sarah984's reviews
603 reviews

Y/N by Esther Yi

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

2.0

There were some interesting points and turns of phrase but overall I found the characters' views on almost everything kind of weird and annoying. Very off putting descriptions.
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The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

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

2.5

As soon as it was revealed that one of the pov characters in this book has amnesia it had a long road ahead to appeal to me, and it never really got there. The reason for the amnesia seems silly once it's revealed (and the mechanism of what's causing the cycles is super unclear anyway so why do all that), the romances are superficial, and most of the characters pretty much only have one trait. It's unclear why any of them like each other enough to justify what's happening in the plot. There's a huge section in the middle devoted to a fantasy world walking around quest. Most characters sound the same and speak in a way that feels designed to be quoted. I think the basic concept could have been something cool but also reading this felt like a waste of my time.
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Star-Crossed by Barbara Dee

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funny hopeful fast-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

This is a sweet middle grade book about a girl finding the courage to be herself. I liked that the romance wasn't too over the top, more about self-discovery. The voice was charming (the constant referencing of the fateful Darth Vader costume was so funny to me) and while not exactly a retelling, the parallels to Romeo and Juliet help to make the play more relatable to a younger audience. 
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Bad Kids by Zijin Chen

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dark 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? It's complicated

4.0

This was a pretty wild thriller about three kids who try to blackmail a killer after witnessing a murder. Despite the situation the kids mostly felt believable, and I had a lot of fun with it overall. A few of the twists and turns felt a bit silly but it all came together by the end.
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Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout by Dan Ozzi, Laura Jane Grace

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informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

This was an interesting book about the founding and evolution of Against Me! set against the backdrop of Laura Jane Grace's journals from those times. Very honest examination of things she's (understandably) not talked about much publicly in the past - illustrates pretty clearly that mindset of how your whole life will be fixed if you fix just one thing and then it turns out that you have multiple problems. Complaining about punks heckling her shows got a bit old though.
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The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson

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

1.0

This was a quick read with a breezy, conversational style I liked, and the setting and most of the characters are pretty charming. 

The plot and the main character were just really, really bad. The protagonist, Maggie, hates classics and makes no effort to learn about or sell them and then is disappointed when no one buys them. She has a little bet with her boyfriend where she reads a book he recommends and he does an activity she chooses, and while he at least tries everything she doesn't take her part seriously at all and doesn't even read one of the books. She lies constantly, including in a cover letter for a job she applied for (about her availability!!! Girl if they hire you that's the one thing they need to be true!), things that affect the livelihoods of people she claims to care about (including stealing something from her boyfriend), falsifies her sales reports at work
and breaks into her boss's office to blackmail him about his grandfather.
No one stays mad at her for long about this, which is absurd. 

No idea how the "society" that runs the businesses in town was supposed to work, since it seemed like one guy just calling random shots and not a board or anything. No place in the history of the world would operate like this.

Also this is more pedantic but the author apparently majored in English and this bugged me: the bookstore didn't carry any books published after 1968 for Reasons (for a guy who wanted to make money the boss was really into making it hard to sell anything) and another character (who likes classics) implies that the only books by Black authors that it's possible for them to carry are slave narratives. I can buy Maggie not knowing about the Harlem Renaissance because she's stupid but Malcolm? Come on.
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Tell Me Pleasant Things about Immortality: Stories by Lindsay Wong

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dark funny

3.0

A darkly funny horror collection, the stories mostly feature Chinese immigrants in North America (though there are a couple of stories about men and/or set in China). I loved the concept of most of the stories but a few of them felt like they didn't really go anywhere and by the end of the collection the tone felt a little repetitive.

Favourites: Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality, Furniture, Sinking Houses
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I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee

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challenging reflective slow-paced

3.0

I think this was a really courageous thing to publish but the book itself is not organized very well - it's transcripts of therapy sessions and some seemingly unrelated short essays - and the psychiatrist honestly didn't seem very helpful aside from prescribing medications.
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Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror by Jordan Peele, John Joseph Adams

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dark
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

There was a nice variety of types of horror stories in this book. Most of them were pretty good but a few didn't feel like horror stories to me and some were a bit overly didactic or unfocused to me. Overall recommend.

Favourites: Reckless Eyeballing by N. K. Jemisin, Flicker by L. D. Lewis, A Bird Sings By The Etching Tree by Nicole D. Sconiers
Warchild by Karin Lowachee

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

2.5

I thought the last 20% or so of this was pretty good, space action, catharsis without being too pat, but the rest of this was a slog. I'm assuming from how graphic it gets with sexual violence that the intended audience is adults but the main character is a child so it feels very YA in parts. The cyberpunk stuff feels goofy and pointless. The aliens are basically just cobbled together Japanese stereotypes which is kind of weird when there are theoretically Japanese people in this universe (the main character's home ship has a Japanese name!). Zero plot important female characters. Weird time skips. A whole chapter in second person for some reason.
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