rmnedder's reviews
84 reviews

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A brilliant, beautiful, gut-wrenching tapestry of a story. Hosein's prose is exquisite--legitimately some of the best stylized writing I have encountered in a long while! All of the main cast of characters are well-developed and complex, spanning the gamut from detestable to pitiable to genuinely likeable. There are a lot of moving parts in this story, and the author manages to keep everything in the air and moving along without too much hassle, which is impressive in a story of this magnitude and scale. I do wish, though, that there were some threads that were tied off more thoroughly or explored a little further; there was so much happening that I felt at times that things were getting a little lost in the shuffle, but never egregiously so! I did also find that the story moved a little slow at times, but that's more of a preferential thing than anything else.

Overall this was was a gorgeous and tragic story about how our pasts haunt us--and this book will haunt me for some time to come. Read the content warnings - this one gets intense.
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The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

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challenging dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.75

Lee Mandelo sure knows how to write fantastic Southern Gothics! This was scary, sexy, and unnerving from start to finish. The love for queer history is so clear in this story, and it's such a joy. It's incredibly atmospheric, the prose is razor sharp and super tight, and the main character is so well-written and complicated. I only wish there was more; there were details I wish were expanded upon or backstory I wish we got to learn more of (Leslie's past seems so interesting), but to me, that desire for more is a hallmark of a good story. 
It's unsettling, it's erotic, it's everything I could ask for in a queer horror novella. Read the content warnings on this one. It gets intense.
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Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

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dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.75

This was such a ride, and I loved every moment of it! Such a deeply atmospheric read—the world building is solid and the intrigue draws you in from the very beginning and doesn't let you go. While the human characters feel a little plain (aside from the narrator), Area X is honestly its own character, and that more than makes up for it. I was left with so many questions, and I didn't necessarily mind. 

What an exquisite blend of sci-fi, environmental horror, and cosmic horror! Very excited to see where the next two books go. Read the content warnings.
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Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner

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challenging inspiring medium-paced

4.5

I'm not usually a poetry person, but I really enjoyed this collection! It was informative and compelling; it had its moments of profundity and levity hand in hand. 
Innards: Stories by Magogodi oaMphela Makhene

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challenging dark emotional medium-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

4.25

Innards was a rich and compelling anthology! I'm a sucker for interconnected stories, and I really enjoyed the way all these stories and their people wove in and out of each other. The narrative diversity across all the stories was great; every story felt different and the variety of tones and narrators and styles just brought everything together. I will admit I felt a bit on the outside at times--there are cultural allusions and text in other languages included that are everyday for these characters, but not necessarily for us as readers--but I think it works for an anthology about the horrors of apartheid. 

I greatly enjoyed this book and the wide range of deeply impactful stories it presented. Read the content warnings - this one is intense.
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Hotel World by Ali Smith

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Hotel World was an absolutely gorgeous, character-centered reflection on the big picture and the smallest details of daily life. The prose was inventive, and the way its style changed between characters was masterful--from whimsical to plain, past to present to future, sturdy to disorienting--and made things feel surprisingly intimate. Each character was well-developed (even in the short space of their vignette of life) and the way their stories intertwined felt very natural. The way Smith played with scale was wonderful; everything was given its attention, from the smallest speck of dust to the broadest view of the city, and it was wonderful to get swallowed up in it all. 

I found myself deeply moved by this book and all its eccentricities. What a gorgeous and profound examination of grief and life. Read the content warnings on this one.
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Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin

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dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

4.25

I can absolutely see why Notes of a Crocodile is a queer cult classic. It's deeply introspective, cutting and emotional and surprisingly funny at times. Miaojin's prose is so interesting in its construction, though I do feel like the translation made things feel a bit clunkier than they were intended to be. All of her characters feel so real; they remind me of the real, strange, traumatized queer kids I knew (and was) in college. The crocodile metaphor is also such a striking through-line in the story. 
There were moments where I felt a little confused--I was unsure what exactly was happening, or who was speaking, or when we were--but I didn't hate it; this book has nailed the disorientation that comes with self-discovery and interrogating your own queerness, so I was okay with being confused a bit.

This book was bittersweet from cover to cover. It left me feeling like a raw nerve. 
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Tenderloin by Joy Sorman

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dark reflective 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

3.75

Tenderloin is a fever-dream. The prose is fast and fractured, a somewhat disjointed stream-of-thought that I really enjoyed. There's something interesting about the narrative style; it feels almost like an urban legend, which parallels the interludes nicely. I did feel some distance from the main character, but I do think it's a side-effect of the narrative style. There are some lovely secondary themes in this book - questions about the ethics of butchery and meat consumptions, the relationship between sex and meat, butchery and desire - that I feel are unfortunately underutilized. If they had been worked in more cohesively with the central story, I think it would have made the novella on a whole far more compelling, and particularly strengthened the ending. 
Tenderloin is a strange, strange book that, even if slightly undercooked, was still definitely worth the read. Pun intended.
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Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda

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challenging dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is one of the most disturbing, beautifully written books I've ever read. The prose is profound and profane and evocative in all its weirdness, the characters are complex and deeply appalling (which makes them all the more likable), and the narrative mosaic of times and formats and styles creates a patchwork quilt that keeps the dread and tension simmering the whole way through. It's a brilliantly perverse meditation on change and adolescence and desire, and I Will be thinking about it for ages to come. Definitely read the content warnings on this one. 
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Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

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I'm actually really enjoying this so far, but I've been SO busy that it's gotten away from me. I will be returning to her at a later date once I've got more free time.