roadtripreader's reviews
357 reviews

Tentacle Entanglement by Siggy Shade

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 Sometimes I wonder about what I'mreading🤣 This book had me dreaming quite vividly but not about carnal pleasures as such. I blame it on this couples with the David attenborough Documentary I fell asleep to: The Great Barrier Reef - suffice it to say I woke up wondering if maybe, just maybe there are some freaky sea creatures at the bottom of the sea after all.

Not me actually googling "Call forth your Perfect Soul Mate using Dimensional Waves…."🧐 because it worked and damned it to hell, can I summon a Fae king hellbent on destroying the world? (Looking at you Valroy).

So, for the lucid dream, thank you Siggy Shade, I'd been meaning to read a book by this author for a while.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
I mean what's there to say? An umbra falls hard for Alexis and all he has to do to win her over is deliver earth-shattering orgasms. He filled the brief and then some and it got repetitive meh🤷🏽‍♀️

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
The Tentacle dude is simultaneously naive about humans and all knowing in the beginning.  Same with the idea of human pleasure. According to the  dark shadow he studied a ton but still asks so many questions - it's cute and weird. The monster of the light is a sexy Knowitall. Oh and one more thing: the Darkness monster who comes from HELL is respectful and acknowledges consent . Wel I never, what's that meditation again? Smdh .

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:

😯uhm...the urethra!!!??? I winces because that sounda like torture and not the good kind.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Are you going to kill me?” I whisper.
“I’m going to fill you with something calming” (Ah yes, TEntacle secretions better than chamomile tea)
🖤 “This weapon of yours is coated in something delicious". (ahem... dude that 🌸 is not a weapon)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Umbra
■ Alexis Soulmate list (reasonable)
■ eh what is a "cozy contractor?"
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Romance Books by 2025 

The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey

adventurous emotional sad 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? It's complicated

3.0

Okay but why are a whole ton of merfolk-human love stories (not counting the new wave or Spicy Romances) always so ... not tragic exactly but more like pit-in-the-stomach alongside joy kinda feeling? If not outright tragic, there's this feeling of losing something even when love is gained. Other times is a big obvious chunk of loss you can point at. And it's weird because I can almost sense when one of these stories is going to end in that way of "you get your cake but you lose all the cutlery and the people to eat it with" vibe.

David and Aycayia(the Thousand year Old Red Mermaid). Well, instinct told me not to get attached. Attached I went and got and now look at me. Ugly crying over snacks. Unacceptable.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
You know it's not ending well when you relive the best of the Mermaid encounter via the main protagonists journal he decides to write in his old age.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:

Yeah I'm not sure if I enjoyed David's pov in his journals after double-checking the author's identity. I found myself starting to Talk like him to my dogs and that was a nope for me. I've settled on meh...moving on. But it was pretty memorable because I had a hankering for jerk chicken, wanted to listen to Damien Junior Gong Marley and even watch Top Boy (the last one had maybe less to do with the book).

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:

The siren loves the guitar. Cute.😍
"She hadn’t heard music for a long time, maybe a thousand years, and she was irresistibly drawn up to the surface, real slow and real interested.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “When I see her first, I reckon she come from some half-space in God’s great order, like she was from a time when all creatures were getting designed. She was from when fish was leaving the sea behind, growing legs, turning into reptiles. She was a creature that never make it to land.” (In his own words, David's mermaid )

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Taino/Indigenous Mermaid
■Hurricane Rosamund
■Black Conch
■ Guanayoa
■Mermfolk are heavy AF

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Romance Books by 2025

Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters by Aimee Ogden

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

"The seas give off rumor and gossip like they give off mist".

A Space, Land and Undersea Tragedy- you can just feel the intense desperate love Atuale has for her Saaravel and that desperate need to bring vigor back to him and her clan. And then the pull of the world out there for her to explore...two incompatible desires

