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saint_eleanor's reviews
238 reviews
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Did not finish book. Stopped at 49%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 49%.
I’m gonna come back to this when i can read it physically, the audiobook is unbearable but i really love the writing?
End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World's Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals by Ross D. E. MacPhee
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
Got bored
The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
This was really really good, very weird. It's a really unique way of telling the story of childhood abuse and how children often have to deal with strangers coming into their lives or their parents lives and kind of being this harbinger of neglect. The mother meets a 'crane' and they fall in love and she starts to ignore her children and just throws herself into an art piece with the crane man all the while he is abusing her. It really deeply unsettled me.
Very well written despite being from the perspective of a teen, the language was really beautiful. I also caught bluebeard's castle vibes from the story her dad told her about the crane wife and also echoes of the green ribbon story, as in like women have these aspects to them that they want to keep just for themselves but men feel so entitled to them that they MUST know, causing eternal curse!! I really appreciated the modern setting as well, made it really creepy, the stuff w the sheep scared me!!!
Very well written despite being from the perspective of a teen, the language was really beautiful. I also caught bluebeard's castle vibes from the story her dad told her about the crane wife and also echoes of the green ribbon story, as in like women have these aspects to them that they want to keep just for themselves but men feel so entitled to them that they MUST know, causing eternal curse!! I really appreciated the modern setting as well, made it really creepy, the stuff w the sheep scared me!!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Child abuse
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
tense
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
5.0
Ok so TLDR: really great book, will really piss you off, super gorey (lots of torture), wonderfully written, anti-capitalist anti-yuppie, really hard to get thru so don't let any ppl tell you its 'essential reading'.
I'll start off by saying this book gets 5 stars bc it deserves nothing less but that doesn't mean I enjoyed reading it 100% of the time, in fact i actively hated reading a lot of it lmao.
There are like 2 main camps when it comes to American Psycho: one camp says it should be banned bc its misogynistic, horrible, far-right, etc. The other camp says that it's the alpha male handbook, and that patrick bateman is peak male performance. Both are really off-mark imo.
In the first place, misogynistic characters do not make a misogynistic book. Pretending misogynists don't exist in our writing is completely counter productive. Additionally, this is literally the most anti-masculine, anti-capitalist, anti-yuppie, anti-1% book I have read in a long time. The author paints Patrick Bateman as the most pathetic, bootlicking, bandwagoning, whiny, narcissistic P.O.S. and I really don't understand how you could come away with any other impression.
Ellis repeatedly makes the point that Bateman is in love with Donald Trump and will do/say anything Trump does/says (80's NYC remember), including switching up arbitrary opinions. He is a self-proclaimed pedophile, rapist, racist, and necrophiliac. Additionally he is completely materialistic, lost in a Kafka-esque nightmare ruled by sound systems and skincare products and is totally obsessed with 'having the best thing'. Not to mention his obsession with every single person's outfits throughout the whole book. I hated him so much i was actually seething half the time. This book is especially terrifying because Bateman is as real as any real-life wall street psychopath, there are so many men like him IRL.
Some of this book was hilarious actually, the monkey TV thing, the 'kill all yuppies' napkin that struck fear into the heart of poor pathetic patrick, and the 5-men-choosing-where-to-eat thing was hilarious. Additionally, Patrick keeps telling everyone over and over that he's homocidal (if we believe his narration, not sure i do) , but his handsomeness and his wealth overshadow his obvious lack of a soul and social skills. He is the opposite of charming, he is actively unsettling, and yet the environment that he's in completely pushes men like him to the top of social circles. When people tell you who they are, LISTEN!! Also I personally think that his absolute hatred of women paired with his love of men is evidence of internalized homophobia and that Bateman is in fact, gay. I think is is especially plausible due to the fact that Ellis has said that he based parts of Bateman on himself when he was in a really bad place (Ellis is gay & talked about how he used to sleep with women and hated it, which would translate well to this point in Patrick's character), which seems like a really complex and maybe overlooked aspect of this that the Sigma Males don't want to acknowledge. Additionally the only character in the whole book that really freaks him out isLuis, who comes onto him, yet is one of the only characters that escapes his wrath.
Anyway, loved this book. I really couldn't put it down even when the gore was almost too much for me and I wanted to rip Patrick's head off. You can also tell it's good bc of how long this review is. Fuck Patrick, fuck wall street, fuck yuppies, and fuck the guys co-opting Christian Bale's photo for their dumbass Alpha Male grindcore instagram accounts, yall did not pay attention.
I'll start off by saying this book gets 5 stars bc it deserves nothing less but that doesn't mean I enjoyed reading it 100% of the time, in fact i actively hated reading a lot of it lmao.
