on Nat throughout the entire book to figure out her life for her.

I also hated the ending. No, obviously, Nat shouldn’t have thrown away the letter. But like… her concerns about Molly are _right._ Molly has shown herself, again and again, to rush into relationships, to overcommit, to worsen her financial situation.

Molly pitches a fit and claims that she’s just Nat’s project and that Nat doesn’t see her as an equal, and dismisses her, and we’re meant to see that as a big moment? My sister in Christ, you are in the wrong! See my discussion of Nat and Shari’s relationship!!!! Look at your history!!! You need therapy!!!!!! You do not know how to treat other people (unless, I guess, you’re attracted to them)!!!!!!!

Molly ends the book by hoping that Nat will realize she was “in the wrong” and that she’ll apologize, but I ended it hoping that Nat never speaks to her again so that way when Molly and Shari end up in a toxic miscommunication/argument cycle about money or renovations or whatever (because they will) she and Kiki don’t have to get caught up in it.

And, finally, my niche gripe that no one else probably cares about:

I was really excited seeing the word lesbian on the very first page to refer to Nat! But then ||she’s the """"bad guy"""" (again, like I said earlier, fuck Molly, Nat was right). It’s just Inch Resting to me that the only character that gets labeled as a lesbian is the Bad Guy, while love interest and every other sapphic character are either bi or unlabeled. Do I think it was intentional? No. Does that make it any less annoying? No.

This was my last hurrah for contemporary romance. I’m hanging up my hat. This game just isn’t for me.

The Call Is Coming from Inside the House by Allyson McOuat

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hopeful reflective medium-paced

3.0

This review is based on a digital ARC provided by the publisher.

REVIEW

I wanted to love The Call Is Coming from Inside the House, I really did.

The cover–which is what initially caught my eye–is gorgeous. It’s haunting, it’s weird, and I wouldn’t say no to owning it as a print.

The summary sealed the deal: queer essays about identity through the lens of horror, 90’s pop culture, and true crime?

That’s so far up my alley it’s in my house.

The Good

McOuat’s prose is vibrant and evocative–when she’s talking about moments from her life.

The images of her running from a coyote, supporting her children through their first experience of loss and grief, and waking up to a man standing at the end of her bed are striking, real, alive.

Those moments are the ones I enjoyed reading, and it’s those moments that I will remember.

My favorite essay, by far, was “The Harbinger (Death at Every Corner).” McOuat examines her extreme anxiety and how she began to have a healthier approach to the voice in her head that warned her about danger at every corner. It was relatable to me in a way that a lot of writing about anxiety isn’t.

However, there were two main sticking points that kept me from absolutely loving the collection: a lack of connection and uninteresting analysis.

The Unconnected

Besides the broad theme, the collection lacks a consistent connecting thread that supports the reading experience; in other words, a consistent, traceable arc from beginning to end.

For example, take In the Dream House, a book with a very similar premise: examining a queer woman’s life through pop culture, horror, urban legend, and thriller tropes (though ItDH is highly experimental with form). ItDH is sustained essay to essay and as a whole with a central connective thread: Machado and the woman’s relationship, which progresses and changes.

The Call Is Coming from Inside the House does not have a central thread.

From essay to essay we oscillate from from fertility treatments to home ownership to divorce to family oral history to the anxieties of teenage girlhood back to her pregnancy.

I could follow each individual essay’s narrative fine, but jumbled snapshots of McOuat’s chronology paired with wildly fluctuating topics made for a disjointed reading experience when considered as a whole.

And individual essays rarely stayed focused. Even my favorite chapter isn’t immune.

“The Harbinger (Death at Every Corner)” begins with two pages talking about Frozen, discussing queercoding and the Hayes Code. Three pages in we finally get around to anxiety (as per the essay’s title, seeing death around every corner). Frozen connects tangentially a few pages later, when she compares how she handled this anxiety to being shut in a castle.

When I finished reading, I had a bevy of questions. What relevance does the Hayes Code have to the idea of the harbinger and intrusive anxiety? Why bother bringing in Frozen, as the harbinger and the final girl tropes (the latter having been mentioned once) could have said much the same while keeping the essay focused around thematically connected topics?

The Boring

I’m not saying that it would be impossible to connect Frozen with the harbinger trope, or that essays shouldn’t bring together disparate concepts.

The reason I have issues is because the analysis of these two concepts is, well… shallow.

Elsa being queercoded? I read that same exact reading on Tumblr a decade ago (seriously, see this post from 2014).

The titular Harbinger trope? Purely exists to explain why McOuat calls her anxiety the Harbinger. Personifying her anxiety as the Harbinger is fine–I like it–but that’s where the lens stops.

There’s also no analysis or connection made between the harbinger concept and Frozen.