Traces of The Little Mermaid - an undersea dweller desires to live with the Vo and a World-Witch conjures up the necessary gene-alterations to ensure that happens.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
The opening was like a memory of what pandemic loss was like for hundreds of thousands of families. In this case it's a fever that takes strong Vo and just breaks them down to limp bodies, scales falling off. This story seemed so bleak you searched for hope in the lead character.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Atuale returning to the sea is like when you go back to a place or meetbwith someone after years apart and it feels different. Some parts feel loke old times, other parts feel stifling and not on par with your growth or your changes and eventually conversation lulla to a quiet hum. That's Atuale and her journey into the deep sea.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Learning the Intricate and delicate biochemistry of the Seaclan people.
“Making me Vo started a clan war.”
“Stopping you from changing started a clan war.” Yanja shrugs. “It’s not my fault that your darling father promised a prince to the Prequ clan" - The Splice effect.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “She would climb down a staircase as wide as the world is round, if it meant saving Saareval’s life. She would walk the whole way on the points of knives.” (Atuale on devotion)
🖤 “Atuale left the sea to kiss the mountains and the sky. ?f course she wants to embrace the stars as well. Desire steals the air from her lungs, suffocating the only answer” (The Wanderlust and Fernweh is strong in this on)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts :
■ The Vo, Mzo Ma, Seaclan, Prequ, Naraqui, GreatClan Lord
■Yanga is like the Splice movie with Adrien Brody
■Keita-Vo and their Sisterhouses
■ Gene-Eater Tech
■World-Witch, GreatLeap Marcher or Star Hunter
■Sea People's Caste system

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Science Fiction Books by 2025

The Cyborg Merman by Amanda Milo

dark emotional fast-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? Yes

3.0

One thing we can't say about Amanda Milo is that her booka open on a yawn. The hell they do. First lines always be reeling me in like the fish I am. This one was no different.

Between you and me, cyborg mermen are the ideal partners. My goodness. Ahem...🤗😍

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
To be grieving in such a precarious position where you as valuable and as powerless as the cattle on your ranch is heartbreaking. But Stella and C'veat make it, I would throw hands if thwy didn't gwt their Happily Ever After for now

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:

C'vest is a good dude. He's a real good dude. (Okay I'm channelling Gina Linetti confetti sphagetti, B99 season 1)

Baron as experienced through C'vets memory is someone I'd have loved to shoot the breeze with and hang out. We love a good man.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:

✔️C'veat using Extrasensory gorce to access the pleasure center of Stella's brain and sharing her minds scenes, seeing what she sees in her thoughts. Let the pleasuring begin I guess.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Aren’t you going to eat?” Stella asks, with acid pooling just under every syllable.
“I’ve grave concerns that you’ve poisoned my portions, but I thank you for the offer.”
To my surprise, Stella barks a “Ha!”
Just one startled shout, not a laugh. The areas for dark amusement are on low-level light in her head though..” (just a normal dinner between newlyweds ...lol no)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Yonderin: electroreceptors, extrasensory force
■Ruby Red Jeren
■ Prostethics Representation: Cyborg Legs

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Short Stories by 2025

Spook Lights: Southern Gothic Horror by Eden Royce

challenging dark mysterious tense 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

4.0

Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor

adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

Okoye to the People: A Black Panther Novel by Ibi Zoboi

emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

 “What part of Brooklyn is Wakanda, anyway?” - (geography challenged Brooklynite)

So, I actually loved the movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Granted, I only watched it for the first time in January so I wasn't part of the "Oh No!he should have been re-cast" fantatics or the "it was a farewell and Shuri is a worthy successor" fans either. It was just a lovely piece of theatre and I was really there for the Indigenous representation. That's why for BHM2024, I had to get something Wakanda related and Okoye to the People was perfect for this month.

It was nice, like a cup of tea and scones - sugarless scones deserving of a 2.75⭐ rounded up to 3. Plus it's middle grade, technically "for the kids" so I got to take a break from all the heavy books. Lies - this book deals with... a lot.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:

Yeah okay I fully admit that I put on Ludwig Goransson's Black Panther OST and Wakanda Forever OST on while reading and let me just say..it worked for a few scenes. This book had way too many unlikeable characters hogging up page space and messing with the vibes I was trying to recreate. In a book I can tolerate one or 2 shitty characters. Give me a city block and that's 100 times my unlikeable character quota.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Okoye as a young bright-eyed and bald-tailed, Dora Milaje is not something I thought I could imagine. But this was just okay with it's youthful hope and the weight of being tasked with a national mission to international borders. It was lovely "seeing" Wakanda and Brooklyn through Okoye's youthful outlook. They're hella snobs but almost likeable snobs. Almost.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:

