saint_eleanor's reviews
290 reviews

Carcoma by Layla Martínez

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emotional sad slow-paced
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

2.5

Idk i really could not hold my attention to this story at all, i don't really know why i feel like this is usually my jam, i think I had a hard time keeping track of the narrator? Idk. And I didn't really find the plot to be that interesting but i really really liked the writing style and also the setting. Maybe will try to read again someday because I can tell its a good book lol it kind of reminded me at times of a Spanish version of Parasite
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Le Nostre Mogli negli Abissi by Julia Armfield

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

3.5

I love the banality of this title and how mysterious and slow it is and how gay as well, but i felt like the payoff at the end wasn't quite enough for me. I wanted to be a little more disturbed and a little less melancholy because the buildup took so long. But this is definitely a fire book and as a waterbaby i love the writing and the language 

 Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. 
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Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-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

4.0

Okay Cormac McCarthy really pisses me off but this was metal as f*ck 
A carnival of depravity and endless suffering if u will 

I just don't understand why he has to Tarantino the damn thing and pepper in every possible slur he could think of big eyeroll
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To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

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challenging dark emotional mysterious relaxing sad 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

4.0

Once again i am so blown away by Hanya Yanagihara's writing. I think this is a must read for everyone. I feel like she understands soft power better than any philosopher or marxist, especially this in combination with her amazing (and more disturbing) book 'The People in the Trees' . This book is like a triptych kind of with a bunch of different converging timelines and people in different stages of societal collapse. It's as much about love and relationships as it is about the downfall of society and human rights. I feel like so much of her writing can be traced back to the phrase 'it starts with an idea', and the like micro-aggression pyramid. I also can't understand how her writing is so slow-paced, but I cannot physically put it down. There is an underlying disturbing, upsetting feeling told through minor details that aren't even really integral to the story (the drowning, the rocking, the death of the twins), Hawaiian history, and the re-use of names for different characters gave everything a very Lynchian vibe. That two people are the same but they are in different times and spaces, the wormhole thing. Also the fact that this is truly a science fiction novel, idk I could go on and on. I think Hanya Yanagihara is an actual genius. 

The only reason I took one star off was because I felt like the ending was building to something a bit more intense than what happened, although it did make me cry.  
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I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

This was a really beautiful book it was so alien, I would definitely put it in the science fiction category even though we don't have much evidence for that. It's so disturbing due to the lack of details and those that are slowly revealed. I definitely wanted to know more about what was happening but I know that the point is to marinate in the unknown. 🙄 'I'm dying of a poisoned womb, I who have never known men' is craaaazy
also the idea that apathy can be a result of growing up in isolation, that the MC didn't fear death or killing

I also think the author did an amazing job forcing the reader to examine themselves, I kept catching  myself being like 'oh I hope they find civilization' and then realizing that they are civilization and what I really felt was I hope they find men. Like why doesn't a group of 50 women constitute "people" ??? I think it really exposes our biological biases, that  feeling 'last' (can't have offspring) is the same as feeling alone, but why?
Putty Pygmalion by Lonnie Garcia

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4.5

fantastic 
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

*sobbing*
bro this is part of my 'weird deformed boys that just want to live or be loved'  streak I've been on by accident (Frankenstein, the glutton, lapvona, obscene bird of night, perfume) and again just so good. 
This book is about the death of a child and his parents' inability to let him go, resulting in them transposing him onto someone completely different. Also about the apathy of nature and animalistic nature. Predators gotta eat ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 
We have an entirely gay cast in this book, and a lot of different perspectives and personal details, the last part of this book reminded me a lot of the Armin Miewes case. 
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The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

I loved this so much, very cool retelling of Beowulf in a modern setting that centers on Grendel and his mother, a war vet, who live in a cave on the edge of a gated community where another young boy lives and him and Gren are friends but then this cop ('Ben Wolf') tries to kill gren's mom etc etc. Extremely interesting and so cool to have the contrast of like war flashbacks to this like Christmas whoville ass town. There is a race and class element as well and its also GAYYYYYYYY (woohoo!)
 
I definitely cried like the whole last fourth of the book. I feel like the ratings for this are not picking up what it's putting down. Also very well written and like the women on both sides are so fierce , there's also a collective 'we' perspective of all these mothers idk I really liked it. 'The girl w the candle in her chest' was so sick
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House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films by Kier-La Janisse

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emotional informative inspiring fast-paced

5.0

This book is like my bible i think, my version of 'the body keeps score'. Never have I felt more seen lmaoo but jesus christ the stuff this author has been through omg. I didn't expect it to be autobiographical I thought it was a media analysis book (which it is) but then the author can relate every single horror movie back to some crazy shit from her own life. Super interesting read and really refreshing as someone whose brain works like that and validating.
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The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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dark funny slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

ooo spookyyyyy