To quote the summary, the “examination through the lens” McOuat is doing here boils down to 'my anxiety feels like the harbinger, and I reacted to it like Elsa did, which was by hiding myself away (also did you know Elsa is kinda queercoded?).'

Again, the reason why “The Harbinger (Death at Every Corner)” was my favorite is because when she actually discusses her life, her intrusive thoughts, and how they impacted her as a functioning person and as a mother, the writing is really good. It’s intimate and intense and emotional.

Her experiences speak to me as a person who also deals with those issues, and the framing of the Harbinger could have gone in a really interesting direction!

But it just didn’t, and as a result, the analysis part of the essay–half of the whole essay!–bored me.

Many of her analysis struggles similarly. Her takes are, often, Freshman Intro to Horror level basic.

Her queer and feminist analysis of tropes–such as covens, final girls, and the man at the end of the bed–are both surface level and common knowledge for any queer/feminist horror enjoyer.

For example:

Covens are akin to female/queer community and dressing witchy = flagging.
Final girls are the “right” kind of victim because they fight back.
The man at the end of the bed is voyeurism: the invasion of privacy.

There was nothing new or interesting vis a vis her analysis that made me think about a trope, story, or piece of media in a new or fresh or interesting way.

As a result, I’ve got nothing to intellectually chew on, leaving me, yes, bored for, like, half of every essay.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While I’ve been critical of The Call is Coming from Inside the House, I do think it’s a solid 3 star read. I like McOuat’s prose. When she talks about her life, it’s vivid, emotional, and poignant. She’s a vivid storyteller, and I’d certainly love to read more of her personal essays in the future. I’d go so far as to say I’d love a memoir from her.

Just… temper your expectations when it comes to the “lens” part.

Thank you to ECW Press for providing a digital ARC via Netgalley.

Content Warnings

The Complete Poems of John Keats by John Keats

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3.5

I read all of Endymion. To quote Shelley, "no person should possibly get to the end of it," but I did. However, I admit, he was right and I should not have tried.

I do love Keats, but it's very clear these poems were from someone early in their artistry. It's a tragedy he died so young.

Legion by William Peter Blatty

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Weird Black Girls: Stories by Elwin Cotman

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This review is based on a digital ARC provided by the publisher.

REVIEW

Weird Black Girls is going to be strange to review. Do I think it was good? Yeah. I mean, I rated it four stars.

Was it what I expected based on the title, cover, and blurb? Not really. The two contemporary stories felt out of place and the focus of the collection wasn’t really on weird Black girls. More on that later.

For now, a brief summary and discussion of each story:

THE SWITCHIN’ TREE - A Black community is faced with an authoritarian tree that progressively escalates the violence parents visit on their children. This was a remarkably strong start to the collection; I loved the main character (a tomboyish young Black girl), the prose (a little purple at times, but sue me, I liked it), and the bizarre, weird horror that came screaming in at the end.

REUNION - Two friends catch up about their lives while reality shifts around them. “The Switchin’ Tree” is hard to follow up and while I enjoyed the absurd, strange imagery of “Reunion,” the characters fell flat for me.

OWEN - A father deals with his son’s obsessional grief over the death of a wrestler. The first of the two more contemporary, less fantastical stories. I enjoyed it! The image ||of a father taking his son to the woods to hold a shoe box funeral for a stranger is deeply touching and an image that|| will stick with me for a while.

TRIGGERED - Two toxic friends in an activist community are shitty to each other and everyone around them. The second contemporary story. It’s… fine. Sharp commentary on the ways that identity and activism get weaponized by toxic people and some excellent character work, but the pacing dragged (it’s 50 pages long). I just really wanted it to be over.

THINGS I NEVER LEARNED IN CAITLIN CLARKE’S INTRO TO ACTING CLASS - Two Black men in a relationship discover one can relive the other’s memories from undergrad when they touch. Back to spec fic. This was one of my favorites in the collection–the desperate need for human connection and the desire to be desired and the question of “what if things were different” hit hard.

TOURNAMENT ARC - Two older Black men decide to run a LARP fight at a con, only for multi-versal, cosmic, fantastical entrants to start showing up. A hilarious, sweet, nostalgic reflection on fan culture, anime, and how they can be a haven for Black kids trying to figure themselves out. My stand-out favorite of the collection and the one I’ll still be thinking about in a year.

WEIRD BLACK GIRLS - In an alternate universe where Boston was hit by the Rupture, an upheaval of the earth that thrust the city into the air and lead to a blooming of the bizarre and fantastical, a man and his younger ex-girlfriend take one last trip together. The titular story, quite long at 100 pages. While I loved the setting, I couldn’t stand the narrator and spent the whole time wishing the POV was from his ex’s point of view.

In a way, Weird Black Girls reminds me of The King in Yellow. The weird, magical, literary stories rule, while the contemporary stories feel out of place and aren’t as enjoyable.