✔️King T'Chala, Okoye and Aneka go to Brownsville for the firat time. I am still surprised African Americans can be ao ahitty to Africans, that's like Japanese Americans spitting on Motjerland Japanese folk - it's unheard of. Or any other diaspora group. Most other groups kind of have a gentle ribbing or rivalry with the mainland group but they don't call each other names like Dusty African. It's a pity.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Okoye fidgets with her wig: a flattering bob that feels as if a lazy hyena is sprawled out over her head.” (On "assimilating" to American expectations of African women in NYC)
🖤 “It is just like Wakanda. Except faster and . . . less civilized.” (New York still exciting even to snobby Wakandans)
🖤 “Here, no one is direct. No one says what they mean and means what they say.” (New York, New York)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Dora Milaje (I mean duh)
■Upanga Training Facility
■Kimoyo Beads
■ Xhosa not Huasa but who can write the click sound of XH🤷🏽‍♀️
■Pyrobliss

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Fantasy Books by 2025 

Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The Kwaga is alive and unextincted in this world! (that's a word right?). Victory for the kwaga. Now do the Dodo. Kidding. Maybe

Listen, there has got to be a better, more elegant or regal word for whatever garment or piece of clothing they wear than "wrappers" - it just took away the exoticism and left me imagining candy🍬🍭 wrappers. I mean something, hell even make up a word whatever but every time wrappers came onto the page, I got a hankering for something sweet. Suyi created a WHOLE world filled with a complex caste system, body magic, rare minerals, deep rich history and then ...wrappers🤔 it's reminiscent of Tolkiens worldbuilding and ...Mount Doom as the big bad place 🤣

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
This is one hefty book, it's got all this body and tons of fat.The first 19 chapters, essentially the Bassai Section should have been ground down to 10 well crafted flavorsome chapters. There were some chapters where the important element made up 5% of the chapter and the rest of it was the filling you stuff in a turkey. The quest should begin once the Codex is stolen but then there's more dilly dallying and politicking in the chapters to follow before we get back to Danso - the shashi Jali Novitiate accused of stealing it.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
There are way too many characters and their povs which is great at first but it is evidently Danso who is the main protagonist yet his story gets lost in all the political and social climbing machinations. Sometimes I'd find myself screaming into a pillow - I didn't give a damn about a ton of the other povs. Until The Breathing Forest - then I was hooked on these characters.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:

Iborworker, Skinchanging Islander meets/captures Danso.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Information before you need it is just as dangerous as the lack of it. Patience.” (Nem, the formidable Emuru Fixer)
🖤 “A drop of wonder had landed on his tongue, and Danso knew that henceforth his thirst would be insatiable” (Danso's thirst)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Bassai Mainland Caste System:
■Mooncrossing Festival
■Guilds
■ Jali Novitiate
■ Ashu and Menai Two Moons/Gods
■Bassai Architecture: mudbrick
■Yellowskin: skin-changing islanders
■Ibor, Iborworkers: White, Amber, Grey
■3 Steps of Iborpower: Draw it, Possess it, Command it

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Fantasy Books by 2025 

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

dark emotional 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

4.0

By Mandalore The Great that was one helluva cold open . Not gonna lie, I thought I was about to read about a Crip putting a gun to a 12 year old's head and pulling the trigger. I've read horror, extreme even and I was not ready for that. The entire read was just me holding my breath and then exhaling in relief then crushed back to suffocation. Round and round.

"Grandma sweeps bullet shells out of the empty driveway while Ella chews on her second Werther’s of the afternoon. - (heartbreaking that it's just normal)

I am in love with the prose.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
It's almost like the words form this vivid painting of a life lived between bullets and gangbangers and beautiful baby boys and neighborhood grandmas and sunshine and concrete and pitbulls tied to fences and farseeing premonitions and endless tragedy ...It is bitterwork and manages to yank hope out and beat it with a stick.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Ella has a gift and for someone so young that's utterly painful yet beautiful and maybe a little traumatic to be able to see what she sees and through the medium of nosebleeds. As she grows ans her power grows both the reader and Ella wonder why she doesn't take action, all that anger she has would destroy but still. She ia passiveas ahe gains more knowlede and foresight.

Kevin, poor sweet science nerd.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene:
✔️The entire Bodega Scene.
Kevin telling the gangbangers about his day at school. Actually, the gangbangers asking him in the first place. A sweet moment in an otherwise bleak existence.
✔️Ella physically visiting Kev instead of appearing in "spirit" form using her gift.
✔️Finally, Ella's permission

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Hot outside becomes suffocating inside” (out of the frying pan of LA into the pan of Harlem)
🖤 “We not vegetarians when it comes to the beef, bro.” (Kevin heard&had some strange conversations as a kid )

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Ella's Thing and Kevin's mini-Thing
■Born in a riot ... died in a riot.
■Mechanized race-neutral cops
■Guardians
■Surveillance orbs
■WATTS chip 😲

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Speculative Fiction (Magic Realism) Books by 2025

Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald

informative inspiring mysterious slow-paced

4.0

 Lazy Researcher Review: I was not expecting such a complex look into this religion/magic system/spiritualism/rituals. All I knew was what I'd glimpsed in tv shows, particularly police procedurals like Prodigal Son or Elementary where the main character is confronted with a ritualistic murder that screams of vodou/hoodoo/santeria. Not a great way to be introduced into the practic seeing as the episodes are about ritualistic murder. Anyway

This book had way more graphs than I expected and understanding how hoodoo sprung from multiple old African religions was really intriguing. I noticed that Hoodoo seems to draw on the knowledge of Slaves who came from the countries in the west and center - Nigeria et al.

Information Accessibility scale:
If you're a novice or intermediate at the topic. Let's look at it like this:
■1.Bob Ross Ease: don't overthink it, paint it and just enjoy vibe.
■2. CrashCourse Youtube: Phil Plait and team bite-size digestible chunks.
■3.Bill Nye, Neil de Grasse Tyson: mass cable style appeal but very edutaining.
■4.Feynman, Hawking, Einstein, Kaku, Curie: data, concept and theory heavy. Degrees non-negotiable.
■5.Christopher Nolanesque: gloriously mind-bending, time-bending, sanity-bending. Basically - fvck your degree and linear thought.
LEVEL: Firmly at a 2. I was expecting anecdotes of an oral based transfer of old religion during slavery - I was not expecting such detail, analysis and countless evidence based facts. The opening chapter, prescript had me googling this horrifying story of Mary Obasi, demon possession and having her eyes removed. That story caused a frenzy in 1994 (not to be confused with the Satanic Panic spearheaded by Oprah) and Hoodoo became this entity in media to be used for antagonistic purposes i.e weird murders on a procedural show to showcase backwards believers clinging to old barbarous ways from the old continent. I wasn't creeped out nor did I enjoy the book but man I appreciate this added knowledge and understanding.

Rabbit hole Worthy or Nah?  
Is it weird that it made me want to read more fiction with a Southern Gothic background with Hoodoo either subtly overtly a theme? This book made me add a ton of gothic books set in the South or with characters from the diaspora and hoodoo is a familial element.

Snore inducing or Willing All-nighter:
Okidoki - I read this in one sitting instead of sleeping why oh why🤷🏽‍♀️ Coffee and croissants in hand the next day, I proceeded to watch ........ which has Hoodoo elements in it. And then I read Spook Lights by Eden Royce which is steeped in Hoodoo.

Spotlight on Theorist/s:
□"Hoodoo is no longer a religion; it is the view here that Hoodoo is the reorganized remnants of what must have been, albeit short-lived, a full-blown syncretized African-based religion among African American bondsmen.". (Current status of Hoodoo)
□"In the transitional loss of the old gods, Africans in the United States, in their own process of interethnic assimilation separate from whites, initially maintained characteristics and practices common to many West and Central West African religious traditions". (Hoodoo in the past)
□"Zora Neale Hurston describes High John the Conquer as “our hope bringer.”8 The picture she draws of him appears at first both ambiguous and contradictory yet all-encompassing."(not St. John's Wort)

Significant Concept:  
■8 Overarching African Religious Elements
■American South and the birth of Hood as a religion
■Mexican root: High John The Conquer
■ Hoodoo Marketplace, snake oil hoodoo, candle shops,
■Dr Buzzard: Stephaney Robinson
■Black Belt Hoodoo Complex
■ Mary Obasi - media interpretation of Hoodoo in 21st century

OVERALL: I'm pleased to find that I learned something new, it expanded my reading preferences and even found a way into a movie choice or two. Applied knowledge ✔️check.(well sorta).

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 NonFiction (Humanities ) books by 2025