There are like 2 main camps when it comes to American Psycho: one camp says it should be banned bc its misogynistic, horrible, far-right, etc. The other camp says that it's the alpha male handbook, and that patrick bateman is peak male performance. Both are really off-mark imo.
In the first place, misogynistic characters do not make a misogynistic book. Pretending misogynists don't exist in our writing is completely counter productive. Additionally, this is literally the most anti-masculine, anti-capitalist, anti-yuppie, anti-1% book I have read in a long time. The author paints Patrick Bateman as the most pathetic, bootlicking, bandwagoning, whiny, narcissistic P.O.S. and I really don't understand how you could come away with any other impression.
Ellis repeatedly makes the point that Bateman is in love with Donald Trump and will do/say anything Trump does/says (80's NYC remember), including switching up arbitrary opinions. He is a self-proclaimed pedophile, rapist, racist, and necrophiliac. Additionally he is completely materialistic, lost in a Kafka-esque nightmare ruled by sound systems and skincare products and is totally obsessed with 'having the best thing'. Not to mention his obsession with every single person's outfits throughout the whole book. I hated him so much i was actually seething half the time. This book is especially terrifying because Bateman is as real as any real-life wall street psychopath, there are so many men like him IRL.
Some of this book was hilarious actually, the monkey TV thing, the 'kill all yuppies' napkin that struck fear into the heart of poor pathetic patrick, and the 5-men-choosing-where-to-eat thing was hilarious. Additionally, Patrick keeps telling everyone over and over that he's homocidal (if we believe his narration, not sure i do) , but his handsomeness and his wealth overshadow his obvious lack of a soul and social skills. He is the opposite of charming, he is actively unsettling, and yet the environment that he's in completely pushes men like him to the top of social circles. When people tell you who they are, LISTEN!! Also I personally think that his absolute hatred of women paired with his love of men is evidence of internalized homophobia and that Bateman is in fact, gay. I think is is especially plausible due to the fact that Ellis has said that he based parts of Bateman on himself when he was in a really bad place (Ellis is gay & talked about how he used to sleep with women and hated it, which would translate well to this point in Patrick's character), which seems like a really complex and maybe overlooked aspect of this that the Sigma Males don't want to acknowledge. Additionally the only character in the whole book that really freaks him out is
Anyway, loved this book. I really couldn't put it down even when the gore was almost too much for me and I wanted to rip Patrick's head off. You can also tell it's good bc of how long this review is. Fuck Patrick, fuck wall street, fuck yuppies, and fuck the guys co-opting Christian Bale's photo for their dumbass Alpha Male grindcore instagram accounts, yall did not pay attention.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Animal cruelty, Antisemitism, Child abuse, Classism, Physical abuse, Addiction, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Sexism, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, and Violence
The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Lionel Giles
informative
relaxing
fast-paced
4.0
This was way more fascinating than i expected. I loved the poetic voice of Sun Tzu and particularly the section about the shuai-jan snakes.
Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This book is incredibly beautiful. It's really a magical picture of feral girlhood that was so heartbreaking while somehow like making almost zero sense. Highly metaphorical and reliant on symbolic literary devices instead of reality. I think my favorite was a child's description of a cement mixer as "a giant gray wasp grinding up larvae and secreting jelly, thats how sidewalk is made". It unsettled me so much because I felt like it was actually written from the perspective of a child. The nonsensical-ness and the logic was so realistically child-like. A lovely book about women and our bodies, ghosts, and ownership.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Minor: Violence and Excrement
Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval
adventurous
challenging
dark
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
So bizarre and delicious
It almost reminded me of Mother! (The movie)
It almost reminded me of Mother! (The movie)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Excrement and Sexual content
No One Dies Yet by Kobby Ben Ben
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is one of the best books ive ever read by far. It is so complex on every level, to the point where you’re questioning the author’s involvement in said “fictional” story. “Truth” eludes the whole thing. I don’t think i can even go into all of it but it just took over my whole reading schedule until i finished it lol, it’s about a group of friends from the states on a heritage trip to Ghana and the two different Ghanaians who are showing them around (and their conflicting personalities) and its really like a fever dream i was so unnerved the whole time. It would make an incredible horror movie or thriller. It definitely became a little confusing at the end but nothing that you can’t figure out if you concentrate. Read this book!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Excrement, Homophobia, and Sexual content
Sakuran: Blossoms Wild by Moyoco Anno
dark
funny
lighthearted
sad
fast-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Good story but i was hella confused the whole time and also in the first half the art looked weird but then got better? I love anno tho
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content