As mentioned, I liked “Owen.” I feel “Triggered” is fine, even though it’s not my cup of tea. Both are worth a read, but I think they’d have been more enjoyable if I’d gone into them expecting contemporary rather than more weird fantastical spec-fic set up by everything surrounding them. Good stories, just not sure why they’re featured in a collection described as “literary-fantastical hybrid fiction,” y’know?

If you want a collection with weird Black girls, I’d point you elsewhere (for example, to All These Sunken Souls, which has a lot of fantastic short stories about weird Black girls and young women). Despite being titled Weird Black Girls, I’d argue the collection has a far heavier focus on Black men, with Black girls and women almost always being secondary characters.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This collection is certainly worth picking up, purely for “Things I Never Learned in Caitlin Clarke’s Intro to Acting Class” and “Tournament Arc.” If you like not-very-short stories, “Weird Black Girls,” the titular and final story, is almost 100 pages, while “Triggered,” the second-longest, is 50 pages. While some are indeed on the shorter end (“Reunion” at 23 pages, “Owen” at 21 pages), most of these are the long kind of story. I look forward to reading more Cotman in the future!

Thank you to Scribner for providing a digital ARC via Netgalley.

Content Warnings

Parasocial by Erica Henderson, Alex de Campi

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dark reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Orphia and Eurydicius by Elyse John

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

REVIEW
This review is based on an eARC provided by the publishers via Netgalley.

Adaptations that breathe with love and appreciation for their source material are the only adaptations I am interested in reading.

Elyse John is a poet, and her respect for Greek myth but also the verses which preserved those myths is what makes Orphia and Eurydicius special. When Orphia uses epithets–”ox-eyed Hera”–or begins her poetry by invoking the Muses, I was in the audience going absolutely wild. John’s prose is vibrant; her descriptions of Mount Olympus, Mount Parnassus, and Hades, as well as those that inhabit them, are divine, jewel-toned, alive.

Orphia and Eurydicius’ interpretation of mythology does not concern itself with being “accurate” (which, in my opinion, is a silly thing to want anyway). Rather, John takes pieces of myth and reinterprets them, fitting and re-fitting the pieces to tell Orphia’s story. By flipping and questioning these original myths, John brings forth a version of mythology that is unique yet in conversation with what came before. One of my favorite moments of this was her interpretation of Medea; her little time on the page was enthralling, and I would love to see more of her from John in the future.

Speaking of the future, most, if not all, readers know what will happen to Orphia. The narrative plays with this foreknowledge through prophecy and fate by leaning into the tragic aspect of Greek poetry, where part of the tragedy is knowing what will happen/is happening but listening anyway.

I loved these gender-flipped versions of Orphia as a determined warrior-poet and Eurydicius as a gentle, kind shield-maker. Their chemistry was immediate in a way I can very rarely say I feel in a romance, and I loved the way they discussed their gender and bisexuality with one another. (It’s Greek myth, so it might be a given, but this is a very bisexual book.)

Now, while I do love a good character-forward, heavy-on-the-prose book, I did struggle to completely click with Orphia and Eurydicius, which makes me really sad! While I loved the characters and appreciated the well-woven prose, the pacing suffered under the weight of itself at times.

From around 20% to 40%, the pacing dragged. Elements, particularly Orphia’s motivations for pursuing poetry, were reiterated again and again, with little to no change from beginning to end. Hearing her restate her desires in the same words and with no change in her goal got stale. It felt as though the narrative didn’t trust me to understand Orphia without being told explicitly.

FINAL THOUGHTS
I believe that this is John’s novel debut (but don’t quote me on that). Orphia and Eurydicius is a very strong debut, and I’m looking forward to what she writes next.

If you love Greek myth retellings that love and challenge the source material, lush, vibrant prose, and bisexual, confident, brave female main characters, then I suggest Orphia and Eurydicius!

There’s also some lovely character art on the author’s website.

Thank you to Harper 360 for providing a digital ARC via Netgalley. If you are interested in Orphia and Eurydicius, the novel is out now! If possible, support indie bookshops with your purchase!

Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right by Matthew Dallek

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challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

Picked this up because I love the podcast Knowledge Fight and wanted to understand what the hosts meant when they mentioned Alex Jones' Bircher background.

Oh boy, do I know now.

The book itself, I would say, is actually 4 stars. If you want to understand why the Republican party is the way it is, you have to understand the JBS.

However, in terms of the audiobook version, there were very obvious cuts between takes that were distracting.

The beginning also began very quickly; it has been three months since I listened to the first chapter, so I might be misremembering, but I feel a chapter easing into the context rather than dropping directly into the beginnings of the movement would have been useful.

At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons from a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery by Shou Arai

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funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

The Worm and His Kings by Hailey Piper

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced